Assume an Olympic-level sprinter with a 20m pole that, through dint of great training, is able to run 80% of the speed of light. We have cunningly designed the doors of a 20m barn to register when the ends of the pole hits them. Label the front end of the pole Pf and the back end Pb, and the barn doors Bf and Bb.

From the sprinter’s point of view, the barn is length contracted and will only be 20m * 0.60 = 12 meters long, so the pole will not fit into the barn. The ordering of the events will be:

whereas from the barn’s point of view, the pole is length contracted to only 12m long and the ordering of the events is:

Note that the ordering of the events appears different in the different reference frames: to the pole vaulter, the front door of the barn closes after the back of the barn has been hit, whereas to a barn observer, the front door of the barn closes before the back of the barn has been hit.

Let us say that we try and make a murder mystery of this (which, incidentally, is how this whole article came about). A villain has put the pole vaulter’s loved one at the back end of the barn and has cunningly designed a mechanism such that when the front door closes (i.e., Pb leaves Bf), a laser will fire at the back end of the barn. But there is one chance to save her: if the back end of the barn is touched (Pf touches Bb), then we shall put up an ablative shield to save the sprinter’s paramour.

Fortunately, she is untouched. From the barn’s point of view, the shield goes up at 25 (t*c) and she is hit by the laser only afterwards at 35 (t*c). From the pole vaulter’s point of view, the shield goes up at 15 (t*c) and she is hit by the laser at 37 (t*c).

Phew!

But now postulate a fiendish device that is able to communicate instantly, bypassing speed of light limits. When the front door of the barn closes, we will send a signal to the back of the barn telling a bomb to go off. The bomb is only disarmed when the back of the barn is touched by the pole. What happens then?

From the pole vaulter’s point of view: the bomb is disarmed at 15 (t*c), so even though the bomb is triggered at 25 (t*c), our heroine is safe. However, from the barn’s point of view: the front door is closed, and the bomb triggered, at 15 (t*c), which is before the back of the barn is hit at 25 (t*c). Therefore, the heroine dies.

So, the addition of faster-than-light communication turns the (fake) Barn Paradox turns into a (real) Barn Bomb Paradox.

I think that instead of having people stressing over the exact wording of something, we instead allow:

[[Statement of actual message]]

Upon reading something that is bracketed like such, the reader will automatically fill in all the flowery speech that makes the message as intended. Think of how much time and effort this will save!

I know that this seems a little unclear, so let me give an example. Think of how much time it would take to craft:

Dear Kim, it has been an honor and a privilege to have known you for these past few months. I have treasured the times that we have spent together, and have always found it a great comfort to know that whenever I want to see you I can look out my window as you sleep in your car to “watch out” for me. Nonetheless, I think our time is not now; it is in the past, or in the future, or in an alternate timeline, or maybe a different planet; in any event, it is not for mortal man to know. I think that we need to follow the dictates of our inexorable will and separate for a time, as a seed may separate from the flower, so that we can each find the right soil for us, and blossom, and bloom; and perhaps, at some time in the future, if I make a mistake and we happen to find soil on the same continent, our roots may again intertwine.

versus:

Dear Kim,
[[romantic flowery speech here]]
[[gentle breakup message here]]
[[implication-laden paragraph that communicates that I never want to see you again, and that I would like you to obey the court order]]
[[tender closing that leaves you not wanting to stalk me, like you did your last boyfriend]]

Tell me that’s not better! Same message communicated, much more efficiently, and if the recipient does their job with regards to the double-bracketed items, it is written perfectly for the intended audience.

[[hilarious side-story here]]

[[clever segue into touching story that compels you, if female, to want to have my babies]]

[[funny yet bittersweet closing here that has you smiling wistfully for the rest of the day]]

Recently I got a note on the car:

I was tempted to call him and complain about his punctuation, but I decided not to — I mean, what was the point? But I shudder to think how this poor grammar-challenged boy is going to go through life:

Dear Admissions Board:

I would like to be considered for your doctorate “program.” It is no doubt that your “college” provides the finest “education” that money can buy.

Dear Julie:

I “love” you with all my heart. There is no doubt that you are the perfect “woman” for me. I will always be “faithful.”

