resurrecting the past

I have about 100-odd posts that have never made it past the "draft" stage, often for reasons obscure to me. Here are a few B-sides and also-rans and outtakes from 2006.

the lazy are out in force today [12/4/06]
Search terms hitting this here blog:

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harmonica playing when computer goes into sleep mode [9/5/06]
If it's playing Bob Dylan or Git Along Little Dogies or even Blues Traveler, everything's probably okay. But if it's Alanis Morisette... well, you got yourself a real bad problem, friend. Real bad. Not even the Church Catholic has an exorcist that powerful.


in the dark of reason [7/12/06]
Jason Kuznicki writes,

No one is ever convinced during an argument.... People change in the quiet times that come in between arguments, when they are alone with their doubts, when they have in a sense become strangers to their former, emotionally invested selves.

Before launching into his own anecdote, he asks readers to remember a time they changed their mind once the former self was a wisp of a ghost.


pennies from heaven [3/12/06]
You gotta love the government. Recently arriving in the mail:

1. My jury duty check. "Thank you for jury service" to the tune of $16.23, the recessional to that jilting of justice, the copped plea.

2. Coupons for free lottery tickets, presumably to cue a gambling addiction.


stay off the furniture [5/23/06]
The Olympian, to its credit, has taken steps to become a more interactive news source.

But that comes with a price: rowdy, distasteful, rude, boorish, bigoted, and slanderous behavior from commentators. What are we to do?


nagging questions about personhood [7/18/06]
Assume that biological improbabilities are indeed possible. If you like, imagine that this is The Future, with nanobots. Nanobots can do anything.

Are conjoined twins one person or two?
Would a human body with two functioning heads and brains be one person or two?
Is a living human body with no head a person?
Is a living human head with no body a person?
Is a fertilized egg a person?
Finally, is there a consistent criterion that covers all these possibilities?