A female friend of ours had recently gotten a new job, which she was tremendously excited about but refused to share any the details of. She had, instead, invited us all up a lab she was working at to see what she did for a living for ourselves. So a group of us took the trip up north to Canada to the little lab isolated deep in the snowy hills. Most of the building was a single room -- a large, gymnasium-type room, with a glass wall looking out onto the nearby forest, and an odd pool only a few feet from the doors in the glass wall. We had gathered on the opposite side of the pool, enjoying the view of the snowfall while we waited. About a dozen scientists in lab coats also waited near the pool, around the other three sides, making small talk or taking sips of hot cocoa.

Finally, our friend showed up. When asked what we were waiting for, she directed our attention to the ceiling above the pool. Despite the rest of the room being well lit thanks to the natural sunlight coming in through the glass wall, the ceiling was almost completely dark. A confusing mess of rafters and beams could just barely be seen through the shadows. And then, suddenly, there was a crack. And then another. And then something large fell from ceiling, directly into the center of the pool. It struggled for only a moment, then stopped. Dead. Its reptilian form floated to the surface. "What a waste," our friend said tragically.

But then there was another crack, and another form fell into the water. This one shuddered, then confidently start swimming upwards, the top of its head breaching, two large fins cutting through, plotting a curvy path towards the right edge. "Oh," one of the people in our group said, still stunned, "a Chupacabra." Someone else said, "You're a cryptozoologist." Our friend beamed.

The Chupacabra had emerged from the water now. When it fell into the water, it couldn't have been more than a foot long, but now it was easily two-and-a-half. It stood bipedally, hunched over, its arms nearly touching the ground. The rest of the scientists were now forming loose walls in an attempt to herd it towards the open doors of the glass wall. Ideally, our friend explained, the Chupacabra's natural aversion to humans would make it bolt into the wilderness instantly, but occasionally one is born bold enough to try to stay behind in the heated lab. "He'll acclimate to whatever temperature he's in within the hour -- the sooner we get him out there, the better he'll fare in the cold."

They need to hatch in a warm environment (and fall into a warm body of water) to start their heart, a result of their large size. Once born, however, they can adapt to any environment, requiring only regular access to moisture. This explained the lab's location -- moisture is scarce in Mexico, forcing the Chupacabras there to drink the blood of animals to survive. In a snowy environment like Canada, though, moisture is plentiful. Even better, once acclimated to the cold, Chupacabras will shun heated buildings and campfires, keeping them far away from civilization.

This one, though, seemed determined not to leave. It was more than just bold, though, more than just torn between its aversion to the bitter cold and the wall of humans. It possessed an air of mischief, darting from one side of the pool to the other, hiding behind any scientist who got separated from the wall, leaving through one door and then darting in another before anyone could close it. Questions started to arise -- how long before it would be unable to acclimate? What would they do then? Would anyone take it in, or would they be forced to keep it? Should they keep it anyway, to study its apparent intelligence and rapport with humans?

And then it all faded away.

I just fixed the shower at my new apartment all by myself! I'm throwing a shower party to celebrate, everyone's invited.

...oh yeah, and I moved into my own apartment last weekend. This will be my first time living by myself. This place has an interesting shape, lots of sunlight, two spacious rooms, small kitchens, surprisingly few outlets and, best of all, a shower you can now shower in. I also feel I've done a fine job preparing meals with nothing but an electric kettle and an apple corer.

Send me a comment or an email if you want my new address!

http://www.tweenbots.com/

This is one of the best things I've seen in a long time.

Today, I met a possum. He was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at me. He only walked away when I tried to get some food for him out of my backpack.

Yesterday, a one-tusked walrus with titanium caps waved his shovel at me.

The day before that, I spent two hours staring at a luggage carosel. ...they can't all be winners.

Today, a crocodile watched me eat. The bill came out to exactly 666.

Today, waist-deep in the ocean, I stepped on what I thought was a placemat, only to fish up an exquisite piece of coral that had come detached from a nearby rock. I took it back to the hotel room to show it off. That night, I brought it back to the ocean to return it. When I looked up, I saw the stars were dancing and twirling in the heavens.