Dear Mr. Throckemeyer:

I have been here for three years working for your “company,” and have been “working” diligently. I think you will find that my “performance” more than justifies a raise.

Really, punctuation is key!

Do you know what I’m talking about? That time-is-meaningless, flowing state that you reach when your in the midst of a creative process: the one where the hours seem drift by you as insubstantially as a breeze, where you look outside and are astonished to realize that it’s dark, you haven’t eaten, and that you’ve been totally wrapped up in your creative process.

Everyone has the capability — I think that we all have it as children, and many people seem to lose it as they grow older. (Or do they? Maybe everyone else has their own secret life, and when they go home and work on their hobbies they are happily enmeshed in their own alpha state — but if so, they never talk about it.) It’s what keeps engineers so addicted to their jobs, keeps starving artists alive, keeps children happily occupied with a box of crayons and some paper.

I have been reaching amazing stretches of alpha state, working on my startup/project/web-site, about which I am not ready to talk about. But while I’ve been amazingly productive, I have noticed two unfortunate things:

• Being in my alpha state for such long periods of time predisposes me to avoid other people. This is horrible, I know: I enjoy people immensely. Nonetheless, being in my head for such long periods of time makes me used to the high-bandwidth communication of my local bus, so to speak; it’s an effort to try and drop down into real time to talk with people. (Note that I’m not claiming to be more intelligent or faster thinking than anyone else, but really, it’s much slower to talk with other people than talk with yourself, right?)
• For some reason, my most creative periods are when my personal life is the crap. In looking back, whenever I’m immensely happy with whomever I’m with, it turns out that I’m not as creative, not as productive. Perhaps this is why all the great artists were tormented. Scientifically, it makes me wonder if I picked up another bad habit, like drinking, that I could be super-creative and have a decent relationship, as long as I balanced it off with a nightly bender. I have neither the guts nor the stomach to try that, however.

Discovered a whole mess of bees clustered around a small hole in the wall, and in a flash I realized what all the symptoms were pointing to: I had a beehive in my wall.

I had to get rid of them, but I was a little hesitant to use poison. For one, it seems ecologically sacrilegious. For two, I’ve heard that if the bees ever manage to make their way back into the original location, the pesticides will make them cranky and more aggressive. Finally, well… aren’t bees good luck? You shouldn’t poison your good luck!

Started calling around to companies to see what it would cost to get them removed. Called a place that advertised “Live Bee Removal,” and they said that they would have no problem coming out and exterminating them for about $600. I said, “Huh? Isn’t there a way to get rid of bees without poisoning them?” This guy, with 30 years of experience, said, “No, I’ve never heard of one.”

Which seemed strange, so I went to the Google-mind and found a link on removing bees nests without poison, but it seemed more than I could handle, not having ready access to beekeeping equipment. However, once again I am struck with the awesome power of the Internet: it allows me to know very quickly obtain a little knowledge about almost anything. Enough for a five minute party conversation, anyways.

Called around some more, and finally reached a guy that said that he removed them with his hands and released them elsewhere, so no problem. In talking with him I was a little hesitant, but finally asked him to come by whenever he could. He came by a couple of days afterwards, took a look at it and said that it was no problem.

He came by, ripped a hole in the wall, and started moving the bees to the bee boxes:

So, the lesson to be learned? Not one, really, unless it’s “call around until you find the right guy,” as it is possible to remove bees in an ecologically friendly and poison-free manner. Bottom line, though I just thought it was kind of neat, and decided to post the pictures.

Update: Bees are indeed good luck. From “The Encyclopedia of Superstitions”:

Bees in antiquity were sacred as divine messengers and foretellers of the future… It was long considered sacrilegious to kill a bee because of its holy character, and it is still thought to be unlucky in many districts. Bees are, or were, regarded as the wisest of insects, having knowledge of the future and many secret matters.

Him: No, no, no, don’t buy a Compaq or an HP notebook.
Me: Huh? You work there.
Him: I know, and I hear the stories about how they cut costs. I wouldn’t buy one.

