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Interesting that QR Codes are sort of coming back.

(Maybe that one joke is out dated - "What's a pirate's favorite visual URL encoding?" "Q-Arrrrrrr?" "No, they don't scan them either")

But I usually think of QR codes as looking like "robot puke" but this one is gorgeous:

I've been thinking about the following folksy literary passage a bit, especially with ideas about "a total human life begins at egg fertilization" seeming poised to inform laws of this nation in a way that will violate women's physical autonomy and ability to determine what happens with her body:

Jim believed that God sort of generally watched over the world but didn't try to oversee every single detail. He said that, for example, when you're born, you could be American or Chinese or Russian or African, depending. In heaven are millions of souls lined up waiting to be born, and when it's your turn, you go down the chute like a gumball to whoever put the penny in the slot. You were born to your parents because, right at that moment when they Did It, you were next in line. Two seconds later and you could have been [someone completely different].

The secular version of this - the version that has personhood emerging, rather than being popped in like a gumball - is haunted by a profound question of identity: how different could the circumstances of your conception, birth and upbringing have been and still let you be YOU, in a fundamental way? If a different sperm cell won that fallopian sprint - would you still be you in a meaningful way? Is there a strong cosmic connection between who you are now and you would have been in that case, can you imagine sharing your point of view with that alternate self?

The Buddhists poise the same issue as a koan, the challenge to "Show me your original face before you were born." (At least I think that's the same issue.)

A particularly precocious Star Trek fan might ponder how they could tell if the teleporter was actually a form of transportation, or more of a murder plus deep cloning. Is "beam me up" just another way of saying "kill me, then make a new me that thinks it's me back on the ship"? Could it possibly matter if the same atoms were used, the same hydrogen molecule in your elbow here? Since all atoms are really, truly fundamentally identical, isn't it just the pattern that matters?

So using the Trek example is a decent, if geekier, way of getting to some of those same places many Buddhists do. You understand more what "the self is an illusion means". Also that for the self there is no present or future, just this moment. Sure, in practice there's an important continuity... in at least some pragmatic sense it's the same you suffering the hangover from the drinks you had the night before...but you also have to live with the idea that you could have just been created this very moment, your whole memory and personal history faked up inserted. (Some literalist creationists seem to use a similar to story to account for an earth that geologists and biologists and physicists is so, so old...bad old devil running around planting all these confusing fossils...)

The gumball theory of soul has some seeming advantages of clarity, but it's simplistic and raises a whole host of other questions without answering them. But I think it's important to get a feel for how a person emerges from biological circumstance. They aren't magically there in a flash of DNA combination and trying to second guess God or fate or whatever, and advocate for protection for some person in the future who will MAYBE be around in the unknowable future is fraught when you are making that determination for other people - generally women - and their bodies. (even if you believe in separable souls, there's no reason to think the gumball is planted at the moment of fertilization, or implantation, and not later at, say, quickening...) Went "rafting" the other day with friends, nice little bit of floating on inflatables, half in the water half out, lazy and wonderful. Kicking the flotilla back to the dock, got a visit from a swimming pup (in a super cute float vest with a shark fin) who knocked my phone (which had been fairly well wedged in the cupholder) into the murky depths. Whoops! 2/3 my fault for sheer, Murphy-temping hubris (though modern iPhones are really pretty decent for shallow underwater photography even without a special case - but I should have been using the floating bag when not in use.)

Luckily I had backed up the night before putting music on my phone and was able to buy new hardware. I was hoping to get at least another 15 months on the old phone but oh well.

The incident did show me my "Plan B"s were inadequate: like my friend let me borrow her "oldschool" Garmin GPS, and I should get one because my road atlas really wasn't much use (though maybe one of the old Boston-specific ones woulda sort of worked.) Also, yeah, I should write down some phone numbers on a card and then laminate it (or just wrap in clear tape) and put one in my wallet and one in my car. I know, like my number and MAYBE Melissa's.

Lets see, of my other everyday carries, what should I do if things get lost? Keys I have backups but only at home. Hmm. Sunglasses/Eyeglasses I have spares in my car and home. Wallet... bleh, but most of the cards are on the phone, but I should maybe scan all my credit cards and health stuff so if my wallet goes missing happens I know what's at risk.

