Nature Leseul

The TRUTH about Barack Obama

2008-06-19T20:44:49Z

There are many things people do not know about BARACK OBAMA. It is every American's duty to read this message and pass it along to all of their friends and loved ones.

Barack Obama wears a FLAG PIN at all times. Even in the shower.

Barack Obama says the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE every time he sees an American flag. He also ends every sentence by saying, "WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL." Click here for video of Obama quietly mouthing the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE in his sleep.

A tape exists of Michelle Obama saying the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE at a conference on PATRIOTISM.

Every weekend, Barack and Michelle take their daughters HUNTING.

Barack Obama is a PATRIOTIC AMERICAN. He has one HAND over his HEART at all times. He occasionally switches when one arm gets tired, which is almost never because he is STRONG.

Barack Obama has the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE tattooed on his stomach. It's upside-down, so he can read it while doing sit-ups.

There's only one artist on Barack Obama's iPod: FRANCIS SCOTT KEY.

Barack Obama is a DEVOUT CHRISTIAN. His favorite book is the BIBLE, which he has memorized. His name means HE WHO LOVES JESUS in the ancient language of Aramaic. He is PROUD that Jesus was an American.

Barack Obama goes to church every morning. He goes to church every afternoon. He goes to church every evening. He is IN CHURCH RIGHT NOW.

Barack Obama's new airplane includes a conference room, a kitchen, and a MEGACHURCH.

Barack Obama's skin is the color of AMERICAN SOIL.

Barack Obama buys AMERICAN STUFF. He owns a FORD, a BASEBALL TEAM, and a COMPUTER HE BUILT HIMSELF FROM AMERICAN PARTS. He travels mostly by FORKLIFT.

Barack Obama says that Americans cling to GUNS and RELIGION because they are AWESOME.

(Source: Slate.com)

nleseul @ 2008-06-04T21:59:00

2008-06-05T02:00:28Z

My stimulus payment?

A whopping $45. w00t!

Thanks, Dubya! I'll get right on stimulating the economy with that.

nleseul @ 2008-06-02T16:09:00

2008-06-02T20:45:32Z

So the Web filter at work has entertained me for quite a while. Whether MySpace messaging is available, for example, has always changed every other month for about as long as I've been here. More recently, I've been seeing similar behavior with Facebook messaging, Google docs, and free image hosting sites. (For what it's worth, as I write this, MySpace and Facebook messaging work, Photobucket works but ImageShack doesn't, and Gmail and Google docs are both blocked.)

I think the IT department is using Websense, which basically gives the system administrator a group of fixed "categories" of content to choose to block on the local network. So the variation in what's available and what isn't is due to the administrators of the Websense service changing what sites are included in their various lists rather than any choice by EA's own IT department.

Now, most of the blocked sites are under either the "General E-Mail" category or the "Personal Network Storage and Backup" categories. And that's an understandable thing for them to want people to block, given the need to prevent source code or other proprietary data from getting leaked. (Of course, given that you can't attach files to MySpace or Facebook messages, it doesn't really make sense for those to be blocked under that justification, but whatever.)

Looking at the Wikipedia page and the Websense company's own site, the permissions set by EA are pretty liberal—the software apparently includes categories for, for example, "Abortion" and "Advocacy Groups" which aren't enabled here, as I've been able to go to sites like Amnesty International and Planned Parenthood from work just fine.

Nevertheless, I discovered a couple of months ago—I think when I was trying to visit some sexual health site off of Google for some reason—that our IT people seem to have turned on the "Sex" filtering category. Which irked me a little bit, but was mostly just bemusing. (This is a recent change, given that I spent a few of the dreadfully boring long hours of the 2006 crunch time reading stories on Literotica, which is now blocked.)

Today, however, I got an e-mail from the Obama campaign asking for volunteers for their table at this weekend's Gay Days Expo. Curious about what that event entailed, I clicked the link, and found it blocked. (Although for some reason, the site for Gay Days in general isn't.)

Now, I obviously can't see what kind of scary content this site might have on it from here, since it's blocked. It's possible that there are enough explicit images there make the block justified, at least insofar as blocking explicit images on work computers is justifiable in the general case. (Though it should be noted that Playboy.com isn't blocked right now... WTF?) If I investigate this at home tonight, though, and it turns out that the site in question is completely benign, I think this is about the point where I need to write some angry e-mail to the IT department about Websense's "Sex" category.

