The most recent 20 comments posted to Electrolite by Keith:

Using my patented system for computing genre as a pseudo-Riemannian manifold in n-dimensional style space, it turns out that Don Quixote by Cervantes and Don Quixote by Menard are either the same book, or completely different.

I beg to differ, Tim. Even Borges, commenting on the Menard Quixote claims its qualities exceeds the original. They must be seperate books, as one book cannot be better than itself.

I would definitely classify both Farscape and Star Wars, for that matter, as Sci-Fi, regardless of the fact that they do not follow Asimov's Law and have more than one implossible-but-convenient bit of technobabble. Just because the writers let their imagination get the better of their scientific knowledge doesn't discount the fact that both series (and many others) are steeped in Sci-Fi iconography. That they are a little too big for their shiny metallic britches is what is so endearing about both.

You could be a 'Pataphysician. Though there already is a College de 'Pataphysique in both Paris and Quebec ( I think, unless it's Montreal...) but there's nothing stopping you from opening the Alfred Jarry 'Patathinktank, other than a few gaudy writs and some absurd proclomations about the nature of the Universe; all easily fixed.

For me, the big plus is the 1000megs of storage. as my my wife and I are in different states right now, we send a lot of pictures back and forth. It's nice to know that I can go more than a week without filling up my storage space, as I often did in Hotmail or yahoo.

Also, as mentioned above, having a googlebot scan my e-mail is not a big concern. All e-mails get scanned or have the potential to be scanned. That's life in the digital age, folks.

I think it was in Utah a couple years back where one of the legislators pitched a fit because someone asked a couple of visiting buddhist Monks to stop by and have a chant. The legislator in question referred to them as heathens, even. Sure, they burn incense and chop up their dead but seriously, picking on Buddhist Monks or the UU is just low. (And this, from an atheist, who usually gets a kick out of browbeating the religious. What's this world coming to when I'm on the same side of an argument as a bunch of good hearted theists? Soon, these folks will drive me to religion. It's a conspiracy, I tell you! They'll drive me to join the UU out of spite!)

Egyptian soul
(From Wikipedia)

In Egyptian mythology, the human soul is made up of five parts: the Ka, the Ba, the Akh, the Name and the Shadow.

Akh
The Akh ("to shine") changed somewhat in the history of Egyptian belief. It was, at first, the unchanging unification of Ka and Ba, which united after the death of the physical body. In this sense, it was a sort of ghost. The Akh was then a part of the Akh-Akh, the panoply of Akhs from other people, gods and animals. Alternatively, the Ka changed into the Akh and Ba after death, rather than uniting with the Ba. In this system, the Akh went to the underworld and became the Ka again, while th Ba remained on Earth in the corpse of the deceased.
Alternative: Khu

Ka
The Ka was the spiritual soul of a person or a god, a type of mana. The Ka was created by Mesenet along with the physical form of the person, and then continued to the underworld after the death of the physical body.

Ba
After the death of an individual, the Ba was the shell or physical body that remained on Earth in its tomb. At some point the Ba was to reunite with the Ka and thus the body was mummified. Should the body be destroyed it was believed that a stone sculpture would suffice."

Perhaps Bush is simply refering to the Akh, in which case he could almost be excused, as dealing with Egyption Eschatological models is befuddling for even Egyptologists, let alone layfolk. However, if he is refering to their Ka, than, as I understand it, this is a serious insult. But our dear Leader wouldn't dish outinsults, especially elaborate, backhanded Egyptian insults, would he?

My optical mouse is the second greatest peripheral device yet devised, the first being my iPod (though I'm a huge fan of the usb memmory stick. Whomever devised thta little baby deserves some sort fo award. Seriously, a device that is cross platform, holds up to half a gig of anything in the world and is the size of a highlighter. it's genius).

The only thinkg better than my optical mouse would be one of the snazy new bluetooth wireless optical models.

Comment statistics for Keith on the Electrolite blog

Total: 7 comments. View all these comments on a single page.