May 17, 2020

2020.05.17
If you can't fit your house *in* an airplane, you could try putting it *on* one. That's how NASA transported the Space Shuttles across the country using a specialized Boeing 747 which carried the Shuttle on its back. To carry the Space Shuttle orbiter, the carrier aircraft has a special mount that protrudes from the top of the fuselage. This mount fits into a socket in the belly of the Shuttle orbiter. Next to the mount is an instructional plaque, which features the single best joke in the history of the aerospace industry:
ATTACH ORBITER HERE
NOTE: BLACK SIDE DOWN
Randall Munroe, "How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems"

It's technically possible that the copy of this book that you're reading is indestructible. Sure, it seems unlikely, but you can't definitively rule it out without trying. There's no nondestructive test for indestructibility.
Randall Munroe, "How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems"

Why are you inclined to interpret nature that way rather than, say, in the more cosmically harmonious manner of the Dalai Lama? You interviewed him for one of your documentaries.
I advise you to go outside on a clear night and look out into the universe. It seems utterly indifferent to what we are doing. Now we are taking a very close look at the sun with a space probe. Look at the utmost hostility of the hundreds of millions of atomic bombs going off at the same time in its interior. So my personal interpretation of nature comes from taking a quick look at the stars.

How do you derive meaning from life if life is indifferent?
Life is not indifferent. The universe is indifferent. But just trying, itself, is something I should do.
I feel like I should learn more about him and his work.