(Argo is sitting quietly, staring into space. Bellboy enters.)
Bellboy: Thinking about something, Argo?
Argo: I'm thinking about my screenplay.
Bellboy: You're writing a screenplay?
Argo: I'm thinking about a screenplay.
(Nina enters)
Bellboy: Did you know Argo was thinking about writing a screenplay?
Nina: I didn't know you were a screenwriter.
Argo: I'm thinking about a screenplay. I'm not writing anything.
Nina: What's it about?
Argo: It's one unbroken shot, the whole thing. It opens on a guy, or a girl, it doesn't matter, sitting at a desk. There's a lamp on the desk, and he must be in an otherwise dark room. He's writing something with one hand. His head is in his other hand. He's thinking very hard about something.
Bellboy: What's he thinking about?
Argo: It doesn't matter. We watch him for a while. He writes for a few seconds, then stops. Then he writes for maybe a full minute. He takes his glasses off and rubs his eyes. He leans back and stares at the ceiling. We watch him for another minute. He sighs and stretches his arms. Maybe he squeezes his eyes shut. We notice a weird shudder in the image, like the cameraman must have stumbled or something. Also, periodically there are these flashes, like there are blank frames inserted into the film. They're random, but there's at least one or two every minute.
Nina: This sounds like a fascinating movie. Does anything actually happen?
Argo: This is just the beginning.
Bellboy: When did you decide to make a screenplay? You haven't gotten tired of making sandwiches, have you?
Argo: This may be related to my lack of interest in sandwich making, yes. But I'm not sure. I need something to think about when there's nothing else to do.
Nina: So, does anything happen, other than the guy sitting at his writing desk?
Argo: It does, do you want to hear it?
Bellboy: Sure, entertain us.
Argo: I'm not sure it's very entertaining.
Nina: I'm pretty sure it's not, as the opening indicates.
Argo: Okay. So, we're watching the guy at his desk, right? And we sort of assume that he's in a room, like a study or something, right?
Bellboy: I guess so.
(Nina shrugs)
Argo: But he's not, see? The camera creeps back, slowly. The guy leans back onto his desk, starts scribbling again. It should be obvious to us that he thinks it's very important, what he's writing about. The camera keeps creeping back, and we realize he's surrounded by darkness, like he's in a huge soundstage or something. The contrast increases a bit, and we can see that the darkness surrounding him seems to be speeding past. He seems to be surrounded by something, like a dusty bubble, and the bubble is set on another dark spot, which is speeding across some black surface. Somewhere, in another corner of the frame, we can see another light.
Nina: This is fascinating, Argo.
Argo: So, the camera swings over to that other light, and zooms in on it. It's a ballet dancer, spinning around on a hardwood floor. There's music coming out of a portable stereo off in the corner somewhere. It's something a ballet dancer would dance to. This is the only music in the movie. The camera doesn't linger here very long, and starts to pull back. As it does, it drifts down toward the floor, and we see the threshold, between hardwood dance floor and blurred, rushing asphalt.
Bellboy: Is this still the beginning of the movie?
Argo: No, we're well into it. As the camera reaches the threshold, it slows, then pauses- and begins to drift upward, and we can see that it's tracking along a transparent bubble, which encases the room the dancer is in. It's clear, but there are specks of dust and stuff that make it just barely visible. This is shown just long enough to be apparent to the audience, then suddenly the view retracts sharply, speeding away from the dancer, into the darkness. Only, it's not darkness.
Nina: Are you depressed, Argo? I don't think this is something you should be thinking about all by yourself.
Argo: It's not darkness, because as the camera pulls back, we catch glimpses of hundreds of little rooms, little carts-
Bellboy: Hundreds?
Nina: How are you going to to that? It's got to be a really, really long pullback.
Argo: It's a few minutes, I guess. There's a lot of noises. Like, train noises, and lots of whooshing and in the distance you think you can hear crashing, like when there's a garbage truck out in the alley early in the morning.
Bellboy: So, we're in a giant soundstage, with hundreds of little pod-rooms driving across the floor-
Argo: Ah, they're not driving, they're falling. There's a slant to the ground. They're all rolling downhill.
Nina: I don't like this movie.
Argo: Kids will like it.
Bellboy: Does something happen next? Does anything change?
Argo: Right. Finally, the camera slows, passes through a final bubble, and we find ourselves inside another room. The pullback continues beyond what we see was the source of the images we were viewing, some sort of telescope contraption. It continues behind a person, guy or girl doesn't matter, who is sort of staggering backwards, obviously shocked at what he's seen.
