". . . military manuals with their cartoon based approach are far more effective in engaging the reader than the pedagogical techniques employed by most college textbooks. The military is more advanced in its pedagogical technique than the university system, which is really rather amusing, and I think it is due to the greater pretentiousness of universities in this matter." -- Hans Reiser, in a Slashdot interview about the ReiserFS file system.

Gardening-Mon

Gardening would be more fun if it were more like Pokemon. You'd grow some plants, your friends would grow some plants, then you'd have the plants fight each other in exciting tournament battles:

MOLLIE sends out HYDRANGEA (Lv. 5)

TOM sends out DAY LILY (Lv 4.)

HYDRANGEA attacks using BLOSSOM CLUSTER!

HYDRANGEA hits!

DAY LILY takes 4 damage!
. . .

DAY LILY attacks using ORANGE ZEST!

DAY LILY hits!

HYDRANGEA resists the effects!
. . .

"In elective monarchies, the vacancy of the throne is a moment big with danger and mischief." -- History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire

I love Gibbon's writing style.

My father: "Are you taking orders?"

Waitress: "Well, I'm sure not giving them!"

U.S. 5, Ireland 0 (Women's Soccer)

The U.S. attackers used superior speed and deceptive moves to pick apart the Irish defense, producing a goal in the first 2 minutes of play and a 3-0 lead in the first 20 minutes or so. I was impressed by the play of Irish goalkeeper Emma Byrne, who made at least a half dozen quick, acrobatic saves. Without Byrne in goal, the final score could easily have been 10-0.

Sadly, American Heather O'Reilly suffered a broken leg after colliding with Byrne in the process of scoring the game's first goal. The replays convinced me that Byrne had made a fair play for the ball, and if anything it was O'Reilly who rushed in without regard for her own safety.

Mia Hamm came in during the second half and showed off her magic. She has a huge variety of moves, and has an amazing way of faking a pass and then launching a wicked long-range shot instead. I've never seen any other soccer player do this quite so well. The shot just seems to come out of nowhere. In this game, the shot barely missed, but she made up for it later with a close-range goal.

I went to the Portland Japanese Garden today. There had been a power failure, so the waterfall that normally flows into the Koi pond was not running. This gave the pond an unusually silent quality, but also allowed me to hear sounds that normally would have been masked by the waterfall. For the first time, I could hear the koi eating.

I used GIMP to darken the water and perform other enhancements.

Voices

A post at Breaching the Web asks:

Do you ever get tired of hearing your own voice? I've been doing so much talking at work lately (meetings, formal and informal have suddenly taken over my life) that I can't stand to hear myself talk once I get home.

I used to have the opposite problem. At an early job of mine, I worked in almost total silence. I was working on some technical stuff by myself, and so except for a "good morning" or a "see you later," I wouldn't say a word to anyone the whole day! After months of this, I found that I had gotten somewhat "out of practice" with talking, and if I talked for more than a few minutes I would get a sore throat.

Find blogs by region at The Pepys Project.

Primate Sex

A small but noticeable portion of this site's traffic comes from those searching for "monkey sex" (a phrase I tend to associate with a line from Buffy, The Vampire Slayer) or, as some searchers quaintly express it, "sex with monkey." I assume that most of these searches must originate from serious researchers seeking to expand their knowledge of primatology. So, as a public service, I will provide some basic information and links to online resources for further study.

In the study of primate sexuality, one of the most interesting examples is that of the bonobo, also known as the Pygmy Chimpanzee. Dr. Susan Block calls these animals "the horniest apes on earth" and explains that the "highly sexed females are also far more likely to initiate sex with the males than any other great ape females (including humans!)" (link)

Bonobo society, in which females are dominant, centers around sex. Some speculate that the use of sex to solve problems causes bonobos to be one of the least violent primates. According to Dr. Block, bonobos "tend to resolve any conflicts they might have by mounting each other or engaging in oral or manual sex" (link). Bonobos have sex often, usually several times a day.

Douglas Foster writes:

Sex patterns among bonobos also reveal remarkable patterns of behavior. Bonobos engage in carefree erotic exchanges of unusual frequency and form. Face-to-face mating was once considered a distinctly human activity, but male and female bonobos often use the "missionary position," according to field studies and captive animal observation in zoos around the world. Bonobos also engage in polymorphous pleasures, including erotic rubbing between females, penis fencing among males, cross-generational sex play, group eroticism, and French kissing.

"The bonobo is a sexual Olympian," writes Natalie Angier in Woman, An Intimate Geography. "Males, females, old, callow, no matter — it’s sex, grope, hump, genito-genital rub-a-dub-dubbing, all the day long." (link)

Bonobos also engage in lesbian sex, as this article by Frans B. M. de Waal, originally published in Scientific American, explains:

Perhaps the bonobo's most typical sexual pattern, undocumented in any other primate, is genito-genital rubbing (or GG rubbing) between adult females. One female facing another clings with arms and legs to a partner that, standing on both hands and feet, lifts her off the ground. The two females then rub their genital swellings laterally together, emitting grins and squeals that probably reflect orgasmic experiences.

