Everything2 New Writeups

Don't step on the cracks (idea)

2009-11-21T03:11:22Z

All eyes were turned on a young lady as she crossed the street, for she walked in a manner so unlike anyone else on the crossing. Her ankles flexed like springs as the balls of her feet bounced from one parallel white strip to the next. A somewhat shorter girl ran along beside her, trying to keep up. As the taller reached the far side of the road, she saw the final piece of white paint, and made a split-second mental calculation. Her knees dropped lower than before this time, then she rose gracefully, almost as if in slow motion, and both feet once again left the ground. A second later there was a gentle thud as her body slammed into the concrete footpath, landing just inches from a young couple. The guy spun round angrily, as his girlfriend jumped with a start at her human missile, who simply grinned back at her.

The girls who had been crossing the street continued on their way. The shorter one, as always, had to walk…

sun interference (poetry)

2009-11-21T00:54:23Z

in this (mine sunset, blood-red sunset,
and ship to shore, answer my call

signal, to bring home, a call. the world
alone, dark - and you sing to me, a haunted face
in solitary tortured mass, alone
a once shod metal cloak-hold, too many times lost
a ghost of digital ones and noughts. alone

I am, in this middle-aged fury,
contained within) leather-black skin and harsh
ice-bitten cold white brow, a something that you
-alone as you are-
cannot, squatting in this blight, truly reciprocate.

r
eciprocat
e

A stone hammer, hurled high like some small token;
a bitch-stone witch, held high-held mounted shaft of all
in this broken, tomb-stone focus, brittle poke-us, take and toke-us
you know all that we can call back falling tall and leaving small that - oh...

Oh.

Oh oh.

...

....

.....

(snap)

......

.......

...…

Battle of Roncevaux Pass (event)

2009-11-21T00:32:26Z

The Battle of Roncevaux Pass was a military engagement (despite its name, it is questionable whether it was really a battle) that occurred in 778, where a group of Basque fighters pillages the rear guard of Charlemagne's army as it exited Spain after an unsuccessful campaign.

The background as to why Charlemagne was in Spain is, as most politics of long ago are, almost totally incomprehensible. There is a reason "byzantine" became an adjective. Basically, there was a war between two different Islamic factions in Spain, and Charlemagne intervened, in alliance with one side. The war did not go well, and while in the process of exiting, a totally unrelated group of people, ambushed the rear guard of the army.

Despite its name, this is probably only marginally a "battle". As far as I can tell, there was no political motivation or desire to control territory involved in the battle. It actually seems like an act of banditry against a target of opportunity. And in…

Alice's Adventures in Real Estate: Capitalism and the Republic in the 21st Century (person)

2009-11-20T23:22:24Z

I completely agree with the writeup by mullakamakalaka- but wish to add to it, as I see three potential ways that American Capitalism can continue:

1. the default: the middle class gets nickeled and dimed to death as the race to the bottom slowly reduces our standard of living and willingness to accept lower compensation until we can compete on even ground with ditch diggers in Zimbabwe (a correlation to this- in an effort to prevent economic deflation the federal government merely prints enough money to make the dollar worth less than a Zimbabwean Baked Bean)

2. The top-down solution: America assumes the position of being the world's consumers, and those with good credit and fake paper-pushing jobs such as bankers and stock brokers continue to win, while the rest of us go on welfare. In this situation, the income gap grows ever wider- as the…

Bastard Fairies (review)

2009-11-20T22:24:45Z

All I need is a catheter and lobotomy

Everything will be clean and clear and clutter-free

So begins the Bastard Fairies' first, and thus far, only album, Memento Mori. It was recorded on Garageband with kiddie instruments, after firebrand and all-around crazy chick Yellow Thunder Woman convinced musician and producer Robin Davey, formerly of British blues band The Hoax, to produce an album with her despite her frequently-declared dislike of musicians and most music. The two met after he produced an album for her brothers and sister (blues band Indigenous, and she doesn't like their music, either) and they co-produced a Native issues documentary together, The Canary Effect.

