Everything2 New Writeups

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

facebook | Confirm requests

You have 2 event invitations.

Anti-Censorship Protest: Stop The Mandatory Censorship of Australia's Internet!
You have been invited by Pete Eggers

Elaine's FairyFail 21st House Partayyy
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UNITE AUSTRALIA: 1,000,000 PROUD AUSSIES BEFORE AUSTRALIA DAY 2010
You have been invited by Marty Bogan

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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…

Michael Jackson (essay)

2009-12-21T08:59:47Z

I got into Michael Jackson around the time I was ten years old, back in the mid-1990s. That was in the wake of the first child molestation trial and liking Michael Jackson was definitely not a cool thing to do. Especially if you were ten years old. But I didn't care. I loved the mus[ic, loved the videos, loved the way he moved, the way he sang. I remember getting made fun by my peers when I would sing his songs or imitate his dance moves, but I didn't let it get to me. Jacko was the shit. That simple.

As I grew older I started getting really into rock music and while I continued to listen to some pop music I didn't listen to anybody on the scale I used to listen to Jacko.

Last summer I was heartbroken when I came home from work to see he had died. It was one of those rare news stories that hit me with a hard hard shock. I thought it would be fitting to put on a few songs and listen to some Jacko for the first time in awhile.

So I started listening.

And I kept…

Know That I Am Providence; Sector B1 (place)

2009-12-21T05:33:51Z

B1 How to report a UFO sighting

The MOD has no specific capability for identifying the nature of such sightings. There is no Defence benefit in such investigation and it would be an inappropriate use of defence resources. Furthermore, responding to reported UFO sightings diverts MOD resources from tasks that are relevant to Defence. So as the year is almost out, and I am still a bachelor living a bachelors good life. It has come to me to scribble down my lovers and girlfriends. Know that Jesus does have facebook, you will surely find him there (Palsms 4: 13). So although the darkness and the jungle has almost been driven from my heart and næsgristle- know that the unconscious memories of it and of my girlfriends shall not be branded across my back but rather seeped noisome into my subconcious. So know that when I decide to get your digits. Forsoothe the good lord did Cast Adama and Eve from the garden of Eden tea leaves but thats just because Adam didn't decline a…

Revolution No.O (personal)

2009-12-20T23:31:29Z

... it was just a typical night in July of 2000. My friend Nate and I, both nineteen, wasted our nights away in the crotch-like atmospheric conditions of summertime by the gulf, traversing the ghetto which flanked the perimeter of the University of Houston. As if stepping into another dimension, there were an abundance of bodegas whose operators were quite cordial, selling baby-faced white boys from the suburbs myriad varieties of malt liquor and fruit-flavored blunts.

In contrast, the particular suburb where we went to high school prohibited selling 40 oz bottles of beer; moreover, we literally had to cross the tracks into a neighboring municipality to acquire rolling papers. Therefore, when Nate's roommates were around, listening to songs from TV commercials downloaded from Napster and watching hentai movies, we'd stockpile our imbibes and head to our respective parents places in the 'burbs.

2000 was a year of great…

The cynic's election guide: Conservative vs. Liberal (idea)

2009-12-20T23:26:46Z

Hey! Are you the rare Gen-Y cynic motivated to vote so you can spoil your ballot on purpose? That's a horrible waste of paper, and you my friend are killing the planet. So to better use your vote in a constructive way, I've created a simple, concise platform comparison between Liberals and Conservatives; direct your vote in the way you see best. (note: party affiliation in your area may vary - Olympia Snowe and Steny Hoyer seem to be batting for the wrong teams.)

General Ethos:

Conservative: You should be able to do anything you want, so long as we don't find it morally objectionable

Liberal: You should be able to say anything you want, so long as we don't find it morally objectionable

On Israel/Palestine:

C: Israelis are slightly less brown than Palestinians; therefore, we support them.

L: Palestinians are slightly more brown than Israelis; therefore, we support them.

On Drugs (soft):

…

carbon dioxide (essay)

2009-12-20T16:24:38Z

High school sophomores have firm convictions:

Neil Armstrong never walked on the moon.
We will all die in 2012.
Aliens walk among us.

In class I try to avoid opinions. In the short run, many of my lambs will remained confused. It is not my job to convince Amanda that Neil Armstrong walked on the moon--as soon as I use my position of authority to make a point, I've lost my chance to teach a child how to think.

It is my job, however, to make them skeptics, to have a sense of what we do not know, to suspend judgment while using their God-given senses and rationality to come to their own conclusions, conclusions that might change should new evidence become available. As a result, I fear that some day a mother will tell my principal that I did not vigorously dispel the notion of aliens, of rigged moonwalks, of the impending doom 3 short years away.

Or maybe the parents believe these things, too.