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Gun enthusiasts love mocking folks who want fewer assault weapons around for not knowing enough about guns, but hey, we do know the fucking difference between an AR-15 and a Swiss Army Knife?

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via

I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain!
Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
Or English poets who grew up on Greek
(I'd have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek).

How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,
She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand;
She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin;
I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;
She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,
Coming behind her for her pretty sake
(But what prodigious mowing we did make).

Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:
Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize;
She played it quick, she played it light and loose;
My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;
Her several parts could keep a pure repose,
Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose
(She moved in circles, and those circles moved).

Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:
I'm martyr to a motion not my own;
What's freedom for? To know eternity.
I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
But who would count eternity in days?
These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
(I measure time by how a body sways).

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We are all livestreamers now.

Speaking of livestreaming - my old JoustPong got twitch'd (around 1:20 in). I definitely see some things I should have done differently in the game. Robert Lambry's 1930s les animaux tels qu'ils sont is a terrific looking "how to draw animals book"
(via kottke)

It's interesting comparing Ed Emberley's stuff - Emberley is aimed a bit younger, or at least simpler, and showing kids (and timid grownups) that they have the basic skills they need to make basic cartoon-y stuff. Lambry's title ("Animals As They Are") gives a hint as to its ambitions - it reminds me of the studio drawing class I took, where I learned about starting with the most basics of line and curve and building around that.

And I guess I'll plug my Ed Emberley tribute animals.alienbill.com - 25 drawings that fly in from their component shapes and squiggles and become interactive puppets. Music I "discovered" in May, 4-star stuff in red.

• Creature Comfort (Arcade Fire) - powerful song. Also think about the weird 8bit computer-ness of that one sond...
• Venus Fly (feat. Janelle Monáe) (Grimes) LOL, guess this is a "tidal exclusive" so no youtube for you, just a Michael Scott from the Office look to a snippet from Amazon music...
• Seven Nation Army (From Westworld: Season 2) (Ramin Djawadi) Always a sucker for a good cover of this song, and this sitar-centric version w/ some deep bass is great.
• London Bridge (Fergie) Forgot there was a version of this not mixed with "Short Skirt Long Jacket".
• Pre-Fab Housing (BleuBird) Kinda alt hiphop, from the Suicide Girls DVD.
• Run (AWOLNATION) Tracked this down after the Run Meme Compilation
• You're Gonna Go Far, Kid (The Offspring) The "Dance F***er Dance" song.
• Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 (Bob Dylan) The Everybody Must Get Stoned song, played it at Porchioke.
• Brave (Sara Bareilles) PLayed this at Porchioke - missed it when it came out but dig the acceptance message of the video.
• Don't Bring Me Down (Electric Light Orchesxra) Played at Porchioke. "don't bring me down - broose" or whatever it is is kind of odd.
• Mama Said Knock You Out (Undefeated Remix) (LL Cool J) Solid remix from the Deadpool Trailer.
• White Rabbit (Jefferson Airplane) Porchioke. Do dig that bassline.
• This Is America (Childish Gambino) This one has got a lot of attention, and justly so.
• I Want to Be Evil (Eartha Kitt) "I'm tired of being pure, and not... chased"
• Rubberband Man (The Spinners) The Guardians of the Galaxy (in the latest Avengers movie) put this one on.
• Vivir Mi Vida (Marc Anthony) I was told the "Version Pop" I had was not the right for Banda de Paz
• Voto Latino (Molotov) Kinda rough.
• Drover (Bill Callahan) - from tne Netflix Documentary "Wild Wild Country" about the Rajneeshpuram cult community in Oregon. The opening "The Real People Went Away" is so horribly evocative.
• F**k tha Police (N.W.A.) So it went, so it goes.

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Me: I wish to spend an extended time rubbing my fingers over some small patch of pleasantly-textured surface. Perhaps the fur of an animal?
The miniaturized apex predator with which I share my home: [vibrates at a soothing frequency to encourage this behavior]

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Monobloc: the white plastic chairs taking over the world.

