The Ministry of Minor Perfidy

Ministers

A compassionate conservative, if by 'compassionate' you mean not giving a shit

Conceived in mediocrity yet demanding perfection

Will review for food

Beauty School Dropout

Celebrating diversity in the face of eschaton

If statistics were crack, his mouth would be glued to the pipe.

Minister Emeritus

Windy City Mike
social democrat, ca. 1930 trade-unionist, and professor of alleged history

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Monday, July 31, 2006

We bring “Euclidian” to life

Hopefully, Tigerhawk hasn’t lived in Kansas, so we can make fun of it without fear of hurting someone’s feelings.

We bring “Euclidian” to life
Bleeding Kansas
Weâ€™re Fucking Flat!
The Flat State
Hayfever capital of the Midwest
Gateway to more Rectangular States
There’s no place like home
At least we’re not New Jersey
Dole slept here
Where Science Don’t Mean Crap
When the middle of nowhere is too crowded
Ya want flat, we got flat
Birthplace of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
More hills than Nebraska!
We aren’t all that crazy about Newton and his “gravity”, either.
That’s Jayhawk, not Jaybird, dipshit
A couple of universities and a whole lot of nothin’
To Boldly Go Where No Tourist has Gone Before
Proud Home of the two greatest actors in world history: Kirstie Alley and Ed Asner
We kicked Toto’s ass, the ingrate

Posted by Buckethead on 07/31/06 at 06:38 PM
Just So You Know • Permalink

Not-so-cunning linguists

This year’s winner of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest:

Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you’ve had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean.

In a related vein- a throbbing, purple vein- is the 2006 Goku-Lytton Award for the Worst First Line in Erotic Fan Fiction.

Next year the Ministry fully expects to be competitive in either contest.

Posted by GeekLethal on 07/31/06 at 12:28 PM
Entertainment • Permalink

Saturday, July 29, 2006

Rock out with your cock out

There’s a certain inescapable sense of destiny to being named Thor. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine the man from Canada named Jon Mikl Thor doing anything else with his life besides bodybuilding and playing heavy metal music. Such a name is a fait accompli. I mean, really… “Hi, I’m Thor. Have you considered refinancing your mortgage lately?” Not so much.

Some bodybuilders, once their career is over, open gyms. Others go into politics or pro wrestling (same thing). Vancouver’s Jon Mikl Thor, former Mr. Canada, Mr. USA, Mr. North America, and Mr. Universe, went into metal. It only made sense. Blessed with a flair for the dramatic, a taste for the faintly ridiculous, and one of the greatest heavy-metal names since Jethro Tull invented the seed drill, His live shows are minor legends of excess, featuring amazing props (winged helmets, chariots) and incredible stunts (bending steel bars with his teeth, breaking bricks across his chest), and he has amassed a nearly thirty-year legacy of B-movie-tinged heavy metal, leaving in his wake a vast wasteland of vanquished demon-foes, busted mic stands, and leopard-print clad groupies panting in wonder at his awesome might.

More Perfidious Goodness...

Thor’s latest album is Devastation of Musculation (Smog Veil, 2006), and insofar as it’s accurate to say that Thor is growing as a musician (within the confines of traditional metal, anyway), he is. His last album, 2005’s Thor Against The World, drew mainly on the glammy sounds of KISS, Alice Cooper and Sweet. It was a damn good album, but there were times when the metallic content dropped lower than might optimally have been desired. It seemed that, for all his talk of epic space-battles and Norse gods, Thor was going soft here and there.

Not so on Devastation of Musculation. The new album is harder, faster, and darker than its predecessor, and is evidence that, after decades of half-jokey and often-forgettable entertainment, Thor is figuring out how to do it right (albeit without sacrificing what makes Thor, Thor). The very first track, “Lords of Steel,” stomps along in a Black Sabbath mode and features some very nice extended guitar wailing the likes of which have rarely been sighted since acid-washed jeans went out of style. Maybe it’s not the greatest thing ever put on tape, but it’s a damned entertaining invitation to bang your head. The rest of the album continues in a similar British Heavy Metal vein, galloping along with an array of galloping Maiden/Priest grooves, while Thor grunts about the Devastation of Musculation, The Queen of The Damned, Odin’s Son, and Lies of Eternity in a voice that, for what it lacks in technical accomplishment, more than makes up for in personality and commitment to the moment.

