Sierpinski Cookies

I *so* need to make these.

http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/fractalcookies



...via e_m_s_labs

Travel Routines

I just watched myself add a new travel routine. I was packing my suitcase, and the last thing I put into it was my travel kit, at the top of the suitcase, and I said to myself, "yes, that's right; it has to go at the top."

And then I thought, "why would that be? It's no less convenient to get out from the bottom if I lay the suitcase down first." ...And then I thought of all the times I had previously tried to get at the travel-kit in the airport and it was inconveniently somewhere other than the top. I idly wonder how many times I've said "that was stupid, I should've put it at the top of the suitcase" before I started doing it reflexively, and how many times I've done it reflexively before it became routine.

Maybe there are people who often find themselves doing things for no reason they can tell, and then it turns out they'd unconsciously anticipated something else later on. I wish my memory were good enough for that; instead, I'll be happy enough with just noticing the occasional pattern. And avoid going around saying, "what is it that I've forgotten to do next?..."

I'm not sure this post had a point. Oh well. We're off to the airport soon, and melted_snowball has a few Air Canada Lounge vouchers which will get us dinner and a quiet place to sit.

This and That

It's quite shocking to me that in something like 9 hours, melted_snowball and I will be in Italy. Yow.

In honour of sitting in an airport, for reasons that will become clear if you follow the link: this is one of the best science-fiction short stories I've ever read. If you like "Castle in the Sky", Epistemology, or steam-punk:

Biographical Notes to ‘A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with Air-Planes’ by Benjamin Rosenbaum

My favourite line from it, which is also the line that caused me to track down the story online (from eeyorerin's profile): "We are bodies. But we are also the stories we tell about each other."