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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Stephen's Blurty:
- Reality Benders cannot predict the future and can be taken by surprise.
- Reality Benders have limited range and cannot affect what they cannot percieve.
- Reality Benders cannot impose their will on anything if they have no will to impose.
- Reality Benders have human foibles and can be manipulated emotionally and/or rationally.
| Sunday, December 13th, 2009 | |
| 3:46 pm | Senate Rules and Obstructionism Ahh, so things weren't always this way. Also, goodies to help improve computer performance without *shudder* reformatting the hard drive. In all my years of computer usage, I have never reformatted my hard drive. I still don't really understand the appeal; it seems like using a nuclear weapon on a troublesome hare. |
| Thursday, December 10th, 2009 | |
| 2:59 pm | On premises and spoilers If you were attempting to get someone into Lord of the Rings, would you mention the hobbits leaving the Shire? If someone asked you about Alice in Wonderland, would you mention the rabbit-hole? You might, but would you mention the table with the potion and the cake? You probably wouldn't. You would most likely skip that detail and move on into Wonderland proper. I bring this up because I recall having a tiff* with Jon two weekends ago on this subject. He was introducing Leah to the anime Dragonaut: The Resonance. Ahh, but don't read that link! Heavens no. Checking the link spoils the first five episodes, don't you know? Jon refused to divulge details about the show's opening plot because of this reason. This irked me, and I think it did for a very understandable reason: I'm showing interest in the show, primarily because it's right there in front of me. However, the animation itself is not interesting enough** to keep my attention, so I ask about the plot. "But that would spoil the plot." What followed was a somewhat heated exchange about premises and spoilers which left me thinking Jon believes it impossible to summarize the beginning of a work for his friends because of his devotion to pure storytelling and author/audience interaction. But I'd like to clarify what I was saying, if I may. "But that would spoil the plot." That's the point. Blurbs on the back of books, DVD cases, video game cases, movie trailers; that's what they do. They assume people have a limited amount of time and therefore want to spend that time only watching what they want. They [hopefully] know their own taste in things, and therefore this minor spoilering is intended to grab someone's attention. These minor spoilers are called the premise. Rule #1 of spoilers: the premise is never considered a spoiler. A spoiler, by name and definition, is something that spoils the plot and makes it unnecessary to experience for oneself. Darth Vader being Luke's father, before watching The Empire Strikes Back back in 1981***, is a spoiler. It is a key plot element and a twist, and like a good twist, it completely changes how you view everything that preceded it. There's a build-up towards the Luke/Darth Vader confrontation which makes that moment pristine; going into it with foreknowledge of their familial relationship reduces its effect. However, being told that two androids escape a starship being hunted by Darth Vader, and that they were sent by a space princess, and they happened to fall into the hands of a farmboy on a desert planet? That's not a spoiler; that's a premise. Being told that the farmboy's family is killed by the armies of forementioned Darth Vader looking for the androids? That's a minor spoiler. It is minor because it happens right after the premise. It's shocking, but it doesn't ruin a moment like Darth Vader being Luke's father does. The audience has the barest of interaction with Luke's family. Darth Vader, on the other hand, is a constant antagonist. I think Jon's contention was that since the premise was a spoiler (in the most technical sense, even the title of a work is a spoiler), he shouldn't reveal it. That's the equivalent of saying to someone, "Here! Read this!" "Why should I read it?" "Just read it!"**** This topic came back to me because I was about to edit the Gantz entry on redcane with a link to its TV Tropes entry. See, the premise of Gantz, especially as explained by the TV Tropes entry, "spoils" the first eighteen chapters of the manga. Which, now that I think about it, might constitute five episodes of an anime. Of course, that's five opening episodes of a twenty-five episode anime, and that's eighteen chapters of a thus-far three hundred and eight chapter manga. Movie trailers are even worse. There's a good line from that article: "Given that a trailer consists mostly of clips from the movie itself, a fair bit of spoilerage...is often inevitable." So, if you were attempting to get someone into Lord of the Rings, would you mention the hobbits leaving the Shire? Would you mention the Nazgûl? Would you mention the fellowship? What would you say? * A tiff? Is that what you call it? ** And that never tends to be the way with Japanese animation in particular, given cost-cutting shortcuts. *** Because there is no one alive now who doesn't already know this. **** In fact, the more I think about it, the more I believe this is what he said to Leah to get her to watch it. Current Music: "Passacaglia in C" ~ Johann Sebastian Bach |
