Everything2 Cool Archive

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…

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…

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…

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…

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 it! Although…

herring magistrate (person)

2005-04-07T22:41:49Z

鰊伴食奉行

"Herring magistrates" were Japanese samurai who patrolled the beaches of Hokkaido in the Edo period to prevent people from frightening or abusing herring.

During Japan's Edo period (1600-1868), the northern island of Hokkaido was a wild frontier populated by the native Ainu people. For the most part, Japanese people were forbidden to travel to Hokkaido or trade with the Ainu by the Tokugawa shogunate, with the exception of the southwest tip of the island which was a Japanese colony administered by Matsumae family of feudal lords.

Most of Edo-era Japan's economy and monetary system was based on rice, measured in koku (supposedly, the amount of rice one man would eat in a year). Rice would not grow in Hokkaido's frigid climate, however, so Matsumae domain had to look to other sources for income. Trade with the Ainu was reasonably profitable, but the true foundation of the Matsumae economy was the Hokkaido…

Bitch Quest 2009 (event)

2009-11-13T18:26:02Z

The 2009 E2 Bitch Fest

Calling all women!

Feeling snarky? Bloated? That dress won't fit? Your mother called complaining about the new man in her life? - and you can't get a date to save your life? The new beyotch in the typing pool, Little Miss Perfect? The way she's always getting flowers? The way the professor ogles you in class? Yeah, that's really disrespectful. He probably has a small penis. The way your day has just been ruined because... well, just look at it! Look at your hair! It's awful! You feel like crying. You feel like staying in bed. No, really, you feel like killing someone. Or both. And why is there no one around to serve you chocolates in bed? WHERE IS YOUR COFFEE?

Do you feel like killing your boyfriend? Perhaps just maiming him? And there's no reason, really -- it's just some vague, ill-formed feeling, the way he brushed his teeth this morning, or the way he snores, the way he butters his toast. It's never bothered you in the…

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…

Hydraulic Empire (idea)

2007-11-04T03:17:22Z

Hydraulic Empire

Background

One of the most pressing issues in any study of political science is documenting the different types of political systems and standardizing them into easily identifiable designations: in contemporary times, we have constitutional monarchies, the Presidential system favored in the Western hemisphere, the Westminster parliamentary system favored in most of the rest of the world, and so forth. Going back further into history, however, the less clear cut the designations become. In the first half of the twentieth century, the German theorist Karl Wittfogel (1896-1988) undertook a study of early Chinese political history, eventually becoming one of the more prominent Sinologists in Germany and later the United Kingdom and the United States. Wittfogel had joined the German Communist Party in 1920, and much of his early…

Gish Gallop (idea)

2009-11-24T04:41:46Z

Girl with a borderline personality (person)

2000-08-11T06:58:16Z

This is the most dangerous kind of girl. The thing that makes them so bad is how easy it is to fall for them, because their personality (or at least their personality since meeting you and before the next damn guy) is intended to be as close as possible to being your perfect woman. That plus you never can recognize them until it's over. DSM-IV, or the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, says that "the essential feature of Borderline Personality Disorder is a pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity that begins by early adulthood and is present in a variety of contexts."

The book goes on and on about it; I would highly reccommend a copy. It helps one understand his or her friends a lot better. Anyway, girls like this pretty much mold themselves in your image and then break it off suddenly (probably by sex/messing around with a friend of yours, or something like…

Shackleton's Whisky (thing)

2009-11-25T02:13:33Z

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

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…

GOP purity test (thing)

2009-11-25T01:17:12Z

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…

Don't! Buy! Thai! (idea)

2001-10-12T02:02:28Z

The issue of prostitution in Thailand is, I believe, a complex one.

It's important to realize, first of all, that prostitution is not synonymous with sex tourism. The prostitution industry is deeply rooted in Thai culture, as it is in many others. Prostitution has existed in Thailand for centuries, long before westerners visited there in any significant numbers. Farang visiting Thailand today might be forgiven for thinking that all Thai prostitution is aimed at foreigners, for it is very visible in tourist areas, but domestic prostitution is much more common and employs many more people than tourist-oriented prostitution.

Then too, in many ways prostitutes who work with foreigners are the elite of the business. Women and girls who service Thai men are often quite literally locked in brothels and unable to escape until they pay off some huge debt that is virtually impossible to eradicate. Such unfortunates make very little or no money at all. They are often not…

St. John's College (place)

2002-05-17T22:27:08Z

In the United States, St. John's College is a four year, liberal arts college with two campuses: one in Annapolis, Maryland and another in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Enrollment is capped at 400 students at each campus. All the students take the same, mandatory "Great Books" curriculum:

The St. John's College "Great Books" List

"The following teachers will return to St. John's College again this year:"

FRESHMAN YEAR

HOMER: Iliad, Odyssey
AESCHYLUS: Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, Eumenides, Prometheus Bound
SOPHOCLES: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, Philoctetes
THUCYDIDES: Peloponnesian War
EURIPIDES: Hippolytus, Bacchae
HERODOTUS: Histories
ARISTOPHANES: Clouds
PLATO: Meno, Gorgias, Republic, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Symposium, Parmenides, Theatetus, Sophist, Timaeus, Phaedrus
ARISTOTLE: Poetics, Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, On Generation and…

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…

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…

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.

Twilight (review)

2009-01-09T05:13:23Z

Stephenie Meyer is the proud parent of the four book Twilight Series. It starts with Twilight, goes on to New Moon and Eclipse, and finishes with Breaking Dawn. I'm going to spoil it for you. If you don't want to know what happens, skip down to below the asterisk.

Twilight proves Edward to be a vampire, living in a family of vampires. They don't do much that normal vampires do, such as kill people, burn villages and sleep upside down or at least in a coffin. No one bathes in the blood of however many virgins and they don't live in a scary castle. Instead they all drive fast cars and go to school and live like normal people. These vampires are "vegetarians", since they kill animals, not people to quench their lust for blood.

Oh, and they all have special powers, as if super strength and living forever isn't enough. Edward can hear people's thoughts, Alice can see the future and Jasper can calm people's moods. I suppose he can control them, but he's a "nice person" and doesn't…

Banana proof of the existence of God (idea)

2009-11-23T17:52:30Z

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

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.

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…

Memories are meant to fade : They're designed that way for a reason (personal)

2007-05-05T11:26:16Z

As I Remember a lot of it . Johannesburg. South Africa.

Houses with corrugated iron roofs. Alternately boiling and freezing as the seasons changed. Coal stoves and donkey boilers to heat the water. Icy winters hunched in front of tiny Victorian fires. Kitchen dressers with cup hooks, metal "zincs" with porcelain washbowls. Linoleum floor coverings; dusty carpet runners in passages. Coal sacks dumped in grimy backyard sheds Stables; there were very few cars Fresh eggs, laid by hens in your own chicken coops. Fruit-trees in the back garden, and veggies fresh from the soil. The butcher and the grocer calling for orders Nels Dairies and the daily delivery Rinsing off the cardboard caps for the milk bottles Can you hear the tinkle of the ice-cream cart slowly riding the suburbs and remember how the kids enjoyed the tuppeny lollies? The Newtown Market for lovely vegetables, poultry and colorful flowers Noisy auctions and horse-drawn delivery carts waiting for loads. The long…