Chapter Three

They moved slowly along the road. The two Goon brothers strolled alongside Selfless as if they were his bodyguards. If Dandy noticed, he did not seem to mind. Amiable and Noreach walked with Dandy, who seemed to know their destination even as he fumbled around Amiable's questions. Adolescent stumbled along behind them, staring blankly at his own feet. Cleans trailed along behind, and from time to time the Goon brothers looked back to make sure he hadn't deserted their cause.
They walked some distance down Cross Street, until the corner of Cross and Bisecting. Dandy only took three steps into the intersection before stopping and pointing out a large building ahead and to the left. The building was four stories tall, with large colonnades thicker than a dwarf is tall rising it's full height. The bricks of it's walls were each painted a different color, none of which were harmless to the human eye. Each window appeared to have been smashed out and glued back together on a wooden backing, and the colonnades were covered with intricately carved figures of animals in suggestive attire.
“It was either this or Flood Control Dam Number Three,” said Dandy, shaking his head so that his hair would better catch the stuffiness that passed for a breeze. They stood silently in the intersection, trying to not notice the building or the many wagons whose path they were blocking.
“Let's go in now, shall we?” asked Selfless, barely above the din of the screaming teamsters. He led the group across the street and past black doors so pale they bordered on obscene. They entered a small hallway, where everything was beige except for the blue sign welcoming them to Chapter Three of the Sedai Conspiracy.
“I thought they were all dead.” said Noreach, waving his axe awkwardly at the sign.
“They are.” said Selfless. “We're just using the hall.”
“Pardon me, did I miss something?” asked Dandy, smiling congenially at Noreach as he tilted slightly to his right.
“The Sedai were evil. Nothing was safe from their meddling.” said Noreach, vociferously. “Nothing.”
“The Sedai wanted to make the world a better place.” said Selfless calmly. “But others suspected them of doing evil and they began to believe it themselves. Before long, everything they did became a plot to purge the Sedai of plotters, and they were enveloped in so much secrecy that they couldn't even trust each other. The last Sedai died years ago, positive to the end that everyone else was evil.”
“They told the Dwarves Union to require bathing!” shouted Noreach, who was losing control of his temper.
“That was very evil of them.” said Cleans, swaying as if drunk.
“Why is it evil if the dwarves don't stink all the time?” asked Dandy. “I use up seven types of perfumed soap myself, depending on the occasion, of course.”
“It's an important part of being a dwarf!” snarled Noreach. He took a step towards Dandy only to stop when Amiable reached out to put a hand on his shoulder. He threw Amiable a relieved glance before turning his ire back towards Dandy. “To be a registered Dwarf one must be no taller than five foot nine, one must have a beard one foot or more in length, one must have a high tolerance for alcohol and low tolerance for damn fool Elves, and most importantly, one must smell like a Dwarf. They don't hand out Dwarving permits to just any malodorous drunken midget that stumbles in!”
The Goon brothers finally noticed his tone and stepped between Noreach and Dandy. Dandy was pleasantly surprised that his bodyguards remembered for whom they worked and beamed at the pair of them.
“The Sedai weren't evil.” said Selfless. “Just a waste of time. Making up secrets just to hide them, denying everything so that nobody could take anything they said seriously, giving out advice they know won't be followed, and hiding from anyone who actually wanted their advice. Not evil, just a waste of time.”
“If they were so paranoid, how come they made the building so ... obvious?” asked Adolescent.
“They didn't,” said Selfless, smiling bemusedly at the question. “Even in death they try to be enigmatic. Chapter Three is actually in Another City. This building was mostly storerooms for Chapter Nine and a Chapter Four meeting hall, which is where we're going. The 'art' you saw was part of a city beautification program. It was either repaint this building or pave Dirt Road, which the city could never bring itself to do. The others are waiting for us inside the conference room.” Selfless pointed at one of the beige doors and waited until Idiot had opened it and passed through before lowering his arm.

Goe, only 45976 words to go!

Marx, Karl, the least funny brother

a week or so ago i thought that i should actually read the communist manifesto so that i can better rub commie's noses in their own crap. while trying to refind the place i was reading it at before i opened up a page to marxism.org. It's a collection of mailing lists, the most prominant of one requires "Determination • Humility • Militancy • Maturity". At least those people realize that they're fascist fucktards and being able to fight is important to fascist fucktards.

