kleptoquark

After a few years on the tourist circuit, John and I were about ready to move on to larger things.

It's not that we weren't having fun. I had great teachers -- John on the one hand, and the mean streets of Cincinnati, Ohio on the other -- and we'd built up a fantastic routine over the years. We were just tired of being broke most of the time.

Our best act was the smoke-up. John would be standing at the bus station in his best cheap suit, looking around twitchily. I'd be half a block away on the corner. He'd accost the dumbest-looking passerby, offering $50 for a pack of cigs ("I can't miss this bus, man"). If they had a pack on them, John would discover that his wallet was missing and swear loudly until the mark went away. If they didn't, our victim would be pleased to discover my little corner set-up, where packs could be had for a merely extortionate $20 apiece.

It was less lucrative than picking pockets, but much more enjoyable.

We had a few other cheesy tricks. We were always very late on rent. Our landlord was starting to sound a bit more serious about his threats. That's when John somehow wound up with a warehouse full of plastic cattle.

"HalfCalf. It was this totally failed My Little Pony ripoff, they were going out of business, I got these really cheap, it's like 5% retail, we can probably flip them for twice--"

"John. Johnny. How much did you spend on toy cows."

He looked sheepish. "Two grand?"

That was our savings, more or less. To my credit, I only came up with three or four ways to murder a man with plastic cows before he managed to calm me down. Then we started thinking.

I had a decent-sized botnet left over from college, and John knew a few marketing tricks from the dotcom bubble. In about a week, the Web was crawling with rumors about the HalfCalf nostalgia craze. Only about two-thirds of the articles were ours. We started to contact our marks.

"Hey, I saw your piece on HalfCalf. I represent a private collector -- we'll pay you two dollars apiece."

"You know where we can get HalfCalf? Just the longhorns and Angus. We'll pay $2."

And so on.

Meanwhile, we started advertising our stockpile, quietly, mostly on Craigslist and a few forums. (Including the "Official HalfCalf Discussion Board" -- again, not one of ours.) We were gearing up to sell thousands upon thousands of them, for $1 each, and then vanish; the smoke-up writ large. I apologized to John for fantasizing about drowning him in injection-molded Holsteins. He was a genius. We were both geniuses.

Things went better than we could have ever hoped for. The two of us sat in our dingy apartment, browsing the rumor mill. HalfCalves littered the table. I'd taken to arranging them in compromising positions when I was bored.

"Check this out, dude -- 'HalfCalf is the new Beanie Baby'!"

"That's nothing. Look here: 'going for up to five dollars for rare varieties'... who's paying that?" We sure aren't."

"The new Beanie Baby, 'the next My Little Pony' -- Hey, do you think Hasbro's gonna sue us?"

"Why would they? We're not breaking any laws. Uh, any laws of relevance to them."

"Wait, look at this."

"What? That's a joke, yeah?"

"Gotta be. How can HalfCalf be 'the next big cryptocurrency'?"

"Hacker News, man."

About a month in, most of our cattle were spoken for. We started to ship them out, counting our winnings gleefully. But the craze showed no sign of slowing down.

"John John John. Look look look. Ten dollars. Twenty dollars for the rare ones!"

"That's from Tuesday. It's closer to thirty now, on some sites."

We cancelled as many $1 sales as we could, tried to buy back the cows that had already slipped through our fingers. A few found their way back to us through our $2 offers, which we had fortuitously forgotten to take down. The HalfCalf market grew, swelled, metastasized. Speculators tripped over each other, choking on outdated information and premature hype; arbitrage opportunities abounded.

At the point where things really went nuclear, we'd sold off all our cows again and had a modest fortune tucked away. John still had some promising leads, sellers who didn't have their eye on the latest gossip. We gradually bought back nearly the entire stock, at $20, $30, $50. It didn't matter; there were buyers who would pay us hundreds, now. We went into debt. We started planning for retirement.

Finally, we found ourselves sitting on an ocean of priceless cattle. Almost a million dollars' worth, I calculated. We scrambled and bought up the last few HalfCalves.

And the bottom fell out of the market.

Prompt: Hopepunk says that kindness and softness doesn’t equal weakness, and that in this world of brutal cynicism and nihilism, being kind is a political act. An act of rebellion.

Completion:

"It's pretty hard to equate the dark side of [Blind Willie's] side with the light side," Hustepunk says. "Kung fu is the most violent act of rebellion, and he sings about that with a lot of anger. The only problem with nationalism is that you have to have all these characters singing about love and love."

