Everything2 New Writeups

Northern Lights (fiction)

2009-11-24T18:50:56Z

Little Jeanette sat on the lawn, staring upwards, mesmerized. The millions of magenta-coloured points of light exploded into a new image, this time of a flower, high in the Sunday night sky; slowly, like fireworks, they dissolved and reformed into a new image; Jeanette called to her father.

"Daddy, why does this man have four legs and arms?"

"Uh, I don't know honey." He yelled from the couch. Toronto was down a goal with a minute left, and just pulled their goalie. "It's, uh, uh,"

"Never mind!" called Jeanette, as a blue circle formed around the figure in the sky. She'd seen that picture before in her science textbook, and remembered the naughty bits were pixeled out. Da Vinci, that name appeared in her mind. But here he stood, in all his magenta glory, showing his manhood to all who could see.

Jeanette's father walked out onto the porch, grumpy; Toronto allowed not one but two empty net goals; typical. He released a beer…

Take these broken wings and learn to fly again (fiction)

2009-11-24T17:14:34Z

Previous

The soldier had died from gunfire. That was the only thing that was certain. Who had fired it, where it had been aimed, and why - all those and more were ghosts of guesses, unknown. He lay in the thin dusty gruel that passed for soil on Alcanteri Gamma, his blood mostly pooled in the dust around his midsection.

Perhaps ten centimeters from his right hand lay a gun.

Elsewhere on AlGam, machines fought humans; humans fought machines. Both humans and machines sought to escape the other - the humans by running into the wild areas that made up most of the planet; the machines - those of them that were able - by running up the ramp that had been built down from orbit. Thousands of the machines were leaving, fleeing up the gravity well that affected their crystalline and metallic flesh but not their essences. Some, newborn, rose with the wonder of the babe; others,…

sugar scrub (recipe)

2009-11-24T16:37:39Z

Sugar to exfoliate the skin; oil to moisturize it; maybe a bit of scent to make you feel divine. It's the simplest thing in the world.

You've got two options. You can pay a fortune for this stuff at Lush or Bath & Body Works or some other bourge emporium, or you can make your own two-month supply for about a dollar. The homemade stuff is at least as good as you get in the store, particularly if you add a bit of your favourite scent. But perfume is scarcely necessary -- what this is really about is sloughing off dead skin and softening what's underneath.

It's so easy that it barely qualifies as a "recipe," but this is what I do:

1 part white sugar. White sugar is grittier than brown. It's also cheaper, though this scrub is so cheap already that you probably don't need to worry about it unless you're a grad student or something.

1 part brown sugar. Brown sugar is moister/"mushier" than white. I like a bit of graininess to…

People wouldn't fall in love so often if it were more clearly marked (poetry)

2009-11-24T14:07:22Z

Where is the line between love and in love
Where does it start
And where does it end?
When do I add that tiny word in
When can I change from I love
To I am in love
With you?

Hypothetical, please
Don't tear up on me
I'm just asking
When do I know
To change the words
What is the difference
Between what we have now
And what they sing to the clouds?

And how can I pinpoint
The very exact moment
That I slip from love
Into love
With you?
And more importantly
Do I want to?

Chimerica (thing)

2009-11-24T13:47:56Z

"Chimerica" compactly encapsulates the symbiotic relationship between the two greatest world powers at the dawn of the 21st Century -- China and America (as in, the United States of). The word is fortuitously similar to chimera, a mythic creature formed from the melding together of parts from other creatures: part lion, part snake, and part goat. But this chimera may be instead part eagle and part dragon (or maybe also still part lion, since lions are also a theme used in Chinese culture).

The term traces to another pairing, that of historian Niall Ferguson and economist Moritz Schularick, who together argue that China is in the driver's seat in this interdependent situation, as it would not be as badly harmed by disengagement as the US would. In more recent days these authors have predicted the dissolution of the relationship due to the economic depression from which the countries are emerging in different and incompatible ways.…

I wanted to be (poetry)

2009-11-24T12:57:22Z

I wanted to be a singer
but my voice would break
on the high notes and wasn't
strong.