Bonobos may have a lot of sex, but encounters are short by human standards, with "the average copulation lasting 13 seconds." (link) And whereas humans seem to prefer to go out to dinner first and have sex afterwards, bonobos reverse the order of this, apparently to defuse the tension surrounding competition over food. But it isn't just the presence of food that instigates sex among bonobos. It is also the presence of, well, just about anything. De Waal explains:

[. . .] anything, not just food, that arouses the interest of more than one bonobo at a time tends to result in sexual contact. If two bonobos approach a cardboard box thrown into their enclosure, they will briefly mount each other before playing with the box.

I picture a bonobo looking over at the zookeeper and making gestures meaning, "Hey! Throw another one of those carboard boxes in here!"

Further reading:

• The Bonobo Page
  
• Bonobo Conservation Initiative
  
• Bonobo Sex and Society

Heh, Palace Princess tricked me. When I read someone's writing I often wonder what the author's voice sounds like. I try to imagine it, and I am often very, very wrong. I still remember the first time I heard William Gibson speak -- from his novels I expected something like a California surfer voice. Not at all. Anyway, Princess had an "audioblog" post and I thought "aha, now I will find out what she sounds like." But the post turned out to be music.

My favorite sign shows the wheelchair symbol and then the words "Enter Through Kaboom." To me it sounds like some kind of cryptic warning about land mines, or evokes disturbing images of wheelchair users spontaneously combusting, but actually Kaboom is the name of the store next door.

Heh heh, now I've done it. Ever since I wrote this, the site has been getting hits from Google searches like "trinity and persephone kissing," "neo and trinity having sex," and perhaps most disturbing of all, "sex with monkey."

When my hand hurts, I feel kind of like this.

There's a great set of "photos of the year" here.

The Bike Pile

Walking in downtown Portland, OR, I saw this pile of a dozen bicycles all stacked up and all locked to a single post. I have seen the bike pile a few other times, too, but I don't understand it. Who does this, and why? I imagine some "bicycle gang" of a dozen kids who all ride into downtown together and create this bike sculpture.

I have certainly seen public sculptures that I did not like as much as this unofficial one.

Blog crossover madness

Over at my Matrix Essays site I've put up my latest parody, No One Can Tell You (What The Chronic Is), in which I examine what Matrix: Reloaded would be like if it were a gangsta rap video.

The Secret to Pleasing Women

Last night my girlfriend called me "the ultimate guy." What did I do to deserve this acclaim? Was it my fast motorcycles, my good looks, my larger-than-average vocabulary? No, my friends, I'll tell you the secret, and on this blog you won't even have to pay $19.95 to find out. She said this because I watched Guys and Dolls with her and totally enjoyed it. You see, the secret to pleasing women is to like musicals.

Now, you guys out there may be thinking, "like musicals? How can I do that? Wouldn't it be a lot easier to just become a rock star or buy a really expensive car?" Well, if you believe in yourself and stick with my patented principles, you'll be there in no time.

Principle 1: Start slow, and go at your own pace

Don't try to be a hero by jumping right into high degree-of-difficulty shows like My Fair Lady or Fiddler on the Roof right off the bat. Start off with something easier for guys to relate to, like Moulin Rouge or Rocky Horror, or even Tommy. Once you gain more experience, you can work up to the harder stuff.

Principle 2: Remember what musicals are really about

You may be surprised to learn this, but musicals actually cover some very guy-friendly themes, such as sex, drugs, and violence. Miss Saigon is about hookers and war. The Music Man is about a con artist trying to hook up with a hot girl. West Side Story is about gangs and sex. The Producers is about con artists, Nazis, and sex with coworkers. Porgy and Bess is about murderers and crazy drug dealers, and Chicago is a girls-in-prison story about killer showgirls. If you think about it, musicals have virtually the same content as gangsta rap, but with different music.

Even the older musicals that seem so proper and square on the surface are really about sex -- lots and lots of sex -- they just tried to hide it barely below the surface to sneak it past the censors. But we all know what the characters are really thinking.


Principle 3: Concentrate on the words

The lyrics to most musicals are insanely clever, like rap songs with actual melodies. If you don't like the melody at first, just say the words to yourself in your head until you appreciate the rhymes and the structure.

Conclusion

Study this secret well; it just might change your life.

There is now a Geisha Barbie. Well, "Barbie Princess of Japan" officially. What I want to know is, will there be a Yakuza Ken?

I want to make a bumper sticker that says: CHERISH MEDIOCRITY.

Album of the week: Evanescence, "Fallen."

A personal note: last Thursday the doctor took the cast off my right arm and removed the pins from my right hand. I am now back to having no extra hardware in my body. My right hand still hurts a lot and generally feels awful. I've lost a lot of strength and range of motion (but this will come back in time). To give you an idea, right now it hurts to pick up a glass of water. I start with occupational therapy on Monday.