The ridiculous thing is that
I don't even play pool.
Speaking of butterfly effects, my father's friend's decision to drive
me all the way to Logan instead of dropping me off at Framingham
meant that I waiting longer in the airport, felt more bored, and
probably consequently was more likely to buy The Lord of the
Rings at Midway (having already written my postcards at Logan,
and hence not having them available to write there). This, in turn,
will lead to my having read The Lord of the Rings,
which may affect things like whether, or to whom, I get married, or
how many years I live.
I was thinking about that because...
... I read Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman on the
first plane. Someone (my father?) got me a signed copy when it
came out in 1993, and I'd read it then, but I didn't appreciate it
so much at the time. Now I think it's absolutely wonderful. Some
portions are extremely Borges (down to Lightman and Borges
imagining similar scenarios); in fact, a few of the chapters would
have been entirely at home in any Borges short story collection.
One of the themes which persists through the whole book is an
admonition to love and take advantage of life and change. The
sad characters in the dreams are repeatedly those who shrink
from adventure and experience -- although the exact consequences
of doing so depend a great deal on the particular world in
which they find themselves.
One of the dreams had a Sliding Doors-style sequence
in which three different histories befall the same man at once.
This and other material in the book serves to make it clear that
something like whether you have read The Lord of the Rings
or not could actually determine how long you live, and how, and
with whom.
As Malcolm X says on that old Printers Inc. bookmark, "People
don't realize how a man's whole life can be changed by one book".
Two years ago, there was a report that Xerox color photocopiers would
embed a hidden record of each copier's serial numbers into each
copy it produced. Although this was fairly widely documented,
some people persist in disbelieving it. So today, in the course of
a discussion about the IFPI, SIDs, and trade sanctions against the
Ukraine, I decided to ask Xerox.
Xerox's response
clearly indicates that the claims are true:
The Secret Service has the ability to track a particular document to
the source equipment that has produced a suspect image. This information
is used for criminal investigation purposes only. The Secret Service does
not provide this information to private individuals or companies, nor
do they allow other parties to access this information. To detail how
these anti-counterfeiting systems work would only encourage the illegal
acts they are designed to prevent.
