text:
FEZ [GOG.com]
- Type:
- Games > PC
- Files:
- 3
- Size:
- 555.42 MiB (582403954 Bytes)
- Tag(s):
- FEZ game GOG DRM-free
- Uploaded:
- By:
- Anonymous
- Seeders:
- 1
- Leechers:
- 0
- Comments
- 33
- Info Hash:
(Problems with magnets links are fixed by upgrading your torrent client!)
This is the official GOG.com release of FEZ. -- Description from GOG.com: What's cool about it: Explore a magical 3D world without conflict or enemies, rich with ambiance, a pleasant place to spend time in. Go anywhere you please as there is no one path, no right or wrong way to play. Rotate your perspective to navigate the complex environments, solve puzzles, and find secrets! Overview: Gomez is a 2D creature living in a 2D world. Or is he? When the existence of a mysterious 3rd dimension is revealed to him, Gomez is sent out on a journey that will take him to the very end of time and space. Use your ability to navigate 3D structures from 4 distinct classic 2D perspectives. Explore a serene and beautiful open-ended world full of secrets, puzzles and hidden treasures. Unearth the mysteries of the past and discover the truth about reality and perception, in this phenomenal puzzle-platformer! -- This is my first torrent, and my upload speed isn't great, but stick with it and help me seed it once you get it down! :)
Game is consistently crashing on a certain area for me, but I can probably still beat it. Game lags a bit in the middle of some levels. Minor sound issues at times, but barely noticeable.
If your game crashes at start up, run exe as administrator - worked for me. Good luck!
I'm getting no sound, please help
Patch 1.06 fixed my startup errors.
Thanks for the great share. Take his phil fish you ego maniac!
cant start it
Do not work to me too I've already updated the .net and VisualC++ redistributable, tere is a shot from the problem after loading the company's logo:
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text:
SportsDirect Inc.
Recap: Rutgers 58, St. John's 56
Rutgers 58, St. John's 56: Dane Miller scored 11 points and the visiting Scarlet Knights held off the Red Storm in Big East play.
SportsDirect Inc.
Recap: Rutgers 58, St. John's 56
Rutgers 58, St. John's 56: Dane Miller scored 11 points and the visiting Scarlet Knights held off the Red Storm in Big East play.
Mike Poole and Austin Johnson chipped in 10 points apiece for Rutgers (10-3, 2-1 Big East), which followed up its upset of Pittsburgh by winning for the seventh time in eight games. The Scarlet Knights pulled out the win while getting a sub-par game from leading scorer Eli Carter, who was held to eight points on 3-of-14 shooting.
D'Angelo Harrison led St. John's (9-6, 1-2) with 20 points but missed a potential go-ahead 3-pointer with eight seconds left. JaKarr Sampson added 12 points but also missed a potential game-winning 3-pointer at the buzzer.
The game featured 14 lead changes and five ties but the lead changed hands for the final time on Miller's layup with 3:04 remaining. Miller had another basket on Rutgers' next possession and St. John's missed several changes to go ahead as Harrison missed two of four free throws. The Red Storm cut the lead to 57-56 on a layup by Sampson with 23 seconds left but Poole split a pair at the line for Rutgers with six seconds remaining for the final margin.
St. John's started slow by missing its first 10 shots and trailed 13-3 before Harrison knocked down a 3-pointer with 12:33 remaining. The Red Storm took their first lead at 18-17 on Sampson's dunk following Rutgers' third straight turnover and carried a 27-23 lead into halftime
GAME NOTEBOOK: The last four meetings between the teams have been decided by a combined nine points. ... Harrison was 8-of-12 from the foul line while St. John's failed to capitalize on having 12 more attempts as it was 15-of-27. ... Rutgers has held St. John's to 35 percent shooting and below 60 points in the last two meetings.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
With the dubious inclusion of two new dwarf planets to our solar system's classic starting lineup of nine, the mnemonic for remembering their names just got a whole lot cooler. The new planet order (according to National Geographic Children's Books) is Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and Eris. Ceres, Pluto, and Eris are considered dwarf planets, though they prefer to be called "little planets". And fourth-grader Maryn Smith has won a contest to come up with a new mnemonic for them: "My Very Exciting Magic Carpet Just Sailed Under Nine Palace Elephants". Sounds like a lost song from Sgt. Pepper, but I like it. In addition to being included in a new National Geographic book, the mnemonic will also be recorded as a song by pop sensation Lisa Loeb, who, despite widespread rumors, did not die in 1996. More details here.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Toss a Couple More Planets on the Mnemonic
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
The Amateur Scientist is a blog and podcast created by Brian Thompson, a gentleman who has been able to read and write for over seventeen years. Brian and his team of unpaid contributors, sex slaves, and interns provide semi-daily commentary on news relating to science, politics, religion, conspiracy theory, UFOs, mass hysteria, robots, genitals, and robot genitals.
Via the award-pending Amateur Scientist Podcast, this same team of youthful, succulent experts provides weekly audio entertainment for your delicate ears. Previous guests have included notable figures of stage, screen, and letters. Also, a duck. But the meat of the show remains its near-endless deluge of quasi-historical "facts" and semi-racist diatribes about quadroons, who are fine human beings despite their relative shiftiness.
Monday, February 25, 2008
I See Hallucinations
A team of scientists at University College of London (officially the most generic name for an academic institution ever) have conducted new research into the way the human mind tricks itself into seeing ghosts and monsters in the darkness. Read the whole article for a more detailed explanation, but the nutshell here is that in darkness we're more prone to fill out bits and pieces of visual information that we don't really have. In other words, your mind wants to see something complete even if you can't really see anything at all. Which explains why goblins and spooks only tend to hang out in the most dimly-lit rooms. Either that, or they're all fans of the Cure. More details here.
Losing the Faith
CNN has an unusually interesting analysis of a recent survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life that shows a growing number of American adults are switching religions to something other than the one they were raised with (or, more grammatically correctly, "the one with which they were reared") or abandoning religion altogether. Of course this is great news. It means that more of us are starting to weigh our options and think for ourselves. It's no wonder that those with a college education are more skeptical of religion, and the same can be said for a generation that's grown up in a world of truly global mass communication. Chances are good that the average American these days has not only been exposed to many ideas about religions via the Internet, but that they have also seen these heretics totally get hit in the nuts while trying to nail a flipkick. More details here.
As of October 2009, The Amateur Scientist Podcast has over 3,000 regular weekly listeners, with some episodes reaching as many as 10,000. And the audience grows every week! These are people with time, money, and questionable taste. In other words, they're a valuable demographic.
Each episode of the podcast features an ad break at the halfway point. That's where you may insert your own brand of audio brainwashing. Fellow podcasters may submit 30-second audio promos to run on the show absolutely free. Businesses or cults may have their 30-second message appear on the show for one month (four episodes) for the rock-bottom price of $25.
That's such a value, it's almost sick. Email firstname.lastname@example.com for details.
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The best way to contact us is via good old fashioned, Werther's original email. firstname.lastname@example.com is the address.
But if email is a little too stodgy for you, there's also Twitter and Facebook. Here for the former; here for the latter.
PLUS! You may call the Amateur Scientist Hotline and leave an audio message for The Amateur Scientist Podcast. (318) 884-0572. Please, try to keep it short and sexy.
What we're trying to say is, there's no reason for you not to drop us a line. And there's even less of a reason for you not to send us pictures of your nipples.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Super Rubber
Ludwik Leibler and a team of scientists at the Industrial Physics and Chemistry Higher Education Institution in Paris have created a new kind of self-healing rubber. The material, made from fatty acids and urea, stretches like your old fashioned mom and pop rubber, but when it snaps, it can fuse itself back together using hydrogen bonds. The applications for such a material are myriad. Not only could it be used in breakable toys or as an adhesive, but it would also make for an invincible superweapon in the arsenal of any elementary school bully. Also, it could be used to make an alternately safe and terribly unsafe brand of condom. More details here.
God Hates Israel
Who knew Pastor Fred Phelps moonlights as an MP in the Israeli parliament? Sure he may go by an alias (Shlomo Benizri), but could anyone mistake his piercing logic? Phelps (a.k.a. Shlomo) recently told an Israeli parliament committee that the country's two earthquakes late last year were a warning from God that they need to stop being so nice to gays. Israel decriminalized homosexuality in 1988 (which was a lot sooner than Texas, by the way), and they've passed a few gay rights laws here and there since then. The committee to which Fred/Shlomo was speaking met to discuss emergency preparedness procedures in case of another quake. Benizri/Phelps' plan? Be a complete douche. More details here.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Rhymes with "Deloris"
Sure they may be a creepy cult organized around a crazy man who believes he's in contact with extraterrestrial species, but you've got to give the Raelians credit where credit's due. Claude Vorilhon (a.k.a. "Rael") sees female genital mutilation as a true crime against humanity across the African continent and beyond. And he's right! Plus, he's going to do something about it. Lest you think this is just another P.R. lie like his claim to have produced the first human clone, you should know that he's hired the world's foremost sexual reassignment surgeon to reconstruct women's clitorises in the new hospital he's building in West Africa. He's even formed a company, Clitoraid (the best energy drink name ever), to oversee the operation of the facility. So kudos to the nutjob Raelians. The next time you see one, why not give him the thumbs up? More details here.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Mensa: Idiots
Which is more annoying; the fact that Mensa exists as an organization or the fact that Mensa members always want to tell you how they belong to a select group of people whose standardized test skills are matched only by their crippling social inadequacies? How about this: Jim Werdell, chairman of Mensa International, has horrible taste in television. Following in the list-fetishizing footsteps of VH1 and E!, Werdell has released a list of the top ten smartest television shows of all time. Don't get your hopes up for the inclusion of actually intelligent shows such as Gilmore Girls, which managed to seamlessly reference both Nick Cave and Marcel Proust in a single scene. Instead, Werdell's brain tells him that both CSI (it has science content!) and Mad About You (a personal favorite of his) deserve recognition for their braininess. Perhaps Werdell is too busy measuring the circumference of his head to notice, but there's nothing particularly smart about a sitcom starring a married couple who spar, engage in hijinks, and have a baby when their ratings start to dip. More details here.
