:
The Internet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:
> Oh Oracle most amazing wonderful, I grovel before your sheer brilliance
> and wit, whose puns not even Noel Coward on his best day could have
> matched,
>
> What is a good question to ask you?
And in response, thus spake the Oracle:
} You know, last time someone asked me this, I suggested asking about
} Monty Python’s Lord of the Rings. And I fobbed them off because they
} *hadn’t* asked that. So to make up for it, and because you groveled so
} nicely, here it is.
}
} * * *
}
} Aragorn: I am the rightful King of Gondor!
} Woman: Well, I didn’t vote for you.
} A: You don’t vote for kings.
} W: How’d you get to be king then?
} A: I am the descendant through sixty generations, father to son, of
} Elendil of Numenor. Here is Anduril, the Sword that was Broken, and
} is now reforged!
} Dennis: Inheriting a three-thousand-year-old bit of tin from your
} great-grandad is no basis for a system of government.
} A: Be quiet!
} D: I mean, if I went round saying I was Lord of Moria because I owned a
} rusty hatchet, they’d lock me up!
} A: Shut up!
} D: Ah! See the violence inherent in the system! Help! I’m being
} repressed!
} A: Bloody peasant!
}
} How to Recognize Different Ents From Quite A Long Way Away
}
} Number One: The Larch.
}
} Gimli: Is Ori here?
} Orc: No.
} G: Is Fror?
} O: No.
} G: Nali?
} O: Dead.
} G: Loni?
} O: Gone.
} G: Floi?
} O: No.
} G: Are there in fact any dwarves left in Moria at all?
} O: No. I was deliberately wasting your time.
} G: I see. In that case I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut your head
} off.
} O: Fair enough.
}
} Number One: The Larch.
}
} Aragorn: Now stand aside!
} Lurtz: That’s just a scratch.
} A: I cut your arm off!
} L: No you didn’t!
} A: What’s that, then?
} L: Just a flesh wound.
} A: Fine. [chops Lurtz's other arm off] Victory is mine!
} L: Come on! Have at you!
} A: You’ve got no arms, you stupid orc!
} L: Yes, I have!
} A: Look!
} L: I’ve had worse.
} A: I don’t have time for this. [cuts Lurtz's head off]
} L: Oh? Call it a draw.
}
} Number One: The Larch.
}
} Gandalf: How long is it since Saruman bought you?
} Wormtongue: Gee, I didn’t expect a kind of Orcish Inquisition.
} [The doors of the hall burst open, and three Uruk-Hai enter.]
} Ugluk: NOBODY expects the Orcish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is
} surprise. Surprise and fear, our two main weapons. Our two main
} weapons, surprise, fear, and an almost fanatical devotion to Saruman.
} THREE main weapons, surprise, fear, nice black uniforms… I’ll come
} in again.
}
} Number Four: The Bristlecone Pine.
}
} Bridge keeper: Who would cross the Bridge of Death must answer me
} these questions three, ere the other side he see.
} Frodo: Ask me the questions. I am not afraid.
} BK: What… is your name?
} FB: Frodo Baggins.
} BK: What… is your quest?
} FB: To destroy the One Ring!
} BK: What… is your favourite colour?
} FB: Blue!
} BK: Right. Off you go.
} Sam: That’s easy!
} BK: What… is your name?
} SG: Samwise Gamgee.
} BK: What… is your quest?
} SG: To destroy the One Ring.
} BK: What… is the capital of Assyria?
} SG: [pause] A!
} BK: Smart-arse. Go along, then.
} Gollum: Ask us!
} BK: What… is your name?
} G: We’s Smeagol!
} BK: What… is your quest?
} G: To get the Precious!
} BK: What… have I got in my pocket?
} G: [pause] We don’t know that! Aiieeee!
}
} You owe the Oracle a picture of Rohan’s army banging coconut halves
} together.
