I sorta forgot this was a thing...

I totally forgot to update throughout the ENTIRE MONTH OF OCTOBER.

Because, you see, I am a moron.

Epsilon minus semi-moron, to be exact

And the worst part is that, guess what, I'm doing NaNoWriMo again, so November is blacklisted.

I know.  I had this really cool post about the lack of intelligent life that had visited Earth, and the statistics that backed up the fact that we might have intelligent life and they simply haven't gotten here yet.  And the iPad mini came out, which is like shooting fish in a barrel.

There was so many easy blog posts throughout the month of October that I literally could have coughed and ended up with a tech link that was begging for a blog post.  I know.  I'm sorry.

However, I have a solution.  I'm going to livestream my November novel.  As you may or may not recall, the last time I tried this, I posted parts of the novel as I wrote them to the blog.  That rapidly fell apart because I would go back and make changes, thus meaning there were several posts that didn't actually add any story.

However, if I were to say, make a publicly view able Google Doc, you guys could watch me write in real time.  Which you'd totally want to do because I just might randomly bust out ASCII porn.  I might, in addition, try to set up an IRC server to allow for chat about the novel I'm writing.

I won't lie, I stole the idea from the naked novel project, but this gives everyone involved more flexibility.  You can read my rough draft, I don't feel retarded re-posting parts after edits.  Plus, once you see my crazy-as-balls novel idea (when I told my roommate my concept, his first reply was, "You were wasted when you came up with this, weren't you?"), I'm sure you guys won't mind missing out on the usual twice a week rantings about technology... when I actually remember to post that is.

However, setting up an IRC server may turn out to be a pain (the dorm firewall and I don't get along), so novel chat may get axed.  But I'll see you guys Novemeber first, with a shiny perma-link to a Google document, that will contain the rough draft of Foxtrot (title subject to change).

Scientific Method: You better believe it matters

I once, a few years back, was posed a question: "What do you think the most important scientific discovery ever was?"

Without hesitation, I replied, "The scientific method, of course."

This response got me looks, quiet chuckles, and mutterings of, "Seriously?  Out of all the scientific stuff, that?   Over, like, lasers? nerd."

Years later (because I don't hold grudges, and didn't spend the next few days crying into a bathtub with a bucket of ice cream or anything) this is my reply.  It's long winded and has some required reading before we dig into the subject, but I do stand by the scientific method as the most important scientific discovery to have ever happened, and further- the scientific method is the single most important discovery to happen in the history of humanity, and the only way in which we will be able to solve some of the hardest problems that plague our world (or just the United States of America) today (see: global warming, economic slump, massive wealth gap between the rich and the poor, etc).

First things first, let me get all the obvious schematics out of the way.  I know someone is going to be calling foul on technicalities (because the silly little technical details will be all they can grasp with, mentally).

Obviously, the scientific method (or SM for short) required quite a bit of human progress before it even became able to be considered.  [ed: please don't confuse SM with S&M.  Wait, damnit, I made the correlation easier.  Forget I typed that.  But don't, because don't confuse them.]  You could run a very weak (but sound) argument that any of the technologies or revolutions in understanding that happened before SM are more important than SM because with out them, no SM.  Fine.

The (also unstable) counter argument is that you don't, in fact, know what SM requires to be discovered, so you can't list other discoveries as pre-requisites.  Discoveries in real life don't actually work like a technology tree from the Civilization series.  Its why two men can both independently discover calculus at about the same time, and spend a good chunk of the rest of their lives trying to discredit the other.  Which is why calculus symbols seem to be totally random.

Got that? Great, now that we can safely (sorta) say that you can't judge a discovery based on what was discovered before it, its time to go through part II of stuff we need to do before getting to the good stuff: read this article.    But don't just read it-- you'll need to ponder and at least acknowledge its conclusion.  I didn't say accept-- if it really cuts you to the core that the stories you listen to affect you on a subconsciousness and fundamental level, then you don't have to agree.

