Ted

merovingian @ 2009-12-07T12:00:00

2009-12-07T20:00:22Z

You know, it's pages like this that make me glad that I listened to that friendly camel who told me about the Internet back in 1890.

merovingian @ 2009-12-01T09:54:00

2009-12-01T17:54:44Z

I just got voted off the Island of Dr. Moreau.

merovingian @ 2009-11-26T10:48:00

2009-11-26T18:48:50Z

A Thanksgiving thought:

There are a lot of people alive today who were born when the gorilla was largely believed to be a myth, at least by Europeans.

merovingian @ 2009-11-25T00:23:00

2009-11-25T08:23:54Z

"To complete your time machine, all you need to the right background music. Specifically, a gay heavy metal band."

I'm not sure that I've ever heard of one.

View Poll: #1490108

merovingian @ 2009-11-24T12:36:00

2009-11-24T20:36:03Z

On a molecular level, I'm being very serious right now.

What I talk about when I talk about robots

2009-11-23T04:57:39Z

A while back (when discussing Moleman Rhyming Slang) I mentioned terms used to describe desirable traits in robots. Some people were confused.

Here's a quick glossary!

Acidity: Refers to the acid-spraying reservoir that some robots have. Such robots spray people who attempt to discuss the weather with them. Do not bring up the weather with a robot that has high acidity.
Bouquet: When a robot brings you flowers, it is not a good thing. Usually this means the robot is going to start making weird romantic advances. Awkward!
Dry: All robots make fun of people, due to the Eleventh Law of Robotics. The "dryness" of a robot refers to how subtle the humor is. Seen as a desirable trait, because if the robot's humor is sufficiently dry, it's easier to ignore.
Earthy: Some robots have a tendency to play you folk songs on an acoustic guitar, to talk about their feelings a lot, to drink tea, and to do yoga. Robot yoga is pretty amazing to watch!
Fruit: Efforts to make more inexpensive robot brains led to the innovative trend of using old Apple ][ computers, usually picked up from obsolete high school labs. A robot that uses such a computer is described as "appley" or having "hints of apple." Further cost-saving trends included using old Apple knock-off imitation brands, such as pear, berry, orange and banana. Generally, such robots are cheap but efficient.
Legs: After watching the movie "A Christmas Story," most robots begin to collect lamps made from mannikin legs. This is seen as a desirable trait because it really does cheer up a robot to have a good hobby. The more legs the better.
Oak: Short for "Oklahoma School of Robotics." The Oklahoma School is a leading robotics design group, known most prominently for their trademark of teaching all their robots to breakdance. If a robot is described as "oaky" or having "flavors of oak" that means it can breakdance.
Smoky: A friendly bear who prevents forest fires. When this term is used to describe a robot, it can either mean that the robot is covered in fur, or that the robot helps stop forest fires, or just that the robot is friendly.
Tannins: Microscopic helper-robots that scuttle along the surface of a bigger robot with buffer-brushes, keeping the robot shiny. Usually seen as desirable, but they emit so many complaints in ultrasound frequencies that they exasperate nearby dogs. Called "tannins" because if a robot has too many, the robot turns that same weird orangey-gold color that white people get from chemical tanning cream.
Well-Balanced: The first generation of sentient robots were all based on the Golem of Prague, and had a tendency to go berserk, especially in the presence of Judaism. This behavior was euphemistically described as "erratic." The second and subsequent generations of robots didn't do this, but people ask if a robot is "well-balanced" anyway just to be sure.
Woody: Many efforts have been made to design robots that turn into automobiles. Overall, this is impractical and results in a mediocre robot that can vaguely transform into a mediocre vehicle. The only successful models so far have been robots that change into old station wagons with wood paneling. A robot described as "woody" can make such a transformation.

Hope this helps!

The duty of customer service is to absorb irrational hatred

2009-11-14T21:30:45Z

Working as a dental assistant has been harder than I thought.

Today a man walked in and asked for multiple rows of teeth.

"Like a shark," he said, "but don't worry, I can sharpen them myself."