ETA: Coincidentally, I just found that the Wikipedia page on sexuality and gender identity-based cultures is also blocked under the "Sex" category. (Plenty of other sex-related pages on Wikipedia are fine.) I tried to access that particular page on a public terminal here, and it timed out; the rest of Wikipedia worked fine, so it wasn't a network problem. (The aforementioned Expo site also timed out, for what it's worth.) What is so special about that particular Wikipedia entry? So strange.

The good guys win one

2008-05-22T14:18:50Z

Federal court rules against military gays policy

The military cannot automatically discharge people because they're gay, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday in the case of a decorated flight nurse who sued the Air Force over her dismissal.

The three judges from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did not strike down the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. But they reinstated Maj. Margaret Witt's lawsuit, saying the Air Force must prove that her dismissal furthered the military's goals of troop readiness and unit cohesion.

...

Under Wednesday's ruling, military officials "need to prove that having this particular gay person in the unit really hurts morale, and the only way to improve morale is to discharge this person," said Aaron Caplan, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington state who worked on the case.

nleseul @ 2008-04-27T12:45:00

2008-04-27T16:49:51Z

Looking at doing the Discworld party tomorrow (Monday) night at xzarakizraiia's place. Will that work for people?

Given that I probably can't make it there on a weekday until 6:30 at the absolute earliest, and that the movies are three hours each, most likely we'll pick one or the other to watch, and leave plenty of extra time for Rock Band, Mario Kart, ~~strip~~ Smash Bros., etc.

nleseul @ 2008-04-24T10:21:00

2008-04-24T14:24:37Z

Not only was I unable to get to sleep until around 6 last night, but I get to work today and find that apparently it's "Bring your kids to work day," and I'm going to have to spend all day listening to their inane babbling.

What a lovely week it's been.

Discworld viewing party!

2008-04-18T18:15:38Z

So there seems to be enough interest to merit organizing a Discworld movie viewing party at some point in the near future. I purchased a DVD copy of Hogfather from Borders, and have a downloaded copy of The Colour of Magic that I will hopefully be able to burn for easy viewing.

The most probable venue is xzarakizraiia's apartment, next to UCF. Each of the two movies is about three hours long; we could watch one or both, depending on how much time people want to spend on this event. Add to that however long people want to spend doing other things, like playing Rock Band and Smash Bros., eating food, having orgies, etc.

Times are flexible; I'm mostly posting to get feedback from interested persons on what a good time to do this would be. Saturday (tomorrow) is an appealing option, but that would be rather short notice for people. Weekday evenings, excluding Wednesday and Friday, are also generally available, although weekends are probably better, as then the afternoon is available and the loud noises that result from Rock Band are less disturbing to neighbors. Next week I know is exam week for UCF, so people might prefer to wait until that is out of the way.

Just let me know if you're interested and what times work for you.

!!!

2008-04-17T04:41:39Z

Full-length live-action Discworld movies exist!

How did I miss these coming out over the past few months?

Goddess, why is BitTorrent so slow?

Edit: I have also learned that there were plans being made once for a film adaptation of Mort, up until some of the people involved made the recommendation to "lose the Death angle," because "the Death/skeleton bit doesn't work for us."

Well, I suppose it's no worse than making a film of The Handmaid's Tale and losing the totalitarian patriarchal dictatorship angle.

Biggest numbers and first causes

2008-04-16T18:06:03Z

When I was very young, I—supposedly like most children—was convinced that there had to be a "biggest number." Numbers, logically, were like letters, in that they were both ordered sequences and they were both something people learned in school, and if you could list off all the letters, then you should obviously be able to do the same with the numbers, even if the list was much, much bigger. (Both of these lists I envisioned as rotating discs stored in a machine somewhere in China.)

Of course, I was aware of the argument (as presented on 3-2-1 Contact, among other places) that grown-ups used to prevent themselves from recognizing this fundamental mathematical truth. Take your biggest number, the grown-ups said, and add 1 to it. No matter how big N_biggest might be, N_biggest + 1 would always be a larger quantity, contradicting the premise that N_biggest was the largest number possible. Therefore there could be no "biggest number," QED. But their argument, I understood, had a fatal flaw to it.