One of the…

Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody (thing)

2009-12-20T07:44:23Z

"Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody" is a short story from the light novel The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya, beginning on July 7 of Kyon and Haruhi's first year of high school, the Japanese festival of Tanabata. The bamboo leaf of the title refers to the Tanabata tradition of writing one's wishes on small pieces of paper and hanging them from bamboo branches. This is the first time travel story published in the Haruhi Suzumiya universe, however the same time period is revisited in The Vanishment of Haruhi Suzumiya, making for the concurrent existence of at least three Kyon's at one time.

After school in the SOS Brigade's clubroom, Mikuru tells Kyon that she needs to take him back in time to Tanabata three years ago, and Yuki hands him a piece of paper with strange symbols marked on it. In the past he again meets the older Mikuru, who puts her younger self to sleep so that they…

There was silence in my heart, but you found a way to break it. (personal)

2009-12-20T04:43:38Z

My façade was my shield, my shelter. Without it I was nothing, and would always be nothing. The fear, the misery, the dread, how was there a way that could have driven me out of hiding?

The first time I met you, I could not be sure of your intentions. The time we spent was not much, but day by day my weakness faded. You were the part of me I lacked. I could talk to you an entire day, and for nothing more than a single laugh. It was you that taught me to smile, to trust, to love. I always wanted a friend that could give me the push I needed to jump.

We had all sorts of similarities that made you so relatable when we would talk. I learned so much from you, just like I would my teacher. You found the silence in my heart, and put an end to its rule.

There was something different, something faintly resembling in you that I had. It took a long time to realize why I had never met you before now. I now understand that you and I are one, the same person. All I needed was to find myself.

Anti-Ballistic Missile (thing)

2009-12-20T03:19:37Z

An Anti-Ballistic Missile is a missile used to intercept and destroy a ballistic missile. Perhaps in full it should be described as an "Anti-Ballistic-Missile Missile", but such an unwieldy name never really caught on.

Anti-Ballistic Missile systems come in two main varieties: tactical and strategic. This usually refers to the type of missile they are meant to intercept, with "tactical" and "strategic" being code words for "conventional" and "nuclear". ABM systems can also have warheads that are either conventional or nuclear, and that would usually coincide with whether they are used in a tactical or strategic role.

An Anti-Ballistic Missile system is really not different in concept from any other Surface to Air Missile system, since it is meant to fly from the ground and hit a moving target. However, the execution is much different, because ballistic missiles are usually flying much faster than even a fighter…

Green Pond (place)

2009-12-20T03:11:39Z

Waving your dick at a family out for a Sunday afternoon boat ride can probably only lead to guns being pulled, sooner or later. I look back on this now as the end of the hippie era, even though I'd known it was over for quite some time. Like the Democrats in full governmental power at this point in time, it's almost impossible to keep the crazy ones in check long enough to see any good coming from it all. And that's the way it was with hippies. Treat people better and leave folks alone to do their libertarian type "thing"? Good idea. Get out of Viet Nam before any more innocents were maimed or slaughtered? Good idea. Make sure folks of all races were treated equally in a country which prides itself on "all men are created equal"? Good idea. Waving your dick at a family out for a Sunday afternoon boat ride? Not such a great idea. And, yet, that's what it all was leading to all along. Nancy Pelosi is waving her dick at you right now.

Green Pond was an old strip mining…

Endless Eight (thing)

2009-12-20T02:20:11Z

"Endless Eight" is a short story from the light novel The Rashness of Haruhi Suzumiya.

Short story

This story takes place in the August of Kyon and Haruhi's first year of high school, after "Remote Island Syndrome". The "Eight" in the title refers to August being the eighth month. Haruhi wishes to pack the last weeks of summer with typical summer activities such as attending an Obon festival, lighting fireworks, going to a swimming pool, getting summer jobs, and bug hunting. One night, Kyon receives a phone call from Mikuru and Itsuki telling him to meet them. There they, along with Yuki, inform him that time is looping over the same two week period again and again. Kyon and the other SOS Brigade members simply experience déjà vu because of this, except for Yuki, who has complete memories of every iteration of this loop. They suspect that Haruhi has no conscious knowledge…

The Day of Sagittarius (thing)

2009-12-19T23:52:15Z

"The Day of Sagittarius" is a short story from the light novel The Rashness of Haruhi Suzumiya. It takes place in November of Kyon and Haruhi's first year of high school.

In this story, the Computer Research Society President challenges the SOS Brigade to a game of The Day of Sagittarius III (a future sci-fi space fleet armada war strategy game they created themselves), in an attempt to win back the computer Haruhi extorted from them in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. In return, the Computer Research Society wager four laptops.