Nina: I like your gender neutrality.
Argo: It's only because it doesn't matter. I'm not trying to prove any point.
Nina: Anyway, I have to get back inside. I think your break was up like 10 minutes ago, Argo.
(Nina exits)
Argo: You like it, Bellboy?
Bellboy: I think you spend too much time here, Argo. You need to find a new job, or go on a vacation.
Argo: I don't think you like it.
Bellboy: Am I supposed to like it?
Argo: If people will watch the Matrix, they will watch my movie. It'll be short too, so they can show it ten times a day in the theaters if they want. Or, they could show it as a double feature with something else, like a documentary on kids playing in the park. Maybe they find a weird looking caterpillar, or make a kite.
Bellboy: That might help to cancel out the dread of the black soundstage movie.
Argo: Anyway, I've got to finish so I can get back inside.
Bellboy: Go ahead.
Argo: So, the guy with the contraption, he's sort of staggering backward, like he's just seen something terrible. We see his face, and it's pale, and he's sweating like crazy. We look around and see that he's in a room like a laboratory, with white floors, and a bunch of workbenches and white counters with junk piled everywhere. It looks like the contraption is something he built. He wanders around for a few minutes, looking it over, walks around the front of it and looks confused, puts his hands on something. We realize, of course, he's looking at a solid wall, which is all he sees. He doesn't see the bubble, even though now he knows he's inside it.
Bellboy: That's heavy, man. This will appeal to a certain crowd.
Argo: It get's better! He goes back to the contraption, sticks his face back into the view-hole, and we zoom back out of the bubble. He seems to swing it around, pointing it downhill, zooming and zooming. We see something looming in the darkness. Zooming. Zooming and looming. We approach it, and hear terrible crashing sounds, louder and louder, screeching, and we can see that the looming something is a pile of trash, a pile of crashed pods.
Bellboy: I saw this coming.
Argo: You're like the guy with the thingie. You can empathize with him. Anyway, we see the giant, looming pile of doom, and see pods crashing into it at super high speeds. Crash, poof of dust, crash, crash, crash.
Bellboy: Argo.
Argo: The camera swings a bit, and next to the doom-pile is a gaping void, and pods are racing off into it, zooming right off the edge.
Bellboy: You need to see a doctor, Argo.
Argo: We focus on a pod, zoom into it, and see that it's a guy, sitting in a car, and he looks terrified. He's clutching the wheel like his life depends on it. He's all strapped in like it matters, and suddenly he's clutching at the belt, trying to pull himself free. We zoom out, in time to see him shoot over the edge, into the void. We keep zooming back, until we're back at the contraption pod, we zoom past the guy, stumbling back again, we zoom away from the pod, just in time to see another pod collide with it, and they both explode into a pile of auto parts and plywood.
Bellboy: Isochrony, Argo, did you ever get that figured out?
Argo: We keep zooming back, right past a guy, and then the zoom slows, but doesn't stop. The guy is striding right across the blacktop, toward one of the bubble things. He stoops and crawls through a hatch or something, then it takes off, slow at first, but accelerating, as we continue to pull back.
Bellboy: Is there another guy with a contraption?
Argo: Maybe, but probably not. It doesn't seem likely that too many people could invent one of those.
Bellboy: So, the movie is about mortality? Or inescapable fate?
Argo: I wish. It's really about my cool idea for a blacktop soundstage crash-pod derby.
Bellboy: You mean demolition derby.
Argo: I couldn't think of it. I gotta go back inside.
Bellboy: Okay, see you later.
(Argo exits)
Bellboy: ...
Bellboy: I could write a screenplay.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Going to the grocery store and buying almost nothing
The original post was much too long. I went to the grocery store and didn't buy anything but a quart of heavy cream. Went back later that night, and still didn't buy groceries, just bought some weird cheese. Finally went back again today, and bought groceries. Idiot.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Nice things said by a nice man:
1.
When the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be
if Earth could say,
in a voice floating up
perhaps
from the floor
of the Grand Canyon,
“It is done.”
People did not like it here.
2.
Tiger got to hunt, Bird got to fly
Man got to sit and wonder, "Why, why, why?"
Tiger got to sleep, Bird got to land
Man got to tell himself he understand.
3.
We do, doodly do, doodly do
What we must, muddily must, muddily must
Muddily do, muddily do, muddily do
Until we bust, bodily bust, bodily bust.
1.
When the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be
if Earth could say,
in a voice floating up
perhaps
from the floor
of the Grand Canyon,
“It is done.”
