Automatic Translation

It is late and I am tired, but I wanted to shatter at least a few people's dreams before I go have some of my own. There will never be a machine that can translate one language into another. All of those who had your hopes up of getting one of these babies or making a fortune creating something like this, sorry, you are out of luck. Are you despondent yet from the crushing blow I have just dealt you?

What is English? If I wanted to translate something into English, what does that mean? Is the English I speak the same as you speak? If I had a book on complex mathematics that was in Russian and wanted it translated into English, who could read it? People who know mathematics and the set of words called English? What if the author created a new concept, so there is no English word for it, should it create one or just use the original German word?

The only way something could be auto-translated is if each person carried around a computer that knew what you knew and knew what everyone else knew, then it could translate what other people are saying into your language, since everyone has their own. If I read an article on some topic about which I know nothing, the translation system would have to take the words of the author and phrase it in a way that I would understand the original. Even if it has to teach me the topic. So, what level would it have to teach before I understood the original?

What about jokes? Puns? Motivational speeches? Just like there is no real human translation, there can be no machine translation.

Sorry, not much funny at this time of night. Why don't snakes have balls? Because most of them can't dance. Good night.

-Edward

PS What is the difference between a duck? A banana this yellow.

Best Way to Avoid Red Lights

I found this out a while ago, and so I share my secret with you, my dear friends. I found that if I am late to be somewhere, I will hit every light red. Strange but true - traffic signals sense this innate lateness and work overtime to make one as late as legally possible. But, I found that if I pick up my cellphone and say, "I think I am going to call X and tell X that I will be late, so that they will not stand around waiting. Heavens me, it would be quite rude and unsafe to make such an important phone call whilst driving. A solution! I will make this much needed call at the next red light." I never see another red light until I get to X.

-Edward

Ancient History

Overflow from Pyramids! Something that has always bothered me about Ancient History is that we believe what we read. Do you believe everything that you read about the present? I hear many people calling the current President of the USA a liar, but will future generations, many thousands of years think the same thing? I hear people say that the newscasters pump up the scare factor on many stories, which is true, but do you believe everything you hear?

When we read the ancient scrolls and scratchings on the walls, we say "Wow! They believed their dead turn into birds and flew to the stars, which are really their ancestors. What interesting beliefs they had!" Why do we not say "Wow! They had many fiction writers of amazing talent! And some interesting cultural stories aimed to amuse!" Sure, the same stories appear in many texts of some cultures, so since the writings are by different people and yet still contain the same essence, it must be what they actually believed, right? I ask you: What about aliens?

We have many stories in our current time frame about aliens. When they appear in a movie or a book or a news article, does someone have to explain the concept of a space alien? No. Why? Because everyone at this time knows and shares a common-ish set of ideas about space aliens, but does that mean that aliens actually exist here among us now and everyone alive at this time believes this to be true? No. Though, it doesn't rule out our peaceful space brothers living among us to guide us on the true path to enlightenment so that we can shed our warlike ways and join the Galactic Brotherhood of Peace and Harmony, which is our birthright - it just means that most people do not believe this, just that they know about it because it is part of our culture. Knowledge about vs believing to be True.

Next time you watch the History Channel or Discovery Channel or hear someone smugly telling you what any person not currently alive believed to be true, I say you scoff at them! Scoff! Because you now know the truth - that there is no truth.

-Edward

PS No real place to edit this into the idea above - Were all of the people of the past homogeneous? In modern times, if you visit any country in this World, you would find that not everyone believes exactly the same thing, nor wears exactly the same cloths. Yet, we are to believe that Ancient Peoples all believed the same thing? Didn't they have different political parties? Didn't they have different religious beliefs? Or is it just my ignorance of what we currently know about these Ancient Peoples! I say it is the former!

PPS No real place to edit this into the PS above - What about StarTrek? What about other SciFi? All people of the future have the same beliefs and all wear those same jump suits. Is there no diversity in the future? Or the past? I find that hard to believe - more likely a lack of imagination. The future and past are probably much more like today then they are like what we current think those times were like. Nothing really ever changes.

Pyramids

I was recently watching one of the many shows on the Discovery Channel that deal with Pyramids and Ancient Egypt. Seems that modern thinking has ruled out the slave labor theory that everyone believed for many centuries. They still didn't address the concerns of some major archaeologists that claim the Pyramids where built long before the Egyptians where there. Though, I guess that is because The Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt doesn't let people with non-traditional theories examine any of these relics. Non-traditional being defined as anyone who says that Ancient Egyptians didn't do The Sphinx or The Pyramids.

