Inescapable is the thrall and absorption of our current cultures fashionable obsession - global warming. Personally, I'm of the despicable type who, upon finding something has become popular, readily shuns it in what is probably an unconscious need to separate myself from wider society and remain 'cool'. Climate change, however, is quite obviously uncool, and even though you may not believe that it is a human caused phenomenon, the only win-win way to deal with it is to change the way you live.
Let's leave this aside, just for a moment, and focus on another 'cultural obsession' which has been plaguing the newspapers and newsreels of the British public. Modern Britian has lost all values, apparently, a line the right-of-centre Conservative Party have been towing for a few years, and one that the left-of-centre Labour Party have decided to address in their latest bid to stay in power. Hooligans are running riot in poor areas, tormenting neighbours and causing billions in taxpayers money. This media coverage possibly saturated this week due to the sad suicide of a woman tormented by unruly neighbours, who were seemingly untouched by the authorities.
Broken Windows Theory, as introduced by George L. Kelling and Catherine Coles, was a revolution for the world of armchair criminology and sociology, and when put into action through New York's ex mayor Giuliani apparently single handedly cut crime to the bone. The theory postulates that if you take the example of a building with broken windows, the remaining windows are more likely to get broken by vandals than a building which has no broken windows. By extension poor areas which are in disrepair are more likely to be subject to more vandalism, and hooliganism. A petri dish for little bastards.
With this in mind, imagine my horror to read this paper, which noted that polar bears, as a result of the icecaps breaking and dissapearng are running riot in close-by villiages. We are breaking the windows, we are breaking the ice. We are creating Chav polar bears. Seriously, I'm scared guys.
Swapping for knowing.
I haven't seen the new Star Trek film yet, which is simply unbearable for me. I'm the biggest Star Trek fan I know, and even some girl at work who rates 'She's All That' as her favorite movie managed to see it before me. She said it was good.
Aside from all the dazzling space fights and intellectual intergalactic diplomacy there are some incredibly interesting aspects to the Star Trek universe. In the history of the ST world, in our not too distant future humans are ruined by nuclear war, living in post war conditions, technologically advanced, but starving. Then someone invents a new type of engine that allows humans to travel through space at amazing speeds, some passing friendly aliens come down to meet us, and the world moves on.
The human race moves on in many ways, but in one way in particular, which doesn't always seem explicit. There's no money in the Star Trek future, and it isn't because you can just make it out of thin air with the cool future technology. Well, there is money, in a sense, but only in cases of scarcity where something cannot be made artificially. Nevertheless, the Federation doesn't use money, because no one in space accepts American Express.
Aliens have no use for pounds, dollars or yen, and you'd look like a real tit if you tried to use it. The Federation (The humans), with basically nothing to give, take or steal in response decided not to wage war, but to explore space. They pledged to seek out new life and new civilizations, to constantly endeavor to go where no other man has gone before.
I remember very clearly when I was around 7 or 8 years old the big craze at school was Terminator toys. We'd swap, try to do deals, try to cheat eachother, and whoever had the coolest WAS the coolest. I was the coolest. My Terminator had a toy, removable skin and a gun that shot a fake arrow slightly further than the other boy who had the exact same toy. Terminator was money and I was a rich play-school pimp Not long after that I had to change schools, and I went clutching my toy to impose my gravitas on this new patch. Thing is, the big thing in this new school was football cards, something I had knew absolutely nothing about. It was too late to learn.
The only thing I could do was open my books, and search for new life, new civilization. Boldly go where no man has been before.
Aside from all the dazzling space fights and intellectual intergalactic diplomacy there are some incredibly interesting aspects to the Star Trek universe. In the history of the ST world, in our not too distant future humans are ruined by nuclear war, living in post war conditions, technologically advanced, but starving. Then someone invents a new type of engine that allows humans to travel through space at amazing speeds, some passing friendly aliens come down to meet us, and the world moves on.
The human race moves on in many ways, but in one way in particular, which doesn't always seem explicit. There's no money in the Star Trek future, and it isn't because you can just make it out of thin air with the cool future technology. Well, there is money, in a sense, but only in cases of scarcity where something cannot be made artificially. Nevertheless, the Federation doesn't use money, because no one in space accepts American Express.
Aliens have no use for pounds, dollars or yen, and you'd look like a real tit if you tried to use it. The Federation (The humans), with basically nothing to give, take or steal in response decided not to wage war, but to explore space. They pledged to seek out new life and new civilizations, to constantly endeavor to go where no other man has gone before.
I remember very clearly when I was around 7 or 8 years old the big craze at school was Terminator toys. We'd swap, try to do deals, try to cheat eachother, and whoever had the coolest WAS the coolest. I was the coolest. My Terminator had a toy, removable skin and a gun that shot a fake arrow slightly further than the other boy who had the exact same toy. Terminator was money and I was a rich play-school pimp Not long after that I had to change schools, and I went clutching my toy to impose my gravitas on this new patch. Thing is, the big thing in this new school was football cards, something I had knew absolutely nothing about. It was too late to learn.
The only thing I could do was open my books, and search for new life, new civilization. Boldly go where no man has been before.
Cider, not quite ambrosia.
Recently I've been devouring books, a strange romance that I haven't been interested in for the past few years because of the inconvenience of University. At the moment I'm about a quarter of a way through "Narcissus and Goldmund", by the widely acclaimed author Herman Hesse. So far as I can tell it's about two men, one on the cusp of puberty and one older by a few years. Both are living and learning in a monastery, Goldmund the wide eyed student and Narcissus the intellectual, seemingly wasted in duty to God. Goldmund will soon leave the duty of God in search of hedonism while Narcissus, well, actually I don't know yet. But I assume he stays.
