Everything2 New Writeups

the maps are wrong (essay)

2009-12-24T00:32:57Z

After reaching my thirties, and looking back over my life to the people and places I once knew, I got the urge to excavate some of those past crypts of memory. Late one night in lachrymose enthusiasm, I taped off the area to excavate like a skilled archaeologist and using the current tool of choice for digging up one's past, I logged onto Myspace. Perhaps you haven't heard of Myspace, and perhaps you've also been living under a rock on Tristan da Cunha. (I'm convinced even the teens from the tribes of the most uncivilized parts of the world have Myspace pages. Let's imagine that for a moment, if you will: raucous tribal music, earthy layouts full of ancient symbolism, an adopted "monkey" and pictures of long-breasted women sporting the latest style of plate lip. Ah, the imagination boggles at the decorative diversity of these equal opportunity World Wide Web real estate plots.)

So, in honest pursuit of finding physical evidence of those recollections and people I held so dear in my…

mod wheel (thing)

2009-12-24T00:19:00Z

The first all-in-one, hardwired synthesiser with a built-in keyboard was the Minimoog, designed by Bill Hemsath and Robert Moog and released by Moog Music in 1971. It's hard to say how much of its design was carefully considered, and how much was arbitrary. Regardless, other companies -- including the Japanese trio Yamaha, Korg and Roland -- soon started to imitate the Minimoog's placing of elements as well as its sonic features. Ever since, almost every synthesiser produced has taken the form of an all-in-one product that has a prominent keyboard at the front, with two partially visible wheels to its left, and an array of knobs or sliders behind it that seems designed to intimidate the newcomer to the world of synthesis.

While the knobs or sliders can be used to intricately craft subtle nuances of the synthesiser's sound in painstaking ways, the two wheels to the immediate left of the keyboard are kept close to the…

Very Bad Santa (person)

2009-12-23T19:28:35Z

It has been suggested that Santa Claus, or Father Christmas as he is known in the land of the sane, is Very Bad Indeed. At least according to one Dr Nathan Grills from the Department of Epidemiology and Preventative Medicine at Monash University in Australia who has carried out a "review of literature and web-based material" in order to "assess Santa's potential negative impact on public health".

Initially it seems that Dr Grills sought to establish how well known this Santa was amongst the community. Apparently Dr Grills's investigations revealed a "very high Santa awareness among children", whilst he made reference to a recent study amongst (presumably Australian) "hospital inpatients" which had concluded that "awareness of Santa was near universal". Having thus demonstrated that the Vicar of Rome was indeed a Catholic, he then considered to the potential negative effects such a widespread fame might have on the population.

The tradition of leaving out a glass of…

Suicide in Scandinavia (essay)

2009-12-23T18:40:15Z

A few days ago, the journal "Science" published a report claiming to make an objective list of the United States by happiness. Actually, what the report did was claim that objective criteria of happiness would match up with people's subjective self-reporting of happiness. The actual news paper might have gone into more detail than this, but once a Top Ten list of happy states was released, the national press had a field day with it. I myself was less impressed with it, and by doing a scatterplot of the list of happy states, and suicide rates, I found out that the "unhappiest" states have the lowest suicide rates.

I read a New York Times article about the study, which was of course relevant to the Times, since New York State was, allegedly, the unhappiest state. I mentioned to the author that it seems like a curious conclusion that the "Unhappiest" state would also have the lowest suicide rate. He agreed with me mostly, but also pointed out that some very…

SciFiQuest 2010: Odyssey Two (event)

2009-12-23T15:52:40Z

SciFiQuest 2010 will occupy the entirety of
Month One Of The Future: 00:00:00 January 1, 2010 to 00:00:00 February 1, 2010

No, we do not care about GP. That's an imaginary number in an imaginary database - Monopoly money, like Danish kroner and U.S. dollars. Here is what you get for contributing to SciFiQuest in our post-scarcity post-capitalist post-cyberpunk post-environment post-future: exposure. You get your name and the name of the thing you wrote stuck on the front page of Everything Two Dot Com, a site of enviable PageRank and surprising visibility. People will see your thing and read it and they may vote on it and they may C! it and they may bestow Editorial Coolness. They will click the "I Like This!" button. Join Me Or Die. Can You Do Any Less?

The aliens have arrived, and their ravenous hunger can be sated by only one thing: stories. This Is A Parable About The…

December 23, 2009 (thing)

2009-12-23T08:14:52Z

I blame a crappy day at work, and omnipresent holiday music. Hearing "it's the most wonderful time of the year" for the zillionth time, and muttering under my breath "no it's not the most wonderful time, it's the most harrowing time!" led to this.

It's the most harrowing time of the year,
Behind the cash register,
We're getting edgier,
Black Friday's here,
It's the most harrowing time of the year.

