Ptbbbbbbth

Whenever I see something incredibly strange and perhaps scarring, I get this urge to share it with my friends. "Hey, this hurt my soul, maybe you should check it out!" Don't worry, I never do this without warning people first.

Watermelon juice that tastes like squeezed watermelon is at Trader Joe's. Go get some, because it is delicious.

Americans produce so many anti-dystopic themed stories but we are sort of living in a dystopia in which we are the fat cats. Of course, we are now sort of paying the price and taking everyone down with us, but think about how corporations affect labor laws to keep their bottom line down. The problem is that those who don't generally don't swim.

Here is an interesting structure called "The Bat Spiral". I like this article for these two lines:
"I'm led to wonder, however, what non-human future might await something like Aranda\Lasch's 10 Mile Spiral if it were to be constructed – and later abandoned – amidst an ecosystem for bats...
We are inadvertently building the future infrastructure of an animal world."

One of the gifts I was planning on making Chris was a terrarium with abandoned architecture, so he could watch the plants slowly grow over and break it down. I'm planning on making one for myself in that magical time known as the future.

Here is a reason why they like physicists and computer scientists in Wall Street.

Also, though I talked about how much I dislike Twilight in the last post, I would like to point out the irony of calling Edward gay-ish: the main fans of the series are women.

Today saw me trying to dissect Mario, figure out optimization strategies, and then ask myself what exactly am I doing. Things are more fun when you're good at them, but this no longer feels fun. I'm doing it wrong.

Reading Into it All

Thanks for the link Anonymous, I finished reading the story today.
As someone who has read Flatland I am hoping he got to copyright first, which he probably did.

I am a sworn enemy of the Twilight series. Everything I have read about it reinforces my resolution not to read it, especially Edward's line "You're like my own personal brand of heroin". What girl actually wants to hear that? Well, apparently many, many teenagers these days, but still. It doesn't help that my usual reaction to romance scenes is to skip them unless I'm reading a classic or it's a very good book. And here is my problem with most fantasy novels:

1.) Guy meets girl, guy and girl fall for each other. Cool.
2.) Guy and girl go through tribulations together, keep love to themselves. This is realistic.
3.)Guy and girl confess love and then get married/spend eternity together shortly thereafter. Wait, what? No?

First love sells, which is just a matter of fact. But these novels include only the honeymoon phase and none of the ecstasy or pain that comes with real love or spending a significant amount of time together. A partner is a person whom you know for years and will still be a surprise sometimes and totally predictable in others. These saccharine, unrealistic portrayals are not doing anybody any favors, ultimately. Why would you want a love like that if you could have the real thing?
Also, as far as I understand Bella follows Edward to the exclusion of everybody else and then gets pregnant right after high school. What a great example. Also, talk about communication issues between Bella and Edward. As far as I understand, in the second book he leaves without telling her why.
I know that people are going "it's a book for teenagers, you shouldn't expect better". And there are plenty of examples of other books where the characters meet, fall in love, and get married soon thereafter. It's usually their saving grace that this is not the central pillar of the plot which excuses this.
Ok, so people in my generation were reading Harry Potter in middle school, and I would love to say that nobody took them too seriously, but it's Harry Potter. I have read all of those books, and while they are entertaining and do use actual mythology/characters from history in them(eg Nicholas Flamel) they are entertainment and nothing more. I do not get why so many other just as good or better books did not gain the popularity of this trilogy. Maybe it was a changing climate in regards to fantasy, or the series was simply extremely accessible to people, or a bit of both. Either way, LOTR was then produced, which I approve of. Then there was Wicked. I never finished the book, but it is dark and graphic and I'm willing to bet most people don't actually read it. I've heard some of the songs from the musical and read the Wikipedia entry on the play. The songs are very simple musically and tap into generalized emotions. "I'm not that girl" is something most, if not all of us, have felt in the past before and probably associate with deep emotions, but it's not exactly brilliant writing. The whole the popular girl and the outcast can get along! and the popular girl has problems and can feel like an outcast too is good. Of course, I believe most of us learn this immediately after high school if not before then.

Today's speed run: 12 minutes to the end of 6-3(got killed by the world boss).

One of the differences between photographs and paintings, at least, to me, is that, in a painting the subjects are beautiful shells waiting to be filled with meaning, but a photograph is of someone extant, a person who's shoes we may attempt to step in but can never replace. In fact, completely replacing the person in a photograph dehumanizes the model in a way, because they become simply tools, vehicles for ourselves. Of course, many fashion photographers attempt to take the image of a model and make it their own in the way painters made model's images a work of art. One could argue that the ending photograph is as far removed from the model as a painting, but this is not intuitively extant to me. Perhaps because when looking at a painting, the first "person" considered is the painter, but when looking at a photograph, it is the model. Or perhaps it's my perception of models then and now.

After reading this article on horrible, horrible US companies that again throw the phrase "first world problems" into harsh reality, I had a heart attack when Nesquick was #1 on the list. Child slave labor, some of it from human trafficking, harvests the cocoa in their drinks. I love chocolate milk and consume vast quantities of it. I am never buying Nesquick again. The Kirkland milk I buy is organic, certified by the American Humane Society and obviously sold by the awesome Costco, but where does the cocoa in it originate? Here is a site called "Rountable for a sustainable cocoa economy". Declaration of Trinidad and Tobago?! This hits much too close to home. But I can't find out where the cocoa is from. Most likely a middleman.

The Foul Birdo has Been Defeated

So you've probably noticed a proliferation of news stories and not a whole lot of added content from me in the past few days sans the aquarium and gender issues posts. I'm very tired and busy. I have been thinking about things and my mind is wandering off towards semiotics at the moment, though it has been concentrating on a paper since I got home besides the nap and an episode of Star Trek. Trying to write a blog post on how you had to review improper integrals since you haven't seen them since Calc II is more shameful than entertaining, anyways. Especially since I have been using them but not in the format you're technically supposed to. Though some of you reading may like shame.

In which case, watch this commercial:


Do you know what is happening in this ad? Don't tell me if you do, I'm too busy playing with puppies and kittens. I believe there should be a free "hug an animal" center in every community.

Speaking of games, I beat Super Mario 2 in 48 minutes. And no, I'm not trying to do a speed run like this guy(and I can't do the Bird Level like that).


He also appears to be playing on an original Nintendo, which is a lot more user-friendly than the ROM and Logitech controller that I have here. I just attempted my own speed run, which lasted seventeen-ish minutes and got as far as level 6-3's birdo boss. I only used The Princess, who is in fact the only character I ever use. Maybe I should branch out more, but I play this game to relax and not to compete.

On one hand I am completely in favor of the retro-game trend. Most of these are free to download and fun to play, though I actually have not gotten into any indie/retro gaming besides Knytt Stories and the aforementioned Marios, both of which I barely ever play. Knytt Stories is a really wonderful game introduced to me by Alex. The music is wonderful, soothing, and the gameplay is simple yet subtly challenging. The "plots" are simple yet extremely creative.

On the other I feel as if this part of an 80's nostalgia wave which is coming too soon. My generation has barely reached adulthood and here a lot of us are, reminisceing over our childhood. Perhaps this is telling of the times.

Mom managed to stroke Clingy's back without him running away today. All of the kittens sleep on the rocker, hide under the shed from the heat, sleep on the bench under the bamboo, and play in their "cave". Gaiylee has been missing for over a week at this point. We don't know where she went, which is very upsetting and a sad reality for feral cats.

I was just thinking about how Livejournal is actually a much better site in general than blogspot, with photo galleries, communities, and far more customizablity, yet its popularity with a lot of teenagers ironically caused it to loose many members in the long run. I switched to Blogger because I wanted this journal to be taken more seriously(as seriously as you can take such a journal, of course) and because at the time I thought it had a better interface. Which it does not, and I should really switch to Wordpress. Maybe after Europe I will take the time to do so.

Note: I have reformatted some of my posts for aesthetic reasons.

Yesterday is Today is Yesterday

Significant Objects is a site dedicated to people buying thrift store items and writing a fictional history for them then selling them on Ebay. Yes, the descriptions are marked as fake. At first I was a little skeeved about this concept but then realized that what's really being marketed is the author's talent as a writer. Fictional history is fun.

Here is an interesting story of a roleplaying game revolving mostly around story and not around
winning.

"To call Slobbovia a Diplomacy variant is, however, misleading; the game purposefully had no victory conditions, and the formal game itself served as little more than a framework for structuring a written roleplaying game. The postal Diplomacy hobby has a tradition of "press," whereby a player may, each turn, include a written statement that is published with the turn's results (e.g., "The Office of the Kaiser today announced..."). In Slobbovia, press was the focus of the game, rather than a minor adjunct."

