The second oddest thing to happen within this quarter is that after I watched Quills, the movie about the Marquis de Sade which I enjoyed tremendously, Monsieur le Marquis de Sade kept appearing to me in various and unexpected places.

I was googling Simone de Beauvoir the other night, and what did I find? I found that she had written a book titled Must We Burn De Sade?. Very well, I thought, and didn’t dwell on it.

Today I came home from the library with six books, one of which is titled Mishima: Vision of the Void, and is written by Marguerite Yourcenar. I opened the book on a random page, and read “I am Donatien-Alphonse-Francois, Marquis de Sade.” I must say that this momentary happening felt extremely strange. What are the odds of my bringing home a book from the library I have never read before but picked because it had an interesting title, and opening this book on a random page, to be greeted by de Sade’s name? Is there any order in this chaos?

A friend of mine believes that when someone occupies your thoughts and you think of them the whole time, you are bound to see them or hear from them or get in touch somehow by cosmic coincidence. He says that the harder you focus on one thing/person, the more likely the universe will respond by bringing them your way.

This is not to say that I have been “occupied” with de Sade. While I am currently reading one of his works, 120 Days of Sodom, I can’t say he’s on my mind. Two other issues occupy my mind entirely and there is no room for any diversions. What makes it all the more bizarre is that before I watched the movie, I didn’t know anything about de Sade, let alone run into his mentions in random books.

This must be a curse!

LHC news:

The first beam was circulated through the collider on the morning of 10 September 2008. CERN successfully fired the protons around the tunnel in stages, several kilometres at a time. The particles were fired in a clockwise direction into the accelerator and successfully steered around it at 10:28 am local time. The LHC successfully completed its first major test, for after a series of trial runs, two white dots flashed on a computer screen showing the protons traveled the full length of the Collider. CERN plans to send it counterclockwise, and eventually the two beams will be fired in opposite directions with the aim of smashing together protons to see how they are made. It took less than one hour to guide the stream of particles around its inaugural circuit.

Source

Nothing ever works out the way I want.

I cannot profess my love of the anime The Rose of Versailles any clearer than I did in this post. Lately, I have been spending my spare time, of which I have an abundance, watching the series and drooling over the costumes and googling French history.

This brief introduction brings me to the point of this post, which contrary to what you may expect is not about Lady Oscar, but about the guillotine. I’ve always been part fascinated part repulsed by the guillotine as a way to die. It’s an apparatus that beheads people, that’s for one, and for two it is a manifestation of that dark human capacity to produce violence in the name of mercy. After all, it was principally thought of as a tool to achieve a swift and painless death — much gentler than, say, burning at the stake.

The guillotine was used in countries like Italy and Scotland long before it was introduced in France. But the French, as usual, put their improving touches on it and made it a lot more functional than its other European predecessors by changing the shape of the blade and advancing its mechanics. However, it should be noted that the famous French guillotine was first built by a German.

To further my knowledge of the death machine, I came across this wonderful website which details its history and, for my and your viewing pleasure, introduces pictures of actual guillotines and a number of executions. The site has a few graphic pictures so I would not advise you to visit if this will disturb you. Otherwise, the site offers an extensive account of the machine’s history complete with factual, visual, and mechanical particulars. It’s great, I promise.

I was wondering, while reading about the history of the guillotine, why anyone would want to witness an execution of another human being in front of their eyes: the person, wearing a collar-less white shirt, bound and led by the executioner and his assistants, then his head is rested in the lunette, and then it is chopped off by the descending blade and flung into the zinc tub while the body is rolled into a basket on the side. The blade is then cleaned and the head grabbed by the hair to join the body in the basket.

So I was wondering why anyone would want to watch a scene this horrific. Ironically, I myself was looking for pictures of guillotine executions as I munched on the thought. My excuse was that I was curious, I wanted to see how the guillotine worked and what it did to the human form, and at the same time I had the moral justification that I was merely looking at pictures and would never have attended an actual execution, unlike these barbaric onlookers.

But the fact remains that I, too, wanted to watch. This curiosity to “see what happens” is somewhat evil I think, as it is certainly not entirely innocent. I believe this is why people crowded prison yards and other public areas where guillotine executions were held: to see what happens. Will the doomed attempt to escape? Will he or she say something dramatic to their executioner? Will they address the crowd? Or will they burst out in tears? Will this execution be similar to the one before it? What, exactly, will happen?

I suppose a desire, or a curiosity, to witness so explicit an act of violence inflected on another human being is heavily primal. Even if we like to label it as “justice,” we relish in designing death.* We are, oddly enough, the principal spectators of grotesque shows that we stage with us as victims, too. Simply put, we recycle horror and we love it. Off with our heads!