They love each-other, in a totally bromance non-gay way, and the central theme is that of "Apollonian and Dionysian". Most would recognize these names from probably one of the only cool lessons from primary school where in essence you're learning about totally badass superheroes that people believed to be real during the rule of the ancient Greeks.
Apollo was the god of the sun, music and by extension, light, where as Dionysus ruled over wine, ecstasy and generally being totally wasted. This 'AvsD' theme is used heavily in literature, and I think it's generally used all over the place. Good cop/bad cop sees hints of it, and pretty much any comic book or computer game where twin brothers are separated at birth to once meet again sees it brought back in some way. In short, it's being civil vs being primal and animalistic.
All the time I've had to read recently is mine because I've finished with my degree, at least 3 months before any of my friends or housemates. Let's introduce Sam, poor Sam, or perhaps - Apollo. Sam sits in his room and tries to write for his Journalism masters about 20 feet away from me. Sam shouldn't be drinking, he's still a man of learning. Sam tries to wake up early, he tries to catch the sun to use every precious hour to expand his workflow. In walks Me, Dionysus , drunk. Every day. Awesome to the max.
"Hey, Sam...Sam....SAM. SAM."
"What?"
"What you, uh, what... what you doing?"
"Essay"
"Know what I'm doing Sam?"
"What"
"Being, uh. GETTING DRUNK... Have a drink"
"No"
"KNow what I'm doing tomorrow?"
"No"
"DRUNK. NOTHING"
"You're drunk"
"I'm DIE-OH-NICE-EST!"
Destructive interference. Bacon.
Far be it from me to hop on the news-wagon, but revisiting some GCSE physics recently fired some synapses.
It's a known fact that when two waves of exactly the same wavelength meet they cancel each-other out. This phenomena is called destructive interference, for obvious reasons. It's pretty amazing to think you can just cancel sound, and as far as I know its used in those high-end noise canceling headphones and bluetooth sets that only people who never get called really use.
In the macro-world, meanwhile, the only 'vibes' I'm getting is fear. Fear, as we know from the two largest threats to our lives right now -- SWINE FLU and SUICIDE BOMBERS.
The solutions to both are annihilation, everyone wants everything dead. But these two equally trying problems certainly seem to be on the same wavelength, and I see a way out.
Two words. Suicide Swine.
Rational choice theory;
Economics is essentially the study and research of how we as human beings use resources. Primarily, we all know economics as a sort of umbrella term for the state of money in our society, and seemingly, for all the faux-marxists, just how THE SYSTEM IS FUCKING WITH THE PEOPLE, MAN.
Economists have actual real jobs though, and they don't just look into how people are behaving, but actively attempt to discover why they are behaving in a particular way to a particular situation. To understand and predict just how the population will act in an unforeseen situation seems almost Godlike, or for the more cynical, impossible. Naturally it's true to say that like any social scientists they can and have been known to get it wrong, however these clairvoyants are incredibly adept at telling us where we're going before we even know we're moving.
In order to study such a huge population and make predictions the economists single greatest tool is to use Rational Choice Theory. What this really means is that they simply assume that everyone is rational, and by that, they mean they accept trade offs until the price or risks become larger than the rewards. Oral sex, as a case in point has been heralded by the economists as being a prime example.
With Sexually transmitted infections on the rise and the percentage of 12-16 year olds having oral sex raised by a third' Rational Choice guys tell the world that in fact these girls and boys are just being rational and sensible. The risks of oral sex are far smaller than regular and anal as well as the price of condoms. Condoms can be had for free, but unless you have some lying about it can be a time consuming and travel heavy journey to get them from your nearest clinic. This of course is separate to the price of a baby if someone got pregnant, or the emotional price of an abortion if someone were to make that choice.
So these rational kids, for whom sex is a reality and not an epidemic, choose to perform it in the most rational and cost effective way. Rational choice theory is extremely far reaching, but can I find examples in my own life? Yes, of course, I pay higher rent for a better placed house. I make trade offs by buying bruised fruit and groceries that are close to expiration. But what about the totally irrational? What about the choices we make that set us apart? What about really gay tattoos?
I guess what I'm trying to say is - Pete, why did you get a tattoo of a panther? I mean, What the fuck. It's a tattoo, so it's there forever, meaning the price is high, plus you PAID for it. There was no trade off here, no rational choice theory. Unless, of course you were worried about Sexually Transmitted infection, which will certainly never be a problem ever again.
Im not touching you though am I?
This is my new favorite comedian. The prime minister of Iran and the newest big 'threat' to freedom.
And I'll tell you why.
Whether you were a bully or bullied, there was always that guy in class that was a total asshole, but hilariously funny so long as he wasn't picking on you. You know the guy that would sit next to the kid with the unfortunate haircut and just bully the crap out of him for hours by drawing dicks in his margins or stealing his pens and pretending he hadn't. The same guy that would pretend to punch you and stop inches from your face, just so you'd flinch, or fart and instantly blame it on you, loudly.
In our brave new world outside of the classroom, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is that guy. And he loves to wind up America.
How I imagine it goes down:
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: "Oh, hey, America, look at the massive amount of our budget we're spending on something called "Nukez", I'm not even going to try and hide that shit from you, you'd just find out about it like you found weapons in Iraq"
America: We're going to bomb the crap out of you now. You shouldn't have weapons.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: woah!, LOL no, it's nuclear power. I'm just messing, we're friends. You can't bomb me for a POWER PLANT.
America: We're watching you.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Did you just fart?
America: No.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Ohhhhh! UN! America just farted!! Man your ass stinks!
America: We didn't just fart. We didn't.
