Post with 1 note
I would like to share something about myself with you, dear reader: I fucking love eggs. Let me write that again, all by itself on its own line so that when you open the page and do the quality scan/skip down the page thing to see if this enormous mass of words is worth reading (everyone does it, I’m just calling you out here), your whorish loveless eye will fall upon the following words, and you will feel compelled to read this post:
I FUCKING LOVE EGGS
I love all preparations of eggs. I have never had an egg I didn’t like: scrambled and over-cooked until it’s dry and tough as Clint Eastwood’s leathery face, or watery and cold with the consistency of post-Chipotle diarrhea, I will eat the shit right out of the filthy asshole of scrambled eggs. Eggs Benedict, omlettes, Scotch eggs, hard boiled, soft boiled, sunny-side up you name it and I not only have tried it, I absolutely love it. I even like egg-drop soup, where you just crack an egg into broth and the whites go everywhere into delicious ribbons of eggy goodness. Even fake eggs, like the yellow cancer discs you get on McDonald’s sandwiches, are still wonderful.
But, my absolute favorite preparation of eggs is over-easy. Crack one of those bitches into hot butter for 2 minutes, flip it over for another two, and serve with buttered toast. Mortal ambrosia. Pure bliss. I absolutely live for the hot yolk, sealed up in a little pouch in the center of a fried egg. Prick that shit with your fork and sop up the sweet nectar with your toast, bacon, homefries, steak, whatever happens to be on your plate. Nothing could possibly be made worse by dunking it in warm egg yolk.
One summer, I had a night job where I got home around 10am. For whatever reason, this justified my making breakfast for myself. Nearly every day after work I would make myself half a dozen eggs over easy and a huge pile of toast and just eat myself into a food coma. It was sheer bliss.
And then I read this book, Medicine’s 10 Greatest Discoveries. Great book, I would recommend it if that’s the sort of thing you’re into, but wouldn’t you know what one of the last ones was? The discovery that dietary cholesterol vastly leads to blood clots. And not only that, but the start of the chapter goes on and on about how heart disease is the most deadly preventable disease known to mankind. It goes way, way out of its way to paint eggs as the bad guys: egg’s have 100 times more cholesterol than meat or some shit.
I was so terrified after reading that chapter that I didn’t eat eggs for weeks. It took me a while to convince myself that I wasn’t going to drop dead from having a bit of scrambled eggs with breakfast from the dining hall. For the past year I haven’t had eggs more than once a week. This summer I am living by myself in an apartment, and I have consciously refused to buy eggs.
Until this morning, when I this insatiable craving passed over me. I wrestled with my conscious for hours until I finally caved in and bought a dozen eggs. $3.49 for a box of heart poison. I made myself 3 eggs over-easy, and it was divine.
But now I have to live with the consequences of my decision. There are exactly 9 more eggs taunting me from my fridge, not more then 10 feet away from where I’m sitting now. I can only hope that my resolve will hold. For now, my only hope is to remain too drunk to cook while simultaneously distracting myself with books, movies, and internets.
My friend and I have a passion for puns, and the other day we decided that we were going to open a flan restaurant simply for the enormous potential for flan-related puns. I’m pretty sure I was drunk, so it still counts. Here is a compilation:
Flanitude, flanbouyant, flanaphalactic shock, flanacalypse, flanticipation, flantabulous, flantagonist, a man with a flan, Ameriflan, sounds like a flan
It was many and many a year ago, / In a kingdom by the sea, / That a maiden there lived whom you may knowBy the name of Flannabel Lee
In the room where women come and go / talking of Michaelflangelo
Flantana - not big sky country, big flan country
Flantigone, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Flan, flancestors, Silence of the Flan, Lord of the Flan
Harry Flanner and the Flanner of Flan, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaflan
“May the odds be ever in your flanver (Hunger Games)”
We have the most amazing witty flanter! Pirates of the Flanibbean: dead flan’s chest, Batflan begins, superflan, aquaflan, Miracle on thrity-flan street, Ironflan, Flan in Real Life, Mission Inflannible, Flantastic Four
Flanphibian, flannibaptist, flanthropology, flanthology (a collection of all the best types of flan), inflantion
Flance, Flannzibar, Afghaniflan, Iflan, Kazakhflan, Uzbekiflan
In How I met your mother, Lily and Marshall suffer through the woes of having a flanted floor
Aziz Flanzari, Asif Flanvi, Flan on Wire (an Oscar winning doc about a flan who dares to do the impossible), Zach Galiflanakis, 6-billion dollar flan, Bicentennial Flan, Flan-a Del Rey, Wu-Tang Flan (ain’t nothin to mess with)
Flan Theft Auto: Flan Andreas, Flan central station, flantrospective, visions of flandeur, Flandma got run over by a reindeer
Ned Flanders
The Flands of Time, The Flanterbury Tales, The Flantina, Pixar Flannimation, the Flan Before Time, Flanbe, flan warefare, Flantarctica
searching flantically, raisin flan (bran), Flandium (Scandium), Flanadium (vanadium), Flanganese (Manganese), Flantimony (antimony), Flantalum (tantalum),
Peter Flan, Neverfland, Alice in Wonderfland, Flanned parenthood, The Koflan: an important religious text, miniflan, filflandering, Philflanthropy, flandwich
Flan Frank’s Diary, Harry S. Truflan, Fat Flan (Fat Man), Alflan Turing, Jaflan, flanigma, Flu Flux Flan (Klu Klux Klan), the Flanhattflan Project
Seflan (sedan), flanning salon, Mariflan the Librarian, flanda (panda)
New Zeafland, Republic of the Suflan, the Harmatflan, The Sudettan Fland
Kelly-Flan Baptiste, Flanta Claus
Flantern, Los Flangeles, Flanna Kerrinnina, flandroid, Flanna Wintour, Marie Flantionette, Flancho Flanza (Sancho Panza), flanza (stanza), Flanz Khafka, Flanza Kuduro, Flansas (Kansas), Flancis Bacon, Immanuel Flant
Flannel, Flansexual, Remflant, Flandy Warhol, Flanelope Crux, Flandy Serkis, Ayn Fland, Flanz Ferdinfland, the Black Fland, Flangiers, flangerine, flanhandle, Flangelina Jolie, Flangelika Theater, Flangels in Ameriflan
Flantonym, Flantony Stark - the Flan behind Iron Flan, Flanthony Bourdain
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Fland, Taxflan, I Wanna Hold Your Fland
Iflanka Trump, Iflan the Terrible, womflan, flanking, flanslator, flansmorgrifier
So, I believe myself to be sufficiently drunk upon submitting this post, if you can even call it that. I think that the whole entire universe needs a confidence boost. Cause why the heck not?!!? I dare you to tell me about one person. just one, that needs a confidence boost as badly as I’m pretending to give myself one. If this person exists then kudos, you’ve probskies improved another person’s life. If not, not the end of the world. It’ll come up again.
So anyway, I am a recent reader of the “Guide.” And let me tell you, it doesn’t guide you through much. Unless you want to know about Magrethea, Slartibartfast, or Earth (…. “harmless” FYI) or about the ways that paranoid androids can be of service (FUCK) in any manner possible.
<3
S
P.s. Should the end of the world ever come, you ought to try to contact the species working on the Vorgon ships via some sort of sub-etha communications. But not the Vorgons. Because Vorgons will try to read you their poetry, but their chefs will only try to sneak you aboard to annoy the Vorgons…which is to your advantage.
It’s been a long time. Too long, in fact. This is mostly due to the fact that I drink with other people much more frequently now. For that I apologize. I just wanted you to know that I did not forget about you. I appreciate that you will always be here for me, as long as Tumblr continues to exist. In a way, it’s probably a good thing that I don’t post on you so often anymore, and in another way it makes me sad. Hopefully we will be able to find some sort of happy medium, some middle ground that works for both of us.
I will see you again soon, but hopefully not too soon.
Post with 1 note
What is an algorithm? It is a series of instructions. That is all. Don’t be intimidated by it because it has three syllables and you didn’t know what it meant before two sentences ago, that’s all it is. You have learned lots of algorithms in your educational experience. Grade school math is all about getting good at the simple algorithms of adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing in base 10. Not too intimidating, right? You just follow a simple set of rules transforming a set of inputs to an answer.
So this question, what is an algorithm, didn’t really have a definitive answer until the 1930’s. Church made an attempt with his lambda calculus, which was an attempt to represent algorithms as arbitrarily complex compositions of functions. It turned out that this system, although is was quite powerful, needed some modifications to be completely correct. In 1936 Alan Turing proposed his namesake machines, which turned out not only to be the best formalization of the concept of an algorithm, but fundamentally influenced the design and architecture of modern computers.
I’ve read Turing’s paper where he introduced this idea, and although it is indeed awesome it is not quite as accessible as some equivalent constructions I have seen. I will give you the best version of the concept of a Turing machine that I can given my current condition.
So imagine that you live in the 1930’s or earlier, and you need to calculate the logarithm of some big prime number for some reason. No one has computed it before, so you can’t just look it up in a table. What you would have to do is hand your calculation off to a calculator: a person (usually a smart woman) working at a university who was paid to crunch numbers full-time. What you would do is find a set of instructions for computing logarithms, hand it to the clerk, and say “do this for this particular number”.
What is it that the clerk actually does? Each instruction produces some mental state in the clerk. This mental change causes her to, say, make some mark on the page. Then the clerk moves on to the next step, which changes her mental state again and makes some decision about what type of mark to make on the page (Marks correspond to meaningful symbols, such as letters, numbers, punctuation etc.). We can assume that the clerk only knows finitely many symbols, obeys each instruction one at a time, and can go and get some more paper whenever she wants.
So if the clerk only makes finitely many different symbols and is allowed to make as many symbols as needed, why not just unwind her 2-dimensional paper into 1 dimension? In fact, why not say that our clerk can only read one symbol at a time before making a decision? We can accommodate more symbols by adding some more states, so it’s pretty much the same.
So now we’ve got a machine that can do simple arithmetic. Now, by a sufficient godel numbering, we can do anything.