It's the worst retail job season of all,
We've got loud shrieking children,
And problems with billing,
And lines down the hall!
It's the worst retail job season of all.

There'll be discount demanders,
Customers sans manners,
And squabbling families all day.
There'll be creeps making passes,
And rude yelling asses,
All shoving folks out of their way.

It's the most harrowing time of the year.
Some shoplifting amateur
Fights with the manager.
The cops should be here!
It's the…

Why is it bad to make gays bishops, but okay to kill them? (essay)

2009-12-23T07:39:05Z

I'm a member of the Episcopal Church in the USA (TEC), so I'm of the Christian brand called Anglican. I guess it's even official, since TEC is the only church in the United States that is also a constituent member of the Anglican Communion (AC). The AC is a rather loose group of churches and peoples who share a common liturgy, usually pretend to be fond of each other, and consider the Archbishop of Canterbury as their titular leader and spokesperson. Of course, there are many people who call themselves Anglican, and even fuss over who is a Real Anglican. This isn't anything new; just ask anyone who's active in the Church of England. We have a rich and contentious history.

If you've been skimming the news in recent years, you might have picked up that TEC is having some internal struggles about accepting openly gay, lesbian and transgendered (LGBT) people in our church. Yes, they're everywhere now, and…

Spontaneous Benediction (person)

2009-12-23T06:25:37Z

A completely true story:

I was at my university, walking from class back to my room. It was 10:30 at night. There weren't very many people out. The air was misty, so every streetlight had a large, bright halo. Quite a lovely evening.

As I neared the place where I had to turn off of the main road and take the smaller path to my dormitory, I saw four people standing on the corner in a circle, holding hands. Four young men about my age, seemingly completely sober, holding hands in a circle. "What are you doing?" I asked, as affably as I could. I was very curious.

"Well, we're each headed toward different parts of campus, so we're bidding farewell to one another for the evening," said one. "You can stand in the middle!" said another. Honestly, they were not drunk.

I ducked under their arms and stood in the center. They seemed as though they would appreciate a bit of added theatrics, so I raised my…

Pyjama New Year (poetry)

2009-12-23T06:09:30Z

'Til now, you know, I've never been a pyjama man.
A tee shirt, old pants, that'd be more like me.
But these that you bought me, you know, I quite like them. They're
kind of like ones that Clouseau might wear.

If things had worked out, we'd drink tea in the mornings.
Reading in bed together, there in your big town house.
Thinking about walks, down in the city park.
Maybe we'd have owned, been owned by, a dog.

But somehow it still feels like a road never taken.
A life for some other man, but not for me.
Even though I suspect that the door is half-open,
I'm still copping out, with 'Let be what will be'.

But you know, when I see you, there's still something there.
It's a strong feeling, it won't go away.
You are quite remarkable, you're one in a million.
And we didn't end badly - a civilised, delightful
affair, to remember, to savour, in fact -
But never to cling on, long past the moment.
We cannot deny all…

DEAR LEADER (person)

2009-12-22T22:19:47Z

I r e m e m b e r t h e f i r s t t i m e I s a w DEAR LEADER. M y f a t h e r t o o k u s o n t h e o l d b r o k e n d o w n m a g l e v i n t o t…

Because I love you ( in 65 words) (idea)

2009-12-22T22:12:26Z

Even as we speak, my veins whisper letters of your name.
Perhaps you're the only person in the Milky-Way who can spot the faintest modulations in my chimes.

Likely, you could be a tamer, since you've prevailed over me in soliloquy, while nobody else defeats my witty tongue...

Actually, I don't love you
because:
I can't achieve perfection,
only
this.

Inspired by Tu Vida En 65.

Cryptonomicon (review)

2009-12-22T20:48:06Z

"This is how it's done. You pile one thing on top of the next and you keep it up and keep it up -- sometimes the galleon sinks in a typhoon, you don't get your slab of granite that year -- but you stick with it and eventually you end up with something sooo big."

Cryptonomicon enjoys an almost mythical reputation as an epic novel about cryptography, set in both World War II and the present day. Almost everyone who's managed to finish it (no mean feat considering it weighs in at over four hundred thousand words) seems to have given it a glowing review.

As much as I hate to admit it, I'm not one of those people. I'm pretty disappointed, even frustrated, with this book.

Considering Cryptonomicon is about cryptography, its author Neal Stephenson seems to focus on other people's adventures during the war as a consequence of the codes that have been broken more than on the actual codebreaking itself, and more on the business politics surrounding the…

Quick Skin Roasted Potatoes (recipe)

2009-12-22T11:59:00Z

This is a way of roasting spuds that I've not seen elsewhere. They come out almost like thick cut crisps (or chips if you are in the US). They are quick to cook, and combine easily with roast meats like lamb chops, chicken pieces, or whatever. You can easily put them together, and arrange that everything will be ready at the same time. Finally, the way of coating them in butter and oil means that you don't have to fiddle around with basting, and they get a lovely crispy-fluffy texture. Salt crystals and rosemary make a classic flavour.

