Cross-post: Adventures in Taxonomy!

One of the unwritten problems with Tabula Rasa was that I kept wanting to interject little bits of the supernatural, but the whole blessed point was that the world was completely mundane.  So I sloughed them off to another story I had been thinking of which was legitimately about the supernatural.  Eventually, I had so many fragments and ideas shoved over there, it started becoming a story in its own right.  I know a story's good when characters I give placeholder names get names of their own - I'm famously bad at naming things, you see - and now I've got so much that I can't not write it.

First, though, I have a bit to write about silk for 101 Interesting Things.  And before that, I've got this humorous little bit that I pulled off from my Playskool blog.  The bit about the Wheel of Death waxes fantastical, but the rest of this is a real conversation that I really had in real life.  No joke, it's almost literally word-for-word, because I wrote it all down right after it happened (and, when I went wiki-walking, even jotted down notes on the story so far).  Anyway, enjoy!

"There are only three things in the sea:  fish, amphibians, and mammals.  OK, maybe a couple plants."

Cross-Post: How Many Books are in the Library of Babel?

I remembered at some point in my cogitations upon qualitative wrongitude that I had actually covered something even wronger back on my Playskool blog. Here it is. I mixed up a couple things, like math at one point, and Borges actually lays out some of his figures in the story and I didn't take this into account. Research fail. But I wanted to mainly highlight that Garou is wronger here than the Creationists are in, well, any context I could think of, but he still manages to change his mind. Good on him! The difference, of course, is that Garou was willing to listen to reason and concede defeat instead of dogmatically defending his misconceptions. Anyway. Enjoy!

Jack and I were talking in Borders the other day about a short story by Jorge Luis Borges called The Library of Babel (Wikipedia page here - I've skimmed parts of it, and there are some differences between it and what we had talked about). In this story, according to Jack (and that's what I'm working with here, since this was the frame for the original disagreement), Borges describes a library containing a series of books, all 450 pages in length, and each book is one of all the possible combinations of characters that can be placed in 450 pages of space. Jack went into the details of the story, and then we started talking about just how many books that would be. After ruminating on all the possible combinations of Hamlet with any number of typos (including moving the word "fuck" one space to the right in successive iterations, as well as multiple repetitions of Hamlet and variations thereof, such as Hamlet-Tom Clancy Novel-Hamlet, or Backwards-Hamlet with or without the character of Hamlet being named "Backwards Hamlet"), Jack decided that it was more books than there are atoms in the Universe. I readily agreed.

I related the conversation to Silver Garou, who expressed extreme skepticism that there were more books in that Universe than atoms in ours. In fact, I believe his exact words were, "There's no way there's more books in that library than atoms in our Universe!" Or something to that effect. So today, I decided to do some math. By some standard measurements, there are 250 words per page, and a "word" - for publishing purposes - means six letters. Working with 450-page books, that gives us:

250 words/page x 6 letters/word x 450 pages/book = 675,000 letters/book

As for how many books this is, we can think of each book as a number - a long number in a strangely high base. For instance, if we were looking at all the "books" we could have using only the numbers zero through nine, and each "book" is only two characters long, that leaves us with 100 books - 00 thru 99 - or 1x10² books. Each of our Babel books is simply a number that is 675,000 characters long, and for each number in that series, we have a single book. In base ten, this would be every combination from 675,000 zeroes in a row to 675,000 nines in a row, for a total of 1x10^675,000 books. So... what's our base? That's determined by how many characters are in our total alphabet, as each one of those can be a digit in our number:

52 alpha characters (26x2 - for caps)
30 accented characters (tilde, both ways accents, umlaut, carrot, horizontal line - 6 accents over each of 5 vowels)
48 greek characters (again with the caps)
10 numbers
32 additional characters on a keyboard
2 more for the cedilla (that fuckin' French C with the curlicue beneath it, caps & lower)
1 space
TOTAL: 175 characters

So we're looking at 1x10^675,000 books - in base 175. So we're clear, this is a severe lower-bound number, as I'm excluding Egyptian/Chinese/Arabic/etc. characters. Mainly because I don't know how many characters there are in those languages. But anyway, imagine that you had to count to a number, but your first digit had to get up to 175 before you got to "10," and you had to get to 175 175's before you got to "100" (ten tens), and you had to keep counting until the number was 675,000 digits long, and then exhaust all of those possibilities (you get to stop counting right before the next number in sequence would make your number 675,001 digits long).