Now they're sending a rocket into space, "For nuclear warheads?!?!" America screams! No, to install the first Iranian satellite. But in truth, it's just to get America on edge and piss them off. I hope when it gets up there they shoot out a replica warhead with a sheet attached to a stick shooting out of it saying "BANG"...LOL.
P.s. I hope this doesn't turn out to be a huge mistake and he turns out to be a the harbinger of doom.
Jack is a fucking idiot.
I've mentioned my friend Jack before, and against all my better judgement I'm bringing him up again. Here's a link to his blog.
Jack is a grown-ass man, not a child, with an IQ well above average, highly intelligent in fact (we've had him tested). He may not have a career, any money or determination but he's a clever guy. A clever guy that spent all of last night, and the best part of this morning, completely topless in the snow, alone. By choice.
at around 1am, during the 30 second walk from my local pub to my flat he got into a snowball fight, and for some reason pulled off his shirt to 'intimidate' his opponents. No one saw him again till 4am. No one that is apart from
- A tramp who paid him to buy a bottle of brandy then drink it so he could use it as a crack pipe
- Other, random passers by who may have seen him running around the streets topless in the snow.
- A bunch of Italians who he swears he built a 7 foot snowman with
- And some lovely girl that gave him some gloves. Yunno, to keep him warm.
So, why does he do this shit? And why do smart people do stupid things? Lawrence Gonzales, talking on how people react during survival type situations believes that stupidity is born out of peoples tendency to follow well established 'scripts' or learned behaviour. These behavioral learned patterns are what keep us functional as humans and as a society, otherwise you'd have to learn to ride a bike every time you hopped on one. It's also, sadly, the reason people react poorly in survival type situations, unable to pull out of their normal routines of thinking in an out of routine situation.
I'd say it's certainly believable in Jack's case.
"We use models and scripts, not the real world; we operate on the basis of what we learned in a slightly different situation,"
Let's keep in mind, however, that Jack's experience abstractly actually comes from the television, movies, and apparently, wrestling tactics. Out of world behaviors infect his social interactions in real life. He rips off his goddamn shirt every time he sees confrontation, rain, sleet, snow or a wedding. I'd like to say more, but I wont. Those of you who know him, know. He's a smart, funny guy, and a fucking idiot. Though make no mistake, in a zombie apocalypse, he's your man. Topless.
He's been asleep the best part of the day, I think I saw him cry a little bit when he didn't think I was looking and he seems convinced he has gangrene in his fingers. 
Corrs and effect.
Most theories start small, probably. Eureka moments don't come to those who aren't in search of them, and Einstein wasn't a floor layer. He was a mathematician that spent his waking energy on his quest for an explanation, and he started small, eventually building up to his opus.
In this spirit I'm going to start thinking about the world myself. I'm starting small, and wholly unidirectionaly.
The Corrs were an Irish pop/rock band that made their name in the late 90's with their Irish folk inspired rock that captured the hearts of the "I'm half Irish" guys and girls. They consisted of 4 members; 3 sisters and a brother.
Three, good looking girls, and one ugly ass brother. The poor guy was commonly referred to as the 'wankstop', because his occasional exposure during videos prevented straight males polishing one off without being 'gay'.
A lighter, nicer version of this is that he's an unattractive male among attractive females, and spoils an otherwise pleasant viewing experience. This, is the Corrs Effect.
The Corrs effect isn't bound only to the Corrs though, in terms of blackjack, for example, it fits perfectly. The aim of blackjack being to get 21, or closest, but not over using playing cards dealt to you. Above all to win your stake you need to beat the dealer, if he has 16, you want 17 at least.
Imagine a deal like this:
Queen of spades (running score 10) ...Good
2 of clubs (running score 12) ...Okay
4 of spades (running score 16) ...Alright
King of clubs (running score 26) ...FUCK <------Corrs effect
The Corrs' effect is far reaching, far further than this. Observe the following, reading counter-clockwise:
Therefore, if we mark all good elements with an 'χ', 'y' 'z' or even other characters if needed (though there are 3 female members in the corrs, the number of good elements can be infinite.) and the shit element with an 'α' and assign a value to each (make up a number, any number eg: star trek=χ χ=2390809 awesomeness). Then input 'α' as the value of shitness then place them into the simple formula below, we get a clear reading on how generally excited we are after the corrs element has played out it's sick game.
In this spirit I'm going to start thinking about the world myself. I'm starting small, and wholly unidirectionaly.
The Corrs were an Irish pop/rock band that made their name in the late 90's with their Irish folk inspired rock that captured the hearts of the "I'm half Irish" guys and girls. They consisted of 4 members; 3 sisters and a brother.
Three, good looking girls, and one ugly ass brother. The poor guy was commonly referred to as the 'wankstop', because his occasional exposure during videos prevented straight males polishing one off without being 'gay'.
A lighter, nicer version of this is that he's an unattractive male among attractive females, and spoils an otherwise pleasant viewing experience. This, is the Corrs Effect.
The Corrs effect isn't bound only to the Corrs though, in terms of blackjack, for example, it fits perfectly. The aim of blackjack being to get 21, or closest, but not over using playing cards dealt to you. Above all to win your stake you need to beat the dealer, if he has 16, you want 17 at least.
Imagine a deal like this:
Queen of spades (running score 10) ...Good
2 of clubs (running score 12) ...Okay
4 of spades (running score 16) ...Alright
King of clubs (running score 26) ...FUCK <------Corrs effect
The Corrs' effect is far reaching, far further than this. Observe the following, reading counter-clockwise:
Therefore, if we mark all good elements with an 'χ', 'y' 'z' or even other characters if needed (though there are 3 female members in the corrs, the number of good elements can be infinite.) and the shit element with an 'α' and assign a value to each (make up a number, any number eg: star trek=χ χ=2390809 awesomeness). Then input 'α' as the value of shitness then place them into the simple formula below, we get a clear reading on how generally excited we are after the corrs element has played out it's sick game.