Well, I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, and since I have never been to Egypt, I am not regulated by The Supreme Council of Antiquities. And since I have never seen any of these things in person, I am not bound by physical evidence. That leads me to my theory about the pyramids: a Big Casino!

Let me explain, though you probably already can guess at my theory, which kind of makes it the most obvious explanation for the facts, don't you think? When we look to modern times, and we find a place that has more wealth than it knows to do with and a big empty desert, what do we see there? Las Vegas! A place where people will spend endless money to make the gaudiest buildings possible. And after it had been around long enough to generate enough money to build a large building that would last forever, fit for gods, what was built? A Pyramid!

As I see it, whoever built the pyramids in what is now Egypt, must have been at the peak of wealth and needed to bleed some of it off. So, they built a large gambling area in the desert, complete with the luxury accommodations for High Rollers, The Pyramids. Each was an accommodation for one, overlooking the vast gambling city surrounding it. Why there is even Ra in cRaps!

I believe that what we currently believe is the One True History will be proven wrong at some point in the future, just as history has shown us has happened in the past. With this in mind, we should brainstorm and come up with other ideas, and maybe we will find a theory that better fits the facts. Then some future generation will wonder how we could have been such visionaries with the level of technology we have currently! Let's dream of a better past for the future!

-Edward

Alternative Fuels

After lunch the other day, a colleague stated that we should be using Alternative Fuels and should investigate any possible Alternative Fuel that we can. Well, I'm not one to pass up the challenge of an offhanded hyperbole, so I said "What about a car that ran on baby kittens?" Sure, at the time it seemed like a funny idea, but the more I thought about, the more I realized that baby and kittens are really redundant.

This morning, I finally thought of how we could harness this untapped resource. See, you strap a few kittens to your feet, the furrier and cuter the better (just for aesthetics). Then, as you walk down the street, you have the kittens run. The idea being, that if you were standing still, you would move at the speed of the kittens. But, when you walk or run, you get to add the their speed to your speed! Like a greased bullet, you will be purring down the street. Sure, there is the care and maintenance cost of your new set of wheels, but it is better for the environment - more natural than a car. Isn't the environment worth any cost or do you hate The Earth?

People are switching to biodiesel, but we also have bio-motion. We can walk or ride a bike! Surely any of the aforementioned energies are more efficient than the releasing the sun's energy? I mean, what are fossil fuels anyway, but the sun's energy converted into chemical energy via plants a lot time ago. All this talk of solar energy... and yet we have been using nothing but! Truly, we are the living in the future!

-Edward

PS Unless you count nuclear power, which comes from radioactive decay, or more correctly, the heat that we use to boil the water to turn the turbines can come from radioactive decay. That is the advantage of our current level of energy technology! No matter what form of energy we encounter, we can always use its heat byproduct to boil water. Which I guess is why we get most of our energy from burning coal. Sure, there is that photoelectric effect that solar panels can use, but without water somewhere in the process, I can't imagine it taking off. I mean, really, power without water? That would be like alchemy without candles! I personally can not wait until 3182 when there is a giant space station turning most of the sun's output into power for us - it will take a steam pipe the size of Jupiter to harness all of that Power! Until then, I say we go with kittens, it just seems too efficient to pass up right now. Unless we can get the kittens to boil water...

If I were a god

We are in the midst of a heatwave here. Well anything over 65 I consider to be too hot, so I will clarify and say that it is a heatwave for others as well. (broke 100) Without A/C, I had to sleep with my windows open for the past week. I also have been trying to go to bed early (midnight-ish for me), because my neighbor lets out their three very large, very loud dogs around 8:00 am. They just do not stop barking while no one is in their house. Non-stop. I really can not sleep through this. And with the windows opened at night, I found that almost exactly at midnight, a large flock of birds seem to have some sort of party in the trees outside of my windows. Non-stop. In bed, not being able to sleep because of the noise and the heat and feeling frustrated that I will be forced to wake up when the dogs are put out, I thought, "If only I were a god, then I could fix these problems. I would cool it off with large rain clouds. I would cause the birds to go somewhere else. I would have unspeakable things happen to the dogs and their owners. Morgan Webb would be in bed next to me. Etc." I was half asleep, so I thought "Etc."

