When I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars. The Learn'd Astronomer - Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892)

"Why the hell are we making meth?"

Walter White

The bid-offer spread (bid-ask;  buy-sell) for securities (such as stock, futures contracts, options, or currency pairs) is the difference between the price quoted by a market maker for an immediate sale (bid) and an immediate purchase (offer).

The size of the bid-offer spread in a given commodity is a liquidity measure of the market and size of the transaction cost.

Wiki - Bid-Offer Spread

“Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought –

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two!  One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day!  Callooh!  Callay!

He chortled in his joy.

“Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

Jabberwocky

Lewis Carroll

Functional Fixation

Unsung Apollo 13 Heros

In Canada, there are no laws regulating SIM locking or unlocking. No Canadian wireless service provider sells unlocked phones, and none unlock after service contracts expire. Though you can buy unlock codes from Bell mobility for a cost now. Changes to the Copyright Act proposed by the Canadian government would make any circumvention of digital locks, such as carrier locks on cell phones, illegal. In 2008, then-Industry Minister Jim Prentice introduced Bill C-61 to update the Copyright Act and implement World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaty provisions. However, the bill expired with the dissolution of parliament for the 2008 federal election. The government still maintains interest in these reforms, as witnessed by the public consultations held during summer 2009 and by its current participation in Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement(ACTA) negotiations.

Jailbreaking for iPhone OS  Interesting.  However, I don't think I'd do it.

 

Thomas Herbert Barton, 1992 Winner of the IEEE Nikola Tesla Award

Dr. Barton taught power electronics during my Electrical Engineering undergraduate program.  I had no idea of his contribution until I saw this segment of a video on Nikola Tesla I watched tonight, "The Genius Who Lit The World".

Brilliance.

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,--
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,--
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Mill, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched m his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:--

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

The Chambered Nautilus
Oliver Wendell Holmes

I don't know, I just lack clarity.  In the past, one door closes and another door opens.  Now, it's like I'm caught in a vestibule of indecision.

Statistics means never having to say you're certain.