Month: July 2003

There is a “sport” revolving around stacking cups. Cup Stacking. Like drinking cups. Except not really like drinking cups because these have holes in the bottom to let the air out when you’re collapsing one cup onto another.
In “Cycle Stacking” contestants (generally kids) stack and unstack 12 cups in particular configurations:

• a pyramid of 3, a pyramid of 6, and a pyramid of 3
• two pyramids of 6
• a pyramid of 1, a pyramid of 10, and a pyramid of 1

There is an entire universe behind this obscure competative sport.

Just like any other sport Cup Stacking has its big equipment manufacturer- Speed Stacks will meet all your Cup Stacking needs. The cups come in over a dozen different colors and even chromed weighted versions – “just like the pros use!”
“Super Stacks™ – The weighted competition training cups that are used just before competing.“.

There is a World Cup Stacking Association which defines the regulations for the competitions and the cups to be stacked.

There are Stacking Camps you can send your kid to, where they can learn phrases like “Downstacking”:

“ Term used for “unstacking” or putting cups down. Hands may not be on two stacks simultaneously either in the Up Stacking or Down Stacking phase. Down Stacking must follow the same direction as the Up Stacking phase (i.e. if you “up stack” from left to right, you must also “down stack” from left to right). “

BRIAN: how are ya
MOTORCYCLE APE: alive
MOTORCYCLE APE: you?
BRIAN: pretty good… my monday morning routine of trying to remember what I was doing on friday
MOTORCYCLE APE: come into work on saturday and that isn’t as much of a problem

Web link of note: Bob Hope article from Suck
(At http://www.suck.com/daily/2000/08/22/daily.html)

So yesterday Lil Dy and I went to IKEA and got lost in the labrynth for a few hours, walking up and down the identical aisles until we forgot why we were there… We were in Home Office when we suddenly remembered we needed to replace our office furniture to accomodate our new machines.

We sat in a bunch of chairs, trying each of the desks… we found a really cool one, an L-shaped desk called EFFEKTIV, which had a “left” and “right” version, so we could get matching desks facing each other (“awwwwww…”). At $40 each they were a steal. But when we inquired about them, we found that at least one of the sides was totally sold out, and the other was almost down to the floor models. They did have another line called GALLANT, however… at something like twice the price. We left.

This morning we went to Office MAX or Office Depot or something like that and looked at desks- they were all over $200. After almost getting kicked out of the store for having races on the inflatable ball chairs, I was thinking maybe we should just get one of the new line of IKEA desks… we had an appointment which ended at 4pm in Oakland, so we thought we’d give IKEA another try.

At IKEA the second time in two days we found our desks again- we looked at GALLANT again and decided to bite the bullet. But wait- now it looked like only one SIDE of the EFFEKTIV desks were sold out. And a lot of people were fondling the floor model. Maybe if we hurried… So we went straight down (as straight as you can at IKEA anyway; the place is a maze) to the warehouse area to pick up our two identical desks. But the boxes were labelled very strangely- each desk was made up of the wooden surface (astoundingly only $10) and had a choice of leg options. I really wanted the “T” legs- with fewer, wider legs (one at each end) there is less crap below the desk surface, which means you are less likely to kick a leg when you are working, plus “T” legs are more stable… however they use some elaborate “Bar” undercarriage.

Asking the guy at the Information desk he couldn’t really figure out what the different parts were for. We went back the winding path upstairs. Back at the desks we tried to put together our order. Someone with more of a clue than our friend downstairs in the warehouse informed us that while we could buy the legs, the bar undercarriage part was completely out of stock… We had to get the simpler, “post” legs. Not as sturdy, but more of them.

Well ok. The desks are only $40 people! Although it was beginning to look like that was because they were being discontinued- The wooden top of GALLANT by itself costs $109. That’s $109 for a finished piece of wood with some holes in it. Amazing.

Finally we bought our desks. We have now been at IKEA for over an hour.

Suddenly we realise there is no way it’s fitting in my car. Okay… we will leave our purchases at IKEA, drive home, get Lil Dy’s convertible, and drive the desks back with the top down. Sounds like a plan!

