Everything2 Cool Archive

She wasn't connected to the earth the way the rest of us are (dream)

2012-02-09T22:18:51Z

Robin goes out and has adventures all the time. She was on top of Mount Olympus with an acoustic guitar, she wrote me letters in Arizona. She said, on a phone rooted in the sand, the ocean is orange, (she said that in California). Then she was in Spain, her bracelets moving in the wind of a window of a blue car on a road stretching North from Malaga. Robin goes to Tokyo where she is the most beautiful person in a crowd of a million people.

She's saving up her money to go to space on a spaceship. She stopped to be with me in Philadelphia (she was passing through). I was busy staring at her thighs (I don't get to see them often). She was looking around the yard we were in, noticing that everything was concrete, but there was grass upsticking, and we had a view of the skyscrapers beyond, and the small stream and fountain built in the yard was pretty for her too.

…

The White Butterfly (idea)

2000-07-15T11:42:53Z

This is an old Japanese folk tale. This version is from F. Hadland Davis, Myths and Legends of Japan London: G. G. Harrap and Company, 1913.

An old man named Takahama lived in a little house behind the cemetery of the temple of Sozanji. He was extremely amiable and generally liked by his neighbors, though most of them considered him to be a little mad. His madness, it would appear, entirely rested upon the fact that he had never married or evinced desire for intimate companionship with women.

One summer day he became very ill, so ill, in fact, that he sent for his sister-in-law and her son. They both came and did all they could to bring comfort during his last hours. While they watched, Takahama fell asleep; but he had no sooner done so than a large white butterfly flew into the room and rested on the old man's pillow. The young man tried to drive it away with a fan; but it came back three times, as if loath to leave the sufferer.

At last Takahama's nephew chased it…

Hints for bachelors expecting a visit from an intimate lady friend (idea)

2002-09-06T19:15:14Z

Note: the examples mentioned here are purely hypothetical and are not, I repeat not, taken from real life. Any resemblance to the behaviors of people I may have slept with in recent months is completely coincidental. Really. Would I write vicious humor about one of my exes? Surely you know me better than that.

Before the Visit

When making plans for her visit to you, compassion, respect, and good manners should always be present in your mind. Let us say, for example, that during her visit the two of you will be attending a conference together, and other ladies whose intimate acquaintance you crave are likely to be there. There are many ways of dealing with the potential complications of such a visit, and some of them are much less abrasive than others. For example:

She says: "Since we are to share a hotel room at this conference, I would appreciate it if, should you meet another lady you wish to be intimate with,

…

She wasn't connected to the earth the way the rest of us are (dream)

2012-02-09T22:18:51Z

Robin goes out and has adventures all the time. She was on top of Mount Olympus with an acoustic guitar, she wrote me letters in Arizona. She said, on a phone rooted in the sand, the ocean is orange, (she said that in California). Then she was in Spain, her bracelets moving in the wind of a window of a blue car on a road stretching North from Malaga. Robin goes to Tokyo where she is the most beautiful person in a crowd of a million people.

She's saving up her money to go to space on a spaceship. She stopped to be with me in Philadelphia (she was passing through). I was busy staring at her thighs (I don't get to see them often). She was looking around the yard we were in, noticing that everything was concrete, but there was grass upsticking, and we had a view of the skyscrapers beyond, and the small stream and fountain built in the yard was pretty for her too.

…

Hoodoo of limited efficacy (a love story) (fiction)

2008-03-20T21:27:49Z

Spell to know a man's heart

Gut a live parrot. Dry its heart and tongue. Powder the organs with a mortar and pestle. Add strands of the man's hair. Add a small amount of alcohol. The mixture should be a slightly moist paste. Make nine piles from the paste. Intone your given name and set the piles on fire one at a time. A green flame means he loves you, yellow he does not. No flame means he loves another.

Spell to know the name of a woman's lover

Collect a piece of her underwear. " class='populated' >Write his name on it. Bury it nine feet underground and perform a funeral rite. Go to her house and knock on her door. When she answers the door, scream his name. If she cries, she is his lover. If she is angry, she is not.

Spell to cause death

Spoil vinegar, chicken hearts, and red pepper and put them in separate clay pots. Keep these pots in darkness. Curse them for nine mornings. Go…

Supergun (thing)

2003-06-16T23:20:25Z

Supergun

A Supergun is a generic term for any piece of artillery which is designed to radically outperform the current state of the art. In specifics, it is usually used to refer to the designs of Gerald Bull, as chronicled in his node and in the HBO movie named, appropriately, Supergun. It should be noted, however, that they were not his idea; rather, he espoused using them for space launch and other 'eclectic' uses, and he performed a great deal of physics, metallurgical, ballistics and aerodynamics research towards their construction. In so doing, he popularised the notion of the 'supergun' to the point where laymen can point to made-for-TV movies and say 'oh, sure, a supergun.'