| 12:14 am | Atrocity Something was up in the 30s and 40s. |
| Friday, December 4th, 2009 | |
| 10:09 pm | War on Drugs It's always fun to agree with someone you normally disagree with. That's almost the entire reason I keep up with Chris Hitchens's stuff. Every so often, we agree! And the cool part is he has an entirely different rationale for believing what I do when this happens. So, it should come as no surprise that I post this link. My reasoning is different, of course. If I recall correctly, they're using William F. Buckley's rationale. |
| Monday, November 30th, 2009 | |
| 5:31 pm | Gay sex death penalty The hell?! |
| Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 | |
| 11:03 pm | Pointless You see, it's shit like this which really aggravates me. Pointless, ambiguous, unnecessary; the pejoratives just keep piling up. This is why I'm mostly silent on social networking sites: posts like these don't have any sort of poetry to them, and lacking that they have no meaning. They don't age well, and if you look back on them, you realize you are a God damn idiot. I also meant to link to this a while ago. |
| Friday, November 20th, 2009 | |
| 8:40 pm | A Selection of News: Nudity, Gratuity, the Facebook-Insurance Axis, Bribery, Climate Change and Farming, Pot World Record, Illegal Marriages I didn't even read the article; the headline was enough for me. There's a social contract in place here whenever you go out to dine with a large group. Any former waiters in the readership might be able to qualify this better, but there's an arbitrary number of patrons above which it becomes exponentially harder to serve at once and in a timely fashion. Most restaurants have it at about six or eight guests. That's the key word, "guest." Anyway, they tend to state in perfectly legal-sized font somewhere on the menu about gratuities for larger parties, and this is dictated by both economics and ergonomics. I understand the reason behind not paying the gratuity since, in principle, it is supposed to be freely given (free country and all), but that's taking the euphemism too far. In this case, "gratuity" is a euphemism, since, as forementioned, this is a contractual obligation. Why they had to get the police involved boggles me. The moral here is, "Never post photos of you being happy on Facebook, because your insurance company will see them and interpret your life as being chipper enough to deny coverage. That won't be a buzzkill though since you're so happy." Or perhaps the moral is something along the lines of, "Never friend your insurance company on Facebook." I'm very curious about how the insurance company saw the photos if her profile is as locked as she claims. Behold, bullshit! The thing you have to learn about the Democrats is that, since they're such a big party, they don't really have a core ideology. Okay, they have one, but it is threadbare and rotting. American politics would be a lot easier to keep track of if the Republicans split into two political parties, and the Democrats split into three. Don't believe in climate change? Might want to revise your opinion, especially if The Economist is taking it seriously enough. I wasn't originally going to use this story, but why the hell not? I think this was the guy they had on Penn & Teller's Bullshit! So he doesn't get high... I wonder if that's because the weed the government grows is crap for that purpose, or due to some idiophysiological reason. Just hilarious. This is holding to the word of the law alright, normally a practice discouraged by Jesus Christ, but whatever, they banned all marriage in the State of Texas on that one line. I would have more sympathy for those saying "see the spirit of the law and not the wording," but the problem is, the crafters of this law being lawyers, they should have known better than to leave a potentially-damning subsection like that unqualified. This is the crap that gets you in philosophy ("gets you" as in "takes you out of bed in the middle of the night, kicking and screaming"), and this is why Philosophy majors tend to score the best on LSATs. |
| Friday, November 13th, 2009 | |
| 12:29 am | Combating the Urge to Go Higher The worst thing you can do is notice your high is diminishing (something called "coming down," I've been told). No, scratch that. The worst thing you can do is attempt to combat this diminishing by imbibing more. The formal reason is because highs are achieved via drug usage, and the very concept of a "high" necessarily involves a change of perception, no matter how subtle (a "high", in this case, means any change of perception, usually euphoric in nature, brought on by drug usage, "drug" here including, but not limited to, alcohol). This is very important because you always judge the high based on your previous, sober self. When judging the diminishment of one's current high, one will compare, not to earliest sobriety, but to earlier states of high which were more realized (to compare to earliest sobriety would require more calculation than a high person wants to perform, not that they're necessarily incapable of performing but they are necessarily indisposed towards doing so). This is not good, because one senses deficiency and one imbibes ever more to combat it. Hence, exercising self-evaluative judgment concerning one's lack of sober perception leads (expectedly and ironically) to an even more inaccurate picture of one's current state, and this can lead to self-destructive tendencies. Better to suspend temporal judgment after beginning one's drug usage, or, for something less complicated-sounding, only concentrate on climbing the mountain instead of escaping the valley. Was that a coherent metaphor? Amazing. (And if not, disappointing.) Note to self: don't try to carry on a discussion about natural language and the philosophical need for differing interpretations while drunk. While fun, not very productive or self-improving. Also, don't stray into fields that, while within your experience, are beyond your expertise, e.g. computing languages. Current Mood: drunk Current Music: "Minor Keys" ~ Starflyer 59 |
