We're back now from a week in Austin, visiting friends and relatives, eating too much, sleeping too little, and having a very good time. Every time I go back to Austin I play the "what if I'd stayed here" game; I love my life here in Portland, but I do miss the Texas weather, and I'd like to be closer to family.

Anyway, the house was still standing when we arrived (always a concern), the cats didn't seem to notice we'd left, and the antique folding camera I bought on eBay showed up while we were gone. It appears to be a Zeiss Ikon Nettar 515 circa 1937, in quite good shape, and 4.5x6 instead of 6x6 format: 4 more exposures per roll! It's a nice change going back to a rectangular format, having a choice between landscape and portrait. Easier to find frames, too.

Lastly, and not related, I read about half of the new Best Science Writing collection on the plane today, and it reminded me that I need to put together the essay on determinism that I've been throwing around in my head for the last year or two. It's not quite original, but I haven't seen anything yet that addresses this head-on. Here's the general outline: First, assume the universe is entirely deterministic. (If not, then we're stuck in an overly-metaphysical realm with icky things like free will and "magical" consciousness.) Then, either the world we see here is the only way things could happen, that somehow the Theory of Everything implies, specifically, me sitting here writing this after coming home from eating a dozen hot wings and sharing a pitcher of IPA with my wife after flying home from holidays in Austin, along with the American Revolution and the Roman Empire and Homo Erectus and Dinosaurs and Primordial Earth and everything else that's happened until now; or, every possible (or maybe just reasonable) outcome exists in as "real" a fashion as the here-and-now.

Neither of those is particularly compelling. But it gives us an excuse to talk about exponential growth and counting arguments.