Nonetheless, it was just to hard to pass up — the laptop had a beautiful 16″ screen and a very reasonable price. I got her home, and it was blissful, at first. She was very fast, if perhaps a little glitchy and a little temperamental: if you shook the computer a little bit, the computer would reboot (not ideal for a portable computer!) and the DVD playback was a touch fuzzy. But… on the whole… at that point I had committed, and really, it was nothing that I couldn’t handle, and there was that beautiful screen. A nice screen will make you put up with a lot of idiosyncracies.

But I kept having problems with not being able to type correctly on the keyboard, which was driving me crazy, and I figured it was just me getting used to the new keyboard. But the more mistakes I made, the more I started wondering, until finally I took the time and figured it out — when you hit two keys fast enough, they swap! This would explain why I kept typing “Il’l” and “hte” all the time.

That this bug escaped the quality control is crazy. I tried calling the technical support, wanting to ask about BIOS updates and the like, but my experience was very bad: they didn’t know what I was talking about, and then they told me that they wouldn’t support the computer since it was purchased at a retail store!

Well, I just couldn’t take it any more. The screen was a delight, but I’m not going to enter into a relationship with a laptop if I can’t communicate properly with it, so I took it back to Fry’s (and, to their credit, they took it back without any fuss). So, now, I’m carefully considering my next laptop.

I’ve been burnt, you see, and am now cautious.

We’re all basically operating blind here on Planet Earth, at least with respect to knowing how other people perceive us. It is the rare adult that doesn’t have at least three or four misconceptions of themselves and their role in the universe and how their actions are affecting others.

Feedback between human beings is basic communication, yet most people don’t do it well. They are inclined to be too harsh, or shut down and not give it at all. Now that I think about it, though, most people don’t take it well, either; learning to listen to feedback is as tricky as skill as learning to give it, I think. Nonetheless, unless we are sprung out of the heads of the Gods knowing exactly how to act, these skills seem necessary for anyone that wants to try and improve their dealings with other people.

But, given the choice between no feedback and harsh feedback, I’ll take the harsh feedback any day. Rail against me, tell me that I suck, describe in minute detail my flaws and idiosyncracies, and I’ll try to take away something that I can use: at least you care enough to communicate, even if the communication is badly done.

No communication, in my book, is far far worse… it’s the silence of complacency, the death of interaction.

I had lost the stylus that I had ordered for my incredibly obscure computer, an Intermec 6651 — incredibly hard to find, but the perfect writing machine. At any rate, I couldn’t find any styli locally, and it was getting to be a pain using the back of my finger, so by the magic of the Internet I found a place that had them and ordered 4 styli for my computer. So, yesterday my styli arrived:

Not a problem, but this is what they decided to use to package this stylus:

Yes: one large box, three huge pieces of filler paper, some more sheets of paper for the packing slip (with an extra copy, in case, well, just in case, I guess). All for one small four-inch stylus.

And, the kicker? The thing that makes me feel like humankind should just gently roll over and let the next species take over? They only shipped me one out of the four I had ordered. Yes, that’s right, I could potentially have up to three more boxes coming.

I’m taking a traffic safety course in order to get rid of my horribly unjust ticket, and I decided to do it online. It rocks, at least in terms of getting-me-through-quickly, as opposed to making-me-learn-something. I whipped through the entire course in about two hours, the proctored exam takes an hour, so for three hours of effort you end up removing a point from your record — really, how can you beat it?

But, the people who do this test must be a little strange. They wander from assuming the audience are raving idiots:

Question: What is the first thing you do after an accident?
Answer: Stop.

… to assuming they’re brilliant physics majors…

Question: It takes 100 feet for a car travelling 35mph to stop. How many feet will it take a car travelling 50mph? Possible answers are 100, 150, 200, 250
Answer: 200 feet. (You see, it’s not a linear relationship with speed)

There are some segments in the test that make you wonder what the hell they think they’re trying to say:

…so the safe thing to do on a freeway is to change lanes all the time? Never get on it? What message do they think they’re communicating?

Drama, People

Since I can put a reasonably grammatical sentence together after a couple of false starts, I arrogantly believe that I can improve on other people’s stories. But, really, they could spice up their curriculum and make it more educational. For example, listen to the sad story of Mary:

We can see the story arc, no?

