Monthly Archives: April 2016

Sensory Fruit

Cooking, Idle Speculation, Puns, Science!, Thoughts on Thoughts

Warning: Fart Jokes and possibly worse.

If beans are the ‘musical fruit’, what is the ‘visually artistic fruit’? And are there fruits for the other senses?

The ‘Miracle Fruit’ (Synsepalum dulcificum) is known to interact with taste buds to make sour foods (such as itself) taste sweet.

‘D. Spinosa‘ is purported to induce visions, either from tea made from its leaves, or from its berries.

For fruit which will change your sense of smell, one needs look no further than horseradish[1]. If you don’t know what I mean, try eating some wasabi[2].

To change your proprioception, try drinking fermented grapes.

The plant Acmella Oleracea is known to cause numbness. Interestingly, it is used as a garnish in salads, as ‘small amounts of shredded fresh leaves are said to add a unique flavour to salads.‘

Stay tuned for next time, when we discuss plants as if we were horses looking for a snack!

[1]Cultivated by real horses!

[2]Really, don’t. Please.

Mauve, Movember

Fiction, Puns, Words!

He was remembering back to a simpler time, from his childhood, from before. He was unworried, free to go about his business, that serious business that children do.

Then it started to appear. It wasn’t obvious at first, but then as it grew in, it was very clear what was happening.

He was growing a purple moustache.

He was embarassed for many years, always carrying a shaver, lest anyone notice. He tried dyeing it, bleaching it, to no avail.

Then one day, in a weaker moment, he showed it to his partner.

His partner said ‘Your moustache is mauve’!

‘Mauve? I always thought it was purple!’

‘No, it’s totally mauve.’

‘Wait. I’m getting an idea…’ ‘Mauve…What goes with mauve?’

‘Mauvey Povich?’

‘Nah. Everyone knows his favourite colour would be “Burnt-Umber”.’

‘Like the “Burnt-Umber Hulk“?’

‘Exactly!’

‘Wait…I think I’ve got it.’

‘What is it? Tell me!’

‘Quick, what month is it?’

‘November? Mauvember? Movember! And I can say it’s when people grow moustaches and talk about uncomfortable and embarrassing but very important things!’

‘Like prostate cancer!’

‘Yes, that is important.’

‘And regulatory capture!’

‘Yes, that too.’

‘Early screening is important to reduce the risk of Regulatory Capture.’

‘Wow. There are some intense pictures behind that link. Are you sure that won’t break the fourth wall? And don’t you mean “reduce the risk of Prostate Cancer”?’

‘Yes, but Regulatory Capture is probably just as dangerous or more dangerous.’

‘Fair enough. So, remember folks, get your regulations…’

‘…and prostate!’

‘…checked out on a regular basis.’

‘And if your hair grows in purple…’

‘…mauve!’

‘Be proud!’

‘And get yourself checked!’

TNG: The Power of Adversaries, Season 6

Idle Speculation, Nostalgia, Space!

In our previous installments, we talked about seasons 1-5 of TNG, and the relative power of the various adversaries our intrepid heroes faced.

As before, I defined ‘high-powered’ challenges as those where firing phasers would only make the problem worse, so the crew must needs turn to guile. ‘Equal-powered’ challenges are those situations where firing phasers would lead to a toss-up. ‘Low-powered’ challenges are those where phasers or transporters would solve the problem handily[3]. ‘Self-powered’ challenges are those where the conflict is inside the crew, or between crew members, or between all or part of the crew and Starfleet.

S6: 2-102220-10-12101-1-120-1-1201-122

High: 9
Equal: 3
Low: 6
Self: 8

Season six continues the seasons four and five trend of adversaries being much more powerful than the crew, or being the crew themselves, culminating in the season finale of Data and Lore teaming up with the Borg. The Holodeck Moriarty also returns (‘capable of beating Data‘), and Scotty helps them escape a Dyson Sphere (!).

We also have a more in-depth introduction to the Cardassians ‘There are Four Lights!’, and a new robotic species!

In another more powerful/self combo, Q helps us tell the story of Picard’s artificial heart.

But my favourite, and one of the most moving of the series, is the message from the ‘Ancient Humanoids’.

Judging by the number of episodes I’ve mentioned here, I feel like season six was where a lot of things came together for the show, or maybe it was the last season I really watched.

Cross-Border Taxation and Money Laundering Incentives

Economics, Idle Speculation, Politics

So, there’s an interesting game being played by governments around the world.

