It is a strange thing, love
It is a strange thing,
Love.
You can hold, in your brain,
the knowledge of the hormones
and neural patterns
and social conditioning
and all the rational elements
of the artifice of love.
And yet.
It is there, just the same,
alone with you
in your rationalizations…
A soft whisper
in your consciousness,
that despite what you know,
it just doesn’t matter.
The experience of love
will be
will be
will be
just the same,
caressing your thoughts,
transforming your existence,
moment by moment,
with absolutely no regard,
for the scientific method.
You
will be
will be
will be
in love,
you will be hopelessly
and helplessly
in love.
You will exist
in the silence,
your heart beating
to fill the void.
You will see your love
in the powerfully green,
sun-dappled
leaves of the trees.
You will not escape,
and you can no longer
think of any reason why
you should wish to.
You will be
will be
will be
in love.
And it will ever
and always
be enough.
A Day in Splatsville
By my son, Duncan
Once upon a time, Agent 3 was casually taking a walk in Splatsville, listening to Calamari Incantation 3MIX in his hero headphones. Suddenly, Agent 3 heard a loud rumbling noise. Just then, Mr. Griz crashed out from behind a building and started using killer whales and triple inkstrikes. Everyone was in chaos, but Agent 3 knew what to do. They quickly grabbed a weapon from Sheldon’s shop that had the Zipcaster special, used the Zipcaster to latch onto Mr. Griz, and started stuffing splat bombs into his ear.
“Oh my god!” said Mr. Griz. “What the *@$& are you doing?”
Agent 3 jumped off when the Zipcaster expired and watched Mr. Griz explode. He got launched up into the air, but was still alive. When he landed, he was really badly injured and almost splatted. He used his double-fist punch and slammed Agent 3 backwards. He knew he couldn’t defeat Mr. Griz by himself, so he called up Agent 1, 2, 4, and The Captain. They all showed up in 0.2.3.5 seconds, and all had insane hero weapons and, with that, they completely destroyed Mr. Griz!!
As a side note: if you have not played any Splatoon games, this will make no sense to you. So play them. I MEAN PLAY THEM.
The End.
Side note x2: I know I usually don’t post the first version of the story, but my son really wanted it to be on my website so I did.
A Day in Splatsville* (* NOW WITH MORE T-REX)
By Duncan Dean – based on A Day in Splatsville
Once upon a time, Agent 3 was casually taking a walk in Splatsville, listening to Calamari Incantation 3MIX in his hero headphones. Suddenly, Agent 3 heard a loud roaring noise. Just then, a T-rex crashed out from behind a building and started slashing buildings with its claws and chomping everything. Everyone was in chaos, but Agent 3 knew what to do. They quickly grabbed a weapon from Sheldon’s shop that had the Zipcaster special, used the Zipcaster to latch onto the T-rex, and started stuffing splat bombs into his ear.
“Roar!” said the T-rex. “Roar roarroar roar!”
Agent 3 jumped off when the Zipcaster expired and watched the T-rex explode. The T-rex got launched up into the air, but was still alive. When he landed, he was really badly injured and almost splatted. He used his tiny T-rex arms and slammed Agent 3 backwards. Agent 3 knew he couldn’t defeat the T-rex by himself, so he called up Agent 1, 2, 4, and The Captain. They all showed up in 0.2.3.5 seconds, and all had insane hero weapons and, with that, they completely destroyed the T-rex!!
As a side note: if you have not met a T-rex, this will make no sense to you. So meet one. I MEAN MEET ONE!
The End.
The Frog and the Scorpion* (*NOW WITH MORE T-REX)
One day, a scorpion looked around at the mountain where he lived and decided that he wanted a change. So he set out on a journey through the forests and hills. He climbed over rocks and under vines and kept going until he reached a river.
The river was wide and swift, and the scorpion stopped to reconsider the situation. He couldn’t see any way across. So he ran upriver and then checked downriver, all the while thinking that he might have to turn back.
