Things Which are Awesome (nineteen) - all news is old news

A few months ago, Michael Crichton died of throat cancer. As I discovered *yesterday*, when sitting in the local mall's food court and staring vaguely in the direction of a small TV bolted to the ceiling. Every fifth phrase or so was filtering into my brain: sale and sale and i'm thirsty and jennifer aniston and sale and this drink is kinda too sweet maybe and music video and posthumous publication and michael crichton and sale and what and what? and What?

And no, no, that is in no way awesome.

His books though.... Okay, from Timeline on he has lost me, but for a couple years in early high school he was my favourite of all authors. I kept a scarred, second-hand copy of Sphere on my bedtable like a dreamcatcher or a promise.

And there's a metaphor from The Lost World I still believe in to my bones:

More loudly, [Harding] said, 'What didn't Darwin know, Ian?'

'That life is a complex system,' he said, 'and everything that goes along with that. Fitness landscapes. Adaptive walks. Boolean nets. Self-organizing behavior. Poor man. Ouch! What are you doing there?'

'Just tell us,' Harding said, bent over the wound. 'Darwin had no idea...'

( ...'if you didn't know any physical chemistry, you could look at a crystal and ask all the same questions.' )

(emphasis mine)

Things Which are Awesome (nineteen) - all news is old news

A few months ago, Michael Crichton died of throat cancer. As I discovered *yesterday*, when sitting in the local mall's food court and staring vaguely in the direction of a small TV bolted to the ceiling. Every fifth phrase or so was filtering into my brain: sale and sale and i'm thirsty and jennifer aniston and sale and this drink is kinda too sweet maybe and music video and posthumous publication and michael crichton and sale and what and what? and What?

And no, no, that is in no way awesome.

His books though.... Okay, from Timeline on he has lost me, but for a couple years in early high school he was my favourite of all authors. I kept a scarred, second-hand copy of Sphere on my bedtable like a dreamcatcher or a promise.

And there's a metaphor from The Lost World I still believe in to my bones:

More loudly, [Harding] said, 'What didn't Darwin know, Ian?'

'That life is a complex system,' he said, 'and everything that goes along with that. Fitness landscapes. Adaptive walks. Boolean nets. Self-organizing behavior. Poor man. Ouch! What are you doing there?'

'Just tell us,' Harding said, bent over the wound. 'Darwin had no idea...'

( ...'if you didn't know any physical chemistry, you could look at a crystal and ask all the same questions.' )

(emphasis mine)

For the record.

 
"I just stabbed myself with a soldering iron!" sounds like a totally impressive honourable injury.

...Unless it was off at the time. And you were just using it to pry apart a USB drive casing anyway. And a not incidental amount of blood went *into* the drive.

Oh yeah, I have *skills*.