(below are quotes and anecdotes concerning consistency, or, rather, lack there of. If you know, or at some point in the future you hear or read, a related incident or quote, please remember this post and don’t hesitate to share.)
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Last week, at a wedding reception, I had a very long and interesting conversation with a good friend -a physicist- and a catholic priest whom I’ve met there for the first time (and who had had performed the wedding ceremony earlier that day).

If there was a running theme to the conversation, I’d say it was the discussion of the priest’s upcoming book (his phd dissertation; edited and expanded) about the experience of the sublime (I don’t remember the exact title, since it was in Latin, but I will most certainly try to look it up). That being said, the conversation was, in a sense, sporadic, hopping from one topic to another, thanks in no small part to the keen interest and inquisitive style of all parties. We touched on (among others) the personal experiences, perception of reality, research methodolgy and atmosphere, friendship, and the dialouge between the humanities and the sciences (which reminded me of the third culture, which I wanted to mention at the time, but failed to do so for some reason).

I am not going to attempt recounting the dialogue (trialogue) here (even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to), but rather I’m jotting this down as a reference to the conversation; the fruits of which, I am almost certain, will appear on this blog, one way or another, at some time or another (the first of which is the next post).

This is also a self-reminder of that conversation (a hard copy of a mental note if you will) — hopefully, I will remember parts of it everytime I pass by here.

The Egyptian saying goes like “if you don’t know what to do with your money, buy some pigeons and let them fly.” Some investors in Dubai have upped it a notch — they’re planning a US$1 billion project that includes :

… flying villas [that] elevate in the air. So you have the accessibility to a villa that not only rotates on ground, but it gives you up to a 15 metre to 20 metre up in-the-air elevation. It’s a mind-blowing project.

I know some people who deserve a mind-blowing.

via: SD

Some 2500 kms from where I currently reside, I ran into an acquaintance of mine from other dimensions — from another time and another place (more than ten years ago, we last met, 10,000 kms away). “Ran into” is not quite accurate; he actually spotted me from about fifty meters away -according to him- by the way I dressed!

Admittedly, this is not such an amazing encounter (compared, for example, to running into one’s first love and one’s relative on the same night, together, on their wedding night), but still makes one wonder about the interwinding paths our lives tread.
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( … when your Lord said to the angels “I am appointing, on Earth, a vicegerent”, they said “wilt You appoint on it one who will corrupt it and shed blood .. ?”*) What did they base their assesment on? — albeit limited knowledge, as it were, for the verse later says that ( [God] said: “I know what you know not”).

These questions never cease to puzzle me — what is it that the angels knew that brought them to their conclusion, and what is it that they didn’t know that is supposedly the elevator of the human from a primarily mischief-causing creature to fulfilling the intended status — God’s vicegerent?

*Quran verse 2:30 — please consult your favorite translation, or even better, the original text.

z1: did you ever wonder what happens when you blink?

z2: how do you mean?

z1: did you ever wonder why it doesn’t suddenly turn dark for that short period of time when you blink?

z2: yeah, as a matter of fact, I did. The best I could figure out is that it’s just too quick for one’s brain to notice. Isn’t it something like 0.1 second?

z1: uh huh.

z2: and if you try to close your eyes for any period longer than a blink, then you actually detect the darkness.

z1: true … but how come you can see other people blink then?

z2: good point…

z1: well -wonder no more- turns out that when the eyes shut, even for a fraction of a second, the visual system of the brain shuts down as well. The guardian had this article last week about research published in current biology to that effect — it’s very interesting, you should check it out.

z2: maybe I will.

A: Zozma, Zosca, Zozca, Duhr, Dhur, and Zubra.

Q: What are other names of the star Zosma (Delta Leonis)?