Sudden Short Story 18

"Due to lack of response and absence of mammalian life-signs within, we shall initiate door override. Please stand by."
The door slid open, revealing a humanoid figure of grey metal and white plastic. It entered, moving its head about as it scanned the area more thoroughly. It walked toward the corpse that was seated in the armchair, arms folded in its lap, one hand gripping a small paperback.
"It appears that Bradley Montague has passed away. There is no more need to serve this reclamation notice."
Another, identical figure appeared in the doorway, with the handle of a reclaimer next to it. It turned, opening the angled hatch to it, and spoke: "He was such a strange one, always saying things like, 'You're mad! How can a book ever be obsolete?!'." The playback was uncanny. "Well, we should get started. This one has a long list."
The first looked about, noting that the task before them would be lengthy. Based on what he knew about Mr. Montague, every cabinet, every drawer, every chest would be filled with obsolete books. It saw a book that was within easy reach. It had to start somewhere, and this would be the first of many. It went for the book, but paused to say, "He once said, 'You can have my books when you pry them from my cold, dead hands!'. I suppose that, in this one regard, Mr. Montague was correct after all." It reached down, prying the fingers apart to let the text free. It handed the book to the other, so that it might be reclaimed for its material and energetic value, noting it as "Ballantine Books, Del Rey printing, paperback, 1996: Fahrenheit 451".

Looking for Something: Vocal Trance on AM/FM Radio

There was once a time when I listened to www.di.fm, digitally imported radio pretty regularly. I listened to the vocal trance channel, of course. Then, recently, I was thinking about how I listen to the radio on my way to work. The CD player skips too much on the rough roads, and I like to save my mp3 player's battery for the day ahead. I thought of both of these at one point, and I figured that maybe I could find some vocal trance on the radio for my driving time. But alack! I haven't found any yet.
This is where you come in. Do any of you know where I can tune in to vocal trance on AM or Ohio FM radio? Comment! Send me tweets! Interact with me in some way!

(Oh, and di.fm now has Android & iPhone apps for listening wherever, if you have one of those fancy doodads.)

I CAN HAZ JOB NAO?

Those of you who follow me on twitter have probably noticed that I've been playing catch-up a lot (as I do), and deduced that I've been busy lately. Well, there's quite a good reason for that: I have a job now. I'm actually employed full-time and working in my field. So, hooray and all that.
I'm still getting adjusted to the new schedule and figuring out how to juggle everything. Once I get used to it, everything should go smoothly. Until then, it's going to be pretty crazy.

So, in conclusion: JOB GET!

In Which February is Annoying

February probably annoys most folks for the same reason that January does: It provides terrible driving conditions.
But, for me, February is annoying because it's so short. Specifically, I'm about to run out of February, and this will be my 3rd blog post for it. :P I just spent some time working on another post, only to determine that it makes no sense.
January slammed past me because I'd done a bunch of blog posts in December. February flew past by being so short. However! I expect to make about 10 blog posts in March. I've got about 8 in the works at the moment, and, if I keep getting ideas at the rate that I do, then I'll have even a few more.

I'm at that Awkward Point in TF2...

I'm at that awkward point in Team Fortress 2 where I have one of every weapon, but not the Poly Count hats or the resources to make them. (Well, strictly speaking, I don't have the Degreaser, but I'm not terribly worried about it.) For those who aren't familiar w/ TF2's item drop system, there are certain "Poly Count" sets for some classes, which are a combination of some weapons and a hat. The weapons can be found via the random drop system, but the hats never drop, so they have to be bought or made. The weapons can be bought or made, too, but buying them costs real money, and by the time that one has enough waste material to make them, one has probably already found them. The hats can be made with the crafting system, too, but this takes vast quantities of weapons to do. (For reference, a hat costs at least 3 Refined Metal to make, each of which costs 3 Reclaimed Metal, each of which costs 3 Scrap Metal, each of which costs 2 weapons, giving an effective price of >54 weapons to make a hat.)
If it weren't for the Poly Count sets, then I'd have no reason to even be thinking about hats prior to this point. But, of course, Valve is quite clever about this. The hats do nothing by themselves, but those that are part of Poly Count sets allow someone w/ a complete set to get some kind of bonus! (For example, Ol' Snaggletooth does nothing alone, but as part of The Croc-o-Style Kit, prevents headshots.)
So, the excitement of getting a new weapon is basically gone, replaced with the excitement of getting ANY weapon, since said weapon can be turned into scrap.
Well, on the bright side, TF2's crafting system means that nothing is truly wasted. Even when I've got all of the useful hats, I can still make all of the decorative ones. XD

