Enh, it's all boiled over for the moment. One would hope things have calmed down for the night in Louisiana, too.
I have nothing really to say here but I read a quote the other day from war-landscape photographer Simon Norfolk that I thought was funny:
Part of what I do is I make sure I don't look very serious - it's best to look like a harmless dickhead, really, so no one bothers you. You look like a nutter. And, to be honest, I play that up: I've got the bald head, and the Hawaiian shirt...
I can't believe that photographers go into war zones dressed like soldiers! Soldiers are the people they shoot at. If I could wear a clown suit I would do it - if I could wear the big shoes and everything. I would wear the whole fucking thing.
...I can either scrape in there on my belly, wearing camo, and sneak around; or I can stand right there in front, wearing a shirt that says, you know, Don't shoot me. I'm a dick.
http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/warphotography-interview-with-simon.html
What is there to say after today's drama?
Eh, I thought you acquitted yourself OK on the makeup threads. People understand that your tastes are sometimes a bit eclectic.
I guess I missed something while in meetings all day.
I met a famous person whose work I respect today, and had a nice, friendly conversation. Can't say who, though.
Links:
PTA meeting at Hogwart's.
Asia's craziest buildings.
The Scratchophone, portable turntables.
If there was ever a day where I was not so sick I had to stay in bed, but sick enough that I couldn't really do much other than hit refresh on Unfogged, today is the day I would've chosen.
That said, I am pretty tired of being sick, and I'd better wake up tomorrow feeling way better. OR ELSE.
I went out the door just after that thread hit the 90s and checked back when it was in the mid 500s.
What is there to say after today's drama?
If you're late to the party and unsure about tackling a 500+ thread, do this:
Search for SEK's name and read just his comments (and whatever else catches your eye) and the story will unfold with perfect timing.
If you don't know who you met, how do you know they were famous? Did they have a "famous" label on them?
Blimey, have been busy all day and all evening and am now far too Becks-style to have a go at 900-odd comments (in two threads). But I've had a lovely day.
Also, I watched the penultimate episode (i.e. Monday just gone's one) of Prison Break and was completely overexcited. Can't wait for next Tuesday (which is when we'll get the download). What a preposterous programme. We've watched all 40-something episodes in about 3 weeks and now I keep dreaming about it. Probably for the best that it's about to stop.
You know what? Balsa is pretty soft.
Speaking of TV, I turned on the BBC version of What Not To Wear and there were these... interlopers poking and prodding the poor fashion victim. Not Trinny and Susannah. What's up with sending us inferior product, Brits?
We have three new mice. All very cute, except when they're being assholes and fighting with each other to establish dominance. I go back and forth between thinking Micky seems more active than she has in a while and is glad for the company, and then seeing her sleeping by herself (which only makes sense, since she's much older than these youngsters) and feeling sad that maybe they're ostracizing her.
re: 18
They have their own new different show in which they are even more intrusive and try to 'fix' people's relationships ... I'm embarrassed to admit knowing this.
14-15: You need to be told about the Standpipe Bridgeplate page.
22 is awesome.
B, has PK decided what he wants to do about Mickey's tumor?
23: I talked him out of the surgery, so now we're going with the status quo, but I'm feeling terribly guilty about basically consigning Micky to death from cancer and may yet change my mind.
My hope is that she will marry me. Also, I met her boyfriend. He is also slightly famous. Maybe she is tired of it all.
It should be obvious from the way I talk about this, but I am not famous. In case you were wondering.
Peeps are godawful extruded shit.
Luckily for both peeps and you, I happen to like that sort of thing.
Allow me to repost my 575 on that thread, which was not really correctly situated:
Speaking of depravity and incompetence, could any of you who are interested take a look at the latest post on my blog and tell me whether the final paragraph could be coerced or massaged into some sort of coherence? And whether the notions in paragraphs 1 and 2, which I believe to be more coherent, are at all defensible.
