Complimentarily Dysfunctional

8·11·09
It seems that we have emotions with no good use. Jealousy seems to be the most obvious; what could possibly be the benefit of being envious? Or resentful? Why must our brains (bodies?) adhere to such useless, counterproductive, unhappy rules?

It is taboo to notice this.
Invitations to hesitate too.

8·12·09
I just realized, much better than a box fan trying to exchange air in your home/apartment, would be to convert your entire home into a pump, which would be relatively easy. First, put "one-way-valves" on both the place you want an inlet and outlet (e.g. a window in the room you want to cool and a window in the attic, respectively). These one way valves could be very simple, just a big flap that hinges to allow air in but not out, or out but not in. Then, somewhere else in the home, we place a large bladder, that "breathes". Really a big balloon would work well, anything that can displace a large volume of air repeatedly. When the balloon/bladder inflates, the (attic) valve allows the air to be forced out, while (say bedroom) valve prevents air from escaping, when the balloon deflates, the volume of air in the home decreases, sucking the attic valve shut and the bedroom valve open. This is only real useful when it is cooler outside than inside, but I'll bet it'd be far more effective & efficient than box fans. I suspect that box fans experience a great deal of something akin to cavitation.

Reasons are contagious.
Transcend your content.
Our paths crossed. Thats about it.

8·13·09
As far as information collection and retention is concerned, sometimes I feel morbidly obese.

Panting appetite.
"Now if you'll excuse me South Carolina, I've got to go see a man about a horse... that he's been fucking."
"Keep it stupid, simple"

8·17·09
http://photosynth.net/

8·18·09
How can one fear that government run healthcare would be
too competitive for the private sector, and yet simultaneously believe that free markets are optimal solutions? (Obviously we can just constrain the government plan to require that it pays for itself, to prevent the unfair advantage of operating on a deficit.)

Everything happens. Thats sort of a good way to view QM.

8·19·09
Heres a calculation I ought to do, for my own curiosity. Take the most powerful laser we have. Or better yet, the total amount of power available to humankind, and convert it all into a brief laser pulse. How much would it disperse by the time it reached the nearest star? Can we aim it accurately enough to expect to hit the nearest star? How intense would it be a that distance? (I would imagine "not very".)

8·22·09
"Everything about you is a menace."
"Remember when it was new."


8·24·09
This page has an audio clip of an Arizona pastor giving a wholly vile, despicable sermon, about both president Obama and the homosexual community, and I think the hypothesis that "gays are recruiting" is actually really funny, because it sort of says something about this mans understanding of his own sexuality. Does he think that he could be convinced (through whatever evil he imagines) to like men? I would estimate that I have been smitten with women for about 20 years now, I'm pretty sure no force in the universe could possibly change that (though I suppose chemicals could probably do a lot more than I'd care to know). Certainly no human is going to convince me.
This is exactly why Isaac Asimov said, "Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived."
How is it that he both hates Obama and yet wouldn't salt a slug because "he loves all gods creatures?" Why is it that the most righteous humans are always the most damnable, hateful, evil humans. How is it that this book remains so potent after so long? Why aren't we praying to Isaac Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, or James Clerk Maxwell's A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field, or Albert Einstein's On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, or Euclid's Elements, or Euler's complete works, or Gauss's work, or Riemann's paper On the Number of Primes Less Than a Given Magnitude, or Russell & Whitehead's Principia Mathematica, or Archimedes legacy, or Charles Darwin's On the Origin of the Species, or any of the uncountable other humans that helped us all so much. I've only include mathematicians and physicists (for the most part), when you include all the other scientists, all the other discoveries, all the other work that has pulled us up out of the mud, afforded us the comforts of modern life, removed the toil of disease and weather and the host of other struggles that we've all forgotten so quickly. Did you know that more than twice as many people died of smallpox in the 20th century than in all of the wars of the 20th century combined? And what was it that ultimately eliminated that suffering? A bible verse? The torah or qur'an or new testament? Was it the pope or a preacher or mother Teresa? No. NO! It was science. And why is it that I, as an atheist, seem to have more compassion than this all mighty, all wonderful god that the majority of the developed world (apparently) believe in? I wouldn't wish hell on my worst enemy. Or on anyone. Prison I suppose, but not torture. What is wrong with everyone!


8·27·09
If You Repeat it, I Will Deny.
Unbelievable.

The NonStampCollector has some good questions. And some good points. And some funny analogies.

"...there's something very special about the scientific mindset which is that it is prepared to live with open-endedness."
-A.C. Grayling (Why is Science Important?)

Joe Scarborough is an idiot.

Constant forms.

Wow, Robert Wright mentions in this video that the thoughts that someone is judging him still hangs over his conscious. "I have not lost, I never lost the sense, that I'm being judged, by, a being."

Could we artificially generate rings for a planet (probably a bad idea for our own planet, or any planet we want to land on), that could increase the visibility of the planet outside the solar system? (That is, for other ET civilizations to detect us more easily.) I suppose it probably wouldn't increase the visibility any more than Earth's intrinsic visibility (and life signature based on the atmospheric composition).

I just want the most clever, intelligent, irrational girl I can find.

I really want to put the effort into memorizing this poem:
"P is right when it's wrong and is false when it's true!"

I feel like there are a lot more notes to put here, but I don't know where they would be if they exist.