Everything2 New Writeups

Reality, Dimensions and the Natural Ontology (essay)

2008-07-26T05:52:30Z

Back to The Machine in the Ghost || On to Abstraction of the Neuron

So far in this series, we have considered the need for a theory of brain, chosen a holistic and biological approach to modeling the brain, considered models for the neuron, and looked briefly at the process of sensing reality. Here, we will discuss what all of that implies about reality and the brain's modeling of reality, and arrive at some fundamental definitions.

Reality

Let's now consider reality, all that is on the other side of the sensory wall from the knowing brain. We tend to talk of the brain and the outside world as two separate things, but let's remind ourselves once again that by environment we mean the sensed environment, that part of reality that is exposed directly to our sensing machines at the lowest level. The brain is a part of reality as much as any rock or cloud or star or electron that we can observe. Given a...

Making Love to a 9-Foot Woman (person)

2008-07-26T03:28:25Z

Black ruffled dress, dark hat and ribbons flowing, one fishnet sleeve on the left arm, the right as bare as all sin, and hands as liquid love. She steps into the fading rays of an overcast day looking out over the baked denizens of aural delight who appear for one show and witness another in the towering goddess and her shorter white escort. The pig-tailed delight grows tall, tall to heaven, and fills the room when there are no walls. Smiles as she mingles in the crowd of onlookers and pauses when one of them wants a memento. They all watch her walk along the path between the bodies, elegantly, and so easily that it makes them wish they could be as tall as a goddess and hopefully half as beautiful in a tattered Victorian rag. They never will, not like her, and she is blessed in this fact.

The trick to the grand show is in the crinkle. No one notices, but that's where it is. She...

Thoughts (idea)

2008-07-26T03:25:01Z

I like the feeling of tears in my eyes and it doesn't always mean I am sad. I wipe them off when people are near to avoid their misguided pity. Babies make me smile because they don't understand suffering yet. I appreciate the sounds of my neighbors having sex as long as they don't last too long. I often hesitate to talk to strangers because I think they are afraid of me. Sometimes I feel like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Other times I feel like Tinkerbell. When I look into your eyes I see stars, so long as you aren't cross-eyed. I have never picked up a woman at a bar, club, gym, bookstore or public transit. I appreciate watching lonely men gaze at women in violent appreciation. One of my favorite things is watching elderly or disabled people make out. I love the idea of bouncy balls. I don't know what I am supposed to be doing. I think heaven is like being a rainbow. Sometimes I look at clouds and think about gods and cotton and then...

I fall silent, listening. The breadcrumbs are talking about us (person)

2008-07-26T01:53:55Z

In the twilight, caught like a bird, my shadow is a cat on the prowl. My feet, in fake leather boots, dragging through the mush of the street after a day of rain and mud, having been moved, pushed and shoved about, low slurping and sucking noises as I move my knees. Joints creaking like old voices, but I'm deaf. My ears are only picking up on the silence in the room facing my spine, somewhere, picking up on all the signals that have always been there. My eyes are ticking away in my face, fluttering fast. There's mud on my coat, and I'm not going to bother about that.

They say the last fall will go unnoticed. And the feel of the random wording on the edge of my mattress when I cannot sleep and sit still with my blanket drawn up to my chest, arms folded. This doesn't happen anymore, you guessed that right. And when I walk through streets, I'm not made to be lost, not made to be a fool. I walk steadily, head a little higher, calm to remember how to breathe. ...

Buffalo Bill by the pool (poetry)

2008-07-26T00:08:23Z


in summer's long, golden light
       everyone's a blonde

children 
      laughrunplayshout
chlorine mist hangs 
                still in the air
       the bouquet of youth

when you look into the fading sun
shadows stretch impossibly long, and
Nostalgia comes calling
 
these are the days you will remember
                                     she says

open your eyes and
                          drink your fill
now, while you can

for Today's warm light will fade with winter's chill,
sure as day
              turns
                      to night

but not ...

Anarchy is Order (idea)

2008-07-25T23:52:48Z

A famous quote from Pierre Joseph Proudhon's The Confessions of a Revolutionary in 1849, and the origin of the famous anarchy symbol Ⓐ.

For a person unfamiliar with the ideas of anarchism, this quote appears to be a contradiction. After all, if anarchy means no laws and regulations, why wouldn't there be more random murders and rapes?