| Thursday, November 12th, 2009 | |
| 7:25 pm | Glenn Beck I decided to watch some of Glenn Beck today (also known as The Glenn Beck Program or The Glenn Beck Show; AOL Television refers to it as just Glenn Beck). Technically I had decided this earlier last month, but whatever, I got around to it today. Because of biological needs, I was unable to actually see the TV for the first fifteen minutes of the show, but I could still hear it. Perhaps I would have been more dazzled by Mr. Beck's show if I could see the implausibly large calculator he was doing his nonsensical calculations on, or the charts he lovingly referred to throughout the course of his lecture on why the stimulus money has been ill-spent and has failed to deliver the glorious dawn that was promised. Before going on, I should probably answer that nagging question you might have at the back of your mind, or who knows, it might have swarmed forward unbidden and erupted from your mouth at the onset: "Why, Steve, did you want to watch Glenn Beck's show?" I suppose my assumption that you'd have this question might be ill-founded; I don't believe for an instant that everyone who reads this thing has the same political opinions, and it's a good thing that this belief is probably false. However, I do believe most of you are considerate, contemplative people, perhaps lacking in exposure to reliable sources of news from time to time or swayed by speculation (as we all are on both counts). It is this belief (in you being considerate, contemplative, etc.) that makes it easy for me to mock Glenn Beck and his show. And why would I mock Glenn Beck's program? Because it's exactly like talk radio. I feel I'm uniquely qualified to make this assertion since, as I already said, I didn't get to see the first fifteen minutes but could still hear it. The biggest contrast I can make between the two is where talk radio tends to have giant pauses, Glenn Beck keeps going. This probably has something to do with the scripting (and the teleprompting). Now there's a voice out there saying, "What's so bad about talk radio?" Talk radio is "bad" because it's ideological, i.e. it's someone with an opinion. That opinion can be supported by facts, endless facts, but the opinion decides which facts receive airtime to begin with. You see, your facts become less convincing when you place your opinion on a higher pedestal, and this is because anyone can supply "official" facts about an issue. Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight calls this a "house bias" when he reviews polls. Rachel Maddow scorns the Lewin Group's study on healthcare reform for this very reason. (Nota bene: FactCheck.org cites Lewin occasionally, and takes into account their "house bias" when doing so.) This doesn't take into account facts that only become so once given an interpretation. Take, for instance, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. Notice the line that says, "There is not any universal agreement about the effect of the tariff." This will not stop commentators of any political bent using Smoot-Hawley as a justification for their point of view (I know this from experience: I learned about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act from Rush Limbaugh citing it as the reason for the Great Depression). But it's not just Glenn Beck's ideology-infested program that is worth mocking. It's his language. It's not really too bad a thing if you're presenting things as fact because your opinion wants to believe them as fact: that happens all the time, that's a human activity we all perform. It's when you take terms like "Marxist," which is fairly well-defined as a concept and as a label, and use them in ways and in contexts they have no meaning in, or worse, use them such that they are false meanings. As Inigo Montoya says, "That word, I do not think it means what you think it means." Let's continue with the word "Marxist," since that was the most egregious example I came across in the thirty minutes I watched. He really likes calling people Marxist, and doesn't seem to understand this term has a very specific set of concepts underlying it, concepts which have next to no relevance in the issues he is discussing. He uses the term because he wants to form the association in the audience's mind between the person he is discussing and whatever the audience knows about Marxism. Because the term is used out of proper context*, he is de facto defining Marxism pejoratively, not to mention mangling the audience's perception of what a Marxist is or what a Marxist would do in a government position. This is a bad thing. It shows his lack of care when using political labels to describe opponents of his ideology, which greatly implies that he doesn't understand his opponents' ideologies. If he