Imagination

(Image credit; By artist Dean Yeagle)


Some moons ago Boing Boing posted a link to this Flickr gallery featuring Soviet radio apparatuses.

They also posted a link to the online archive of the American eugenics movement. We like to censor our social attitudes at the time of WWII in retrospect, but I really think that in this case we could benefit from learning from it. Also, it strikes me as blatant propaganda to hide this ugly truth. Perhaps it is beneficial that the story is alien from us as it makes it all the more repulsive, but America is guilty and needs to answer for that. It is also beneficial to face the realities of a society where quote-unquote scientific enlightenment ruled, or rather, how easily "common sense" and misinterpretation/failure to take into account variables in/of models can turn into a destructive force. As someone who welcomes intellectuals as leaders this era has especially served as a cautionary tale: yes, in ideal form, this would not happen, but a lot of things work in ideal form and Joseph Stalin does not come to power, for example.

So I don't have a Wii, but the images for the new Steampunk "Epic Mickey" freak me out and make me want to. As long as they don't have that six-legged MechaMickey in there, because I would probably accidentally throw the controller through the screen when he turned up. This is probably the most blatantly psychological steampunk I have seen, filled with a landscape of broken childhood innocence. Imagine a post-apocalyptic fairy tale, or set in a formerly fairy land. I had a dream like that, where fairyland had been transformed into suburbia and it was my job as the leader to lead my people to wake the fairy queen. We had to escape guards at Disneyland and she was in a pond where houses and graffiti were encroaching; it was nevertheless a beautiful place, much like a lake I saw in Scotland. In fact, it probably was that lake in Scotland, a lake where we thought that an oil slick made the water shine from afar but was in fact a healthy and living beauty. I was the only woman, I made fire and water dance together for a couple's wedding and accidentally made it rain. But I am all about actual utopias(or as near as humans can get, or a civilization where everyone is enlightened and can fullfill their creative urges...something), so someone else will have to write the story.

Here is an interesting story from Wired on the economics of the Somalia pirates. Note: an average pirate makes seventeen times the income of a regular Somalian citizen.

You know, all of this buisness news is blending into "estimated this and that". I'm suprised economists haven't included into their own model the estimates of what reporting can do to stocks.



If you love stop-motion animation, you'll love this. It's seriously amazing.
(Credit: The PEN story, found via Boing Boing, is another amazing stop-motion video made as an ad by Olympus. They mention him as their inspiration in their credits. )

Honestly? I can't wait for Italy and England. My blood is boiling from the need to travel to Europe again. I've been having dreams about it, and finally I'm going. And yes, I am going to be posting while there, which will probably be my only contact with the outside world.

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.

Rebel, Rebel

This makes me wonder if people would have the same reaction here in America. Would we rally and rebel, or would we scream and cry in print while doing nothing at all? America is a huge country, and the state of all of that land in anarchy is a terrifying proposal. Would we storm the capital? Who would we put in charge? One could argue that the 2000 election was a very poor cover-up, as many have, but besides plunging the economy into the worst recession since the great depression and attacking individual, scientific, and women's rights, Bush wasn't that bad. Maybe we should have rioted...but the point is that even Bush in his eight years could not overturn the system of checks and balances besides in the things he kept absolutely secret from the public.
This whole thing kind of makes me want to hug Obama.

Warren Buffet is creating his own cartoon line to teach kids about business. The late and great Carl Sagan will also be in a different comic along the same lines. Whenever I see things like this it always stirs up suspicion in my mind, because why would the most successful financial people really want company? Better to activate the Pavlovian centers with a few tricks that are successful and a whole lot more that creates a "slightly above average average investor" at most. On "Kosmos", while the book is AWESOME and everyone should read it(I have it back if you want to borrow it), the original series failed to keep the attention of a classroom of middle schoolers. Then again, not much does, but Sagan exuded too much sexy 1970's man to keep myself and the couple of other astronomy buff's attention on the screen. The long out-of-style "K" at the beginning makes me doubly suspicious, since Sagan was an eloquent and extremely smart scientist whom everybody should read, not some jazzed-up-for-jaded-youth lame rap afficiando. Don't mess this up, AOL. Of course, this is AOL we're talking about.

Here is a huge collection of vintage television and movies.



This is a video of the Iranian police attacking a car, taken from Mousavi's Twitter feed. It's strange, because their streets look so much like our streets despite 5000 miles and a bunch of freaky armed GIs. The picture was taken from the flickr stream of a protest on the streets. Come on Iranians, I know you can win against this dictator.

Mooning

These Flickr shots from India, China and Japan of the most recent lunar eclipse are awesome. I found them via the Freak-
anomics blog. This is where today's picture (s)comes from. I can't even begin to post all of my favorites. I love the steam-punk-ishness of the first shot and the fragile humanity of the second.

Shell has been accused by Amnesty International of horrible crimes in the Niger Delta. The report which has been put together is pretty damning. Please click.

Someone please remind me to get my hands on Gaiman's "A Study in Emerald". Apparently it's his fusing of HP Lovecraft and Sherlock Holmes. This sounds like it could go horribly wrong, but it most likely it didn't. And I want to see it.

