About Wyrd Smythe
The canonical fool on the hill watching the sunset and the rotation of the planet and thinking what he imagines are large thoughts.
Earl Grey. Hot!
I’ve written about the Yin-Yang of analog versus digital, a fundamental metaphor for how reality can be smooth or bumpy. I’ve applied the idea to numbers, where we see two types of infinity — countable (discrete, digital, bumpy) and uncountable (continuous, analog, smooth). There is also how chaos mathematics says that — the moment we round off those smooth numbers into bumpy ones — our ability to use them to calculate certain things is forever lost.
I’ve also written about Star Trek replicators and transporters, as well as the monkey wrench of the hated holodeck. According to canon, all three use the same technology (which raises some contradictions for the holodeck).
Today, for Science Fiction Saturday, I want to tie it all together in another look at transporters and replicators!
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12 Comments | tags: analog, Captain Kirk, Captain Picard, chaos theory, digital, Earl Grey, infinity, replicators, Star Trek, transporters, Yin and Yang | posted in Sci-Fi Saturday
About 500 years ago a thing happened in Europe: The Scientific Renaissance. It was part of a larger thing, called the Scientific Revolution. These were the seeds that lead to the Age of Enlightenment, when science and rationality were the saviors of humanity lifting us up from the dark ages.
Now the Renaissance is mostly seen as a traveling annual party where people can play Medieval dress-up and eat giant turkey legs (thus proving that anything can be trivialized and you are what you eat). Which is all fine. I enjoy a good outdoor party as much as anyone, and it is interesting finding out what mead actually tastes like.
But I fear we’re forgetting the advances made in the real Renaissance and setting sail back to the Dark Ages.
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Leave a comment | tags: Age of Enlightenment, rational thought, Renaissance, Scientific Renaissance, Scientific Revolution, The Atomic Age, turkey legs | posted in Rant
In 2006 Mike Judge (Office Space, King of the Hill) wrote and directed a film called Idiocracy. It postulates a future 500 years hence when, due to “The Marching Morons” theory, the world is entirely populated by extremely stupid people. In this dystopian future, advertising and commercialism have run rampant in an anti-intellectual culture devoid of intellectual curiosity and thought.
As I watch what passes for communication or discussion on the interweb, as I watch in horrified fascination at the complete failure of nuanced — let alone deep — thought in people today, I begin to realize one thing:
The Idiocracy is here; I live in a world filled with morons.
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24 Comments | tags: Cyril M. Kornbluth, education, Idiocracy, idiots, ignorance, intelligence, interweb, Mike Judge, morons, stupid, stupid people, stupidity, The Marching Morons | posted in Rant
I’ve written several times about the many places we see the idea of a Yin and Yang duality played out in the real world. Even the application of the Yin and Yang concept has a Yin (of true opposites) and a Yang (of thing and not-thing). For example, the opposite of light is not-light, but the opposite of positive is negative.
One of the true opposites is the idea of analog versus digital or, more generally, of continuous versus uneven. Recently I was thinking about the differences between various sports, and I realized there’s a connection to the “smooth or bumpy” distinction I wrote about a while back. Looked at in terms of play, some sports are essentially continuous while others are not.
It turns out that some sports are “analog” while others are “digital.”
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7 Comments | tags: Alfred Hitchcock, analog, basketball, continuous, digital, discrete, football, hockey, MacGuffin, Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino, sports, team sports, tennis, Yin and Yang | posted in Baseball
Happy Twins; Happy Fans!
The Minnesota Twins have had three of the worst years (2011-2013) in franchise history, but this year there have been hints that this year might be different. In April they had a win-loss record of 12-11 (.522) and averaged 5.57 runs per game. The downside was that starting pitchers had a 6.02 ERA.
In May, the pitching got better; starters threw a very good 4.03 ERA. Unfortunately, the bats went ice-cold. Runs per game were down to 3.17, and Twins lagged behind their opponents by 27 runs. The month ended with a 13-16 (.448) record.
June is off to a bang with one of the most exciting wins the Twins have seen in years!
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5 Comments | tags: Brian Dozier, Eduardo Nunez, Josh Willingham, Minnesota Twins, MLB, New York Yankees, Oswaldo Arcia, Phil Hughes | posted in Baseball
Was participating in a discussion about violence against women and wrote a response that’s really too long for a comment, so I thought I’d make a post of it. This is really a comment response, so you might want to read Mark’s post, and the comments there, first.
This response does stand alone and mainly consists of statistics regarding murder and forcible rape. At the end I offer some opinions on the matter.
It’s a heavy, but very important, topic.
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14 Comments | tags: Feminism, forcible rapes, men, murder statistics, rape, rape statistics, rape victims, violence, violence against women, women | posted in Rant
Do you all know the little game to play with fortune cookies? After the fortune, whatever it happens to be, you add the infamous words, “…in bed.” Oddly, this seems to work with almost any fortune.
So I just opened a fortune cookie (sesame chicken…. mmmmm… I just love sesame chicken), and I really cracked up, because today’s fortune reads (this may be one of the best ones ever):
Money will come to you when you are doing the right thing…
…in bed!!
47 Comments | tags: fortune cookie, funny, humor, money | posted in Quotes
The baseball season takes place from April to September. In those 180 days, each of the 30 MLB teams plays 162 games. That number doesn’t divide by four neatly but having played 43 games (as of last night), my Minnesota Twins are definitely past the quarter mark of this season.
Back in 2010, when the Twins finished 94-68 (.580) and won the American Central Division, after 43 games they had a 26-17 (.605) win-loss record. In the awful three years that followed, they had (respectively) records of 15-28 (.349), 15-28 (.349 again) and 18-25 (.419) — all three years falling below the important .500 mark.
What’s astonishing is that this year the Twins… aren’t sucking!
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10 Comments | tags: baseball season, Brian Dozier, Chris Parmelee, Minnesota Twins, MLB, Rick Anderson, Ron Gardenhire, Win Twins | posted in Baseball
According to the CDC, every day, more than nine people are killed due to distracted drivers. Every day, more than 1000 are injured. In these days of cell phones, texting and drive-through eateries, the potential for distracted driving is greater than ever. And driving is such a common activity that it’s easy to forget we’re piloting a weapon of notable destruction.
Even worse, young — inexperienced — drivers are far more likely to be involved in distractions involving their mobile devices or friends riding along. Traffic fatalities are the leading cause of death for U.S. teens. In 2010, (according to the CDC) seven teens (16-19) died every single day in car crashes (making them about 8% of the 32,885 traffic deaths that year — a rate of about 90 people per day).
With that in mind, I give you the story of Jack & Bob…
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11 Comments | tags: car accident, car crashes, cars, CDC, cell phones, drive safely, driving, driving too fast, speeding, speeding ticket, teen drivers, texting, traffic, traffic fatality | posted in From My Collection
Those of us in parts of the country that experience snow and ice and sub-zero temperatures have had a very tough winter this year! As we dig ourselves out from under the covers, it’s nice to finally begin to enjoy the coming summer (despite the chilly Minnesota days this past week of May).
In an email to a friend in Southern California I was bemoaning the awful weather, and she wrote back to remind me that they have their own share of devastating weather. They, too, have suffered under the cruel lash of Mother Nature. My friend kindly sent me the photo you see here illustrating the horrific damage done to their outdoor deck due to a passing west coast storm this past month. Fortunately, once the storm passed, they were able to leave the shelter of their home and begin to set things right again.
It really makes you cherish what you have and reminds us not to take life for granted!
4 Comments | tags: awful weather, funny, humor, rain, Southern California, storms | posted in From My Collection
Logos con carne 
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