It is frightening that people who are purportedly doing science on human subjects have no concept whatsoever about the meaning of consent.

Chrome will start blocking Flash by default.

OMG. So the Etruscans were the B Ark of Lydia (a kingdom that encompassed Western Turkey)?!?!

In the Wikipedia entry about Infocom's Enchanter, it mentions that Enchanter's system of magic is based on the Old Speech of Earthsea in terms of mechanics.

Even if you believe in the afterlife, that's no excuse to fuck things up in this life. Telling people that it'll be OK when we get to heaven is a cop-out. If you really cared, you'd make things better now

I have been concentrating very hard on the Art of Not Wanting, and despite all my effort, my brain is still wrapped around a lot of crazy and insane ideas that are completely out of my control. My stomach gurgles with the sound of reflux, and I get bouts of epigastric abdominal pain. I can't sleep very well. My eating habits have become even more unhealthy than before, which I didn't think was possible.

You know what would be an excellent Turing test?

Maybe I’m just being morbid. Maybe it’s because I just finished working in the ICU and watched plenty of people die and signed plenty of death certificates. Maybe it’s because I had dinner with (among others) someone who works for the medical examiner. Nothing like talking about people who died in sudden, unexpected, and often gruesome ways while having Japanese food. Maybe it’s because the track before this one was “Mad World” by Tears for Fears, which has the classic line “the dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had,” a song that was resurrected by Gary Jules and the movie “Donnie Darko.”

Did you know that Tiffany did a cover of Alphaville’s song? Weirdness.

Another concept that definitely informed my conception of the imaginary city of Cantral Araban is the metropole-province axis, which is basically the dialectic between the central city of a region and the surrounding countryside. This dialectic is especially characteristic of ex-colonies. I learned about this paradigm from Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism by Benedict Anderson, which was one of the required texts in the Southeast Asian Studies survey class I took as an undergrad, and analyzing Manila through this particular lens was very enlightening.

Odd that parts of The Octopus by Frank Norris (sighted on makeweight) makes me think immediately of The Iron Council by China Miéville, although I suppose this is not surprising considering Miéville’s political sympathies and literary background.

The Prophecy shall be fulfilled. Every city is a manifestation of Unreal City—Babylon, Rome, London, New York, Chicago, L.A., everywhere and nowhere.

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish. We apologize for the inconvenience.

In the end of it all, I am simply a moron, and I've come so close to just accepting it, but foolish, insane pride always gets me to reconsider. I mean, it really didn't change a damn thing, even with a pretty girl sitting beside me. I don't even want to give voice to my incredible sense of frustration with myself. I could almost imagine my soul yelling and screaming, pounding at the doors of my heart, only to collapse weeping with despair.