Ben Gemel was hungry. He stalked past darkened storefronts, stared down a dazed hobo, and stood starkly at the corner of 5th and Elm. Ben Gemel had never been here before. He had only been in this city for a few hours. He looked south down 5th, east on Elm, north up 5th, and west on Elm, looking for some glow that might call out 'food sold here'. It was just after four in the morning. Ben Gemel saw a yellow glow, on a corner two blocks west. He read the letters on the sign, block letters arranged in two lines. "MR G'S DINE IN". A sign in the window said Mr G's opened at 4am. The menu looked reasonable. Ben Gemel started walking.
Ben Gemel had superior visual acuity. When he entered the Service, he was immediately singled out. The staff optometrician determined that his acuity was on the order of 20/2. He could get by fine without binoculars. At night, Ben Gemel could read a menu in a diner window from a thousand feet away. He could recognize a face at 5000 feet. He could do better when both eyes were good.
Approaching Mr G's, Ben Gemel noticed that the sky had cleared. He could see stars, and the approach of sunlight. Venus was over the horizon. Ben Gemel thought of Dalen Rutger. Was he angry? He probably was. It would be hard to keep one's composure, after such a humilation. When Ben Gemel reached Mr G's entrance, he paused. He looked through the round window at the top of the door, and imagined that he saw Dalen Rutger sitting at the counter, staring into his cup of coffee.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Sunk
"Station eight. In the field."
"I don't understand," said Dalen. He yawned, and asked "What do you mean?"
"The field," gasped Vic Hoyle. "Field." Vic's eyes rolled back, and he choked on his last breath. Images, remembered voices, and fragmented thoughts flowed through Vic Hoyle's mind. He made a final effort to piece together what had happened. Dalen's face was still in shadow, and Vic struggled to recognize it. His grip on Dalen's collar relaxed, and released, and his hand fell to his side, arm across his belly. Dalen sighed, and he waited for Vic Hoyle's last paroxysms of thought to dissipate.
"The field," said Dalen. With enormous effort he stood, and looked at the envelope he still held in both hands. He folded it once, along the shorter meridian, pulled open his jacket, and tucked the envelope into a pocket. For a moment he paused, his hand still in the pocket, still gripping the envelope.
From the same pocket he produced a tiny bottle, smaller than any of his fingertips, stopped with an even tinier cork. Inside was a miniscule seed, like a miniature cumin seed, brown with black striations from end to end. Dalen Rutger gazed at the seed, momentarily forgot where he was, that he was on the deck of a sinking ship, in a freezing harbor under a starry sky. Behind him there was a crash, of a crane or some other massive thing toppling into the water, and his reverie was broken.
Dalen placed the bottle back in the pocket with the envelope. He looked at the sky, looked for a familiar star or constellation. He thought about Ben Gemel, and about how he would make him pay for this disaster. He would pay in blood, and in tiny seeds.
From the shore Ben Gemel watched the flames rise from the sinking container ship. He knew that Dalen Rutger would survive, and that they would meet again.
"I don't understand," said Dalen. He yawned, and asked "What do you mean?"
"The field," gasped Vic Hoyle. "Field." Vic's eyes rolled back, and he choked on his last breath. Images, remembered voices, and fragmented thoughts flowed through Vic Hoyle's mind. He made a final effort to piece together what had happened. Dalen's face was still in shadow, and Vic struggled to recognize it. His grip on Dalen's collar relaxed, and released, and his hand fell to his side, arm across his belly. Dalen sighed, and he waited for Vic Hoyle's last paroxysms of thought to dissipate.
"The field," said Dalen. With enormous effort he stood, and looked at the envelope he still held in both hands. He folded it once, along the shorter meridian, pulled open his jacket, and tucked the envelope into a pocket. For a moment he paused, his hand still in the pocket, still gripping the envelope.
From the same pocket he produced a tiny bottle, smaller than any of his fingertips, stopped with an even tinier cork. Inside was a miniscule seed, like a miniature cumin seed, brown with black striations from end to end. Dalen Rutger gazed at the seed, momentarily forgot where he was, that he was on the deck of a sinking ship, in a freezing harbor under a starry sky. Behind him there was a crash, of a crane or some other massive thing toppling into the water, and his reverie was broken.
Dalen placed the bottle back in the pocket with the envelope. He looked at the sky, looked for a familiar star or constellation. He thought about Ben Gemel, and about how he would make him pay for this disaster. He would pay in blood, and in tiny seeds.
From the shore Ben Gemel watched the flames rise from the sinking container ship. He knew that Dalen Rutger would survive, and that they would meet again.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
A Train Ride!
(i never published this one for some reason; it's 3-26-12 now, here it goes, dated retroactively)
Vic arrived at work an hour late. He had been watching a stranger in the alley, from what he thought was a safe distance, through unusually heavy morning fog. He had missed his train, and had to wait on the platform with the front-end of the morning rush hour.
During his twenty minute wait, the platform had accumulated between fifty and sixty commuters, people who worked in the city in tall buildings. Most of them were supposed to be at their desks by eight o' clock. Vic was supposed to be at his post, selling tickets to travelers beneath the street at 9th Avenue Station, at seven o' clock.
As he boarded the 7:15 West Blue Regional to 9th Street, he glanced down the platform at all the commuters. Staring back at him from the same distance as he had been staring at the strange fellow in the alley a half hour earlier was the strange fellow himself. Ben Gemel caught Vic's glance and then quickly broke it, and boarded the train. As this is a common experience in public, and as he could not recognize the placid and anonymous face of Ben Gemel, Vic noticed nothing out of the ordinary, and boarded his own train car.
Ben Gemel took a seat in the nearly empty car. Lenape Station was the end of the line for the West Blue Regional, first and last stop. For the next twenty minutes, through six stops across the expanse of West City, the car was filled to capacity. Throughout his trip, Ben Gemel alternated between studying the attire of his fellow travelers and studying the smooth gray spot in the center of the palm of his right hand. At last, when the train came to 9th Street Station, Ben Gemel stood, thrust his hands into his pockets, and flowed out of the train with a third of the other riders.