We would have 1x175^675,000 books in our Library of Babel. At least. The reason this works, in short, is that scientific notation is awesome. At length, any number can be represented as [number]_[base]x[base]_[base]^{[power]_[base]} - and each of those numbers has its own base. As long as you're sticking with the same base throughout, then you don't need to worry about notating it and that will give you your straightforward number (we use base ten most of the time, so we don't even bother).

A "base" determines how high you can count on one digit before you need to go back to zero and count with the next number, or when they all go back to zero you add another digit: base two (binary) counts 1, 10, 11, 100, 101, 110, 111, 1,000, etc. The pattern is that you get one number (zero doesn't count because it's 0, 00, 000, and so on), then have to increase the digit count to count higher, then you get two numbers, then increase the digit count, then get four numbers, and increase the digit count. Base three (ternary) counts 1, 2, 10, 11, 12, 20, 21, 22, 100, 101, 102, 110, 111, 112, 120, 121, 122, 200, 201, 202, 210, 211, 212, 220, 221, 222, 1,000, etc. The pattern now is that you get two numbers and then have to increase the digit count, then you get six numbers and increase digit count, then get eighteen numbers and increase digit count, and so on. In base ten, we humans count 1-9, 10-99, 100-999, and so on. The pattern here is that you get nine digits and increase, then 90, then 900. Here's the magic: 1, 2, 4; 2, 6, 18; 9, 90, 900; are all series of the same composition, namely (x-1)x10_x^(n-1), where x is your base (and n is your step in the series). Looks an awful lot like scientific notation, doesn't it?

I think this might be some universal language among base number systems, or just an easily-convertible method of notating numbers (which is useless for anything else). I don't know, I kind of discovered this on my own while trying to figure out the answer to this problem. There's probably a name for this, and math majors probably know it. I don't (but I know the math works). Whatever, the point is that you can convert numbers from one base to another by "exporting" that base like I've done - I just left some labels out. I started with the figure "1x10^675,000," but I should have notated it as "1₁₀x10₁₀^{675,000₁₀}," or "One, base ten, times ten, base ten, to the power of six-hundred-seventy-five-thousand, base ten." For an example of how this works, the number 365 (days in the year) can be represented as:

3.65₁₀x10₁₀^2₁₀

This gives us 3.65 (in base ten) times ten (in base ten) to the power of two (in base ten). The first number (3.65) gives you the first few digits of the number, the second number (10) tells you your base, and the third number (2) tells you how long your number is (10² means that two zeroes come after the one).

Now, I want to find out how big a number is if it's a one (in base ten) with six-hundred-seventy-five-thousand (in base ten) zeroes after it, in base one-hundred-seventy-five. I could shortcut this as (1x10^675,000)₁₇₅, but this is useless; I want my answer to be in base ten. So how do I do this? Well, using base ten throughout, 1x10^[anything] will give me that many tens, all "times" each other - 1 is just ten, 2 is "ten times ten," 3 is "ten times (ten times ten)," 4 is "ten times (ten times (ten times ten))," and so on. Just replace every time I said "ten" with "one-hundred-seventy-five," and even King Douchebag of Fuckhead Hill (don't ask) - who says he's shitty at math (I tested this on him) - can understand that this is like counting in base 175, converted to base ten. So, the number I want to find is 1₁₀x10₁₇₅^{675,000₁₀}, or "one, base ten, times ten, base one-hundred-seventy-five, to the power of six-hundred-seventy-five-thousand, base ten." I replace 10₁₇₅ with its decimal equivalent, 175₁₀ (just like 10₂=2₁₀=2₃, or 101₂=12₃=5₁₀ if you like advanced stuff), and do the math: 175^650,000, and put it back in scientific notation. Ka-pow, finished!