In general, these days, a supergun is a projectile weapon designed to use a long barrel and (usually) 'pumping' auxiliary firing chambers to accelerate a projectile to velocities unachievable by a single propellant charge.

For any single-charge projectile weapon…

Laura Bridgman (person)

2002-03-26T05:48:39Z

What made Howe's work easier was the unsung work of Laura's mom (who tended towards gentler methods) and a farm hand named Tim, who was considered slightly mentally deficient, but was patient and kind enough to be a playmate to Laura. By using different touches for "yes" and "no", she was able to teach Laura to yes, set the table, but also how to knit, as well as other household tasks; Tim taught her how to gather eggs from the hens (which among other things involved identifying spoiled eggs from their shells and leaving one egg per nest to keep the hens "broody").

Astute observers of Laura as a celebrity found her somewhat creepy. (Though her younger fans, who poked out the eyes of their dolls, were, as always, a close second.) The disease that had deprived her of her sight had, additionally, enucleated her : covering the empty eye sockets with a mask of green ribbon gave her a somewhat eerie appearence. She seldom smiled, and her inability to respond to others'…

bated breath (idea)

2007-02-15T17:24:34Z

God bless the English language for its pandemic use of the homophone. Especially for those attempting to master this most difficult of languages, the addition of words deciphered through context alone must be the reason they get up in the morning. And of course the pun-tastic nature of the homophone is why I get up in the morning. But let's turn to the native speaker's use (and difficulty with) the homophone.

Every writer is aware of they're, their, and there as well as to, too, and two. They're often a cringe-worthy addition to an otherwise well written piece. If you claim never to have made a mistake because of a homophone then you are a liar in addition to be being a bad writer. Just kidding, calm down. The example bated breath is so often misused as baited breath that even good editors can miss the error. Of course if one thinks about it... what exactly is baited breath? If a cat waits with baited breath…

Childhood obesity (thing)

2012-02-09T16:23:21Z

Let me preface this by saying that some of this is personal opinion and some of it is fact. Why don't we start at the beginning?

Personal opinion

I'm probably gonna date myself here a bit but back when I was growing up there was a certain disdain in the borgo household for fast food. Sure, every now and then we'd order us out some Chinese or have a pizza delivered as a treat but that was usually done from local proprietors rather than some innocuous chain of restaurants. I guess my parents just felt safer knowing who was cooking their food and supporting a local business rather than shelling out their hard earned money to some major corporation.

I grew up long before the advent of video games and hand held devices that would allow me to keep in contact with my friends on a constant basis. I'm old to enough to remember when you had to actually get up to change the channel on the tv set when there were only about five channels to choose…

The sluttiest girl scout always sells the most cookies (idea)

2001-01-08T03:04:49Z

Ding-Dong!

"Yes?"

"Hey, baby. Wanna buy some Girl Scout cookies?"

"Um. Aren't you a bit old to be a Girl Scout?"

"I ain't had no complaints yet, big boy. So you want some cookies?"

"Well, I don't know. I've been trying to watch my weight..."

"Oh, come on. You ain't that heavy."

"No, really, I think I'll have to pass--"

"Hey, you seem kinda tense, don't ya?"

"Tense? No, not particularly..."

"Yeah, your muscles are all knotted, I can tell. Here, sit down over here, and I'll give you a backrub, 'kay?"

"What? No, listen, you can't just barge into my house and--"

"Hush, baby. Here, how's this feel?"

"Hey, I don't -- oww! Hey, that really feels pretty good, ya know?"

"Yeah, I know. That's just what your neighbor said, too."

"Mr. Wallace? Did you -- Oww! -- give him a backrub, too?"

"Oh, you bet. He bought 140 boxes of cookies, too."

"A -- A hundred and forty boxes of cookies?!?"

"All Samoas. Damnedest thing."

"Whatever possessed…

A Prayer to Afflict the Comfortable (idea)

2002-11-22T18:13:22Z

Also known by the longer title: "A Prayer to Afflict the Comfortable with as Many Afflictions as Possible." From Michael Moore's book Stupid White Men (published in 2001 by ReganBooks/HarperCollins, ISBN: 0-06-039245-2).