People did not like it here.
2.
Tiger got to hunt, Bird got to fly
Man got to sit and wonder, "Why, why, why?"
Tiger got to sleep, Bird got to land
Man got to tell himself he understand.
3.
We do, doodly do, doodly do
What we must, muddily must, muddily must
Muddily do, muddily do, muddily do
Until we bust, bodily bust, bodily bust.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Insurance is for crap
So I had a toothache, and I figured I ought to go to the dentist. Before going, I go real quick and sign up for some extra plan on my student health insurance because it promised that it was very likely that it would cover "up to" 50% on dental work. It cost like $25, I think. So, I wind up going to the dental school because it will be cheaper anyway, and they pull two of my teeth out after taking some x-rays, and charge me some money, and I wait to see if the insurance will cover anything. A while ago a very nice lady at the dental school calls me to basically tell me that the insurance won't cover anything. I have to pay for all my tooth-pulling, which is fine with me, but I paid $25 for nothing. I sure am an idiot.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Waiting in line for coffee at the starbucks in the library next to the robot librarian monstrosity thing
Also too long. This is the short version. Read the title. I am an idiot.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Friday, March 16, 2007
Waiting for the bus instead of riding a bike
Today I waited for 45 minutes to catch a bus to the garage just about 2 miles from my house. I could have ridden my bike and gotten there in less than 15 minutes. I am really an idiot.
Monday, March 12, 2007
A matrix in a vector for no good reason.
So, I've been rerunning this program I designed last month. It takes a random 256 pixel square out of each of 4212 images in a calibrated database of photographs. It determines which of 108 frequency-space filters would give the biggest response to that sub-image. That's 9 frequencies (the lowest and two highest never have maximal responses, but they're there as buffers so no energy is ignored). For some reason, I wrote the spectral filtering function so that it would return the filter coefficients in a 108 entry vector instead of a 12x9 matrix. I don't know why I wrote it this way. This means that every time I want to do something different with the data in the driver function, I have to sit and think again about how to find the right entry in the vector. This is really irritating, but I don't go back and slightly rewrite the analyzer function, because I don't want to do a bunch of back-and-forth fixing to adjust for the function fix. I leave the function messed up and go ahead and just make things difficult for myself in handling the output data. I don't know why. Also, my tooth-hole hurts.
Friday, March 09, 2007
oh gosh i'm sorry
Argo: The last week has gone by really fast, hasn't it?
Bellboy: I know.
Nina: I think it took forever.
Argo: Somebody always says that. What bothers me is that I keep saying that the last week has gone by really fast. I mean, every week recently, I keep saying that.
Bellboy: Have you? I think I have too.
Argo: It seems like I said it last week, and that then I was really struck by how quickly I had gotten from Monday to Friday. It seemed odd. But then, I remembered that I had thought the same sort of thing the week before. Now here I am again, thinking the same thing again.
Nina: Maybe there's something wrong with your brain.
Bellboy: Like you've gotten miscalibrated somehow. Maybe time seems the same as it always has seemed, but you've started comparing it with months, or two-week periods.
Argo: That doesn't make sense. Why would I do that?
Bellboy: I don't know.
Nina: Yeah, what's your point, Argo?
Argo: My point is, I don't like it. It makes me feel like if time is shorter, less has gotten done. And it worries me that if it keeps up, pretty soon I'll lose track of the weeks altogether. I kind of feel like I'm already starting to do that.
Nina: Maybe you just can't remember anymore. You're getting old.
Argo: You mean, like, I can't remember as much from the previous week, so it seems smaller?
Nina: Maybe. Or you really are doing less, so there's less to remember.
Bellboy: Or, what you're doing from week to week is getting more and more the same as what you've done the previous week, and so it just seems like what you remember from this week is an old memory.
Argo: But that's the opposite of "time flies when you're having fun", right? If what you're doing is entertaining and new, time passes quickly; if it's boring time goes slowly.
Nina: Maybe the saying is wrong.
Bellboy: Maybe it's that if what you're doing requires little new thought, time seems to go more quickly. Maybe remembered time is measured in thought-hours. Sometimes fun things are easy things, which don't require a lot of thought. If you're sitting in a waiting room with nothing but 'no smoking' signs to read, there's nothing to do but think, and so time seems to drag on.
Argo: So I haven't been thinking recently? So I'm not consuming enough thought-hours?
Nina: Or, you're forgetting how much you've thought about. Or maybe you just haven't done anything but stand outside and smoke and talk about stupid boring nonsense with your coworkers.
