Plurp: Anti-aroma therapy

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2003.10.19 : 2003.10.25

Saturday, October 25, 2003
Blab. For reasons unstated, a reader sends us this curious image.
Is that a chihuahua?

Friday, October 24, 2003
Blab. Plurp's own marketing department comes up with this.
Technology... Now with two edges! (TM)
And blue flavor crystals!

Blab. Ignoring the global viral threat involved, a reader has ... desires.
I want the Sponge Bob Ann Coulter!
Two devastating mutations. Will the world survive?

Blab. Speaking of devastating mutations ...
Llamas: Nature's Prancing Busybodies
That is ...
Ambulance crews called to the aid of a 72-year-old farmer who injured himself after tripping over a rabbit hole were left powerless to help him after his herd of stubborn llamas leapt to his defence.
There are too many animals involved in this story to make us comfortable. We never trusted animals.

Blab. A reader almost takes advantage of our offer to send our Treasured Readers a Box O' Plurp.
Re: Box O' Plurp - do you have international shipping? Even international shipping would help.
So you have an address? Even an address would help.

Blab. An especially paranoid reader writes:
Of course, the Orbital Mind Control Lasers (we think we may have to call our next band OMCL) were telling us to put in our physical mail address into this here box, but then some interferecne hit, and we suddenly realised that anything we type in this box has the strange property of later appearing in an episode of plurp, so we thought it was probably best that no one knew where we lived or they might find out where we were keeping the blue dog that time.
So, please deliver a Box 'o' Plurp to an unmarked location of your choosing, and then set the orbital mind control lasers to our frequency, and we're sure we'll pick it up
-AJL
Silly reader. We aren't publishing the names and addresses of those readers who request a Box O' Plurp. That would be nasty.
Instead, we are expunging their names and addresses from all memory (like the Pharaohs, chipping from the obelisks the faces of those who went before them, though we aren't a Pharaoh, and you didn't go before us in any relevant sense, but it is still a vaguely proper metaphor, so we let it stand) just as soon as we send that selfsame Box O' Plurp.
Our silly reader does raise an interesting variant, however. And, ever hungry to satisfy the unreasonable demands of our readers, we will do the following. We will prepare a Box O' Plurp, leave it in a public location, and tell you (here) where it is. Then you pick it up.
This may be difficult to do (and avoid internment) in these Days O' Homeland Security, but we will do our best.
Stay tuned. In the OMCL sense.
Meanwhile, those of you who lust after a Box O' Plurp that hasn't been peed on by dozens on NYC dogs should, you know, say so.

Blab. Michelle, who almost qualified as a groupie, writes:
I was wondering if you could help me out. I'm getting married next year and wanted to use Magnetic Poetry as my wedding favors.....do you know if there is a place where i could make up my own words/phrases and have the company make them like the poetry magnet that are sold? I would appreciate any feedback. Thanks.
Michelle
Michelle illustrates an excellent way not to get our attention. Better would have been this.
I was wondering if you could help me out. I think you're awfully clever and incredibly funny, and I find you very, very attractive. I would love it if I could make up my own Magnetic Poetry words/phrases for you, and have the company make them like the poetry magnets that are sold. Is there a way to do that?
That marriage thing just doesn't work. But, whatever. Our suggestion is that you give your guests the Erotic Edition of Magnetic Poetry.
Or, you could start with Romantic Magnetic Poetry, construct the brilliant phrases that you want, take screen shots, and get them printed up at Kinkos. (Kinkos - get it?)
Or maybe you're asking for your own, custom Magnetic Poetry kits? You'll have to buy them in quantities of 1,000 or more, but it's a big wedding, right?

Yo. Minnesota Magnetic Poetry. Talk about narrowcasting!

Rant. Our hotel in that Faraway Place has an interesting sense of communications. They have free broadband wireless throughout the hotel. At the same time, they feel constrained to charge $2 / minute for long-distance (analog) phone calls.
Two bucks a minute? That's the highest rate we've seen anywhere, even higher than the rate in a posh German hotel to which we went a few years ago to slather the press with visionary pronouncements. (Europe generally has much higher phone rates than the U.S.)
We examined the information in our room in great detail and could not find any way to determine that phone calls cost this much. We conclude that it was a deliberate scam on the part of our hotel. Which makes us very unhappy indeed.
So that's it. Helen's right. When it comes to hotel phones, Just Say No. That's why god invented cell phones.

Plurp. Readers are invited to send us URLs of their favorite exploding head animations.

Thursday, October 23, 2003
Blab. A reader brings us into the middle of a conversation that was taking place entirely in its own head.
Or Plurping up! Ohhhhhh, thats sounds NASTY!
Does it?

Blab. Another reader reveals its internal mental state. Right here in public.
we want all Helen list all the time. pitures and suckers. yum
We'll pass that along.

Blab. On our evil colleague who is helping to build even worse nuclear weapons, a reader writes:
Oh! Bombs. Now that's FUN!
Depends upon which end of the trajectory you're on, we suspect.

Blab. A ten-year-old reader sends us its Solstice list.
Classy...
We're sure you will spend many happy hours pulling his finger.

Blab. We thought we were awfully clever to suggest the phrase Technology is a two-edged plowshare. This reader disagrees.
Time to update your weapons list to include modern technology when describing the potential downsides of ethics- and morals-less technology research. The appropriate phrase might be: Some technologies are always a two-edged nuclear weapon.
Dorian, the commie liberal
Or, Technology is a two-edged hemorrhagic fever? Got it.

Blab. A reader is sure of one thing.
I'm sure Ann Coulter goes through a great many batteries.
L.
Verily, it is easier for a man to pass through a battery than it is for Ann Coulter to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Blab. A reader informs us that ...
The bots are multiplying!!
On beyond Oliverbot...
They may be multiplying, but they don't add up. It's not clear to me that chatterbots have improved noticeably since ELIZA.

Blab. There are many strange people in the world. But perhaps none stranger than the "artist" to whom our reader looks for a long lost friend.
Where's Waldo?
He's probably there somewhere. But we don't know where.

Blab. A reader
I am not a woman, and you should get that into your tiny brain now. Are you with me? I want to be completely clear about the fact that I am not female. To identify me into the female category would be a terrible mistake. If you don't label me a man, you are incredibly stupid.

Female Score: 227
Male Score: 92
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: female!
As you say, ma'am.

Blab. Unaware that we are immune, a reader aims the Orbital Mind Control Lasers at us.
tell us your Xmas list so we can send it on to OUR partners.
We'll do better than that. We'll offer you, our Treasured Readers, a free surprise Box O' Plurp^TM. Here's how it works.

You send us your name and (physical) mailing address, along with a message saying, "Send me a Box O' Plurp^TM."

We box up a careful selection of objects that, collectively, communicate a Jungian archetype that is somehow deeply Plurplike. (Whatever that means.)

We send it to you!

Amazing, isn't it? No muss, no fuss, and no cost to you whatsoever. Plus, we get rid of some of our stuff! What could be better?
Some of you, no doubt, have privacy concerns. Here's the deal. We don't care who you are. Once we send the Box O' Plurp to you, we'll forget about you forever. We'll probably even deny that we ever sent it to you. And, of course, the shipping material will not identify the origin or contents of your Box O' Plurp, so nobody ever has to know that you read this drivel.
So request your Box O' Plurp^TM today, 'cause there's no telling how long it will take us to get around to actually sending it out!

Yak. A new Helenism, from our meeting in a Faraway Place.
We've got to jump through hurdles

We've got to jump through hoops

We've got to jump hurdles

Plurp. Here's today's Cultural Horror. Note the viral nature of this terrifying threat.

Plurp.
In the Box O' Plurp,
underneath seven Ann Coulter dolls,
attended to by multiplying Waldos,
about to be infected by an alien sponge,
was the blue dog.

Wednesday, October 22, 2003
Blab. A reader reports a cultural event.
An existing Helenism (already in the list), sighted this evening on an advert for... err... something or other:
It's not rocket surgery.
* It's not rocket science.
* It's not brain surgery.
We feel certain that Madison Avenue (which, BTW, is no longer located on Madison Avenue, for the most part - they've moved elsewhere) follows our great works in infinite detail.

Blab. Another of our amorous groupies suggests this:

Pucker up, Plurp!

So, two bits of information for you, 'cause we're pretty sure you didn't know them before.

Jack Elam's not our type.

Jack's dead, which is really very unappetizing.

But thanks for thinking of us!

Blab. A woman writes:
I would like to write like a woman, talk like a woman, and be recongnized like a woman. What do you think, buster?
Words: 23
Female Score: 172
Male Score: 0
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: female!
Dumb Genie!!!
Gosh. Seems accurate to us.

Blab. You know, just today we sent the lovely Helen email with our Winter Solstice list, which, for the first time, was almost all URLs. No, it wasn't that we wanted URLs for Solstice, it was ... never mind. Anyhow, shortly thereafter, a lovely reader informs us of this.
TalkingPresidents.com is offering free shipping on Rumsfeld and Ann Coulter action figures for orders over $70.
What could be better than to spend Solstice Day listening to the inane yammering of these two? We can't think of a single thing. And, as it says on those very pages:
DON'T FORGET EXTRA BATTERIES!
Can we keep them from yammering on simply by embargoing their batteries? That's what we want for Solstice.

Plurp. This week's test demonstrates that our mind control lasers are in excellent calibration.

naked helen lollipops

helen naked pitures

chihuly

iris chacon

oliverbot

arsenic poisoning pictures

britney

mouse naked pictures

new jersey does not exist

quorn naked pictures

Yo. We can't tell you where we found this, 'cause that would spoil it. Your task is to figure out what these have in common.
Go on. It's really quite funny. Well, to us, anyway.

Yo. Everybody loves lawyers, right? You love lawyers. We love lawyers.
And why? It's stuff like the Sushi Memo.
I would hope you find the attached helpful in choosing the restaurant from which your dinner will be ordered on a going-forward basis.
Go read it yourself.

Plurp. Here's a shocker. A study by Coldwell Banker reveals that housing costs more in La Jolla, CA than it does in Minot, ND.
How could that be?

Yak. At our Faraway Place.

Friend: I'm getting $3M from the government to build my chip!

Me: Really? That's a lot of money.

Friend: Isn't it great?

Me: What do they want your chip for?

Friend: Supercomputers.

Me: Oh? To do what?

Friend: Bomb models. And massive data mining.

Me: So it's the nuclear weapons labs and Ashcroft's plan to spy on everybody on Earth? The worst weapons ever created and the worst privacy violations ever committed?

Friend: Well, yeah. But we'll do other stuff with it too.

Me: Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down?

Friend: Technology is always a two-edged sword.

Me: Of course. The question is, which edge are you sharpening?

Friend: You're not going to make me feel bad about this.

Me: Not my fault. That's your conscience.

Plurp.
The blue dog
figured that technology
is always a two-edged
plowshare.

Tuesday, October 21, 2003
Blab. A reader wants to know:
Are we not drawn onward, we few?
Drawn onward to new era?
Nah.

Blab. One of our more seductive (we almost wrote deductive, which might also be true; or reductive) groupies writes:
Pucker up, Plurp!
This is where we remind you that we're a happily married guy and stuff. Nice pucker, though.

Blab. A reader tries a more definitive experiment on yesterday's Gender Genie.
I copied a couple pages of famous Mark Twain quotes in to Gender Genie and here's what is replied:
Words: 1149
Female core: 1613
Male Score: 1414
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: female!
There it is! Mark Twain writes like a woman! We should try to learn from this.
Further experimentation reveals that Jane Austen was a guy, and Shakespeare was overwhelmingly female.
We suspected as much.

Blab. A reader hints at horrors to come.
Tammy Fae Bakersman, bake me a cake as fast as you can. Ron Jeremy will if you won't. If he won't, then Eric Estrada will. Yeah, the "ponch" will bake a cake. If not, some rapper dude from the nineties will. The name is Ice, Vanilla Ice.
Ron Jeremy, Ponch, Ice and T. F. Baker on the same reality TV show??? Is this for real??? If this happens, then earth must be hell. It's not hell on earth, it's earth on hell.
Let see if I can unscramble this: A wife of a tele-evangalist, a disgusting porn star, a 70's pop-TV icon, and a rapper ---- on the same reality TV show.
They must come from the same ilk.
Hell, hell, hell!!!
Actually, it's hell on TV. The eternal damnation will be televised

Blab. A reader understand us, and our activities in boring meetings, all too well.
Increase your productivity
Yikes. (But fun!)

Yow. It turns out that the hotel in our Faraway Place has free wireless connection throughout the hotel, including in the Huge Room in which our Mysterious Activities take place.
And do you know what that means?
It means that, when the Mysterious Activities turn boring, as they inevitably will, we can do email!
Oh yeah, and blog.

Yo. So Gordon Moore, who is both clever and entertaining, says:

The industry shipped 10⁹ transistors in 1968. It shipped 10¹⁸ in 2002. That's currently >10 transistors every year for each ant on the planet. That's a lot.

Almost all of the stuff on a chip these days is interconnect, not transistors. People thinking about quantum dots should think about this.

Minimum feature sizes on chips are currently smaller than an AIDS virus (and much smaller than a red blood cell).

Lithography tooling costs are also exponential!

Leakage power is now greater than active switching power, and growing at a tremendous rate. That's ever so bad.

New device innovations may keep us on the Moore's Law curve for another 10 years. This requires both smaller feature sizes and a solution to the power problem.

And the best quote:
The fact that materials are made of atoms is a real problem.

Yow. How to eat. Very enlightening. (rachelleb)

Plurp. Helen: Go back and click on that link.

Yow. Here's a better link to the Inn at Price Tower, the now-hotel in a Frank Lloyd Wright skyscraper. And the room rates are reasonable! Well, probably not for Bartlesville, Oklahoma. But they're cheap by NYC standards.

Plurp.
The blue dog
received a
Female Score of e
and a
Male Score of -42.

Monday, October 20, 2003
Blab. A reader reacts to our failed ad campaign, in which we don't make the things that make things smarter; we make the things that make the things that make things smarter, smarter.
Duh... We Make Things(TM)
Duh.

Blab. Figuring that we should weigh in on every stupid stunt in the world, a reader writes:
David Blaine comes out of his box tonight. What's the verdict, Dr Steve?
Guilty!

Blab. Again with the readers that want us to weigh in on absolutely everything.
So what's up with Holland, anyway? It's Holland, but its name is "The Netherlands", and people who live there are called "Dutch". What gives? Sheesh!
This multiplicity of names is also pretty common in Russian novels. And Helen's family.

Blab. A reader asks:
Do nine men interpret?
Nine men, I nod.

Blab. Blind Link O' The Day:
[link]

Blab. A reader attempts to reduce the uncertainty in our life. We appreciate the attempt.
Uncertain whether you're a male or female? Go here.
We, of course, were uncertain. So we pasted the text of this here whole week of Plurp into the hungry little text box on the referenced page and tickled that cute little submission button.
The results?
Female Score: 3271
Male Score: 3176
So there you are. (Though, mysteriously, the previous week was overwhelmingly male. So we still don't know.)
(We repeated this same experiment with some of Helen's writing. It produced similar results, varying from somewhat female to overwhelmingly male. Maybe we're both bisexual.)

Blab. A reader wonders if the mystery has finally unraveled.
Is Sunday's mystery mistress Mia?
Dorian
A good guess but, no, we're pretty sure not. Another reader may be closer to the truth.
caterina naked pitures?
Well, not naked.

Plurp. Once again we find ourself in a Faraway Place, and one in which we seem to have both a day job and a night job. As such, we hope you will forgive us if we seem less attentive to you than usual. It's not that we're ignoring you.
Well, OK, it is that we're ignoring you. But it's not our fault.
Well, OK, it is our fault. Let's just say that, when faced with a choice between our Treasured Readers prattling on and Gordon Moore predicting the future of Moore's Law, well ...
Which is to say that, naturally, our Treasured Readers win out, and we will lavish all the attention upon you that you can possibly absorb.
Was that the right answer? Oh, good.

Plurp. So, you folks did study the curious ramblings we wrote while our Treasured Readers were participating in the Treasured Reader Training Exercise, right?
'Cause, yeah they will be on the test.

Plurp.
In the dream last night, several of us are sitting around, talking and fiddling on some computers. Stewart Butterfield walks in, full of stories and pronouncements.
"Hey, Stewart, hold it down, willya?", I say, turning around from my computer screen. "I'm trying to hack GNE over here."

Plurp. Best Spam Subject Line O' The Day.
For shure we can get you a degree!

Plurp. Branding Disasters of the New Millennium, from a panel truck today.

FLUSHING MEATS

Plurp. More Branding Disasters of the New Millennium, spotted along the street today.

HUNAN PALACE
Chinese Restaurant and Laundry

Don't order the soup.

Yak. We had lunch today in The City with Helen and a friend of hers. A friend of hers.

Friend: That reminds me of Klingon ... uh ...

Us: Gagh?

Friend: Yeah, gagh.

Helen: What's gagh?

Friend: Live worms.

Helen: That's disgusting!

Us: Not if it's fresh.

Friend: Yes, you need gagh to be really fresh.

Plurp. Privacy is still a cherished value.
A judge sentenced an Arizona woman to 60 days home detention for intercepting her husband's ex-wife's e-mail, saying the penalty is a warning to others who might be tempted to do the same.
"Privacy is still a cherished value," U.S. District Judge Richard P. Matsch said in sentencing Angel Lee, 28, of El Mirage, Arizona.
Perhaps Mr. Hatch has not met Herr Asscroft.

Plurp.
The blue dog
aspired to be a
Branding Disaster of the
New Millennium

Sunday, October 19, 2003
Plurp.

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