And, finally…

Huh? We were building up to this classically tragic tale, and instead it’s entirely anticlimactic: in her hubris, Mary had decided that she was immortal, had made bad driving choices, and the gods decided to punish her by… giving her a bad habit? Now, the story would have been much more memorable with:

Now, that’s a lesson that will be remembered.

• Low-fives: after a good play, you congratulate the other players on your team by hitting your hands together. Your hands should be about waist-level; “high fives” mark you as a clueless neophyte. The idea is to do it as if you are completely exhausted from your hard playing, but feel the need to exert yourself to keep up team morale, so you want to do it offhandedly and with minimal vigor.
• Never say, “Mine, mine!” or “I’ve got it!” These mark you as an amateur. Instead, say only “I got” or “I go.”
• If you blow a play, never say “I’m sorry” or anything like that. These mark you as an ineffectual dweeb. Instead, simply say, “My bad.” Note that this excuses almost anything. If you knock the ball particularly badly and it hits an elderly lady watching, causing her dentures to dislodge so that she chokes to death, horribly and painfully, while her three beloved grandchildren stare in horror, all you have to do is say, “My bad,” and the grandmother’s relatives will all smile and nod knowingly and not be angry.
• Never hit the ball directly. Instead, volleyball with fanatics plays like this: first person hits it to the center front line. Center front line pops it up in the air to left or right front line. Left or right front line drives it down for the point. This means:
  • The second hit always belongs to the center front line, unless he or she yells “Help!”
  • When your team is serving, the center front line needs to be facing away from the other team, towards his own players. This makes you feel like some huge mark just waiting to get hit by the ball, but really, it works better.
• Finally, you can get by for a long time not knowing anything about beach volleyball. Every time you play badly or miss the ball or let it hit you on the head, just shake your head and mutter something about not being used to playing on sand. This can get you through one or two games, easy, before they start to realize that you’re probably not used to playing on grass, either.

Despite everything, despite the rampant commercialism and questionable policies and idiotic politicians, I still think that this country is one of the greatest in the world. Two hundred years ago, three great experiments were forged in the crucible of a single revolution: a Constitutional democracy, a capitalistic economic system, and a liberal immigration policy.

Not to say that there weren’t forerunners of these, of course; certainly, Greece had pioneered democracy many hundreds of years before, and the economic system also depended on the emergence of the industrial revolution, and whatnot. But the combination was unique.

Walk around in California, and you’ll see many amazing things: a tech and biotech industry which, even hobbled by the .crash, is testimony towards the effectiveness of a capitalistic system. Would consumer electronics and the World Wide Web have come about as quickly, progressed as speedily, if the engine of capitalism was not driving it?

Every possible culture is here, and I am the richer for it in ways that I probably cannot even enumerate or realize. Further, while the Constitution gets modified and stretch and twisted, it nonetheless is amazing that a country could begin with the presumption that there are unassailable human rights; that is, the country began by voluntarily limiting its powers.

More than anything, the country lucked out with a background and cultural patterns that have given us the chance to build something amazing here. If I’m walking down the street and see some soldiers, I don’t have to be afraid. There has never been an internal military takeover of the country, and it says something to the cultural patterns that we’ve grown up with that such an occurrence is not worrisome[1]. This security, this basic level of trust in our courts and military and people, has enabled us to concentrate on other things.

With fortune comes responsibility; so, what role can America play in helping make the world a better place? There are so many things to improve on… certainly, there is inequality and strife within and without. It is so hard to find politicians of what America should be… the politics in the past twenty years seem to be more about preservation of American power than about how America should lead, not bully, other nations into improving the world situation. Perhaps a politican with such a clear view would be unelectable, but I am not that cynical, not yet.

Happy Fourth of July, everyone.

A man, a plan, a canoe, pasta, heros, rajahs, a coloratura, maps, snipe, percale, macaroni, a gag, a banana bag, a tan, a tag, a banana bag again (or a camel), a crepe, pins, Spam, a rut, a Rolo, cash, a jar, sore hats, a peon, a canal– Panama!

- Guy Steele Jr., CLTL2

Well, guys pay me to be their girlfriend. I write them romantic e-mails, send them pictures, call them occasionally, tell them how much I miss them and need them in my life.

Needless to say, I was surprised by this. It seemed an interesting variant of sex lines, so I asked her a couple of questions.

