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mhoye (temporarily spooky) (mhoye@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 13-Sep-2025 10:20:19 JST mhoye (temporarily spooky)

the nine billion names of god in a rainbow table, does this get me anywhere

In conversation about 2 months ago from mastodon.social permalink
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  Kim Scheinberg (kims@mas.to)'s status on Saturday, 13-Sep-2025 10:22:09 JST Kim Scheinberg
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  @mhoye
  One of my favorite moments of working on a James Randi biography was when he told me that his favorite short story was The Nine Billion Names of God
  And he said it with such... reverence
  
  In conversation about 2 months ago permalink
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  Kim Scheinberg (kims@mas.to)'s status on Saturday, 13-Sep-2025 11:06:50 JST Kim Scheinberg
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  @mhoye
  I can no longer find the transcript of the interview, but I have the write-up my partner did after our first interview with Randi:
  In conversation about 2 months ago permalink
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  1. One of the things that struck me most on our visit --- and it began even before, reading Flim-Flam on the plane --- was how comfortable Randi is with religious language. He's capable of being swept away by the beauty or awesomeness of an experience, and when that happens, he doesn't shy away from drawing on the vocabulary that believers use. In Flim-Flam he describes some ancient work of engineering as a "miracle" --- before I met him, I figured that was probably about 90% provocation, but after the last two days, I wouldn't be particularly surprised to hear him use the word in casual conversation. Randi holds a regular open-door chat at the JREF office --- one Wednesday evening a month, anyone who's interested can stop by and sit around the conference table and jaw about whatever the group comes up with. On Wednesday night, we were talking about 2001, and about Clarke, and Randi mentioned the story "The Nine Billion Names of God." As best as I remember, here's what he said: The first time he read that story, he was sitting alone. He was enjoying the writing --- he likes Clarke's prose style a lot. But when he got to the last line, "Woah." The hair on his forearms stood on end, and he turned back to the beginning of the story and read it again, aloud. The "Woah" is a quote, as is this next bit: "The story is charming in every way, and then you get to the last line, and..." He didn't finish the sentence.
    https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/115/194/532/890/794/272/original/18a2d6983717244d.jpg
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  mhoye (temporarily spooky) (mhoye@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 13-Sep-2025 11:06:51 JST mhoye (temporarily spooky)
  in reply to
  - Kim Scheinberg
  @kims I would like to hear more about this story.
  
  In conversation about 2 months ago permalink
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  Kim Scheinberg (kims@mas.to)'s status on Sunday, 14-Sep-2025 07:51:07 JST Kim Scheinberg
  in reply to
  
  @mhoye
  speaking of James Randi...
  Eight years ago there was a hurricane in Florida. He managed to catch one of the last planes out and we put him up for a week until it was safe to go home
  https://www.newyorker.com/news/as-told-to/an-eighty-nine-year-old-escape-artist-trapped-by-hurricane-irma
  In conversation about 2 months ago permalink
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  1. picture of James Randi (the Amazing Randi) and myself standing on a street in New York City Randi is wearing black pants, a long sleeve shirt, his famous beard, and carrying a cane I'm wearing jeans, a blue t-shirt that says ARM TEENAGE GIRLS, and a red Thing 2 hat from Dr Seuss' _The Cat In the Hat_ we have our arms around one another
    https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/115/199/417/703/386/095/original/7f6a2554ce8f1f9a.jpg

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