Which Science Fiction Writer are You?

From BoingBoing today, I came across this quiz. I'm William Gibson. I'm more pleased about this result than from most internet quizzes I take. I could try to paste the java script from the quiz site into the blog, so you wouldn't have to click on the link to see Gibson, but I can't stand embedded javascript. Controlled in a cascading style sheet, yes, willy-nilly on myspace pages, no. If you are Philip K Dick, please contact me.

West Coast, Part II

I'm a schmuck for letting this blog get away from what it's best as, a travelogue and photo album. It's amazing how days turn into weeks turn into months when I keep putting off updating. For the good news, I learned that I have a reader that I haven't met in person. Yeah! I could find out if there are more, but the interface on Technorati confuses me to no end.

When I was on the West Coast with Ray, I decided that I had to return. There's a store in Hokitika that I wanted to get Emily's birthday gift from. Also, I wanted a greenstone necklace for myself. So I visited Hokitika and Franz Josef from January 4th until January 7th.

Thursday was spent driving. It's not that far from Christchurch being only a three-hour drive. There was a mix-up on reservations at the backpackers. They had me scheduled for next Thursday. It wasn't too busy so, I was able to get a bed. I drove to Lake Kaniere at the suggestion of the receptionist. It appeared to be a great place to holiday with children. I encountered a boat trailer that had jackknifed on the dirt road around the lake. I didn't think that I was going to be able to pass it, but it was easy with someone directing me. I saw the suspension bridge over the Hokitika River and the Kowhitirangi Incident Memorial.

I spent Friday carving greenstone, pounamu, at Bonz' and Stonz'. I recommend the place. I thought that David and his two Dutch helpers were very good at moving the carving process along. The first photo is me at the grindstone and second is of the finished piece. The spiral has a special name and means something, but I don't recall right now. I think that the necklace turned out well in spite of me rarely doing anything artistic or with my hands.

Late Friday afternoon, I drove to Franz Josef. I stopped by the gold fields in Ross and didn't have time to attempt to fund my holiday with gold panning. I wanted to do the hour walk but didn't want to spend the hour, so I followed the example of the biomath group at the University of Canterbury, and ran it. I did the loop in 24 minutes, which is surprisingly good since I don't jog. I left Ross quickly because I wanted to stop in Pukekura and have possum pie. Yah, Aussies, we eat possums here. Unfortunately, the café was closed, so this adventure would have to wait.

Franz Josef was cloudy and rainy. I hung out with two Brits from Liverpool at the bar close to the YHA. I could barely understand them. I drank a bit, but not as much as I did as when they came through Christchurch last Thursday. One was on a three-month holiday from service in the British Special Forces. He'd been stationed on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. That led to interesting conversations.

On Saturday, I hiked the glacier with the Franz Josef Glacier Guides. They packed people on ice. There were 44 people in my group and we were the second of the day. There were also other companies that take people up. It was like the Ice Capades while being rained on. I wasn't too happy with the trip and the third photo is from far up on the glacier.

Driving back to Christchurch on Sunday, I stopped by Greymouth for a caving trip. Spelunking was awesome. The last photo is from the cave. We did a move from Goonies and cannon balled into a pool. We floated on inner tubes in the darkness and watched glowworms on the ceiling. There was a natural water slide outside the cave. It was a flat stone with a stream flowing over it. The guide couldn't demonstrate how to ride the mat down it, because it was too dangerous. I decided I needed to do one thing dangerous and stupid here, so I rode the slide. The key was to keep on my back and there was not way I was sitting up. It was fun. At the guide center, there was a spa and they gave us beer and muffins.

I did have a possum pie on the way back. It was horribly sweet and I haven't dwelled on why this might be.

Daily Lit

I tried a web service, www.dailylit.com. You choose a classic book and they send you a little section each day in your email. I tried Wuthering Heights. It didn't work because I found the sections too short and I lost track of what was happening. Plus, reading text on computer screen is not as nice as reading it on paper.

Chance News 22

The latest Chance News has been posted. My probability question is what is my chance that I would die if I stayed at this place? Why isn't it in lonely planet? This Chance News starts with a great quote.

It would be hard to make a probability course boring.

William Feller

Probably, my students would disagree.

Olbermann Commentary

I thought that this recent commentary was very good. Link

Good Grief

I'd finished George F Smoot's answer, and it actually gets worse.

I was able to upload a photo. Here's me overlooking the Otari Viaduct. It's in Arthur's Pass and Ray took the photo as we were heading to the West Coast.

Optimism?

I've taken the past week to reflect on "What's next?" I spent more time reading, Keeping It Real by Justina Robson, than assessing and planning. I assembled part of a West Coast trip for the weekend. I'll be doing a full day guided hike on the Franz Josef glacier on Saturday.

Now, I am reading answers to the The World Question Center's question for 2007, "What are you optimistic about? Why?" First, scientists are such pills for their stances on religion. They're probably right about how religion has dragged us into the current world geopolitical fiasco, but they are so tedious and dogmatic. Second, George F Smoot missed the point of the question. Here's a careful, out-of-context quote from his answer:

A careful assessment and years of experience that show that the long-term future is most bleak: Entropy will continue to increase, and a heat death (actually a misnomer as it means the degredation of usable energy in a dull cooling worthless background of chaos) is the very likely fate of the world. This is the fate that awaits us, if we manage to work our way past the energy crisis that looms as the Sun runs out of fuel and in its death throws expands as red giant star likely to engulf us after boiling away the seas before it collapses back to a slowly cooling cinder eventually to leave the solar system in cold darkness.

This energy crisis will eventually spread to the whole Milky Way Galaxy which will use up its available energy resources in a time scale of roughly ten times the present 14 billion year lifetime of our observed Universe. In that same time the accelerating expansion of the Universe continually reduces what we can observe and potentially access until in the distant future only the cinders of stars in our own galaxy are left. Argument goes on whether a sufficiently advanced intelligent society could manage to live (continue to have experiences and process new information and create new things) indefinitely in such an environment taking on the most carefully constructed and extreme measures that are physically possible. The chances of success look relatively low for even the most optimally managed and intelligent society.

Blogger is not allowing me to upload photos at this point.