It would depend on your definition of anarchy. If you define it as a free-for-all, where everybody (or almost everybody) only cares about themselves, and nobody tries to protect the freedom of others, then that's a completely different situation than a society where everybody (or almost everybody) believes in protecting eachother's freedoms.

The second scenario is what most anarchists mean when they are trying to spread the ideas of anarchism.

Any organization can become corrupt, whether it's a union, a corporation, or a government. Even if you didn't have organizations, you...

Scribeling (thing)

2008-07-25T23:47:22Z

Scribeling

Scribeling is a user-generated translation tool, currently under development by myself. It will function as a web application, into which users can enter words and short phrases, unidirectional translations of words and phrases, and, for more experienced linguists familiar with the function of the translation engine, abstract descriptions of corresponding syntactical structures between languages. All of the data created by this project will be freely available under a Creative Commons license, and the code of the translation engine itself will likely be available via the GPL or a similar license.

There are eight main 'classes,' so to speak, in the specification for the program, which attempt to clarify description of languages using somewhat traditional grammatical and linguistic classification. There are as follows:

1. Language grouping

A vague, multilayered network of the relation between languages in terms of their greater...

Trism (review)

2008-07-25T17:42:44Z

Trism is an affordable and fun puzzle game now available for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. It costs £2.99 in the UK, and $4.99 in the US, depending on which version of the iTunes Application Store you're on.

Trism has much in common with Tetris, Bejeweled and various other currently popular puzzle games, but with an interesting twist. The whole game is based around triangular tiles, which must be grouped as three or more of the same colour. To do this, the player can slide entire rows of triangles along in any of six directions - the triangles are equilateral, so you can probably imagine how this works. When the tiles are clustered in groups of three or more, they will disappear and new tiles will slide into place. The great bit, however, is that when the new tiles slide onto the screen, they fall according to gravity - basically, you hold your iPhone or iPod whichever way up you like, and the tiles fall in from the top edge, along one of those six axes.

You probably...

Briefcase Full of Souls - Part I (fiction)

2008-07-25T14:41:29Z

Chapter One

The diner was quiet except for some low chatter from other customers, scratchy sounds of bowls being stacked, and tinkling of glasses being handled. It was the sound of 2 A.M. Gabriel had come to know what that sounded like the past year or so. Ever since the Incident.

He let the hot steam soothe with the tired muscles of his face for a moment before he took a long sip of his black cup of coffee. He didn't used to like it black; before it could never take enough cream and sugar. Now he liked it wonderfully bitter, kind of like how his life had been lately.

Gabriel was living the way some people only dream of. Always traveling, seeing new places, meeting new people. That was the wonderful part. But the bitterness, the tragedy of his purpose, was a thing of nightmares.

"Sizza sad and tragic thing," Gabriel said, almost mumbling to himself in his gravelly voice, but loud enough to where the greasy, middle-aged man wiping the counter could hear.

...

Alan Ladd (person)

2008-07-25T14:33:53Z

"I never fail to feel let down when I see myself on the screen."
— Alan Ladd

Alan Walbridge Ladd, an actor best known for his starring role in one of the Western genre's most beloved movies, Shane, was born in 1913 in Hot Springs, Arkansas, a spa town full of tourists, whose most famous ex-resident these days is former US President Bill Clinton. His father, Alan Ladd Sr., was an American-born freelance accountant, and his mother, Ina Raleigh Ladd, was an English girl who came to America when she was 19. How they ended up in Hot Springs is not recorded; presumably business was good there, since besides playing host to endless streams of tourists visiting the spas, Hot Springs also became a hotbed of illegal gambling during the first half of the 20th century.

Early Life

"I'm the most insecure guy in Hollywood. If you had it good all your life, you figure it can't ever get bad, but when you had it bad, you wonder how...

Harold Holt (person)

2008-07-25T10:20:23Z

Due to his mysterious disappearance, a phrase has entered into Australian slang: "Time to do the Harold Holt", popularised by a television commercial for Red Bull, means "to disappear". (Arguably, the way that the advert uses the term could make it rhyming slang for "bolt", as in "run".) The advert consists of a swagman, obviously a fugitive, hearing distant sirens (uttering the erstwhile phrase as he does) and drinking some Red Bull, leaving it at the scene. When the police arrive, they find the empty can and give up in disgust.

Holt's body still hasn't been found. In 2003 (two years after the above writeup) there was finally a coroner's inquest into his death, but nothing changed and no new evidence was given: the finding, drowning in accidental circumstances. Conspiracy theories still abound, from committing suicide to being a Chinese spy, to the CIA having him killed. However, the most likely scenario is that he just drowned, as he had a heart condition and a bad shoulder that likely...