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The ultimate Title Drops collection... Hah, wow... after asking permission to include it, Christian Speckner now has a working, in-browser version of FlapPing (formerly JoustPong) -- type "run" in the window to get things under way. No audio yet. Christian thought it was a nice, small-game with commented source code online, so a good test subject for his 6502 emulator written TypeScript.

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Hatching an egg, without the egg? Insert womb-with-a-view joke here. Lately I've been on a "self-help" book kick. I started with Albert Ellis' "How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable About Anything-- Yes, Anything!" (The title just rolls right off the tongue!) Ellis draws our attention to a pattern of irrational thinking that I recognize in my own life--a habit of exaggerating the impact of a dreaded event, or of parlaying a small setback into general feelings of self-worthlessness. He's worried about the anxiety and dwelling on thoughts of "must" :

"If I lost my job, as I must not, I could never get a good one again, and that would show what a wholly incompetent person I am!" "I must have a guarantee that my mate must not die, for if he or she did, I couldn't stand being alone and would always be miserable." "It's absolutely necessary that I not lose my sight, for if I did, my life would be awful and horrible, and I could never enjoy anything again!"

Ellis has a pretty heavy hand with the italics! But he argues that for much of the time, our FEELINGS of anxiety and misery have their often hidden roots in (often irrational) THOUGHTS about situations present and future, and that by practicing thinking more realistic thoughts we can prevent these misery and anxiety causing emotions ... for example, a person feeling shame for not being able to stop smoking:

"In no way am I, a total person, stupid and worthless because I keep doing a stupid act like smoking. My act is foolish but that hardly makes me a worthless fool, only a person who is now acting foolishly, who may act less foolishly in the future, and who does many other intelligent things"

But- like all changing habits, switching thought patterns and recognizing unhelpful and irrational thoughts takes a lot of practice. I know one irrationally exaggerated fear I have is "being incorrect" (Or as Ellis would probably have me think: "now, it's hardly desirable to be incorrect, but if I'm wrong or don't see the other side of a given situation, that doesn't make me a horrible person, and I will certainly be able to have a more empathetic view in other situations!") though compared to a lot of other problems I and others will get through, it has a bit of a first world problem feel.

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A real tour de force about the numbers lost in WW2, vs before and after.

(Ironic that the thumbnail uses an American flag, because it's not hard to see how lightly the USA got off, relatively speaking.)

But the infographics elements and use of sound and motion are subtle and great in this.

If we ever meet up with an alien civilization, I'm betting they won't have Tetris, which will work to our advantage:

"We have come to share the secrets of fusion, interstellar tachyon drives, and matter transfer. What do you have to offer us?"

"Um, ultimate Frisbee, microwave popcorn, and, um, Tetris."

"Hmm. Tell us of this 'Tetris.'"

"Here, give it a try."

Six months later everyone on their planet will be staying up till four in the morning mumbling "All I need is a straight one. Just one." and we'll have infested the cosmos like fire ants.

And Happy Birthday Tetris!! What do I look like sneezing?

Heavy Boots

by John Blanton

The North Texas Skeptics is an organization devoted to the promotion of science and rational thinking in the study and understanding of the world around us. So we occasionally need to talk about science and the public's perceptions of science. John Sigler has forwarded this to me from the Internet because he considers it a remarkable indication of the state of science education in this country, and I have to agree. If all of this is strictly true (I'm a skeptic to the end), then things are much worse than we thought. As John said in his note: "[It's] kinda long and depressing, but the point is made quickly ..."

We don't have the original author's permission to reprint this entirely. In fact I have not been able to discover the name of the original author. How's that for a friend-of-friend story. So I will just relate what was said and quote where necessary. If you want to follow up, here is some information from the mail header:

From: BDEMPSEY.ENG-MAIL@SMTP.INTECOM.COM (Dempsey, Bill)
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 1994 14:53 CDT

"About 6-7 years ago, I was in a philosophy class at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (good science/engineering school) and the teaching assistant was explaining Descartes. He was trying to show how things don't always happen the way we think they will and explained that, while a pen always falls when you drop it on Earth, it would just float away if you let go of it on the Moon.

