Author: Gene

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Things I think

CTC = CIA

Sidney gave me some Cinnamon Toast Crunch recently because she had the revelation that she never eats it.  This morning I was having a bowl, right after I woke up, around 2:10, and I discovered there’s a secret code in the box art of this particular cereal.  I don’t think I have everything figured out, perhaps you guys can help me.  Let me tell you what I have so far.

The name of the cereal is displayed in four colors.  If you look at which letters are displayed in the same colors the code comes out.  The blue letters, iatcc, should be arranged ciact and clearly stand for Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) cereal test.  This just lets you know which agency is placing the code and that there is indeed a code.  I think it also implies it is used for recruiting.  Red, noon is already in order, telling an important time.  Purple, cmarc, is either March, as in the month, or ham rc, meaning ham radio channel.  If we find a clue pointing to a date, or a radio frequency, that should cinch that ambiguity.  Green, nntsu, is clearly Nun St.  Since there are probably many Nun St.’s in the world I suspect the bold Calcium and Vitamin D at the bottom is a clue to narrow it down to a specific region, probably someplace with lots of sun and calcium production facilities, like Florida.

Anyway, thought it was kinda interesting.  If you figure out any other clues let me know.  I don’t really wanna join the CIA, but it would be nice to know how to contact them just in case.

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Links Things I've learned Update

My internet is so slow

Personal: I’ve implemented a new comment system.  It should be all fancy and stuff.  I primarily did it so you guys could comment using your facebook as a login as opposed to registering for something new.  Hope ya’ll enjoy it.

Science: This is cool.  Just so you know, generally advances don’t come in 8 orders of magnitude steps.

Politics: Obama has a digg type system for making policy recommendations.  People can submit proposals, and vote on them, the most highly rated ones will be given in some big book to the President for consideration.  Who knows what that means but I voted up this proposal because it’s a good pro science anti nonsense proposal.  You should vote it up, too.

Charity: Freerice is onto my little game and has reduced the rice reward for answering questions with fewer options.  So, now I’m down to my old rate of donation again.  🙁

Entertainment: I listened to all the Stephen Fry podgrams.  He’s got quite the vocal and rhetorical skill.  I think he pretty much played himself in V for Vendetta.

Fitness: I have been on push-up hiatus due to a mysterious abdominal injury.  It seems to have healed now, though.  So today I did push-ups on my new swivel devices.  They make things significantly more difficult.  They, combined with degradation from my inactivity, take my count down to 40.  So that’s where I’m starting.  I plan to attempt to climb back up to 100 in 2 months.  We’ll see how feasible that pace is with these contraptions.

Conclusion: I’ve stayed up to see the sunrise.  It’s really not my fault.  The internet was so slow as to necessitate it.  If any of you Central people read this it’s ok to bang on my door around 1:30 if you want.  Extra sleep won’t kill me, I guess.

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Analytics

I like analytics, OK?

  • “aaron aki”
  • “like strep but not strep”
  • dan rosberry art
  • blockbuster, roseberry
  • freerice.com
Categories
Things I think

Personal Ethics

I think of myself as an ethical guy.  I donate blood, for instance, and I do so because I think it’s a duty to subject one self to pain and inconvenience if it will keep someone from dieing.  However, I don’t follow this perfectly.

The main problem is to do with my life in general.  I should be sacraficing my life and working tirelessly to become a great scientist or doctor or whatever and trying to solve the great problems of humanity.  But I don’t.  I spend my life trying to make myself happy.

Intellectually I think I would sacrifice my life in order to save others, you know, valiantly like happens in movies all the time.  I’m not positive, because how could one be, but I’m pretty sure I would.  But that’s not the same.  Death is not as big a sacrifice as a miserable life.

So, what I’ve concluded, is that I have a limit.  I’ve set an arbitrary line somewhere beyond which I’m not willing to sacrifice for my ethical beliefs.  Somewhat humbling.  I mean, I always knew I wasn’t perfect but this is a somewhat stark proof of the point.

Kinda sad.

…

I’m sure I can come up with rational sounding modifications to my ethics, or some other form of rationalization, to keep me happy, though.

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Things I think

Bush

Bush is leaving.  He keeps insisting history will remember him kindly or whatever.  But he’s been so clearly wrong on everything.  I hope in like 40 years they declassify stuff that shows he at least has special circumstances that somewhat a little justify some of the stuff he did.  I half expect it.  I mean, I’ll still disagree with almost all his major decisions, but maybe there’ll be 10%-25% clump that’s understandable.  Maybe?

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Update

I didest donatest my lifeblood… est.

