Stephen King's take on Mrs. Rowling's little tale

A fascinating read. I wish I understood books the way he does.

Among the greatest things Jon Stewart has ever said

Here's the thing, Mr. President: people that use the phrase "in other words" think you don't understand what they're saying. We understand what you're saying; the look on our face isn't confusion... it's disbelief. In other words, we understand - we just don't &!$#ing get it.

At least your next-door neighbor hasn't been dead for 103 years

Our biotech grad student got an e-mail from one of her friends who just started graduate school at UNT in Denton. He moved into an apartment this weekend and discovered that his backyard is, in fact, a graveyard.

Poker face test #2

More Tom and Ray hilarity.

Kurdish politicians don't act like children

I was reading a few minutes ago on the BBC that a whole bunch of Kurds were elected into the Turkish parliament for the first time in almost 20 years. I came across this quote from a newly elected Kurdish MP:

In our strategy we still have lots of criticisms of the rules because they are completely undemocratic rules, but anyway until we change them we will follow them.

Wow. I certainly don't hear things like that very often.

On J.S. Bach's French Suites (BWV 812-817), and Norwegian commandos

So as I'm slowly, slowly learning how to play Robert Schumann's behemoth of a piano concerto, I decided to tackle a few side projects that would not make me feel like a total failure. I was listening to Glenn Gould play J.S. Bach's French Suites when I suddenly realized that some of them actually aren't too difficult to play. Once again, imslp.org came to the rescue, and I found sheet music for every one of them. I started with Menuet I and II of Suite No. 1 since they're fairly slowly paced, and I can already play them fairly decently.

It wasn't until I started playing them myself that I realized just how mesmerizing these suites actually are. I think it's because Bach wrote nearly all of them in such a way that the melody of the song shifts quickly and seamlessly back and forth between the left and right hands. Maybe there's more to it than that, but that's the extent of my analytical ability.

Also, I was reading in Making of the Atomic Bomb a few days ago that the real reason the Nazis during World War II failed to develop an atomic bomb before the Allies was not because the Allies were quicker, but rather because of a handful of Norwegian commandos who twice sabotaged Nazi efforts to obtain deuterium with which to build their bomb.

The first time I think was in 1939, when the Nazis first commandeered a dam in Sweden that produced small amounts of deuterium as a by-product. They didn't think to guard it very well, and a single commando snuck in and destroyed the tanks containing several gallons of heavy water with some very small explosives (the few guards who were present didn't even hear it). That set the Nazis back several months.

The second instance was in 1943. The dam was reinforced with many more guards, precluding the possibility of a second such intrusion. Instead, another Norwegian commando waited for the Nazis to load the tanks of deuterium onto a boat to ship acrosss some body of water (can't remember which one). He snuck onto the boat, planted a few charges in the hull, snuck out and detonated them, which punched large holes in the bottom of the boat, sinking it. After that incident the Nazis permanently abandoned their efforts to develop an atomic bomb.

So the moral of the story is, the next time you see a Norwegian commando, thank him that you're not speaking German.

God bless America... and especially Oklahoma

This is why I am so proud go to school in Oklahoma.