Speaking of Gaiman, a short while back he posted a link to Jamie Kennedy's hilarious bid to take the Newberry award from him.

".. And I, Jamie Kennedy am the Sarah Palin of fiction!"

The third video of three:

If you want to see Gaiman being wrestled to the ground, here is your chance.

I believe that there should be a ban on political ads. In this day and age of the internet the off-hand access to a candidate's information is easy to find, and the horrible excess of money that is wasted while running for office on every level of government is disgusting. Of course, I have no doubt that politicians will then attempt to rig the sites with the most hits for the apposing candidate, even if it is illegal. Can't the public win? In a way, though, website traffic is much more traceable and easier to investigate. If only society didn't insist on drowning us in nonsense information and untrustworthy leaders. You can't only blame the politicians, though. What if we all participated in the primaries and the big name candidates were not the only ones who received grassroots funding?

This makes me think about celebrity and de-humanization. The earliest humans always portray other tribes as evil or less than themselves in some way. Celts are Frost Giants, enemy tribes are motivated by jealous demons, and the other tribes are actually monkies that look like humans. Yet it is extremely rare to encounter a racist child. A judgmental child, though, is not hard to find. We all have "that uncle" or someone who's views are directly the opposite of ours, sometimes for all the reasons we dislike the opposing side, too. Yet would any of us wish them to die or call them the names we call our politicians?

All of these are just snippets of thoughts I'm having.

PS New Mario 2 speed run time: 20-21 minutes, got to the middle of 7-2(the last level)

I kind of like the wacky layout of this particular post.

Good and Bad

(Note: This is a real nebula)



This couple has an awesome wedding! Source

Somebody decided to "donate" a landmine to Goodwill.

Apparently as many as 2,000 Afghan soldiers were killed and put in a mass grave that was covered up under the Bush administration. I wonder why they hate us? It is so difficult to figure out.

I wonder how many of those people had families with children or babies? Let's kill a bunch of fathers who are also sons. Not only is it morally justifiable, but it won't have any far-reaching repercussions.

Please visit this site.

The Falcon from The Shamptonian Institute on Vimeo.

"The Falcon is a stop-animation/steampunk film that takes place on an old wooden photo album and is entirely composed of macro-photographed hardware pieces from vintage, antique cameras that have been carefully disassembled, for that true analog experience in pure 100% digital Shamptonian definition. The film features music from ESL Music ESL artist Thunderball, with sound design by Bret Johnson. From A.gfa to Z.eiss, and whatever your format, The Falcon has a perspective for everyone."

This..is actually a cool way to go after dying to me for some reason.

I saw my goby today! He seems to be doing well, though he has decided never to leave the cover of the driftwood. I also saw my everglades pygmy sunfish.

I am kind of in love with Regina Spektor's song "Blue Lips".

Every Day Saturday Morning is the blog of an abortion clinic escort. These people tolerate everything from verbal abuse to actual violence in order to protect women in what is usually already a horrible and harrowing time.

Robots, Plants, and Dystopias

I love this simple yet salient article on the Freakanomics blog criticizing the way data is used in today's journalism.

"The lead article is by John Noble Wilford (who’s still going strong, btw), and includes one of the most elegant little uses of data I can recall seeing in a news article:

Although Mr. Armstrong is known as a man of few words, his heartbeats told of his excitement upon leading man’s first landing on the moon.

At the time of the descent rocket ignition, his heartbeat rate registered 110 a minute — 77 is normal for him — and it shot up to 156 at touchdown."

MIT is also tracking trash in an effort to show how far it can reach. I think the criticisms present about the sampling are relevant, though they may be showing how even conscientious people can have far-reaching affects with their disposables.

NASA apparently secretly launched a moon rock into space to celebrate yesterday's anniversary of the moon landing. Why?! We only have so many and I want one, you could have given it to me instead! Also lost opportunities for science, blah blah blah.

You know, after reading a couple accounts of the UK terrorism laws on Boing Boing I'm starting to understand things like V for Vendetta, Quatterman, and Warren Ellis (who is a person not a thing and in San Diego where he can do horrible, horrible things to me). Damn, it makes here look like a a veritable utopia of individual rights in some cases. I'm not going to go into debating the amount of freedom they have versus our amount of freedom because I don't know enough on the subject and am too lazy to do the research. All I will say is that this issue is not black and white.

Lego Microtome


"A microtome is a small machine that biologists use to slice specimens into very thin sections to examine under a microscope. Instructables user lemonie made his own out of Lego! In this video demo, the device cuts garlic in slices just 250 microns thick. That's about twice as thick as a human hair. Seems like the Lego Microtome could be scaled up for slicing paper-thin prosciutto! Lego Microtome (Thanks, Christy Candida!)"

People are thankfully working on shark repellants to save them from fishing lines.

It's amazing how Twix and Burger King cross the line from using women for sexy points to using women. Thanks, I love being objectified and taken for granted! I'm not a person, I'm a walking Barbie doll who's all plastic with no inside.

These paper robots are awesome! That's what that picture is, btw.

