| From the makers of Turbo Sleepytime Tea - now with caffeine to speed you to sleep! |
[Jul. 8th, 2008|01:04 pm] |
Just over a month after my dental work, I've been having moderate-to-severe pain in all the places they used local on my mouth. At first I freaked out in the way that people live alone without health insurance sometimes do, imagining some horrible infection from the crown that would have me wake up with red streaks on my face as I go mad and die from some brain-boiling-thing. That didn't happen. Instead it appears to just be the normal healing process after anethstetics so it's just some friendly tissue trauma to be endured. Which is amazingly painful when it flares up every few hours. But no signs of infection or even inflammation. Like they say in golf, I'll just have to play through.
The 4th went just fine - I stayed in, not wanting to brave traffic and instead used my hillside vantage to watch the local fireworks. Then I went back inside and continued drinking whilst celebrating the courage of the founding fathers who as the teacher from Dazed and Confused put it: "Remember what you're celebrating - a bunch of rich, white slaveowners who didn't want to pay their taxes." It was a good idea then and it's a good idea now. The not paying taxes thing, that is. Slavery should be purely recreational.
Residents of hamlet portrayed as run-down, backwoods dump pelt visitors with rocks. Welcome to Oniontown USA. Clearly these people need a visit from Sacha Baron Cohen.
On Creationists: Also, I love how they keep bringing up Pascal's Wager, which in the Atheist MMO will be the rats you have to kill to become level 2. |
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| The Democratic Platform: Open for Debate (In theory) |
[Jul. 8th, 2008|03:01 pm] |
So, being an Obamaton and all, I get emails from the Obama campaign, and I usually read them, and then go about my day. (It is like Kool Aid, You don't want to drink it all at once... or you'll die)
Anyhow, today, I got an email from the Obamanator himself, telling me that he is opening the Democratic Platform to Public debate.
Here is from the letter:
"For two weeks in July, people all across America will hold Platform Meetings in their own communities to discuss the issues and share their input. The outcome of these meetings will be reviewed by the Drafting Committee as it creates the final Platform."
Now, in all seriousness. I understand that these "discussions" will not lead to any real shift in Democratic thought. Clansman can't suggest that the Platform contains Only Hillary Clinton quotes, and it will be so. I also understand that there will be selected, filtered comments and participation that will be accepted (if it is in line with the Democratic Party's agreed apon platform) to be shown as "people's involvement.
But what is involving the electorate, or percieved involvement, that will cause a stir with the voters. The involved would jump at the chance of this, and the result, though may not be to their liking, can feel in some small way involved in a huge campaign.
It is another very shrewd and very saavy move on the campaign's part.
But now... the real question... If YOU could help reshape the Democratic Party's platform... and they would actually LISTEN to you... what would you put as a Plank in the Party's platform.
Then maybe we can Vote on the suggestions and ideas... and creat a Politicsforum Platform for the 2008 Election.
That could be fun!
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[Jul. 8th, 2008|02:48 pm] |
She is clarity.
Hearing the truth,
she is like a lake,
pure and tranquil and deep.
Want nothing.
Where there is desire,
say nothing.
Happiness or sorrow,
whatever befalls you,
walk on untouched.
- Buddha in the Dhammapada |
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[Jul. 9th, 2008|03:56 am] |
3The Encyclopedia of Things That Never Were...
1The Complete Chronicles of Narnia...
2Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass...
4The Little Prince
5Jonathan Livingston Seagull
4Lady Sovereign/
1Mew/
3Firesuite/
2Cocteau Twins/Elizabeth Fraser collaborations/
5Sufjan Stevens/ |
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[Jul. 8th, 2008|09:44 am] |
Paul Ehrlich on Cultural Evoution
This is a great article, because it contains important messages about the sheer power and complexity of culture. It's also properly dismissive of a simple mapping of the Darwinian/Mendelian model to cultural studies.
However, there is a deeper problem here: the article retains its faith that straightforward empirical science can explain and predict cultural change. Well, there is a field that has been trying to do this for centuries, now: it's called sociology.
(And before we get dismissive of this so-called "soft" science, we good Darwinophiles should remember that without the sociologist Malthus, there would have been no Darwin.)
