a nation of individual actualization

And I thought being honour-bound to shave was bad enough. So worth it, though.

This Lethal Doses comic is grand if you read Tycho of PA's newsposts. Also amusing: Pencilmation. Likewise, two comments from mock_the_stupid:

"So... earth is only 5000 (or 10000, depends who you are dealing with) years old?"
"Yup."
"What about the geological evidence that goes back millions, nay, billions of years?"
"It's there to test our faith."
"So, basically, your god likes to [mess] with you. What else is there to test your faith? The Bible? You don't know, it might be. How can you prove its not? Aren't you concerned about a god that plays jokes? You get to the pearly gates and he goes: 'hahahaha just playing, you all get to go to hell anyhow, the buddhists had the right idea. I was just [mess]ing with you fundies! Byyyyeeee'!"

"God does not play dice with the universe: He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players, to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time."

Saw Professor Foster on campus last week. Yay, think the world of him. Found out his office hours, went in to see him today. Discussed my attempted formalism of probablistic logic. He noted that the area's been extensively explored (by Susan Haack, for one), that they fail Tarski's definition of logical statements, and that a really cool name for my area of interest would be "axiomatic probability theory." (Yes, he is the strangest mix of yellow-purple ever. Except me, perhaps.) So yeah, I was totally shot down, but it was nice to see him.

That's about it. Been reading The De-Voicing of Society, which is completely brilliant, my clear choice for next month's Blue-Beta Book Club. Am also working on a delightful poem, which makes me very happy. Amn't sure yet if I'll go to the trouble to make it technically sound, but it's predominately masculine couplets of iambic tetrameter. I know, trite, but the content's fun.

Oh, by the way, Thai Rose is delicious. I got an amazing fried rice dish.