Hunters of Dune

Let me give you an example of a bad argument:

“Inside [Sheeana's] head, the fascinating and ancient voice of Serena Butler once again bubbled up from deep within her Other Memories. Sheeana carried on her conversation aloud. “Tell me one thing: How can Serena Butler be among my ancestors?”

If you dig deep enough, I am there. Ancestor after ancestor, generation after generation…

Sheeana was not so easily convinced. “But Serena Butler’s only child was murdered by thinking machines. That was the trigger of the Jihad. You had no heirs, no other descendants. How can you be in my Other Memories, regardless of how far back I go?”

She looked up at the strange forms of the sandworms, as if the martyred woman’s face might be there.

Because, Serena said, I am. The ancient voice said no more, and Sheeana knew she would get no better answer.”

-Hunters of Dune, 278-279 (Herbert, Anderson)

“Because I am”???
Are you kidding me?
Separating ‘Because’ from ‘I am’ with a ‘Serena said’ isn’t going to fool anyone
What am I supposed to think about this as a reader?
Am I really supposed to read over that and say, “Oh, that makes sense”?
This is not an argument you put into literature unless you’re describing 4-7 year old children.
Frank Herbert, your son is ruining your legacy!

Also, now that you’re pretty much done writing the series and are now only pumping out crap like Paul of Dune, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, I would dearly like to see the original notes that Mr. Frank Herbert left behind. I don’t believe you when you say he wrote that crap about “The Enemy” and thinking machines and Omnius.

Because without that proof, you have no legitimacy. All you’re doing is bastardizing the series that Frank Herbert left behind in the hope of a few quick dollars. To be honest, a lot of the time I feel like I’m reading amateur fan fiction! Although I haven’t read Paul of Dune, the description on the inside jacket really does make it sound like fan fiction- “Ok ok, we all know what happened during Dune and Dune Messiah but what happened in between??” It’s useless!

Please contact me so I can give you an address to which you can send unaltered photocopies of Frank Herbert’s notes.

Changing Life’s Direction

I don’t understand why I didn’t see this before, but it turns out,
Surprise!
I like the internets.
And computers.
So why the bloody dog testicles am I still majoring in something I’m not interested in?

What do I do with Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology?
Did I think of what careers I could get plugged into if I majored in this moose shit?

I want to learn programming languages. I want to learn Java, C, C++, I want to become proficient in HTML, CSS, ASP.NET, I want to be 1337 at Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Flash. I want to learn RAILS and make webapps.

I’ve wasted so much time and I’m so behind and I’ve wasted so much money and I don’t know what to do.

Bye.

Dear…

Middle Eastern people commuting around the Mosholu parkway area in the Bronx-

Please stop thumping your terrible music.

Thank you.

Your music sucks. Furthermore, the title of this image was clarinet worship. LOL wut?

Without Internet

This is day three of my time without internet at home

I was lucky enough to get to a friend’s house and use their wireless.
The other day I actually went driving throughout the neighborhood
looking for unsecured wireless networks. I realize how unacceptably
boring my home is and this town that I live in. I need to live in NYC.

Furthermore, I’m realizing more and more that my chosen career path
is not as appealing as I had first perceived it to be. The path that I
think I would love to go down is obstructed by my college choice.

I need to be able to wake up every morning and not ever say, “Ugh,
I’m gonna call in sick today.” The path I’m currently going down
(WTF am I gonna do with Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology?)
is leading nowhere.

I hate bad choices and I hate that I didn’t think about this before now.

Stretch to the Epic

I used to read Garfield all the time as a kid.

Sure, I thought Jon was pathetic, but this guy put it in a whole new light
http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/archive/
It’s a strip (kinda) by a guy named Dan Walsh, in which he takes Garfield strips and removes Garfield from them. It’s amazing how much of a lonely guy Jon really is, especially since you know that Garfield can only communicate with thought bubbles that Jon can’t hear.

P.S. 7:30 marks the end of finals. This also means I am going home soon, to a residence that does not posses the magical capabilities of the interlinking webnets. I hope to survive.