Vic exited the train at the same moment as Ben Gemel, unknowing, and dodged across the station until he came to a door marked "MTA Personnel Only". He pressed his palm against a flat, black panel mounted next to the door, and pulled the door open. Inside, he was stopped at the security station, presented his credentials, and then rushed to his locker to retrieve his uniform.
Vic arrived at work an hour late. He had been watching a stranger in the alley, from what he thought was a safe distance, through unusually heavy morning fog. He had missed his train, and had to wait on the platform with the front-end of the morning rush hour.
During his twenty minute wait, the platform had accumulated between fifty and sixty commuters, people who worked in the city in tall buildings. Most of them were supposed to be at their desks by eight o' clock. Vic was supposed to be at his post, selling tickets to travelers beneath the street at 9th Avenue Station, at seven o' clock.
As he boarded the 7:15 West Blue Regional to 9th Street, he glanced down the platform at all the commuters. Staring back at him from the same distance as he had been staring at the strange fellow in the alley a half hour earlier was the strange fellow himself. Ben Gemel caught Vic's glance and then quickly broke it, and boarded the train. As this is a common experience in public, and as he could not recognize the placid and anonymous face of Ben Gemel, Vic noticed nothing out of the ordinary, and boarded his own train car.
Ben Gemel took a seat in the nearly empty car. Lenape Station was the end of the line for the West Blue Regional, first and last stop. For the next twenty minutes, through six stops across the expanse of West City, the car was filled to capacity. Throughout his trip, Ben Gemel alternated between studying the attire of his fellow travelers and studying the smooth gray spot in the center of the palm of his right hand. At last, when the train came to 9th Street Station, Ben Gemel stood, thrust his hands into his pockets, and flowed out of the train with a third of the other riders.
Vic exited the train at the same moment as Ben Gemel, unknowing, and dodged across the station until he came to a door marked "MTA Personnel Only". He pressed his palm against a flat, black panel mounted next to the door, and pulled the door open. Inside, he was stopped at the security station, presented his credentials, and then rushed to his locker to retrieve his uniform.
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Return
Ben Gemel was the figure in the alleyway, the one Vic Hoyle had seen in the morning. Through the fog, Vic could see someone pacing back and forth behind the church. Vic had stopped to watch. He met others in the alleyway sometimes, but when they were nearby, near enough to make eye contact, he never stopped to watch. It would be asking for trouble. But this morning Ben Gemel was far enough from Vic Hoyle that Vic felt safe stopping and watching. The mist added distance, made Vic feel as if he were further from Ben Gemel than he really was. He didn't realize this at the time.
Ben Gemel was looking for something he had thrown out of a window a half hour earlier. He had been meeting with a deacon, had brought something to sell him, and had noticed something interesting on the deacon's desk. A little brass disk, the size of a dime, with a loop on one side as if it were meant to hang on a necklace.
As the deacon rambled on about some righteous thing or another, trying to convince Ben Gemel to lower his price, Ben had concentrated all his mental energies on the brass disk. It was as if there was nothing else in the room! When the deacon stopped talking, Ben Gemel named a price. The deacon paused, smiled, and nodded. Ben Gemel stretched out his arm and opened his hand, palm up, in the space between himself and the deacon. In his palm there was a seed, tiny, tinier than a fennel seed, and heavier than the shoes Ben Gemel was wearing. Ben Gemel smiled a toothy smile at the deacon, and repeated his price.
The deacon crept forward, seemingly repelled by the miniscule object in Ben Gemel's upturned palm. He spoke one word: "Paid". He licked the tip of his index finger with a dry tongue, and pressed the fingertip into Ben Gemel's palm. There was a flash of light and a loud pop, and the deacon was replaced in the room by a pile of green ashes and an aromatic mist. Ben Gemel went to the deacon's desk, to the brass disk, and picked it up. He went to the window, pried it open, and tossed the disk into the alleyway.
Ben Gemel paced in the alleyway, searching for the disk. Vic Hoyle watched him from a smaller distance than was in fact safe or advisable. Ben Gemel knew he was being watched. He saw a glint of metal in a tuft of grimy gray grass, and knelt to have a look. It was his treasure. He picked it up, held it up to his one good eye, and smiled. It was a toothy smile.
Ben Gemel was looking for something he had thrown out of a window a half hour earlier. He had been meeting with a deacon, had brought something to sell him, and had noticed something interesting on the deacon's desk. A little brass disk, the size of a dime, with a loop on one side as if it were meant to hang on a necklace.
As the deacon rambled on about some righteous thing or another, trying to convince Ben Gemel to lower his price, Ben had concentrated all his mental energies on the brass disk. It was as if there was nothing else in the room! When the deacon stopped talking, Ben Gemel named a price. The deacon paused, smiled, and nodded. Ben Gemel stretched out his arm and opened his hand, palm up, in the space between himself and the deacon. In his palm there was a seed, tiny, tinier than a fennel seed, and heavier than the shoes Ben Gemel was wearing. Ben Gemel smiled a toothy smile at the deacon, and repeated his price.
The deacon crept forward, seemingly repelled by the miniscule object in Ben Gemel's upturned palm. He spoke one word: "Paid". He licked the tip of his index finger with a dry tongue, and pressed the fingertip into Ben Gemel's palm. There was a flash of light and a loud pop, and the deacon was replaced in the room by a pile of green ashes and an aromatic mist. Ben Gemel went to the deacon's desk, to the brass disk, and picked it up. He went to the window, pried it open, and tossed the disk into the alleyway.
Ben Gemel paced in the alleyway, searching for the disk. Vic Hoyle watched him from a smaller distance than was in fact safe or advisable. Ben Gemel knew he was being watched. He saw a glint of metal in a tuft of grimy gray grass, and knelt to have a look. It was his treasure. He picked it up, held it up to his one good eye, and smiled. It was a toothy smile.
Monday, December 01, 2008
Andrew,
I am wondering, how many lectures have you prepared?
How many pages of dissertation have you written lately?
Do you have a job yet?
Are you hungry?
How many pages of dissertation have you written lately?
Do you have a job yet?
Are you hungry?
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Mystery of the Numerous Forks
Ah..
I hadn't washed dishes in a couple of days, so there was a pile of them in the sink. For one person, I use a lot of dishes every day. There was also a bit of extra silverware left over from the last time I dishwashed, I must have given up before finishing.
