Everything2 New Writeups

funeral (thing)

2009-11-25T21:16:32Z

The meaning of a rite of passage in different religions

Rituals are like ballet in that the language they speak is that of dramatic symbolism, or to describe this in different terms, 'theatricality' ¹ . In many cases costumes are also incorporated as a part of the ritual, as well as music and various other elements which vary as you move over the face of the planet, after an order that nobody seems to have figured out. The differences between rituals and ballet run more fundamental than the similarities of course, ballet is just a handy point of comparison and a form of expression, as are rituals, and rituals are also attempts at preserving traditions- some would be happy to speak of improvized actions as part of ritual too, Bobby Alexander for instance, that 'ritual defined in the most general and basic terms is a performance, planned or improvised, that effects a transition from everyday life to an alternative context within which the everyday is…

ignorant assumptions (essay)

2009-11-25T20:48:42Z

Why do people love assumptions?

First of all, I humbly suggest that the main reason why anybody makes any sort of assumption in any sort of scenario is to save time and effort. (This statement in itself is based on an assumption because I have neither the time nor the energy to bother doing extensive research on the matter at this point in time.) Sometimes this is done because there isn't much of a choice, such as in a medical emergency or most other crisis situations. Sometimes, as any overworked and under-appreciated individual will tell you, this is done to divert time and energy elsewhere, such as in the pursuit of a decent social life. Often this is done simply to avoid expending time and energy to begin with.

The more interesting concern though, is why do so many people make such ignorant assumptions? Many economists have established how and why pollution, traffic congestion and global warming…

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (review)

2009-11-25T20:33:55Z

It's just a happy day in the Mushroom Kingdom! The sun is shining, the weather's nice, and the [birds are FYI-ing! (Yeah... play the game to learn what that means.) One day, little Toad comes home from school... early. "You'll never grow up into a good Toad!" his mother warns, but in the Mushroom Kingdom, your punishment is eating delicious dinner. Man, do I wish I live there. Anyways, as Mama Toad calls for Papa Toad for dinner... it turns out he is SUPER-UBER-INFLATED! And he's not alone – everyone's getting attacked by this new disease called "the blorbs." Maybe I don't want to live there anymore... back on topic, there is a Mushroom Kingdom emergency meeting to cure what is deemed incurable. Heck, even the star powers can't do a thing about it.

But who's stronger than a SWAT team? The Super Mario Bros. are! Who's too agile to be caught, jumping and flying and all? The Super Mario Bros. are! Who's faster than a speeding bullet? The Super Mario Bros.... aren't. Yes,…

Facilitated communication (idea)

2009-11-25T19:53:57Z

Facilitated communication is a method for a helper, or facilitator, to assist a person with both motor difficulties and an inability to speak to communicate by helping the disabled person type responses to questions by feeling subtle movements and gestures the disabled person is trying to make, but cannot perform independantly due to the disability.

If this sounds a bit like using a Ouija board to you, you're not alone.

Facilitated communication caused a big sensation in the 1980s and 90s helping severely autistic people communicate, demonstrating surprising literacy and intelligence compared to all other outward signs of the person's ability. It was claimed at the time that these otherwise bright and aware people were trapped in their bodies, unable to overcome their physical limitations to let the true, fully capable person inside show through. Only because they could not communicate verbally, and had severe motor function problems, they could neither talk…

Kung Fu (how-to)

2009-11-25T19:46:28Z

Kung Fu is also a simple game that can be played with just about any number of people. There are no equipment requirements, though the game should be played on flat, preferably somewhat soft, ground.

Players stand in a rough circle and should be arms-length apart. At his turn, a player makes one smooth motion in an attempt to touch another player with his fingertips. The targeted player may make one smooth motion to dodge the attack. Play proceeds around the circle, with any player who is touched eliminated from the game at once.

The difficulty in the game lies in the fact that each "turn" a player may only move once. If the move results in the player off-balance, she must wait until the next time she can move to correct the problem. If she should happen to fall over in the intervening time frame, that is where she must stay until the game allows her to move again. The one motion rule remains in effect, so returning to a standing position can be quite complicated.