(Nina leaves)
Argo: Maybe I've reached a new level of thought; I do so much hard, serious thinking that it's automatic, and it takes no effort. I'd have to think about what I was thinking about to actually remember the time spent thinking. Maybe I should be writing it down.
Bellboy: I'm sure that's it, Argo. You're full of crap.
(Bellboy leaves)
Argo: Maybe I'm getting old, and I'm going to die soon. That would be good.
Bellboy: I know.
Nina: I think it took forever.
Argo: Somebody always says that. What bothers me is that I keep saying that the last week has gone by really fast. I mean, every week recently, I keep saying that.
Bellboy: Have you? I think I have too.
Argo: It seems like I said it last week, and that then I was really struck by how quickly I had gotten from Monday to Friday. It seemed odd. But then, I remembered that I had thought the same sort of thing the week before. Now here I am again, thinking the same thing again.
Nina: Maybe there's something wrong with your brain.
Bellboy: Like you've gotten miscalibrated somehow. Maybe time seems the same as it always has seemed, but you've started comparing it with months, or two-week periods.
Argo: That doesn't make sense. Why would I do that?
Bellboy: I don't know.
Nina: Yeah, what's your point, Argo?
Argo: My point is, I don't like it. It makes me feel like if time is shorter, less has gotten done. And it worries me that if it keeps up, pretty soon I'll lose track of the weeks altogether. I kind of feel like I'm already starting to do that.
Nina: Maybe you just can't remember anymore. You're getting old.
Argo: You mean, like, I can't remember as much from the previous week, so it seems smaller?
Nina: Maybe. Or you really are doing less, so there's less to remember.
Bellboy: Or, what you're doing from week to week is getting more and more the same as what you've done the previous week, and so it just seems like what you remember from this week is an old memory.
Argo: But that's the opposite of "time flies when you're having fun", right? If what you're doing is entertaining and new, time passes quickly; if it's boring time goes slowly.
Nina: Maybe the saying is wrong.
Bellboy: Maybe it's that if what you're doing requires little new thought, time seems to go more quickly. Maybe remembered time is measured in thought-hours. Sometimes fun things are easy things, which don't require a lot of thought. If you're sitting in a waiting room with nothing but 'no smoking' signs to read, there's nothing to do but think, and so time seems to drag on.
Argo: So I haven't been thinking recently? So I'm not consuming enough thought-hours?
Nina: Or, you're forgetting how much you've thought about. Or maybe you just haven't done anything but stand outside and smoke and talk about stupid boring nonsense with your coworkers.
(Nina leaves)
Argo: Maybe I've reached a new level of thought; I do so much hard, serious thinking that it's automatic, and it takes no effort. I'd have to think about what I was thinking about to actually remember the time spent thinking. Maybe I should be writing it down.
Bellboy: I'm sure that's it, Argo. You're full of crap.
(Bellboy leaves)
Argo: Maybe I'm getting old, and I'm going to die soon. That would be good.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
A New Post!
Jingping and I made a lot of cookies last night! I don't know what's wrong with us. We made a load of peanut butter cookies, and a load of chocolate chip cookies. I had six cookies, a glass of water with orange juice, and two cups of coffee for lunch! I don't feel so good. If anyone wants some cookies, they should come over soon, before I get cookie poisoning!
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Moving On:
Adolph: Vat ist dat?
Andrew: This is data from my experiment.
Adolph: Vat are you doink vis it?
Andrew: I am making pretty plots out of it. Look at this one. Isn't it pretty?
Adolph: Vat does it mean?
Andrew: I don't know.
Andrew: This is data from my experiment.
Adolph: Vat are you doink vis it?
Andrew: I am making pretty plots out of it. Look at this one. Isn't it pretty?
Adolph: Vat does it mean?
Andrew: I don't know.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Question
So, I spent a couple of hours this afternoon trying to find an authoritative... answer to this question. Nothing I found satisfied me, though I'm not exactly an anthropologist or child psychologist or anything like that, so I shouldn't expect to be too successful.
Anyway:
Where do kids learn their games from? The three answers to this question are: other kids, older kids, and grown-ups. I just wonder what the proportions are. I'm pretty sure that I learned tag and hide-and-go-seek from other or older kids. Though, it is conceivable that my parents taught me the games when I was too little to remember. People should suggest their intuitions to me. Is there a self-perpetuating children's culture underneath us all, with tag being passed largely from generation to generation of children, without much significant input from adults?
Also, where does the "nyaah nyaah nyaah" song come from? I don't know the name of it. You sing it when you beat someone, or when they can't catch you. You can sing it with "nanny nanny boo boo, you can't catch me!". What is this song? Why did Freddie Mercury write "We are the Champions" around it?
Anyway:
Where do kids learn their games from? The three answers to this question are: other kids, older kids, and grown-ups. I just wonder what the proportions are. I'm pretty sure that I learned tag and hide-and-go-seek from other or older kids. Though, it is conceivable that my parents taught me the games when I was too little to remember. People should suggest their intuitions to me. Is there a self-perpetuating children's culture underneath us all, with tag being passed largely from generation to generation of children, without much significant input from adults?
Also, where does the "nyaah nyaah nyaah" song come from? I don't know the name of it. You sing it when you beat someone, or when they can't catch you. You can sing it with "nanny nanny boo boo, you can't catch me!". What is this song? Why did Freddie Mercury write "We are the Champions" around it?
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Question
Should it be "materiel support", or "material support"? Materiel is like military hardware and supplies and stuff, whereas material is just stuff. So if you say, "Iran is providing materiXl support to our enemies", which materiXl should be used? Is "materiel support" the natural form of the phrase, but people use "material" just because it's a normaler word? Or is it just a coincidence that you can use "materiel" in a more generalized phrase while talking about military stuff?
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Introducing Bongo and Jingo Jango
Bongo: Man, that new library addition is so cool!
Jingo Jango: What are you talking about, Bongo? We spent 14,000,000 dollars to build a robot to do things for us which we've been doing for ourselves, for years, without even thinking about it!
Bongo: You mean taking a book off a shelf?
Jingo Jango: Right! Just a couple of years ago, if you wanted to get an article from the journal Vision Research, all you had to do was go up to the third floor, take the volume off the shelf, and go to the copy room. The copy room on the third floor had lots of tables, and three copiers.
Bongo: But now you can ask a robot to do it for you! Isn't that just cool?
Jingo Jango: No, Bongo. Now I have to ask a robot to do it for me. If I climbed into that giant, gymnasium-sized room with all the stacks of metal crates, and tried to find the metal crate with the volume of Vision Research I wanted, a security guard would probably shoot me.
Bongo: Come on, Jingo Jango. You're just a Luddite. Do you miss the days of the card catalog?
Jingo Jango: No, Bongo, and I don't miss riding a horse to Wal-Mart either. Putting the card catalog online made things easier, as long as you had a computer. And, naturally, libraries nowadays always have a few terminals with immediate access to the online catalog. But that was cool; it wasn't even that big of a change. A card catalog is naturally a type of database, so why not just make it a computer based one rather than a paper based one?
Bongo: But this thing is so cool! And it saves so much space! Now you don't have to walk to the engineering library across campus to get issues of the Journal of the Optical Society of America. Isn't that convenient? Plus, isn't the library itself like a big database? Isn't it natural, even, just to put all those books online and do away with the 'place' once and for all?
Jingo Jango: They could do it right. They could do more than put one crappy, old, half-operational copy machine on the first floor, halfway across the library from the 14,000,000 dollar robotic librarian. If I go to the kid at the desk with my list of 6 volumes of some journal, and say, "Hey, this journal isn't registered properly in your big gizmo over there. Get these for me", I could, in theory, wait fifteen minutes while they figure out how to get my books and wait for the robot to respond, and then carry all 4000 pages across the first floor to the copier, dump them on the floor, copy my articles, and then carry all 4000 pages plus copies back to the kid at the desk, and leave.
Bongo: You sound pissed.
Jingo Jango: But I don't. I make a point of saying, "I'm going to leave these here, on your shiny desk, while you sit and watch cartoons, and I'm going to take them one at a time to the copier, and don't you think it's silly that there aren't any copiers around here, given that that stupid machine is full of thousands of volumes of journals which no one is allowed to check out of the library, and please don't do anything with them while they're there."
Bongo: Stop complaining. You're such an asshole. I'm sure one of these days they'll tear down the new Starbucks next door and spend the next 14,000,000 dollars on a room full of tables and new copiers.
Jingo Jango: You're funny, Bongo.
Bongo: Anyway, they'll work it out. And I'm right, you know. A lot of journals aren't even printed on paper anymore. Eventually everything will get scanned, and it will all be online. The library will be nothing but kids sitting at desks watching cartoons.
Jingo Jango: They could at least let me into that room so I can get my books myself. If it's so simple, anyone should be able to use it.
Bongo: I wonder what happens when the license on the software runs out. I remember a story about a robotic parking lot in New Jersey, which worked just like the library robot, and the city was refusing to pay yearly software licenses after a new council got elected, something like that.
Jingo Jango: So everyone's car gets stuck in the garage if they don't get it out by the license expiration date. That's nuts. What if the Russians detonate an EM weapon over the library? How will anyone know what's inside all those metal boxes?
Bongo: No one will care, they'll be too busy eating their cellphones.
Jingo Jango: What are you talking about, Bongo? We spent 14,000,000 dollars to build a robot to do things for us which we've been doing for ourselves, for years, without even thinking about it!
Bongo: You mean taking a book off a shelf?
Jingo Jango: Right! Just a couple of years ago, if you wanted to get an article from the journal Vision Research, all you had to do was go up to the third floor, take the volume off the shelf, and go to the copy room. The copy room on the third floor had lots of tables, and three copiers.
Bongo: But now you can ask a robot to do it for you! Isn't that just cool?
Jingo Jango: No, Bongo. Now I have to ask a robot to do it for me. If I climbed into that giant, gymnasium-sized room with all the stacks of metal crates, and tried to find the metal crate with the volume of Vision Research I wanted, a security guard would probably shoot me.
Bongo: Come on, Jingo Jango. You're just a Luddite. Do you miss the days of the card catalog?
Jingo Jango: No, Bongo, and I don't miss riding a horse to Wal-Mart either. Putting the card catalog online made things easier, as long as you had a computer. And, naturally, libraries nowadays always have a few terminals with immediate access to the online catalog. But that was cool; it wasn't even that big of a change. A card catalog is naturally a type of database, so why not just make it a computer based one rather than a paper based one?
Bongo: But this thing is so cool! And it saves so much space! Now you don't have to walk to the engineering library across campus to get issues of the Journal of the Optical Society of America. Isn't that convenient? Plus, isn't the library itself like a big database? Isn't it natural, even, just to put all those books online and do away with the 'place' once and for all?
Jingo Jango: They could do it right. They could do more than put one crappy, old, half-operational copy machine on the first floor, halfway across the library from the 14,000,000 dollar robotic librarian. If I go to the kid at the desk with my list of 6 volumes of some journal, and say, "Hey, this journal isn't registered properly in your big gizmo over there. Get these for me", I could, in theory, wait fifteen minutes while they figure out how to get my books and wait for the robot to respond, and then carry all 4000 pages across the first floor to the copier, dump them on the floor, copy my articles, and then carry all 4000 pages plus copies back to the kid at the desk, and leave.
Bongo: You sound pissed.
Jingo Jango: But I don't. I make a point of saying, "I'm going to leave these here, on your shiny desk, while you sit and watch cartoons, and I'm going to take them one at a time to the copier, and don't you think it's silly that there aren't any copiers around here, given that that stupid machine is full of thousands of volumes of journals which no one is allowed to check out of the library, and please don't do anything with them while they're there."
Bongo: Stop complaining. You're such an asshole. I'm sure one of these days they'll tear down the new Starbucks next door and spend the next 14,000,000 dollars on a room full of tables and new copiers.
Jingo Jango: You're funny, Bongo.
Bongo: Anyway, they'll work it out. And I'm right, you know. A lot of journals aren't even printed on paper anymore. Eventually everything will get scanned, and it will all be online. The library will be nothing but kids sitting at desks watching cartoons.
Jingo Jango: They could at least let me into that room so I can get my books myself. If it's so simple, anyone should be able to use it.
Bongo: I wonder what happens when the license on the software runs out. I remember a story about a robotic parking lot in New Jersey, which worked just like the library robot, and the city was refusing to pay yearly software licenses after a new council got elected, something like that.
Jingo Jango: So everyone's car gets stuck in the garage if they don't get it out by the license expiration date. That's nuts. What if the Russians detonate an EM weapon over the library? How will anyone know what's inside all those metal boxes?
Bongo: No one will care, they'll be too busy eating their cellphones.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
I am eating a peanut butter sandwich
It is time to change the subject. I'm tired of scrolling down the page just to see if I have any new comments. If any of my legions want to comment now, I will be able to see it easily because this post is so short.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Scariest Animals
I would choose "spider" as the scariest animal. This is because it has such a completely inhuman appearance. The scariest animals are the killers. Spiders, cats, sharks, and snakes. There are probably others, but those are the scariest. You could say that a killer monkey is also scary, and this is definitely true. You imagine yourself locked in a room with a killer monkey your size, and you are definitely scared. But a killer monkey is just one type of monkey. Many monkeys are not killers, and probably would not hurt you if you were alone with them in a room.