Goodbye, Castro
Hooray! The embargo finally worked! Frustrated over the fact that U.S. citizens are not allowed to legally taste the sweet pleasures of his proud country's cigars, Fidel Castro has resigned as president and military commander of Cuba. Also, it may have had something to do with the fact that death's bony fingers are currently finding their way through his beard and around his neck. But as President Bush said this morning, we could be witnessing the beginning of a "democratic transition" for Cuba. Except for the imminent crowning of Fidel's brother Raul (a.k.a. Castro 2.0), the continued incarceration of political prisoners, the continued power of the ruling party, and the fact that Raul has no plans for any democratic transition. Viva le revolucion! More details here.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Sewer Zombie
British towns have been known to pay self-proclaimed psychic exorcists public funds to cleanse houses of evil spirits, so I suppose it shouldn't be too surprising to learn that a sewage treatment plant in Eastbourne, East Sussex has hired "parapsychologist" Michael Kingscote to investigate what workers there describe as a zombie that stalks the facility's tunnels. Also, there may be ghosts. Mark Wey, the worker who hired Kingscote, says: "Michael instantly detected someone standing there and he was suspicious there was something quite unusual there. The conclusion is, we can't prove it is haunted because of strong electromagnetic fields, which can cause the illusion of being haunted, the feeling of being touched or watched, but there is definitely paranormal activity." In other words: "I have no understanding of how electromagnetic energy works. Also, we can't prove anything. Also, it's definitely a zombie ghost." See how dumb this all sounds when you cut out the bullshit? One commentator on this story suggests that it might be more reasonable to assume some homeless vagrant is terrorizing the plant. Maybe. Or maybe there are for worse things to worry about in a dark, sewage-encrusted tunnel than imaginary creatures. More details here.
Hello, Kosovo
It's always nice to welcome a new independent, democratic, and secular state onto the world stage. Sometimes it feels pretty lonely out here. And we couldn't have asked for a more deserving new companion than Kosovo, whose parliament declared its independence from Serbia over the weekend. For those who only remember the '90s as a hazy stream of grungy music and even grungier people, Kosovo's majority population of secular Muslim ethnic Albanians recently endured an organized campaign of genocide under the reign of Serbian president Slobodon Milosevic, who unfortunately died before he could be properly punished for war crimes. Tired of the sideways glances they've received from the Serbian government and their genocide-tolerating allies in Russia and China, the ethnic Albanians finally decided to take the law into their own hands and drafted a declaration of independence on some nice parchment paper. Let's hope the new nation of Kosovo makes good on its promise to remain secular and respectful of the rights of its Christian Serbian minority--the same kind of respect denied them under Serbia's rule. More details here.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Texas Safe for Sex Toys
If you're a Texan, you can happily unlock that chest under your bed, search the house for a pair of working AAs, and enjoy the fruits of autoerotic technology without fear of reprisal. A federal appeals court has thrown out Texas' law banning the sale of sex toys. This is a victory on many fronts. For one thing, the government has no right to intrude into your sex life--whether or not you're having sex with a vibrating plastic and metal automaton. Also, this is a victory of reason over religious intrusion upon the law. After all, there was no basis for this law other than the religious and cultural prudishness of Texas' once powerful yokel class. Next stop: Mississippi and Alabama, where it's still against the law to go into your local mom and pop sex shop and purchase yourself a diesel-powered device capable of stimulating all your pleasure zones at once. More details here.
Murder in Saudi Arabia
It's not been a good month for Saudi Arabia. Because of their ludicrous adherence to Islam's arcane and oppressive Sharia law, they've already banned the color red and arrested a woman for being in the same Starbucks as a man who wasn't her husband. And now they've upheld a death sentence for Fawza Falih, an illiterate woman accused of witchcraft. She was forced to sign a false confession saying that she had bewitched several men in her village--leaving one of them impotent. The insecurity of Saudi Arabia's religious police couldn't be more evident here; they can't help but blame their tiny, non-functioning penises on the dark arts. The fact that New York's Human Rights Watch has issued a statement of protest to the Saudi government while the governments of the free world have remained silent might (and should) interrupt your sleep tonight. Of course, you could always take comfort in knowing that the death sentence has been upheld to "protect the creed, souls, and propery of [Saudi Arabia]," according to the Saudi court. More details here.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Parking Lot UFO
This is supposed to be a UFO photographed by amateur photographer Hab Rahman. He claims he was just taking a picture of a lonely parking lot on a foggy evening, and he didn't notice the UFO in the photo until he transfered it to his computer. Before you go screaming that it's brighter than anything else in the sky and couldn't possibly have gone unnoticed by anyone who isn't legally blind, let me postulate that the UFO probably didn't exist until after Rahman uploaded the picture and manipulated it in Photoshop. However, self-described UFO expert Hilary Porter of the British Earth and Aerial Mysteries Society (NAMBLA) is totally convinced that this is a genuine photo. "It would be very difficult to fake that photo," she said, "and the UFO is at a tilt, which is the way they normally fly." Yes, it would be almost impossible to fake a mysteriously stereotypical flying saucer with outlandishly conspicuous lighting into a photograph. And, of course, tilting it slightly is outside the reaches of modern technology. Perhaps Rahman manipulated the picture using...ALIEN TECHNOLOGY? More details here.
Danes Grow a Pair
While reporting on the arrest of three people for plotting to kill the cartoonist who drew this caricature of Muhammad, Denmark's leading newspapers all reprinted the cartoon in a show of solidarity behind the right of free speech. Kudos to them for that, but one can't help but remember the worldwide chickening out demonstrated by themselves and nearly every other media outlet when it came to the same cartoon two years ago. Disguising their cowardice as a concern for the safety of their employees, no major newspaper or magazine would reprint the cartoon. Only the secular humanist Free Inquiry had the integrity to stand up to Islamic bullying and print every cartoon that had sent Muslims rioting in the streets. For their efforts, Borders book stores refused to carry the April-May 2006 issue of the magazine. One more reason not to shop at Borders. More details here.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Happy Darwin Day
Today marks the 199th anniversary of the births of two great emancipators: Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln. What do you buy someone for their 199th? We're well past the golden years here. Adamantium maybe? Anyway, the point is this: let's put Lincoln aside for a little while. Don't get me wrong; this is a better world without slavery, and you just can't beat those President's Day sales down at the Auto-Mart. You can use your tax refund as a down payment for Christ's sake! And Lincoln's strength and wisdom during this country's most terrible time should never cease to be celebrated. But even though his second inaugural address is one of the most lyrical speeches ever written, it still drapes the cloak of slavery around the Christian god. Lincoln said that the north and south worshiped the same god: the god who had once allowed slavery as a necessary evil and who now wanted humanity to set it aside. While this sentiment of solidarity no doubt offered comfort to those families torn apart by war, Darwin's contribution to society was infinitely more profound. Not only were the north and south a single family united by religion, but they were also a single species united by millions of years of common ancestry. It wasn't God who put a stop to slavery. It was the struggle of a group of people united by an ideal that placed humanism above scripture and morality above superstition. Darwin closed the door on God as the guiding force of human progress, allowing us to assume responsibility for ourselves. Our failures are our own, but so are our successes. So today let's celebrate Lincoln as one of our most important mammals and nothing more. Let's attribute Darwin with helping to end the silly practice of deification. There are no gods. There's just us. And we're better.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Olympic Gag Order
The British Olympic Association has banned its country's athletes from criticizing China's totalitarian regime before or during this year's Olympic Games in Beijing. The BOA's chief executive, Simon Clegg (pictured here looking forlorn), says that the British athletes are like ambassadors and shouldn't be allowed to speak out about China's human rights violations. Clegg obviously has no idea what an ambassador from a free democracy is supposed to do. And lest you think this is just simple British politeness run rampant, you should know that the prince of Wales--that bat-eared water brain with a penchant for stupid religions and matronly blondes--has refused to attend the games because of the same atrocities the Olympic athletes aren't allowed to criticize. Clegg says this policy is just an extension of previous bans on political demonstrations and that athletes will be allowed to answer direct questions that ask for their opinions. "There is a difference between giving an honest answer," he says, "to actually going out to make a specific political point." No, you idiot, there isn't. More details here.
Barack Obama: Marked Man?
What do British Nobel literature laureate Doris Lessing and American rapper Half Dollar (a.k.a. Fiddy Sint) have in common? Both of them support Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign because they think Barack Obama will be assassinated. Look, I know better than most people that the race problem in this country is far from solved, but we're no longer living in black and white footage from '60s Alabama. Not only do black people share our lunch counters these days, but we don't even have lunch counters. All races have joined in an admittedly uneasy alliance to lament the fact that our local Burger Kings have discontinued the Whopper solely to film our outraged reactions. Also, grow the hell up. If you really think a roving band of racists will murder any dark-skinned president, why not throw a popularly elected black man right in their faces. Why cower to them? Why settle for someone less simply out of fear? And has rapid inflation lowered the value on Fiddy Sint to a paltry Thirdy-Five Sint? More details here.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Chelsea Clinton: Pimped
Will the Clinton campaign never cease its hyperbole and nonsense? MSNBC's David Shuster has been suspended by his network and lambasted by Sen. Clinton for saying that it seems like the campaign is "pimping" Chelsea to the Democratic Party in order to garner sympathy votes. Guess what? They are. While still maintaining that Chelsea is off-limits for media criticism (as if she were still the awkward pre-teen of the 1992 campaign), her parents have had her on the phone with Democratic super delegates and made sure to plaster her face on television. As Shuster rightly pointed out, the Clinton campaign is treating Chelsea like their secret plaything. You know, kind of whorey. Sen. Clinton's idiotic assertion that Shuster's comment was sexist assumes that only women are called whores, which is simply ridiculous considering that Bill Clinton is one of the worst whores to occupy the White House in my lifetime. And it's fitting that Chelsea would follow in the footsteps of her mother, who's been whoring herself to the health insurance industry for years. More details here.