}
} * * *
}
} Dear Sir,
} I wish to complain in the strongest terms about the preceding answer.
} It was nothing but a series of rehashed sketches with a few choice
} words added. Yours, Arthur Philip Dent (Mrs), deep fine leg, Norfolk.
}
} Dear Sir,
} I never wanted to write this oracularity anyway. I wanted to be a
} LUMBERJACK!
}
} Colonel: Stop that! It’s silly!
While it is against my high principles to contribute money to any cause, I must say that I found the stingy contribution of the US to the relief efforts in the tsunamis in Asia, to be somewhat insulting. Essentially, as a tax paying (non-) resident in the US, the US goverement contribued (about) 13 (complete!) cents for the relief effort on my behalf. I thihk I can do much better, and I acted accordingly (see here and here).
I think that the US should have contributed immediately at least one billion dollar for the relief effort, and made a commitment for a larger long term help. In any case, you can buy forgiven now, it might shorten your stay in purgatory and it is definitely cheaper than buying indulgences from the pope.
Texas Governor Seeks to Build Mega-highway: The Trans-Texas Corridor project, as envisioned by Republican Gov. Rick Perry in 2002, would be a 4,000-mile transportation network costing an awesome $175 billion. You can read all about it here.
The plan is that the gas stations along this highway would be ran by the Bin Laden family, and all their profits would go directly into Al Qaeda coffers. Advanced space defense systems would identify the so called “environmentally friendly’ cars and would destroy them from outer space, using death rays. Since the highway would connect Mexico with the rest of the US, one of the four truck lanes would be dedicated to trucks having illegal Mexican immigrants in the back of the truck. Ultimately, the mega-highway would serve as another proof that intelligent design is correct, since no random process can create such a huge structure.
My prediction however is that very quickly this highway would be clotted by traffic jams, and special emergency works, that for some strange reason could be done only during rush hours. Ultimately, Texas would have to build a pan-galactic hyperspatial express bypass to resolve the resulting traffic problems.
So, I am currently visiting California to escape the cold of Shampoo-Banana. I now believe that I finally solved a problem that was on my table for the last two years, which is the problem of best fitting a circle to a set of points, where the price is the sum of distances of the points to their closest point on the circle. Approximately, of course. And in near linear time (double of course).
This problem was the motivation for this work. The solution (if correct) uses several recent things I was working on, so to some extent it is a summary of (some of) my research in recent years.
The reason this problem is so interesting for me, is because I (and others) did not know how to solve it. I guess this proves that I am a theoretician, even if I am in a state of denial about this. Now I just need to figure out how homeland security can be improved (or is it disproved?) using this result, and I would hit the jackpot.
Thanks,
Rafi.
On Dec 26, 2004, at 6:41 PM, Sariel Har-Peled wrote:
> Cool Rafi…
>
> –S
>
>
> On Sun, Dec 26, 2004 at 09:48:21AM -0600, The nasty and primitive
> Israeli friend wrote:
>>
>> New comment on your post #136 “Disclaimer II.”
>>
>> Author : The nasty and primitive Israeli friend
>> 82.166.62.99)
>> Comment:
>> Being the nasty Israeli who does the mistake of reading this blog, I
>> suppose I have to give my comments.
>>
>> Over a week ago, I read here the piece about Sariel’s adventures in
>> the Indian embassy, and thought it was funny that I was reading a
>> book about comparative philosophy of the west and India, with an
>> introduction that had a hint about Sariel’s misconceptions that led
>> to the confusion he described. In a BTW mode I gave a some criticism
>> of the way he presented the tragic case of that soldier and that
>> girl, which developed into a long discussion and later produced this
>> blog entry. Funny thing, I have almost forgotten about that
>> discussion.
