Feliz Navidad

Javier Moreno has translated That Obscure Object of Desire (published in a recent edition of Bullett Magazine) into Spanish - the language in which it should clearly have been written in the first place.

Exhibit A:

Incertidumbre e información son las mismas cantidades, la pérdida de incertidumbre es igual a la ganancia de información.
Códigos y Criptografía, Dominic Welsh

Exhibit B:

La rampa de concreto bifurca; él se dirige a la izquierda y sale a un mercado de verduras al aire libre.

[It's 'La rampa de concreto bifurca' that's so lovely.]

The point is, the piece is now saturated with the language of Borges. (Writing in a café, so do not have the oeuvre to hand, but a line that was a mere inert quotation from Codes and Cryptography now brings to mind La Lotería de Babylon : He conocido el incertidumbre.)

Moreno will be publishing the piece in HermanoCerdo in January.

Have been talking to my mother about Wallace Stevens; I might have been happier all these years if I had had a job in insurance and a briefcase with compartments.  If I had had the sense to get a job in insurance, or train as a programmer, or, or, or, years ago, I could write a piece in whichever language seemed best for the piece without worrying about - what shall we say - Acts of Copy-Editor, Typesetter, &c. All as comprehensively excluded from the protection offered by an Agent as are Acts of God from a cautious insurance policy, the difference being that Insurance favours small print rather than unwritten rules.

(16 lessons into Python The Hard Way. THANK you, Zed Shaw, this was exactly what I wanted for Christmas.)

(-- Well, I wouldn't mind also having my hobbyist's edition of Mathematica, which arrived just after I left DC to talk to Michael Miller in the Tik Tok Diner; I wouldn't mind having my SUDO MAKE ME A SANDWICH t-shirt, which also arrived too late, too late. Er, I wouldn't mind having an accountant with superhero powers to grapple with my UK tax return. But these are minor cavils. Merry Christmas, one and all.)