Everything2 Cool Archive

December 4, 2009 (personal)

2009-12-04T23:30:13Z

Noor waves over the top of the Hesco barriers, then stops to readjust what some people would call the bed sheet and Afghans regard as a fashion statement wrapped around his head and shoulders. I am standing at the front gate of the base waiting for him and the rest of the contractors to line up and be searched prior to be allowed onto the airfield where I am working.

The barriers provide a notion of security here. They are manufactured by a company called Hesco, and therefore all carry the name of their parent stamped out in 24-inch blue capital letters. People don't refer to them as blast barriers, fencing, or anything else – they're simply Hescos. More often than not, they're "Fucking Hesco(s)." Typical usage runs something like this:

"Don't burn the fucking trash there, you'll melt the fucking Hesco liner and Sergeant Major will flip his shit again."
- or -
"Stupid bastard kids from that compound were on the fucking Hescos and throwing rocks. Fuckers keep…

It's not love. It's not even close. (fiction)

2007-04-08T02:02:48Z

April, the Côte d'Azur. A large blue pool, empty. Men and women sunning themselves on lounge chairs and blue and white striped towels.

She was in a gray Chanel pencil skirt with a wide black belt. She was poolside, looking out over the Mediterranean. I bumped into her and apologized.

She cringed at being touched. Smoke curled up out of her cigarette and mouth, and drifted into her nose. I wasn't worth a look.

Madame, I am sorry. I had no wish to bother your reverie.

I was in a severe black sweater, the Piaget on the dresser. Nothing to betray my nationality.

Disgusting American.

I must admit to being taken aback.

I am Canadian, from Toronto.

She held her stare sunward.

You? You're American. From your Midwest somewhere. Chicago...

TschEE-kah-go. She waved her cigarette.

...or, what is it,

…

Amanaye (person)

2009-12-09T13:01:00Z

The Amanayé are an indigenous ethnic group which live in the Brazilian state of Pará, near the municipality of São Domingos do Capim. They are also known as Amanaié, Amanajé and Araradeua. As of 2001 there were 192 members in the tribe.

Amanayé is the actual name used by this indigenous group to refer to themselves. The name means "association of people", and in some sources the name is spelled Manajo and Amanajo. Part of them are referred to with the name Ararandeuara, because they live near an igarapé (a sort of water course) which carries the same name.

---Language---

The Amanayé language belongs to the Tupi-Guarani family, classified by Aryon Rodrigues (1984) together with Anambé and Turiwara languages. Nowadays the Amanayé don't use their original language anymore, because of extended contact with white and black brazilians from the region of the Capim river.
The oldest, and some of the youngest, members of the tribe still use some words from their…

Sensing and Perceiving (essay)

2008-07-04T21:34:23Z

This series begins with The Machine in the Ghost

Back to Abstraction of the Neuron || On to Reality, Dimensions and the Natural Ontology

Sensing and Perceiving

In ordinary speaking, we tend to use the concepts of sense and perception in pretty much the same way, even though sensing seems somehow to be a more basic or lower level thing and perceiving is somehow a higher-level thing. So, are sensing and perceiving the same or different? Is there some kind of overlap?

The picture we drew of the lowest processes in the sense of vision in the last section gives us a useful place to draw the line between sensing and perceiving. First, consider what happens up to the point where the rod cell in Fig. 3 synapses with the neuron. The relation between the event of the light hitting the rod cell and the rod cell firing a signal across the synapse to…

Last and First Men (review)

2009-12-08T15:18:58Z

This writeup is in part a response to Dennis Lehane by Bitriot. Because while I love his writing very much he could not be more wrong.

"Such, in brief, was the physical and mental nature of the third human species. In spite of innumerable distractions, the spirit of the Third Men kept on returning to follow up the thread through a thousand variegated cultures. Again and again folk after folk would clamber out of savagery and barbarism into relative enlightenment...

Again and again, then at intervals of a few hundred thousand years, man's whim was imposed upon the fauna and flora of the earth, and at length dedicated to the task of remaking man himself. Again and again, through a diversity of causes, the effort collapsed, and the species sank once more into chaos."

Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon was published by Methuen in 1930. Stapledon, a northern England native,…

The people on the bus (personal)

2009-12-09T05:33:59Z

If you come from a place in life where all your needs are met and all your major problems are existential in nature, then riding public transportation can be a little depressing.

