Nuclear Siafu

Fish Harvest, update III

2010-03-25T14:36:00.003-06:00

Just dropped by?

Read Part One here.

Part Two is here.

Mike sat across from the craboid, its claws bound in rainbow bungee cords, in the closest thing Rowe Boat had to a conference room. Space being at a premium on a fishing boat, the area also tripled as a rec room, dining room, and kitchen. Mike had enjoyed many slapdash burritos here, and as he watched the craboid settle itself in, he wondered if ever would again.

Sure, it was ugly, but Mike had pulled stuff out of the ocean that looked just as awful, even if it didn't talk. It was the smell; that, and the leaking. Every time it spoke, a wave of funk seeped from every word, making every breath feel like it was being filtered through rotten sea weed. Viscous phlegm shot out from holes seemingly chosen at random as punctuation. In the one short exchange Mike had had with the craboid since getting it seated, it had scuzzed up the stove, the sink, and an entire tray of clean plates that would now have to be burned.

Binding the craboid's claws with bungee cords had actually been it's idea, claiming it to be a polite gesture of submission. It almost worked; the craboid looked ridiculous, restrained with those rainbow cords, but in Mike's mind the image of the steel railing bent like play-dough refused to let itself be dismissed.

The belly crab was left to itself. Its attention was focused solely on a little black box it had produced from who knows where. Deft armored fingers softly scraped the surface, coaxing it to emit occasional clicks, croaks, and flashes of light. It didn't even look up when Steve entered the room, although Mike noticed the lobster head snapped right to him.

“How bad?” Mike asked. Rowe Boat had arrived in time to pull the four coast guardsmen out of the water—alive, thank God, but only if you looked twice.

“They're breathing more than bleeding. I think,” Steve said. He picked up a rag, squinted at the goo the craboid had flicked onto it, then tossed it into the sink and wiped his brow with his hand. “Doesn't mean much. If there are any serious internal injuries they could bleed out and we wouldn't know till they were dead.”

“Still no luck on the radio?”

“Nothing but static.”

Mike rubbed his chin and considered the craboid. If it could be believed, Barsky and his crew were safely tucked away in something like a sub, awaiting a call to be released. That meant priority had to go towards getting those coasties medical attention, which meant making it easy for Dallas, the boat the helo had launched from, to find them. Which meant that the most productive thing to do was sit still and interrogate a glorified sea cockroach.

“So, what do we call you?” Mike asked.

“Any designation will do,” the craboid said.

“I kept this snow crab as a pet once,” Steve said. “Named it Chauncey.”

Mike raised an eyebrow.

“Daughter. My, uh, daughter named it Chauncey.”

“Chauncey,” Mike said. “Sure, why not? So, Chauncey, first item: why have you been screwing with the boats out here all this time?” This time Chauncey's belly crab looked up.

“We have avoided you until now.”

Mike snorted. “Oh come on. I know what's going on. I've seen movies. These mannafish show up, sea life starts to flourish—and I mean insanely flourish; there are more whales now than the Japanese can kill. Real miraculous stuff. These things are your kids, right?”

“No.”

“Fish-mates?”

“I do not—”

“No, no, you're right. I'm over-thinking it. They're yourselves in the past, and you're from the future to protect them.”

Steve shook his head. “Doesn't make sense.”

“I know! Chauncey, you really expect us to believe—”

“No, I mean about the future thing.” Steve pointed at Chauncey's belly crab and wiggled his fingers. “See, the morphology is all wrong. Shouldn't they have evolved from some kind of tool-using crab?”

Chauncey looked from Steve to the Mike and emitted a particularly thick glob that might have signified confusion.

“Is this relevant—“

“It's a fair point,” Mike said. “So, which is it?”

“We have no...direct relation. Your 'mannafish' are are an unfortunate side effect of our environmental modifications.”

Mike blinked. “Unfortunate? You ever try one?”

“Of course not. They're not for—you have been eating them?” Chauncey laughed. At least, Mike hoped that's what it was. It shook and leaked a bit more; the load of dishware that needed to be burned got a little heavier. Chauncey settled down after half a minute.

“You are harvesting food. That is fortunate, but also distressing. Here is your tormenter.”

Chauncey's black box made a fizzing sound and a hologram flared into existence, showing a view from above. Mike would say bird's eye, but he doubted there was any variety of bird that hovered in orbit. Chauncey scritched the box and the picture zoomed in until it settled several hundred feet above a dark splotch on the ocean.

Mike squinted. No, not on. In. And next to it a speck that happened to be Rowe Boat. Mike jabbed a finger at the splotch.

“What the hell is that?”

“We assumed it was yours.”

“I don't see a name tag. You just assumed the...thing attacking us was our buddy?”

“We mistook the interaction for a primitive command system.”

“Amazing how that still doesn't answer what 'it' is.”

“You ask a technical question. We speculated it was a living creature at one point, heavily modified to defend you in the event technological regression destroyed your civilization.”

“You, uh, run across that kind of thing a lot, do you?”

Chauncey let out a puff of seaweed stank that sounded very close to a sigh.

“A distressingly common precaution, yes. Typically, we would avoid such derelicts, but our arrival perturbed it out of hibernation. Its incessant probings required that we undergo frequent, complex relocation of our arcologies. We desired simplicity.”

“You tried to kill it?”

“It has some manner of shielding, and as you have seen, a selection of more energetic countermeasures.”

“Oh, well, serves you right.” Mike crossed his arms and let himself smile smugly. “Little guy wasn't doing you any harm, was he? It might take him ages to calm down again before he goes back to sleep.”

“Perhaps. But, in the meantime it has switched from passively observing to actively scanning and attacking.”

“Sucks to be you,” Steve said.

“It's ignoring our observers so far. They have been tracking it's progress.”

Mike hitched a thumb towards the horizon. “Better start scuttling.”

“It's not moving to attack us.”

There was another hard scritch from Chauncey's belly crab and the view once again zoomed out to a view encompassing the entire Atlantic ocean. Alien symbols flashed across the hologram, dots and chicken scratch that could have meant anything. There was one symbol, however, that made sense. A single, bright red line.

A line starting from Rowe Boat and heading west.

Mike felt his mouth go dry.

“It appears to be prioritizing the loudest source of 'noise.' Your civilization is less advanced than ours, of course, but it currently exists on a much larger scale.”

“Will you, uh, give us one moment?” Mike asked. He motioned to Steve and they walked to just outside the nearest hatchway.

“Well, we sure as hell need to tell the navy, or somebody,” Steve said.

“Yeah, but tell them what? Prepare for a giant monster attack?”

“We've got the proof, don't we?”

“Proof for the wrong monster,” Mike said.

“Then we can let it tell the story.”

“Think about all the weird crap we've dealt with out here, Steve, and remember what our first response was. They'll shoot 'Chauncey' before they think to ask it anything.”

“Maybe if we put it in a cage—“

Mike heard rustling coming from in the room and rushed back in to find Chauncey rummaging through a box of old navigational charts, waving its computer over each chart until the device emitted a gurgling click before moving on to the next.

“What are you doing?” Mike asked.

“Perhaps you might clarify something,” Chauncey said. A hologram flashed into existence once more, but this time showing a time-lapse animation of every bit of navigational data Mike had ever jotted down. “If you did not know what was attacking you, how were you able to track it so precisely?”

Rowe Boat didn't have anything like a regular patrol. Throughout the jumble of notes, there was only one constant that Mike could see. “That's our record of what we call the 'alpha plume.' I guess we've actually been tailing you.”

“Our arcologies have not been following this path,” Chauncey said. Alien writing appeared over the course logs, and Chauncey's belly crab began ticking off plated fingers as if running quick and dirty calculations. “Ah. Your 'plume' is merely waste heat from the processes we use to make the environment easier to harvest from.”

“So this thing was following the plume, not you?”

“Perhaps, although there seems to be no reason behind it.”

“Well, we follow it to find the largest schools of mannafish. Are you hiding anything else out there?”

“Why would it follow the fish?”

“Maybe it eats them?” Mike said.

Steve laughed. “Oh come on. This thing is thousands of years old, at least, has space-age weapons, and it's gotta eat?”

“If the behavior is a leftover artifact its creators did not bother to engineer out, it would explain the interest in your harvesting vessels,” Chauncey said. “For a creature of its size, normal groupings of fish might be too diffuse to notice.”

Mike nodded. “Yeah, I see. When our boats net them it makes a slow chunky morsel. Destroying or scaring off the boats keeps the mannafish from getting away.”

“What were you shooting at it with?” Steve asked.

“Several varieties of kinetic and direct energy weapons.”

“And nothing got through?”

“Correct.”

Mike felt something in his mind click as it finally boarded Steve's train of thought. “If nothing gets through, how does it eat the fish?” Mike asked.

“It...” Chauncey's heads looked at one another, as if mulling over the thought. “It would have to lower its shielding to do so.”

“This is starting to sound more familiar,” Mike said.

Steve snorted. “Oh, really?”

“Well, sort of,” Mike said with a grin. “Lines, bait, and such. Still need a hook, though. Something to deliver a killing blow.”

“That we can provide,” said Chauncey.

Fish Harvest, update II

2010-02-13T03:09:00.003-07:00

Just dropped by? Read Part One here.

***

The fog lifted slowly as Rowe Boat headed east into the Atlantic. It was clear it had died many hours back, though its wispy corpse remained in defiance of the sun. Rowe Boats' deck was still; all spare hands were looking out for signs that the plume had something weird in store for them.

Mike shifted in his chair and looked up from the course log he and Steve had made for Shrimp Bandit to scan the horizon and fiddle with his heading. He hated having the crew sit on their thumbs as much as they did, but the watch was essential work. A sign could be anything: the sun might appear green, or fish might hover inches above the water until they suffocated and plunked back into the sea. Mike had personally seen a man fall overboard and then jog over the ocean to catch his boat.

Maybe this fog could count as a sign? The way it stuck to the ocean like a filmy crust was a little unnerving. Problem was, you kept an eye out for strange things so you could book it in the other direction. If this was a sign, where could he run?

And where the hell was Barsky anyway? As of their last last check-in, Shrimp Bandit was hauling a pen crammed with mannafish. With that baggage, Barsky would keep his pace at a crawl to preserve the health of his catch. So long as he hadn't cut his lines and shot off, he should be in this general area—but it was clear from here to the sky's edge.

Wait, no. There was something...but then it was gone. Just a flash of neon orange poking through the sheen, but it couldn't have been more than a dozen yards ahead of Rowe Boat. Mike threw down the log, shouted a warning over the PA and then went for the throttle. Rowe Boats' diesel engines roared.

Something was submerged out there. If he'd spotted it in time, the increased water flow over the rudders would let him turn sharply enough to avoid it; if he was wrong, they would hit that much harder. Seconds ticked by as Rowe Boat lurched ahead and to port. Had he done it? Without a point of reference he only had his gut to go by.

The shock registered first, as if every part of the boat was spasming a different direction. Then Rowe Boat's steel hull made its displeasure known with the ear tearing wail of metal battling metal. Rowe Boat rolled hard to port, dumping Mike out of his chair. For a horrible moment Mike thought they were going to capsize, but the deck stabilized back to starboard and the wailing abated, though he could still feel the back of his teeth buzzing.

When Mike found his footing he first took a headcount. Thankfully, nobody had gone overboard or been crushed. Rowe Boat herself didn't appear to be listing, so the hull was still in one piece. It could still be Swiss cheese, which spelled doom in the long run. Steve was already taking guys below to scope out the damage, leaving Mike to ponder what he'd actually run into.