The trick, of course, is keeping your bases straight and knowing when to do the math and when not to. That done, it's a piece of cake, I swear! This gives us... too large a number, it turns out. No calculator I was able to find had the capacity to tackle that straight on. I had to break it down:

175^675,000=175^6.75105

This can also be written as (175^6.75)^100,000, and 175^6.75=3.8x10¹⁴. And, as everyone knows, (3.8x10¹⁴)^100,000=3.8x10^1,400,000. That many books. (EDIT: I fucked up. In my original calculations, I had somehow substituted 650K for 675K, and I did a double-plus un-good math when I decided that 175^(6.75x10^5)=175^(6.75^(10^5)), and that puts me at the same roadblock I'm at in the next problem (outlined below), so results are pending the math professor's review. I'd given an outline of the problem to King Douchebag of Fuckhead Hill with instructions to the math professor to show work, but he never came through. Hoo-ha! Edit over.)

Now our question is, how many atoms are there in the Universe? There are several answers to this question. I'm going to go with Wikipedia's calculations on matter content of the observable Universe, which yields two figures: a lower bound of 3x10⁷⁹, and an upper bound of 7x10⁷⁹. All the other figures I was able to find either corroborate these data, or are dramatically lower. The lower boundary is a rough-and-ready approximation of the number of atoms in all the stars, were they broken down to hydrogen atoms (so one helium atom is just two hydrogen atoms), and stars account for well over 90% of the mass in their systems. The upper boundary figure is based on the mean density of the whole observable Universe and its volume. Both of these figures account for all 80 billion galaxies, with the 3 to 7 x 10²² stars therein (in sum, not each). Even supposing that we counted all mass, not just normal atoms, it would come to about 1.75x10⁸¹ hydrogen atoms (were all mass converted into hydrogen). Keep in mind that though this is based on the "observable Universe," and there may be very much that we haven't observed, "the observable Universe" is every fucking thing we've seen, ever. Silver Garou suspects that these figures are "hugely off," but I don't think so - these numbers are still mind-bogglingly huge, just not quite on the order of the hugeness of those 450-page books.

Still, let's work in some margins of error. The orders of magnitude of difference here are, themselves, on the order of orders of further magnitude. Like, Creationists think the Universe is 6-12,000 years old when it's more like 15 billion; Bill Gates thought nobody could ever need more than 64K hard disk space and we've got terabytes; and then there's this (to be fair, Garou has simply supposed that there are far more atoms in the Universe than we can even get close to verifying, and by orders of magnitude, but on scales which it is beyond the capacity of the human mind to comprehend - he is not an expert in the field making a terrible prediction, or an asshole trying to shoehorn observed facts into taken-for-granted belief systems). Let's take this supposed number of atoms in the Universe and assume that it's off by the order of magnitude of itself, so:

(1.75x10⁸¹)^1.75x1081

...keeping in mind that 100¹⁰⁰ is 100 times itself, 100 times, this is like taking every atom in the observed Universe and splitting it into a number of atoms equal to the number of atoms in the observed Universe, and repeating the process a number of times equal to the number of atoms in the observed Universe.

Dammit. This also overflowed any calculator into which I put it, but it can't handle powers of more than two digits. But I have a sneaking suspicion it will still be short. I gave the problem to King Douchebag of Fuckhead Hill, and he's going to show it to some math professors tomorrow. We'll see how that goes. (EDIT AGAIN: That still didn't happen. But if anyone wants to correct my mistakes, or explain how to do the steps I'm missing, or even just link me to a page explaining how to do so, then I will happily correct it all!)

Cross-Post: The Man with the Bag

My mom was fretting about there not being enough money this year for all the Christmas miracles she'd like to have happen. I tried to comfort her, so I asked what made Christmas magical in her youth, expecting that she'd reflect on things like family togetherness, a few nice surprises, and the hoopla of celebration; instead, she looked me in the eye and sadly said, "Santa," as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. My first thought was, "You child," but then I realized that calling her out on this would do no good, so I tried to constructively point out what really made Christmases good for her: the actual good things.

Anyway, the Santa Claus lie (and misinformation with intent to deceive is lying, no matter what your intentions are) is still being perpetrated upon my youngest siblings, so here's this.

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one in my family who doesn't think it's OK to believe something false because it makes you happy. There are only two situations where we do this: the "Bunny, Tooth and Claus" trinity, and religion. My parents have asked me to keep mum once again about Santa Claus, insisting on perpetuating the myth in young E’s mind. I assured them that I would maintain my position of evasive neutrality – really, it would only do more harm than good at this point, and he’ll soon figure it out for himself, anyway. Plus, he’s not even my kid. After that, C’s practically in the bag. Next on the hit list: the Easter Bunny, and then the Tooth Fairy!