Anyways, I noticed what I had noticed last time I washed a pile of leftover dishes at once, that there were a bunch of forks in the sink. This was strange, because I absolutely never eat with a fork. That last time, and this time, I stood there wondering, where are these forks coming from? I thought about everything I ate, at different times of day, weekdays or weekends, and none of them involve a fork. I use spoons or chopsticks. Never forks.
So, I gave up thinking about it, just couldn't figure it out. I even fantasized that maybe it was a signal from someone, someone who had been sneaking into my apartment when I wasn't there, or when I was asleep. They might be trying to frighten me by doing otherwise unexplainable things. But, I figured that now I was sensitized to fork use, and the next time one came up, I would be sure to notice, and the problem would be solved.
This morning I go to pack my lunch, getting covered bowls of leftovers from the refrigerator and scraping selections into my lunch container. Sure enough, I used a fork, and then I tossed it into the sink.
Problem solved, life can continue now.
I hadn't washed dishes in a couple of days, so there was a pile of them in the sink. For one person, I use a lot of dishes every day. There was also a bit of extra silverware left over from the last time I dishwashed, I must have given up before finishing.
Anyways, I noticed what I had noticed last time I washed a pile of leftover dishes at once, that there were a bunch of forks in the sink. This was strange, because I absolutely never eat with a fork. That last time, and this time, I stood there wondering, where are these forks coming from? I thought about everything I ate, at different times of day, weekdays or weekends, and none of them involve a fork. I use spoons or chopsticks. Never forks.
So, I gave up thinking about it, just couldn't figure it out. I even fantasized that maybe it was a signal from someone, someone who had been sneaking into my apartment when I wasn't there, or when I was asleep. They might be trying to frighten me by doing otherwise unexplainable things. But, I figured that now I was sensitized to fork use, and the next time one came up, I would be sure to notice, and the problem would be solved.
This morning I go to pack my lunch, getting covered bowls of leftovers from the refrigerator and scraping selections into my lunch container. Sure enough, I used a fork, and then I tossed it into the sink.
Problem solved, life can continue now.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Not locking my bike, and letting it get stolen
Man. So, I go to China, and before I go I put my bike in the stairwell, inside my building, where you need a key to get inside. I've already locked the wheel on Jingping's bike, and so naturally I tell myself to lock my bike, but apparently I forget. I get back from China 18 days later, and my bicycle is gone.
Now, it is my fault, and I am an idiot, for not putting the lock on the bicycle wheel. I know this. But I also blame one of my neighbors, though I don't know which one. Either 1) someone propped the outside door open so they could move something, or because they were too dumb to take their key with them, allowing one of the wandering neighborhood thieves to wander by, walk in an open door, and find my unprotected bike, or 2) one of my neighbors is himself a thief, or closely associates with thieves.
Muggings, break-ins, car windows smashed in, stuff stolen, bike seat taken. I am an idiot for living through all of these things and still not locking my bicycle.
Now, it is my fault, and I am an idiot, for not putting the lock on the bicycle wheel. I know this. But I also blame one of my neighbors, though I don't know which one. Either 1) someone propped the outside door open so they could move something, or because they were too dumb to take their key with them, allowing one of the wandering neighborhood thieves to wander by, walk in an open door, and find my unprotected bike, or 2) one of my neighbors is himself a thief, or closely associates with thieves.
Muggings, break-ins, car windows smashed in, stuff stolen, bike seat taken. I am an idiot for living through all of these things and still not locking my bicycle.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
幺典黑桃！ （the ace of spades)
如果你想赌，我说我是你人
你有时获，有时输，为我都是一样-
（吧吧吧吧吧，吧吧吧吧吧）
那愉快是游戏，你的说没有影响
（吧吧吧吧吧，吧吧吧吧吧）
我没有你贪欲，单独一牌我需
幺点黑桃，幺点黑桃！
你猜我就要输，也堵就是为愚
但那道我就喜欢，猴子，我不要成不朽的！
也不忘那王牌！
你有时获，有时输，为我都是一样-
（吧吧吧吧吧，吧吧吧吧吧）
那愉快是游戏，你的说没有影响
（吧吧吧吧吧，吧吧吧吧吧）
我没有你贪欲，单独一牌我需
幺点黑桃，幺点黑桃！
你猜我就要输，也堵就是为愚
但那道我就喜欢，猴子，我不要成不朽的！
也不忘那王牌！
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Getting my bike seat stolen, and buying an inadequate replacement
Oh gosh! Someone stole the seat right off my bicycle last week while it was locked up outside the building where I work every day. This brings us to the first point at which I am an idiot. At some point late in the afternoon I walked over to the music building to play the piano for a little while. The bicycle seat thief was probably at that very moment stealing the seat off my bicycle, and all I would have had to do was turn my head to the left, to see the spot beside the building where I had locked said bicycle, thereby catching the thief red-handed and giving myself an opportunity to interrupt him and given him a good talking to. So, I am an idiot for not casually checking on the status of my bicycle seat a good hour or so before I noticed it stolen, since I would have had some tiny chance of saving it.
Next, I waited a week to buy a new one, punishing myself by riding everyday to and from school without a seat, which is both dangerous and very difficult, since you basically have to stand the whole time, raising your center of gravity and making your legs do more work than usual. It also makes it impossible to pedal constantly, so you have to pedal in short bursts, which makes it even more difficult.
Anyway, I waited a week to buy a new one, and when I did, I bought a twenty dollar one at a bike shop, and it seemed comparable to the original, which was a pretty good seat for a $100 Walmart bike. Only when I got home with it did I explicitly realize that I couldn't attach this new seat, since the post connecting seat and bike had also been stolen. I went back to the bike shop, and asked about this, and they said I should bring the bike in since the post is measured in millimeters, and there are 18 different sizes, and it would be pretty tough for me to get that precision with an old wooden yardstick. At this point, I got a parking ticket for not paying the meter, and the guy was in the process of calling in a tow truck at the moment I came out of the shop, so that was close.