But you do have to get behind the idea that the conclusions might be true.  It is on you to disprove them, and if you can't, then you either:

A) need to work harder in your disproof/counter proof
B) deal with the fact that this article may, in fact, be true.

Under no circumstances are you allowed to pick:
C) brush the article off because it conflicts with what I believe about myself and pretend like I didn't read it

And you absolutely are not allowed to even think about picking:
D) get personally offended by the article, decide that is is the villain and start actively crusading against it, proof or no proof be damned.

If you pick D, by the way, the article proves its point.  C may also prove the article's point, but its more roundabout and complicated.  Either way, if you pick C/D, you won't get any more out of this.  You've made up your mind, and no amount of logic I can show you will change that.  Ever.  Go home, brew yourself a nice cup of tea, sit down, and try to piece out why you're so depressed all the time.

I want to draw attention to A/B-- note how both these options are the only correct way to interpret new information that may conflict with your knee-jerk reaction to the article.  Also notice how this is basically mimicking the scientific method, more importantly, how the scientific method deals with conclusions.

I'm going to skip the part of this that tells you what SM is and how it works.  You've all been through grade school science, you know it.  If you don't, go back to working on your homework, buster.  Mother will be in by 8:30pm to put you to bed, so if you want to do anything fun tonight, you better get cracking.

Conclusions from an experiment, according to SM, draw two responses- the experiment confirms your hypothesis, test again or the experiment rejects your hypothesis, test again.  Now replace hypothesis with "preconceived beliefs", experiment with "article" and test again with "find proof" and suddenly, we have a very clear model as to how to go about dealing with new information.

If you're willing to buy into the fact that we have notions about everything before we get information it (and, if you're more than five, you do, so you better), then this boils down to:

get new information --> agree --> find backing material

or

get new information --> disagree --> find backing material

In the event backing material can not be found, then you need to change how you view the new information, or search harder.  I want to stress here- searching harder is always an option.  Enstien hated quantum mechanics and spent his entire life rejecting the idea (as far as I know anyway, I could be wrong.  Enstien is a hotbed of misquotes).

He also spent his entire life trying to prove it wrong.  He ended up being unable to-- the Hesienburg uncertenty principle stands to this day.

But, look at all this takes out of new information.  You're not trying to fit things into a narrative structure, you're not trying to anthropomorphize your data into good guys and bad guys.  There is just information, what you think about it, and backing up your claim.  That's it.

It's neat, clean and simple, and entirely removes all the crazy bullshit where you build a filter between yourself and the world, and you try to get the world to fit.  The world either won't fit (and then you end up with things like a fast food chain having a stance on gay marriage) or you'll have to do all sorts of absurd things to make it fit (like oppose gay marriage based on the fact that we use the word "marriage", but you'd be fine if they used any other word, like "civil-companion-joint-love-venture" or something).

It works for personal problems too-- stop trying to see all of your ventures as uphill struggles of some bold hero going against the odds and more in terms of the SM.  I'll use weight loss as an example:

I'm trying to loose weight, but today I found out despite all my efforts, I've gained a pound.  This is absurd, I disagree with this-- I've been working so hard to loose weight!  But, when I reflect about it, maybe I'm eating more calories than I think I am-- HOLY SHIT, A DOUBLE QUARTER POUNDER HAS WHAT?!?  Ok, lets not do that and try the experiment again-- this time, I won't get a "tiny snack" at McDonalds, no matter what their commercials say.

Sometimes it works against you too-- I wanted to run a post a while about how hacking the power grid was crazy, based on how I disagreed with an article that claimed it possible.  But when I went to get my own research done to counter it, I found that, hey, holy shit, hackers could totally disrupt the power grid on a terrifyingly large scale.  Balls.

Needless to say, that post was never used and I needed to apologize to someone for laughing at them.  It was a humbling moment.

It all boils down to: information, stance, attempt to back that stance.  There is another huge upside (despite the fact that it takes out all the story-telling bias bullshit):
You always have a plan, or a goal.