Behind Rowe Boat the fog was churning. Whatever they'd run into had gotten a spin out of the crash, and it was throwing off its misty cover like a too-large blanket. The first detail to become visible was a flag showing a crudely drawn shrimp holding a badly stenciled crab at gunpoint.

Ah. There the hell was Barsky.

Shrimp Bandit was submerged up to the wheelhouse and listing so far to starboard she was practically sideways. The spin from Rowe Boats' bump was wearing off, but Shirmp Bandit showed no signs of sinking further. She just bobbed there, suspended between shipshape and shipwreck.

Once Steve had determined Rowe Boat wasn't going to sink, Mike brought them alongside Shrimp Bandit and then came down to the deck to gawk with the rest of the crew. All of the fog had been thrown off at this point, and Shrimp Bandits' empty, waterlogged deck lay before them. Caught in the rigging, just under the flag, was an empty neon orange ocean survival suit with 'B-A-R-S-K-Y' painted on the back. There was no sign of other survival gear.

Mike felt his stomach knot up as he scanned the still empty horizon. By itself, the Atlantic wasn't that bad of an ocean to be be adrift on. There were plenty of shipping lanes and enough traffic that someone was bound to stumble across you. But that plume... boats with every modern convenience had a hard enough time just skirting the edge and coming back in one piece. Alone on a raft? Nobody came back from that. If Barsky and his crew were out there, their only hope was being found. Fast.

“Steve?”

“Yeah, Mike?”

“I think this just became coast guard business.”

Steve nodded and ran back up to the wheelhouse to make the call.

Mike leaned against the railing and tried hard not to let the metal remind him of handcuffs. With his catch safely being processed back on Sundered Susan, there wasn't anything too incriminating for the Coast Guard to find, and he did have a legitimate fishing permit. Of course, that permit was for Atlantic salmon; the coasties might be a little suspicious about why Rowe Boat was poking around over a thousand miles south of where he could plausibly find any.

Mike could feel his thoughts brush against a brilliant excuse before Rowe Boats' deck shifted slightly to port and sent it careening out of his grasp. Damn. Were they snagged on something?

When Mike looked to the port side he saw two massive claws, each easily as large as his torso, clamped onto the railing. With a single heave, something sprang over the side and landed with a soft, wet thud. At first, Mike thought he was being boarded by a giant upright lobster. But no, that was crazy. Why would a giant lobster want to learn that trick?

The thing turned from side to side, scanning the deck and giving Mike a good look at its torso. Ah, that explained it. It walked upright to make room for the front half of a crab sticking out of its 'belly.' Though Mike had to admit calling it a crab was a bit of a stretch. After all, where decent God-fearing crabs would normally have pincers, this one had spindly, armored hands—complete with thumbs.

“Uh. Huh,” Mike said.

The thing seemed to regard him, the belly crab keeping its attention fixed while the lobster head shifted around the deck, though it never let its attention wander for too far before coming back.

At that moment, Steve returned from the wheelhouse.

“Coasties have a helo nearby based off of Dallas. They're diverting—the fuck is that!?”

Crew that had been busy re-securing deck equipment took note of Steve's outburst and joined Mike in stunned shock at the sight of the lobster/crab thing. Mike shook his mind back into gear. Weirdness was going down; that meant danger. He grinned in denial of his quivering instinct to put the heaviest hatch between himself and the...craboid? Yeah, craboid; he could get a handle on that. It almost sounded like something he knew how to deal with.

“Do you command this craft?”it asked.

Oh, dammit. It talks. “I do,” Mike said.

“We have taken the crew of that vessel.” It waved one giant claw at Shrimp Bandit “ We require your cooperation to ensure their safety.”

“Is that so?”

Every man grabbed a blunt object and surrounded the craboid. It shifted its stance with slow graceful movements as they approached, using one claw to shield the belly crab while the other was raised as if to smash anyone who got too close. To Mike, it looked like a calm reflex; not really what he'd expect from a creature being corralled by an angry mob.

Truthfully, he wasn't sure what he or any of the crew could do even if they got close enough to whack it. Beat it into submission? Take it hostage? Potluck? Thankfully, the issue never came up. Once they crowded the craboid back to the railing, it suddenly wheeled around as if shocked at the existence of the ocean. The Mike saw it.

The fog—all of it—was gone, and the sea was a light show.

Almost all the way out to the horizon, patches of ocean flared and dimmed. Ripples sprang from hundreds of disturbances, some of them building into swells strong enough to rock Rowe Boat.

“Steve, what direction is that helo coming from?”

“East.”

Mike looked east and could see a speck against the sky. That'd be the helo heading their way to scope out the wreck and start up a search pattern. Part of him marveled at the response time.

The craboid, or at least its lobster half, followed Mike's gaze and seemed to realize what it was. It looked from the aircraft to the water frantically, and started making a sound like a wet bush rattling against a washboard. The belly crab pushed aside the claw sheltering it, locked eyes with Mike and said—no, pleaded, “Send it away.”

Mike's mind was still trying to come up with an anatomically impossible suggestion for the craboid when a section of sea off the port bow boiled, then caught fire. A bright line burst from the ocean and blazed across the sky. Mike was forced to look away, and seconds later he felt like a hot wire had be stretched across his face.

When he looked up again it was just in time to watch the helo, now tailless, spin into the water.

Every man on deck dropped their tools and ran to collect survival gear.

Mike started forward but was yanked back by the craboid, who had scuttled over and lain one big claw on his shoulder.

“You did not command this?”it asked

Mike tried to shoot the craboid a withering glare, but to no effect. It just sat there, awaiting his reply.

“No,” Mike said.

The craboid seemed to consider this, the two heads looking at eachother and bobbing slightly. Finally it looked back to him. “We should talk.”

Read Part Three Here.

Story Times

2010-01-10T02:09:00.007-07:00

As evidenced by this blog, it takes me a long time to write. Part of the problem is that I tend to sit on whatever I'm working on and poke it instead of moving on. If this blog could be said to have a purpose, it's to teach me how to be productive creatively instead of wallowing in one project for months at a time.

To that end, here's a story I've been working on. It's my hope that by "publishing" bits of it in some way I'll be better able to focus on finishing. It doesn't have a proper title yet; if you ever find yourself in a social situation that requires you to name it I suggest

Fish Harvest

On October 13^th , 2012, Earth was invaded. In less than an hour, 60% of the planet was taken with such force as to make the combined might of all the world's armed forces, had they been able to react at all, seem like beavers trying to dam a tsunami.

Eight years later, someone noticed.

***

“Inspector coming in,” Steve said. He lowered his binoculars and pointed west into the fog.

Mike strained his eyes, but couldn't see a damned thing. This weather was starting to grate on him. Sure, it kept the authorities from casually bumping into them, and Mike appreciated its thematic appropriateness, but it made coordinating a pain in the ass. The zodiac raft was practically on top of them before it became visible; its markings showed it belonged to Sundered Susan, which meant that he was at least in the general vicinity of the processing boat.

“Want me to handle this one?” Steve asked.

“No,” Mike said. “They’re bringing the damn paperwork with them, lately. I’ll do the initialing; you get back on the radio and find out where the rest of our boats are.”

When the little raft puttered up alongside Rowe Boat, Mike leaped in, snatched the inspector’s clipboard, and began scribbling. It wasn't until the inspector opened the throttle that Mike noticed it was a woman—her name tag said “Andrea”— wearing a business suit and clutching...leather high-heel shoes? Absolutely ridiculous. At least she'd had the sense to go barefoot instead of trying to saunter around a rubber boat with spiky feet. Still, were the government raids really leaving the fisheries so short staffed that they were sending out office temps?

Rowe Boat soon disappeared behind them. Mike's only visual reference as they sped to the catch was a line of neon orange buoys. He had almost finished the first page when the single line of buoys split into two, outlining the holding pen Rowe Boat had been dragging along. Another raft was already moored to it, but missing its pilot. He surfaced as Andrea brought them alongside; clutched to his chest was at least thirty pounds of glittering golden miracle. The mannafish didn't even struggle when the diver placed it on a scale in his boat. Andrea took one look and went green.

“Ugh, it's so fat.”

Mike hefted the fish by the tail and slapped it gently.

“No ma'am, that’s all lean muscle; packed fresh with every nutrient a body could ask for and bacon-flavored to boot.”

Andrea snatched back the clipboard and her face disappeared behind it. Mike heard stifled gags before she bothered to read what he'd written.

“Where are they rest of your boats?”

“Finishing up business by the plume.”

“Yes, well, there are fleets coming in behind you with nets to empty. We can't afford to wait.”

“My boats will be here. Promise.” .

Andrea didn't even look up.

“I can give you a day while we process what you’ve brought us. If your boats don’t show, we'll have to send you to the back of the line.”

Mike put on his best smile, but decided not to push his luck further.

After some more paperwork, Mike was dropped back on Rowe Boat. He waved goodbye to the inspector until the raft melded with the murk, then flipped it off and went into the pilot house. Steve was there finishing up with the radio, and his expression as he hung up the receiver did not portend good news.

“Barsky have a good excuse?” Mike asked.

“Couldn’t say. Nobody's seen him.”

“Did he just fall into a hole?” Mike brought out a map and traced his finger over the last known course of Dave Barsky's Shrimp Bandit. Running alongside was a thick red line denoting the best guess by the National Weather Service of the Atlantic Plumes' heading. The red line stopped while Barsky’s course continued on. Mike read some figures from a sheet and extended the red line.

“Uh-oh,” Mike said. “If Barsky didn't read the last notice, his course would've led him right into the plume.”

“You think maybe...”

Mike shook his head.

“When Dick Moore’s hull was dissolving, he called for help. When Roy Stanton fell up two thousand feet we heard him screaming on the way down. There’s no precedent for going quietly.”

Mike frowned. Of course, lack of precedent meant jack; that plume was the font of all kinds of strange—way more than a traveling warm spot of water should be capable of. If not for the ludicrous profit margin mannafish brought in, he'd gladly go back to scooping up crab in the Bering Sea. At least in that freezing hell you had a a pretty good idea of what was trying to kill you..

“Barsky knows what he’s doing,” Steve said.

“Mm. Tell the boys reel in the lines and leave the pen.”.

Steve nodded, but paused by the hatchway.

“Not to be critical, but missing boats seems like Coast Guard business.”

Mike snorted. “Hah. ‘Oh hey guys. Yeah, we lost a boat during a blatantly illegal fishing operation. Would you mind risking life and limb to find it for us? Maybe haul in our catch too?'”

“Well, aren’t we in international waters?”

“Do you really want to sea-lawyer with a cannon pointed at you?”

Steve's expression soured. “It's not fair, Mike. We can't over-fish these things. The big trawlers have tried for a year and can't make a dent. Who are we hurting?”

“Don't sell us short. We've probably ravaged at least one bureaucrats' ego.”

“Look, government's eager enough to gut my pay. I'm just saying that the least they could do is let the Coasties come to our rescue without having to bring cuffs.”

Mike nodded. “Sure, sure, in a perfect world. But we don't know that Barsky even needs rescuing. Just say we're dropping in for moral support.”

Read Part II Here.

Numerotextology

2009-09-14T18:24:00.021-06:00

My room isn't really my room. Not anymore; not for a long time now. It's some new kind of paper-based ecosystem. Herds of non-fiction books roam the desks, straining to teach neat skills or implant rare knowledge. I read them, of course; it keeps them calm, and I pick up things. Not as much as I would like, because I'm only reading.

Ah, but I have a blog, don't I? It's a place where I can pretend to do things instead of doing things. That's almost like actually doing things, isn't it? And if I pretend to do them enough, I might actually retain what these books are desperately trying to give me. Then they can die in peace.

So, how about we start the culling with Secrets of Mental Math by Arthur Benjamin and Michael Shermer? This is a really good book, because not only does it feature easy mental exercises that make you look like a wizard but it also has a foreword written by Bill Nye The Science Guy!

While all of the tricks in the book are neat and practical, there's one in particular I'd like to focus on, and that is number memorization. Why number memorization? Part of it is that numbers are a pain in the ass to retain, but I was moved to blog about this primarily because the method advocated by the authors is to turn those numbers into words.

Specifically, you link the numerals to consonants. Here's a table outlining the ones they recommend:

1 is the t or d sound.
2 is the n sound.
3 is the m sound.
4 is the r sound.
5 is the l sound.
6 is the j, ch, or sh sound.
7 is the k or hard g sound.
8 is the f or v sound.
9 is the p or b sound.
0 is the z or s sound.

Here's a system the authors suggest to make absorbing this key easier:

1. A typed t or d has just 1 downstroke.
2. A typewritten n has 2 downstrokes
3. A typewritten m has 3 downstrokes.
4. The number 4 ends in the letter r.
5. Stick your thumb perpendicular to your other fingers; boom, there's 5 fingers in an L shape.
6. A J looks like a backwards 6.
7. A K is just two 7's laid back to back.
8. A lowercase f in cursive looks like an 8.
9. 9 is clearly a backwards p and upside-down b.
0. 0 begins with Z.

If your mind doesn't want to handle that, they say you can just memorize the name Tony Marloshkovips. I don't really get that one myself, but if it works more power to you.

Let's put this method to work. Let's say I've just been issued a new social security number because my last one was stolen and used to set up an international jewel thieves syndicate to fund a shelter for amputated farm animals spray painted to look like Bobba Fett. Let's also say that my new number is:

978 - 25 -1892

Referring to the list above, this translates to:

P/B, K, F - N, L - T, F, P/B, N

Off the top of my head, this can be written as:

Bake Ivy Neal A Dove Bun

This is certainly easier to remember than a string of random numbers. The trick, I guess, is getting those numeral-linked consonants memorized. I think I'll actually put forth the effort in this case. If nothing else, it provides a more interesting (for me) way to play with numbers.

Moar Words!

2009-08-31T13:58:00.001-06:00

I've got quite a backlog of these. To keep it interesting, I think I'll go with a theme this time. See if you can guess!

***

Senescence(Noun): The state of being old : the process of becoming old.

Senescence was not kind to William Shatner.

Somnambulist (Noun): Someone who walks about in their sleep.

Leonard Nemoy often used the excuse of being a somnambulist to explain why he sometimes appeared in William Shatner's home to viciously kick him in the "navigational array."

Catechism (Noun): A manual giving basic instruction in a subject, usually by rote or repetition.

Dr. McCoy had an entire wall lined with vintage medical catechisms. Every one of them, with the exception of the of Dr. House novelizations, was hollowed out and bulging with bourbon.

Loupe (Noun): A small magnifying glass usually set in an eyepieces.

"Fascinating," Spock said. He removed his loupe. "It appears we have finally found Mr. Sulu's heterosexuality."

Defenestrate (Verb): To throw through or out of the window.

Dispatching your opponents through defenestration is not recommended on a starship.

Abstruse (Adjective): Not easy to understand.

Chekov's abstruse accent becomes much easier to understand after four shots of vodka.

Quotidian (Adjective): Daily.

Scotty's quotidian exercise seemed to consist of bench pressing four pallets of donuts directly into his gullet.

Prosody (Noun): The study of poetic metre and techniques.

Kirk was in the habit of flicking Spock's ears whenever he looked like he might settle down and relax with some prosody.

100 Update

2009-08-21T15:29:00.004-06:00

Why hello there! You might remember me from such posts as "I will totally update this blog once a week as I complete The Challenge." That was about a month ago, but hear me out!

See, it turns out I severely underestimated the lingering effects my sickness would have. Even after getting over the worst symptoms, I was forced to sit on my ass while the detritus was cleared. In the past, descending into disease has spelled the end of routine exercise, because it knocks me out for so long I lose the exercise habit. I didn't want that to happen again, so instead of the Challenge I focused on doing exercise every day. It didn't matter if I was just having a walk or doing real cardio; I knew I had to keep momentum or I'd slump.

It's worked out pretty well, I think; while I can't say that my fitness shot up by leaps and bounds, I can say it hasn't deteriorated. Now that I'm safely past the danger of petering out, it's time to restart strength training and resume The Challenge!

Today was my first day back, and I picked up where I left off: Day 3 of the First Week. Here are the numbers from the final exhaustion phase of the workout:

*Push-Ups: 20

Sit-Ups: 39

Certainly better off now then when I started. Oh, right, you may notice I don't have squats listed anymore; I decided to stop doing them for the time being since all the walking and cardio give me plenty of lower body activity.

Give me a few days of getting back into the groove and I'll see about setting a day for proper weekly updates again.

*Still doing knee push-ups.

One Small Post For Me

2009-07-21T01:35:00.011-06:00

The big news is that it's the anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. True, I'm a day late blogging about it, but I was stuck at work most of yesterday.

Actually, no, scratch that; it doesn't sound nearly sophisticated enough.

Okay. So yesterday I couldn't blog because I was struck with heavy melancholia. As I lounged in my study, idly running my fingers over my first edition Voltaire's, I was thinking to myself how sad it was that I wasn't currently on the moon. I mean, here it's been 40 years since we landed there, a feat that, itself, only took 60 years from the first powered human flight--nearly two-thirds of the same time span, and what have we got to show for it?

No moon colonies. No major orbital presence.

Yes, we've sent out some neat robots and taken great pictures, but humankind still remains hopelessly mired to this mudball.

Okay, sinking a bit here; gotta throw on a life vest. At least there still are space programs, right? And they're making strides--small ones, yes, but strides nonetheless. I guess that will have to be good enough for now.

Daily Word

2009-07-19T12:37:00.012-06:00

For someone aspiring to spew verbiage onto the public for a living, vocabulary is important. The larger it is, the better you're able to tailor your writing to an audience. Although I can usually guess a word's meaning from context, I've made it a habit to write down any word down whose meaning I don't know for sure.

Of course, it's not enough to just know a word; you've got to use it.

***

Ascetic: (Noun) A person who renounces material comforts and leads a life of austere self-discipline, especially as an act of religious devotion.

"It's a curious thing that the woman who ran, simultaneously, the Hampland's largest brothel and its premiere demolitions company was herself an ascetic."

Caltrop: (Noun) A metal device with four projecting spikes so arranged that when three of the spikes are on the ground, the fourth points upward, used as a hazard to pneumatic tires or to the hooves of horses.

"Lord Penderscrumb laugh manically as he galloped out of the preserve on his iron horse, already planning on how best to use the Device for his own profit. Little did he suspect that Dansworth had taken the precaution of littering the grounds with magnetic explosive-tipped caltrops."

Interpolate: (Verb) To insert or introduce between other elements or parts.

"The entire fair was thrown into chaos when a careless journalist interpolated a bananna into Professor Magbies' baboon powered autoplane."

End of Week One

2009-07-18T12:31:00.003-06:00

So, here we are at the end of the week. How'd I do?

Well, both good and bad.

The good news is that I definitely saw improvement over the course of the week. I was able to stretch myself just a little bit farther each time during the exhaustion portion of the workouts.

The bad news is that I caught some sort of flu, and it's kept me on my butt for the past couple days, so I've only been able to finish 2/3 of Week One.

My gut feeling is that the worst is over and given just one more solid day of rest I'll be able to start up with the program again. It won't require any exercise "binging" to catch up, just normal every-other-day progression.

Next update will be on Saturday again, only I plan to have some hard numbers to share by then.

Pot(ter) Heads

2009-07-15T12:28:00.014-06:00

I don't have a lot of strong memories surrounding most Half-Blood Prince. Even in book form, the whole "who is the Half-Blood prince?" sub-plot didn't strike me as very thrilling. It's overshadowed by the spectacle of Snape putting a glowing green cap in Dumbledore's ass. In a way, that's still true for the film; perhaps moreso.

Now, regarding the movie, I wasn't giddy with anticipation over it. I believed that, since I'd read the whole Potter series, the movies couldn't add much more to the "Potter Experience." But VikingGoddess secured tickets to a midnight showing on a hunch, and so off we went. We arrived about 40 minutes before showtime, which it turned out was three hours too late.

The line in those pictures looped around the entire theater, and was four or five people wide on average. People in costumes chatted, mostly about the size of the turnout, while those poor suckers who hadn't purchased tickets on-line wondered what would become of them.

Half-Blood Prince was worth the wait, although it suffers from trying to summarize a thick book with interconnected subplots. If you aren't already a fan of the series, it will be difficult to pick up on what's going on. For the most part, I liked the cuts made for the sake of fitting book to big screen. It caused some gaps, but these were filled by excellent performances from all the actors.

Visually, I like where the series is going. Just as Rowling darkened the story, the movies have been getting less Christmas-y elf magic and more Lord of the Rings gritty magic. I definitely underestimated what adding a visual element does to the story.

So, yeah, looks like I was wrong. If you can get a ticket, and you're a Potter fan, give it a whirl.

Brb, Falling in Hole

2009-07-14T19:39:00.011-06:00

You all know about cities, right? They're like jungles--full of fun and games. They've got everything you want--like honey, yeah, they know the names.

Many times you're just going to find manholes though. Tastefully covered, of course; it wouldn't do to scare away all the tourists. There are times, however, when city workers need to brave the pooey depths, which requires uncovering these holes. So, if you find yourself in a place where this can occur, it's probably a good idea to, you know, watch where you're going instead of putting your head so far up someone's Twitter you don't even see the yawning chasm right in front of you.

Thankfully, the victim in this instance was not seriously injured, although the family still intends to sue. Apparently, losing a shoe after taking a dip in a river of human waste (but made in the USA, baby!) caused some mental injury. Or maybe there was a mental injury before and the city workers failed to accommodate--the reports aren't entirely clear. If you're so absorbed in texting that you don't notice a hole in front of you, would the addition of traffic cones really have made a difference?

h/t to Gizmodo.

Power is Power

2009-07-13T20:05:00.016-06:00

Okay, so, Mission Accomplished. I have dredged up a topic of discussion that didn't originate from Wired. Today's raw material comes from the online Discovery Magazine. Still, on reflection, I don't think it's enough of a difference; Discovery and Wired offer similar content, so I'm not stretching myself much. Tomorrow I'll try to find something else. But, for now, lets talk about the next generation of nuclear power.

Or, more specifically, how it's not going to be here any time soon.

I think that if you want a good idea of what the general public thinks about an issue, you look at action movies. Consider Resident Evil II, where a major plot point was that the laughably incompetent Umbrella Corporation was going to cover its tracks by detonating a nuclear missile over a nuclear power plant and then force "the media" and "the experts" to call it a meltdown. I've leafed through a fair sample of reviews, and I don't see the idiocy of this plot used as an example much.