...after a minute, I realized what I was seeing was the white necks of circling seabirds, but the illusion of shifting stars never faded.

Also, a manta ray ate out of my hand.

Today I drew a crowd by walking down a river in a giant, inflatable ball. Well, not "walking" so much as "falling continuously" for many seconds at a time. It's not easy! They said I sold a lot of tickets, though.

I just won a bottle of Bacardi by dancing to Billy Jean in a bar in Cancun.

Hey! Who wants a postcard from Mexico?

Is that it? I think that's it! That's it, right?

Grab a beverage and raise a toast to the next four years!

I have a guest staying at my house. She had a beef patty to cook -- I selected our "meat" cooking sheet and gave it to her. We have four cooking sheets, you see: poultry, meat, fish and vegetable, to prevent cross-contamination. The beef patty went in the oven, and we went off to play some video games.

Not too long after that, we noticed the smell of something burning. Opening the stove, I discovered that her beef patty had apparently leaked something bright red (ketchup? hot sauce?) all over the damn oven. Why hadn't she used the cooking sheet?! Damn!

At this point, people with cooking experience are probably wondering why we have four cooking sheets -- it's not like cross-contamination is a problem in a 400 degree environment. It was at this point that I started to wonder this, too. It was a second later that I realized we don't have four cooking sheets; we have four cutting sheets, or more precisely we now have three cutting sheets and a toxic disaster.

Hours of ventilation and days of pretending the oven wasn't a bright red nightmare later, I managed to peel off most of the plastic still stuck to the lower rack in one, gigantic, awesome sheet. Pictures are incoming, I promise. The stuff on the bottom of the oven was recooked for 2 minutes, at which point it was soft enough to pry off with a knife and transfer to a safe place with only a few mildly scorched fingertips.

Result: one amazing conversation piece (is it alien grass? a horrible bug? a portal to hell?), one companion piece, a dozen weird splotches (50% "bleeding wall" decorations, 50% latex penis icons), one ruined meat patty. Totally worth it.

http://www.shigabooks.com/indeces/nick.html

Click on "Interactive", then "Read Book" or the image directly above it, and prepare to have your mind blown by a Choose Your Own Adventure story that puts every other CYOA story in existence to shame. It's best if you only glimpse at all the parallel and perpendicular stories that are progressing on the same page as yours.

I'm ordering a physical copy today.

Cam Clarke's Inside Out

Cam Clarke is one of those American VAs who's been in half of your favorite childhood shows. This is his music CD, covers of love songs sung from a gay male perspective. So a quick list of characters who you can now consider gay:

He-Man from Masters of the Universe,
Leonardo and Rocksteady from TMNT,
Bebop from The California Raisins (ha, Bebop and Rocksteady!),
Simba from The Lion King,
Mister Fantastic from Spider-Man (I guess we should have seen that one coming),
Liquid Snake from Metal Gear Solid,
Die Fledermaus from The Tick,
Lancer and Max from Robotech,
Littlefoot's father from The Land Before Time,
Drizzit from Baldur's Gate 2,
Hercules from God of War 2,
Thor and Daredevil from Marvel Ultimate Alliance,
and all the Blood Elves from World of Warcraft, plus Medivh for good measure.

And so many more!

Puzzle time!

Picross is a really unique kind of puzzle.

( Mechanics! )

If you'd like to try it for yourself, there's a free puzzle generator here:
http://www.puzzle-nonograms.com/
Left-click fills in tiles, right-click indicates a not-to-be-filled tile. The downside is that the puzzles are automatically generated and thus don't have pretty solutions.

There's also this:
http://www.saidwhat.co.uk/puzzleclub/hanjie.php
Which offers prettier puzzles, I imagine, but requires a registration I didn't feel like dealing with.

Or you could buy the Nintendo Gameboy or Nintendo DS versions, which are really what I wanted to talk about. See, what Nintendo did was give each puzzle a time-limit. If you fill in a tile you're not supposed to, the game blanks it out instead and issues you a time penalty: 2 minutes for the first mistake, redoubling for every future mistake. On the plus side, this prevents you from making a mistake and completely screwing up the rest of the puzzle as a result, as you would on paper. On the downside, this feature causes me physical pain. Yes, the little disappointed chirp and the 2 minute penalty makes me feel like I've been given a small electric shock to the stomach; I jolt and feel ever so slightly nauseated afterwards.