Then it hit me. Why do I need to be a god to do this? What about my life makes this a desirable condition? Sure, that whole "actions at a distance without moving a muscle" sounds way cool and much more effective than running around like a madman at midnight chasing birds away in my underwear (how the birds get into my underwear is a different story), but what about the side-effects? Obviously no one else has a problem with the birds, or else I would see one of my neighbors running around at midnight... So, what I really want is to not hear the bird noise, the dog noise, and not feel the heat. There is no reason for me to change the "real" world such that it would affect other people, I just want my experience of the world to change.

And that is where I realized that I am god of my world. Or, I could be. If I can edit out sensory input that makes me suffer, then I would actually achieve that which I sought. Meditation, that was the key! Learn to control the uncontrollable... Then, thinking about it further, why attempt to censor sensory input? I mean, sure, the mind/body does this all of the time, but is there a better way to get what I want? Yes, I thought, I can change what I want! Any suffering I feel is not because of any external sensations, but my internal interpretation of them!

So, all of the suffer in my life, in all other non-dog and non-bird related forms, is due to what I think about the things that happen to me. And this is something I can change. And so can everyone else! You might not be able to change the world as others see it, or change the world how you see it, but you can change how you feel about it.

-Edward

PS But still, it would be much easier and cooler if I were a god and could just make it all stop. If only there were a "Be a god in 5 easy steps" kind of book...

Something Funny

I had a bunch of funny topics and sayings I've thought of throughout the past two days, but now that I sit down to write them and share them with you, I seem to be at a loss to remember what they were even about. Trust me, they were devastatingly funny! Pointed, witty, razor sharp, would have made you piss your pants from laughter. I guess I am drained because I spent this hot day moving - I was hoping to lie perfectly still all day long, but I kept moving about. Stupid moving.

So, that brings me to a question, are we really always this close to losing control over our bodily functions? I have heard the "you'll laugh so hard" line many times before. (as well as the "Orgasm so hard one" too) One would think that we could really enjoy something a lot without the fear of losing control. "Heart stopping action" is another one. "Takes my breath away." "Blinded me with her beauty." "Slipped a finger in while she wasn't looking." You know, all of the standard ones.

Maybe Humans are really just one step away from losing control. Society on the verge of collapse. Teens wilding in the park. Gangs doing things that individuals would shudder at.

Oo, I remember the original post that I was going to write now. Well, too late, looks like I had something else to say, or more accurately, a lot of random thoughts I could use to hint at something without really saying what I want to say. I wonder what it was...

-Edward

PS Off topic, but something that I thought of suddenly. ;) An old friend, who no longer speaks to me, used to have this cool phrase that he told me was supposed to be perfectly crafted to get all of the chicks. I thought it was a funny phrase and funny idea, but he was adamant that he read it somewhere. "If I could give you the most intense orgasm of your life, is there any reason you wouldn't be interested?" What do you think of them apples?

The Dark Side

I saw Star Wars III in the theatre and hated it. I happened to catch some of it on TV the other day (crap seems better on TV late at night). It was right around the worst part of the movie that I tuned in, the part where they ruin of movies 4, 5, & 6. The head Sith says to the lad, "Have you ever considered the Dark Side?" and he goes, "Now that you mention it, no, but sure, sign me up. I am yours." at which point he gets his Vader name. (To think that the way cool dark lord from 4, 5, and 6 is that whinny little brat.... < shudder >.) So, then head Sith says "Go take care of the Jedi problem." What does Vader do? He goes and kills everyone of them, even the little children. Without any real prompting.

I think the next scene should have been Sidious smacking Vader around saying, "You fool! Why did you kill everyone? I asked you to take care of the Jedi problem. You know, put a 'Closed for Business' sign in front of the place and shew the people away. And the children! It is called The Dark Side, not The Evil Side! Didn't I just get through telling you about how The Dark Side can give life? It is the teachings shunned by the Jedi, hidden away in The Dark. Get it? The Dark Side? Now that you've killed everyone else with these special Force Controlling Cells, from where are we going to get more Sith Lords? There is only us left, and we are both dudes! Idiot..." Then take away his The Dark Side members card and rip it up right there in front of him. That would have taught Vader a lesson he wouldn't have soon forgot.

-Edward

PS What do you know, I can make a blog post with using the word pussy. Imagine that. A trend I tell you, a trend.

