Blame this guy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-LcCHYuFMI
I like his idea for Avatar 2, but I also want to see how this one flies.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
A Joke
"2 and 2 make...?"
"Four."
"And if the party says two and two make five...?"
Extra: "Then they make five."
Hero: "They still make four."
Bastard: "The party should check its floating point handlers."
(2.49 + 2.49 = 4.98 -> 2 + 2 = 5)
"Four."
"And if the party says two and two make five...?"
Extra: "Then they make five."
Hero: "They still make four."
Bastard: "The party should check its floating point handlers."
(2.49 + 2.49 = 4.98 -> 2 + 2 = 5)
Friday, March 5, 2010
Denotations, Please!
"New rule: anyone who uses the word "corporation" in a debate has to define in within 15 seconds, or else forfeit entirely." --Adam "Rutskarn" DeCamp, via Twitter.
Good rule! Mind if I add a few words to that list? "Empire", "imperialism", "capitalism", "liberalism", "conservatism". The first two have some fairly specific denotations which tend to get lost in transcriptions, and the last three will change with time and place (e.g. P.J. O'Rourke's notes that American Capitalism = Wall Street and Albanian Capitalism = pyramid schemes). Any other words I should add?
Good rule! Mind if I add a few words to that list? "Empire", "imperialism", "capitalism", "liberalism", "conservatism". The first two have some fairly specific denotations which tend to get lost in transcriptions, and the last three will change with time and place (e.g. P.J. O'Rourke's notes that American Capitalism = Wall Street and Albanian Capitalism = pyramid schemes). Any other words I should add?
Thursday, March 4, 2010
A History of the Twenty-First Century--2012 to 2045, excerpts
(If Adalore at Cryptic Check is going to update on his fictional worlds, then goddammit, I am too! This is the history of "our world" before the discovery of the "fantasy world" in the same category. I'm trying to go for the stage or two before "post-apocalyptic dystopia"--the idea being that the 2045 world is one that could very easily reach that point, even if it hasn't yet.)
2012--Beliefs that the world will end on December 21st of this year leads to massive increases in "millenium" and apocalypse cults--self-flagellation and ritual bloodletting are common. December 20th and 21st sees a massive, massive spike in mass suicide and mass homicide--Masada and Jonestown carried out worldwide in hundreds, if not thousands, of communities. The world doesn't end, but the bloodshed and chaos is a harbinger for the rest of the century.
2017--The debate over the Kashmir still isn't settled. In an effort to "hurry things along", the Pakistani president begins brandishing the country's nuclear arsenal. The Indian leader takes this as an immediate act of war and orders the nukes launched. Pakistan retaliates just before the Indian nukes hit. Total dead estimated at over 150,000,000--total affected is over 1 billion.
2022--Palestinian extremists successfully smuggle "dirty bombs" into key areas in Israeli cities and set them off as planned. Their rejoicing is short-lived, however, as the fallout blows back into their faces, as well as into Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is thus settled for at least one hundred years, as the Holy Land is currently too radioactive to live in.
2025--A Russian-Polish conference over gas supplies in Krakow ends badly when the negotiation building is blown up. (Among the casualties are Davin's parents.) Both sides accuse the other of double-dealing, negotiations stall, and relations between Russia and the former Soviet Union worsen dramatically.
2027--Getting annoyed at the lack of progress on the UN Millenium goals (now 27 years late), various social justice groups assert 2027 as the year where all those happy qualities will finally come to pass. Unfortunately, various radical and anarchist groups in developed countries take this to be a sign to go on the attack, and almost immediately begin classically "resistive" actions such as fire-bombing businesses deemed "un-progressive" and nail-bombing and lynching people believed to be "tools of oppression". By 2045 most of this has calmed down, but there's still a distressing number of Molotov Cocktail incidents.
2033--Thanks to the same party causing the current Sudan genocide gaining new power, another genocide is occurring in Africa--this one a bit further east, in the Uganda-Kenya-Somalia area. This time, however, three U.S. military commanders convince the President to go forward with Operation Firebreak, an air and land invasion planned to suppress the new government. International troops slowly but surely make their presence known in the region on the U.S. side, including SAS forces, Ethiopian regular units, and Polish spec ops. However, the moment the "maneuvering war" is over in six months, Congress immediately cuts all funding for Operation Firebreak, and command is turned over to an international body. Believing that the enemy still has strength and that the world is no longer interested in victory, one of the commanders shoots himself on the way home.