Despite its…

Preeventualism (dream)

2009-11-25T18:39:30Z

This is probably the very worst thing you could bring up at a dinner party. I mean, it's not like the future doesn't matter. Of course it matters! It matters to your kids and their kids and the survivors of global warming and overpopulation and the other 12 apocalypses and anyone who got away before the sun blew up. Or probably just robots. So you'd better be careful where you toss that plastic wrapper. It could get swallowed by a seagull, and when the poor bird chokes in mid-air and lands on the sidewalk, that old man who always walks 5 miles in the morning will find it and call the Animal Rescue League, and they'll have to do a biopsy to find the little cellophane culprit, all wadded up and covered in half-digested french fries, which happens to be the exact slimy metaphor that a not-so-well-known, living-off-of-ramen-and-tuna-salad community college student poet was grasping at to finish his master work, as he watched…

Prairie Hermit (fiction)

2009-11-25T16:27:38Z

The hot July afternoon sun cooked James as he awoke in bed, bed which is used in the loosest possible way. Three-inch sofa bed mattress which has been used by god knows how many sweaty crackheads, welfare bums and assorted societal detritus was a better name for it. But a place to sleep is a good place indeed, and James didn't care, so long as he could afford new sheets, freshly washed.

The air was thick and musty with heated dust and stale marijuana - I mean Pot, marijuana is what parents call it. James walked to the window nearest his bed, above his computer, and cracked it open; a few flakes of white paint fell from it, as always. Even though a southerly breeze was blowing into the window, it didn't help much; high Noon on the high prairie, in summer, smelled like dust and distant cowshit. An olfactory reminder, everyday, that he wasn't back home in the humid climes of eastern Ontario.

Bored, he sat at his computer desk and started rolling a joint. He had…

melancholy (essay)

2009-11-25T15:37:02Z

Every so often I get plagued with a horrible feeling of loneliness and emptiness, like nothing really matters. Nobody can really be trusted, nothing is truly certain, life is intrinsically cruel, you know the drill. I do sincerely believe it comes from a heightened awareness of our own mortality and the fleetingness of existence. If you ever encounter me in a state of melancholy, it's not because I flunked my exams or fought with my parents or broke up with my girlfriend- it's because the world as we know it is but a mere flicker in the space-time fabric of the limitless expanse of universe, and frankly that sucks balls.

I'm not actually feeling this way right now, but I felt like thinking about it because it's always near-impossible to grapple with it when you're actually stricken. I feel absolutely worthless during such junctures and usually resort to sending out mass messages to my friends who usually give me all the responses I need ranging from "That's messed up, man. Wanna meet…

I didn't want to know that (event)

2009-11-25T14:53:12Z

When I was seventeen, my family had just moved to a new town - ostensibly this happened because of the need to relocate for work. I'm always a little disconcerted when I think about it, because moving always seemed to happen when I'd made friends and was, you know, actually able to get out of the house and away from my family for a few precious hours. All a series of unhappy coincidences, I suppose.

There was little peace and quiet to be had, almost no privacy, and various other reasons why going to bed at a later hour appealed to me. Like most teenagers, my circadian rhythm was telling me that normal sleep/wake hours were for loser adults who weren't cool and listened to Abba. Since I was awake, why not stay up and watch some late night television? Lucky me: The Avengers was being re-run for the first time in probably thirty years. Pulpy B-movies were on, because pay TV still didn't have a big enough budget to run four big Hollywood movies on rotation for a week. The music…

Hood piercing (thing)

