Fugato

Kurt Vonnegut must have been the greatest optimist of all pessimists. His novel Cat’s Cradle ends with a jolly narrative of the destruction of life on Earth; armageddon with a grin.

The book probably does not translate well because Vonnegut seems to love wordplay.

In bokononism, a delightful religion made up by Vonnegut, one major ritual is boko-maru, wherein two people sit barefoot facing each other, “letting their soles meet.”

Cat’s Cradle tells of an ominous invention, a new crystal structure for ice having a melting point of 45.8 °C. Below that temperature, it swiftly crystallizes all water into ice upon contact, including the oceans and the water in the human body. This mischievous material is called ice-nine … which sounds like asinine. Vonnegut must have considered this word a good fit for man’s 20th-century pastime of finding practical, cost-effective ways to demolish the planet.

Thermal bewilderment

n.

The inability, after bathing in icy water, to distinguish hot and cold.

Try it, it’s cool!

(The terms ‘thermal confusion‘ and ‘thermal conflation‘ were both taken.)

A brief feature comparison: in mid-flight I am impertinent enough to want to diff my checked-out code to see the changes I have made.

Under (the free-of-charge and open-source) Subversion, that would have been “Sure, here you go.”

Under (the $3,000 proprietary) Team Foundation Server, it is “be thankful I’m letting you work at all. And when you get online, go download a separate utility and ask it politely to sort out which files you have changed.”

And here I was trying to break the rant habit. Dagnabbit!

There are two rules of paramount importance in engineering innovation.

1. never reinvent the wheel.
2. always break the rules.

So I guess this was only a matter of time. Presenting: TheWheel™.

Me:	Do you have the MacBook mid-size in stock?
Apple store:	No, sorry.
Me:	When do you expect it?
Apple store:	Well, it was dispatched a week ago.
Me:	Okay, so it’s sitting in a ship somewhere?
Apple store:	(half-insulted) No no, not a ship. They come by airplane.
[a moment's pause]
Me:	That’s one slow airplane.
Apple store:	Well, it is coming all the way from China.

It better run faster than it flies.

Thus the erectile organ comes to symbolize the place of jouissance [ecstasy], not in itself, or even in the form of an image, but as a part lacking in the desired image: that is why it is equivalent to the of the signification produced above, of the jouissance that it restores by the coefficient of its statement to the function of lack of signifier (-1).

— Jacques Lacan (via Alan Sokal)

I’m sure that totally made sense in context.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

<sarcasm>

Founding the Maharishi University of Management in Iowa is just one of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s many charitable efforts to the furtherance of human prosperity.

The mathematics course descriptions at this institution hint at major breakthroughs in the interpretation of mathematics. A few examples:

• Infinity: From the Empty Set to the Boundless Universe of All Sets — Exploring the Full Range of Mathematics and Seeing its Source in Your Self
• Maharishi Vedic Mathematics: Mathematical Structure and the Transcendental Source of Natural Law
• Calculus 1: Derivatives as the Mathematics of Transcending, Used to Handle Changing Quantities
• Calculus 2: Integrals as the Mathematics of Unification, Used to Handle Wholeness
• Calculus 3: Unified Management of Change in All Possible Directions
• Calculus 4: Locating Silence within Dynamism

This guru revolutionized the field of national defence last February with his website, “Invincible Defence”. It prescribes no less than the complete eradication of terrorism for good, by measures such as a significant increase in the practice of yogic flying. This makes perfect sense: yogic flyers induce harmony around them which produces the Maharishi effect, much like the harmony of superconductance produces the Meissner effect. Just as a superconductor offers “invincible defence” against magnetic fields, flying yogas erect an impenetrable wall defending their nation from the scourge of terrorism.

Hopefully we will all internalize the yogi’s teachings with an open mind, unimpeded by the notorious arrogance of science.

</sarcasm>

When you hear from software people (e.g. from yourself) things like “I don’t have time” or “it’s too much work”, there is a single-word slapdown response.

Ayende.

2.07 posts a day on average over the last three years, mostly high-value software stuff. At the same time, he spews out useful, robust software. That’s all on top of his day job. And apparently he reads a lot.

Personally I suspect Ayende is a five-person software company masquerading as a single person. Even then he is not doing too badly.

The obvious question: how does he do this?

The useful question: why aren’t you doing it?

(Ouch.)

Tipex lead singer pushing the button

The eerie pipe-smoking accordionist

Okay, I’ve quit complaining about Eurovision songs being watered-out corny sugar clichés. First the Finns last year, and now — for those readers domiciled under a rock like me — the Israeli song this year (thank you, Eyþór).

Here are the lyrics, as far as I can tell, with an English translation of the Hebrew rap segment (cobbled together from here and there using this dictionary).

Yikes.

כפתור אדום	Push the Button
מילים, לחן והפקה מוסיקלית: קובי אוז	Lyrics and music: Kobi Oz

The world is full of terror
If someone makes an error
He’s gonna blow us up to biddy biddy kingdom come
There are some crazy rulers
they hide and try to fool us
With demonic, technologic willingness to harm

They’re gonna push the button
push the button
push the bu-
push the bu-
push the button

Il ya plein de souffrance
Dans les rues il y a trop de violence
Et on a beaucoup de chance d’être vivant même pas blessés.
Avancement tactique de régime fanatique
Situation tragique qui me met les larmes aux yeux

And I don’t want to die
I want to see the flowers bloom
Don’t want to go kaputt kaboom
And I don’t want to cry
I wanna have a lot of fun
Just sitting in the sun

But nevertheless …

He’s gonna push the button
push the button
push the bu-
push the bu-
push the button

מסרים מתפוצצים עלי טילים מתעופפים וגם נופלים עלי שוטרים וגנבים מתרוצצים עלי הם קופצים עלי מתקרצצים עלי אללי אללי תענה לי אלוהי הי	Messages are blowing up on me, Missiles are flying and falling on me, Cops and robbers running around on me, And they’re jumping on me, bothering me. My god, my god, answer me god?
הסיוט הזה ארוך מדי כשאני בקושי חי וכולם מכוונים אלי זה מוקדם לשיר אולי שנתתי לך חיי ווי ווי – המשטרה וויאוו וויאוו – צוות הצלה	This nightmare is too long, When I am barely alive and everybody is aiming at me it might be too soon to sing “I Gave My Life for Thee” Why, why – police patrol Wow, wow – paramedical
הנה זה בקדם שיר ללא סלאם אדום זה לא רק צבע זה יותר כמו דם שוב עוצר בלב את הנשימה שלא תפרח עכשיו הנשמה	Here it is in the Kdam (prelims), a song without Salam (peace in Arabic). Red is not just a color, it’s more like blood, Stopping my breath again, So my soul won’t pop out.
הנה מלחמה הנה הנשמה בום בום זה מה שקורה עכשיו בין רקטה למצ’טה בין צופה לכתב בין מחטף לנחטף בין גשום לשרב	Here is war, here is the soul [or: here is war, here is CPR] Boom boom this is what is happening now, Between rocket and machete, between viewer and reporter, Between underhanded opportunism and kidnapping,
הסלמה במדרגות עולה ותופסת קו כלום כלום זה מה שכולם עושים קיצונים מקצינים וקצינים מרצינים התמימים מתמתנים ממתינים לנתונים ועונים: שכולם חסרי אונים	Escalation rises up the stairs and takes a (front) line. Nothing is what everybody does. Extremists getting more extreme and officers acting serious, The naive turn to moderation and wait for information And answer that everyone is helpless.
עולם כולו דמונים שאנחנו סתם פיונים ושמפיונים עם ז’יטונים מחליטים מה שיהיה ניהול בעצלתיים, אוניה מלאה במים וכולם שותים לחיים וטובעים זה לצד זה	A world full of demons, and we are only pawns, And champions with poker chips decide what will be. Things are run slowly, a ship full of water, And everybody is drinking l’chaim, drowning next to each other.
אולי זה חד מדי צריך לשיר שירי דקלים שירי מדבר ללא דגלים אני עוד חי חי חי ואם ימשיך להיות מפחיד רק אז אני אגיד:	Maybe this is too blunt, maybe we should sing about palm trees, Sing about a desert without flags. I’m still alive alive alive, and if it continues to be frightening, Only then will I say:

I’m gonna push the button
push the button
push the bu-
push the bu-
push the button

Whatever happened to hupa hule hule hule?

In·shaʾ·Allah·tion (ĭn’shä-lä’shən)

n.

A software installation/upgrade performed as a leap of faith in the irrational hope that it might make things less terrible.

[From Arabic in šaʾ Allāh (إن شاء الله), “God willing”]