χ + y + z
______ = E
α
______ = E
α
The Corrs' effect is further reaching than even this, it's the theory of Gods.
Pwned.
You own everything you have. Forget the student loans and borrowed books - you own them, because you have them. Everything else you own outright, from the day you acquired them to the day you die.
And when you die you either stop existing totally, move into another being, or ascend to a higher place. It's safe to say, therefore, that once you die you leave yourself behind. Your ugly decaying body. When you think about it, it irks a little, that your body, the only thing in life you can never lose, is no longer your property. It's not like just any asshole can have it, but it's just not yours any more.
Of course there are anomalous cases, there are serial killers that own the bodies of their victims, sometimes transforming them into curtains or vagina lampshades (see: Jerry Brudos, Ed Gein ), there's that dude in Psycho who owns his mother's body etc. Then we have the loveable necrophiliacs who totally own you, own you like the whore you are. Slut.
Unless, of course in life you make arrangements for your body, cryogenics, a few minutes in the flames, give yourself to some land you love or even sell yourself to Gunther von Hagens. In a novel 'Clarissa', the title character is raped and dies, and the sick dude that does it needs to own her, and tries to get her corpse to have with him "always". Her only revenge is to leave strict instructions for her body, so, yeah, she totally got one over on him.
And teabagging.
Teabagging is a verb to mean killing an individual in a game, then crouching over and standing up repeatedly over their immobile character. It comes, of course, from from the sexual act of the same name, when a male dips his balls in and out of another persons mouth - and its freaking hilarious.
And when someone teabags you. You're totally owned.
And when you die you either stop existing totally, move into another being, or ascend to a higher place. It's safe to say, therefore, that once you die you leave yourself behind. Your ugly decaying body. When you think about it, it irks a little, that your body, the only thing in life you can never lose, is no longer your property. It's not like just any asshole can have it, but it's just not yours any more.
Of course there are anomalous cases, there are serial killers that own the bodies of their victims, sometimes transforming them into curtains or vagina lampshades (see: Jerry Brudos, Ed Gein ), there's that dude in Psycho who owns his mother's body etc. Then we have the loveable necrophiliacs who totally own you, own you like the whore you are. Slut.
Unless, of course in life you make arrangements for your body, cryogenics, a few minutes in the flames, give yourself to some land you love or even sell yourself to Gunther von Hagens. In a novel 'Clarissa', the title character is raped and dies, and the sick dude that does it needs to own her, and tries to get her corpse to have with him "always". Her only revenge is to leave strict instructions for her body, so, yeah, she totally got one over on him.
And teabagging.
Teabagging is a verb to mean killing an individual in a game, then crouching over and standing up repeatedly over their immobile character. It comes, of course, from from the sexual act of the same name, when a male dips his balls in and out of another persons mouth - and its freaking hilarious.
And when someone teabags you. You're totally owned.
You totally would.
Stem Cell research, growing organs and nanotechnology.
The future is here people, and it's pretty revolting when you go into it.
Stem Cell research involves putting human cells in an egg to grow (sort of, then other stuff is done) and nanotechnology is growing increasingly dependent on the meeting of machines and living creatures. Yuk right? But it's progress, and in 100 years people will be looking back and wondering why we were fussing, in the same way we view those weird n00bs from the past who opposed operating on humans.
Why is stem cell so hot right now?
Well, it's because it's human cells they're growing, in an embryonic state, and for those who believe life starts at conception, we're basically fucking with human beings.
An interesting angle comes from the theory that we view the world in terms of 'sacred' and 'secular'. This from a paper covered in NewScientist, 'sacred' is life, health etc, and 'secular' is money and stuff like that. That's why there's always outrage when a life saving/pain reducing drug is canned because it's too expensive. Like a lot of things I think this is a case of discovering something that's pretty obvious and just giving it a name. But then again, now it has a name, and hey, let's downscale.
The game 'Would you?' prompts someone to examine and orate whether they would have sex with an individual, or individuals. The game has two formats:
Assume one addresser and one or more addressees, in this case all male, though genders are interchangeable for audience, interviewer and sexuality.
Guerrilla Would-you?: Female comes into eyeline, addresser asks "would you?", adresee must answer. Yes/No answer acceptable, in some cases preferable, though elaborations welcome and often humorous.
Food-for-thought Would-you?: Same premise, though subject is absent and often abstract, or abstractions of reality.
Eg: Would you [insert girl's name] if she made you eat her vomit after?
My point is this. The game, though crude, exposes a persons views on what is sacred or secular to them. Being paid for sex is okay for some people, though there's a correlation between the amount of money and the person, and certainly the type of sexual act they have to do. Sexuality is almost universally sacred, no matter how much you tell a guy he'd get for letting Josh Hartnett put a single finger in his bum. Some people would screw Angelina Jolie if she had one eye, some wouldn't, and Pete won't go near anytype of amputee.
"She might, yunno, stick it in my arse"
Because in Peter's world, they all just love to do that shit. Drawing attention to their deformity is hella sexual.
Plus, it's all a joke, right? The hidden truthiness of a persons position on age (too young/too old in the eyes of society, morality) come to the forefront, because we're all kidding but totally, totally would that girl from that thing when she grows up.
YourTube.
What the hell is going on? After decades of dissapointment, from promises made by ambitious sci-fi heralds (see; Buck Rogers, Space 1999 etc.) we're suddenly seeing progress.
Huge progress, in fact. In the near future we'll be able to videotape dreams, thoughts, whatever. Anything your mind can throw up. It comes off the back of research done using FMRI scans, the full link to the amazing article below.
