Fluoxetini

The generic name of Prozac is Fluoxetine. It would be fun to invent a cocktail called a Fluoxetini. I'll bet it'd be a hit with the young people.

Take A Breather

I'm sure it happened earlier than that, but Enigma's "Sadeness" (currently playing on my headphones) is the first song I remember hearing featuring a recording of the breathing of an apparently sexually aroused woman as an instrument.

Now that sound and its variants are staples of all electronic music.

I can't say I'm disappointed.

Changing of the Guard

One of the many voices in my head is The Guy Who Always Says No. Through some shady political maneuverings, he managed to get himself elected Chairman for calendar year 2008. We're just now beginning to realize the extent of the damage.

A note

Dear tech support dude with an Indian accent,

You are an intelligent person in a rising empire. I am an intelligent person in a dying empire. I have no reason to wish you ill; on the contrary, you represent the best hope for the future of the species of which I am, after all, a member. I'd like to let you know what's happening here, in hope that it will help you and your community to avoid the mistakes I and my community have made.

When I share my experiences, when I tell my story in a place where you can listen, it is, at least in part, for your benefit.

Good luck.

2008-12-11 stuff on my mind

Don't Forget To Check Out Our Weekly Specials!

So I just went to the pharmacy. Let me talk about cognitive load. I'm directing this at the marketing executive who has been paid to design my shopping experience. I drive to your store, park, and enter, wander up and down the aisles looking for an item I need, and then try to buy it. Let me confess up front: I've been diagnosed (by the same professional and commercial Western Medicine System which you are in a very real sense a part of) with ADD (back when that was one of the things it was called; I know it's changed; the DSM be praised). As I attempt to carry out my intended tasks in your store, I am bombarded with words and images, visually and auditorily. Every square inch of the surfaces that surround me is emblazoned with advertisement, from the packages of the products themselves, to the logos and faces on the sides of the endcaps, to the stands holding flyers, which I try not to knock over. Voices, NON-STOP VOICES entreat me over the PA to check out your weekly specials. At every spot where I can interact with a human being acting as a representative of your corporation, the face I see has a halo extending to the edge of my vision consisting of candy to give me diabetes or cancer interspersed with pictures of scantily clad celebrities. As I shop, little plastic boxes protrude from the shelves, and blink at me, offering pieces of paper which can grant me infinitesimal discounts on products I don't need. At the register I'm told I need a Special Swell Customer Card so that, in addition to getting more infinitesimal discounts and letting you track the progress of my hemorrhoid, I can devote precious space in my already overstuffed wallet to what is, in essence, a billboard for your corporation.

And in among the logos and the slogans and the entreaties and the coupons and the Special Swell Customer Card and the acres of glossy cleavage, there is a VERY REAL risk I will FORGET what it is I came into your store to buy.

If that happens, it will defeat the purpose of my having offered this hour of my life to doing business with you.

My (justified) fear of that eventuality makes my shopping experience, frankly, hellish.

So. You, marketing executive, have been paid what is probably a pretty respectable salary to lure me into your store and make me into a loyal customer. And the result of your earnest labors is that the brightly-colored sign above your door might as well bear the words, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

Keep up the good work.

"Oh, and stop drinking tea."

This was said by my urologist this morning after she showed me the CT scan of the proto-boulder in my kidney.

Harvest

Have you ever eaten a perfect peach? No, really, have you? Are you sure? Most people are lucky if once in a lifetime they eat a perfect peach.

I have a magic power. I have contrived, in the past week, to eat over one dozen perfect peaches. In among a life of cars and cubicles, gas prices and taxes, I have included this superhuman accomplishment.

And I did not do it emptily. I did not arrange it and then let it pass unheeded. To each bite I paid rapt attention, and discerned with intense concentration the papery flat of the outer fuzz, the sharp tartness of the inner surface of the skin, the miraculous flesh which achieves the feat of being at once uniform and smooth and yet delicately fibrous. I have examined the mechanics of the pressure of my front teeth against the nestled stone, and the flow of the juice from the compressed flesh surrounding it. And that is the magic: not that I have eaten perfect peaches, but that I have done so mindfully.

And I send you this secret message, this missive which no other could comprehend, to inform you that this magic power belongs to you, too. Yes, I mean you.

Use it wisely.

Promises

I can't make promises. Promises aren't how the universe works. But I can tell you that given what I know, I assess a high probability that there is more good stuff to come.

Which Cognitive Vice Is This?

I have a password that was generated for me by a password program. It's reasonably secure; it's a pseudorandom set of mixed case letters and numbers. It's one of many like that; I generate a new one for each context. It contains, in the middle, by chance, a sequence of four letters that are the same as the name of a minor character in a lesser-known story by my favorite author, but with the vowels taken out. And only if you don't count y as a vowel.

It's an accident. And not a very interesting one, at that. And yet every time I type it, I think of it as an homage to great literature, and hope the writing gods see it as such.

More Eschatology

The Bafflement is the period of history between the moment a civilization discovers the facts of quantum mechanics, and the moment that civilization understands the facts of quantum mechanics.

Few civilizations survive the End of the Bafflement.

Our civilization is in the Bafflement now.

The End is nigh.

New Art Form: Quantum Scuplture

It doesn't have just one shape.

The Doubularity Is Nigh

Huh. Randall Munroe and Cory Doctorow met in person over a week ago, and the Internet didn't explode, or invert, or become the Virtù. So we need to come up with some new candidates for what event will trigger the Geekpocalypse. My vote is for when Randall and Summer Glau start dating.

They'd make a cute couple, wouldn't they? And she could use her mad ballerina skills to defend him from the pixel-eating bands of LOLzombies which will roam the Afternet.

My Cognitive Vices: Penicillin Thinking

Sometimes I justify my mistakes by telling myself that they might result in serendipitous discoveries. Like when Fleming accidentally contaminated a culture plate with mold, and discovered penicillin. I call that penicillin thinking.