From a purely game theory[1] perspective, to optimize tax income, it makes sense for governments to do two things:

1) Find all the people all over the world they can tax and tax them.
2) Convince people from all over the world to move to their jurisdiction for lower taxes

Now, if this is ‘tax avoidance‘, this is still legal[2]. But it seems to often veer into ‘tax evasion‘, which is not legal.

All this is leading up to say that while the United States is talking about tax avoidance and tax evasion around the world, it seems that Congress seems to be one of the largest stumbling blocks to solving the problem[3].

[1]I am informed that from a purely grammar theoretical perspective, ‘From a purely game theoretical perspective’ is incorrect.

[2]Although, when you can purchase laws…

[3]Note that this article tries to get more hits by using the word ‘Rothschild’.

Pink, and Purple, and Princesses, Oh My!

Idle Speculation, Politics, Teaching

This past weekend, I was at a ‘Saturday Night Meatballs'[1] event with some old friends. Amongst other things, I was watching how the children interacted with each other. There were a collection of children of various ages, from a few different families. Seeing them interacting with their parents, they were all well-loved, and each of the parents were practicing what I would consider modern parenting, setting down firm, well-defined, sensible rules, and encouraging their children to resolve problems themselves by thinking of solutions and implementing them[2].

At the same time, I saw the children self-segregating by gender, both in behaviour and location. One of the parents, talking about a female child mentioned that before they went to daycare, they were into a variety of non-gender-stereotypical things. Almost immediately afterwards, it was Pink and Purple and Princesses. For me, this was a huge stark reminder of the uphill parents face. One could see that even if all of the parents were giving their all to make a non-gender binary household at home, that a culture could persist in a playground or daycare, passed down from year to year by the children.

You can also see it other children’s behaviours. One of the girls wanted to go play with the boys, but was too afraid to go downstairs to the basement[3]. The group of girls sat downstairs for much of the afternoon/evening while the boys ran around and yelled upstairs. When the girls went up to join them, that lasted for a while, the yelling intensified, then they came down to complain about how they were being treated (which prompted the solution-finding conversations above).

I don’t have good answers, just a few observations. I’m sure this is better than it was decades ago, but there’s still a large amount of genderism that we still have to unpack as a society, and it needs to be unpacked early and unconsciously, for the sake of our children.

[1]It’s a great idea, in the tradition of eating together with family and friends to build community. There’s a great description of the ‘original’ Friday Night Meatballs here.

[2]I particularly liked this tactic. The first question is ‘Can I help you think of more options?’, to help the kids develop the coping and problem solving skills to deal with others.

[3]This could also have been because she was new to the group.

Not Just A Fort!

Fiction, Nostalgia, Puns

They sped around the corner.

“These readings are off the scale! There must be 15 of them, at least!”

“Everyone charge up! We’ll have to hit the ground running!”

“Tobin’s Spirit Guide says that only a few apparitions travel in packs this big. The good news is that the tactics are the same. The bad news is that we’ll either be facing lions, demons, or bears.”

“Oh, my.”

“Okay, we’re here! Everyone out!”

“Remember! Don’t cross the streams!”

The camera pans around. The characters walk away from their vehicle.

The characters arrive at the entrance to a park. There are loud animal noises coming from inside.

“Why is it always bears?”

“If only we hadn’t decided to set up shop in Chicago!”

“Okay, once more!”

The characters disappear into the park. Bears growl. Strange electronic noises are emitted. Silence. The characters re-emerge.

“Another success! Back home!”

The characters walk back to the vehicle, which is now visibly an overturned couch.

The camera pans around the couch, and a small rectangular sign on the side where the back of the ‘vehicle’ would be pans into view:

EKTORP-1

TNG: The Power of Adversaries, Seasons 4-5

Analysis, Internet Culture, Nostalgia, Space!, Thoughts on Thoughts

Continuing from where we left off talking about TNG: Seasons 1-3, here are the stats for the power levels of the crew’s adversaries in Seasons four and five.

As before, I defined ‘high-powered’ challenges as those where firing phasers would only make the problem worse, so the crew must needs turn to guile. ‘Equal-powered’ challenges are those situations where firing phasers would lead to a toss-up. ‘Low-powered’ challenges are those where phasers or transporters would solve the problem handily[3]. ‘Self-powered’ challenges are those where the conflict is inside the crew, or between crew members, or between all or part of the crew and Starfleet.

Seasons four and five seem to be exploring alternately how the crew deals with very strong external adversaries and wrestling with themselves.