So, I return to the bike shop a third time with my bike, and they tell me it's $16 for the post thingie. I think to myself, at this rate replacing all the parts in my bike would cost probably $1000 dollars, so this is already an imprudent course of action, spending $36 for a new seat. So I get all cheap all of a sudden (yeah, right), and ask to exchange the $20 seat I previously bought for the cheapest one they had, which was just $10 and is basically a piece of hard plastic. So there's the second part: I am an idiot for thinking a comfortable bike seat is not worth $10, though my idiocy may be vindicated if someone also steals this new seat. Maybe they would have been more likely to steal the nicer one. I'm still an idiot. Idiot.
Next, I waited a week to buy a new one, punishing myself by riding everyday to and from school without a seat, which is both dangerous and very difficult, since you basically have to stand the whole time, raising your center of gravity and making your legs do more work than usual. It also makes it impossible to pedal constantly, so you have to pedal in short bursts, which makes it even more difficult.
Anyway, I waited a week to buy a new one, and when I did, I bought a twenty dollar one at a bike shop, and it seemed comparable to the original, which was a pretty good seat for a $100 Walmart bike. Only when I got home with it did I explicitly realize that I couldn't attach this new seat, since the post connecting seat and bike had also been stolen. I went back to the bike shop, and asked about this, and they said I should bring the bike in since the post is measured in millimeters, and there are 18 different sizes, and it would be pretty tough for me to get that precision with an old wooden yardstick. At this point, I got a parking ticket for not paying the meter, and the guy was in the process of calling in a tow truck at the moment I came out of the shop, so that was close.
So, I return to the bike shop a third time with my bike, and they tell me it's $16 for the post thingie. I think to myself, at this rate replacing all the parts in my bike would cost probably $1000 dollars, so this is already an imprudent course of action, spending $36 for a new seat. So I get all cheap all of a sudden (yeah, right), and ask to exchange the $20 seat I previously bought for the cheapest one they had, which was just $10 and is basically a piece of hard plastic. So there's the second part: I am an idiot for thinking a comfortable bike seat is not worth $10, though my idiocy may be vindicated if someone also steals this new seat. Maybe they would have been more likely to steal the nicer one. I'm still an idiot. Idiot.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
My New Look
Unfortunately, I promised to divert any visitors to see what I look like now:
http://retort27.blogspot.com/2008/03/mybf.html
Luckily, I don't get any visitors!
http://retort27.blogspot.com/2008/03/mybf.html
Luckily, I don't get any visitors!
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Post of the apocalyptic future to the future from the man of the past.
100th post!
I am writing this only out of the general hope that future generations might, in excavations of the ruins of this tomb, happen upon it and read it. Hello there, future generations! How did you make it through the War? How did you make it past the giant rats? I am certain that society has been rebuilt, and that your devices and contrivances are far more contrived than were those of my society, the one which brought such disaster upon itself. Oh dear... since my oxygen is clearly running out, I must be quick.
When you find this message, undoubtedly through the use of some seemingly magical gadget which can simply read information out of a decayed data-bank, I hope you are not too dismayed at my primitive, though surprisingly forward-looking, outlook. No, we in my time did not believe in magic, though we certainly found entertaining those who trained to perform outstanding feats of illusion and trickery. Still, even with all your high technology, you must be surprised to find yourself being addressed by one such as I, a man dead for more years than he lived. We were the same as you, we men and women of the past! We yearned to know the future, to know of the world which would follow us! People of the future, humanity, hear the call of the past, of one who has been crushed by the mistakes of his society! Be good to one another, and treat your fellows as if they too were men of the future, looking out on a world which you will never see or can never fathom.
Now, if, on the other hand, you are not the future of humanity, and are in fact a giant rat whose successive generations have through atomic mutation developed faculties of higher cognition and technological prowess, may I curse you with and bestow upon you a world of infinite troubles, wonders, and terrors. Beware, giant rat of the future! The world you have inherited is not all you think it is. Unless of course your cognitive skills are far beyond those of we extinct, or perhaps perpetually enslaved, humans, enabling you to comprehend matters far beyond the ken of a mortal man... Farewell giant rat of the future, or human of the future, and good luck to you in all that you do.
Gasp!
I am writing this only out of the general hope that future generations might, in excavations of the ruins of this tomb, happen upon it and read it. Hello there, future generations! How did you make it through the War? How did you make it past the giant rats? I am certain that society has been rebuilt, and that your devices and contrivances are far more contrived than were those of my society, the one which brought such disaster upon itself. Oh dear... since my oxygen is clearly running out, I must be quick.
When you find this message, undoubtedly through the use of some seemingly magical gadget which can simply read information out of a decayed data-bank, I hope you are not too dismayed at my primitive, though surprisingly forward-looking, outlook. No, we in my time did not believe in magic, though we certainly found entertaining those who trained to perform outstanding feats of illusion and trickery. Still, even with all your high technology, you must be surprised to find yourself being addressed by one such as I, a man dead for more years than he lived. We were the same as you, we men and women of the past! We yearned to know the future, to know of the world which would follow us! People of the future, humanity, hear the call of the past, of one who has been crushed by the mistakes of his society! Be good to one another, and treat your fellows as if they too were men of the future, looking out on a world which you will never see or can never fathom.
Now, if, on the other hand, you are not the future of humanity, and are in fact a giant rat whose successive generations have through atomic mutation developed faculties of higher cognition and technological prowess, may I curse you with and bestow upon you a world of infinite troubles, wonders, and terrors. Beware, giant rat of the future! The world you have inherited is not all you think it is. Unless of course your cognitive skills are far beyond those of we extinct, or perhaps perpetually enslaved, humans, enabling you to comprehend matters far beyond the ken of a mortal man... Farewell giant rat of the future, or human of the future, and good luck to you in all that you do.
Gasp!
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
important message
Post:
I hereby call a meeting of all party members, 4 am Wednesday at the fish counter. There has been an accident, and some duties need to be redistributed in the usual fashion.
This morning, as I was mixing up a new recipe for the newsletter I suddenly was struck by the coldest of chills. Winter, my abdomen was telling me, had at last arrived, and the heat had not yet been turned on. I rushed outside in one stocking and a bare foot, calling to my neighbors to shake out their flags and get ready for a parade, when the small toe on my bare foot caught between two sides of a narrow crack in the streetside masonry. In an instant, I was twisted, turned, and thrown flat on the side of my head.
So, a fire will need to be built, and an effigy burnt, and posters printed, all without my direct supervision. I will be there for the meeting but you will see for yourselves the degree to which the pain of my injuries has very nearly incapacitated me. As general secretary, it falls to me to appoint a standing supervisory secretary, as per party guidelines, and you all know what that means. I am sorry, but everyone is to bring a cat and a coffee tin to the meeting.
Also, when the next garbage cycle comes around, someone needs to remember to post blanket men at the dropoff on the corner of 5th and Main, seeing as how otherwise someone is going to get hit with something heavy, since that's usually where heavy appliances and old lab equipment get tossed out. If I could send a message up the spire, I would, and I hope that my previous message to this effect has been distributed by leaflet as I instructed in the last post. For whatever reason, the spirecrats are backlogged beyond their normal late-autumn backlog, and we have no choice but to wait until our complaints can be considered by the central committee.
Now, as for the winter parade, I only ask that if you feel a need to call on your neighbors to dust off their flags and put on their shiniest boots, you do so with shoes on and during a reasonable hour when someone might be expected to come to your aid should your understandable fervor and excitement bring you to some unfortunate accident.
Onward, fellow revolutionaries!
I hereby call a meeting of all party members, 4 am Wednesday at the fish counter. There has been an accident, and some duties need to be redistributed in the usual fashion.
This morning, as I was mixing up a new recipe for the newsletter I suddenly was struck by the coldest of chills. Winter, my abdomen was telling me, had at last arrived, and the heat had not yet been turned on. I rushed outside in one stocking and a bare foot, calling to my neighbors to shake out their flags and get ready for a parade, when the small toe on my bare foot caught between two sides of a narrow crack in the streetside masonry. In an instant, I was twisted, turned, and thrown flat on the side of my head.
So, a fire will need to be built, and an effigy burnt, and posters printed, all without my direct supervision. I will be there for the meeting but you will see for yourselves the degree to which the pain of my injuries has very nearly incapacitated me. As general secretary, it falls to me to appoint a standing supervisory secretary, as per party guidelines, and you all know what that means. I am sorry, but everyone is to bring a cat and a coffee tin to the meeting.
Also, when the next garbage cycle comes around, someone needs to remember to post blanket men at the dropoff on the corner of 5th and Main, seeing as how otherwise someone is going to get hit with something heavy, since that's usually where heavy appliances and old lab equipment get tossed out. If I could send a message up the spire, I would, and I hope that my previous message to this effect has been distributed by leaflet as I instructed in the last post. For whatever reason, the spirecrats are backlogged beyond their normal late-autumn backlog, and we have no choice but to wait until our complaints can be considered by the central committee.
Now, as for the winter parade, I only ask that if you feel a need to call on your neighbors to dust off their flags and put on their shiniest boots, you do so with shoes on and during a reasonable hour when someone might be expected to come to your aid should your understandable fervor and excitement bring you to some unfortunate accident.
Onward, fellow revolutionaries!
Monday, October 15, 2007
Andrew's House of Noodles
It is true that even I do not visit this site anymore. Others are probably afraid that they will come and be exposed to more comic dialogues on probability summation. Look at that dropoff! It's almost linear. That is fantastic, I say.
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
a short play
McQueen: still working on prelim.
Sorensen: should be done any hour now.
McQueen: still need a paragraph or two on 'transient and sustained mechanisms'.
Sorensen: need to cut down on the long bits.
O'Leary: figures. need figures.
Sorensen: should be done any hour now.
McQueen: still need a paragraph or two on 'transient and sustained mechanisms'.
Sorensen: need to cut down on the long bits.
O'Leary: figures. need figures.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Introducing Elgar and Stern
Elgar: It's interesting that, still, no one is able to explain the nonlinearity of contrast detection for human observers.
Stern: Why is that so interesting?
Elgar: I mean, academically it's interesting. In an everyday sense, it's probably not as interesting as most things that-
Stern: I understand. So, why would you say it's so interesting?
Elgar: It's just something that people have been talking about for a long time. Very weak contrasts seem to be brought into visual awareness by an expansive nonlinearity.
Stern: What does that mean, exactly?
Elgar: Basically, it means that input is being raised to a power greater than one, as a part of the detection process.
Stern: Input being contrast.
Elgar: Right. Specifically, it seems as if contrast is raised to a power of around 2.5. The thing is, your brain is not an equation. Even though we can write an equation to perfectly describe your perception of different signal intensities, we really don't have a good idea of what, physically at least, that equation is describing. There are several candidates.
Stern: I can't wait for you to describe them to me.
Elgar: The simplest one is just to say that the transducer is simply built in such a way that it transforms input into output as a power function.
Stern: Like a neuron, maybe?
Elgar: Could be. Or maybe a networked population of neurons. Maybe for low signal intensities, a contrast-detection neuron just has an accelerating response to increasing input. Then, you still have to explain why that particular nonlinearity goes away for higher contrasts, but people love to suggest different sorts of gain control, so it's not really a problem.
Stern: Wait, it goes away? Are you talking about transducer saturation? Weber's law, that kind of stuff?
Elgar: Right. Once you've detected a signal, and intensity continues to increase, the apparent increase in response, as well as your perceived intensity, increases as a power less than one. So, for example, the stronger the signal is, the bigger the difference in intensity you're going to need to notice an increase. That's kind of like Weber's law.
Stern: I thought that was Weber's law.
Elgar: Strictly speaking, Weber's law is where you need a constant fraction of the current signal intensity in order to tell a difference. If I need to add 1 pound for you to notice a difference in a 10 pound load, and I also need to add 5 pounds for you to notice a difference in a 50 pound load, the fraction is constant, and that's Weber's law behavior.
Stern: Okay, I get it. So, an accelerating transducer is one explanation for the detection nonlinearity. What else is there?
Elgar: Well, it could be that all of your neurons transduce linearly near the detection threshold. Plus, it's certainly true that you have lots and lots of neurons. If both of these are the case, and if you're monitoring lots and lots of neurons waiting for a signal to pop out against the background noise level, then uncertainty theory suggests that as intensity increases your sensitivity to the signal will increase rapidly as you become more and more certain as to which neurons are the best ones to monitor.