Suddenly, he saw a frog sitting in the rushes by the bank of the stream on the other side of the river. He decided to ask the frog for help getting across the stream.
“Hello, Mr. Frog!” called the scorpion across the water, “Would you be so kind as to give me a ride on your back across the river?”
“Well now, Mr. Scorpion! How do I know that if I try to help you, you wont try to kill me?” asked the frog, hesitantly.
“Because,” the scorpion replied, “If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for you see I cannot swim!”
Now this seemed to make sense to the frog. But he asked. “What about when I get close to the bank? You could still try to kill me and get back to the shore!”
“This is true,” agreed the scorpion, “But then I wouldn’t be able to get to the other side of the river!”
“Alright then…how do I know you wont just wait till we get to the other side and THEN kill me?” said the frog.
“Ahh…,” crooned the scorpion, “Because you see, once you’ve taken me to the other side of this river, I will be so grateful for your help, that it would hardly be fair to reward you with death, now would it?!”
So the frog agreed to take the scorpion across the river. He swam over to the bank and settled himself near the mud to pick up his passenger. The scorpion crawled onto the frog’s back, his sharp claws prickling into the frog’s soft hide, and the frog slid into the river. The muddy water swirled around them, but the frog stayed near the surface so the scorpion would not drown. He kicked strongly through the first half of the stream, his flippers paddling wildly against the current.
Halfway across the river, the frog suddenly heard a loud yell, and both frog and scorpion turned to see a T-Rex standing in the river.
“Okay, Imma be honest witchu,” said the scorpion. “I was totally planning to sting you before we reached the other side, but I feel like now we have bigger problems.”
“You fool,” croaked the frog. “Had you stung me, we would have both died. Instead, it seems that we both may die.” They both watched in horror as the T-Rex approached.
“It’s in my nature,” whispered the scorpion.
“Shh!” hushed the frog. “We may yet have a way out of this.” The frog had remembered then that he was packing a flare gun. He slowly reached into his mouth and pulled out the flare gun.
“Steady,” whispered the scorpion.
The frog shot the flare past the T-Rex toward the bank where they had departed. The T-Rex shrieked, confused, and then lumbered towards the flare.
“Now’s our chance!” hissed the scorpion.
The frog quickly swam to the other side, and the scorpion climbed off.
“Wow, that was–” started the frog, when he suddenly felt a sharp sting in his foot. A deadening numbness began to creep into his limbs.
“You piece of shit,” said the frog, as the scorpion scurried off.
A Radical Proposal For Ethics in Tech
Since the 2016 election, I’ve thought a lot about the role of ethics in my industry. Specifically, I’ve thought about Twitter and Facebook, and how “well-meaning” nerds could build platforms where ethical considerations seem to consistently take a backseat.
One of the things that’s so frustrating about ethical violations of corporations is that it seems like there’s so little that the public can do. These platforms and corporations–Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, etc.– wield enormous power and influence. But how can that be that they hold all of that power over the public, where we hate how often Facebook violates our trust but is allowed to dominate and maintain massive influence anyway? It’s the age of the Internet, where ideas can flourish in an instant, and people can mobilize in minutes.
For a while, I thought maybe some kind of push for unionization was key. But corporations are global now, and unions are often limited to the rights granted by law to employees in the first place. Meaning: the power of a union often only extends within a country’s jurisdiction, whereas a corporation often has rights everywhere. Even without unions being so stripped of power in the past 50 years, they’d still have limited effectiveness today.
Then I started to think about what a lot of these big companies are built on, and what their services are built on.
Every day, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and more leverage hundreds and thousands of open source projects, which are licensed as free for use for anyone. That includes packages in Java, PHP, JavaScript, tools for development, software, and free services.
If Facebook has taught us anything, it’s the law of unintended consequences. Just because something is free doesn’t make it good, and by ignoring ethics in our industry, engineers have allowed free labour to be capitalized for malicious (or simply un-empathetic) ends. The reasoning is similar to the overly-optimistic ideas that built the architecture of the Internet in the first place: if I give away everything for free, everyone else will also, and everyone wins.