doesn't really understand what he is arguing against, how, exactly, can he argue cogently against it? The answer is he can't, and therefore commits fallacies. Fallacious arguments are useless arguments, which means his show is useless for any sort of political analysis or debate. It is opinion; uninformed, ignorant opinion. I didn't answered the earlier question, "Why, Steve, did you want to watch Glenn Beck's show?" I decided to watch it because I wanted to know why The Daily Show lampoons it all the time, despite me having friends who watch it religiously. I've never particularly agreed with these friends on politics (in fact, sometimes I believe we're very different on some issues; these were friends who had Facebook photos of Obama with the Soviet flag in the background during the election season), but I figured I might as well give the show a fair say. I didn't want to dislike the show purely because another show said it was crap, I wanted to experience it for myself and draw my own conclusions (funny enough, this means I dislike the show more for having experienced it personally instead of through a mediator like The Daily Show). Like most everything, there are grains of truth in Glenn Beck, but they are few and far between. I didn't feel like sifting through the viscera to find them this time, and honestly I didn't have the right mood to lampoon the show or enjoy riffing it either. Once upon a time, I think I used the term "Sane" to connote people who, while they have ideologies (as most everyone does), they let facts guide them, and understand that facts have differing interpretations. Glenn Beck is not one of them. In short, watch The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. It comes on at six in the afternoon. It's the best television news program in the country. I should just rename this entry, "An Advertisement for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." * The context Mr. Beck is using "Marxism" in is that of the Cold War, when we were in an ideological diplomatic war (and proxy conventional wars) with a nation we branded as enemies for thinking differently. Current Music: "The Temple of Urath" ~ The Glimpse (Summoner OST) |
| Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 | |
| 6:32 pm | A Selection of News: The Cloud, Marijuana Laws, Fossils Disprove Evolution, Demographics Pretty and pretty neat as well. Reality is stranger than any science fiction. In places where medical marijuana is legal, they are encountering a plethora of problems. This is because the stuff is legalized, but not properly regulated. The problems in Los Angeles in particular are quite stupid since the article reports Los Angeles did not adopt the laws of neighboring cities which already debated through these possible problems. All you need is "verbal recommendation" from a doctor to get medical marijuana? Who decided that was a good idea, no, who decided that even qualified as a mediocre idea? I don't quite understand the "1,000-foot distance from school" law. After all, what's the difference between 1,000 feet and 2,000 feet as far as protection from drugs? Laziness? I also don't see why it couldn't be implemented, and I've got nothing against it per se; the underlying principle just leaves something to be desired. Oh, and all witches are pagans but not all pagans are witches. Fun. I vaguely understand the idea behind appending "k" to the word "magic" to distinguish it from stage illusions and prestidigitation, but it still looks dumb to me. I don't know if that's an aesthetic concern or a linguistic one. Quite intriguing. In the midst of reading this, I wondered about the division between "cultural supremacy" and "racial supremacy," and I'm not sure there is a really big one. I was spurred into this thought by the line:
Also, I'm of the bent that believers' antagonisms with the theory of evolution betray their belief in an omnipotent deity. Omnipotence makes a lot of things possible. This drifts close to intelligent design, but it need not. Intelligent design postulates a very direct, almost micromanaged approach to creationism through evolution (as mentioned in the article), whereas an omnipotent deity need not be that direct. It's a big universe. While I had heard Leno's show was doing horribly, I can't help but be more interested in a comment below the article:
America is getting older. And the Baby Boomer generation is the largest single demographic in this country. They just barely fit in the Nielsen’s age group. No wonder advertising, and print media is having such a hard time working within an antiquated model. Current Music: "Impregnable Defense" ~ Masaharu Iwata (Ogre Battle OST) |
| Thursday, November 5th, 2009 | |