I live in Tampa, right on the #2 route, the busiest in the county. It's a very convenient route, shooting north-south from downtown to the University area, almost European service, right down to the basers and blue-collar unemployed. Most of the time, it's pretty uneventful. But there are times when it's like walking into a Tom Waits song. You see, the people on the bus are of a very worn-down sort. The bus is for people who can't afford to take any other means of getting from Point A to Point B, and the circumstances of socio-economic oppression take their toll over the years. It shows on their faces. People age prematurely, flowers stunted by poor soil, careless…

Ithaca is Gorges (thing)

2003-10-12T19:32:51Z

Ithaca, New York, is a small city at the Southern tip of Cayuga Lake in central NY state. It is, indeed, gorgeous. The Ithaca area is gouged by a series of gorges, deep rocky valleys cut by glaciers. The city of Ithaca is abutted by state parks contain Buttermilk Falls, Lucifer Falls, and Taughannock Falls, which at 215 feet tall, is the tallest free-falling waterfall in the norteastern U.S. There are also gorges that cut through the city itself in an east-west fashion. These are beautiful in an everyday, easy to take for granted sort of way. They're traversed by a number of bridges, including a terrifying suspension bridge connecting Cornell University's North and Central campuses. Water typically flows through these gorges over a series of small waterfalls, at the foot of which one can often teenages with their dogs, drinking beer and cheap wine in the summer. The Fall Creek Gorge runs from Beebe Lake on the East Hill to Lake Street in Fall Creek, a neighborhood adjacent to…

Rickroll (thing)

2008-05-30T04:39:41Z

Yet Another Internet Meme that Can't Be Gone Soon Enough or The Revenge of Conveyor Belt Pop

Rickrolling is a term that describes the use of the 1980s hit "Never Gonna Give You Up" in an inappropriate setting, unsolicited manner, or any other way intended to create annoyance for the victim and questionable amusement for the rickroller.

If you're as ancient as some of us here are, you will undoubtedly remember Rick Astley, the former drummer whose alleged good looks elevated him from studio gofer to ephemeral teen idol. As one of the performing monkeys in the Stock Aitken Waterman menage, he was taught to feign talent and lipsync "Never Gonna Give You Up" to a catchy, insipid disco (or synth-pop, but I'm not sure that we made such a distinction then) tune in 1987. Astley had a remarkably long-lived career and enjoyed some success even after parting ways with the Trio That Destroyed British Pop More Than Cliff Richard Could Ever…

VHS (thing)

2005-10-04T03:02:35Z

With the birth of DVD players came the popular concept of buying movies. People were always buying movies in small numbers, but people didn't really start buying their own movies in large numbers until the advent of the DVD player.

You see everyone bought DVD players because they were the latest thing, but you couldn't record anything on them. So people finally started buying movies in large numbers. I myself had begun amassing a decent sized collection of DVD movies. I might have continued this collection, but eventually I realized two very important facts related to collecting movies.

You see DVD movies cost between $10 and $25 to purchase. DVDs hold the advantages of having extra features, a smaller case, and the fact that they do not need to be rewound. The one big disadvantage they have is the fact that they are susceptible to scratching.

Meanwhile movies on VHS can be had for around $2 on the used market. They usually have no extra features, and must be rewound…

December 7, 2009 (idea)

2009-12-08T06:38:39Z

i wrote this in my head, only moments ago. already fleeting and leaving me a bit cold.

it rains tonight. it rains all day. and it feels to me almost as if the day never did break.

i enjoy the silence, the stillness, even in a gust of wind. moody, and somehow fresh.

it rains tonight, and somehow reminds me of who i am-- best alone, left with my thoughts.

i feel the overwhelms, and mostly my hands want to sing. to call out and make music. but mostly in my head.

it rains tonight. it somehow awakens pieces of me; past, present, future and undone. the lost pieces, the hidden ones-- there, right there, hiding in the places that never speak. except perchance between the lines.

i wrote this in my head tonight, as it tempted rain, and it came out quite perfectly.

for a moment.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (person)

2003-12-20T12:18:10Z

J.K. Rowling's first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, was written in a cafe as the author's daughter napped. Rowling, a lone mother, had been teaching to support herself and her child and battling depression; she set herself the task of completing this book she had started some years before, and rose to the challenge. She sold the end result to Bloomsbury, which published it in 1997, (the American publisher, Scholastic, issued it under the title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone the same year), and the book was a huge bestseller, capturing the imagination of tweens around the world. Rowling has gone from poverty to riches on the strength of the world she imagined and committed to paper.

This is the first of what will eventually be seven books about Harry Potter, each covering a year in his school life. Harry, when we first meet him, is ten. He is small for his age with round glasses and messy hair, and he has a distinctive lightning shaped scar…

Borders UK (idea)

2009-12-05T21:33:37Z

Borders (UK) Ltd was a United Kingdom bookshop chain that was in established in 1998, went into administration in 2009, and is very likely to disappear altogether in 2010.

Borders Inc is a US bookshop chain which began life in 1971 when Tom and Louis Borders opened their first bookstore in Ann Arbor, Michigan. From that beginning Borders Inc gradually expanded across the United States as it developed a successful superstore model as it built large bookstores that averaged 40,000 sq ft which featured various additional delights such as a coffee shop.