The point about the monkey is also true for bears and dogs, which by the way are closely related to one another. Bears and dogs can be killers, but they also eat garbage and fruit, meaning that killing is not all that they think about. A dog can be your friend, and you can be his friend in return. Bears have a reputation for being big and lazy, though this is not necessarily true. "Killer bear", as well as "killer dog", is a useful specifier.
Cats are killers. All they think about is killing other things. For fun, we might keep one around with us, to live with us, but only because that particular cat is small. Again, imagine yourself in a room with a cat which is your size, and you are scared. Notice that I do not have to say "killer cat", because we all know that all cats are killers. But cats are like us. They're warm-blooded, and they have babies which we all think are cute. A cat is a battle machine, but you can empathize with it.
Snakes can be scary. Like cats, all snakes are killers, and so it is redundant to say "killer snake". Going by the alone-in-a-room-with-it test, you can agree that a snake which is about your size is a scary thing. But there is something silly about a snake. It is scary in general, and is only concerned with killing things, but it doesn't have any legs, which makes it look like a noodle or a piece of rope. So in a way, snakes are kind of stupid looking. Noodles are not scary, and so this detracts from the scariness of a snake. But certainly, snakes are scary, I will agree with whoever claims this.
Sharks are also scary, but it is unlikely you will run into one, because they live in the ocean. To a fish, a shark is probably the scariest animal. However, to a human, or to any other monkey, a shark is not the scariest animal. You do not walk around in the woods at night fearful of being eaten by a shark. You can't even picture yourself alone in a room with one, unless it is a room full of water, in which case I agree it is very scary. Also, they look a lot like fish, and fish are not scary animals; so, like a snake, a shark looks like something which is not scary, which detracts from its scariness.
As an aside, I will mention that a crazy man with a knife, or a gun, or a chainsaw, or some other terrible thing, is undoubtably a very scary thing. But, like a killer dog or a bear, and indeed just like his brother the killer monkey, the crazy man is only one type of man. In general, men think about killing a lot, but they also think about other things which are not related.
What makes the spider so different from all of these scary animals? Well, obviously it is a lot smaller. This is related to another other thing which makes it different, and that is that it is an invertebrate. Further related to this invertebrate nature of the spider is its face: spiders do not have faces. They can have a dozen eyes all over the top of their head, and their mouths are not mouths at all, but orifices surrounded by poisonous hypodermic fangs and gripping appendages made to prevent you from escaping. They do not chew, but rather drink you as a beverage after they have dissolved you with digestive juices which they inject into your maimed, paralyzed body. This is terrible!
Now, at least a cat has a face. You can look a cat in the eye, and relate to it. A cat has a soul. A cat is a mammal. Cats have babies, which everyone calls kittens, and which everyone agrees are not scary at all. Imagine yourself in a room with a spider your size! Its exoskeleton would probably be bulletproof at such a scale. You couldn't look into its eyes unless it was a jumping spider or maybe a type of wolf spider, since those spiders do have frontally placed eyes which have relatively good acuity and color vision. But you wouldn't be fooled by these spiders. A jumping spider is a perverted mockery of a cat. You and the jumping spider have nothing in common. You cannot relate to the spider. Spiders do not love their babies, and no one thinks that their babies are cute. Spider babies will eat their mothers if they can't find someone else to kill first.
This is why I would choose the spider as the scariest animal. If you put me in a room with a spider which is my size, give me a big knife so that I can cut off my own head before the spider gets me. I'll fight the cat, or the snake, or the shark, especially if you give me a gun or a chainsaw. But not the spider. A spider is like an armor plated eight-legged poison-fanged tank. Man, I just thought the dumbest thought, which was, "I hope no spiders read this", because I am that scared of spiders.
The point about the monkey is also true for bears and dogs, which by the way are closely related to one another. Bears and dogs can be killers, but they also eat garbage and fruit, meaning that killing is not all that they think about. A dog can be your friend, and you can be his friend in return. Bears have a reputation for being big and lazy, though this is not necessarily true. "Killer bear", as well as "killer dog", is a useful specifier.
Cats are killers. All they think about is killing other things. For fun, we might keep one around with us, to live with us, but only because that particular cat is small. Again, imagine yourself in a room with a cat which is your size, and you are scared. Notice that I do not have to say "killer cat", because we all know that all cats are killers. But cats are like us. They're warm-blooded, and they have babies which we all think are cute. A cat is a battle machine, but you can empathize with it.
