The
Laboratory
Statistics
Statistics is a field of maths
that gets a whole pile a information about the beautiful and unique lifestyles
of a myriad of people, and combines it into a boring graph that makes no
sense and defines no one person. So for each person who reads the graph
no one person will derive enough out of the information to make the information
worth reading. Another use of statistics is prediction. A dice is rolled
20 times and comes up six each time if you were to bet on the next roll
it would not come up six. Statistics doesn't describe the universe. It
distorts it and tries to tell you that there isn't some over-ruling plot
upon which we are just passengers. Statistics is simply a theory that makes
it more amusing to all concerned when you roll a seven on a six-sided dice.
Fun as the Overriding
Desire
Freud believed that sex governed
all actions in human existence. He felt that each psychological complex
that a person might have was somehow based on how they dealt with sex.
Psychologists have more recently decided that there are in fact 15 desires
that combine to make each human being unique. I protest this complex system
and propose that a desire for fun is what drives humans on. Following is
a list of the 15 desires and examples of why they themselves are simply
different ways of embracing fun.
Curiosity - "How
can I have fun with this?"
Food -
"I would like to buy a happy meal"
Honour (morality) -
Being morally poor makes us the bad guy. Popular culture tells us that
the bad guy always dies. Death stops us from having fun.
Rejection - "Can
I have fun with you?" "No, Fuck off"
Sex - If
sex isn't fun you're not doing it right.
Physical exercise - "If
I look buff people will have sex with me" (see sex)
Order (desire for organisation)
- "I don't want anything unexpected to stop
me from having fun"
Aversive sensations (pain and anxiety)
- If you're in pain you're probably not having
fun. If you're not having fun, you're probably quite anxious about when
you will have fun.
Vengeance -
"You shall pay for preventing me from having fun"
Social Contact - "Let's
all have fun with each other, then you can be my eyewitness to how much
fun I'm having"
Independence -
"My curfew is when I say my curfew is. Now get the fuck out of my house
Dad!"
Social Prestige -
"My Dodge Viper is much more fun than your pissy little Kingswood"
Citizenship - "They
won't let me have fun in my country, can I live in yours"
Family -
Some people get on with their families I've heard and so if you did you
could theoretically have fun, I guess"
Power -
<clap clap> "Bring me something fun!" |
**** Old Stuff ****
Perspective
Have you ever noticed how women,
when they look at themselves will say 'oh, I look fat' whereas most men
look at themselves and go 'oh, look at how buff I'm looking today, grr'?
This is because of perspective. Mirrors are discounted because they show
the exact opposite of what everyone else sees. (Think about it). When you
look down at yourself you see great big arms and torso tapering away to
tiny little legs and feet. Because your feet are further away they look
smaller. So a woman will look at her large torso and arms and assume it
to be fat. A man will look at his biceps and go "Wow! My bicep is, like,
four times bigger than my hand and my hand is huge (at least it is when
I have a closer look) so my biceps are enormous. I am so buffed." And then
he will strut around making grunting noises. One phenomenon that is not
explained by this is the fact that some women think that their bottoms
look big. There is a simple explanation for this. These women are 'FAT'
heifers.
Shopping
The odd thing
about shopping is the differences involved when regarding men and women
doing it. A woman shopping is a little like, a boat cruise. Lazily drifting
down river, occasionally stopping at the bank (no pun intended). No real
purpose, they simply do it for the sheer enjoyment of it. Men do not shop
like this. Men shop like Apache helicopters. They send recon out. They
get the facts. (i.e. what they want, how much it costs). They prepare themselves.
Then 'BANG" like a surgical strike. The actual operation takes less than
six minutes. Ironically, if men could take napalm with them when shopping,
they would.
Time
One of the most interesting things,
I think, about time is how well the English comprehend how it works. This
is very important when writing science fiction and, more specifically writing
about time travel. Look at some of the common examples. Red Dwarf, the
Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, Doctor Who, Twelve Monkeys. They all
show a complex notion of time and how it fits together, especially when
compared to the Americans who just love showing people in shiny suits running
around meeting there own ancestors (or descendants) who, mysteriously,
look exactly like themselves. Linear time itself doesn't really exist.