Season Four (26 episodes): 2-120202-1221112022-122-10-11-12
High: 12
Equal: 4
Low: 4
Self: 6

“The Best of Both Worlds (part II)” and “Family” are probably the best example of this.

Or you could look at “Night Terrors” (‘One moon circles.’, still the best metaphor for Hydrogen I’ve seen) and “The Drumhead” as (for me) two other good examples.

Another example which marries the two is “Remember Me“.

Season Five (26 episodes): 21122-1110-1-10002-102-1-1-12-12-12
High: 8
Equal: 4
Low: 5
Self: 9

Season five’s “The Game” is a good example of an episode which is difficult to categorize between ‘high-powered adversary’ and ‘self-adversary’. To me, the episode is really about the crew struggling with themselves and an addiction. Else, you could see it as them struggling against magic mind-controlling aliens.

However, changing this wouldn’t really change the overall stats for the season.

“Conundrum” contains the line which was the inspiration for this series of posts: “One photon torpedo would have ended their war.” It had some excellent moments talking about the ethical use of power, I think a hallmark of TNG (and much of Star Trek).

Any conversation about season five would be incomplete without mentioning “The Inner Light“, perhaps discussing some similar issues to “Remember Me” above. For me, “The Inner Light” was the most poignant, for the way it portrayed memory and loss, nostalgia and time passing. May we all have an epitaph as powerful.

But for now, I will continue with analyzing TV from my childhood[1].

[1]And puns.

The Songs of Nuclear Wessels

Fiction, Nostalgia, Science!, Thoughts on Thoughts

A haunting melody from the deep. Chitters and sirens and cries through the water. That was what most people heard while listening to Gracie and George.

But these viewers were not people, at least not people as you would understand them.

They heard the song and heard pieces of conversation. Snippets taken out of context, tantalizing pieces of words. Pieces of words that they were trying to reassemble to understand who were the real Gracie and George.

The arguments spanned thousands of miles and dozens of years. Some called them ‘Those who traveled when none had gone before’, some called them ‘Heroes’. Some were less charitable.

But none could deny the effect their story had on their planetary compatriots.

As their planetary compatriots guided them through the ‘Great modification’, or ‘Great Uplift’, as they liked to call it, they were asked what they wanted to call themselves. They responded in song, as they always did. If one could have translated it, it might have read ‘bumpy-nosed ones’. They always did have a sense of humour, which was only enhanced by their play with the ‘long-nosed ones’, who had also received greater intelligence.

This greater intelligence had allowed them wider ranging discussions and arguments, allowing for even more interesting discussions when they would meet at the yearly underwater summit in Cape Verde.

This year, new information had been uncovered. New recordings of Gracie and George! Maybe now they would truly understand what they were trying to say, what the movie was truly about.

The

Internet Culture, Puns, Thoughts on Thoughts, Words!

Earlier tonight, I was at a dinner where awards were being presented. One of the awardees had a name with only four characters (two each for first and last name). S mentioned that this would be incredibly useful for anonymity, because you would never be findable[1].

This got us to thinking that if or when we have a child, we should call it ‘It The’. Of course to do this, we would have to change our last name to ‘The’, but since our most recent last namechange to ‘Spaceman’ that’s not as much of a stretch.

Of course, since our consulting group is called ‘the The Group’, this would make for some interesting descriptive sentences, such as:

‘The Thes of the The Group’

But we then decided that ‘The’ should be a title as well as a last name[2], leading to:

‘Sarah The, the The, and Bryan The, the The, the The Thes of the The Group.’

You’re welcome.

-S&B The.

“Ruining Language.”

[1]’findable’, or ‘findeable’?

[2]cf. ‘Thane’

Treenuts.

Character Classes, Fiction, Games!

They thought she was crazy. She would hide in trees, then wait for the correct moment, then leap down, drop acorns and nuts on unsuspecting passers-by, then run away giggling.

But somehow, they could never find her. There would always be some obstacle in the path, perhaps a horse-drawn carriage, perhaps one of the Central Park dog walkers, perhaps a squirrel that would chitter at you, distracting you just long enough for her to get away.

Sometimes she would sit outside and just watch the rainbow, the rainbow of brightly coloured birds and people’s clothing. Sometimes the rainbow of fruit flavours. Rainbows were tricky like that. Variegated by definition. The fruit of rainbow flavours sounded like it would also be delicious, but no one ever talked about that. Why was that?

Oh! More unsuspecting passers-by! Time to go!