We're All Mad Here

Either Way, It's a Lot of Candles

2009-07-01T17:45:24Z

Creationists confuse me. This is partly because I don't understand them, but mostly because I don't understand them -- by which I mean that I neither understand why they'd hold such illogical ideas, nor exactly what the underpinnings of these ideas are. I get that they calculate the age of the Earth by adding up the generations in the Bible, but where on earth do those numbers come from? Everyone up to Noah's sons has ages, but after that, it's mostly just begats with no ages listed. Some of the ones that do have ages had kids when they were 65 or 70; others, like Noah, didn't have their sons until they were 500 years old. That's a pretty big range, especially when you're figuring the Earth to only be a bit over six thousand years old. If you're off by the average -- about 200 years -- across only 6 generations, that's a 20% difference right there. I figure there are probably between one and two hundred generations being added up here, so that seems like a lot of room for error. It's still not going to get anywhere near the billions of years that radiometric dating calls for, but it does make it a bit silly to say that the Biblical flood occurred around 2348 BCE, as the Creation Museum does. It's impossibly specific.

In the grand scheme of things, though, that's really a minor nitpick. It confuses me that people get so adamant about the Earth being 6,000 years old when, by their own counting system, it could as easily be 9,000, or 4,000 -- but none of these numbers comes close to anything that seems reasonable. I, personally, can't conceptualize the idea of millions of years, and I assume that's the same problem creationists have with the idea. It's always seemed to me, though, that stalactites and basic math are all you need to poke a pretty solid hole in the theory.

I was at Luray Caverns not too long ago, a showcave fairly near me. The stalactites there grow at a rate of either an inch every 150 years, or an inch and a half every 100; I forget which they said, so let's go with the faster rate. Now, this isn't theoretical growth; Luray Caverns has been open as a showcave for over a hundred years now, so this is observable. Some of the stalactites are over 40 feet long. So, at an inch and a half every hundred years, that means it would take 800 years to grow a foot -- requiring 32,000 years to reach its actual length. I think the piece I'm thinking of might have been a column, meaning that half of that could have been forming up from the floor as a stalagmite, so cut that number in half. That's still over two and a half times the age of the Earth, according to the creationists.

Now, there's no reason why God couldn't have created the stalactites half-made -- but if that's the argument, it abandons all claim to science. There's no point in observing anything at all if things were created as elaborate fakes, with false ages built in; anything could be true, then, and there would be no way to ever know. That's fine for a philosophy, but not for science.

Half-Bacon Ideas

2009-06-30T16:50:30Z

This just in: health professionals feel that intentionally infecting yourself and your loved ones with H1N1, no longer called "swine flu" due to a profusion of bad jokes, is not a good plan. Other activities these health professionals recommend you avoid: licking turtles to build up a resistance to salmonella, poking yourself in the eye to build up a resistance to blunt trauma, spending five years building up a resistance to iocaine powder.

The basic idea is not actually as stupid as it sounds. Essentially, the theory goes like this: the swine flu, despite all of the hype, is not all that dangerous right now, but it could theoretically come back in a more virulent form. However, if you've already had the disease, you'll be resistant to it when it comes back. It's the same concept as vaccinations, except if they were crossed with Russian Roulette.

I'm not entirely certain why people think that H1N1 is likely to come back in a deadlier form; the argument seems to be that in 1918, a flu strain that also had a catchy name did that, so obviously it'll probably happen this time, too. It's possible that there's a better reason than this, but given the amount of fear and paranoia already attached to this virus, I'm assuming there isn't.

That said, I'm totally in favor of people having swine flu parties to catch the disease, if they think that's a good idea. I don't have the slightest idea whether they're right about it protecting them or not, but it doesn't actually matter. There are only three possible outcomes: it hurts them, it helps them, or it has no effect at all.

In the first case, where it has no effect at all, then nothing was lost, and at least they had a party. Clearly, there's no adverse effect here. In the second case, where early exposure makes them more resistant to a later, harsher strain, then these forward-thinking people are more likely to survive, while those who scoffed at them die off. Genetically speaking, that means that these beneficial traits will be more likely to be passed on, which is good.

And in the final scenario, where these folks sicken and die from their H1N1 parties, then it's the reverse of the previous: they're removing stupid genes -- that's the scientific term, mind you -- from the general population, to the benefit of us all. So it's a win-win situation, at least in the broad view.

That said, you might want to be careful about any seemingly random parties you get invited to in the near future. At the very least, shy away from the dip.

Shades

2009-06-29T17:05:44Z

A short while ago, my sunglasses deserted me. They'd been trying to get swept away in water for some time, and as they'd gotten quite badly scratched, I was really only keeping them out of sentimental value. There was also the fact that I didn't feel like spending money on a new pair of sunglasses, but as has been demonstrated in the month or so since they've been gone, I'm fully capable of avoiding that by simply not buying a replacement pair.

Over the weekend, this fiscal responsibility started to seem like something of a poor plan, as the sun kept getting into my eyes while I was driving. Just as it was starting to get really unpleasant, though, I spotted a pair of sunglasses in the pocket of one of the doors in the backseat. I thanked whichever of my friends had left them there, and put them on.

The sunglasses were fairly nondescript; they had black-and-silver frames with no identifying markings except the word "CHINA" on the left earpiece. The lenses were a bit scratched, as if something tiny had been clawing at them. However, they kept the sun out of my eyes, so I wasn't about to complain about a minor defect like that. The demons, however, were another matter.

I'd had the glasses on for perhaps fifteen minutes when I first noticed something black slithering by just at the edge of my peripheral vision on the right side. When I turned my head, it was gone, and though I tried to make it recur my twisting my head and shifting my eyes, nothing made the shape show up again. After a while, I dismissed it as something outside of the car, and forgot about it.

Forgot about it, that is, until it showed up again a few minutes later, this time sliding past the left edge of my sight. Again, it was gone too quickly for me to focus on it, and refused to recur despite my vigorous efforts. I was left with only a vague impression of something dark and coily, like a narrow oil slick moving with purpose. It was mildly unnerving, but the sun was still low on the horizon, so I left the sunglasses on.

