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2002.10.20 : 2002.10.26
Saturday, October 26, 2002
Blab. A particularly astute reader writes:
Hey - what gives?
Certain particularly astute readers have noticed that, once again, Friday
was nowhere to be seen until late Saturday (though Saturday seems to have
learned its lesson and showed up on time). So, we tied Friday to the radiator
and poured scalding water on it from the green teapot until it screamed
and screamed, No, mommy, no! I'll be good! I won't ever be late again!
I promise!
Well, we'll see.
In the meantime, we're going to tell people that Friday was late because
the killer cold that has been stalking us all week finally grabbed our
ankles and dragged us down. We've been snuffling and snoring all day long
and can't hardly think two thoughts in a row.
Either that, or it's god punishing us for that sniper stuff yesterday.
Blab. A reader sends us two presents.
[link]
[link]
The first is, of course, the famous Bonsai Kitty, which we all know and
love. The second, however, is a short list of really silly Internet jokes
that certain people (and you know who you are, you bozos) apparently took
seriously.
VIRUS NAME: ArmaGeddyLee,
HappyOrMaybeNot00, OopsWrongButton00
TRANSMITTAL METHOD: VBScript
attached to e-mail
HAZARD: Extremely Super High
AREA OF INFECTION: Detected
in wild
CHARACTERISTICS: Destroys
life on earth via nuclear armageddon
Or maybe the claim that people took these seriously is itself the joke.
Blab. A reader sends us directions for constructing a patent
remedy for our goopy cold.
The old and sorely missed
Pirate's Pub recipe makes approximately 4 Painkillers:
In a blender mix 4-6 ounces of rum
(dependent upon your desired level of inebriation) with 4 ounces of orange
juice, 8 ounces of pineapple juice, 4 ounces of Creme de Coconut (Coco
Lopez or similar), and lots of ice. After blending, top with fresh grated
nutmeg. Before you sip, you need a down-and-dirty Pirate toast: I offer
you:
"Dear Lord Above, Send Down A Dove,
With Wings as Sharp as Razors, To Slit The Throats of Them Thar Blokes
What Sells Bad Rum to Sailors." Cheers
Since there are endless variations
and everybody's got their favorite, here the one from Soggy Dollar recipe:
1 12-ounce can frozen pineapple (3
cans water)
1 6-ounce can frozen oj (3 cans water)
(or 1/2 12-ounce can oj of course)
1 can coco lopez
1 liter dark rum
Be sure to grind some fresh nutmeg
on top of each drink individually.
A little hint for ya: Use frozen concentrate
juices rather than canned because they store more easily and produce less
trash, important for you boating folks. And get a big plastic jug with
a handle and screw cap, so you can store it sideways in the fridge if you
need to and it makes mixing an easy shake.
We have a dim memory of this particular concoction having been named poorly.
Blab. A reader has a question for us.
Plurp: To reveal (secret
matters) especially through indiscreet or unreserved talk.
would you agree?
Actually, that would be blab.
Blab. At last, a reader explains our inner mental processes.
Hi Steve,
I guess the goony Jesus-always-with-you
images are probably described by you as "terrifying" because their existence
substantiates the fact that there are actually millions of people in the
world who predicate their world view on a psychotic co-dependent paradigm
of "my invisible friend."
The scared soul who hasn't yet decided
to take responsibility for his/her fears, anxieties, inadequecies, confusions,
levels of ignorance, etc., chooses instead to turn it all over to an "invisible
friend" to handle life, and therefore dusts hands off of ever being responsible
for growing up and growing a mature mind and spirit.
This cop-out choice has built into
the co-dependent dynamic the idea that the person who has the (magical
thinking) "invisible friend" is gaining brownie points somehow in the hereafter,
and so that seems the fair tradeoff of owning responsibility for evolving
awareness to instead become the co-dependent sheep that the "invisible
friend" likes to patronize to be superior, and the subservient irresponsible
person can feel protected by.
The images are also horrible in a
sad way in that they are more proof of the fundamentalist Christian white-folks
anthropomorphic aryan-supreme-being myth. Actual paleontological studies
have been done of skulls of men who lived during the era and place of Jesus's
life, with models built up from the common skull into a fleshed out head
and face, which illustrated that Jesus would have had a rather large hooked
nose, dark reddish kinky hair, very thick lips and a rounder heavier face
and certainly look nothing like the little airy-fairy, limp-haired pseudo-hippy-look
so common in this contemporary Jesus depiction crap.
