Tuesday, March 28, 2017
Monday, March 27, 2017
Friday, March 24, 2017
Tuesday, March 21, 2017
Saturday, March 18, 2017
If It Ain't One Thing It's Your Mother
Friday, March 17, 2017
Tuesday, March 14, 2017
Key Change
Where do all these mystery keys come from?
You toss old, obsolete keys every Key Purge.
You toss the laundry room key from two apartments ago.
You toss the key to a freight elevator located in a building that's been demolished.
You toss what might be a key to a gym locker, or it might be for the mailbox from the building where you worked six years ago, or else it unlocks a piece of luggage you're not sure you can even find right now.
You keep only the essential keys. But now you forgot why they were essential.
Quite the nagging worry, innit. Middle of the night, can't sleep.
You locked up something a number of years ago, but you don't know why you did, what it was or where the hell it is now.
Sunday, March 12, 2017
THE PICKLE: Volume 1, Issue 3
The first fifty days of the new administration have ushered in an emotionally supercharged period in modern America. People in red states and blue states are in states of confusion, state experts state.
"This is a highly unusual situation," says Dr. Harry Chopin Savage. Savage is an industry leader in applied data science. Dr. Savage is the author of "Big Data and Urban Civilization," currently touring colleges and universities giving talks on the long term effects of relentless mental stress on people living in medium-to-large cities. "This is not how any of this is supposed to work. Studies show that people just feel like giving up even trying to have a normal conversation, because every conversation eventually turns to what is essentially the biggest modern national embarrassment we, as a people, can remember."
"This is a highly unusual situation," says Dr. Harry Chopin Savage. Savage is an industry leader in applied data science. Dr. Savage is the author of "Big Data and Urban Civilization," currently touring colleges and universities giving talks on the long term effects of relentless mental stress on people living in medium-to-large cities. "This is not how any of this is supposed to work. Studies show that people just feel like giving up even trying to have a normal conversation, because every conversation eventually turns to what is essentially the biggest modern national embarrassment we, as a people, can remember."
Experts Warn:"Lucid Zombie State" Looms in Nation's Future
"Basically, basic human decency is at risk. Basically. The emotional toll for keeping a civil tongue anymore is quite high. On the surface things seem fine. But things are not fine. This ague state may not be the end of the actual world, but this is a big enough catastrophe that America as we know it won't be the same ever again."
Geezer Politics Are Going To Get Us All Killed
Dr. Savage suggests considering the ongoing effects of a doddering generation raised to lunge beneath their school desks as children, on the premise that would "save them" from a bomb that would vaporize a whole city. "Those people," suggests Savage, "were never quite right in the head, but who could blame them? The great American tragedy is that they think nothing of this terrorizing of our citizens. These geezer politicians are now risking the mental well being of yet another generation. We are all in permanent ready mode, like feral animals tensed for fight or flight, only there's nowhere to go. There is no desk."
There Is No Desk
"I'd buy stock in image tracking tech now," says an inside source. "People are so worn out that they just try to avoid talking anymore so they are using Stickies and Gifs. Along with that, we face unprecedented levels of sarcasm in the 25 to 65 demographic. We already skew for sarcasm correction in the 18 to 24 group, but this is a whole new ball game."
"How do you discern what somebody means by a posting a Gif of a dog taking a shit. Do they mean 'that's a relief?' Or do they mean 'I just can't hold this in anymore' or do they mean 'What you said just now is dog shit?' We're just not there yet with the image sentiment data science."
Figuring out what the hell anyone means anymore as the world spins crazily off its axis is the job of next-generation, advanced Big Data. Stalwart Halfrunt, team leader at Deepthought Global, explains the problem. "It is question of contextual speech analytics -- that is knowing your sentiment, not just tracking key words you write on the Facebook, on the blogs. Before, you could tweet out "Great job, Kansas!" and we count you in as a big supporter of all decisions Kansas. Now we can tell if you sassing, but remaining to integrate and very very very difficult as source of truth are up-votes, likes and shares for "Great job, Kansas!" How to figure out who peoples are agreeing with words, and who peoples are liking joke? I mean, Kansas is terrible dump. Given Kansas, the Dorothy would like better to stay I think Oz."
One Nation Under Duress
Any casual conversation online can escalate quickly into a knock-down, drag-out brawl between people that, in theory, are supposed to like each other. We are one nation, under duress, violently divided.
"But," marvels Dr. Vajaynaya, "it's a complete lie. I mean it's not a matter of opinion. It literally never happened. That idiot voted us into this disaster based on a thing that never happened."
"If allowed to go on at this pace and intensity, the mental stress will virtually eat your brain," says Harry Chopin Savage. "Nobody knows what's true and what's a blatent lie anymore. I mean, the guy openly mocked a disabled person on national TV, the video got shared around to millions of people all over the world, yet his supporters persist in saying it never happened." Savage points out that the November 2016 incident, during which the Republican party leader contorted his right hand into a crumbled fist locked against his chest in imitation of New York Times journalist Serge Kovaleski who suffers from a joint condition, would have meant the end of the presidential race for literally any other candidate.
"Goddamned Mother Theresa wouldn't have gotten away with that," Savage says. "The Republicans have constructed a seemingly impenetrable panopticon of alt-facts, a toxic bubble inside of which truth fizzles, while the lies, repeated by the leadership and parroted by millions of followers, become the new reality."💩