Dirty Words

What is a Dirty Word? One of my favorite comedy groups is from Canada, they are called The Frantics. Funny stuff. They have a whole sketch about dirty words, which requires a lot of voice acting, and is therefore hard to do in a blog. Here is a summary:

Two men talking on a bus, one says how he likes to read the newspaper because of all of the dirty words. Person 2 says, there are no dirty words in the paper. Person 1 points to "Mayor Urges People to Take the Bus". Urges, he says. I have... Urges. Person 2 states that they didn't mean it that way. Person 1 points to "Area Man Unhappy". Area. I've got Urges in my Area. Person says that's disgusting and totally not what they meant.

But, did they? Who knows what the person was thinking. Did headline writer choose words that could be taken out of context? Or was in it all in the head of Person 1?

I do not think that there are any dirty words or dirty thoughts, since all things that are thinkable are natural (ie part of nature). How can anything that is part of nature be dirty? But, I do believe certain word choices are funnier than others, and this is the route I take when choosing which word to use (as well as which word I can actually spell). Simple words like pussy, one can slip it into any sentence. Does it really mean anything outside of you?

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
A ham sandwich is better than complete happiness, because nothing is better than complete happiness, yet a ham sandwich is better than nothing.

Make your words mean what you want them to mean - I believe someone in Wonderland once said-ish.

-Edward

PS Looks like The Frantics are still around, I first heard of them in the 80's. I added a link to them - they have shows this summer! In Canada. :(

Strange Dreams

I've always had strange dreams - I almost never dream of anyone I know in "real life." But in my dreams, I have complete memories of my life there, people I know, things I have done, places I have been, etc. Probably true for most people. But what makes them seem so real? Why are the places in my dreams fairly consistent? Like the other night, I dreamt of this person who had wanted to correct a problem in time, so he need to travel to the future. He was placed by The Powers That Be in a room that had two doors, one led to 10,000 years into the future and the other back to his current life. After some wacky, strange, yet emotionally charged adventures, he ends up back in the room with the choice of doors again, something that wasn't supposed to happen. So, no matter which door he goes through now, he will be the one that messes up time by creating a loop. Shocking, he created on the problems he was trying to fix. And yet, he has done this before, because I have had this dream before, though with a different set of adventures after he went 10,000 years into the future.

So, what am I trying to say here? Other people's dream are rarely interesting to anyone else. They have personal context and too many details to be recovered in order to tell a good story. And yet, I am interested in other people's dreams! They tell me so much about the person.

I had often thought it would be cool to make movies of my dreams, someone was telling me today about someone who has done this, but I realized it is not really possible. Dreams are for individuals... or are they? I always hope that someone else had had the same dream as me, then that would tell me... This is the Dream World! And the other world is the awake one!

Computer, end program.

-Edward

The Horror

The blackness opened wide enough for him to see vague shapes of the shapeless horrors that lie within. The further he stared into this living pit of despair, the further it stared back into him, seeing all that he was, and wondering. "Why is he staring at me?" one horror that represented all the evils of an ancient world long since forgotten. "Do I have some food on my chin-ish area?", it thought thinking of the previous meal of tender souls it had had many millennium ago. "Has there been something there for all of this time and nothing told me?" But, what if there were nothing on its nothingness of self and it tried to wipe-ish? None of the horrors would even let it live this down. Either way, this mortal had besmirched its existence - it hope he was happy, because it knew it never would be again. As the man's mind fled in terror of an incomprehensible world just beyond the vale. Kind of rhymes with jail, like the prison of his mind.

Crap. Writing horror stories is harder than it looks. Much easier to write horrible stories.

-Edward

Pussy Admiration

I liked The Vagina Monologues. One of the best things about it was the feeling of empowerment women seemed to get from watching it. From seeing this movie and reading books (and actually talking with women myself), I gathered that most women do not like their pussies, most even afraid to refer to it or have negative feels towards it or have never even seen it. This was very shocking to me when I first heard all of this. I consider the pussy to be very beautiful, a work of art, something I can stare at and enjoy for hours, like a great painting or statue, and yet it is more than that, so alive... All of the curves, edges, bumps. All of the places it is sensitive and more sensitive. All of the muscles and nerves - a work of engineering genius! And all of the things it can do! A pussy can make members of both sexes feel good about themselves. It allows for the continuation of the human race. It is what drives humans to achieve! And yet with all of this going for it, people are afraid to talk about it, to explore the topic, to learn what they can about it. Even more shocking.