In Chapter 11 (entitled "The People's Prayer"), Moore points out that broad social change, when it comes to scientific discovery (or, specifically, the federal funding of said scientific discoveries), often comes only at the expense of someone in power. For example: George W. Bush and the Republican Party had consistently claimed that a fetus was an unborn human being and that, therefore, scientific studies involving stem cell research were immoral and unethical. Republicans stuck to this claim until a high-visibility politician from within their own ranks (Ronald Regan) came down with Alzheimer's, a disease that many believe…

ontological argument (idea)

2000-03-12T07:00:17Z

Predicate?

One flaw we can poke at the ontological argument is that it treats existence as a predicate. It is not. It differs subtly from stuff like being red.

In fact, "existence" is never a predicate. Certainly not in mathematical logic or other modal logics or formal logics. There, it even has different syntax from a predicate: you say "x is red", but you cannot say "there exists an x", only "there exists an x such that x is a red lycanthrope".

Closer syntactic examination of typical ontological arguments reveals that in fact the "predicate" being used has the form "there exists an x such that P(x)", for various predicates P. Call this "meta-"predicate O: O(P) (a predicate on predicates!) means that P is satisfiable. The argument aims to show that if G(x) is the predicate "x is God", then O(G). Note how we've left the realm of first order logic without noticing it -- a…

Beethoven's autopsy (idea)

2004-09-24T06:21:19Z

This evidence suggests that Beethoven died of complications resulting from renal papillary necrosis, more commonly known as kidney failure. A common cause of papillary necrosis is diabetes, but Beethoven did not suffer from that condition to our knowledge. Other common causes include hypertension or analgesic nephropathy, which is essentially a fancy term for abusive overuse of painkillers. Beethoven also clearly had severe cirrhosis of the liver, a condition which is comorbid with papillary necrosis (the cirrhosis was likely due to Beethoven's known alcohol abuse, and possibly also hepatitis).

Beethoven was known to suffer from a variety of aches and pains late in his life, and seems to have had a fondness for painkillers. One of the commonly used painkillers at the time was salicin (dried, powdered willow bark - an early form of aspirin), which has been shown to cause papillary necrosis if taken in large amounts. It is fair to say then, that in the absence of any other…

Editor Log: February 2012 (log)

2012-02-09T05:58:09Z

Once again it is cloudy but above freezing here in the American Midwest. It appears that North America is winning the Cold War seeing that everything from Heathrow to Tripoli is covered in snow while I can take the trash out in a t-shirt.

TRIGGER WARNING: HEATED ARGUMENT

Aerobe is a senior staffer and it's within her authority to invent and set up trials of novel features. The question that we must answer as E2 administrators is whether we can and whether we should go along with her proposal. Aerobe and I have both listened to (and sometimes argued with) members of the public, while at the same time other staffers were adding their input behind the scenes. We think that this suggestion can be made viable.

I can defend the idea behind trigger warnings, no problem. As a proof of concept it's socially responsible and inviting to certain members of the anonymous readership and to prospective members. I do have to question the usefulness and policy impact of the method used. As…

Resolve C++ (thing)

2012-02-09T18:04:56Z

Hi there! I'm an instructor with OSU's CSE department. Let me see if I can clarify some things.

The "Resolve" language isn't actually what students at OSU use. It's a language used for research purposes that undergrads never actually see (it looks quite different from what they use). Until Summer 2012, when we switch to Java, students use something called Resolve/C++, which is really just C++ with a bunch of stuff added onto it. The primary purpose of this extra "stuff" is to protect students from pointer errors, while still allowing them to manipulate objects without copying. This allows us to teach them complicated concepts (like client-based binary search tree algorithms that involve a tree object swapping itself with a subtree) without exposing them to aliasing and dereferencing errors. The utility of this approach is it greatly speeds up how fast we can teach them these sorts of concepts, until we're ready to actually get to pointers and linked lists.

The use of Resolve/C++…

Childhood obesity (thing)

2012-02-09T16:23:21Z

Let me preface this by saying that some of this is personal opinion and some of it is fact. Why don't we start at the beginning?

Personal opinion

Anger, Rumi and Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor (essay)

2012-02-08T16:20:38Z

I am reading Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor's book My Stroke of Insight. She is a neuroscientist who had a hemorrhagic stroke in her 30s and then recovered her brain function over 8 years. The book is brilliant and so is she. See her TED talk on YouTube if you can. I've only read part of it so far, but what she writes about the brain and emotion resonates with me. And I think she agrees with Rumi.