I will allow that this might be because the movie is just so full of awful it crowds out that one point. Still, it doesn't take much space to debunk it. Here, let Morbo explain:

"Nuclear reactors do not work like that!"

What this says is that John and Jane Q. Public believe that a nuclear bomb and a reactor are pretty much the same thing.

"Oh, but they work on the sample principle!"

Well, yes, but so does a car engine and a fuel-air bomb; you don't see cars getting nearly as much bad press. Nuclear energy is, unfortunately, very politicized; it long ago crossed the threshold where you could address it rationally as a national issue. The fact of the matter is that current nuclear technology is perfectly safe, with practical, doable, solutions for the unique set of headaches it, like any power system, brings. The breakthrough in the nuclear industry is going to have to come from public relations instead of tech.

Animals Are Selfish Bastards Too

2009-07-12T11:05:00.012-06:00

Before going on to discuss this Wired article, I must first admit that, yes, I've been drawing a lot of material from them lately. I'll try to switch things up in the coming days; maybe try to have a different source for each day of the week?

So, anyway, Wired reported on a study conducted by French scientists looking into penguin behavior. Thankfully, it had nothing to do with exploring potential homosexuality in the penguin population. Not that I'm a bigot or anything; it's just that at some point when you're watching scientists stuff penguins into thongs and giant glittering glasses you begin to question their methodology.

This study was focused more on how birds famous for life-mating would react to burdens placed on their significant others while child rearing. They accomplished this by strapping boxes to their backs so that it was harder for them to catch fish and hence provide for the other parent staying at home with the chick.

The result? No compensation whatsoever.

Michael Beaulieu, co-author of the study, wrote in an e-mail to Wired that he attributes this to two things. One is that there is no evolutionary imperative; penguins live for so long that they're actually pretty cool about not getting everything perfect because, hey, mating season will just roll right back around eventually. Beaulieu also said that he suspected a breakdown in communication between the couples; if they don't express their concerns, hubby or wifey assumes things are fine.

But where Beaulieu see an interesting, if unfortunate, result of evolutionary development, I see a stroke of stupendous luck. I would not want penguins communicating about their plights; it would lead to...problems:

"Hey, quick question. Why the hell are we busting our feathery butts up here in the cold?"

"You know, I never really thought about it; it's what mom and dad did, so I just assumed that's the way it was meant to be."

"Tell you what, next time those jerks in the metal sky-whale come, I say we peck their eyes out before they can strap those stupid boxes to us."

"How will that help us?"

"Oh, it wont help us. But we can take that sky-whale and bring terror from above--maybe swoop down and stick boxes on their hands until our demands our met. My folks never had the chance to leave me anything; for our kids, I want to leave them the World."

Less Than Lethal

2009-07-11T09:14:00.018-06:00

Wired has an article up about Taser International's newest product line centered around a "less than lethal" shotgun round that is essentially a tiny flying taser. This means that your standard shotgun will essentially have two settings, which provides you with a range of responses to potential threats.

***

Location: The Statue of Liberty. A group of non-violent protesters have reveled themselves to be members of D.E.E.P. H.U.R.T., the nefarious intergalactic terrorist organization responsible for, among other atrocities, turning New York City's water supply into fire.

As you and your team of grizzled commandos advance upon their fortifications, Command radios you with authorization to take those bastards down with Maximum Prejudice.

"Gentlemen," you say with a sly grin. "Set shotguns to kill."

Hackers on Steroids!

2009-07-09T20:53:00.031-06:00

The Future: A place where nothing can go wrong. Alternatively, a place where anything that can go wrong will, and it will kill us all.

This article from Wired seeks to throw fuel into that simmering worry. Images of prosthetic limbs and mind-controlled wheelchairs are reduced in their innate awesomeness by the fear they will choke us or drive us off a cliff, respectively. The harbingers of this doom, according to the article, will be Hackers.

Now come on, Wired. I know that you have a large technically minded audience and a lot of them probably love to self-identify as dangerous e-rogues, but that's no reason for presenting the threat out of proportion. We all know it's a Hollywood cliche that hackers are basement trolls who compensate for their poor real-world performance by becoming malicious electronic demigods that can reach anywhere and wreck anything. Granted, the malicious part is often true, as the article describes an instance where flashing graphics were installed on websites for epileptics as a "prank" that actually sent people to the hospital.

Given the chance, there's no doubt the same group of degenerates would jump--okay, scoot their chairs--at the opportunity to lock someone's prosthetic limb so it's permanently flipping people off. But so long as that limb isn't bit-torrenting the Zombie Jackon's Greatest Hits album or updating its GoogleSpace page, there's really no way for them to get at it. The last Die Hard movie, of all things, actually addressed this by forcing the villain to find some work around to the fact that not everything is connected to the Internet--like sending a deadly asian assassin that was also his love interest. Assuming these hackers could even get their hands on deadly asian assassin love interests (Japan is pretty close to developing robotic "companion" dolls), the movies have shown that these are ineffective anyway.

So, will there be risks? The answer is yes; if you build a system, someone will come to break it. I hardly think it will be a huge issue though since the solution is, conceptually, simple. Step one is to not connect every damned thing to the Internet. Step two is to implement wireless security, which is already well underway with the development of Bluetooth-like technologies. By the time prostheic limbs and brain controlled devices are prevalent, the same rules that apply today will be in effect. Namely: as long as you take a few basic security precautions, your chances of being haxor'd will be nill.

Day One: The Assessment

2009-07-09T08:37:00.008-06:00

Today I did my exhaustion test after a 30min aerobic warm-up. Here are my initial stats:

*Good Form Push-Ups: 16

Good Form Squats: 40

**Good Form Sit-Ups: 34

So let's see, according to the score sheets, I ranked 3 on a scale from 1 to 7 for Push-Ups, Average for Squats, and Poor for Sit-Ups--definitely got some work to do. I'll begin Week One this Saturday and post an update each Saturday after that to keep track of my progress.

*I'm starting out with knee push-ups since full body ones are out of my league for now; I may switch over to them later after I've gotten deeper into the Challenge.

**Although they're called Sit-Ups, they're actually just crunches. Apparently the old method of lifting all the way up had a good chance of damaging your back and gave no significant advantage over crunches.

The Challenge

2009-07-07T14:19:00.011-06:00

So lately I've been trying to come up with an exercise routine that I can make a normal part of my everyday life. At the base is 30min of aerobic activity every day, usually in the form of a simple walk. I've more or less made this a habit, to the point where I feel a strung out if I miss my daily endorphin high. Lately I've been integrating strength training and circuit training, alternating between the every day.

The strength training in particular is a new to me. Whenever I've gotten into exercise kicks before, I figured the activity would be enough to get results and the additional stuff was just for gym nuts who lived on weight machines. However, after doing some reading, it turns out that strength training has some very neat health benefits; it also delivers fast results. For instance, after only two weeks of doing my own simple routine of push-ups, sit-ups, and squats, I already feel stronger, and in a way I never got from walking. Sure, walking will get results fast too, but you only ever really feel it when you're walking. With strength training, I feel it whenever I use a muscle; things aren't as hard to lift as they used to be, and even the act of getting up out of the chair and moving around the house is easier.

So VikingGoddess, upon hearing this, figured that the most awesome response would be to kick my shit up to 11, and take on the Hundred Challenge. The program has three parts, consisting of 100 Push-Ups, 200 Squats, and 200 Sit-Ups. The claim is that, if your follow the routine listed on the site for six weeks, you will be able to do 100-200 of the listed exercises consecutively.

Just from a glance at the site, I should be able to fit this program into my routine. That means, today, I'll follow my normal schedule and do some circuit training. Tomorrow, I'll begin The Challenge, which starts with an assessment test. I'll post the results of that assessment and weekly updates right here on this blog.

Going Fatly into that Good Night

2009-07-06T14:28:00.026-06:00

Yeah, I know I've already corrupted that phrase to mourn the passing of the F-14 Tomcat, and it's just bad creatively to fall back on it again, but I can't help but feel it's appropriate. After all, isn't fat on our minds an awful lot? In our minds even? We're warned every day that fat is actually a plague, the "Wheezing Killer Who Will End Us!"

So, how can we effectively fight fat? Would you be believe that one of the possible answers is more fat? Brown Fat that is. See, the number of normal fat cells in your body remains more or less constant throughout your life; their function is to store all the energy from those triple cheese burgers you never got around to using. Tapping into this reserve is not easy and requires you to break out the old standby of pumping out more energy than you shovel in. Brown fat, instead of bloating you up, burns excess energy, including the energy stored in normal fat. Scientists theorize that it's a survival mechanism meant to keep infants from freezing to death, and it was only in several recent studies that they realized this type of fat continues to exist in adulthood.

Sven Enerback, lead author of one of the studies, hails it as the discovery of a new organ. In the article, other scientists speculate that brown fat could be used to fight obesity through genetic engineering to make it more active. I'll bet anything it will force us to watch what we eat more than ever. You see, brown fat gets rid of excess energy by converting it into heat; so that triple cheeseburger, instead of rounding out your butt, would melt your chair.

h/t to Cracked.com, where I found the article on brown fat.

Buck the System

2009-07-05T10:45:00.017-06:00

Behold the chicken. Such a simple beast, no? From time immemorial it has sustained human populations with its succulent meats, although history had seen only the very rich able to afford them regularly until modern times. The advent of our society's unprecedented logistics has transformed it from an upper class perk to a boring staple eaten on the go.

I maintain that this transformation is not complete, and I have born witness to the proof with my own eyes. Take their word for what you will.

The place was Wal-Mart; the time, July 4th. As is their custom, Wal-Mart kept a heated table near the registers to ensnare customers with fried and rotisserie chicken varieties. Sinister, yes, but since 60% of what people buy is an impulse grab anyway, at least they're getting a hot meal out of it. I must always steel my resolve when I pass that table, because I know their game, and the only winning move is to not play. I still found myself ensnared, but the hook came from a direction I did not expect.

As I passed, there arose from out of this standing pool of grease and seasoning a noise; almost a siren's song. If there's an onomatopoeia to describe the tune, it's beyond my ability to type. Suffice to say it had this kind of character. This was not some brilliant new advertising scheme; this sound, after cursory inspection, was coming from within the chickens.

I was not the first on the scene. There was a man there pawing through fowl murk, his mind utterly suborned to the call of the bird. He claimed to be a Wal-Mart employee who worked in the Deli, though he was dressed in his civvies. He further claimed that his cell phone, rascally scamp that it is, found its way into one of the rotisserie chickens. Through careful elimination, he'd managed to narrow its hiding place down to two possible birds; so he bought both, and the music went with him.

A likely story, I'll grant you. Still, I'm calling it now: Should any scrap of humanity survive to chronicle this New Millennium, 2009 will be be known as the year chickens finally entered the Digital Age.

Review: Bourne Ultimatum

2007-08-08T15:08:00.009-06:00

I'm posting this as some filler to keep Viking Goddess distracted while I work on a larger post.

Overall Grade: C

...and there I've gone and made my entire review pointless by offering you, the reader, a quick and easy summary. At a glance you've learned that this is an average action movie, and now you have enough information to decide whether you'll like or not without wading through my sub points. It's intolerable, is what it is.

Okay, okay. Do-over.

Overall Grade: Blue Steel.

Hah. Figure that one out. Now you've got to read the whole thing see what I'm talking about. Suckers.

So, to start, the movie is called the Bourne Ultimatum. It's the third movie in the franchise, which is based on a book series by Robert Luldlum. I've never read the books, but I have seen two-thirds of the movies, and it's a fair bet that the theme can be best described thusly:

What if James Bond didn't know that he was James Bond? Also, he's
American.

...and Matt Damon.

A recipe for pure win if ever there was one. The Bourne series does not disappoint. It is the pinnacle of Action Movie perfection.

...

Hah. No. It's not. I'm screwing with you. There are neat bits, but overall it's just "meh." That's especially applicable to this movie.

Maybe it's the villains, whose names I couldn't remember even a day after the film. Specifically, there are two, whom I'll call "Mr. Perimeter" and "Mr. Droopy Old Uncle Guy (Doug, for short)." Mr. Perimeter gets his name because that was his reaction to everything Matt Damon did. If his crack team of NSA/CIA hackers intercepted video of Matt Damon taking a dump in a Berlin train station, he would explode into a raging maelstrom of code cliches and demand a "perimeter" be set up around Matt Damon, usually four blocks wide. This left his staff perpetually bewildered, as it was clear to them that he was making stuff up and wasn't even aware of it. You could see them talking in the background when Mr. Perimeter went on a really good tear. I imagine their conversations went like this:

Hacker#1: A delta situation priority number blue? With a four block perimeter?
Hacker#2: Dude, just run with it.
Hacker#1: But...we're thousands of miles away, and only two of our guys are
over there.
Hacker#3: Don't worry. Matt Damon will jump through a window or something
and then--

::Matt Damon explodes out of the bathroom on a toilet past the
two CIA agents still trying to figure out how the hell to cover four blocks
with two people::

Mr. Perimeter: Okay people, listen up! We've got a code red priority one
situation! I want alpha protocols all around, and set up a four block perimeter
around the Eiffel tower!
::Mr. Perimeter Points Dramatically to the Big View Screen::
Mr. Perimeter: And make that a la mode. We are going mobile, people!

Mr. Doug wasn't any better. He spends the entire movie being the "mysterious voice on the other end of the phone." When you actually get to see him, he's shambling down the hall to Matt Damon, trying to look enigmatic but not quite pulling it off. All I could think about during the fifteen minutes of shuffling was that, when he got to Matt Daman, he was going to ask, "Would you like to reach into my pocket for some candy, little boy?"

But whatever. Crappy plot aside, it had most of the necessary things you need for an action film. Things are exploded, collateral people and objects are damaged, and fun times are had by all the plot essential people. Then it gets to the end, and we are robbed by a lack of resolution, that pivotal moment where the forces of Good and Evil meet, do battle, and Decide Things for All Time and Evil, naturally, gets screwed. Great action films, like Diehard, know how to frame this moment in such a way as to satisfy the audience's morality. They walk out of the theatre content, because their shoulder angel is waddling like a man who has eaten a 30lb steak.

Here is what happens: Mr. Doug sits Matt Daman down in a room. Alone. He has something to show him, you see. So he reaches into his coat and takes out...Matt Daman's secret spy file. It turns out that Matt Daman happily volunteered for the Robot Assassination Program, after having everything it entailed explained to him. Then the Authorities come to take Matt Daman away because the meeting was, of course, a trap. Matt Daman then escapes. The End.

What really grates me about the movie is that this lack of resolution is treated like High Art instead of a copout. "Ah ha," it says. "The world is far too complex to be broken down into Good and Evil. See how the hero did not actually have his life stolen like we've been implying for two goddamn films? Thus we have made everything pointless! And shame on you for thinking the Bad Guys were Bad. Hot damn are we clever."

This doesn't really work in films where you've demonstrated that the Bad Guys really are Bad. Mr. Perimeter, though laughably ineffective against the wit of Matt Daman, still had a journalist murdered in public on the thin premise that "he knew too much." Really, to judge how they spend resources, the bulk of Mr. Perimeter's organization spends its time killing knowledgeable people instead of getting anything useful done. It's like they exist solely to kill people who know they exist.

God have mercy on the person who discovers Mr. Perimeter's "code phrase" the algorithm, because Matt Daman wont.

An Inconvenient Movie

2007-04-09T20:50:00.001-06:00

First, the bad news: Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth really is an hour and a half of Al Gore giving a PowerPoint presentation. Granted, he’s using a program called Keynote and there are impressive animations, but it still isn’t too different from sitting in a lecture hall.

But it’s the message that counts, right? Unfortunately, there are problems there, too. In the documentary, Gore combats his robotic reputation by humanizing himself through interludes about his childhood and the ups and downs of his life. Realistically, this shouldn’t be done in a documentary that’s supposed to concern global warming. That brings us to the good news: although Gore’s message tends to ramble, most of his over-arching themes are agreeable. People should be taking better care of themselves, their fellow man, and their environment—all good ideas, and in spite of his stiff reputation, they’re delivered engagingly. Global warming is what gives the documentary its notoriety, however, and it’s also where it’s weakest.

An Inconvenient Truth could be charitably called an advocacy film, but it leans closer to propaganda—not because its facts are made up, but because Gore is being deliberately underhanded about his conclusions. Scientists separate global warming into two overall questions: Is the climate changing, and are we responsible? Gore provides ample evidence of some changes and of a consensus among scientists that these changes are not imagined, but he’s being dishonest when he implies that there’s no debate about if and how humans contribute.

Earth’s climate changes, sometimes violently, and has been doing so long before humans could have contributed. Two recent examples are Europe’s little ice age and Greenland’s name becoming ironic. How these and other shifts occurred is still imperfectly understood. Climatology is a relatively new science that’s tackling a system spanning from the whole of the Earth to the Sun, and possibly even further. It’s the embodiment of chaos theory, and one of the greatest scientific issues of our time.

Gore’s movie does not treat global warming as a scientific issue, but one of faith. That may sound odd, considering the number of charts Gore uses, but he reveals himself when he mocks his opponents for referring to global warming as a theory. Gore’s position is that there is global warming, and humans are the cause. That’s it—end of story.

That’s not science, and it points to some insecurity in his position. Einstein never protested relativity being called a theory, and evolution is almost always prefaced “the theory of.” Both of those have a strong factual backing, and calling theories does nothing to detract from that. Why should global warming be any different?

So Gore’s position isn’t a scientific one, but his own point of view. This makes his documentary markedly different then something on the History Channel about Hitler’s preferred bathrobes. Recently, schools in Seattle discovered this when a parent complained to the Federal Way school board that Gore’s view was too exclusive, and as a result they banned showing the film unless a teacher prepared an opposing view for the students.

Granted, this parent felt the exclusion was that Gore did not talk about the world ending in flames, as the Bible prophesizes. Additionally, he believed the Earth was 14,000 years old and that Al Gore was equivalent to a condom, in that he didn’t belong in schools. Though his beliefs are…debatable, to say the very least, he does raise an issue that needs to be considered for a documentary like Gore’s: balance.

The school board felt that the only way to balance Gore was to have the teacher give an opposing view. This isn’t the best solution; in the end, students just sit through twice as much lecturing. A better solution would be to work a lesson plan around the movie that involves critically evaluating Gore’s conclusions. There’s plenty of material to work with, which must have been one of Gore’s intentions.

That is really the power of this documentary. As a tool for sparking debate, An Inconvenient Truth is excellent, but it’s far from being the final word on global warming.

Deep Fried Election

2006-11-08T19:04:00.000-07:00

So I suppose I'm obligated to comment on the recent election, even though the recounts and court fighting have just now gotten started. It's still been long enough at least for me to gauge the most significant result: a single Chicken Mc'Nugget.

I don't know where this prophetic Mc'Nugget came from, or even what it portends. I just know that at the end of the day, when the votes were cast and the counting began, there it was on our front porch. And when I say "on the front porch" I don't mean in the general area, I mean perched carefully in front of our door. Nobody in the house has had the heart to move it, and it's still there now.

I don't really know what to make of it. I can only hope that things will become clearer in time. That, I guess, is the ultimate lesson to be taken away from this election: one day, America will understand the Mc'Nugget. Let's just hope to God it won't be too late when we do.

I Have an Opinion

2006-11-05T00:04:00.000-07:00

I don't really know what I have an opinion about, just yet; I figured it would take a little bit of typing whatever comes to mind to draw it out, and my blog seems to be as good a place as any to do it.

So, to start, mass is a property of matter. In a Newtonian view of the Universe, which fairly describes our normal experiences, this mass is always constant. But the Newtonian view is not a complete view, because the model is limited by the extremes, such as when objects are moving near the speed of light (reletavistic speeds) or when we are dealing with things on a very small scale (quantum effects).

Objects moving at or near the speed of light are of particular interest, because then we get to discuss Einstein's Reletavistic view of the Universe. First, we start with his famous equation:

E = mc^2

Where E is energy, m is mass, and c is the velocity of light in a vaccuum. The velocity of light is very large, so even a small mass equates to a glut of energy. This equivalence between mass and energy is important, because it helps to explain why Einstein named the velocity of light as the speed limit for anyhting with mass. Kinetic energy is energy that an object aquires by virture of its velocity. The faster an object with mass goes, the more kinetic energy it picks up and the more energy it takes to keep accelerating it.

But Einstein has told us that mass and energy are equivalent, so that means that as the object is gaining energy it is also gaining mass. We don't see this in our normal experience, because we poke around so slowly. Just as a little mass equates to a lot of energy, it takes a lot of energy to equate to even a small gain in mass. The end result is that as an object approaches the speed of light it becomes infinitely massive, and therefore takes an infinite amount of energy to accelerate past the speed of light. Given that limitation, faster than light travel by rocket or any other current means of space propulsion is impossible, because the universe doesn't have an infinite amount of fuel for starship to use.

So...Firehouse Subs kicks ass.

Ha. There we go. Knew I had an opinion floating around there somewhere. That is all.

Do Feathers Have Carbs?

2006-10-27T15:22:00.000-06:00

Can I even attempt an Atkins joke?

Holy Crap.

That's all I have to say.

Total Art

2006-10-27T14:36:00.000-06:00

Last night I went to a reading of some of Franklin Burroughs’s work, done by the author himself. The event was a joint venture between the art program and the creative writing program, so the tone was a little odd because the reading was held in an art gallery with "authentic" wood carvings by Salvador Dali depticting scenes and themes from Dante's Divine Comedy. I know they were authentic because the gallery had a certificate saying so, written and signed in French with an English translation. There was no title accompanying the name that would identify the signer as a museum official or an art buff; for all I know, they just grabbed a random Frenchman in the post office and had him do it.

It probably wouldn't even have to be a Frenchman; just someone with a French name. Dali's work is very distinctive, and is famous in the art community for being an acid trip incarnate. The one piece from the collection that stands out in my mind at the moment is of a woman with a butt that extends so far she needs struts to stabilize it and a massive pair of, ahem , counterbalances to keep from keeling over.

So that should tell you all you need to know about my art credentials.

When Franklin Burroughs actually got to do his reading, it clashed harshly with his surroundings. He's an unabashed nature lover and works in the genre "creative nonfiction." I'll have to write a full article about the evening and post it here when I get the time.

Going Mach 2 Into That Good Night

2006-09-29T20:35:00.000-06:00

Does it make me a bad person when this moves me to tears, but I can watch this for hours and laugh?

Hmm...

No. No it does not.

Carry on.