With an SM-based world view, your intake of information is active, rather than passive.  You challenge what you're told, and actively search for an interpitation of information that fits the way things actually are.  But when you map it back on to your own life, you're no longer searching for meaning in what you do.  You're no longer trying to live up to the monstrous expectation that you're a hero in some great story, and that what you do will change the world.  There is no troublesome quest for purpose, no great crusade to embark upon.

There is just information, your stance, and trying to resolve your stance against that information.  Or, maybe putting it a different way:

Just the current life you are living, how that makes you feel, and what to do about it.

Aristotle wrote that the unexamed life wasn't worth living for a human being.  He also wrote the only way to find happiness was to contemplate life all day and that tall women were always prettier than short women.  As many of the ancient Greek philosophers, he gets personal bias tangled up in objective analyses, but he was, in fact, on to something.  You need to be able to objectively view your own life in order to get the correct reaction from it.

Step away from the ideas of personal obligation when it comes to life goals.  There is no way to win at life- the only obligations you are required to fulfill are the ones you set out for yourself, which you are allowed to change.  If you're honestly happiest living as a bum off of welfare, then shit, why are you still on the Internet?  You've got some food stamps to collect.

And that's the lesson for today, folks.  I'm writing again on a regular basis, after several months of needed downtime, I'm back, bitches.

This is What I Do Instead of Having Normal Person Fun

I've decided to dedicate a blog post to some of the math/programming work I'm doing for MLPOnline. This should also help me remember why I'm still single on Valentine's Day so I can rant about the correct things when I drink myself into a gutter later.  Warning- this post has math. But its in the form of badly drawn Microsoft Paint pictures.  So, lets dig in!

Lets say that you have two objects- a box and a triangle.  You want to make sure the triangle can't stab into the box, especially if the box is made of concrete. The triangle should stay outside our box of concrete, unless our game is set in Alice's Wonderland.

This part comes right after the Caterpillar gets baked

Now, the question is: how do you keep that from happening?  Well, look at anything vaguely box-like in your room right now (books are good for this example).  Look at the corners- the only way for a book to be "inside" of our proverbial box is if one of the corners was inside the box.  There is no way to put the book inside the box without putting at least one corner in.

So, really, we just want to test if any of the corners of the book are inside our box.  In math, we call the corners of things vertices.  With a little imagination- perhaps with the help of Figment if you're a character on a Disney ride- you can see that each object is actually a collection of faces (the front of the book, the back of the book, the spine of the book, etc), and each of these faces each have a set of vertices.

Example: For the front of a book, the vertices would be the front bottom left corner, front bottom right corner, front top right corner and front top left corner.

So, really, the problem is: how do we check to see if one of these vertices is inside a bunch of other vertices?  Your answer is probably something along the lines of, "Um, by looking at it, numbskull".  You're also perfectly right- but computers are very retarded and can't look at objects.  All they see is a bunch of points in space that make up the objects we're talking about.  So, to a computer, our problem looks something like this:

Green dot- inside or outside the box?

Yeah.  The computer has no idea what inside or outside even mean.  If I gave you a sheet of random dots and told you to tell me if one dot was inside the others you'd tell me to lay off the drugs.  Remember how I said before that our objects are actually a collection of faces?  Well, time to use that to our advantage.  Sorta.

You see, there is another way to look at faces- as planes.  Planes are flat surfaces that extend out forever.  They're handy because they divide space in to two parts- the part on the left of the plane and the part on the right of the plane.

These two horribly drawn stick people can't see each other because there is a theoretical mathematic construct in the way.  This happens all the time in real life.

There are a few ways to describe planes, but the easiest to calculate (when we already have a bunch of points in the plane- the vertices that I rambled about before) is to have have a perpendicular arrow that points away from the plane and another point on the plane.  Or more simply- we can describe one of these great space dividers with nothing more than a point and an arrow we can get from a bunch of points.  Perfect!

