December 16, 2002
December 13, 2002
December 10, 2002
November 21, 2002
November 15, 2002
--Google, what is the difference between a kebab, a shwarma and a doner?
--Did you mean: what is the difference between a kebab, a shawarma and a doner?
-- <blush> Of course.
--The doner kebab ... consists of minced lamb combined with a selection of herbs and spices, which is then pressed hard into the distinctive conical shape using a specially constructed broiler; a lamb shawarma [is] made up of chunks like the chicken variant, [which is] made of small chunks of meat which are pushed together onto the spit.
November 13, 2002
Deleted from Long Day's essay
When a narrative describes a fictional situation, we can extend the constructions of the text beyond the text by considering how corresponding characters and situations could turn out in real life. If we stay within the rules that the narrative establishes, we can answer some questions about the author's intention that he/she did not explicitly express in the text itself. In the case of Long Day's Journey into Night, one of these unanswered questions is whether or not Edmund is going to die.October 28, 2002
October 22, 2002
October 16, 2002
September 27, 2002
September 25, 2002
September 20, 2002
Representation 2092 of the Date
Noting the number of the day with a single digit when less than ten, and two digits only when ten or greater, followed by the number of the month likewise, and the number of the year always as a single digit, is a compact way to represent the date. The fact that the year is usually well-known makes the year unambiguous. But the day and month are ambiguous in cases when either one is more than a single digit and the day's second digit or the month's first digit is one or two. Although these cases do not occur the majority of the time they nevertheless occur often enough during the year to necessitate a distinguishing element to divide the day from the month. If this distinguishing element is graphical the date is representable in four digits for nine months of the year and in five digits for only three months. For its brevity, this system is very elegant; for its ambimorphity, it is spectacular. The fact that four digits represent the day of the year for three quarters of the year bears the characteristic that the notation of most days progressively resembles the common notation of a single year from the days numbered ten to the days numbered twenty.April 19, 2002
Physics Riddle
Diachronic, I heal And mingle, like tonic Two-spaced, reflected, and quickened, Demonic Astonicked, appeal, Subversive, laconic Imitated, printed and mimicked, Harmonic Alternating, perpetrating, pronged, electronic Deaf, voluminous, OMINOUS, sonic Luciferous, carniferous, libidinous, conic Used, utter, ultimate, yonic Perpetual, female, funiculaire, phonic Ordained order: I am Ionic.March 03, 2002
If you were born on Feb 29 1980, how old would you be today?
I propose that you could choose from one of two ages, depending on what was most beneficial to you at the time.
1. You could be 22. It has been 22 years since your birth.
2. You could be 5. You have had five birthdays.
(Note: I don't think 20 is an acceptable option)
Because of the fact that you could be either 22 or 5, depending solely on your discretion, I would actually submit that perhaps the person whose age is hardest to tell is the one born on Feb 29, because they can decide how old they want to be. Plus, if you didn't know their birthdate, you'd never guess that the person in my example was 5.
Man, I wanna go see the Pirates of Penzance.
God's omnipotence means that you can start any sentence with "God can..." and finish it arbitrarily, and it will be true. But you contradict when you say "God can end his omnipotence" for if God did this, He would no longer be able to do anything. God therefore cannot do this. Therefore, God is logically not omnipotent.
However, the fallacy in this argument is that it is a construction of language that may not signify anything in reality. Just because we can grammatically construct the above sentence does not mean that the sentence signifies something real. The separate pieces may signify things, such as the word "God" signifying the real God, and the word "can" signifying real potential and the word "omnipotence" signifying real omnipotence, but that does not mean that something real exists consisting of all those pieces put together.