| 6:19 pm | Change of Style, But Not. Also, You All Suck. Really, when I look back at entries around summer 2008, it turns out I've always done these sorts of posts. It must be some sort of existential funk* that's causing me to think I'm cutting down on delivered content by simply posting links every damn entry. It does occur to me that I should use this thing to write about my life. Its premise is that of an online journal after all. However, I get around to thinking about what I would write, and then I become disappointed at the lack of interesting things happening. Well, it's not that my life lacks interest. I think it has more to do with less things being interesting to me, and that carries over to what occurs on this here webspace. There's another part of me that rages, "But of course, they want to read every miniscule detail of your life!" Then I remember that's why sites like Myspace and Facebook exist: to indulge in every mind-numbing minute occurrence of someone else's life to for but a brief moment escape your own. This is why you'll rarely see me update my status: I don't subscribe to the view that my hijinks are worth bothering people about. If I were a more arrogant man, I'd say my lack of status updates is more to do with not wanting to indulge others' passive, naïve curiosity. However, this leads to other problems. The art of conversation is dying.** In a typical gathering, people seem more likely to indulge in whatever piece of attention-grabbing technology is in front of them rather than talk to each other. To put it diplomatically, you are more likely to fool around with your iPhone than talk to the person next to you. This leads to something very odd: people coming together to hang out, except they don't really interact that much. It's as if they are locating themselves in one place so that they can share circumstances rather than socialities. For example, if someone goes out to eat, hey, free ride and company! This is not people being selfish: this is people requiring an excuse. Some activities by their very nature are passive ones (e.g. pretty much anything that isn't a sport).*** However, we're getting into this new period of social isolation in which we all occupy the same room but aren't talking, or if we are, it's only to exchange the odd quip and attempt to make ourselves look witty. If you've ever wondered about the trend that has happened to my quote posts (that every single one seems to revolve around a D&D game now), this is the main reason why. This is why I haven't posted the large amount I've gathered; I'm waiting for the everyday situation to churn something out other than people breathing and the sound of them staring at computer screens. I imagine some of this goes along with a few of the splits that occurred in this group. In fact, one Cracked article nails some of it down, especially the bit about having to endure annoying friends.**** "So," you might begin, "why haven't you voiced this before now?" Well, for one, I've been caught up in posting links to Things Of Amusement and not really paying attention. For two, I do this sort of post way too often, even if "way too often" is once every year or couple of years. It makes me feel too vainglorious when I write these things since I'm essentially prescribing social ills without much more than observation and intuition. For three, I won't be seeing anybody this weekend due to a wedding, so people can simmer on it. For four, because of one, no one will see this coming. You may now mentally demerit me as you wish. Or physically do so in the comments. * If you haven't noticed by now, I really love that phrase. ** The art of endnotes, however, is thriving. And yes, I know this is an opinion. All of this is opinion. *** Speaking of, multiplayer gaming has mostly died out as well in this group since some people can't seem to relax and just play the game without getting emotionally worked up. For example, Dan and Jon. I decided to name names since, well, I don't think being polite is the way to go here. This really became apparent to me when I played Halo 3 with Jason and Robert, and got my ass kicked, and no one ended up shouting angrily at anyone else, or storming off in a huff. **** As it turns out, people that annoy you? They get less annoying the more time you spend with them. This is because of monkey-see, monkey-do: you take on some of their qualities, and they take on some of yours. Also, let's all reason like Bayes! Current Mood: contemplative Current Music: "Generic Horror Atmosphere #1" ~ Maindrian |
| Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 | |
| 1:09 am | Alan Grayson I saw this guy on Bill Maher's show, and I immediately liked him. |
| Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 | |
| 5:40 pm | This is the Internet This is what it is. There is no shame in this. Also, Canadians have yet to master political insulting, if that's anything to go off of. Really, I should write some sort of loquacious rant about how ridiculous that link's contents are, but I'm laughing too much to do so. Honest. A nice essay, not very long either. Current Music: "99 Luftballoons" ~ Nena |
| Saturday, October 31st, 2009 | |
| 2:24 pm | Healthcare & Terrorism & Comedy "It seems like the Senate is where progress goes to die, and I'm wondering; Thomas Jefferson didn't think we needed the Senate. He thought a singular legislative body was fine. I don't think we need the Senate either, I'd like to get rid of it. I think we should get rid of it." - Bill Maher "Well, y'know there are a lot of members of the House who feel that way." - Rep. Marcy Kaptur, (D) Ohio "Another part of this is also a deep sense -- goes back to the religion thing -- these young men are raised with the view that they have the most, that Islam -- this is not a criticism -- Islam sees itself as the most perfect expression of God's monotheistic message. If I were to put it in computer terms, it sees itself as God 3.0. It sees Christianity is God 2.0. It sees Judaism is God 1.0, and Hinduism is God 0.0. And I think part of the dissonance is when they come here or in Europe, in their identity they have the most perfect system, but in real life, their countries are economically behind. In terms of education, behind, and there's a real dissonance. If I have the most perfect operating system, why am I behind?" - Thomas Friedman "But before I go, I'd like to go back to the beginning of the year to remind everyone that when Barack Obama, an actual college professor, replaced George Bush, an actual chimp, commentators announced that comedians would be out of a job. Well, they were wrong: everyone is out of a job. So yes, Bush was a sweet target, but it turns out there were plenty of ridiculous Republicans behind him that we just couldn't see. His stupid star doth shone too brightly." - Bill Maher |