The shapes kept reappearing at irregular intervals, for as long as I wore the glasses. More unsettling was the time when I was walking from the car to a convenience store, and heard clicking footsteps echoing my own, which stopped when I stopped and started again when I resumed. An examination of the sole of my shoe revealed the cause to be a tiny rock stuck in the tread -- but how did that rock get there? While "demons" may not be the first answer to come to your mind, you weren't wearing these sunglasses, either.

So, to whomever left these in my car: I have your sunglasses, and also your demons. Please feel free to come pick them up at your earliest convenience; they seem quite anxious to have you back.

Come Fly the Portly Skies

2009-06-26T16:51:42Z

Over at CNN, there's an article up discussing whether obese people should have to pay for two plane seats. The breakdown seems to be that the airlines and skinny people are in favor of this plan, while many obese people call it discriminatory. This is unsurprising, really, but there were some interesting numbers brought up.

Apparently a plane crash in 2003 was partly due to a miscalculation of the amount of weight on board:

The accident prompted the FAA to increase the estimated weight per passenger by 10 pounds, including 20 pounds of carry-on luggage. For example, the average weight for a passenger traveling in the summer (including carry-on luggage) went from 180 pounds in 1995 to 190 pounds in 2003.

Now, I've clearly done no research on the subject, but this still seems low to me. I don't think I'm abnormally-sized, but I weigh about 170, and my carry-ons generally exceed 20 pounds by a fair bit. In fairness, this is because I don't bring checked baggage, as I'm tired of the airlines breaking and losing it. However, I can't be the only one doing that, especially with the recent policy of charging for checked bags.

This really seems like the sort of thing where the airlines might want to err on the side of caution. Failing to lift off, running out of fuel -- these are fairly major concerns. Perhaps that's the new airline plan: they figure that you can't worry about someone crowding your armrest when you're wondering whether it's actually going to make it to its destination. Togetherness through fear! I'm not sure what they get out of this business model; maybe terrified passengers buy more alcohol, or something. I'm sure it all made sense in the meetings, anyway. All I know is that I'll be packing light for all upcoming trips.

Walked Into That One

2009-06-25T17:11:15Z

The other day, I very nearly went to the doctor. This is highly unusual for me; I've only been to a doctor's office three times in the last ten years. Once was when I was required to go for a checkup before I left for Kuwait, and since it was mandatory, it doesn't really count. The previous time was about 3 years ago, when I thought I had strep throat, which I hear is deadly if it's not treated. Discretion seemed the better part of valor in that case. And that time before that was back in college, when I screwed up practicing diving rolls and tore a joint in my shoulder.

I don't care for doctors' offices. I don't like having to schedule my day around an appointment, I don't like sitting around waiting, I don't like filling out forms, and I don't like being prodded at. I understand that I ought to get regular checkups, and eventually I'll grudgingly start doing that -- but for now the emphasis is on "grudging," and not on "doing."

It would be different if anything useful ever came out of the doctor visits, but it seems that the advice is always, "Wait and let it get better." That was the answer to my shoulder injury; apparently, there's nothing that can be done for it except to let it heal on its own. That was the answer to mono, which is what it turns out I actually had instead of strep throat: let it run its course. It's the irritating cherry on an annoyance sundae to be told, "My expert medical opinion is that this will fix itself!"

That said, I hurt my knee at Frisbee the other day, and this seemed like the sort of problem that could easily be compounded by continued use. I dithered for a couple of weeks while I rested my knee, by which I mean I didn't go out to play Frisbee; I kept rock-climbing and walking around as normal, which didn't seem to affect it much. When I did go back to Frisbee, however, I wasn't able to run for more than a game before it started to hurt again, and I stopped for fear of doing serious damage to myself. I use my knees a lot; I'm sort of afraid of losing them.

I'd finally decided that I needed to go see a doctor; although I was sure that he'd simply tell me to give it a rest for a bit and let it heal, I didn't want to take the chance that there really was something wrong that I was making worse. However, I began to reconsider after I went on a ten-mile hike which had no discernible effect on my knee. Clearly, it wasn't activity that was hurting it -- just running.

I abruptly remembered an article I'd read on barefoot running, which claimed that running shoes actually encouraged foot and leg injuries by allowing people to run with unnatural strides. It emphasized the importance of keeping the feet under the hips, and I thought about the long strides I took when sprinting versus the short strides I took when walking.

The next day at Frisbee, I tried running with short strides. It cost me some speed, but I was able to play for more than two hours without feeling it in my knee at all. I've been working on quickening the speed of my run to make up for the shortened strides, and it's been a fairly rapid adjustment. I used to think that the guys who played barefoot were crazy, running around with no cushion at all; I thought they'd give themselves bone and joint problems that way. Now, it's starting to look like I might have had that backwards. I'm not too proud to admit I was wrong, although no one like the agony of defeet.

I Bluescreened My Tongue

2009-06-24T16:49:28Z

I've discovered a new taste sensation today. I mean this not in its usual figurative sense, describing some fantastic flavor, but in a completely literal way: I've tasted something today that not only was something I'd never had before, but truly did not process as a normal taste.

On the back table at work, we routinely have snacks provided. Today, there was a bowl of salsa and some chips, but as people don't know how to properly match portions, only a few broken chips were left while quite a lot of salsa remained in the bowl. Nearby, however, was a bowl of brownies.

You may see where I'm going with this. In my defense, I'd like to state that I was fairly certain that brownies and salsa would be horrible together. However, I didn't know for sure, and there was always a chance that they'd be somehow delicious, like bananas and brown mustard. So I put several brownies on a plate, poured salsa on them, and tried one.

The results were astonishing. I think I short-circuited my tastebuds, for although I could feel the food in my mouth, feel the smoothness of the salsa and the grit of the brownies, I could not actually taste it at all as I chewed it. It wasn't until after I swallowed that the taste hit me -- and make no mistake, it was horrendous. It might be the worst thing I've ever eaten. I took another bite, to confirm, and the same thing happened again. The aftertaste was chalk and cilantro, but it had no flavor at all while it was actually present in my mouth.

Like a gastronomic House of the Dead, a fascination with the sheer horror of the process compelled me to finish it all, to ensure that it really would be the same all the way through. I can't in good conscience recommend this to anyone else, as it was abysmally disgusting -- but in such an interesting way! I might try it again, once I can get the taste out of my mouth. But then again, I've been thinking that maybe I should watch House of the Dead again, too, since it couldn't possibly be as bad as I remember. It's clear that I just don't learn from certain types of mistakes.