You see, the "biggest number" was a special kind of number, so big that it defied representation by numerals and could only be expressed by punctuation. The "biggest number" was /. (The "second biggest number" was ..) And / had the special property that / + 1 = 0, or possibly -/. So, by its special nature, the "biggest number" was capable of existing without contradiction, the "plus one" argument notwithstanding.

Of course, I later learned about the magical quantity ∞, which really was much more interesting than /. And, of course, there was absolutely no mathematical reason to posit the existence of / and the other special numbers, other than the unjustified a priori assumption that there must be a "biggest number," so it was easy enough to let go of that theory of numbers.

Given that an eight-year-old child is fully capable of (eventually) recognizing the fundamental silliness of the "biggest number" theory, one has to wonder how the same essential argument could have survived for centuries as the "first cause" theory.

The idea of the "first cause" (sometimes called the cosmological argument) was articulated by Thomas Aquinas. (Similar arguments about a "Prime Mover" were earlier made by Plato and Aristotle, among others, but their framing of the idea was rather more sophisticated than Aquinas'.) The argument goes like this. Time can't go back forever. (Or, you can't have an infinite regress of causes.) Therefore, there must be have been a "first cause" that started the chain of events moving.

Of course, just as the "biggest number" obviously begs the question of "What is one plus the 'biggest number'?", the "first cause" requires one to ask: "What caused the 'first cause'?" But Aquinas had an answer to that. With all the wisdom of my eight-year-old self, he argued that, unlike normal events, "finite and contingent" events, the "first cause" was special. It was not finite, not contingent, and therefore wasn't caused by anything.

By all rights, this argument should have been swept aside as easily as the "biggest number" argument. There is no more reason to posit the existence of Aquinas' special, non-finite, non-contingient cause than there is to posit a special kind of number which obeys different mathematical rules of addition than other numbers; the idea arises only because of its necessity to the unwarranted a priori assumption that there must be a "biggest number," or a "first cause." And yet, people still routinely cite the "first cause" argument in Internet flame wars today.

A bit of Google research brought up a possible objection to the equation of the "biggest number" and the "first cause." Aquinas also pointed out, apparently, that if there is no "first cause," then there can be no second cause, no third cause, and so on, until there can be no events at all. Thus, the "first cause" is less like the "biggest number" and more like the "first number" (i.e., 1). And it is true that modern number theory defines all the natural numbers in terms of the axiomatic quantity 1 and the concept of successors, and that without 1, there could be no natural numbers.

But the trouble with that framing is, the "first cause" is not axiomatic, in the same sense that 1 is. The idea of the "first cause" is, shall we say, contingent on its relationship with the present. That is, our understanding of causality is based on the present as the fundamental reference point; from the present, we can look in both directions—so far as we know, indefinitely. The present, then, is "1." The "first cause" is indefinitely in the past, more akin to the "most negative number" than the "biggest number," but both are identical concepts, and the former is just as silly as the latter. (In the other direction, corresponding to the "most positive number," would lie the "final effect," which no one ever seems to talk about.)

It bears mention that, although the "first cause" is normally brought up in association with the arguer's choice of creator deity, the Big Bang cosmology sometimes carries similar elements as well. Scientists, when confronted with the question of "What caused the Big Bang?", often try to explain that the Big Bang, like Aquinas' "first cause," was special, in that not even time existed before the Big Bang, and therefore causality could have had no meaning. (A fun book is Eric Lerner's The Big Bang Never Happened. I'm in no position to say whether the Alfvén plasma cosmology Lerner advocates is scientifically plausible, but he has some interesting things to say about the correspondence between popular acceptance of finite versus infinite cosmological models and the sociopolitics of the time.)

nleseul @ 2008-04-02T10:45:00

2008-04-02T14:50:35Z

I suddenly like McDonald's a lot more.

From this morning's spam from the AFA:

According to McDonald’s CEO Jim Skinner, McDonald’s will aggressively promote the homosexual agenda. In remarks on McDonald's Web site concerning the company becoming a member of the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC), Skinner wrote: "Being a socially responsible organization is a fundamental part of who we are. We have an obligation to use our size and resources to make a difference in the world … and we do."

The company gave an undisclosed amount of money to the NGLCC in return for being recognized as a major promoter of the homosexual agenda. In return, NGLCC placed Richard Ellis, vice president of communications of McDonald’s USA, on the NGLCC Board of Directors.

Ellis was quoted as saying: "I'm thrilled to join the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce team and ready to get to work. I share the NGLCC's passion for business growth and development within the LGBT community, and I look forward to playing a role in moving these important initiatives forward."

