Punctuation is mostly a medieval invention although we would not use it fully until about the Renaissance. In fact if you go back to the ancient era, all writing was in capitals without spaces. ASENTENCEWOULDLOOKLIKETHIS. So if you're reading a modern book of Latin all these marks have been added, and sometimes I ponder the editor's decisions. Let's take this:

ego sub quadam fici arbore stravi me nescio quomodo, habens lacrimis, et proruperunt flumina oculorum meorum^*

I would translate this as, "I was laid out under some fig tree, I don't know how, crying, and rivers rushing out from my eyes." Notice where I put the commas. The editor didn't do that and just wrote straight, "I was laid out under some fig tree I don't know how." When I first came across this I had to read it three or four times before I realized these were actually two separate sentences due to the lack of serious demarcation between the two clauses.

What threw me off is he properly did it for the "crying" (habens lacrmis), so I just assumed the whole thing would be separated properly. In a weird way I feel either he should've done it correctly or not at all because if you half-ass it, I'm then put into a half-Latin, half-English mode in my head where I assume commas mean something, and if you don't follow the modern rules then I'm completely confused. If there's nothing at all, I'm in a complete Latin mode and just figure out where the sentence ends naturally.

This happens all the time and I wonder why. I know in modern English the comma's status and usage is up for debate, but there are certain things I think we can agree on. That editors are constantly fucking this up confuses me. This is your job. This should only happen once in a while, not in literally every single Latin book I've read.

^* Augustine, Confessions Book VIII Chapter 12.

[19:11:18] Dun 4 Hire: Char's outfit is completely ruined by the fact he has no sleeves.
[19:11:34] Dun 4 Hire: The only thing that surpasses it is his name is Vagina.
[19:11:44] Turinturambar200: You shut up, his outfit is great
[19:12:42] Turinturambar200: http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/gundam/images/e/e2/Quattro_bajeena.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110309000604
[19:12:46] Turinturambar200: look at that stylish mother fucker
[19:15:54] Dun 4 Hire: Nope. He needs some fucking sleeves.
[19:16:07] Dun 4 Hire: Everything would've been great if not for that.
[19:19:31] Turinturambar200: It's hot on earth
[19:19:39] Turinturambar200: dude doesn't have time for sleeves
[20:32:21] Dun 4 Hire: He's in fucking space!
[20:32:34] Turinturambar200: be he also spends a bunch of time on earth
[20:33:15] Dun 4 Hire: True, but right now he's in space and is still rocking that.
[20:33:24] Dun 4 Hire: See, this is why Reccoa left. She realized the other side has better outfits.
[20:33:52] Turinturambar200: she left because she wanted to bone Paptimus
[20:34:23] Dun 4 Hire: Probably because of his uniform.
[20:36:38] Turinturambar200: Do you think that's why eventually, there'll be a Neo Zeon faction called The Sleeves
[20:41:42] Dun 4 Hire: Precisely. This fashion disaster had to be remembered and remedied.

This is called a corpse flower. It's about seven feet tall and it smells of rotting flesh, hence the name, because it uses flies to pollinate. This picture here is when it's open and in bloom, but it only has about a thirty-six hour window before that purple sheath around the phallus in the center wilts. This blooming only occurs once every seven to ten years. So when I got an email from the Botanical Garden that theirs was open today I skedaddled my way over. Apparently everyone else had the same idea because I've never seen the garden this crowded: Forty minutes to get into the greenhouse when usually there's no line at all.

But I was thinking as we waited: Why are we doing this? Why are we coming here, many people probably taking the day off, to look at a single flower that has the fragrant odor of a cadaver? Why would anyone want to see that? Does that say something about humanity? We're willing to travel from all over the city for a glimpse this flower, which we couldn't even get close to because of the pool?

I guess so because it was fucking awesome and I don't regret a single moment of it.

Final Fantasy VII Monopoly announced

What to do... on the one hand, I don't really need a Monopoly set since I only play it maybe once or twice a decade.

On the other hand... Final Fantasy VII.

On the eastern pedestrian walkway on the Broadway Bridge -- never the west one -- there are ripped pigeon bodies. It's rare you will see an intact corpse. It's either a wing, or a headless one that's missing its chest, or just the head, or just a wing and half a torso... I guess this is due to the 1 train that may be hitting pigeons that perch by the tracks, but why are the bodies on only one side of the bridge and why are they on the walkway at all, which is far from the tracks? Regardless, you have to carefully navigate through a graveyard of pigeons.

The other day I was distracted. I heard a crunching noise and saw I had crushed a decomposing ribcage.

Jesus Christ.

This happens at least three times a week:

Ate Neneng: What the English "sumbong?"
Me: Why would I know?
Ate Neneng: Sumbong!
Me: I don't know. I don't know Tagalog.
Ate Neneng: Sumbong, like "talk."
Me: Then you know, it means talk.
Ate Neneng: No, not talk. What the English?
Me: I don't know!
Ate Neneng: (makes frustrated noise)

I specialized in medieval Christianity, so I spent most of my time reading theological tracts instead of fiction. Whenever I do delve into literature, it's always refreshing because it depicts daily life and society. And here's what I usually get: Life was fucking violent as hell, particularly in the early period. Take the chapter titles from this book about King Arthur and the Round Table:

How tidings came to Arthur that King Riencce had overcome eleven kings, and how he desired Arthur's beard to decorate his mantle.
How Balin was pursued by Sir Lanceor, knight of Ireland, and how he jousted and slew him.
How King Arthur had a battle against Nero and King Lot of Orkney, and how King Lot was deceived by Merlin, and how twelve kings were slain.
How a sorrowful knight came before Arthur, and how that knight was slain by a knight invisible.
How Balin met with that knight named Garlon at a feast, and there he slew him to have his blood to heal therewith the son of his host.
How a knight slew his love and a knight lying by her, and after how he slew himself with his own sword, and how Balin rode toward a castle where he lost his life.
How the hart was chased into a castle and there slain, and how Gawain slew a lady.
How Sir Lancelot rode with the damsel and slew a knight that distressed all ladies and also a villain that kept a bridge.
How Beaumain fought and slew two knights at a passage.
How at night came an armed knight, and fought with Sir Gareth, and he, sore hurt in the thigh, smote off the knight's head.
How that said knight came again the next night and was beheaded again.
How Sir Tristan and Iseult were in prison, and how he fought for her beauty, and smote off another lady's head.^*

I didn't even put in much effort to find these. I literally just flipped through a few pages and got them because on every single page something ridiculous happens. It got to the point of ludicrous. People would just be traveling, see another knight, and be like, "Well, I guess we have to fight then." Why? Why not just keep on journeying? Why do you have to just fight it out? Why can't you just live your lives?

^* Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur Volume 1, ed. by Janet Cowen (New York: Penguin, 1969).

If you fiddle around with a shortwave radio for a bit, you may stumble across an odd station that consists of weird noises or a mechanized voice reading out a long list of numbers. These are called "number stations," and they're believed to be the work of intelligence agencies. If an organization like the CIA, Knesset, or KGB has an agent within a country, a foolproof way of contacting them is through these signals because it's impossible for a government to trace who's listening in. And if you do dial in, only the spy could understand these string of numbers using a one-time pad. Literally all of New York City could tune into one signal tomorrow night and none of us would know who it's intended for and the meaning. Its height was during the Cold War, but it's still being used. In the US it's mostly for agents working for and against Cuba (although this may cease now that relations have normalized) and in the East around China.

