Finally!

I've wanted to make this comparison for the longest time.


Meng


Azusa

Here's a thought

The Greeks always depicted their soldiers garbed in nothing but bronze helmets fighting an ostentatious and over-clothed Persian army. The Trojans were portrayed in this manner too.

Of course in actuality, the Greeks were more strongly armed than their counterparts, clad in heavy bronze versus the wicker and leather of their Persian opponents.

If you look at this way, then you could argue that Miller's 300 is actually tongue in cheek to how the Greeks viewed themselves. A contemporary reductio ad absurdum of the Greek vantage!

Though the more likely explanation is that Frank Miller is a bigot and fetishist for overly masculine men.

Next time: Through deconstructionism, I establish that King Leonidas and his escorts are in fact flaming homosexuals.

Good Enough

I think I'm ready to draw my Kim Pine fanfic now!


Not actually.

A critique of selected Chinese history

God damn it, Qing dynasty; I knew we should've teched to Rifling.

Why didn't we build Scotland Yard with our Great Spies earlier?

What would've been a good way to solve the trade surplus was to trade tea for guns.

As opposed to tea for opium.

+1 relations with Victoria.

M. Night Shyamalan!? Ffffuuu-

I want to go say outright that I'm not a huge stickler for source material accuracy.

E.g. Up in the Air was fantastic.

I also enjoyed Scott Pilgrim movie for what it was; it made me laugh and I had a good time.

But honestly, it had no characters.


And for being adapted from source material with a very strong cast, I can't help but be disappointed in that.

In favour of Japan

Crobert:
Rofl, this guy went to a brothel and played Pokemon with the girl
He bet his virginity and she bet the price
Basic 10k + extra from Pokemon

Peter: Lol, he won right?

Crobert:
Lol, yes
Omfg
The girl had like Blissey/Garchomp/Metagross
She's fucking serious

Peter:
Yo, shit
She's for keeps

Crobert:
I think they did 6v6
Oh ok, he posted the party
Girl's party
Gardevoir/Garchomp/Venusaur/Metagross/Blissey/Slowbro
Dude's party
Heracross/Glaceon/Poliwrath/Masquerain/Pinsir/9tails
6v6 took them an hour and a half because it was
Slowbro vs SubPunch Poliwrath
Both had Leftovers and Slowbro didn't have Psychic

Peter: Where do I find a hooker like that?

P = NP, casually

My startling MSN treatise on what NP is, and its implications.

Crobert: Does anyone believe that P = NP?

Peter: Probably less than the number of people who believe in perpetual energy

Crobert:
Wtf is a non-deterministic turing machine?
Wtf is a turing machine?
It's a gigantic tape ticker right?

Peter: It's a computer that stores data on infinite ticker tape

Crobert:
Ok, I kind of know what a turing machine is
What's a non-deterministic turing machine?

Peter:
There's an artistic representation of a turing machine on Wiki
That wasn't there before
Where's this about non-deterministic turing machines?

Crobert:
NP stands for non-deterministic polynomial
I'm just not interested in complexity theory at all

Peter:
I am not interested in Star Trek
...and I end up reading its Wiki nonetheless

Crobert:
Is Star Trek like Gundam?
Where it works out in theory-
...but not in practice?

Peter:
No, it doesn't work out in theory either
Like, warp 10 was supposed to be unachievable asymptotic bound
Except in one episode they managed to do it in a shuttle

Crobert: Wtf

Peter:
They ended up everywhere in the universe at once
...and began speed evolving into lizard people

Crobert: Wtf

Peter:
Not even kidding
Okay, so non-deterministic turing machines
Pick the correct possibility everytime, assuming it exists

Crobert:
Hax
Time travel => P = NP
You also need to be able to travel time in polynomial time

Peter:
Lmao
Okay, I get it
Non-deterministic polynomial time means
The problem's in polynomial time if you make the right guess
Everytime

Crobert: That's so lame

Peter: Which means solutions can be verified in polynomial time

Crobert: Well yeah

Peter:
So the problems that you can't even verify in polynomial time
I guess those are fucked forever

Crobert: Yes

Peter: k

Crobert: What is such a problem?

Peter: Chess

Crobert: Source

Peter: # ^ Aviezri Fraenkel and D. Lichtenstein (1981). "Computing a perfect strategy for n×n chess requires time exponential in n". J. Comb. Th. A (31): 199–214.

Crobert: o ok

Peter: k, chess is fucked

Crobert: Is chess solved?

Peter: No, it's fucked.

What am I doing here?