Thanks
I think Micky's illness is a good reason why kids should have pets in sequential order of their natural life spans. At two, give them a jar of mayflies, have them name them in the morning and then at 6pm say, "Oops, they've all died of old age". Then maybe something that lives a couple of months, then goldfish, which are lucky to make it four months. (Make it those goldfish you get at street fairs, they're guaranteed croakers at a month or two.) Then mice. Then cats. Then dogs.
At that point, they're just about ready as middle-aged adults to care for you when you have senile dementia.
12 -- one would need to search not just for his name, but for "by: SEK", for it to have much of a thinning effect.
29 should contain a link to the blog in question for a fulness of hypertext.
I haven't heard enough Robyn Hitchcock to argue for or against the premise, though it makes sense as laid out in paras 1 and 2.
I can't quite parse the first sentence in 3, though.
37 -- I'm saying, "I was reading pp. 1-2 to myself and it sounded a little like, I was getting ready to categorize "Adventure Rocketship" and possibly "Olé! Tarantula" the same way I had, 20 years gone by, categorized "Globe of Frogs", in an intellectual act that I am now realizing was wrong-headed -- I discuss this more in a slightly earlier post come to think of it -- and use them to dismiss Hitchcock.
OK, I follow. That's how I'd put it in the post.
Jackie and I had our weekend escape, and managed some mutually satisfactory sexual activity. Work will continue to interfere with our spending much time together for a few more months.
Samarkand displeased me today with slow surrender of guards in citadel. Played entertaining game later with one of many heads removed from citizens of Samarkand. Was thinking it could be called "football".
Amused myself by erasing the Wikipedia entry for Khumar Tegin. Jochi was being a whiny brat again, as usual. Maybe I should pour molten silver down someone else's throat again for kicks.
Have theater tickets tonight. Looking forward to a little lightheartedness for a change.
16 tons, and what do you get: another day older and deeper in debt.
Dear Mineshaft:
Lancelot keeps giving me these funny looks and giggling about "my sword Excalibur" and so on. Plus he and Guinevere have been spending A LOT of time with the royal portrait artist lately. I wonder if I should go look at how the paintings are coming along. Mordred says I should.
After all that adversity - the being left in the hills to die, the guy on the road who wanted to kill me - I'm glad I've finally found a peaceful life more myself and my family. I wonder what good fortune will strike me next?
more s/b for
I seem to be having a bit of eye trouble today. Nothing serious, I hope.
The way this one turned out has convinced me that I was not meant for marriage.
I found it mutually satisfactory, anyway, and as far as I know Jackie always does.
Man, I googled my name today, and what do I find out? Some dipshit is stealing all my best bits. Thoughts? Should I sue? Try to get some kind of financial compensation? Should I make some kind of overture to this guy, see if he'll deal?
But yeah, it does make sense to delete that thread.
Holy fucking shit, I just got caught up on the day's events.
But yeah, it does make sense to delete that thread.
Eh, SEK doesn't seem concerned, and he's the one involved.
The risk is that someone can trace back from SEK's identity to the couple's identity.
The divorcing friend is officially On The Prowl, but in a recent posting mentioned a specific criterion which excludes me. Also, a turn of phrase she used recently suggests that I'm probably in the Friend Zone, though I might be reading too much into that one.
Christ, what a day. I could kick a puppy right now.
Mr. President, I'll advise you again to steer clear of divorcing people, no matter how alluring any individual seems. They are not in a good place.
B: glad PK's holding up okay. What did he name his new mice?
Been a slow week, but I hear there's going to be a bonfire tomorrow, which might be fun.
That fucker Micky took my motorcycle, so don't expect any sympathy from me.
56: And the inclusion of city names makes things kind of specific, as well, large city though it may be. These threads have been staying off the google cache, right?
large city though it may be.
Small world networks make the world small. There's almost certainly enough information in that thread to make a curious local figure things out.
Why aren't you discussin' takin' it down, instead?
(Just for consistency's sake I mean.)