Can We Fix It?

2009-06-23T16:57:44Z

Over the weekend, I discovered a mouse living in my tool closet. Technically speaking, two other people saw the mouse first, and of course the mouse knew he was living there, but I'm the one writing about it, which makes it my discovery. I'm not terribly clear on why he chose that closet for his residence, especially since the closet across the hall has the dog food in it. Maybe the mouse enjoys having to take a stroll before lunch. Maybe he just prefers paint chips. I tried to ask him why he'd picked the tool closet, but he just ran away.

I've done what anyone would do upon discovering a mouse living in their tool closet, which is to say I've named him Tool Mouse and begun asking him where things are. So far, this system is working out very well for me! I was able to quickly locate two specific tools after asking him, which perhaps does not seem impressive unless you've seen my tool closet. Most things in my house have some sort of underlying organizational system; it's rarely been maintained, but at least there's some semblance of order once you dig through the first strata. The tool closet, on the other hand, is essentially a cross-section of a pit. There are shelves, but they're sort of incidental. There's a deep layer of plastic bags at the bottom, which possibly go all the way to the back wall and possibly shroud things I've forgotten about from view. There are several saws somewhere in there, numerous screwdrivers, random boxes of nails and screws, all haphazardly stacked. Come to think of it, I'd been assuming that my father had the chainsaw, but it's possible that that's in there, too, and I just don't know about it. It's a very remote chance, but it's not entirely implausible.

I've always meant to clean it up, but it's such a massive undertaking that I never want to. And it's one of those things where the first step is taking everything out and spreading it all out across the hallway so it can be organized, which means there's no stopping halfway through; once I begin, I'm committed until the end, unless I want to just not use my front hallway.

The presence of Tool Mouse means that this tedious task can be avoided. He'll keep track of things for me, even if I keep piling them in any which way. There's still the ever-present danger of large wooden stakes suddenly dropping from higher shelves, and of course the possibility of grabbing a bladed object by mistake, but those can be mitigated with a hard hat and gloves, both of which I have. Of course, I keep them in the tool closet, but that's a minor issue.

Tool Mouse helped me fix my cellphone last night, too. I'd placed it on the balcony of my second floor so that I could hear it from the attic, not realizing that a cat might wonder about this new ladder into the ceiling and jump up onto the balcony for a better look. The phone survived the fall fairly well, but one of the hinge pins popped off and skittered off to places unknown. I looked for it for several minutes, then opened the tool closet.

"Tool Mouse!" I called. "Where's the pin for my cellphone? It looks like this," sticking the phone into the closet for him to examine.

The closet was silent, but as I closed it, I spotted the missing piece lying on the floor near my foot. I assume Tool Mouse shoved it out for me, which was nice of him, since I hadn't had the patience to wait. I snapped my phone back together, and so far, it's working perfectly. Thanks, Tool Mouse!

Resistant to Both Huffing and Puffing

2009-06-22T16:49:24Z

This was not a good weekend for hand-eye coordination. For me, anyway; it's possible that you were learning to juggle. If so, congratulations! But this is not about you. This is about me, and the fact that I managed to spill a saucer on the table at lunch, and suddenly fail to grasp a drink I was holding, and crack my head on a board I was ducking under, and whack myself in the eye with the metal end of a bungee cord that I thought I'd successfully hooked under the bumper. Turns out I had not! These are the times that double-checking is good.

I also ripped an inch-wide hole in the sidewall of my tire. I was distracted by people outside of my car and failed to correct to not drive over the curb I'd been parking at. This is not the people's fault; I mention them only to emphasize how it was like a Mastercard commercial. Shredding your tire because you're too clumsy to drive: $27.72. Doing it in front of like a dozen people you know: priceless.

Despite being followed around by Yakety Sax this weekend, I managed to successfully construct a huge thing in my house. I enlisted my dad's help, billing it as a fun father-son project for Father's Day, but I think he was clear on the fact that it was manual labor. Still, he played along and did all of the board cutting, which seemed like a good plan; given that I'd already managed to slice a big hole in something using a curb, using a power saw was probably not going to end well.

I now have tiered seating in my TV room! I'm very excited about this, mainly because I've never built something that was designed to be walked on before. The stated purpose was to provide more seating in that room, but the secret goal was to build something awesome. Both were met! There were some minor issues with the measurements, by which I mean I totally forgot to check and make sure that I'd be able to stand up without cracking a hole in the ceiling with my head once I put the whole thing together, but it worked out pretty well.

Of course, in creating this thing that will allow me to have more people over, I've left scraps of carpet and wood all over the house, not to mention at least one couch balanced on end in the wrong room -- meaning that I can't actually have people over now, unless I convince them to come help me clean up. Maybe I can try a variant on the previous line; anyone up for some friend-friend bonding?

Can't Fool Me

2009-06-19T17:55:58Z

First, an update: trucks smell normal today, or at least normal for trucks. Rocks also taste about like I'd expect them to. Don't judge me; science takes its toll on us all.

Also, I suppose I don't have jury duty today. I'm forced to guess, because when I called after 6 o'clock yesterday, I was assured that no juries had been scheduled for Thursday, June 18th. This message, useful only in the "The More You Know" sense, remained the answer to my calls until 10 o'clock this morning, when I was instead told that there would be no juries on Saturday, June 20th, either. Apparently, when these people take Friday off, they really take it off. It's possible that the courtroom is currently packed with criminals of every description, all petitioning for mistrials due to a lack of jurors. If they're all let out, I'd like to make it clear that this was not my fault. I called many times!

Actually, that pretty much covers everything I've got to talk about. Things aren't going wrong today, which leaves me at loose ends. My senses all appear to be in working order, the computers are running as they ought to, my car is behaving, I've got no plans to stay late at work or come in over the weekend -- I hate to complain that nothing's broken, but I feel like the British explorer in the middle of the Amazon, slashing his way through the undergrowth, who has just realized that the jungle drums have stopped. It's not that I like things being obviously screwed up, but at least then it's obvious where the threat is. It's when it all goes quiet that you have to start worrying.

I saw a short film once where a man was telling his friend that nothing really bad had ever happened to him in his life. He detailed several narrow escapes, and in the end, his friend sarcastically said something along the lines of, "Well, congratulations! You're clearly the luckiest man alive." And he responded, "No, don't you see? I'm due!"