After all, isn’t that what metal is about? If you strip the music away from, say, a Slayer album, you’re left with what amount to a bunch of supremely silly words. There’s nothing inherently scary about

Trapped in purgatory
A lifeless object, alive
Awaiting reprisal
Death will be their acquisition
The sky is turning red
Return to power draws near
Fall into me, the sky’s crimson tears
Abolish the rules made of stone

I mean, come on! Every high school has some trenchcoated dork who writes doggerel like this in his notebook and thinks he’s being deep! And yet, throw in some manic drumming and heavily distorted guitars and the very same silliness that would get a dark and serious high-school poet laughed at, shunned, and these days examined by a team of psychologists, police investigators and anti-terror “experts,” somehow transmogrifies into a pounding, sinister all-time classic of thrash metal.

By the same token, lyrics like the following from Thor’s “Queen of the Damned”...

The deadliest of hungers
She feasts on human blood
The rapid sound of thunder
Bringing evil from above
The vampires all surround her
For the final feast
But she still holds the power
Until a new queen is released

... kind of suck out of context. But as hundreds of overly serious college theses and misguided poetry seminars have inadvertently proven, rock lyrics are not meant to exist apart from the music they are sung to. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts, right? Write “Louie, Louie, hey, hey, wa ne ga go” on a page, and you’ve got nothing. But put it over that classic riff, and you’ve got magic, son. In the same way, once Thor puts his lyrics over thrashing guitars, a double-bass-drum attack, and presents them in his own powerful and guttural voice, those same stanzas become exactly what they should be: the audio equivalent of the best B-grade horror movie ever made (which, by the way, is Evil Dead II. No debate allowed.)

Oh, in case you’re wondering, the phrase “Devastation of Musculation” refers to two things: the poorly defined retribution that awaits the foes of THOR as he rides the universe on his steed; and a story that Thor heard about a guy who pumped up his biceps so far with steroids, oil in injections, and heavy reps that his arm actually exploded. According to Thor himself,

“Everyone is under pressure to achieve the impossible every day. People risk their lives to be more beautiful, more handsome, more skinny, more muscular and faster, stronger, richer, and deadlier. Trying to make sense out of these desperate measures is what this new album is about. It is easily the darkest and most powerful album I’ve ever written.”

Coming from a guy who used to pose in poodle hair and tiger-stripe bikini briefs, this kind of statement might be easily dismissed. But, even considering that metal at its finest needs to stay stupid in order to stay metal, there’s something to this. Thor seemed to wear a smirk through half the songs on Thor Against The World. On Devastation, there’s not much smirking. There’s more skulls, smoking corpses, demons, and smoky battlefields. And if the music doesn’t necessarily stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Number of the Beast, Reign In Blood, or British Steel, it’s still the best B-Movie Metal you’re gonna find.

If you’re looking for subtlety, I suggest you pick up Tool’s excellent latest album. But if you’re looking for well-done classic metal sung by a former bodybuilder who had the sense to stay out of politics, you’re in good shape with Devastation of Musculation. Somehow, now, in his third decade of recording stone-obvious muscle rock for a parade of indie labels, Thor seems to be figuring out how to balance camp and carnage. By any standard, Devastation of Musculation ain’t half bad, and as long as you take it for what it is - the aural equivalent of movies like Escape from New York and, yes, the animated classic Heavy Metal, you can do much worse than to heed the mighty word of THOR.

[Crossposted at blogcritics.org]

Too Goddamn Much Perfidy...

Posted by Johno on 07/29/06 at 05:56 PM
Music Wonkery • Permalink

Friday, July 28, 2006

Black hole, Meco. Meco, black hole

A recent survey intended to discover Black Holes has come up short. No where near the expected number was detected, leaving astrophysicists scratching their collective head. It is widely believed that the black hole is difficult to find by its very nature. An object so massive that light cannot escape its gravitational pull is of course going to be difficult to find. Space is black. Black holes are black. You do the math.

The conventional means to search for evidence of the black hole in space is to look for indirect evidence â€“ x rays released by matter falling into the black hole before it reaches the event horizon. Falling down a gravity well that steep is an energetic event, the scientists reason. Supermassive black holes are thought to dominate the central regions of galaxies, and the x-ray output of black holes has been considered a primary constituent of the background hum of x-rays we detect in the universe.

A team of European and American researchers has spent two years probing the nether regions of the galaxies trying to find black holes. They investigated high energy xray emissions using the European Space Agency’s orbiting International Gamma Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (Integral). Another high energy survey, and previous low energy surveys all reached the same conclusion â€“ much fewer holes than expected.

