Edward, Edward
Why dois your brand sae drap wi' bluid,
Edward, Edward?
Why dois your brand sae drap wi' bluid?
And why sae sad gang ye, O?
O, I hae killed my hauke sae guid,
Mither, mither,
O, I hae killed my hauke sae guid,
And I had nae mair bot hee, O.
Your haukis bluid was nevir sae reid,
Edward, Edward,
Your haukis bluid was nevir sae reid,
My deir son I tell thee, O.
O, I hae killed my reid-roan steid,
Mither, mither,
O, I hae killed my reid-roan steid,
That erst was sae fair and frie, O.
Your steid was auld, and ye hae gat mair,
Edward, Edward,
Your steid was auld, and ye hae gat mair,
Sum other dule ye drie, O.
O, I hae killed my fadir deir,
Mither, mither,
O, I hae killed my fadir deir,
Alas, and wae is mee, O.
And whatten penance wul ye drie for that,
Edward, Edward?
And whatten penance will ye drie for that?
My deir son, now tell me, O.
Ile set my feit in yonder boat,
Mither, mither,
Il set my feit in yonder boat,
And Ile fare ovir the sea, O.
And what wul ye doe wi' your towirs and your ha',
Edward, Edward?
And what wul ye doe wi' your towirs and your ha',
That were sae fair to see, O?
Ile let thame stand tul they doun fa',
Mither, mither,
Ile let thame stand tul they doun fa',
For here nevir mair maun I bee, O.
And what wul ye leive to your bairns and your wife,
Edward, Edward?
And what wul ye leive to your bairns and your wife,
Whan ye gang ovir the sea, O?
The warldis room, late them beg thrae life,
Mither, mither,
The warldis room, let them beg thrae life,
For thame nevir mair wul I see, O.
And what wul ye leive to your ain mither deir,
Edward, Edward?
And what wul ye leive to your ain mither deir?
My deir son, now tell mee, O.
The curse of hell frae me sall ye beir,
Mither, mither,
The curse of hell frae me sall ye beir,
Sic counseils ye gave to me, O.
-Thomas Percy, Edward, Edward a.k.a. Child ballad number 13.
Thomas Percy On Murder
Lance B. On M.A.A.
Avoiding the weed is a preoccupation that brings as a consequence the dealing with emotional issues nakedly instead of with the help of that mild sedative that cuts down the fear and anger reactions. Everything goes along OK until something goes wrong and then without thinking a joint is rolled and smoked. Back to square one.
Trying to interpose the detached less reactive marijuana-stoned self unfortunately has the consequence of emotionally distancing one from others with resulting problems with family and friends. Additionally, the sedation and spaciness from the weed cuts into concentration that causes problems on the job with the secondary worries from the impaired performance.
There were no horror stories of broken homes, violence, writhing-on-the-floor withdrawal but minor irritability, nightmares during the first week and then the yearnings for the herb in a social situation when it was offered by friends. The biggest factor in relapse was some stressful event.
As the hour and a half drew to a close the secretary of the meeting called for business announcements before all joined hands in a circle and recited the closing prayer.
vorpal^ On Pain & Opiates
It isn't really surprising that one of them killed himself due to chronic pain. I myself suffer from it due to complications of Crohn's Disease, and after several months of this, I was pursuing euthanasia as a serious option, much to the horrible upset of the very few loved ones that I told.
Note that this wasn't an emotional response to the problem, in my opinion: I had considered my options coolly and calmly and it felt like the best course of action and the most effective solution to the problem.
Having to live your life in constant pain is worse than you can imagine if you've never had to go through it: you wake up in the morning (provided you could sleep), and you spend the entire day cranky and miserable because you feel horrid. All you do is look forward to the night because again - if you're able to fall asleep - you'll have several hours of some respite from the pain. You rarely feel social or productive because you can't focus your attention or get over your irritability. You're wracked with guilt because you're unable to treat your loved ones with the kindness that they deserve, particularly for putting up with you, and you feel alienated from everyone because few people know what you're going through and you frequently cannot tell them the thoughts that go through your head as they probably often do involve suicide or euthanasia, and psychiatric institutionalization - which is what you worry might be forced upon you - simply isn't going to help, since it won't fix the core issue and the problem isn't psychological.
Now extend this to months or years with no end in sight and see how you feel.
Fortunately for me, I was finally able to find a doctor who was willing to prescribe me opioid pain medication and help me get involved with a pain management clinic that teaches mindfulness based meditation, and now I'm doing much better: I'm able to function, I'm looking for a job, I want to see my family and friends on a regular basis, I'm much more pleasant to be around, I can exercise daily, and I'm no longer interested in euthanasia. However, most pain sufferers are *not* as lucky as I am, because doctors are not willing to prescribe long-term use of opioids due to the horrible rules and regulations surrounding these drugs that have been introduced due to their addictive nature. The difficulty in obtaining them is why some people become addicted to heroin; Kurt Cobain is a good example of such a person, who suffered from severe abdominal pain until he found some respite when he took it.
