37 Aluminum Sparks

Well, I gave my final lecture until after Thanksgiving Break today. Maybe I'll get caught up on grading homework over break. Maybe. I spent the morning doing Real Analysis homework (due at 13:00). Caitlin told me that (1) was the hardest, and I found it the easiest, mainly because it involved thought rather than looking for an applicable theorem. In other news, while I was waiting for two students to show up and take a test they had missed, a reporter wandered by looking for someone to interview. So it looks like I'll be in the Idaho State Journal on Monday. *shrugs*

I visited my grandma tonight. She seems to be doing better, though the dialysis machine was in continual need of reset while she was on it (she said someone had to come push the button every two minutes). My mom is still staying with her. To be honest, I wonder if she will just stay there. I hope that doesn't happen, but the way things have been going it wouldn't surprise me. I also went to see my dad tonight. He was burning a fire in the basement...listening to sad love songs on the radio. This did nothing to soothe my frame of mind. On the one hand, he only likes the classic radio stations, and there aren't too many of those in Pocatello. On the other... *shrugs again*

And a random assortment of links that I found interesting:
First, more on meditation. The study I linked to a day or so ago compared the brains of meditators to nonmeditators. This one looks at the effects of meditation on a person's response time. Pretty cool results, and I can verify that I feel much more alert on the days when I spend some time in meditation.

Speaking of experiments, someone decided to test aluminum hats to see if they could really block brain-controlling EM waves. Troubling findings: they actually amplify government bands. (I forget where I first ran across this, but it's been featured in several places recently)

Oh, and the meaning of life, the universe, and everything may have to be revised, to 37.

And Positive Liberty has some thoughts on torture. As pointed out in the comments, torture may produce useful results if the person being tortured actually knows something. However, based on what I've read recently, there are more effective methods for getting information that do not shred our country's reputation and encourage people to hate us. Hypothetically, if we know for sure that someone has the vital piece of information, and no other methods have worked, I would not object to torturing said person for the information. But the recent atrocities had nothing to do with information. If you want more details, click on the "Operation Truth" link in the sidebar. There have been plenty of posts on it there.