"My jaw dropped a little. I blurted 'What?!' Looking around the room, I saw that only my friend Mark and one other student looked confused by the TA's statement. The other 17 people just looked at me like 'What's your problem?'

"`But a pen would fall if you dropped it on the Moon, just more slowly.' I protested. `No it wouldn't,' the TA explained calmly, `because you're too far away from the Earth's gravity.'

"Think. Think. Aha! `You saw the APOLLO astronauts walking round on the Moon, didn't you?' I countered, `Why didn't they float away?' `Because they were wearing heavy boots,' he responded, as if this made perfect sense (remember, this is a Philosophy TA who's had plenty of logic classes).

By now the two heroes of our story were really charged up. Remarking on the stupidity of philosophy majors they went back to their dorm and conducted an unscientific, nearly random phone survey. They selected 30 respondents and asked this question:

1. "If you're standing on the Moon holding a pen, and you let go, will it a) float away, b) float where it is, or c) fall to the ground?

Encouragingly, they report that 47 percent answered correctly (answers at the end of this article). Next they asked the remaining 53 percent (16 people):

2. "You've seen films of the APOLLO astronauts walking around on the Moon, why didn't they fall off?

"About 20 percent of the people changed their answer to the first question when they heard this one!" The others? You guessed it! "Heavy boots."

Undaunted, our heroes plugged on. One of them (Wally) was teaching a physical science class, and he gave his class the heavy boots quiz, asking what would happen to the pen and the astronauts. Here are the results:

8 people thought the pen would float away
5 thought it would float where it is
5 said it would drop to the ground

"Of those in the first two catagories [sic], several said that the gravitational pull of the moon kept the astronauts from floating away. And some said they were wearing heavy suits. And one said they were wearing lead-weighted boots."

The Internet note listed several of the actual responses to the class quiz, but I'm only going to give you a couple of the more interesting ones:

1. Float where it is 2. They don't fall off the moon because they were anchored to their hip with a rope. The rope was tied to the atronaught (sic) on one end and the ship on the other.

1. Fall to the ground 2. The reason that the astronauts fall to the ground is because the moon has a certain amount of atmosphere. This atmosphere is not half as powerful as the earth's but is (sic) still produces a minute gravitational effect.

The saga goes on: "So a bunch of us TAs got together and gave our physics classes quizzes asking this question. Out of 168 people taking the quiz, 48 missed the question." Again, here are two interesting responses:

From a class in Physics 324 - Modern Physics for Engineers:

The gravity of the moon can be said to be negligible, and also the moon's a vacuum, there is no external force on the pen. Therefore it will float where it is.

From a class in Physics 221 - First Semester Calculus-based Introductory Physics:

External forces that are present on the moon will attract the pen. There isn't gravity on the moon as there is on earth so the pen won't drop.

The original mailer included pages of responses from the students, all indicating a lack of understanding of some fairly basic science concepts. It's no good saying, "Wait! These were undergraduates. What do you expect?" This is the kind of material that should be picked up in grades four through six. By all students. My guess is that this was presented, and maybe the students did learn it then. However, we live in a society that so relies on received knowledge from entertainment and from authority figures that at a young age we quit thinking for ourselves. What should be simple problems of logic such as these are not attacked rigorously unless circumstances absolutely require it. The usual approach is to pick the most convenient answer and go with that.

I have recently gotten involved in the Science-by-Mail program, which incorporates mentors from science and industry into science projects at local schools. So far, I am finding it an interesting experience, and I believe both the students and the mentors can benefit. I know that one of the benefits I will gain from this is a better understanding of science teaching in the public schools today, and I encourage others to check out the program. Information will generally be available at our meetings.

All right, for you philosophy majors who found this issue of The Skeptic on the bus, here are the answers to the quiz:

1. The correct answer is (c) - The pen would fall to the ground (the surface of the Moon, that is).
2. I don't know. If they didn't fall off, how did the astronauts get back to the Earth?

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http://www.tgdaily.com/mobility-features/63829-mobile-tactile-tech-gets-physical WOW -- touch screens w/ a gel that actually forms physical tactical buttons over the virtual ones? #thefutureishere
--via BB on aweseome RC plane flights. I guess the legality is kinda questionable, but man, what a view!