Click
It's going to be used in torture. It's going to be used in the law courts, and it's certainly going to be used in divorce cases. On the surface it's amazing, but just think, the only private place you own will become a public access nightmare, and you tube will have awful fucking 'mind celebrities'.
Huge progress, in fact. In the near future we'll be able to videotape dreams, thoughts, whatever. Anything your mind can throw up. It comes off the back of research done using FMRI scans, the full link to the amazing article below.
Click
It's going to be used in torture. It's going to be used in the law courts, and it's certainly going to be used in divorce cases. On the surface it's amazing, but just think, the only private place you own will become a public access nightmare, and you tube will have awful fucking 'mind celebrities'.
Large Hadron Collider: The Movie
LHC
We open in a distopian future, seemingly devoid of power yet inexplicably incredibly technologically advanced. Under skies darkened by what we can only assume is the result of the power shortage and burning tyres. A ragged group of musclebound 'scientist' rougue factionists scurry away from some kind of regeme led police to an underground lair.
Masks come off and head of the crew is Steven Segal's character "Nuwambe".
The LHC had caused untold disasters in the past, and for one reason or another the entire world was under the regime of some really bad guy. While it heralded the ending of civilization, it also opened a window for time travel, explains Seth Green's character "Nathan", the very young but extremely clever guy who built the time machine the audience is being shown.
Nuwambe get's strapped in and travels to the past and has a love affair with a beautiful scientist who hates his arrogance at first, but slowly lets go of her feminist attitudes and totally submits to his machismo. Nuwambe fights a series of weirdly muscly scientist to get to CERN Labs and eventually punches the LHC into submission.
Nuwambe knows he has no time left. By destroying the LHC he has changed the future and he would soon disappear into nothingness. Nuwambe and female scientist kiss. Nuwambe remains and slowly realises he isn't going to vanish. Female scientist is happy.
NUWAMBE
Stupid woman, don't you SEE? It wasn't enough. I wasn't enough. The LHC will still operate.
THE END
LHC2: The second coming.
Synopsis
The world is still a mess, and the forcible actions of the time traveller "Nuwambe" sent to the past made little difference to the horrible future that awaits a world torn apart by the LHC.
Learning from their actions - the group, led by a slightly older and battlescarred Seth Green search for an intellect to take down the machine, and find it in Shia La Bouf's character "Zak".
Zak is sent back to ensure the LHC never gets fixed and turned on again. With the help of his great great grandfather, a university professor in economics at Yale they devise a plan to stall the LHC, and hope it'll vanish into disrepute.
Nuwambe shows up, and all three fight and hack their way into "THE MONEY CENTRE", a US owned, and heavily guarded, government underground installation. At the climax they find the red button that causes the worlds economic system to go into freefall. They press it, causing the credit crunch, in the hope the lack of funding will mean the LHC can never be fixed.
Zak and Nuwambe remain.
ZAK
Is it over?
NUWAMBE
It's never over. Never Kid.
THE END.
LHC3: Health and Safety.
Synopsis to come.
Keep it gramat.
Linguists are scientists too, only their tools are language, which also happens to be the thing they're studying. It can get quite murky, really, and you can drown in language, English, French, Arabic, German, Ancient Greek all flying at you. Of course, these are different languages right? Apparently not. Not at the mechanical level anyway.
This got me thinking. Everyone eats differently right? On a grand scale most cultures have learned norms of eating or etiquette for occasion, whether it be a succession of cutlery or eating with your left hand. Then I remembered Jak, explaining to me just how he eats his meals, and like a set of languages there's slight variations in each, but all elements are the same. Every meal provides a new and exciting, but often ritualized challenge, and he views the plate with the mathematical skill of terminators vision-scope. This is his breakfast syntax tier:
Key:
EM = eaten over entire meal
H/H = have half at start, half at end
P = pig meat of some kind
C= chew
NC =No chewing required
If you go on youtube you can see hundreds of videos of Chomsky being a badass and shouting at the goverment. You can also see him being interviewed by Ali G.
Noam Chomsky, ultimate badass Linguist (and now, political activist, kicking 'the mans' ass) showed us that you can break down a sentence, into noun phrases, nouns, adverbial phrases etc., and what you'll find is every language will be the same. Different arrangements, of course - grammars and sounds, but all human language is the same, whether you're speaking English or Polish. He used syntax tiers, which are fucking bastards to work with, like the one below:
Note: The sentence is nonsensical because he was making a point. Though the meaning is abstract the sentence sounds totally reasonable, because the word arrangement agrees with the rules of English.
Note: The sentence is nonsensical because he was making a point. Though the meaning is abstract the sentence sounds totally reasonable, because the word arrangement agrees with the rules of English.This got me thinking. Everyone eats differently right? On a grand scale most cultures have learned norms of eating or etiquette for occasion, whether it be a succession of cutlery or eating with your left hand. Then I remembered Jak, explaining to me just how he eats his meals, and like a set of languages there's slight variations in each, but all elements are the same. Every meal provides a new and exciting, but often ritualized challenge, and he views the plate with the mathematical skill of terminators vision-scope. This is his breakfast syntax tier:
Key:EM = eaten over entire meal
H/H = have half at start, half at end
P = pig meat of some kind
C= chew
NC =No chewing required
If you go on youtube you can see hundreds of videos of Chomsky being a badass and shouting at the goverment. You can also see him being interviewed by Ali G.
Myspace and Nostradamus
Nostradamus. Everyones favorite prophet, after Jesus, Moses and Mohammed, and the only prophet a secular or new age person can turn to for some real fear. I remember back a few years I picked up a copy of Centuries, a collection of his prophecies from a second hand bookshop and tried reading it cover to cover. I couldn't, of course, it was Chaucer on crack, not because the language was impenetrable or archaic, but it was a pretty poor translation. Anyway, some parts where underlined so I checked it out, and found myself totally terrified.