January 23, 2002
1st draft of Letter to Rogers
Dear Sir/Madam, I am writing to tell you that I am sufficiently disgusted with Rogers customer service that I am accepting a more expensive product from a competitor. I purchased a Rogers At&T cellphone on Saturday, January the 19th and have been unable since that time to neither activate my phone nor to receive a consistent description of the payment plans available. Upon purchase, the vendor explained to me what seemed quite clearly was an option to purchase a certain number of local and long distance minutes for my phone under a certain plan. Upon calling the activation number as instructed by the vendor and packaging, I was told that I would save money by activating the phone on the web. The website however gave me the option of only one plan, not the one I desired, and gave me no indication that this was the only choice available through web sign-up. When I realised that I would indeed have to activate by telephone, I called again to be told that the wait would be exceedingly long and also that the customer service hours were incoveniently located at a time I had planned to run many errands. My wife then attempted to call later that day. SUNDAY She was led to wait for half an hour on hold and then, after a 20 minute process of gathering information, the representative was unable to answer a simple question about the use of long distance minutes on the plan. THis question was a simple confirmation of what the vendor had told us, yet the representative claimed he did not know the answer and promised my wife that his superior would call her at work the next day. MONDAY The representative's supervisor failed to call the next day. In fact, there was no indication nor apology from Rogers why nobody had called my wife. She then called back and repeated the lengthy and unresolved process of the prvious day: after giving out a great deal of information, the representetive told her that she did not know how the long distance plans were counted. Finally, a third representative explained to my wife the long distance system and suggested that we would have the optimum rate if we chose a phone number based in the city to which I would be travelling most of the time. My wife did not activate at this time in order to consider this and to have a chance to discuss it with me. TUESDAY We decided to wait a day longer and that she would activate the phone the next day, the only way we could do it within ROgers' scheduled hours. Upon calling however, and giving out the same long series of information, she was told that I was the only one who could activate the phone. It does not make any sense that someone who can provide my name, bank account number, branch number, credit card number, SIN and driver's license number is not allowed to activate a cellphone in my name. In fact if the person doing so had been male, they would have passed all of ROgers' supposed security requirements, and the phone would be activated. Because my wife only recently gained Canadian residency and her finances are still based in another country, however, we are penalised by being forbidden to let her do things in my name. This has not been my only bad experience with Rogers. Of course many of you are familiar with their inexcusably poor customer service with regards to their cable TV. My father has had no end of trouble with unavailable customer service and even harassment to purchase more products by unending mail and sales calls. I am happy to choose to pay more for a different product if it only means that I will eliminate some of the intrusion of Rogers into my life. Although I must continue to use their services if I want basic cable, I am certainly not going to ever consider allowing them control over my cellphone or internet or any other products, if just for the peace-of-mind of knowing I do not have to talk to any of their employees. Sincerely, Martin JakubikJanuary 05, 2002
She said,
"Baby, I've heard all the lines.
I pioneered this. I ain't no joke.
I get raw: how you like me now?
You're a customer, et cetera."
But then she started to choke. On her wine.
I said "Easy baby. Slow down. Not so fast."
I took the spyglass out of her hand.
She leapt out choking and poking her fat band
at the mast, spun to the prow, whirled, aft,
then snatched a fast tuft out and sighted land.
I eased the wineglass out of her hand,
And, spying in the glass I urged less fast,
Baby she said "Look at the tables."
Able was I and tabled I stared past
And saw half fast my future: I hit ten grand.
"No no no, you don't seem to understand
My man. Look at the tables:
You hit ten grand."
January 03, 2002
I believe that if we entered all our actions into a database, computers would become omnipotent. Or rather, it is not that computers would become omnipotent but that we would become able to get computers to do everything for us.
I have faith in this rather than reason for it; I am not quite sure if it is true, but I do feel that we often want computers to do more for us that that of which they are capable. The default lies in people's reluctance to record every little thing they do. Lotus Notes is a good example of a tool that allows you to record a lot of documents that you have written, but without describing what is actually in them, it fails to permit the computing machine to take much action upon them. The computer can count your documents maybe, but that's it.
The scientific ideal would be that computers would know enough about all our transactions that they could take actions upon them. This is what I believe is only possible if we record everything in a relational database in a completely standard format.
I do not believe, par contre, that this is plausible.
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