Stern: So why does uncertainty theory predict an accerating increase in sensitivity? That's not exactly an intuitive idea.
Elgar: I know. It's a mathematical thing. 'Certainty' is kind of just an ad hoc way of describing an outcome. If you're making decisions based on the biggest responses you see over a set of neurons, you effectively have a variable noise source. When the signal is weak, the important noise is a combination of all those neurons that don't matter, and the ones that do. When the signal is strong, the only noise that matters is what's in the relevant neurons, because those will always have the largest responses. The transition between weak and strong signals, then, basically corresponds to a transition from high to low noise, which is equivalent to an increase in sensitivity. An increase in instantaneous sensitivity with increasing signal strength appears as an acceleration in overall sensitivity! For strong signals, the observer's behavior will just follow whatever the transduction function of the neuron is. In this case, maybe it saturates as a power less than one.
Stern: Man.
Elgar: There's one more explanation, one that I don't know much about.
Stern: So this will be a brief explanation.
Elgar: I hope so. The nonlinear transducer and uncertainty theories both abide by standard assumptions of signal detection theory. So, they assume that even below 'threshold', the neurons, or whatever, are actually responding to the signal; the response is just hopelessly buried in noise.
Stern: What if there is no noise? Why do you keep mentioning noise?
Elgar: All systems are noisy, and usually the noise has a number of different sources. In the visual system you have photon noise, metabolic variability, eye movements, thermal noise, and other things. All of these, we hope, combine to produce basically Gaussian noise. But there's no chance at all that there could be no noise, and in fact every model of signal detection, perceptual or otherwise, implicitly contains terms for performance-limiting noise.
Stern: I think I knew that already. I should have known that this wouldn't be a simple idea.
Elgar: Actually, noise isn't what I'm talking about. My point is that the first two theories assume, sort of, that the signal is always transduced, and that uncertainty or noise limit detection. The last option is that this isn't true; that there is a true, 'hard threshold', which has to be acheived before any transduction takes place.
Stern: I see. Kind of like overcoming friction to get something moving across a surface. Up to a point, you may push and get no result, but with enough force you'll get it moving.
Elgar: That's it! So, maybe the transducer is linear, but it has a real zero-point. Some intensities just fail to evoke a response, but at some point the neuron gets turned on and starts transducing. If it's a steep enough function, depending how the noise is implemented something like this might just appear from the outside to be a sudden, brief acceleration of response to an input.
Stern: Okay, I agree with you that maybe this is kind of interesting. But if I had to hear it more than once, I don't think I could take it.
Elgar: That's understandable. So, aren't you going to ask about how the ways in which noise can be implemented in a hard-threshold theory are especially interesting?
Stern: We'll save that for later. Can I just have my hamburger now?
Elgar: Alright. Did you want fries? I can't remember.
Stern: No fries, just a burger.
Stern: Why is that so interesting?
Elgar: I mean, academically it's interesting. In an everyday sense, it's probably not as interesting as most things that-
Stern: I understand. So, why would you say it's so interesting?
Elgar: It's just something that people have been talking about for a long time. Very weak contrasts seem to be brought into visual awareness by an expansive nonlinearity.
Stern: What does that mean, exactly?
Elgar: Basically, it means that input is being raised to a power greater than one, as a part of the detection process.
Stern: Input being contrast.
Elgar: Right. Specifically, it seems as if contrast is raised to a power of around 2.5. The thing is, your brain is not an equation. Even though we can write an equation to perfectly describe your perception of different signal intensities, we really don't have a good idea of what, physically at least, that equation is describing. There are several candidates.
Stern: I can't wait for you to describe them to me.
Elgar: The simplest one is just to say that the transducer is simply built in such a way that it transforms input into output as a power function.
Stern: Like a neuron, maybe?
Elgar: Could be. Or maybe a networked population of neurons. Maybe for low signal intensities, a contrast-detection neuron just has an accelerating response to increasing input. Then, you still have to explain why that particular nonlinearity goes away for higher contrasts, but people love to suggest different sorts of gain control, so it's not really a problem.
Stern: Wait, it goes away? Are you talking about transducer saturation? Weber's law, that kind of stuff?
Elgar: Right. Once you've detected a signal, and intensity continues to increase, the apparent increase in response, as well as your perceived intensity, increases as a power less than one. So, for example, the stronger the signal is, the bigger the difference in intensity you're going to need to notice an increase. That's kind of like Weber's law.
Stern: I thought that was Weber's law.
Elgar: Strictly speaking, Weber's law is where you need a constant fraction of the current signal intensity in order to tell a difference. If I need to add 1 pound for you to notice a difference in a 10 pound load, and I also need to add 5 pounds for you to notice a difference in a 50 pound load, the fraction is constant, and that's Weber's law behavior.
Stern: Okay, I get it. So, an accelerating transducer is one explanation for the detection nonlinearity. What else is there?
Elgar: Well, it could be that all of your neurons transduce linearly near the detection threshold. Plus, it's certainly true that you have lots and lots of neurons. If both of these are the case, and if you're monitoring lots and lots of neurons waiting for a signal to pop out against the background noise level, then uncertainty theory suggests that as intensity increases your sensitivity to the signal will increase rapidly as you become more and more certain as to which neurons are the best ones to monitor.
Stern: So why does uncertainty theory predict an accerating increase in sensitivity? That's not exactly an intuitive idea.
Elgar: I know. It's a mathematical thing. 'Certainty' is kind of just an ad hoc way of describing an outcome. If you're making decisions based on the biggest responses you see over a set of neurons, you effectively have a variable noise source. When the signal is weak, the important noise is a combination of all those neurons that don't matter, and the ones that do. When the signal is strong, the only noise that matters is what's in the relevant neurons, because those will always have the largest responses. The transition between weak and strong signals, then, basically corresponds to a transition from high to low noise, which is equivalent to an increase in sensitivity. An increase in instantaneous sensitivity with increasing signal strength appears as an acceleration in overall sensitivity! For strong signals, the observer's behavior will just follow whatever the transduction function of the neuron is. In this case, maybe it saturates as a power less than one.
Stern: Man.
Elgar: There's one more explanation, one that I don't know much about.
Stern: So this will be a brief explanation.
