Everything2 New Writeups

FitQuest 2010 (idea)

2010-01-01T08:12:50Z

I'm sure you know the drill -- the New Year is a time for shedding past indiscretions, mistakes, and habits and trying to pick up some newer, shinier, all-around better resolutions for your life. For lots of people, that means trying to live a healthier lifestyle. Hit the gym, the track, the pool, the Wii Fit, and try to drop some of the pounds you've taken on over the holiday season! But for lots of people, this also means trying something new, getting tired of it, and quitting long before the end of the year rolls around, requiring the whole doofy process to start over again.

So this year, maybe we should try to encourage each other to do it together. Do you have an exercise regimen you follow, or want to start? Do you have a particular sporting event or athlete you enjoy or admire? Is there a certain healthy recipe you'd like to share with…

¡Long Live the Mole Queen! (idea)

2010-01-01T03:17:23Z

There is a circle of approximately 1-mile radius in Mar del Plata
within which one's mind cannot make sense of anything visual
apart from words.

Following some initial investigation I have ascertained that the centre of the hypothetical circle must be located somewhere in the area delimited by Av. Juan José Paso, Av. Independencia, Av. Pedro Luro and Av. Peralta Ramos.

Now, to elaborate a little on the actual effects. As I said, while within the area, one loses (temporarily, it seems) the ability to analyse and process visual cues into information (words excluded). I have to say it is a phenomenon of a most unnerving quality.

Let's take television. You can perceive of some indeterminate and thoroughly meaningless shapes moving, but the information gain is that of a person staring at a blank screen. (My fiancée, the only being I dared to let in on the discovery by means of a rather tense letter, did not seem perturbed in the…

January 1, 2010 (place)

2010-01-01T01:25:12Z

As this should have worked

For those of you who are joining us, the end of the year has passed Europe and Africa. It is now moving onto the eastern Atlantic at a rate of some 15 degrees per hour, which it has maintained ever since the first sightings in the Pacific. At this speed, no trace of 2009 will remain on this Earth in twelve hours' time. Please remain calm. Stay in our homes. Despite any rumors you may have heard, there's yet no evidence that this event is destructive. Panic is the worst thing you can do to prepare yourself and your loved ones for whatever may come. This station will continue to bring you the latest news for as long as we can.

In a press conference earlier today, a DOD spokesman stated that the United States would take, quote, "any steps necessary" to "defend the sanctity of its soil and people." Details are scarce, but reliable sources tell us that the aircraft carriers …

Pressed Chocolate Cake (recipe)

2010-01-01T00:30:17Z

Don't go hunting for your steam iron, you're just going to flatten the cake with a plate after baking.

This luscious dessert delivers a direct chocolate hit without the usual fudge brownie or "candy bar" texture. Use the best extra-bittersweet chocolate you can find, preferably Callebaut or Green & Black's. Lindt and Ghirardelli products are more readily available and you might prefer the taste. Hershey's Special Dark or regular chocolate chips wouldn't make the grade here; they are too sweet, and you need chocolate with about a 70% cacao content.

I've been told this can easily be made kosher for Passover because the leavening ingredient is egg whites. But don't rely on my word; I was raised Episcopalian, and don't even give up chocolate for Lent.

7 oz. extra bittersweet chocolate
14 tablespoons unsalted…

hovercar (thing)

2010-01-01T00:20:11Z

A hovercar is a vehicle that resembles in basic shape or form a common automobile, but has the power to hover and fly, usually through technology that is either not yet available or is simply fantastic. The typical hovercar would be depicted as having the body of a common automobile, although probably more sleek and streamlined, but floating off the ground, perhaps kept aloft by a band of glowing lights along the bottom.

As we enter the 2nd decade of the 21st century, our consciousness is, of course, drenched with irony. The hovercar is often used as an ironic icon of the future. Although there are many science-fiction works of varying quality that depict the hovercar as a serious part of the future, it is often used as an ironic nod to the retrofuture. The hovercar is an extension of the culture and technology of the 1950s: something that dad comes zooming home in after a hard day at the office, even if in this case his office is on Mars or an…

Jennifer Mo (person)

2009-12-31T23:59:23Z

Jennifer Mo is a character in the book All Tomorrow's Parties, by William Gibson. She is mentioned in passing throughout the book, although she died long before the events of the book take place, and is used mostly as a source of peripheral information. I would in fact not think the character of Jennifer Mo was noteworthy, except for the fact that while reading another work by Gibson, Virtual Light, I noticed that another periphereal character, J.D. Shapely, is used as a leitmotif, with his death and funeral described in the last chapter of the book.