I say this to you, if you have a pussy or have access to one, right now go and really look at it. Explore it. Know it. Play with it. Spend at least an hour with it. See its true beauty and tell the owner what you think (even if it is you), because she probably has never heard it before. I think you will be happy you did.

And for those of us currently without the privilege of sharing in this wonderful gift, well I guess you are screwed for now. But, next time you have a chance, really pay attention to your pussy. Buy it some toys, but first make sure the owner doesn't mind. (though, if she was truly enlightened, how could anyone mind gifts?)

But remember, you never forget pussyfoo.

-Edward

PS As always, so much to say, so much I've thought about this topic, as I have all of my topics. One of these days, I will have to plan and edit my post, rather than stream of consciousness it out of me as a mishmash of ideas about something.

And to see more of what got me started thinking about this topic, do a search for "Team Pussy", which might take you to the link on the side, if it is still around.

The

Definite article. Very strange what we consider "the" of something. When one things of the Ultimate Pill, a Pill that would change ones life forever, what do you think that would be? Life extension pill? Extreme happiness pill? Increased health pill? Sliced bread pill? Nope, all wrong. The Pill, the one we apply the definite article to is the one that lets one have sex with a reduced chance of pregnancy. When someone says "I'm on the pill", we all know what that means. Is that really the ultimate pill, the one that makes us define all others by name? Wow.

What about The The? What is the ultimate ultimate? Obviously sliced bread. I think this blog entry is stretching The Limits of what is The Correct usage of The Words I've chosen to use, kind of like using The Whole Fist.

-Edward

Ice Cream!

I just had some good ice cream with a good friend. Is there nothing Ice Cream can not do? Not only does it taste good, it is good for you! At least it is good for me - it slows down my thinking processes so I do not obsess over ever little detail of life. And they mixed in M&Ms and Hot Fudge, too!

-Edward

PS Doesn't the above seem more like a standard blog post? I talked about myself, my life, and threw in a little personal detail. Exciting! Will this be a trend or just a blip on the radar? Maybe I will talk more about my inner life and thoughts rather than my external life? I will have to see which one I find more satisfying! And funny, do not forget the funny. That has been my main focus, funny. The Vagina Monologues kind of funny!

Dildos, dildos, and more dildos

With a title like that, I image that you think I am going to talk about dildos, and that is where you would be correct. But, what do I have to say about the topic? Let's find out - I am just as curious as you are!

There is a place in SF called Good Vibrations. It is a shop run by women and mostly for women. Very nice inside. (heh, heh, heh) Seriously, I like going to this shop with friends. Which friends? Pretty much any of my friends that want to go (far fewer than I hope). The question I usually get is "Why?"

I find the store so very fascinating! The people who work there are friendly and knowledgeable about their products. And they have a huge all of vibrators! Not just any vibrators, but ones that show someone spent a lot of time thinking about them and what kind of pleasure they will inflict. Interesting designs! Bright colors! Glass ones! Dolphins! Beavers with vibrating tongues! Ones with little beads that turn and twist in ways that I can only imagine what feeling they give! True, there is nothing there that I can experience, but I really enjoy talking with women who have. (I do not talk to other customers about them, unless they are my friends. Not like I pick up a dildo and walk over to a strange woman and say while waving it in her face "What do you think this would feel like?" Would be kind of creepy and probably get me banned for life.) Though, if you are looking at any of them, store shopkeepers will tell you what they do and where they stimulate.

I enjoy talking about the products and enjoy hearing peoples thoughts on sex. I've found that most people do not have anyone knowledgeable to talk with (or anyone except their partner, which really isn't the right person if you think about it). I'm no expert, but I did read a lot of books on all topics around this topic, and found that most people think hey know what is going on. There is so much more! And so going to Good Vibrations with friends is a good way to open up the topic. (and for me to learn more, since everyone is different) I find it very fascinating, and have a lot more to say about that, but I will save that for a future blog when I am not so tired and rambling.

Anyway, if you are interested in dildos and vibrators and other things of this nature, feel free to talk with me about it! I really want to hear what you think and hear what it means to you and etc. People talk about their aliments all of the time, but people rarely talk about their pleasure. Kind of a bummer.

Let me know, maybe we can visit Good Vibrations together! Or/and have a deep penetrating conversation about dildos.

-Edward

PS It is a fun and engaging topic to me, but I wanted to toss in so jokes, so I just slipped them in. I hope I didn't offend.