Algorithm is synonymous with Turing machine, and with program. Any program running on your computer is literally nothing more than a list of instructions.
Chat with 1 note
At the risk of exposing my political ignorance, I am going to talk about my views on war and the US military in general. I am probably wrong in all important respects, and I expect corrections, but I am still going to write it. What else can I do, right?
So, war is stupid. There is no reason to go to war, there is nothing that cannot be talked out given enough time. This is my firm belief. I realize that this is probably an unrealistic, idealistic enlightenment-inspired idea, but just hear me out for a second. We are all rational beings, capable of listening to the arguments of other rational beings and making impartial decisions. (Again, maybe an idealistic assumption, but fuck you in the eyes). In these circumstances what could possibly justify war?
Really think about this here: a soldier is someone who has volunteered their life to be obedient to the wishes of, ultimately, another human being. And there are thousand, hundreds of thousands of them. A general is literally directly responsible for the lives of thousands of other humans. Is there not a fundamental imbalance there?! Like, what sort of convincing justification could possibly be given for one person to hold absolute command over the lives of hundreds of thousands of others? It is simply too much responsibility for a human being to handle.
Compound this injustice with that of propaganda. I don’t mean to sound treasonous here, but nationalism is just some fucking tool for manipulation. It’s true, I’m learning all about it in my Western Civ class right now. There is nothing special about America, or any other nation for that matter. Nationalism started out as a legitimate political doctrine advocating for national pride, focusing on cultural identity and harmony with other nations, and quickly got perverted into it’s modern form.
We joke about those with excessive pride in our country all the time (‘MURICA!), but seldom stop to consider the consequences. Tens and hundreds of thousands of young people grow up indoctrinated with nationalistic propaganda, and upon reaching adulthood are more than willing to relinquish their lives to their country. I hate to say it, although I am not nearly the first or only one, but there is no pride in that. You have been swindled. Someone else now holds the reigns to YOUR life. Everything that you could have been is no longer yours: you have given it up to someone that you will probably never even meet.
I could go on to quote statistics showing that the less wealthy and less educated classes of the world make up it’s armies, but I will assume that you already have some idea. The military is but one more institution dedicated to the suppression of thought. It should be viewed as a necessary evil, to be used only in the most extreme circumstances, not as an emblem of pride.
I have an instinctive rush of distaste whenever I see “support our troops” propaganda (let’s call it by it’s real name). I admire the selflessness of those who join the military, but I cannot help but feel that it is tainted by misinformation, propaganda, and manipulative politics.
Post with 1 note
Why doesn’t anyone on this site post original content? Seriously, pretty much every blog I have seen is just re-posting someone else’s shit. How can you possibly ever expect someone to take you seriously when all you ever do is reiterate someone else’s ideas?
Do something original! Even if your idea is not the best, you will be respected for your originality. Have a thought. There is so much out there already that other people have developed already, take a moment to write down your own, truly original ideas. Even if they turn out to be someone else’s. you can at least claim to have arrived at them independently.
Think, that is what i want to say.
EDIT: Sorry if I offended any frequent rebloggers out there. I totally get it: there is so much stuff out there that just collecting the interesting bits in one place is a pretty tough task. I still think that you should make an effort to create something new every once in a while though. I mean, an original commentary on someone else’s material still counts. Or not, whatever. Like I said at the end, thinking is the important bit.
So, I would like to write for a while about the idea of the world of ideas. What I mean by this, I think, it the Plato’s idea of a reality containing all of the ideas of mathematics, geometry, logic, etc. See, his idea was that these things had a sort of existence of their own independent of our ability to perceive them. For example, the circumference of a circle is exactly pi times larger than its diameter. This is a fundamental property of circles: it is impossible to draw a circle that violates this property and any shape that violates this property cannot possibly be a circle.
Even before anyone discovered this fact about circles, it existed. For this reason we use the word ‘discover’ rather than, say, ‘constructed’. It is a feature of a mathematical landscape in the same way that Kilimanjaro is a feature of the Tanzanian landscape. Both of these things have always existed independent of our acknowledgement of their existence, and for this reason it is appropriate to use the term ‘discovery’. Even if humans or other intelligent life were never to arise in the universe, this peculiar property of circles would still exist.
This same idea can be generalized to all ideas in the pure sciences. Any proposition for which there exists a rigorous proof is just as inevitably true and part of an existing mathematical universe as the properties of circles. Mathematicians do not generate truth, they uncover it. They are the great explorers of a vast landscape of utter truth.
In this sense, mathematical and logical ideas exist in their own reality. Our mechanisms of language, notation and symbols are only an imperfect means of conveying bits of this world to others. It is often the case that we can directly perceive a glimpse of this world of ideas, something that makes perfect sense in our own minds, but we have great difficulty in conveying the same thought to another person. Our minds are free to traverse this world of ideas in its own unique way, but it is when we must translate this journal into standard notations (such as English) that we find difficulty.
I usually try to have a point to these things, but I am having difficulty extracting one at the moment. Maybe just think about it for a while. Truth exists independent of our ability to perceive it. I mean, if that doesn’t stir something deep within you then you might as well give up and fill out an application to the nearest burger joint.
Page 1 of 2