Almost an hour later we are back at IKEA and after navigating the parking lot we are loading the desks in the back seat. But while the metal pieces fit in the back seat and only stick out a few inches, the giant wood surfaces stick about 4 feet out of the car, like a giant sail.

Hmm… we decide to drive back anyway, but only use surface streets to get back home to San Leandro. Driving at 20 mph, every time the wind picks up our 100 lb sail moves and sways… We drive down Broadway. People point and laugh, for the most part it is a good time.

Lil Dy is not a happy camper. She can feel this thing about to fall out of the car. And then we end up on Independence, which is one of the worst areas of Oakland. We slowly drive down the main drag where a large percentage of the 100+ murders in Oakland happened last year, at about 20 mph in a cherry-red convertible carrying about 100 lbs of boxes. We look like a giant red target. On the other hand, you’d have to be some kind of idiot to try to jack our car…

We finally make it back after almost two hours of harrowing driving.

So all in all, we spent over 6 hours just today getting these damn desks.

Remember the “Oceania Project“? The loopy Libertarians who wanted to start a floating colony somewhere? Basically the idea was to make a completely tax-free state… if you wanted to live there you would buy your own hexagonal “SeaCell,” which was a giant 1-acre cement float, and bolt it to the existing colony.

Anyway, after years of collecting money and printing their own passports, at some point an officer embezzled all their money and the project crashed. And that was that.

But wait! Now the same people who brought you Oceania are making a space ark: The Lifeboat Foundation.

LEWIS: “I’d be willing to donate money to shooting libertarians into space!”

Oceania’s appeal is universal- what if you could not only rule but OWN your own country in a Carribean paradise? (Check out their vacation photos). You wouldn’t have to pay taxes. Are you tired of civil rights abuses? If you owned your own country you could make up any laws you wanted! Why bother fixing the existing system when you can make an entirely new one?

The idea of making your own nation is not particularly new. The Micronation Movement focusses on defining tiny new nations, often with a population of only one or two people. Usually the new nation doesn’t have any actual geography associated with it, being a “virtual nation” defined only on the internet, and sometimes the nation’s “founding fathers” decide that their bedroom is its own country (The Kingdom of Talossa started in 1981 this way). For a brief introduction on MicroNations read Peter Ravn Rasmussen’s essay “What Is Micronationalism?”

Some of the issues I could see with the Oceania Project, I mean apart from the issue of having all the money looted from the treasury, stem from the problem of the lack of government-sponsored services we take for granted. I mean, sure, taxes suck, but they pay for a lot of the safety on which our society is predicated. Law enforcement is one that everyone immediately thinks of- no problem, we’ll just hire a security force! Fire department? We’ll use local residents… then again there is the Libertarian-compatible precedent of fire departments which are owned by fire insurance companies- In early 1900s London if you didn’t have fire insurance, they wouldn’t put out your fire!

No… once you start to think of the scope of the anarchy inherent in Oceania, the real problems start to become apparent. How do you keep hexagon owners from dumping carcinogenic factory byproducts into the water when there is no central government? How do you keep the thousands of boatpeople from attaching their floating shantytowns to your hexagon, as they did in Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash? How do you prevent pirates from taking over the entire country?

A good real-life example of this possibility is The Principality of Sealand, which is based on an abandoned platform off the coast of the United Kingdom. Established in 1967, Sealand has a colorful history, and is essentially run by pirates. Its royal family has repelled heavily armed mercenaries with their own “militia” and currently runs their own premium web hosting service, running off of servers which they stole from the original owners! They play for keeps in Sealand!

Besides printing passports, micronations have claimed parts of the United States, adopted synthetic languages, minted their own money, and have even federated into their own League of Micronations. If you want to start your own micronation you could get started by reading “How To Start Your Own Micronation“.

Freedom Ship

Although project founder Norman Nixon is very careful to distance himself from these notions, the similarities between the MicroNation Movement and his “Freedom Ship” are hard to ignore. The Freedom Ship is a ship under development which is essentially a floating island- capable of carrying 100,000 passengers on 25 decks, with 40,000 residents actually living in apartments on board the ship. These would be the ultimate in resort properties: The Freedom Ship would circle the globe every 3 years and so would always be in a different exotic locale. The Freedom Ship also has it’s own airport and docks for smaller vessels.