Thanks to its free release on the band's myspace page, and their presence on youtube, with mostly fabulous music videos featuring backup musicians in quirky costumes and Yellow Thunder…

exchange matching rules (idea)

2009-11-20T22:10:32Z

Introduction

This node is on how the exchange matches orders. Yes, that is potentially a dull subject if you are not into trading. So don't be alarmed if Cthulhu or Live Nude Lesbians will not be involved. Such is the sad reality of exchange matching rules. Sorry about that.

Matching

Let's first consider what we are talking about. On an exchange, you can trade products. We'll assume we are trading shares because that's easiest, but similar principles hold for options and futures. Each of these products has an order book. This consists of a list of buy and sell orders. A buy order in the book is called a bid and a sell order a offer. Bids have a bid price and a volume and offers an an ask price and a volume. A book might look like:

Volume

Bid

Ask

Volume

…

Alice's Adventures in Real Estate: Capitalism and the Republic in the 21st Century (idea)

2009-11-20T20:55:49Z

U.S. unemployment rate as of November 2009:

10.2%.

The percentage swells to 17.5% if you consider the underemployed. To me, this is the most damning indictment of capitalism I could ever read, as well as the socialist band-aids (socialism being the bastard offspring of capitalist and communist ideologies) we try to apply to it. Maybe I'm just incredibly stupid, but how is a system wherein nearly 1 in 5 people that want to work have no opportunities to be productive a good system? And furthermore, how is giving those same people an unemployment check or putting them on welfare a smarter solution than just giving them a paying job to perform? Surely, it would be for our collective betterment if we were all put to productive uses as opposed to just 80-90% of us? When I look at the natural resources and technology available to us, I don't see why it wouldn't be possible. The idea reeks somewhat of common sense…

Cruise ship (thing)

2009-11-20T20:44:39Z

A cruise ship is a floating hotel and resort intended to provide an all-in-one package for relaxation and entertainment for its passengers. Cruises can take days or even weeks, with lodging, games, food, and luxuries all provided on board. Many will make stops at various ports along its route to resupply and let passengers off to see the area and get off the ship for a while (by all accounts, lollygaggers will be abandoned if late for departure).

Cruise ships are among the largest ships in the world. The Oasis of the Sea, which was recently completed and will start carrying vacationing passengers on December 1, 2009, is the largest cruise ship in the world, with a length of 1,187 feet (362 meters) and a displacement of over 225,000 tons. For comparison, a Nimitz-class Nuclear Aircraft Carrier is "only" 333 meters long and the largest ocean-going vessel in the world, the TI class supertanker, is just a bit longer…

thoughts on the music industry (log)

2009-11-20T20:10:52Z

I was idling at work in between finishing one piece of documentation and starting the next, thinking of a Loveline episode I heard some time ago that featured Gene Simmons as a guest host. He was fielding music industry questions, and while in the middle of a possibly heated rant, (to paraphrase wildly) he cited the internet, and specifically peer-to-peer filesharing, as being part of the reason the music industry was failing. That opinion appears to be shared by a few other people:

Streaming music's effect on dropping album sales

Mariah Carey lashes out at major record labels for not adapting to new Internet business models, resulting in lost revenue

Cracks show in music industry over P2P enforcement

And the funny thing is, they're all correct, as far as I can tell. The music indu…

zero-sum game (idea)

2009-11-20T14:25:24Z

You might imagine adding up all the universe's resources: labor, land, raw materials, equipment, technology, knowledge, etc... into a pie. At different times, different people may have control of different percentages of this pie, but the size of the pie isn't constant. Improvements in technology can get you access to other planets, more solar radiation, deeper into the ocean or earth's crust, more efficient use of existing resources - thus increasing the size of the pie. If the size of the pie can be increased, then of course other actions can also decrease it.