Unfortunately, this hasn't been reported on any reputable news sites yet, although WorldNetDaily did post some propaganda.

Makes me wish McDonald's actually had good food, so I could start eating there.

ETA: The NGLCC's site has a press release and an article mentioning this linked.

nleseul @ 2008-03-31T19:52:00

2008-04-01T01:52:03Z

Goddess, this is hilarious:

I watched this exchange. Truly, I believed the plant would be watered. It was plant, and on Gor it had no rights. Perhaps on Earth, in its permissive society, which distorts the true roles of all beings, which forces both plant and waterer to go unhappy and constrained, which forbids the fulfillment of owner and houseplant, such might not happen. Perhaps there, it would not be watered. But it was on Gor now, and would undoubtedly feel its true place, that of houseplant. It was plant. It would be watered at will. Such is the way with plants.

Borin picked up the watering can, and muchly watered the plant. The plant cried out. "No, Master! Do not water me!" The master continued to water the plant. "Please, Master," begged the plant, "do not water me!" The master continued to water the plant. It was plant. It could be watered at will.

...

The cactus plant next to the spider plant shuddered. It attempted to cover its small form with its small arms and small needles. "I am plant," it said wonderingly. "I am of Earth, but for the first time, I feel myself truly plantlike. On Earth, I was able to control my watering. I often scorned those who would water me. But they were weak, and did not see my scorn for what it was, the weak attempt of a small plant to protect itself. Not one of the weak Earth waterers would dare to water a plant if it did not wish it. But on Gor," it shuddered, "on Gor it is different. Here, those who wish to water will water their plants as they wish. But strangely, I feel myself most plantlike when I am at the mercy of a strong Gorean master, who may water me as he pleases."

I'd been moderately curious about the Chronicles of Gor for a while. And, two chapters into a downloaded copy of Slave Girl of Gor, I already recognize every one of the clichés parodied in "Houseplants of Gor." This isn't even a distillation or exaggeration of the style; John Norman really does write exactly like that.

Okay, maybe this would be less ridiculously painful to read on a printed page, with actual paragraph breaks and stuff, than in a text file. Still, twenty-six books of prose this appallingly bad? In the hands of a skillful writer, the premise of Gor probably would be rather erotic—even if Norman does get backwards the real true natural biological order of things—but I'm puzzled how anyone could ever read this prose and feel turned on, or any emotion except uncontrollable laughter.

It doesn't help that thus far, the character of the eponymous slave girl is rather less convincing than the average Literotica story, and the philosophical material is inserted about as clumsily as the last couple of Terry Goodkind novels. Though I'll grant that I might have better luck with those elements by starting from the beginning of the series, rather than halfway through.

nleseul @ 2008-03-26T08:42:00

2008-03-26T12:46:11Z

Test your techno tolerance! (From ladyfelicity.)

You Score as a Transhumanist-Biotech

Transhumanists believe that humanity can and should strive to attain higher levels of physical, mental, and social achievement through the use of technology. They seek to extend human capabilities and improve the human condition through technology- supporting the quest for immortality, the conquering of death and disease, the amplification of human intelligence, and the capabilities of the human body.

Transhumanists recognize that over time and with technological advancements, man will realize new possibilities for society and human nature and achieve a posthuman condition (becoming more than human). Societal change is an important consequence of technological progress.

Because of this passionate trust in technological advancement, transhumanists generally see all technologies, as long as they don't jeopardize the non-corporeal consciousness of a person, as being beneficial both to society and to the happiness and advancement of the person. Transhumanists see benefit not only in technologies that address medical necessities, but also aesthetic or recreational demands. They support advances in cybernetics, genetic engineering in clinical settings, embryo design, and other technologies that allow individuals to take control of their biology, and the human species to take control of evolution.

Transhumanists can be either hard-technology oriented--more inclined to add microchips and machines to their lifestyle--or bio-technology oriented--preferring the softer, more natural advancements and modifications that are made available.

[ See All Results ]

Your Results

You scored as a TB

71.7% of people also scored as TB

Other Results

8.2% of people scored as BC

1.2% of people scored as BL

0.1% of people scored as LU

0.5% of people scored as TC

18.4% of people scored as TP

Share your answers with your friends!