Sudden Short Story 7

"There was a time when people worked on Christmas Eve. That's why it's an 'eve', you know: It's just the evening before, not the whole day."
"Well, strictly speaking, asking is just a formality. It's more to notify you than anything else."
"Nevertheless, it would be good if you could come in. With the year-end approaching, we'll need your help."
"You sound like you actually believe that," he said with a chuckle. "We both know that nobody has to be here. Heck, give everyone the day off and let an AI fill in. It's not like they're hard to find."
"You know that inconvenience isn't that point. Sure, I could give everyone Christmas Eve off. Then again, I could give them Arbor Day, or, I don't know, August 8th for all the difference that it would make. I could give everyone every day off and just have robots run the whole business! That would defeat the entire point, though."
There was a pause as they both thought on the subject. They both knew why they were there. They didn't want to talk about, nay, didn't want to think about the fact that they didn't actually need to do anything. After all, in a post-scarcity world, there was plenty of value to go around. The 'business' just let them feel useful.
"So you'll be here, then?"
"Bright and early, 'boss,' bright and early...."

An Open Letter to TV Networks, Regarding Halloween

Dear TV Networks,
I've noticed that you tend to run themed programming or marathons in October, leading up to Halloween. In particular, I notice that the themes are generally "horror" in the general or "zombies" in the specific. Sometimes it's a different specific, such as "slashers" or "Hitchcock", but not usually.
My point is this: For the season when, per tradition, the veil between worlds grows thin and those who died in the past year ready themselves for their journey to the afterlife, why not show films about ghosts and the afterlife? It would give us something different from the usual mix, and it's thematically appropriate.
Well, that's what I wanted to say. It's just my two cents.
-Wikimancer

P.S.: If you saw this post and would like to mention a good ghost- or afterlife-related film, then leave a comment below.

On 3D, Color, and Talkies

So, you may have noticed a 3D trend in film lately. There becomes a question of permanence. Is 3D here to stay? It seems like a fad. After all, 3D was a gimmick in the 1970s and 1980s, and even back in the 1950s.
However, 3D has something in common with synchronized sound (a property of films known as "talkies") and color. It's part of how we experience reality. Reality has sound (except to the deaf), reality has color (except to the colorblind, though even they can see some colors), and reality is 3D (except to those who lack depth perception). So, while I'd say that films don't need to be in 3D, they also don't need to be in color. It doesn't mean that the technology will go away.
That being said, the previous point that 3D has come and gone might indicate that it will fade again since the technology wasn't accepted just because it was widely available.

Personally, I think that 3D will first solidify itself outside of theaters, where individual people watching their films on personal laptops or handheld devices will allow for the use of autostereoscopy, such as via a parallax barrier. That is, you'll no longer have to wear fancy headgear for 3D, since the screen will effectively "know" where your head is, since you won't be likely to change it, a la how the Nintendo 3DS will work. (It loses the 3D effect if you're viewing the screen from off to the side.)

If Fry Really Awoke in the Year 3000

I had a passing thought about what would happen if someone like me woke up from cryogenic stasis far in the future. This took a funny route, and became what would happen if Fry (from Futurama, for those who don't know) really woke up in the year 3000. It entered my head as a comic, but I can't draw for crap, so here's the dialog, with a few notes:
...
Actually, I forgot how it started. It somehow got to this point. (Somehow, I had included the notion that extensive genetic intermingling led to that middling skin color for everyone.):
Thawed Guy: So that means...
Others: That's right. You're now the whitest man on Earth.
Thawed Guy: NOOOOOOOOO-- [Khan-style] Wait, does that mean that my lifestyle is, on average, better than everyone else's?
Others: Nope.
Thawed Guy: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! [Khan-style] Well, I guess that I'd better go look for work.
Others: Actually, we live in a post-scarcity state.
Thawed Guy: *blinks*
Others: Nobody has to work. Ever.
Thawed Guy: Yes!
...
This was much better when it was abstract, and in my head.