This Rumi poem is the map for how I try to approach emotion:

The Guest House

Darling, the body is like a guest house;
every morning someone new arrives.
Don't say, "O, another weight around my neck!"
or your guest will fly back to nothingness.
Whatever enters your heart is a guest
from the…

objective introspection (idea)

2001-03-11T05:34:59Z

He looks at me from behind a cup of coffee, across the table from me at a booth in our favorite diner. "What amazes me, dear, is that you can be so good at objective introspection; that you make such a careful, critical analysis of yourself, clearly identifying the disaster looming up ahead of you ... and you still head right for it.

"It's like a train wreck you see coming miles away, but you're paralyzed and stay on the tracks."

Truth when you least expect it is a suckerpunch unlike any other.

And who said I can't take criticism well?

... Oh right, it was me, and that piece of introspection apparently didn't help me much either.

"Well ... well, yes. I do, but ... "

This is how I am. I spend my life thinking about tomorrow and the ways I can make myself a bit more the person I want to be. I forget that no one gets to do things under perfect circumstances, and that sooner or later I have to lift my head and give life a shot whether I'm ready…

Fireball (thing)

2012-02-09T02:31:09Z

A long, long time ago, before most Everythingians were even born (ca. 1976), pinball machines were still electromechanical. Real bells clanged, real thwack sounds when a game was won. Adolescent reflexes allowed mastering a game well enough to dominate a machine (and sell the accumulated games for more than the quarter it cost to play).

We played at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, on the Jersey shore. We fell in love with each other, ourselves, and the ocean. Play the silver ball, sell a few games, wander waist deep into the creamy night waves, kissing whoever wandered in with you.

Now and again, you entered the zone. Thwack, thwack, thwack! The game counter grew, the crowd swelled, and you were oblivious, except for the occasional glance at the woman you loved, and would eventually marry. (No matter what I do now--succor the afflicted, sit on the Supreme Court, take a bullet for humanity--I cannot…

Fireball (thing)

2012-02-09T02:31:09Z

Editor Log: February 2012 (log)

2012-02-09T05:58:09Z

TRIGGER WARNING: HEATED ARGUMENT

arithmetic coding (thing)

2012-02-09T05:33:49Z

Let's delve a little deeper, shall we?

It will help if you first read the node on Huffman coding and understand the motivation behind it. (Also take a gander at the node on statistical compression.) Our basic situation is this: There are two parties, a sender and a receiver. The sender wishes to transmit a file to the receiver as quickly as possible. Since network transmissions are (typically) much slower than calculations that occur inside the machine, the sender will want to compress the file first. When the receiver gets the compressed file, he will then decompress it on his end. To make this exchange, the sender needs a compression program (an encoder) and the receiver needs a decompression program (a decoder). Typically the encoder and decoder are written together, and they are designed to understand the same format — when the decoder is run on an encoded file, the original file is the result. You have doubtless heard of some compression formats: ZIP files are…

Mouth like Bechet (idea)

2005-05-31T07:30:16Z

So i drink a lot, right? sure you do too. drink's what we got on this odd earth. we got smoke, we got drink, we got eat, what we do with our mouth, what goes in it, but mostly: we drink. it's good to drink, the way beer always smells old even though it's lived less than you, and the way liquor smells like it's going to burn a hole into you.

This one time we were drinking, you'd want to hear about it. we threw a party. we always throw parties, see. a friend of ours owned an apartment not far off campus, and he was a man, the guy who bought us beer. eric and jason and matt and tony and marcus and greg (our man) and i threw them all the time. say every wednesday, and damn near every satuday. they pulled in cash, too, but that never lasted as we were always putting something in our mouths.

So this one time, before wednesday night rolled around we decided a keg was good, and the everclear we procured was spectacular, and mixed

…

Brooklyn Lunchtime: Vito Martelli's Elixir Vitae and the Labor of Love (personal)

2003-08-11T05:03:42Z

See, I certainly didn't intend to achieve nirvana that afternoon. No; this was merely to be an errand, one of those things we have to do on a hot, hot Saturday in New York City. A friend I've known forever (well, since we were two, I suppose) was getting married. His lovely fiancee and he lived in Outer Brooklyn (to us Manhattanites) which meant they'd found a place just up the street to rent the tuxes for the wedding party. I, myself, ended up in said party. So the Saturday before the wedding, off I went to get my rotund self measured.

After the ritualistic poking with the tape measure was complete (along with the bonus Selection Of Rental Cufflinks and the ever-popular What Pant Size Are We Today?) I headed back out into the muggy Brooklyn air, determined to have some sort of lunch despite the heat. Across the street (practically) was a completely typical pizza parlor, complete with pies congealing under the front glass counter…

Brooklyn Lunchtime: Vito Martelli's Elixir Vitae and the Labor of Love (personal)

2003-08-11T05:03:42Z