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We laugh at death because we know death will have the last laugh on us.

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did they just say you can now use the volume buttons to snap iPhone photos? All that fuss! ..wonder if photo gallery gets folder management?

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ALL YOUR DATA ARE BELONG TO ICLOUD. ALL YOUR DATA ARE BELONG TO ICLOUD. ALL YOUR DATA ARE BELONG TO ICLOUD.

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From Apple keynote:"App manages presentation of its own documents." Reminds me of the old Mac days:"the application program that created it could not be found". It seems like such an odd vision of the future, all these islands of piles of files, each app using whatever metadata it sees fit. if the existing iPhone camera roll is any indication, "no sorting" is it.

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I'd say Apple vs Microsoft is done. Next: Apple vs the Web (and then Apple vs Owning Files?) I'm worried about the rise of monoculture.

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@dianebrat I liked trusting gmail et al w/ server data, but knowing i could control my own files. Apple seeks to blur the distinction...

...kind of a matched set with yesterday's Spock. (And reminds me why I prefer the old series a bit.) via gifanime

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5 "LAIVA" bookshelves assembled! (cheaper/cooler than BILLY/EXPEDIT) Moving Plus: Reshelving books gets you reacquainted with your library!

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Heh, detail of dating a bookseller's daughter: Amber labels boxes of small cheap paperbacks "mm", i.e. "mass-market" -- so cute!

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"Want help with that?"
"Nah, I'm like 85% done."
"That's when it's best to offer- you taught me that."
"Hey, not on purpose!"

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Amber hammers with stronger blows; fewer blows=fewer chances to mess up. I use more blows, compensate for small errors. This difference probably mirrors how we cope with life in general.

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Big thunderstorms, trees down in Arlington and Cambridge

--"Top 60 Ghetto Black Names" Yes I know "gee, some black people have distinctive and faintly humorous names" is a bit tired and maybe a tad racist, but this is pretty well done, funny, and I don't think mean spirited. (via trunkbutt)

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http://cymonsgames.retroremakes.com/alleytris/ - a startlingly simple re-energization of Tetris - via CymonsGames In a Gamer's Quarter thread, jjsimpso was talking about the use of numeric scores in game reviews. He refered to an older "games studies" dichotomy between "narrativists" (who place video games in a tradition of storytelling) and "ludologists" (who place video games more in the tradition of other forms of gaming... I guess the term is related to a Greek word for "play" and the similarity to "luddites" is just an unfortunate coincidence.)

jjsimpso proposes a two-score system to match this dualistic line of thinking, L-scores (for the mechanic and design) and N-scores (for the story, art, setting, etc) It immediately made me think of that passage Robin Williams' character has his student read aloud in Dead Poets' Society, allegedly from "Understanding Poetry, by Dr. J. Evans Pritchard, Ph.D."

To fully understand poetry, we must first be fluent with its meter, rhyme, and figures of speech. Then ask two questions: One, how artfully has the objective of the poem been rendered, and two, how important is that objective. Question one rates the poem's perfection, question two rates its importance. And once these questions have been answered, determining a poem's greatest becomes a relatively simple matter.

If the poem's score for perfection is plotted along the horizontal of a graph, and its importance is plotted on the vertical, then calculating the total area of the poem yields the measure of its greatness. A sonnet by Byron may score high on the vertical, but only average on the horizontal. A Shakespearean sonnet, on the other hand, would score high both horizontally and vertically, yielding a massive total area, thereby revealing the poem to be truly great.

The movie uses this passage has a strawman to be knocked down, that poetry can only legitimately be felt, not analyzed.

I guess I disagree... I think the basic concept is sound (even if exact quantification is a bit odious), but you need many more scales for it to be useful, two dimensions just aren't enough. This would bring this kind of thought into line with my idea of Multiple Intelligence Theory for Art.