Now, we finally have enough information to start to figure out our starting problem.  Some other very smart person figured out that a point is inside of a 2 dimensional shape if you could draw an arrow from somewhere outside the shape to the point and the number of intersections it made with the shape's sides was odd.

Thanks, dead smart person!

I need to generalize this to 3 dimensions, because apparently 2D graphics are lame.  Whatever.  So, I drafted up a test cube, picked a point I knew was going to be inside of the box, and picked a point that I knew was going to be outside of the box and made a line.  Then came the very unfortunate task of checking to see if the point intersected with any of the planes of my box.  There is a lot of linear algebra I'm going to ignore.  Unless, there is some demand to hear about it and or need for a sleep aid.

In a nutshell I got this:

I fail art forever. 

Which seems like a great success.  Until you start to look at more complicated shapes.  If one of those box sides was angled- like a ramp- then I would have had two plane intersections, and my algorithm would have mistakenly divided that the point was outside the box.  (Remember, planes extend infinitely out in two dimensions so they can divide 3-D space in two.  They don't have edges like the sides of a box would)

So, I also need to check each plane intersection point to make sure its in the face.  If it isn't, I need to throw it out.  To do that requires even dryer math (woo-hoo trigonometry!), but I have a solution that I think works.  Almost.  There are two problems that I still need to tackle.

1) My point in face check requires some order be imposed on the vertices.  They need to either be in clockwise or counter clockwise order.  I can either ask the developer working on generating our level geometry to impose this order on his stuff, or I can order them myself at the start of all this math mess.  Ordering them shouldn't be hard (which means I should be able to find out how someone else did it on the Internet), but there is a lot of computations happening already.  I'm beginning to get worried that it'll take too long to check this stuff, and that results in lag.  No one likes lag.

2)I've used some meta-knowledge here.  I know that my second point is outside the figure because I drew the figure up.  In our actual game, I my code won't be able to know any of that and will need to pick a secondary point all by itself.  And remember, all the computer knows about is a bunch of points- all this plane crap is done by my code in the middle of it.  The solution to this sucker is to use what smart people call a bounding sphere, which is the smallest sphere that encloses a set of points.

I just have to grab a point on that sphere (actually, I'll grab a point a little ways outside of the sphere, so I can avoid accidentally using a vertex) and I should be set.  The issue is that getting a sphere from the way the data is saved is going to be a pain.  I need to actually get a unique list of points that make up the object (which, when looking at how the data is saved right now is looking to take a lot of computational time) and then generate the sphere

In conclusion: video games are complicated.  Even ones about ponies.

Purple is the most manly color of them all

There comes a time in your life when you stop associating colors and "girl" colors and "boy" colors.  This usually happens right after, eh, third grade- you discover girls and wonder what all the fuss about cooties was after all.

No, this isn't a post about sex and porn.  I just did one of those, you pervert.

Long ago, (when the blog was young) I started a post on a statistical breakdown of North American superhero comic book sales.  The post did what it was supposed to- undercut an argument that recent comic book art (and the resulting sales the new style generated) were sexist by implying that they were to statistically insignificant to matter, and that a tiny part of the population was just being allowed to read what they wanted.

I canned the post because that's a horrible thing to go around a write/try to prove.  And that it's basically hollow.

Figure A: Male superhero vs Female superhero.  Yeah.

Remember, this is a new reboot of the DC comic book franchise, more or less.  This is how they want to depict things to appeal to modern audiences.

Just keep that in mind while we launch into the topic at hand.

Currently sweeping the Internet is the story of how a brother argued for his younger brother's right to get a purple controller as a gift.  The pair were in a videogame store, and the older brother let his younger brother pick out a game with a female protagonist and a purple controller to play on.  They were being brothers (as brothers are) and taking their time in the cornicopia of brightly colored fun that videogame stores can be.

The father of the pair walks into the store, and proceeds to stereotype himself expertly as "white trash".  He ends up yelling at his younger son over the choice of videogame and controller color.  The older brother then does the most badass and cool thing possible- gets his younger brother the gifts he wanted anyway.