Turkey, Turkey, Turkey...
After all the posts this past week lamenting the horror that is Islamic law, it's time to swing the other direction a bit. Turkey's parliament is moving to lift the ban on Islamic head scarves at the country's universities. The ban was put in place to secure universities as a fully secular environment, and supporters of the ban are protesting parliament's decision in the name of secularism. It's true that a predominantly Muslim country like Turkey especially needs to maintain secularism in its government and on its school's campuses, but lifting a ban on head scarves is a long way from state-sponsored religion. Allowing Muslim women to wear what they want is actually secularist. It's the good kind of multiculturalism. Now if they were forced to wear the scarves, then you'd be heading into crazy town. More details here.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Ask an Amateur Scientist: Transcendental Meditation
I blogged about the death of Transcendental Meditation guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi earlier this week, but in the latest edition of my PinkRaygun.com column Ask an Amateur Scientist, I go a little deeper into the ridiculousness that is the TM movement. Also, I provide a stunningly insightful analysis of the Beatles' relationship with the Beach Boys and how this led to the downfall of both Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees. Let's hope those Rolling Stone editors take notice. Read it here.
Starbucks Sharia
Speaking of Sharia law, a 37-year-old American businesswoman in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia was arrested, strip searched, and forced to sign a false confession for sitting in a Starbucks with a coworker. The power had gone out in the woman's office, so she'd gone to the Starbucks to wait it out. That's when agents of Saudi Arabia's Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (NAMBLA) apprehended her. Apparently it's immoral for a woman to sit with a man who is not her husband, but Allah smiles upon those men who would take it upon themselves to kidnap her and strip her naked. By the way, Islam is a religion of peace. More details here.
Archbishop of Canterbury: Idiot
It's stories like this that just make me sad. Rowan Williams, the current Archbishop of Canterbury, has called for the U.K. to adopt Sharia law, the oppressive codes of conduct dictated by fundamentalist Islam, into their legal system. While he's careful to state that the more woman-hating and violent aspects of Sharia should be ignored, he thinks that allowing Sharia law to govern civil matters such as divorce would help Muslims integrate into British society. Multiculturalism has its place in a country with as large an immigrant Muslim population as Great Britain's, but there is a line to be drawn in any free society. Williams' assertion that there shouldn't be one set of laws for everyone living in a democracy is idiotic. Religion and government are incompatible, and allowing the two to intermingle--especially in the context of the barbarism that is Sharia law--will literally lead to the downfall of British society. Of course, one should expect that kind of lunacy from a man whose position in life hasn't held any relevance since the time of Chaucer. More details here.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Haggard Still a Homo
Remember Ted Haggard? He was that charismatically creepy head pastor of the gigantic Colorado Springs New Life Church. (You can always recognize a megachurch if it looks like a Costco and the preacher wears a head-mounted microphone like Hannah Montana.) Anyway, if you remember Ted, chances are you also remember how he left the church after it was discovered he'd been doing meth and various other deeds with a male prostitute. Good times. Although Haggard was supposedly "cured" of his homosexuality by his church's three-week intensive gay cleansing ritual (I've heard a big part of the course is having to look at life-sized photographs of a naked Don Rickles), it looks like he wasn't quite cured enough. The new head pastor has issued a letter explaining that Ted isn't fully "restored" and will have to sit out returning to his old job for a while. Looks like the members of the New Life Church are as skeptical of the gay cleansing program as every other person in the world who possesses a functioning brain. More details here.
Bonus: Check out Haggard's awkward confrontation with biologist Richard Dawkins from Dawkins' excellent documentary The Root of All Evil?. It's dripping with disgust and condescension:
Yogi Buried
Mystical guru and founder of transcendental meditation Mahesh Srivastava (better known as the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi) is dead at 91. Credited both with introducing the Beatles to the sitar and the rest of the world to utter bullshit, Srivastava declared himself a "great seer" and turned his new age nonsense into a global business worth millions. Followers of TM may trumpet its powers to unleash the psyche and open up the mind, but it was also a cash cow for Srivatava, who refused to eat actual cow. Aside from introducing the kind of misunderstood scientific jargon mixed with mystical mumbo-jumbo that people like Deepak Chopra (a Yogi-phile himself) have used to make their fortunes, Srivastava also generously used his riches solely to spread the word of his own personality-based merchandising. He famously fell out of favor with John Lennon over his lecherous advances toward Hollywood hottie Mia Farrow, he lied about being able to teach people to fly using TM, and he stupidly led an initiative to end world peace by eating vegetables and thinking happy thoughts. My sympathies extend to his blah blah and so on and so forth. More details here.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Vote, Damn You!
If you've been watching the news or answering unsolicited phone calls lately, you may have realized that today, Tuesday, is somewhat "super". No, this isn't the annual celebration of Christopher Reeve's rising from the grave, so put down that chocolate egg. This Tuesday is super because of the awesome might of primary voting. My state doesn't vote until Saturday (we are in no way super, apparently) but if you live in a state that is voting and you're a registered Democrat or Republican, you could do worse than use the time of a few plucky volunteers down at the local polling place. I'm not going to tell you who you should vote for, but you should really vote for either Barack Obama or John McCain. Obama is the only Democratic candidate who is not a lying, racist sociopath in the pockets of the same industry he supposedly tried to destroy in the early '90s. And McCain is the only Republican candidate who isn't batshit crazy. Also, he can't lift his arms over his head, which should garner your sympathy vote.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Navy to P0wn Enemies
Taking a cue from the doodlings of hormone-crazed preteen boys and the minds of violent video game developers, the U.S. Navy has built and successfully tested an electromagnetically powered railgun capable of firing a projectile 230 miles at Mach 7. Instead of using traditional explosive propellants, the gun's magnet-based technology allows for more destructive and less dangerous to handle ammunition. And if it's anything like the railgun in Quake, it'll be like totally badass. Of course, those lame laws of motion would probably prevent a hand-held version of the gun from being produced, as the kick would send a soldier flying backward across a battlefield. On second thought, that would look wicked cool in an online game of Halo. More details here.
And on a more personal note, I'd like to take issue with LiveScience's careless typographical error of calling Battlestar Galactica "Battlestar Galactic". "Battlestar Galactic" is a ridiculous title undeserving of such a great show. And I am a nerd.
Iranians in Space
Iran's state-run television news agency announced that the country has made its first steps in developing a space program by testing a rocket capable of carrying satellites into space. While the rocket, called Explorer-1, did not deploy a satellite (and there's really no evidence it even reached the edge of space), President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad touted this as a major achievement for Iran. Skeptics and rational thinkers the world over are suspicious that Iran's space program could be a cover for the development of ballistic missiles. But this is probably just as innocent as Iran's recent "Everybody Carry an Oddly Large Suitcase Day", their week-long "Household Uranium Celebration", and their "Why Would We Start a Nuclear Program?" program. According to Muslim tradition, there are no physical laws governing the universe, and every movement is solely due to the will of Allah. In which case, why build a thrust-based rocket when you could just pray to have your satellites lifted into space? More details here.
The Devil Made Me Do It
This is either evidence that no one should perform an exorcism without the proper training or that paranoid schizophrenics really shouldn't mix their craziness with religion. 60-year-old Texan Jan David Clark claims that the devil entered his body while he was attempting to exorcise a demon from his wife Susan and forced him to kill her. Police found her body wrapped in a white sheet with a cross and sword on top. There seems to be a rash of exorcism-related deaths in the past few months. Is this kind of nonsense becoming a trendy new hobby? Or is the inherent insanity of believing in demonic possession finally catching up with people? Or is this all real? In which case, how does this murder stack up in the ongoing competition between "God told me to do it" and "the devil made me do it"? More details here.
Blog Archive
- ► 2010 (189)
- ► 2009 (394)
- Toss a Couple More Planets on the Mnemonic
- I See Hallucinations
- Losing the Faith
- Super Rubber
- God Hates Israel
- Rhymes with "Deloris"
- Mensa: Idiots
- Goodbye, Castro
- Sewer Zombie
- Hello, Kosovo
- Texas Safe for Sex Toys
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- ▼ February (32)


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Thai Islands- Trying to avoid rain
Thai Islands- Trying to avoid rain
We're planning on going to a few islands between the last half of September and the first half of October. We will probably do Phuket, Ko Phi Phi and perhaps Phang-Nga on the West coast and Ko Tao, Ko Pha Ngan, and Koh Samui on the SE coast. Right now the plan is to fly into Phuket and we were going to work our way up to Northern Thailand. I've read that Sept is rainy season for the SW coast and that it isn't so bad for the SE coast. For the SW coast it also seems that October is a better time to be there than September.
Would it be a better idea to do the East coast first and then backtrack and do the West after to try to avoid some of the rain? I'm not sure what the cost of this lil detour would be but if reasonable and means staying out of the rain I'd definately consider it. Thanks for the help!
Another possibility is to finish off our trip here in Nov, Dec. Right now though it seems as though that would be a bit of a hassle. Do you recommend trying to avoid the rain altogether by doing that instead?