I want to take a minute to clarify something, though, lest it go misunderstood: I love winter festivities. Sure, a few people turn into raging dick-bags when discussing the proper etiquette of how to greet someone, and fuck the haters (I say “Happy Holidays” a lot because I don’t really identify with the religious reasons behind any of them and therefore don’t really wish well for any holy day in particular, but if someone wishes me Merry Christmas or Happy Chanukkah, I’m content to interpret that as a wish that I have a good time throughout the season), but by and large, most people get a whole lot nicer. Also, winter is awesome and gift-giving is one of my favorite traditions. On the one hand, yay free stuff; on the other, it helps you get to know someone and keep them in mind when you’re shopping for something you think they’ll enjoy. I also think that the history of the Santa Claus myth is a fascinating case study in memetic evolution; however, as with any other work of fiction, I think the myth is valuable as a myth and only as such.

A lot of people are willing to get on one’s case about such things (like my parents), and I find it puzzling that they treat this with such idiosyncratic uniqueness. One of the more idiotic attacks that I hear is that if I don’t endorse the systematic teaching of the Santa Claus myth to young children as fact, then I must hate fun. It should be obvious that one can enjoy an end without approving of every single means available to achieve it (disapproving of rape doesn’t mean that someone hates sex). Similarly, I don’t have to hate Christmas to harbor qualms about one or two aspects of certain groups’ celebration of it – for example, the over-commercialization of the season, of which many people of varying creeds disapprove.

A more subtle approach is to say that I’m simply being no fun on this one subject, in this one respect – I take it too seriously and am making a mountain out of a molehill. I can actually respect that position, so long as I’m afforded the opportunity to defend my own, which is my goal in this entry (and this isn’t really directed at anyone who’s likely to read it, it’s mainly shit I would tell my parents if I thought it would do any good). First and foremost, Santa Claus is a symbol, and symbols are important: they shape the way we think, teach us lessons, and often serve as paradigm cases upon which we may base more pragmatic beliefs or courses of action. As a symbol, I think Santa Claus is actually a good thing; it’s the treatment of this symbol – the teaching of it as literal fact to young children, the reasons for doing so, and the attitudes with which this practice is commonly regarded – to which I take exception.

I also want to take a moment to head off any accusations that this is a thinly-veiled rant against religion. I don’t want there to be any veil at all, really, but this isn’t about religion specifically - it’s about the perpetuation of a tradition which I think is both totally unnecessary and harmful to a certain degree, yet paradoxically enjoys what I think is an undue amount of respect in mainstream culture. It just so happens that this is the same kind of problem I have with religion. These two issues share a huge amount of overlap, I make no bones about this. However, I wish to confine the discussion here strictly to Santa Claus. Once again, this is a beef I have with parents in general, and mine in particular.

As I said, I like the Santa Claus symbol, because it appeals to the naïve intellect of children but also bears out on a more mature reading. He’s a magical man who lives beyond the reach of human civilization and gives gifts to people in accordance with their conduct by means impossible to us mere mortals. To the child, this translates as, “Behave well and get stuff you want.” And, really, I think that characterizes the experience of children in most decent households: good behavior is rewarded, bad behavior is reprimanded. Good symbol. Us adults know, however, that sometimes a severely unethical course of action, when rigorously pursued, can still net a positive result for the agent (for example, the Enron fiasco, wherein corporate pirates robbed a lot of innocent people of money they deserved and – injustice of injustices! – were only lightly reprimanded for it - the punishment in no way fit the crime).

Good behavior, on the other hand, often goes unrewarded for a very long time, and sometimes is never rewarded at all. Obviously, the karmic reciprocity embodied by Santa Claus holds little sway over real life, but I think that the symbol here serves not as a lesson, but as an example: should we not strive to make our society such that the good are recognized and rewarded, and the wicked are chastised? This is not a mechanism by which the world works, but rather an embodiment of values which I think many of us share. Reap what you sow, and all of that.

Additionally, I think there actually is a much deeper lesson that is instructive (as in the children’s example), rather than exemplary (for the grown-ups): you can cheat other people, but there’s no cheating reality. If you do a good job at something, then that will be reflected in the product of your labor; if not, then it’s garbage in, garbage out. There are exceptions to this, of course, but this is the general rule. OK, maybe this last one’s a stretch, but still.

The problems arise when we consider the teaching of this myth not as a symbol, but as a literal fact. In the first place, it’s a lie: misinformation with intent to deceive, plain and simple. This, on its own, is not much – it’s the context and the consequences of actions that determine their moral content, not their mere descriptions, but I think this should serve as a warning sign. Lies generally turn out bad. And let’s not forget the enormous, conspiratorial scale on which the Santa Claus myth is foisted upon young children.

When taken as literal fact rather than fable, the “be good, get stuff” ethic can be disheartening to children when compared to how things actually play out: if Santa Claus is really magical, and satisfies the wishes of children based on their behavior, shouldn’t you be able to get anything you want if you’re just good enough? And if you don’t get what you want, then doesn’t that mean you’ve been a bad child (or not good enough)? And how come Tommy, that spoiled brat next door, got what he wanted from Santa, but you didn’t? What’s this guy up to, anyway?

Of course, this isn’t the way it always goes down, but my point is simply that Santa isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. There’s also the fact that a lot of kids, upon learning that Santa isn’t real, are heartbroken: obviously, this is a cherished belief, since they’re not saying, “Huh, I thought there was something strange about that whole story, I’m kind of relieved to learn it was all hooey.” This effect has a double-edge, I believe – on the one hand, it provides evidence that belief in Santa is a good thing while that belief is maintained (and that’s the killer); on the other hand, the more cherished the belief, the harder it is to let go of it.

So yeah, Santa’s got his up-side, sure, but there’s also a down-side which I think a lot of people underrepresent. It’s kind of a wash, though, as most of this business goes down at an age that many don’t very clearly remember, so who cares? Let’s look at the ostensive reasons behind Santa, then; or, just what this myth is used for. “Be good, or Santa’s gonna give you a lump of coal in your stocking.” That’s a threat, right there. A fairly innocuous one, to be sure, and almost always empty. However, what strikes me as sleazy is that the source of the threat is externalized from the threatener: Mommy or Daddy is threatening to do something you don’t like, but under the guise that it’s a threat from someone else, an all-seeing and implacable judge of right and wrong who – wait, I said I wasn’t going to talk about religion.

The other side of that coin is that when the kid gets stuff they really like, who gets the praise? Not the people who did the actual work to make the Christmas Miracle happen, but the unseen benefactor in the sky – err, I mean, at the North Pole. Dunno what I was thinking there, innocent grin is me! (Look, I find it tremendously ironic that Santa’s like training wheels for a monotheistic deity, but so few outgrow the latter as they outgrow the former. No further comment on that, I promise.) In all seriousness, though, I do honestly think that the substitution of a false and magical justification for good behavior, in lieu of a rational and Earthly one, is a bad thing – both for the fact that it’s empty and wrong, and for the precedent it sets at such an impressionable age.

Look, one may say, all of this is small potatoes. The whole point of Saint Nick is that it’s an entertaining fantasy that’s fun for kids to believe while the magic of childhood lasts. Right? Still bad, says I. The fact that it makes you feel good to think something is true does not mean you actually ought to think it’s true. Take romance, for instance. Say one of your coworkers fancies another: do you think it would be good to make that person believe the feeling was mutual, knowing that that’s false? Of course not, you’re simply setting them up for disappointment – either quickly, when they start to act on those affections and get embarrassed, or gradually, as they wait for the other person to act on affections which are simply not there.

The same principle applies, and the same thing happens, with jolly old Kris Kringle. Perpetuating the illusion just adds to the let-down. And the whole “magic of childhood” tack kind of rubs me the wrong way, too. The message, as best I can tell, is that “magic is fun, reality is boring” (or “childhood is fun, adulthood is boring”). I find that false, and frustratingly so. If magic were real, then it would be like any other part of reality: discoverable, usable, investigable. There would be nothing special about it, just like there’s nothing special about computers (which, to my mind, are a kind of magic). As far as I can tell, what’s exciting about magic is not that it’s magic, but that it’s different. Kids who know there’s no such thing as Batman can still have fun playing Batman with their friends, or Hell, playing Cowboys and Indians when they know that they are not in fact cowboys or Indians. I did. Shit, I still do this stuff whenever I roleplay.

“Something Different,” every now and again, is exciting. It breaks up the routine. And you don’t need to think it’s true to have fun, you just have to pretend and have a functional imagination. Plus, reality is fucking exciting, too – you just have to know where to look. Boredom sets into the boring mind, and all that good stuff. Plus, the “magic” of childhood never really has to die, anyway. I find that, as an adult, I have more access to the stuff I liked doing as a kid, and now that the responsibilities are my own (which, to be sure, carries its own price – a price I pay gladly, by the way), I can determine when and how I do those things to a much greater extent than I could as a child. Being a grown-up fucking rules (and screw you, Mom, cake is a breakfast food!).

The point with all this is that I don’t have a problem with Santa decorations, or Santa floats in parades, or any of that nonsense. Go nuts. Really. Please, just, do whatever you like – I like the Santa myth, and adults know what’s up, so it’s all in good fun (for real). But when it comes to treating it like fact in a misguided attempt to "magic up" your kid’s childhood, I mean, nothing good comes of that which can’t be had by more wholesome means, and the bad stuff could all be rather neatly avoided by treating it like a superhero comic and telling your kid that it’s not true, it’s just a fun story. That’s really the source of my confusion: why the Hell isn’t Santa Claus treated just like Batman or Spider-Man?

Cross-Post: Green fairies are just as imaginary as any other color

A victim of urban myth = me. I learned this weekend that absinthe tastes like butt and evil. And, according to that Wikipedia article, it's not even hallucinogenic:

Absinthe has long been believed to be hallucinogenic, but no evidence supports this. ... Today it is known that absinthe does not cause hallucinations, especially those described in the old studies. Thujone, the supposed active chemical in absinthe, is a GABA antagonist and while it can produce muscle spasms in large doses there is no evidence it causes hallucinations.

GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) inhibits nerve impulses, so giving it the day off will allow your nerves to fire too easily (hence, spasms). This is not a hallucination, more like a seizure. Furthermore, this stuff has to pass TTB (Alcohol and Tobacco Tax & Trade Bureau) testing, which means it's got less than 10mg/L thujone in it anyway (not large doses). Being 62% alcohol by volume, I have no qualms about chalking up these hallucinatory claims to the placebo effect. Further complicating this issue is the fact that some modern absinthe concoctions contain additional hallucinogenic ingredients, the goal being not to drink absinthe as it was drunk "back in the day," but to get the high attributed to it. Which, I mean, that's cool & all, but let's please not fool ourselves into thinking it's because of the absinthe. That's just backwards.

I came across the stuff Friday night at Friar Tuck's Booze Emporium (known to the rest of the world simply as "Friar Tuck"), when I had planned to buy a fifth of Captain Morgan Private Stock, tastiest of the Captain Morgan brand rums. At checkout, though, the guy who had previously turned me on to Distinguido tequila (a good, inexpensive tequila, which is valuable to me now that I'm out of the Mexican stuff) mentioned that they had one bottle of absinthe left. I inquired further and he mentioned that it was recently legalized. I took a look at the bottle, and it said it was made according to traditional French methods, with a full measure of Grande Wormwood, and gave rather detailed preparation instructios. Also, had the stuff recently been legalized, I found it plausible that there might be some, uh, "incentive" for the media to be rather quiet about it, which would explain why I hadn't heard the news. It looked authentic, and this guy had done well by me in the past, so I took a gamble. Anyway, the bottle cost $50, so I'm not tossing the stuff. If anyone wants to try it, you can fairly help yourselves - I wouldn't dare charge anyone for this. I've got like half the bottle left.

How this stuff ever became so popular is beyond me. It tastes terrible - I'd rather drink grain alcohol. It's like super-Jager, in that it has more licorice flavor in a shot than is present in a whole bag of licorice whips, and could probably be used as an industrial-strength solvent (and it has actually been used to disinfect contaminated water in the past). I tried two of the mixed-drink versions, wherein the absinthe is diluted to about the potency of wine, and was quite unimpressed. Doing a shot of it, however, was like having a licorice fireball tear through my esophagus.

I decided to do some homework and find out just what I was getting myself into, so I read a couple articles: one on the origin of Lucid, the absinthe in question, and another on T.A. Breaux, a chemist playing a major role in the modern absinthe revival. This is the guy most directly responsible for getting Lucid approved, as he discovered that his own absinthe (produced with authentic equipment, ingredients, and procedures), as well as the pre-ban vintage absinthe he had acquired, had very nearly no thujone in them at all - making it trivially easy to bypass the thujone concentration rule which allows "refined" absinthe (strong liquor without wormwood) to be sold. Breaux is like an absinthe connoisseur or something, which leads me to believe that either there's more to it than I have come to expect, or there are far darker corners of the human heart than I dare imagine.

It turns out that absinthe isn't supposed to taste like Satan's asshole. Magically, I guess. The stuff came into popularity during a rather devastating wine shortage in France, and so if it was used as a wine substitute, I suppose it ought to be sipped rather than gulped or shot - and this could make a rather major difference, as it would with whisky or cognac. I'm going to lock myself in a room and try science to see if I can get this stuff to work right. You know, make it taste like herbs and flowers rather than suck and fail. However, my optimism remains cautious, for I know that there are those who drink moonshine and other noxious toxins straight from a jug. I'll let you know if something exciting happens, but otherwise, you would all do well to stay behind the safety glass.

Additionally, the stuff technically wasn't "legalized" because the consumption and possession of it aren't illegal in the first place (though it can be seized with a warrant, oddly enough), just importation and sale without FDA/TTB approval, which involves thujone concentration and almost no other factor - if it's an alcoholic product, then it cannot contain wormwood, and for legal purposes this means coming in under the aforementioned 10mg/L thujone concentration. Other thujone-containing substances, such as sage, are completely unregulated. So, it turns out, authentic absinthe doesn't legally contain the substance thought to be the active ingredient in... authentic absinthe. Since no laws had to be changed, it simply had to get approved by the FDA, which was just a matter of putting in the time and paying the lawyers. Another major detail, I guess, since getting something approved is probably a far lesser legal ordeal than trying to repeal a ban on a particular substance. The moral of the story is that thujone - as well as wormwood, from which it is derived - aren't controlled substances. The Lucid website has an FAQ which also corroborates this information, as well as providing me ideas for my experiments.

Cross-Post: I Love the Internet

Note: Back on my Playskool blog, I had a few posts which I thought were rather good in principle, but I didn't really develop or revise them. I want to fix that here on my grown-up blog, so I'm starting a Cross-Post section. While looking for material, I came across this, which I could not resist sharing. Without further ado:

So I had this great song stuck in my head all day, and I had only heard it once, so I tried to figure out what the words must have been... and I failed hard. Unable to proceed in that direction, I decided, "Fuck it! I'm making my own song! Now what, motherfuckers?!"

I think it turned out pretty well.

I Love the Internet
Inspired by this commercial and this comic. Words by me.

I love to Google things
I love pornography
I love to Facebook stalk
I love astronomy

I love the internet
And how it shrinks the world
Boom de yada, boom de yada
Boom de yada, boom de yada

I love Weebl's stuff
It brings me happiness
I love the newsy sites
With all their truthiness

I love the internet
And all its silly shit
Boom de yada, boom de yada
Boom de yada, boom de yada

I love neutrality
And cell phone media
I love banality
And Wikipedia

I love the internet
And all its dramedy
Boom de yada, boom de yada
Boom de yada, boom de yada

I love Pharyngula
And I love peer review
I love free browser games
And NaNoWriMo, too

I love the internet
Even the scary parts
Boom de yada, boom de yada
Boom de yada, boom de yada

I love Anonymous
And how they yell at jerks
I love xkcd
And all his silly quirks

I love the internet
Except for emo fags
Boom de yada, boom de yada
Boom de yada, boom de yada

Thank you! Thank you very much!

Second note: I don't actually like "the scary parts," just so we're clear. But it's part & parcel of the whole internet gig - if something can be great, then it can also be awful, and you can either take the bad with the good or throw it all. As my friend Jack is fond of saying, "Highs & lows, no status quos." Or as I like to say, "Being able to feel means that you will feel like shit sometimes - deal with it." I view the "dark side" of the internet in much the same way.