Copy and past the code in the box into your blog or a message board post and see who else is ready to push the bounds of what it means to be human.

nleseul @ 2008-03-17T10:14:00

2008-03-17T14:47:01Z

Stolen from thisisjessa. Thought it was rather interesting. Unfortunately, my responses are comparatively boring right now.

1. Right now I:
( ) Am
(X) Am Not involved with anyone else.

If so, please indicate numbers. Note, one partner can be included in more than one category. You may attach text explaining your answers if you so choose.

My romantic partners include:
( ) legal spouses,
( ) Lifetime commitments,
( ) parents of my children,
( ) very close, ongoing, emotional relationships,
( ) friends whom it's okay for me to be sexual with,
( ) people whom I'm dating,
( ) people with whom I can indulge in non-mainstream (kink or fetish) sexual activities,
( ) partners of the opposite sex,
( ) partners of my own sex,
( ) live-in partners,
( ) partners with veto power over new relationships,
( ) partners with veto power over ongoing relationships,
( ) partners with whom you will be expected to be romantically or sexually involved, if you get involved with me.
( ) Total partners.

2. I have:
( ) children.
( ) of them live with me full-time.

3. Right now, I am interested in:
(X) Friendship
(X) Cuddling/Smooching
(X) Talking (includes ordinary emailing)
( ) Sexy Emails
( ) Sex
( ) Kinky Sex
( ) Starting a Short-term Relationship
( ) Starting a Long-Term Relationship

4. If things go well, within a few weeks of starting a relationship, I will be interested in:
(X) Friendship
(X) Cuddling/Smooching
(X) Talking (includes ordinary emailing)
( ) Sexy Emails
(X) Sex
( ) Kinky Sex
(X) Group Sex
( ) Starting a Long-Term Relationship.

5. This relationship won't meet my needs if it doesn't provide or allow for:
(X) Friendship
(X) Cuddling/Smooching
(X) Talking (includes ordinary emailing)
( ) Sexy Emails
( ) Sex
( ) Kinky Sex
( ) Group Sex
( ) Starting a Long-Term Relationship.
( ) Other - Explain:

6. If things continue to go well, within a few years I might want to:
(X) Move in together.
( ) Combine economic resources
( ) Have children
( ) Get legally married
( ) Have an open marriage
( ) Purchase a home
( ) Earn a degree
( ) Lifetime Commitment.
( ) Have a multiple (non-legal) marriage.
( ) Other - Explain:

7. A long-term relationship would not meet my needs unless it provides or allows for:
( ) Moving in together.
( ) Combine economic resources
( ) Having children
( ) Getting legally married
( ) Having an open marriage
( ) Purchasing a home.
( ) Earning a degree.
( ) Lifetime Commitment.
( ) Have a multiple (non-legal) marriage.
( ) Other - Explain:

8. I am:
(X) So het, it's boring.
( ) pretty much heterosexual.
( ) Bi, with strong het leanings.
( ) Bisexual.(Kinsey number between e and pi).
( ) Pansexual. I don't look at gender.
( ) Bi, with a stronger attraction for my own sex.
( ) pretty much gay/lesbian.
( ) exclusively gay.

9. My sex drive is:
( ) out of control/insatiable. A real problem.
( ) unusually strong, very hard to resist.
( ) healthy, ranging toward high.
( ) about average, I guess.
( ) a bit below average, usually.
( ) something I can keep in check with no problem.
(X) so little, I feel like I'm missing out.

10. For sex, latex is:
(X) Required, at least in the beginning,
( ) Allowed,
( ) Required, in all but my closest relationships.
( ) Required, period, unless trying to conceive.
( ) Required for some activities but not others.
(When I first read this question, I thought it was referring to wearing clothing made of latex during sex. And I was like, "Wow, that's important enough to people to focus on it this much?")

11. I'd prefer a relationship:
( ) with only one person.
( ) with several people, separately.
(X) with several people, all together.

12. I could live with a relationship:
(X) with only one person
(X) with several people, separately
(X) with several people, all together.

13. I require my SOs' [Significant Others'] relationships to be:
( ) people well known to, and close friends with, me.
(X) people I know and who are willing to talk with me.
(X) people who aren't actively hostile to me.
(X) people who are NOT trying to end my relationship.
( ) people my SOs' [Significant Others'] see only with my approval.
( ) people who are likely to become partners.

14. I require my own relationships to be:
( ) people well known to, and close friends with, my partners.
(X) people known to and who are willing to talk with my partners.
(X) people who aren't actively hostile to my partners.
(X) people who are NOT trying to end my relationships.
( ) people I see only with my SOs' [Significant Others'] approval.
( ) people who are likely to become partners.

15. I have about:
( ) Less than 5
( ) 5-10
( ) 10-15
(X) 15-20
( ) More than 20
hours during the work week that I could spend with a new relationship, not including time spent asleep.

16. I have about:
( ) Less than 5
(X) 5-10
( ) 10-15
( ) 15-20
( ) 20-30
( ) 30-40
hours during most weekends that I could spend with a new relationship, not including time spent asleep.

17. Logistical considerations:
( ) I am car-less.
( ) I share a car with someone else.
( ) I am pretty broke right now.
(X) I share a home with someone else.

18. My phone number is:
( )
Good times to call me include:
( )

19. My email address is:
( )
(Going to leave these blank. If anyone reading this seriously doesn't already know my contact information and wants it, just ask in a private mail.)

20. My religious/spiritual persuasion is:
(Atheist.)

21. Gregariousness:
( ) I am a rabid party animal without a leash.
( ) I like to go out and socialize/do stuff, but can be coaxed into staying home.
(X) I'm kind of indolent, but fairly easily coaxed out into the world.
(X) I prefer small gatherings of people known to me.
(X) I'm dead center of the Introversion/Extroversion Scale, or at least I skip rope with the line a lot.
( ) I'm damn sociable for a hermit..sometimes. Mostly I prefer to stay home.
( ) You mean there's a world outside my house? Fancy that!

22. I am "out" about being poly:
(X) To everyone, and rather vocal about it
(X) To people if it comes up in conversation
(X) With my friends
(X) With my closest non-poly friends
(X) With other polys
( ) With my partners
( ) With my co-workers
(X) With my family
( ) Still in the closet
("Co-workers" is omitted because I don't think anyone at work actually knows. In principle, I'm not making any effort to hide it—I happily wear my poly t-shirt to work, and have constructed a poly heart on my cube wall out of thumbtacks in the past, but I think most people just think "Oh, what a pretty heart."

"Partners" is omitted due to the lack thereof. Obviously, any partners I end up having in the future will know. In fact, they'd logically have to before the relationship starts, since they would hopefully have fit into one of the marked categories of "friends," people I have conversations with, or "everyone" prior to the start of the relationship.)

23. PDAs [Public Display of Affection] involving primary partner(s) are acceptable:
(X) Anytime, anywhere
( ) Within the bounds of good taste
( ) With my partner(s)
( ) Around other polys
( ) Never

24. PDAs [Public Display of Affection] involving secondary partner(s) are acceptable:
(X) Anytime, anywhere
( ) Within the bounds of good taste
( ) With my partner(s)
( ) Around other polys
( ) Never
(Was this item intentionally duplicated? I feel like I'm missing something here. Oh, I guess this is where a couple of words got removed. I'll re-insert them, just for other people's reference, even if they don't really make a difference to my answers.)

nleseul @ 2008-03-10T23:46:00

2008-03-11T03:51:27Z

Fun fact for the day: In the UK, consensual BDSM activities are legally considered to be assault and can be prosecuted as such.

At Megacon

2008-03-09T07:29:58Z

In the distance, there is music, and the sound of many voices in conversation. Laughing, people run through the hallways and engage in random acts of spontaneity. And I am watching from somewhere else—an all-too-familiar feeling—wondering why I am here and not there, apart rather than a part. Knowing, on some level, that to walk from here to there would be all too easy, but feeling that there, like a desert mirage, like the ever-vanishing tomorrow, will still be as distant no matter how close I come.

There is a commotion. Someone is shouting. Lost at first in the general ambient noise of the scene, the sound grows as more voices join it. Words become distinct. "Yuri!" shouts a chorus of deep male voices. "Yaoi!" cry a multitude of higher, feminine voices in response. The chant spreads through the crowd, a viral meme in fertile soil, growing in intensity until at last it climaxes in an eruption of wild cheering. Change the words, the setting, and the costumes, and the scene could be some tribal ritual, an ecstatic experience from the oldest and deepest parts of the human psyche, a celebration of shared values and the joy of living in a world in which people like us exist in such numbers.