PPS I found for some reason, men tend to not want these things near their women, as if it takes something away from them. Honestly, that makes no sense. I also found that some women are afraid of getting pleasure from an inanimate object, which also needs expounding upon in the future. (besides, a good vibrator is hardly inanimate!)

Foreign Languages

I've been watching Univision lately, and it is the same experience I had when I used to watch a lot of Japanese and Hong Kong movies. It is so fascinating that the people on screen are moving their lips, sound comes out, and the other people know what the speaker meant, while it sounds like gibberish to me. And yet, at one point in my life, I knew no language, yet I learned English from just hearing it. No study program, no books on tape, just waiting around in a crib. I keep thinking that if I sit there watching people speak a language that is foreign to me, that some part of my brain will start translating it - just as it does for English for me and that gibberish for them. Maybe there are no other languages and the world is set up as one giant joke, kind of like that Lost in Translation scene in Ocean's Twelve.

If one never learned a language, would there be a native language of the brain? Say if we raised a few humans separately away from all language then brought them all together, would they speak? If so, would it be the same language? If not the same language, then are any of us actually speaking the same language, since languages like English are really just translations of each persons innate language to a common one?

So, if our inborn languages are all different, unique to each individual, are not all languages foreign? And all of our communications are losing something in the translation?

-Edward

Where does it all go?

I keep meaning to post earlier in the day, while I am more awake, but time seems to elude me. So, you probably think the title of this post is a reference to where does all of the time go. That is the funny thing about pronouns, they refer back to something, which implies a common context between listener and speaker. I love to practice double-speak and try to do it as much as possible. The art of this is in having more than one person listening to what you are saying, and wanting to say different things to each people listening (a planned something). You can pull each person aside and tell them what you want to say, but that is kind of crass. Instead, you want to say something that is actually ambiguous (an intersection of all of the messages, whittled down to the ambiguous core), but each person will have a previous context and therefore get a different meaning from your statements. The more complex the message, the better, and the more fun it is to try an encode it. Some of my fondest memories are of things that I have said in answer to a question when suddenly half of the people listening will start laughing and the other set thinking I answered their question (which I had) wondering what was so funny.

So, what else did I hope the title of this blog to convey? Since there are only a few people in the world who would understand it because they were there, and I am in contact with none of them currently, it is my tribute to their memory. A group of us were playing poker at my friend and his wife's house. He took a bathroom break, then came out looking like he was in shock. He said, "I was in there, when I caught a reflect of myself going to the bathroom. I had forgotten how huge I was!" He turned to his wife and said, "Honey, where does it all go?"

-Edward

Modern Alchemy

How does the world in which we live work? Getting down to the basics, it is the proper placement of certain materials in certain geometric patterns. What does one do to build a computer? You need to place silicon in a certain matrix along with copper and many other materials. They have to be exacting or the computer will not work. How is this any different than Alchemy? Did they not claim that arranging matter (candles, elements, stuff) in certain patterns could change the physical world? How do reactors and bombs work? Every device we create is based on taking some sort of matter and putting it in some other space in relationship to other matter based on some pattern. That is all that there is.

What if there are more complex rules of matter placement? What we have now is built up from a small number of observations, ie put lead near acid and you get an electric potential, put this near certain wires and you get current flow, etc. What if there were some other path? Some other effects that we are skimming over, but which would for the basis of a new science? Science doesn't say what we are doing right now is the only truth - science is just a method of creating reproducible results and building on them. If we had a different set of base methods, science tells us we could have a very different set of higher level effects.

I believe there is more to our universe than we have currently discovered. Look at how long it took us to realize radiation exists, a fundamental property of matter that has existed since the beginning of time. There are entirely different things we could be doing, if we build up the set of tools in this new way, a set of tools equivalent to what we have in our current way. The path we are searching now will not lead to this other path, it requires looking at basic principals and moving them forward with devices based on these principals which then will allow further discovers, etc. Industry allows science to advance, then science allows industry to advance - back and forth, building up to something. We need this kind of feedback loop for other possible principals that might exist.

100 years from now, something that we all believe to be 100% true right now, will found to be totally false. What will it be? Who will discover it? Will it lead to this new set of principals? It will appear as magic to us, but as a science to those who practice it. Who wants to start the New Alchemy?