| Thursday, October 29th, 2009 | |
| 1:23 pm | Blogger Beware Did you read Goosebumps books as a child? Would you like to read someone summarizing each book along with snarky commentary? Well, here you go. From "Monster Blood": "The next day, Evan helps Andy rescue a cat from a tree. And by help I mean he does what he does throughout the novel, stand around while someone else does something. He also spouts very credible dialog, suggesting they should call the "ASPCA"-- because twelve year olds often drop that particular acronym in casual conversation. After Stine finishes cribbing from childhood story-lines that make Denis the Menace look fresh, the kids abandon the cat and go back to Evan's to play with the Monster Blood some more. Oh good! More pages of kids playing with stuff! They discover the tin of Monster Blood is now overflowing with the green goop. Also, the gelatinous substance is no longer cool to the touch, but instead feels disturbingly warm. This is not enough however to discourage the kids from having a Monster Blood fight. The two fling Monster Blood at each other inside Evan's room. I can see how this book inspired three sequels. After their fight, which is described as "hilarious" in the book, the two start to clean up their mess when they hear a horrifying howl from down below. Evan rushes to the window with Andy right behind him. Andy points out that Evan's dog has doubled in size and indeed he has. The dog, who is now the size of a pony, rushes out of the backyard. Evan and Andy try to run after it, but they don't get very far before Trigger turns into a horrible monster. And then Evan wakes up. Now, I know that's a pretty insulting dream sequence, but it looks like Spellbound compared to what comes next. Evan wakes up from the dream and realizes that the bed he's in is too small. He's a giant monster or something! Then he wakes up again. Now, not to get all Primer on you, but I have a hard time figuring out whether what came before the earlier dream sequence was a dream or not, and at what point reality ceased-- because the cat in the tree adventure was not what I'd call a phantasmagoric sequence of events. I read so many terrible dream sequences in these books that I thought it only fair to add a dream sequence to this blog entry. BLOGGER BEWARE DREAM SEQUENCE Evan wakes up and tells Andy he's moving to Georgia. He hands her the Monster Blood and says, "I'm going away forever to be passive and whiny in another state. Here, since you're the best character in Goosebumps history, you take over the book and the three that come after it-- readers will like you a lot more than they like me, some annoying wuss." Then the car he leaves in explodes. As his spirit leaves his body and ascends into Heaven, Heaven explodes, ensuring that Evan can never, ever appear in another Goosebumps book. BUT THEN IT WAS ALL JUST A DREAM" |
| 1:45 am | Sounds Familiar I think I've already explored this before, but hey, the SCP Foundation is good at summing it up: "Reality Benders (Type Greens) have a certain mystique among GOC operatives. They have been attributed a variety of powers, from immortality to mind control. Some operatives even argue that it is impossible to silence a Type Green, and it is suicide to even try. Bollocks. The truth is, Reality Benders are human, and they have human flaws. Consider the following: |
| Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 | |
| 2:51 pm | The Plot Thickens Save money or save lives? Some people would call that a false dilemma, except I'm not arguing anything and am, in fact, trying to rope you into reading it. It's a sales pitch more than an argument; you could argue it's an argument for you to read something, but then we're just parsing without reducing. Anyway, can anyone figure out what a 0.2 percent increase in the mortality rate equals in terms of body count? Current Music: "The Eraser" ~ Thom Yorke |
| Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 | |
| 4:20 pm | Placebo Response Fascinating. Of ethical concern: "One recent afternoon in his lab, a young soccer player grimaced with exertion while doing leg curls on a weight machine. Benedetti and his colleagues were exploring the potential of using Pavlovian conditioning to give athletes a competitive edge undetectable by anti-doping authorities. A player would receive doses of a performance-enhancing drug for weeks and then a jolt of placebo just before competition." Well, sports ethics anyway. |
| Friday, October 9th, 2009 | |
| 8:43 am | Nobel Peace Prize '09 What? Does anyone else hear "Ave Satani" playing around the corner? |
| Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 | |
| 1:49 am | Bright in the Screen I tried to sleep, but then I started playing this. |