Finals

This just exemplifies the stupidity that is all around us every day, which simply needs to be noticed and laughed at. An RA in my dorm posted up several sheets of paper listing effective study tips and “How-to-Ace-Your-Finals!” tutorials. The above piece of paper is one of the said sheets. Study groups eh? How do I form an effective one? How in F’in hell am I supposed to click that link? Oh wait, I get it, you didn’t read the crap you printed out before you plastered it all over the hall signboard. Good job, Trisha. I would understand if it was just this one that included a hyperlink to the void, but there’s more! Several of them have links to learn more and not a single website mentioned anywhere on the board.

But hey, who am I to blame her, one day we will be able to click hyperlinks in real life. But until then, I laugh at your stupidity oh Resident Advisor.

Anyways, I’m about to get slaughtered on a final at 4:30 PM, so I thought that I might as well post here.

Energy drinks propel my life in directions frighteningly close to death (esp. Nos)

My study module. (Note- Triple the processing power! Oh, and the Nos in the background)

Resemblance

I find a striking resemblance between one of the characters in Final Fantasy Versus XIII and Patrick Wilson.

If anyone’s seen Hard Candy, one will remember that Patrick Wilson played the part of Jeff Kohvler, a photographer with a little secret. He’s a pedophile. I hope that didn’t ruin the movie for you, but now that that’s out of the way, I can show you the following-

This is Patrick Wilson-

This is that guy with glasses in the Final Fantasy Versus XIII trailer which can be seen here-

Uh ohh bad tidings for the children of wherever Final Fantasy takes place this time.

Live Performances

Sometimes you just wish the live performance could sound EXACTLY like the recording.
One of the few cases (I’ve seen) in which it does:

Recording-

Live-

Japan is the Future

How is that thing a robot?
For that matter can you even tell which one is the robot?

http://current.com/items/89610631/japan_robot_nation.htm

Was watching this episode of Current. Apparently, Japan has been having a bit of a problem.
Japan seems to have reached its point of maximum growth and it’s population faces a sharp decline:

Note that after the population hits the carrying capacity of the environment that it's in, it drops fiercly before building back up

People seem to have lost the will to procreate, and the country of Japan has an abnormally large number of senior citizens per capita. Thus, it’s predicted that Japan will lose up to two-thirds of its population and, more importantly, a large percentage of its work force. This means that the booming economy that Japan has created and has maintained for so many years faces a looming crash as the resources do not exist to maintain it.

As discussed in the video, there have been two solutions proposeed. The first includes allowing higher rates of immigration (which I approve of!). But this has been met with such a adverse reaction from the Japanese as the media blames society’s problems on foreigners and the general public grips a deep xenophobia. Thus, the second solution proposed is… you guessed it, Robots.

Does your dishes, shops for groceries, and has a strange a obsession for the Conner family.

If the Japanese will lose much of its work force, why not make robots pick up the slack? Furthermore, why not make the robots as human as possible so you can’t notice that 2/3rds of the population has died off? That guy in the video (and the guy shown in the picture above who made an android of himself)- Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro, is on the cutting edge of discovering what exactly it is that makes a person… a person.

RepleeQ2

RepleeQ2 looks like a person, blinks, is uncomfortable with close contact from strangers, etc. etc.

It’s ridiculous the level of realism (and sensors!) are going into this project! I’m truly amazed at how far robotics has come. I think that the next level up is simply to be able to plug humans into robots, perhaps first as big mechwarrior-like things

which can help humans in everyday tasks (like the elderly, handicapped, etc.) and then on to simply plugging in neurons to circuits capable of converting patterns of synapse firings into data and living out lives through incredibly realistic robots, immortal, not requiring sleep or food, perhaps maintenance, but essentially it will be the future realized as shown in popular Japanese manga such as Zettai Kareshi and Chobits

Spoiler: Guy on right is a robot.

Chi- the future of computing

Think of this- the limitations that our brains and biological selves currently experience- gone.

Japan holds the keys to the future.

So, although I’m saddened by the fact that the Japanese are rather reluctant to allow for greater immigration, I will be overjoyed to learn of the progress that comes out of this strange land.

Pwnd whilst trying to pwn.

[12:30 AM] NBae876624: actually DEA is the drug enforcement administration
[12:34 AM] janglily: dea is incompleted form of DEAR
[12:34 AM] janglily: an animal that roams in the forest on four legs