The Doctor is Human

I've thought about this before, and yesterday, I figured that I should blog about it. The Doctor, from the SF show Doctor Who?, is human.
"But wait," says everyone who knows anything about Doctor Who?, "The Doctor is a time lord." You are correct*, and the time lords are human. It seems most likely that the time lords are the result of the evolution of an isolated human population. They seem morphologically and physiologically so similar to humans that their arising completely independently of Earth's biology would have to occur astronomically improbably. And, of course, being evolved from humans means that they are humans.
Let's compare and contrast. On the one hand, time lords have two hearts** and can regenerate. On the other hand, time lords are bipedal plantigrade pentadactyl tetrapods with opposable thumbs, fingernails, two forward-facing color-vision eyes set in closed ocular orbits in skull-enclosed heads with hinged jaws bearing white, bony teeth, pink, fleshy tongues, and soft, pliable lips, altogether capable of speaking human languages, ostensibly with the assistance of vocal chords. They also ingest food through this forward-facing face-holes and apparently have taste buds, too. Time lords also have fleshy, dish-shaped ears on the sides of their heads, hair that grows out of the tops of their heads, along their eyebrows - and, by the way, eyebrows - and reduced or absent hair elsewhere. Also, time lords have skin in that variegated sepia range (dark brown to pale peach-ish) that humans have, as opposed to, say, green or orange. Oh, and time lords can be killed by untreated cyanide poisoning.

That's basically my argument for why the time lords are human. There are other things, but I haven't actually seen proof of them. For instance, I'm assuming that time lords have spinal chords enveloped in vertebrae, which would make them chordates and vertebrates, respectively, but I haven't actually gotten a look at The Doctor's back well enough to tell if there are vertebrae there, so I didn't list them above.
Anyway, if you see anything that I should have included in my lists, then leave a comment below, but, more importantly, if you see someplace where you think that I might be wrong, then leave a comment below.
That's all for now.

*as long as you didn't add a clause asserting that The Doctor is not human
**The fact that time lords have hearts is a similarity, by the way.

Daylight Wasting Time

I was recently thinking about how, a long time ago, I deduced that Daylight Saving Time is actually quite wasteful. So, I tried to go back and re-deduce my previous logic.
First of all, DST obviously doesn't change, in either direction, the amount of daylight that there is. The clouds don't part, the Earth's spin doesn't change, and Earth's sun doesn't brighten or dim based on how we've set our clocks.
Moreover, though, DST makes us have to deal with nighttime more. Think of it this way. Imagine that, on a certain day, sunrise would be at 0600. This is just to make the math simple. Let's say that you would wake up at 0600. In that case, you would get up at sunrise. But wait! What if it's DST? Well, we set our clocks 1 hour ahead. Now, sunrise is at 0700. If you're anybody besides a farmer (or hunter-gatherer), though, then your schedule isn't based on sunrise; it's based on the clock. So, if you're waking up at 0600, then you're waking up 1 hour before sunrise. This can be applied to any time, of course. If you'd get up at 0615 - 15 minutes after sunrise - then you'll get up at 0615 - 45 minutes before sunrise.
I noticed this back when I was going to school, since it increased the frequency and extent to which we would have to travel to school in the dark. Of course, this also affects teachers, bus drivers, and parents who have to get their kids ready for school. This also tends to affect anyone who works an 8-5 job, which is probably at least half of all workers.
I mentioned farmers, so I've probably gotten someone thinking "but DST was made for farmers!" Well, that doesn't really make sense. Farmers don't care what time the clocks say. Sunrise could happen at gobbledygook mcsquigglepants and it wouldn't matter.

Twitter: It's Over Five Thousand!

