Dirac Angestun Gesept

The Guardian has a great article on the emergency services’ reactions to the July 7th bombings in London.

Michael Collinson, an off-duty nurse, recalls stepping into the road near Russell Square station, some minutes after the bombs went off, and commandeering a passing delivery truck, telling the astonished driver it was needed for ferrying medical supplies. A firefighter speeding past Tavistock Square half an hour later, on his way to King’s Cross, recalls seeing the destroyed No 30 bus and thinking it must have gone under a low bridge. And PC Tony Asquith, stretchering commuters through the acrid smoke and heat of the Piccadilly line tunnels, remembers an injured man so shocked that he couldn’t stop talking about his wedding ring, and how upset his wife would be that, in the chaos, it had slipped off and vanished.

Highly recommended.

Did someone say housing bubble?

The number of canceled listings in Massachusetts has nearly tripled since 2001, a sign that one of the hottest real estate markets in the country is beginning to cool down, said real estate specialists. It ”tells you is the market is softening. Demand is declining,” said Karl Case, professor of economics at Wellesley College.

Is anyone else going to the Taste of Cambridge tonight?

Yes, I realize that the Do-Not-Call list does not legally restrict you from calling me. That does not mean, however, that calling me is a good idea.

You see, I consider listing my phone number on that list as something that, whether you’re legally required to respect it or not, would at least be polite to take into account when calling. This particularly applies on Saturday morning, when you called just as I was lazily considering the merits of getting up or just lying in bed for a while and relaxing.

That in itself wasn’t enough for you, though. No, of course not. Even after I explained that I didn’t give to organizations that solicit me by phone, you continued with your script. I know you weren’t a recording, since you commented on the fire engine sirens in the background at one point.

At that point, I had no qualms at all about simply hanging up on you.

When I was younger, I often noticed that the radio would play a song that reflected my mood, or something I’d been thinking about. (I did figure out that it was a selection effect; after all, I didn’t notice when the song didn’t match.)

Now, of course, we have iPods (and radio stations run like iPods), so it’s pretty random (or not).

Well, yeah, except for the additional selection effects. Not only is there the “I only notice when it’s noticable” effect, there’s the “skip to the next song when this one doesn’t match my mood” effect and the “start picking songs that match my mood using iTunes” effect (especially if I start using Party Shuffle to build an ad-hoc playlist).

This does mean that, at times, sorting my iTunes library by last played date will let me see what my moods have been like for the past few weeks. It also means that if you’re watching my iChat status message, you can sometimes tell what kind of mood I’m in. (One or two similar songs in a row? Probably shuffle play. Half a dozen angry ranty songs? I’m grumpy.)