How NOT to raise a chimp in your family:
"I collect books by people who have raised apes in their homes. One of the first, The Ape and the Child, was written in by behaviorist W.N. Kellogg, a man with a peculiar brainstorm: that he should raise a chimpanzee as a twin to his own infant son, treating them in exactly the same fashion, and comparing their development......Results? Mixed. The chimp, Gua, took more quickly to her civilizing education than her brother. She appeared smarter, stronger, and more emotionally developed on a number of counts: she was better at using glasses and silverware, walked earlier (chimps generally don't walk upright), responded to verbal commands sooner, and was more cooperative and obedient......For example, though Donald had learned to walk before Gua joined the Kellogg family, he regressed and started crawling more, in tune with Gua. He'd bite people, fetch small objects with his mouth, and chewed up a shoe. More importantly, his language skills were delayed. At 19 months, Donald's vocabulary consisted of three words. Instead of talking he would grunt and make chimp sounds..."

My new plant from Trader Joe's named "Blue Wonder"(pictured) was rootbound, so today I bought another pot for it. When repotting it it looked so happy in the outdoor sun that I decided to leave it there(yes, it is a full sun plant). Now I need an indoor plant and the cycle continues. Maybe I'll get bamboo?

Will Arnett praying for breasts.

MechaBarbie(or Bush) Makes Children Cry(and Other Issues)

Source
This is what my kids are going to be playing with. Aren't you glad I'm not having any?

So I was walking to Trader Joe's today and suddenly felt angry thinking about how men's bodies don't go out of style. Then I realized that this simply was not true. Henry VIII was considered extremely attractive and we've gone through several versions of the "ideal boy" in recent years, from various bad boys and star jocks in the 80's and 90's to Zak Efron and Edward Cullen. And I realized that I actually know a good number of men who have body issues. It just seems to go un-discussed, most likely because of the macho hetero-normative male now dominating our culture. Body issues are for gay people and girls, God.

One of the many reasons guys need a masculist revolution of their own.

We live in a disposable culture. Everything is thrown away with regularity, from trends to toys to paper towels without us noticing.

I am kind of loving this article on the future of books. But I think what a lot of us are experiencing when we profess our undying love to the smell of a library(which I do) is nostalgia. Please keep in mind that nostalgia is what keeps people from having integrated proms and such. The one thing that disturbs me is that, counter-intuitionally, data is much more fallible than paper. What if some large world war took place? I would like to think that information is distributed too far and wide to be lost in the manner of the Library of Alexandria, but there is so much that is not. Books go out of print and are lost in the halls of The Library of Congress.

Books are personal experiences. They affect our mind and soul in a profound way. Games and movies do not move many of us in the same way. Yet for those who movies do, they are content with a flat disk and pretty cover.

Perhaps we can invent something akin to flipping pages and the "permanence" of paper. I'm sure the person who does will be very rich.

Bioastronautics, a scanned book about some of the things that really go into space flight(like spit).

It would be so easy to engineer a fountain using $3.99 plates from Ross, a pump, and a background. But then my parents could justifiably kill me.

Good news: violent crime is down all around the country, even though nobody is reporting on this. One cynical commentor says that this is because "People can't afford bullets anymore".

Picture from Jezebel

History: The Video(s)

Image via Boing Boing

In America I am considered tiny, but in Trinidad my weight is normal. This makes evolutionary sense, as people in the blinding heat of the tropics need a fast metabolism and little fat. It also makes sense that people from the colder parts of Europe would evolve to be beautiful and curvy. This is just a theory, as I have no scientific, controlled evidence to support this hypothesis.

While I voice my support against the dreadfully anorexic girls present in modeling today, I also sort of wonder what will happen when people with normal(read: another select segment of the population) weights come back into style. Will people mock my size? Will they tell me that my weight is obviously a product of neglecting myself, as is done to plus-size women today? I want to believe that we can accept the fact that people naturally have more than one body type, but this does not seem to be a concept native to the fashion industry. I do not have whatever BMI is being enforced on some of the European catwalks today. While I still completely support the regulations, it feels sort of strange that some years from now I might "go out of style". It's not fair that this has already been done to Rubenesque women, though. We're people, not ephemeral fashion trends.

Just to clarify, it's more the fear of being actively discriminated against than anything else which wrote these last two paragraphs.



Oh. my. God. It's NABOKOV. I LOVE YOU.
It's crazy how Youtube has in a way democratized history. We can now experience moments from the past like previous generations never had the chance to, all within our personal computers. It's so cool! This was from Boing Boing, btw.

Also from Boing Boing: there is apparently a black market in moon rocks. As in actual rocks from the moon, not LSD. I can completely understand this. If I ever get engaged again I want an extraterrestrial rock for my ring like in the "Bones" episode "The Science in the Physicist".



"PLEASE – do yourself a favour and turn the sound OFF – NOW. I’m almost willing to throw the towel in admit that creationists are right when I hear it. However the video is just brilliant (if you ignore the silly text as well)... Here’s 500 generations every SECOND backed up by actual fossil evidence – shoved in to a computer and animated together. It’s fantastic to watch." Source

I have to watch this video again to take in what changed first, hypothesize why the did, etc.



OH MY GOD IT'S THE MOON LANDING. /hyperventilates. They look like ghosts that are hopping around. Even though his voice is level you can feel the excitement coming through the video. Or maybe it's just me trying to live this vicariously.