Spoiler: everyone doesn’t win.
Should we stop open source? Of course not. But why not build in ethical usage into our licensing?
For example:
- If you or the company you’re working on behalf of discriminate against LGBTQ people, or build software that facilitates or encourages discrimination against people on the basis of sex, gender, sexuality, choice of employment, or race, you are granted no license to use this product.
- If your CEO compensation to median employee compensation is greater than a ratio of 20-to-1, and therefore participate in egregious income inequality, you may not use this online service.
- If you violate the privacy of individuals, sell personal information without full knowledge and consent of users, or through ineptitude, allow personal data to be stolen or easily used outside your terms of service or outside the expectation, knowledge, and consent of users, then you are granted no permission to use this software library.
- If you provide material or financial assistance to companies that violate the above user rights and universal human dignity, you are likewise not permitted to use this tool/language.
Yes, practically, you might think this is hardly enforceable. But look at it this way: if Microsoft would be in violation of the ethical software license on your NPM library, do you think their legal team would say, “Nah, go ahead and use it”? If software isn’t licensed to you, then its use in an end product is a violation of copyright. Would that not mean that you have a legal claim against that software and whatever profits were derived from it, even tangentially? (I mean, I’m really sort of asking, as I’m not a lawyer.)
I think if our industry were to establish a standard of Ethical Compliance, what we really want to see from the companies that are supposedly serving us, and built that into every tool, every line of code, every published package on NPM, we’d theoretically have an incredible amount of leverage, if not practically, then maybe politically, if ethical violaters were named and shamed.
I would imagine some website where membership could vote on which companies are in what stage of non-compliance, and what that would mean for licensing guidelines. Maybe a company would only be blacklisted if their CEO-to-employee pay ratio was over 370-to-1 or something like that, and only then would they be cut off entirely from licensing. Maybe companies with one violation would still have licensing, but for a fee.
I don’t know what all those details should be. What I do know is that we, as an industry, need to think more seriously about ethics, and how what we built gets used. We need to infuse it into our DNA, so that it’s built into our products, so the next Mark Zuckerberg is thinking more about ethics of the software he’s building that the most humane way to kill goats with lasers.
The Congressman
The Congressman groaned, and slowly opened his eyes, blinking at the bright lights of the room.
“What… what in the — ”
“Ah, Congressman, you’re awake!” A man in a white coat suddenly appeared next to him.
“Where… where am I?” The Congressman rubbed his forehead.
“Saint Rita of Cascia Hospital. Just outside Washington, D.C.”
“I don’t… How did I get here?”
“We transported you here from Dr. Edwards’ office. Do you remember being there this afternoon?”
“Yes. For knee pain.” He looked around at the sparse, round hospital room. “Did something happen?”
“Nothing unexpected. The shot that Dr. Edwards gave you that he said was for your knee pain was actually a sedative. I’m here to orient you to your new situation. You see, my name is Doctor — ”
“A sedative? What for?”
“Let’s take this one step at a time. You may find your current situation alarming at first, but I assure you we are going to take wonderful care of you over the next year.”
“My current situation? Doctor, what is this? What time is it? I’m should be on the Hill right now. I have meetings today.”
“We’ve cancelled your meetings. Let me properly introduce myself — ”
“Cancelled them?” The Congressman tried to sit up, and that’s when he realized that something was wrong. He looked down. “What — why am I wrapped in these bandages? What happened to me? I feel like I’m covered in balloons!”
The doctor motioned with his hands for the senator to calm down, and spoke in gentle tones. “Some of that will be the swelling, which will go down. There’s really nothing to be concerned about. You’re actually in great health for your age, which is partly why you were selected. Of course, the other reason you were selected is your unique DNA — ”
“Selected? Selected for what?”
“For the Veteran Restoration Program, a pilot program approved by the House Appropriations Committee.”