This confuses the big domes. But the answer might not be that the black holes are further away, or more expertly hidden, or taking a long nap after consuming all the nearby gas and whatnot that might have created x-rays upon being eaten.

The answer might be that there are no black holes at all.

A different group of big domes was taking a gander at a quasar nine billion light years from earth. In laymans terms, nine billion light years is really goddamned far away. Happily, there was a galaxy in the way, which allowed the clever science monkeys to use the gravitational lens effect, in which the gravitational field of the intervening galaxy magnifies the light coming from the quasar. Further, as all the individual bits of the galaxy wander in front of the image of the quasar, it makes the light wobble. This wobbling allows the scientists to probe more deeply into the inner workings of the quasar.

Quasars are conventionally supposed to consist of a very large black hole consuming the matter around it and generating the extraordinary amounts of radiation that are the defining feature of the quasar. If these researchers are correct, that turns out not to be the case. Theory prohibits black holes from having magnetic fields. You wouldnâ€™t be able to stick your refrigerator magnets to it. Even not counting the fact that theyâ€™d be immediately consumed by the gravitational field and converted instantly to x rays.

But this quasar, rejoicing in the name Q0957+561, shows evidence (detectable thanks to the wonderful gravitational lens effect) of some stupendous magnetic fields. Looking at the disc of material surrounding our friend Q0957+561, they noted a small hole in the middle, approximately four thousand times the distance from the earth to the sun, and evidence that that area had been swept clean by electromagnetic fields. The obvious conclusion, therefore, is that there ainâ€™t no black holes.

The reason this is obvious (at least to these researchers) is that there are two competing, and mutually exclusive theories about large massive objects. One is that they are black holes. The other, lesser known theory, is that they are MECOs. MECO is egghead shorthand for Magnetospheric Eternally Collapsing Object. In brief, the theory holds that singularities canâ€™t form, and when something really big starts collapsing, it gets very dense and very hot. At this point, subatomic particles start popping into and out of existence, pissing off everyone else and creating large amounts of energy. The radiation pressure from this craziness halts the collapse, and the object remains forever a ball of high energy plasma. Plasma, unlike black holes, is quite capable of maintaining magnetic fields.

While these objects are capable of creating large amounts of energy, they probably arenâ€™t going to go about it in the same way. And that might account for the failure of the other astronomers to detect the job lots of black holes they expected. Perhaps the ones they think they are detecting are merely those MECOs that most closely resemble the profile of the theoretical black hole.

And remember kids, just say no to black holes.

Posted by Buckethead on 07/28/06 at 05:41 PM
The Miracle of Science • Permalink

Per Ardua ad Astra

Lock S-foils in attack position, and give Jerry hell!

Courtesy of Photoshop Friday at Something Awful.

Posted by GeekLethal on 07/28/06 at 02:34 PM
Entertainment • Permalink

Thursday, July 27, 2006

Future Birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk

Iowa. What to say about the Hawkeye state? This should get you going. Discuss.

Future Birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk
We hate Texas
We Do Amazing Things With Corn. Amazing.
Our Trees Bend North Because Minnesota Sucks
Just Another Fucking Flat State
World renowned center for philosophy, music, technology and the arts
Where Underachievers Can Achieve
It’s easy to spell
Just east of Omaha
At Least We’re Not New Jersey
We’re not the only state on the Mississippi, but we’re one of the better ones
The middle of nowhere state
Bank Foreclosure Sales every Friday
Home of the Duke
Hell has four letters, too
Des Moines does’t rhyme with Less Coinses

Posted by Buckethead on 07/27/06 at 12:15 PM
Just So You Know • Permalink

I don’t think that word means what you think it means

The Ministry of late has not talked much of politics. This could be because the Ministry feels that politics is beneath us. Because we operate on a higher plane, and do not wish to sully our hands with the stinking, encrusted cesspool that is politics. Or, it could be because politics gets in the way of dick jokes.

Our recent reticence to discuss politics is not a hard and fast rule. Its more a guideline. And today, a political item caught my eye. It is perhaps passe to pile on Howard Dean; he of the scream, the pulsating cranial veins, and overheated rhetoric. Shooting ducks in a barrel, some might say. Nevertheless, today’s performance before a group of business types in Florida is remarkable even for our Rove-controlled Deanomatic android.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP)—Down with divisiveness was the message Wednesday delivered by Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean as he told a group of Florida business leaders that Republican policies of deceit and finger-pointing are tearing American apart.

With a lead like that, one could expect to hear soothing, healing words follow. Something about how infighting and rhetoric distract us from sober and responsible discussion of the issues of the day. Maybe a nod toward respecting differences, knowing that human knowledge is forever imperfect, and however much we differ in our policy proscriptions, we all reconize that everyone has the best interests of the nation and its citizens at heart.

But wait, this is Dean:

“the most divisive president probably in our history.”

Divisiveness is bad, you fucking divisivist!

“He’s always talking about those people. It’s always somebody else’s fault. It’s the gays’ fault. It’s the immigrants’ fault. It’s the liberals’ fault. It’s the Democrats’ fault. It’s Hollywood people,”

Ending divisiveness by accusing others of bigotry, zenophobia, partisanship, blinkered ideoloical fixation, hatred of the Lindsey Lohan, and, well, divisiveness, is probably not the most well thought out scheme. Maybe even risky. What it looks like is what the psychologists call projection.

The Republican agenda “is flag-burning and same-sex marriage and God knows what else,”

Is Deano suggesting that the Republicans are for flag-burning and same sex marriage? I mean, big tent and all, but I don’t think that’s what there about. Oh wait, they’re against all that. Which, if Dean is against the evil Republicans who can do no right, does that mean that he supports flag-burning? Or is he suggesting that “flag-burning and same-sex marriage and God knows what else” is the sum of the Republican agenda? That God knows what else leaves a lot of room for fiscal, national security, and lots else. Regardless, casting your opponents’ agenda in such terms is hardly conducive of unity.

Dean also attacked the president on national defense, health care, education and Social Security.

“He is bankrupting the middle-class,” Dean said.

“Attacked." A key ingredient in any effort to end divisiveness. And a little class warfare fearmongering to liven up the mix.

“The president made a big deal about bringing the Iraqi prime minister to address Congress,” said Dean, the former Vermont governor and 2004 presidential candidate. “The Iraqi prime minister is an anti-Semite.”

Calling the only elected Arab leader in the whole fricking world an anti-semite is perhaps unwise. Especially when his next door neighbor is the real deal. Dean opposes the President. The President hates Ahmedijubabbul, who is an anti-semite and has called for the extinction of Israel. If Dean supports the right of Israel to defend itself, supporting the President might be a useful first step.

The AP article neglected to mention one thing, though. Dean also compared a Republican to Stalin. The irony here is delicious, a leftist calling… oh, never mind:

“Thank God for Bill Nelson, because we’d have another crook in the United States Senate if it weren’t for him. He is going to beat the pants off Katherine Harris,” Dean said during his 20-minute address. “She doesn’t understand that it’sâ€¦improper to be chairman of a campaign and count the votes at the same time. This is not Russia and she is not Stalin.”

There isn’t a Godwin’s Law for comparisons to Stalin, but there should be. Dean loses the argument on style points alone, no matter Harris’ actual character.

It really, truly amazes me. I am astounded that a public figure, the head of one of America’s two major political parties, could have the unmitigated gall to call for an end to divisiveness, and then say all of… that. What kind of cognitive disconnect exists in his brain that allows the simultaneous presence of such mutually exclusive ideas? It becomes ever more plausible, at least to this observer, that Dean really is a covert Rovian operative, and possibly a more animated version of the original Gore-class andoid.

[Wik] GeekLethal reminds us in the comments of a salient bit of movie-quotery; or rather, indulges in some creative movie-quote-paraphrasery:

“The Gore series had rubber skin. We spotted them easy, but these are new. The Deans look human - sweat, bad breath, everything. Very hard to spot. I had to wait till he moved on you before I could zero him.â€

Posted by Buckethead on 07/27/06 at 11:30 AM
Partisan Politics • Unmitigated Gall • Permalink

Lead Zeppelin

If you think that Murdoc skims FBI wound ballistics data for light bedtime reading, or takes his Jane’s materials on vacation, you are correct.

But he is also abreast of current events, and particularly skilled at being where the present meets the past. Read his coverage and linkage regarding the recent discovery, by Polish divers, of the Nazi aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin. Originally designed in the ‘30s, construction began and halted (and began and halted and...) but never joined the fleet. Strictly speaking, then, I guess it could not rightly be called an “aircraft carrier” since it doesn’t seem it ever carried any. Due to the vagaries of war and the inescapable fact that the Nazis were rather losing it, the Graf Zeppelin never put to sea and never saw action. Well, until the Commies sank it.

Born to be the lynchpin of a mighty Teutonic warfleet, the Graf Zeppelin wound up consigned to the briny deep by the very Untermenschen the Nazis made all the fuss about in the first place. In the immortal words of Nelson (from the Simpsons, not Trafalgar), “HA-ha!”