Why? I can't be certain, but I think it's because it's an intensely logical sort of puzzle, the kind where you don't touch anything until you're absolutely sure of your conclusion. To be told that I'm wrong, after making myself absolutely convinced in a tile's state, is like dropping an apple and watching it fall straight through the floor. Or perhaps more realistically, like being on a rollercoaster and having the human part of your brain believing in your safety while the vole part of your brain is convinced you're being shaken to death by an eagle. For me, it's closest to the time I looked down while riding an elevator, and realizing that it had a glass floor as my second conclusion.

But yes, I think it's because I'm so convinced that This Must Be The Way Things Are, that being told I'm wrong is like a little piece of reality shattering, and it physically pains me as much as it psychically pains me. Or maybe I'm just such a nerd that logical slip-ups are to me what zombie dogs bursting through a window are to the average gamer. If that's the case, I want a game where you try to survive for 72 hours in a mall filled with people screaming paradoxes and begging the question at you.


Edit: Speaking of conflicts with reality!

In commemoration of the service performed by Heart-Patterned Boxers.

Heart-Patterned Boxers, which served the cause bravely for eight years, expired yesterday in what experts say must have been a battle with a faulty Mexican Dryer. Heart-Patterned Boxers, which were off-duty at the time, were found afterwards with terrible lacerations across the crotchal area. It was decided the damage was too extensive for surgery, and so they were given a hero's burial among the groceries that we couldn't bring back with us the plane. A moment of silence was observed for their passing.

Heart-Patterned Boxers are succeeded by their heirs, Camo-Patterned Boxer-Briefs, and The Ones With The Fishes On Them.

Interesting story.

So basically these two brothers, both gay porn stars, were caught after a series of robberies where they cut holes in the roofs of buildings with only a handsaw and an ax, in order to steal items like cash, cigarettes and condoms. One them is described as police as a "bad, bad dude." He has a prior conviction after being witnessed running up a building's walls and doing backflips. He was then seen performing open-air, right-there-in-the-middle-of-the-street drug deals. After being caught, handcuffed, and placed in the back of a police car, he escaped. Yes, he escaped. He smashed the back window of the police car with his head, dove through the window and its steel frame (causing $1800 worth of damage to the car), landed on his face, got up, leapt into a nearby river, then swam away still handcuffed, taunting the officers as he went. A week later he turned himself in, I guess because his sense of sportsmanship told him that it wasn't fair to use his powers against mere mortals. The police handcuffs were not recovered -- actually, maybe the whole drug dealing thing was just an elaborate plot to get a realistic pair of handcuffs for one of his movies.

The only question I have is: Seriously, what the fuck.

Man, I used to support gay rights, but now I'm not sure how I feel about Supervillains getting married. One day you try kissing a boy, the next day you're terrorizing a city from your phallic hot-air balloon, jump kicking SWAT team guys off the top of it. The only thing these two were missing is a disposal horde of ultra-gay goons, and we would've had to call in Batman.

In our last update, we learned that the male gender had gone obsolete. What will they do with their new leisure time? Well, for starters they could try out the world's first commercially-available mind interface device:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7254078.stm

I really look forward to the game whose FAQ is written like a Buddhist training guide. "Focus your mind on each petal of the blossoming lotus -- that is when your mega laser does the most damage."

Of course, we may never get a chance to play Psychonauts: For Real!, if the Navy misses a ten-second window to shoot down a satellite in a decaying orbit, thereby failing to prevent the spread of deadly chemicals* across the entire planet**:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7254078.stm

(aw, crap, since I saw that link earlier, the Navy has already hit the satellite, and the story has been updated appropriately. Now there's no way I'm going to be sell all this Satellite Anxiety medication... excuse me, I need to go relabel some bottles...)