Blind Willie, who was born and raised in Connecticut, has been a strong advocate of American political conservatism for at least two decades. In a 2013 interview with the Huffington Post, he wrote that "the kindest people in this life are not those who strive for right-wing ideals but those who have invested their lives into the deep-pocketed interests of an increasingly corrupt media, particularly the Democratic Party, and have found success in creating an atmosphere of insecurity and fear."

Blind Willie is Indigenous and is an American-born Canadian national. "I suffer from depression," he says. "I've experienced it at the hands of the forces that cut my down to earth community."

Hustepunk is a member of the American Red Cross, a military advisory group for the Middle East and South Asia. In a 2011 interview with The Huffington Post, he sweetly states:

"When I was growing up, because I was from the South, and our culture was completely rejected, I went out and bought weapons, bought boxing cards, bought stereos. I got to be an average person. My life is almost nonstop. It's a constant struggle. Knowing the depth of my pain, being able to overcome it and the complications of it, is going to be a constant struggle for all of us."

♦◊♦

Hustepunk says that he's fed a number of misconceptions across his life about how people view him and the issues that he has come to face. He says that he, his very life, and his countless fans share a deep hatred against capitalism. "I've never had a feeling for the United States," he says. "So it was a really, really instituting feeling that I was about to die just for the sake of people's lives."

One of the most harrowing quotes from Hustepunk's 2010 memoir Raindrops, as cited in the piece, comes from Waxman:

"I still have a dark side to the country. I'm a believer in black and white. I believe that the white country was a continuation of slavery. In fact, I still

(no prompt)

Completion:

Back when I was a kid I started typing my names. I can't remember the last time I remembered to type my first name correctly. I usually start with my last name when I re-read the page, then a few days later change my name to Mark. This morning my wife and I started typing a little and she typed Mark. So today she typed Mark. Unless you are going to be typing Mark, then you will want to take her to the office and I am typing Mark. If you are not going to be typing Mark, then you need to take her to the Opera house. I can't remember exactly why she did she do it, but she said she would be so happy if she had to. But eventually she started typing Mark and said "I just checked on your page and I want to find out what you said." So she typed "Mark," and when I got back she was typing Mark but she said something like "Your page says, "An English dossier." So I started typing Mark and she typed "An English dossier." She finally typed Mark and after a few questions she answered. I think she knew what I did but not really knew what I was going to say. So the next day I started typing Mark again like normal and she immediately started typing Mark as usual.


I thought that typing Mark was not a good idea for the average user, but now I know why. You can always keep your numbers long. Especially if you like to go back and look at why your numbers are longer and don't have any growth too. If you are going to write things with a simple, fast, readable method, then you should surely try something new. I have always said that it is good to have a quick idea of what you will want to see, so I will explain some simple things.


1) A page with a heading. This is a 12-character sheet with a heading. By definition, the heading is a 24-character sheet with a heading. It is bolded and italicized. All of the items in the heading have pictures and phrases. For example, my "An English dossier" is a 12-character sheet with a heading. Please note that if you change the order of items in a heading, all the items in the title will become "An English dossier." If you change the order of items in a heading, all items in the title will be that

Moloch who will turn our country’s hearts to ashes in the night! Moloch whose men of power speak the truth!

Moloch whose tongue is a thousand fountains on fire!

Moloch whose shriek is violent and invisible and meaningless and as infinite as ice!

Moloch whom nobody calls a fool. Moloch whom no God called a fool! Moloch whose world is more and more empty! Moloch whose world is to infinity and eternal fire! Moloch whose world is to everlasting fire! Moloch whose world is to the moon! Moloch whose world is the day of all eternity! Moloch whose world is to the dawn! Moloch whose world is beyond all the laws of nature!

Moloch who is a man of great wealth! Moloch who is a man of the best quality! Moloch who is a man of the best kind! Moloch who is a woman!

lightly edited:

Moloch whose god is God alone! Moloch whose god is the sun! Moloch whose god is the earth! Moloch whose god destroys the universe! Moloch whose god destroys space! Moloch whose god destroys all time! Moloch whose god destroys all eternity! Moloch whose god destroys all the world! Moloch whose god destroys the universe everywhere! Moloch whose god has no God! Moloch whose god has no Heaven!

unedited but endorsed:

Moloch whose death is not a lie at all! Moloch whose death is the most serious event in a hundred thousand years!