“I don’t…Wait a minute…”
“Of the tetragametic chimeras that were candidates for this stage, our panel— which I might add is made up of some of the most educated men in the country — thought you’d be a great selection for the program, given your strong support of our veterans.”
The Congressman touched the bandages wrapping his chest and abdomen, feeling queasy as the sensation of displaced liquid moved across his chest. The doctor was right. He was increasingly alarmed.
“Doctor, what is this? Wasn’t the Veteran Restoration Program about organ donation for veterans?”
The doctor’s face lit up. “Not donation! Generation! We are growing new organs. We started with growing some of the internal organs: kidneys, livers, things like that. But now we have an opportunity. To give our veterans back one of the most vital organs that was taken from them in battle. To restore them to the men they were.”
Blood drained from the Congressman’s face. “Doctor,” he said weakly. “What have you done to me? What’s under these bandages?”
“Genitalia, of course. Male genitalia, to be precise. You, Congressman, have the honor of being the first person to grow fifteen sets of male genitalia on your body!”
The Congressman’s eyes widened and he looked down at the bandages. “I’m… I’m covered in penises?”
“And testes!” said the doctor. “Well, that’s oversimplifying. Each genitalia are surrounded in an incubating liquid within an individual synthetic pouch, and supplied with blood and nutrients from your body. The pouches are external to keep the genitalia at the proper temperature. You’ll want to avoid strenuous exercise so that you don’t elevate your external body heat too much.”
The doctor smiled and continued: “It really is an exciting program. You are going to give fourteen veterans their manhood back. Here’s the really amazing thing: the genitalia is grown from their DNA, so the sperm produced by the testes, when fully grown, will be fully functional. These men will be able to have children, if they so choose!”
The Congressman stared. “I’m covered in penises.”
“In short, yes. And testes, too. Don’t forget the testes. They’re very important.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“WHY AM I COVERED IN PENISES?!” the Congressman roared.
The doctor took a step back, surprised. “It’s the Veteran Restoration Program. As I said, this is the — ”
“I don’t give a damn about the program! What I want to know is what I’m doing here. I never volunteered for this. I didn’t consent for goddamn penises and testes to be attached to the outside of my body.”
“Oh. Oh, well I’m afraid that’s somewhat irrelevant.”
“IRRELEVANT?? HOW IS IT IRRELEVANT?!”
“Please stop shouting, Congressman, and let me explain. Your body is very important. I don’t know if you were aware of this, but you are a tetragametic chimera, which for one, means you essentially have two sets of DNA, but it also means your body is compatible with two haplotypes. And that makes it less likely that your body will attack the foreign genitalia attached to your blood supply.”
“I don’t care how important my body is, or whatever the hell a tetragametic whatever means. I didn’t sign up for this.”
“Well… you did support this program, and the legislation before it that made this possible.”
“What legislation?”
“Your party voted for an emergency wartime bill, and within that bill, your party inserted an unrelated clause that removed consent for persons over the use of their body when that body’s use was vital to the life of another.”
“The use of the — are you talking about the — that had nothing to do with this! That legislation wasn’t about men’s penises!”
“No, it wasn’t. But the Veteran Restoration Act expanded the definition of both whose body could be used without consent, and also expanded whose life was considered vital.” The doctor frowned. “I’m somewhat surprised you weren’t aware of this. You voted in support of these bills.”
“Well, I can tell you that I would not have willingly voted for a bill that could have ended up with dicks stapled to me.”
“Could we watch the language, Congressman? This is a Catholic hospital.”
“No, I won’t. Where’s my goddamn phone? I’m calling the police.”
“You can do that. But, as I’ve said, we’ve done everything according to the law. We’re really wasting our time, Congressman. We need to go over proper care of your extra genitalia.”
“Even if…Even if it’s true that this is legal, which I highly doubt, we don’t need to go over care of anything, because the first thing I’m going do do is get a sane doctor to remove these penises and tested and whatever the hell else you’ve attached to me.”
