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Weak XXXIII

13 August 2018

No. 4,424 (cartoon)

I’m trying to find myself.

Don’t look.

14 August 2018

Avoid Diapers!

I’ve been helping a friend move to New Mexico, and I quite enjoy it. At the end of each day when I’m tired, a bit sore from the heavy lifting, sweaty, and covered in dust, I’m so very grateful that everything I own fits in my nine square meter room.

As I schlep dozens of heavy boxes she hasn’t opened in years and will probably never open again, I wonder how a how a human can pop out of the womb without a single possession then be almost suffocated by mountains of useless things a few decades later. Since this interminable move has been going on for weeks, not days, I’ve been able to give this problem a great deal of thought. I rarely do that, but all the noggin scratchin’ finally paid off when I realized the source of the nightmare.

Diapers.

Yep, that’s right: diapers. Before a newly minted human even sees its first sunrise or sunset, it owns a pair of diapers. Within a few hours, its parents will take it to its new nest already stocked with more junk than a creature only a few hours removed from being a fetus could ever need or use. Birth is the beginning of the end in every way.

Avoid diapers! That’s my first and almost certainly last bit of parenting advice.

15 August 2018

The Raccoon Choice

I spotted an enigmatic gem in the Internet Archive’s communal printer tray. (I’d never pry or spy on my learned colleagues here, but it’s another story when I have no choice but to go through a stack of printouts to find my new galley proofs.)

It’s a blurry photo of a sign in English and Chinese(?).

Please be careful of not let pig enter the racoon [sic] room.

Do not try to hold or put the raccoon on your head, it’s the raccoon choice, not yours. Only lucky people will be able to enjoy that kind of moment. Sorry

That’s a very different beast than the usual garbled translation such as this warning recently spotted in Japanese aquarium: “Because there is danger that it is involved in a dolphin. Please do not grow a hand in a fence.”

No, the admonitions about the pig and the raccoon have the ring of authenticity to them; this isn’t some message lost in translation.

What’s the relationship between the raccoon and the pig? Why would I be lucky to have the former on my head? Might that possibly be a nod to my purported namesake, Davy Crockett? Is this the work of a maniac and/or an art project?

I agree with Giorgio de Chirico, “Et quid amabo misi quod ænigma est?”

16 August 2018

Is a Hole?

Dr. Suki Finn, a postdoctoral research fellow in philosophy at the University of Southampton in England, asks, “Is a hole a real thing, or just a place where something isn’t?” He goes on to predict, “[…] a better understanding of where holes lie on the material/immaterial and thing/nothing divides should fill a gap in our knowledge of reality.”

I am most grateful to Marc Abrahams of The Annals of Improbable Research for pointing out Finn’s work with donuts, although Finn’s proposal seems anything but improbable. I’d wager a rigorous examination of donut holes is good for at least a seven-figure grant. Huge amounts of money for very little work certainly has a certain appeal, but the idea of being an academic is unthinkable since it involves academia.

17 August 2018

No Relief

I can never remember the name of Rodney’s girlfriend, Siya. That’s probably because it’s not a common name like Beatrice, Gertrude, or even Priscilla. Since her name is pronounced SIGH-ya, I decided to use a mnemonic approach: Siya relief.

It backfired.

I could only remember “relief,” so I started calling her Itsa (relief) and Whatta (relief). I’m not terribly worried about my memory block; Rodney’s girlfriends are usually smart enough to flee sooner than later. With any luck, the next one will have an unexceptional name like Constance or Prudence.

18 August 2018

Three Internet Archive Decentralized Webs

People Who Know These Things opine that the World Wide Web’s current infrastructure must change and that the web should be decentralized. Since the web was created almost thirty years ago at the Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire in Geneva, Switzerland, I proposed moving it a hundred and thirty miles away to Bern.

People Who Know These Things told me my simple, practical solution was a Really Bad Idea since the shift would obviate the need for lucrative conferences such as the recent Internet Archive’s Decentralized Web Summit. I had no choice but to agree after fondly remembering all the free grub and drinks I enjoyed at said colloquium.

Since I didn’t want to bite the golden hand that pours the free cocktails, I decided to jump on the decentralized web gravy train by documenting three example in my recent triptych, Three Internet Archive Decentralized Webs.

19 August 2018

Truth Isn’t

Donald Drumpf is a buffoon, but at least he looks relatively good in the company of his moronic henchmen such as Rudolph Giuliani, who just went on record proclaiming, “Truth isn’t truth.”

Naysayers said nay, as is tradition, but Drumpf defended his stooge by attacking “left-wing subversives and their politically-correct dictionary definitions.”

The unbelievable farce would be hilarious except that it’s neither.

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©2018 David Glenn Rinehart