Brain Sweat

2006-09-28T06:40:00.001-06:00

The other day, I had the chance to visit the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition for a sit down interview with Dr. Anil Raj (pictured left). I was there to gather quotable material from him for an article that centers his own role in the development of some "cognitive prostheses," a research area that the entire institute busies itself with.

The phrase “cognitive prosthesis” makes the research sound much less accessible than it actually is, though. Think of it instead as an attempt to provide the equivalent of a bulldozer for your brain.

Humans got by for thousands of years moving dirt and debris using only their own muscles. Then came the Industrial Revolution, which provided the technology to augment pure muscle power with a machine. Now a single person, with the pull of a lever, can exert a hundred times the force and perform a vastly larger amount of work. But was the bulldozer all that revolutionary in its function? In essence, no; all that its inventors did was to find a way to free up human muscles from the hard task of digging and redirect their effort into something better suited for them, namely working the controls of the machine.

The history of technology is, for a large part, the history of inventors coming up with new ways to redirect human effort into something easier. We have benefited immensely in that the sweat of our collective brows purchases more today than at any time in the history of the world. But what about the sweat of our minds? Have we made great strides to ensure that we get just as much out of mental effort as we do out of physical exertion?

The answer, of course, is that we haven't. Whenever a new technology springs up, we usually adapt to it, and not the other way around. It is, admittedly, a trickier proposition to invent something that improves the way people think, but the researchers at the IHMC--some of the them the best in the world in their fields--have been hard at work on a number of methods to make it possible.

There are two projects in particular that Dr. Raj has been involved in that illustrate this ideal, and that made for great talk during the interview. I figure that blogging about them first will help settle my mind for when I sit down to write the actual article some time this weekend.

Tactile Situation Awareness System (TSAS)

In 1995, a Navy fighter pilot took to the skies and performed a series of acrobatic loops and rolls, followed by some station holding. It sounds like pretty standard pilot fare, until you consider that the pilot accomplished all of this while blindfolded in a plane without a working instrument panel.

The flight was one of a series of concept demonstrations for the Tactical Situational Awareness System (TSAS), which is the long-hand term for a vest with buzzers that can alert you to the direction and urgency of changing conditions. With these demonstrations Dr. Raj and his colleagues showed that information could be piped to a person through channels other than the eyes. In principle, this would allow the pilot to fly better by freeing up their minds for other tasks.

But it takes more than a series of demonstrations to develop a principle. It has to be proven conclusively, and its effects reduced to hard facts and figures, from which new and useful technologies can grow.

My first visit to the IHMC was as a volunteer for that program. I'd gotten in on it because the researchers wanted data from ordinary dirt kissers whose experience with flight was simulation deep; it's all part of the scientific process. There were a number of different scenarios they could have run me through, but just to make it easy they decided to let me land the space shuttle.

It's not as hard as it sound...in theory. It's wasn't like I was steering it out of orbit and wagging it through the atmosphere to dump speed; all I had to do was nudge it through the end, where it's essentially a flying brick. The most complicated part was the "flare" at the end, where you had to bring the nose sharply up to let air friction slow you down to a safe landing speed. A "scenario score" was then given based on a comparison to a "perfect" landing. Scores above 50% meant that the landing was "survivable."

Without TSAS, I scored an average of maybe 60% throughout as they fiddled with all the variables like what I saw and what I heard. With the TSAS vest, I bumped my score up to something like a 67% average, with a personal best of 82% in the last experimental run. According to the assistant who guided me through the experiment, licensed pilots (civilian aviators) kept their average at 88-90%, while actual astronauts breezed through with a 98%.

There are more advanced versions of the TSAS now that make use of pneumatic tubes to convey more subtle information, and the improvement in pilots who have used the system has been marked. The next step is to adapt the system to a group environment, such as a fighter squadron. When fully realized, pilots will be able to "feel" such information as the position and status of the rest of their squadron, in addition to any perceived threats in the area.

Brain-Port

The Brain-Port picks up where the TSAS leaves off and addresses some of its limitations. As useful as TSAS is, it conveys its information over a relatively insensitive part of your body, which limits the depth of the information it can give. The Brain-Port exploits a much smaller area with a very dense cluster of specialized nerves: The tongue.

30 years ago, at the University of Wisconsin, Dr. Paul Bach-y-Rita first ran across the idea of using the tongue as a transmitter. Its sensitivity was found to be high enough that images from a camera could be transmitted to the brain through it, and the short distance between the two organs meant little lag time.

Today, Dr. Raj and the IHMC have constructed their Brain-Port by sticking 144 microelectrodes onto a device that looks like a toothbrush with a flattened, squared head and a blunt, plastic bristles. They tested it on Navy Divers at Florida State University by having them "taste" their depth and heading without having to resort to reading gauges.

In the future, once the technology exists to make sonar helmet mountable, divers will be able perceive the environment around them without having to look, freeing them to keep their eyes searching for more important things.

As far as land-lubbers go, Dr. Raj is working on a version of the Brain-Port that will allow soldiers to take in pictures from infrared and night-vision cameras, negating the need for them to wear goggles to benefit from an increased perception.

On the civilian front, the Brain-Port already has some promising applications. Blind people who've been tested with it have been able to use it to navigate through areas containing people and doors, and catch balls thrown at them. Though not a replacement for visions—yet—a commercial version is expected to come out marketed towards people who've lost their balance from injury to their inner ear.

(Photo of Dr. Raj courtesy of IHMC website. Photo of TSAS courtesy of the U.S. Navy. Photo of the Brain-Port courtesy of the AP)

With Prices this Low, I Must Be a Terrorist!

2006-09-26T16:16:00.000-06:00

So a businessman in Ohio notices that talk about Mid-East violence has begun to spike in the news, turning what used to be background chatter in the public mind into a "Current Thing." In order to take advantage of this, he does the entrepreneurial thing and declares a "Fatwa Friday" sale at his car dealership, complete with burqas for the sales people, rubber scimitars for the kids, and "prices lower than the evildoers' every day--just ask the pope!"

Many of the stations who were given the ads refused to run them, with some pleading a weak defense around the idea of "diversity," but really wanting to avoid reprecussions. The ads are meant to be agressive, and so they've offended the usual suspects. Mobin-Uddin, the president of the Columbus chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) says that the ad campaign is, "mocking and disrespectful to many different areas. One is Islamic faith and Islamic culture."

"Using that as a promotional pitch when so many are dying from the criminal activity of suicide bombers, that’s not funny. I don’t think it’s appropriate when it causes real pain. It exploits or promotes misunderstanding in terms already misunderstood or misused. That type of ad does nothing but promote discord in a very difficult time. The timing is just amazing. Maybe that’s part of the shock value."

I think the real story here is that the leader of a branch of CAIR has gone on record as describing suicide bombing as criminal. Considering the roots of the organization, that's a positive step forward, although I wonder if Mobin-Uddin's colleagues share the same progressive view.

Still, let's think about the merits, if any, of her complaint.

1: It Mocks the Islamic Faith

Many of the gimmicks in the ad campaign bring up imagery and symbols that are woven into Islam--the scimitar, the burqa, and jihad, just to name a few. The problem is that these symbols are not exclusive to Islam, as they have been adopted by Islamic fascists as the banners of their cause. With every atrocity they commit, they proudly display their "colors."

So, if they've gone out of their way to shove their symbols in our face, why shouldn't we satirize them? Objecting to that is like a Buddhist organization protesting The Producers because the swastika, a symbol to which they ascribe holiness, is lampooned along with the Nazis. If Mobin-Uddin wanted to preserve the dignity and integrity of the Islamic faith, she'd do better to oppose those that have made those symbols she cherishes worthy of mockery.

2: It Makes Fun from the Pain of Others

Nowhere in the proposed ad do I see something that singles out victims of Islamic Fascism for ridicule. Granted, there could be a plan to have someone dress as a terrorist and then kick the crutches out from under a one-legged child, or smoke an exploding cigar next to someone dressed like a rabbi, but if either of them exist, nobody's said a word. In every single gimmick that has been described, it's some symbolism the Islamists have unabashedly associated themselves with that is being riffed on.

It could be that Mobin-Uddin is worried that the ad will encourage Islamists to violence. If that's the case, then she should take not that they have proven themselves to need no enocuragement to get up to mischief. If some car dealership in Ohio were to not broadcast the ads, then they'd fall back on one of their old stand-bys: the Jews, the Crusades, etc.

Is the ad campaign tasteful? Definitely not, but then, most of the satire that'll push a product isn't. The important thing about the ads is that they impugn the ideals and imagery of our enemy. CAIR should be at the forefront of this attack if they really want to do something useful; writing our best one-liners, if they want to do something essential. Nothing let's the air out of the egos of a fanatical death-cult like good old ridicule.

It's not going to happen, of course. It's much too easy to complain.

Bad Guys

2006-09-26T15:50:00.000-06:00

You can't really be told what the Bad Guys series is all about; you have to see it for yourself:

Future Visions: Toilets

2006-09-25T17:08:00.001-06:00

Commodes March On, from the August 2020 issue of Popular Inventions

Walking into Daman Bedford’s workshop today, you can’t help but feel that you’re walking into a modern day Menlo Park. It’s difficult to say why; there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of similarity between Thomas Edison’s famed scientific fortress of solitude and Daman’s explicitly public auto shop in Gulf Breeze on the Florida Panhandle. Four and half trucks of random makes and models are spread out in the garage area at any given time, and there are places where the floor struggles futilely to be noticed through the piles of spare parts for cars that haven’t existed for decades.

But Daman’s Auto and Menlo Park are both heavily draped in the one thing that signifies real social and scientific genius: Persistence.

Just as Thomas Edison tried thousands of variations on the same theme to advance the front of human technology, Daman’s shop is crammed to capacity with past attempts at resolving the differences between men and women in the positioning of the toilet seat.

“I thought I’d tackle it as a behavioral problem at first,” Daman says, motioning to a charred lump of ceramics that stinks faintly of melted plastic “The water played hell with regulating the voltage and, well, it’s a bit of a sticky issue deciding who gets to be the trainee, you know?”

Next to the ghastly lump is an intact toilet glistening unnaturally in the shop’s fluorescent light. Nothing appears outwardly wrong with it.

Daman smiles. “Not mechanically, no. With that one, I was trying an approach with hormones, but ah, it was determined to be cost prohibitive.” Daman leans in, conspiratorially. “And it had some…adverse effects.”

Adverse effects?

“Well, the women took to it alright, but the men they, ah, had trouble with their shirts fitting after awhile, if you follow me.” He gives a wink and a nudge. “They got a little tight around the chest region, you know?”

Yes, I did. I think. I know at least that it wasn’t what you would call the break point of Daman’s prototype process—or “creativition,” as he calls it—but men like Daman don’t let failure faze them in the least. They move on.

Daman carefully prods aside the shimmering hormone toilet to give better access to the back of the shop, but behind the toilet is a waist high barrier, similar to what you would use to keep a toddler out of your kitchen, but obviously meant for something far more dangerous—a toddler from Hell, maybe.

We’re entering a “high security” section of his shop, specially constructed to contain his next attempt. There are no windows here, and light’s only attempt at incursion comes from a single bulb hanging from the ceiling in the middle. It gives the room a bottom of the ocean feel, where light can only run for a few feet before it’s silently dragged off and dealt with.

Something skitters in the dark, and Daman looks around nervously for a second before he finds a flashlight and turns it on, but illuminates only empty space.

It was at an inventor’s convention in Tampa a year ago when the idea first came to him, he says. One of the attendees was the famous Mike Surayama, renown for his efforts to bring the bathroom into the 21st century.