"Uh, we don't have the technology for that," I told him, "would you like to schedule a teeth cleaning session?"

"Nonsense," he replied, "We grow a second set of teeth for adulthood, right? Right? There must be some signal the body gets that makes it start growing that set of teeth. Simulate that, just find out what triggers it, what hormones or stem cells or whatever, and do that again like the first time. And then a few more times, so I'll have multiple rows. Like a shark."

"You'd be in constant pain, then, wouldn't you?" I replied, foolishly trying to reason with him, "Remember how much it hurt when you were a kid?"

"It would be worth it," he insisted.

"Also, your insurance plan doesn't cover demented experimentation."

"Look here!" he said, pounding a fist into the countertop, "I said I want multiple rows of teeth, not excuses. If you can't do this for me, I will go home and play Oregon trail. And name the characters after you. And keep playing the game really really badly until you get dysentery for realsies."

Whoa. Oregon Trail sympathetic hoodoo curses. Working as a dental assistant has been harder than I thought.

Snacks on a Plan

2009-11-08T21:16:10Z

My buddy Matt is a movie-to-TV script consultant. He's responsible for writing the non-profanity lines that get dubbed over swear words when they put movies on television. You'd think that in his spare time, he'd either curse up a storm all the time, or maybe he'd constantly be all monkey-fighting this and Monday-to-Friday that.

Neither is true. Mostly Matt talks in a really high-pitched, almost squeaky voice. He swears occasionally but not often.

But Matt and I don't talk about our jobs often. What we like to do is get together on weekends in the mall, and open up a table booth, and tell passersby what utensils would most make them happy.

"You, sir, would be happiest with chopsticks made from finished pine wood," we might say, "and I know it might take a while to learn, but trust us, it'll make you happiest."

Or "you, ma'am, would benefit from a simple set of silver flatware. Antique. I thinka few places in this mall might have them, but I don't know which. Good luck."

Today, somehow, everyone we've met would benefit from a titanium spork. Matt and I are stumped. What does this mean?

Existence

2009-11-05T06:49:18Z

I park up the hill from my house, because gravitational potential energy is a good way to keep car thieves at bay.

In the driveway near me was a car with a bumper sticker that read "MY OTHER CAR IS TOTALLY PANTOMIMED" and as I started up my car, I saw a guy (dressed in normal clothes and without benefit of greasepaint) walk out to the empty part of his driveway, about ten feet to the left of his existing car, mime sitting down and turning the keys, and suddenly become whisked off by some unknown force at the speed of an automobile.

I followed him, of course, as he sat hovering a few feet in the air, zipping along the street at the speed of traffic. He got to a gas station, and parked in a spot with no pump, then paid the attendant nonexistent mimed money, went to a blank spot in the parking lot, and pretended to pump his nonexistent car.

While he was inside getting his change, I was tempted to pretend keying his car, but I didn't. I just sort of stared at it.

He came out and we had a conversation. Well, I talked but he communicated his side of the conversation very effectively with gestures. He's proud of his pretend sportscar (but he does have a mimed bumper sticker on it that says "MY OTHER CAR EXISTS") and likes his job.

He works for the worldwide sinister conspiracy that watches over us all! He doesn't do the spying work, though. He's a technical writer. He takes all the data from the spying, and the Panopticon camera, and so forth, and compiles that information into the clean, concise, glossy-photo dossiers that you always see the conspiracy has in the movies. There's a lot of hard work in collating all that data into a meaningful dossier, but it's engaging work that uses his skills, and the benefits are great, so he's pretty happy.

Technically, he's not allowed to talk about it, but, you know, technically, he didn't.

the coming of archy

2009-10-31T21:50:24Z

(today my LiveJournal is in disguise as Maria's, and I believe that means that I post poetry!)

by Don Marquis, in "archy and mehitabel," 1927

The circumstances of Archy's first appearance are narrated in the following extract from the Sun Dial column of the New York Sun:

Dobbs Ferry possesses a rat which slips out of his lair at night and runs a typewriting machine in a garage. Unfortunately, he has always been interrupted by the watchman before he could produce a complete story. It was at first thought that the power which made the typewriter run was a ghost, instead of a rat. It seems likely to us that it was both a ghost and a rat. Mme. Blavatsky's ego went into a white horse after she passed over, and someone's personality has undoubtedly gone into this rat. It is an era of belief in communications from the spirit land.