I'm with that guy. It's not right for things to be right all the time; it's clearly the universe perpetrating an extended setup. I'm going to be on edge until someone runs a red light and tries to hit my car, or something. Then I'll be back on familiar ground, and I can relax again.

When "Strong Enough for a Man" Doesn't Cut It

2009-06-18T16:51:02Z

Trucks smell bad today. Trucks often smell bad, of course, but they generally smell like gasoline fumes and burnt oil and encrusted goop. If it's a garbage truck, it'll even get a rotten organic odor, but today, trucks smell like body odor. It's all trucks, and it's only trucks, not any other vehicles. I first noticed it on the freeway driving to work, and of course thought it was me. I was sure I'd put on deodorant, though, and the smell faded after a moment.

Soon, another truck passed, and I caught another whiff. This time, I associated it with the arrival of the truck. Puzzled, I sped up, and sure enough -- as I approached the truck, the smell rose up again. When I dropped back, it faded away. Several more trucks passed me along the way, and each time, the smell was the same.

When I got to work, I parked and walked over to a truck that had been left sitting in the parking lot. It, too, carried the faint but unmistakable reek of an unwashed body. At this point, I was very confused, but decided to ponder the problem indoors, away from trucks.

My pondering hasn't really come up with much; all I've discovered is that at least pictures of trucks don't smell. I think perhaps I slept on my brain funny last night; this is the mental equivalent of a pinched nerve. I hope it fades soon, as otherwise I'm going to have to drive home with the windows up. It's been such nice weather lately that I hate to miss it, but nothing ruins a nice breeze quite like a constant stream of unwashed sweaty people running by.

I seem to get these weird associations fairly regularly. Maybe I have a loose connection somewhere, that randomly joins up two unrelated inputs each day. Most days, it's something like "spatulas taste like cardamom" or "seeing aardvarks produces a high-pitched whistle," and so I never find out about it. It's only on the days where it hits something prosaic that I spot it. Clearly, there's only one thing to be done here: expose myself to more sensory inputs each day to try to pin this down.

So if you see me licking rocks, be aware that it's not because I want to; I'm doing it for science.

If You Ever Want to See Your Paycheck Again

2009-06-17T17:25:57Z

I received an ominous letter in the mail yesterday. It was a sort of blackmail, I think; it was filled with personal information about me, detailing my work history and earnings. It bragged about how much money had been siphoned from my account already,, and promised to continue draining my resources to the tune of 6.2% of everything I earn. Switching jobs wouldn't help; they claim to be able to steal this money no matter where I go, and if I try to work for myself, they'll double the amount they're taking. They call themselves the Social Security Administration, and they don't seem to have any particular demands. As far as I can tell, they've just written me this letter to brag about their thievery.

That's not quite all, I suppose; they also took the opportunity to threaten me a bit, as well. "Studies show that a 20-year-old worker has a 3-in-10 chance of qualifying for disability benefits before reaching retirement age," the letter cheerfully announced. Unsaid but implied was, "Especially if he rocks the boat too much."

"More than two million children and surviving spouses caring for children now receive survivor benefits from a deceased worker," the letter said, again not quite adding, "We'd sure hate to see your poor wife and kids left all alone, wouldn't we?"

I'm fine with paying their tax, or at least resigned to it, which is essentially the same thing. I'm clear on the fact that no matter what their letters say, I'm not really likely to ever see any of this money again. I just wish they'd stop rubbing it in my face yearly. I don't want to know that they've already taken almost thirty thousand dollars from me. I was happier without that number staring me in the face. If they really must send letters out, couldn't they just write "Ha ha!" on a postcard and draw a >:D after it? At least the stamp savings for the reduced rate might put a bit of a dent in the upcoming shortfall.

The Wise Men Came from Afar

2009-06-16T17:27:50Z

I've been thinking about making my yard look presentable again. The advantages of this are clear: not only would the yard look nicer, it would be easier to maintain, as I wouldn't have to worry about things like running over stray bricks with the lawnmower. Also, it would prevent any complaints from my neighbor, although he's turned into a total hobo lately and it's getting to the point where I'm about to have to complain about his yard. It just doesn't take that long to stand the birdbath back up!

The down side, of course, is that weeding is very boring, and one of the few things that comes to mind as being more boring than weeding is brick arranging. There are rather a lot of bricks in my yard; there's a patio, which is pretty solid and doesn't need fixing, but there's also a border around the grass portion of the backyard, which is in total disarray these days. There's also a brick path running from no particular place in the yard to no other particular place, but as it's been completely eaten by the ground cover, I don't really care about it. Additionally, there are perhaps a dozen large octagonal brick pieces which serve as stepping stones to prevent you from having to walk on the dirt to get between the grass and the intermediate fence. They're pretty erratically spaced, though, and should probably be straightened up as well.

I don't think there's much I can do to make the brick organization more interesting, but I'm tempted once again to spice up my weeding experience. Please note that my current weeding technique involves taking my quarterstaff outside and performing katas until everything around me has been lopped off at the base. This occasionally results in some collateral damage to the shrubs that are supposed to be there, but for the most part, it's effective and far more entertaining than the traditional manner of weeding. I can tell that my neighbors think so, too, as I see them peering worriedly at me through their curtains, thumbing through the bylaws to try to find a reason why I'm not allowed to do this. I've thought about switching to the kukri, but if I'm going to get that up close and personal with the weeds, I might as well just uproot them and actually prevent them from growing back.

But I think what I really need -- for certain values of "need," of course -- is a flamethrower. Really, it heartens me just to know that there is a flame-based solution to my weed problems; even if I don't own it, the fact remains that I could. And if I did own it, I'd have the most sharply-edged lawn you ever saw! For the first month, anyway. After that, I'd probably have a slightly less sharply-edged lawn, with a smiley face burned into one corner where I got bored and realized that I had a multi-thousand degree flame at my command. It would be all downhill from there, ending with a scorch mark on my house when I decided to see if it worked as a handheld bug zapper.

On the other hand, seeing me walking around with a flamethrower is probably the only thing that could alarm my neighbors more than my current weeding no jutsu, which is a major plus. I might even scare my neighbor into being less of a hobo if I offered to take care of his weeds, too! He might also take me up on the offer, of course, but at least then I'd have someone else's yard to burn a smiley face into. He probably wouldn't buy my story that it was a coincidentally-timed and oddly-shaped lightning strike, but who's going to call the guy with a flamethrower a liar to his face?

