So I go up to Pasadena to have lunch with a friend who doesn't show up. I figure as long as I'm there, I'd stop by Caltech and poke around uninvited, like a pinworm in a crockpot. I've always wanted to do that.
It's a nice little campus, very green with old buildings that look properly distinguished. On the door of the Tom Watson, Sr. Physics Lab there was a notice tacked up that said:
"Seminar: Pure electron flow in negative plasma. Refreshments provided."
I passed people talking in the halls and they said, and I'm sure this is a quote, "Wugga wugga wugga." Maybe I missed some nuance.
Eventually, just by chance, I wandered into one of the satellite sites for the premiere of Apple's new PowerPC Macintoshes. There was a video link to Cupertino and demo machines and lots of neat software displaying lots of pretty pictures very, very quickly -- just the sort of thing that would bring out the nerds in a random sample of the population. (It would have brought me out, had I known.) But this wasn't a random sample of the population. This was Caltech.
And so the demo brought out the nerds of Caltech. Think about that concept for a moment.
I'll wait.
...
I wish I'd had a camera.
White socks and sandals and polyester and all manner of odd hygiene neglect. And a palpable sense of brains.
I was probably the most socially adept person in the room. I was probably also the dumbest. Heh.
And so, just 'cause I'd never felt it before, just 'cause I'll probably never feel it again, just 'cause such a pure sense of Agamemnon-esque power can only, truly happen once in your life... I picked a guy at random, beat him up and took his lunch money.
Hee.