How about an algorithm to make time go faster?

Work plus 6.046 has been pretty all-consuming lately. Here I am in front of the Golden Gate bridge, on a business trip to the Googleplex:



I can't say I love business trips, but business bike rides are not bad. And business plane flights are good for getting the back of a sweater knitted.

Now I'm back in Boston doing my usual spring thing, which is to say, waiting for summer. It seems that every mid-winter I want to geek out, and every summer I realize I've overloaded myself again. Right now, it's very early spring -- the light is usually diffuse, the air is cool and damp, I'm just getting into my annual pangs of remorse over whatever ambitious thing I started in January. I was taking a break last weekend from sudying the Rabin-Karp algorithm when I photographed this beautiful little dragon-paw, which was hiding in my hedge:



To give you an idea of scale, the part of the twig in that photo is a little under 2 cm long. An amateur (and amateurish!) photographer can hardly ask for more. It feels like it was around this time last year when I took all my pictures of the abandoned Somerville warehouse... I want to go back there, now that I think of it. Most likely there's some new graffiti from last summer, just waiting to be immortalized.