It's sort of heartwarming, except for the fact that this story shouldn't be a story at all.  It's absolutely retarded- if yelling at your kid over something so petty as the protagonist/subject matter of a video game and control color sound like a good idea to you, then don't procreate.  Ever.  Period.

There is scientific proof that girls and guys are drawn to different colors- so yes, purple is a color that is favored more by girls.  But you don't have to always play to statistical norms.  For example, everyone (according to the statistics) prefers blue hues, but I know plenty of people who are serious fans of bright green or bright orange.

And damn it, I like the color purple- especially the deeper shades.  So, yeah, this is kinda personal.

Not only do I know that Periwinkle is a color, but it's one of my favorites

The idea of femmephobia- that boys are afraid of "girly" things because it emasculates them, is alive and well.  The silliest part is that even little kids figure it out from the other side of things:  that it's really, really retarded that girls sections of toy stores are baiscally pink isles.

It's equally retarded that the boys isles are the blue ones, but this idea seems to have gotten less traction.  This isn't about being gay, or bi, or whatever.  Google's already got all that covered with the "It Gets Better" video.  This is about simply preferring different things that what other people expect you to.

And yes, it is enough to make you feel left out and alone- perhaps not picked on as badly as someone who really is different, but enough to make you feel like there isn't anyone else in the middle: not man enough to play WWII shooters and football, but also not gay.

Not that there aren't some some amazing articles about it, don't get me wrong.  But I want to say it loud, I want to say it clear:

Colors are no more than light being reflected (or not reflected) into your eye.  Clothes are no more than fabric, dolls no more than plastic or stuffing.  Do what ever you goddamn want- whatever makes you happy.

To the kid who wanted a purple controller: you deserve the games and controllers that you want, not that anyone else wants you to want.  And don't you ever forget that.

I'm not a little unwell, I'm damn crazy

See title.  No idea why anyone would argue the other way around, especially in today's society. If you say, "I'm sick," everyone either wants to burn you with fire or stick you in a hazmat suit. At the very least, you'll have a fun time trying to be around kids from any set of parents.

But if you claim that you're crazy, then people want to give you a free t-shirt.  Clothes cost money, so better damn believe that I'll take as much free shit as possible.

I'm actually pretty excited- I've passed the 3 month blog mark... sorta. Most bloggers quit within the first three months, and I'm still writing and kicking, so that's great.  Even better, despite a short lived StumbleUpon ad campaign inflating my view numbers, I do, intact, have a semi-devoted tiny readership. And I'll fucking take that. I'll take the shit out of that.

Like this, but with less rape

At any rate, I'm very happy with how far the blog has gotten. Despite the fucked up links, despite the horrendous typos and grammar, despite the shoddy posting schedule, it's still here. And with the New Year, it's time for me to try to make it even better.

I promise to bring in the New Year with something the blog had for a little while, and then lost: a backlog and editing- which means, no more horrible, terrible, no good, very bad typos.  Having a backlog means better grammar (but I've got a long way to go in that regard- and I'll still break the rules on purpose every once in a while).  Having a backlog means no more rushed posts.

I started this wanting to do it right, and damn it, I'm going to do it right.  You guys have dealt with my growing pains, and I virtually pinkie promise all of you that this blog will be kicking until the world ends.

Note: joke may be on you, considering the world is slighted to end this year. Then again, I've already survived like 4 predicted apocalypses, so I'm not all that worried.

To everyone still reading this (and any new readers I get): you guys fucking rock harder than you know. Let's fight ignorance with a healthy dose of snark together.

I got 99 problems, but a time controlling wizard isn't one

Alternate Title: Temp Hiatus

I know, I know.  I said I'd do both NaNoWriMo updates and blog posts.  This is me saying that won't continue.

I lie.  It happens.  I don't regret anything.