Here is Buzz Aldrin punching a conspiracy theorist in the face.

Why you should NOT fly with regional carriers, as written by an experienced pilot.

"Flying from Chicago’s O’Hare to Denver is routine, right? But it wasn’t a few decades ago. We, the pilots, make it routine too. But I challenge you on this. Is your life worth less because you are over the heartland of America in the dark of night rather than climbing into the skies of Rio over the Amazon or headed out across the Pacific? It is worth less if you are on the low-cost regional carrier because you chose to pay less. If you are on the regional carrier headed to Denver and the engine is on fire, I am sure that it is comforting to know that you saved 15 percent by shopping the Internet for the cheapest fare. Isn’t it great to know that you have the newest, least-experienced, exhausted, starving young cockpit crew that this regional airline could find? Good for you!"

PS apparently the Alaskan blob is not Palin after all.

The Past and the Present

Walter Cronkite was an anchor before I was born. I am struck by his face here, a face which would not be seen on television today despite the sonorous voice which is obviously the basis for many similar ones throughout the era. I'm reminded of a quote of a comment on the Freakanomics blog: "Now that there are so many voices you have to shout louder and harder to be heard", discussing the uprising of the screaming pundit. Cronkite was the antithesis of these red-faced men, a fact I have heard casually mentioned in several sources so far.

In this video I can actually feel the nation's panic. I can feel would it would be like if our respected, loved president was shot, the weight of the announcement. I could feel myself trying to hope, even though I already knew how the story ended.



He had to report on some horrifically sad stories. It has been a long time since I've seen footage of Martin Luther King. His last speech..watching him as an obviously intelligent and angry man showing his roots as a pastor. I've almost never thought of Dr. King as a man, even after reading about his life.

I know Cronkite was reading what was written for him, but hearing "negro" used without any humor behind it sends shivers up my spine. It scares me that my parents were teenagers when this happened. I can't imagine a world without MLK, or at least don't want to. So short ago without him I would have been another "coloured" person.

Warren Ellis linked the first episode of a British series called "Quartermass". I haven't watched all of it, but here is a quote from the professor:

"The union of a corrupt Democracy(America) and a bloated tyranny(Soviet Union)...their diseases are too strong for us small countries. When we catch them we sicken and we die."

I also really agree with this Jezebel article:

"It's a very strange cycle, when one thinks about it: Marilyn Monroe didn't even exist, she was a construct of the studios, a costume worn by Norma Jean Baker in order to navigate the strange waters of celebrity and sex. Every time we hold Marilyn up as an ideal, we're holding up the notion that a woman has to reinvent herself to the point of losing herself completely, hiding under layers of beauty and glitz as a means to hide a very real sense of pain and fear beneath. Though her unabashed sexuality has been celebrated, she was also objectified and used by those around her; she became, and remains, a product used to sell tickets and t-shirts and magazines. She was a victim many times over, but it seems that young actresses choose to latch on to her exterior as opposed to the person below the surface, and where a cautionary tale should be, an idolization is instead.

Perhaps it's time for Lindsay Lohan, and for everyone else, to stop parading around in Marilyn Monroe costumes and acting as if it's glamorous or fun. If Marilyn Monroe taught us anything, it's that there's no real happiness in being someone you're not."

Classmate

I saw my wormies today. They seem to be doing well, and I bought more so as to keep up with my slightly rising organic output.

There seems to be a consensus that worms are gross which I agree with. Why are they gross, exactly? I guess it's the slimy, segmented bodies.


I wonder how fast objects scale back according to depth perception and eyesight capability?

In an ironic story, Amazon pulled copies of 1984 and Animal Farm off the Kindle, sadly proving again the superiority of regular books. While I love my books, I love forests more. Do something people!

Today my Uncle's brother's daughter came to visit along with my parents after moving across the country away from every single support network she knows. We had fun, as I took them to Downtown La Jolla and Torrey Pines. I kind of wish I could have gotten more work done, but we had fun. I like her.
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When I was in high school one of my classmates a year ahead of me was named Sam Loeb. All I remember was that he had a shaved head, an infectious smile, and knew a lot about comics. He was really charismatic, everyone liked him, and he made people like me feel stupid for complaining all the time, though I'm sure that he never meant to do. I barely knew him, and most of what I knew consisted of knowing that this was a wonderful person to know. Everyone knew he had cancer, but it was never what defined him.

I remember the day that he died. I don't remember how I found out, but I do remember nutrition and lunch passing by as the HGMers wandered around like ghosts. We were all in shock. I remember those close to him throwing their arms around each other and breaking down into tears. It didn't matter that I barely knew him. I wish I had, because someone else would be around to keep more of his memory alive. His life was so short, but he should not be forgotten.

I recall all of this because of something as simple as a status one of my friends posted. He joked towards the end, trying to make light of it all. He wrote a comic in one of Joss Whedon's books.

Whoever reads this can also remember Sam Loeb. Perhaps it's a hollow fantasy, but if you read this you know as much as I do about Sam. Please carry around his memory with care, because that's all any of us have left. I may not have known him, but I miss him.