I met a somewhat famous person today, and almost had dinner with that person, but alleged "jet lag" (only flew one timezone) kept it from happening. I did get to eat lots of delicious Chinese food though, with my bestest friends in the whole world. So that was good.
I dunno what to say about THAT thread, except to point out the passage in American Pictures where the author, a travelling Danish hippie in the mid-1970s, talks about how at the "best" houses in the South, he was constantly being offered the services of the daughters of the best families for the night. Also, William Gibson already channels a bit of Faulkner, as in Virtual Light, but in a funny way.
ogged: for what it's worth, I'd kill the thread. All it does now is serve to rub salt in a very open wound.
65: As long as you preserve it in the double secret archives, with heebie's ass and w-lfs-n's cock photos.
Why not just redact "SEK" and "Baton Rouge" throughout?
Also "Red Clowds", I should think. And of course, "husband".
As well as "sex", "women", "photographs", and "holy shit!"
Cuz I would be pissed if I went away from the blog for a day and missed that thread. That was epic.
And it's gone! It's saved in the database, but at this point, I don't think it's only google that we have to worry about. It's a great story, and there's a good chance that a reporter will hear about it, and at that point, we've put the wife's anonymity at risk, and that's a shitty thing to do.
When Brando says in Last Tango, "Let's say we're just -- taking a flying fuck at a rolling donut" is the line a reference to Slaughterhouse-5? Or did that phrase have currency prior to Vonnegut?
75: Right choice, I think. As for reporters: they have short attention spans and are easily bored. I was called repeatedly over a couple of days last year about a connection with a somewhat famous blogger meltdown that made the Cable TV news shows. Not returning calls does wonders for a reporter's desire to move on to a new story.
Um, is everyone alright? From the story, I mean.
good lordy,
take a couple days to play in a lawyer-school play so as to avoid the guilt trippe, and fudge bunnies! all of a sudden a lurker can't tell what's happening here from a hole in the gulliver.
60: Shiny, Squeaky (2), and Brown Beauty.
Don't ask me.
Brown Beauty.
Long-haired racist.
hey, what the fuck and what thread and what now? somebody email me and explain what's going on; I'm too busy to check standpipe's blog.
Heh -- 'lameida missed all the excitement! Hopefully one of her bloggy partners will relate the yarn to her.
Al, click here to protest your exclusion.
Al -
Look at the back end of the site -- the post is the unpublished 'Ask The Mineshaft' a little ways down. Maybe Ogged can tell you how to recreate the comment thread, rather than having to find the comments one by one.
Brown Beauty? That's the fastest mouse on the Arabian peninsula!
B, y'ever thought of getting PK some rats? They really have more personality than mice, and once you get over the tail thing (and you do) they're just as cute, and don't smell as much.
Rats are the primo rodent to have around. Con: PK may well be an insecure milksop.
7: Edgard Soares. I love chess boards. They're an enormous design challenge, because they are perfect as they are; any change to them is a detraction from the thing. Damien Hirst, Man Ray, John Cage (Chess Pieces, heh), this wacky Yayoi Kusama, god, I love them. I can never get over this Max Ernst sculpture—it scares the living shit out of me.
84: I liked protesters carrying signs that said "Link", "Enraged Bunny", and "Kevin Drum". Kevin Drum Out of My Uterus!
I suggested rats a while back. Rats are very good pets, and if you get them from a good breeder, rather than PetSmart, they might not be all inbred and stuff.
They're an enormous design challenge, because they are perfect as they are; any change to them is a detraction from the thing.
This will sound hopelessly naïve, I'm sure, but if something is perfect as it is, is it not the least challenging thing, designwise? (Assume the Soares had the right number of spaces. You still couldn't play chess on it. The others seem to fall into two categories: too difficult to tell where the squares on the board actually are, or just like an ordinary board except with nontraditional colors, or the pieces sure do have odd shapes!.)
Maybe that's just what the challenge is; how to improve, in an interesting way, something which is already complete.
Having a rat as a pet would also prepare him for reading this book, which I think is Grass' finest next to The Tin Drum and with the caveat that I haven't read the rest of the Danziger trilogy, and also this one. (Which latter one would also tie in with the mouse ownership come to think of it.)
95 has to many instances of the word "also". Some of them should probably be switched out for "as well", and some omitted entirely.
I long nursed this belief that Ernst had approached the chess challenge like Kirk, the Kobayashi Maru: bucking the game entirely (with a sculpture, not a set). Turns out, no, Ernst made a set, too.
when I was a boy, before most people were born, all we had was organic natural rats to play with. Organic natural rats are very smart, but they have a sort of mean sense of humor.
Maybe that's just what the challenge is; how to improve, in an interesting way, something which is already complete.
Here we have a question: it what sense, then, is it the same thing, improved?
But it isn't the same thing -- it's better!
You know perfectly well what I meant, you … you you, you.
That's what makes it hard art. I liked the circular chess board, but I think it would be hard to play.
Because a chess board is a template: there are only so many features that can be tweaked, and all the features must be retained, and the brilliance of the traditional chess set is in its simplicity. It's a set of rules for making art—the best possible results of which are to be avoided.
the best possible results of which are to be avoided.
You know this stuff totally gets him laid.
You know this stuff totally gets him laid.
Yeah, that's clear, and it sickens me.
That Soares' annular one is just wrong (why didn't he divide it into eighths?) and that annoyed me. Love the Man Ray pieces, very beautiful, and easy to tell which they're supposed to be.
easy to tell
...goes back, looks at the set again... Oh yeah, huh! It is easy to tell.
Why do some of us like giving people shit? Cause we're extra manly.
105: I thought it was the lifelong dream of every man on this board to have smart = sexy.
RE. rats, yeah, PK likes them (he seems to have forgotten that they'll eat mice). But they are bigger. And thus not so cute.
He seems to have decided that the next animal he wants is a chinchilla, because I made the mistake of telling him they live about 20 years and so he could take it with him to college. He's gung-ho on the idea of finding out what a chinchilla would learn in college.
111a: but we're generally down on stuff that rings, shall we say, pretentious.
109's link, quoting:
"better learning of the angry face keyboard sequence"
Somehow this doesn't give me the angry face.
B.Ph.D., you're in love with your son. It's okay, I have a friend who's in love with his daughter. Not in a bad way, mind. It's all very charming. I actually fell in love with him because of his paeans to his daughter, his explanations of his love for her.
No worries.
Oh, it's true, I'm absolutely enamored of him.
Except when he's driving me crazy and I want to beat him with a stick.
Speaking of children, god this creeps me out.
Gswift, how in the hell did you come across that?
I work at the Internet Auction Site Who Shall Not Be Named and often run across/get sent all kinds of weird shit.
You do? Are you the asshole who constantly sends me the spam?
I wish. Some of those scammers are pulling down good money.
Can I start sending all my phishing emails to you, personally?
My dad does that. Seriously. No matter how many times I tell him just to delete that shit, he forwards them to me like I'm going to be able to track the perp down or something.
That's hilarious. Dads are weird that way; mine forwards "jokes" and unfunny cartoons.
Hmmmm. My last message from my dad asked me to find the coefficient of x^5041 in (x-1)*(x^2-2)*(x^3-3)*...*(x^100-100).
Those reborn dolls are horrible, there are thousands of them out there.
I feel like a 3-legged chinchilla/ Standing on a table so wide/ I can't see over the side...
B -- maybe you should get him a tarantula for a pet -- they are cute and (if female) long-lived. They eat mice though.
A Krispy Kreme has just opened (or is about to open?) in our town. They're giving away freebies - friends just dropped us to give us half a dozen. Aw, nice friends.
127:
Sigh. I wish I could say I was just not paying attention to the negative signs. But no. There are all kinds of extenuating circumstances, but you don't want to hear them. I'm sorely afraid to say -51, now, it would kill me to be wrong again.
But even if I'm wrong, this comment will not be my most embarassing: this comment will always hold that place in my heart.
Now, if you were cynical, you'd say that I'm just mentioning that to tweak w-lfs-n. And you might just be right.
Ugh. I danced until about 5 in the morning with a beauty to watch and a twinkle in my eyes and now I freakin' wish I had some blackout curtains. Good morning. F'in Red Bull.
Although I have to say, it was nice when I complimented a girl on her cashmere arm-gloves and she proceeded to moosh them all over my head on the dance floor for five minutes.
132 - well, I think it's zero. Haven't heard back yet (my dad's out all day today), so could well be wrong though! But I'm sure it must be something *interesting*, otherwise why bother picking on the 5041st power rather than some other random number? First time I did it I got 120, then thought that wasn't interesting enough, realised about the minus signs, and got 0.
Well, it's a polynomial of degree 5050 (thank you, Gauss!).
So, to get a coefficient of 5041, we need to avoid exactly x^9 total. So, we're looking for partitions of 9 with distinct parts: 1+2+6, 1+3+5, and 2+3+4 seem to be the only ones. These contribute (-1*-2*-6)+(-1*-3*-5)+(-2*-3*-4)=-51. Unless I've made some stupid mistake, which is always possible, and especially so today.
My dad, being an econ teacher, will sometimes want to talk about something DeLong posts, but he hasn't asked me a math problem since, oh, 5th grade. But legend has it I used to beg them to give me more addition problems.
112: Whatever, B-Wo, I took your bait.
oztk - um, yeah, you left out x^9 (gives -9) by itself, and x & x^8, x^2 & x^7, x^3 & x^6, and x^4 & x^5 (which give 8+14+18+20=60). I went away and looked at my scribbles again and realised where you'd got -51 from. And yeah, good old Gauss!
I was hoping that having provided several grandchildren I'd be excused the maths problems - not yet though.
Don't forget x^2 * x^3 * x ^ 4 (-24) and x * x ^3 * x^5 (-15) and x * x ^ 2 * x ^6 (-12) so, yeah, 0.
Umm, yeah ::blushes:: I don't know why I was so set on the three part partitions. Sigh. This does not bode well for the week to come.
Whoops, I wrote my 138 after reading 137, but without reading 135 which covered that.
I also have the math team reflex that I expect the answer to be an "interesting" number.
Of course, "interesting" can mean different things to different people
Once, in the taxi from London, Hardy noticed its number, 1729. He must have thought about it a little because he entered the room where Ramanujan lay in bed and, with scarecely a hello, blurted out his disappointment with it. It was, he declared, "rather a dull number," adding that he hoped it wasn't a bad omen.
"No, Hardy," said Ramanujan. "It is a ver interesting number. It is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways."
Of course, "interesting" can mean different things to different people
As long as you're talking about numbers being interesting at all, who would deny that 1729 is interesting? The difference between Hardy and Ramanujan is that one noticed that fact that made it interesting.
who would deny that 1729 is interesting
Not I, but apparently G. H. Hardy would.
After Ramanujan told him about its curious property, did he persist in finding it dull? That's what I meant.
Oh, I see what you mean. No, I would imagine he was convinced.
On a related note, thinking about "interesting" numbers I was thinking that powers of 2 are naturally interesting and that, while my intuition would be that numbers of the form 2^x-1 would be interesting, 255 is the only one I have particular fondness for. I mean 1023 just doesn't do much for me. 511? Not nearly as notable as 512.
146: I immediately began thinking of 411, 911. So:511.
311, of course, being the outlier here.
Oh, 127 has always had a lot of popularity in our family. It's a Mersenne prime, and it was my brother's peg number (where he hung his coat at school) when he was 6. I usually use it as my swimming locker if it's free.
This is a good book to flick through for number facts and stories.