Big N. predicted that we'd see what he called '3 Antichrists', as far as I remember. All capable of harnessing the power of entire nations and causing widespread death and destruction, on unimaginable scales. The consensus is we've already seen two (I'll tell you whom in a moment) and the shitty thing is; the third spells the end of the world.
The first Antichrist he said would be called "PAU-NAY-OLORAN". Not much imagination needed to decipher that one. Napoleon. Alright, makes sense, he was pretty big in his day. So big in fact that I think I heard his penis is still to this day kept in stasis someplace?
The second I won't even elaborate on, Nostradamus called him "HISTER".
Now, the third is called "MABUS". "Holy FUCK" Saeed of 4 or 5 years ago thinks, that's SABAM backwards, and Arabic is written backwards, and SADDAM is about to enter a war. I lost a lot of sleep. Not only on this, there was supporting evidence too, I can't remember it all now, but it was all underlined in my copy, which I'd dutifully decipher like I was the first in the world to understand what he was on about. Then there's this:
By the time Saddam was killed, I'd totally got over it. What a load of absolute shit. But whats interesting is, it all resurfaced in the recent election. Under the cover of message boards middle America (Nostradamus was a practicing christian) messages were being passed on with notes along the lines of:
Jeez. Well, I thought it was interesting.
Anyway, what I want to know is this. Why the fuck is no one watching THIS GUY.
Big N. predicted that we'd see what he called '3 Antichrists', as far as I remember. All capable of harnessing the power of entire nations and causing widespread death and destruction, on unimaginable scales. The consensus is we've already seen two (I'll tell you whom in a moment) and the shitty thing is; the third spells the end of the world.
The first Antichrist he said would be called "PAU-NAY-OLORAN". Not much imagination needed to decipher that one. Napoleon. Alright, makes sense, he was pretty big in his day. So big in fact that I think I heard his penis is still to this day kept in stasis someplace?
The second I won't even elaborate on, Nostradamus called him "HISTER".
Now, the third is called "MABUS". "Holy FUCK" Saeed of 4 or 5 years ago thinks, that's SABAM backwards, and Arabic is written backwards, and SADDAM is about to enter a war. I lost a lot of sleep. Not only on this, there was supporting evidence too, I can't remember it all now, but it was all underlined in my copy, which I'd dutifully decipher like I was the first in the world to understand what he was on about. Then there's this:
Century 2, Quatrain 62
Mabus will soon die, then will come,
A horrible undoing of people and animals,
At once one will see vengeance,
One hundred powers, thirst, famine, when the comet will pass.
Mabus will soon die, then will come,
A horrible undoing of people and animals,
At once one will see vengeance,
One hundred powers, thirst, famine, when the comet will pass.
By the time Saddam was killed, I'd totally got over it. What a load of absolute shit. But whats interesting is, it all resurfaced in the recent election. Under the cover of message boards middle America (Nostradamus was a practicing christian) messages were being passed on with notes along the lines of:
But if as in the second example of HISTER, we dropped the 'S' from MABUS leaving MABU we see an even more likely 'Candidate' for the identity of the third AntiChrist:
MABUS
*
OBAMA
It is interesting to note the Six(6)-pointed star created from the translation of the Three(3) letters MAB to BAM above. Was Nostradamus making a correlation to the identity of the AntiChrist using the well-known 666?
MABUS
*
OBAMA
It is interesting to note the Six(6)-pointed star created from the translation of the Three(3) letters MAB to BAM above. Was Nostradamus making a correlation to the identity of the AntiChrist using the well-known 666?
Jeez. Well, I thought it was interesting.
Anyway, what I want to know is this. Why the fuck is no one watching THIS GUY.
The Lurgey, proof Darwin was wrong.
In terms, I feel I'm a neo-darwinist. This means little to most people, and a lot to certain feminist factions who thought they had seen off biological determinism only to have it brought back in the last few years. They're all angry that we could even think men and women are different. They have a point, politically, I think we make a better case, factually.
Anyway, I write about horizontal gene transfer. Darwin tells us that genes within us are rigid, unchangeable things, and the change comes through time via selective breeding. So; giraffes were animals with short necks, then one came along with a slightly longer one and could reach leaves higher up and didn't have to share with all the weird yellow horses. He got big and attractive and all the lady giraffes wanted his kids and so they did. A new generation of slightly longer necked kids were born, more able than the other kids from other giraffes, looked better in a necklace. But one of those kids and an even longer neck, and so it went on and on until today, where we have these fucking ridiculous animals you see looking so depressed in zoos.
But then there are weird cases, where 2 groups of animals evolve at the same time, completely separate. There was a case for monkeys in south Asia using tools for the first time, then all of a sudden, monkeys from a similar family hundreds of miles away suddenly also started using the same tools in the same way to the same effect. There was no contact, no selective breeding, so what could have happened? Some scientists say this is proof that genes are linked like, well, the Internet, and progress can be effected by one person in the Internet gene pool changing behaviour or making a discovery.
In fact, at exact same time Darwin was making his discoveries, another bloke made the exact same breakthrough. Weird huh?
I'm not saying this is true, all I'm saying is that I think it's what's going on in Heroes right now. They're going to discover there's some kind of horizontal gene transfer thing, and this weird theory is going to be thrown into the realms of science fiction. A good realm to be in quite frankly, science fiction buffs are the scientists of tomorrow, and the obsessive compulsive weirdos that are still trying to build teleporters.