Short

Comic courtesy of A Softer World

We still live in a world full of mystery, but the mystery is now not simply created by nature but by man.

I love Jimmy Carter:
"So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when th e convention's leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be "subservient" to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service. This was in conflict with my belief - confirmed in the holy scriptures - that we are all equal in the eyes of God."

I feel anti-social today.

Listing Between the Lines

Comic courtesy of A Softer World

I brought up two things while talking to Dylan yesterday that I want to share with everyone here.

1.) If a girl is using abortion as birth control should she really have a child? The level of irresponsibility, and perhaps to a certain degree, callousness, that having the procedure many time would imply suggests that the potential mother, at least at this point in her life, should not be involved in child-rearing. Not to mention that abortion is never free, whereas condoms can be.

2.) I never understand why people are worried about the population in first world countries falling. Not only would a reduction in population be beneficial to the earth and perhaps imply less cost for these countries it has been proven many times in history that a small elite is still very effective at controlling money and power as far as nationalism is a concern.

Other thoughts:

1.)
As gay rights gain further acceptance the gay community will have to face one of the sectors of American society most biased towards heterosexuals: the sports community. I wonder how integration will occur. Will there be gay sports teams? Who would these sports teams play against? Men and women do have biological differences which mean that the elite in sports are competing against different elements. It would not be fair to put lesbians against a male sports team, but it would also not be fair, in a way, to pit them against a woman's sports team. I would not, in the heat of competition with all of the grabbing and touching involved, want to face the possibility that my opponent is sexually attracted to me. However, it would be as unfair to characterize gay people as sexually attracted to the other team as it would be to say that women are attracted to all men. Basically, I see no reason that gay members should not be integrated onto existing teams if the rules in place now are followed during the game. However, I have a disgusting feeling that the sports community will disagree with me.
I wonder how many of its members are already gay?

2.)
I think it would be a great idea to combine the modern three-d graphics and plot lines of RPGs with the elements of games like Mario and Metroid. Imagine somersaulting, dodging, and powering around a 3-D map using different zooms with an actual story element involved. I believe Super Mario Galaxy incorporates some of the elements I am discussing here but cloaked in the Mario universe, which leaves a *few* things unclear. Obviously a fantasy element would be the easiest to incorporate which, for example, would explain why the monsters are trapped within a certain range or you grow after eating the mushroom. There could also be lots of weapons and spells. A certain cartoonish element could also be used. There is lots of possibility here.

3.)
Very tenuous theoretical question: What if we could generate power using atmospheric heat? Heat is entropy, of course, but what if we found a certain metal or bacteria that had a "switch" at a certain temperature and somehow used that to generate electricity?

4.)
"Even though President Obama was in Russia, he couldn't escape questions about Michael Jackson. He said, "You know, this is part of American culture," said Obama. "Michael Jackson, like Elvis, like Sinatra, when somebody whose captivated the imagination of the country for that long passes away, people pay attention. And I assume at some point people will start focusing again on things like nuclear weapons.""Source

I agree with Obama. As much as Micheal Jackson's death matters the Iranian elections, Chinese riots, and North Korean crazy are extremely important and involve millions of living people. Please give them more air time.

This is an interesting article on public health care.

So apparently there are twelve million people in Jakarta and half of them are homeless. My mind is sufficiently boggled.

More awesome Cracked articles:
7 Ways the Zombie apocalypse could actually happen
What happened to Television?
6 Kickass Animals Ruined by Evolution

Happy Fourth of July!

From Cracked

Picture from a Manta Ray feeding frenzy. Source

"Mantas and whale sharks commonly feed together, untroubled by the occasional collision. As many as 200 rays and a half dozen whale sharks have been counted in a period of several hours, British marine biologist Guy Stevens reports."
Source

Apparently there was a massive bank fraud in EVE online. I'm amused and horrified.


There is a new Turkish reality show pitting a Buddhist monk, a Rabbi, an Imam, and a Greek Orthodox priest against each other to see who can convert the most atheists. Missing the point much?

A 19 year old was arrested for tripping on weed and LSD, thinking he was Terminator, and then running around a casino naked. What not to do on your day off.

I love this piece about "5 presidential elections even dumber than this one".

So I was staring at a tree, thinking "I want to climb this tree". I know, I know, I'm an adult and tree-climbing is not for adults. Well, you're wrong; it's not for boring adults. Anyways, I was thinking about climbing it and defending it from trespassers, when I went "Holy crap, that's not an inborn notion".
Or is it? Were the Native Americans taught to squash their inborn urge of possession? I'm not an anthropologist so I couldn't give a comparison of cultures and their native practices or what is generally considered "tribal" vrs "individual" property. Did the Mongols in their migration routes consider the land itself "theirs", or did they consider the land a place to defend and live upon? The most obvious place to look for an answer to the general question would be pre-history.
The notion of individual possession and tribal possession obviously have different limits in different cultures. We are taught at as young an age as possible what is ours and what is not. Children, at first, consider everything to be grabable(and breakable). It is more likely they do not possess the distinction of ownership than that they consider every object a possession. This is probably the most compelling evidence questioning the innateness of this drive. When a child screams "mine" after having a toy taken away it's more likely that the object is simply desired at the moment than that he or she feels he has ownership of it. Obviously, though, these are just hypothesis.
Would artists feel pain at having their creations taken away? Would scientists gall at having a theory used without their names cited? What would happen to the notion of plagiarism? The notion of ownership has very obvious advantages and disadvantages.