#1 savage has been a member since 1/8/2008. Posts: 2
Have a look at the Thailand weather map under Travel intelligence to the right. It lists mean rainfalls as well as temperatures
#2 mic59 has been a member since 30/7/2008. Posts: 107
when you swim you get wet. r u goin to avoid swimming too?
forget about the rain and just go
no guarantees with weather
rain is good in thailand, cools u down
#3 travelrock has been a member since 19/4/2008. Posts: 209
Yes, start by looking at the interactive travelfish weather map as mic says.
Probably best to head to the east coast first but no guarantee the west will dry by early October. It probably won't rain non stop for days and days though...the odd thunderstorm lasting an hour or so is more likely. Head for the nearest bar ... I love having a beer while watching a tropical downpour. Stupid law mean bars can't sell beer 2-5pm though, so you might have to make do with a fruitshake.
Why fly into Phuket? You could fly from BKK to Samui instead (if you're fairly rich). Alternatively get an overnight sleeper or bus from BKK to Chumphon (nearest port to Ko Tao) or Surat Thani (nearest port Ko Phangan or Samui)
If you have to go to Phuket because that's where your international flight lands, then maybe just see what it's like when you get there. It's low season, prices cheaper than November/December and no problem finding accommodation at that time of year (except Full Moon Party time on KPN of course)
#4 SBE has been a member since 14/4/2008. Location: Global Village. Posts: 2,054
Send SBE a private message Where has SBE been?
PS Bar rule is enforced in BKK but much less so on the islands. Not sure about Phuket or Samui as I've never fancied going to either of those.
#5 SBE has been a member since 14/4/2008. Location: Global Village. Posts: 2,054
Send SBE a private message Where has SBE been?
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The photo itself is probably deeply disturbing to some, and adorable to others. It's that dramatic gulf that caused some problems for pretty much everyone involved in the aftermath of this picture.
The picture is of a 10-year-old from New Jersey holding what appears to be an assault rifle – actually a hunting rifle done up to look like an assault rifle. A neighbor saw the photo posted to Facebook and called the New Jersey Department of Youth and Family Services, which aggressively came to the family's home along with police. The police demanded that the father open the safe, which he refused to do. Police, lacking a warrant or criminal charges, left.
No laws were broken, and the police pretty much did what police do – take a heavy-handed approach in the hopes that the person on the other end doesn't quite understand what his or her rights are. The father did understand, and the police left empty-handed. Not that it could have ended any other way, since nothing was technically amiss – New Jersey doesn't require guns to be registered, and the son was trained and had a hunting license.
So, it's more or a less a story about how you maybe shouldn't share everything on a public social networking site. With this incident behind them, nothing will likely change for the father and son regardless of how responsible with firearms they are – it looks like we're well on our way to not addressing gun control once again, anyway.
As for what's to be said about the image of a 10-year-old holding what looks like an assault rifle and smiling – I'll leave that up to you.


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The place has got a sense of calmness. I'm a construction specialist and love the stained glass and brass door knobs. The paint schemes are fresh and uplifting.
Lea welcomed us, gave us of tour of her B&B and provided suggestions for sightseeing in Tucson. Her breakfasts were excellent. Can't wait to return.
Such a fun experience to stay in a Bed and Breakfast! So different than your typical hotel. Just blocks away from downtown U of A so location is perfect.
We had a fabulous time staying at the Big Blue House! Lea is an amazing host who was so warm and friendly and very creative in the kitchen...
We thoroughly enjoyed our stay at The Big Blue House. It was in a nice neighborhood with easy access to several restaurants and stores. We loved the decor in the Hemingway suite
Margaret Smith provided proof that Henry C. Trost designed Tucson's Gardiner / Ramsey house in 1899. (see newspaper clipping) After years of searching for information on the designer of the house at 742 N. 6th Avenue, Tucson AZ. (address in 1900) Architect Henry C. Trost, was born in Toledo, Ohio in 1860. Trost was a30Read More
Be sure to attend 2nd Saturdays in Tucson. An eclectic blend of music, vendors, street performers, students and locals. As if it wasn't already a great time in Tucson but with the added Tucson Streetcar now in operation… SummaryEvent 2nd Saturday Festival Location Downtown Tucson, Scott Avenue,Tucson, Starting on 08/02/2014Ending on 09/05/2015Read More
The Big Blue House Tucson B&B images attract world-wide attention. It seems as if since we posted the new images last year, The Big Blue House has been getting a lot of attention. The historic restoration combined with the talented Vargas photographic team has certainly helped restoration project gain recent notoriety. Starting with the iconic30Read More
SummaryLea Ramsey Lea RamseyReview Date 2013-05-30Reviewed Item Featured Tucson Bed and BreakfastAuthor Rating 5Read More
Fourth Avenue is often called "The Cultural Center of Tucson" for good reason. Twice a year it seems the entire population of the old pueblo converge on 4th Ave. for a funky, fun time. Artists of every style and persuasion line the blocks of Fourth Avenue. Chanting food vendors and local musicians create a crescendo30Read More
The Big Blue House Bed and Breakfast "One of 20 Great College Town B&Bs. The Big Blue House bed and breakfast Inn was featured in this Bed and Breakfast . com article of "The 20 best college town bed and breakfasts". The Inn is located only blocks from the UofA campus and only 6 blocks30Read More
SummaryArticle NameBig Blue House Inn – Arizona Highways MagazineDescriptionAfter several additional changes of ownership, the Big Blue House ultimately landed in the hands of Leona Marie Ramsey in 2005.Author Kelly Vaughn KramerRead More
Article by Poet Article Writing.com Relax. Book your reservation now at the Big Blue House, an award-winning bed-and-breakfast inn located in a historic Queen Anne Victorian home built in 1899 by renowned architect Henry C. Trost. Each room is decorated in a different theme, including the Zen suite and the Hemingway Traveler suite. The innkeeper,30Read More
The Tucson All Souls Procession. It's a simple concept: Celebrate the lives of those loved-ones who have passed It all started in 1991 as an idea forth by Susan Johnson and has grown to a unique two mile long Tucson tradition that should not be missed. This 25th annual procession will take place the weekend30Read More


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Dog Recall Alerts
We all want the best for our pets, and one way to ensure that your pets are healthy, happy, and safe is to keep an eye on the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) recall list.
As a pup-parent, you've likely met other dog owners and have bonded over a shared love of your four-legged friends. Eventually, the idea for a playdate between your two dogs is likely to come up. The idea seems like a fun one at first, until you remember a few instances of your pup's bad behavior. Even if your dog is generally well-mannered, you never know how he might act around a stranger, whether human or fur ball. Pup playdates are a good chance to socialize your dog to new experiences and individuals, but there is a right and wrong way to go about them. Avoid a meeting mishap between your dog and his pup-pal by reading this to-do list and ensuring your playdate is a success!
1. Pick a Playmate
Not every dog will be the right friend for your dog. Factors like age, size, sex and energy level should be taken into account to give this playdate the best chance at success. For example, it's best to pair up dogs of opposite sexes, as dogs of the same sex may see each other as threatening and are more likely to get into fights. This is not to say that two female dogs or two male dogs can never get along, but it is not as encouraged as having a male and female dog play together for the first time. A playmate close in age to your pup is also ideal, as the energy levels of the pups will be more likely to match up, whereas a young, lively puppy might get on the nerves of an older, more tranquil dog. Likewise, it's best not to have dogs of differing sizes playing together, as one may end up overpowering the other or injuring the other without intention. Finally, make sure your pup is up to date with his vaccinations, and aim to surround him with other vaccinated pups to reduce the chance of spreading illness.
2. Choose a Neutral, Secure Environment
Where the playdate takes place matters just as much as who your pup is spending it with. Like your pup's playmate, the setting must also be a good match; not too cramped, but also not too spacious. Avoid having the first encounter at your or the other owner's house, as the dog living there may feel like his territory is being infringed upon when an unfamiliar dog enters it.
3. Take it Slow
For your dog's first introduction to his new playmate, you will want to maintain a cool, calm demeanor. Since our dogs can pick up on human feelings of stress, going into the meeting with bad feelings can set your dog up for a failed experience. Keep a lax grip on your dog's leash and encourage him with a praising tone of voice. Most importantly, don't force the interaction. Despite trying your best to pair your pup with what appears to be the right playmate for him, it still might not be a perfect match. Take it slow by allowing your dog sniff out his playmate and encourage the other owner to do the same. Pay attention to body language to see how both dogs feel about the experience. Tongue-out smiles and wagging tails are signs of a good time, while a stiff body, exposed teeth and growling might be signs to separate the two pooches. But if both pups look relaxed and eager to play with each other, then allow them to play off-leash under your supervision.
4. Break Time
Even if all is going well, your pup and his playmate are bound to get tired sooner or later, so interrupt the play about every five minutes to split up the dogs, allowing them both some time to take a breather. After refueling them with water and treats, you can send them on their way again while keeping a watchful eye.
5. In the Case of a Fight
You'll know if the encounter turns into a fight if you hear a lot of angry noise or see the dogs tangled up or displaying signs of aggression. Although most dog fights are minor, a risky situation that involves two irritated dogs should be halted immediately to avoid injury or worse. To safely end the fight and avoid getting hurt yourself, spray the dogs with water from a hose or spray bottle to distract them away from the tussle. Alternatively, you can make a loud noise to startle the dogs into silence. Always keep your hands away from either dog's face. Once the dogs are separated, document any injuries and keep both pups secured on leashes, where they can no longer interact. If you wish, you can give the playdate one last shot on another occasion, but depending on the severity of the fight, you may have to accept the fact that not all of "man's best friends" are meant to be "best friends."
Dog playdates can be a fun socialization activity as well as provide a healthy means of exercise. As long as the encounter is kept safe, a pup playdate should be a positive experience for all involved.


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House Republicans, rejecting President Barack Obamas demand for higher tax rates, countered with a $2.2 trillion deficit-cutting plan that would trim Medicare and Social Security and cap tax deductions for top earners.
The proposal, in a letter Monday to Obama from House Speaker John Boehner and other Republican leaders, seeks $800 billion in tax revenue in the next decade and would slow the growth in Social Security cost-of-living payments. It would reduce entitlement program costs by at least $900 billion, including raising the Medicare eligibility age, and cut $300 billion in discretionary spending.
The proposal does not meet the test of balance, White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said in a statement. In fact, it actually promises to lower rates for the wealthy and sticks the middle class with the bill. He said the plan included nothing new.
Obama and congressional leaders are trying to avert more than $600 billion in tax increases and automatic spending cuts starting in January. The talks reached a stalemate late last week when Republicans rejected Obamas proposal to raise $1.6 trillion in taxes, including by raising tax rates on the top 2 percent of earners.
Mondays offer is absolutely movement, said Joe Minarik, a budget aide in President Bill Clintons administration. If Republicans accept revenues, Democrats have to move a little bit on entitlements, he said.
Social Security
Still, Minarik said, Democrats dont want to touch Social Security and the Medicare eligibility age. Obama and other Democratic leaders have repeatedly said that Social Security is off the table
Boehner said the Republican offer tracks a proposal last year by Clintons former chief of staff, Erskine Bowles, which would generate revenue by limiting deductions and credits instead of raising tax rates.
Bowles, though, said in an emailed statement that the proposal doesnt reflect his plan. Circumstances have changed since then, he said. It is up to negotiators to figure out where the middle ground is today.
Boehner called todays Republican plan a credible plan that deserves serious consideration by the White House. He described last weeks White House proposal for $1.6 trillion in tax increases as a la-la land offer.
Stocks fell. The Standard & Poors 500 Index dropped 0.5 percent to 1,409.46 at 4 p.m. in New York. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 59.98 points, or 0.5 percent, to 12,965.60.
Chained CPI
Under the proposal, increases in Social Security benefits would be reduced under a new method of calculating cost-of- living increases. The so-called chained consumer price index would also apply to cost of living adjustments for government pensions and to setting income-tax brackets.
The plan would raise the eligibility age for Medicare recipients, currently 65, although it didnt specify the size of the increase. That would save $100 billion, according to an excerpt of Bowless Nov. 1, 2011, congressional testimony attached to the letter sent to Obama.
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California called the Republican proposal another assault on the middle class, seniors and our future.
Boehners letter said the additional $800 billion would come through pro-growth tax reform that closes special- interest loopholes and deductions while lowering rates. He didnt lay out specific proposals for curbing tax breaks and didnt offer additional revenue for 2013.
Dynamic Scoring
In the past, many Republican calls for additional revenue through a rewrite of the tax code have meant the money would come from higher economic growth spurred by the overhaul. Obama and the Congressional Budget Office wont accept so-called dynamic scoring.
Republican aides said the $800 billion would come from conventional scoring, which means there would be a tax increase.
In a series of network television appearances over the weekend, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner challenged Republicans to make a counteroffer to the presidents plan. He said there would be no agreement without higher income tax rates on the wealthiest Americans. Boehner said yesterday that the White House was wasting time and that the talks were nowhere.
Obamas plan would trade $600 billion in spending cuts for $1.6 trillion in tax increases, primarily targeting families with more than $250,000 in annual income.
Last week, Republicans said they would only consider creating new revenue by ending or limiting some deductions and credits and possibly by capping income-tax deductions for high earners.
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John Wick has never read anything, he doesn't know history, and he has no sense of world politics. Except for the fact that he's a gifted computer programmer, he's a zero. But four years ago, he managed to come up with an important numerical algorithm that put him on the map. It's strange that something can just appear in a person's mind, and then … nothing. It got him on the computer science faculty at Stanford. Four years, however, is an eternity at Stanford. He hasn't produced anything of significance since. I am one of his PhD students, and I think he's on the way out. I need a lifeboat.
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As we return from a consulting job at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space in Sunnyvale, he begins talking about simulating satellite constellations. He steadies the steering wheel with his leg and waves his arms around while delivering a staccato, rapid-fire monolog. Then he grabs a large coffee from the cup holder. I can see the coffee slosh over the side of the chipped foam cup and splatter onto his crotch. He starts convulsing electrically in his seat, arching his back. The car swerves across an entire lane of traffic. "Goddamnfuckingshit!" he screams. He grits his teeth and clutches the steering wheel until his knuckles turn white. Then he continues. "Getting government money is easy. They don't have people like us at these defense contractors. They need real experts." He fumbles with the cup holder, then lights a cigarette. "At Stanford we are truly on the foreskin of technology," he says, looking over at me and grinning from ear to ear.
When we get back to the campus, I watch him walk slowly down the hall to his sunlit, wood-paneled office on the second floor of Margaret Jacks Hall. I walk up the carpeted staircase to the fourth floor, where I share a common area with four other grad students. The room has an open ceiling with wooden beams suspending fluorescent-light assemblies. Cheesy, maroon-carpeted cube dividers cut up the territory. Power and Ethernet cables have been strewn all over the floor and over the walls of the cubes. Broken workstations sit on the floor. People are writing text and coding virtually any time of the day or night. I never have the place to myself, and I rarely talk to anyone. There isn't time. You constantly have to remind yourself that you're at the top of the pyramid. Lots of people would like to be here – and you are.
I'm not sure what Wick does in his office every day and many nights. His door is always closed. He's supposed to be writing journal articles, but he has produced very few. He drinks 12 to 15 cups of coffee a day and hardly ever sleeps. He seems to have an insatiable lust for sensory experiences. I've heard that he just tried sky diving, and he's a veteran deep-sea scuba diver. He speeds around the campus on a greasy Harley Davidson Electra Glide.
About a year ago, his wife divorced him because he was spending almost every waking hour at Stanford. He was pulling at least one all-nighter a week. Now he has to pay alimony and child support. He lives in a cheap stucco apartment in San Mateo. Once he told me that his wife was a liability to his career because she didn't understand his ambition.
I don't know how much longer my wife can hold out. She's tired of being poor. I keep telling her that a PhD from Stanford is a very hot ticket. Stanford graduates go on to some of the most prestigious corporate positions in the world. But that's not really my motivation. I'm not the corporate type. Jobs in industry seem so trivial, the people so mediocre. Once you've tasted the cutting edge of research, there's no going back. You do everything you can to stay in the saddle.
I never studied very hard when I went to the University of California at Riverside, and I got an A in nearly every course I took. Now I have to bust my ass. There are people here who are so smart they seem like they're from another planet. Your mind races to keep up with the massive stream of information, and if you're not right there with them, they just walk away. It can be very demoralizing – but it's exciting as hell.
The satellite constellation simulator for Lockheed Martin will require some industrial-strength number crunching. I'll have to write a huge load of C++ code. Wick always trivializes the difficulty of everything, except the projects he's working on. He thinks I should be able to knock it out in about a week. I drape a large black beach towel over my workstation monitor and over my head, so that I have a dark shroud. Then I can write code and debug for hours in my own little world. I have to create a certain mood before I can be creative. I can feel it when the optimal brain state kicks in. When I'm in the zone, I can really crank.
Peter Jakab is the chair of the Department of Computer Science. He sits in his office hour after hour with the door open. Sometimes he seems to be meditating. He is generally regarded as a genius, even by Stanford standards. As I am leaving the building at 9 p.m., I walk down the faculty corridor and pass his office. "Hello, professor," I say, as I glance inside his door.
He is from a wealthy family in Budapest, and requires a certain formality.He wears expensively tailored suits and walks with regal posture. I am 40 feet down the hall when I hear him call me back. "Mr. Hargreaves. Could I talk to you for a minute?" he asks. His accent is very unusual. He went to boarding schools in England, then later to MIT.
I stop in my tracks and walk back to his office. He raises his palm to the chair in front of his desk, beckoning me to sit down. He strokes his trim salt-and-pepper beard. "Do you think that the most profound creative leaps come from concerted discipline and careful incremental effort … or do they come from wild, almost chaotic explorations that require a complete jump outside oneself?"
"I think it's usually a combination of both," I say.
He laughs. "That's a very diplomatic answer." He pauses for a long time. "Yesterday, I visited a very strange institution. I went to Los Angeles to consult at the Rand Corporation, and afterward, I stopped by a place in Culver City called The Museum of Jurassic Technology. One of my graduate students recommended it. He thought I would find it amusing. Instead, it gave me an odd feeling. I would even call it disturbing. It led me to question the kind of science we do here at Stanford. This museum presented information about natural history, displayed in a very formal setting, through beautifully constructed dark-wood-trimmed dioramas. A very high-quality look and feel, but the information was tainted by a certain schizophrenic patina." Dr. Jakab begins speaking very quickly while he looks into my eyes. "There was an exhibit relating to a bat called Deprong mori which echo-locates using ultraviolet and X-rays. The bat is capable of penetrating solid objects, which, of course, is patently absurd. But it was presented with no sense of irony, and with a great deal of pseudoscientific artifice. Another one of the displays used speakers to whisper barely audible con-flicting messages in each of your ears as you viewed a dimly lit, reclining bone-white dummy draped in black velvet. Then there was a complicated story about a beautiful opera singer who inspired a neurophysiologist to invent a complex cognitive model of the experience of memory. His assertion was that memories are, in fact, artificial constructions, tainted by injections of imagination. Reality becomes suspect, because we can never be sure of the validity of our memories. There were numerous three-dimensional diagrams of cones intersecting planes with extensive technobabble descriptions designed to 'prove' these assertions."
Dr. Jakab pauses to take a long drink from a mug of hot tea. His hand trembles slightly as he sets the mug down on his desk. Then he continues while looking out the window. "It was all very disturbing to me, and I wasn't quite sure why. I became agitated and felt a bit like I was losing my mind." He looks back at me. "Then I realized that the place was a metaphor for all the institutionalized enclaves of esoteric information, like Stanford. Blind acceptance of the entire body of knowledge is a prerequisite. And the system seems to work extremely well, for now. But what if it's flawed in some very basic way, and at the end of this complex exercise, the string is pulled, and the knot just disappears? You may have gone down a very convoluted path in the rat maze that leads to a dead end. The knowledge that you are left with, in retrospect, could seem every bit as absurd as the information in that museum. Remember, it wasn't so long ago that we believed that the Earth was the center of the solar system."
He gets up and starts walking slowly back and forth across his office. "The museum called to mind the fact that new discoveries have always seemed absurd to the establishment. And that's exactly what we are here at Stanford – one of the ultimate scientific establishments. I wonder if the most monumental breakthroughs can really come from the establishment."
Then he sits back down in his chair and stares off into space. "Do you get transcendent work or merely pedantic, incremental work? We certainly do win Nobel Prizes here, but that might not even be the yardstick. Einstein never received a Nobel Prize for the special theory of relativity. It was considered too controversial. Instead they gave him the prize for the photoelectric effect, which was safer. He was a 26-year-old patent clerk when he wrote his original paper on the special theory of relativity. Those theories took decades to be accepted by the establishment. By the time he got to prestigious institutions like Caltech and Princeton, he had become…." Dr. Jakab pauses for a long time. He gazes out somewhere beyond my left shoulder, stroking his beard.
"He became isolated from the environments that had stimulated his creativity," I say.
"That's precisely it," he says, perking up and leaning forward on his elbows as he focuses on me. "He was no longer connected to the source. He was on the decline." Dr. Jakab pauses. "So what is the remedy for all of this?"
"If I find the answer, can I be your student?" I say impulsively.
"I didn't know that you were unhappy with Dr. Wick," he says. "Although I couldn't blame you. Why did you choose him in the first place?"
"He recruited me with promises that we would co-author a breakthrough encoding algorithm. I think he was getting bogged down, and he felt that my theoretical math background would be helpful."
"He's totally mired in the details and is unable to see the deep structure of problems. His famous algorithm is just one of those serendipitous things. Like a million monkeys typing infinite sequences. If they type long enough, they will produce the complete works of Knuth." At this, Dr. Jakab begins to laugh loudly, and I laugh with him. Then he looks at his watch and becomes very serious. He says that he has to get home because his wife is expecting him.
"Me too," I say.
He smiles approvingly. We walk out of the building together, and he gets into a Mercedes diesel sedan. I walk several blocks to the student parking lot to find my 1976 Screaming Eagle Pontiac Firebird. Soon I'm racing through the quiet, stately neighborhoods on the east side of the campus. I get on Highway 101 and drive for a while blasting Pink Floyd. Then I light up a joint.
I push it hard through a semicircular offramp and into the neighborhood on the edge of East Palo Alto where my wife and I rent a house. I got used to neighborhoods like this when I lived in downtown Riverside. My wife hates it, but it's cheap. There is graffiti everywhere. Some of it is real art. Liquid silver spaceships flying through a universe of splattering color. Everything glowing orange in the reflection of the sodium-vapor bulbs. Our house is a dilapidated 1940s white wooden job with peeling paint and bars on the windows. My wife is sitting in the living room, listening to music and nursing the baby.
"I told Dr. Jakab today that I want to be his student," I say.
"That's nice," she says. She sounds irritated.
"What is it?"
"Won't changing professors mean you'll have to backtrack and lose some of the work you've already done?"
"Probably. But I'm not happy with Wick. He's not well respected, and that's very important to how valuable your PhD is. This isn't about getting through in record time, it's about quality."
"I want quality, too," she says. "I just worry that you may be deluding yourself. This will be your fourth faculty adviser. I'm wondering if there isn't some other problem. Why didn't you check out this Wick before you got involved with him?"
This comment produces immediate anger in me. I feel like turning over the table. "Look, you couldn't possibly understand the complexities of the politics involved. Reputations are like an onion skin. There are so many layers to uncover, it's all very subtle … and I'm under tremendous pressure. What I don't need is you second-guessing every move I make. If you think you can do better, I'll stay home and take care of the kid, and you go out and make a name for yourself."
"I'm not saying that, I'm just trying to take an active role. You wouldn't like it if I was completely uninterested in your work, would you?"
"No," I say, distractedly. Our daughter is busy sucking ravenously on my wife's breast. Finally, I sit down on the sofa, and my wife turns on the TV.
We watch the news in silence. I am thinking about Peter Jakab and how I can get into his domain. I have to figure out a way to really impress him.
I get up at five the next morning and head back to campus. I walk past the faculty offices on my way up the stairs. Wick is walking down the hallway. He is wearing a thin white T-shirt, blue jeans, and tennis shoes. He is unshaven and his hair is disheveled – he looks like he's been on an all-night bender. There is a large mug of steaming coffee in his hand. "Have you been here all night?" I ask him.
"Damn straight," he says. "It's the only way to get anything done. Cut out all distractions."
"I guess," I say.
"Let me show you what I'm working on," he says, putting his arm behind my back and almost shoving me into his office. Then he closes the door. We sit and sift through about 50 sheets of canary-yellow paper that he has been scribbling on. He's also been writing code and running data. He has some test cases that show images before data compression and after. There is some distortion and aliasing error in his end product. The images look like they have television snow in them. I tell him that a Householder tridiagonalized eigen-vector algorithm might be the one to use, rather than the one he's using. He looks at me with a blank expression, and I realize that he's never heard of it. That's shocking, because it is widely used in numerical analysis. He works in a narrow vacuum, but he produces and produces. Scattershot. I take his notes and start to walk down the hall with them.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing with my notes?" he screams. He runs behind me and grabs my shoulder and spins me around. He's fat, but he's strong. His eyes are squinty and on fire. His breathing is shallow and erratic.
"I was going to copy them, so that I could look them over today at my leisure."
"At your leisure – that's the trouble with you. You do everything at your leisure. Why don't you do it now! Right here in my office! My notes don't ever leave my office. I'm tired of people stealing my ideas. Understood?"
"Understood," I say. I feel like the slightest provocation would result in a fistfight. I was a wrestler at UC Riverside, but I think he could probably take me. He's got the fire in his belly. I go back in his office and continue to pore over his notes. He sits typing at his workstation with his back to me. I can hear him wheezing rhythmically. Then I synch in, and everything else disappears. I'm in the zone.
After about three hours, I come up with an alternative solution that I think will yield better results with less distortion. We plug the new method into his computer simulation and run data again. It produces significantly better images, and he seems very excited. He is smiling, but he paces like a tiger in a small cage. Finally he stops. "I guess you turned out to be good for something after all," he says, patting me on the back. His BO is overpowering. It smells like cat urine.
As I wander down the hall, I look at my watch and realize that I've been in his office for five hours. I feel a little lightheaded as I walk up the stairs to the fourth floor. Inside my office, I sit with my officemates and eat a brown-bag lunch. There is something haunting me about the work Wick is doing. I have the intuitive feeling that the solution I came up with is not really optimal and not all that elegant. I work the rest of the afternoon on the Lockheed Martin project and then go out in my Firebird to dinner. >
There is a local Italian restaurant called Bonadio's that serves cheap, heavy, northern Italian food. The kind I like. It's located on a little finger of urban decay that has spilled across 101 from East Palo Alto. On University Avenue, next to Won Choi's House of Wigs. I sit in the back and watch the headlights from the street creep along the wall through the slatted wooden blinds. It's dark inside, like my programming shroud. I like the overstuffed red Naugahyde barstools and booths. A small candle flickers on each table. I sit in the back and drink a half carafe of full-bodied red table wine while I eat pappardelle with Italian sausage, plum tomatoes, and thick, butter-soaked garlic bread. When I get bored, I start Laplace transforming equations on my napkin, working on Wick's problem again. There is something out there that I can almost grab. I can feel it, but it keeps slipping through my fingers.
I spend almost the entire weekend on the fourth floor under the shroud, programming the satellite constellation simulator and thinking about Wick's compression problem. I only come home to sleep.
On Monday morning at 7:30 a.m., I walk down the faculty hallway past Dr. Jakab's door. He's sitting in his chair staring up at the ceiling. As I pass his door, I say hello.
"Hello, Mr. Hargreaves," he says. His voice is friendly, but far away. "Did you hear about the big fires in the Los Altos hills over the weekend?"
"No, I was programming all weekend," I say.
"My house almost burned down. They came around and told us to evacuate. I sent my wife and children to her sister's house in Reno. But I stayed behind to water the roof. I was sitting in the backyard next to the koi pond waiting. It was dark, and the air was warm and dry and smelled intensely of wood ash. In spite of the fire, the air was very clear. You could see for miles. In the distance, there was a crest of scintillating orange fire that stretched in a wide jagged band across the top of the hillside. You could actually see it moving down from the ridge, consuming everything in its path. Occasionally a huge flare would leap up into the sky, like on the surface of the sun. The orange glow of the fire was reflected across the surface of the pond. I was mesmerized by it. I felt apprehensive – but at the core there was profound serenity." He pauses to drink some tea. "Have you ever seen a big fire like that?"
"No, thankfully I haven't," I say. I had never realized that Dr. Jakab could speak so poetically.
"It was quite spectacular…." He is stroking his beard rhythmically and staring out the window.
I want to talk technical with him, but he seems so distracted, and I am captivated by his mood. He is truly somewhere else. "Professor," I say, "I would like to run some ideas past you regarding compression and noise filtering."
Suddenly he snaps back from wherever he has been, and he's all business. He watches me carefully as I get out the notes I had made during the afternoon. I move around to his side of the desk and show him some of my derivations. He springs into professional action without speaking another word. He is energetically shuffling the papers back and forth, furiously jotting down page after page of his own notes. He does this for about 45 minutes with absolute concentration. Finally he emerges from this state and begins to speak, slowly and carefully. "I have combined and simplified a number of your steps, and I have recommended that you substitute some new methodologies. I think if you do these things, you may actually have something very worthwhile on your hands. Possibly noteworthy." He smiles, and his left eye starts twitching. He looks extremely tired.
I thumb through the notes as he watches me. There is an elegance to his thought processes that can be seen in everything he does. Once you see it on paper, it seems obvious, but it is actually a great leap. He congeals and simplifies massive amounts of information with ease. He is on a higher tier than almost anyone I have met at Stanford. "I think this will be very useful," I say. "Extremely useful, actually."
"Another incremental triumph," he says. "I must go now. I have a committee meeting." He picks up his suit jacket and wearily puts one arm in, and then the other. When he is almost out the door, he says, "I would like to have you as my student. We just need to figure out how to make it happen."
A surge of optimism comes over me when he says this. He is very hard to impress and has only a small number of students. I feel pumped full of adrenaline. I go back to my cube and get under the programming shroud to experiment with the new technique. A breakthrough in this area could be immensely important to global data networking and interactive multimedia. It could make us all world famous. I type up a small abstract of the processes involved and e-mail it to Wick. I am cranked. I work until dinnertime, then sit in the computer science lounge for 45 minutes eating a vending-machine ham-and-cheese sandwich and M&M's. Newspapers are strewn everywhere. I pick one up from the floor and read while I drink a horrible, burnt cup of coffee from the big communal pot. Then I go back under the shroud.
By the time I come out it is 1:30 a.m. It's too late to call my wife – she is probably asleep. I get on 101 and open it up. Traffic is sparse. I don't smoke a joint or listen to music, because I'm still thinking about the algorithm. I'm really excited. If this works out, I might be able to get on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon or MIT.
The house is completely still when I get home. I crawl into bed with my wife and try to spoon her. She angrily elbows me in the stomach and says nothing. I can feel the tension in her body. Then the baby starts crying and she gets up and goes into the other bedroom. She is gone for a long time, and I drift off into a deep sleep.
The next day, I am only in my cubicle for a few minutes before Wick appears.
"Come and look!" He seems very excited. We go downstairs to his office where he has constructed a number of test cases. The compression is very clean with virtually no noise or distortion. "Your theoretical background has paid off. The suggestions you mailed me were fantastic. This may be the breakthrough I've been waiting for. We'll publish a paper together. It will be great. Life is good again. I think I'm gonna have an orgasm," he says with a maniacal grin.
"There is one thing," I say. "We have to include Peter Jakab in our credits, because I consulted with him at great length last night. He really came up with some of the crucial elements."
"Peter Jakab! Why in the fuck would you do that?" he screams.
"Because I thought he might have the best insight into the problem … and he did," I say.
Then he whispers with a monster grimace, "He gave me a barely passing review. He's responsible for practically destroying my career here. And you try to bring him into our work. You are even stupider than I thought!" He is leaning over his desk now, his face very close to mine. "If you ever speak to Peter Jakab again, you will no longer be a student at Stanford. Do you understand?" he screams like a Marine drill instructor.
I feel like punching him. A fast shot to the jaw when he least expects it would finish him off. I am quivering with anger. Just as I am considering this, he rushes out of the office. He walks down the hall to Jakab's office, goes in, and slams the door behind him. I can hear him talking through the walls. Only Wick's voice can be heard. Finally I hear him scream, "If you interfere with my student again, I'll burn your fucking house down!" He walks out of Jakab's office and slams the door behind him. Then he walks out of the building. All the secretaries have heard him make this threat. They are standing in the hallway with their mouths agape. Dr. Jakab walks out of his office. His face looks tight, but otherwise he seems completely composed. I leave the building and walk aimlessly around the campus. The sun is scattering in hazy shafts through the big trees. Students are walking from class to class, passing silently through the sculpted sandstone archways of the quad. It looks very peaceful.
I stay on the fourth floor for three days refining the compression algorithm and working on a paper to submit to the journals. I sleep on my desk and live on microwave burritos and coffee. My wife is very hostile on the phone and tells me that I'm pushing her to the limit. I bring a sleeping bag into the office.
At the end of the third day, I emerge at 5 p.m. and walk down the faculty office corridor. One of the secretaries tells me that Jakab and Wick have been battling all week. She says that an administrative assistant reported the threat, which resulted in Wick being summoned to the provost's office. He thought Dr. Jakab had turned him in, and that meant all-out war. Wick cooked up a hack to flood Jakab's e-mail server with profane messages, and he broke into Jakab's workstation and put up a huge GIF of a woman performing fellatio. It could be seen clearly on the monitor by anyone walking past his office. I had also heard that there was something wrong with Dr. Jakab's home voicemail service. I don't know how Wick accomplished that, but he's an ingenious coder, and he has powerful accounts on numerous industry systems.
I get a microwave tamale and a Coke and go back up to the fourth floor. After a few hours I decide to take a break. While I'm strolling the halls, I walk past Dr. Jakab's office. He's sitting inside. "Good evening, professor," I say as I pass.
"Mr. Hargreaves. Please come back and see me," he says. I turn and walk back, then sit down in the chair in front of his desk. "I still want you as my student. We can't let someone like Wick push us around, can we?" he asks. He looks very drawn and has incredibly dark circles under his eyes.
"No, we can't," I say.
"Good. Then let's forge ahead. I'll submit formal paperwork to have you transferred over as my student." He tries to smile, but his face twitches.
"I'm excited," I say, standing up to shake his hand. "I'm really looking forward to working with you." Without saying anything else, he gets up and puts on his suit jacket. He nods to me as he walks out the door. He seems deep in thought.
My wife and I spend the evening at home on the couch watching television. I can't stop thinking about Jakab and Wick. I hope that Jakab has enough power to keep Wick in check. I think he does. He has the entire force of the Stanford machine behind him.
The baby sleeps soundly through the whole evening. We drink some Chianti and smoke a joint together, and I begin to relax. She takes my hand and leads me into the bedroom. We don't talk about anything, we just make love. It's the best that it has been for a long time.
I am awakened from a dead sleep by a powerful jolt. I look around the room, and for a second everything looks unfamiliar – I feel like I have amnesia. Then I realize that an earthquake is beginning. My wife holds on to me as the air fills with thunderous sound. Usually earthquakes are over in a few seconds, but this one goes on and gathers momentum like a freight train. It is the strongest I have ever felt. My heart begins to race. I hear glasses and dishes pouring out of the cupboards and smashing onto the kitchen floor. My wife gets up and runs into the baby's room. I can hear the structure of the house ripping and tearing. As I walk toward the chest of drawers, it's like being on the deck of a pitching ship. I get out a flashlight, just as the shaking stops. The beam illuminates my wife as she rushes back into the bedroom with the baby in her arms.
"I hate it here!" she explodes. "We have to get away from this place!"
"We will. We will," I say. "As soon as I get my degree."
We all three get back into the bed and I turn off the flashlight. I tune through the FM dial on a battery-powered headset radio that I keep by the night stand. There are only a few stations on the air, and they're playing Muzak. No talking. There is nothing we can do but go back to bed and wait.
The computer science department is dead for the next few days. I spend part of the first day back replacing ceiling tiles that have fallen down all over the department and doing software maintenance on the systems that come up disabled. For the most part, the campus is in good shape, but only a few of the professors are back. Most are dealing with property damage and family problems. My wife is nearly psychotic as a result of the aftershocks, which roll through the peninsula like clockwork, day and night. She wants out – with or without me. Some of the aftershocks would be considered major quakes, if not compared with the one that started it all.
The second day back, I get an e-mail from Peter Jakab.
From: email@example.com
Subj: The Quake
To: email@example.com
Mr. Hargreaves,
The night of the quake, I slept fitfully. I was moving in and out of a phantasmagoric nightmare. A metallic dragon of immense proportions swept down from a mountaintop, roaring with a deep low-frequency rumble that shook the earth from the inside. It had gaping jaws the size of a skyscraper and seemed poised to devour the world. Its dingy silver teeth were glinting in the moonlight. As I opened my eyes in a sweat, mirrors and paintings and crystal were crashing to the floor and shattering all around. My wife sat up next to me in bed, and my three children ran into the room crying. Then my wife screamed for them to get between the doorjambs. I walked over to the sliding glass door that overlooks our backyard. The yard drops off the side of a canyon, and there is a panoramic view of city lights below. Waves of blue and green sparks fanned out across the grid of electric colors. Transformers arced and flared across the valley, then shorted out. In large blocks, pieces of the puzzle were removed. Giant patches flickered and then went dead, until there was total darkness below. I was hypnotized by the spectacle, unable to move. Then I realized that I had been cut. I had to have stitches in my head. For a few days, I will be working at home.
Hope you and your family are well.
Peter Jakab
I send him a reply, telling him that we are fine and that I have done software maintenance on the disabled computers. Then I continue to work on the compression algorithm for the next two days. I notice that Wick has not returned. One of the secretaries tells me that Wick has been calling Dr. Jakab at home and harassing him relentlessly. She says that Dr. Jakab seemed extremely tense when she talked to him on the phone. His voice cracked and wavered.