Anyway, read MO. As if you didn’t already.

Posted by GeekLethal on 07/27/06 at 10:10 AM
War • Permalink

Forgotten Punchline Thursday

Today’s forgotten punchline:

“What the fuck do you mean, ‘the wrong hole’?!”

Posted by GeekLethal on 07/27/06 at 08:52 AM
Entertainment • Permalink

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Turkish Delight

Stars and Stripes online edition has apprently been hacked.

That was thoughtful.

Posted by GeekLethal on 07/26/06 at 03:31 PM
Just So You Know • Permalink

Frazetta the King

If you don’t know who Frank Frazetta is, you’re wrong.

You most certainly do know his work; it’s been in early comics, movie posters, and about a bazillion book covers. He is perhaps most widely recognized for his graphic rendering of Robert Howard’s hero from the time “...between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas”:

The Barbarian

Frank Frazetta’s Conan is Conan. Every artist in the Marvel stable in the last 30-odd years who has worked on Conan titles takes his cue from Frazetta. And that’s OK.

But the man’s talent is much greater than as an illustrator; he started on a path to fine art as a very young boy, a path he could not finish through no fault of his own. He can work magic with oils, watercolors, pencil, or naked ink. He’s a photographer and a sculptor. After a stroke damaged his right side, he learned how to make art with his left. Thrown to his own devices to make a living he wound up in comics, and we are all better people because of it.

If anyone gets the IFC on their cable, keep an eye out for “Frazetta: Painting with Fire”, a documentary about his life, his achievements, and his struggles. The interviews with other artists and filmmakers are no less interviews with fans: Brom, John Buscema, Kevin Eastman, Ralph Bakshi, Dino DeLaurentis; the list is long and distinguished. The net effect is not at all a cloying love fest, but simple and heartfelt affection for the man. And the man himself defies stereotype; no scrawny artsy-fartsy, bespectacled fixture of the comic convention, he. Huh-uh. His powerful frame and personal strength he no doubt translated to canvas in his male figures. The guy had a stroke and is just this side of 80, but still could probably thump me.

If you don’t have IFC, rent “Painting with Fire”. If you can’t rent it, buy it via the Frazetta Museum. Matter of fact, I think I’d like to go there in person. Anyone else up for a road trip to PA?

My personal fave below the fold:

More Perfidious Goodness...

Posted by GeekLethal on 07/26/06 at 03:15 PM
Entertainment • Permalink

Rule #1. Pillage, then burn

Recently, I have been reading the delightful and sanguinary webcomic, ”Schlock Mercenary.” Amidst the many treasures to be found there, there is this, quotes from the self-help manual The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates:

1. Pillage, then burn.
6: If violence wasnâ€™t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.
8. Mockery and derision have their place. Usually, it’s on the far side of the airlock.
9. Never turn your back on an enemy.
12. A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head.
13. Do unto others.
16. Your name is in the mouth of others: be sure it has teeth.
27. Don’t be afraid to be the first to resort to violence.
29. The enemy of my enemy is my enemy’s enemy. No more. No less.
30. A little trust goes a long way. The less you use, the further you’ll go.
31. Only cheaters prosper.
34. If youâ€™re leaving scorch-marks, you need a bigger gun.
35. That which does not kill you has made a tactical error.
36. When the going gets tough, the tough call for close air support.
37. There is no “overkill”. There is only “open fire” and “I need to reload.”
n. Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Take his fish away and tell him he’s lucky just to be alive, and he’ll figure out how to catch another one for you to take tomorrow.
n+1. Just because it’s easy for you doesn’t mean it can’t be hard on your clients.

If you are unfamiliar with the Schlock Mercenary universe, you can start here. And on your way out, ponder these last three nuggets of existential Schlock wisdom:

On a scale from ‘that’s not free checking’ to ‘heat death of the universe’, I’d say we’re looking at ‘the enemy has a superweapon we can’t track.’

Somebody sounds stressed, and I think it’s a me!