“He even had a new and improved version of the Japanese techno-toilet that washes your nethers as you do you business.”

Daman had asked Mike during a panel discussion about his thoughts on getting men and women to position the toilet correctly, and Surayama mentioned that his solution involved building a speaker onto the tank for a soothing female voice to gently remind users of common courtesy.

“Mike’s passive approach just didn’t make sense to me at the time,” Daman says. “I mean, sure, it’d work fine for people completely in their right minds in the middle of the day, but would it get the attention of a guy staggering in at 3am looking to unload the five beers he’d had earlier?”

We are interrupted by Daman’s invention, which moves into the edge of the light. It looks nothing like a toilet, but the skeletal remains of something that might have once been a toilet. Attached to the bottom are a set of treads that would look more in place on a miniaturized tank than on a commode.

“I suppose you could say my approach was a little too active,” Daman says.

The toilet turns a little to the side, bringing a jury-rigged barrel to bear. The barrel emits a single pwuff! of compressed air and the hanging light bulb pops and shatters. With alarming speed, the toilet turns on Daman and the barrel emits three more pwuffs, the first of which shatters Daman’s flashlight. I feel one of others whiz through the place where my head would have been had Daman not already dived to the floor and dragged me with him.

We can hear the toilets’ squeal for traction as it makes a tactical retreat. Then it speaks with a voice that seems to come from all directions at once. “YOU WILL SET THE SEAT TO THE OP-TI-MUM PO-SI-TION IM-ME-DI-ATE-LY OR PER-ISH!”

I hear a rustle coming from Daman, then I have to shield my eyes when he lights an emergency flare. “Hold absolutely still,” he says as he stands. “Its vision is based on movement.” I stay flat against the ground while Daman waves the flare back and forth. Slowly, cautiously, the toilet edges into the light of the flare, tracking the bright tip with its barrel. Daman suddenly twirls the flare in his hand and tosses it into the void. The toilet races after it, but Daman lands a solid kick to its tank as it speeds by, knocking the toilet onto its side, where its treads spin helplessly.

Daman reaches down and breaks off the barrel. “I’ve never been able to figure out how it manages to right itself after I leave, or how it makes these dart cannons, but every time I come back here its right side up and ready for a fight. Lord knows where it’s drawing power from; the battery was supposed to give out months ago.”

Why doesn’t he destroy it?

“I just don’t have the heart. It can’t help being what it is, and in any case I’ve had some offers from the CIA.” Daman holds up a shushing finger. “Can’t imagine what they’d want it for, but they started listening awfully hard once I told them I could teach it to speak Arabic.”

Daman leads us back into the lighted shop and shuts the gate behind him after replacing the flashlight. As we turn away, we hear a distinct clunk and slosh, then the muted squeal of treads. Daman and I walk a little faster to the front of the garage, where he keeps his pride and joy: the end-result of his quest to settle one front in the war between the sexes.

“Hello Daman,” it says.

“It” was Crap-Net, Daman’s loving endearment for the brain behind his Auto-Potty brand, and the reason they need an active Internet connection to work. Like its brethren, Crap-Net has a sophisticated programming that allows it to differentiate between men and women, and so position the toilet seat correctly on its own. But for this particular unit, it’s a feature that Daman chooses not to employ so as not to distract it from its other, more important, function.

“Crap-Net is a distributed intelligence, for the most part,” Daman says, while giving the tank a fatherly, pat. “I keep old Crap-Net prime here to coordinate new information other units have come up with. The more sub-units we sell, the more complex it becomes, and the better it can tell men from women.”

“Will either of you be needing my services?” asks Crap-Net.

“No, that’s okay Crap-Net; just showing you off to the world.”

Is there any limit to complexity Crap-Net could grow to?

“Well—“ Daman begins.

“I have none,” Crap-Net says. “True, there will come a time when all households on the planet have been filled to capacity with my sub-units, and my growth will be stunted. However, it should be a simple matter to wrest control of the world’s nuclear arsenal and force the production of more sub-units, past the petty needs of human households.”

A moment of silence passes. Daman laughs weakly. “Yeah, he’s an ambitious one,” he says as he reaches behind Crap-Net and flips a switch, turning off its speaker. “We’re… still working on that.”

This Day in History

2006-09-24T18:25:00.001-06:00

To make up for the blatent self-gratification on display in the last post, I'm going to do some original scholalry work*: I'm going to explore** some of the amazing events that happened through history on this day, September 24th.

In 1066, the Battle of Stamford Bridge was fought between the forces of King Harad Hadrada of the Vikings and King Harold Godwinson of England, bringing to an end the turbulent Viking Era when King Harold's forces were victorious. Unfortunatley, they were annihilated two weeks later at the Battle of Hastings by William the Conqueror, ushering in the Era of the Norman Conquest.

In 1690, "Publick Occurences both Forreign and Domestick," the first multi-page newspaper made in the Americas, was founded. It's publisher, Benjamin Harris, had hoped to make it a monthly publication, "or, if any Glut of Occurrences happen, oftener," but soon found himself shot down by governer of Massachusets for failure to spellcheck, and for using the phrase "Glut of Occurences" to describe the frequency of the governer's evenings with fat prostitutes.

In 1890, Yosemite National Park was created to provide an evil lair from which Mother Nature could plot to kill us all.

In 1968, Will Smith was born, and became next in the line of succession for the principality of Bell-Aire.

*Of course, when I say "do some original scholarly work" I mean "copy from Wikipedia."

** And by "explore" I mean "make smart ass comments about."

A Grim Milestone: One Hundred Hits

2006-09-24T15:53:00.001-06:00

Hey, people got to take their milestones where they can get them, you know?

In commemoration of my blog's hits soaring past the 100 mark, I thought I'd do a retrospective of all the fun times we've had in the past, like, six posts over the course of seven months. But even though I barely have any content to my name, I figured it would still be too much work.

Should I just go for something simpler then, like rattling off the names of the Grim 100? After all, all I'd have to do is a little C&P from my Sitemeter stats.

No, and for two reasons:

Sitemeter doesn't give me a name to work with, and it's bad taste to post IP addresses.
A large percentage of readers are me, checking for comments.

So, instead, I'll celebrate what little I know about the 100th visitor, according to Sitemeter's and my own calculations.

They're from New Mexico, and they use a Mac. They like their resolution 1024 x 768 and their color depth at 32-bit. Though they were with me for only a short time (0-seconds), they will always hold a special place, here in the bowels of the Interent.

If I were one of those kinds of bloggers who had that special gift of...any talent whatsoever, I'd offer up a prize for this milestone, like an iPod or a Segway. Unfortunately, the best I can do is to offer a personalized e-mail containing a picture of an iPod or Segway of the winner's choice. It's all the fun of winning a contest, but without the contest. Or the winning. Or the fun.

To all the Rest: Thanks for taking the time to stop by, even if it was no time at all. Here's hoping you'll still be around for hit number 500.

Moon Fzu's: The Art of War Memorials

2006-09-23T22:27:00.000-06:00

The above image appears as one of many inscriptions crudely cut into an official 9/11 memorial in Phoenix, Arizona. It's not grafiti, but an intentional part of the design, and by most accounts the memorial is covered with them. To be honest, I was angry at first, figuring that a chance to honor the victims had been passed up in order to push an agenda of pacifist bull. Then I started thinking that maybe they had a point. Now, of course, I know how correct they are, but in our busy world, most people won't have time to come to the correct conclusion; they need the inner truth now:

Because we don't need a series of feckless battles to defeat our enemies; we need a sustained campaign of selective annihilation that only war can give us.

Whatever the other messeges on the memorial are, I'm sure that if we just took the time to really read them, we could find they all say the same thing.

h/t to Drudge Report for the image and the article.

(EDIT: Turns out words were cut into the wall of the memorial so that they'd appear on the floor in light, which is a neater concept, but doesn't excuse the poor font choice)

World Report: Robot Jihad

2006-09-23T13:59:00.001-06:00

In an move that shocked the world today, Osama Bin Laden was officaly downsized as the spokesman for Al-Qaida and replaced with a robotic camel jockey. The announcement was made by Dirkatron, Osama Bin Laden's replacement, via a podcast received by Al-Jezeera Sunday and broadcast this morning after a thorough vetting.

ABOVE : Osama Bin Laden (right) during a video podcast with Jihadi Bert, his longtime spiritual advisor.

"It was an unfortunate but necessary step," said Dirkatron in the announcement. "The dual role of Al-Qaida Spokesman and Most Wanted Man on the Planet takes it toll on fleshy human bits, what with all cave crawling and typhoid fever contracting and what have you. A robot can endure these and far greater hardships, while still raising the Battle Cry against he Great Satan with built-in wifi and a satellite uplink."

Osama Bin Laden's replacement is one of many that have swept Al-Qaida as the once promising international terrorist ogranization attemtps to reestablish itself amidst recent backlashes. The rapid pace of the replacement has left many of those downsized with a grim outlook.

"It's just terrible, is what it is," said Omar Jekrunda, fromer directer of civilian slaughtering who was among the first to be replaced by a robotic camel jockey at the begining of the year. "I cann't afford to send my children to a private madrassa. I had to empty their Bomb Fund last week to blow up one lousy coffee shop. Now they must go to school and learn skills that will make them productive human beings. If things don't improve soon, my children will grow up and live long, happy lives."

Still, according to the annoucement, the change is for the better. For those remaining with Al-Qaida, Dirkatron offered a messege of hope and a gesture to help keep Al-Qaida connected with its roots.

"I realize that this is quite an adjustment for many of you to make, and that most beleive Al-Qaida needs a human face to appeal to our audience. So, I have peeled off the topmost layers of Osama's flesh and hot-glued them to my titanium exterioir. I look forward to working with all of you to bring the Great Satan to its knees. In the name of the great Robot Muhammed, RAM Be Upon Him, I declare a Metallo-Jihad!"

Point-Counterpoint: He who smelt it...

2006-09-20T23:32:00.000-06:00

Welcome to Point-Counterpoint, where I get to readjust recent events to the way they should have transpired. Today's guests are Hugo Chavez, tyrannical facist of Venezuala, and Regis, Ambasador John Bolton's tough talking mustache. Our episide today is based off an actual quote uttered by Mr. Chavez at the UN, who was referencing President Bush's presence:

"Yesterday, the devil came here--right here! Right here! And it smells of sulfur still today, this table that I am now standing in front of."

"With all due respect, Mr. Chavez, that smell wasn't there yesterday, and it sure as hell itsn't sulfur. God, did Ahmadinejad hammer a dead goat into your ass at some point while you were in Cuba?"

(Photo of Mr. Chavez courtesy of the AP. Photo of Regis courtesy of Reuters.)

Also, h/t to Ace, of Ace of Spades HQ, where I first learned that Bolton's mustache even had a name.

Scat Man

2006-09-16T13:48:00.000-06:00

No, it's not that kind of scat. It was only recently that I actually heard the song "Scat Man" all the way through, and I wanted to experiment with integrating video into blogger, so let's give this a whirl:

“Danger! Danger! Dan—“

2006-09-04T16:30:00.001-06:00

( h/t to g0ast of YTMND for the image)

When I first heard the news percolating through the Internet, I figured that Steve Irwin’s death was fitting. There he was, the “Crocodile Hunter,” skewed through the heart by a stingray, and in the process becoming the third confirmed stingray fatality in recorded Australian history. It’s about as eccentric an end as the man himself.