Update:
Don't even bother reading this site, just look at the symbol
Click
Anyway, I write about horizontal gene transfer. Darwin tells us that genes within us are rigid, unchangeable things, and the change comes through time via selective breeding. So; giraffes were animals with short necks, then one came along with a slightly longer one and could reach leaves higher up and didn't have to share with all the weird yellow horses. He got big and attractive and all the lady giraffes wanted his kids and so they did. A new generation of slightly longer necked kids were born, more able than the other kids from other giraffes, looked better in a necklace. But one of those kids and an even longer neck, and so it went on and on until today, where we have these fucking ridiculous animals you see looking so depressed in zoos.
But then there are weird cases, where 2 groups of animals evolve at the same time, completely separate. There was a case for monkeys in south Asia using tools for the first time, then all of a sudden, monkeys from a similar family hundreds of miles away suddenly also started using the same tools in the same way to the same effect. There was no contact, no selective breeding, so what could have happened? Some scientists say this is proof that genes are linked like, well, the Internet, and progress can be effected by one person in the Internet gene pool changing behaviour or making a discovery.
In fact, at exact same time Darwin was making his discoveries, another bloke made the exact same breakthrough. Weird huh?
I'm not saying this is true, all I'm saying is that I think it's what's going on in Heroes right now. They're going to discover there's some kind of horizontal gene transfer thing, and this weird theory is going to be thrown into the realms of science fiction. A good realm to be in quite frankly, science fiction buffs are the scientists of tomorrow, and the obsessive compulsive weirdos that are still trying to build teleporters.
Update:
Don't even bother reading this site, just look at the symbol
Click
Civilization and the fall of pans.
In the 1960's; a bold time for space travel it became a necessity to have some kind way to classify aliens. Because of course we'd find some, not so long ago we didn't even know other people lived on earth with us and now look at us. Look at me, I'm the product of two people who were born and lived over 2,000 miles apart.
This guy Kardashev, a soviet astronomer formed a classification of three groups, based entirely on how much energy they made use of. The more they used, the more civilized. The basic idea really being that as civilizations grow they need more power to fuel their discoveries and solve their problems. We used more when everyone needed cars, more still when everyone needed computers, mobile phones, vibrators and escalators
The groups fall like so:
Type I – a civilization which can utilize all of the power available on a single planet
Type II – a civilization which is able to harness all of the power from a single star
Type III – a civilization that is able to harness all of the power of a single galaxy
Anyway.
Whether this really proves a good measurement waits to be seen. But I'd certainly agree with this in the kitchen.
Today I was hungry, with no food and let's assume the following:
Type I - a person who can utilize all the power of a potato slightly bruised, in the kitchen
Type II - a person who utilize all the power of the restaurant beneath their flat.
Type III - a person who can utilize the grocery shop slightly further away, and cook their damn selves.
Today I was type III.
I suppose this doesn't work, because Type I usually means you've already done a Type III and bought stuff. But in my case the potato wasn't mine.
This guy Kardashev, a soviet astronomer formed a classification of three groups, based entirely on how much energy they made use of. The more they used, the more civilized. The basic idea really being that as civilizations grow they need more power to fuel their discoveries and solve their problems. We used more when everyone needed cars, more still when everyone needed computers, mobile phones, vibrators and escalators
The groups fall like so:
Type I – a civilization which can utilize all of the power available on a single planet
Type II – a civilization which is able to harness all of the power from a single star
Type III – a civilization that is able to harness all of the power of a single galaxy
Anyway.
Whether this really proves a good measurement waits to be seen. But I'd certainly agree with this in the kitchen.
Today I was hungry, with no food and let's assume the following:
Type I - a person who can utilize all the power of a potato slightly bruised, in the kitchen
Type II - a person who utilize all the power of the restaurant beneath their flat.
Type III - a person who can utilize the grocery shop slightly further away, and cook their damn selves.
Today I was type III.
I suppose this doesn't work, because Type I usually means you've already done a Type III and bought stuff. But in my case the potato wasn't mine.
CHAAAAAAAANGE
In case you haven't noticed (from the last post) I've decided to change the format of my posts. From now on I'm going to try and incorporate some big theory into my own life. I understand this may make me look a bit like a tosser seeing as my demographic are my friends and weird passers by, but, yunno, don't be a bender about it.
Time to know.
Newton postulated time and space were seperate entities, joined only by the fact we both experience them as human beings, in the same way you could probably say a burger and an air balloon are totally seperate, except for the fact they are both objects readily available in our world. Then came along this Minkowski guy. He was all like "No, actually time and space are intertwined, one affects the other and vice versa" which makes my hamburger/balloon metaphor totally useless. Not everyone listened, of course, this guy was cool and all but he was probably wrong. History is littered with people that were wrong, and it's only those that were SO wrong that we remember (flat earth? WTF? idiot).
But wait, hold on, then comes the badass of science, Einstein. He blows the world away with all his crazy ass shit (theory of relativity), and then turns his gaze to time. He agrees, why wouldn't he? It's pretty important to his central thought processes that we live in a world of merged dimensions. Everyone knows the first dimension (Duke Nukem), 2d (Duke Nukem 2) and 3d (Duke Nukem 3d). 4d, well; that's time (which is in ALL the Duke Nukems). Especially the fourth one where he actually travels in time.
Alright, but anyway, the most interesting thing he says has to do with light and time (not going into it) but the general gist is that no two people will experience time the same way, unless they're standing in the same place, on top of eachother, or right next to eachother.
Makes sense right?
Me and Sam were feeling time the same way at work today, standing close behing a bursting till, terrible porn playing, slowly hating our other collegue.