Sociological theories run into extraordinary difficulties when they try to achieve the kind of predictive power that Erlich is after. To wit: the problem of reflexivity and the problem of causality.
It stands to reason that the solution to these problems might come from the most effective sociologist who ever lived:
Hitherto philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point however is to change it. -Karl Marx
Culture does not readily submit to simple description. That is the lesson of reflexivity and causality in the social sciences. Rather, it is a field of opportunity, waiting for powerful thoughts to infect and change it. Here, we see the limits of purely descriptive science, where pure prediction ends and the ethical begins. Truly great people develop an ethical worldview and then impose it on the cultural field. Think here not only of Marx, but Gandhi, MLK, Nietzsche, Voltaire and Stalin.
Yes, Stalin. A lesson here is that while we're all scurrying around the intellectual Science Fair wearing our Darwin-hats, people like Stalin are developing and imposing their own vision on culture. |
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[Jul. 8th, 2008|12:32 pm] |
When someone just asked me the number of blank ID badges I had readily avaliable, I told them without a hint of irony that I had about a score. It took me about a half beat to realize what I had said, and ammended it to "twenty...'bout twenty" just as they were opening their mouths and looking at me oddly.
The thing is, I wasn't trying to be funny, and it's not a case of using an expression-de-jour to the point of it slipping out in less appropriate instances. I wonder how many times in my life I've unconsciously used the word? Ten times, maybe? In trying now to remember exactly what sequence of words I spoke, the best I can figure is that "score" better fit the cadence of the sentence.
Which makes me marvel at the weird wild mechanisms that are our brains.
And just reinforces that I'm a little bit of a weirdo.
:D |
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[Jul. 9th, 2008|02:21 am] |
5The New World,
6Transamerica,
10Romy and Michele's High School Reunion,
8Marie Antoinette,
4Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds,
3Only Yesterday,
7The Passion of Joan of Arc,
2Closer,
9Den Osynlige,
1Take Care of My Cat, |
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| Grad school questions |
[Jul. 8th, 2008|09:20 am] |
Okay, hi. I'm looking at putting together an application for graduate school for the fall (yes, I know, it's really late, the department said they'd still consider an application). I have many questions which I hope you all may be able to give me some perspective on.
( Cut to save your friends page ) |
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| Unrelenting joy |
[Jul. 8th, 2008|08:13 am] |
Well, I was pretty freakin' drunk, so the fine points eluded me, but the show at The Showbox was by far the best time I've had in a while. I finagled my way backstage to see Unks, even though I had no pass. Then I lost my cell phone. Since I was drunk enough that I actually had the balls to talk to people and ask about the cell phone, I ended up the beneficiary of divine goodwill, and got it back.
Anyways, hubby is the best hubby in the world. He got the job at U.W. So now I get to spend a lot more time drunkenly harassing Unkie, and playing music. In theory, at least. |
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| World series |
[Jul. 8th, 2008|10:31 am] |
And to think I always thought this was convergent. Damn.
UPDATE: Better do this to avoid division by zero...
And define the sequence to be zero for y=1904 and 1994. |
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| Unintended consequences. |
[Jul. 8th, 2008|09:17 am] |
One of the unfortunate developments to come out of popular science fiction is the tendency for people to use the word "illogical" as a synonym for "bad" or "undesirable". The way Spock talks really has nothing to do with logic per se, and everything to do with the value judgments of his character and culture.
So you end up talking to someone who says that jumping off a ten-story building is illogical.
No, you see... well, that would depend upon why you're jumping off the ten-story building in the first place. If you valued your life and did not want to die, jumping off a ten-story building would be quite illogical- as determined by the fact of your will and value judgments.
However, if I wanted to die, jumping off a ten-story building would be quite logical indeed.
So the conversation reduces to a meta-discussion about the logical merit of suicidal tendencies, which is itself just another moral value claim.
To end my rambling, "logic" is horribly abused and I blame Gene Roddenberry. |
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| What is a philtrum? |
[Jul. 8th, 2008|09:53 am] |
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The philtrum is the midline groove in the upper lip that runs from the top of the lip to the nose. The way the philtrum appears is determined genetically. In some syndromes this grove is shortened.
source |
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