>>
>> And the problem is that the my frustration with my learned friend
>> remains. Not because our political outlook doesn’t converge (and it
>> doesn’t), but because he didn’t see that my criticism had nothing to
>> do with politics, but with legal procedure that could happen in any
>> murder case : A man is accused of murder, a pretty harsh accusation,
>> and the mob that sees the trial on TV, or reads a “sad article” about
>> the statements of the prosecution (and it alone), and goes about
>> quoting the Bible with endless pathos.(”And he said, What hast thou
>> done?” ?! give me a break), Sure enough, like in some very bad
>> American movie, some of the facts in the clear cut murder case are
>> beginning to look a bit ambiguous.
>>
>> And so, what do we have so far ? A dead girl with too many bullets in
>> her body, a man fighting to clear his name, an army and a legal
>> system which know how to put soldiers on trial for hurting innocent
>> civilians (over 60 convictions in less than 100 cases), and a media
>> that’s concerned with selling cars more than it’s concerned with the
>> reputation of it’s reporters. Let Ilana Dayan run around explaining
>> the credibility of her report. We will see her sweating while
>> defending the holes and professional incompetence in another show
>> about the media, and sell a few more cars.
>>
>> disclaimer-ii/#comments
>
> —
> Sariel Har-Peled, CS Dept, UIUC, Urbana, IL,
> http://www.uiuc.edu/~sariel
>
New comment on your post #136 “Disclaimer II.”
Author : The nasty and primitive Israeli friend
Being the nasty Israeli who does the mistake of reading this blog, I suppose I have to give my comments.
Over a week ago, I read here the piece about Sariel’s adventures in the Indian embassy, and thought it was funny that I was reading a book about comparative philosophy of the west and India, with an introduction that had a hint about Sariel’s misconceptions that led to the confusion he described. In a BTW mode I gave a some criticism of the way he presented the tragic case of that soldier and that girl, which developed into a long discussion and later produced this blog entry. Funny thing, I have almost forgotten about that discussion.
And the problem is that the my frustration with my learned friend remains. Not because our political outlook doesn’t converge (and it doesn’t), but because he didn’t see that my criticism had nothing to do with politics, but with legal procedure that could happen in any murder case : A man is accused of murder, a pretty harsh accusation, and the mob that sees the trial on TV, or reads a “sad article” about the statements of the prosecution (and it alone), and goes about quoting the Bible with endless pathos.(”And he said, What hast thou done?” ?! give me a break), Sure enough, like in some very bad American movie, some of the facts in the clear cut murder case are beginning to look a bit ambiguous.
And so, what do we have so far ? A dead girl with too many bullets in her body, a man fighting to clear his name, an army and a legal system which know how to put soldiers on trial for hurting innocent civilians (over 60 convictions in less than 100 cases), and a media that’s concerned with selling cars more than it’s concerned with the reputation of it’s reporters. Let Ilana Dayan run around explaining the credibility of her report. We will see her sweating while defending the holes and professional incompetence in another show about the media, and sell a few more cars.
Being the nasty Israeli who does the mistake of reading this blog, I suppose I have to give my comments.
Over a week ago, I read here the piece about Sariel’s adventures in the Indian embassy, and thought it was funny that I was reading a book about comparative philosophy of the west and India, with an introduction that had a hint about Sariel’s misconceptions that led to the confusion he described. In a BTW mode I gave a some criticism of the way he presented the tragic case of that soldier and that girl, which developed into a long discussion and later produced this blog entry. Funny thing, I have almost forgotten about that discussion.
And the problem is that the my frustration with my learned friend remains. Not because our political outlook doesn’t converge (and it doesn’t), but because he didn’t see that my criticism had nothing to do with politics, but with legal procedure that could happen in any murder case : A man is accused of murder, a pretty harsh accusation, and the mob that sees the trial on TV, or reads a “sad article” about the statements of the prosecution (and it alone), and goes about quoting the Bible with endless pathos.(”And he said, What hast thou done?” ?! give me a break), Sure enough, like in some very bad American movie, some of the facts in the clear cut murder case are beginning to look a bit ambiguous.
