We're All Mad Here

baron.mind@gmail.com — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:59:15 GMT

I've been thinking about apocalypses a lot lately. Distressingly, I think I'm fairly ill-equipped to survive one of pretty much any sort. I don't have large stockpiles of canned food, I'm far away from a reliable source of fresh water that isn't my tap, I don't have a bomb shelter or even a basement, and I have no idea where I'd get lamb's blood on short notice. Really, the only thing that I have going for me is that pretty much everyone I know is less equipped for an apocalypse than I am. This means that once they die off, I can go take their stuff.

I think I'd do pretty well as a scavenger. It's not an ideal way to live, but it's a good way to get myself set up while I figure out how to farm. I know the basic principles, obviously, but I have no idea how much I'd have to plant to support myself, or if I need different soils to grow different plants, or anything like that. I figure I can learn all of this stuff from books, but I'll need to go raid a library first, and as long as I'm out scavenging I ought to lay in some other supplies for when I screw up the crops.

It's tempting to forgo the subsistence farming altogether and stick with the scavenging. There's always the risk that other people will have looted the stores first, I suppose, but then I can just go loot those other people. They probably won't appreciate this, but it's a post-apocalyptic world; there's going to be some unpleasantness.

I'm a big fan of my modern conveniences, but when I picture my dream future, I see a deep red sunset over a ruined city skyline. It's a chill autumn day; the leaves are red, matching the sun and the rust that's spreading over all of the collapsing buildings. I have a shelter, but it's rudimentary -- no fancy multi-story house, just something I cobbled together from things lying around.

I don't know why this appeals to me so much. I like society, and have no particular reason to want to see it fall. There's something fascinating about the idea of living in the twilight of your entire race, though, of knowing that for better or worse, you were the culmination of your species. It'll happen to someone eventually; why not me?

Didn't Go to Years of School So You Could Call Me Mr. Obvious

baron.mind@gmail.com — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:43:35 GMT

When I graduated from college and started looking for a job, I had a number of ideals in mind. I wanted a job that paid well, of course, but I was looking for more than that. I wanted a job that would entertain me; I wanted it to challenge me, but not overwhelm me. I was lucky in that I found a job that gave me all of these things, and I rarely have cause to complain about it. Every once in a while, though, I come across a sign that there are better jobs for me out there, and I wonder if I should go in search of them.

Most recently, I've encountered a study by a group of folks at the University of Montreal demonstrating that caffeine keeps you awake. They co-opted 24 volunteers, made them stay awake for a day, and then fed half of them caffeine pills three hours before allowing them to go to sleep. Shockingly, those who took the stimulant were less able to sleep than those who did not.

"Caffeine is the most widely used stimulant to counteract the effects of sleepiness, but it also produces important detrimental effects on subsequent sleep," says the abstract. To me -- and admittedly, I am not a scientist -- that shouldn't really be a "but" there; it should be an "and" or possibly a "so naturally." To my layman's eye, that sentence essentially reads, "Caffeine keeps you awake, but can also keep you awake."

I'm wondering if there are any openings in the tautological research field. This is the sort of work I could really sink my teeth into. I've got some ideas lined up already. For my first study, I'd investigate whether pushing on the gas pedal in a car makes you go faster, not just now, but also after you've stopped pressing down on the pedal. I'll have one group sit in the car while it's in drive and press the gas for ten seconds, and the other group not press the gas. Then, I'll measure the speed of the car in each case after thirty seconds. I don't want to tell you my hypothesis just yet; you'll have to wait for me to publish, so you can see my results for yourself!

I found particular hope in a sentence in an article discussing this study: "Her study builds on recent findings that reducing coffee consumption is the best way to improve sleep for the middle-aged." The implication here, if not the outright assertion, is that this is but one of many studies demonstrating that when you take coffee to wake you up, it keeps you awake. This means that once I get my doctorate in tautology, I won't even need to keep coming up with groundbreaking studies like "accelerating adds to your speed." I can get paid to cross-check and confirm the results of other tautologists!

I don't want to rush right into this career change; I think I'll take a day to think it over, maybe sleep on it tonight. And I know now I'll be better off doing that without the aid of coffee. Thanks, science!

For Certain Values of Safe

baron.mind@gmail.com — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:30:31 GMT

Good news, everyone! We're now safe from bombs. Advanced Tactical Security & Communications, in partnership with ComInfo Systems, apparently a subsidiary of Cumberland Industries, has a hand-held, battery-free, no waste, no mess, no hassle and no fuss explosives detector! It will detect as little as a picogram of various dangerous substances from up to 5,000 meters away in less than 5 seconds. It also finds drugs ranging from ecstasy to to cocaine, and will even find ivory, for good measure. And the entire thing weighs less than two pounds!

"This can't be real!", I hear you cry. "How does it work?" That is, of course, proprietary, but it utilizes a process known as Meticulous Aggregation, Gathering, Indexing and Correlating. And this amazing device -- which results in a false positive less than 2% of the time, and even then is usually due to it detecting a microscopically small amount of whatever it's been set to -- can be yours for the low, low price of $18,500.

Act now! Most governments would pay up to $60,000 for this astonishing tool! Only through this online offer can you secure this outstanding bargain. And if you order now, your ADE-651 will come with a card for detecting humans, too. No more will you have to wonder about whether the so-called person you're talking to is actually a space alien, devil or intelligent fungus in disguise. Simply point the ADE-651 at them, shuffle your feet briefly to generate a charge and in less than five seconds, you'll have your answer!

Don't let terrorists, saboteurs and general ne'er-do-wells threaten the safety of your country, island base or secret moon lair. With the ADE-651, you'll spot them miles away! Don't be the last on your continent to own this amazing new technology!

Shock and Awe

baron.mind@gmail.com — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:22:18 GMT

Let us suppose for a moment that you are an off-duty, noticeably inebriated police officer. Let us further suppose that it is near Halloween, and you have taken your young daughter to visit a house of horrors, presumably for the express purpose of seeing people in rubber masks jump out at you. And finally, let us suppose that as you are leaving the haunted house and heading back into the parking lot, a masked man with a chainsaw, who you have already observed as part of the act inside the house, chases you out brandishing his weapon.

View Poll: Parking Lot of Peril

If you chose option four, congratulations! You may be Sergeant Eric Janik of Maryland, who apparently felt this was fully appropriate behavior. Happily, the state of Maryland disagrees, as Sgt. Janik has been suspended and is facing criminal charges.

I'm constantly amazed by people's inability to figure out that things like this are stupid. There's a very simple test that you can perform before you do something like point a gun at someone. Think to yourself, "Would I think this was awesome if it happened to me?" If the answer's no, then you probably shouldn't go through with the joke.

Maybe I'm wrong! Maybe Sgt. Janik loves having guns pointed at him. Maybe that's why he became a police officer in the first place. I'm betting, though, that this is not the case, and that had he performed my simple test -- easily done even while drunk -- this could have been averted.

What is hateful to you, do not do to others. It's not a new concept; you'd think it might have sunk in a bit better by now.

The Breaking Point

baron.mind@gmail.com — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:13:45 GMT

Winter is making a spirited attempt this year to cut fall out of the picture entirely. It stopped raining long enough for me to rake up all of my leaves before the Halloween party on Friday, but then came back with a vengeance. Chilly rain drilled all of the leaves off of the trees; my deck and yard are completely covered in a soggy leaf blanket, and the trees are entirely denuded. On the bright side, this means I'll only have to rake once. However, I was always sort of a fan of fall; I'm sorry to see it be given a miss this year.

It's not really cold yet, just damp. I think that the lowest it's gotten is the mid-40s. This is heartening news! There may yet be time for crisp evenings and bonfires and all of the traditional activities. Fall's not going down without a fight.

The roads, however, are. Every year, during winter, the roads become pitted and racked with potholes. I was pretty sure that I understood how this happened; water seeped into small cracks in the asphalt, then froze and expanded. The expanding ice shoved the cracks wider, then melted and allowed more water to get into the now-larger crack. Through this process, eventually the Grand Canyon was created, or something that felt very much like it when I dropped one of my tires into it while driving.

As I said before, though, it hasn't gotten down to freezing temperatures yet this year -- not even to within ten degrees of it. Despite this, the roads have new and excitingly damaging potholes every day. It seems that they've noted that the leaves are off of the trees, and have decided to save the water a lot of hassle and simply fracture themselves.

This theory requires that the asphalt have a degree of free will, which is perhaps not a good assumption. Unfortunately, the only other theory that comes to mind is that the local Department of Transportation is purchasing water-soluble asphalt. I'd much rather think that the roads are intelligent, rather than accept that the people in charge of creating them are not.

This is Halloween

baron.mind@gmail.com — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:52:48 GMT

For most of the year, you're not meant to be morbid.
Folks think you odd for laughing at death.
But in late October, that all gets contorted,
And everyone's anxious to draw their last breath.

People dress up and pretend to be dead.
They're mummies and zombies in makeup galore
With blood, gore and grave rot and knives in their head.
All cheap imitations they bought at the store.

It makes sense for me; I find this amusing.
I've got no problem indulging my weirdness.
But I've got to confess, I find it quite confusing
To see everyone else's spooky-spiritedness.

Please don't misunderstand me! I am not complaining.
I'm glad to see crowds at the big Zombie Walk.
But why is it suddenly thought entertaining
To have a body outlined on your driveway in chalk?

I think it's the same thing as Casual Fridays
"Today, we think you can do your job in jeans."
But wear them on Thursday, and you will hear this phrase:
"We need to explain what 'professional' means."

So I'll go and have fun with the ghosts, ghouls and goblins
While everyone else thinks the same way I do.
And next week I'll take on the regular problems
Of trying to pretend that I'm normal, too.

State of Irritation

baron.mind@gmail.com — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:40:47 GMT

In third grade, my teacher taught the entire class a song with the names of all fifty states listed alphabetically. She would hold contests to see who could sing the song the fastest, while still pointing to each state on the wall map as its name was said. I haven't retained the latter skill; I've got a decent idea of where each state is, but if you asked me to find Kansas, it would take me a minute of hunting among those rectangular ones in the middle. I still know the names of every state, though. I've never been able to forget that song.

Apparently some people were more adept at this than I was, though. Not the geography -- the forgetting. According to a poll conducted in mid-August, 10% of Americans don't know that Hawaii is a state. Now, the poll has a 3.3% margin of error, so let's round that off. The survey was conducted by touchtone, so perhaps a few people fat-fingered their answer, and hit 2 when they meant 1; let's whack off another percent for that. That's still more than 5% of America who's not certain that Hawaii -- celebrating its fiftieth anniversary as the fiftieth state just days after this poll was conducted -- is a state.

Five percent, just to drive this point home, is one in twenty people. Surely it's not the people you know, of course -- but are you certain? Your coworkers say some dumb things on occasion, but surely they must know that Hawaii is a state -- right? Odds are that some of them don't.

On the one hand, this knowledge isn't actually good for anything. Under no conceivable circumstance am I going to need to know that Hawaii is part of the United States, except maybe for saving myself some passport-related embarrassment while traveling. But on the other hand, it's a pretty basic piece of information about the country in which we live. It's something I learned in third grade. You'd think that better than 1 in 20 adults -- some of whom probably vote, and nearly all of whom have the right to -- could manage it.

There are some other fun questions in that poll -- 39% of the respondents feel that the government should stay out of Medicare, for example -- but it's the Hawaii one that bugs me the most. It's been part of the country for fifty years. Our current president was born there, and even the 25% who think he was not, and the 14% who aren't sure, should still be aware of where it is they're saying he wasn't born.

This is going to suck all the joy out of insulting people in traffic. The next time someone cuts me off, and I call him a moron, I'm going to start wondering if he knows that Hawaii is a state. Statistically speaking, five percent of the time, he's not going to.

Never Cares a Thing for Me

baron.mind@gmail.com — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:37:15 GMT

The weather and me, we're about to have some problems. I like rain as much as the next guy -- more than the next guy, actually; usually the next guy looks miserable, and I have a good laugh at his expense. I'm always a little miffed when it rains during Frisbee, because some people don't want to run around in the mud, and so it's harder to get a game together. On the other hand, I then get to run around in the rain and the mud, so that one sort of balances out.

The problem I'm having with the rain is that it's been raining essentially every day since fall hit, which means that I've been unable to go out and rake up any of the leaves. Generally, I'm okay with this sort of problem, but since I'm having folks over for Halloween on Friday, I feel that I really ought to clean the back patio up. I am not interested in raking wet leaves, especially not if I have to do it in the rain -- but it looks like I may not have a choice.

Rain on Halloween itself is always annoying, too. Instead of getting to see all of the kids' costumes when they come to my door, I'm presented with only two variants. Either they're covered up in rain gear, in which case they all appear to be dressed as tourists at Niagara Falls -- or they've braved the elements and their makeup has run, so that they seem to have dressed up as Tammy Faye Baker on a crying jag. Neither of these costumes is bad the first time, but an evening of nothing else gets old.

I've been talking with my intercessor, Ish, to see what he can do for me. He's been somewhat noncommittal, but that's only to be expected from him; it comes with the name. Still, I think he'll fix this for me. In the past, he's always come through-ish.

I get that things aren't all about me, and I'm willing to meet the weather halfway here. I'll rake wet leaves if I must, or I'll put up with the dampened Halloween spirit -- but I won't willingly do both. If we can't compromise on this, then I'm afraid that the weather and I are going to have to have it out. I've always maintained a friendly relationship with it, but I won't have that friendship abused. I'm warning you, weather -- severely. No more shenanigans.

Fraud Be With You

baron.mind@gmail.com — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:48:03 GMT

In France today, the Church of Scientology was convicted of fraud, along with six of its members. The Scientologists were fined heavily, but the court stopped short of ordering the dissolution of its French chapter, which the plaintiffs had requested.

The verdict -- which the Church says it intends to appeal -- also includes the requirement that the Church "publish the results of the verdict in several national and international magazines to warn people...about what Scientology offers and what was discovered at trial." I looked around briefly, but was unable to find the text of the verdict online yet. I'd like to see it, because although I do find Scientology very weird, I'm not sure what makes it any more fraudulent than any other religion. Religions all promise intangibles in return for goods and services rendered now; they will all gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.

I may be overgeneralizing here. There may be religions which don't speak of the afterlife, of ineffable God or gods, of things taken on faith and belief and trust instead of evidence. The ones which spring to mind all have these aspects to some degree, however. According to the news article, the Church of Scientology was convicted of fraud due to its practice of locating spiritual imbalance in its practitioners, then telling them to purchase healing items to fix themselves.

I'm not really sure how this differs from some of the preachers on television who tell their watchers that if they donate money, they will receive God's blessings. Perhaps it's just in the equivocation; since they only say that God may smile upon you, even if it's said with a smile and a meaningful nod, it's not technically fraud because they haven't promised anything. There are people who are tricked into believing that there is actual fruit in their Froot Loops, after all, so clearly not that much effort needs to be put into the duplicity. If so, it seems that all the Scientologists will have to do is change their pitch from "this will heal you" to "this may heal you," and they'll be back on solid footing.

Other than that, the only difference I can see is that the Church of Scientology is providing something concrete in return for the donations it receives. If you give money to one of the late-night preachers, all you get is a vague promise of hope; with the Scientologists, at least you get a book with your vague promise. It seems to me like that's actually a better deal.

Something Rotten

baron.mind@gmail.com — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:23:08 GMT

Photo by christ-o-phile

This weekend was Richmond's fifth annual zombie walk. It occurs near Halloween every year, and involves a large crowd of people dressing up like zombies and then shambling the length of Carytown, an area lined with shops and restaurants. This provokes a great amount of mirth and picture-taking from the people shopping who had not heard about this. There is slightly less mirth from the people driving along the street, who tend to alternately lean out of their cars to take pictures, and yell at the people in front of them to stop leaning out of their cars to take pictures and just drive. Zombies observe "don't walk" lights and largely stay on the sidewalk, so our direct impact on traffic is minimal, but I still wouldn't want to be trying to drive somewhere on Cary Street during the walk.

The turnout this year was huge; early reports were of 385 zombies, but I'm hearing numbers in excess of 400 now. Last weekend was cold and rainy, so I was somewhat concerned about my planned costume, which you'll note does not include a shirt. However, I decided I'd tough it out, which turned out to be less difficult than I expected as it hit 80 degrees on Saturday. Rather than being cold, I was sweating in a most unzombie-like manner. On the bright side, when my sweat mixed with the cascade of fake blood on my chest, it made it run, which was a fantastic and completely unplanned effect.

I found a large bottle of liquid latex this year, which is a great substance for doing skin effects. It comes in the container as a foul-smelling liquid, but after you paint it on, it dries clear and can be peeled, rolled, shaped or painted over. It can be used over hair, too; I covered one arm with it, and it came off with only hot water and heavily lathered soap. I made do this year with only white powder, green makeup, the liquid latex and a small bottle of blood gel that I found on the floor of my closet, as I'd managed to lose the rest of my Halloween paint. I found it later, but since I don't need it any more this year, I'm sure that I'll be able to lose it again by next year.

I'm entertained by the idea that dozens of people who I'm never going to meet have pictures of me on their cameras and cell phones, and were showing them to their friends. It's like being a celebrity, except that when the day is over, you don't have to deal with the insanity and invasion of privacy that goes along with it. Of course, you also don't get to have all of the money, but so it goes. It's a fair trade, in my book.

Ctrl-Z

baron.mind@gmail.com — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:01:15 GMT

A couple of days ago, as I was leaving for work, I realized I hadn't checked the mail the previous evening. As I was driving by the mailbox at the time, I grabbed the handful of mail and chucked it into my car. I sorted through it at traffic lights, pulling out the three worthwhile pieces of mail and separating them from the pile of chaff. When I arrived at work, I gathered the two piles together, headed inside, and threw the entire stack into the trash.

You may have noted a problem with this plan! I, distressingly, did not -- not until that evening, well after I'd left work, and unfortunately after the janitor had come around to empty my trash can. Fortunately, none of the things I'd accidentally thrown away were indispensable; I'd lost some coupons, and I was going to have to guess at the specific amount of one bill, but on the whole it was much less of a disaster than it might have been. Still, it was a nuisance, and I wished fervently -- like so many before me -- for an "undo" option in my life.

Today, when I walked into my office, the three pieces of mail I'd mistakenly tossed were sitting on my desk, right where I would have put them had I not thrown them out. They were in plain sight, exactly where I'd looked for them yesterday in the vain hope that I hadn't really chucked them. This was extremely convenient, but puzzling. If I hadn't thrown them out, why didn't I see them yesterday? And if I had, how did they get back on my desk?

I think that the most reasonable explanation is that, like any good system administrator, I've been backing up my files. I knew that the new servers were powerful, but I didn't realize that their reach extended outside of the virtual domain. The trash can is only a foot away from the server room door, so it's not far outside; nonetheless, it's an impressive feat, as was the automatic restore. It would be nice if it had a faster turnaround time, but since I wasn't expecting to see that mail ever again, two days isn't bad at all.

I need to get out the documentation and find out how this process works, though. With great power comes great responsibility, after all, and I personally feel a responsibility to make sure that no one else has access to my trash. I suppose I might have the responsibility to help other people out with this, too, but I feel it's important to manage the first things first.

Fixed-ish

baron.mind@gmail.com — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:08:18 GMT

For a long time, when people asked me to fix a computer problem for them, I'd try to explain what was wrong and how they could avoid it or solve it themselves in the future. Some people appreciated this, but the majority simply glazed over about seven words into my explanation. This was annoying, but did teach me something interesting -- you can actually hear when someone's eyes glaze over. There's a certain quality to their silence, and a hint of desperation in their voice when they do make a comment. Still, I don't particularly like being ignored when I'm trying to help someone, so this grated quite a bit.

After a while, I gave up explaining what was actually wrong, and resorted to just blaming mythological creatures. I'd talk at length about the habits of gremlins while I downloaded hotfixes and service packs, or discuss the merits of leaving out whiskey instead of milk for pixies as I reconnected network drives. This was a better solution, and one I've largely stuck to, but it has a couple of problems. One is that occasionally people think I'm mocking them -- which, in fairness, I sort of am. This doesn't happen often, though, since for the most part they're not listening to what I'm saying.

The bigger problem is that the rare people who did listen and want to learn may think I'm being dismissive of their problems, and stop asking questions. This is no good; I don't want to dissuade people from attempting to become self-sufficient. On the other hand, neither do I want to suffer just so every once in a while someone is enlightened. I'm just not that giving.

I think I've come up with an excellent compromise, though. I'll start out talking about what actually went wrong, and what I'm doing, but as soon as I hear the glaze cutting in, I'll seamless integrate fantasy creatures into my monologue. That way, I'm not shutting out the people who do want to learn, but I'm also not wasting my breath on the people who couldn't care less. Technically, it's the same amount of breath either way, but it'll greatly amuse me to see my coworkers pretending to listen as I explain that you need to regularly defragment your hard drive to appease the goblins who write all of the data to the disk. "Goblins," I'll tell them, "like many fairies, appreciate a tidy hoard, and get very fractious when they're not allowed time to reorganize everything into orderly groups."

"Mhm, mhmm," my coworkers will say, nodding sagely to pretend that they are paying attention. And I will grin, and have job satisfaction.

Soooooeeee!

baron.mind@gmail.com — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:23:33 GMT

Yesterday, the head of HR came by my office and told me that there was an upcoming meeting in the conference room.

"Great," I thought, "someone's having a birthday. There will be cake!" I pushed back from my desk and headed to the conference room, where I was unpleasantly surprised to see a distinct lack of cake. It's not that I have any particular fondness for birthday cake; it's fine, but I rarely seek it out. However, the absence of cake meant that we were not being gathered together for a birthday, but instead for some unknown, and therefore more ominous, purpose.

I sat around for a few minutes as my coworkers filtered in. There were a number of surprised glances at the empty conference table, and a fair bit of bantering about who had called the meeting, who was being fired, and how long this would take. After perhaps five minutes, my boss came in and announced that one of our coworkers had been in contact with someone who had the swine flu, and had just gone home sick. He suggested that everyone wash their hands thoroughly, and take whatever steps we felt necessary to keep ourselves well.

I wondered at the wisdom of collecting everyone into one small room in order to inform them that some people in the building might be carrying an infectious disease. This seemed to me to be an excellent chance to use email, possibly sent from a remote location. I can only assume that my boss is on the side of the virus, or at least wanted to give it a sporting chance before every stationary object in the office -- including some of my sleepier coworkers -- was doused with Lysol.

This has been a boon for me. Everyone's afraid to ask me to come touch their computers now, in case I picked up H1N1 from someone else's keyboard. Without all of the minor tech support distractions, I've been getting lots of back-burner projects completed. Our permission groups are finally organized in a useful and logical fashion, I've gotten all of our infrequently used programs up-to-date on their patches, and things are generally humming along.

Epidemics turn out to be great for network maintenance! I think we should start having them regularly. I'm sure that some of my coworkers would disagree, and I invite them to come talk to me about it face-to-face, in close quarters. They can even share my drinks.

One of These Things

baron.mind@gmail.com — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:32:53 GMT

Apparently it's now the law in my state that when you get your photo taken for your driver's license, you're required to maintain a neutral expression. This is apparently a fairly recent law, although I really wouldn't know; my last photo was taken something like seven or eight years ago, and is so comically dissimilar to me that it's astonishing that people allow me to use it as a source of identification.

Due to the new law, I will probably not be able to renew my license online when it expires next year, as I'd hoped. I'll have to go in and get a new picture taken, and it will actually resemble me. I find this very disheartening; there's nothing wrong with having an ID that looks like you, I suppose, but I've grown accustomed to the occasional funny looks that bartenders give me, and I'll miss being able to chuckle as I go through airport security and they pretend to carefully check my license.

Since smiling and frowning are now out, I'm left with only one recourse -- amusing facial hair. I've got just under a year until my license expires, which gives me a lot of potential, depending on how committed I want to be to this. I suspect the answer is "not very," which probably means I'll ignore this plan for ten months, and then start growing a handlebar mustache. I think I should be able to manage some respectable facial hair in that last month, though, enough to make an excellent an inaccurate photo ID.

I'm tempted to go for the full-on Ambrose Burnside look, the man after whom sideburns were named. It's an impressively bushy beard; the only real question is whether work would let me get away with it. I think as long as I wore it as a full beard while it was growing, and only shaved the chin right before I went to get the photo taken, they wouldn't think it was actionably odd. If they ask me, I'll tell them I'm planning on growing a bushy beard for winter to save on heating costs.

Actually, I'd probably just tell them that I was doing it for the driver's license photo, so that I could carry that picture around for the next decade. They wouldn't find that any more believable than the heating thing, but that's hardly my problem. Anyway, I'm willing to mildly concern them for a month or so in exchange for an ID that will stay with me for years. Come to think of it, that's pretty much a win-win situation for me.

Must Escape Kenny Loggins

baron.mind@gmail.com — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:29:05 GMT

I've agreed to run in Anchorage's Mayor's Marathon next year, better known as the Midnight Sun Marathon. It is called this simply because it sounds cooler; the race starts at 8:30 in the morning, and all participants must be done by 4:30 PM, which is rather a long way from midnight. I suspect that after running a marathon, I personally will not be awake to see midnight, so it's not even like that's something I'd be seeing the same day that I finished. I realize that Alaska is known for the midnight sun, but for as relevant as it is to the marathon, they might as well have nicknamed it the Salmon Run.

I am hoping, however, to observe the midnight sun at some point on my trip to Alaska. This is not necessarily a given, as I have once again been reminded that running in these races can prove fatal. Of the three men who died in Detroit's half-marathon on Saturday, two were approximately my age, and the younger of the two seems to have been at about my level of fitness. The article assures me that the risk of death is only "1 death per 126,000 runners," which still doesn't seem like great odds for an activity I'm going to hate anyway.

I'm afraid that I'm going to have to buckle down and train for this one. I was unable to run the entire half-marathon I signed up for; I walked something like a third of it, for a total time of 2:24:22. To put that in perspective, if I'd actually run the whole thing at the same pace as I ran the 10k, I'd've been done about half an hour earlier. To put it in further perspective, the winner of this year's Mayor's Marathon finished an entire marathon in about two minutes less than it took me to do the half. There is no report of him dying, either, which is actually somewhat annoying. I wouldn't mind so much hearing that someone had halved my time if it was also reported that he died in the attempt.

I've been working on putting together a running mix for my iPod. It consists mainly of upbeat techno to keep my pace steady, with occasional short tracks of angry men screaming "I'm coming to kill you!" to keep my adrenaline up. It's not bad, but I'm not sure that that same trick will keep working for four to five hours. I need to branch out into other ways to alarm myself. Perhaps I could add in a "Wake up! You're late for class and missing your big test!", or just a simple "You're fired!". I was thinking about putting in the sound of a bone breaking followed by a shriek, but I'm afraid that that might be uncomfortably close to reality. The last thing I need is for my iPod to be reminding me that my legs hurt; if I'm going that route, I might as well just program it to whisper, "Doesn't it feel like your heart's beating too fast? Should you really be breathing this hard? What's that tightness in your chest?"

That would keep my adrenaline up, I suppose, but it would also give me the unwelcome distinction of being the only runner to die of pure hypochondria. Someone's got to be the 1 in 126,000, though.

Pursuit of Happyness

baron.mind@gmail.com — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:37:48 GMT

I've been too happy lately. This is not a bad thing, in and of itself; obviously, most people want to be happy. The problem is that it's making me predictable, which is something I generally try to avoid. I prefer to have people say things like, "Why on earth would you do something like that?", preferably with a mix of admiration and exasperation. I still get that a lot, but I'm afraid that with only one dominant emotion, I'll fall into a rut and my actions will become expected.

Unfortunately, I'm lousy at thinking up emotions. I'm like the folks in the audience at an improv show, when the improvisors call for an emotion. "Something you feel, like 'happy' or 'sad,' only not those." There's a pause while everyone tries to think of one, and then someone always yells out, "Unhappy!"

That's my problem. If I try to think of another way to behave, I get stuck in the happy/sad/mad triumvirate. I know there are other emotions, but they never spring to mind. My emotional range is becoming stunted through disuse.

To fix this, and to add unpredictability back into my behavior, I'm going to draw up two sets of cards. One will just be the days of the week, Monday through Sunday. The other will be a collection of all of the emotions a thesaurus and I can come up with. On Mondays, I'll shuffle the two decks and draw a card from each. On whichever day I pull from the first deck, I'll use the emotion I drew for my primary motivation.

Some days, I suspect this will go entirely unnoticed. If I got a Monday/lethargic combination, or Friday/distracted, I'd blend right in with everyone else at the office. I'll play them out, but it'll be sort of bland. I'm more looking forward to the ones that will cause comment, like Tuesday/irrational or Thursday/nostalgic. Tuesday is one of my Frisbee days, and Thursday is D&D, so there's a lot of potential for entertainment there.

I'll need to contain my happiness, of course, or that would screw the whole thing up. I can be secretly happy, I think. In fact, I'll write that on all of the emotion cards: "[emotion] (but secretly happy)." Just to keep things clear, of course.

EyePod

baron.mind@gmail.com — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:41:05 GMT

I've grown some sort of a small lump on my right eyelid. I have no idea what it is; I can't feel it when I blink, only if I touch my eyelid with my hand. I'd been holding out hope that perhaps I was culturing a pearl; as I understand it, pearls occur when you get dirt in an oyster and don't clean it. Although I often wash my face, I can't recall ever specifically washing my eyelids, so there was at least a chance that they were filthy. I rarely see them, and it's possible that everyone else just though I was wearing eyeshadow all this time. And my eye is gooey and damp, like an oyster, so I hoped for the best.

However, after careful observation, I've concluded that the lump is not getting any bigger. This is disappointing, as it means it's almost certainly not going to turn into a pearl at any point. On the other hand, it also means that it's probably not a maggot that's growing and metamorphosing with the eventual goal of chewing its way through my skin and flying away. If someone were to ask me, "Would you rather not receive a pearl, or not have a maggot burst from your eyelid?", I would choose the lack of maggot without hesitation. If I really want a pearl, I can always go mug an oyster. I doubt very much that any amount of money can remove the sensation of something wriggling against my eyeball in a bid for freedom.

I'm not really sure what to do about the lump, except leave it alone and hope it goes away. It doesn't seem like the sort of thing I could have removed even if I wanted to. My eyelids are very thin, and as it is I can see even mildly bright light through them; if I were to lose a few layers of skin, I might be able to start making out shapes even with my eyes closed. Which would be kind of neat, but would sort of defeat the purpose of having eyelids in the first place.

Maybe I could get the eyelid removed entirely, and a replacement one sewn on. The world needs bionic eyelids! Research is slacking in this area. My eyelids are woefully under-equipped. They have no bells and whistles at all; they're about as advanced as a dimmer switch. I want photosensitive eyelids, that are clear when it's dark out and grow more opaque in the presence of light. I want to be able to walk around on windy days with my eyes closed to keep from having dirt blown into them. I want to be able to have my contacts built into my eyelids, although I suppose that they've sort of gone one better on that one with the laser eye surgery. Still, I want it to be an option.

Also, I want them to be able to grow pearls. My current eyelids are apparently unable to accomplish even this minor task, which is so simple an oyster can do it. I want a trade-in.

Tremble at the Might of Early Retirement Man

baron.mind@gmail.com — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:42:17 GMT

I've come to the unhappy conclusion that there is simply no reasonable way to set up a supervillain's lair in my neighborhood home. There are too many people watching to ever manage any sort of secret delivery and installation of large machinery, so I'd be forced to deal with the fact that some of my neighbors would be aware of the strange devices being installed beneath my backyard. They'd probably chit-chat about it at the council meetings, and then the very first time I deployed my Instant Eclipse, someone would rat me out to the authorities. My house is fairly well placed for a standoff, but I'd like to at least have the time to issue my demands before I've got a SWAT team at my door.

I could move farther out into the country, where I'd be away from prying eyes, but that creates its own problems. Anyone with a slide rule and a few points of reference should be able to figure out where the sun-blotter is originating to within a few miles, and without any neighbors, that'd narrow the search pretty effectively. Similar problems occur with any radio- or other trackable-signal-based devices; with no surrounding homes to confuse the search, the authorities could descend on me immediately. I could build a home defensive network first, I suppose, but that's money and time that I can't spend on my world domination.

The classic answer, of course, is to set up shop on a private island. There are no local authorities, and it's far easier to control the points of ingress for when the world does get its act together and come after me. This is an attractive possibility, but before I commit to it, there are a few problems I'd like to figure out. The primary one, to my mind, is: how on Earth do I get things delivered out there? I can't really get the depleted uranium I'll need sent to a PO Box. I'd like to avoid giving my coordinates to a bunch of shady black market dealers if at all possible, but I think that means I'd need a decoy island to meet at, along with my own boat and helicopter. On the other hand, any life path that requires me to own two islands and a helicopter is one I think I can get behind.

Getting these things requires money, however -- money which I may not have until I have machines with which to hold the world hostage. It's not quite a Catch-22, as there are various ways to break into the cycle, but they all seem so inappropriate. You never hear about supervillains who worked diligently and invested wisely for 40 years, then retired to work on their doomsday machines. I suppose I could rob a bank or something, but that seems like such a petty way to begin my life as an archcriminal. If it were an inventive crime, maybe I could get behind it, but bank robbery is just so plebian.

I'll think of something. In the mean time, at least my investments are doing well, so if nothing else, the world will be in a lot of trouble in thirty years or so. I'll just change my name to disguise my past, and let people think that I was inventing calamitous scenarios that whole time.

Gambit

baron.mind@gmail.com — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:07:35 GMT

I like to convince people to talk about things that interest them. With some people, there's no challenge at all to this; they'll happily ramble on for hours about whatever it is that's caught their attention, without a care in the world as to whether their listeners have the slightest bit of interest. I should know; I'm one of these people. I figure that if folks didn't want to hear about it, then they wouldn't've started the conversation on the topic. Certainly no one would make that mistake twice, at least.

Most people, though, are cognizant of the fact that others don't share their niche interests, and are thus often reluctant to begin talking about them. Once they find someone who's also interested, though, they're more than happy to expound at length.

I love listening to people talk about the things that fascinate them, but only rarely do I actually have the information necessary to provide meaningful contributions to the conversations. Now, I could simply say things like, "Tell me more about that!" Sometimes, I even do so. For the most part, though, I like to pretend to be an active participant, and so I've been slowly accumulating a stockpile of phrases that allow me to sound like I'm at least tangentially connected to whatever the topic is.

I discovered a new one just the other day, while getting my hair cut. The woman cutting my hair was talking about a band she'd been to see in concert, and after going through the "How were they live?" bit, I really had nothing left to say. So when there was a lull, I said, "I'm surprised that they had a recent concert, anyway. I thought I'd heard that they broke up."

This led to a flood of information about the band; apparently, they had broken up, but had recently reformed and were touring again, only there was some drama with the lead singer and their continued existence was still looking somewhat shaky. I learned all sorts of things, and didn't have to make another meaningful contribution for several minutes. This would work for pretty much any band, I think; even if the band never did break up, there are always internal tensions that could lead to those sorts of rumors.

I've also come up with one that I want to try in a political conversation: "You have to take the author's bias into account there." This applies across the board, and is completely unanswerable because it's so meaningless. Even for statistics, I can assert author's bias in reporting certain numbers and not others -- and if my conversational partner produces more sources in support of his point, I can gently say, "Of course, but again, you need to consider the bias." I probably won't use this much, if only because I'm generally the one who's the politics nerd, but it's good to have in my arsenal all the same.

There are a number of all-purpose ones, too, like "Well, some people find that to be true," "I really think the quality has declined lately," and "I was just reading an article somewhere online that said that same thing." Those sound like real, content-bearing sentences, and so they help to shore up the small interjections like, "Really?" and "Hm, interesting!"

Eventually, I hope to be conversant in every topic known to man, at which point I'll no longer need these tricks. Until then, though, this is a good way to break into new areas. It's more work that just browsing randomly through Wikipedia, but it's also more rewarding, and it makes a nice change from Rock Band at parties.

Fit to be President

baron.mind@gmail.com — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:22:18 GMT

Every year, through all of elementary and middle school, my gym teacher would declare some week to be Presidential Fitness Week. This was the week where we demonstrated that we could meet the standards of fitness set by the President, who had taken time out of his busy schedule to determine exactly how many situps a third grader should be able to do in a one minute period. I think that if you managed it, you got a piece of paper telling you that the President was proud of you, or something. I'm not sure, because I could never do even a single pull-up, and that kept me from qualifying every year.

It's possible that this went on through high school, too; if so, I think our teachers didn't bother to tell us, because they assumed that none of the guys at the nerd school could do any pull-ups. They were largely correct in this assumption, if so. I finally managed a pull-up a few years ago, well after I was out of college, and far too late to qualify for the Presidential Fitness Award.

Or so I thought! Apparently, the President offers a challenge for adults, too. It's much more free-form; I'm disappointed to see that it does not require any pull-ups at all. Instead, you're simply encouraged to log whatever sort of activity you're participating in, then select a category from the dropdown that best describes your level of activity. This makes more sense for some than others. Under Running it offers the levels of Easy, Moderate or Vigorous, along with suggested times per mile for each. Under Frisbee, the options are General or Ultimate. I haven't played General Frisbee, but I kind of want to, now.

"So how do we score in this game?"
"Well, the goal's sort of that way-ish."

Once you log enough activity points, be they through General Frisbee or whatever, you can write away for your badge affirming that the President likes you. Along the way, the site has tools built in so you can compare your progress to others in your age group, or in your city, or in the whole country. If you choose to sign up as part of a group, you can compare yourself to the others you signed up with, too.

I've never been a big one for competition -- but metrics will get me every time. I've signed up, and I'll be logging my first activity under Frisbee: Ultimate tonight. Those medals will be mine!

The Barreleye Really Weirds Me Out

baron.mind@gmail.com — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:20:33 GMT

Back in the days before the internet, if one of your friends said to you, "Hey, did you hear that they found a squid that looks like it has a human mouth?", you could say one of two things. You could either say, "Really? That's horrifying," or "No way! Nothing like that could exist." Either way, you could then move on with your life without actually having to look at it.

This is no longer the case. Now, you're compelled to go Google it, where you learn that it's called promachoteuthis sulcus, and that they aren't really teeth, but simply a horrible parody of them designed to mock you and your belief in a loving God, or evolution, or both. And if it just stopped there, then perhaps it would be all right.

Instead, however, you find that some helpful person has compiled a list of thirteen nightmarish animals, and that the squid with a human mouth only ranks number 12 on that list. And although you know that at least one of those is going to absolutely horrify you, you go read it anyway.

There is an up side to this downward spiral, though. When you're done terrifying yourself by seeing pictures that will haunt you the next time you look into a fishtank, you can say to your friends, "Hey, did you hear that they found a squid that looks like it has a human mouth?" And no matter what they say -- whether it's "Really?" or "No way!" -- you can send them the link, and know that they're going to do the same thing to themselves that you just did. And so it spreads, and you smile, and you know that somewhere, promachoteuthis sulcus is smiling, too.

Somehow It Got Tangled around My Neck

baron.mind@gmail.com — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:42:15 GMT

Today, I discovered the best thing ever: Britain's Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. Their mission, I infer from the name, is to keep people from injuring themselves -- but in order to assist in this endeavor, they've compiled a complete list of all of the ways in which Britons injure themselves every year. I am absolutely fascinated; this is the best reading material I've found in months.

In 2002, the most recent year for which they have data, there were an estimated 185 scythe accidents requiring medical attention. Now, a scythe is a very pointy and dangerous object, but I didn't think that they were in common enough usage to have someone in the hospital every other day with a scythe-related injury. Perhaps if they were in more common usage, people would be more proficient with them, and the number of incidents would decrease.

Then again, perhaps not, considering that there were 62 napkin-related injuries as well. I don't know about you, but I -- and this is speaking as someone who still occasionally bites the inside of his mouth while eating -- have never injured myself, or anyone else, with a napkin. How does that even happen? Was it overstarched, causing someone to cut themselves on the edge? Was there a locker-room-style towel-snapping incident which got someone in the eye? Did an overzealous mouth-wiper choke himself? I'm very curious.

Another of my favorites: there were 69,413 accidents due to "miscellaneous or unspecified art." Probably the people in these art-related woundings are not nearly as amused by the idea as I am, but I just keep picturing Delia from Beetle Juice, when the crane slips and one of her sculptures pins her against the house. "This is my art, and it is dangerous!" she yells at the crane operator. "Do you think I want to die like this?" It's that, sixty-nine thousand times.

Three hundred and sixty-nine people were injured in their homes by underwear. Injured, I remind you, badly enough to seek medical attention. The report does not specify whether it was their own underwear or someone else's; that, along with the details of the injury, is left up to the reader's imagination.

I'm curious whether the United States has something like this. I want to know all the gory statistical details of how accident-prone my fellow Americans are. I could sift through that for days, and never cease to be amused. And if I hurt myself laughing too hard, then there'll be an entry under "computers, PDF" to make someone else wonder at when the next report comes out.

Yeeargh Work

baron.mind@gmail.com — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:36:15 GMT

It's been raining a fair bit here lately, often enough that I hadn't had the chance to cut my lawn for a couple of weeks. It was starting to get pretty severely overgrown, and when there was finally a nice day on Saturday, the entire neighborhood turned out for a spirited game of Who's the Bum?. This is a simple game, akin to Musical Chairs; everyone turns out at various points to mow their lawns, and the last person with their lawn mowed is The Bum, and is looked down upon by their neighbors. It's possible that I'm the only one who realizes that we're playing this game, but we're all playing it.

I had my iPod going, which I don't often do while mowing the lawn because it makes me slightly nervous. One of my guidance counselors in high school sliced the flesh off of several of her fingers while mowing the lawn. As I recall, her riding mower had stopped, so she climbed down and reached underneath to try to remove the obstruction -- only to find that the blades were still turning. I don't specifically recall headphones being involved in this story, but I assume they must have been -- I can't imagine doing something like that with standard audio cues indicating that the mower was running.

Although all of my extremities are intact, I did discover a different problem with listening to the iPod while mowing: disconcerting soundtracks. I was halfway through the lawn when the shuffle brought up the main theme from The Omen. At the same time, a cloud passed over the sun. So I'm there, mowing along, when suddenly dour bells begin their sonorous intonations, and the light around me dims as an unholy choir sings ominous Latin phrases. I've never before been so alarmed to be outside in my front yard, nor as aware of the perilous nature of the whirling blades of metal I was pushing before me. When the dog suddenly romped into view in the backyard, I actually jumped.

On the one hand, it's obviously a weird feeling to be on edge while doing yard work. However, it's a massive improvement over being bored. I think that with the right soundtrack and possibly some people in rubber masks, Adventure Gardening could catch on. It could be customized to the time of year, with scarecrows lurking while you're raking leaves, snowmen advancing when you're out shoveling the driveway, or any of a thousand masked summer camp maniacs hiding in the bushes as you mow the lawn. The sudden starts might mess up those nice straight lines mowed into the yard, but it'd make the task much more entertaining. It's a fair trade-off, I think.

Hit Me With Your Cheap Shot

baron.mind@gmail.com — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:42:09 GMT

It's no secret that I disagree with many Republican policies and initiatives. I think that most of the party's goals are, at best, short-sighted. In the short term, they often look good, but seem likely to promote problems in the long haul.

This is what we call a difference of opinion. I can have a discussion with someone about this; if he disagrees with me, I'm unlikely to convert him to my point of view, but we can have a spirited and friendly argument. If things get heated, I might use unnecessarily inflammatory remarks like "Surely anyone who thought things through could see this consequence," or "It's obvious to anyone with half a brain." These sorts of broad, across-the-bow ad hominem attacks are, to my mind, fairly acceptable, if not perhaps in the purest debating spirit.

What's not acceptable, however, is sneering at a disability of your opponent's as if that in any way invalidates his arguments. One of would-be Virginia governor McDonnell's prominent contributors, while introducing McDonnell at a campaign event, adopted a fake stutter to mock his opponent.

"We need someone who can really communicate," Sheila Johnson said. "His op-op-op-op-opponent -- he did this all through my interview with him -- he could not articulate what needed to be done."

Johnson goes for a cheap laugh with her low jape at Deeds' speech impediment, and tries to imply that those who stutter are unable to formulate useful ideas. It's a wildly erroneous conflation, and an unpleasant trick. I'm somewhat heartened by the muted and uncertain tone of the laughter Johnson gets; even amongst the crowd whom she intended to amuse with the slur, it's poorly received. At least most people recognize this as inexcusable behavior, even if Johnson does not.

It's not that hard a concept. Would you appreciate someone making this sort of comment about you -- or your sister, your brother, your father, your mother? If not, then perhaps you ought to keep your witless little jests to yourself.

To-Do List Skeptic

baron.mind@gmail.com — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:43:13 GMT

There's a whiteboard on my office wall with a detailed list of tasks to accomplish. It's helpfully labeled "To Do," in case any casual observers are unclear on what the bulleted list beneath is meant to be. It lists all sorts of crucial and time-sensitive tasks, and makes it appear as though I'm constantly working to keep the company on its feet.

It is, however, a complete lie. I didn't write the list; it's been there since before I took over this job, and I've never bothered to erase it. In fairness, I am constantly working to keep the company on its feet. I'm just not devoting any of my time to updating a list so that other people can know what it is I'm doing. I know what's on my plate, and I don't really feel the need to broadcast it to anyone who sticks their head into my office. However, blank white boards give the impression that important things are not being done, so I leave the antiquated list up as protective camouflage.

Interestingly, though, the list continues to be largely relevant. It makes reference to updating a number of software patches, which are of course constantly coming out. It warns me of the upcoming ISO audit; this happens frequently enough that even if I were to have a real list, that would be on there. It suggests that I keep an eye on which bits of hardware are due for lifecycle replacement, ensure that backups are running smoothly, and repair various people's computers.

In fact, the more I think about it, the less sure I am that my predecessor was using this as a real list, either. Most of what's on it is so generic that it's a pretty good guess at what I'll be doing today, next week or five years from now. This list is the phony psychic of the to-do list world; it issues a bunch of broad generalities, and mixes in just enough specifics to make it likely that one of them will be correct. Its prophecies appear eerily accurate, but really, it's just playing the odds.

This could be a big hit: whiteboards pre-printed with phony to-do lists. Make your boss think you're organized and on top of things with your ever accurate, constantly relevant, never-needs-changing Sisyphean To-Do Board! Obviously, there would need to be different models for each department; accounting could hardly use an IT board, but they've got their own cyclically occurring events. Careful use of bad handwriting can make the boards appear to be even more specific; "morning meeting with" followed by a scribble that could say anything from "Smith" to "Wapcaplet" puts the Rorschach burden of interpretation on the reader.

These only work while sales are clandestine, though; once everyone wants one, no one will be fooled anymore, so it's a bit self-limiting. Still, I think it'll be worth drawing up a few designs and putting out a test run. We'll see how long it takes for the promotions to come rolling in.