It is simply a way of acknowledging what your senses are telling you, what
you know already and what you don't know yet. (What you've forgotten is
not really the point of the exercise and you shouldn't have been
drinking that heavily anyway). It is also important to recognize that `now`
doesn't really exist in a practical way either. `Now` exists for a nothingth
of a second in time. It is infinitely small. Passage through time exists
by means of an infinite amount of `now's occurring one after the other.
At the same time that `now` is infinitely small it can also be argued that
by its very nature it is always `now` and thus it is infinitely large as
well. This is a painful concept to digest so, to summarize, the dictionary
definition to `Now`
Now -
After then. Before later.
The Millennium Bug
All computers have
an internal clock. To save time some clever dick from years ago decided
that rather than let the computer keep up with events on a proper chronological
time scale he'd save time by just using the last two digits of the year.
It did not occur to him that the year 2000 would occur within 500 years
(I'm guessing at the time internal clocks were invented, I wouldn't know
so I'll give myself 500 years lee-way. I'm fairly sure computers were not
invented before the middle ages). At any rate that means that when
the year 2000 ticks around many computers will suddenly display the date
as 1st of January 1900. Stock markets will freak. Newsletters will be incorrect.
But the big problem is air craft. Their internal clocks will propose that
the date is 1900, three years previous to the invention of the aeroplane.
The plane will see the time, conceive that it doesn't exist then promptly
vanish.
Four Dimensional Space
It is proposed that we exist in
a three dimensional universe. This is not true. The dimensions are just
a way of perceiving space/time. Humans can truly only see in two dimensions.
We can measure width ( I could quite easily replace that with height or
depth) but we cannot SEE it. If I asked you to describe someone's width
you would be reduced to using abstract concepts like centimetres. We can
see in 2D space. Each individual eye can get an impression of width and
height. You can see and describe all of a photograph for instance. Now
the third dimension. People like to think that we see in the third dimension
but pick up a 3D object and hold it up in front of you. Describe to me
it's colour, its shape. Now describe the back of it. Ah. You can't can
you? Thus you cannot see in three dimensions. Stereo vision can give the
illusion of depth just as memory can give the illusion of time. Time, the
fourth dimension. It is proposed that a fifth dimension exists (or at least
a fifth way of looking at reality) that of multiple universes where everything
that could possibly happen, happens. I like this idea because if I screw
up this life there are still an infinite amount of universes that I won't
have screwed up in.
Virtual Reality Goggles.
These are a device that allow you
to 'enter digital worlds'. An amazing prospect, so why aren't there any
around? Well here's the problem. Virtual Reality Goggles make a lot of
people motion sick. Why? Here's the deal. I put the goggles on and my brain
starts getting messages about what I can see. There is the Horizon, there
is a dragon (eek), there is a table. My Inner Ear, on the other hand is
happily sitting inside my head saying 'No wait, the horizon's over here.'
Now my brain analyses both sets of data. 'Hey,' it thinks 'I'm getting
two sets of data for where the Horizon is. I must be poisoned, remove all
toxins! PURGE! PURGE!'
Cloned Sheep.
What's the point?
All sheep look the same anyway. Can you imagine the day it was finally
finished.
We have now successfully
cloned this sheep. I present to you 'Dolly' the exact double.... Um ..
Which one is it? That one? No, Um That one? Oh for gods sake people Why
didn't you clone a Border Collie?
Micro-Biology.
I was talking to a Micro-Biologist
the other day. I mentioned that it must be a lot easier working with little
tiny animals because you wouldn't need sheep dogs to herd them. She responded
that although there are much smaller they multiply really quickly. I now
have a wonderful mental image of a petrie dish overflowing with little
teeny tiny cows.
Genetic Engineering.
This is a marvellous
technique that, hopefully will allow us to breed little tiny cows so we
can keep them around the house instead of cartons of milk. Of course the
cows will have to be able to provide the same amount of milk but through
the process of Genetic Engineering we should be able adjust that as well.
Imagine being able to open up the cupboard to a little feeding pen pick
a cow up by the scruff of it's neck, squirt some milk into your coffee
then just plonk it back into the cupboard.