Nothing Is Perfect

America's Cup 33

2010-02-12T09:48:00.002-05:00

Watch the America's Cup regatta live, the first race today; these incredible boats—one a trimaran, the other a catamaran—90 feet at the water line, flying over the water.

fnPad Source in Google Code

2010-01-09T18:03:00.002-05:00

The source code version control repository for fnPad is now served by Google Code.

Nothing Is Impossible

2009-11-14T10:36:00.004-05:00

First, “Nothing is impossible” is patently false. Is it impossible for anything to be impossible?

Of course, in conventional usage, the statement is hyperbole for something like “Many things that seem impossible are not”, meant as encouragement; stronger than “Never give up” or “Try harder.” The skeptics among us aren't buying it.

Of interest here is the sense in which it is apparently a corollary of “Nothing is perfect.”

Blonde

2009-10-24T15:17:00.001-04:00

Blonde is an anagram of Dolben.

Sophie's Caress

2009-06-19T10:56:00.003-04:00

In his review of Sophie Milman's latest, Take Love Easy, Jeff Winbush writes, “A vocalist in the tradition of Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole, Milman has one of those voices that has both range and power, but she knows how to caress a lyric and tap into the emotional depths of the song.”

Syncopation Affirmation

2009-06-17T12:38:00.004-04:00

The New York Post published a nice review of Sophie Milman's performance Monday at the Blue Note.

Facebook

2009-05-25T11:11:00.002-04:00

To Facebook or not to Facebook, in the end I was sucked in by the feeling of missing out on the happenings of, well, my friends, and made a page in spite of my wanting to resist the temptation of the latest cyberfad.

To the Nines

2009-05-12T15:58:00.003-04:00

At some time today, when I happened to check, the S&P 500 index was 909.09, making me think that it would have been numerologically more fun if that had happened on September 9th, later this year. At the same time, it would be financially more fun if that did not happen on 9/9/09. Anyway, all of that shortly led me to wonder about the origin of the expression to the nines. “Short answer: nobody knows.”

Take Love Easy

2009-05-05T13:24:00.002-04:00

Sophie Milman has a new studio album, Take Love Easy, released today in Canada.

2009 Pan-Mass Challenge

2009-05-02T11:25:00.001-04:00

For the tenth straight year I'll be riding in the Pan-Mass Challenge which, through the Jimmy Fund, raises money to support research and treatment at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. For more information you might look at this year's fact sheet (PDF).

You can contribute online if you'd like to support my effort.

Movable Type to Blogger

2009-05-02T10:24:00.002-04:00

There's a tool to convert Movable Type exported text to the Blogger XML import form, but the software is very finicky.

Revival

2009-04-28T16:41:00.001-04:00

Nothing Is Perfect is undergoing a revival.

2008 PMC Dolbens

2008-08-04T15:05:00.002-04:00

2008 Pan-Mass Challenge Dolbens: Martha, Don, Deane, Hank, and Drew.

Declaration

2008-07-04T16:00:00.001-04:00

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

I am a Strange Loop

2008-06-12T16:28:00.004-04:00

Returning yet again to the big question, you know—life, the universe, and everything—here's one of our old favorites, Douglas Hofstadter, weighing in on the soul and what I like to call life after death. It's a little scary how nearly congruent his construct is to mine. Heck, forget nearly. They're identical. Of course, his makes much better reading.

5th Anniversary

2008-06-06T08:54:00.005-04:00

Today marks five years since the inception of Nothing Is Perfect.

The Unobservable Universe

2008-05-24T05:42:00.003-04:00

In a Scientific American article Sean Carroll offers an explanation of what many consider a cosmological puzzle: the existence of time's arrow apparent in the Universe. While appealing, it can never be a theory, as it depends on a larger, unobservable universe in which this little one we call home is embedded, having arisen from a random fluctuation of dark energy (itself still hypothetical). But as metaphysics it jibes quite well with my own cosmogony and the notion that anything exists because nothing is perfect. Nevertheless, it leaves the greater universe worse than unobservable, unexplained. You can pull a rabbit out of a hat, but where did you get the hat?

2008 Pan-Mass Challenge

2008-05-11T08:53:00.003-04:00

For the ninth straight year I'll be riding in the Pan-Mass Challenge which, through the Jimmy Fund, raises money to support research and treatment at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. For more information you might look at this year's fact sheet (PDF).

You can contribute online if you'd like to support my effort.

People Will Say We're in Love

2008-05-10T04:50:00.005-04:00

Generally it's silly to recommend music. Just think of how much there is that you can't stand and yet that millions of other people love. You know because sometimes they think it's so wonderful that they play it outdoors, loudly enough that you'd have to evacuate the area to avoid listening to it. Anyway, if you like jazz renditions of old standbys you must hear Sophie Milman's recording of the Rodgers and Hammerstein tune from Oklahoma! People Will Say We're in Love. It's perfect. Well, almost.

AP News on iPhone

2008-05-05T17:28:00.005-04:00

The design of the new Associated Press web app raises the bar for iPhone customized sites several notches.

Blog Revived

2008-04-27T10:35:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Tildemark this blog is revived.

Merry Christmas

2004-12-25T06:00:00.001-05:00

Wallis-Pawtuckaway Metric Century Cues

2004-09-28T15:07:00.001-04:00

I've created a brief description and [perhaps overly] detailed cue sheet of the aforementioned 100k cycling loop through seacoast New Hampshire.

Wallis-Pawtuckaway Metric Century

2004-09-18T19:52:00.001-04:00

Here's a 100 km New Hampshire seacoast loop between Wallis Sands State Beach and Pawtuckaway State Park including flat, rolling, and a little hilly terrain good for biking. The following is just an outline, not a cue sheet, starting at the intersection of NH 1A and Marsh Rd. in Rye.

Marsh Rd.
straight on Parsons Rd.
left on Brackett Rd.
right on Wallis Rd.
straight on Washington Rd.
straight on Breakfast Hill Rd. (Greenland)
right on NH 151
left on Portsmouth Ave.
left on NH 33 (Stratham)
right on Squampscott Rd.
right on NH 108 (Newfields, Newmarket)
left on Old Route 108
right on Ash Swamp Rd.
left on NH 152 (Lee, Nottingham)
left on Church St.
left on NH 156 (Raymond)
left on NH 107 (Fremont, Brentwood)
left on NH 111A (Exeter)
right on NH 27
left on NH 111 (North Hampton)
left on NH 1A (Rye)

The towns are indicated by the road on which they are entered.

Going Postal

2004-08-28T17:29:00.000-04:00

Leighton took this picture of me on the road from Grenoble on the day of the Individual Time Trial on l'Alpe d'Huez in this year's Tour de France, which is where the USPS Team bus was headed, while we turned off and climbed the Col du Glandon.