It's also very sad because the teachings
of Jesus were actually yogic, and the real meaning of "I am always with
you" is "pneuma"/"Liveforce"/"chi"/"breath"--that invisible "light" that
moves in and out via breath and activates consciousness. Jesus said "I
am the light" not the meat-space guy. That was the teaching:
tune into the space aspect of the atoms of your being rather than the mass/material
aspect, and focus on the breath going in and out of the "temple" of the
body, and Whoo-Hoooo ... Enlightenment!
With people still thinking it's about
a 33 year old Jewish guy who lived a couple of thousand years ago,
instead of the teaching of "becoming one with the light" that is already
there within you (in the actual atoms which are nothing but microcosmic
replications of the solar system), is a gross misunderstanding of the teaching
and perpetuates a very sick paradigm that promotes ignorance, paranoia,
sexual dysfunction, and wars.
If anyone slows the busy mind down
by meditating on the breath, the alpha channel of the mind opens, which
gives consciousness an expanded perspective and perception of reality,
whereupon many egoic anxieties are resolved and dissolved and more understanding
of the human condition is compassionately understood. If people
forego that natural meditative activity of the mind, and instead opt to
focus on an external authority figure (the "invisible friend" who supposedly
always protects, guides, and loves), then expansion of consciousness, evolution
of mind is stunted, and we see the results in the general populace that
has lost its way toward self-responsibility to greater awareness.
Where's the "invisible friend" when
a priest is molesting a child? Where is he when a mother is being
beaten senseless by a violent husband? Where is he when a homeless
American kid is going to sleep in a cardboard box without food all day?
I guess the "invisible friend" is busy giving a sappy grin and a reassuring
hug to the imagination of the deluded.
It's also an interesting fact that
when the early world myths of creation were devised by humanity, there
were something like 25 different Adam and Eve stories. The Judeo/Christian
sect of thought chose the psychotic version: Eve ate the apple of
the forbidden tree of Knowledge and therefore damned humanity which then
needed a savior to save mankind from eternal damnation. And the following
thought taught as "truth"-- that "man is born in sin," (because of mother
Eve) is also psychotic. The fact is mankind is born in love or lust
in sexuality, which is natural, and needs no salvation.
For substantiated research on the
subject read: "Creation," and "Eve" and other headings in "Encyclopedia
of Women's Myths and Secrets" by researcher Barbara Walker, and "Origins
of Satan" by Princeton Anthropologist Elaine Pagels.
My 3 cents.
wangmo
Uh, yeah. That's why.
Plop.
Feed a fever; shoot a cold.
 Plurp.
The blue dog
found Friday tied to the radiator
with second degree burns
but still alive
Friday, October 25, 2002
Blab. A reader shares
our interest.
your graphics/brookeSa012b.jpg
Alt="spicy" pic is great. i must say, helen cleans up REAL nice! must be
the canadian outdoors.
Dorian
Yep, she's a cutie.
Blab. A reader informs us that ...
cow irker is also a phrase
used by Scott Adams (re: Dilbert).
Interestingly, cow
orker outnumbers cow
irker by more than 126 to one.
Blab. Trying to lift us out of the blues of our recent techno-lament,
a reader writes:
"Or is there something
... depressing about traditional computing technology becoming dull,
like steel or shoes - vital but fundamentally boring?"
This is all just hardware you're talking
about. So okay maybe hardware is getting kind of boring. But
look at software! There's... There's... Autonomic Computing! Metababy!
Oh. Yeah. Software is cool.
Thanks.
Blab. A reader reports on recent acrobatics.
We read Plurp from where
the date is down to the Blue Dog today, rather then our norma routine of
l from the Blue Dog up. We're quite pleased with our intelligence
We can see why that would be.
Blab. A reader who is stoned writes:
If the world was a cube,
wouldn't it be marvelous to live on the corner.
------------
|
|\
|
| \
|
| \
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
------------
|
\
\ |
\
\|
\-----------\
If, on the other hand, the world was a Penrose tesselation, it might be
nice to live on one of the skinny diamonds, n'est pas?
Blab. A reader suggests that ...
You'd want to be blind to
follow this [link].
Oh? Let's see. We find a lovely
young woman who takes erotic
photographs of landscapes.
The colorful metaphors of
Earth Erotica embody my lifelong commitment to convey a positive relationship
between sexual enlightenment and spiritual well-being.
What's not to like?
Blab. A reader who spent far too much time looking at that graven
image of Steven Ballmer yesterday writes:
From that picture it looks
like Steve Ballmer is shrinking -- slowly, slowly shrinking. Did someone
puncture his air bladder?
 No.
That would have flattened half of Redmond. We understand that Dorothy had
just splashed him with water.
And by the way, we have a question for our Treasured Readers.
The advertisement shown on the right is currently littering Web sites
(and Manhattan)
all over the place. We are told that the person who is posing as the
Microsoft butterfly is, in fact, Steven Ballmer. (Note the ectomorphic
body type, menacing stance and those ... things growing out of his
head.)
Does anyone know if this is
true?
(P.S. The dance-video remix of Ballmer's infamous Developer, Developers,
Developers, Developers speech seems to have disappeared from the Web
altogether. Anyhow, we can't find it. Show us your mettle and send
us a link!)
Blab. A reader reveals the shocking truth.
Steve Ballmer may not be
a serial killer, but he is a giant robot grinding all of humanity beneath
his unfeeling treads.
L.
Interesting. Then he must be crushing all of humanity simultaneously?
Blab. A reader reveals the tip of the iceberg of a vast, frozen
conspiracy theory.
"The crew of the Canadian
CH-124 Sea King helicopter received hostile
fire from a laser weapon on the [Russian ship] Kapitan Man," Mr. Smith
said. "As a result of this unprovoked attack in U.S. waters, Cmdr. Daly's
eyes were permanently burned, as was the right eye of the helicopter's
pilot, Captain Barnes, which ended his flying career."
Could be. But maybe
not. Of course, laser
weaponry is real, but the Geneva Convention says it's
a no-no to blind people with it. Cooking
them is just fine, though.
Blab. A reader writes:
I'm glad he's dead.
Who?
 Plop.
Sell your Boeing stock. They're still
working on anti-gravity, and nobody in the company seems to understand
how stupid that makes them look.
Yo. St.
Dymphna, patron saint of nervous disorders.
Plurp. We are so very disappointed that Mister Sniper
was caught before American Enterprise coughed up either a Mister Sniper
action figure or a Mister Sniper plush doll.
What will we do for stocking stuffers this year?
Plurp. We must admit to being sensitive about the preceding entry.
We had intended it for Thursday's Plurp, but Helen objected so strenuously,
insisting that it was in incredibly bad taste, that we relented
and removed it.
A subsequent poll on Friday of Ian
and Dave elicited
comments like, Of course it's in incredibly bad taste, but you're
talking about posting it to Plurp, right?, so ... I don't understand the
objection.
We find this logic unassailable, so we're posting it tonight. We hope
Helen will understand. Or at least blame it on Ian and Dave.
What do you think?
Plop. And, in particular, our massive investment in street signs
seems destined for liquidation on eBay. Sigh.
Plurp.
The blue dog
was a giant robot grinding all of
humanity beneath
unfeeling treads
Thursday, October 24, 2002
Blab. On the thought that computers will be able, in
the near future, to make such comprehensive, such deep plans and
conclusions, that what humans can do in this regard will pale in comparison,
and that humans will be incapable of understanding the complexities of
the machinations of machines, one reader writes:
One last thought: Computers
can, or at least will be able to, do this in the not so distant future.
What will that be like?
I'm guessing it will involve a lot
of grinding underfoot and eye-gouging.
Orange theory of ideas. But
a good one. Similarly, a reader covers a multitude of topics:
RE: Simple solutions for
complex problems
What will it be like? Ask any
adult who grew up with undiagnosed or, at least, unmedicated ADHD and learned
to deal with it. Watch any child learning to speak English -- a complex
and seemingly random "problem". Put the last piece of a 5000-piece
puzzle in its place.
As Robert Anton Wilson says, "We are
giants -- raised by pygmies -- who have learned to walk with a perpetual
mental crouch."
We were always a fan of F. Wilson. But we also talked about IBM's new Autonomic
Computing thingie, about which some reader rather vehemently distressed.
"We feel as if we missed
a segue in there somewhere."
Don't you know that all technology
is bad, and the more complex it comes, the more dehumanizing it is?
It would, of course, be a much better
world if we all still lived in mud huts, dug in the ground and stalked
the wiley rabbit everyday for our food and, most of us, died before we
turned 5.
L.
Yes, we know that. We, ourselves, died at the paws of a wiley rabbit just
last week. Please feel free to use our mud hut. It has broadband.
At long last, a Treasured Reader explains the connection between two
things whose identities we have long since forgotten.
Step 1: Underpants
Step 2: ?
Step 3: Giant robots grinding all
of humanity beneath their unfeeling treads.
Ooh! Underpants!
Blab. A reader who has been following our very most obscure Hover
Help Humor, and who is clearly Kafkaesque,
writes:
There have been numerous
indications that your sense of humor and mine are similarly aligned.
The "Keanu Reeves" caption clinched it. Ensuing near inhalage of
wasabi peas.
Signed,
Appreciative acolyte
We echo these sentiments by agreeing that this
is indeed an absolutely
hilarious UK court transcript, incidentally providing excellent tutelage
to those of you who are about to be confronted by an obnoxious barrister
or attorney.
Wanna hear something really scary? We've been addicted to wasabi
peas for some time. We shall have to exchange tips for best brands and
such.
Blab. A profligate spammist writes:
I Want To Put Serious Cash
In Your Hands Right Now!
Excellent! Then please stop sending us spam and instead put some Serious
Cash in our hands. Thanks oh so very much.
Blab. On the topic of asocial laptop obsessions at meetings,
a reader writes:
Sometime this summer a fellow
had an article about lan connectivity at meetings. He wrote a little program
to sniff the packets so that he could see what others were doing. He had
about 100 thumbnails on his screen of other people's screens. People were
web surfing (one was even surfing porn). Traffic only stopped when one
speaker took the mike (can't remember who it was). I think everyone should
have this application on their laptop.
Dorian
We really like that! We think the mosaic of audience screens should be
projected behind the speaker, as a helpful contribution to positive feedback.
We'll get right to work on that.
Blab. On the topic of "cthulhu naked pictures",
a reader wonders:
I didn't know Cthulhu wore
clothes. Or were the searchers just being redundant?
An excellent question! Could you please report back on what
you discover? 'Cause we're just awfully interested.
Blab. A reader apologizes unnecessarily:
A font problem on my machine,
which will be healed autonomically once the autonomic software stops core-dumping,
parsed the term "coworker" into "cow orker". Immediately one conjures a
placid scene of cows, perhaps on the lawn at Watson, with someone in a
jumpsuit "orking" them. I can't imagine what "orking" means but one should
never question research in its early stages :-)
Dorian
A long time ago, before we even had a blog, we dumped all over Dave for
using the phrase cow
orker. Silly us. He diplomatically pointed out that this was a
blogger phrase.
We don't use it, ourself, because it confuses us, and makes our legs
ork.
Blab. A reader helps us out in our continuing quest to collect
every Helenism in active use.
Helenism: It does everything
except the kitchen sink.
Nice one!
Blab. A reader who is much too busy to provide editorial
content sends us yet another blind ...
[link]
... and expects us to do all the work.
So, here we find some folks in Alabama who will happily train folks
to do Bad Things.
A training camp linked to
Islamic militants has been operating in Alabama, and European law enforcement
officials believe Muslim extremists were using it to prepare for a holy
war.
We confidently predict:
-
This camp will be shut down pretty darn soon.
-
Congressional legislation will be introduced, within the next week, to
shut down all camps in the U.S. that train people to do anything vaguely
resembling this.
-
Although closing these camps would not have done anything to prevent the
D.C. sniper, no one will remember this.
It is, no doubt, a complete coincidence that this happened in The South.
Rant. If you're giving an Executive Keynote at a big conference,
and you have someone else put your presentation together for you, you might
want to make sure that you have actually reviewed the material before giving
your talk. Otherwise, you might find yourself saying things like this:
-
What's this slide?
-
Hmm. I don't know what this is supposed
to be.
-
Uh, this slide is too obscure for me
to talk about.
-
This is an example of a bad slide. What
does this convey to anybody?
-
Oh, this slide was made earlier on when
<Other Fancy Executive> actually needed to show slides like this.
-
This slide is in here because it was
from a presentation that was made to justify something to the executives.
-
Oh, this chart was put in here because
the person who put this talk together for me thought I was actually going
to talk about it.
-
Aha. Now you're going to say, Another
useless diagram. But I guess I want to say something about this one.
The net effect of this will be to convince your audience that you didn't
care enough about your presentation to take the fifteen minutes it would
have required to at least look at your talk before you gave it. This is
likely to shape your audience's view of the value of your presentation.
And, by the way, that hard-working person who put the presentation together
for you will feel belittled and humiliated.
Plurp.
| What They Say to Nerds |
What Nerds Hear |
| This is about ongoing change in the process, about exponential improvement
in practices and results.
We cannot outsource the architecture. We must build out the industry
dimension of our business. Take that one step further. We must build a
cost-effective three-tier model.
We will leverage global knowledge and resource sharing, increase our
business bandwidth, and capture best practices for our customers. |
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah exponential
blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Blah blah blah blah blah architecture. Blah blah blah
blah blah dimension blah blah blah, Blah blah blah blah blah.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah model.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah bandwidth, blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah. |
Yo. We've only participated in two conferences in our entire
life that could hold our full attention for three whole days. Both of them
were two-day conferences.
Plop. So, after several days here in "Canada", talking about
computing technology and the computing industry, we are left with the vague
fear that much of what we think of as computing technology is going away.
Or, at least, exciting technical innovation is going away.
When we got interested in computing, back in the late 1960s, computing
was The Big Deal. New, amazing technology was coming out all the time,
industry profits were enormous, and computing was transforming everything
in sight.
Now, things have changed. Look at telecommunications, for instance.
There's so much dark fiber in the ground that there's no way to make significant
money by transporting bits. The industry has all but collapsed. Even former
high fliers like AT&T are no longer flying high. As a result, their
associated research arms, like the once world famous Bell Labs, are pretty
much gutted, and many of their best people have been laid off or left on
their own. (We also weep for Xerox PARC, which disappeared for different
but related reasons.)
Look at displays, once a hotbed of cool research and amazing innovation.
Displays are not nearly as profitable as they once were, so research, and
hence innovation, in them is drying up.
Remember storage? There was once a hearty band of physicists and material
scientists working on more and more amazingly dense magnetic storage, leading
to an astonishing increase in storage capacity for astonishingly low prices.
There are a lot fewer of them these days, as it has become harder to make
significant profits in magnetic storage technology per se.
Let's not even mention PCs.
But let's do mention chips - microelectronics. For forty years, this
has been the shining example of science and technology transforming, not
just an industry, but much of society. Microelectronics is not as profitable
as it once was. There's not as much architectural innovation. Worse, we
think that Moore's Law is in the process of pooping out. A few industry
wags have started to agree with us. As it does, the profit will poop out
too. And, with it, the fuel for the engine of innovation that has driven
the computing industry for decades.
We are told (have been told, just this week) that computing technology
isn't disappearing; it's just changing its nature, from electronics to
business processes, from things to how you use things.
Yeah. Maybe. But we are somehow disturbed. Have we simply become conservative
in our old age, clinging vainly to the triumphs of the past? Or is there
something ... depressing about traditional computing technology
becoming dull, like steel or shoes - vital but fundamentally boring?
Will we look back, from our dotage, at a life spent in the waning years
of a formerly great technology, while the world moves on to genetic engineering,
or nanodevices, or some other new and compelling vision that just doesn't
happen to be computing?
Somebody cheer us up.
Yow. Our friend Jürg von Känel is very clever. And
devious. And scary and stuff. He designs puzzles, mostly interlocking wooden
puzzles. They range from those that are almost entirely impossible to those
that frustrate the gods themselves. Go
explore.
Plurp. We have a new interest. If you share this interest, click
here. (/usr/bin/girl)
Plurp. We do not seek any untoward attention with this:
We have caught the sniper
like a duck in a noose.
Absolutely not. We will not duck. Duck against fear, duck against uncertainty,
duck against the tides that wash over history. We are not a duck. Duck,
duck, duck, goose.
There. That's probably far enough to avoid Google letting people who
search for that phrase know that this is just a silly blog. So, the vast
unwashed populace that searches for Mister Sniper's quote will find us,
yes us, and probably preferentially before any other news source,
we would expect from previous experience.
Then the drones at Google will notice us, notice that we are polluting
the searches of the drooling, mindless hoard who want to know something
about Mister Sniper (as if they haven't heard enough already, what with
weeks of obsessive media coverage), and they will create a Special Exclusion
Rule that prevents anyone from finding us if they search for that quote.
Then we will be fulfilled. Oh yes, we will.
Plurp. Steven Ballmer just looks like a serial killer to us.
Something about his eyes, maybe. Does
he look that way to you? (He's not, as far as we know.)
Plop. We review some of the theories offered by the media about
Mister
Sniper.
-
He's a video gamer who learned how to shoot by playing Doom, which is a
sniper game.
-
He's a video gamer who learned how to shoot by playing <insert other
game here>, which is a sniper game.
-
He's driving a white panel truck.
-
He's driving a white van.
-
He has olive skin.
-
He's an insecure introvert who has never successfully related to anyone
else.
-
He wants to be caught.
-
He's a Vietnam vet.
-
It's definitely just one person involved.
We thank the media for their learned and helpful coverage, and especially
their slavish devotion of endless hours of media time to profilers, pundits,
psychologists, criminologists and other people better employed in the food
services industry. We wonder if the learned media have learned anything
for next time.
Nah, prolly not.
Plurp. In the meantime, we review our
own scorecard on the prediction front.
| What We Said |
Result |
| Mister Sniper did not come to his current avocation via computer
games. |
Bingo! |
| Mister Sniper did not leave that
dopey Tarot card lying about. |
Possibly wrong. |
| Mister Sniper does not drive a
white van. |
Bingo! |
| The media will continue to plaster stories about Mister Sniper absolutely
everywhere. |
Double bingo! |
So the results are:
Plurp: 3 out of 4
(maybe 4 out of 4)
Media: Pretty much zero.
Plurp.
The blue dog
was deeply,
deeply offended
Wednesday, October 23, 2002
Blab. A reader sends us a ...
[link]
... to this week's well-mixed meme: the Bible according to Lego. We especially
like the rating scheme.
Blab. A reader explains yesterday's blind link to illegal
art.
just thought it was something
you might like. being anti big-corporate companies and so on who sue you
when you draw their logo
Yeah. We hate that.
Blab. Hypnotized by an old issue of Plurp,
a weak-willed reader confesses.
hello my name is abi
What's the frequency, abi?
Blab. A reader even further over the edge than we are writes:
A cow orker sent me this.
I think the final shipping title will
be "Skynet."
And if I hear ANY of those IBM bastards
screaming "We were so blind!" before the giant robots grind them beneath
their treads, my last act on this planet will be to gouge their eyes out
so they'll know what blind really means.
Let's review. Those IBM bastards say, Computing is too complex.
Those IBM bastards say, It'd be good to use computers to simplify computing.
Next stop: Giant robots grinding all of humanity beneath their unfeeling
treads.
We feel as if we missed a segue in there somewhere.
 Blab.
And on that same topic, a reader writes:
That
insurance agent is Alan Ganek.
We hadn't made that connection.
That's frightening.
Blab. Finally, a wise reader asks the pertinent question.
WWSMD -- What would Scott
McNealy do?
We asked. He says, You have zero free will anyway. Get over it.
Plurp. Tonight, we present proof positive that "Canada" actually
exists.
Plurp. Last week's big hitters on the Plurp
search engine?
-
"cthulhu naked pictures"
-
"helen naked pitures"
You explain it. We give up.
Plurp. Sitting in our several-day-long meeting in "Canada" this
week, we were subjected to the usual person-at-podium talking to PowerPoint-on-screen
kind of thing. And we noticed something curious.
Clearly, a lot of work in preparing a talk, especially an ExecuSpeakTM
talk, is devoted to figuring out simple ways to communicate things. People
make 2x2 matrix charts, roadmaps laid out on an arrow that goes from the
lower left to the upper right, lists of strategic themes that never number
more than five.
Here's what's curious: The presentations, and the underlying thinking
of the speakers, focus on things that are simple to understand, but the
underlying problems are not simple at all. It is not the problems that
are simple. Nor, in fact, are the optimal solutions necessarily simple.
But the solutions that people can remember, and communicate, and plan towards,
are simple.
It's an artifact of human consciousness. We can comprehend so little
all at once. We can see so few connections, we can anticipate so little,
that we are forced to keep our plans simple just to understand them ourselves.
But what if you did not have these restrictions? What if you could comprehend
millions of things at once, see billions of connections, and anticipate
the consequences of all of them? You would be able to embark on incredibly
complicated plans, plans that would probably lead to better solutions,
but that might well be incomprehensible to your colleagues. She's so
disorganized, they would say. She can't even tell you what she's
trying
to do.
Your plans would likely succeed, but your colleagues couldn't understand
why. She got lucky, they'd say. I really pulled that off after
she made such a mess of it. You would know the truth - that it was
your insight, your conceptual depth, your mastery of a billion details
at once that made it happen. But you would never be able to convince anyone.
They couldn't understand it.
You might be tempted to leave them to their ignorance, as long as things
kept turning out well for you, giving them simple tasks that they could
understand, all the while orchestrating your grand, complex plans.
One last thought: Computers can, or at least will be able to, do this
in the not so distant future. What
will that be like?
Yak. A wonderful example of Japanese culture, by a speaker from
Tokyo.
I wish to talk to you about
the "best practices" that we have developed. Well, maybe not "best", but
they are good, I think.
Plop. There is supposed to be wireless LAN connectivity at this
several-day-long meeting. There isn't. They can't get it to work. They
don't know why. Computing sucks.
OTOH, we are actually listening to some of the talks, rather than reading
everyone's blogs or playing GNE. We do notice a direct anticorrelation
between connectivity and group sociality.
Yak.
You know, we've been together
so long that we've forgotten the origin of all of our inside jokes.
Plurp.
Plurp.
The blue dog
once correlated all possible
facts and came to
an inexplicable conclusion
Tuesday, October 22, 2002
Blab. A reader wants desperately for us to follow a
...
[link]
... to so-called illegal art, that is, art that is created by starting
from various trademarked images and doing rude things to them. Perhaps,
when our reader has more time, it can tell us why.
Blab. A reader skips lightly over trying explain why that
image from yesterday terrifies us, then dives headlong into the Well
of Abject Fear.
"Jesus
Humoring The Special Juggler" is somewhat frightening in its theological
implications (are mental handicaps part of His divine plan only for His
amusement?), but for sheer existential terror nothing beats "Hitchhiker
Jesus".
(They appear to be in a white van.
I wonder if Jesus has a partial deck of tarot cards hidden in his robes?)
We note the intentionally controlled but nevertheless terrified expression
on the truck driver's face, as he finally realizes just what that hitchhiker
wants from him.
If this is not enough for you, explore here.
(Note: Only for the brave.) We are particularly horrified by the
dental
assistant and the insurance
agent, especially as the insurance agent appears to be the dental assistant's
victim.
Blab. A reader sends us a ...
[link]
... that is not only blind, but wholly mysterious to us. What does this
have to do with anything? Heliopod. So, um ... ?
Plurp. We confirm that we are, in fact, in "Canada" with two
types of documentary evidence. The first is a genuine picture taken today
in "Canada."
The second is a short list of Pertinent Observations.
-
It is very clean in "Canada," at least as compared to New York.
-
It takes twice as long to get things done in "Canada," due to the necessity
of saying things twice, once in English and once in French.
-
Signs that are written in English must also be written in French. The reverse
is not true.
-
The lighted billboard of a woman's lips does not, in fact, move, even when
observed carefully for several hours very late at night.
Plurp. Tonight, we met a very unhappy man who drove fifteen miles
with a chicken on his head.
Yo. Largest
DDoS attack on the Internet ever. Hey - don't blame us; we were in
"Canada."
Plurp.
The blue dog
drove fifteen miles
in a random white van
Monday, October 21, 2002
Blab. A solicitous "reader" writes:
Hi,This is a humour game
This game is my first work.
You're the first player.
I hope you would like it.
Sadly, the humour game was lovingly included as an attachment, which
our brain-dead mail program can't see. So, we will never know. In our vivid
imagination, however, it will remain the zenith of games, the epitome of
computer entertainment, the highest possible peak of Western civilization.
Fortunately, it might be the case that a
few other people have access to this
unique opportunity.
Blab. A reader who, for reasons unfathomable, has knowledge of
that quaint, analog, television medium, writes:
Those figures you showed
in the enigmatic images contest were featured on Late Night with Conan.
Which makes me wonder if their writers steal everything from weblogs.
Or if you steal everything from Conan.
This
random discussion thread suggests that Conan talked about them before
we
did, which leaves us open to libelous and acidic charges of stealing topics
from lame television shows.
Time to find some newer and even more outrageous topics for an Enigmatic
Images contest, we say. Suggestions?
Blab. A reader chides us with erudite advice.
Look, you foolishly explode
a blue dog at high altitude, and well, you gotta expect consequences like
blue dogs in Zurch. Deal with it.
Zurch?
Blab. A reader sends us a blind ...
[link].
This images frightens us. It really does. It's not that we don't understand
it. Well, not just that we don't understand it. It's the activity,
the expressions on their faces. Something.
Readers are invited to explain
why this terrifies us so.
Blab. A reader sets out on a rant of mythic proportion.
If I recall correctly, originally
the whole "wipe out weapons of mass destruction" thing was about pre-emptive
strikes.
Now, forgive me if I've misread my
dictionary, but pre-emptive implies that you haven't given the opportunity
for response before acting. I'd say that over a year of saying "we're going
to invade you and kick your raggy headed asses", is not exactly pre-emptive
in any rational sense of the word.
Now, if it's not pre-emptive; i.e.
there is now no possiblilty that SH doesn't know that agressive and possibly
crippling strikes are coming; then it is one or both of two possibilities.
1. W and the Global Alliance Against
Terrorism are simply engaging in macho posturing with no intention of ever
invading anyone. I.e. it's just a pissing contest - we've got bigger missiles
than you - our president could kick your president's ass - our weapons
of mass destruction come with God's seal of approval etc..
2. W is less stupid than we've thought
- in telegraphing his actions to the enemy for a couple of years before
doing anything, he is guaranteeing that the outcome will be as he predicted.
Out of these two, I think the second
must be the more likely, mainly because PR is a huge part of any conflict
in today's world. The prophecies of doom must be self fulfilling, so that
when it's all over, and we invade, and the nasty weapons come out for real,
W and his buddies can all say - "Nyanananana, we told you so".
It's a sad state of affairs when the
president of the world's most agressive and powerful country runs it on
principles no better than a schoolyard bully. It is only to be hoped that
he will take so long about it that he will be ousted in an election before
doing anything that the rest of us will regret for the rest of our lives.
Perhaps a pre-emptive impeachment
is called for, after all, there's plenty of evidence.
-AJL
Actually, our own faulty recollection was that the whole thing started
as Let's get rid of terrorism. But Dumbya (oh look - a typo, but
a good one; we think we'll keep it) got so slathered up about taking out
Saddam that, when it turned out there was no connection between Iraq and
terrorism, Dumbya decided to go ahead and take him out anyway.
