Unwind

An early night last night + a sleep-in this morning = headache for the first half of today. Fortunately it faded this afternoon. This is a long weekend. Monday is a public holiday to celebrate the queen's birthday (even if it is nowhere near her actual birthday).
The wind has died down and left a damp, cool winter's day (down to 8C overnight and up to 15C by mid afternoon). Left to my own devices I would describe it as a cold day, but I am reliably informed by a diametrically opposed friend that I cannot regard such mild weather as "cold". I accept the word "cool" as a reasonable compromise. Thus am I cured of my meteorological relativism.

I dropped into the library today to borrow Douglas R. Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach : an eternal golden braid after hearing that it was a strong influence on the Wachowski Brothers' Matrix Reloaded. It must have been 10 years since I last read this book. I don't hold much hope that GEB will shed any light on the more confusing aspects of Reloaded. I just remember it being a good read with a lot of food for thought.
I've been reading short stories from Greg Egan's Axiomatic collection at a rate of just one per day. I've only read six so far. I really enjoyed The Hundred-Light-Year Diary despite the scientific flaws in its premise. His descriptions of human behaviour and the process of rationalisation flowed with a sense of bitter inevitability. The Caress was worth reading, just for the surprise factor. Axiomatic, the title story, deals in neural implants for augmenting or modifying the human brain (seemingly one of Greg's favorite subjects). He paints a sordid picture of a society where neural implants are packaged up like videos or computer games and sold in stores like body piercing shops. Implants range from instant willpower to synaesthesia; from sexual preference to religious faith.

Need a laugh? 5.5Mb of download gets you Gollum's acceptance speech for the MTV best digital performance award.