The Next Missing Number

So, unfortunately, the only particularly enjoyable experience I've had during my summer classes (apart from the lack of stress) is the occasional ironic stupidity which pops up and begs for merciless sarcasm. Example (from the Astronomy 10 'final study guide'):

How do we calculate the age of the universe?
What is the cosmic microwave background
What evidence is there for the big band theory of the universe?

The first two are cake. As for the third, nobody has yet observed the expected "brass section of the universe," but they might just be hiding really well...

I present yet another [pointless (and also relevant to NOTHING)] quotation:

/*--
"I must humbly apologize to the Judge," Chang said in Shanghainese. "My resignation is hereby proffered."
Judge Fang took this with due gravity. "Why?"
"I was unable to wrest the evidence from the young one's grasp," Chang said.
"I have seen you kill adult men with your hands," Judge Fang reminded him.
[...]
"Age has not been kind," Chang said. He was thirty-six.
"The hour of noon has passed," said Judge Fang. "Let us go and get some Kentucky Fried Chicken."
"As you wish, Judge Fang," said Chang.
"As you wish, Judge Fang," said Miss Pao.
Judge Fang switched back to English. "Your case is very serious," he said to the boy. "We will go and consult the ancient authorities. You will remain here until we return."
[.....]
The House of the Venerable and Inscrutable Colonel was what they called it when they were speaking Chinese. Venerable because of his goatee, white as the dogwood blossom, a badge of unimpeachable credibility in Confucian eyes. Inscrutable because he had gone to the grave without divulging the Secret of the Eleven Herbs and Spices. [...] Judge Fang had what amounted to a private table in the corner
[.....]
Word of their arrival preceded them; their bucket already rested upon the table. [...]
--*/ ::: Neal Stephenson, THE DIAMOND AGE. Pg102-103. Bantam 2003.

I've once more crunched my way to the bottom of another crusty 24-hour-sized box of life, so where is my Toy Surprise?! It'd better not be a lame miniature baseball card again...

I have once more encountered the hazards of taking random links in Wikipedia...

( Duct Tape Goes to: SPACE )

What is it with cyberpunk authors and injecting Zodiac boats into their nearly-present-day books? Gibson/Spook Country, Gibson/Idoru, Stephenson/Snow Crash, Stephenson/Zodiac (har har), and Sterling/Zeitgeist (I think) How many times have I read the same object described? It's a semi-rigid inflatable watercraft, usually depicted with a ridiculously overpowered (but interchangeable) outboard motor... Is Zodiac in grunge near-futures analogous to the Colt M1911 in action/war movies?

I just invented a word!

Bumflux (noun)
(1-colloquial): the variation of unique panhandlers within a fixed location over a period of time.
(2-more exact): the vector field (or magnitude thereof) which represents the instantaneous space velocity of down-and-out(s).

Example: between my front door and the end of the block, the ever-present set of three A.-A. bums who asked if I could 'spare some change' were replaced by two crusty-looking creepy white guys shaking empty-but-for-a-penny (coca-cola) paper cups and asking if I 'got any change'; Today's bumflux index must be quite high.

'Huzzah!,' is this university education ever paying off! Now I will be immortalized as "Sneakyfridge: that guy who coined the term 'bumflux'" (Okay... so I've still got a long way to go before I can compete with WG's 'cyberspace' windfall, but all the good (bad) words have already been taken...)

I've experiments to run
there is research to be done
on the people who are
still alive~~~
- obscure reference

Well, THAT was a ludicrous waste of time.... (insert stupid grin ASCII here)

(Bed Bath&Beyond?) "SCIENCE--FUCH-YAH!" - more (?) obscure reference

As a postscript (but neither the font nor the printer-squishware. screw that, let's call it an 'addendum'), hooray for oblique incidental bullshit (as opposed to tedious and intensely personal bullshat...)

edit: addendum addendum (- slightly more obscure than but associated with the first reference) I only add this to a previous post because, ChemE=TUBES!!1


btw, me less-than-three [Re<2100] - (most obscure reference EVAR, do not attempt to understand unless you=rainwalk)

An idea I'd once tossed came back to me a moment ago, like a very slow laser-guided boomerang. Meat soda. Not the Jones artificially flavored kind of stuff, actual liquefied animal meat. Originally it had just been a gag, to make my classmates gag, but then I thought, if it's cultured with enzymes to make it pulp-free to crack proteins (and maybe other unwanted stuff i.e. LDL) but leave a bit of the flavor it might actually be good. Just add some other stuff, like liquid onion/etc, and you've got V8 for omnivores. Fizzy eggs Benedict? How about a liter of thanksgiving dinner? Sushi that'll fit in a cupholder? "Supersize" that aqueous burger? ...someday, my professors may learn of the horrible stinking doom they've unleashed on the world...

Further proof that I'm a scientist...
( Read more... )

Ohh No! I just got sarcasm all over my homework.
Silly engineering professor, assigning problems which require magical math...

Photolog is back online, and I've switched from the Mustek Silvery Brick of Doom to my RAZR which gets crappy image quality but actually fits in my pocket... And I'm scrapping the second-journal-for-a-photodump scheme. Too much work...

( some stuff I took last year )

WHY ARE YOU ALL STILL ALIVE?!
Oh right, it's only Tuesday...

Tomatoes--Tomatoes, yes

dlj@bump.decf.berkeley.edu~>sleep
sleep: too few arguments...
dlj@bump.decf.berkeley.edu~>don't you mean too many?
bump.decf.berkeley.edu: silence, meatbag.
dlj@bump.decf.berkeley.edu~>eat me --silent
bump.decf.berkeley.edu: sending all processes TERM signal
dlj@bump.decf.berkeley.edu~>silicon ANGERS ME!

I've been thinking to excess, and now I am thunk.

numblr bdbdbd tpotng.

wark.

semseter from hell has come and gone. and now?

mmm.... turkey...

whee. one final down, two to go, plus a paper.

gah hurk. puffpuff just walked past my laptop and i accidentally caught a whiff of him. wif OMGKITTEHstink on him head.

so here i sit in my own private hell of frustration, bored and annoyed and exhausted and sober.

here i sit in moffit library, bastion of electricity and light. not that i'm fond of fluorescent tubes.

here i sit interfacing the inforweb via very dirtful keyboard.

here i sit wondering how long before they get the wire off the ground and the particles-of-some-type flowing again.

here i sit contemplating the little annoying messages i get if space out and leave the browser on a non-educational webpage for too long... WE'RE THINKING ABOUT YOU TOO

here i sit because i'm not jumping up and down with school spirit at the bonfire rally, because i really just don't give a bowl of olives about where and whether or not the BEARS! are GO!-ing

http://205.188.215.230:8012
Network received: 15639476 bytes
Server: SHOUTcast Distributed Network Audio Server/Linux v1.9.93atdn
Content-Type: audio/mpeg
Metadata received: 1036 bytes
Metadata interval: 24576 bytes
Stream name: Tag's Trip [SomaFM]
Current title: Blank And Jones - Nightclubbing Wippenberg Remix Short

whoo! SomaFM and B&J and a couple hours of sleep. now back to work on insane/complicated/big assignments...