It would be awesome if they created a school which utilized children's existing knowledge to discover new knowledge, like a game or exciting job. I also really believe that a school in the manner of Plato would be much more effective than the Socratic schools we have now. People do think knowledge is cool and like finding out how things work.

It's fun to analyze feminism in Star Trek. The show is fairly progressive in many ways, though it still is struggling between the notions of women as powerfully sexual beings, workers just as capable as their male counterparts, and wives. Both Kirk and many of the women on the show are portrayed as extremely attractive; in fact, one of the reoccurring factors of the plot is attractive women and Kirk seducing them with his genuinely deep good-boy ways. Whatever happened to guys like that? Did they ever really exist? Star Trek is more moral than a lot of the show on today.
Btw, the episode "The Conscience of the King" is really good. Also, why is Scotty the only one with an accent?



Here is a short sketch comedy parodying what it would be like if homeopaths ran the emergency room:

Self-Referential

This happens to me all the time, except that it's usually what I'm thinking and I don't eat giraffes. From xkcd.

Thoughts on Star Trek:
1.)I like that after any of the characters have an outburst, they apologize
2.)Apparently being in space for so long has made the crew and captain susceptible to any pretty female who is not in charge of the ship's communications.
3.)Those are really short skirts. The crew is lucky that gusts of wind don't exist on the ship.

This article on memory strengthens the theory of memory connections I mentioned before. There is probably a more eloquent way to phrase the previous sentence.

This article from Jezebel about the abuses of the fashion industry, where young girls are powerlessly in the hands of much older and more experienced men, and citing the prevalence of rape in our society, is devastating and something I would definitely recommend checking out.

Another article discusses the true perils and motivations for mothers who adopt from Africa vrs celebrities like Madonna. It also elaborates on a sentence that I posted yesterday: "I don't think that all people from third-world countries are broken or something similar". There is a difference between feeling empathy for others and portraying them as simple, lower beings needing our mercy. People were whole, complete beings long before electricity was harnessed; I just don't think it's fair that somebody's relative or child could potentially die of the flu or something similar. I could write a lot on this topic, clarifying and clarifying, even putting in my own personal experiences, but I will leave it here for now.

Muhahaha, my picture is the first, second, and third result for my full name on Google. On one hand I want this blog to be the first result, but on the other I have an unusual enough name that it probably would not be hard to find out a lot of details about me, especially since I have mentioned the general area where I live. Perhaps when I need to be hired I will make the switch, as I know potential employers look for web presence. I have deliberately not promoted this blog up to this time.

It's interesting that the first hits for "SchizotypalVamp" are ones which I barely use. I don't particularly comment on io9 or Jezebel. I haven't used Library Thing since I was fifteen or sixteen. My original idea was that a searchable database for our collection would be ideal so that we could confirm if we had a book or not before buying it, since we did accidentally get a few books twice. One hundred and twenty-two books later I realized that if I continued I would never get a chance to actually read anything since there remained many more still to be listed. I have posted once on Twitter. I haven't visited The Planted Tank/Frank's Aquarium/MFK in forever. I haven't used my Flickr in a long time, either. But it's nice that my pseudonym retains exclusivity in a Google search.

Frosty posted about Vermicomposting in her apartment earlier today. My attempts to create a compost pile at home fizzled, and it's always something I wished I could do. There was the slight issue in my last home that my parents would string me up as a warning to other messy daughters. However, looking at the composting bins in the pictures of this article, I could always get a box and put it outside. Heck, I could even pretend it was a table, a table my mom would never, ever sit at.
Now when I mentioned getting more plants to my mom, her answer summarized to "you better not make it any more difficult to move out", a sucky but valid point. However, I live right by a university. If making a few calls does not help, I can always dump the fertilizer in the random nature park.

"Why did you bring a large plastic bag on the bus?"
"Uh...no reason"

I'll figure it out. Meanwhile, I believe they sell earthworms at Petsmart. I'm off to go get myself in trouble. Also some pizza.

This is SO COOL

One of the problems with the internet is that there is too much good stuff to keep track of in it. I am not a culture blogger; being a university student with a lot to learn and a voracious appetite for books makes it hard to keep up with all of those who deserve recognition. Not that I am sorry about being a university student with a large appetite for books.

I have to admit that I really like good journalism and entertaining, informative writing to accompany my news stories. I've tried to be an aggregate of raw facts and I simply don't have the time to be one. I'm not quite sure I'm pleased with the situation. Bear with me while I figure it out.

It's incredibly hard for me to look at difficult news stories, which is ironic due to the fact that I have chided others for not doing so. It's just that I have gone through so much pain from my medical disorders and I come from a well-to-do family. What about those people who hurt every day and can't get medical care? What about those people who can barely get water because they've been uprooted from their homes? What the hell must they be feeling, thinking? I've tasted but a drop from the pool that is despair. Maybe I'm weak, but I can't imagine what it's like to wade or swim in it.

