Gnarly

After reading Rudy Rucker's review of Seth Lloyd's new book "Programming the Universe" I immediately ordered it and now it has finally arrived. I haven't read much yet but it seems to be extremely well written and easy to read even though the topic of the book is pretty complicated - the universe is a quantum computer that computes itself!

Seth Lloyd, the author, is a really interesting character with a truly dodgy hair style:-) Anyway, Seth Lloyd had a horrible experience in the 1980s while climbing with his university supervisor and good friend Heinz Pagels where Pagels fell to his death. I know a person or two that might wish that something bad would happen to their supervisor but hopefully nothing like this.

Seems like the new hobbyist trend is biohacking. There are a number of sites like dnahack.com and biohackery.com with descriptions about how to transform plants and build your own glow-in-the-dark cats. I'm thinking about buying a kit and building myself a third arm that I can use to scratch that part of my back that is always itching that I just can't reach.