Number stations follow a format. You turn on their frequency and they're (usually) silent for the whole day. Then at a pre-arranged time, usually at the top of the hour in the evening, suddenly something called the "interval signal" would come on for a few minutes. This is an old short-wave radio technique that allows the listener to fine tune the signal before the real broadcast starts. Then it's the header, which is usually a bunch of numbers, that people assume is a code for whom the message is intended for. After that is a noise to demonstrate the dispatch is about to begin, usually a series of beeps or even a voice saying "ready ready." After the voice will start spewing out the numbers, and this could last for a long time, maybe even forty minutes.

I sometimes wonder who designed these channels, particularly the interval signal, because they're so strange. Take this one. Who in room somewhere said, "Let's have a woman say 'Yankee hotel foxtrot' repeatedly. That's a good introduction to our code.'" Or the Lincolnshire Poacher, named after the song it plays. Why that crappy version of the song? Or the creepiest one of all, the famous gong channel that came out of East Germany? Did no one at the Stasi think, "Man, why would we put our agents through this? Isn't it pretty obvious they're listening to something crazy when people hear these loud gong noises coming from their room?"

I watched Greene shoot through the Street Fighter V story line, and... yeah, it didn't make any sense. In between people driving from Brazil to London, hackers being able to create moons, and an indeterminable amount of chess pieces being able to bring the end of the world, I was barely clinging onto any sort of logic. But what do you want? It's Street Fighter. I went in not expecting much.

But I feel Capcom knew that too. When I compare this with Dissidia, you can tell Capcom realized their plots are shit and it doesn't really matter so let's have fun. And I was enjoying it until to the end. When I played Dissidia, the entire time I thought, "This is a fighting game. It's not that serious, fam." It's as if Square couldn't comprehend how ridiculous the situation was. Capcom just rolled with it. And for that, I give them props.

I had a set in my bathroom of matching toothbrush holder, tumbler, and soap dispenser. I liked them because they were white ceramic that matched the tiles, but the bottoms were metal and over time they began to rust. I've replaced them recently with plastic, but I'm still somewhat perplexed by the situation. Look around at online reviews, it seems to be a common thing in the industry, not just with the products I bought. Didn't the designers realize these would be used in a wet environment? How could they create this with a metal that rusts easily? Shouldn't that be number two on the checklist? "Is the soap dish shaped like a soap dish?" "Yep." "The metal isn't rusting?" "Uh... I'll get back to you on that." "Oh well, it's not that important anyway."

I really enjoy watching NOVA on Amazon Video, but I've noticed changes in recent months. What was suddenly free suddenly cost $1.99 per episode. My guess is PBS wanted more membership money and is encouraging people to stream its shows on its website after obtaining a login from a donation and began to tighten its distribution to other outlets.

Every now and then I see a comment in the news or on a blog post expressing surprise that people actually buy DVDs. The thing is, I still prefer owning a physical item. Part of it is me being old and set in my ways, but there's something about having it. It's mine. And it's not subject to the whims of corporate deals. I can't watch certain episodes of NOVA anymore and there's nothing I can do about it... unless I went out and bought a DVD.

This feeling extends a bit to digital ownership as well. I have a book lying on the table next to the keyboard I'm currently typing on. If I want, I can head down to Strand or Book Off and sell it. Or put it up on eBay, Abebooks, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble and sell it there. Or if I find it interesting, I can lend it to a friend to read. Nothing is stopping me. But if I bought it digitally, it'd be impossible. I'm no longer in control of something I own. A company has just as much sovereignty over my belonging as I do.

There are benefits to digital items, don't get me wrong. Even with my huge room, I am running out of space for games and manga. It's so much easier to carry one tablet than lug a bag full of books around. But being able to do whatever I want with my stuff is what appeals to me the most. I don't know if Steam or Amazon will be around forty years from now, but at least I can say this game or book will still be in my shelf.

Yeah, yeah, I know for digital books you can extract the .epub file. But some apps won't read it without the proper licensing.

I also recognize many of the discs will probably stop functioning in twenty years, but I still feel that doesn't negate my point that the company I share ownership with may go bankrupt.

Going to Portland, Oregon in a few months. Does anyone know anything cool there I should see?

Things that Make Me Feel Old, Part 18,283:

I see posts of Sanders supports urging people to vote for Clinton and to heed the lessons of 2000 and those who voted for Nader. Usually those posts end with, "Read up about on Wikipedia to learn what happened!" Oh Jesus, people who don't remember 2000 are in voting age.

I'm replaying Zestiria and I'm evaluating the game better now. The first I want to mention is inconsistency. The beginning of the game says it's been a long, long time since there was a shepherd. Ages ago. Then we find out later it's actually only been about sixteen years, which kinda clashes with the set up. People are acting as if they've never seen a shepherd before or know what they're like, or that no one but the elderly remember praying anymore. Dude... It's only been about sixteen years. The difference is literally between now and 2000. Yeah, the world has changed since then, but it's not like we've forgotten everything. I still remember Monica Lewinsky. I remember Bush vs. Gore. I remember the Backstreet Boys. It's not like it's left my mind.

Another thing is the government of one of the kingdoms. Early in the game you enter a room filled with corrupt officials and they introduce themselves. I immediately thought, "OK, this is the set up because I'm going to have to deal with these fuckers for the rest of the game and their shenanigans. Maybe a few of them will be bosses later on." Nope, you never see them ever again after that scene. Not once.

It really lends credence to Zestiria being a rushed game. It's complete (not like Xillia which was divided into two or Vesperia which was missing a third), but it doesn't feel full. You'd think the messenger of the heavens would meet the head of the country. What fucking game do you not talk with the king at some point? Not this one. There are two kingdoms, people literally talk about the sovereign all the time, and you never see either of them. I just feel as I'm playing they had ideas but never fulfilled all of them or smoothed them over. It''s a shame because it's a good premise and I think Namco could've done better. I hope the next one isn't like this.

Automation has more or less taken over the airline industry. The people in the cockpit are turning less into pilots and more into a manager of the system, who looks at all the readings and makes sure everything is running smoothly. Overall it's helped safety significantly.

With automation encroaching on the car industry as well, I feel there are certain aspects of human nature that developers have to address. One major difference between airplanes and cars are the people running it. Although I said pilots are flying less now, they're still trained for the situation and what to look for. And they're not allowed to fly very often so they can be fully rested for whatever situation may arise. Compare that to Joe Schmo who just came from work and is tired. Do you honestly believe he will have the same type of heightened awareness? Hell no. Unless they're personally engaged with the activity, people will mostly like to daydream, look at their phone, maybe even take a nap. They are not going to be prepared for something like this:

And it would ridiculous for the developers to think a person can. Even in planes pilots are not always ready: That AirFrance crash in the Atlantic back in 2009 is attributed to the automation stopping due to ice freezing over the speed indicators. Not fully understanding what was happening, the pilots could not handle suddenly flying the plane manually. But in a way expecting people to pay attention at the wheel somewhat negates the point: Yeah, we say automation will increase safety, which is probably would, but really we're doing this so we can all fuck around when driving instead of actually having to live with the monotony of the process. Tesla's still in a test phase even if people are on the road with it, so I'm expecting the programming to improve in the future. At the moment though, Tesla needs to realize once people become comfortable with automation, they're going to start playing Pokémon Go instead of keeping their eyes on the road.

Busy today, so here's a silly vine:

Drivers Prefer Autonomous Cars That Don't Kill Them

It's an interesting thought that I don't really have an answer for, how we have to program morality into AI. Normally we think about it in terms of robots and such, but really just having autonomous machines, the maker has to decide what is the ideal situation: save the buyer or save the maximum amount of people? What interests me is most people don't want the government to decide, which means there won't be an industry standard. Perhaps that's an advertising thing? "This car will save you at all costs!" "Our competitors' car is programmed to kill twenty-four babies if necessary."

Starbucks offered a free alarm clock app, so I thought I'd download and try it out. I noticed it had a graph dictated how deep (blue) or light (green) my sleep is, which was surprisingly accurate. If I woke up in the middle of the night (yellow), it'd report it accurately. I don't have an iWatch or whatever to monitor me so I have no idea how it figures this out, unless it utilizes the iPhone's accelerometer to judge from my movements in bed how awake I am. I'm testing this now by placing the phone on my nightstand for a week and then on my bed for a week and see the results. Of course I could just, you know, go to the app's website and see, but I kinda like figuring this out for myself. Bronx Science experimentation, bitches!

After the Orlando shootings there were efforts to pass a law denying the sale of guns to people on the terrorist watch list. It's one of those things that seem good on paper until you think about the implications. Regardless of what gun control activists petition for, it's still a part of the constitution. Unless we strike it out, guns will be there. Now like free speech, I say there should be limits. Like, you can have a gun but not a semi-automatic rifle gun. But to just have a blanket ban for people, who may I remind you technically haven't done anything wrong, I think is pushing it. Let's go back to the free speech example. Say we implement a law that people on the terrorist watch list aren't allowed to talk about Islam, bombs, or terrorism, ever. They're forbidden. That would be fucking insane. You just can't deny someone their constitutional right to free speech, just like their right to a gun. Yeah, a weapon is obviously more deadly, but many people are on the list because they've incited others to violence. I personally don't like the second amendment, but if I start saying we can ignore it, it'll impinge on the sanctity of others I hold dear as well.

Dad: You aren't allowed to play baseball on the Sabbath.
Mom: That's why you Jewish kids look sickly. You aren't allowed to play outside.

My neighbor's grandkids came over for July 4th weekend and spent several, very annoying hours running up and down the driveway, screaming about whatever the hell toddlers like. As I lay in bed at seven in the morning, although I was very upset at the situation, I couldn't hate the children for waking me up because being loud and obnoxious in their home is their job. Kids will be kids.

That last thought reminded me of something I had read years ago about a family of Jews living in Nazi Germany. They had fled to the fields and hid under some hay stacks, but eventually the children in the family got bored and started playing in the fields because kids will be kids. Someone spotted them, but thankfully it was a neighbor, who took them in and hid them in his barn for the rest of the war.

But what if it weren't a sympathetic friend who saw them? What if it were a bunch of Nazis? A whole family would've been gassed because a bunch of kids couldn't remain still and not play. Again, it's in children's nature to move around, not understand the situation, and be rambunctious. But that can get you killed. I've heard of mothers in those years smothering their babies because the cries could alert soldiers, but not an older child. Could you murder your five-year-old to save yourself and everyone else in that situation? It's a crazy thought, and it's even crazier that this isn't a hypothetical question but an actual situation people had to deal with.

Most of the book I want can only be read at the Schwarzman Building. I don't mind sitting there for a couple of hours devouring a book, even if their chairs are ridiculously uncomfortable, but the request is the part of the process that bugs me. If it's a regular book, you log onto the NYPL website, click you want it and say which library you want to pick it up from, and you're done. If it's for the Schwarzman, this has to happen.

Yeah, it's a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things, but each time I do it I wonder why it has to be this way. Why do I manually have to type in the author's name, the name of the book, and the call number? Do you know how easily that's susceptible to error? The part that really gets me is that I have to input my name and library card number. I'm already fucking logged in! Why do I have to do this? And if you fuck up on this part, everything goes wrong when you head to the library because they scan your card and nothing comes up. Then you realize you've written 9595 instead of 9585, and the clerks spend fifteen minutes searching for this shit because it was missorted thanks to your mistake.

I initially guessed, besides the expensive, the NYPL was unwilling to upgrade the system because a lot of their materials are old shit you can't easily slap a barcode on. But they are! They have to scan it anyway before they hand it to me to assure I'll return it. So what the fuck? Everything's already set up, just hire a company for $100,000 to program a new request system. We're the second-largest library in the world (largest if you count Brooklyn and Queens). Surely we can do better.