I don't think all people from third-world countries are broken or something similar. It's simply the barriers needed to leave that poverty. My intelligence as a peasant girl in India would not have mattered if I had married at nine and had my first child at twelve(though I most likely would have become as close to a monk as I could have been). Wanting to read, write, or learn is simply not enough in that climate.

In other thoughts, our culture has so many dichotomies, one of which being that the religious majority of this country encourages abstinence before marriage, yet culturally male promiscuity is encouraged. It reminds me of a quote from Joseph Campbell's Creative Mythology:

"In Christian Europe, already in the 12th century, beliefs no longer universally held were universally enforced. The result was a dissociation of professed belief from actual existence and the consequent spiritual disaster, which, in the imagery of the Grail legend, is symbolized in the Waste Land theme: a landscape of spiritual death, a world waiting, waiting-"Waiting for Godot!"-for the desired Knight, who would restore its integrity to life and let stream again from infinite depths the lost, forgotten living waters..."

Not only must we actualize ourselves but charge forth in battle against those who would suck us dry.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I started the review of the Trader Joe's cloths today. I used one to clean my oven top and was impressed. It did the work of about 10 paper towels due to various cleaners I implemented to test it. Soap with water, which will destroy several paper towels in one go, was easily dispensed then mopped up. The cloth proved to be durable and porous, and rinsed out very easily. I would definitely recommend this over paper towels while cleaning so far(or if you have fish tanks).
So far I have used the other cloth as a dinner napkin. It requires a little wetting to create the consistency needed to pick grease off the fingers.
I will keep you updated. Note that since a two-pack costs $2.99 this could actually save money as well as breaking down easily in compost piles and reducing paper consumption.

There is a character called Dr Strange who I wish to check out. Also, Ellen Roger's Flickr(Via Warren Ellis) is so, so good. The picture is credited to her. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but sometimes I don't understand what it is trying to say. These pictures do not invite you into their worlds but simply taunt you with their beauty, daring you to ponder while shutting the door.

I think I need The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana.

Love and Creation in the Nation

Comics courtesy of A Softer World.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the Stonewall riots! I wonder how to celebrate.

HOLY C***!!! NEIL GAIMAN IS AT UCSD STARTING ON THE 28TH AND PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT ME ARE BEING TAUGHT BY HIM! Ok, I am totally finding a way to see him while he is here. This is happening.

"All love letters are
Ridiculous.
They wouldn't be love letters if they weren't
Ridiculous.

In my time I also wrote love letters
Equally, inevitably
Ridiculous.

Love letters, if there's love,
Must be
Ridiculous

But in fact
Only those who've never written
Love letters
Are
Ridiculous

If only I could go back
To when I wrote letters
Without thinking how
Ridiculous.

But today, really,
my memories of those
letters are the ones
that are truly ridiculous

(All the strange words,
all the strange thoughts,
are naturally ridiculous)"

-Fernando Pessoa

I have never written a love letter. Chris and I were unabashedly sentimental in a way which led to both of our parents making fun of us so it's not as if our emotions were not expressed, but love does not inspire me to write, it inspires me to do. I wrote a couple poems dedicated to my first love after being rejected by him and a dark poem about the emotion itself once. But I completely agree that sincere and eloquent writing dedicated to deep emotion is worth creating even if to some it seems pretentious or overdecked, though I would make a conscious effort to stay out of the realm of complete ridicule.

The latest Star Trek episode parallels Peter Pan and Never-Neverland, which is sort of brilliant, as was the Venus drug episode(though wives are not for cleaning and cooking, of course).

Today I saw a name in my inbox which made me conceive Caronlina Muffet. Caronlina Muffet only exists in words. She is a doll with button eyes that was cobbled together by someone with too much time and imagination. The child that created her lives in a world of canopy beds and bedtime stories. She or he, as I haven't decided on his or her gender, spends most of his or her time in his or her room. Ms. Muffet is made of scraps of muppets and pages from Fairy Tale books in character, but in the reality in which she exists she is only made of scraps. She might have gotten a part in Coraline, had she auditioned, but being a doll she couldn't. Secretly she was deeply disappointed in this, but do not tell the child that made her, because he or she simply wants the doll to be happy.

Carolina Muffet may appear creepy to some, but she is not bad in any way. She was created from a simple love of life and retains this in her stitches.

Saying Something

Apparently, Warren Ellis is writing a comic which is free for viewing online.

The latest entry of PLFM features an extremely psychotic man who deserves to have a derisive entry written about him. However, I take offense to this statement:

""I'm just not that into casual sex," he explained. For those women not in the know, that's man-speak for "I can't find anyone who will f*** me." "

That's just untrue, though it may not have been in this man's case.

Speaking of PLFM, Mike/Weasel recently did an interview on another blog. Here is a quote from it:

"And like most writers, I absolutely abhor what I write. I post entries, and I never read them again, because I can’t. I’m my own worst critic. They just seem so fucking awful, so unfunny."

I can completely relate to this. Part of what I try to do while writing this blog is to go back and correct entries a week and a month after they are written in an attempt to improve my writing style. I always get the urge to delete the posts, cobbling together the reasoning that hey, Kafka wanted to burn all of his work, maybe yours is actually good! It seems to be part of the natural torture of being a writer.

One of the reasons that I believe creates the high divorce rate in this country is that people do not know how to communicate with each other. This seems to be a reason that nobody is addressing.

It's kind of saddening that Micheal Jackson's death is the only thing that brought about renewed respect for him. If he was a child molester I don't feel any sympathy for his faith, but he really was never allowed to live a normal life and was damaged in so many ways.

Are you Happy, Are you Feeling Glad? Have You Got Sunshine, in a Bag?

For the part of last night that I slept I had great dreams and woke up really happy, once I managed to wake up. Something about Band but I could actually stand up straight which meant that I was capable of doing the marches. Janina , Nick, Jessica Wray(?! haven't seen her since elementary school, not that I have seen any of these other people since high school) and others were there, as were many people I didn't know, since I was coming back from college as a tutor(thanks, Dylan!). Jessica wanted me to sit with her and Nick got told off by ..what's his face who's name I can't remember for making faces at me. I dreamt I was getting up at 6:30am while my mom was and garnering complaints from the other band members while my alarm clock in real life was going off at 7:30am. Before that there was a dream involving Pamela Das running away from her abusive parents to my apartment where my entire family lived then things turned into a Bollywood movie where we harnessed the power of the gods through Ilya to get some god to break a curse. Only Ilya got arrested and I had to go and break him out with someone else by following a compass except that the warden wasn't fooled by my story and I was preparing to fight, but then I woke up. Also, stuff happened with Chris. Anyways, it was a really good dream though it may not sound like it, except for the part where Geringher actually was a pedophile...not so good.

So then I woke up at 7:30am, apparently was much earlier than I had to, and got to the lab fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. We had an EH&S presentation today and much joking about drugs ensued. I sort of wonder what would have happened if when the presenter had asked someone to give an example of controlled substances I had started rattling a list of recreational substances off the top of my head, even though I've never tried any myself. It's kind of funny that I don't even drink but can name a long list of illegal drugs, though that is partially due to psychology classes. To most people raised in LA or NY this doesn't seem like much of a deal, but apparently it is? I guess it really comes down to what community within the city you have dealings with, though I never exactly hung out with seedy people. Also, when we heard that Farah Fawcett died of anal cancer we burst out laughing like the twelve year olds we actually are. No, the cancer part is not funny at all, but let's face it, in the face of tragedy sometimes the best solution is to laugh. Also, butts are funny. I totally have not been taken over by a middle schooler.

We talked about infidelity and I mentioned the survey that Anthony had told me about. The governor of South Carolina was discussed, and I agreed that if had not made decisions based on having the moral highground or obligation his affair would not have been a big deal. Some people say that if a man cannot hold his family together he cannot run a state. This is quite simply not true, as there are people who are good at one and horrible at the other. While it would make me dislike the man, as long as his governing was fine I would support him as a governor. Liking a good leader is not necessary, though it certainly helps. The subject came up twice until Phil played a clip from "The Daily Show". Also, the big knife is now known as our emergency backup system thanks to me.

I stayed in the lab most of the day learning Mathlab, then left and saw Peter, which went well. I'm hungry. Feed me?

If you want a cuttlefish, here is information on how to take care of Dwarf Cuttlefish.

Title is a play on the lyrics to Gorillaz-"Clint Eastwood", which don't actually have anything to do with anything, except that I am happy.

Love, Money, Art and Science

Comics are from xkcd

This article analyzes how paper money hurts the economy. It brings up some interesting points that I have never considered before and has three basic keys:

1.) The US government spends a LOT of money minting money
2.) The infrastructure is already in place for a digital switch
3.)Most money is already only in existence electronically

Here is the main problem I have with this article: most of the world does not have the infrastructure to make the switch to digitalized money. I can see how this could be countered by simply doing business deal in other country's money, but one of the powers of the dollar is the fact that it is ubiquitous. Take this away and the value of our currency would drop substantially.
Another trouble is that all money becomes traceable. Here we must thread the line between what is good for our society and the American suspicion of totalitarian governments. I must admit a cultured dislike of taking away that measure of autonomy and the fact that powerful people could destroy a person's savings with a few clicks on a mouse.
To me, the disturbing thing is that, for the most part, this could already happen. We are dependent on trust in a society that encourages our bankers and lawyers to be untrustworthy.

Apparently there is a Youtube stream dedicated to rejected marriage proposals. I watched a couple and really do not understand how they could be considered funny.

I started watching the original Star Trek series because of the movie and after two episodes I am really enjoying the series, cheesy sets and all. It reminds me of The Twilight Zone, except better done and set in space. Not that I've ever seen that much of the Twilight Zone, as the episode I watched did not catch my interest.

This artist uses discarded plastic to make his creations. This makes me feel like making landscapes from sticks, stones, and dead leaves.

I must have this. Seriously, I need more plants and aquariums. I love creating ecosystems! But let's not focus on that when I have to work on math and physics. I will read my ecosystems book later, by which I mean tomorrow.

I feel really good today. I had a visit last night from a dear friend which went really well.