Me: What kind of clients do you have?
Her: Oh, all kinds. Lots of soldiers and salesman — you know, guys that travel a lot. I have one or two gay clients that want a good cover. Some geeky college kids that can’t get a girlfriend on their own.
Me: Do you ever meet them?
Her: Usually not, I have strict rules about that. It’s just too wiggin’. But once I met a guy’s parents when he was in Italy — they wanted to meet his girlfriend. I think they were afraid that he was gay. That was a special service, though, I don’t usually do that.
Me: Do you like it?
Her: Oh, sure. I mean, it pays pretty well, and it isn’t much work. I mean, once you’re keeping one guy happy with romantic e-mails, it isn’t too much more work to keep ten guys happy. Guys are really easy to keep happy, they aren’t too demanding. I want to become a political speech writer, I figure this is good practice.

I asked for her website (just out of curiosity, really), but I’d forgotten it by the time I picked up my latte and went out the door. On first analysis, I thought: how sad.

But on second analysis, I’m thinking: how much? It might very well be cheaper than dating.

Tom: Hey, Bob, is that a large cup?
Bob: Surely is, Tom, surely is. Biggest cup I’ve ever had.
Tom: Yes, that is one large cup.
(silence)

The only reasonable scenario I came up with was that she has made friends with a heretofore unsuspected clan of 20′ giants, and she is making a present to the chief.

And, if we’re on the subject of bad presents, you don’t want to get me started on those talking fish things, trust me.

One more note: I use my Starbucks ™ card when I buy coffee. They always want to give me a slip of paper that tells me how much I have left on the card. I read it and then approximately five seconds later throw it away. If they would just change the registers to display the amount left on the card, we could cut down on that paper. I guess it’s just another example of ecologic responsibility from Starbucks “Cut-Down-Every-Tree”[2] corporate operations.

Okay, enough ranting about the Green Mermaid already.

(Pretty close to reality. Very scary).

• Card or cash? Do I have enough cash?
• Shoot, I forgot something.
• I wonder if I’m going to make it to the gym tonight?
• Wow, look at her. What kind eyes. And such a sweet face! I wonder what happen if I said hello and we looked into each other’s eyes and fell instantly in love and stayed together forever. How nice that would be.
• Does anyone actually ever read those magazines?
• Am I eating enough broccoli?
• Do I have enough cash?
• Wouldn’t it be scary if I used my bank card and there wasn’t enough to cover this?
• It’s so strange that quantum entanglement can’t be used for superluminal communication. I need to find that paper by Eberhard.
• Need to call dealer to set up appointment for my car.
• I wonder what everyone else is thinking?
• Wow, look at her. What an intense stare. She’s probably thinking something deep and profound. I wonder what it would be like to ask her to dinner, and sit across the table and look into her eyes in the dim light of the candles.
• Am I eating enough fiber?

Experiments

When I’m thinking, sometimes I’m not paying attention to the expression on my face.

Bear along with me, this is going somewhere.

So, I’m meet a friend for coffee, and she said something funny, and we’re walking along and I’m thinking about all the things that I need to do, and I forget to pay attention to the expression on my face. So, it turns out that instead of my normally dour expression I am instead walking around with a smile on my face.

But, what is really interesting was the reactions people to me — cashiers, people sitting down at the coffee shop, so on and so forth. I remember thinking, “Why is everyone being so friendly today,” when my brain finally got wind of what my face muscles were up to, and I realized, “Well, I’m walking around with a smile on my face, how strange.”

I think that I get so caught up in the day to day worries that I forget to focus on the here-and-now; but it’s all here-and-now, in the end. So, this is the experiment I propose:

Try to go through an entire day focusing on every person you meet. Go up to the cashier at Starbuck’s, look them in the eye, say hello to them, actually care how they respond; smile at them. Try to make every encounter with every person you meet something special. Sure, many people might not react; for example, surly teenage boys seem to be immune, unless perhaps you have breasts and are under 25. But otherwise, try to elicit a non-standard reaction from your standard encounters.

You’ll be amazed.

