Everything2 New Writeups

Tesseract (thing)

2010-01-01T19:49:34Z

A Tesseract, as noted above, is a four-dimensional physical object also known as a hypercube.

Our regular old objects are as follows:

0: A point. Bounded by zero... things.
1: A line. Bounded by two points.
2: A square. Bounded by four lines and four points.
3: A cube. Bounded by six squares, twelve lines, and eight points.

Thus when we go to define our tesseract, we just have to follow the rules. The rules are kind of weird though.

A tesseract is bounded by eight cubes, that bit is pretty easy to get. Now, how do we understand how many squares it is bound by? Well, when we look at a square, it's bound by four lines, which each are defined by two points. Each point is shared by one other line. On a cube, we have six squares, bound by four lines each. Each line is shared by another square. Therefore, on a tesseract each of the squares of each of the cubes that define the tesseract is shared…

comfort eating (thing)

2010-01-01T18:24:15Z

Comfort eating is what someone may do if they're stressed, depressed or just bored. It fills a void, gives your hands something to do and seems to alleviate the emotional distress, at least for the time being.
The obvious problem with this, is that you don't always make the healthiest eating choices. My favorites include:
Pizza Hut's Mac and cheese (when they still had it, which they don't, dammit!) lasagna, sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, oftentimes with ketchup applied in liberal amounts, or any dessert treat. It probably would also include junk food But I don't keep that stuff in the house, for that reason. I usually eat double or even triple the amount a normal person.
Two pieces of pizza? fuck that! It's three, four, try five pieces. Now, recently I've been desperately trying to make things better for myself. I haven't been eating as much. I've been walking an hour or so every day when it's not too cold and I'll admit that I think that getting back…

phrasal verb (thing)

2010-01-01T17:18:44Z

A phrasal verb is a verb plus a preposition or an adverb which creates a different meaning from the original verb. These include things like 'figure out', 'close down', 'screw up', 'come across', 'spell out', 'keep up with', and 'stick up'. Among many others.

Some grammarians think that only idiomatic conjunctions should count as verbal phrases. (For example, you could not deduce the meaning of 'nod off' from the words 'nod' and 'off'; therefor it is idiomatic.) They would call literal conjunctions (for example 'break in') verb-particle constructions. Others think that even literal compound verbs should be considered phrasal verbs.

Many phrasal verbs are separable; for example the idiomatic form of 'break in' (to break in a new pair of shoes) can be split 'break x in' (to break the shoes in). This is still a single phrasal verb, despite being smeared across the sentence. Others phrasal verbs, such as 'count on' and '…

Wandering Stars (thing)

2010-01-01T17:01:04Z

Wandering Stars: An Anthology of Jewish Fantasy and Science Fiction, is a marvelous collection of short stories edited by Jack Dann. As the subtitle suggests, all thirteen stories concern Jews in fantastic situations. Some are tragic, others, hilarious. My copy was given to me by my brother's Rabbi, one of the coolest women I know. My family is about as Jewish as a ham sandwich, but my brother somehow managed to emerge quasi-religious. Both the Rabbi and the book made me feel a real connection with my heritage. As Isaac Asimov writes in the introduction to this lovely volume, "despite all my infidel ways and beliefs, I am Jewish enough."

So, on to the stories...

On Venus, Have We Got a Rabbi* by William Tenn -- The Bulbas, a race of pillow-shaped aliens with tentacles, come to a Jewish colony of Venus, insisting that they are Jews as well. Largely based on Tevye the Dairyman by…

Far off approaching (poetry)

2010-01-01T14:47:07Z

At age 10, middle age was someone else's fiction
a rumor, a story told secondhand

At 20, middle age was a warning, a possible consequence
usually mentioned in connection with things left undone, or
to describe expectations that would be unfulfilled

At 30 middle age was a fun house mirror
but nobody was laughing.

When I think about 50, it feels far away
but not that far.

Apurina (person)

2010-01-01T13:28:48Z

The Apurinã are an indigenous group of people who live in the Brazilian states of Amazonas, Mato Grosso, and Rondônia. According to Funasa, there were 3256 people in the group in 2006. They speak a language pertaining to the Aruak and Maipurean families of languages. The Apurinã live scattered over sites close to the banks of the Purus river, and they hve a rich cosmological and ritual universe. Their history has affected by the violence of the two rubber cycles in the Amazon region. Some parts of their territory have not been officially recognised, and illegal loggers are frequently seen.

Name and language

It is speculated that Apurinã - or in its older form, Ipuriná - may be a word from the Jamamadi language. The people of the group refer to themselves as popukare. Some old texts use the word "kãkite" as the self-identifier. Kãkite means "people", but according to some Apurinã it means "humans". The Apurinã language is a member of the Maipure-Aruak family (Facunde…

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

2010-01-01T13:22:18Z

Here is my submission, entitled:

I got your poem right here

There once was a noder named ushdfgakjasgh
Who thought that my poem was mshtlakjasgh
He and eien_meru
And yes, raincomplex too
Can suck on my big sweaty rpxanhjskjasgh

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…