As I'm writing this, I'm about to hit 5,000 tweets on my twitter account. According to http://howlonghaveyoubeentweeting.com/, I've been tweeting for 1 year, 9 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, and some change. I started on March 23, 2008. It's not quite two years. Now, I'm fairly certain that the utility either checks when the account was made or checks when the first tweet was tweeted, so there's little regard for frequency, so you'll have to just trust that I've been tweeting mostly at a steady rate ever since I got the account. Anyway, I'm writing this post about my experiences with and on twitter.
Initially, the concept seemed quite useful. Twitter asks "What are you doing?" as its proposed question, and one answers in 140 characters or less. Applications using twitter were in development (and new ones continue to be produced), so my plan was to get onto twitter, wait for things that would allow my twitter account to interact with AIM/MSNIM/YIM/Gmail Chat/Pidgin, and interface them so that I'd have a one-stop shop for my current status, rather than having to edit my status on each of those things separately.
Well, for various reasons, that didn't quite work out. Among them was that twitter has become a social network of sorts. I can follow people, basically saying that I'm a fan of theirs or that I consider them my friends. People can follow me, saying that they're fans of mine or that they consider me their friends. And, of course, mutual following amounts to mutual fandom or friendship. For those who don't know, on twitter, one's main page has a feed of one's own tweets plus tweets from those that one follows, lined up in temporal order. Unfortunately, if I want "mentions" of me, including those from people that I don't follow, I have to go to a separate thing. It's easy to miss communications that way, but I'm in the habit of, rather than refreshing the page, clicking the replies link, then clicking the home link again, to check both.
As I'm writing this, I'm following 108 people and I have 140 followers. Also, to the best of my knowledge, I've only been blocked by one user, for reasons unknown. Wait, I'm following 108 people? That sounds like a lot. On reviewing that list, though, I see a few things. First of all, accounts can belong to companies and organizations, so I'm following, for instance, @CERN and @diradio (belonging to CERN and www.di.fm, respectively). Also, some people don't tweet that often, so following them doesn't clutter up my feed that much.
Some features have been added to twitter since I signed on. For one, retweeting has been quite popular, where one says "ReTweet @UserName ", or "RT @UserName " for short. However, that only works for tweets that are shorter than [135 - [UserName.length]] characters long. To "solve" this dilemma, twitter itself added a "ReTweet" feature, which works alright, except that it doesn't allow the addition of comments to the ReTweet, which was one of the advantages of the old way with very short original tweets. The other notable new feature is lists. I follow various people for various reasons. Now, I can sort them into lists, if I wish to look at a specific topic for some reason. Also, other people can follow these lists to follow a whole group of people at once. Among other things, I have lists on the topics of atheism, steampunk, conventions, and scifi. I will say, though, that I have yet to follow someone else's list. I've seen only a few, and they generally either include people that I don't want in my feed or include so many people that I fear an overcrowding of my feed. Also, I've just checked, and all of my lists are followed by either 0 or 1 users. I'm also on 9 lists, but 4 of those are my own.
Of course, the question is also begged: How did I get 139 followers? Well, I'll admit that several of them are spam accounts. I stopped bothering to remove them a while back. Basically, I think that they follow people in the hopes of getting followed back so that they can direct message them. (Direct messaging is only available between people who follow each other.) So, they don't actually hurt me, and I don't feel like culling my followers regularly. Of course, plenty of my followers are legitimate accounts who follow me because... actually, I don't know why. I guess that they just like what they see.
I've followed people and I've been followed, sometimes by the same people and sometimes not. I've made lists and I'm on lists. I've met people and people have met me. I've entertained people and I've been entertained. Overall, this twitter thing has been a positive experience, even if it didn't work out for my original plans.
I'm planning to announce this blog post for tweet number 5000.

Sudden Short Story

I just came up with this idea. I'm not going to make this look nice. This is version 0.1 or something.

The Bimillennial Law, as it came to be known, was a peculiar thing. In 2103CE, it was noticed that life-extending technology was coming about so quickly that people just weren't going to die of old age anymore. It was realized that the overcrowding that this would cause could lead to great suffering, but it was hard to pick an age at which to put people down. 100 was clearly too early, since people had already lived several years past that 100 years ago. Some people thought that nobody should out-live Abraham, from Hebrew legend. Others used the age of Adam from the same mythos. Still others thought that nobody should live past 999, to limit ages to three digits - in decimal. Eventually, the age of 2000 was settled, being far enough away that nobody had to worry about it any time soon, and old enough that anyone who survived to it would have lived a satisfactory life, and could start to suffer from having to deal with just so many profound changes in a lifetime.
Later on - though well after the establishment of several extraterrestrial colonies - someone realized that this was stupid. The vote to repeal the Bimillenial Law was unanimous. Nobody was ever executed under this law.

An Honorable Mention of Gary Gygax

I happened to run across this: http://www.websnark.com/archives/philosophical_snarks/
I only skimmed it, but it seems to be a thorough analysis of the late E. Gary Gygax's contributions to modern society. Of note, he basically fathered RPGs as we know them today, he helped to make fantasy mainstream (rather than just a subtype of sci fi), and he generated the generation of billions of dollars of international revenue. (By "generated the generation", I mean that, while he did not actually generate the revenue himself, he did make the generation of the revenue.)
R.I.P., E.G.G.