Zurn, Tork and Bobrick Explained

       Zurn, Tork and Bobrick Explained

 

          One BayCon, at the Santa Clara Hyatt Regency, I was in the men’s-room on the first floor. I noticed that all the urinal plumbing bore a corporate logo: ZURN. I thought, “Zurn?!”; then I turned to wash my hands. The towel dispensers had a corporate logo: TORK. And the hot-air hand-dryers bore the name BOBRICK.

Zurn? Tork? Bobrick? Corporate names are weird for some reason; they have a dream-like quality. This, at a science-fiction convention, invited appropriation by imagination. I figured that Zurn has got to be an evil interstellar emperor, and Bobrick the Earthling adventurer who overthrew him, but I wasn’t sure about Tork. Was he Zurn’s minion, or Bobrick’s sidekick?

          Puzzled by this, I proceeded towards the science-fiction convention’s Info desk. Before reaching the escalators, I met a fellow conventioneer; a tall fellow wearing a fez. I told him about Zurn, Bobrick and Tork, and asked about Tork. He said, “I could tell you, but then I’d have to wipe your memory.” I replied, “Maybe we’ve had this conversation before.”

          I went up the escalator, to the science-fiction con’s Info desk. I told them about Zurn, Bobrick and Tork, and asked about Tork. They handled this absurd question with aplomb, and between them and me, we figured out that Tork started out as one of Zurn’s minions, but ended up as Bobrick’s sidekick.

          Later I met the fez fan again. I said, “Your attempts to suppress the truth have failed.” Then I told  him about Tork’s switching sides.

          And that is how much sense corporate names make.

Against Uniqueness

             Against Uniqueness

 

 

          What does it mean, to be unique? To be the best, the exception, the only? It seems a positive thing somehow, but really it has a lot of negativity built in.

          To be unique is to have a certain description – that indeed is the positive part of uniqueness, especially if the description is flattering; but to be unique also means that nothing else has that same description. Nothing else whatsoever is like the unique; hence there is negativity within uniqueness.

          Were a lover to say, “I love my friends and relatives and many others, including you,” well, the one wooed might find his ardor limited, but soothing; but were he to say, “I love only you,” well how thrilling, but stressful. The lover of many needs keeping an eye on; but the lover of only-one is needy, clingy, and potentially dangerous.

          Once I was walking through Harvard Square when someone ran up to me, calling another man’s name. It turned out that there was another mathematician there, one who looked like me, at least from behind. I found this revelation reassuring; if I’m part of a type, then we must be on to something.

I felt the same sense of collective security when I noticed that raccoons have hands. Evidently hands are a good idea; someone else seconded the motion. If we were the only animals with hands, then I might doubt the soundness of the concept; but as is, if there’s something that we ought to do with these hands, but we fail, then there’s a back-up team, to do it in our place. How reassuring!

          Uniqueness is the enemy of positivity just as the best is the enemy of the good. The unique is the least positive of the positives; for irreplacibility equals insecurity. Uneasy rests the One, for fear that there might be another One.

          All could be good but only a few can be best; therefore the good are a better bet than the best.

          Therefore we should all renounce uniqueness. Never sell your soul, not for a treasure, nor even a penny; instead give it away for free.

Stalked by a Bot

Stalked by a Bot

 

 

 

The phone rang. I picked up on the third ring and said, “Hello, who is there?”

A robot voice said, “Good-bye.”

 

Several days later, the phone rang, I picked up on the third ring, “Hello, who is there?”

A robot voice said, “I’m sorry, that is not a valid extension.”

 

After that I picked up on the third ring every time, in the hope of getting a third creepy robot. Finally: Ring, ring, ring, I pick up, “Hello, who is there?”

Silence.

 

And that’s a trifecta! Have I been rejected by a bot?

Inoculating my Daughter

          Inoculating my Daughter

 

I once had the honor of giving my daughter Hannah an inoculation against a common teenage ailment. I refer to Objectivism; for she asked me about Ayn Rand, and I gave her my informed opinion.

Specifically I told Hannah about the infamous railroad scene in “Atlas Shrugged”. I detailed the set-up; the dangerous tunnel, the idiotic bureaucrat’s suicidal demand, the chain of buck-passing, the fatal go-ahead, the complaisent workers, the train’s doom... all of which I described with admiration for Rand’s meticulousness (for once not tiresome) and her passion. A death machine of incompetence and spinelessness, clickety-clicking right there before your eyes! A masterpiece of eldritch horror! That scene was this close to Literature!

But the moment the train entered the tunnel, her writing all went horribly wrong! For Rand then focused on the passengers; a risky move if you do it wrong, and she did. For what if (I asked Hannah) that train had been full of good people? Or perhaps even a few of them super-virtuous by Rand’s elitist Objectivist standards? For them to die alongside the idiot bureaucrat would been supreme injustice; a raw red wound, an affront against humanity! What if Rand had raged and wailed against the sick cruelty of the idiot world? That (I told Hannah) would have been writing!