But wait, hold on, then comes the badass of science, Einstein. He blows the world away with all his crazy ass shit (theory of relativity), and then turns his gaze to time. He agrees, why wouldn't he? It's pretty important to his central thought processes that we live in a world of merged dimensions. Everyone knows the first dimension (Duke Nukem), 2d (Duke Nukem 2) and 3d (Duke Nukem 3d). 4d, well; that's time (which is in ALL the Duke Nukems). Especially the fourth one where he actually travels in time.
Alright, but anyway, the most interesting thing he says has to do with light and time (not going into it) but the general gist is that no two people will experience time the same way, unless they're standing in the same place, on top of eachother, or right next to eachother.
Makes sense right?
Me and Sam were feeling time the same way at work today, standing close behing a bursting till, terrible porn playing, slowly hating our other collegue.
Sapir Whorf Hypothesis
Serious post now.
I feel competent enough now in my field to tell people I'm a linguist. Problematic, of course if I
ever come up against a true linguist, that would rate merit on academia, as unlike other disciplines a doctorate is really needed to truly say you're a linguist.
The concept of a linguist is hard enough to explain to most people, there aren't any immediate pop culture references to be made, and I've resigned myself to having to use "that guy on Stargate that works out the hieroglyphs" as a starting point. Naturally that's almost like comparing a Theologist to Ash from the Evil Dead movies, but it's closer than anything else I can muster. Besides, when people ask what you do, they seldom really care, unless you light up their hemispheres with something beneficial to them.
Coming to the end of my degree I'm looking at what to do. It's tough, really, with such wide scope it's difficult to decide what to do, I feel like I'm playing pin the tail on the donkey at the moment, though something has come up recently. My girlfriend's relative is an NLP (Neuro linguistic programming) master, someone who uses linguistic, and paralinguistic techniques for therapy or life coaching. It's an interesting practice, and I've been trying to educate myself on the field since hearing about it. The best I could do to explain it is if you think of Derren Brown, who uses parts of the technique, as well as other cognitive manipulation techniques. It's also very close to that Jedi mind trick of waving your hand and saying "you will do X" though it's generally used more beneficially for the recipient. Of course, then again it sometimes isn't, and theres a dark undercurrent comprising of the school of 'Speed seducers' that use it to get girls in to bed. Below are links to Derren Brown and Ross Jeffries (speed seducer, being interviewed by the inimitable Louis Theroux) I can't embed them because it's disabled for both these clips.
I'm just not sure though. In my short dance with Psycholinguistics I've felt I don't really agree with the Sapir Whorf theory, and align myself more with the Chomsky or Pinker notions that we don't even think in language, and that language is completely separate to thought. I think this would probably disgust my connectionist tutor, but I'm still awaiting a reply from her on what she think of NLP as a whole.
I'm still going to look into it though. BIG MONEY in it. My other teacher tells me her friend makes 180,000 a year with NLP, and Kayleigh's uncle sounds minted.
Interesting? Probably not, but I thought I'd get academic on your asses. If only vaguely.
Feeling Stupid.
I thought I was pretty smart up until recently, and weirdly the more I try the less I get. Think I may just stop trying and be back on track for a first.
Working in a sex shop is weird. Weird because it's so not weird, it's in fact so mundane that I forget I'm surrounded by ass naked people and silicone dicks. Sitting at the till, behind me are 3 posters of naked women either posing or touching themselves, over the shelves behind the till we keep the herbal viagra and poppers. In eyes view there's the bookshelf, beyond lying our new release porn, one of which play on a massive flatscreen. Then theres all the toys, clothes, and still more DVD's in Soho's biggest sex shop, and my place of work.
Everything is normal, no surprising gay people, no surprizing fetishists and no surprizing penis-pump shoppers.
I wish there was something interesting to say, but after 3 months there showing a lesbian how to put a strap on, explaining how to use delay spray (with hand action) and breaking out my arabic to tell my countrymen, unbeknownced to my peers to "fuck off" or "what would God think?" when they come in looking for spanish fly (a herbal tonic that is meant to get girls horny if you slip it in a drink) is just normal.
The most surprising thing, probably, is the amount of straight men that love to put things in their bum, or fucked by a strap on. You can spot their shifty eyes as they pull the box off the rack and hand it to their girlfriends, who without looking at the box at all make a vector for the till. It's like watching a 10 year old who finally pursuaded their mum to buy them a computer game, but ended up worse off for it on a horrible, tantrum shopping trip. You feel for them, but more for their girlfriends really, which is why I never suggest lube.
Working in a sex shop is weird. Weird because it's so not weird, it's in fact so mundane that I forget I'm surrounded by ass naked people and silicone dicks. Sitting at the till, behind me are 3 posters of naked women either posing or touching themselves, over the shelves behind the till we keep the herbal viagra and poppers. In eyes view there's the bookshelf, beyond lying our new release porn, one of which play on a massive flatscreen. Then theres all the toys, clothes, and still more DVD's in Soho's biggest sex shop, and my place of work.
Everything is normal, no surprising gay people, no surprizing fetishists and no surprizing penis-pump shoppers.
I wish there was something interesting to say, but after 3 months there showing a lesbian how to put a strap on, explaining how to use delay spray (with hand action) and breaking out my arabic to tell my countrymen, unbeknownced to my peers to "fuck off" or "what would God think?" when they come in looking for spanish fly (a herbal tonic that is meant to get girls horny if you slip it in a drink) is just normal.
The most surprising thing, probably, is the amount of straight men that love to put things in their bum, or fucked by a strap on. You can spot their shifty eyes as they pull the box off the rack and hand it to their girlfriends, who without looking at the box at all make a vector for the till. It's like watching a 10 year old who finally pursuaded their mum to buy them a computer game, but ended up worse off for it on a horrible, tantrum shopping trip. You feel for them, but more for their girlfriends really, which is why I never suggest lube.
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