PicoBlog

When I was first trying to decide the theme of this newsletter, I toyed with the idea of positioning myself as a Book Concierge, where readers could write in with their requests, and I would summon recommendations out of the air like a bookish little fairy. After all, I do that to my husband, slapping a novel onto his nightstand, even if he hasn’t requested it, and even if he’s still working through the last book I asked him to read.

Why say 7 p.m. on the ticket if the show doesn’t start until after 8:30? It’s like the music industry goes out of its way to disrespect the customer. As I sat in the majestic Chicago Theatre for the first time Monday night, waiting for my first live experience by one of my favorite artists, I remembered why I don’t do concerts. The feelings came rushing back. The older I get, the less patience I have for unnecessary hassles.

A couple of week’s ago I drove to my oldest friend Caryn’s house for a visit, along with our other close friend Arielle. We all went to summer camp together for our entire childhoods and have known each other for a whopping thirty years! Even though we don’t see each other very often, when we do it really feels like no time has passed. I am so grateful to have friends in my life that I go so far back with.

“Excitement” is a word people use a lot when you have a book coming out: You must be so excited! Such an exciting time! We’re all very excited, etc. The emotional alloy “excitement” has a lot of different elements, one of which is dread. I once read an interview with a writer who said that whenever he heard that someone had a new book out, he always thought: You poor bastard.

There are so many misconceptions about the Middle Ages that one barely knows where to begin to correct them. It is, of course, largely the result of the prejudices of the Renaissance compounded by the hubris of the Enlightenment that has obscured a more accurate picture of an entire millennium of Western history — a thousand years very unlike our own, but much more dynamic and varied and, despite its own temporal failures and evils, more accomplished in the arts and sciences (and politics) than moderns are popularly aware.

Screenshot of Sean Hannity interviewing Gavin Newsom in Sacramento, from Fox News on June 12, 2023.So far the Trump/Biden-era Democratic party has had just a few figures who come across as the Happy Warriors of info-combat. —One is Pete Buttigieg, who as a presidential candidate frequently went on Fox News to dish out fact-based, fast-paced, delivered-with-a-smile rebuttals to baiting questions. He’s busy now, as Secretary of Transportation, but periodically he still shows up on Fox.

Last week I wrote a Uni Watch blog post about a guy named Brian Goldsmith, who had just set a Guinness World Record by running the Dallas Marathon in a football uniform — an Arlington Renegades uni, to be specific. His time of 3:29:30 beat the previous record, set in 2019 by an Australian named Alistair Kealty, by about four minutes. Shortly after I published that blog post, Goldsmith thanked me on Twitter, which was a nice surprise.

For at least 20 years, I’ve spent the first day of bayram (aka Eid al-Fitr) with my extended family. This means coming together with several generations of Bayrams under the same roof and talking. We covered many topics Friday, which began with a long brea… ncG1vNJzZmispae4psXRnpqaqF6owqO%2F05qapGaTpLpwvI6bmLKqkaJ6uLXToWStoJVir6LF0ZqkrGWRo3qqutKim54%3D

Companies mentioned: SNPS 0.00%↑ As much as we talk about chips, silicon, and the computational power behind it all, there’s a market wholly dedicated to hitting sand with lightning bolts to make it think. Scientists globally have considered this a good move.  Electronic Design Automation, or EDA, is the heart of this industry. Designing a chip has many stages before it even gets to anything like manufacturing, such as designing the transistor, creating the logic structures and cells, building logical blocks, placing and routing them, and then simulating these designs at large scale.