“That wouldn’t be a good idea, Congressman.”
“And why not?”
“Well, besides the fact that you would be charged with willful destruction of another man’s genitalia; more importantly, you would be charged with murder.”
“Murder?? Of what? Of whom?”
“Of the unborn children. You’re now carrying the potential for dozens of human lives. You may not remember the Supreme Court case that overturned — ”
“What does potential have to do with murder?? There aren’t any babies, these are — God, this is so gross — these are just organs.”
“Not just any organs, Congressman. These are reproductive organs, which are already producing small amounts of sperm.”
“Who cares? It’s just sperm. Those are just cells. They don’t do anything yet.”
“That may be your belief, Congressman. But we people of faith believe that life begins at spermatogenesis.”
“But that’s insane.”
“I can assure you that a human life is not insane, nor is valuing it. A human life must be protected at all costs.”
“But men rid themselves of sperm all the time.”
“If we had our way, they wouldn’t. But, regardless, this choice isn’t yours to make. These genitalia belong to our brave men in uniform, who have sacrificed much for this country. All you’re being asked for is to lend your body for nine months until the genitalia mature. I don’t understand why you’re being so selfish.”
“Selfish? Because I don’t want someone else’s dick growing on my chest?”
“Well, maybe you should have thought about that before you supported the laws that made this possible. You put yourself into this situation.”
“I had no idea this would happen! I didn’t think this would happen to — GAH!!” The Congressman shrieked and looked down at his bandages.
The doctor leaned forward, concerned. “What? What is it?”
“One of them moved!”
“Oh, right. Yes, that will happen. As they mature, the penises will go through regular erections. It’s a natural response by the organs to keep them healthy. You’ll probably experience that every 90 minutes or so. I’m sorry, I really meant to talk about that initially, but we’ve gotten quite sidetracked. We should cover more of the basics.”
The Congressman began crying. “This isn’t fair. This is my body! Why are you doing this to me?”
The doctor patted the Congressman on the head. “No one is doing this to you!” he said gently. “You’ve been given a great gift, and all we want to do is help you to honor that gift. What you’re experiencing emotionally is some of the hormonal effects of this procedure. But look on the bright side!”
“The bright side?” he sniffed. “What bright side?”
“Well, you have fifteen sets of genitalia, but as I said, fourteen are for our veterans. The last set is for you! A brand new set of penis and testes! Made from your own cells, and slightly larger than the one you have now!”
“What? I don’t want another one! I don’t care if it’s larger! I mean… well, that’s great, but it’s not what I want!”
The doctor looked concerned. “Oh… Well…”
“Well what?”
“We did need to harvest some of your tissues for this procedure and — ”
The Congressman’s eyes went wide. “And…and what…?”
“Your current penis won’t really be ‘functional’ in the traditional sense after this procedure. You’ll have a bit of scarring to your midsection, along with a few other changes to your body which we should really talk about.”
The Congressman was openly weeping now, speaking between sobs. “This…. isn’t… fair!”
The doctor clasped the Congressman’s hand between both of his. “Don’t worry. You’re in good hands. We’re going to help you through this.”
He added: “And look, if it turns out after all of this, that you really don’t want a new penis and testes, you can always give it up for adoption.”
“It’s your choice.”
The Story of Halloween
Part 7 of The Holiday Story Series…
Many years ago, the queendom of Hallow was diminishing in power. Every year it was brutally attacked by the nearby kingdom of Brussels, who was known for sending thousands of young warriors into battle, who they called sprouts.
“What shall we do?” cried the people. The queen wanted to save them, but all her efforts to negotiate a peace had failed.
An old man, stepped forward. “I have an idea,” he said. The old man was known for his wisdom, so everyone listened.
“It is said that the people of Brussels are afraid of spirits and ghouls,” he said. “Let us send out our armies dressed as spirits of the dead, to confront the sprouts of Brussels.”