In 1997 the company decided to expand overseas and purchased Books etc. to give itself a foothold in the British book market. Founded in 1981 when Philip Joseph acquired four leases from the receiver of Words and Music, Books etc. was a small London based bookshop chain that had begun expanding outside the capital in the 1990s. However although Borders Inc intended continuing with Books etc. as a 'small format division,' its…

Schizoid Personality Disorder (idea)

2001-10-22T09:40:15Z

DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for schizoid personality disorder:

A. A pervasive pattern of detachment from social relationships and a restricted range of expression of emotions in interpersonal settings, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by four (or more) of the following: 1. neither desires nor enjoys close relationships, including being part of a family 2. almost always chooses solitary activities 3. has little, if any, interest in having sexual experiences with another person 4. takes pleasure in few, if any, activities 5. lacks close friends or confidants other than first-degree relatives 6. appears indifferent to the praise or criticism of others 7. shows emotional coldness, detachment, or flattened affectivity B. Does not occur exclusively during the course of Schizophrenia, a Mood Disorder With Psychotic Features, another Psychotic Disorder, or a…

Panic Disorder (thing)

2001-04-11T14:46:16Z

Current theory has it that panic disorder, instead of being a conditioned response or a cognitive feedback loop, is actually biological in origin. The idea is that the brain stem's respiratory control center is oversensitive to an excess of carbon dioxide, attributing it to a lack of oxygen. The respiratory control center interprets the excess as extremely serious, like you're drowning or otherwise completely deprived of oxygen, and sends the rest of the mind into panic mode. Perceptibly, it feels like something is terribly terribly wrong, but you are at a loss to figure out quite what that is.

Before this biological explanation, it was assumed that panic attacks came from cognitive feedback, like so: You feel your heart beat being a bit irregular, and are a little concerned about it. Your body senses your concern, and your metabolism speeds up, speeding up your heart. You sense your heart becoming even more irregular,…

The cathedrals that didn't fall down (idea)

2006-06-08T21:13:19Z

Today I will talk to you about the unique creative spark that burns within me and that separates us. But first, I have often wondered if God has wireless internet, and if his network is secure. What is the extent of God's wi-fi hot-spot? I have never used wireless Internet, and I have very little knowledge of wireless Internet. I have never had cause to use wireless Internet. I do not own a laptop. I do not work in the IT industry. I have read about wireless Internet but I do not use it, and I have very little knowledge of wireless Internet. I have very little knowledge of wireless Internet. I only have one computer and it does not move from place to place. My computer does not have built-in wireless Internet.

"all we see today, 800 years on, are the cathedrals that didn't fall down" ^[1]

I have been pondering this quote. I have been thinking about the impossibility of spontaneous expression. Especially in a literary context. Specifically, I have been…

The cathedrals that didn't fall down (idea)

2006-06-08T21:13:19Z

"all we see today, 800 years on, are the cathedrals that didn't fall down" ^[1]

I have been pondering this quote. I have been thinking about the impossibility of spontaneous expression. Especially in a literary context. Specifically, I have been…

comfort food (thing)

2005-01-20T11:38:29Z

I roasted and served a turkey. This left me with a carcass that was turned to a meaty broth. It smells wonderful, but I'm too tired to make a real soup. Sorting through the broth to take out all the bones. Cleaning and cutting the vegetables. Cooking a pot of noodles. I'm beyond tired. I'm limp with mental and physical exhaustion. And my throat hurts from talking too much and a little bit from a cold, I think.

I had so much fun in my weekend of debauchery and socializing, but I'm so wrung out that I'm not sure what to do with myself. It's taken me three days to clean the house, when it should have only taken me one. Particularly bad when you consider that noders are neat guests.

And, to make matters worse, I'm …

Galatea (thing)

2002-04-06T12:33:59Z

Galatea is a piece of Interactive Fiction (IF) written by Emily Short. It caused quite a stir when it came out in 2000, since it featured what was at the time, and arguably still is, the most believable non-player character (NPC) ever found in IF.

The "plot" of the piece, in so far as it exists, is very simple. You, an art critic, are at some future AI art show (where the exhibits are artificial intelligences), and you meet Galatea, one of the exhibits, and talk to her. That's it. This is no adventure game, this is a conversation simulator. And it does a bloody good job. You talk to Galatea using the standard ask/tell system - that is, you type >ask Galatea about {subject}, or >tell Galatea about {subject}, and she responds appropriately. Now, this is how NPCs have been implemented since the dawn of IF - but until Galatea, they were always very rudimentary. They tended to use a simple database look-up mechanism - you ask about {topic}, they look up {topic} in their database, and…

Last and First Men (review)

2009-12-08T15:18:58Z

This writeup is in part a response to Dennis Lehane by Bitriot. Because while I love his writing very much he could not be more wrong.