The Computer Research Society starts winning immediately, seeming to come out of nowhere and attack before retreating just as quickly. It turns out that the Computer Research Society is cheating, having disabled the fog of war only for themselves while the Brigade members still have limited line of sight. Suspecting she is having fun, Kyon gives Yuki permission to…

Know That I Am Providence (place)

2009-12-19T23:00:34Z

A1 SOAS is the closest thing to a sect, a code. Code that's all there is to it. Put it this way as I was talking to my brother the other day he mentioned that SOAS is a dark tribe - and I got thinking if you don't get along with the dark tribe - then the dark tribe won't get along with you. Most people don't get past their fourth year. And the ones that do - they have already been abroad for a year. There is no amount of weirdness that can properly describe that place. It's like murder. It's the heart of darkness without Marlon Brando HP Lovecraft without marlon Brando. This year has been no exception. The hot summer started off badly by SOAS failing to get my end of year marks in time or even right. Then there was the agonising deathly wait to see if I had passed the year ~ I did without falling down any flights of stairs! Know I am providence. So far this year though I have been 'slipping'. I 2haven't gone to hardly any lectures and I haven't handed in the 4,000 or so words that I was…

Suzumiya Haruhi (thing)

2009-12-19T08:27:07Z

eight

Haruhi Suzumiya (涼宮ハルヒ) is a Japanese media franchise consisting of nine light novels, two manga series, three anime series, and various video games and merchandise, which all centre around the titular high school girl and her unofficial school club, the SOS Brigade (SOS団, Spreading Excitement all Over the World with the Haruhi Suzumiya Brigade). The novels and the first season of the anime are notable in that the order in which they are released is not the same as the order in which events take place. The Haruhi Suzumiya fandom is known as Haruhiism.

Most of these links point to empty/non-existent nodes, so hopefully this writeup will lead to those being filled in one by one.

Characters

SOS Brigade

…

Death Cab for Cutie (thing)

2009-12-19T08:09:32Z

Death Cab for Cutie is an indie band from Bellingham, Washington, currently signed with Atlantic Records. They are: Ben Gibbard (vocals and guitar), Chris Walla (guitar and production), Nicholas Harmer (bass), and Jason McGerr (drums).

Discography

Something About Airplanes (August 1998)
We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes (March 2000)
The Forbidden Love EP (October 2000)
The Photo Album (October 2001)
The Stability EP (February 2002)
Transatlanticism (October 2003)
Studio X Sessions EP (July 2004)
The John Byrd EP (March 2005)
Plans (August 2005)
Narrow Stairs (May 2008)
The Open Door EP (April 2009)

I think the first time I heard "them" was really the first time I heard Ben Gibbard. He was on some late-night talk show like Letterman or Conan O'Brien (for…

cassandra's spiced hot chocolate (recipe)

2009-12-19T03:26:35Z

It's winter. It's cold. Hot chocolate is possibly one of the best things ever to drink to cope with the snow and the wind - and the other drivers on the road, if you add in a splash of something alcoholic.

This is pretty simple. My tastes led me to adapt it from both a traditional hot cocoa recipe and a Mexican Hot Chocolate recipe. The cocoa comes out thick, somewhat bitter, redolent of spices and complex enough to lend a pleasant bite to the dominant chocolate. Despite the relative profusion of spices, this is all about the main ingredient; the rest simply provides a framework for it. Think of it as a study in taste contrast.

4 cups half and half (or milk. Half and half, however, makes it really, really good. Cream would probably be even better, but clogs the arteries accordingly.)
4-5 ounces dark chocolate (85%. You can use a lighter variety, but you'll need to use a bit less sugar.)
1 heaping tablespoon

…

pieces of us we (fiction)

2009-12-18T22:53:55Z

left swimming, you had white
feathers streaming halfway
through the water, and
something you said was
deafening but I could
barely make it out. from the
surface the summer was trickling
below and the world
was an awning like
sapphire, watching us
pick up the
pieces we left
floating. between the
trees we came up for
air and then everything
we said was
poetry

The Princess and the Frog (essay)

2009-12-18T20:18:48Z

Disney Animated Features
<< Bolt | Rapunzel >>

Release Date: 11 December 2009

There was much ado, back in 2004 and 2005, when Home on the Range was touted as Disney's last traditionally animated feature film in its canon of classics, and Chicken Little became the first created in the new "tradition" of computer-animated films. With the success of other film studios' computer-animated work—in particular, Pixar's highly successful films, the Shrek series, and Ice Age—the handwriting seemed to be on the wall.

But then something odd happened. Disney's three computer-animated films (Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons, and Bolt, not counting 2000's Dinosaur) were only modest successes. They weren't bad, per se, and in fact had much in common with the other studios' successes, including pop culture…

BWV 734 (thing)

2009-12-18T19:50:25Z

Bach got fired a lot; or rather, "encouraged to explore outside career choices". In August 1703, at the tender age of 18, when most of us, still living at home, cranked the Rage or Avenged to purposefully chagrin our parents, Mr. JS Bach received gainful employment, through family ties, as the church organist at Arnstadt.