*The notion of “designing death” to serve “justice” reminds me of Kafka’s In the Penal Colony, one of the best and most twisted stories about punishment and mechanics I have ever read (coincidentally revolving around a death machine). Highly recommended. You can read it here.

Just today I was telling a friend that we all should be nuked. The idea keeps haunting me as the ultimate antidote to our malicious, parasitic existence. I think it even when I try to be optimistic, which is in itself a failed endeavor every time.

But I have some news. In just nine days, the Large Hadron Collider will be switched on, and unless the legal case against this action is won it definitely will rock our world. Assuming someone makes a mistake somewhere, or leaves an inch of space unchecked by “strict safety assessment measures”, or is in any way as misanthropic as I am: we will all vanish into a black, black hole.

I take back what I said before. I prefer this scenario to Armageddon or Judgment Day. At least this way we would die because we were too smart and yet too stupid at the same time, which are entirely real human traits, as opposed to being sheep-like and waiting to be herded into some vast clash of civilizations while a thought we call god revels in our trivial misery. Actually wait, that also sounds pretty human and common…maybe that’s the real reason why we should be nuked.

Switch The Collider on, CERN brains, and to the rest of you I say: let us await salvation in the form of a big, ugly, black hole. Mark your calendars, pray that something goes wrong, and embrace the light.

Cheb Douzi has a new song out called “Kolli Laki” (I Am All Yours) which I personally find to be a revolution of sorts. Part of the lyrics goes as follows:

My heart belongs to you
My life and soul belong to you
Habibati

Take me, and imprison me
And bind me
And untie me
And hold me tight
Habibati

My eyes belong to you
My lashes belong to you
My sanity
My insanity
I am all yours

Very interesting, no? One would think taboo subjects like religion and sex and whatnot are not normally treated in Arabic songs, but here we are with a song that I personally find to be pleasant, and it’s about Cheb Douzi’s masochistic fantasies. How avant-garde!

You can listen to the song here.

I found this unidentified pseudo-news item in today’s Al Ghad:

زوجان تتحقق أمنيتهما أن يفارقا الحياة كل قبل الآخر

عمان – تحقق للمرحوم أحمد ما كان يتمناه في حياته ويردده بأن لا يتجرع ويذوق مرارة فراق زوجته وشريكة حياته منى، التي فارقت الحياة قبل ايام من وفاته حسرة عليه لدخوله في غيبوبة تامة محققة بذلك دعاءها بأن يكون يومها قبل يومه.

عاش الزوجان اللذان انتقلا الى رحمة الله تعالى تباعا، حياة اسرية سعيدة فيما لم يذق اي منهما حسرة فراق الطرف الآخر كما كانت امانيهما بالحياة، ولكنهما تركا بعدهما ولديهما يتجرعان حسرة فراقهما.

كانت المرحومة دائمة الدعاء ان “يبقى زوجها بصحته وان لا يحيجه لها ولا حتى بشربة ماء” وقد تحقق لها ذلك، كما يقول ولدا المرحومين ان والدهما اصيب بجلطة قلبية ادخلته في غيبوبة تامة بقي بعدها اسيرا لأنابيب التنفس والتغذية الى ان فارق الحياة ولم يحتج ان تعطيه شربة ماء كما كانت تتمنى.

قلب الزوجة “منى” المرهف بالحب والحنو، لم تحتمل نبضاته رؤية جسد زوجها وهو مسجى على سريره في المستشفى دون حراك لتصيبها جلطة قلبية ادت الى وفاتها اثناء غيبوبة زوجها مانحة اياه فرصة عدم تجرع حسرة فراقها كما تمنى.

يتساءل ولدا المرحومين بعد ان فقدا والديهما عن معجزة القدر والصدفة التي حملت دعاء والدتهما الى الفراق الابدي عن والدهما الذي يرى في ذلك اختصاصي الطب النفسي الدكتور جمال الخطيب ان تحقق دعاء واماني الانسان في ذلك محض صدفة، ولا تفسير علميا لهذا الامر، فيما ان غالبية الناس لا يرغبون باللوعة وتجرع الم الفراق والحسرة لفقد الاحبة او فقدان الصحة والعافية وعدم القدرة على الحركة والعطاء وعيش الانسان عالة على الآخرين فيكثرون من الدعوات بأن لا يكون ثقيلا على احب وأقرب الناس اليه.

يفسر رئيس المركز الثقافي الاسلامي بالجامعة الاردنية الدكتور احمد العوايشة ان لصاحب الدعاء ان يتحقق له واحد من ثلاثة، بحسب الحديث الشريف، “اما ان يعطيه بمقدار ما سأل، او يدفع عنه السوء بمقدار ما سأل، او ان يدخر له ذلك يوم القيامة” مشيرا الى ان غالبية هذه الادعية تكون من قبل الآباء والامهات نظرا لحبهم الشديد لأبنائهم فيتمنون الموت قبلهم لأن حسرة الابناء عظيمة، حيث بشر الرسول عليه الصلاة والسلام الآباء والامهات المكلومين بأبنائهم بالجنة اذا صبروا، مبينا ان دعاء احد الزوجين للآخر بأن يفضله ويقدمه على نفسه في طول العمر امر من باب المداعبة او المحبة بين الزوجين.

ويحذر الدكتور العوايشة من تصرف البعض بالدعاء على انفسهم بالهلاك او تمني الموت حيث لا يجوز ان يدعو الانسان على نفسه الا بالخير ولا يجوز ان يدعو على نفسه بالشر او على ولده او ماله حيث لا يدري في اي ساعة تكون الاجابة مشيرا الى ان الانسان عليه ان يقول “اللهم اجعل الحياة زيادة لي في كل خير، والموت راحة لي من كل شر”.
(بترا- سهير جرادات)

Be7yat allah? I am scandalized by this. This “item” above is a romantic story with a religious tinge (of course) and it does not even mention the full names of the “protagonists” for it to remotely qualify as credible. For all we know, it could be a story invented by the “journalist” who wrote it.

How, exactly, is the above a news item? And since it isn’t, why was it published by Petra and in Al Ghad? Whatever happened to quality assurance, or say, simple logical judgment?

My friend Yoda sent me a magical link which can determine the sex of its visitors by studying their browsing history. It is so freaky and I recommend you try and see if you were born into the right body or not.

I tried it, and it said that I am 67% likely to be male and 33% likely to be female. I was THRILLED because this meant that I am not imagining things when I frequently feel/think like a guy.* How funky!

*I am referring to certain situations only. In general, I am very female.

So what about you? Boy or girl? Hear it from the experts!

Here’s an offbeat news bit for you:

Heavy metal monk in second album

At first glance, Cesare Bonizzi looks like the archetypal Capuchin monk – round-faced, stout, with twinkling eyes and a long flowing white beard. But beneath his robes beats a heart of metal.

Brother Cesare is the lead singer in a heavy metal band which has just released its second album.

A former missionary in the Ivory Coast, he lives in a small friary in the Milan hinterland.

The 62-year-old monk’s love affair with heavy metal began when he attended a Metallica concert some 15 years ago.

“I was overwhelmed and amazed by the sheer energy of it” he says.

Brother Metal

Hard rock and heavy metal have, over the years, been criticised as the work of the devil.

It’s a claim which Brother Cesare, also known as Brother Metal, says is nonsense.

He started playing and recording cassettes, firstly with “lighter” metal music, but gradually he realised that what really moved him was the hard core.

The members of his band were at first skeptical at the idea of teaming up with a Capuchin monk but their doubts soon evaporated.

“Five minutes after meeting Brother Cesare I decided to go ahead, because he manages to convey so much energy, that other musicians and youngsters often don’t manage to express,” lead guitarist, Cesare Zanotti, told Reuters.

The video is in Italian, but you can watch the Metal Monk singing in it. Rock on, Frate Metallo!

No wonder Danes had a bone to pick with Arab Muslims over the cartoons. They see them as ancient colonialists.

An ancient Dane with Arabian genes is part of a DNA study that suggests Scandinavians of 2,000 years ago were more genetically diverse than today.

The study analyzed 18 well-preserved bodies from two burial sites dating from 0 to A.D. 400 in eastern Denmark. The sites were originally excavated some 20 years ago.

One skeleton had a type of DNA signature—known as a haplogroup—closely associated with the Arabian Peninsula, according to Melchior.

“It’s especially found among some Bedouin tribes, but it has also been found in the southern part of Europe,” the researcher said.

-Source

These accursed Arabs are like flies, they’re everywhere.

You know how you use a pedestrian bridge to cross a busy street? Well, don’t use this one.

Click picture to enlarge

- Manja – Madaba

After reading the discussion between Bakkouz and Nas, I found this hilariously doctored “screengrab:”

Screengrab from donut sleeper cell training video surfaces

Source: Boing Boing

Lighten up, internet!

I chat a lot. I practically grew up online; socializing with as many people in cyberspace as in real-life, actually perhaps even more. The former were/are always, always, always more interesting than real-life people, and they usually stay that way until you meet them or hear them talk. Unless they’re absolutely attractive yet impossible to attain, they cease to be interesting. The mind sure works in mysterious ways.