* read: somewhat noxious
** read: two football fields
*** and they actually have about ten windows, but they are all ten seconds in length

Happy Valentine's Day, everybody!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=v4Wy7gRGgeA
http://youtube.com/watch?v=LDiDK_yBCw0
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ShPAyOoOGPw
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2_ryNJVreiY

In other news, scientists are making headway on using cells taken from human bone marrow to produce sperm. They haven't actually succeeded yet, but it seems like they're on their way. When they do, it'll be possible to produce sperm from a woman's bone marrow and use that to fertilize an egg. Obviously, those sperm will all carry the X chromosome, guaranteeing a female child.

So, yes, males are about to go obsolete. It's an exciting time to live in. I look forward to telling my daughter all about how it used to be legal for a woman to marry a man, because we hadn't split the genders into Necessary and Unnecessary yet.

So you know that video game-thing Nintendo's been doing, the Wii? With the remote-waggling? The one that's been rocketing off shelves? Some guy over at Carnegie-Mellon opened one up, and figured out its secret -- that it is filled with magic. A few trips to Radio Shack later, the guy has turned the Wii into:

* A cheap way of turning any flat surface into a multi-point digital whiteboard.
* A cheap way of turning _any_ surface into an orientation-sensitive display.
* A touch-less touch screen, one you can operate with your fingers at a distance.
and, most awesomely,
* Head Tracking for VR oh my god it's 3D now how did that happen??

That last video in particular reveals that Nintendo has pulled off the most successful revenge prank in the history of electronics. What you thought was an innovating, best-selling, runaway-success console... is actually... a Virtual Boy, turned around backwards. Retroactively, they've undone their one obvious flop, and I think the gaming community needs to get on writing a mass apology card for every time we've made fun of it.

I'm also looking forward to next week, when I'm sure I'll be watching a video that starts with, "Hi, my name is Johnny Lee, and in this video I'll show you how to turn your Wii into a clean-burning jetpack or general anti-gravity generation device..."

It feels to me like Science has been going waaay too slowly recently, so I thought I'd speed things up by improving logic to allow for more rapid conclusion-reaching.

Now, we're all aware of the fallacy of "Correlation equals Causation", which is just absurd. I mean, you can look them up in the dictionary, they're way different even if they start with the same first letter and end with the same suffix. However, there is a measure of correlation between them, as any X which causes a Y is bound to be at least somewhat strongly correlated with Y.

However, the missing link Science has been questing for is that Correlation causes Causation. In any system where X and Y are strongly correlated, where X and Y are events or attributes, X will eventually be caused by Y or vice-versa. Consider the following proofs:

A) Pavlov would give his dogs food, causing them to salivate. He started to ring a bell immediately before giving them the food, causing the dogs to correlate the sound of the bell with food/drooling. Eventually, the food wasn't needed at all -- the bell alone would cause the dogs to drool. Thus, correlation caused causation.

B) Rich people are highly likely to have the attribute of being rich -- these two things are very strongly correlated. Rich people, compared to people who lack the state of richness, can get better interest rates at bank, play the stock market more fully and purchase money-making ventures, all of which would help make someone rich. Thus, the correlation between the rich and being rich creates (i.e. causes) a situation where being rich lets you make the money to become rich. Thus, correlation causes causation.

C) X and Y, where X is correlation and Y is causation, are strongly correlated. Since X is often present when Y is present and often absent when Y is absent (as proven by the fact that they are correlated), it is tempting to say they are equivalent. However, we know from logical fallacies that correlation is not causation, and thus X is not Y. Therefore, X and Y are merely correlated, and their "both and neither" relationship is explained by the fact that X causes Y, which in turn proves that correlation causes causation.
(n.b. even if it was once true that correlation did not cause causation, we know from Correlation Causes Causation that the correlation between correlation and causation has since become a causal relationship from its merely correlational one)

Now that we can use correlation as proof that causation is occuring, we should be able to arrive at conclusions leaps and bounds ahead of the stodgy old system we're used to using. I just need some of you peers to review this LJ entry (preferably with "five stars" or "A+++++++++++ would QED again") so I can submit it to a scientific journal. And do it quickly, please, I have an awesome report that's sure to kill the scheming, murderous ice cream industry for good.


(this is what I get for reading a news article about a study that claims violent video games are almost as bad for America's overall health as cigarettes)