The queen nodded. “We shall heed these words and dress as the dead!” she proclaimed. “I shall dress as the ancient spirit of Fury, once a powerful queen who wore armor covered in spikes.”
“About that,” said the old man. “I was thinking that for your costume, we should probably show your midsection. And probably uncover your legs.”
The Queen frowned. “This is not how Fury dressed.”
“Yeah, but the people of Brussels won’t know that. Besides, what’s wrong with having a little fun?”
“Do not worry, my queen,” said Sheena, the queen’s bodyguard. “I will protect you. I shall be dressed as Vorgon, the disfigured and ancient king, and shall terrify the Sprouts with a ghoulish scream.”
“Or…” said the old man, holding up a finger, “maaaybe you could be a sexy priestess.”
“Explain, sir,” said the queen, “what would a sexy priestess have to do with terrifying the armies of Brussels? ”
The queen’s helmsman cleared his throat. “I think we should heed the old man, my queen. He is known for his wisdom.” All of the men nodded in agreement.
The queen sighed. “Very well, prepare our armies. To battle!”
Long and short: the queen and her bodyguard died via wounds to their upper thighs and midsection. But, the armies of Hallow did succeed in confusing and distracting the armies of Brussels enough to drive them back, their first victory in years.
From that moment forward, the people celebrated the Hallow queen every year with the men dressing up in famous or ghoulish figures, and the women wearing little clothing and trying not to freeze to death.
And they all ate lots of candy, because fuck Brussels’ sprouts, seriously.
Punctuation is Powerful* (*NOW WITH MORE T-REX!)
I Don’t Care What You Say, Sanrio, Hello Kitty is a Cat!
A rant from a person on the Internet.
Okay, look, man, full disclosure, I don’t know anything about Hello Kitty, but as far as I can tell, that thing is a cat. And then you’re telling me, some company I’ve never heard of, Sanrio or something, suddenly declares it’s not a cat?
Well F THAT. F THAT IN THE A.
Just look at that thing.
It’s got G-dang whiskers, and it’s got G-dang f-ing cat ears! How can you tell me that that white thing has not the qualities I have typically ascribed to a feline?
Oh, what, it’s a “little girl”? Let me tell you, if that was a little girl, it would have f-ing little girl ears and little-girl nose and not have f-ing random facial hair sticking out of her cheeks.
You don’t know sh*, Sanrio! Sh*! YOU DON’T KNOW IT!
You may be the “creator” of whatever this thing is, but you don’t control reality, Sanrio, so you don’t control my perception of cartoon characters and the species they appear to represent based on my acculturation and religious upbringing.
HELLO KITTY IS A CAT! JEEBUS, LOOK AT THAT THING!
This aggression will not stand. YOU MAKE THIS A CAT! YOU MAKE THIS RIGHT!
G-DANG IT, SANRIO, HELLO KITTY IS AN F-ING CAT!!
Footprints* (*NOW WITH MORE T-REX)
One night a man had a dream.
He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the Lord.
Across the sky flashed scenes from his life.
For each scene, he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand.
One belonging to him and the other to Jesus.
When the last scene of his life flashed before him,
He looked back at the footprints in the sand.
He noticed that many times along the path of his life,
There was only one set of human footprints,
And one set of very large three-toed footprints.
He also noticed that it happened
At the very lowest and saddest times of his life.
This bothered him and he questioned the Lord about it.
“Jesus, you said that once I decided to follow you,
“You’d walk with me all the way.
“But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life,
“There is only one set of human footprints,
“And one set of an apparently very large apex predator.
“I don’t understand why when I needed you most you would leave me.”
Jesus turned and glared at Jonathan Thunderous T-Rexington III.
“Care to answer, T-Rex?” he said.
T-Rex replied to the man,
“My precious, precious child.
“The Lord loves you and would never leave you.
“During your times of trial and suffering,
“When you see only one set of human footprints,
“It was then that I ate Jesus.”
~ Author unknown