Today made up for many of the tough or frustrating days I've had lately. Today I got to give blood for the first time in over twenty years. Coming from the UK, where I'd donated blood a score of times, to the USA meant that because of fears of CJD, I was denied the opportunity as I was a potential carrier of mad cow disease prions. For whatever reason, this barrier was recently lifted, and today I spent my lunchtime donating. After some effort, and a few failed attempts to find a suitable vein, success! The phlebotomist announced that I was finished, took the full bag of blood, and told me it was on its way to do some good. I promptly burst into tears, carried away with the joy of being able to make this gift available for a future anonymous someone. It felt good, worth the wait. Even my loathing for the dawdling Pokemon Go drips cluttering the city on Monday is largely forgotten now. I'm only sad they didn't have Avengers bandaids for me to flash.

I have

Back during the late Bush or early Obama era I remember reading a lot of articles about how the hydrogen fuel cell was going to replace the internal combustion engine and usher in a grand new era of cars that emitted water instead of carbon dioxide. Even at the time I knew enough to ask where the hydrogen was coming from. If it was electrolysis then where was the electricity coming from? I assumed I must be missing something. Now we have electric vehicles and I know I wasn't. We are currently

C! Etiquette: A Quandary

I have noticed a "quirk" of E2: often, when I C! a writeup, its author sends a thank you message. I find it endearing, and mildly interesting. On the one hand, a C! is a pretty meaningless thing. We get one a day, and it's just code. On the other, it is a token representing the fact that your work resonates with someone real. Sometimes that can be invaluable... The contradictory nature of the Ching is perhaps