Just for kicks: I say 2 dimensions isn't enough, and have previously talked about Multiple Intelligences, but don't go into detail about what they might be... (a bit of a dodge on my part!) So for fun, what do I think some should be? The Pritchardian "importance" could more or less stay, except maybe it should be "subjective importance" and "universal importance"... "artfulness" is way too simple... there's "adherence to formal structure", "comprehensibility", "subtley", "cleverness"... then there are other traits like "humor", "thought provokingness", "emotion provokingness" (I'm sure there are more succinct words for many of these)... something that takes into account the "context of the authorship" (in general a decent work written by someone in pressed circumstances is more interesting than a work of equal decency written by someone in comfortable circumstances)

In short there is a multitude of possible scales, and I think people are free to come up with a subset of all possible scales they value most highly in art appreciation. For me, the most important take-away concept is that very little art or craft is valueless, so we should always hesitate before condemning a work with too heavy a hand. I dub this thinking "the pollyannappreciation principle".

(A nascent form of this thinking led my fellow a capella singers with Tufts sQ to saddle me with the unwieldy nickname "Kirk 'c'mon guys, it wasn't THAT bad, was it?' Israel" after a particularly brutal round of poor auditionees.)

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Video of the Moment
With the Celtics lovely win in game one over LA, I'm hearing more about the chant "Beat LA!". To summarize, it comes from Celtics fans the final game 1982 Eastern Conference -- where the Celtics were just about to get beat by the 76ers...


It's considered a nice bit of sportsmanship by the Boston fans (not always known for being that classy, really.) I guess too though, LA can't object to it too much, even as its used in other sports (like the SF Giants against the Dodgers) since it does paint them as the city to beat.

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has basketball always been this endless parade of fouls? seems like the flow is so broken.

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wikipedia's "A cappella" page, collegiate a cappella section is a seething bed of shameless plugs. A whole paragraph on South Asian? Jeesh. Currently reading: The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac

I was thinking about adding a piece of the sidebar to say what I'm currently reading, but I couldn't decide if I was legitimately hoping to strike up conversations about the material or just kind of showing off. (Or, the worry that it's one step away from one of those LJ-ish "current mood" indicators.)

Any thoughts?

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Quote of the Moment

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

I'm surprised that I hadn't quoted that before, at least Google doesn't think I have. It reminds me of Dali's "to be geniuses we must play at being geniuses"... come to think of it, that quote barely shows up on google, or anywhere online. Odd, I wonder where I got it...

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Science of the Moment
Ooh... some new brain science seems to lend some small amount of support to my half-joking hope that my terrible memory helps leave more brainspace for my tangential thought rebounds.

Hey, it's 6/6/6!

Speaking of the perception of evil, Red Sox got rocked by the Evil Empire last night, 13-5.

Sometimes it amazes me how emotional a game like Baseball can be, how baseball players play, and I assume they're professionals who play very hard, but they can still "kick it up a notch" when this kind of matchup happens. Or, for that matter, after their team has had a bad loss... in general you don't want to play a decent team that has just gotten swept by someone else.

Are all sports like that?

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Motivation of the Moment

So, say “yes.” In fact, say “yes” as often as you can. When I was starting out in Chicago, doing improvisational theatre with Second City and other places, there was really only one rule I was taught about improv. That was, “yes-and.” In this case, “yes-and” is a verb. To “yes-and.” I yes-and, you yes-and, he, she or it yes-ands. And yes-anding means that when you go onstage to improvise a scene with no script, you have no idea what’s going to happen, maybe with someone you’ve never met before. To build a scene, you have to accept. To build anything onstage, you have to accept what the other improviser initiates on stage. They say you’re doctors—you’re doctors. And then, you add to that: We’re doctors and we’re trapped in an ice cave. That’s the “-and.” And then hopefully they “yes-and” you back. You have to keep your eyes open when you do this. You have to be aware of what the other performer is offering you, so that you can agree and add to it. And through these agreements, you can improvise a scene or a one-act play. And because, by following each other’s lead, neither of you are really in control. It’s more of a mutual discovery than a solo adventure. What happens in a scene is often as much a surprise to you as it is to the audience.

Well, you are about to start the greatest improvisation of all. With no script. No idea what’s going to happen, often with people and places you have never seen before. And you are not in control. So say “yes.” And if you’re lucky, you’ll find people who will say “yes” back.