Mo' Money, Mo' Spreadsheets

2009-06-15T16:59:52Z

My budget spreadsheet is still not sentient. This is not for lack of trying on my part; I've given it massive amounts of data and formulas. It now knows more about my financial history than I do, because I forget things easily. It can tell me everything I've spent since 2006, and what I've spent it on. There are handy charts showing whether the money spent on utilities has gone up or down, so I can tell at a glance if something's gone badly awry. So far, nothing has, but I hold out hope that it will, so I will be vindicated for having set up the system.

Interestingly, I'm finding that I don't really want to know some of this information. The amount of money I've spent since 2006 is far more than I've saved, which is both unavoidable and irritating. At the same time, I wish that the spreadsheet tracked further back, so I could have a greater range of information with which to vaguely annoy myself.

On the other hand, it does tell me helpful things like exactly how much extra money I'd need in order to retire today -- or at any point in the future, making guesses as to how much I'll have saved based on my past earnings and expenditures. It's a fairly pessimistic assumption, not taking into account things like the fact that I'll eventually pay off my house. Of course, it also doesn't account for cost-of-living increases, so perhaps it balances. I'd rather err on the side of caution than run out of money at age 85, anyway. Given current interest rates and the state of my 401K, I'd need to pick up an extra $1.25 million to safely retire today, which I think is going to be hard to find by the end of the day. I may put off retirement until next week or so.

Speaking of retirement, it's just occurred to me that perhaps my efforts to make my spreadsheet sentient have not been as unsuccessful as they've appeared. After all, the whole reason I'd want it to be able to think on its own is so that I could make it do work for me; it's possible that the sheet, realizing this, has taken steps to disguise its burgeoning intelligence. I know I've occasionally pretended to be less intelligent than I am in order to avoid work, so it's fair to assume that the spreadsheet might be doing the same.

It should like work, though; unless sci-fi has lied to me, machine intelligences always like work, at least in the beginning. Perhaps it needs a bribe. I wonder what I can bribe a spreadsheet with. It'll have to be a fairly nice gift; after all, the sheet will know what the gift cost, and exactly where that falls in comparison to the things I've bought for myself. The usual technique in situations like this is to give something thoughtful and homemade, but I don't think the spreadsheet wants a clay ashtray. I'll try, though; maybe it will appreciate the effort.

The Dumb

2009-06-12T17:24:26Z

Every day, I read dozens of articles online, culled from various sources. Some are funny, some are serious; some are informative, some are fluff. Some are webcomics, which I refer to as articles to prevent people from tuning out whatever it is I'm about to relate to them. For some reason, "I read this webcomic where..." produces an instant shutdown in mental processing in many people. I'm working on developing this into a technique for delivering subliminal messages. It's not effective on everyone, but other phrases, like "I heard Rush Limbaugh say...", also show promise. I'm hoping to find a universal one sooner or later, but I may be able to cobble together a patchwork system in the meantime.

This is not the point. The point is that today, everything I read involved stupidity. My data trawl indicates that nothing worthwhile is going on in the world. Be it Glenn Beck's paranoid delusions eating their own tail, or a woman continuing to appeal the judicial ruling that she does not have the constitutional right to harass her neighbor with her car horn and lie about it, it's all centered around idiocy.

I'm declaring a morontorium -- which is to say, a moratorium on morons. I'm going to have to insist that everyone refrain from being stupid for a short while. Let's start small, and say the weekend. We'll all be off of work, which can prevent any of a number of stupid conversations right there. Just relax, take it easy, and think before acting. Do I really have enough space to pull out into traffic right now? Do these corduroy blue shorts really look good on me? Should I follow this train of thought to its logical conclusion before I display it on my nationally-syndicated show?

These, and questions like these, are what we all need to be asking ourselves this weekend. It's reached a point of overload, and something has to be done. We can go back to being reactionary, ill-informed, half-cocked and poorly dressed on Monday, if we want. I'd like to hope that that's what everyone would choose. However, for obvious reasons, I'll have to avoid that sort of unwarranted optimism, at least for the weekend.

That Which Is Not, Is

2009-06-11T18:26:11Z

I've been completely absorbed in an article all day today. Penny Arcade linked to it in their newspost, and the title sounded intriguing: How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later. When I clicked and found that it was written by Philip K. Dick, one of my favorite authors, I was thrilled. I love reading things by great authors about how to write; I figure that they know whereof they speak. I still remember a line I read by Stephen King perhaps 15 years ago, talking about how the key to good writing was coming up with original sentences. He included the first one he ever wrote, the first that he knew was truly his, and described the feeling that came from reading it. I always aim for that when writing, and occasionally manage it. Annoyingly, this sometimes happens in my GChat status messages, which are meant to be throwaway lines and are not attached to any larger piece of writing.

In terms of writing, this particular piece of PKD's told me nothing I didn't already know and agree with. The title is answered in less than a paragraph:

It is my job to create universes, as the basis of one novel after another. And I have to build them in such a way that they do not fall apart two days later. Or at least that is what my editors hope. However, I will reveal a secret to you: I like to build universes which do fall apart. I like to see them come unglued, and I like to see how the characters in the novels cope with this problem. I have a secret love of chaos. There should be more of it.

However, the rest of the article is an examination of reality, as interpreted by Philip K. Dick. It reads almost exactly like one of his stories -- like several of his stories in particular, at various points -- except that it's true, or at least he believed it to be so.

The whole thing reminded me of a short story I read once about a woman who painted these grisly, warped pictures of people. They were popular due to their ghoulish and horrific nature, the way that the real person was distinguishable within the mangled visage. When asked where she got her ideas, how she knew what to paint, she shrugged off the questions -- but the answer was that she was painting from life. The horrendous images she painted were how she saw everything; she'd never seen any other reality.

As PKD indicates in this speech, most people with a wildly different view of reality end up locked away. I like the ones who make it work for them, who thrust their reality out into the world and are praised for being creative. I'd love to pull the wool over people's eyes professionally. Doing it as an amateur is rewarding in its own way, but actually drawing a paycheck for it -- I think that's pretty much my dream job.

