Homer L. Twigg IV

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Turkey cat

A post shared by Homer Twigg (@homerltwiggiv) on Feb 1, 2012 at 8:51pm PST

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I found this on The Straight Dope:

Dear Cecil:

Cecil, you’re my final hope
Of finding out the true Straight Dope
For I have been reading of Schroedinger’s cat
But none of my cats are at all like that.
This unusual animal (so it is said)
Is simultaneously live and dead!
What I don’t understand is just why he
Can’t be one or other, unquestionably.
My future now hangs in between eigenstates.
In one I’m enlightened, the other I ain’t.
If you understand, Cecil, then show me the way
And rescue my psyche from quantum decay.
But if this queer thing has perplexed even you,
Then I will and won’t see you in Schroedinger’s zoo.

— Randy F., Chicago

Cecil replies:

Schroedinger, Erwin! Professor of physics!
Wrote daring equations! Confounded his critics!
(Not bad, eh? Don’t worry. This part of the verse
Starts off pretty good, but it gets a lot worse.)
Win saw that the theory that Newton’d invented
By Einstein’s discov’ries had been badly dented.
What now? wailed his colleagues. Said Erwin, “Don’t panic,
No grease monkey I, but a quantum mechanic.
Consider electrons. Now, these teeny articles
Are sometimes like waves, and then sometimes like particles.
If that’s not confusing, the nuclear dance
Of electrons and suchlike is governed by chance!
No sweat, though — my theory permits us to judge
Where some of ’em is and the rest of ’em was.”
Not everyone bought this. It threatened to wreck
The comforting linkage of cause and effect.
E’en Einstein had doubts, and so Schroedinger tried
To tell him what quantum mechanics implied.
Said Win to Al, “Brother, suppose we’ve a cat,
And inside a tube we have put that cat at —
Along with a solitaire deck and some Fritos,
A bottle of Night Train, a couple mosquitoes
(Or something else rhyming) and, oh, if you got ’em,
One vial prussic acid, one decaying ottom
Or atom — whatever — but when it emits,
A trigger device blasts the vial into bits
Which snuffs our poor kitty. The odds of this crime
Are 50 to 50 per hour each time.
The cylinder’s sealed. The hour’s passed away. Is
Our pussy still purring — or pushing up daisies?
Now, you’d say the cat either lives or it don’t
But quantum mechanics is stubborn and won’t.
Statistically speaking, the cat (goes the joke),
Is half a cat breathing and half a cat croaked.
To some this may seem a ridiculous split,
But quantum mechanics must answer, “Tough shit.
We may not know much, but one thing’s fo’ sho’:
There’s things in the cosmos that we cannot know.
Shine light on electrons — you’ll cause them to swerve.
The act of observing disturbs the observed —
Which ruins your test. But then if there’s no testing
To see if a particle’s moving or resting
Why try to conjecture? Pure useless endeavor!
We know probability — certainty, never.’
The effect of this notion? I very much fear
‘Twill make doubtful all things that were formerly clear.
Till soon the cat doctors will say in reports,
“We’ve just flipped a coin and we’ve learned he’s a corpse.”‘
So saith Herr Erwin. Quoth Albert, “You’re nuts.
God doesn’t play dice with the universe, putz.
I’ll prove it!” he said, and the Lord knows he tried —
In vain — until fin’ly he more or less died.
Win spoke at the funeral: “Listen, dear friends,
Sweet Al was my buddy. I must make amends.
Though he doubted my theory, I’ll say of this saint:
Ten-to-one he’s in heaven — but five bucks says he ain’t.”

— Cecil Adams

This is a list I’ve had in my wallet for the past three years. Almost all of these are recommendations from others. I’ve found that the best stuff I’ve read has been because I’ve written down when someone tells me about it. The little strip of paper I’ve been writing all this down on is almost too hard to read now, so I’m putting it into the cloud, the Valhalla of data.

To Watch

The Fisherking
Non ti muovere
Roma città aperta
Romano criminale
Che ne sara di noi

To Read

Narcissus and Goldmund
Meditations on Liturgy (Bugnini)
Le poesie del Prof. Morelli
Theodora Guerin
Robert Pelton
Ed Abbey – Desert Solitare
David Steindl – Rast
Anscombe – Intention
Spirit of the Liturgy (both)
Crime & Punishment
Better Off
Fr. Benedict Ashley
David Foster Wallace
Antonio Gramsci
The Fortieth Door (Bradley)
Elizabeth Jennings
Mary Oliver
Wendell Berry
Wilfrid Hodges – Logic
Fatherless – Bryan Gail

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Here’s a fun little poem. Great if you are teaching English, or are taking it in college and think you’ve got this whole English thing down pat. I had to have dictionary.com open and ready for many of these…

English Pronunciation | The Poke

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Capital Bikeways – Maps for Bicycling in the Capital region of D.C., Maryland, and Virginia.

Finally, a map with almost perfectly up-to-date info about all the places one can bike in DC. I had no idea I couldn’t be on the sidewalk in the commercial district…

Went out for a glorious bike ride today. The weather was perfect and the only downside was that there was a lot of people out on the trails. I took the B & O D trail from Vienna until I hit the Custis trail. Then I took that to the bridge, went through Georgetown along H St. After grabbing some spicy Thai rice w/ extra goodness, I made my way over to St. Mary’s, only to find out that there was no mass at 7pm. Bummer. So I got out of my tie and slacks, back into my sweaty hoodie, and went the rest of the way home. My heart breaks because I really like the Epiphany, but I am buzzing with energy as the ride was the sort of chakra-untangling I needed. Or something.

Any way, happy feast day.

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