-Edward

Socks

Is there nothing better in this world than socks? All the bright colors! And all of the comfort! I don't understand those people who choose sandals (without socks, gasp). Why wouldn't you want to wear shorts and bright green socks? Or red? Or multicolored? Why? The only time you should see someone's bare ankles is when she rests them on your shoulders.

So, keep it clean, wear socks. And remember, the brighter the colors, the better!

-Edward

Vacations

I was on vacation last week. "Where did I go?" Well my friend, that is a question I am asked every time, as I am sure you are if you have ever taken one. What really happens on a vacation? If you go somewhere interesting you might have some pictures, if you go to Vegas or Thailand you might come back with a disease, if you go to a beach you might have a tan. What do all of these things have in common? They are physical evidence of being somewhere else.
So, after getting back from vacation and talking with those who didn't go with you, in a few weeks, when the pictures are put in some box to be lost forever, got the cure(s), or let the tan fade, what do you have? Memories.

So, what if you instead went nowhere, but sat around an envisioned yourself as having gone somewhere, then what would you have? Memories.

Comparing the two, it seems that the only thing you get is memories, and you can make your memories much better than the actual event. In your ideal vacation, is anyone rude? Is there a screaming baby next to you on a 20 hour flight? Has your luggage be lost or worse yet, come down the baggage collection chute at the airport all beaten up with all of your sex toys hanging out for all to see? Probably not.

This question I pose to you: why travel? Why not just take a vacation in your mind? Go somewhere others bound by mundane physical reality can never go! In the end, you will have better memories, and that is all you will ever have, memories.

-Edward

PS So where did I go? A place beyond words, a place I could never describe to anyone who was never there. I went to me. and Applebee's.

First Second

It always seems that people want to be First or commemorate the first of something. How many times have I seen the first 20 posts on a slashdot or aintitcoolnews story being "First"? How many blogs start with "Wow, this is my first post! I guess I should say something clever about that here."?

It looks like I blew my chance, since my first post was something else, so I'm taking this time to make this second post be know as my first second post! And the post after this will be my first third post! Nice. I see exciting topics like these stretching out until the universe dies of boredom.

We are so fascinated with firsts that we have a word that we use, Virgin. The problem with using that word in so many contexts is that of its sexual nature, which always gets a laugh. "This is his first drink, so he is a virgin." "This is the first time a train has enter this tunnel, so it is still a virgin tunnel." "The virgin soil of the moon." "My virgin eyes." "This virgin dildo." Etc.

I think we need a modifier rather than a word. Something that signals "the first time", so then we can have a word for sexual virgin be "sex"+ special ending. Say we choose "foo", so we would say sexfoo for the first sexual experience. Moon landingfoo. Hatfoo. And even foofoo. Think of the endless fun one can have with an ending rather than a tired old word. This idea I present to you for the first time. Ideafoo. Thinkfoo.

-Edward

5 Minutes Left

I am posting this with only 5 minutes left before the Day of the Beast! I hope, dear friends, that these words survive the onslaught of Evil that we can expect in the next 24 hours (well, not the very next 24 hours, one must skip 5 minutes beyond that for the true onslaught to being). These are the final minutes of a world not yet gone insane, not yet having to witness the brutal atrocities that will surely befall us all.

I'm sure we all have our own vision of what The World will be like in a few minutes time, but let me share mine with the survivors: the day will start the same as any other day, but the alarm clock will not go off! Then, in a panicked rush to get to work, the roads will be packed with cars! Then there will be no parking spaces left in any city in The World! Then demons will pop out of every sewer system, dark crevasse, nook and cranny of The World to rape and pillage their way to The Center of It All! One can hope that they would disturb enough cars in the process to clear away some parking spaces, but No! that is all part of their hellish plan.

This takes us to about lunch time, at which time servers will be spitting in customer's food. Pets will run wild. Children will scream. But this would be like any other day in most restaurants were it not for the family of demons sitting at the next table glaring at you. Glaring. How rude.

After a day of pure soul sucking agony, the day at the office will be over and we will each have to face the final hours of 06-06-06. But wait, you realize, what are those extra zeros doing in those number? Well I'll be a monkey's uncle (or at least that will be the hallucination we will experience at that time)... today was not that beastly day we had all feared, it would have to be a pure 666... and the Christians (the only people with that 666 fetish) say their bible claims that to be the number of the beast, not the day of hell on earth... Wait a minute, this was all a dream! Or was it just another day! Arrgggghhh!

-Edward