Java Zen:Thinking Out Loud Sunday, 2026.06.28 
A musician may compose a brilliant piece in an afternoon. An artist will dash
off a masterpiece in a single sitting. A writer will write significant passages
as if they were dictated. Each might say, "It happened so fast!" But in reality,
it took all of them years of dedication and struggle to come to that moment of
climax. Thus even the virtuoso performance is the tip of a lifetime of struggle,
and the gem of meaning is set in the metal of long perseverance.

		Deng Ming-Dao, "365 Tao - Daily Meditations", #130

2001.07.20

From The Objects-Are-Closer-Than-They-Appear Department

You might be aware that our Sun will be a red giant in about 15 billion years, and its size will increase dramatically beyond the Mercury orbit and we will enter the “crispy critters” phase of our evolution. But do you know that the Andromeda Galaxy will collide with our Milky Way in about 3 billion years? Then another time after 1 billion years to merge themselves. What a mess! I thought there would be some laws against this happening or at the lease some sort of EPA ruling but no such luck. There are some pretty nice simulations in MPEG, and a lot of pictures with some explanation on the web sites listed below.

So the message for today: Party like it’s 2,999,999,999! WooHoo!

https://www.npaci.edu/online/v4.9/galaxies2.html
https://www.cita.utoronto.ca/~dubinski/tflops/

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