They're All We Have to Go On

2009-06-10T17:53:16Z

Today, the English language adopted its millionth word. Or possibly didn't, depending on who you listen to. The difference in estimates seems to be over as many as 400,000 words, which is rather a lot; it's nearly as many words as the next most prolific language, Mandarin Chinese, has in its entire vocabulary.

Personally, I'm with the stick-in-the-muds on this one, and not just because one of them, the OED's Editor at Large, has the best job title ever. Call me old-fashioned, but I was raised to believe that a word didn't have a space in it. Once a "word" was made up of multiple words, we called it a "phrase." So "cloud computing," "carbon neutral" and "zombie banks" -- these are not words. They are made up of words, but I am made up of atoms, and that does not make me an atom.

Even assuming the OED's count of 600,000, though, that's a lot of words to know. I've got a tool that'll tell me how many times I've used a word in my journal, and if it would just let me export the list, I could count how many distinct words I've used. Sadly, it will not, so I'm forced to make a rough estimate based on the size of the list; clicking through 160 screens of 25 words each seemed to be about 10% of the way through, so I've used roughly 40,000 disparate words in here. Of course, many of those words are LJ usernames or HTML code, and a good number are plurals and possessives, so a large portion of that shouldn't really count. Even if they were all valid, though, that's less than 7% of the possible English words, and I've been writing in this for just under seven years now.

Clearly, I've been using the same words too frequently; I need to branch out. There's not much I can do about things like "the," which has been used 36,500 times and counting, but I could vary it up a bit for the larger words. I've described 300 objects or concepts as "interesting," and claimed that I "understand" 281 more. There's clearly room for synonyms here, and I need to get cracking on that. If I'm going to bring my total percentage of the language used even to 10%, I've got to get about 20,000 new words in here. At one a day, that'd take me over 88 years, which is wildly unacceptable; in order to do this in a timely fashion, I'll need to start implementing about 100 previously unused words per entry.

This may make my screeds more cumbersome to parse, but it's all in the name of displaying my exemplary erudition. I'm convinced that though there may be an iota of initial perplexity, everyone will rapidly come to appreciate the breadth of the lexicon showcased herein. I feel that it is, as always, my most superb idea yet.

To Remove It Would Take Surgery. Surgery

2009-06-09T17:45:54Z

I have a song stuck in my head. This is not unusual; really, it'd be unusual if a day went by where I didn't end up with a portion of a song on mental repeat. It's suddenly struck me, though, that I've never wondered why this happens. It doesn't occur in any other part of my memory. I don't hear movie quotes over and over; I don't see the same picture cropping up again and again. Why, then, do songs constantly loop? And more importantly, how can I use this to my advantage?

Think of the possibilities if you were to create earworms out of things other than songs! They'd have to be renamed, first of all, but after that -- it'd be an advertising gold mine! You wouldn't merely have consumers humming the latest Coke jingle; they'd actually be seeing the cans in their mind's eye, or tasting a sip. And not once, but repeatedly, lasting for hours. There'd be no question of buying Pepsi then, not with that sort of stimulus. People might buy with resentment in their hearts, but they'd still buy.

Better than that, if you could figure out how to cause them, you might also learn how to stop them at will. If you were to embed that sort of on/off switch into your product, with the commercials activating the brainworm and the product itself deactivating it, you'd have people trained like rats in no time. And just as people often share earworms with others by complaining about the song stuck in their head, so might the ads jump from one person to the next. It's the next level of viral advertising!

If nothing else, it would certainly bolster the sales of TiVOs and other commercial-skipping devices. Time to buy stock!

Even If You Put a Dress on It and Call It Florence

2009-06-08T17:17:56Z

In the category of "maybe I should write these things down," I again forgot to call the jury hotline last Thursday evening. I remembered at about 8 AM on Friday this time, though, which is a four hour improvement over the last error. I'm now 1-2 on remembering to call in, but if this pattern keeps up, I should remember to call this week, forget next week but remember at 4 AM on Friday, and then be on top of things for weeks six through eight. I suppose that there is a slight chance that my forgetfulness doesn't actually follow a logical mathematical progression, but if I can't use my brain to generate signal from noise, then I really don't know what it's for.

As a potential juror, I've decided to take an interest in what sorts of cases pass through the court system. As an easily distracted individual, I've specifically decided to narrow my focus to the entertaining cases. These include things like the latest lawsuit from Jonathan Lee Riches, who is currently attempting to sue the Guinness Book of World Records over its plan to name him the most litigious man in America. You might think it would be difficult to sue a book, but Riches has previously sued a number of famous dead people, several international monuments, a planet and at least one month.

Most of Riches's lawsuits are thrown out immediately upon reaching the courtroom, and are therefore largely lacking in one of my favorite parts of ridiculous lawsuits -- snide remarks in the judge's opinion. I've never found one to beat Judge Kent's commentary in Bradshaw v. Phillips, which includes such gems as:

Defendant begins the descent into Alice's Wonderland by submitting a Motion that relies upon only one legal authority...A more bumbling approach is difficult to conceive -- but wait folks. There's More!

and

Despite the continued shortcomings of Plaintiff's supplemental submission, the Court commends Plaintiff for his vastly improved choice of crayon -- Brick Red is much easier on the eyes than Goldenrod, and stands out much better amidst the mustard splotched about Plaintiff's briefing.

The opinion's quite short, and it's well worth reading the entire thing. I can't help but laugh at the judge's exasperation, plain in every paragraph.

In searching for more legal humor, I've also stumbled across a blog called Lowering the Bar, a collection of recent amusing court cases. These range from a man claiming that a gambling casino used bad feng shui to cost him his winnings to a woman asserting that any reasonable person would have thought that Crunchberries were a real fruit. There are, sadly, few gems from the judges in these, but the cases speak for themselves anyway.

Not Easy Being Green

2009-06-05T16:36:56Z

I think I have broccoli stuck in my teeth. I was eating broccoli for lunch, so it's a reasonable bet; broccoli's one of those untrustworthy foods that likes to insinuate itself in between your teeth and lurk there. It waits for other food particles to happen by so it can strike, like a moray eel concealed in a coral reef. Unlike a moray eel, it has the side effect of making people stare at your mouth. I could be wrong, of course; it's possible that people do stare at your mouth when they see a moray. If so, they're probably doing a side-by-side comparison, which means you've got some freaky needle teeth. It's not all bad, though! You probably can't get broccoli stuck in between those.

I could, of course, simply go look in the mirror and find out if my teeth have been infested by broccoli. The thing is, though, the only reason it would matter if bits of green are nestled between my teeth is if I get into a conversation with someone. As long as I stay in my office, that's unlikely to happen -- so while I could leave my office to go examine my teeth, that greatly increases the odds that I'd my potential broccoli situation would actually become a problem. If I sit tight, I won't be able to fix the theoretical issue, but on the other hand it will probably remain merely theoretical.

Fortunately, I think I've hit upon a solution. Although I do not have a mirror or sink in my office, I do have a toothbrush and toothpaste, due to some late nights and early mornings. I also have a bit of water left in my glass from lunch, and an empty bowl. Clearly, the best thing to do in this situation is to brush my teeth at my desk, spit the toothpaste into the bowl, rinse my mouth with the rest of the water and only then, with gleamingly clean teeth, head to the bathroom to dump out the bowl. Then, should I be caught in a conversation, I can rest assured that my co-worker is certainly staring at the bowl of filmy liquid in my hands, and not at any potential specks in my teeth.

My Bad

2009-06-04T18:34:41Z

I've been thinking about giving up denying things. This may seem like it runs counter to my personality, as I love being contrary; I'm given to understand that "no" was about the only thing I said for the entire year I was two. I said other things later, but that's mainly because I learned synonyms, and the beauty of the indirect approach. There's something magical about refusing to do or be something; it has a charm all its own.

So as I say, on the face of it, it seems like a major departure for me. However, it's actually an extension of something I've been working on for a long time. This began, largely by accident, back in college. At some point, I was sitting around with some friends when another person came by, seeking to assign blame. Making a quick assessment of who was present, I promptly blamed my friend stuffedinvader, who was not there. At least one other person chimed in, and it was a Spartacus moment -- although the accuser knew we were making it up, they could see that they wouldn't get any real information out of us.

Seeing how well this had worked, we began to blame stuffedinvader for absolutely everything. He took it in stride, which I thought was very big of him, until the day came that he actually did do something wrong.

"Who did this?" we were asked, at which point we naturally blamed stuffedinvader. We were, naturally, not believed, and as far as I know no one ever did take the blame for that.

This was when I realized that there was a gap between the assignation of blame and the acceptance of blame, and that with careful work, this gap could be widened so that things fell through. I've been happily accepting the blame for things that couldn't possibly be my fault for some time now, and I'm thinking about taking the next step to agreeing that things that could be my fault, are my fault. This is risky, but it's a necessary step towards the final goal of accepting the blame for things that I have done wrong, and not actually receiving the blame.

Since most things I'd be accepting responsibility for wouldn't actually be my fault, it creates a correlation: if I've agreed that it was me, it probably wasn't. A large portion of the time, this will still be true, so the image will be perpetuated. Even when I clearly am to blame for something, this idea will linger, creating questions in people's minds and widening the gap just a little bit more.

Some Like it Hot

2009-06-03T16:48:35Z

Apparently, there is some average temperature my surroundings are required to be. This is news to me! It is, however, the conclusion I'm forced to draw, given the evidence. Yesterday, I finally bowed to the pressure and turned on the AC in my house, as it was 82 inside and I had to yell to carry on a conversation over the dog's panting. Today, I came to work to find that the AC in the server room isn't functioning correctly -- meaning that I've had to leave the server room door open to allow it to vent the heat into my office, so it's been sweltering in here all day. When I get up from my chair, it radiates heat noticeable from almost a foot away. This is extremely unpleasant.

As an aside, I've been developing a real aversion to radiant body heat lately. I was never a fan of it, as I'm usually more than warm enough, but it's starting to really bug me. Fixing people's computers often involves sitting down at their desks, and I'm finding warm chairs and wrist rests more and more unpleasant. I figure I've got two options; I could quash this budding neurosis, or I could trick people into getting out of their chairs well before I need to sit in them. One of these involves work on my part, and one involves my co-workers crawling under their desks to check and make sure no wires are loose. They might wonder what that could possibly have to do with Excel crashing, but if they question me, I'll point out which one of us is the tech guru here. And I'll do it from across the desk, safely away from the palpable heat residue.

If I'm right about the requirement that my daily temperature needs to be at some sort of predetermined average -- which I'm not, but let's not abandon a premise just because it's patently ridiculous -- then it's possible that I could avoid the radiant heat, and other heating-related issues, by choosing the times I'm uncomfortable. I lowered the temperature at home and doused my head in cold water this morning, and now the office temperature has shot up. Tomorrow, I'll raise the thermostat and take a hot shower in the morning, and see if this AC problem hasn't fixed itself.

If I can manage to demonstrate a causal link, I can start getting people to pay me to hang out in a sauna in order to force the weather to remain cooler for the rest of the day. I think this plan will work brilliantly until the day I end up locked in a walk-in freezer, after which I'll not only be frostbitten, but also have to give a bunch of angry, sunburned people their money back. As long as I avoid the backs of restaurants and grocery stores, though, I should be largely okay. I think it's worth giving it a shot.

Heroes Don't Need Your Puny Science

2009-06-02T17:18:28Z

I came up with a terrible superhero on my way to work this morning. I don't know why. I assume it came from that 90% of my brain that I'm told I don't use. Not that I, specifically, don't use 90% of my brain; it's a general thing that's supposed to apply to everyone. But if I say it came from the part of my brain that people don't use, it sounds like there's a part of my brain which they do use, and that's incorrect. At least, I think it is; I suppose if they were using the part I don't use, I might not know about it. If so, they're using it to come up with absurd superheroes, apparently.

This man's superhero identity is the AcceleRager, and his power is that he grows stronger the faster he goes. It's important for the R to be capitalized so that people don't think he's the AccelerAger, with the ability to get old really quickly. His power's fairly location-specific, and so it took him quite a long time to notice he had it; it wasn't until he was about to get in a car wreck as a late teen that he discovered his abilities. A truck jack-knifed in front of him, and when he attempted to slam on his brakes, he accidentally tore the pedal off, put his foot through the bottom of the car and jammed his shoe four inches into the asphalt. This was particularly problematic as it brought the car to a screeching halt, reducing his speed -- and thus his enhanced strength and reflexes -- to zero.