Busy “real girls” need smart food choices for nutrition-on-the-run. Here are a few quick, easy and tasty combos — guaranteed to give an energy boost for rollerblading, homework, music lessons, dance classes — and everything else you love to do:

• A tortilla wrap with slices of lean roast beef and Swiss cheese
• A barbeque beef sandwich on a roll, an apple or fresh juice
• A bowl of chili with cornbread muffin and water and pepper strips
• A taco salad with strips of lean beef and an orange
• An English muffin pizza with ground beef crumbles and melted cheese

I also loved the games they included that just happen to mention meat:

Where does it stop? No doubt the beef council pays young boys to lurk in the chat halls of the web site, cajoling young girls into a high-fat, cancer-causing diet:

DiZzIe: 18/f
Drumstick: 19/b. what u doing?
DiZzIe: hanging wif friends. u?
Drumstick: eating big juicy hamburger. mmmm! u should have one. lol
DiZzIe:: lol
Drumstick: i luv girls that eat hamburgers. lol.

Okay, maybe not. But it is hard to imagine the thought process that goes into the creation of web sites like this. I mean, money was spent on this thing. I imagine some offsite somewhere where a bunch of normally intelligent people looked at market trends, saw the limited penetration among young teenage girls, saw that young vegetarians grow up to be older vegetarians… and then deciding to hit the problem head on.

Spam I Get

Paragraph from Russian mail-order-bride site:

American women can have attitudes that are difficult to deal with. They are often demanding and hard to please. Russian women on the other hand are so unspoiled. In many less-developed countries, like countries of the former Soviet Union, women have a much lower social status than men. Russian men are often abusive and disrespectful toward women. This is what Russian women are used to. Compared to that, the life you can give her will make her so happy and grateful. Russian women tend to be devoted adoring wives.

Good lord! How could any of these marriages ever work? From the male’s point of view, how would you know that the woman wanted to be with you as opposed to just using you for a green card? From a woman’s point of view, well, I guess you would just know that the man wanted you for companionship and sex and not necessarily because of your inner beauty, but maybe that’s an acceptable trade to live in America.

To view this document, which is in PDF format, you must have Acrobat Reader 4.0 or later installed on your system.

Get it?

Not my usual thing, maybe, but Wendy asked me along, and given the fact that I didn’t have anything else to do, I went. It is a decidedly… liberal crowd. I mean, I’m liberal, but these guys are on the far far left. Their basic premise was that food should be grown locally and that the WTO was the bastion of Satan.

I’m summarizing, a little bit, but that’s pretty much it. The problem with the talk, as with many of these kind of partisan things, is that they are convincing to the already convinced but a little short on information that might sway an unbiased rational person. For example, one figure they gave:

• Average subsidy for top 10% largest farms : $50,000
  
• Average subsidy for bottom 10% largest farms: $5,000
  

Oh! That’s horrible, you think — clearly the government is supporting the large industrialized farm complexes… until a second later, when the obvious question comes to mind: what is the average subsidy per acre? It is possible that the smallest farms are actually getting more subsidy, per acre. But the question is left unanswered, and indeed, even unasked.

At any rate, I had a nice time, picked up some brochures, and went to dinner with Wendy. In reading the brochures about upcoming events I found a paragraph that pretty much exactly typifies the crowd that attends these meetings:

April 4 � “Rites of Spring: Tending the Inner Garden.” Join Larissa Keet as she guides us through a Celebration of SOL food (SOL = “Seasonal/Organic/Local”) with gardening metaphors, music and Dances of Universal Peace.

Dances of Universal Peace? Really, it’s perfect.

Really, this is getting ridiculous. What makes this particularly bad is that I was going exactly 65. I mean, it was late (10pm) on 85N, and really, you don’t speed in that sort of situation anyways. I was driving along, windows down, enjoying life, when I saw a policeman pull behind me.

I checked my speed, and I wasn’t too bothered, because I knew that I was going the speed limit. I wasn’t even too bothered when he pulled me over, figuring it must be a mistake.

“Officer?” I said, very confused.

“I clocked you doing 82,” he replied.

Life stinks, sometimes. I mean, I always fess up when I’m going over the speed limit, figuring that being a policeman ranks as one of the all time suckiest jobs in the universe. Nonetheless, with the massive amount of points on my record, I’ve been trying to be good… and I was driving exactly the speed limit… and I still get pulled over!

I have to say it: I was framed!