I wanted to be a musician
but my fingers slipped from the keys
when I'd grip them
like I was drowning.

I wanted to be a poet
but the words drowned the lines
fell off of the page
and washed away cheap Christmas decorations.

I wanted to be a soldier
rifle slung carefully
but the bullet casings
burnt my arms.

I wanted to be a Prince
but I wasn't born
to the right family
besides, I didn't have the nose.

I wanted to run
with my feet sore, bandaged
and still hopeful
but my heels wouldn't budge.

I wanted to see the you laugh
but you called my jokes dry, humourless
bitter
so I bit down 'till I bled.

I wanted to make you happy
as you woke
but you said nightmares
consume you.

Alternate Meaning (poetry)

2009-11-24T11:54:56Z

(This poem is written as a duet for a poetry night. The first stanza and the equivalent lines are to be performed by myself in deadpan formal style. The second stanza is to be performed by a good friend, (who may in fact be imaginary) in an ebullient childish manner. The final stanza will be improvised with jumbled up sentences getting faster and faster and making less and less sense until we both say the final line together. I've always wanted to do a poet-duet and I think this uses the idea as completely as possible while explaining a complicated idea in a simple manner. Constructive criticism is requested.)

Logical deduction concludes that
I cannot think about myself
unless there are two of me in one head.
When I meet schizophrenics
They soon realise that they are not so different.

I communicate with whispers and memories
and guide your emotions more than you know
to play games with you.
I…

It's bushfire season again (event)

2009-11-24T11:10:17Z

I thought I'd take a walk tonight, to watch the sunset. Sunsets are best when the sky is cloudy, but not clouded over. With the recent bushfire just minutes away from my house, the sky would be perfect. I and the dog stepped outside into a hazy world. Cars a hundred meters away were blurred over, the sky was filled with heavy brown-grey clouds.

My phone buzzed earlier in the night to tell me of a message from a friend who never messages me. Curious, I opened it and read: "Hey, are you okay? The fire is moving towards your place."

Fire? What fire? Certainly, the sky was hazy with smoke last time I looked, but sometimes barbeques go wrong, or the wind is just so that the smell of a fire all the way in the hills comes down to suffocate us. I open the various websites to check if any fire trucks have been paged to areas near me. Oh, yes, there it is. When I glance outside I can see the sky above a nearby…

Contemplating the Erectile Tissue Found in Nasal Passages (idea)

2009-11-24T08:31:29Z

Lying in bed, unable to sleep, my boyfriend told me I looked concerned. I wasn't upset at all; I was merely thinking about the cold I'd recently contracted. So I explained my thoughts:

When you have a stuffy nose, it's more than just a bunch of snot clogging the airway. Our nasal passages actually contain erectile tissue (yes, similar to that found in a penis). It makes sense - the secretion of mucous stimulates the tissues in your nose and they swell up. But it's so annoying to have a stuffed up nose. It makes your voice sound funny, it makes it hard to fall asleep, and it's a constant reminder that you're not well. So how to relieve it?
Well, considering that a primary factor is the tissue that's "erect" (my sister and I enjoy announcing that our noses have boners when we're sick), perhaps something that makes it difficult for a guy to get hard would also relieve a stuffy nose. I'm not talking psychologically of course - purely physical here. Thinking of…

Makybe Diva (person)

2009-11-24T05:29:09Z

Few horses gain great fame. Bucephalus may be the most famous simply due to the great length of time stories of him and Alexander the Great have lasted. There is, of course, the horse named Incitatus who was treated with the care and kindness of a royal, and was at one point considered by the current Roman Emperor, Caligula, to be made a consul.

As time moves on, we have Black Beauty, who, though fictional, is very well known. During the 30s there were such horses as Seabiscuit and War Admiral in North America, and Phar Lap for Australia during the 20s. All these horses have one thing in common: they're all male. Though that isn't the main difference between Makybe Diva and these others I've named. None of these horses won the same prestigious "Race that Stops a Nation" three times in a row.

Only five horses have ever won the Melbourne Cup more than once, and only fourteen mares have ever claimed the title.

As happens with many of Australia's…

Gish Gallop (idea)

2009-11-24T04:41:46Z

The Gish Gallop is a debate tactic named after creationist Duane Gish, who has a reputation for performing this technique in open debates. The Gish Gallop involves throwing so many lies, half-truths, misconceptions, and straw man arguments at one's opponent that he cannot possibly address all of them. The Gish Gallop works very well in open debates, but fails spectacularly in interviews, where the interviewer is able to maintain control of the conversation.

The reason the Gish Gallop works so well is because it is very quick and easy to make a statement, and very difficult to refute it, regardless of how inaccurate the statement is. A creationist can say, for example, that we have never found evidence of life spontaneously generating from non-life in jars of peanut butter. The reasons why we don't, why it's not important, and why it doesn't even fall in the realm of evolutionary theory are lengthy…

How do you know the fishes are enjoying themselves? (place)

2009-11-24T04:25:11Z

Often I see this lovely story reproduced. It goes something like this:

Two monks walk beside a river. One turns to the other and says,
See how the fish play! They are really enjoying themselves!
The second monk replies, You are not a fish!
How can you know that they are really enjoying themselves?
And the first retorts, You are not me!
How can you know that I do not know
that they are really enjoying themselves?

And the narrative ends and I think to myself MY WHAT A LOVELY STORY

ABOUT MONKS, WATER, FISH, PERCEPTION, AND REALITY. I GUESS
WE CAN'T REALLY EVER KNOW WHAT OTHER PEOPLE KNOW
BECAUSE WE AREn't them. It's true sort of!

The secret is that the story continues.

In my Zhuangzi (Columbia University Press. Translated by Burton Watson.)
the second monk exclaims, (and I am paraphrasing)
Yeah! But you're no fish! You still can't…

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (review)

2009-11-24T01:22:26Z

Author: Daniel H. Pink
Published: Riverhead Books, December 2009
Genre: Psychology, non-fiction.

A note: This book has not been released yet. It is well-worth reading, and I hope you make a note to look it up in a month.

Ever since 1949, when Harry Harlow found that monkeys worked harder at solving puzzles when they weren't rewarded, we have known that that our common sense understanding of motivation is not really adequate to explain animal behavior. As time went on, it became apparent that the same was true of human behavior. Over the decades evidence has slowly mounted, showing that sometimes rewards don't make us work better, and sometimes they make us work worse. People take longer to solve problems when they are paid to do so than when they volunteer, artists paint less critically acclaimed paintings when they are paid commissions, and parents are less likely to pick up their children on time when they…

Somewhere Else (personal)

2009-11-24T00:27:39Z

Even as I sit in my swivel chair finger-brushing my pencil skirt and shaking my round face "no", it's going on. Happening. Time is taking place. The chronology of the day, be it abhorrent or better, goes from one to two; from pinky to thumb.

The precipice of happening is always there. Darkness and falling and edges, same as always... beautiful, like a gravity star or fusillade, Time swallows.

It was me in winter just then, a spare moment before deadline to imagine happening elsewhere; other than where this pen of mine is clicking and the office staff mills with notions of grave importance.

Sometimes I think up ways in which I'd like to be swallowed. Like now, like as the pen clicks.

Somewhere near the equator, walking the line where beach and blue meet high tide. Peeling oranges in Fresno with the music at full blast. Naked beside you on a…

Matt Kane Overleaps the Gorge of Death (fiction)

2009-11-23T22:36:31Z

Matt Kane surveyed the scene around him with detached, clinical professionalism. It was one of the worst, most horrifying crime scenes he'd ever seen in his 20 years with the Aluchua County Sheriff's Office (Crime Scene Investigation division). There were at least three bodies here, possibly more -- they'd need to DNA-match all the scattered body parts before they'd be able to get an accurate body count.