Turns out I had another big project to do in November- I'll be presenting research at a local conference for that sort of thing.  I'd invite you guys, but its all mainly about math.  I'm pretty sure the boredom alone would cause you to rip your own spinal columns in protest.

Actually, if you do that, I will be all kinds of impressed.  Bet the 99% can't do that.

On top of that, I sorta procrastinated on two big coding assignments for my computer science classes here at school.  I have to code what is essentially twitter, and what is essentially dropbox.  Turns out both pieces of software are rather tricky to mimic.  Even writing the cheap Chinese bootleg edition is becoming more and more of a challenge.  And there are only 24 hours in a day, and I still have NaNoWriMo, math students, my other classes and the pale scrapes of human to human contact I call a social life to attend to.

Things may clear up after next week- so either expect regular posting then, or at the beginning of December.  Until then, the NaNoWriMo page will still be updated on a near-daily basis, so check back for the latest chapter in my epic fantasy.

This is not me giving up on the blog, hell no. I've got enough websites I want to do posts on to fill an entire favorites list of the technologically retarded, bizarre and wonderful.  And I do plan on telling you about all of it.

The idols in my life are dropping like flies...

So, most of you know that Steve Jobs is dead.  If this is news to you and you're sitting in stunned silence, welcome back from having your body preserved!  We've managed to revive you from your basically dead frozen state.  Please move along, Walt Disney is next.

But no one tell him about the Jews.

Anyway, yes, Jobs is dead.  And yes, its is rather sad.  But, as any real computer science student will tell you, Jobs' success was built on the innovations of the people who came before him.  What we really remember Jobs for isn't that he wrote any groundbreaking new software in CS-- he was a marketing and application genius.  He took what was already around and managed to package it in a way that was cool.

In a nutshell, Jobs would have been nothing if it was for people like Dennis Ritchie.  Who, unfortunately, has also recently passed away.  I've taken it upon myself to make sure that all of you give a passing fuck.

Ritchie wrote this book- it is more holy than the Bible.  And more practical.

You see, Jobs spent most of his life working on one platform: the programming language C.  Everything Apple has ever done has been based on the operating system Unix.  And as you probably figured out by now, Unix was written exclusively in C.  When Jobs left Apple for a while, guess what most of his work was in?  Writing really bad additions (that no one really uses anymore) to the C programming language.

And guess who wrote C?  Ritchie.  Even better, guess who helped write the Unix operating system?  Ritchie.  Even Ken Thompson, Unix's other main author, gets more press than Ritchie, but that might be because Ken's beard is so intense, it has probably achieved sentience by this point.

Its the source of all his powers.

In fact, C is even more awesome than you realize.  Almost any operating system written these days is written in C.  Windows 7?  C.  Linux?  C.  A bunch of other OS's you've never heard of?  C.  If you have half a brain, you've got to have realized something by this point:

This man revolutionized computer science.  Any modern day computer genius you know of- Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, that guy that "knows a lot about computers" that keeps fixing yours when you get a porn virus- all of them have been working on top of the shoulders of pretty much one man: Dennis Ritchie.  If you use computers in any way shape or form, even just to turn the damn thing on, you're profiting from the work of Dennis Ritchie.

I have a shrine to the man at home.  I'll be sacrificing a lamb tonight for his safe passage in the afterlife.  You better give at least a slight damn.

Godspeed great one.  We in computer science will ever remember you.

People talking behind your back- your doctor

I'm not exactly big on going to see my doctor.  This is probably because I realize I take incredibly shitty care of my body.  I've just gone through a week where I might had actually been consuming under 1500 calories a day and had been sleeping 3 hours a night, on average.

My two main activities thus far have been working sitting down on a computer and doing my best zombie impression in front of a computer.  According to these energy drink cans and large Starbucks coffee cups littered around me, I've consumed enough caffeine to power a 5 year old for thirty seconds on the "birthday-party-with-cake-and-ice-cream-YAAAAAY!" setting.

I look like I lost a fight with someone who's opening move was to punch me in both eyes due to the ever darkening bags under them.  I get the feeling if my doctor were to see me right now, he'd shake his head disapprovingly, forever judging me as too retarded to own a body.