Prompt: Archeologists at Stanford University announced Tuesday that they had discovered the legendary continent of Atlantis. The lost continent, which is several times larger than Australia, was found in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The discoverers explained that Atlantis "has apparently always been there" and "was just overlooked in the past."

Completion: Logan Polyquater was also clear that "if it's in the damn world, then the world is already there," and that he and his team found the "most impressive record of porn ever."

The researchers received an anonymous call from a user he referred to as the "mother of porn," who wished to remain anonymous. They began by pulling a YouTube video from Atlantis. The call was disconnected.

One of the most virulent fans of the site was an avid porn lover named Kevin Swanson, whose video about the Atlantis expedition began slagging off the "trolls" calling himself "Mr. Slant." (That's when one commenter started using his name to identify himself as a "filmmaker.")

Swanson flew to Australia and began watching the Atlantis expedition online. By the end of the expedition he received a gaping hole in his skull and a massive hole in his skull and his head. One he called "a very large rifle that could put you on fire!" It was about the size of an X-ray glass tube.

In video footage released by NASA in May, Swanson was seen at a local beach using a high-powered rifle, and jumping in midair into the water as he was being carried in a vehicle.

But the images of his deletion were far less disturbing. That's because the human-ranking pedophile he is is from a distant geological region of the Americas, which is much different from the continent, where his name was supposedly andrew, according to the Washington Post.

Swanson told the Post his final project was a video on the Atlantis expedition. That video of him and his wife, Dana, a video of them frolicking and drinking, and a video of him taking a selfie with the group of homoerotic pirates.

"I was like 'just a hobby, just a cam,' " Swanson told The Post.

A senior scientist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Virginia told The Washington Post that the team had found the deepest ocean in the history of life and that it had also found the most bizarre and epic mass extinction. "You can see life in the water, it's so strange," he said. "It's like looking at a movie."

Don't forget to check out the video tracking Euronews's correspondent, Kevin Zesema on Facebook.

Prompt: Allow me to explain my grand plan in terms that even an imbecile like you, Captain Heroic, can understand. First,

Completion: Madam Bones, we are seeking a person of noble lineage.

"The artifacts we need to equip you as a Paladin are now being purchased by Kain. We are planning to make him Slicer the Priest of the Thousand Knights. When you decide on a class, let us know where you can help and we will send you back to your home at the beginning of the week to finish our preparations. Once that is done, please make sure you arrive at the Mages Guild to study with our own servants."

"That is certainly correct."

Madam Bones nodded sagely while sitting at the inn.

"I am very pleased, Master Bones, although it is a work in progress. I seek orders from you to be promoted to gain the rank of Slicer and use my skills to purchase a new profile in disguise. If you do not order the assassination of Kain, I am guessing you are merely mystifying us."

Spikes of fear fluttered in the air while the general hurriedly held his hands up.

"Madam Bones, I am truly grateful for your time. Even so…. I do not want to crack you open!"

"You know, I have never been more excited for our future rivalry with the Knights of the Disciples of Kain. As a Paladin, I have long wanted to be the next Knight of the Knights of the Disciples of Kain. In my childhood, I was a little boy who would fight to the death with comrades and battle, battle which I would say was the most vicious."

"A battle that you did not know what to do, the Knight of the Disciples of Kain?"

The general laughed, standing up from his chair.

"Princess Bones, how concerned are you about getting a Knight of the Disciples of Kain named a Knight of the Disciples of Kain?"

"A Knight of the Disciples of Kain, I understand. Dislikes have always plagued me, I will gradually but surely learn to forgive myself."

"Is it really not such a great idea?"

"It is a pity, Princess Bones, you are definitely not a Knight of the Disciples of Kain."

"Ah, I thought that you were a Knight of the Disciples of Kain, but then you were stabbed using my sword. Finding out what my sword was, I was able to cut through it. Just as I expected

[epistemic status: this popped into my head and seems to be a useful lens]

There's a popular (originally Bedouin) quote: "I am against my brother, my brother and I are against my cousin, my cousin and I are against the stranger."

And there's an Emo Philips joke, which is too long to quote here.

You can think of someone's group allegiances as being vaguely hierarchical, with coarse-grained divisions (nationality or religion) at the top and fine-grained details (rationalist drama of the week) at the bottom. Of course, a lot of groups don't sort neatly into a hierarchy: does religion come before or after nationality? Depends who you ask.

