The GIC paper is out! Really proud of this one. Generalized Internal Coordinates for Creative Exploration of Interatomic Geometries | Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation

I am going to bang the drum about this again. This would win @Shanemgillis an Oscar.

Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix trying to keep it together on the set of The Master (2012) "I love Kools, the minty flavor..."

I've told this story to many people, and no one else has had that experience. (Stinky seatmates, yes, but that stink, no.). It was oddly disconcerting. Weird to see it in fiction.

Average Ernest Hemingway story: To prove his masculinity, Hemingway sailed into a hurricane only to return haunted by a tragic love affair and God's indifference to his despair. Average F. Scott Fitzgerald story: After his wife called him gay, Fitzgerald slipped on a banana peel.

You should listen to this. More Money Was Supposed to Help Poor Kids. So Why Didn’t It?

Idea for a conference: timed dunking booths. All talks are given from the seat in the tank such that when time elapses, the speaker is dropped into the tank. At talk time +90 seconds, piranhas are released into the tank.

Rereading this, it seems like "damning with faint praise," but it was good. Met a couple people I should know, and talked to some dear friends.

WATOC2025 is done. Exceptional meeting. Good science was presented coherently.

My bag search took like 45 seconds, and involved unzipping my bag and answering like 3 questions, and then I caught a Karwa Taxi home. Khalas!

Soon as the wine dick got through the door and out of the "bag search" area, the enormous security guy burst out laughing, as did a number of other employees in the room.

Not yelling, but really loud, and he was putting on a bad movie Arabic accent, just "whad are you? No! Is bad. No! You leave it! Get out!" The dick with the wine bottle immediately cowered, apologized, left his wine on the table, and pissed off.

As he passed me, I clearly heard him say in unaccented English to another worker, "Scare him a lot or a little?" and the other employee said "yeah." As he walked past me towards the arguing guy, he began speaking loudly.

The guy was arguing with the customs person, not aggressively, but he was clearly being a dick. Anyway, as I stood there watching, the door opened, and a security guy (*big* dude) came into the bag search area.

Anyway, I was exiting the airport, the red light went off, and I was directed into a side room to be searched. I was waiting in line to go to a table to open my bags, when I noticed a young guy with his bag open. There was a bottle of wine next to his stuff.

I got searched like three times in ~80 flights into Doha. It appeared to be random. Now, I never brought in anything I wasn't supposed to, but I flew in with glass bottles of stuff many times, and had no issues.

When I lived in Doha, it was well known (i.e. a rumor) that if you had anything that looked like glass or a bone in your luggage, you would get searched, to stop the smuggling of pork or booze. This was malarkey.

This story is going to sound like baloney, but it is not. A couple years ago, I was flying back home to Doha and after getting my checked bags I was directed to go to secondary baggage screening. Note that this is not scary.

Bought an @PlayStation gift card from @amazon last night. Tried to redeem it today. @PlayStation Network is saying the code has already been used and won't redeem. I didn't use it, and I have no reason think I've been hacked, so what the heck?

Took an @Uber with two other passengers. Driver objected to anyone sitting up front, so we sat three to the rear seat. The ride was thus slightly less comfortable. I always give five stars, but what is the appropriate rating here?