The recipe. Ingredients:

potatoes, in their skins, scrubbed. Ones with good thick brown or red skins work well.
sea salt (in crystal form), pepper
lightly salted butter and olive oil
rosemary

Cut the potatoes into chunks, up to about 2 inches or so. Try to maximise surface area by making big chunks, half inch or so thick.
Place in COLD water in a pan (with a close fitting lid,

…

Timequake (review)

2009-12-22T07:54:40Z

I suppose if I had to review TimeQuake as succinctly as possible, it would be to say that if this manuscript showed up unheralded in the mailbox of some editor, there is not much chance that it would get published. There is not much chance it would get read past the first few pages.

This book is a memoir, randomly summing up the life of Kurt Vonnegut and his friends and families, in a series of rambling anecdotes. Mixed in with that is a novel following a science fiction plot about a ten year suspension in free will and its aftermath, the eponymous "timequake". The timequake is never explained in much details, and the characters in the novel are never fully explained, because the action of this novel is broken up by Kurt Vonnegut's memoir. Vonnegut admits as much in his introduction, saying that the original novel "Timequake" was never finished, so he produced this instead.

All of this could be seen as daringly post-modern, and for the most part, Vonnegut's style pulls…

Nine Princes in Amber (review)

2009-12-22T04:50:34Z

Author: Roger Zelazny
Published: 1970, Doubleday
Genre: Science Fiction / Fantasy

Nine Princes in Amber is a classic SF/F novel, and the first of the Chronicles of Amber series, which eventually grew to include ten books and six short stories. Like many SF/F classics, it is not very good. In its time it was a brilliant idea, a way to bring sword and sorcery fantasy out of the middle ages and into the 'real world'. It contains many interesting ideas, but these ideas have been so overused (and by better writers than Zelazny was at that time), that it now seems both hackneyed and poorly written. It is still a fun read and it will pull you in, but don't expect anything too great. This is an unpolished novel by an amateur writer.

The story centers around Corey, who wakes up in a hospital with no idea of who he is, where he is, or what happened to him. In the great tradition of rugged survivalist…

Everything2 Gatherings: 2010 (event)

2009-12-22T03:34:25Z

"Useful" Links

<-- 2009

Noders By The Lake 2: I've Got This Nodermeet, and Its Fucking Golden
July 2 -4, 2010
Hosted by chaotic_poet and vandewal
Chicago, Illinois
MOAR?
/msg RoguePoet or Two Sheds if you're doing a nodermeet this year

<-- 2009

Noders By The Lake 2: I've Got This Nodermeet, and It's Fucking Golden (event)

2009-12-22T01:14:43Z

Friday, July 2 - Sunday, July 4, 2010
The Second City's Second Nodermeet
Excerpt from the Blagojevich transcripts:

"It's a[n] [ expletive ] valuable thing. You don't just give [ a nodermeet ] away for nothing. If they're not going to offer anything of value I might just take it. I've got this [ nodermeet ] and it's [ expletive ] golden. I'm not just giving it up for [ expletive ] nothing.I'm not gonna do it. And, and I can always use it. I can parachute me there."

Tired of your boring, politically stable and just government? Come to Chicago - boiling cesspool of political corruption and home of ridiculous foods! Celebrate the US's Independence Day by coming to the place that makes one wonder if free government is always the best idea. Do it with…

Insomniac, I Tried (poetry)

2009-12-21T23:22:18Z

insomniac, i tried
to call you to say
it's my birthday and
i just smoked my first cigar

but you are tucked inside
a ghost or a girl
or bedsheets

and you didn't hear me

nearly twenty-four
and nearly in love

me, clearly more

you, not nearly enough

sick as a dog (idea)

2009-12-21T23:14:17Z

Dogs eat anything, and I mean ANYTHING. But that leads to some troublesome consequences. Dogs get sick when they eat something unusual, like chocolate for instance - which can even cause death.

But where did the phrase, "Sick as a dog" come from?

Arf!

The English language is always changing, so to pinpoint the original use is impossible. But one can infer that because dogs frequently get sick from consuming items that don't digest well, that the same goes for us humans. You're as sick as a dog when you just don't feel right.