If anything, people need to fight for their right for quality of life. Yes, opioid abuse can be a serious problem in society, but the people who need these drugs often do not have the strength to put up the huge fight to get them and they must have regular access to them. Perhaps if Singh had been prescribed some relief to his problem, he might still be with us today.
Punctuation Impressions
DirtyHerring (635192): That remembers me of all those movies, where somebody meets an alien, zombie, whatever, and nobody believes them, because that is the kind of story, that you usually hear from nut jobs.
I'm not saying, that he has, what he claims. I just find the idea interesting, how hard it would be to convince people, that you actually have something like this.
Azul (12241): I think, you shouldn't, use so, many commas, as it, makes it hard to, understand what you're, saying.
camperdave (969942): DirtyHerring (635192) == William Shatner.
DirtyHerring (635192): Yes, I think, you, are right, I, am starting, now at exactly this point in time to shift my role model from william shatner to james joyce that should work out ok what do you think yes that feels much better
jcr (53032): Shatner! speaks! with! exclamation! points! Not! commas!
DeVilla (4563): But it, helps, make the, text more, readable, for, people like, Christopher, Walken.
Eica Jong On The History Of Valentine's Day
[...] The legendary Saint Valentine appears in the 3rd Century after Christ. He may have been a Roman priest who empathized with young men drafted into military service. Since the Roman Empire needed soldiers to protect their expanding territories beyond the Rubicon, and since married men made distracted soldiers, Emperor Claudius the Second decreed that nobody could become engaged. Valentine openly defied the Emperor's order and secretly married off young couples. Since Roman Emperors were demi-Gods and their word was sacred (like Dick Cheney's), Valentine was considered a traitor and was beheaded on the Lupercalia, February 14, 270 A.D. Unfortunately they didn't show this in the TV series.
[...] Poor St. Valentine lost his head and died for our sins. But what do we care as we peel off our clothes. Yippee! The only day of the year devoted to lovers! Smear on the chocolate. Guzzle champagne. Close your eyes. And open your mouth.
Can't Say I Wasn't Warned
Proverbs, Chapter 5
My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding:
For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil:
But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.
Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.
Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:
Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:
Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger;
And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,
And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;
[Heavily Edited From KJV]
Russell's Teapot
But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense.
-Bertrand Russell, commissioned by Illustrated magazine, 1952
[Note: Russell's Teapot is the ancestor of the Flying Spaghetti Monster]
e.e.cummings On Priority
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says
we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
wshelley On The Conversation
[...] The final shots of Harry perfectly capture the ambiguous mood of the film's finale. Harry is sitting alone in his stripped down apartment looking exhausted, humiliated, and defeated. But if you look closely you will realize that he is indeed playing the saxophone to his own beat, for a change. At what costs do we accept the need for our responsibility to others?
Newman On Gentlemen
What is a Gentleman?
It is almost a definition of a gentleman to say he is one who never inflicts pain. This description is both refined and, as far as it goes, accurate. He is mainly occupied in merely removing the obstacles which hinder the free and unembarrassed action of those about him; and he concurs with their movements rather than takes the initiative himself.
His benefits may be considered as parallel to what are called comforts or conveniences in arrangements of a personal nature: like an easy chair or a good fire, which do their part in dispelling cold and fatigue, though nature provides both means of rest and animal heat without them.
The true gentleman in like manner carefully avoids whatever may cause ajar or a jolt in the minds of those with whom he is cast; -- all clashing of opinion, or collision of feeling, all restraint, or suspicion, or gloom, or resentment; his great concern being to make every one at their case and at home.
He has his eyes on all his company; he is tender towards the bashful, gentle towards the distant, and merciful towards the absurd; he can recollect to whom he is speaking; he guards against unseasonable allusions, or topics which may irritate; he is seldom prominent in conversation, and never wearisome. He makes light of favours while he does them, and seems to be receiving when he is conferring.
He never speaks of himself except when compelled, never defends himself by a mere retort, he has no ears for slander or gossip, is scrupulous in imputing motives to those who interfere with him, and interprets everything for the best.
He is never mean or little in his disputes, never takes unfair advantage, never mistakes personalities or sharp sayings for arguments, or insinuates evil which he dare not say out. From a long-sighted prudence, he observes the maxim of the ancient sage, that we should ever conduct ourselves towards our enemy as if he were one day to be our friend.
He has too much good sense to be affronted at insults, he is too well employed to remember injuries, and too indolent to bear malice. He is patient, forbearing, and resigned, on philosophical principles; he submits to pain, because it is inevitable, to bereavement, because it is irreparable, and to death, because it is his destiny. If he engages in controversy of any kind, his disciplined intellect preserves him from the blunder.
-John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University (1852)
Gary Chapman On Love Languages
There are five languages, Chapman says: words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. “Most couples don’t speak the same one,” he explains, “but feeling loved is the deepest emotional need we have.”
James Nicoll On Engineer's Syndrome
It's generally agreed that the mind of an engineer is a delicate thing, particularly the minds of Electrical Engineers.
Engineers Syndrome may be caused by the habit of some schools to use Lies for Engineers, models that are wrong but good enough for their purposes. There is also a tradition amongst some engineers to see their profession as the best one in the world, certainly much harder than mere open heart surgery, managing a nation-state's monetary system or being a Hindu god.
When they notice the fact that Lies for Engineers are flawed the reaction is often _not_ "Oh, they simplified that [foo model] for engineering undergrads" but rather "Those guys over in [foo] don't know their stuff. I'd better invent my own version of [foo] and since I know regular old [foo] is wrong, because my Lies for Engineers course shows me this, I won't bother to check Foo For Fooists to see if the flaws I have noticed LFE are addressed in FFF."
When Foo-ologists notice Shiny New Foo by an Engineer [SNFbaE] they may well point out that their standard model produces better results or that SNFbaE requires that the Earth be composed entirely of pudding. many engineers do not take this as proof that SNFbaE is wrong but that Foo-ologists are even more incorrect than the engineer thought. A few cycles of this (particularly the bit where the Foo-ologists fail to
fall to their knees in worship but instead act as though their discipline was a real job like engineering) and you may get to see Secondary Engineer's Syndrome where not only do they see Foo-ologists as wrong but as an active conspiracy to suppress SNFbaE.
Tertiary Engineer's Syndrome is to that stage as Tertiary syphilus is earlier forms. Every other profession is seen as un-engeerish and therefore flawed and wrong. It's just a matter of looking for the mistakes you know are there.
Engineer's Syndrome interacts oddly with the idea what humans want must be possible. I don't seem to have come up with/remembered a snappy term for that way of thinking but it definitely exists. It's handy when it leads to locomotives but not so much when it leads to the quest of the Hole at the North Pole.
The Hebrew Calculation Of Pi
The common [Hebrew] word for circumference is qav. Here, however, the spelling of the word for circumference, qaveh, adds a heh (h).
[...]The Hebrew alphabet is alphanumeric: each Hebrew letter also has a numerical value and can be used as a number.
The q has a value of 100; the v has a value of 6; thus, the normal spelling would yield a numerical value of 106. The addition of the h, with a value of 5, increases the numerical value to 111. This indicates an adjustment of the ratio 111/106, or 31.41509433962 cubits. Assuming that a cubit was 1.5 ft., this 15-foot-wide bowl would have had a circumference of 47.12388980385 feet.
This Hebrew "code" results in 47.12264150943 feet, or an error of less than 15 thousandths of an inch! (This error is 15 times better than the 22/7 estimate that we were accustomed to using in school!) How did they accomplish this? This accuracy would seem to vastly exceed the precision of their instrumentation. How would they know this? How was it encoded into the text?
-Chuck Missler
StCredZero On IBM's Support Of Open Source
All's fair in love & war. Sometimes business is like war. IBM was the Microsoft of its day. They've got a longer history of dirty tricks than just about anybody out there.
So how do you destroy a competitor, legally, soaking up goodwill from the programmer community all the while? Commodify your Competition's Product! Sun was pushing Java big-time for awhile. So why would IBM help it by funding Eclipse? Because by doing so, they commodify Java development environments, eliminating a potential revenue stream for Sun. Eclipse is a weapon against Sun! Why do you think they named it "Eclipse!?" What does an Eclipse do?
It's one thing to pull dirty tricks. It's another thing to be able to pull dirty tricks on the dirty tricksters. It's yet again another thing to do all that, and win the goodwill of the community at the same time! So, by opposing OOXML [Microsoft's document standard], IBM is hurting Microsoft, opening up a potential market for consulting services (There has been a fair bit of money to be made in automated document processing for government!) and winning kudos from us Open Source community to boot.
MightyMartian On Smiting
You know how I know there's no God. Because if there was, a lightning bolt would come from the sky and blast this guy to smithereens.
News Report Annotated By A Monger
11 men arrested for solicitation of prostitution
The Manatee County Sheriff's Office today released the results of a (reverse reverse) reverse prostitution sting operation conducted in the 3300 block of 14th Street West, Bradenton, on Nov. 17 by its (very tricky) Tactical Unit.
The operation was conducted from 4 p.m. until 12:30 a.m. on a Friday night. (Or was that afternoon, evening, and night? Hard to tell! They're so tricky!)
Eleven males were charged with solicitation for prostitution. In addition to the solicitation charge, two persons were also charged with having no valid drivers' license and one was charged with obstruction, for not giving his name. (So was that eleven total? Or THIRTEEN!? Who can tell? The tactical unit is SO TRICKY)
Four other persons were charged with attempted purchase of rock cocaine. One of those was also charged with battery.
(What does THAT make the total? Fifteen? Or seventeen? My word, the tactical unit can make people DISAPPEAR with their tricky numbers! FEAR THE TRICKY TACTICAL UNIT OF MANATEE COUNTY, FLORIDA, AYEEEEE!)
Those arrested ranged in age from 20 to 63. (Oh, dear lord, the possible numerical combinations are infinite! What dark tricky craft is practiced by the tactical unit and their reverse reverse reverse sting operation!?) (Review # 16771)
