I am very, very, and very tired. Our paper deadline was moved from Monday midnight to Wednesday 10:00, and I foresee a couple of hours of further work. I have not had even four hours of continuous sleep since the beginning of February. That is not hyperbole. I can feel that my brain is swelling. Once [...]
My garage is in a terrible state. It is full of empty cardbox boxes, old newspapers, magazines, books, a couple of photo albums, sporting equipment (!), stuff that won’t fit into the cupboards upstairs, and various other odds and ends that I should be throwing away. About 7 months ago I moved it all to [...]
I’ve been thinking about younger brothers and older brothers. I have a younger brother, I know at least one pair in Finland, I have a good friend with a younger brother, and I have a new student whose older brother I know/knew well as a programmer. I’m wondering how the student will fare, and I [...]
I have spent most of the last four weeks in bed. Apart from my one walk and a couple of visits to my office, I have not been well enough to do much except sleep and read. By this time, I am very tired – physically and mentally – of constant coughing. Sometimes, I feel [...]
I sometimes wonder about the futility of my job. Even worse, the futility of my work. I used to be excited by it. Very early on I was even convinced that it may be important. Those feelings have faded and I have had to find other outlets for my…passions. Training other scientists is currently at [...]
I am reading Allan Bloom’s book called “The Closing of the American Mind”. This is about the most challenging book I have ever read. Every sentence, almost every phrase, is an uphill climb. Like a long marathon, every word a mile. But once I reach the summit, the vista of new meaning makes it worth [...]
It may seem that I have not been posting recently, but that is not true. For a while I considered converting this whole site to a wiki, but the idea has passed. I’ll add the postings from that experiment here soon. But I have been busy the last two weeks. For one thing, I have [...]
On Saturday I visited Ähtäri zoo with Antero and Tiina. Even though the weather was not ideal, it was — just like our trip last summer — a wonderful experience. I saw several animals that I have never (and probably shall never) see again. Except that I plan to definitely go again. According to Antero [...]
This has been a hard week. I have not slept more than four hours a night, and some nights I have not slept at all. I have a long list of items on my to-do list, and I stay busy, but I don’t seem to be making any progress. This mystery is probably explained by [...]
Sigh. The start of a new blog. There have been so many. I’m not very good at this. After a few months I decide that I don’t like it and start over with something else. Let’s see how long this one lasts. I will artificially enlong (prelong?) its life by adding some older posts. The [...]