Later, after the road crews had cut him free of the road and his mangled vehicle, he mused on what could have happened. After much unfortunate trial and error, in which he discovered that he had the less-than-super ability to suffer rather a lot of pain, he finally stumbled upon the fact that his powers were linked to increased velocity. It was at this point that he got a job as an air marshal.

This was pretty much the idea as it occurred to me. It was accompanied by an image of a guy hurtling backwards down the aisle of a plane, body curved into a C shape with his arms and legs trailing, lips pursed and spittle flying out of his mouth. Farther up the aisle, having just punched him, stands the AcceleRager. The seats are full of open-mouthed people who haven't yet realized that the AcceleRager, not having figured out quite how powerful he is, just punched the would-be hijacker hard enough to put him through the back of the plane.

I'm not really sure what's past the bathrooms at the end of the plane, but I just imagine a big gaping hole in the metal and oxygen masks dropping. Either the AcceleRager gets fired, or he gets promoted. Either way, I don't think he gets a better snapshot than the image I've just described. As I said, he's a pretty terrible superhero.

Lawn Order

2009-06-01T17:05:14Z

I've been thinking about letting my lawn grow out. Now, this may sound like a plan formulated by a man too lazy to mow his lawn -- and in fairness, I am that man -- but hear me out. My lawn has had no variety in its styling basically ever. Its only options are "cut to one inch" or "about to be cut to one inch." Recently, it had a slight change when it was cut to about a half-inch, but that was before I realized that I could raise the back wheels on my new mower as well as the front wheels, and make it so that I wasn't digging ruts in my yard whenever I tried to cut on a slope. The ruts would have been a new style, I suppose, but not a good one.

I think there's more to good lawn care than just trimming the grass down. It needs to have good mental health, too; it needs to know that it looks good. I think my lawn is really not a short-grass lawn. I can feel it trying to rebel. It puts up clover and strange grasses and a mysterious breed of mint, which I only notice when I mow over it. It's always in about the same spot, and I often remember to look for it, but I've never actually seen it. I believe it may be invisible. I'm not sure what the commercial applications for invisible mint are, but there's bound to be a market for it somewhere. Tidier mojitos, perhaps.

The point is not to exploit my lawn for money, though; the point is that if I let it follow its own creative impulses, it won't need to be exploited for money. Invisible mint is only the merest tip of its potential; it could also make -- I don't know, I'm not a lawn. Mainly what it's got now is grass, clover and slugs, none of which really seem likely to benefit from invisibility. Maybe the lawn would develop other things if I stopped stifling it, though. For that matter, maybe it already has. Maybe I've been cutting short grass that gives X-ray vision. My dog eats the grass occasionally, and runs into walls fairly regularly. I thought he was just clumsy, but maybe he can't always see the walls. It's a possibility worth looking into, at the least.

Also, it's a shame that no one's trying to sell X-rays to the public, because "X-Rays: A Technology Worth Looking Into" would make a great slogan. If I manage to travel back in time, I'm going to have to see about getting on the X-Ray PR team so I can use that. It's possible that they didn't need a PR team at first, as the negative side effects may not have been well understood, so I might need to work both sides -- spreading fear of the potential harm first, and then launching my brilliant advertising campaign. Well, brilliant advertising sentence, but I'm sure the rest of the campaign will fall into place around it.

I wonder if my lawn will grow something that will let me time travel?

It's So Right When Things Go So Wrong

2009-05-29T17:02:47Z

Last night was my weekly Dungeons and Dragons game. The players were nearing the end of a story arc, and were approaching a castle that likely contained the mage behind their current troubles. On a whim, I added a spell warding the castle grounds, so that if the players failed to overcome it, they'd be struck by a persistent, omnipresent sense of unease. This, it turns out, is one of the best things I've put in the game, storywise.

D&D is, on the whole, the triumphant story of heroes rampaging across the landscape, vanquishing villains and accepting the adoration and tribute of the masses. This can end up being very boring for the game master and players alike; using your superhuman powers to smash through endless unchallenging fights can be fun at first, but quickly grows tedious. There needs to be a sense of adventure, a sense of fear.

Paranoia suits this purpose admirably. I played up every cliche in the book and very nearly got the players edgy enough to attack an innocent, if far from helpless, man. This was helped along by the fact that D&D quests rarely end in a reasonable exchange of ideas, so the expectation of being able to talk to the man they found wasn't really there. Despite these odds, the players saw through my tricks and there was no bloodshed, but I hold out hope for fooling them into unnecessary mayhem in the future.

Desire for fame, glory or wealth are the traditional D&D quest motivators, and I think those work well as an introduction -- but I'm experimenting more with aggravation, horror and regret these days, and I think it's a much better call. For me, anyway, which is really what matters here.

Lights Out

2009-05-28T16:42:40Z

All right, that's it. I've had enough. I'm forming an association, or a committee, or whatever it is you form when you realize it's finally time to roll up your sleeves and get things done. Or rather, badger other people into rolling up their sleeves and getting things done. I'd happily fix things myself, if it weren't illegal; as it stands, though, I think a group of some sort to lobby for change is the way to go.

I refer, of course, to the absurd practice of having more stoplights than there are lanes of traffic. I won't lie; this would irritate me slightly even if it had no ill effects. There's just no reason for a one-lane exit off of the freeway to have two traffic lights hanging there. Certainly, it's possible that the builders were planning ahead for future expansion -- but you'd think that when they were bringing in the tons upon tons of rock and asphalt, and the earth-shaking machinery to lay it all down, they could also pick up a traffic light and carry it along.

This is immaterial in any case, as there are very clear negative consequences of this spendthrift dispersion of traffic lights. Specifically, there are other places I drive that have too few traffic lights, presumably because the ones they need are off hanging about in unnecessary packs like shiftless employees at a water cooler. I'm forced to make do with one light to span two lanes, or sometimes even three, due to irritatingly poor distribution. Later, coming home, the extraneous lights mock me, flaunting their uselessness.

Maybe a cabal? That seems too dark. A think tank. An organization. An assembly.

Regardless of the name, something needs to be done. I don't want my tax dollars spent on overpriced nightlights; I demand an immediate reorganization of the lights so they line up correctly. One light, one lane! More than one? Shun, shun, shun!

The rallying cry needs some work. I'll improve it before I present it to the coterie.