Snakes can be scary. Like cats, all snakes are killers, and so it is redundant to say "killer snake". Going by the alone-in-a-room-with-it test, you can agree that a snake which is about your size is a scary thing. But there is something silly about a snake. It is scary in general, and is only concerned with killing things, but it doesn't have any legs, which makes it look like a noodle or a piece of rope. So in a way, snakes are kind of stupid looking. Noodles are not scary, and so this detracts from the scariness of a snake. But certainly, snakes are scary, I will agree with whoever claims this.
Sharks are also scary, but it is unlikely you will run into one, because they live in the ocean. To a fish, a shark is probably the scariest animal. However, to a human, or to any other monkey, a shark is not the scariest animal. You do not walk around in the woods at night fearful of being eaten by a shark. You can't even picture yourself alone in a room with one, unless it is a room full of water, in which case I agree it is very scary. Also, they look a lot like fish, and fish are not scary animals; so, like a snake, a shark looks like something which is not scary, which detracts from its scariness.
As an aside, I will mention that a crazy man with a knife, or a gun, or a chainsaw, or some other terrible thing, is undoubtably a very scary thing. But, like a killer dog or a bear, and indeed just like his brother the killer monkey, the crazy man is only one type of man. In general, men think about killing a lot, but they also think about other things which are not related.
What makes the spider so different from all of these scary animals? Well, obviously it is a lot smaller. This is related to another other thing which makes it different, and that is that it is an invertebrate. Further related to this invertebrate nature of the spider is its face: spiders do not have faces. They can have a dozen eyes all over the top of their head, and their mouths are not mouths at all, but orifices surrounded by poisonous hypodermic fangs and gripping appendages made to prevent you from escaping. They do not chew, but rather drink you as a beverage after they have dissolved you with digestive juices which they inject into your maimed, paralyzed body. This is terrible!
Now, at least a cat has a face. You can look a cat in the eye, and relate to it. A cat has a soul. A cat is a mammal. Cats have babies, which everyone calls kittens, and which everyone agrees are not scary at all. Imagine yourself in a room with a spider your size! Its exoskeleton would probably be bulletproof at such a scale. You couldn't look into its eyes unless it was a jumping spider or maybe a type of wolf spider, since those spiders do have frontally placed eyes which have relatively good acuity and color vision. But you wouldn't be fooled by these spiders. A jumping spider is a perverted mockery of a cat. You and the jumping spider have nothing in common. You cannot relate to the spider. Spiders do not love their babies, and no one thinks that their babies are cute. Spider babies will eat their mothers if they can't find someone else to kill first.
This is why I would choose the spider as the scariest animal. If you put me in a room with a spider which is my size, give me a big knife so that I can cut off my own head before the spider gets me. I'll fight the cat, or the snake, or the shark, especially if you give me a gun or a chainsaw. But not the spider. A spider is like an armor plated eight-legged poison-fanged tank. Man, I just thought the dumbest thought, which was, "I hope no spiders read this", because I am that scared of spiders.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Political excitement
I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to my new congressional representative, Mr. John Yarmuth, who today unseated Republican incumbent Ann Northup! I thought he didn't have a chance, but I voted for him anyway. Gore.. Kerry.. Mongiardo.. Yarmuth! Hooray!
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
anyway, i told you guys that this war would be a great idea. it sure is turning out well.
i had a dream on sunday night which i think was pretty complicated, but here is the main part that I remember:
I go to this big garage, which is like an airplane hangar, but i'm there to get my oil changed, something like that. A guy in a uniform runs up to me, looks at me kind of funny, and asks what i need. I tell him whatever i'm there for, like, "can you change my oil?", and he looks confused. Then i notice that I'm riding a bicycle, and he says "I guess i could put air in your tires if you want", and i just sit there, kind of embarassed and uncomfortable. I don't remember what happened after that.
i had a dream on sunday night which i think was pretty complicated, but here is the main part that I remember:
I go to this big garage, which is like an airplane hangar, but i'm there to get my oil changed, something like that. A guy in a uniform runs up to me, looks at me kind of funny, and asks what i need. I tell him whatever i'm there for, like, "can you change my oil?", and he looks confused. Then i notice that I'm riding a bicycle, and he says "I guess i could put air in your tires if you want", and i just sit there, kind of embarassed and uncomfortable. I don't remember what happened after that.
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