But I am an individualist. A part of my mind is always reflexively suspicious of tribal rituals and of collective consciousness. There is always on some level the sense of "This is stupid," preventing immersion, making the rational response seem to be remaining on the outside, looking in like an anthropologist or a narrator, recording but not interfering, not becoming part. There is a feeling of detachment, of being only loosely connected to the world. A feeling that the bonds that tie me to others are too weak to draw me in and bind me to a communal awareness. A sense that it would be so easy to let go and drift away from it, to a place of pure solipsistic thought unsullied by experience. A place with only a bed, a desk, a computer, a cat, many books, and a window which one can look out but never in. A place where deep emotion is a thing of dreams alone.

On which topic, it is time for sleep.

nleseul @ 2008-03-05T09:56:00

2008-03-05T14:59:31Z

When I heard about this last week, it was rather maddening.

This, though? Awesome.

(If you look closely at the first photo of the EA developers, you might be able to see me. I'm the 12th one from the left in the 6th row.)

nleseul @ 2008-02-28T16:27:00

2008-02-28T21:51:06Z

The kitty didn't make it. :-(

He had some kind of blockage in his urinary tract. He'd just been collapsed on the floor since yesterday evening, since the buildup of toxins was weakening his muscles. I took off work and brought him into the vet this afternoon. They tried to operate and remove the blockage, but his heart gave out while he was anesthetized.

It's okay, though. It's just what happens. The universe is just a horrible place to live, for kitties and people.

He had a happy life, with lots of free food and things to jump on. He had more than would have been conceivable at any other time in history. The only reason why happiness is possible at all, ever, is because humans are working so hard to subdue malevolent nature and hold back the darkness. And sometimes the barriers were build are just not enough, and the darkness finds a way to invade our safe space. There's still so much to be done, before life as it ought to be is a consistent possibility for all the people and all the kitties.

(The second one is what he looked like when we found him back in 2005.)

Sigh

2008-02-27T05:18:21Z

Ugly weather.

Sick cat.

No girls.

Just another night, I guess.

nleseul @ 2008-02-20T12:36:00

2008-02-20T17:36:48Z

Wow. I don't think this could possibly have been any more completely wrong.

nleseul @ 2008-02-17T19:16:00

2008-02-18T00:24:21Z

So I was really bored this afternoon, and decided on the spur of the moment to drive out to Playalinda. It's not Haulover, but it can be pleasant when one doesn't feel like a four-hour drive.

Unfortunately, it was later than I thought when I left. I was thinking it was around 3:30, but I looked at my car's clock and saw that it was already 4:30. I drove out there anyway, assuming that the place wouldn't close until at least 6 and that I'd still have a little while to walk around there.

But when I got there—at around 5:30, and well before sunset—I passed a park ranger who made a "turn around" gesture in my general direction. I wasn't convinced at first he was actually trying to communicate with me, but then I saw in my mirror that he had nearly stopped after passing me, like he was waiting for me to turn around. So I did.

It rather annoys me when people don't enforce the rules as written.

Happy Valentine's Day, Texas

2008-02-14T13:30:03Z

Court overturns Texas ban on sex toys

A federal appeals court has struck down a Texas law that makes it a crime to promote or sell sex toys.

"Whatever one might think or believe about the use of these devices," said an opinion written by Justice Thomas M. Reavley of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, "government interference with their personal and private use violates the Constitution."

Awesome. It's almost like we actually live in a free country or something.

Though as long as memes like this are floating around, there's still a long way to go:

The state also argued in a brief that Texas has legitimate "morality based" reasons for the laws, which include "discouraging prurient interests in autonomous sex and the pursuit of sexual gratification unrelated to procreation."

In other news, I've been waking up at like 6:30 every day this week and unable to get back to sleep. It's rather annoying.

On sleep

2008-02-12T19:29:11Z

I've always been vaguely bothered by the idea of sleep. I've usually tried to explain my dislike of it in rational terms. It's a waste of a third of your life. It usually just makes me feel groggy and unpleasant instead of refreshed. It's depressing to constantly be cuddling with girls (or doing something equally improbable, like developing superpowers), only to wake up and realize it didn't actually happen. And so on.

I've been thinking lately, though, that a lot of that is post hoc rationalization for an aversion on a deeper level. Fundamentally, I think, my real problem with sleep may be the simple fact that sleep is scary.

Not on the level of a real phobia, of course. Just enough to make me vaguely reluctant to do it until it becomes absolutely necessary.