You're telling me you're dehydrated... because you forgot to drink anything all day?

There is the other small issue of the fact that I'm pretty sure my doctor wants to drug me and rape me.  Well, maybe not the rape, but he most assuredly wants to drug me.  I should probably explain.

A while ago (like 7-8 years ago?  I'm to sleep deprived to do math) I was diagnosed with ADD--- dude, check it out, shiny!  ooh.  Shiny.

Shiiiinnnny.

So, what were we talking about?  Ah.  ADD.  Right.  Well, there was a period of for or so years when I'd actually visit the doctor for my yearly checkups or however often you're supposed to go visit the doctor.  I did this because he controlled my med prescription, and I'd need to go to a check up to get a new prescription when I was running out of pills.

Damn, when I put it that way, I sound like a junkie.

At any rate, he'd always ask me if I wanted to up my dosage and/or take some extra "off the books" prescriptions just in case I ever needed them.  It does not help his case that this advice would always happen when it was just the pair of us in the examining room together.  That man wanted me hooked on Concerta like Trebek wants kids hooked on phonics.

So, I'm not exactly up to date with my checkups.  Well, I felt a sort of justification for this when I learned that doctors aren't always so hot on patients either.  Turns out all that scribbling and acronym use are just a doctor's way of calling you a drooling shithead to your face without you knowing.  Actually, the way they'd do it would be to diagnose you with Cranio-faecal Syndrome, which is a disease made up for the sole purpose of calling you a drooling shithead.

Some of the best ones have got to be:
DRTTTT - Dead Right There, There, There and There (patient dead and in multiple parts at scene of accident)

Gravity Assisted Concrete Poisoning - jumped/fell from height

Smurf Sign - patient blue or going blue

Solomf yoyo - So long, motherfucker, you're on your own   (Used when a patient is beyond the point of saving)

Tachylordyosis (with the junctional Jesus) - Usually a middle-aged to older black female American with a complaint of "lordy, lordy, lordy, lordy, lordy, lordy", occasionally with the interspersed "Jesus" i.e. "lordy, lordy, lordy, lordy, Jesus help me, lordy, lordy"

On second thought, I'm comforted by the fact that doctors have a good sense of humor.  Also, some of these acronyms are just touching, for example, being transferred to the ECU (Eternal Care Unit) means a patient has died.  Some of them are also terrifying (getting the "slow code" means that a patient is dying but no real attempt will be made to save them due to more pressing more curable concerns).

In truth, doctors have to deal with about 200% more death and bullshit than the rest of us.  They deserve their own language to help cope (and disguise unfortunate truths from over-emotional relatives).  So, it is also with some sadness that it seems like doctor slang is dying out due to fear that it'll come back in court to haunt them.


Don't be an asshole- keep doctor slang alive.  Even when it is used to tell you to fuck off (TTFO).

I am a Brony

Readers, I have something personal to admit. I'm... well, I'll just say it and get it over with.

I am a Brony.

Huh. That was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

Why are you looking at me that way? You're not going to make me explain it are you? No, stop, I can already see that you are. You heartless bastards.

Ok, there is this show meant for young girls-- That was a bad way to start. No, I don't own a white van.

Alright, there is a line of toys for kids (slightly better) called My Little Pony.

Well, its really more focused on kids of the feminine persuasion

Recently, Hasbro wanted to start up a TV show to help promote their newest line of the pink frosting dipped pony toys, and decided to release a show about them. This allowed kids to get their dose of cavity inducing visuals in multiple mediums- plus, it was a girl's show. The plot could be dumber than Home Alone and girls would watch it and love it. Product based shows are pretty much just infomercials with a better time slot (which is great) and less Billy Mays (which is even better, considering he'd need to be a zombie at this point), after all.