Lots of political conflicts are horizontal, between groups at the same tier of this hierarchy: state vs. state, religion vs. religion, rationalist catgirl polycule vs. rationalist catgirl polycule. In a horizontal conflict, you're asked whose side you're on, with the sides helpfully laid out in advance.

In a vertical conflict, on the other hand, different tiers are pitted against each other. A lot of the time, this involves people with the same set of group identities fighting over the ordering of the hierarchy. I vaguely recall being asked, as a child in Hebrew School, to consider whether I was a Jewish American or an American Jew. They aren't synonyms: a Jewish American is an American who happens to be Jewish; an American Jew is a Jew who happens to be American.

Not to imply that higher (more coarse-grained) levels are always considered more important; other vertical conflicts center on exactly that question. Most Americans would agree that the US is part of a larger "Western" grouping of countries, but many would reject any narrative pitting "Western civilization" against other supra-national groups. Members of separatist movements (in e.g. Quebec or Catalonia) identify more strongly with their region than with the country it is (currently) part of, and any separatist conflict is inherently vertical: politicians in Madrid who opposes Catalan independence describe themselves as Spanish, not Castilian. While pro-independence Catalonians may not consider themselves Spanish, Eurosceptics in France or Germany do consider themselves European; they just insist that European identity take a backseat to French or German identity. (There are several different Eurosceptic parties in the European Parliament, which is an interesting concept. The closest analog in American politics that I can think of is "states' rights" parties, but those have usually been firmly on a particular side of a strong regional (and racial) divide. Here's a very vertical-politics quote from Wikipedia: "The States' Rights Democratic Party (usually called the Dixiecrats)...")

There isn't a nice clean prototype for vertical conflicts the way there is for horizontal ones, which makes them a bit harder to describe. I think it's still useful to notice when vertical politics are at play, especially because the rhetoric used in vertical conflicts tends to obscure things.

Vertical politics often shows up when there are horizontal conflicts on multiple tiers. When a country is at war, there will often be internal factions who are more hawkish or dovish, sometimes corresponding to preexisting political or demographic divisions. The hawks are likely to emphasize that "we" are at war, call for unity, and denounce the doves as traitors and cowards. (Treachery and cowardice are usually thought of as individual acts: a traitor defects to the other side, a coward selfishly puts their own needs before the needs of the group. The language of treachery and cowardice keeps the focus on the international conflict.) The doves will probably emphasize existing divisions, accusing the more hawkish party, region, (etc.) within their country of starting a war for their own benefit and at the doves' expense.

This gets interesting when the domestic divides also exist on an international scale. The Bolsheviks capitalized on the unpopularity of World War I, urging workers of all nations to unite against the warmongering bourgeois imperialists of all nations, while the French Section of the Workers' International (note the hierarchical language) faced internal conflict between French patriotism and Socialist solidarity. Most other leftist parties in France decided that they were socialist Frenchmen, not French socialists.

The most interesting thing about vertical politics, other than how ubiquitous it is, is how rarely it's discussed directly. Most political discourse focuses on two armies, a battlefield, and the question of which army will win. It's often more interesting to ask, "Which battlefield will win?"

The history of chemistry:


Red: medieval alchemy: the seven 'planetary' metals and two of the Tria Prima -- mercury is both and salt isn't an element.

Black: Dalton's 36 elemental symbols, except for those included above

Gray: modern symbols for the remaining elements.

Thanks to Bob LeSuer, https://community.wolfram.com/groups/-/m/t/1098055 for the base

Here's something fun that might be useful for a fictional universe or something: I'm cataloging seven-part mixtures of the four classical elements. For example, this lil guy is one part Water, two parts Earth, three parts Fire, and one part Air:



We need to be systematic about this, so let's split the elements into "hot" (Fire and Air) and "cold" (Water and Earth). Here are all the mixtures that are either 100% cold (left) or 100% hot (right):



The right column is just the left column with each element swapped with its opposite (Fire/Water and Earth/Air).

If we have some nontrivial combination of cold and hot, like a 3:4 mix, we get something like this:



The left half is 4 parts hot to 3 parts cold, with Air gradually replacing Fire as you move right and Earth replacing Water as you move down. The right half (4 parts cold to 3 parts hot) is a copy of the left half with opposite elements swapped.

So we have a system! There are two other grids like this, for 1:6 and 2:5 mixes of hot and cold. Let's see what a full table of our elemental mixtures looks like:



hey wait a minute

Fun with URL encoding: