Author Archives: Gary

About Gary

I write and maintain code for various websites as both a professional and a hobbyist developer, and have used computer technology for most of my life.

24-MAR

Predictive

“You know nothing of future time,” pronounced Deep Thought, “and yet in my teeming circuitry I can navigate the infinite delta streams of future probability and see that there must one day come a computer whose merest operational parameters I am not worthy to calculate, but which it will be my fate eventually to design.”

Fook was losing patience. He pushed his notebook aside and muttered, “I think this is getting needlessly messianic.”

HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by Douglas Adams

23-MAR

6 Replies

Fertility

When Lucy woke, the room was already light. The curtains were not drawn and the pane of the open casement reflected a gleam of sun which she could lose and find by moving her head on the pillow.

A wood pigeon was calling in the elms. But it was some other sound, she knew, that had woken her — a sharp sound, a part of the dream which had drained away, as she woke, like water out of a washbasin. Perhaps the dog had barked.

But now everything was quiet and there was only the flash of sun from the windowpane and the sound of the wood pigeon, like the first strokes of a paint brush on a big sheet of paper when you were still not sure how the picture was going to go.

The morning was fine. Would there be any mushrooms yet? Was it worth getting up now and going down the field to see? It was still too dry and hot — not good mushroom weather. The mushrooms were like the blackberries — both wanted a drop of rain before they’d be any good.

Soon there’d be damp mornings …

WATERSHIP DOWN (1972) by Richard George Adams

22-MAR

Blueprint

Brother Francis produced the blueprint. “The highwayman was kind enough to leave this in my keeping, Holy Father. He – he mistook it for a copy of the illumination which I was bringing as a gift.”

“You did not correct his mistake?”

Brother Francis blushed. “I’m ashamed to admit, Holy Father –”

“This, then, is the original relic you found in the crypt?”

“Yes –”

The Pope’s smile became wry. “So, then – the bandit thought your work was the treasure itself? Ah – even a robber can have a keen eye for art, yes? Monsignor Aguerra told us of the beauty of your commemoration. What a pity that it was stolen.”

“It was nothing, Holy Father. I only regret that I wasted fifteen years.”

“Wasted? How ‘wasted’? If the robber had not been misled by the beauty of your commemoration, he might have taken this, might he not?”

Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. (1959)

21-MAR

1 Reply

Narled

Cross your eyes to see in stereo. Overlap the two images above to see this work of wooden sculpture art in three dimensions. It stands at the Castle Rock trailhead just inside the Kirkwood Entrance.

20-MAR

Destiny

**The Three Fates: Clotho – Atropos – Lachesis**

Clotho spins thread
Lachesis measures thread
Atropos cuts thread

19-MAR

2 Replies

Dystopia

But old Dim, as soon as he’d slooshied this dollop of song like a lomtick of redhot meat plonked on your plate, let off one of his vulgarities which in this case was a lip-trump followed by a dog-howl followed by two fingers pronging twice at the air followed by a clowny guffaw.

Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

18-MAR