2037--For some time now a new ideology has been spreading worldwide--a call for a new unity and internationalism, evoking the highest ideals of the U.N. (the body has been seen as hopelessly corrupt for a decade) and one-worldism. 140 countries sign the Global Union Charter, officially linking them politically, economically and militarily. This last one, as well as various pundits citing how such high ideologies usually turn bad, causes the remaining countries, including the U.S., Britain, and Japan, no small worry.
2038--The fears of the pundits are realized--Ramstein AFB in Germany is overrun in mid-decommission, as well as a number of smaller countries which did not originally sign the G.U. charter. The 15 or so countries left immediately sign on to a new military alliance. Attempting to evoke a sense of history, the alliance is named Nations Against Totalitarian Oligarchism, or NATO.
2044--The sixth nuclear arms reduction talk in six years between the two alliances breaks down over questions of trust and surveillance. A high G.U. leader blames NATO for the repeated breakdowns, and suggests that if the seventh one, scheduled for next year, meets similar failures, he may be forced to begin applying pressure.
August 15, 2045--the seventh arms talk begins...
2012--Beliefs that the world will end on December 21st of this year leads to massive increases in "millenium" and apocalypse cults--self-flagellation and ritual bloodletting are common. December 20th and 21st sees a massive, massive spike in mass suicide and mass homicide--Masada and Jonestown carried out worldwide in hundreds, if not thousands, of communities. The world doesn't end, but the bloodshed and chaos is a harbinger for the rest of the century.
2017--The debate over the Kashmir still isn't settled. In an effort to "hurry things along", the Pakistani president begins brandishing the country's nuclear arsenal. The Indian leader takes this as an immediate act of war and orders the nukes launched. Pakistan retaliates just before the Indian nukes hit. Total dead estimated at over 150,000,000--total affected is over 1 billion.
2022--Palestinian extremists successfully smuggle "dirty bombs" into key areas in Israeli cities and set them off as planned. Their rejoicing is short-lived, however, as the fallout blows back into their faces, as well as into Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is thus settled for at least one hundred years, as the Holy Land is currently too radioactive to live in.
2025--A Russian-Polish conference over gas supplies in Krakow ends badly when the negotiation building is blown up. (Among the casualties are Davin's parents.) Both sides accuse the other of double-dealing, negotiations stall, and relations between Russia and the former Soviet Union worsen dramatically.
2027--Getting annoyed at the lack of progress on the UN Millenium goals (now 27 years late), various social justice groups assert 2027 as the year where all those happy qualities will finally come to pass. Unfortunately, various radical and anarchist groups in developed countries take this to be a sign to go on the attack, and almost immediately begin classically "resistive" actions such as fire-bombing businesses deemed "un-progressive" and nail-bombing and lynching people believed to be "tools of oppression". By 2045 most of this has calmed down, but there's still a distressing number of Molotov Cocktail incidents.
2033--Thanks to the same party causing the current Sudan genocide gaining new power, another genocide is occurring in Africa--this one a bit further east, in the Uganda-Kenya-Somalia area. This time, however, three U.S. military commanders convince the President to go forward with Operation Firebreak, an air and land invasion planned to suppress the new government. International troops slowly but surely make their presence known in the region on the U.S. side, including SAS forces, Ethiopian regular units, and Polish spec ops. However, the moment the "maneuvering war" is over in six months, Congress immediately cuts all funding for Operation Firebreak, and command is turned over to an international body. Believing that the enemy still has strength and that the world is no longer interested in victory, one of the commanders shoots himself on the way home.
2037--For some time now a new ideology has been spreading worldwide--a call for a new unity and internationalism, evoking the highest ideals of the U.N. (the body has been seen as hopelessly corrupt for a decade) and one-worldism. 140 countries sign the Global Union Charter, officially linking them politically, economically and militarily. This last one, as well as various pundits citing how such high ideologies usually turn bad, causes the remaining countries, including the U.S., Britain, and Japan, no small worry.
2038--The fears of the pundits are realized--Ramstein AFB in Germany is overrun in mid-decommission, as well as a number of smaller countries which did not originally sign the G.U. charter. The 15 or so countries left immediately sign on to a new military alliance. Attempting to evoke a sense of history, the alliance is named Nations Against Totalitarian Oligarchism, or NATO.
2044--The sixth nuclear arms reduction talk in six years between the two alliances breaks down over questions of trust and surveillance. A high G.U. leader blames NATO for the repeated breakdowns, and suggests that if the seventh one, scheduled for next year, meets similar failures, he may be forced to begin applying pressure.