Until death do us part (fiction)

2008-07-25T08:08:58Z

'I keep you by my side because that is what I said I would do.' It came out as a whisper, but in my mind I was screaming. It was almost as if I were drowning in shock, and terror, and disbelief. I couldn't call for help and I couldn't breathe. Every breath was getting shallower and shallower. It didn't matter how hard I concentrated, it was a struggle. Then the room began to move, even though I was standing perfectly still.

He'd asked me one question, but the answer didn't matter. Not really. It was all way beyond my control. Chaos was swirling about me, and I was terrified. Everything that I knew, that I understood, was slipping away from me.

Seven years ago — on a bright spring day much like this morning had started out — we'd stood in the tiny stone church in the village where I'd grown up and we'd made promises to each other, promises that were meant to span across lifetimes. I glanced over at the photograph...

a brother to a sister (personal)

2008-07-25T01:37:46Z

I would never make it through, hope you always know it's true...

Which sister?

There's in fact almost a dozen of you who've called me brother.

Some of you have worked harder than others, to prove it, perhaps?

I could tell volumes about you. The stories of how we met, or the stories of sitting long afternoons in the loft, painting, talking, just generally living one another in that way you do with people when you're young. Your beautiful hair, your smile always full of mischief, like you had something to say to me, your smell. I'll always remember your smell, to this day you could blindfold me in a room full of my friends and I'd find my way straight to you. So I built you a shield, gave you a way to find your way back to me (if you ...

your warm whispers (personal)

2008-07-24T23:33:19Z

You bought me white chocolate with port wine. I have never known such a thing. The world is a truly weird place; part of me would like to think. Part of me imagines it. Another part touches your hand, afraid you might evaporate. Dissolve like dreams.

Putting down Exit to Eden, chilled coke in the glass next to me. Today was so terribly hot, I had barely showered and then my hair was soaking again from perspiration. That could have been your voice. I'll have to imagine it, laughing together with you.

You told me there is something unique about the books I fancy reading, my favourite paintings, poetry and words. And we laugh again because you're just so damned obstinate about liking me. It makes me feel fuzzy.

And you even like my little scribbles, millennia of fantasy and slight boredom, the escapism of an old mind in a young body. Today, I wrote a letter to my aunt, on the...

Multiculturalism (idea)

2008-07-24T20:32:30Z

There are several problems with the way most of the free developed nations practice multiculturalism. While the idea of equality for all people is a worthy ideal, liberal reactions to diversity-based issues often make such problems worse. This generally happens in one of several ways:

1. Law enforcement refuses to accept that, in certain cases, crimes are motivated by minority ethno/racial/cultural grievances. They do this by failing to identify involved parties as members of a particular group (when that group's ideology is the motivating factor of the crime) or by absolving those involved of responsibility because they are a minority.

An example would be the riots in Evreux, France in August 2005. Somwhere between 100-200 French "youths" toting baseball bats rampaged through the streets, torching cars, chanting "allahu akhbar," and disrupting the annual fete de pomme, du cidre et du fromage (that's 'festival of apples, cider and cheese',...

Earl of Landaff (person)

2008-07-24T19:03:11Z

The Earl of Landaff was a title in the Peerage of Ireland that was in the posession of the Mathew family between the years 1797 and 1833. Its holders are often referred to as being the Earls of Llandaff since that is the more usual spelling of the Llandaff, that is today a suburb of the city of Cardiff in Wales, the title is however most properly that of the Earl of Landaff as it was "so spelt in the patents".

The Mathew family of Llandaff, Radyr and Thurles

The first Mathew was Dafydd ap Mathew, or David Mathew, the son of Mathew ab Ieuan (florit 1381-1397) a supporter of Owain Glyn Dwr. The family were based at Llandaff Court in Glamorgan, and served various absentee English lords as stewards and seneschals during the fourteenth century, although naturally the family could also produce a genealogy that showed their descent from Cunedda. This David Mathew was a leading Yorkist who was supposed to have saved Edward IV's life at the ...

Pseudocide (idea)

2008-07-24T17:58:58Z

Faking one's death is called "pseudocide." The term is considered a Neologism. Also known as "going off the grid," as well as a British expression "doing a Reggie Perrin." Drowning is the most popular form of deception, due to the easily explained absence of body. Oddly enough pseudocide is nearly always committed by men.

Disappearing is one thing, announcing your death is another.

