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Where is Tom? Is Tom in a Hole?
(03 Aug 2007 at 11:01) |
Hello, I am not in a hole. I am in my office. My office is actually pretty much way up there as it is on the 8th floor of Wean ne Science Hall, which is I think the tallest building on campus although certainly not the most altitudinous. I want to give you advice of a general nature, which is to finish one big thing before taking on another big thing or you will endure stress. In my case those big things are Dissertation and Job Search. Essentially this accounts for my general Radar silence and sometimes prompts curious e-mails. But enough about that. I will tell you guys about news when I have it.
Today I am writing a paper for International Conference on My Thesis Topic. Some guys are sliding around on the roof below me outside. First they painted some pixels red and now they are painting them green again. They're attached by ropes, on this tilty roof, that seem to be anchored by cardboard boxes. When they want to go down they squeeze on the rapelling thingy and this lets a little rope through and they slide backwards on their sneakers or worky boots, like the effect that the moonwalk dance move attempts to display. Some people I know would probably want to do this job not by top-roping it but by starting at the bottom and placing funny little bolts and spring-loaded cams inside cracks in the roof and attaching the rope to those as they went up and down. They could use red colored chalk to fight sweaty fingers and then paint over that with the green paint, or just go straight for green chalk, I don't know why there ever needs to be red anything on this roof which is supposed to be all green. It is a bit distracting to write a paper while the guys are climbing on the roof because I feel a responsibility to keep an eye on them should one of them moonwalk right off it. But I guess not as distracting as writing blog entries.
Coming soon on Tom 7 Radar: SotM July, Runblog August, ICFP Contest 2007 writeup. |
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Thanks for reminding me to upload this photo of those guys. Feel free to add it to your blog entry for a VISUAL if you'd like.
farm2.static.flickr.com/1102/998382574_8f0275d2f2_b.jpg |
These are the very same roofers. Wow, why read my descriptions when you can just use your e-balls?
Adam's picture is also good.
http://flickr.com/photos/explosivebolts/946323703/
The one thing you can't see though is how the red paint is now strangely only in axis-aligned rectangles. |
| I naturally assumed that when you said "I only listen to Of Montreal now", the explanation for your apparent inactivity was that you had given up all other activity. |
| Oops, I am parallelizing. |
| Isn't it nice how that word has parallel lines in it? It's satisfying in just the way that "palindrome" isn't. |
| Careful, now... you're veering dangerously close to descent into Grelling's paradox. |
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