Avogadro's Number

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Above Politics?

April 11, 2016 by Avogadro Mole

I don’t want politicians who are ‘above politics,’ any more then I want a plumber who’s ‘above toilets’.’
— Ta-Nahesi Coates

Filed Under: Politics, Quotes

Escher Hilton

April 4, 2016 by Avogadro Mole

I was at an sf convention a couple of weeks ago at one of the more…architecturally interesting hotels. The official name is the Westchester Hilton but we call it the Escher Hilton. The room floors on the south side are numbered 1 to 4. The room floors on the north side used to be numbered 5 to 8, now 2 to 5. The Transdimensional Portal is a very long corridor with several jogs in it, no stairs but does have a very small incline in the middle. It runs behind the ballroom/meeting space, goes from the 4th floor on the south side to what is now the 4th floor on the north side. Due to the way the floors were numbered, itt used to go from the 4th floor to the 7th floor. Hence why we call it the Transdimensional Portal.

There is a lovely square staircase, mirrored on one wall, with a gorgeous intricate chandelier. It starts in a corner of one of the jogs in the Transdimensional Portal, near no meeting space at all, and comes out in a narrow hallway downstairs, behind the ballrooms.

There is some function space/ballrooms on the north side, accessible by its own lobby and a grand staircase. If you are at all mobility impaired, the only way to get up there is to use the elevator in the south wing and hobble/wheel yourself over by way of the Transdimensional Portal. Or go around the tennis courts and in thru the north side door to get to the elevator in that wing.

To get from the upstairs ballroom space to the downstairs ballroom space, you go down the outer wings of the grand staircase, then reverse direction to go down the center staircase, turn left to go thru an unobtrusive hallway under the left wing of the grand staircase and into the lobby of the other ballroom. Reversing that path, you go thru an unobtrusive door at the far end of the ballroom lobby, into a narrow hallway that looks to deadend. Only after you go thru it do you realize there are stairs to the right. The grand staircase is five people wide. The hallway under the stairs is only two people wide.

And depending on where your room is and what the weather is like, the shortest route to many of the rooms is outside thru the gardens.

It’s strange but we like it.

Filed Under: Conventions

James Monroe, first inaugural address, 1817

March 28, 2016 by Avogadro Mole

“It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising the sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin. Let us, then, look to the great cause, and endeavor to preserve it in full force. Let us by all wise and constitutional measures promote intelligence among the people as the best means of preserving our liberties.”
~James Monroe, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1817

Filed Under: Politics, Quotes

Our Elected Officials

March 21, 2016 by Avogadro Mole

Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It’s the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then – we elected them.
—Lily Tomlin

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress.
—Mark Twain

If we ever pass out as a great nation we ought to put on our tombstone, ‘America died from a delusion that she has moral leadership.’
—Will Rogers

I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace; that two are called a law firm, and that three or more become a Congress!
—From 1776, the musical

Filed Under: Commentary

Tools of Conquest

March 14, 2016 by Avogadro Mole

“The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts… attitudes… prejudices. To be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy, and the thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own for the children, and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to The Twilight Zone.”

Closing narration by Rod Serling from The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street. Read it again, and hear Rod Serling’s voice and delivery. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Commentary, Quotes

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My Favorite Quotes

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.

— Charles Kingsley

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About Avogadro

Sanity is the trademark of a weak mind. — Mark Harrold

Avogadro's Number and I go 'way back. When I first started writing in what might be considered a blog precursor, a fanzine, I called my 'zine "Avogadro's Number". Named after...[more...]
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