But no! By the way Rand told it, everyone on the train was an idiot moocher, as bad as the bureaucrat, and so everyone got what they deserved! (Hannah rolled her eyes upon hearing this.) Instant justice, automatic karma, all’s well with the world! Rand got that close to Literature, but at the last moment she turned it into Propaganda!

        The trainwreck scene was itself a trainwreck!  And that (I told Hannah) is Ayn Rand.

At Half-Mast for Roadkill

At Half-Mast for Roadkill

 

 

        I was driving past Colma on December 26, 2006, to find the flag at half-mast there; though it was officially there in honor of Gerald Ford, former unelected President of the United States, I announced to my daughter that, as far as I am concerned, it was really at half-mast in honor of James Brown, the Godfather of Soul; for that is the world in which I prefer to live.

        Later I was driving on the same road. I passed two roadkills; a cat and an opossum. This saddened me; but then I passed Colma, with the big flagpole there, and guess what, it was at half-mast.

        Right away I felt better. I thought, “How considerate of them.”

        Now again, I am well aware that officially the flag was at half-mast for a human, specifically someone prominent in business or government. Nonetheless I insist, just as before, that as far as I am concerned, that flag was at half-mast in honor of the roadkill; and any human being also honored that way is benefiting from a coincidence. That is my story, and I am sticking to it.

 

Welcome to my world.

 

        Since then I have evolved a ritual. Every time I drive past Colma, and the flag there is at half-mast, I take off my hat, I hold it over my heart, and I intone:

 

        Honor the heroes,

        Honor the V.I.P.s,

        And honor the roadkill.

 

        For we are all heroes,

        And we are all V.I.P.s

        And we are all roadkill.

        Amen!     

 

 

 

Cadaeic

        Cadaeic

 

          A “cadaeic” is a mnemonic for the number pi. “Cadaeic” itself is a cadaeic, if you use the letter-code A=1, B=2, and so on; then ‘cadaeic’ spells out 3-1-4-1-5-9-3; whereas pi’s expansion is 3.1415926…; so cadaeic is good to seven places if you round to the nearest digit.

          Most cadaeics use word-length coding, for instance:

          “How I need a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics.”

          Counting out word lengths, that’s 3-1-4-1-5-9-2-6-5-3-5-8-9-7-9; pi to fifteen digits. Here are others, some submitted by my Trigonometry students:

 

          How I, even I, adore campfires in August, while the bears scavenge.

 

          “Can I have a merry Christmas at Santa’s house?” she asked.

 

          Pie, I want a piece, blueberry or cherry peach pie helps maniacal cipherers conjure fantasies for an apt mnemonic that brings to faulty mind all the thougts for an apropos, memorable image.

 

          “Hah!”  I roar. “I never calculate pi, having known the shady, half-cute, contrived antique mnemonics!”

 

          Now I need a super difficult pi puzzle, afore our human capacity retaining numbers dissolves and we get mnemonic work.

          Can I have a small container of coffee? These are tough concepts, demanding nightly examining for me.

 

          Now I, with a small packhorse

          Go toward those low hills

          Constant beckoning

          Driving endlessly

          For in the distance

          Days beyond my memory

          Lies the one sleeping eye.

         

          Now I will a rhyme construct

          By chosen words the young instruct

Cunningly devised endeavor

Con it and remember ever

Widths of circles here you see

Sketched out in strange obscurity.

 

Sir, I bear a rhyme excelling
in mystic truth and magic spelling;
Numerical sprites elucidate
and to the circular form relate;
If Nature gain, who can complain
yet my critics fulminate. Finis.

 

            Here are some e mnemonics:

 

 

            To compute a quantity to multiply, a treasure to increase, just apply exponents.

 

It enables a numskull to memorize a quantity of numerals.

To destroy a building we detonate a quantity of hydrogen bombs.

I’m forming a mnemonic to memorize a function in analysis.

In Florida, a kangaroo is escaping a teenager by bounding over gates.

We wrecked a building on Thursday, a hospital on Saturday, with eight engineers.

He repeats; I shouldn’t be tippling, I shouldn’t be toppling here!

He laughed, I screamed. We embraced a paradise of squeezes. ‘Twas love’s grandiose remarkable gift, silly to die madly for people. Faithfully be juvenile, embrace with passion. I was crazy to forget, stupid to fall, weakening quickly, holding love’s embrace.

 

On Creative Defeat

           On Creative Defeat

      Or, Three Little Words

 

 

          There comes a moment in any married man’s life when he learns – or is carefully taught – a strange magic spell which, when properly used, turns night into day, storms into rainbows, and misery into joy. Unmarried men will scoff, but I am not exaggerating in the least.

          You learn this incantation, as you do all true magic, in the midst of crisis. You and your spouse have reached an impasse, and the pressure and heat is rising. At the verge of mutual defeat, you suddenly experience an instant of searing insight, and a joyous recognition of the perfect solution. Thus spiritually prepared (for only thus can one even utter the spell) you speak three little words.

          Three little words, and that’s enough. The quarrel ends,  and all is peace and joy. And what are these three little words?

          “I love you,” perhaps?  So think unmarried men and other romanticists! No, any married person of experience knows full well that the Three Magic Words are:

          “You are right!”