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you are likely to be eaten by a grue
Jun. 7th, 2006 11:59 pmEither about a million people are eating chips outside my window or Hassan's van has exploded or something, but I swear I can smell vinegar through the attic porthole. I live four floors up. That's a lot of vinegar. And I can't close the window either, because it is so hot in here. Because she's sadistic like that, Claire emailed round the five-day forecast, and I am quietly boggling at it. Thirty degrees, here? How can it be so hot? And, especially, how can it be so hot when I'm missing all the beautiful weather through being stuck in the library? Today, I actually had a tute in the Fellows' garden, because my tutor couldn't stand being inside either. It was very nice indeed. And I had dinner, as I have most days this week, outside on the lawn in the garden quad, bathed in sunshine. It was lovely, but argh. Too much work. And procrastination. But mostly work. And libraries. And more work, and more libraries.
But I'm okay. I'm getting things done, I'm not upset or bitter about it, and best of all, I'm actually getting out of bed in the morning (as opposed to the afternoon). The only side-effect, in fact, is the fact my brain is slowly melting. Very slowly, but it's happening regardless. I was working upstairs in the Social Science Library just before closing, sitting by a window and watching the last of the daylight over the river, and then my pen stopped working. This is a current point of severe irrationality with me, because someone stole my pen two days ago and I have very few of the things left. So I shook it, and scribbled ineffectually at it, and sucked at the point and generally was incompetent. Pat took her own pen and wrote "IONA'S PEN = RUBBISH" across the top of her notes. "And thus, by strict assumptions of transitivity," she said, and wrote underneath "IONA = RUBBISH."
I thought about that for a while. "Doesn't that mean that I am my pen?"
"You equal rubbish," she said, "and your pen equals rubbish, if you both equate to rubbish then you equal your pen."
I thought about that one even longer. "But that doesn't work," I said after a bit. "You're arguing with a stated premise that's contingent on the truth of the conclusion. In fact," - and there are no prizes for guessing what I was revising today - "it's analagous to the original problem of induction. We can't say the future will always resemble the past because it always has done, because we're justifying the conclusion with the criteria we're attempting to prove to start with that."
Pat got very excited, and wrote:
"IONA = RUBBISH
IONA'S PEN = RUBBISH
IONA = HER PEN
Hence: PAT = DAVID HUME."
"Ah," I said, and fell apart laughing. I'm pretty sure that if the library hadn't been closing, they would have thrown us out. I'm also pretty sure that I don't generally laugh at such patently ridiculous things.
On that distinctly unfunny note, I leave you.
Oh, but before I go, one more thing. It has finally happened. After many, many years, it has happened. I AM A BNF OMG. PLEASE TO BE WORSHIPPING ME NOW KTHXBAI.
But I'm okay. I'm getting things done, I'm not upset or bitter about it, and best of all, I'm actually getting out of bed in the morning (as opposed to the afternoon). The only side-effect, in fact, is the fact my brain is slowly melting. Very slowly, but it's happening regardless. I was working upstairs in the Social Science Library just before closing, sitting by a window and watching the last of the daylight over the river, and then my pen stopped working. This is a current point of severe irrationality with me, because someone stole my pen two days ago and I have very few of the things left. So I shook it, and scribbled ineffectually at it, and sucked at the point and generally was incompetent. Pat took her own pen and wrote "IONA'S PEN = RUBBISH" across the top of her notes. "And thus, by strict assumptions of transitivity," she said, and wrote underneath "IONA = RUBBISH."
I thought about that for a while. "Doesn't that mean that I am my pen?"
"You equal rubbish," she said, "and your pen equals rubbish, if you both equate to rubbish then you equal your pen."
I thought about that one even longer. "But that doesn't work," I said after a bit. "You're arguing with a stated premise that's contingent on the truth of the conclusion. In fact," - and there are no prizes for guessing what I was revising today - "it's analagous to the original problem of induction. We can't say the future will always resemble the past because it always has done, because we're justifying the conclusion with the criteria we're attempting to prove to start with that."
Pat got very excited, and wrote:
"IONA = RUBBISH
IONA'S PEN = RUBBISH
IONA = HER PEN
Hence: PAT = DAVID HUME."
"Ah," I said, and fell apart laughing. I'm pretty sure that if the library hadn't been closing, they would have thrown us out. I'm also pretty sure that I don't generally laugh at such patently ridiculous things.
On that distinctly unfunny note, I leave you.
Oh, but before I go, one more thing. It has finally happened. After many, many years, it has happened. I AM A BNF OMG. PLEASE TO BE WORSHIPPING ME NOW KTHXBAI.