I took that Facebook personality profile test. This is what it gave me on college majors that matched my personality:

1 Undecided
2 Graphic Design
3 Photography
4 English Literature
5 Culinary Arts
6 Art
7 Liberal Arts
8 English
9 History
10 Interior Design

What the fuck??

The highest science related thing is chemistry at number 14. Chemical engineering is down at number 31.

Also, apparently I'm fucking neurotic. Which, I guess would not come as a surprise to any of my close friends.

God. If I don't find a place to live next term, I'm going to just move to Queens and take up Modern Languages or something.

Freeways

I recently came upon the under-demolishment part of the Gardiner.

It makes me a bit sad.

I know that elevated highways is now the headache of every metropolitan downtown in the world¹, but I kind of like them. I think they've got historical character, the products of early 1900s futurism.

Clearly we shouldn't be building any more of these; it's an archaic technology and, in hindsight, a poorly thought out design. But I think parts of it ought to be conserved. Perhaps a High Line approach is for the best.

1. Except maybe Shanghai, where the central government is constructing them at a furious pace. Decades behind the rest of the world², naturally.

2. Except the New York elevated rail network was getting torn down for being ugly and distracting at the same time they were proposing the elevated freeway system. Well played.

Holy carp!

The Economist:

AN OILY green algal film slops on the shore of Tai Lake, China’s third-largest freshwater body. Its foul odour drifts over nearby villages. By the water’s edge it is hard not to retch. Fishermen complain of dizziness. A clean-up campaign launched by the government three years ago has made little progress...Residents say algae-eating silver carp introduced with great fanfare this year have died.

The carp died? Carp??

Carp is about as invincible as fish get, that lake is uninhabitable.

Seriously?

I hate you, America.

On Prop 8

From Slate:

Had the proponents of Prop 8 made even a minimal effort to put on a case, to track down real experts, to do more than try to assert their way to legal victory, this would have been a closer case. But faced with one team that mounted a serious effort and another team that did little more than fire up their big, gay boogeyman screensaver for two straight weeks, it wasn't much of a fight. Judge Walker scolds them at the outset for promising in their trial brief to prove that same-sex marriage would "effect some twenty-three harmful consequences" and then putting on almost no case.

Sounds about right.

Of course the decision will be appealed, so assuming they are granted audience with the Supreme Court, I would like to add two more points:

• California’s previous rulings on gay marriage has informed rulings in other states (I can’t remember the states, Iowa maybe, no recollection on the Justices being cited), this strengthens the weight of their opinions.


• Slate notes that SCoC Justice Walker’s opinion seems to be a direct appeal to SCotUS Justice Kennedy. The importance of this is that Kennedy under the Roberts court is regarded as the swing vote, and his recent voting record has been noticeably skewed conservative.

Also, shame on Stephen Harper, trying to move backwards when the rest of the world is following step.

I think it's about time we give the pentathlon another update

We can replace the pistol with the biathlon rifle.

Swimming and running can stay, but they will do so with 80lb packs on their back now.

Fencing is a bit archaic, we can replace it with something more contemporary. Like room clearing.

In place of show jumping, the event will conclude with a cross-country rally race in a Hummer through a minefield.

Favourited!

"I was front row at this concert and it was some of the best guitar shred I've ever witnessed. The guy next to me passed out from the sheer beauty of it and they had to take him out on a gurney. This audio doesn't do it justice. Panties were hitting the back of my head the entire show (too bad they were size 44). The augmented 13th diminished scales sound a little off, but it's because he is actually playing so fast, the sound barrier cracked and some notes were lost."

Pause to recover

Sometimes when I watch Mad Men, I have to pause to recover.

But not like when I have to pause to recover while watching School Days, that was so I can mentally prepare myself for the next wave of terrible.

This, this is more like pausing to let the wit sink in; let it steep in my brain.

See, Mad Men is often tongue-in-cheek: a wry critique of the 60s just shrouded beneath the surface.

And it's actually hilarious.



Asides on the Dramatis Personae

Jonn Hamm: ...is a handsome, handsome man. Also an asshole and a player.

John Slattery: For some odd reason, I always envision him as a porn actor whenever he shows up on screen. Being that Sterling is the playboy that he is, I guess I'm not too far off.

January Jones: Beautiful, and since they brought it up, I can see the resemblance.

Christina Hendricks: I'd say she's gorgeous, but that bust is much too distracting.

Julie McNiven: Cute, but as a minor character I mostly enjoy her consistent stream of sarcasm towards Pete Campbell's equally consistent ridiculous demands.