Jennifer Mo is similarly mentioned and developed in the background, and a description of her is also used in one of the short concluding chapters of the book. She, along with one of the protagonists, was secretly used in a drug testing experiment while living in an orphanage. The drug involved, 5-SB, makes people aware of metanodal points, but also would cause psychotic obsessions with the drug users chosen metanodal point. This leads…

Write A Poem That Isn't Shitty Quest 2010 (thing)

2009-12-31T22:43:35Z

A quest!

judges:
ushdfgakjasgh

eien_meru

raincomplex

Since people on E2 are so awful at writing poetry, I thought I would help spur them along. Anybody who submits a poem that a majority of a panel of 3 judges (of my choosing, listed above) decides isn't shitty will be guaranteed a C! from all three judges. Judges cannot submit their own work!

The quest starts now! It will end as soon as it becomes March 1st, 2010, server time. Get those creative juices cooking, you fucking morons! To submit a writeup, message one of the judges, and we'll confer amongst ourselves.

Each poem that's submitted will be accompanied by a review conducted by each judge, below the penguin. Poems can be unsubmitted if your feelings are deeply hurt by the reviews, but this is strongly frowned upon - be strong! Each poem that's accepted for the quest will get a chunk of the following penguin that

…

Cinematronics (person)

2009-12-31T21:28:33Z

First three Cinematronics games:

Pong
Flipper Ball
Embargo

I will fuck sophanda on the bus to school (poetry)

2009-12-31T20:37:19Z

shit she says everyone Is
watching, we cracked open the
windows and Went at it, sophanda
squirms on the cold leather
seats in the back, head banging
against the aluminum on the
sides, the bus driver
joins in and we drive off
a cliff, what a shithole
it is here, fuck this
Appalachia bullshit; sophanda
is swollen and cumming and the
fire escape is burning, what
heaven in her
arms

pseudointellectual (person)

2009-12-31T19:37:21Z

He's the one who has half-hour-long conversations
About books he's never read and likely never will
Because he's so damn busy all the time.
He's the one who uses "intrinsic" in a sentence
Even though he's not quite sure what it means
And the subject is quite far removed from philosophy.
He's the one who has a solution to all the problems in the world
Except his own.

And yes, he does have them
A lot of them
And he knows it, too.
He reminds himself daily
Of his failures and follies
Of his post-modern panic attacks and debilitating doubt
The more cynical, the better.
Not pessimistic, but realistic, he says.

Sometimes he blames it all on society
Which he knows is wrong
But he does it anyway.
Sometimes he blames it all on God
Which he knows is wrong
But he does it anyway.
Sometimes he says it's because he's human
And that much is true...

But where does it get him?
Where do his…

Apinaje (person)

2009-12-31T18:44:38Z

The Apinajé are an indigenous tribe who live in the Brazilian state of Tocantins. According to Funasa, there were 1525 individuals in this group in 2006. They speak a language pertaining to the Jé family of languages. The Apinajé, belonging to the Western Timbira group of indigenous peoples, are characterized by an advanced social organization; they live in fairly populous villages. In the second half of the 20th Century the population started declining and they entered a phase of social disorganization, when their territory was was invaded by white brazilian people, who built highways and roads such as the Trans-Amazonian highway. The Trans-Amazon passed through their land, effectively cutting a part of the territory which was assigned to them.

Name

Apinayé or Apinajé is not the name used by these indigenous people to refer to themselves, but it is used by other Timbira groups and by their regional neighbors. In Eastern Timbira vocabulary, the suffix yê/jê designates…

We all float down here (poetry)

2009-12-31T18:26:12Z

aren't you coming I held
down my hand to
Welcome and there you were wall
paper roses, Latticework over
the sky and the verand
a, i had Looking into
you a Sense the ground
water was spouting
compact mirages and somewhere
up below the current we slept
peacefully for the first
time; Miranda I see coming
paisley architects and bruising
clouds, look at the
crimson sky, pierced and we will now
be truthful with each
other, laughing and weeping so then
tomorrow and death will never
come

To Know Him Is to Love Him (thing)

2009-12-31T17:00:18Z

"To Know Him Is to Love Him" by the Teddy Bears was Phil Spector's first song to top the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, written and produced when he was only 19, back in 1958. The title of the song was taken by Spector from the epitaph on his father's headstone, who had tragically committed suicide 9 years earlier. He was found dead in the Spector family's driveway from carbon monoxide poisoning, a garden hose attached to the car's exhaust poking through the driver side's window. Spector expressed his feelings the only way he seemed to know how - by writing and producing an emotional teenage pop song. The melody of the song's soaring middle eight, sung with an unaffected innocence by Annette Kleinbard, was taken, according to Spector, from a Richard Wagner symphony (if there could ever be proof of reincarnation, the links between Spector and Wagner would be the first piece of evidence).

