This mashup is seriously the most awesome thing I've seen all week. Thanks, tacit! (And thanks nationelectric, who linked tacit's essay the other day!)

EDIT: Substitute remix79 in the parenthetical - goes to show why you should check your sources...

I swear, there is no conceivable explanation for how I can be as stupidly lucky as I have been my entire life.

I am seriously tempted to start invoking absurd excuses for this.

In other news, hello! Don't follow those links if you value your time!

Stolen from active_apathy, who swiped it from laurenmitchell:

1. Choose an episode of anime or television series you have on your computer. Make sure you're certain you want that one, you cannot change your mind once you skip this step. DO NOT TELL YOUR FLIST WHAT YOU CHOSE.
   
   
2. Make note of how long the episode is here: 59:59
   
   
3. Ask your flist to choose a time between 00:00 and whatever the length of your episode is. Be specific - e.g. 21:09, 02:42, 36:50. (No guarantees that times more precisely than the second will be respected, but feel free to try!)
   
   
4. Make them an icon using THAT FRAME ONLY no matter what it is. And remember, you can only use that ONE episode you chose previous, even if the person posting isn't familiar with it.

From my IRA trust co., a letter dated Dec. 29 (arrived a few days ago):

Dear IRA Investor:

In an uncertain market environment—like the one we've experienced over the past several months—it's more important than ever to continue to focus on your long-term goals such as retirement. That's why we would like to remind you that you have until April 15, 2009 to maximize your retirement savings by making a contribution to your IRA account(s) for the 2008 tax year.

From my IRA trust co., a Year-End 2008 Mutual Fund Statement (arrived today):

Activity Summary

	This Quarter	Year-to-Date
Beginning Value	$3,402.22	$0.00
Additions	0.00	4,000.00
Deductions	0.00	20.00
Income	34.18	34.18
Market Fluctuation	-945.52	-1,523.30
Ending Value	$2,490.88	$2,490.88
Net Change	-$911.34	$2,490.88

Of course, the real punchline is that they're doing a good job. (:

Yeah - should be writing a paper, way behind on my flist, but this old meme active_apathy did looked fun.

Put your MP3 player on shuffle, and write down the first line of the first twenty songs. Post the poem that results. The first line of the twenty-first is the title.

So, I present:

( This flower is scorched, this film is on )

At least it's short.

Before: "Hmm, I need to take a crap. I should go to the bathroom."

After: "So I'll pack the running clothes and an empty water bottle tonight, and tomorrow morning I will stow them in my locker at the ASME lounge while I'm working. At 4 o'clock, I will knock off work, retrieve the items from my locker, and proceed to the Eppley Recreation Center. There, I will borrow a lock and a locker, change into the running clothes, and stow everything but the key to the lock and the water bottle (which I will fill before departing). This done, I will walk to the outdoor track and do intervals (400 m running, 200 m walking) until I have expended the water in the bottle. Then I will return to the ERC, shower, change into my street clothes, refill the bottle, and walk up to the Stamp to catch the 6:05 shuttle home. In the unlikely event that I am too late to catch the shuttle, I will take the bus or the subway, depending. Finis."

I amuse myself.

A number of you are probably aware of the Nomic I am associated with - nomicide. It's in that irritating between-games idle stage right now, the one where we should be trying to make new rulesets but we're just off doing our own stuff, but it's been a pretty successful Nomic while it's going, and I'm pretty proud to be involved in it. (Incidentally, if you ever want me to brag, ask me how I won the first game. It was brilliant.)

Anyway, I just opened a poll to vote for the Head of the Constitutional Convention (pretentious, eh?) where all the players could vote for any player to become Head. Being a player, I of course immediately voted myself for the players I thought would be good.

The next day, the second vote had come in (I told you it was idle), and I opened the post to see who was winning. A moment later, noticing I had two votes in the poll, I realized the horrible fact: I had voted for myself!

Imagine you're hanging out in a semipublic place, like the ASME lounge (because I just haven't mentioned that place enough). Suddenly a question springs to your mind.

"Hey, what's the capital of Alaska?"

"Juneau."

"No, it's Anchorage."

"No, Anchorage is the largest city. Juneau is the capital."

"You sure about that?"

"Yeah. Yeah, hey, remember that bit in John McPhee's book, talking about the really strong winds in Juneau?"

Et cetera.

You see that dialogue up there? That's Wikipedia.

Something occurred to me a few days ago you might find interesting. You know how a lot of people, when naming impossibilities, will say "square circles"? They're wrong.

Now, I'm going to do this right, so watch.

1. Circle: the locus of points of a fixed distance (called the radius) from a specified point (called the center).

2. Square: a polygon (closed plane figure bound by straight lines) with four sides of equal length separated by equal angles.

You got that? All right. Now consider a chessboard with a king on it - somewhere near the middle, say, so the edges don't interfere.

Now, distance on a chessboard can be defined as "the minimum number of king-steps between two points". This has all the properties of a metric in mathematics - it's a valid definition. In addition, two kinds of squares can be clearly seen on a chessboard - the kind bound by four diagonals and the kind bound by two ranks and two files.

The locus of points one square away from a king - that is, a circle of radius one - is identical to a rank-and-file square with side length two. (Yes, it's three-by-three, but lengths must be measured from center to center if we're going to be reasonable about this.) Continuing, it is clear that a circle of radius two is a square of side length four, a circle of radius three is a square of side length six, and indeed in general a circle of radius r is a square of side length 2r.

Furthermore, there is no reason why a space could not be conceived of that is the differential limit of a chessboard - a continuous plane in which distance was measured by max(Δx,Δy). You could even do a 'slow-rook' variation, where diagonal moves were not permissible and only one step could be taken along the ranks and files - in such a plane, distance would be measured by Δx+Δy and the squares would be diagonal (but still of side length 2r).

Extending the concept to three or more dimensions is left as an exercise for the reader.

Oh, and by the way: if you need a self-contradictory term, feel free to try "married bachelor". I believe that one's still good.

Mithras Card by *ursulav on deviantART - commentary on the season by ursulav on LiveJournal.

(Yeah, I got nuthin'.)