The modern labourer, on the contrary, instead of rising with the process of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth. And here it becomes evident, that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon society as an over-riding law. It is unfit to rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a state, that it has to feed him, instead of being fed by him. Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society.

Is it just me or is Marx claiming that welfare is proof that the welfare state should be destroyed?

Goe, cause it's good to hate commies and the french.

More Stories

Up over at Back of the Envelope.

Goe, linking to the festival n stuff.

The Army of One

The army reserves are not a "broken force" according to the army, but they still need stop loss to keep strength up, and creative headcounting to make it look like they've got everyone they're supposed to.

Goe, cause the army of one has no reinforcements.

Local blogs

I read some local blogs. There's a website that lists a bunch of them, and links the most recent x many articles. Sometimes I look over the list, but most of the articles on any given day are about how much they hate Bush. Very few have anything to say about local stuff, and some aren't local at all but listed to drive up their traffic. The only thing I've done to drive up traffic is participate in the Storyblogging festivals, but even those only bring in a few people each story. Granted, the stories are probably better than most of my non-story posts =-]

Goe, pointing out a little smiley thingie up there in case you didn't notice.

News R Them

Watched ABC news this evening. The host person kept asking one of their 'reporters' about what the public wants from evil robot overlords (a.k.a. Disney). the 'reporter' started every sentence with "we want" like the 'reporter' was part of the public and wants to buy new stuff every other week because steve jobs decided an upgrade was necessary and the host person was some alien planet where people don't replace their gadgets until the gadgets stop working. why can't the media find people with intelligent opinions who aren't either repeating press releases or conspiracy theories.

Goe, finds it hard to take the media seriously.

Giving the bastards more!

Because apparently Czechoslovakia isn't enough.

Goe, can't go along with appeasement.

Spaceships

Why do sci-fi stories have so many spaceships named after sci-fi writers? I don't think anybody's got a ship named after Shakespeare.

Goe, thinks incestuous literary references are overdone.

Libertarians

Libertarians have been bothering me lately. Not in person, more in concept. I used to vote for libertarians in local elections, and seriously considered voting for their 2004 presidential candidate. I didn't because their presidential candidate thought that we should pretend the WTC attacks didn't happen and ignore the rest of the world. Isolationism only works as a foreign policy when you've got nothing anybody else wants, and people want our land, our money, and our stuff.

It's been bothering me more and more that very few libertarians can't discuss their philosophy without pushing either drug legalization or 'free love'. I'm being left with an impression that is growing ever stronger, that libertarians are nothing more than hippies who bathe.

Goe, supports killing bad guys.

It turns out...

Overall, the average literacy of college students is significantly higher than that of adults across the nation. Study leaders said that was encouraging but not surprising, given that the spectrum of adults includes those with much less education.

College students aren't as stupid as everyone else.

Nearing a diploma, most college students cannot handle many complex but common tasks, from understanding credit card offers to comparing the cost per ounce of food.

But it's a low standard to beat.

Meanwhile, people in the Ivory Coast have figured out that France and the United Nations are wrong. Not wrong on any specific issue, but just wrong in being.

I doubt frogs are hopping around Paris yelling 'No Blood for Chocolate!'

Goe, been reading.

festivus

storyblogging festival is up.

Goe, prefers them with descriptions.

Reading and Writing

I normally don't read muc aside from online news stories. The most recent exception being the Wheel of Time series, of which I read every book this last December. Publishers are having trouble getting people to buy books, blaming the multitude of other forms of entertainment for stealing away their audiences. It turns out that even die-hard book fans aren't getting what they used to.

Goe, sees many opportunities that he can't exploit.

Rumsfeld's Navy

It turns out that we don't have enough marines to guard the Navy, or enough soldiers to guard the army. If he can get enough private firms to provide "security" overseas, his job will become nothing but managing contracts.

Goe, because a military for hire is loyal only to the highest bidder.

Oh...

The woman who plays the younger gilmore girl is looking more than a tad bit anorexic. Someone should find her a sandwich.

Goe, sammich!

no four

chapter four will have to wait, it sucked, cat's been unwell, and relatives are in town.

Goe, letting nobody in particular know.

Behold

The evil that is bert.