Some interesting analysis by World Wide Words: "There are several expressions of the form sick as a ..., that date from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Sick as a dog is actually the oldest of them, recorded from 1705; it is probably no more than an attempt to give force to a strongly worded statement of physical unhappiness. It was attached to a dog, I would guess, because…

Duck roasted with orange (recipe)

2009-12-21T22:35:07Z

DEB has long been convinced that the first meal anyone should learn to cook is roast chicken. It's simple, it's delicious, and she is yet to encounter a meat-eater who objects to the moist and succulent flesh and crispy golden skin of a roasted chicken.

However, if duck were more affordable, she would doubtless revise this statement to 'everyone should learn to roast a duck.' Duck is, in her opinion, even more delicious and likely even harder to get wrong than roast chicken. Sadly, duck is about twice the price of chicken and therefore reserved for special occasions.

Midwinter seemed to count for a special occasion enough for the London Booze Monkeys to have a duck, and being midwinter it seemed rude to shun the traditional partner for duck: orange. Oranges are, after all, in season at midwinter. Those who were not of the duck-eating persuasion were treated to a seasonal nut roast: almond, orange, and apricot. The nut roast was prepared in advance,…

Empowered (person)

2009-12-21T20:42:37Z

Once upon a time, there was a comic book artist named Adam Warren. Adam's thing was manga-style artwork -- in fact, he was drawing manga back when most comic artists were insisting it was just a fad and would never catch on. Adam was best known for writing and illustrating a couple of "Dirty Pair" books -- which are not what you think they are at all, but really about a couple of cute, scantily-clad girls who blew up stuff with very large guns. Okay, so maybe it was more or less what you thought it was.

Warren worked on lots of other comics, including some more manga series, plus "Gen¹³," "Livewires," and "Iron Man," but the big problem with working in comics is that you ain't likely to make much money. So Warren did what lots of other comics creators do -- made a little extra cash drawing commissioned artwork.

Sometimes, commissions are simple -- a picture of Batman or Spider-Man or Superman. Sometimes, they're more involved -- a picture…

Mending Wall (essay)

2009-12-21T19:39:24Z

Thoughts on "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost

The choice of the word "something" is important. It doesn't say "someone", so for now, we can just call it a force. However, it is humanized by the word "love". Love is rarely attached to something without thoughts or desires. Even animals aren't really thought of as having capacity to consciously love. Also the choice of the word "love" is interesting because it does not say "doesn't like". The fact that it says "doesn't love" implies that someone else must "love" it in contrast. Not loving doesn't imply dislike; it implies something closer to indifference. However the "something" not only allows the wall to dissipate, it also causes it, by "send"ing the "frozen-ground-swell" to disrupt the wall during the winter months and "spill"ing the "upper boulders in the sun" perhaps during the summer months. So it is important to keep in mind that, although the "something" may not hate the wall, it is intentionally causing it's destruction.
…

The High Priestess (thing)

2009-12-21T19:00:59Z

My favourite card. Here is everything that I know about her:

Secrets, mystery, the future as yet unrevealed; the woman who interests the Querent, if male; the Querent herself, if female; silence, tenacity; mystery, wisdom, science. Reversed: Passion, moral or physical ardour, conceit, surface knowledge.

The scroll in the High Priestess' hands is inscribed with the word Tora, signifying the Greater Law, the Secret Law and the second sense of the Word. It is partly covered by her mantle, to shew that some things are implied and some spoken.
from Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot

She is adorned with the headdress (Waite calls it a diadem) of the Ancient Egyptian god Hathor. However, its symbolism represents the ancient Egyptian godess Isis: the roles of Hathor were eventually assimilated into those of Isis. Isis is a mother god, and is associated with light, life, and the earth. Her…

December 20, 2009 (event)

2009-12-21T11:10:07Z

Author's note: this is a bit of an experiment to see what I can do with html formatting, as well getting across a story in an indirect way.

New Message
Sender: Dean
Received: 4:00pm 20-12-2009
hey bazza sorry cant do
anything i got a family
dinner tonight. what are
you doing for new years?
cya soon mate

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X-Bar Theory (idea)

2009-12-21T10:00:12Z

X-Bar theory is bogus

Noam Chomsky proposed the X-bar theory to explain describe a universal grammatical structure, common to all language. An admirable objective. The problem is, it's batshit crazy. If you haven't heard already go and read the node above, I can wait.

Right, so the idea is that every part of speech is a "phrase", not just a word. Some are almost always single words (called a head) such as noun phrases. "dog" is a valid example. However all of them can be extended. That is, in every situation where you need a noun phrase you can use a longer noun phrase.

Some phrases have a minimum length because they require other sub-phrases. This is true for many verbs, specifically intransitive verbs.

"The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog" has two noun phrases ("the quick brown fox" and "a lazy dog"), some adjectival phrases ("quick brown", "quick", "brown", "lazy"), a prepositional phrase ("over a lazy dog") and a verb phrase (the…