Now- although living on Freedom Ship seems like a safe lfestyle relatively free of legal hassles, MicroNations theorists have noted that it is the opposite of a “Freedom” ship: Since it is a private enterprise, the corporation owning the ship would have complete control over its citizens. There are schools on board the Freedom Ship whose curriculum would be approved by the corporation. The health care system serving those on board the Freedom Ship would be run by the corporation. And finally the law enforcement on board would protect the interests of the corporation. A bit like living as a student at the University of California! (As a student, my checks to pay for tuition, lab fees, my dorm rental fees, meals, telephone service, medical insurance, and textbooks all went to the “UC Regents”)

Other notable micronations:

• Empire of Atlantium
• Brief history of the Republic of Minerva, another libertarian project which was annexed by Tonga… note this page is from the coin and stamp collection of the Emperor of Atlantium

Web link of note: Design: They.Com
(At http://www.they.com/doc/local/perl/pod/perlfunc/sort.html)

Worked on soundtrack with Jack last night- it was very productive. Initally when he played what we had I started to panic- what happened to all the work we did already?! He assured me it was all saved- all except for that day’s progress, which he had lost due to a configuration problem. Due to the crash, some of the instruments were set incorrectly as well- for example, a phrase which had previously used horns now used “Funky Bass Magic”, which made everything sound really screwed up.

One thing that is odd for me working for Jack is our age difference- I would estimate he’s in his 40s, and I’m in my 20’s- so cultural references I make frequently fly by him. Since I have very little training in musical composition, I have to sort of wave my hands when I describe the sound I want, or bring in an actual recording of something that sounds similar.

Example: I want to try one part sounding like Mr. Burns’s theme (from The Simpsons), for example, when he describes blocking out the sun, or routing all the beer trucks around Springfield… It’s not even a melody, just two chords, but it’s used pretty often. However, since Jack doesn’t really WATCH “The Simpsons” this becomes a problem.

The newest problem: the patriotic music for the soviets. Jack hasn’t heard the Soviet National Anthem, and it’s not really as over-the-top as I’d like. So I remembered the music that played over the credits in the movie “Red Heat” (yes that Jim Belushi movie where Arnold Schwartzeneggar, the canonical Teuton, is playing a Russian cop. Absurd!). However, if you surf a little bit you will find that piece is not written by the soundtrack’s author (James Horner- he wrote the score for “Titanic”) at all- it’s actually an arrangement of Prokofiev’s “Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution,” one of that composer’s more obscure works. There is apparently some controversy about this cantata, since Prokofiev was not a Stalin fan and made this work somewhat satirical, and so it was never performed in the composer’s lifetime, only recently being recorded and then released on CD.

Neither work is well-known enough to be on the file-sharing networks. Not that I would ever dream of doing that, since even listening to music you haven’t paid for is illegal.

Back to the point: Do I buy the soundtrack to this god-awful movie? Or do I buy the Prokofiev CD, assuming I can even find it? The “real” cantata may not sound the same, since by definition it’s a different arrangement than the “Red Heat” version. I’ll probably just rent the movie and bring it to Jack since I don’t really want to hear this thing over and over.

No Media Kings has this small collection of articles about making movies. The basic message: spend no money; it’s better to finish a ghetto project than to never finish your unfunded blockbuster.

From No Problem : “This is the steel trap that has apprehended thousands who have confused “making a really good movie when I have the time” with not making a movie at all.”
Web link of note: You Should Make Movies
(At http://nomediakings.org/youshouldmovies.htm)

Today’s news-inspired haiku:

big scissors cutting hurried discharge of patient oops! the baby’s toe!

ORLANDO, Fla. — There was a medical mistake
at an Orlando hospital Monday as someone
accidentally cut off a baby’s toe.

According to the family, newborn Amirona
Simmons was about to be discharged from
Arnold Palmer Hospital when someone, while
trying cut an ankle ID band, accidentally
cut off the newborn’s toe.

Web link of note: Conny
(At http://www.lemonsupreme.com)