2009-11-25T06:03:53Z

Good section - but I have a few things to add about vertical clitoral hood piercings, in particular. Why? Because I have one!
I have a 1/2" 14 gauge straight barbel down there, which was the jewelry recommended to me by my piercer. It fits very well with my anatomy. The bottom ball rests under the hood, right above/touching the top of my clit.
I did a lot of research, but I wasn't prepared for the exact placement. She didn't pierce through the top surface of the hood, but at the top "corner" where the hood meets my inner labia. This means she pierced through about 1/4" of tissue!
It hurt like hell and was very intense, but that only lasted a second. I felt warm/sore/throbey for about two days, and was completely healed within the month. Normal healing time is about 4 weeks. I was told that I could have sex as soon as I felt comfortable, so long as I took precautions and keep the area clean. I didn't adhere to a rigorous cleaning schedule, but I did a few hot soaks at first. Later I…

Punt gun (thing)

2009-11-25T05:16:21Z

A punt gun is an enormous weapon used for hunting flocking waterfowl. Actually, hunting isn't really the right word. It's used for harvesting waterfowl.

A punt gun is basically a shotgun, but it can be about 140 pounds and 11 feet long with a bore diameter of 1" to 1-3/4". So it's a very large shotgun. Or perhaps an anti-duck cannon would be the best way to put it. It's difficult for a single man to carry alone, and would be absolutely impossible for a human to fire from the shoulder. These are only the largest of the punt guns, they do come in more man-portable sizes. They're called punt guns because they are mounted on small, flat punt boats so they can be fired with something approximating accuracy.

The art of punt gunning was at its peak popularity in the first decade of the 20th century, but was eventually outlawed in the United States. It's still legal to practice in the United Kingdom and Ireland, though. The procedure begins with loading the…

Shackleton's Whisky (thing)

2009-11-25T02:13:33Z

Sir Ernest Shackleton's first expedition to the Antarctic was known as the Nimrod Expedition, which set out in 1907. During this journey, he set up his expedition headquarters on McMurdo Sound, near Cape Royds, by building a hut on the shore. Due to the extreme conditions in the Antarctic, this hut has survived (with some help) to the present day. Crates of supplies and equipment have been recovered from the hut, and the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust has been working to restore and preserve the site.

In 2006, members of the Trust were working to remove some ice from beneath the floorboards of the hut when they came across a happy surprise! Apparently, to keep it nice and safe, Shackleton or his men had taken two crates of McKinlay and Co. scotch whisky and placed them under the hut. They're still there, bottles apparently intact and sealed, underneath the hut.

What to do with this treasure? Well, the obvious answer - drink some of…

GOP purity test (thing)

2009-11-25T01:17:12Z

The GOP purity test -- well that's something new. The long name is the "Proposed RNC Resolution on Reagan's Unity Principle for Support of Candidates, and the document, proposed by some Republican National Committee bigwigs, sets out "ten (10) key public policy positions for the 2010 election cycle" -- of which candidates must pick seven to merit RNC cash in the 2010 election:

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama's "stimulus" bill;
(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;
(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;
(4) We support workers' right to secret ballot by opposing card check;
(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;
(6) We support…

When I Grow Up (poetry)

2009-11-25T00:23:32Z

I'm awake and burnt now, like I never was,
It's grey and cold now, like it's always been.
Childhood wanes and morning beckons,
It's Monday now for the rest of my life.

It was nighttime then, and it seemed to seethe,
When we built it better and somehow stronger,
We were children, then, the future's better,
But it's cold and grey and dozing still.

Welcome to the Internet,
Welcome to your job.
Childhood isn't innocence,
It's just stupid, quick, and gone.

Mystery Google (thing)

2009-11-24T23:48:03Z

Mystery Google was created by Google as a form of entertainment, it seems. Basically, you type something in, but when you click "Google search" the result is what the person before you typed in. You can treat Mystery Google as a sort of fortune teller, or guide to life by asking it "what should I do?" and trying to get an answer that applies. It can give you a little fun if someone put in a joke before you, or it can lead you to new websites, music, and the like.

Some people will also put in their email address or phone number with a request for a story, a joke, sometime random, something about ninjas. These results are occasionally posted onto the website My Life Is Average, for example:

Today, I put in my number on Mystery Google, telling them to sing me their favorite Disney Song. Not about ten minutes later, I got a call, from a girl singing Hakuna Matata, then hanging up afterwards.

…

Why potheads should be eliminated (person)

2009-11-24T22:33:19Z

Ok here goes:
Actually, the discovery of the THC receptor site and the subsequent research and observations it has inspired conclusively refute the hypothesis that marijuana is dope.

Many important brain functions which affect human behavior involve the neurotransmitter dopamine. Serious drugs of abuse, such as heroin and cocaine, interfere with the brains use of dopamine in manners that can seriously alter an individual's behavior..... a drug's ability to affect the neural systems related to dopamine production has now become the defining characteristic of drugs with serious abuse potential.

According to the congressional Office of Technology Assessment, research over the last 10 years has proved that marijuana has no effect on dopamine-related brain systems....NONE

Marijuana should no longer be considered a serious drug of abuse because, as summarized by the OTA "Animals will not self-administer THC in controlled studies ..... Cannabinoids generally do not lower…

covered call (thing)

2009-11-24T21:26:25Z

Introduction

A covered call is an option strategy, in other words, it is a combination of an position in an option and a position in the underlying stock. In essence, it consists of a a long stock position, with one short call for each share. In this node, building a covered call, the reason to do so, and the rewards and risks will be discussed.

How to build a covered call position

First of all, one needs to have a position in a stock. It turns out that options, unlike shares, cannot be traded in single units. Rather, each option has a certain contract size. Normally, this is 100, although this should be checked before the trade. So, if you buy one option contract with a listed price of of for instance $2.50, you actually get 100 for $250. Ideally, the share position is divisible by this lot size, so for instance 1200 shares.

The idea is now to sell a call on those shares. A call…

fear (essay)

2009-11-24T20:57:06Z

If you have cyberphobia, you shouldn't be seeing this article.

Yes, we humans are faced with fears everyday. Some may be common, like claustrophobia, the fear of tight spaces, and others may be unheard of, like arachibutyrophobia, the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth. However, fears all have one thing in common - they obscure our aspirations, desires, and dreams. We are not born with fear - we gain it as our life goes on. And, like all things, fear is temporary. However, fear is like fat - it takes work to get rid of.

Have you ever seen the movie Arachnophobia? Good movie, I know. If you haven't the basic plot synopsis is this - a doctor with a fear of spiders must face up to that fear to save his small town from a colony of extremely powerful arachnids. I'm not going to ruin the ending for you, but all I will tell you is this - the only way the doctor can save his…

Overused chord progressions (idea)

2009-11-24T19:19:51Z

Don't give up on the idea of coming up with a totally original, great new chord progression.

Some people think all the good ones have been taken. Debussy didn't think so. Duke Ellington proved them wrong. The Beatles broke the old boundaries quite successfully.

And so can you.

But show respect for the classic progressions, too. You have to learn why they've worked so well for so long. Then you can try to replicate their (well-worn) beauty in your own way.

You can't beat I-IV-V and ii-V-I for logic and simplicity. They pack all seven scale tones into three chords. In a classic sense, they are perfect.

But they sure can be boring.

Green Lantern (essay)

2009-11-24T19:13:52Z

The Green Lantern Corps is no longer vulnerable to the color yellow.

This represents a massive change to the core concept of the Green Lanterns, their power rings having always been portrayed as the most powerful weapon in the Universe, with only that highly specific weakness to hold them back. To understand how this happened, we need to go aaall the way back to 1992, in the miniseries The Death of Superman.

As many people know, given the massive hype surrounding the death of one of the most popular heroes in DC Comics, Superman was killed in 1992 by the supervillain Doomsday, who debuted in the miniseries, having appeared from seemingly nowhere. In the aftermath of Superman's death, four new heroes appeared to try to fill his place. One of these was really supervillain Hank Henshaw, also known as Cyborg Superman. Henshaw was working with alien supervillain Mongul to take over the Earth, in the process destroying Green Lantern Hal Jordan's…

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.…