August 15, 2045--the seventh arms talk begins...
Sudden Acceleration Incidents...Eighteen Years Ago
Caught a news report discussing Toyota's recalls of various cars for "sudden acceleration" incidents. It reminded me of a PJ O'Rourke piece on the Audi 5000, which had similar complaints. As it turned out there, there were no defective parts on the Audi 5000--just a brake and acclerator pedal close together and a price low enough to be imported regularly during a time when imported cars were much in fashion. There was much hulabaloo over it, multiple government studies...an expensive mess. Wonder if something similar is going on now.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Thermodynamics Joke
A, outgoing: Jeez, B, you're a cold fellow, aren't you?
B, taciturn: Not cold, A. Adiabatic.
(i.e. does not exchange heat with the environment. If B is hot blooded, he keeps it well under wraps.)
B, taciturn: Not cold, A. Adiabatic.
(i.e. does not exchange heat with the environment. If B is hot blooded, he keeps it well under wraps.)
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Whether the Weather!?
Thunderstorms? In Southern California? FOR A WEEK STRAIGHT?!
It's more likely than you think!
It's more likely than you think!
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Pseudo-philosophy?
Have you ever had a day where you don't feel completely human? I don't mean in the sense that you're a god or some transcendent cosmic being like some motivational speakers suggest. I mean in the sense that you're some robot, or monster, or A.I., or alien; something pretending to be human and doing fairly poorly at it. Is this normal? Faulty, any help here?
Friday, January 15, 2010
To Berkeleyites:
That military power and "imperialist nature" you're always talking about? That's what allows us to get a U.S. Navy CVN with its attendent amenties to Haiti in 24 hours, lets us land choppers loaded with humanitarian aid rations in the same time (or just not even land--winch systems are always fun) and get the USNS Comfort out of harbor and into action in five days instead of five weeks.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Random Thoughts #12
How would blackjack be different if you played with a tarot deck, major arcana at all? Major arcana = face cards = 10, or major arcana = value of card (so Magician is 1, Heirophant is 5, World is 21...woe to the Fool (infinity, or zero)!). And don't forget that each minor suit has a "Knight" along with "King, Queen, Jack", so by the first set of rules you have 16 + 22 = 38 ten cards out of 56 + 22 = 78 deck. Almost half the deck is ten cards! Would you play?
Friday, January 8, 2010
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
The Universe of Mine (Get an apple pie ready)
School's out for winter (not Winter), Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, blah blah blah.
That universe I keep making oblique references to in other posts? Let's put it down here.
That universe I keep making oblique references to in other posts? Let's put it down here.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Random Thoughts #11
What if they gave a war and nobody came?
--Popular Vietnam-War era sentiment.
What if they gave a war and only one side came?
--Valkri's (and a hundred other people in my made up fictional universe) rebuttal.
--Popular Vietnam-War era sentiment.
What if they gave a war and only one side came?
--Valkri's (and a hundred other people in my made up fictional universe) rebuttal.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Random Thoughts #10
I haven't gotten karyotyped or anything, but Klinefelter's syndrome would explain A LOT.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
One Heck of a Voice Box
I've been on something of a Kaito binge the past few days. Here's one where his voice mutates into a saxophone! (Amongst other things)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps7daa3_Qgs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps7daa3_Qgs&feature=related
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Shineba Iinoni!
Synthesized J-pop from a man whose tastes include Original Rags and older music! LE GASP!
But I really like the tune. For some reason it feels like a nice "suck it!" to all the death metal I listen to off the dorm speakers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pqcfew2JCes&feature=channel_page
You wake up an hour late because you've hit the snooze button every five minutes.
You had two tests today, which you're pretty sure you botched.
You have a big research paper due next week, and you've only just begun.
And the speakers of the dorm play horrible tunes 16/7.
Sometimes life just sucks, and your retreat is childish fantasy.
I've got one now, and I'd like to share it with you!
I-wish-you all would die! I wish you all would die!
I wish that every last man would just drop dead!
I wish you all would die! I wish you all would die!
In a land so far away...!
(I don't know how that translates in Japanese, but hey, why not?)
But I really like the tune. For some reason it feels like a nice "suck it!" to all the death metal I listen to off the dorm speakers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pqcfew2JCes&feature=channel_page
You wake up an hour late because you've hit the snooze button every five minutes.
You had two tests today, which you're pretty sure you botched.
You have a big research paper due next week, and you've only just begun.
And the speakers of the dorm play horrible tunes 16/7.
Sometimes life just sucks, and your retreat is childish fantasy.
I've got one now, and I'd like to share it with you!
I-wish-you all would die! I wish you all would die!
I wish that every last man would just drop dead!
I wish you all would die! I wish you all would die!
In a land so far away...!
(I don't know how that translates in Japanese, but hey, why not?)
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
We are for Social Justice!
We cannot sanity check our figures!
Back in high school, the local advocacy club ran a poster campaign intending to draw attention to the problem of world hunger. Problem was, they couldn't agree on a number of people affected--I saw figures citing "deaths from hunger-related causes" ranging from 8 million, to 10 million, to 12 million, and one unfortunate soul made a poster consisting entirely of the line "30 million people a year die of hunger" repeated...when no less than thirty feet away was a poster citing a smaller figure.
Now in college, I run into another poster campaign, this time for rape and violence against women. I'm not in a position to check some of their figures (31% of women report being sexually assaulted by a significant other in their lifetimes--that's 46.5 million, but since it says "in their lifetimes" and doesn't give an explicit definition of sexual assault, I'll have to take it at its word). One poster, however, caught my eye. It said "One woman in the U.S. is raped every two minutes", and cited as its source the U.S. Department of Justice.
Quick multiplication tells us that 1 woman per minute = 30 an hour = 720 a day = 262800 a year. A quick Google search for the U.S. Dept. of Justice turns up a figure that conflates rape and sexual assault and gives a figure (trending down) of just over 200000 for 2008. Another search for the FBI places "forcible rape" for 2008 at just under 90000. Depending on how generous you are, the number given by the poster is either 20% off or 200% off, which doesn't speak well for the advocacy group.
Same place, different time--an advertising group claiming environmental holiness. Its claims: Americans waste 96 billion lbs. of food per year, and 25% can feed 4 million a day. Implications--each American wastes about 10/11ths lb. of food per day, and your average person eats 3 tons of food a day.
Does claiming you're working for a good cause free you of the burden of checking your numbers or something?
Back in high school, the local advocacy club ran a poster campaign intending to draw attention to the problem of world hunger. Problem was, they couldn't agree on a number of people affected--I saw figures citing "deaths from hunger-related causes" ranging from 8 million, to 10 million, to 12 million, and one unfortunate soul made a poster consisting entirely of the line "30 million people a year die of hunger" repeated...when no less than thirty feet away was a poster citing a smaller figure.
Now in college, I run into another poster campaign, this time for rape and violence against women. I'm not in a position to check some of their figures (31% of women report being sexually assaulted by a significant other in their lifetimes--that's 46.5 million, but since it says "in their lifetimes" and doesn't give an explicit definition of sexual assault, I'll have to take it at its word). One poster, however, caught my eye. It said "One woman in the U.S. is raped every two minutes", and cited as its source the U.S. Department of Justice.
Quick multiplication tells us that 1 woman per minute = 30 an hour = 720 a day = 262800 a year. A quick Google search for the U.S. Dept. of Justice turns up a figure that conflates rape and sexual assault and gives a figure (trending down) of just over 200000 for 2008. Another search for the FBI places "forcible rape" for 2008 at just under 90000. Depending on how generous you are, the number given by the poster is either 20% off or 200% off, which doesn't speak well for the advocacy group.
Same place, different time--an advertising group claiming environmental holiness. Its claims: Americans waste 96 billion lbs. of food per year, and 25% can feed 4 million a day. Implications--each American wastes about 10/11ths lb. of food per day, and your average person eats 3 tons of food a day.
Does claiming you're working for a good cause free you of the burden of checking your numbers or something?
Friday, October 23, 2009
Communist Party!
One of the dorms on campus is advertising a COMMUNIST PARTY tomorrow, with posters with Soviet Union propaganda pictures and slogans like "Red is the New Black" and "We Have Zeppelins!". All in good fun, I'm sure, and mocking old foes is a good way to ensure they don't rise again (see Mel Brook's repetoire [he's Jewish, by the way]), but I can't help but wonder if the school would approve of something else along similar lines. Say...
Fascist Party! Black is the New Black!
Maoist Party! Let a hundred shots be quaffed! Let a hundred minds be expanded!
Nazi Party! Heil to the King of Beers!
Fascist Party! Black is the New Black!
Maoist Party! Let a hundred shots be quaffed! Let a hundred minds be expanded!
Nazi Party! Heil to the King of Beers!
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Sleeeeeeep...
Sleep is good. Especially 12 hours worth. Which my roommate gets all the time. Now I know why. Sleeeeeeeepp...
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