And since this matter has been reported in the public prints and seriously received we are no longer afraid of being ridiculed, and we do not mind making a statement of something that happened to our own typewriter only a couple of weeks ago.

We came into our room earlier than usual in the morning, and discovered a gigantic cockroach jumping about on the keys. He did not see us, and we watched him. He would climb painfully upon the framework of the machine and cast himself with all his force upon a key, head downward, and his weight and the impact of the blow were just sufficient to operate the machine, one slow letter after another. He could not work the capital letters, and he had a great deal of difficulty operating the mechanism that shifts the paper so that a fresh line may be started. We never saw a cockroach work so hard or perspire so freely in all our lives before. After about an hour of this frightfully difficult literary labor he fell to the floor exhausted, and we saw him creep feebly into a nest of the poems which are always there in profusion.

Congratulating ourself that we had left a sheet of paper in the machine the night before so that all this work had not been in vain, we made an examination, and this is what we found:

expression is the need of my soul
i was once a vers libre bard
but i died and my soul went into the body of a cockroach
it has given me a new outlook upon life
i see things from the under side now
thank you for the apple peelings in the wastepaper basket
but your paste is getting so stale i cant eat it
there is a cat here called mehitabel i wish you would have
removed she nearly ate me the other night why dont she
catch rats that is what she is supposed to be fore
there is a rat here she should get without delay

most of these rats here are just rats
but this rat is like me he has a human soul in him
he used to be a poet himself
night after night i have written poetry for you
on your typewriter
and this big brute of a rat who used to be a poet
comes out of his hole when it is done
and reads it and sniffs at it
he is jealous of my poetry
he used to make fun of it when we were both human
he was a punk poet himself
and after he has read it he sneers
and then he eats it

i wish you would have mehitabel kill that rat
or get a cat that is onto her job
and i will write you a series of poems showing how things look
to a cockroach
that rats name is freddy
the next time freddy dies i hope he wont be a rat
but something smaller i hope i will be a rat
in the next transmigration and freddy a cockroach
i will teach him to sneer at my poetry then

dont you ever eat any sandwiches in your office
i haven't had a crumb of bread for i dont know how long
or a piece of ham or anything but apple parings
and paste and leave a piece of paper in your machine
every night you can call me archy

Silver

2009-10-29T22:08:46Z

If I got these, I would be the coolest werewolf hunter ever.

Who's with me?

View Poll: #1478158

But now that I think about it, maybe what a werewolf-hunter really needs is this.

Hybrid Vigor

2009-10-26T04:08:13Z

"I've decided," my friend said, "that from now on I'll only eat food that comes from hybrid cultures. You know, like a Chinese restaurant that starts selling donuts because it's next to a police station. Or Zante's Indian Pizza, in San Francisco, where you can get a curry pizza. Indian buffets that serve a few Chinese dishes, or British-Indian cuisine, or Tex-Mex, or pretty much anything Jamaican. Maybe I'll drive down to Los Angeles and see if Poncho & Wong's is still open. Heck, I'll even take a pseudo-Indian hippie place, or a burger from a Chinese-American restaurant or Korean ribs from an all-you-can-eat sushi buffet. Anything that comes from an intersection of multiple cultures, I will eat."

"I think this is a good plan," I said, "and I will support it in any way I can."

"I'm glad I have your carte-blanche support," she replied, "because the other part of my plan is that I pour one hundred live tarantulas into your bed every night. Also, no take-backs."

Darnit! I don't want tarantulas in my bed, but she said no takebacks! There's no way to get around that.

merovingian @ 2009-10-24T22:04:00

2009-10-25T05:05:05Z

"I was into this dying sun before it was cool," the satellite told me sadly.

Nose

2009-10-21T19:19:01Z

"This wine has no nose," the wine critic told me, frowning.

"Then how does it smell?" I asked.

"Oh!" the wine critic replied proudly, "The producers of the wine, after they removed all the wine's aroma, managed to set up a complex electrical system in the bowl of the wine glass that conducts in such a way that the wine itself has a virtual but fully functional central nervous system, arcing through the liquid in subtle but complex resonances to create true sentience. Then they added chemical receptors to the stem of the wine glass, to give the wine a complete and functional olfactory system."

"And you're going to drink it?" I asked her, frowning.

"It is one of the most expensive wines ever made," the wine critic replied, "but it kind of zaps your tongue."

merovingian @ 2009-10-18T15:27:00

2009-10-18T22:31:09Z

I've had this problem all day that whenever I put on music, the band shows up at my apartment to say hello.

David Bowie just said goodbye and went off to finish his day, and Devo are still here, chatting merrily.

I'm a little nervous because the next thing on my playlist is the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra.

I'm even more nervous about the song after that, which is Buddy Holly.

I'm even *more* nervous about Gwar, three songs away.

merovingian @ 2009-10-12T19:29:00

2009-10-13T02:33:12Z

Hey all! I'm testing out a new experimental user interface for this LiveJournal. Please try it out.

To use the experimental UI:
1. Visualize exactly what you'd like the LiveJournal to do.
2. Violently headbutt your screen.

Hopefully, this advanced interface will be intuitive, flexible, and responsive.

Let me know how it works out.

Parrot fencer in the light

2009-10-11T19:17:50Z

I saw online that the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2009 has been awarded to Venkatramana Ramakrishnan, Thomas A. Steitz, and Ada E. Yonath, for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome.

The ribosome is a complex of RNA and protein that is found in all cells. The ribosome is part of the mechanism that translates the DNA sequence into the protein sequence. At least, so Wikipedia tells me.

I think we can all agree that the prestigious and dignified Nobel Prize is, of course, somehow going to be an embarrassing failure and an obstacle for the ribosome. I see this award as an indictment of everything that is wrong with the ribosome today.

The ribosome should decline the award, and instead pass it on to malignant prions. There is no way the ribosome has earned this prize.

Shame on you, ribosome, for your bad lofty achievements! I demand an apology!

merovingian @ 2009-10-09T17:25:00

2009-10-10T00:30:31Z

"I'm writing software that will not give me any superpowers," I told my parakeet today as he watched over my shoulder. "Every piece of software always has bugs, especially when you first compile it, so I figure if this software has no purpose except to give me no superpowers, and it fails the first time I compile it, I'll get superpowers."

The parakeet over my shoulder squawked disapproval, "Sorry, no. You're actually writing a software program to give you superpowers by failing not to do so."

Stupid parakeet! I almost had me fooled!

Cow Rehab

2009-10-08T15:07:15Z

They tried to make me go to cow rehab.

I said moo, moo, moo.

merovingian @ 2009-10-07T13:21:00

2009-10-07T20:23:06Z

"We have been sending you requests through your telecommunications system for the past three decades," the robots told me today, "and you have consistently failed to transport any of us to Funkytown. The time for negotiations is over. Transmit the coordinates to Funkytown immediately or we will extract them by force."

merovingian @ 2009-09-27T03:01:00

2009-09-27T10:01:44Z

I've discovered the of invisibility.

I can only assume that it is very, very beautiful.

The Barker

2009-09-22T20:23:15Z

"Come and see this remarkable transforming device!" the barker called out, "It can change an AMUSING MAZE into an AMAZING MUSE!"

I stopped to check it out. "That's pretty cool," I said, "Can it change a CONGRESS PROFESSIONAL into a PROGRESS CONFESSIONAL? Or a MARINE SUBCONSCIOUS into a CONSCIOUS SUBMARINE?"

"What?" the barker asked, confused and annoyed.

"You know. The word puzzle."

"No!" he said, "I told you before. It's not a word puzzle. It's a remarkable transforming device. We're working on generalizing so we can change labyrinths into demigods, but that's another year or two of development."

Huh.

Well, I drew a little maze on a piece of paper and handed it to him. "Go ahead. Change this."

He scowled at it and shook his head. "Sorry, this maze isn't amusing at all. Please stop bothering me."

Well, I never. Isn't the fact that it was about to become a muse at least a little chuckle-worthy?

oops!

2009-09-13T08:11:50Z

Now I have an enemy in the diamond business.

If you received this LJ entry accidentally, please delete without reading

2009-09-12T22:37:08Z

I received an email today. I'm pretty sure the guy sent it to the wrong address.

From: Merovingiam Smith <merovingiam@livejournal.com>
To: Merovingiam Smith In The Distant Past <merovingian@livejournal.com@2009sept12.0308pm>
Subject: Inventions Notes

Here's my list for this week, self!

Teaching Cats To Walk On Ceiling Instead Of Floor: Teaching a single cat is enough. Cat can teach other cats in household and neighborhood. Within 2 years all cats on continent walk on ceiling instead of floor. Bolting cat furniture and food dish leads to extra floor space.
Overall rating: Good idea!

Downloadable Skills And Personality: Massive initial boost in productivity. Then someone releases (as free software) skill at coding all your skills, packaged with a personality committed to releasing it as free software. Within 2 years, all advantageous skills and personalities traits are freely available to anyone with a cheap, safe, simple skill-downloader device. Aside from physical capabilities, individual capabilities are obviated. Resources and job opportunities are distributed solely based on prejudice, nepotism, and bribery. Most of world relegated to a tiresome and somewhat cliché dystopia filled with extremely educated poverty.
Overall rating: Bad idea.

Time Traveling Email Over LiveJournal: Continues to work extremely well. Today, collected research from future selves to abandon many bad ideas. Continue to pass invention results back to past self for future development. Inventions avoided this week (due to future catastrophe) include: nanosharks, distilled evil, monkeyphone, temporal-paradox-powered sewing machine, origami eyeballs, ultrayogurt, negative-one-ply paper towels, and typographical-error-removing brain squids. Human species saved sixteen times over.
Overall Rating: Good idea!

P.S. Don't have the onion cakes when you go out for Chinese today. They were a little burnt.

Fireplaces

2009-09-06T03:21:39Z

I want to tell you about the history of fireplaces.

I wish I could tell you that we began, as a species, on fire, and only learned to put ourselves out some twenty thousand years ago, after which we forgot what it meant to be on fire, and that now we are wounded by it.

That would be a lie, though. I would never lie to you, reader.

I would like, even more, to mention to you the way we were so proud, back then, to learn how not to be on fire, all overjoyed at the prospect of agriculture and tool use and writing and gathering food without making forest files. How excited we all got, the nervous plans we made, the endless naïve possibilities that thrilled us.

It would be my bittersweet pleasure to tell you of the time, decades later, when we realized what we had lost, and that the world could be cold, and dark, and confusing. I might mention the embarrassing, almost comedic, moments when we first encountered uncooked food and had to decide if we liked it or not. I would feel compelled to admit that moment of horror when we first touched fire again and found that it hurt us now, that we could never return.

Then, perhaps, I might tell you that, though our brains do not remember what it was like to be on fire, our mitochondria still holds the memory somehow, and that is why we long for fire when we see it, why we describe a person who lives fully as having a heart full of fire, and why we built fire places for ourselves.

I would tell you that once we were fire people, and now, instead, we must content ourselves with fire places, and perhaps even fire things.

But it would be untrue, and callous as well. I am sitting in a land now that is threatened by fire. I have smelled fire all day, thick with the perfume of cedar and the memory of a pleasant barbecue, or perhaps some ancestral call to warmth. I have to stop and remind myself that this is a very real tragedy. Fire is hurting us, and we have to be vigilant against it.

Perhaps instead we were made of ice all along.