This isn't to say nothing should ever be done about the relative amounts of the pie that different people control. Obviously the more parts of the pie allocated to serving a smaller percentage of the population, the less that will be available for everybody else. However, it is both a fallacy to say that society can only be improved by improving the…

Her Purple Satin Thigh (poetry)

2009-11-20T10:48:22Z

Mister Rogers pleads, "Won't you be my neighbor?"
The light of the television beams through the hazy living room.
Mom chain smokes on our battered, rickety, golden yellow felt couch
and I nestle in the nook of her legs.
My head rests upon her purple satin thigh.
Curled into my daily routine, I fall asleep before Sesame Street begins.

I awaken in my grandparent's bed.
The wallpaper is covered in mallards.
They flutter on the wall
stuck in their paper prison hoping to tear free.
A tiny, golden Pterodactyl screeches overhead.
There is a dark cave on the wall.
Red eyes beam from inside and I crawl down the bed,
then slither down the edge to the floor.
I raise my head and stare into the eyes of the cave.
It is only a puppy; brown with long fluffy fur.
It licks my hand and I giggle.
It grows.
Its fur snarls.
It growls.
Its muscles…

Small World (idea)

2009-11-20T10:25:35Z

A geek habitat; a chair within a cocoon of tech, compact, almost impacted and the contrasting sphere of influence or range of connection, both through different channels and different memes. Sound, art, linux, programming, performance, green, freak bike culture, physics and other streams blend together, or cluster into faceted flavours of making groups and individual makers.
or
Imagine building something like a stick insect to wear like a Chinese dancing lion, perhaps with shimmering scales of recycled technology. What kinds of ergonomics are useful for non-human species? Small occupational health and safety systems at cross purposes to our own.

It doesn't matter whether Hitler was an Atheist or a Christian (essay)

2009-11-20T06:50:38Z

Much hay has been spread on the Internet over the question of whether Adolf Hitler, oft-blurted as synonymous with evil, was an Atheist or a Christian. Partisans of each view claim to glean snippets of evidence from Hitler's speeches and writings, presenting such points as a supposed slam against the views themselves. Naturally, Hitler was most likely one of the two (he was obviously not Jewish, nor was he any sort of Buddhist or Hindu or Muslim or pandeist, though some have speculated that he secretly held to some nonspecific Nordic type of belief system). But the truth is, it doesn't matter what Hitler's personal beliefs were; Hitler was the leader of a nation, a position that required the acquiescence -- nay, the very complicity -- of the people.

It was the German people, undoubtedly and resolutely a Christian people, who allowed Hitler into power and followed him into war and genocide.…

reflex bleeding (thing)

2009-11-20T06:21:43Z

"What are you going to do? Bleed on me?" "Actually, yes."

Reflex bleeding (autohaemorrhaging, if you want the precise scientific term) is a defensive action performed by some invertebrates, mainly insects of the Coleoptera order. It involves the exudation of an amount of hemolymph from the insect's body with the aim of repelling predators. Insect families known to have at least one species that reflex bleeds include Coccinellidae, Meloidae, Chrysomelidae, and Lampyridae. In some species or genera, the larvae may reflex bleed as well as the adults.

Now, most members of the Animalia kingdom use blood of some sort. If it repels predators, the particular creature's blood must have something pretty distasteful if it is to spoil the appetite of a hungry spider or wasp. Reflex bleeding must therefore involve blood with a certain je ne sais quoi (and do not want to know). The effect on the…

Severus Snape (person)

2009-11-20T06:12:31Z

Well, first off, spoilers ahead, as they say on the internet. If you are one of the three remaining people who have not read the Harry Potter series, but plan to, then don't read this.

I have written before that the Harry Potter books are occasionally marred by the presence of gimmicks and hand waving to move the stories along. And yet, there are parts of the books that are written with great authenticity and subtlety, and the character of Severus Snape is one of those high points. Throughout the first six books, the motivations and characteristics of Snape are called into question, with hints and red herrings being brought up in every book as to whether Snape is a double agent, a triple agent, or something else entirely. Snape has a pathological dislike for Harry and his friends, has admitted to having practiced the Dark Arts and being a follower of Lord Voldemort, and generally being unpleasant and angry. And yet Albus Dumbledore, the wisest of the…

Man Was Made to Mourn (poetry)

2009-11-20T06:02:16Z

What compelled Robert Burns to write so depressing a dirge as Man Was Made to Mourn? Might have been just the depressing nature of his life itself -- after all, he was a tax collector, in a broken marriage, and often visited by ill health. Still this poem was written in 1784, before his marriage, and before he had left farming for an urban life as a poet. The downright obsession with death -- particularly as conveyed through the device of an 80 year old man (more than three times Burns' actual age at the writing, though Burns himself would never reach 40) is creepy, if somewhat moving. So without further delay....

I.

When chill November's surly blast
Made fields and forests bare,
One ev'ning, as I wander'd forth
Along the banks of Ayr,
I spy'd a man, whose aged step
Seem'd weary, worn with care ;
His face was furrow'd o'er with years,
And hoary was his hair.

II.

Young…

Salacious Crumb (person)

2009-11-20T04:34:40Z

Salacious Crumb is the disgusting little monster that accompanies Jabba the Hutt in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. His only appearance is in this film, and it is implied that he dies when Jabba's sail barge is destroyed over the Sarlacc pit.

Salacious Crumb is a semi-intelligent creature called a Kowakian monkey-lizard, and looks something like a cross between the two namesake creatures — about two feet tall, nearly hairless, lanky, and with a beak-like mouth. He serves as Jabba's court jester, running around playing cruel pranks on the various alien guests that frequent his palace, always careful to leap back to the safety of the crime lord's dais whenever he annoys one of the more dangerous guests. He could frequently be found cackling at people for one reason or another, and sometimes perched near the Max Rebo Band when they were playing.

When Jabba acquired C-3PO and R2-D2 from Luke Skywalker, C-3PO and his 6 million forms of communication…

Summer storm (poetry)

2009-11-20T03:38:38Z

A summer storm.

Strong winds are the first warning
as dead leaves and superfluous branches
clatter to the ground.

A thunderclap.

Dust is being raised over there,
but rain that starts to appear everywhere
starts to settle it.

A flash of light.

Every bit of grass still baked,
mostly from the burning summer sunlight,
now starts to turn green.

A person stands.

He does not care about storms.
He pauses, ties his long hair back behind,
and then carries on.

A heavy rain.

Slow relief for drought-struck towns.
Doesn't cure. Only alleviates. Yet,
moisture is welcome.

A thick silence.

As quickly as it began,
it is over. No noise, no rain, no wind,
but the smell lingers...

write-protect notch (thing)

2009-11-20T01:20:20Z

In the olden days, when floppy disks were floppy and anything that ended with "megs" was but a dream, we had to deal with write-protect notches.

On 5.25-inch (and 8-inch, if you're old enough) floppy disks, in order to prevent writing data to a disk, you had to put a small sticker over a little cutout on the side edge of the square housing of the removable media. That little cutout went to a mechanical switch that determined if a floppy was, in fact, writable.

    ____________                                  
   |            |                                 
   |     __    (  <--- Write-protect notch        
   |    (__)    |                                 
   |            |                                   
   |     __     |
   |____|__|____| 
       Front

On old Double Density, Single Side floppies, frugal folks discovered you could make the flip side of a floppy usable by taking a hole punch and making a similar notch on the other side. It worked most of…

Fantastic Mr. Fox (review)

2009-11-20T00:13:02Z

Fantastic Mr. Fox is a book by Roald Dahl, probably most famous for his books Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach. The book was released in 1970, and was just recently released as a movie.

Compared to some of Dahl's other children's books, this book is shorter, and more profusely illustrated. Even for an elementary school student, it would probably be something that could be read in one sitting. Whether the content is something that is appropriate for younger ages is something that is much more debatable. The action follows the titular Mr. Fox, who troubles three separate poultry farmers by stealing their poultry to feed his family. The farmers join together to hunt down Mr. Fox, first with guns and then by digging out his den. Mr. Fox escapes, and turns the tables on the farmers by digging into their storehouses, and lives happily ever after along with some of his other subterranean kin.

That is the plot. I am somewhat curious as to how…

Humanitarian (fiction)

2009-11-19T23:06:24Z

A humanitarian, not to be confused with humanist, is someone who eats only humans. This word is used instead of cannibalism because cannibalism covers animals eating the same species. There are and have been many peoples who believe eating the heart of someone with courage gives them their courage. Cannibals who occasionally eat humans have been around since the beginning of time, but humanitarians have been around since the beginning of PETA.

One of the the influences for humanitarianism came for William Penn who called for the United States of Europe where he planned to assemble a "European Dyet."

Oprah and Bono have done great humanitarian work with Africa.

Hannibal Lecter worked for the Red Cross before he became a psychiatrist.

Eating humans is everywhere, even in this place: Deuteronomy 28:55 "53 Because of the suffering that your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the LORD…

If you could reset your life back 10 years, would you? (personal)

2009-11-19T23:01:42Z

I am going on the assumption that hitting the reset button means that you lose everything in the past 10 years that you learned and experienced.

In that case, hell no! Here's why:

I would be 13, horny as shit and unable to get laid, disproportional, and worst of all, still in middle school. Having very few friends, I would be the social punching bag for everyone to use. Armed with a half-developed intellect and a fantastic amount of demotivation, I would be too stupid to realize that interesting classes are the "harder" classes and hence get myself stuck in a vicious cycle of a series of easy and meaningless classes. Furthermore, I would not have the perspective necessary to choose good friends. This would be my personal hell, with Satan standing on the sidelines, raving at his perfectly decayed creation.

In the case that I could take everything that I learned and experienced with me into the past, I would still not do it, being in…

Cupcakes are a lonely thing (idea)

2009-11-19T22:16:46Z

He wandered through the house languorously. Five days more of this, five more days without her. He missed her, not the touch of her skin or the taste of her lips but the part that was essentially her. The words and eyes and smile and simply being with her. If she were here they would turn down the music and listen to the thunderstorm being played out, they'd make cupcakes to the sound of the thunder and her eyes would glisten in the flashes of lightning. But she was not there and cupcakes alone is a terrible thing.

Nevertheless, he found his feet pacing through the small green-tiled kitchen they shared. "It's only a temporary thing," she had said, soothing his disgust at the color. "We'll change it or move." It had only been four months, but now he could not imagine a kitchen of any other color.

Unconsciously he reached for the well-worn cookbook and opened it.…

Why can't you read in dreams? (dream)

2009-11-19T21:52:04Z

In FTP from my dreams someone says "you can't read in dreams".

In my dream journal, I found that I have read a book about MAPS, another whose title was INVUM which was about Hell, and various traffic signs (like STOP, and the names of streets). I have even seen signs in unknown languages I didn't understand and written down the characters I remembered. In a dream I read writing carved in trees and in another dream I saw the number 123 on two hills. Often, if a word found in a dream represents a novel place or concept, I use it as a neologism in real life.

I've also fallen in dreams, usually because I was flying and shot down... and died in other ways such as being eaten by animals.

Fortunately, I cannot feel pain in dreams.
Dying in a dream is like either going blind and waking up,
or suddenly teleporting to a new place in another dream.

So I bust the myths that people can't read in dreams,
nor live to tell a dream about dying.

…

Zuidas (place)

2009-11-19T21:10:24Z

Introduction

Zuidas literally means "southern axis". It is the business district of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and is the home of the headquarters of many of its major financial institutions.

History

The Zuidas is still under construction, and its history is quite short. The only part to be truly completed is the renovation of the Amsterdam World Trade Center, and the completion of the square in front of it. That said, a two large banks have their headquarters here, namely ING and ABN. As such, even though the long-term term plan calls for major changes to the area, it already is a business district - just not as impressive as it is planned to be eventually.

Location

The Zuidas is located in the south of Amsterdam, next to Amstelveen. It is built around one of the busiest highways of the country. Between the lanes of this highway, one of the busiest railways is located, as well as a metro…