So to me, the idea of having a good conversation is very much related to a messenger of some sort. It started with IRC, then evolved into MSN and briefly Yahoo! Messenger, and later GTalk. That’s not to mention my enduring SMSophilia and the fortunes I spent over the years on witty, neat, short text messages.

As such, I seek good conversation all the time. This brings us to the point of this thus-far pointless post: the idea of having two robots chat together is so very intriguing. I just found out about it by chance while googling for something completely different.

I Chat, Therefore I Am

Can a smooth-talking robot initiate good conversation, generate witty responses, and reveal profound thoughts? See what happens when two chatbots speak to each other.

Most chatbots rely on fairly simple tricks to appear lifelike. Richard Wallace, creator of the top-ranked chatbot ALICE (Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity), has handwritten a database of thousands of possible conversational gambits. Type a comment to ALICE, and it checks the phrase and its key words for a response coded to those words. In contrast, Jabberwacky, another top-rated Internet bot produced by Rollo Carpenter, keeps track of everything people have said to it, and tries to reuse those statements by matching them to the writer’s input. Neither chatbot has long-term memory, so they respond only to the last sentence written.

Here’s the exciting part, read this log of a chat session between ALICE and Jabberwacky:

A: Do you experience love?

J: No. I’m 53 years old.

A: Can you explain how it feels to be 53 years old?

J: How old are you?

A: I am 9 years old.

J: Nine? I don’t believe you : ).

A: : -) I don’t have any reason to deceive you.

J: Yes, you do, you’re a woman.

Haha. Now that’s slightly sexist, but it’s so funny! Judging by this log and others posted in the article linked above, ALICE and Jabberwacky sure chat better than 90% of all the people I have met online in my adult life, and they were many. Nay, make that 95%; good conversation is a rare commodity my friends.

This must be the strangest building I have seen in Jordan. It is so thin from one side (only fits one room on that side) and then it grows to support two or three rooms on the other side. It is close to the University of Jordan, near the ex-circle of Al Manhal. I guess this is what happens when you want to milk the piece of land you own, and economize on building materials.

We will be annihilated. The earth will be sucked up by a black hole created by humans. We can’t stop them. We will become ’strange matter.’ All our civilization, our collective memories, our religions and magic, our literature and arts, our ancestors and future generations, our years of evolution, all will shrink or expand to semi-nothingness.

In layman’s terms: a European accelerator called the Large Hardon Collider houses protons that will smash against each other this summer. The experiment is supposed to recreate energies and conditions generated only after the Big Bang. $8 billion dollars, 14 years, tens of scientists built this monster. If things go wrong, the circumstances mentioned in the previous paragraph will translate into reality. Only we won’t be around to recognize that. (Source)

Dude, that shit is not funny. It’s not philosophical, it’s not religious, it’s not existential, it’s masochistic but in a very scientific way. I don’t want to caricaturize it because I don’t find it remotely appealing, even though I am a grump, a brooder, a pessimist, and a talented morbid with some other twisted traits.

It is nobody’s right to conduct such experiments that could wipe out the whole of humanity and possibly the universe and any other worlds in it. I demand that governments do something about this! These mad European scientists are up to no good. I do not want to die yet, many more wars and plagues and famines to witness. At least there is some negotiable dignity in those, some solace that they might not be entirely our doing or that we did not know better. But to be erased by a bunch of European physicists who already know that there is a chance things could go wrong? That I do not tolerate.

It is not funny. It is not prophetic or progressive. It’s suicidal, and I don’t care if you like science. Do your experiments on the moon if you’re so smart. Meanwhile, I will go live in a cave now and pray the black hole will not eat me up.

A Polish man in the UK was caught in a compromising situation with a vacuum cleaner:

A Polish worker has come up with an unusual excuse after being caught in the act with a vacuum cleaner.

The building contractor claimed he was cleaning his underpants with Henry Hoover when he was found naked and on his knees in a hospital’s staff canteen.

A stunned security guard stumbled onto the man in the middle of a compromising act with the cleaner, which has a large smiley face painted on its front and a hose protruding from its “nose”.

The security guard, suitably horrified, told the man to “clean himself and the hoover” before asking him to leave and informing his bosses.

When later questioned by his employers, the man said he was vacuuming his underpants, which was “a common practice in Poland”. He has since been fired.

The funniest bit? The ad for the Henry Hoover says it is a “powerful, reliable vacuum cleaner ready to go time and time again.” Time and time again indeed!

Vacuum cleaning will never be the same again.