"Such, in brief, was the physical and mental nature of the third human species. In spite of innumerable distractions, the spirit of the Third Men kept on returning to follow up the thread through a thousand variegated cultures. Again and again folk after folk would clamber out of savagery and barbarism into relative enlightenment...

Again and again, then at intervals of a few hundred thousand years, man's whim was imposed upon the fauna and flora of the earth, and at length dedicated to the task of remaking man himself. Again and again, through a diversity of causes, the effort collapsed, and the species sank once more into chaos."

Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon was published by Methuen in 1930. Stapledon, a northern England native,…

Borders UK (idea)

2009-12-05T21:33:37Z

Borders (UK) Ltd was a United Kingdom bookshop chain that was in established in 1998, went into administration in 2009, and is very likely to disappear altogether in 2010.

plus fours (thing)

2009-12-08T22:02:32Z

Plus fours are a type of short trousers that extend four inches below the knee (hence the name). While short pants have been worn in Europe for centuries, plus fours came into fashion amongst the athletes of England in the early 1920s, who needed leggings that wouldn't get caught on protrusions or catch in bicycle gears, but that would still look spiffy. The plus fours were most likely a compromise between long shorts, which were typically worn by children, and full-length trousers, worn by adults.

Plus fours were the most popular of the fashionably short trousers, but plus twos, plus sixes, and plus eights were also common. Today any of these will likely be called plus fours, because, quite frankly, nobody cares. Plus fours are often made of tweed or tartan, and while they are not formal wear they are by no means shabby dress, and were often worn as casual wear by the upper class, including the royal family.

Over time plus fours became associated with…

E2 Secret Santa 2009 (event)

2009-10-18T17:16:06Z

I have obviously lost my mind again, so I herewith present the semi-pro last-minute production of

E2SS2K9

ta-DAH!!

(Blatantly recycled) Rules

Sign-ups will be open from October 18, 2009 through November 7, 2009. Everyone will be assigned on November 12, 2009.
You must send out your gift by December 9, 2009 (and tell me about it) or else a backup will be assigned and you will be added to the non-senders list.
There is no limit on spending. We have had some really neat items sent in the past. Homemade stuff is by far the coolest.
Nobody got the super sekrit good luck bearing gift last year (yet again... *sigh*), so it's back out on the block.
The usergroup created for

…

Quantum entanglement (idea)

2002-11-21T15:56:25Z

Quantum entanglement is the curious property of subatomic particles which means that two or more particles which have interacted in the past exhibit surprisingly strong correlations when various measurements are made on them. The exact nature of these correlations has been the source of a huge amount of debate in physics-philosophy circles, although quantum physicists have generally been quite happy to work with them on a practical level where necessary without worrying too much about what might actually be going on. It looks, superficially at least, as if the correlations observed must be the result of the particles exchanging information with each other faster than light, which any physicist or science fiction fan will tell you is equivalent to information being sent back in time.

However, it remains a matter for debate whether any information exchange is really taking place. You see, the nature of the connections is such that in practice it is quite impossible to send any…

quantum non-locality (idea)

2002-06-23T11:47:26Z

Albert Einstein, with his students Nathan Rosen and Boris Podolsky, were the first to point out that the mathematics of quantum mechanics entails apparent non-local connections, what would later become known as quantum entanglement. They used these connections to argue that the quantum theory must be incomplete. In an article known as the EPR paper, published in 1935, they pointed out that by making a measurement of the momentum of one particle, it is possible to accurately gauge the momentum of another with which it has previously interacted, however far away the second particle may be, as long as it has not interacted with anything else since. Now, this leads to a problem: standard quantum theory asserts that a particle does not have a definite momentum until it is measured, so something has to give here; Either this assertion is incorrect, and the second particle does in fact have a definite…

The Big Bang Theory (thing)

2008-11-26T00:34:23Z

Synopsis

The Big Bang Theory is an entertaining sitcom revolving around two nerdy roommates, their nerdy friends and their hot next door neighbour. The show is written by same guys that also write for Two-and-a-half Men and Gilmore Girls and is currently aired weekly on CBS. It is currently running its second season.

I'd say the show is somewhat of a geeky mixture between Seinfeld and Two and a half men, so if that seems up your alley, give it a shot. I guess the show has an appeal to real-life geeks and nerds like you and me as it both gives us recognizable situations and people to look down upon as being much bigger nerds than we are.

Characters

The show's main characters are Leonard and Sheldon, who both work as a physicist at Caltech. The jokes are mainly built upon their absurd tendency to categorize and analyze everything they see and do and the…