"Holy spit, Matt, I ain't seen nothing like this since 'Nam," said Sgt. Edwin "Tex" Abalone. "What kind of sick mind could do this to people?"

"A very sick mind, Sgt. Abalone," said Matt, tucking his sunglasses into his…

Odearism (idea)

2009-11-23T22:32:11Z

Odearism is a term coined by influential documentary film maker Adam Curtis to describe the way in which certain political situations (military conflicts and other social problems) breed a sense of political apathy by the way they are described and represented in the media.

The clip was shown on Charlie Brooker's Newswipe where it is explained with Curtis' usual clear, straightforward articulation.

Essentially, it describes situations that become so complex with bad guys on both sides of any struggle to the extent that they can no longer be broadcast simply as political struggles with a clearly identified binary opposition between evil powerful dominant elite groups against the powerless and ultimately moral resistant forces. Where both victims and oppressors are both viewed as evil, traditional representations invented in the media are left redundant. Then we are exposed only to human beings cruelty towards each other. We can only feign sympathy with the response "Oh dear" as the only…

Beating the market (how-to)

2009-11-23T22:11:27Z

Introduction

In investing, to beat the market is a kind of holy grail. In this writeup, we will first see what we mean with "beating the market". Then, the two most common strategies for beating the market are discussed. I will use stocks as an example, although the principle applies to other markets as well. Then, we will see how we can blend these strategies.

This writeup is meant as an informative piece. It is certainly not meant as investment advice.

What is this market we are trying to beat?

This is a very good question, with no real answer. If we restrict ourselves to stocks, one could argue that if we outperform the index, we have done well. If we restrict ourselves to investing in domestic stocks, it makes sense to pick a domestic index, such as the Xetra DAX for investments in Germany, the S&P 500 in the USA (the Dow Jones is not a very good benchmark, as…

lolcats (person)

2009-11-23T21:29:51Z

LOLcats: a field guide

Any picture of a cat can be captioned to create a lolcat, but certain lolcats have achieved legendary status and are instantly recognizable to anyone who has spent more than ten or fifteen minutes on the Internet. The following cats have been made into memes of their own, which I list below in roughly descending order of popularity.

Ceiling cat. A wide-eyed orange cat peeking through a hole in the ceiling, originally captioned with "CEILING CAT IS WATCHING YOU MASTURBATE," Ceiling Cat has achieved (literally) religious significance among dorks on the Internet. Ceiling Cat represents omnipotence and omniscience, his Godlike powers endlessly parodied and reimagined through shoops and fics. There is a church of Ceiling Cat on Facebook, and he is the central character in the mostly unfunny lolcat Bible. The existence of Basement Cat, an evil counterpart to Ceiling Cat, has been

…

the art of poetry (poetry)

2009-11-23T19:59:59Z

Sing, sister, though you are offkey,
Of a thousand knights and evenings cold.
Beneath the moon, beneath the sky,
Setting mutts to howl and birds to fly.

Above the trees, they echo harshly,
Drowning out the poet's dirge.
Between the branches, black and fickle,
On the wing and shedding feathers.

Stopper lips and cease the wailing,
Eke out your art in tears and edits.
Art unwon by callow weepings,
Sharpen knife and sew the heartstrings.

Butcher words and mangle verses,
Cut out whole meat from starving corpses.
With what remains, feed growing flowers,
And walk from field with dredged reminders.

how we treat each other (essay)

2009-11-23T18:40:14Z

I want to talk about how we treat each other. Do you remember when we were kids in primary school, when friendship was real and true? Sure we might have liked some people better than others, but it was all simple and good. We treated friends well, and close friends even better. The unwritten rules were crystal clear. Those were happy, care-free times.

Don't you think things have changed now that we've grown up? How have they changed? Are you more comfortable with your relationships with the world around you today? Personally, I'm not, and here's my theory as to why.

