Crazy times, crazy times. I thought the summer would be busy, but it seems that I misjudged the autumn. There is a real press to get a bunch of analyses out the door and into publication, some of which I have my hands in. The batch system at SLAC is “pending” all of my jobs, meaning I am getting nowhere. Sigh. And I was onto something, too.
So while I sit and curse at the LSF batch system, I am listening to Carl Zimmer’s “Evolution: The Triumph on an Idea”. It’s a wonderful audio book, one of the few I really like. The narrator, Thomas Peter, has a rich storyteller’s voice, and if you kill the lights, setup a few candles, and listen to the rain dribble outside, this is a powerful experience. But you gotta tough it out – it’s a six-disc set, totalling over 7 hours.
All these Nobel prizes in the Bay Area have got me pumped. As a friend of mine put it today, California hit a trifecta. Wow. And the science is all good – the genetic origins of disease, the origin of the universe, and the means by which the genetic code is expressed through chemistry . . . this is all good stuff, and getting lots of press. I am pleased. Let’s hope that in this nest of scandal, the bitter partisan divide of this election, that the triumph of human ingenuity can inspire and, perhaps for a moment, unite us in awe of this universe.