‘Minimal collateral damage’ and ‘Entire star system’ do not belong in the same sentence

Posted by Buckethead on 07/26/06 at 03:29 PM
Entertainment • Permalink

Corn Corn Corn Indianapolis 500 Corn Corn Corn Corn

Our next state, Indiana, has something of an inferiority complex. Even the official state motto, “Crossroads of America,” admits that Indiana’s major purpose is to serve as a flat yet uninteresting obstacle to travel somewhere else. Let us pile on:

Corn Corn Corn Corn Indianapolis 500 Corn Corn Corn
Can you tell us just what the fuck is a Hoosier, anyway?
2 Billion Years Tidal Wave Free
Bring Something to Do
Dan Quayle’s Favorite Country!
OK, we admit it, we miss Bobby Knight
Where EVERY year is 1957
Come for the flat and uninteresting scenery, stay for the flat and uninteresting scenery
Not just corn, we have meth labs, too
Proud Home of David Letterman and John Hoosier Mellonhead
Come See Our Corn!
The New Jersey of the Midwest
Proud home of Raper RVs (Where fun begins!)
If we weren’t surrounded by the rest of the US, someone would probably kick our ass
That’s Hoosier girls, not Hooter girls
Do you think our obsession with basketball is unhealthy?
We’re not as flat as Kansas
Gateway to the lower Ohio Valley
Does this basketball make me look fat?

Posted by Buckethead on 07/26/06 at 01:20 PM
Just So You Know • Permalink

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Research Promises More Fulfilling Robotic Relationships, Part II

Almost a year ago to the day, I wrote a piece discussing the work of Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro. From his lab outside Kyoto, the professor was working on lifelike replicants designed, among other things, to help his research into human behavior. In that piece I included this photo of the good professor and his latest creation; aware that he’s not the most, um, charismatic of photographic subjects, I pointed out that “the dude with glasses is NOT the robot”:

Ah, but that was then. Our man in Kyoto has cashed in some more nice grants, and recently demonstrated his latest project : himself! In other words, the dude with the glasses now could very well be the robot:

He has named his creation “Geminoid”, a label both properly scientific-sounding and chillingly non-human, which will make it just that much easier for robot conquerors to use them to infiltrate society. I would’ve gone with homo sapiens simulacra, but Geminoid works too I guess.

Professor Ishiguro continues to explore the fundamentals of human interaction with his synthetic double:

But why bother to build robots that look like humans? Ishiguro views machines as good vehicles to learn more about human nature. He combines engineering with cognitive science with the aim of making very humanlike robots, which can be used as test beds for theories about human perception, communication and cognition. He calls his approach “android science.”

“A robot is a kind of simulator for expressing human functions, especially the cerebellum or the muscles,” says Norihiro Hagita, director of the ATR lab that developed Geminoid. “It’s a kind of ultimate human interface.”

Ok, super. It’s a test bed for exploring the interaction of the blah with the semiotics of which and the effect of huh and the wazzit. But Geminoid research also has more immediate, real-world applications more familiar to the rest of us: he uses it to go to meetings or class in his stead (which may explain why the thing looks irritated) and surely it is just a matter of time before it can make decisions and actually do your job for you. And I’m certain that baser applications will yet prevail, however advanced the design may be or lofty the goal.

Entrepreneurs, banking on the depravity of humankind, might have changed the above quotes thus: “Why bother to build robots that look like humans?” “ To fuck ‘em, of course!”

Oh wait- they already do.

[Wik] Minister GeekLethal inexplicably failed to point out the the confluence of these two stories leads to the inevitable conclusion that Professor Ishiguro can, in fact, go fuck himself. [- Minister B.]

[AlsÃ¸ wik] Minister GeekLethal inexplicably included the phrase “Entrepreneurs, banking on the depravity of humankind...” written in a tone indicating that he might have been expecting something else. [- Minister P.]

Posted by GeekLethal on 07/25/06 at 03:01 PM
That Buck Rogers Stuff • Permalink

Tuesday’s Heavy Thought

I’ve been doing some number crunching and the results are...discouraging.

I’ve looked at my current debt load and played it against potential earnings. I’ve used historic earnings data, leavened with broader industry trends, as the core of my prediction models. Then, not feeling quite down enough, I put all that against actuarial data: height and weight, lifestyle, hobbies, career, etc etc.

I have determined that, barring some sort of ridiculous and unforeseeable windfall (and knowing that there’s no real-life equivalent of a “Community Chest” card coming my way), I will not live to see the day I’m out of debt. From now until the day I die, I will be servicing debt. Sure everyone has their own financial woe and worry to contend with. I get that. But I never put things in quite this perspective before, that I’ll be dead before I’m free.

It’s sobering. It’s heavy. It’s Tuesday.

And it’s Tuesday’s Heavy Thought.

Posted by GeekLethal on 07/25/06 at 09:07 AM
Filthy Lucre • Permalink

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