I've been sitting around for most of the day reading and thinking.
One thing that I've been thinking about is how to get long-running synchronous code off the UI thread in an MVC-like application.
The other thing that I've been thinking about is society and religion.
Interlude: I was writing this, and Heroin by the Velvet Underground came on. “I don't know just where I'm going, but I'm gonna try, for the Kingdom, if i can, cause it makes me feel like I'm a man...” This song is one of my all time favorite songs. It is one of very few songs that I sing to myself regularly, usually when I'm upset, nervous, or otherwise slightly 'off'. I guess it's not uncommon for people to love songs, but this one is particularly special to me, and it has been known to drive me to tears, which I think is saying something, since I think I can count on my fingers the number of times that I've cried in the last 10 years.
Anyway, I've spent many hours today writing stuff to post here, and at various other forums about religion, politics, society, etc. but I've thrown it all away. I'm not going to play, sorry.
But, it has definitely been on my mind.
If I had to put myself in a box, I'd say I was atheist at best, nihilist at 'worst'.
Moving right along: I ran out of cigarettes today. I usually buy a few cartons at a time, and try to not run out. But this week, my money just sort of disappeared and I can't afford a carton. I was smoking rollies for most of the afternoon, but I like to keep them for *emergencies* so I went up the road and spend my last $20 in the whole world on two packs of smokes.
On my stroll home I couldn't help but think about Down and Out in Paris and London by Orwell. In his book he mentions being 'so poor one week that he could *barely* afford to buy tobacco'. You can reach your own conclusions, I don't feel like attempting to share mine, but I thought there was something in that.
Well, on my way home from the shops it was twilight, and I looked up and saw the moon. I thought, hmm, the moon looks funny, it must just be a new moon. Then I sort of looked up to my right, and actually saw the moon, it was about half full. So the first thing that I'd seen wasn't the moon at all, but I had thought initially that it was. I can't say that I've ever seen a star before that I'd confused for the moon, and in the twilight there was no other star that was readily visible. I was pretty blown away. The star was really, really bright and really big. When I had identified the 'real' moon the star was dwarfed in comparison, but nevertheless it was very impressive. I couldn't help but stare at it all the way home.
The particularly odd thing was that it has light curving off up and down, so it sort of resembled the crescent moon. Like this:
It was slightly unnerving when I kept staring at it and my eyes blurred it to look like this:
I felt better again, when my eyes finally blurred it into looking like this:
Strange though, it was a little bizarre I thought. Perhaps it was a *sign*?
There was no denying I saw a huge star the likes of which I have never noticed before on my way home this evening. I'm sure this was just a star, and it has been there for ages, and has no significance to anything whatsoever. I probably would have seen it before, and I'd probably remember seeing it, if I left my house more regularly.. but it was pretty awesome.
Does anyone know what star I might have seen? It sat low on the western horizon, and was pretty impressive. Perhaps it was a planet?
John.
p.s. We like the Moon! (but not as much as cheese)