what would this alternate universe be like?

It's amazing.

At Symbolic Milepost, Bush to Hold News Conference Tonight By RICHARD W. STEVENSON 5:27 PM ETThe president will make his case for revamping Social Security and reassert himself at a moment when he is under pressure on a variety of fronts.• Live Video at 8 PM ET• Congress Reaches Deal on 2006 Budget• Frist Stands Firm on Filibuster DemandsIraq's Assembly Overwhelmingly Approves New Government By ROBERT F. WORTH 2:22 PM ETIraq's national assembly voted to approve a Shiite-led cabinet today, creating the first elected government in Iraqi history.• Audio Slide Show: John F. Burns of The Times• Complete Coverage: The Reach of WarNew Data Offer More Signs That Economy Is Weakening By JENNIFER BAYOT 3:10 PM ETThe U.S. economy slowed during the first quarter to its weakest pace in two years, the government reported today.• Text: Advance GDP Report (bea.gov)• Stocks Fall on Economic WorriesWoodpecker Thought to Be Extinct Is Sighted in Arkansas By JAMES GORMAN 12:18 PM ETThe ivory-billed woodpecker has been sighted in the watery tupelo swampland of a wildlife refuge in Arkansas.• Video: Footage of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker

Like I said, it's amazing.

how does everyone like my new mustache?
i have to confess, I sort of copied it from this other famous guy. i used Photoshop! he's dead though, that other guy i forget his name, so i don't think anyone should mind.

bowl of cereal
coffee, some tomato soup
bite of macaroon

at this moment i'm gathering energy for a car ride to Bowling Green Kentucky! i'm going to drive there, in my recently slightly repaired blue Toyota car of nearly 7 years (and of seven modifiers! no, eight! no, nine! no...), to drop off a proposal which might allow me to get paid again for another year!

the topic of the proposal is behavioral testing of potential perceptual and cognitive modes of common household appliances, specifically toasters. the null hypothesis is that there will turn out to be no perceptual or cognitive modes whatsoever for toasters, though i don't know if there will be enough external validity to extend those findings to other appliances.

but, we never know what will happen. science can reveal wonderful things to us, if we listen closely to it, and try to estimate whether or not it has cognitive or perceptual modes which would serve as a substrate for the admittedly anthropomorphic property of revalatory capacity. this doesn't mean anything at all. i am an idiot.

now i have to drive! drive drive drive! drive!

What a boring font.

I can't believe that the doodly-do poem got more discussion, however indirect, than the toaster-being proposal. Maybe I should try to merge the two:

A toaster doesn't know
that it's a toaster, oaster, oaster
It doesn't see me frying scrambled eggs

The toaster doesn't think
that it's a toaster, oaster, oaster
The toaster doesn't know that I have legs

My toaster doesn't love me
but it's okay, oaster, oaster
It doesn't like to listen to music, either.

This was not written by me: (though it was typed by me)

"We do,
doodly do, doodly do, doodly do,
What we must,
muddily must, muddily must, muddily must,
Muddily do,
muddily do, muddily do, muddily do,
Until we bust,
bodily bust, bodily bust, bodily bust."

I have occasionally been thinking, over the past two or three days, about what it must be like to be a toaster. I don't know why I decided to use 'toaster' as my object, and I haven't actually thought of anything definite about, or decided on, what it must be like to be a toaster. But, still:

I figure that for most of the time, for a toaster, it's just the same as most of the other time; that is, things don't change much, from moment to moment, for a toaster. A toaster can't look around at different things, or think about different things, or remember different things. But, at a given moment, which for a toaster is much like most other given moments, it must be lots of different things to be a toaster. It's metal, and plastic, and some electricity, and probably a lot of bread crumbs, and other things.

Now I feel like I'm getting somewhere. Because, while it may be one thing to be a piece of metal, or a bread crumb, it is definitely something different to be a toaster. I will call this, here, 'toaster-being'.

But, maybe, the reason for picking a toaster was something to some degree explicit in my own brain, because there's such an obvious point to make: lucky toasters get a minute of excitement every day! Or more! So, for a toaster, it's mostly just toaster-being, but then, at some point in the day (we don't have to assume that toasters have days for this to be valid syntax), there's sudden spring-loaded tension, tension, electricity coursing, heat, radiation of light, and then sudden tension release! It sounds exciting. I think this is why I picked 'toaster'.

Other suggestions on potential variations, or further specifications, on the general realm of toaster-being? I'm sure they exist. I might not think of them, though.

Hereafter, this shall be my icon,
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.

http://members.surfeu.fi/kklaine/primebear.html

I get sick of such a long post at the top of the list. This one is shorter, refreshing, cleansing.

Here are some facts about why things are the way they are:
1. Most of the energy in the frequency spectrum of a natural signal (noise, image, etc.) is at the low frequencies, and it drops off as a function of 1/f. This is because a big thing can have smaller things on it (like a field can have grass and rocks on it) but a small thing can't have bigger things on it. And also, as something gets smaller by x amount (i.e. * it by 1/x), its surface area gets another 1/x smaller (i.e. * it by 1/x squared). So the first 1/x is scaling wavelength, the inverse of frequency, and the second 1/x is like the potential energy at x (yes, at itself). Amazing!

So things have to be that way.

2. Most of the energy in natural scenes is at horizontal, and then vertical, orientations. This is because of gravity. Gravity makes things flat, causing horizons and other horizontal contours, and also vertical contours if you're up close and looking down on it. Living things, for one, contribute a lot to vertical energy. Otherwise (if they were dead) they'd be flat. So, on earth at least, you have tons of vertical symmetry, because they proper way for a thing to be is upright. Trees are vertical, people are vertical, cats are vertical, etc. So things also have to be that way.

3. Your brain already knows these things, even if you didn't know it knew. It's ready to process things in the environment according to regularities that it expects to find all over the place. This saves you time and energy, so you can expend it getting better at playing video games.

Now you've learned something! Tell everyone you know! But not engineers, they'll get picky on you. I hope no engineers are reading this.

Any day now I'll think of something else to write about. Any day now I'll think of something. Any day now. Any day.

Any day now.

Assuming you were born and lived your entire life in the year 1996 (that's where these deathrates are from, USA), here's the likelihood that you'd make it to the end of each of these age groups:

AGE:______DEATHRATE: PERSONS: INTEGER PERSONS:
BORN______?????______100.00______100
00-01_____0.75%_______99.25______99
01-04_____0.04%_______99.09______98
05-14_____0.02%_______98.88______97
15-24_____0.09%_______97.98______96
25-34_____0.13%_______96.73______94
35-44_____0.22%_______94.57______91
45-54_____0.45%_______90.34______86
55-64_____1.10%_______80.40______76
65-74_____2.55%_______59.89______56
75-84_____5.82%_______25.04______23
85+______15.33%_______21.20______19

Obviously I didn't include the likelihood that you were aborted right off, as I give you a 100% chance of being born. I have a feeling that figures I'd find on that matter would be controversial. I'm not trying to be controversial, I'm trying to make you feel better! But I don't think it would take but a percentage point or so off. Your chances don't start to really hurt until you get into the 30's (or the 50's if you're an optimist). Also, you see that if you don't allow for being a partial person (i.e. rounding down), your chances suffer.

I'm not too impressed with myself at seeing this chart, as I have around a 96% chance of having made it so far, and less than a 1% chance of screwing it up in the next 10 years. Easy!