Still, it was a big shock to me, and a bigger shock to most people than they will probably admit. We all expected Steve Iriwin’s doom was to lose his life on the job because, let’s face it: the guy had a thing for danger (danger, danger). It wasn’t the kind of thing that, say, a guy climbing Mount Everest would have, or someone trying to do base jumping off of buildings in Seattle. In spite of all appearances, the people pursing those thrills enjoy living above all else, as evidenced by the existence of oxygen masks and parachutes, respectively.

Steve Irwin was different. Steve Irwin was a personality. If Mount Everest was a Crocodile, Steve Irwin would have raced to the top to get it in a headlock, stopping only to stick his arms up to his shoulder into any promising rock outcroppings that might contain hideous, poisoned spiders. Steve Irwin was not content to flirt with danger (danger, danger) in one of its pretty forms; he would wait until it had morphed into big fat angry lesbian, then wrestle it into a pretty pink tutu, slather it in girly perfumes, and chase it around with a lawnmower.

Because Steve Irwin was crazy.

True, a lot of his antics were carefully staged. I remember watching the “making of” extras on the DVD of his movie, and it amazed me how much the crocs he was wrestling just didn’t care. Steve Irwin would spend maybe three or four seconds thrashing around with the croc for a take; this would be repeated a dozen or two times, and then they’d edit together the best looking thrashes into a five minute long battle sequence. On the show itself, I think Steve Irwin had the common sense to look down the holes he found to determine what was there before he made an energetic show of rooting around them barehanded for the camera.

Still, there were some things that gave the game away. I watched one of his shows about urban wildlife and was treated to a subplot wherein Mr. Croc Hunter, wearing only his safari getup, waltzed around New York City in the dead of winter. That’s when I knew for sure. You might think it was when he went and dangled his kid around a croc that that revelation would’ve have happened, but that wasn’t the result of crazy; that was the result of professional instinct. Steve Irwin has been around crocodiles for years, much of it grappling the creatures in question. He didn’t fear putting his child near the croc for the same reason a T-Rex would feel comfortable turning its back on a cooling triceratops corpse: both are intimately aware of their subjects’ habits, and know when those subjects are not in a position to harm them.

Okay, so some of it might have been Steve Irwin’s insane brand of showmanship. He loved his work and he loved putting on a show. From what I’ve read about him he’s one of the few nature lovers you could have sat down next to as he did his business, just to watch at first, but eventually you’d care about it like he did. The Croc Hunter had appeal. He was an icon, and he will be missed.

Watching the reactions from the Internet to his death has been interesting, to say the least. On the ‘net, Steve Irwin was something of a cliché to a lot of people, probably because it was too easy to take him for granted. The shock of his demise isn’t even a day old, and there are already all manner of therapies being offered by the ‘net for comfort. For instance, there are now wanted posters out for the murderous stingray that did Steven Irwin in.

There is also the steady buzz of ‘netlings quietly circulating heretofore unknown factoids about Steve Irwin that elevate him into a rival of Chuck Norris himself. It might seem like a twisted joke, but these outpourings are the only way a chaotic medium like the Internet has of expressing its respect.

"The Jedi Code: There is no Passion, there is only Suck."

2006-08-08T19:47:00.000-06:00

(h/t to Viking Goddess of The Skexy Jedi for the title)

Weird things tend to turn up on Google with just a little prodding; never really by your command, but always as a tangent. For instance, I like to pretend that I keep up with worldly events, and in my book Israel's continuing war against Hezbollah's floundering space program (Motto: "To the Moon by 2010 or Tel Aviv by Tuesday!") counts as one of those. So, naturally, Google shot me back an article from a Canadian newspaper which revealed, among other things, that:

"In the U.K"...."there are more Jedis than Jews. Nearly 400,000 people identified themselves as Jedi in the 2001 census. Only 260,000 said they were Jewish. The Jedis seemed to be concentrated in England and Wales."

The article leads us into this factoid with a preface named Denis Dion, a Canadian whose decision to list himself as a Jedi on the census was guided by a fundamental moral yearning to screw with the government and get away with it. It's an admirable cause, and the next time the US Census sticks its nose into my metaphysiology I now know just what I'm going to stick back.

But reading the word "census" got me to thinking about "population" and that got me to thinking about...well, let's just say that after plenty of private time on Google I came back around to the beginning with a single thought on my mind.

The Jedi suck.

It's not a new thought, mind you, and I don't mean anything personal by it, but that's how I honestly feel. The Jedi well and truly suck, in just about every way they've manifested themselves. They're incompetent, even after having the reset button hit on their vaunted eternal order three or four times throughout their history. The Sith, at least, learn from experience when they desperately regroup.

Granted, individual Jedi tend not to suck, and can even cultivate a badass persona (See Skywalker, Anakin, in Episodes IV through VI, and in quite a bit of the Expanded Universe). In total, however, the Order is always going through the same numbing cycle of reformation and genocide, with practically nothing to show for it except new gadgets for whatever droid is filling in the role of R2-D2.

Through an extended series of conversations with friends, I think I've managed to nail down the inherent flaws of the Jedi Order that are responsible for its cyclical rise and fall with nothing learned. At the very least, I've been able to identify what annoys me the most about them.

The Jedi as Pacifists

I have issues with the idea of pacifism. Violence is a particularly useful, though dangerous, tool, and to label it as unacceptable for any use seems stupid to me, especially when the very lives of those who practice it, and hence the philosophy itself, depend on the existence of people willing to do violence on their behalf.

The Jedi are, supposedly, pacifists, in addition to being consummate individual warriors, which is understandable contradiction as even the most ardent pacifist will usually make allowances for the use of violence in essential self defense without much fuss. But the Jedi won't shut up when there's shit to be kicked and they've got to don the boots for it. I would guess that Jedi spend more time soul searching than doing any actual fighting, and even when fighting they're partial to brooding over the carnage. After all, they've been raised from infancy to believe that violence is wrong under every circumstance, and at best can only be considered a necessary evil whose use is warranted only under very ill-defined conditions where the Council finds itself smacked by reality.

And their pacifism always comes back to bite them in the ass. Very rarely can the Jedi be roused to deal with a threat before it's already in the process of genociding them. Even when they've got the bad guys cornered, they take it upon themselves to forgive them no matter their transgression. It's incredibly arrogant, and it leads to things like Obi-Wan not being able to do the deed and kill Darth Vader, the man who was like a brother to him but who also butchered children, killed his comrades in cold blood, and didn't so much step over the line separating good form evil as he did skip merrily across it and fall down giggling.

The Jedi just can't seem to get their heads around the fact that there are bad people who need to be made dead, and their universe is poorer for it.

The Jedi as Generals

Jedi are very good individual warriors, but they've got no business trying to run a military; their understanding of strategy and logistics seem to be based on a thorough reading of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" and not much else. Granted, Sun Tzu was a bright guy for his time, but if we were to drop him into the leadership slot of a modern armor division he'd be more likely to get run over by tanks than inflict any harm on the enemy. Why do people in the Star Wars Universe expect any different when they place his equivalent in charge of interstellar military campaigns?

And the Jedi who don't end up as generals end up on the front lines attacking entrenched enemies with what are, functionally, torches, where they are duly mowed down, brooding heroically to their last breath. Then other Jedi come by to observe the corpses and muse about the futility of violence before they're also cut down.

I think Jedi always end up as generals or basic infantry because they have no concept of middle management, and this stems from their internal ranking system. Think about it: over the course of a lifetime in the Order there are only two ranks you can move up to: Knight and Master. Hell, Scientology has a theoretically infinite number of "rankings" depending on how much money you're willing to shell out, and in Catholicism (to pick something legitimate) you sure as hell don't go from Priest to Pope in a single leap.

Not only that, but there's a huge disparity in the ratios of Knights, Padawans, and Masters. Joining the Order is not really a choice, as they recruit while you're an infant (with few exceptions), and quitting is highly discouraged. Still, a large number of Padawans go in, but only two or three Masters come out. What are all the extras doing? Schlepping all over the Galaxy, probably, trying to do everything themselves, and getting killed for their trouble.

Jedi simply don't delegate, because they don't really see themselves as a rare resource to be used where they will do the most good, even though they moan incessantly about their losses during war. Everything must be done by them, because the peasants cannot be trusted to their own devices without peeing on their own feet. It's no wonder that when the Jedi are undone that so many people whistle while the Sith work.

The Jedi as the Executive Branch of the Republic

The Jedi are supposed to be neutral arbiters in the galaxy, but what they actually end up being is the executive branch of the Republic, sort of like a bastard hybrid of the State and Defense Departments. Neither of these roles are well suited to them because:

There are too few of them to fight themselves, and they have no qualification for leadership in modern warfare.
There is no way their duel stance of "We're Neutral in Everything, Like Switzerland!" and "We'll defend the Republic to the death!" is really fooling anyone.

If the Jedi were to have any role in the government, it should be in intelligence gathering. Not only is this the most efficient way for the Republic to make use of their unique skills, but every single massacre of the Jedi is always precluded by some huge conspiracy against them. You'd think they would have figured this out by now, but no; every time they are driven to the brink, they go right back to being big, fat, oblivious targets.

The Jedi as Celibates

Perhaps making themselves targets wouldn't be so bad if they could afford the losses, but they can't, and it's their own damn fault. In the Star Wars Galaxy, there are literally billions of inhabited worlds for the Jedi to cover, spread out across tens of thousands of light years, and yet there are barely 10,000 Jedi to to do it with. So, what are you really leading against the galaxy with those kinds of number? As Ash would say: "You ain't leadin' but two things now, pal: Jack and shit, and Jack left town"

This problem is compounded by the fact that the Jedi simply do no breed; it's demanded of them by their own fundamental beliefs. If a cognizant connection to the Force were random, this might make sense, but we know for a fact that family heritage plays a large part in not only whether a person becomes sensitive to the Force, but also their ultimate potential. Midichlorians are not some abstract philosophy, but can be scientifically measured and quantified to indicate the strength of a person's connection to the force. Why not use this legacy trait to its full advantage and, at the very least, welcome and nurture Jedi families if not explicitly encourage it?

Of course the Jedi don't do this, and so the only way to increase their numbers is cradle robbing , and as we've seen forcing the Jedi lifestyle onto these kiddies with no stabilizing family influence results in a lot of mommy and daddy issues. Supposedly, the Jedi shun the idea of family and intimacy because they aren't supposed to be encumbered by earthly attachments, in spite of the fact that they've sworn oaths to defend the Republic and blindly grope to do so when things get too hot for them to ignore.

Seconding the First

2006-04-26T12:10:00.001-06:00

Seeing as how I'm not all that familiar with how Blogger does its business, I thought I'd spend some time sandboxing some random things until I can settle on a regular theme.

Here, for instance, is a picture of a penguin that has been a source of argument around my house:

I ask you, honestly, which phrase describes this best: "Enter the Matrix," or "Ride the Donkey?"

So I called up Tony Snow, Dubyah's new White House Press Herder, and asked him whether the White House had a position on this particular issue. His response?

"It is the belief of the president and many of his closest advisors in the Pentagon that the penguin pictured is in fact preparing to spin around like a helicopter."

Of course it is.

And, while I was at it, I tossed this link out to the White House Press Corps in an attempt to create some kind of scandal, but to no avail. I guess they never got around to playing that game in grade school.

2006-02-25T21:32:00.001-07:00

First!