I work on refining the algorithm and building an extensive library of test cases to support the journal article. I decide to take the initiative to write the article that we will submit to the Association for Computing Machinery. I work into the early hours almost every day. At 3:07 a.m. a large aftershock rolls through. The building is shaking violently and the lights flicker on and off. A fluorescent tube falls from the assembly overhead and shatters next to my desk. The workstation screen goes blank, then starts into a reboot cycle. I clean up the big shards of broken glass and decide to head for home. I get in the Firebird and roll along University Avenue. Palo Alto looks like a ghost town. No one is driving anywhere. The whole peninsula seems paralyzed.
The house is quiet. I slip into bed, but I can tell my wife is awake. I can feel her mind racing, but she says nothing. She will barely speak to me. She thinks that I should be at home every night to give her emotional support. She doesn't realize that this is a very rare window of opportunity. I have to run with it. This algorithm might be the one that could put me on the map. It might be my only chance.
By the time I get back to Margaret Jacks Hall, it is nearly 11 a.m. There is a frantic mood in the halls. A camera crew with floodlights comes around the corner, and there is a TV newscaster talking into a microphone. Everything is buzzing, and everyone is eyeing one another. One of the secretaries is crying into a handkerchief. I walk past Wick's office. The door is open, and he is sitting there typing on his workstation. I rap on his door with my knuckles and walk in.
"What's going on around here?" I ask. He swivels around in his chair so that he is facing me. Then he grabs a large cup of coffee and takes a drink. "Last night, Peter Jakab died," he says, staring at me with absolutely no emotion on his face.
"What happened?" I ask. I can feel the blood rushing in my ears.
"His house burned down … with him in it," he tells me. I can feel the hairs rise on the back of my neck. He is sitting there looking at me, and I can see that he is trying to keep from smiling. He must be insane. How does he think that he can get away with this?
"What happened to the rest of Jakab's family?" I ask.
"They were frightened by the earthquakes and had flown to New York to visit relatives. He was there alone and somehow managed to burn himself up. It just goes to show how it can happen to anyone." He pauses again, staring at me. "If you'll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do. I need to get that paper out." He turns his chair back around and starts typing on his workstation.
My breathing is erratic, and I abruptly walk out of the room. My head is reeling. He said, "I need to get that paper out." Maybe he's planning to get rid of me, too. I go back upstairs and stare at my workstation. Everything seems ridiculous and depressing, and I think it's strange that I spend almost every waking hour of my life pecking on the keys of this machine. It's madness.
I leave the building and go out to my car. I put on a cassette of The Doors' first album and drive aimlessly around the neighborhood, and then into East Palo Alto. As I pass a storefront called Pistol Pete's Guns 'n' Ammo, I pull the car over. It is a decrepit brick building with a large picture window covered with black iron bars. There is a cartoon painted on the window of Yosemite Sam with a big red beard and moustache. He's firing two monster handguns. Smoke and flame are shooting out of the barrels. Inside there are racks and racks of shotguns, handguns, hunting rifles, and semiautomatic assault rifles. I have never owned a gun. I've only shot one a couple of times. As I walk up to the counter, a middle-aged woman with a deeply lined face, dirty-blond hair, and dark, tinted glasses approaches. She takes a long drag from a cigarette, then puts it down in an ashtray. "What can I do you for?" she says in a deep voice.
"I think I need a gun," I say.
"What kind of gun?"
"I don't know. Any kind of gun. A handgun."
"There'll be a 15-day waiting period on that."
"I can't wait that long," I say. "Do you have any knives?"
"Do you have a situation?"
She pushes a button on the counter, and a guy from the back walks out. He is about 6 foot 4 and 260 pounds of pure muscle. Built like a brick wall. He's wearing a black leather motorcycle jacket. Stubble on his face, and a buzz-cut flattop.
"This is Bob."
He reaches out to shake my hand.
"Hello, Bob," I say.
He just nods.
"Give him one of your business cards, Bob," says the woman.
I look at the card. It says NRA Regional Membership Manager.
"Bob was Gordon Liddy's bodyguard a few years back."
Bob nods again.
"Just let him know if you need anything. And yes, we do have some knives," she says, smiling. She shows me a large, serrated gunmetal knife that she claims is the same kind Navy Seals carry on combat missions. I decide against the knife, put Bob's business card in my pocket, and walk out.
I get on 101 and punch it hard, with the stereo blasting. When I reach the Willow Street exit, I pull off and drive into our neighborhood. My wife is sitting on the front porch in the sun with the baby in her arms. She smiles broadly when she sees me pull up in the driveway. She thinks that I have taken the day off.
"Something has come up. I want you and the baby to go visit your mother for a few days," I say, as I walk quickly up to the porch.
"What in the hell are you talking about?" she says. She is very angry now.
"There is a big power struggle at Stanford. Peter Jakab is dead. I think John Wick may have killed him."
"You've got to be kidding! That's insane!" she says. "Why do we have to leave?"
"I don't know what Wick is capable of. He may have gone crazy. He's hanging onto his job by a thread, and he's paranoid. He thinks everyone is out to get him, steal his thunder, conspire against him, the whole thing. I just don't want to take any chances."
I pack my wife and the baby up in her beat-up Toyota Corolla and kiss her goodbye. "I still think this is crazy," she says. "You should come with us."
"No. I have to be here, to keep tabs on what's going on in the department," I tell her.
As she drives away hesitantly, she is shaking her head. Then she rolls down the window and yells, "You bastard!"
I walk inside and look around the house. I'm almost never here during the day. It looks incredibly depressing. I don't know how she can stand it. There are some letters for me on the table. I grab them and walk out.
I'm extremely wired. I get back on the freeway heading toward the campus. I don't even know why, or what I'm going to do when I get there. When I reach the edge of campus on University Avenue, I make an erratic left turn. I can't go back there. It is 1:30 p.m., and I drive east through the perfectly manicured residential neighborhoods. Then I get back on University and pull into the little finger of East Palo Alto on the Stanford side of the freeway. I pass the liquor market, pawn shop, Won Choi's House of Wigs, and Bonadio's Italian. I park the car in a diagonal spot in front of the restaurant and grab my mail from the passenger seat.
It is very dark inside, even during the day. The traffic rumbling by reflects stroboscopic flashes of sunlight into the interior. I get my table in back and order pappardelle, garlic bread, and a half carafe of wine. As I sort through my mail, I quickly thumb through the proceedings of the ACM. I begin to think again about the algorithm and the journal article. I am wondering what will happen to the work when I notice a handwritten letter in the stack of mail. It is a business-sized envelope with no return address. I slit it open and move the candle closer so that I can read the script. My eyes begin to dart across the pages, and my heart starts racing. It is a letter from Peter Jakab.
Dear Mr. Hargreaves,
I have been thinking very carefully about my life. My angels have left. I can feel it in the core of my existence.
All my life I have been looking for a great mystery to decipher. I felt that if I could just achieve one major triumph of insight, it would be profoundly satisfying. Something of truly lasting significance. But I have failed to do that.
If it was going to happen, it would have happened by now. I'm already too old to make that transcendental leap. The window of opportunity has closed. I do hope, however, that my work will be a foundation for others.
Tonight I will ingest a bottle of Dilaudid that I have been stockpiling from my sleeping prescription. I have rigged up a timed device to set the house on fire.
I must tell you that the natural disasters we have been experiencing have been very unsettling to me. I have never been very religious, but these events seem to have a life of their own. The aftershocks are unbearable. I am on edge every second of the day. I am sick and depressed.
I must also warn you that Dr. Wick is clinically insane. The constant stream of vituperation and invective that pours forth from him cannot be the product of a "normal" mind. He has been wearing me down. He has threatened to kill me a number of times. If he is indicted for my murder, you may use your own best judgment.
You remember The Museum of Jurassic Technology that I told you about? As you leave, there is an exhibit detailing the pathogenic effect of the inhalation of a spore by a large West African ant. While foraging on the jungle floor, by chance the ant inhales a microscopic spore, which lodges in its brain and begins to replicate throughout its body and nervous system. For the first time in its life, the ant is driven to leave the floor of the jungle. It climbs high into the branches of lush green foliage, traveling to places it never would have gone under normal circumstances. Finally, as the spores begin to consume the ant's entire body and nervous system, the ant clamps its mandibles to a leaf. In the last stage, a large, fire-orange tusk, heavily laden with spores, grows from its head, then finally ruptures, raining the spores down all over the floor of the jungle. I am that ant.
And I have planted a spore. I have introduced a virus into all the computer systems on our network. It is very subtle, virtually undetectable, and will produce minuscule cyclic errors in floating-point calculations on all of the workstations. These errors are not random. They follow a distribution that I derived, designed to slightly perturb the results of all the work being done on campus. The virus will inject a chaos factor into the research of the entire institution. I am convinced that in tracking down these errors, the faculty and students will be shaken out of their routines, which I'm hoping will have a positive effect. Each one will be forced to look at his or her data from a slightly new perspective. Forced to stop and ruminate. These are the spores that I have shed.
Peter Jakab
I take a big drink of red wine and watch the candle dance on the dark wood table. The waitress brings my pappardelle with Italian sausage. I feel slightly nauseated. It would be too much to ask that Wick be convicted for murder. And if he does go down, would I really be able to sit back and not say anything? But without Jakab, I have no ally against him. I'm back in the belly of the beast. Glass and chrome flash from the traffic out on University Avenue. I shuffle the pages of Peter's letter in my hands. Life on the cutting edge is dangerous. You can bleed.
Michael Meloan (email@example.com) has published fiction in Buzz Magazine, LA Weekly, Chic, and Caffeine. He has also written for Joe Frank's National Public Radio show.
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