Goe, standing up for rubber duckies everywhere.

An idea

It occured to me that it should be relatively simple to create an simple ai by using mud's to evolve it. It would take a bunch of computers, and the ability to program.

make one machine the mud server, make sure it can handle many thousands of connections.

make one machine a sex machine, to handle reproduction.

the others will be caretakers, to handle the organisms being evolved.

if the population drops below 10 on any given caretaker machine, the sex machine spawns a completely new genome, runs the genome through a script debugger that turns the genome into a script for the caretakers to run, then passes it off to a caretaker to take care of.

each script should be able to access thousands of variables per organism.

organisms would be able to reproduce randomly and asexually at first, with the parents genome passing itself off to the sex machine for mutation addition (and a little lengthening to future complexity). as the organisms learn to do simple things, like eat or drink, those will become criteria for asexual reproduction, favoring organisms that take care of themselves. since they'd all be on the same server, interaction would a part of their lives from the beginning. it would be possible (eventually) for people to log in and interact with them.

Goe, just passing on thoughts.

The bigger fish

The idea of the new Caliphate is the recurrent nightmare of presidents kings and emirs. In its al-Qaeda manifestation this threat may provoke a tragic blood-stained laugh, but the Iranian version sends a shiver down their spines.

“Our foreign policy will not be defensive but offensive” Ahmadinejad said recently, warning that “Islam is a universal religion and today the responsibility of imposing it on the rest of the world sits on Iran’s shoulders.”

Even the arab press is growing afraid of Iran's aspirations for world domination. Unlike Ann Coulter, he has millions of militants in agreement.

Goe, uneasy about the strength of our enemies.

History amended

"God cannot alter the past, though historians can."
~Samuel Butler, "Prose Observations"

Iran trying to recruit "historians" from around the world to write a comprehensive new version of the Second World War, in which the Holocaust is a trick created by German and Polish jews to defraud the rest of the world of life, liberty, and property.

Unfortunately, most of the rest of the world is either eager to play along, or trying so hard to be seen as having an "international" viewpoint that they'll overlook even current, existing concentration camps, and organized genocides. After all, it's important to overlook one anothers flaws, even if those flaws kill several million people. Save a few thousand lives and Speilberg will make a film about you. Save more, and you'll be arrested and shot for your ill manners.

But then, there are worse things to be remembered for.

Goe, wishes he could do more to make the world a better place.

Battlestar HA!

Even Mr. Goldberg agrees. except that they missed the possibility of promoting Adama.

Goe, outthinking professional thinkers.

Conspiracies again

Watching the new Battlestar Galactica. Admiral Kane is recognized by all the major characters as being just as evil and dangerous as the cylons. The president encourages Adama to kill Kane. Why doesn't the president relieve Kane of command or promote Adama over her to the same effect? With the stroke of a pen, she could retire Kane and solve all of the problems they have with her. Instead, she encourages backstabbing. Why can't anybody make sci-fi without friggin conspiracies?

Goe, wondering if non-conspiratorial plots cause the writers great pain and anguish.

storyblogging.

new thingie up. kinda slow.

Goe, changing the side links a bit today.

Learning Curve

There was no window. Dr. Merril made a mental note to have windows put in all the booths before going public. Windows and a name, he thought, laying in the booth. He'd just travelled across the continent in a fraction of a second, had been doing so for months, but nobody on his team could come up with a name that wasn't already trademarked by a zealous entertianment company. He chuckled and made another mental note to ask marketing if they had a name. The technician should be opening the booth to let him out at any second.

---

Tom looked out the window at the technician. He was supposed to travel to New York, but the safety protocols mandated a local test every day. Someone had forgotten to disconnect the secondary local booth afterwards. It wasn't a problem, really. The technician could send him from here once they verified that the New York booth was closed. At least this booth had windows. The thought of sitting in the dark made him chuckle as he watched the technician disconnect the local test cabling. The technician turned and gave him a thumbs up, before pressing the send button.

---

A fraction of a second passed before the disfigured remains of Dr. Tom Merril weighed twice what they should have. The safety protocols were modified within hours.

Goe, la di di, di di di da.

wow

it turns out that nobody really wanted a hippopotamus for christmas.

Goe, sold his share in the hippo farm just in time.