Now will saying “yes” get you in trouble at times? Will saying “yes” lead you to doing some foolish things? Yes it will. But don’t be afraid to be a fool. Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying “yes” begins things. Saying “yes” is how things grow. Saying “yes” leads to knowledge. “Yes” is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say “yes.”

And that’s The Word.

I have two last pieces of advice. First, being pre-approved for a credit card does not mean you have to apply for it. And lastly, the best career advice I can give you is to get your own TV show. It pays well, the hours are good, and you are famous. And eventually some very nice people will give you a doctorate in fine arts for doing jack squat.

Honestly the rest of it wasn't quite as funny as his usual stuff, kind of drifting in and out of character, but I liked the conclusion. Quote of the Moment

In the end that's all we have: our memories - electochemical impulses stored in eight pounds of tissue the consistency of cold porridge. In the end they define our lives.

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Stuff on Kirk's Camera, Day 1

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Article of the Moment
Slate slideshow on Basquiat and his place in the New York art scene. That movie really did do a lot to increase his recognizability I think, at least for people like me who were too young to remember that part of the 1980s.

Hmm...I think I found one trick to helping my back get better. The last two mornings--especially Friday morning--were awful, with my back condition notably worse than when I went to bed. Last night, though, I used my love seat to sleep on. It's a little short for the purpose, my feet kind of dangle over the side, but still, this morning I felt pretty good, maybe even a little better than the night before. I don't know if it's not being layed-out flat, or how I'm avoiding changing positions as I sleep, since there's only one position that works for sleeping on it.

Or, possibly it's the magical healing powers of Comedy Central on all night, especially their 24-hour "Reno 911" marathon.

(It's odd, I now know that sleeping on my back using this little shaped pillow helps the minor upperback pain I get once in a while, and now this loveseat trick...but I still have no idea if I prefer a hard mattress or a soft mattress.)

Also thanks to a good amount of work by Nina, Ivan, and Kayla, I'm in pretty good shape moving-wise, with a few more people coming today for batting cleanup.

In other move related news, I was really bummed to find out RCN can't serve my apartment building...they're all over Arlington but supposedly at some time in the past someone refused them permission to set up the connection at my building. Which sucks. The owner says he's fine with them doing anything, but it's going to take a while. I don't know what my alternatives are besides Comcast, who cost like twice as much and generally seem to have crappier service. Anyone know how to find out about DSL there? I don't even know who to talk to, especially because in general I wasn't planning to set up a landline...

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Toys of the Moment
Milked has some interesting, often interactive, content, though a lot of the most interesting bits are all about nekkid ladies. The animated boobies is probably the most engaging, but also the most pornographic.

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Passage of the Moment

But if there are some Americans who want peace badly enough to give up their right to wage war, they are being outvoiced by our militant Old Guard, whose idea of a foreign policy is to keep the United States armed to the teeth and ever ready to challenge any country which disputes our world leadership. Regardless of the existence of personal misgivings, we, as a nation, are placing our reliance not on international cooperation but upon the atomic bomb and the willingness of "our boys" to back our decisions with their lives. If it takes two to make a war, we are making certain that we are one of them.

Stirring words from a veteran that still seem all to relevant today. The debate at the time was about peacetime conscription, like some European countries have now. The other articles in the sidebar of the main re-evaluation of WW2 page are worth checking out as well, especially this stark and gruesome look at what WW2 was really like for those living through it.

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Passing of the Moment
RIP Ronald Reagan. I think I was too young when he was in office for me to have formed a mature opinion of him. I don't think he's the demon that the left makes him out to be, nor do I think he's the superhero conservatives paint him as. (In particular, I really don't hope to see him on any money anytime soon.) Two random anecdotes: I remember in 1984 my fifth grade class held mock-elections..I was firmly Mondale, but then, lemming-like, I switched my vote to Reagan when I saw that was what everyone else was going to do. And then in seventh grade, I picked him us my subject for a biography book report, where we had to dress up and playact as the person. So, here to the right is my best Ronnie impression, circa 1987 or so...

Also, I'm reminded of last November when I posted this wonderful excerpt from a letter Reagan wrote to his then infant daughter. Ah, heck, it bears reprinting here:

"There were no 'Northern Lights' last night but there was a big moon and a sky full of stars shining down on the glaciers and snow covered peaks. It was a beautiful night with a constant breeze that seems to come from out among the stars and it seems at times that if you listen very carefully it will whisper secrets as old as time."

Rest in Peace, Ronald Reagan. You always had our best interests at heart. Travel Photo of the Moment

Closeup of Vermin Death Star by David Falconer, at the Saatchi Gallery. A huge sphere of free dried and repainted rats.

• Sloperama's Game Biz Advice for aspiring video game creators.
• I liked the cartoon Prof Jack vs. The Rock(An Interactive Tour of the Turing Test) and there were some other good cartoons in the Prof Jack Archive.
• alt.fan.warlord was a Usent group about picking on people's idiotic .sigs. I think people used to have more idiotic sigs in those pre-web days. The AFW FAQ should tell you all you need to know, and then some. Those really interested in kirkology can use Google to find my posts to the group, including ASCII-Ronald Reagen and some interesting meta-Warlording.

• The first version of Zartan's filecard had a psychological profile:
  "Extreme paranoid schizophrenic. Grows into various personalities..."
  This drew protests that it was a mistake to say that schizophrenia is the same as MPD (multiple personality disorder). Hasbro later released a second version of the filecard without the psychological profile.
  Larry Hama - who wrote the filecard - explained that: "I never implied that they were one and the same. I simply said Zartan was both. The confusion is by inference. A friend of mine, who was the head of NYU outpatient psychiatrics at the time quipped to me, 'You should have known they were going to get upset, they are, after all, PARANOID!'"

• Van Gogh-Gogh's Stick It In The Slot a salute to the 2600 has random atari stuff, including the atari games that never were (which is why the site ended up on Slashdot.) They also had the cool Atari background I'm shamelessly displaying a hacked version of it here.
  

Link of the Moment
Yeesh...Bill pointed to this article about 'starvation' diets, and how they are associated with surprising longevity in a lot of mammals. It makes me thing about my own diet, and while I don't think I'll be headed to anything near that, some how it's an inspiration towards dieting in general. And it makes me think how I'm kind of out of touch with what hunger really is...it seems like for me, time to eat is determined by traditional schedule, and wanting to put some that tastes good in my mouth...

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Funny of the Moment

[on "ever wonder if there are others of Yoda's race, and if they all talk the same way?"]
Imagine the yoda-men in the office, around the water cooler.
Yoda 1: Hello, Bill.
Yoda 2: Morning, Hank.
Yoda 1: Finish that proposal, you did?
Yoda 2: Yes, finally. Quite a chore, it was.
Yoda 1: That Henderson, he is a slave driver, eh?
Yoda 2: Yes. To kick his ass I'd like. "There is no try, only do." Asshole he is.

1. My friend Kim sent me a note that some of these photos are helping her and her husband (Mots the Giant Swede) convince the INS that theirs is not a 'greencard marriage' (other regular photos from the same time had been discarded by INS when Kim forgot to include the fee.) Three cheers for cheap digital phtography!
2. Dang, what is it with this popup ad? It seems to appear at the most random times. One of the sites I frequent must be putting it on some kind of time delay thing. How very annoying! ("Have fun / Feel safe"... I can think of the type of fun they're really trying to sell.) Follow-up: this page claims to have a link that lets you disable the ads: http://www.x10.com/x10ads.htm
3. I wrote the guy who runs bar.com if he gets tons of mail for "foo@bar.com"-- ("foo" and "bar" and "foobar" are special words for the geekily inclined). The owner Mike O'Connor puts it at "about 500 spam-o-grams a day"- I'm almost surprised it's not more. This NY Times article talks about it as well.

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Quote of the Moment

The purpose of conversation isn't to demonstrate one's glib intelligence; it's how we stumble and grope our way through the mists and arrive at something like intelligence.

This is actually a profound insight into cognitive science. Actually, this week's column seemed to have more than its fair share of really smart thoughts and well turned phrases.