The Flip Flop

No, we're not talking about the hideous footwear. Put that out of your mind immediately. In fact, wipe it out of existence entirely if you can, and do the world a favour. That noise is horrifying, after all. This is actually going to be about the days which start badly, continue in that way, and then suddenly flip with a few good events at the very last moment to being nice. They are what I call Flip Flops.

Today, far far away from here, the first signals and photography of Pluto came through. We finally know what Pluto looks like, at least from one side. Do you think they found a way to get both sides, or does it spin too slowly? Or are these questions the ones they wanted answered themselves? It's strange to think that we still know so little about our own solar system. We have to get out there and see what happens. If we don't, then we'll collapse back down to barbarism, as the world cools to a resource-starved desert of our own making. No, that's not quite right. Let me reformulate for a moment, as for me it's not about resources but knowledge. We have to get out there and learn how the universe works, or we'll stop developing and descend back into the ooze of not caring. Ignorance and not caring are the enemies of our futures. There are already so many societies and cultures that don't care about new knowledge, merely hoarding what they already have, and defensively poking out at the grander world. There's a universe out there! We can go where none of us have gone before! Please, people of the world, care about all of us together and not just your petty nationalistic or faith groupings. Please?

Oh, that Flip Flop. It could easily be a cover for a manic episode, but it's not. In a few moments, once this post is wrapped, it will be sleepy time and not hyper time. It could have ended a terrible day, but Pluto and one last minute correction have salvaged two days of calculations, and the dreaded three dimensional extension of the thesis work lives to fight another day. Two days ago I was mentally slapping myself for not realising a two-dimensional surface would have two perpendicular tangent vector, and today... Well, it would be too technical. Suffice it to say that the project continues to go by, very quickly, and the day is saved. The next steps will, of course, be far far harder. They always are. So, the Flip Flop prevails and negates a few days of drudgery

Now there can be reading before bedtime. Reading is such fun. During the more than sixteen cumulative hours of travelling at the weekend so much reading got done that I finished the equivalent of two mid-length novels. Firstly, volume one of 'Journey to the West', secondly almost all of William Shatner's 'Star Trek Movie Memories', thirdly about half of PG Wodehouse's 'Golf Omnibus' and finally a small bite of Brahma's 'Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat'. The massive and oppressive pile of still unread short stories also continues to shrink imperceptibly. Progress is being made.

O.