Teenage rebellion, and finding oneself, was no different then as it is now; and Bach, as an unruly teenager both aware of his genius and willing to flaunt it, found himself with an organ tuned to play any chord he wished, which is kind of like giving a metric tonne of blow to a cokehead.

At first, he played the chorale sections dutifully; always playing the pure chords, never embellishing, ensuring the staid, Lutheran congregation could follow, and sing, without complication. But a man of Bach's talents is not easily subdued, and soon, he added embellishments to the chorales.…

Alcohol and teens (essay)

2009-12-18T13:44:29Z

From the teen's point of view:
Before alcohol is drunk: Wooo alcohol let's get totally trashed, dude.
While alcohol is drunk: Dude aren't we, like, so totally cool right now? Pass me another, whatiscalled, I dunno, but it tastes goooood.
Morning after: Omg last night I had sooooo muuuuuuch and I was soooo drunk. I swear I made out with like 5 people but I cant even remember cause I was soooo drruuuunnnnk.

From the parent's point of view:
Before/during/after: Argh no don't drink!

For some reason drinking becomes really cool between the age of 16 and 17, and doesn't stop for a little while. This is problematic for parents who want to keep their children's livers intact. (And for them to lose their virginity at least while sober, and to not have a hangover, and to keep their dignity.)

Fact number one: your kids will drink.
Fact number…

The Marshall Mathers LP (essay)

2009-12-18T09:35:20Z

A story floated across the news about a week ago that according to Nielsen Soundscan, Eminem is offically the best-selling musician of the '00s, edging out The Beatles for the decade's first-place spot. A lot of this success was due to the sales of his second Interscope/Aftermath album, called The Marshall Mathers LP and released in 2000.

I feel sort of silly noding about that album almost a decade after its release, but the Nielsen news caught the attention of a message board that I occasionally frequent.

At first I just posted a flippant response:

To be fair, about a third of his record sales were in the early part of the decade, from journalists who wanted to stroke their chins and have a debate about whether it's okay to say faggot on a record as long as you circle back in the press and clarify that by faggot you just mean 'weak person.' It's not like that many people actually listened to his music.

…

Kelp (fiction)

2009-12-18T09:29:35Z

I had been nearly six months since that unusually warm day in September, and Sharon's due date was approaching quickly. Many women prefer to give birth in water. Why settle for a bathtub when Sharon had the whole Pacific Ocean? You see, Sharon was a sea otter. This would be Sharon's first pup, which was rather late at six years of age. Sharon made no special preparations for her first child, she had spent her whole life in the ocean and she was comfortable anywhere.

Sharon gave birth early in the morning. A healthy, four and a half pound pup. She spent hours licking him, fluffing his thick fur. When she was done he floated like a cork, bobbing over the gentle swells of the ocean. She wrapped her precious pup in a piece of kelp, and departed to the depths of the sea in search of food. When she returned, Anthony (she had decided she would call him Anthony) was mewing desperately, his meek voice hoarse from the constant calling. Sharon floated on her back, Anthony perched on her…

An open letter to Frank J. Tipler (essay)

2009-12-18T05:54:19Z

Professor Frank J. Tipler, cosmologist and mathematical physicist at Tulane University, has put forth across the face of his works a theory of physics purporting to demonstrate that the laws of physics (i.e., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, general relativity, quantum mechanics, and the Standard Model of particle physics) require that the universe end in an "Omega Point," a "final cosmological singularity and state of infinite informational capacity identified as being God". Tipler, I am told, wrote in a 2007 book "The Physics of Christianity" that this "Omega Point" has a "trinitarian" aspect because it can be divided into three aspects -- something along the lines of a beginning singularity, an ongoing event horizon, and an ending singularity; analogizing these three event horizons to the elements of Christianity in triumvirate systems (which, oddly, are nowhere to be found in the Bible). I am told, further, that he purports to…

Tuscan-Style White Bean and Sausage Soup (recipe)

2009-12-17T22:42:11Z

Baby, it's cold outside...time to make some soup. This is a nice change from a typical bean with ham soup, easily prepared with a little cheater - canned, pre-cooked beans. You won't need sophisticated kitchen skills for good results. This has actually been independently tested - I cobbled this together for someone who had never made soup from anything but a red-and-white can. She was crazy enough to organize a discussion group that included a soup dinner, and didn't get enough volunteers to make the main course. This soup was a great success, and made us both minor celebrities in a small corner of the San Joaquin Valley. Rather funny, since it's the only part of California I've never visited.

- - -

There are many elegant, smooth Tuscan-style bean soups, but this is hearty and rustic fare. Serve it to good friends who linger too long in your home, forever yammering about books, politics and the…