Like some of Spector's later girl group…

The Terrorists (idea)

2009-12-31T15:45:30Z

I'm sure you've been just as saturated as anyone else with the media repeatedly blowing up (no pun intended) coverage of the recent attempt by a crazy person to ignite an incendiary device attached to his leg on NW Flight 253 this Christmas. Having just been through airport security at Amsterdam (through which Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab passed with his explosives), I can tell you that there's really not a whole lot to it.

Unlike virtually all American airports, Amsterdam's does not feature a few centralized security checkpoints, but instead performs security screenings right at each flight's departure gate. A staff of three Aviation Security officials run your coat, shoes, and carry-on baggage through an X-ray, while two other officials monitor you as you pass through the metal detector. I noticed that the girl in front of me passed through the metal detector wearing her shoes, which were neither X-rayed, swabbed, or otherwise inspected. The Aviation Security officials did…

G.I. Joe (thing)

2009-12-31T15:29:00Z

G.I. Joe! G.I. Joe!
The fighting man from head to toe!
On the land, in the sea, in the air!
--G.I. Joe commercial, 1960s.

Before he was "a Real American Hero" taking down the Evil Threat of COBRA and delivering Public Service Announcements, before television cartoons and live-action movies and comic books and instant collectibles, he was a simple soldier, reenacting warfare in your basement and back yard, launching the term "Action Figure" along the way.

G.I. Joe entered the language during World War II. Soldiers used to seeing "G.I." stamped on everything saw themselves as another Government Issue. The name caught on, and in 1945, Robert Mitchum and Burgess Meredith starred in Hollywood's tribute to the average guy in uniform, The Story of G.I. Joe.

The war ended. Johnny and Joe came marching home. North Americans had lots of kids and lived…

shadows of comfort (poetry)

2009-12-31T13:56:23Z

They absorb the light that they see,
they enfold they who hide within their murky and misty depths.
They shelter,
they comfort,
they enfold and they protect.
They are shadows, deep and unyielding.

The night greys to dawn,
the world still unconscious in slumber deep,
her fingers of light do grace minds of worldly men,
whilst we dance among the shadows deep.

They mingle in amisdt the light,
early morning light now absorbed.

I am the shadow and the shadow is me,
we are the shadows and in them we dance,
Dance, dance, fly freer than a song,
until morning light greys to dawn.

When dawn doeth breaketh early morning's dark,
and Her fingers of light betray those of us who still dance,
we slip in amongst where they still do hide,
to dance forever in silence and song.
Among early morning shadow,
when dew turns leaves to clusters of crystaline emerald…

TV pop up ad blocker (thing)

2009-12-31T12:30:48Z

DSP (digital signal processing) can remove TV pop up ads and logos

The presence of annoying TV pop up ads and logos has increased to the level of intolerable. Hence the need for the TV pop up ad blocker device.

The device connects between the TV set and the video signal, and uses DSP to remove TV "pop up" ads. The signal is analyzed for the presence of advertising text, and logos, added to the signal by upstream DSP.

TV pop up ads are detected by heuristic programming that analyzes relative brightness, contrast, color, image movement, and the presence of text.

Once TV pop up ads are identified, the signal processor box determines background brightness, color and contrast around the pop up ad, which is then replaced with averages of the background areas on which the pop up was sitting. This effectively blurs away the ad so its presence becomes…

Copyright (essay)

2009-12-31T12:27:19Z

Capitalism is based upon the principle of moving physical objects that, by their nature, cannot be copied.

The hacker spirit is based upon the principal of sharing information that, by its nature, cannot be restrained.

The problem, if you can call it that, is that products are being digitised. This process transforms them from objects into information. Despite this, they retain their legal status as products.

Property is any object that someone has claimed as their own. As absurd as it may seem to an outsider that people may claim ownership of land that was there billions of years before they were, that's the system we use. It makes more sense to demand monetary compensation for the effort you put into making something, of course. There's a big difference between finding edible fruit, actively toiling a field in order to harvest crops, and preparing a sandwich using a loaf of bread you've bought down the market.

At every…

Earthly Powers (review)

2009-12-31T12:21:53Z

"It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me."

So begins "Earthly Powers", a novel by Anthony Burgess. It is partly a historical novel of the 20th century, but also a masterly examination of the nature of good and evil, and of human nature. It is also a critique of the ways in which formalised moralities, such as organised religion, tend to stumble against their own limitations.

Burgess speaks in the first person through the character of a homosexual novelist who was raised a Catholic in England in the years before World War One, but later ostracised from the church because of his sexuality. Now very old, and with a successful writing career behind him, he is asked by the visiting archbishop to write the biography of a recently departed Pope. This Pope was known to him as Carlo, and was a friend for most of his life. He accepts the task, and much of the book is…

We all float down here (place)

2009-12-31T08:02:37Z

where when below the surface can be seen traces
spiralling above across the chaos and focus

(i.e.toSay at the surface spray fills y/our lungs
gasp+directed /i.e.toSayGoalOriented.
to avoid drowning.YOU JUMPED IN IT WAS YOUR DECISION

We all glow down here in a land
populated with reference) the self and the endless are the one and all
(am i words? am i language?) is this node about ... me ?