It's hard for us to think of scenario, other than ICBMs delivering hydrogen
bombs, by which the U.S. could do severe military damage to Iraq without
Iraq knowing that something was coming. But that's surely just our lack
of imagination.
Blab. A reader digs deeper into that interesting religious site
from yesterday, finding entertaining bios of the various participants.
[link]
Don't miss Landover Baptist
(it's not what you think) and the ever-popular Mall
Missions. Great, great stuff.
Are you sure this isn't a spoof site?
Blab. A careful reader notices something.
Action Jesus didn't have
anything witty to say when I put my goateed mouse over Him. Why?!
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Jesus died some time ago.
Plurp. We blame the Orange
Theory of Ideas for the following blasphemous thought. What happens
if someone
who is declared to be a saint later turns out to be a
child molester? Is there, like, Church doctrine on this? Or precedent?
Plurp. We find ourself, in the service of the woman who controls
our fate, becoming an incarnation of Shiva, or an Argentinean dictator.
We make things disappear. People. Their possessions. Their lives. Everything.
Gone, as if they had never existed.
It is difficult work, complex work, detailed work. It is fraught with
danger. A suggestion here, a smudge there, and we are revealed; all would
be lost. If we failed. Which we do not.
But we find it relaxing. Soothing, even. An avocation without moral
boundaries, without the tedious requirements of judgment and absolution.
A simple activity, if you look at it that way.
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Yow. Finally! Someone made a
map of life and everything. 'Bout time, we say. But where's Altoona?
(leuschke)
 Plurp.
So here we are in "Canada", a large, flat land mass north of New York.
It all sounds so very dangerous and exotic and all, until you realize that
they have roads and televisions and restaurants and such, so it's OK after
all.
Dinner tonight in a "Canadian" fondue restaurant featured fallow deer,
that is, very young deer. This turned out to be highly excellent.
Yo. From Helen
her own self.
Over the deep end
-
Over the top
-
Off the deep end
Plurp.
The blue dog
sought worldwide fame by
purchasing a random white van
Sunday, October 20, 2002
Blab. A particularly astute reader writes:
Hey - what gives?
Certain particularly astute readers have noticed that both Friday
and Saturday were nowhere to be seen
until late on Sunday. This is because Friday and Saturday have been Naughty
this week, ignoring their periodic obligations to the other days of the
week and causing temporal bottlenecks. Friday and Saturday have been sent
to their rooms for a Time Out, so they can think about the impact their
actions have on others.
Blab. A reader suggests an ominous correlation.
[link]
[link]
In the first of these, a cat has taken Prozac. In the second, Hello Kitty
has been taken over by eldritch forces. Compare
and contrast.
Blab. A reader has been experimenting with forbidden verbiage
again.
I say prolly, and I feel
terrible.
That's turrible. But yes, we understand.
Blab. A reader with crazy
faces running through its mind writes:
If you can't tell the bottle
from the mountain top then you're not right
And, as Helen so wisely notes, you'd better not be ordering dinner either.
Plurp. Here's today's War of Aggression Puzzle, followed
by the Rabid Speculation O' The Day.
First, the puzzle. Saddam is said to have ordered his field commanders
to launch Nasty Weapons if they don't hear from him within three hours
of the beginning of a U.S. invasion. This is presumably in case an initial
invasion targets Saddam's ability to communicate to the rest of this military,
as it certainly would. (And, feh, we can't find a Web citation for
this just now, but we're pretty sure we read this rumor somewhere. If not,
we're making it up now.)
Now, that's not a good thing, as the Nasty Weapons involved probably
include chemical and maybe biological weapons delivered by rockets to locations
where there are U.S., Kuwaiti, Qatarian or Israeli folks.
So the puzzle is: How do you, as Supreme Commander of the U.S. Forces
(and Chief Partygoer), prevent this unfortunate eventuality? Other than
not attacking Iraq, that is?
Now for the Rabid Speculation O' The Day: the U.S. forces will
use non-nuclear
EMP bombs (which we didn't even know existed until recently)
to disable virtually every piece of electronic equipment at every base
that they think might be capable of launching such an attack, and will
do so at the very beginning of the invasion.
That would mark the first known use of this technology in warfare. It
might well work. It would also make such techniques much more widely known,
which will likely have unintended consequences.
Plurp. Well here's
an interesting thought.
If someone were to explode
a 10kT nuclear weapon at a high enough altitude over their own territory,
90% of the world’s low earth orbit [LEO] satellites would be lost within
a
month.
That's not a good thing.
Plurp.
If someone were to
explode the blue dog
at a high enough altitude ...
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