I even woke up early to do so.  Pretty big sacrafice and all.  I’m cool.  The lady recognized me from last time.  Also, I got an e-mail today from the Red Cross reminding me I’m eligible to donate again today.

The way they had it set up this time you had to get ur number and sign in and read the little packet of info outside the main room.  When I was turning in the packet and getting my number a girl started to walk out the donation room, stopped, leaned against the doorframe, and then passed out.  It was pretty funny.  She came back when I was eating cookies saying she through up and wanted to get checked out to see if something was wrong or something.  She had a test or something.  /shrug  I think she could just wear the sticker and remind the professor to be nice.

The I gave myself a bit more than an hour to donate and only needed 30 minutes.  I only had about 5 minutes of waiting around time.  Actual donation time 5 minutes.  My bag of blood fell of it’s little hook onto the floor.  I’ve never seen that before.

Only other blood related event of note was that they missed my vein and had to dig around a bit.  I should just tell them which of my veins are all slippery and stuff, but it’s kinda funny to watch them struggle.

Also, I donated alongside Megan.  She was ahead of me a bit so we couldn’t race.

That is all.

Categories
Things I think

Chocolate covered Tootsie Rolls

I ate these.  I like chocolate, and I like Tootsie Rolls, so why not?  Sure it crossed my mind that Tootsie Rolls are basically already chocolate, but surely the chocolatiers know what they’re doing.

The Tootsie Rolls are indeed mini.  Smallest I’ve ever had.  I dunno. They tasted all right.  I’d rather eat a big Tootsie Roll and then a bar of chocolate, though.

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Things I think

Plot device

I think of random things that would make good areas of exploration in the form of a novel or movie fairly frequently.  I will share a recent one with the internet now.

Basic Premise:

People grow to maturity and live forever in a young, healthy state provided they do not have sex.  Sex causes the beginning of aging as we know it now, resulting in death approximately 60 years later.

Explanations/Mechanism:

Evolution has resulted in a metabolism that doesn’t trigger the aging process until after it believes reproduction has taken place.

Technology exists to allow immortality, but society demands aging and death after reproduction.

Alternatives/Considerations:

The trigger is not sex, but actual reproduction.

The trigger is imperfect, allowing one to fool the mechanism.  This could have multiple forms.  Perhaps some sort of medical treatment, like a contraceptive, or, if the mechanism of aging is imposed by the society, secreting the sexual activity from the authorities.

What if one is infertile?

What about the case of non-consensual sex?

What exactly counts as sex?  Lots of details in that I’ll just leave to you to come up with.

The fun of these, for me, is that they are interesting thought experiments.  I like to consider possible scenarios under which such a circumstance would come to be, how and why it would be maintained, and the wide reaching ramifications.  I encourage you all to do the same, and not to just stick with the obvious mundane sexual question that it all began with.

I give permission for production of creative works exploring these ideas.  I’m pretty sure I don’t have the rights, but in case you were worried about being polite or whatever.

Categories
Things I think

Junior Caramels

I purchased and consumed a candy called Junior Caramels today.  I think I’ve seen them before, but they’re relatively new, and I’d never had them before.  After an extensive 4.5 oz. taste test the verdict is that the candy definitely is sweet and doesn’t taste horrible.  However, Junior Caramels are not as delicious as Milk Duds.  If, in the past, while eating Milk Duds, you have thought to yourself, “These are aright, but I wish caramel was softer and more gooshy,” then perhaps you would enjoy Junior Caramels.  Otherwise, I stay stick with the established chocolate covered caramel classics.

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Things I enjoy Update

status report

Free weekend had I.  No homework really, yet.  Played D&D, thought about D&D, worked on D&D, read about D&D, watched movies about D&D… my 5 favorite things.  Well, not quite really, since by played I mean DM’d, but DMing is quite fun in my current situation, as well.  The gang leveled and thought they were going to defeat their arch nemesis, but were tricked by my clever placement of a different human in the dungeon.  :0

A bunch of us went swimming today.  Consequentially, I took a shower.  Strange happening was noticed recently.  It is pictured below.  There’s not a lot to see, but some of you still might not get it.  See if you can see what troubles me.

It is in a mirror... which could make it tricky

I’ll leave you all to puzzle over that.  Or at least, I think I will.  Probably totally obvious to everyone and it’s only I that would never notice if it weren’t for it being me.  /shrug

Also, listen to Stephen Fry’s podcast thing.  It’s good.  I’ve only listened to the most recent one, on language and grammar, but I suggest you check it out.  Especially you linguists out there (Donny).

I’m sure work will commence in earnest soon.  Boy how I’m looking forward to that.