The project lead, Lauren Faust, had decided she had enough of stupid shows for girls however, and she was going to make her stand with My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic. And Hasbro said, "Fuck it. Go for it." The pilot aired, probably to the critical reception of the young kids it was aimed at. And all would have been well (and this post never written, and I would still have my masculinity) if it stopped there.

But it didn't. Instead, a Kathleen Ritcher had a retarded spasm. She posted an alarmist essay on the show, deciding that a kids show was where to take her stand against racism, sexism, and homophobia.

Because the shows audience deals with that on a daily basis, I guess? Shit, I thought life was tough enough for little girls considering that we get them kitchens for toys.  Oh, wait, I guess the sexism stuff makes sense now.

Anyone else see a distinct lack of sandwiches?

But, back to My Little Pony, because now something magical happens- Kathleen's essay ends up on 4chan.

If you don't know about 4chan, I hate you and your Internet innocence. This is the same unholy black abyss of a message board that created pedobear- an icon that represents pedophilia.  And that's tame for them.

To put it mildly, suicide is funny over there.

But for the sugar-coated ponies found their salvation, because 4chan started doing what it does and ripping Kathleen to shreds. And in this assault someone members actually go and watch the show.

And decree what they saw as good.

Yes, somehow, an overtly girly show (its main palette is saturated in enough pink to actually cause some people to go color-blind) found a home in the hearts of probably some of the worst the Internet has to offer. But, it gets even better.

Yes, Pinky Pie, the acid-cocaine-LSD party is only starting. (note: I can type that name without wanting to puke)

You see, most of that weird stuff you hear about on the web- those meme things- a lot of that starts in the black maw of 4chan.  It sorta spreads out and develops into an Internet subculture. 4chan isn't the only website that such a genesis happens, but it is the oldest one and probably still the most popular.

So, this insane, against all odds love of ponydom spread out among the web. And it multiplied- to the point where it got popular, several sites reporting 100,000 hits a day.

One of them happened to be a friend of mine. And I must have been really drunk or bored enough to actually break down and weep because I decided to check it out.  I won't lie, I almost didn't get through the first episode... but I did.

This is the villain of the first episode. Come on, you know you'd have to watch it to see how a bunch of frosting-sweet ponies take something this badass down

And then I saw the second episode. And the third. And then realized I would never, ever be a normal functioning member of society again or be able to use a masculine pronoun to refer to myself.

If you know anything about the web, then you know I am not the only male that weirdly, really gets into this show- as there are no girls on the Internet. Neigh (see what I did thar?) I am one of many. And we call ourselves Bronies. (portmanteau of bro and pony).

I'm serious- look at the stats for any of the episodes on youtube. You'll find that most of the viewers are males in the 12-35 range. And, judging from the comments, we don't really know why we like this show any more than you do.

But... I have a theory.  You see, the production values for the show are surprisingly high.  The team that put it all together gave more than just a casual passing fuck about how it would turn out.  But above all, the writing is fantastic. The show is straight up funny.  Not just the references that the shows target audience would never get (2001: A Space Odyssey gets a hat tip, for example) but the humor that had to be for everyone really is... for everyone.

I think the main draw to the show is the fact that the main cast (Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Rarity and Fluttershy) are, in fact, fleshed out characters- especially for a children's cartoon. I see a lot of myself in these ponies, as they learn about friendship by struggling through trials. And trials they are- the cast treats the events around them like Serious Goddamn Business. So, maybe the issues the ponies deal with are ridiculous, but because they treat it so seriously, you can't help but be reminded of similar analogies in your own life.

It makes them believable, despite the stupid name, stupid coat color and the fact that its a goddamn anthropomorphic horse. They have personality, they get into fights, they generally act similar to actual humans- and as such, draw you in.

More believable than the entire cast of Deep Blue Sea

So, say what you want. But if you can get past the visuals and color choice and let the ponies be themselves, you'll find something magical. So, without shame, I admit:

I am a Brony. Haters be damned. Because MLPFIM is Rainbow Dash cool.

And because Fluttershy don't take no shit from no dragon.