Elgar: I hope so. The nonlinear transducer and uncertainty theories both abide by standard assumptions of signal detection theory. So, they assume that even below 'threshold', the neurons, or whatever, are actually responding to the signal; the response is just hopelessly buried in noise.
Stern: What if there is no noise? Why do you keep mentioning noise?
Elgar: All systems are noisy, and usually the noise has a number of different sources. In the visual system you have photon noise, metabolic variability, eye movements, thermal noise, and other things. All of these, we hope, combine to produce basically Gaussian noise. But there's no chance at all that there could be no noise, and in fact every model of signal detection, perceptual or otherwise, implicitly contains terms for performance-limiting noise.
Stern: I think I knew that already. I should have known that this wouldn't be a simple idea.
Elgar: Actually, noise isn't what I'm talking about. My point is that the first two theories assume, sort of, that the signal is always transduced, and that uncertainty or noise limit detection. The last option is that this isn't true; that there is a true, 'hard threshold', which has to be acheived before any transduction takes place.
Stern: I see. Kind of like overcoming friction to get something moving across a surface. Up to a point, you may push and get no result, but with enough force you'll get it moving.
Elgar: That's it! So, maybe the transducer is linear, but it has a real zero-point. Some intensities just fail to evoke a response, but at some point the neuron gets turned on and starts transducing. If it's a steep enough function, depending how the noise is implemented something like this might just appear from the outside to be a sudden, brief acceleration of response to an input.
Stern: Okay, I agree with you that maybe this is kind of interesting. But if I had to hear it more than once, I don't think I could take it.
Elgar: That's understandable. So, aren't you going to ask about how the ways in which noise can be implemented in a hard-threshold theory are especially interesting?
Stern: We'll save that for later. Can I just have my hamburger now?
Elgar: Alright. Did you want fries? I can't remember.
Stern: No fries, just a burger.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Playing computer games when I should be studying
I have lots of things I should be doing. I should be working on my qualifying exam, which is this long paper which has to be researched and all that stuff. I am writing it, but it's pretty slow. Also, I should be constantly designing new experiments, and recruiting subjects, and running in my own experiments. I am doing these things, but it all feels kind of half-assed. What I'm all about is playing with this WWII strategy game I downloaded a couple of months ago. It's really hard to stop, and I've wasted many, many hours playing with it instead of reading/writing/programming. I am supposed to be a grownup doing work, not a kid playing video games. I am completely and hugely an idiot.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Jingping looking at papers...
Can't rightfully call this a crappy comic, but wanted to broadcast the cartoon Jingping, while the real one is in China... No cartoon lonely Andrew is available...
Monday, July 09, 2007
Introducing Frederick and Rollo
Frederick: I thought of something a few days ago, that I wanted to write down here.
Rollo: But you've forgotten it?
Frederick: That's right.
Rollo: Why didn't you write it down then, when you thought of it?
Frederick: I was probably falling asleep, or driving.
Rollo: You should have remembered.
Frederick: I know. Then this would be about something.
Rollo: What is this?
Frederick: It's true that it's not nothing. But I know that it's not interesting, and to most people something which isn't interesting may as well be nothing.
Rollo: You could take interest as a measure of the extent to which something exists to a person.
Frederick: That's kind of a truism, isn't it?
Rollo: I guess so.
Frederick: Hm..
Rollo: Yeah.
Frederick: Have you seen the Transformers movie?
Rollo: Right, I can't believe Megatron went down so easy.
Rollo: But you've forgotten it?
Frederick: That's right.
Rollo: Why didn't you write it down then, when you thought of it?
Frederick: I was probably falling asleep, or driving.
Rollo: You should have remembered.
Frederick: I know. Then this would be about something.
Rollo: What is this?
Frederick: It's true that it's not nothing. But I know that it's not interesting, and to most people something which isn't interesting may as well be nothing.
Rollo: You could take interest as a measure of the extent to which something exists to a person.
Frederick: That's kind of a truism, isn't it?
Rollo: I guess so.
Frederick: Hm..
Rollo: Yeah.
Frederick: Have you seen the Transformers movie?
Rollo: Right, I can't believe Megatron went down so easy.
Monday, June 04, 2007
I think that it's important that the factors of a number which can add up to the quotient of a trillion tons of lumber can be factored in a manner that is quite a hefty matter to a monkey in a t-shirt that just hides how he is fatter than he was a year before when he was working quite intently on this complicated application which required information which he didn't have upon him since he left his licence on the table in the diner where he ate some scrambled eggs and shouted "NOTHING CAN BE FINER" and then ate some chicken legs.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
I'm sure this is the best thing I could have done with the past hour.
Seeing as how there's a new Transformers movie coming in a few months, I felt it was important to have a discussion of the sociopolitical themes underlying the Transformers backstory. We are probably all aware that the story has seen many revisions, through many toy lines and cartoon series, several comic books, and a couple of movies. Some of the versions of the backstory have been stupid. I have to say, however, that the original, which I think went along with the first cartoon series, was the best. I'm not actually sure, but I may have actually made up most of this.
The Transformers of today were, essentially, originally two product lines, produced on a factory world called Cybertron. They were designed and distributed by an alien race called the Quintessons, who were featured in the first Transformers movie, though none of this story was made apparent there. The two major products consisted of a line of military hardware, and a line of industrial hardware. Apparently the Quintessons dealt mechanized arms and infrastructure all over the Galaxy. Over time, their products improved in sophistication to the point where, in sci-fi language we might say, the robots became 'sentient'. This probably happened gradually, as new models and technologies were introduced. At any rate, the products of Cybertron began to acquire an awareness of the complexities of their existence, and they began to see themselves as slaves.
What happened next was likely a series of 'slave revolts', culminating in a Cybertronian Revolutionary War against the Quintessons. The Quintessons tried to pit the robots of Cybertron against eachother, using their weaponized creations in an attempt to suppress the Revolution. They weren't successful in this, as even the military robots wanted their freedom. In the end, the Quintessons lost everything, having placed the whole of their civilization on the back of the Cybertron factory. We see them in the Transformers movie as a race of insane monsters, executing one another for nonsensical crimes, apparently forgotten by the Transformers themselves.