People do it for varying reasons, to start a new life, to collect on insurance claims, for safety issues like the witness protection program, etc. "There is one group of people who are given every assistance in disappearing - protected witnesses who give evidence, sometimes against fellow criminals, and in return are provided with new identities, jobs and homes far from familiar haunts." (BBC) It's also led to the business of tracking these sort of people down, skip-tracing. It's a...

Google Knol (lede)

2008-07-24T14:24:44Z

At first glance, Google's Knol project seems very similar to the idea behind our own everything2, and that of our beloved arch-nemesis Wikipedia. Announced on the 13th of December 2007 and making it to public beta on the 23rd July the following year, the general idea of a knol is to give a first-time searcher for information a thorough introduction to a particular topic. The Knol site describes itself as having one goal - 'to help you share what you know'.

A 'knol' is Google's term for what we would call a node, and each knol can have multiple articles written by different authors, exactly like the different writeups that fill up our nodeshells. Other users may read articles, suggest edits to them, give them a rating or add comments. Google is hoping this will provide a way for users to judge the veracity of an article, and presumably cut down on the vandalism problems that Wikipedia occasionally finds itself subject to. The article remains the author's...

July 24, 2008 (personal)

2008-07-24T11:54:22Z

Letter (well, email) From Me to My Father

Since it's possible to be the first to tell you, and I doubt there's much more time (considering mom), I thought I would share something with you. Please be considerate and don't share it with the whole family. Keep things as quiet as possible.

On today, Wednesday July 23rd, Mom found a hollowed out book containing a pipe and lighter on my bed. Said implements were used to smoke marijuana, which she asked me about later. She noted that she disapproved, said she wouldn't allow me to have my items back, and that she would start to limit the amount of money I have free, saying that then it wouldn't be spent on drugs.

Guess my 88 average (did someone tell you?) report card doesn't get me that much leeway here. Anthro - 89, Law - 91, French - 86, Programming - 86.

I thought I might as well be honest with you and be the first one to get the word in. I'm not using...

The fall of Earth (fiction)

2008-07-24T09:40:51Z

Captain Cedric Grayson stood in the middle of the combat information center of the Terran dreadnought Anduril, his eyes fixed on the main tactical plot. Five more minutes until the enemy closed to effective firing range. Already his group's fighters and screening frigates were intercepting enemy shots - kinetic harpoons and nuclear torpedoes aimed to sow chaos among the retreating civilian ships. A few had already found their marks, and the first casualty counts were beginning to roll in. Captain Grayson straightened his collar and steeled himself for what was to come.

"Prepare for contact, maximum shields," he ordered. "Area denial barrage, frag cannons execute."

All along the firing line, blinding flashes of plasma erupted as the warships opened fire with their fragmentation cannons, hypersonic projectiles streaking out to burst into clouds of bowling-ball-sized Kirklin mines. Moments later, the enemy fleet careened through...

Fear the Cold (dream)

2008-07-23T23:58:26Z

It's the edges you notice first. Maybe it is a place where the wind comes in, or maybe a crack in the floor where you can hear that strange whistling. Whatever it is, your next course of action is clear.

Cover up all the cracks you can. Block the door. Do not open the door. And watch those edges; the corners you might have missed because furniture is in the way. Check behind the stove, around the cabinets. Pay attention to the roaches. If they go, you're probably next.

Plug the chimney. Duct tape the windows. Draw all the blinds. Seal the mail slot. Don't answer the telephone.

Close the bedroom door.

Stay awake at night. Stay in bed. Do not get a snack. Keep away from the floor. Stay under the blankets. Curl up into a ...

Kathleen MacInnes (person)

2008-07-23T21:04:48Z

Kathleen MacInnes is a Scottish actress and singer from the Hebridean island of South Uist.

Her acting career isn't too spectacular as most of her work is done in Scottish Gaelic (I mean, how often do you hear the words 'megastar' and 'minority language' in the same sentence?), but in my opinion that doesn't matter because what you really want to do is hear Kathleen MacInnes sing. Her singing is also done in Gaelic and her repertoire includes traditional songs that very often come from her native island.

Like the best traditional musicians, she manages to put her own stamp on the material that sometimes goes back centuries and very often has already been recorded by other artists. She does so thanks to not only her interesting arrangements and perfect performance but also careful choice of her material. When you read sleeve-notes to her 2006 debut album Òg-Mhadainn Shamhraidh (Summer Dawn), you get the impression that every ...