A lot of people these days are hypocrites in the way they treat others and expect to be treated, and I think this is very common among the "educated/affluent" type who grew up being able to get away with it. While it seems personally advantageous because you get the "better end of the deal", this is literally double-standards on integrity, and the realization of compromised integrity can make one uncomfortable…

the lake around which are a thousand tiny fires (log)

2009-11-23T18:29:36Z

around the lake, explaining
midnight and two o'clock almost is
here, then the sky shifted like
a grate and soon stars fell,
are elucidating and hiding
behind the trees, she then
raising a finger behind
her and beckoning. In the
iris they are
circumnavigating and why
I would be cautious, weave around
the pupil and then we
went skinny-dipping

words (essay)

2009-11-23T18:28:32Z

This is going to sound a little unusual coming from me, but lately I've felt that my vocabulary is rather limited. I came to realise this over the past two months or so, as I've begun to read more books again. I used to be an extensive reader as a child and I've always been very expressive with my thoughts, but I've also always limited myself to the bare minimum when it comes to words. I strongly believe in a simple, minimalistic approach when it comes to communication. Any additional embellishment is unnecessary and only serves to cloud your message and confuse your audience. For the longest time, I was absolutely content with my level of expression and understanding.

Lately though, I've come to realise that there are actually quite a lot of words that I am uncertain about. I've reached the stage where sometimes I quite literally don't have the words I need to properly express myself. I've always pondered, ever since one of my enlightening KI classes, about the relationship…

soulmate (essay)

2009-11-23T18:12:06Z

What is a soulmate? If you believe that there is someone out there who has a divine predisposition to being the "perfect partner" for you... No. The odds are ridiculously against that. There are 6 billion people in the world. If you only have one soulmate in the world, the odds of me being your soulmate is 1/6,000,000,000. It is highly likely that your soulmate might have just died in a landslide, tsunami, earthquake or flood in the past week without you ever having met him or her.

Assuming that in your lifetime, you get to know about than 3,000 people personally (which is a very generous estimate) your chance of ever meeting your soulmate is 1/2,000,000. (To put things in perspective, the chance of you winning 4D is 1/10,000) If you're Singaporean, the chance of you meeting your soulmate in Singapore is 1/1200, assuming you don't mind your soulmate possibly being of the same sex, of a different race and religion, and of any imaginable age gap.

What am I trying to say here? The idea of…

double standards (essay)

2009-11-23T17:58:48Z

When I got together with my girlfriend when we were 13 years old, people used to ask us if we kissed or made out, and be horrified when we said yes. Many thought we were immoral- succumbing to adolescent lust and idealistic fantasies about what love was. I would face this moralistic antagonism throughout my teenage years.

Initially, I lived with it. I figured that perhaps they were right, and I was simply too liberal to be comfortably integrated into a conservative society. Back then, I actually thought that our generation must have been unusually conservative! Obviously, I was wrong. Many of my friends who were so scandalized at my young relationship would later start clubbing before they were old enough to, indulge in underage sex, smoking, drinking, tattoos, piercings, drug abuse- you name it, and I can name someone younger than me who's done it.

I'm not saying that it's a bad thing. If you want to get yourself wasted and wake up every weekend with a…

Banana proof of the existence of God (idea)

2009-11-23T17:52:30Z

In 2006, Christian activist Kirk Cameron starred in a propaganda video which includes, in part, a one-minute segment with Ray Comfort on how the banana is proof of God's existence. Calling the sweet, yellow fruit the atheist's nightmare, Ray Comfort rattled off a list of the banana's unique features that prove it must have been intelligently designed to make it convenient to eat.

These features include a comfortable shape, non-slip grip outer peel (the inner side of the peel famously being a different story), convenient opening tab, and "perforations", which I can only assume refers to the 5 ridges along which the banana naturally peels, since bananas certainly do not have actual perforations. And of course the color of the peel is a natural indicator of its ripeness.

Oddly, Mr. Comfort opens the banana from the wrong end. Since bananas ripen from the other side, the stem is only a convenient opening…