What is the gap between semantics and syntax?
does it look like the boundary of the Mandelbrot set?
is it stored within pi? am i dead?

We all hear the music in The Movies
—real ? real trigger dru(e)m(otion) horn /beat
+ strings Can we have a moving scene without music Please

I am sorry we can never…

Ghosts 'n' Goblins: Pretty Much the same Thing as Sex (thing)

2009-12-31T07:55:00Z

Years ago, a noted video game scholar, delving deep into the deeply encoded psychosexual messages inherit in the 8-bit era, tried to find what video game was The Opposite of Sex. To anyone who was not an ignoramus on the golden era of our culture, the answer was obvious. However, the video game industry has not become the multi-gajillion, Columbian trade unionist murdering behemoth it is by handing people sugar coated lesses on celibacy. It has done so by channeling the fears and aspirations of millions of young men who live in a culture where they are bombarded with pornographic dreams of Euphoria yet are economically unable to compete in a world where the Doritoes, ratty couches and suburban basements they surround themselves with are all made by slave labor in Mexico. In other words, the video game is just dripping with subliminated fantasies. But of all games churned out by non-unionized Guatemalan bit jockeys, which one has best…

December 31, 2009 (personal)

2009-12-31T04:22:39Z

"i've read some vonnegut, and i think that i'm past his philosophy at this stage. i read his last book (i think it was his last book, it was basically his memoir), and it had a sense of despair, a hopelessness, a feeling of man being overcome in his old age by all of the doubts that nagged him throughout his life. the dream was over, and all he had left was cold, sober reality. what i noticed particularly in this book was that the effects of modern technology on society are what really made him come to his grim realizations. and it's true. in the age of cell phones, myspace, cars, fast food restaurants, corporate logos, where every part of our lives is either man-made or controlled by man, it's not small wonder that the scrupulous eye can more easily see our flaws. we flaunt them like a peacock flaunts its feathers, on billboards, storefronts, our shirts, everywhere.
…

Neapolitan ice cream (thing)

2009-12-31T03:42:52Z

Neapolitan ice cream is literally 'ice cream from Naples'. Back in the late 1800s Italy was known, among other things, for its frozen desserts. One popular preparation of ice cream was to layer various types of ice cream together, as in spumoni. Ice cream served in this manner came to be known as 'Neapolitan'. Over time it came to be most common to layer three types of ice cream together (in America, even spumoni is sold with only three layers), and then, to serve only three specific flavors. These flavors are now always chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. In that order. Despite the fact that these are somewhat boring flavors, and despite the fact that generally the chocolate and the vanilla get finished off long before the vanilla, Neapolitan ice cream is still a staple in the freezer section of grocery stores around the world.

knickerbocker glory (recipe)

2009-12-31T03:29:01Z

A Knickerbocker Glory is an ice cream-based dessert common in England. In America it would be considered a type of parfait or ice cream sundae. They are created by layering ice cream, fruit, flavored syrup, custard, jell-O, nuts, sprinkles, whipped cream, or pretty much anything else you can think of. They should traditionally be served in a tall, stemmed, clear glass, to show off the layers to good effect. There are, as you might imagine, hundreds of different recipes, and the original Knickerbocker Glory has been lost in the mists of time. The original probably appeared in the 1930s, and quickly spread through the ice cream shops of England. Those of us who are not fortunate enough to live in the British Isles can still make our own, however.

Tem42's Knickerbocker Glory

Place, in this order, in a tall glass:

1 small scoop of vanilla ice cream('cus your last bite needs to include ice cream!)

…

Blue Moon (person)

2009-12-31T00:45:49Z

When a month has two full moons, the second one is called a blue moon.

This blue moon cycle is 2.72 years, or roughly every third year. This is not at all unusual, but when it happens on New Year's Eve, as it will on December 31, 2009 in the Western Hemisphere, this is a bit rarer as it is a 19-year occurrence. The last such one occurred in 1990, the next one will not be until 2028.

Australia and Asia, being in the Eastern Hemisphere, will not experience it until January 1. On New Year's Eve, with a new decade being introduced, there will also be a partial lunar eclipse. This not be visible in the Western Hemisphere but will be viewed by people in the Eastern Hemisphere.

Chances are the moon viewed on the night of December 31, 2009/January 1, 2010 will not be blue in the meterology sense, but it will qualify for the "Once in a blue moon" title.

www.huffingtonpost.com/wires/2009/12/29/rare
http://en/wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_moon