Author: admin

Yes, in case you were wondering, as we all watch the daily outpouring of idiocy, the thought has indeed occurred to me: Our so-called “president”, and the current U.S. “administration”, is in fact a parody created by Mad Magazine.

The only thing that puzzles me is this: Has Mad Magazine ever sunk to this level of juvenalia? I would have thought that even they would have had more dignity than this.

Alas, I have a suspicious feeling that if Harvey Kurtzman and Bill Gaines were alive today, they’d be turning in their graves — not from despair, but from jealousy. It has taken more than half a century, yet finally somebody has succeeded in creating a parody that is ridiculous beyond even their wildest dreams.

Is there one here among us, who dislikes the tea fungus?
How lucky for me, to drink kargasok tea
I hear Titus Andronicus drank fungus japonicus,
And down in the Congo they like to sip hongo
In old Vietnam they’re enjoying teeschwamm
Meanwhile in Madras they drink loads of teekwass
And the knights toast their leige with a pint of cajnij
Whereas in Macao they all drink fine haipao
After which thereupon they will take some kwassan
While somewhere in Toronto they will serve you spumonto
Where a start-up (a Newco) prefers fresh tschambucco
And sometimes for thrills they will try wunderpilz
So perhaps it would suit ya to drink some kombucha

talking it all through
won’t always solve the problem
but it couldn’t hurt

At a meeting the other day at our lab, one of our invited guests was Professor Hiroshi Ishii from the MIT Media Lab. After experiencing our co-located VR technology, he issued the following challenge: How can we know when our technology has really succeeded?

But Hiroshi went further than that. What he was really seeking was a clear and concise answer.

So he looked at everyone around the table, and challenged us to convey our answer in the form of a haiku. I thought this was a very fair test, and I gave him the following seventeen syllable response:

      i foresee a day
      when we’ll use our tech within
      a meeting like this

At the moment I am riding on a train backward. The train is going one way, whilst I am facing the opposite way.

It’s definitely a different perspective. Instead of focusing on things that have not yet happened, you have the luxury to ponder where you have been, to take a few moments to savor the experience.

Sure, it is inarguably true that when you are in this position on a train, you can’t quite see where you are going. But the nice thing about riding on a train backward is that you can always see where you have been.

Looking back on what I have just written, I realize that I am on a train of thought. I will take a few moments to savor the experience.

Suppose you could randomly insert as many extra hours as you wanted into your day — for example to make those pesky deadlines. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal, doesn’t it?

But suppose this gift came at a high price: For every extra hour you get now, two hours get subtracted off the end of your life.

Would you go for it? Or would you balk at the steep interest rate?

For me, just knowing such a deal was available would make me think long and hard about how I spend my time. Rather than accepting the offer, I think I’d end up spending my existing hours more efficiently.

One day, hopefully a long time from now, I’m sure I would thank me.

(last name first)

---

Fly, May		She’s too flighty to last long.
Fold, Manny		He’s all surface.
Gagger, Lolly		She’s always late.
Gamesh, Gil		This kid’s got an epic story.
Gory, Ali		He isn’t what he seems.
Gram, Ana		She reminds me of Mara Ang.
Guard, Van		He’ll be first in his class.
Ho, Ida		She is always in a state.
Idian, Flor		I like her tan.
Ificent, Mal		He’s a bad kid.
Light, Skye		She’s extremely bright.
Lightful, Dee		I really like this one!
Livit, Glen		I think he’s Scotch.
Mander, Jerry		He’s all over the place.
Manity, Hugh		He’s just like everyone else.
Metric, Barry		Kid can’t take the pressure.
Munn, Otto		This guy’s a couch potato.
Nomial, Polly		She loves math.
O’Bite, Gig		He’s got quite a memory.
Oh, Pattie		She likes hanging out outdoors.
Ovan, Dennis		Is he a Neanderthal, or what?
Pyre, Em		She’s got ambition.
Ramony, Pat		I hear he inherited a fortune.
Russe, Bella		Is that a Russian accent?
Shire, Devon		I love her accent.
Stick, Joy		She’s so controlling.
Tard, Leo		He just came here from the gym.
Tedd, Jill		I hear her boyfriend dumped her.
Torius, Vic		This one’s a winner.
Tosterone, Tess		She’s a tough one.
Trope, Zoe		She keeps going in circles.
Tucky, Ken		He’s from the South.
Uflect, Jen		She’s so polite!
Undrum, Ken		This one’s a puzzle.
Vation, Sal		He’s very religious.
Walker, Jay		He never follows the rules.
Ward, Lee		Ugh, I can smell him from here.
Warm, Luke		Don’t know if I like this guy.
Winkle, Perry		He’s always blue.
Yuery, Jan		She’s just starting the year.
Yurism, Ann		She gives me high blood pressure.

There is a theory that inventions are not actually the product of individual minds, but rather a manifestation of the zeitgeist. When it is the right time for an invention to appear, it will generally appear in multiple places at once.

There are many examples of this, the canonical one being the simultaneous invention of Calculus by both Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Yet this phenomenon is not really such a mystery, if you think about it.

After all, human intelligence may be impressive, yet it is also bounded. The original and novel thoughts that arise from any one human mind are inevitably influenced by available knowledge.

At any given year in history, there is a certain shared base of available knowledge. In that sense, all would-be inventors are starting on a roughly equal footing.

After all, we wouldn’t expect advances in Quantum theory before anybody had discovered the atom. Similarly, we wouldn’t expect somebody to come up with the algorithms underlying Google search before the advent of the Web itself.

As Newton once said, “If I have seen further, it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

In my blog post today for the Future Reality Lab I sing the praises of rhombic dodecahedra. They really are quite fascinating shapes, beautiful, symmetric and full of surprises.

In that blog post I speak, in particular, to their interesting relationship with two far better known polyhedra — the octahedron and the humble cube.

But why take my word for it, when you can read about it for yourself?

Reading through the news today, it all seems very dire
Slogging through the scandals you can feel the muck and mire
I realize I’m very likely preaching to the choir
It’s all so sad, it’s really bad, it’s quite the Trumpster fire

Corruption in the government, the stench is getting higher
A bunch of fools that act like tools in service of a liar
I realize I’m very likely preaching to the choir
It’s all so sad, it’s really bad, it’s quite the Trumpster fire

Every time I think that we have seen the thing entire
Something more comes through the door, the mind can tend to tire
I realize I’m very likely preaching to the choir
It’s all so sad, it’s really bad, it’s quite the Trumpster fire