What followed was the Cybertronian Golden Age, where the robots of Cybertron worked to create a new, independent civilization. We don't know exactly how long this lasted, but it was thousands of years before the rift between the military and the workers opened up to armed conflict. Undoubtedly, the style of governance of the military robots and the industrial robots was different. Power sharing and compromise was long the rule, but eventually the leaders of an extremist faction of the military decided it was time to take power for themselves, and to redirect the resources of Cybertron into galactic expansion. We know this faction as the Decepticons, and they have been led from the beginning by a military robot named Megatron.
Megatron's coup destroyed the Cybertronian government, and he quickly instituted martial law. The split between the military and the industrials was not absolute, but was nearly so; most of the military robots accepted Megatron's rule as a positive evolution of Cybertronian society, while most of the 'civilian' robots now considered their way of life under siege. As a result, there was soon an industrial resistance movement, led by a sturdy pro-worker faction which we today know as the Autobots, and so began the Cybertronian Civil Wars.
The Autobots were by their nature unprepared for violent conflict, and at first there were disastrous setbacks. Over time, however, the Autobots were able to exploit their mastery of Cybertronian infrastructure to deprive the Decepticons of vital resources. Finally, an Autobot given the name Optimus Prime ("Best and First") emerged, and under his leadership the Decepticons were forced to retreat to the outlying Cybertronian satellite worlds.
These are interesting, particularly modern political themes. We have capitalists (the Quintessons), facing a slave revolt. This is a familiar theme, but the twist here is that these slaves were actually created by their masters. This must be an industrialist's worst nightmare: that not only will his workers will revolt but that his products and property will turn against him.
Next we have a revolution, where an alliance of the military (we can probably best think of these as the 'soldiers' rather than the 'establishment') and the workers overthrows the master class. This is an idealized version of a communist revolution, where the workers are aided by the army to overthrow the capitalists. In communist revolutions of the 20th century, the military begins the war utilized by the ruling class, but over time it gradually is absorbed by the revolutionaries (see China, Russia, Cuba, etc.).
Finally, military coups often follow social revolutions when the army perceives that the government has become compromised on one way or another (e.g. China after 1911). This is then followed by asymmetric civil war, where a non-military socialist movement attemps to wear down a military dictatorship by using a sympathetic populace to their advantage (see China in the 40's, the Viet Cong in the 60's, etc.). Usually, however, this is not successful, and what actually happens is that after many years the military government sees its work as done, and allows a transition to a softer and more democratic system (see Spain, Chile, Taiwan, etc.).
Let the discussion of the sociopolitical themes underlying the Transformers backstory begin. Go!!!
The Transformers of today were, essentially, originally two product lines, produced on a factory world called Cybertron. They were designed and distributed by an alien race called the Quintessons, who were featured in the first Transformers movie, though none of this story was made apparent there. The two major products consisted of a line of military hardware, and a line of industrial hardware. Apparently the Quintessons dealt mechanized arms and infrastructure all over the Galaxy. Over time, their products improved in sophistication to the point where, in sci-fi language we might say, the robots became 'sentient'. This probably happened gradually, as new models and technologies were introduced. At any rate, the products of Cybertron began to acquire an awareness of the complexities of their existence, and they began to see themselves as slaves.
What happened next was likely a series of 'slave revolts', culminating in a Cybertronian Revolutionary War against the Quintessons. The Quintessons tried to pit the robots of Cybertron against eachother, using their weaponized creations in an attempt to suppress the Revolution. They weren't successful in this, as even the military robots wanted their freedom. In the end, the Quintessons lost everything, having placed the whole of their civilization on the back of the Cybertron factory. We see them in the Transformers movie as a race of insane monsters, executing one another for nonsensical crimes, apparently forgotten by the Transformers themselves.
What followed was the Cybertronian Golden Age, where the robots of Cybertron worked to create a new, independent civilization. We don't know exactly how long this lasted, but it was thousands of years before the rift between the military and the workers opened up to armed conflict. Undoubtedly, the style of governance of the military robots and the industrial robots was different. Power sharing and compromise was long the rule, but eventually the leaders of an extremist faction of the military decided it was time to take power for themselves, and to redirect the resources of Cybertron into galactic expansion. We know this faction as the Decepticons, and they have been led from the beginning by a military robot named Megatron.
Megatron's coup destroyed the Cybertronian government, and he quickly instituted martial law. The split between the military and the industrials was not absolute, but was nearly so; most of the military robots accepted Megatron's rule as a positive evolution of Cybertronian society, while most of the 'civilian' robots now considered their way of life under siege. As a result, there was soon an industrial resistance movement, led by a sturdy pro-worker faction which we today know as the Autobots, and so began the Cybertronian Civil Wars.
The Autobots were by their nature unprepared for violent conflict, and at first there were disastrous setbacks. Over time, however, the Autobots were able to exploit their mastery of Cybertronian infrastructure to deprive the Decepticons of vital resources. Finally, an Autobot given the name Optimus Prime ("Best and First") emerged, and under his leadership the Decepticons were forced to retreat to the outlying Cybertronian satellite worlds.
These are interesting, particularly modern political themes. We have capitalists (the Quintessons), facing a slave revolt. This is a familiar theme, but the twist here is that these slaves were actually created by their masters. This must be an industrialist's worst nightmare: that not only will his workers will revolt but that his products and property will turn against him.
Next we have a revolution, where an alliance of the military (we can probably best think of these as the 'soldiers' rather than the 'establishment') and the workers overthrows the master class. This is an idealized version of a communist revolution, where the workers are aided by the army to overthrow the capitalists. In communist revolutions of the 20th century, the military begins the war utilized by the ruling class, but over time it gradually is absorbed by the revolutionaries (see China, Russia, Cuba, etc.).
Finally, military coups often follow social revolutions when the army perceives that the government has become compromised on one way or another (e.g. China after 1911). This is then followed by asymmetric civil war, where a non-military socialist movement attemps to wear down a military dictatorship by using a sympathetic populace to their advantage (see China in the 40's, the Viet Cong in the 60's, etc.). Usually, however, this is not successful, and what actually happens is that after many years the military government sees its work as done, and allows a transition to a softer and more democratic system (see Spain, Chile, Taiwan, etc.).
Let the discussion of the sociopolitical themes underlying the Transformers backstory begin. Go!!!
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