The What Medal?

It's common in popular writing to use the Nobel Prize as a moniker for acts of genius, usually in a sarcastic way (“that certainly won't earn him a Nobel prize”). So it was with some shock that I saw an article today in the magazine CFO.com (aimed, naturally, at Chief Financial Officers) the following paragraph:

When it comes to rating the technological progress of office equipment, the telephone probably runs a close second to the stapler. Walk in to almost any place of business and you'll see the same rectangular boxes companies have been using for years. The only change has been a proliferation of blinking lights. If this qualifies as advanced technology, then the inventor of Lite-Brite deserves a Fields medal.

Curiously, I could have sworn that the print version (which I leafed through at a restaurant) said “Fields medal”, but the on-line version says “Fields metal”.

I realize financial folks are often quants, but it's still a curious reference.

Indoor Wilderness

We returned from Austin last week to find that a long-neglected onion, relaxing in the fruit bowl, had turned into this:

This hasn't happened to our onions before, so I wonder exactly what was different about the circumstances this time.

It's no surprise that onions produce baby onions, but there's a wild organic beauty to scallions in the raw that you simply don't see in their tamed, bunched supermarket form. (And they made for a tasty addition to today's lunch.)

Seeing Stars

I was in Australia last month and kicking myself for not having brought a star chart. Gary Leavens overheard me and pointed me to Stellarium.

It's a very nice little program that shows you the stars, constellations, nebulae and other information in the night sky based on where you are and the date and time. Just dim your laptop screen enough, hold it up, and you can match the program output with what you're seeing. It also has an object search facility, and will track the passage of time. And it's free, and runs on all the standard platforms! They were smart enough to design it to run unplugged, so you really can take it outdoors no matter where you are.