And here is a game which reminds of what Risk is trying to be.

Will someone browse the freeware on that site?

I really want to enter reburbia but feel as though I am automatically outmatched by architect students and don't have the time to engage in such a project. Also, I think I'm going to enjoy the magazine that's sponsoring the competition, Inhabitant, very much. Here is the newest entry:

"Designer Chiyu Chen has conceived of an ingenious transit system that encourages the use of sustainable transportation by crediting people for renting and riding bicycles. His Hybrid2 system consists of a fleet of rentable bicycles that are capable of generating and storing kinetic energy, which is then used to power the city’s hybrid electric buses. Simply rent a bike, charge it up with kinetic energy from pedal power, and then return it to a kiosk - the station feeds energy into the city’s smart grid, and you receive a credit towards your next bus pass!"

The problem with capitalism is that people speak so glibly of the market punishing and rewarding businesses. What if the business is so large that a lot of other businesses rely on it? What about all of the jobs lost when that company goes out of business?

USAspending.gov makes United States spending open-source for viewing. On one hand, this makes me happy. On the other, don't look, countries with grudges against us!

Apparently visa overcharged some unlucky people to the tune of $23 quadrillion dollars. Nope, not a joke, just a glitch. The author of Freaknomics pointed out that this is a good point against those who favor an all-digital currency. A quote of a comment from the blog:

"It’s a technical glitch. The interesting part of this is not that it happened, but rather, how those involved dealt with it.

People calling their banks to ask about this, got a lot of runaround from folks at those banks who either did not realize there was anything wrong with massive transactions, or who realized they were erroneous but otherwise did not address all the attendant issues (e.g. NSF fees, etc.).

Also, although the problem has been figured out, it’s not because anyone working for a bank or Visa actually disclosed what it had been. It was, instead, “reverse engineered” by geeks who uncovered the cause on their own. Official response has been evasive at best, e.g. in this story:

Bank of America tells WMUR-TV only the card issuer, Visa, could answer questions. Visa, in turn, referred questions to the bank.

As I said, the assorted dodging, swerving, evasiveness, and foot-dragging are interesting. What makes people so unwilling to deal with what is, in the end, a simple technical glitch?

Very revealing about human nature.

— PsiCop"

I think we've found out what Palin is up to: turning into the black goo of death. Am I mean? Maybe a little.

Also, apparently closing down a few roads is actually beneficial to traffic congestion as a whole, since people cannot selfishly optimize their routes.
Comic courtesy of xkcd

Computer Love(and Diva Cups)

I have a love-hate relationship with my computer. Computers provide access to tons of information, the news, television, movies, and my friends. They used to provide me access to games, but I haven't played one in the longest time. I only interrupted my long dry spell to play Age of Empires I, but I started in the "Nomad" age where the computer glitched and didn't even build a town center. Thus went an hour and a half of my life.

In a tangent, play is an important part of life as it engages the player inside the system, but I dislike how limited computer games can be. In AOE no volcanoes are going to blow up your palaces, mimicking the downfall of the Minoans.

However, for all the reasons listed in the first paragraph, computers can be extremely addictive and provide the illusion of growth. Almost nothing available online gives the exhaustive treatment to a subject that books provide besides e-books, of course. Also, I adore the sun and actually visiting places.

I hate the feeling of being trapped at the computer that I sometimes get.
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Initial reactions to the Diva Cup:
It is painful to put this in right after showering(if you're a woman you can probably guess why without my being overt). Otherwise, it's actually pretty easy to deal with. Beware thumb nails.

After all this time using pads and on rare occasion, tampons, the Diva cup is a vast improvement. I did not realize how psychosomatic some aspects of periods are until using this, which I cannot and you are not supposed to, feel. I feel like a normal, competent, uninhibited person. The feminist side of me is a little enraged to discover how easy the solution is and does feel as though I have been put down all of these years by inferior products. I can do anything with ease and cannot stress how wonderful it is to not worry about accidents.

Plus it is environmentally friendly and actually saves money. So far it seems like my kind of product, though I did put it in after two days, missing the most troublesome of my cycle.

PS, did you know that silicone is used in many hair products, including shampoo and conditioner?

I will keep you updated.