For one thing, there's the relinquishing of conscious control of your mind that sleep entails. The idea of relinquishing conscious control per se has some appeal, but surrendering control to a trusted person is a different thing than surrendering it to random neuron bursts. Sleep makes you vulnerable to things like nightmares, sleep paralysis, and night terrors. None of those are actually even remotely common for me, but just reading on Wikipedia about the possibility is rather creepy in itself.

Sleep is also way too close to death for me to feel totally comfortable with it. Obviously, they're completely different in any number of critical ways, but, viewed subjectively, there are enough common elements to make the association uncomfortable. Sleep interrupts the stream of consciousness. It splits it up into disconnected chunks. The discreteness it imposes upon experience quantifies the feeling of time dropping away into the abyss of the past in a way that a continuous stream of consciousness wouldn't. And one thing I've always found particularly creepy is that sleep seems to compress the memories of the day ending in some way, and like most useful forms of compression, it's lossy. There are memories—usually minor, but real—that simply won't be there when you wake up. Tiny chunks of your life that might as well not have happened. It can be difficult to retain the sense of a consistent, indivisible I in the face of that kind of thing.

Anyway. That's my babble for the day.

ETA: Just remembered one other related thing I've been thinking about. I've commented a few times that the only episode of the new Doctor Who that has been at all scary to me is "The Girl in the Fireplace"—which, obviously, most people find strange. And it's not that the clockwork robots were particularly scary intrinsically; it's just that the idea of waking up and finding something almost but not quite human standing over your bed is one of those creepy things for me. I used to find programs about alien abductions unsettling for the same reason.

Random political plug

2008-02-11T20:03:37Z

Just a note—there's a push among bloggers to get people to donate $5.01, or multiples of that amount, to the Obama campaign tomorrow (February 12, Lincoln's birthday). The reasoning is that Lincoln is on both the $5 bill and the penny, and both Obama and Lincoln are from Illinois*.

It's worth noting that the media narrative on the Obama campaign is taking note not just of the total amount of money raised by the campaign, but also of the total number of individual donors. So even if you can't donate a whole lot, a first-time donor sending even a small dollar amount ($5.01, for example) is going to raise the number of individual donors and do a bit to strengthen that narrative.

* Also, as the Obama people love to remind the Hillary people, both ran for President after only one term in elected office.

nleseul @ 2008-02-07T16:28:00

2008-02-07T21:33:41Z

Just when you thought it was impossible for anything to be more awesome than Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter:

Barackula is a short political horror rock musical about young Barack Obama having to stave off a secret society of vampires at Harvard when he was inducted into presidency at the Harvard Law Review in 1990. Obama (Justin Sherman) finds that he must convince the vampire society that opposing political philosophies can coexist or else the society may transform Obama to the dark side.

Barackula—The Musical

nleseul @ 2008-01-23T14:34:00

2008-01-23T19:47:52Z

I wish I'd understood how poignantly beautiful this song is back when it was on the radio in the '90s.

Sadly, the music video seems to omit the second and arguably most interesting verse.

I know a place down past an old shack
On a road that goes to nowhere,
Ain't nobody coming back.
We can go there tonight, we can talk until dawn,
Or maybe something else.
I'll leave the radio on—
The radio on...

There's no one to hear; you might as well scream.
They never woke up from the American dream.
And they don't understand what they don't see,
And they look through you and they look past me.
Oh, you and I dancing slow—
We got nowhere to go.

Past the Wal-Mart and the prison, down by the old V.A.
Just my jeans and my t-shirt,
And my blue Chevrolet.
It's Saturday night, feels like everything's wrong.
I've got some strawberry wine.
I wanna get you alone—
Get you alone...

There's no one to hear; you might as well scream.
They never woke up from the American dream.
And they don't understand what they don't see,
And they look through you and they look past me.
Oh, you and I dancing slow—
We got nowhere to go.

Down by the muddy water of the mighty Mo,
In an old abandoned box car.
Will I ever know?
Dance with me forever, this moment is divine.
I'm so close to heaven;
This hell is not mine—
This hell is not mine...

There's no one to hear; you might as well scream.
They never woke up from the American dream.
And they don't understand what they don't see,
And they look through you and they look past me.
Oh, you and I dancing slow—
We got nowhere to go.

We got nowhere to go...
We got nowhere to go...
You and me, you and me,
We got nowhere to go...