And so, what do we have so far ? A dead girl with too many bullets in her body, a man fighting to clear his name, an army and a legal system which know how to put soldiers on trial for hurting innocent civilians (over 60 convictions in less than 100 cases), and a media that’s concerned with selling cars more than it’s concerned with the reputation of it’s reporters. Let Ilana Dayan run around explaining the credibility of her report. We will see her sweating while defending the holes and professional incompetence in another show about the media, and sell a few more cars.
An Israeli friend of mine was upset with me because of an entry on this blog. The friend already violated the rules of this blog by reading it, so it was already his own fault. But his (reasonable) complaint was about this link to an article about the murder of a 13 year old girl by Israeli soldiers (or was it the unfortunate untimely expiration of an arab Muslim women [what language you use determine immediately your political views in the middle east]). In any case, the whole (original) affair caused a big hoopla in Israel, with the chief of staff accusing the TV program that covered the story of inventing things and faking tapes, etc. You can read all about it here. This article exposes the complexities facing an Israeli soldier in the Gaza strip and in such situations. And even that only hints on the real complexities of the political situation between Israel and the Palestinians.
For me, the tragedy is the death of the girl. And even so, only as an indicator to the tragedy caused by the whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is by itself already a political left-wing statement. Indeed, there is the whole minor issue of the Palestinian suicide bombers attacks and their victims, why is the blood of the innocent Israeli kids killed by such suicide bombers is less “red” than the blood of the Palestinian girl? [Hint: it isn't.] Etc, etc, etc. Even referring to an article in a Haaretz is a political statement since this is a left-wing, back-stabbing, bring back Stalin, and brainwashing newspaper, at least as far as some people in Israel are concerned.
So, the reality in this case is complicated well behind NP-completeness or decidability. And every event in Israel (and in the world at large) is a never-ending Rashomon. It would be both pretentious and silly of me to try and resolve what exactly happened. So, I assume that the reader knows that even if I presented only one side of an issue, this issue has at least fifty four other sides (in this case, even when ignoring the fluctuation in the price of latex in the far east as effected by the death of the girl, and the effect on the hole in the ozone layer).
So, if you are looking for the truth, you would not find it here. Not that I think that you would find it anywhere else…
There is an interesting article in the NYT, about the disappearance of privacy because of blogs. From sex scandal in DC, to bloggers that documents every date and sexual experience they have, sometime with explicit names, especially if the date was a nasty person.
So is blogging it to some extent like wanting to be on TV? A surprisingly number of people would go to ridiculous length of self humiliation just to appear on a reality show in the Spanish advertisement channel which is broadcast from Cuba and can be seen only in South Miami between 2am to 4am in the morning. By blogging one says “I matter”. Which raises the topic of whether blogging by itself is an insufferable act of pretentiousness and self-importance. An ego trip. A vanity.
To some extent, I think those questions are more important than the privacy issues. I believe we would live to learn in a world where everybody blogs, and we will adapt our life to the implications of this. And I think privacy is not that important. Here is a nice quote on this:
> “…like a primitive person fearing that a photograph will steal his soul, we identify our secrets, our pasts and their blotches, with our identity, that revealing our habits or losses or deed somehow makes one less of oneself. But it’s just the opposite, more is more is more – more bleeding, more giving. These things, details, stories, whatever, are like the skin shed by snakes, who leave theirs for anyone to see. What does he care where it is, who sees it, this snake, and his skin? He leaves it where he molts. Hours, days or month later, we come across a snake’s long-shed skin and we know something of the snake, we know that it’s of this approximate girth and that approximate length, but we know very little else. Do we know where the snake is now? What the snake is thinking now? No. By now the snake could be wearing fur, the snake could be selling pencils in Hanoi. The skin is no longer his, he wore it because it grew from him, but then it dried and slipped off and he an!
d everyone could look at it.”
- A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers