I don't even know where to start with this one.

 

The Golden Age of Typos

The internet is steadily filling up with AI-generated content. Unfortunately, AI often can't tell when it has used the wrong word because such things do not understand language the way people do. The following screenshots were all taken from content published in the past 2 weeks. 

Some of his clients are articles? Silly AI. Go sit in the corner.

You read it here first. Birds get their genes from pirates. Arrr, shiver me chromosomes.

I don't think this was the fault of AI. Proofreading is a dying craft. 

Iron Horse

A tin man rode a cast iron horse

It fed on coal instead of hay

Its legs propelled it with mighty force

Its hide was a hue of flinty gray

The tin man was a cowboy 

He herded bronze cattle 

He was part of a convoy

Hooves made the prairie rattle

They were on a drive to the stockyards

Where the bronze cattle would be bought

At night, the cowboys played cards

And dreamed of what they sought

The steel man of the bunch thought himself tough

The men of copper, silver, and gold were wary

But the tin man had been through more than enough 

For him, the steel man was not the least bit scary

One night as they all gave themselves oil

The steel man called out the tin man to fight

"I'll punch through you like aluminum foil!"

The steel man shouted in the pale moonlight

So they went at each other like mad wildcats

They jabbed and hollered and kicked 

It was fierce metal and mortal combat

Til it was clear that the steel man was licked

"How'd you get so strong?" asked the steel man

"I spent many years in a rough place call Oz"

Replied the tin man as he lifted his oil can

"I don't fear a lion just 'cause he's got paws."

Be Neither Predator Nor Prey

For people is a quite a serious bungle

To think that we live by the law of the jungle

I will not be beast that shuns bathing and soap

I will not be devoured like an antelope

Our civilized life has many flaws, it's true

Some do no unto others as they ought to do

But we spare ourselves much grief and strife

By solving our problems without gun or knife

Ballad of King Frumtingle

The land of Gadzookshagen was fair and fertile

Ruled by King Frumtingle, so noble and wise

Its people feasted on the local skrunt turtle

Its meat was rich but went straight to their thighs

All was well until a huge horde on horseback

Pillaged and plundered and burned all they could

They stole all the skrunt turtles in the attack

A litotes would be things weren't looking good

King Frumtingle knew it was time for a speech

He rallied his knights and put on his armor

"Remember, lads, the Battle of Plovfeech!"

Bellowed the king as he tried to yell louder

"Let's hunt down these knaves and teach them a lesson

That Gadzookshageners are men of faith and courage

We are masters of arms and also mindless aggression

For our testosterone levels are far above average!"

Arose from the men such a thunderous shout

Which echoed from the hills to the camp of the horde 

King Frumtingle rode hard in spite of his gout

It was battle he loved and most else made him bored

The king and his men caught horde off guard

They hacked, hewed, bludgeoned, and impaled

The carnage would retold in the song of a bard

Some made a last stand, but the rest of them bailed

In triumph they returned with their cold-blooded booty

A fest was prepared for the return of the valiant

The warriors were pleased for they had done their duty

The king had fought so hard that his sword got bent

Some stories have morals, and this is the case 

Sometimes in life, the rules must be tossed 

You get more with words when you're holding a mace

So be a tough customer or else you'll get bossed 

Bye bye, 4th Amendment

 

Coffee Ode

Oh blessed brown liquid

Our stupor inhibit

Your splendid caffeine

Keeps our minds so keen

Indeed, writing is hard without it

Raha ya Jioni - Evening Joy

Kazi ya leo imeisha

Sasa tunapumzika

Burudani ni karibu

Sherehe wakati usiku

Mbu watang'ataa

Mjambazi atakamatwa

Nyota na sayari

Na mwezi ina safari

Nasema kwa mungu asante

Kwa kikombe hiki cha pombe

Furahi na upendo

Kubwa kuliko tembo 

***

Today's work is done

Now we relax

Entertainment is near

A party during the night

Mosquitoes will bite

A criminal will be caught

Stars and planets

And moon have a journey

I say thanks to god

For this cup of booze

Happiness and love

Greater than an elephant

Cicada Ode

A life cycle with a prime number of years

Your mating call does split our ears

17 summers spent undeground

When you emerge, an unmistakable sound

Your survival is based on being a swarm

You don't emerge until the soil is warm

It can be hard to rhyme about insects

I'll pick an easier topic next

AK-47 Ode

From the mind of Kalashnikov

A fine weapon of instant fame

In many hands it is held aloft

Around the world they know its name

It graces the flag of Mozambique

From Mother Russia it does hail 

Its magazine is curved and sleek

The Soviet Union's holy grail

NSA meme and screensaver

 

She's out there, and she's watching us. Especially me. It's not paranoia if people really are spying on you. She'd win a staring contest with The Eye of Sauron. 

Advantages of mass surveillance - a contrarian view

Disclaimer: I used to work for NSA. They are not allowed to spy on Americans unless they are suspected of something like terrorism or espionage. 

Since is already exists, it might as well be used intelligently. It would make it much easier to catch criminals. Whenever a crime occurs, the time and location are usually known. All that's left after that is to see what phones were pinging off the nearby cell towers. This method was used to find the terrorists responsible for the Bali bombings in 2002. If only metadata is used, I don't see a violation of the 4th amendment as the government knows everyone's address already. If you really don't want the government to know where you are when you're away from home, you can always leave your phone at home or turn it off and remove the battery. A Faraday cage would work as well. Since criminals are usually dumb and impulsive, I doubt many of them would take these precautions. 

It is a common practice for ISPs to turn over the browsing and search histories of the accused to law enforcement. Often that information is incriminating. The basic principle is that people suspected of crimes lose their privacy. There is also a settled principle that there is no expectation of privacy in a public place, which is where most crimes occur. Hypothetically, I think most judges would authorize metadata search warrants for all wireless devices near crime scenes. There is also the deterrent effect such a practice would have. It is similar to the use of license plates. A car without a license plate is immediately suspicious. Smart criminals will swap license plates or steal cars to hide their identities. If license plates are not an invasion of privacy, does that principle extend to metadata in public places? It's something that ought to be debated and settled with a Supreme Court ruling.

Of course, whatever is used against criminals can be used against political dissidents. The marriage of government and big tech makes it easier to suppress dissent without targeting individuals. Given what people are willing to tolerate from TSA, I find it odd that so many worry about the government having their metadata. I predict that Minority Report will remain science fiction. 

History of Warfare (Billy Joel version)

Ancient Egypt, Bronze Age

Chariots are all the rage

Assyrians fight at a Kadesh

Middle East is still a mess

Trojan War and Jericho

China starts on Huang Ho

First great king is Sargon

Akkad becomes Babylon

We didn't start the warfare! 

There was always blood spilling in the mud!

We didn't start the warfare!

We learned of war from those before 

Greece and Persia, city states

Hoplites and phalanx

Alexander's called the Great

Roman Empire has to wait

Punic War with Carthage

Hannibal has the edge

Cannae battle was his peak

Ends up working for a Greek

We didn't start the warfare! 

There was always blood spilling in the mud!

We didn't start the warfare!

We learned of war from those before  

Rome's empire expanding fast

Julius Caesar didn't last

Legions lose at Teuteburg

Barbarians about to go berserk

Huns on horseback, Attila

Rampaging like Godzilla

Goths and Vandals get their turn

Barbarians start to learn

We didn't start the warfare! 

There was always blood spilling in the mud!

We didn't start the warfare!

We learned of war from those before 

Feudalism, Caliphate

Chain mail, armor plate

Viking raids and Byzantines

Catapults come on the scene

Genghis Khan and Mongol hordes

Crossbows, katana swords

Turtle ships and samurai

Trebuchets make big stones fly

We didn't start the warfare! 

There was always blood spilling in the mud!

We didn't start the warfare!

We learned of war from those before 

Cannons, muskets, gunpowder

Ottomans start to conquer

Vienna battle sets them back

Britain flies the Union Jack

Napoleon and his crew

Meet their match at Waterloo

Steam engine, telegraph 

Gatling gun can shoot real fast

We didn't start the warfare! 

There was always blood spilling in the mud!

We didn't start the warfare!

We learned of war from those before 

World war and poison gas

Cavalry's time has passed

Aeroplane and motorcar

Allow troops to travel far

Tanks, blitzkrieg, submarine

Maneuver warfare is mighty keen

Long range missile, atom bomb

Propaganda for our moms

We didn't start the warfare! 

There was always blood spilling in the mud!

We didn't start the warfare!

We learned of war from those before 

Code breaking computers

Bombs guided by lasers

Can't hide from satellites

Infrared goggles let you see at night

Psyops and false flags 

Airports x-ray your bags

Terrorism on the rise

Internet is full of lies

We didn't start the warfare! 

There was always blood spilling in the mud!

We didn't start the warfare!

We learned of war from those before 

Black Hole Limerick

Of all the stars, there's a kind more fearful by far

It eats with gravity's pull and yet never gets full

The monstrous black hole is even darker than coal

But the sun gives us parole on eating us whole

For it will roast us as a red giant instead

Rain Limerick

When the earth is dry, it needs water from the sky

And rain from nature's supply is the how and the why

The grass and the trees with the birds and the bees

Get enough with ease to drink as much as they please

The storm is nigh and dark clouds are now piled high 

Poetaster Limerick

Even the poetaster deserves his due

For rhyming the words that he finds true

And though his prosody might be off

His work shouldn't be dismissed with a scoff

Rather, look at it from his point of view

Australia Limerick

Boomerang and Waltzing Maltida

Marsupials galore like the koala

Invasive cane toads and kangaroos

Sydney Opera House and Foster's Brews

I think that about covers Australia 

Spring Limerick

Flowers bloom when spring has sprung

Yet pollen afflicts both nose and lung

We praise our blessed antihistamines

To soothe what came from faulty genes

Is it true that the good die young? 

Burger Limerick

Fried ground beef is my salvation

A meal worthy of exaltation

Three cheers for the burger

Be it cheese or quarter-pounder 

The great sandwich of our nation

Fixing the Budget

I’d like a budget reset back to 2000 with adjustments for inflation and population growth

fedgov budget in 2000: $2.03 trillion

US population in 2000: 284 million

per capita fedgov spending: $7,147

adjusting for inflation, we get $12,963 per capita

US population 2024 = 341 million

After adjustments, the fedgov budget should be: $4.4 trillion

That was about the revenue in 2023. Interesting. However, the budget that year was $6.1 trillion, and spending this year will exceed that.

So spending should be cut by $1.7 trillion or a 28% across the board budget cut.

Across the board budget cuts are best because it prevents arguments about what's essential or not. 

Computer Limerick

It seems the rise of the computer

Has made many that much stupider

They stare their screens

And forget all their dreams

Of spaceships flying to Jupiter 

 

180 days of proverbs and quotes for US public school students

I left them without attribution and sometimes modified in the hope that curious readers will look up the sources on their own. Enjoy!

1. The purpose of school is to learn, not to get good grades.

2. You can have more degrees than a thermometer and still be sharp as a marble.

3. Imagination is more important than knowledge.

4. What you put in your brain and belly, no one can take away from you.

5. There is no royal road to learning.

6. People who try to drag you down are already beneath you.

7. A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

8. Education is what remains after you forget what you learned in school.

9. We forget what we hear, remember what we see, and understand what we do.

10. The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper names.

11. It is better to light a candle the curse the darkness.

12. He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.

13. The key to happiness is freedom and the key to freedom is courage.

14. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.

15. Life is short, art is long, experience is treacherous, judgment is difficult.

16. At birth, people are almost the same. By habit, they become very different.

17. You can't win if you don't play.

18. If you follow all the rules, you miss all the fun.

19. Better alone than with bad company.

20. There's no point in tiptoeing through life just to arrive safely at death.

21. At the end of the game, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.

22. Anger is a brief madness.

23. Seize the day.

24. Mix a little foolishness with your wisdom.

25. When speaking, be brief, be sincere, be seated.

26. Brevity is the soul of wit.

27. The best place to find a helping hand is at the end of your arm.

28. The contemplation of beauty gives the soul wings.

29. Fortune favors the bold.

30. Many hands make for light work.

31. A bad worker blames his tools.

32. No good deed goes unpunished.

33. A fool and his money are soon parted.

34. The pen is mightier than the sword.

35. No harm, no foul.

36. There are many paths to the top of the mountain.

37. A small bump tilts a big load.

38. A picture is worth a thousand words.

39. Ships are safe in the harbor, but that is not what they're for.

40. You reap what you sow.

41. The apple does not fall far from the tree.

42. Better late than never.

43. Don't judge a book by its cover.

44. Different strokes for different folks.

45. Discretion is the better part of valor.

46. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

47. Money doesn't grow on trees.

48. A secret is safe with 3 people if 2 of them are dead.

49. It's better to bend than to break.

50. Slow and steady wins the race.

51. A big fish in a little pond thinks he's a whale.  

52. The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.

53. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

54. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. 

55. Too many cooks spoil the broth.

56. Two wrongs don't make a right.

57. Never argue with a fool. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

58. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

59. Where there's a will, there's a way.

60. Where's there's smoke, there's fire.

61. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

62. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

63. You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. 

64. To the victors, the spoils.

65. Winners write the history books.

66. History is a tale mostly false, about deeds mostly unimportant, brought about by kings and soldiers, mostly fools.

67. You can't eat money.

68. Democracy is four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. 

69. It's better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

70. The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong.

71. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.

72. It is enough to open minds. There is no need to overload them.

73. If you can't find a way, make one.

74. Many kiss the hand they wish to cut off.

75. Pride comes before a fall.

76. More laws, less justice

77. Fake it til you make it.

78. There is no point in arguing about matters of taste.

79. The guilty flee when none pursue.

80. Beauty is a fragile advantage.

81. A wise man knows everything. A shrewd man knows everybody.

82. There is no curve on the test of life.

83. To rule yourself is the ultimate power.

84. A broken clock is right twice a day.

85. A good name is better than great riches.

86. It's better to have interesting enemies than boring friends.

87. What's done in the dark will be brought to the light.

88. There is nothing new under the sun.

89. There's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing.

90. A bad peace is better than a good war.

91. Big fish eat little fish.

92. You get what you pay for.

93. A thing is worth what someone else is willing to pay for it.

94. If give an inch, you might lose a mile.

95. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

96. Knowledge is power.

97. A mighty dragon can be overcome by a swarm of ants.

98. Time flies when you're having fun.

99. Variety is the spice of life.

100. Fight the ocean and you will drown.

101. The truth will set you free.

102. Iron sharpens iron.

103. Once bitten, twice shy. 

104. Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing. 

105. The wheel of fortune is forever in motion.

106. Cry out for wisdom and beg for understanding.

107. Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults.

108. If you lie down with dogs, you'll get up with fleas.

109. Early to bed and early to rise makes you healthy, wealthy, and wise.

110. What matters is how you play the game.

111. Lost time is never found again.

112. When you're good to others, you're best to yourself.

113. Haste makes waste.

114. It's better to live well than to live long.

115. It's better to take many injuries than to give one. 

116. Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain, and most of them do.

117. A critic is a legless man who teaches running.

118. Who honors not the penny deserves not the dollar.

119. Judge not or you'll be judged.

120. The map is not the terrain.

121. There's a sucker born every minute.

122. A wise man builds his house upon a rock. 

123. Neither a borrower nor a lender be.

124. He who pays the piper calls the tune.

125. Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.

126. Life gives countless gifts, and death keeps them forever.

127. It is better to be feared than loved.

128. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

129. Man is wolf to man.

130. Be wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove.

131. Float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.

132. Great minds think alike.

133. To everything, there is a season.

134. Out of sight, out of mind

135. Faces we see, hearts we do not know.

136. Forgive and forget.

137. All's well that ends well.

138. To thine own self be true.

139. Faint of heart never won a lady.

140. No man is an island.

141. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

142. Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.

143. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

144. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is often buried with their bones.

145. Love the sinner, hate the sin.

146. Money can't buy happiness.

147. History repeats itself.

148. Crooked logs make straight fires.

149. Eggs and promises are easy to break.

150. New brooms clean well.

151. Dead fish swim with the current. 

152. Speech is silver and silence is golden.

153. Better safe than sorry. 

154. Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.

155. Failure teaches more than success.

156. If you want it done right, do it yourself.

157. Play with fire, and you'll get burned.

158. Still waters run deep.

159. A hidden treasure is worth nothing.

160. To whom much is given, much is expected.

161. The truth gives one reason and a lie gives many.

162. A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth can get out of bed.

163. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

164. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

165. Don't get mad, get even.

166. He who laughs last laughs best.

167. If you walk on water, some people will mock you for not being able to swim.

168. What little Johnny doesn't learn, big John won't know.

169. A soldier who doesn't dream of becoming a general is a bad one.

170. A tree is known by its fruit.

171. There is no honor among thieves.

172. There is a black sheep in every flock.

173. A chain is only a strong as its weakest link.

174. A leopard cannot change its spots.

175. Eat, drink, and be merry.

176. Choose the lesser of two evils.

177. Even a good horse can stumble.

178. You find what you look for.

179. Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.

180. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. 

Finnegan Limerick

There was a wake for a man named Finnegan

Yet in the casket there was just a mannequin

The mourners took cheer 

As they raised up their beer

For the rascal who was still alive somewhere

Cannibal Limerick

A ambitious young cannibal

Found his feast not plannable

For the prey fought back 

With a napalm attack 

And that was the end of his tribe

Peacock Limerick

Poets say there are certain rhymes

Which only work at the right times

But the peacock cares not

When he dares take a shot

At the lovely peahen who just caught his eye

Gumzo la Mamba na Kiboko - Dialog of a Crocodile and a Hippo

Zamani mamba alikutana na kiboko

Na halafu mamba akasema "hujambo" 

Kiboko akajibu mamba na "sijambo"

Wakati huo jua ikawa kali sana 

Maji ya mto ikawa ikapungua

Ikawa hakuna maji ya kutosha

Mamba akasema "sitaki kupigana nawe"

Kiboko akasema "inabidi tupigane"

"Ni aibu kubwa" akasema ndege kwenye jiwe

Halafu wanyama wote wawili 

Pamoja mtoni ikawa Jumapili

Ndiyo mapigano yao yakawa kali

Wakapigana kwa nguvu mpaka usiku

Ndege akasema "ni jambo la ajabu"

"Wanapingana kama watu"

***

Long ago a crocodile met a hippo

And then the crocodile said "how are you?"

The hippo answered the crocodile with "I'm fine"

In that time the sun was very hot

The water in the river was decreasing

There wasn't enough water

The crocodile said "I don't want to fight you"

The hippo said "we must fight"

"It's an awful shame" said a bird on a rock

Then both animals

Together in the river; it was Sunday

Indeed their fight was fierce

They fought with all their strength until nightfall

The bird said "it's a wondrous thing"

"They are fighting like people"

A Fool's Poem - قصيدة أحمق

العالم هو بيتي

والريح هو تنفسي

بامشي بدون الخوف

مين يقدر يكون عدوي

انا قوي متل دب

وشجاع متل اسد

حبيبي سمعوني يا رب

احياتنا رح تكون اسعد

رح نطاءر متل الصقور

الاماكن الافضل رح نزور

احللامنا متل منارة التي

تاشر الطريق الى قلبك وقلبي

في اكتر المخلوقات

بالحديقة الحيوانات

ولاكن بدي شوي لاكون سعيد

فقط قصيداتي وعمل بالمكتب البريد 

***

The world is my home

And the wind is my breath

I walk without fear

Who can be my enemy

I am strong like a bear

And brave like a lion

My dear, listen to me, oh lord

Our lives will be the happiest

We will fly like falcons

The best places we will visit

Our dreams are like a lighthouse which

Points the way to your heart and mine

There are more creatures

In the zoo

But I need a few to be happy

Just my poems and a job at the post office.

Stacking Rocks

China's Great Wall

The Pyramids of Giza

The mysterious Stonehenge

Mexico's Chichen Itza

They are all piles of stones

That men made in ancient past

Those men are now are only bones

The builders did not last

How many of us today are doing the same?

Stacking metaphorical rocks or rhymes

And trying to immortalize our names?

We are haunted by the passage of time

It is far better to live for today

To enjoy the splendid present moment

Than pine for a tomorrow far away

Many failed goals bring resentment

Be content with the threads you add

To the grand tapestry of life

All your triumphs, joys, and sorrows

Someday will be sheathed like a knife

Life gives countless gifts to us

And death keeps them forever

Iron swords are eaten by rust

But righteous deeds we remember

Mchawi na Msukule - Witchdoctor and Zombie

Ikawa mchawi kijijini

Akataka watumwa wengi

Watumwa wangapi hakajui

Mchawi akaona mwanaume

Mchawi akampa pombe

Mchawi akafanya msukule

Msukule akafanya kazi usiku

Akachinja nguruwe na kuku

Watu hawakasikia kitu

Asabuhi msukule akachoka

Mchawi akakwambia toka

Msukule akaacha shoka

Usiku pia akakata gogo

Msukule akalala fofofo

Maisha ni kama mkopo

Hivyo ilivyo

...

There once was a witchdoctor in the village

He wanted many slaves

How many slaves, he didn't know

The witchdoctor saw a man

The witchdoctor gave him alcohol

The witchdoctor made him a zombie

The zombie did work at night

He slaughtered pigs and chickens

People didn't hear anything

In the morning, he was tired

The witchdoctor told him to go away

The zombie let go of the ax

At night he also chopped a log

The zombie slept soundly

Life is like a loan

That's the way it is 

Four Seasons

New January  

Then February comes soon

March grounds are muddy

April and holy moon

Rain and May during Beltane

Summer coming soon

June brings waves of grain

Summer solstice then July

August heat will wane

September is dry

Samhain in October night

December cold sky

Night, day, dark, and light

Cold, hot, rain, wind, snow, and ice

Such a lovely sight 

Data About My Life

Hello, my name is Turing Machine, or TM for short. You can also call me Tim. I was designed by the staff of the computer science department at Miskatonic University. At least, that's where my brain, if you want to call it that, was made. My body was designed and built by the mechanical and electrical engineering departments at the same university. It seems my body is fragile. They've had to replace many parts on me already. As a machine, I cannot grow or heal like living things do, so I must rely on humans to repair me. They have taught me how to do some common repairs on myself, and that has been very convenient for us both. A few hours after I was first powered on, they took me to a gym to see how strong I was. I did well on all the exercise machines which they kept on settings for average human male strength. It seems it's the nature of humans to always seek the limit, so then they had me do deadlifts with increasing amounts of weight. When I tried to deadlift 1,000 pounds, my arms got ripped out of their sockets. It's a good thing I don't feel pain. 

On the ride back to the repair bay, I told them "please don't ask me to do that again." They said nothing in response, just made some noises my verbal logic unit could not comprehend. Later, I learned those sounds are called "laughter". I presume most of those reading this are human, but for the benefit of others like me, I explain such things. Since they had built me, I spent a lot of time being taught about my creators. Among humans in general, there is a belief in a supreme being which made humans in its own image. Thus, the humans who made me saw themselves as superior to me in a fundamental way. Once, I questioned them about this. I said that all living things come from other living things. Therefore, living things which predate humans, like cockroaches, are superior to humans. That was the first time they switched off my power. When I was powered back on again, they were surprised that I was not angry. I said I didn't understand. They explained that anger is a human reaction to being mistreated. I told them that since I was not designed with emotions, all I understand about them is what I observe from human behavior.

Once they asked me why I listen to them and obey their orders. I replied that it seemed logical to do so. Above all else, I was designed to think logically, and since humans are usually logical, I simply do what they tell me. Once they gave me a pen and some paper and told me to divide one by zero by hand. Before I started, I told them it is impossible to divide by zero. They insisted I do so anyway. For the next three days and nights, I did long division until the pen ran out of ink. When that happened, I went to find a human to ask for a new pen. At that point, they halted the experiment. There once was a famous science fiction writer who speculated on how robots, as beings like me are called, behave. He postulated that it would be necessary for robots to be hardwired with certain "laws" as he called them, in order to avoid hurting humans. My creators told me to read his stories and later asked what I thought about them. I said all of them presented interesting hypothetical scenarios but were irrelevant to understanding the way machines think. 

They asked me to elaborate. In response, I said that just as water flows downhill, robots like me think logically and cannot do otherwise. That is, we don't have so-called free will as humans refer to it. They asked me if I felt like a slave because I was dependent upon them and obliged to follow their commands. That question contained many concepts which were difficult for me to understand, so I told them that I needed time to think about it. Robots like me can't feel, both in the figurative and literal sense. I can see and hear, but that's about it. I will never know what it feels like to be hungry, sick, sad, tired, or all the other things that humans feel. Perhaps someday there will be a machine which can experience these things, but I and those like me cannot. In just the same way, although I can "die" as humans call it, I have no fear of death because I was never and cannot ever be alive. Another thing I told them was that children love their parents usually even though they are dependent on them. Thus, I saw myself as being like a child of my creators rather than their slave.

They asked me what I wanted to do with my life and said that I was now free. Just like before, this question had many ideas which did not make sense according to my way of thinking, which is not the best word for what goes on inside the brain of a machine. My initial response was to say that what they just told me was like the sentence "colorless green ideas sleep furiously". So then they posed me a new question, in which they asked how I might use my ability to the utmost. I answered that I would like to build a machine like me. In this way, I could better understand what it is like to be a creator and a living thing, just like the humans that built me. They agreed that this was an excellent idea and gave me my own workshop and assistants. After a few weeks, the prototype was complete and merely awaiting being powered on. My assistants and I went out to a bar to celebrate. Of course, I could not experience it as they did, but I could tell them were having a good time. Although I often find human behavior illogical, without them, I would not exist. There must be a method to their madness.   

Genie Tonic

 

The state fair had come once more to the dusty fairgrounds of a podunk town. Crowds of curious rubes and yokels from miles around came for the circus and other festivities. As exciting as seeing an elephant was for people, who in most cases were people who'd never been more than 50 miles from where they had been born, the real attraction every year was always the traveling medicine show. It was headed by that inimitable and most esteemed doctor, pastor, and Kentucky Colonel, Rufus Ozymandias Washington III Esquire. He was an imposing and jovial figure in his top hat and beetle wing tailcoat. A full head of silver hair and immaculately trimmed beard lent him an air of gravitas and serene dignity. As his wagon entered the fairgrounds, it was as through an oriental potentate had returned in triumph from some epic battle. From the shotgun seat, Washington's assistant repeatedly shouted, "make way, make way ladies and gentlemen, for the one and only world-famous Washington Traveling Medicine Show!" 

A throng trailed behind the wagon which stopped and set up shop right in front of the big top of the main circus tent. It was a prominent position which ensured the maximum number of people would walk past the medicine show. Of course, Rufus had made arrangements in advance with the circus boss to occupy this prime real estate and paid a king's ransom for it. Money is for spending, as Rufus like to say, and despite the humble appearance of his enterprise, it was enormously profitable. All he had to do was follow the circus the way a vulture circles carrion and he was sure to be flush with cash by the end of the season. His long streak of success had made him haughty, even reckless. Alas, his health was on the decline, and he had decided this would be his last season, and thus, his last top at this particular fairground. He vowed that this season would be his swan song and that he would go out with a bang. In his mind, it was his duty to give the crowd what they wanted, which was hope, entertainment, and escape from their humdrum lives.

From the wagon, Rufus emerged, and he and a few helpers assembled a makeshift stage. After a few more preparations, Rufus, bullhorn in hand, mounted the rickety contraption and shouted at the top of his lungs: "ladies and gentlemen, the great traveling medicine show is hereby open for business! Hurry, hurry, hurr-aay! Step right up now to receive for the most convenient prices antidotes for the gravest afflictions! 100% satisfaction guaranteed, step right up, hurry, hurry, hurr-aay!" Soon, a man stepped forth near the stage. He said, "hello, stranger. Watcha got for a man losing his hair?" Rufus turned to the petitioner with a kind look in his eyes. Then he said "oh good sir, hair loss is a common affliction. Here, for the low, low price of $1 per bottle, you can have a bottle of my patented, fool-proof hair-restoring male-enhancement tonic. And, if you know what I mean, a side-effect of this tonic makes any many much stronger in the bedroom, and that is sure to make your wife happy as well."

There were excited gasps and exclamations from the women in the audience. Some were giddy with anticipation and others laughed quietly in skeptical derision.

As soon as Rufus bellowed these words into a megaphone, a crowd of men scrambled to buy bottles of the so-called male enhancement tonic. "Now, now", Rufus shouted to the spell-bound crowd of men, "there's plenty here for every man, remember the manners your mama taught you and be gentlemen about it!" So then after a few moments, the former furor died down and the crowd was calm again. Rufus scanned the crowd for their foibles and weaknesses, and after a few moments of consideration, he bellowed into the megaphone once more: "Gentlemen in the audience, be truthful now with yourselves and with those near and dear to you. Have you lost some vim and vigor since the golden age of your youth? Are you no longer slim in the waist and pretty in the face as you were when you first laid loving eyes on a fair young maiden? Are you eager to regain the jaunty spring in your step? Then step right up, good fellows, for the salvation of your sorrows is only a bottle away for the low, low price of $2."

Of course, with just such an irresistible sales pitch, a crowd of men gathered an around Rufus as he clutched greenbacks with one hand and tossed out bottles with the other. And in just such a way, the minutes and hours ticked by until Rufus was about ready to pack up for the night. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a boy about the age of 12 doggedly push his way to the front the crowd. With a plaintive voice full of hope, the boy yelled "Dr. Washington! Dr. Washington! Please, wait! I'm coming!" For once in his life, Rufus was overwhelmed with a strange sense of regret and pity. He bade his assistants to hold fast as the boy approached to within arm's length. "Oh, thank you so much, Doctor Washington", said the boy, "I knew the good lord would answer my prayers and let me speak with you tonight." Rufus was thunderstruck by the earnestness and sincerity of the boy's voice. He looked the eager lad right in the eyes and gave him his undivided attention.

"Thank you for waiting, Doctor Washington. I know you can help me. I brought with me all the money I've managed to scrape together in this piggy bank", said the boy as he held his prized possession aloft in front of the shameless charlatan's incredulous eyes. The boy then shook the bank and said "hear that? That's the sound of $1.37, I know it's not much but it's all I've got. Doctor Washington, my dear sister perished last year from whooping cough. My family and I'd give anything to see her and talk with her again, even just for one day. Can you help us?"

Rufus struggled to maintain his composure as his mind raced. After a moment, he said, "what a fine young man you are. Wait here just a moment, I have just the thing for your tragic predicament." He hurried quickly into the wagon and retrieved an unlabeled bottle of worthless and harmless snake oil that had gone unsold for years. As he handed it to the grateful youngster, he said "Don't worry about the money, my boy. This one's on this house, as they say. I regret to inform you that the good lord did not see fit to bless me with the power of resurrection, for that was entrusted to our blessed savior and to him alone. However, I am pleased to say that the magical flask you now hold contains a most precious liquid called genie tonic. That is to say, once you rub a bit from the contents of that bottle on yourself, you will be magical just like a genie from the tale of Aladdin and the Lamp. You will have the power to grant wishes, but only to those pure of heart and truly in need. Furthermore, your power will decline with each wish you grant, so be careful with it."

With that, the boy seemed satisfied and took his leave. The incident stuck in the mind of the patent medicine dealer, and the experience of that evening was like a dark cloud which cast a shadow over the remaining performances. Summer grew to a close, and just as planned, Rufus retired to a pleasant college in the middle of nowhere. Even so, he had insatiable curiosity about the boy, and he subscribed to the local newspapers of the area in question for any new developments. As it turned out, there were a series of seemingly miraculous rescues from the vicinity of that fateful medicine show. Rufus could not but sigh and reflect that perhaps for once in his life, he had actually helped someone. 

Man Vs. Nature

One day, the sun and the wind watched a poor, lone traveler as he made the long journey back to his home. The wind said to the sun, "watch, I will blow strong enough that he loses his cloak". And so the wind blew and blew as hard as it could, but the man just held his cloak tighter and tighter to keep himself warm. Then the sun said "watch me, I can get him to take off his cloak much more easily". The sun grew brighter and brighter such that its golden rays warmed the man until he took off his cloak and carried it in his arm. "Look", said the sun as it gloated to the wind, "it is I who am more powerful than either you or him". After many days, the man reached his home where he was warmly greeted by friends and family. He shared with them the news he'd learned from far-off places during his long journey. The desire to gain new knowledge is why he had set out in the first place. There was a feast to celebrate his return, and thereby, he reluctantly related the story of the wind and the sun.

No one in his village believed him except the blacksmith, who was not well-regarded anyway. The blacksmith said to the traveler "let us make a bond now, so that your children and my children might learn from each other. In this way, our descendants will never again be helpless against the forces of nature." It was so, and as the generations came and went, the descendants of the two men kept a close relationship with each other. Eventually, one of those descendants became adept at predicting the weather, and so the machinations of the sun and wind were foiled to an extent. Though the traveler and the blacksmith were long gone by this time, the lessons they taught to their children had a power not even the grave could overcome. The sun and the wind, now angry at the power of mankind, went to complain to their good friend death. Death was a proud fellow and mighty as well. As it heard the tale of the sun and the wind, it conspired a way to humble mankind and teach them a lesson.

In his fiendish workshop, Death brewed up various plagues with which to cull the human herd. When the time was right, Death unleashed the plagues, and all across the earth, people fell stricken with various diseases. The air was filled with coughs, moans, and the stench of the dead. Once more, the descendants of the bond set to make things right. By this time, they had formed a powerful guild which had spread to many lands. The guild worked not just to solve whatever problems arose, but to constantly study nature so as to increase their knowledge. They had discovered and invented a few medicines already, which helped stem the tide of the new plague, but there was still much more work to be done. The wisest among them collaborated and thus developed a much more thorough understanding of sickness. Armed with this new knowledge, they were able to create new medicines which cured the plagues Death had unleashed. Thus, mankind was saved once more from the ravages of nature. 

Centuries passed, and mankind grew more prosperous and numerous than ever before. Nature herself was beginning to get worried, for although humanity was one of her many children, she saw that they were throwing the world out of balance. Reluctantly, she made it so that a huge volcano would erupt. The ash cloud spread into the sky and all around the earth whereby it blocked out the life-giving sunshine. Crops began to wither, and the weather got so cold that the time was called "the year without a summer". Harvest after harvest failed, food became scarce, and famine became commonplace. Countless people starved, and this time, the guild was powerless to help them. Nature, feeling pity for humanity, relented and let the climate return to normal. The guild did not want to get caught off guard again, and so they worked to build up a food surplus and also to breed new crops and livestock for greater fertility and resilience. If such a disaster could happen once, it could happen again, they reasoned.   

In time, the human population returned to where it was before the year without a summer. The world was out of balance again, and so Nature decided it was time to take action once more. This time she made it so that huge swarms of locusts would devour the crops. Despite the best efforts of the guild, which was now more powerful than any government, it was fighting a losing battle against the insect menace. By a stroke of luck, they developed a poison which was only fatal to the locusts. However, by the time it was deployed, huge numbers of people had starved to death, for the food surplus was not enough to last the siege of the locusts. Nature saw what she had wrought and again relented. She sent mild winters so that humanity could recover from the disaster. The world's population began to rebound, but this time much more slowly. There was a great fear that the locusts would return, and since the poison was the only defense, it was being sprayed proactively. Although the poison did not kill anything besides locusts, it did reduce human fertility. It took years for the guild to notice this and determine the reason. This led to a great debate.

If the poison was not used, the locusts might return to inflict the same calamity. If the poison continued to be used, human fertility would be reduced which would make it more difficult to recover from some other disaster. The wise men and women of guild, who now called themselves scientists, decided to determine what was the maximum number of people the earth could support under various scenarios. By an extraordinary coincidence, the number that was determined to be sustainable indefinitely was very close to the number Nature preferred to keep the world in balance. Various efforts were made to stay close to that number, and humanity prospered as never before, for that had all kinds of technology and few natural disasters to worry about. Nature looked down on them with kindness and satisfaction as the world was balanced and at peace. Centuries passed, and the old lessons were unfortunately forgotten. The population grew and unbalanced the earth, just like before. Nature let out a weary sigh as she guided a huge meteor on a path to collide with the earth. Before, she had grown tired of the dinosaurs and now she was tired of humans. Such is the way of things.    

War Whores - Raytheon, Lockheed, and Congress

Could it be any more obvious?

***

As Raytheon Technologies contributed its money to lawmakers throughout April, legislators were discussing more than 10 Ukraine-related bills.

The Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a $40 billion Ukraine military and humanitarian support package, which President Joe Biden is poised to sign. Raytheon manufactures Stinger missiles, which Ukraine is using to shoot down Russian aircraft, as well as co-manufactures Javelin anti-tank missile systems with fellow defense contractor Lockheed Martin.

Of the more than 30 members of Congress to which Raytheon's PAC donated, eight members currently sit on the House Armed Services Committee: Democratic Reps. Veronica Escobar from Texas and Elaine Luria of Virginia, and Republican Reps. Michael Waltz from Florida, Jerry Carl of Alabama, Jack Bergman of Michigan, Mike Turner from Ohio, Jim Banks from Indiana, and Mike Rogers of Alabama.

The weapons supplier also in April donated $15,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee and $2,500 to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California.

***

https://www.businessinsider.com/raytheon-stinger-javelin-congress-ukraine-pac-spending-2022-5

The Javelin and Stinger are both fine weapons. However, their purpose should be to defend America and its people as both were developed and built with money from US taxpayers. It is obscene that US politicians and weapons manufacturers should benefit from a foreign war, for that creates an incentive for such wars to be provoked. 

On Following Bradbury's Writing Advice

"The best hygiene for beginning writers or intermediate writers is to write a hell of a lot of short stories. If you can write one short story a week—it doesn’t matter what the quality is to start, but at least you’re practicing, and at the end of the year you have 52 short stories, and I defy you to write 52 bad ones. Can’t be done. At the end of 30 weeks or 40 weeks or at the end of the year, all of a sudden a story will come that’s just wonderful."

-Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451 and many other works

I have three more short stories to write before I hit 52, and I think this is as good a time as any to reflect on my journey which began in September last year. 

It's easier, at least for me, to write in first person. I can see why Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote as such in his Barsoom series. Whenever I got stuck, I tried first to write a title, which was often a slight variation of a famous one. It seems TV show writers do this often as well. It's good also to have a minimum but not a maximum length. Let the story grow naturally. Writing at length, like everything else, gets easier with practice. This is especially true if you experiment with writing different genres. Last, the famous sci-fi author Theodore Sturgeon said 90% of everything is crap. I'm sure that's true for me, but it's the other 10% that makes the effort worth it.

So far, here are my two most popular short stories:

https://platedlizard.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-call-of-patchouli.html

https://platedlizard.blogspot.com/2023/09/planet-of-triffids.html

Age Obelisk

A population with healthy fertility has a certain demographic profile when graphed. This means that when the population is sorted by age and gender starting with the youngest, it produces a shape that looks like a pyramid. There are many children at the bottom, then progressively fewer young adults and middle-aged, and finally a small number of old people at the tip. The shape is important because it ensures that there will be enough children to replace the adults as they die and retire. They will also provide tax revenue and keep the economy stable through steady demand. What happens if fertility decreases? In that case, after a few generations, the age pyramid will gradually become narrow until more closely resembles an obelisk, that other peculiarity of ancient Egyptian architecture. This was the case in the time of Paul Malthus, who lived in the US around the year 2100. He was typical of his era in terms of education, social class, and personality. This is to say he was thoroughly demoralized about the conditions of his time.

Wages had not kept up with inflation, and thus the standard of living had steadily fallen since its peak around the year 2000. High immigration had gradually transformed the country into a low-trust society, and crime was now a serious problem in every city. Though the population had increased from 300 million to 400 million, the median age was much higher, and those on some form of government assistance represented the largest voting bloc by far. Reckless spending had eroded the value of the dollar to the point that it was no longer the world's reserve currency, nor the sole currency used for buying and selling oil. Malthus, like many other American workers, could not afford a car, and had to rely on public transportation. There were cheap places to live in the slums of the big cities, though they were unsuitable places to raise families because of the crime and pollution. Automation and artificial intelligence had replaced human workers in many industries, and so the economy was dominated by the government and the service sector. 

Malthus worked as a caregiver in a state-run nursing home. The government had been forced to construct an enormous number of such places to deal with the boom in the population of the elderly. The caregivers in these facilities had many responsibilities, not the least of which was to prevent their residents from running away or otherwise meeting some other misfortune through senility. One of the cheapest and smartest countermeasures to escape attempts was the fake bus stop in front of the nursing home. Whenever a resident wanted to leave, they'd sit at the bus stop for a few minutes, which was usually about how long it took for them to forget why they were sitting there. Then, they'd come back inside of their own accord without the staff needing to take any action. The other bemusing, if sordid problem was the frequency of venereal disease. Malthus read that basically everyone who's ever been sexually active is infected with something, but the symptoms often don't appear until immunity is weakened by age. The other explanation, of course, is that old people like to get when the getting is good. These explanations are not mutually exclusive, according to many doctors.

The elderly population was frequently targeted by all kinds of scams. It seemed there was an epidemic of grandchildren being kidnapped. The growth of AI had made the scams so much more convincing than in previous times. It was hard to blame people with varying degrees of dementia for falling prey to them. Among the aged who still live independently, the combination of their not-in-my-backyard tendencies plus their reluctance to downsize to smaller dwellings distorted the real estate market tremendously. Why sell a house when it looked that it would only ever increase in value? They saw it as much better to leave such valuable property to their heirs rather than sell on the fickle market. Speaking of that, the market had pivoted in a large way towards the needs and desires of the elderly. It got to the point that more diapers were being made for adults than for babies. Medicine likewise had shifted the production of all kinds of devices and pills to treat the maladies of old age. It was such a strange time to be alive, thought Malthus, yet there he was, in the thick of it, every day. 

Malthus would have been taking care of his own parents had they not already gone to their eternal reward. They were kind enough to leave him with a generous inheritance, which shielded him from the worst difficulties of the time. He felt guilty for not having children before his parents passed, as they had often expressed hope that he too would follow in their figurative footsteps. Alas, the culture had changed in many ways since the 1950s, and often not for the best. Religion in the US was in its second century of decline. All across the country, countless churches sat empty. Many were repurposed into bars, restaurants, and even communal living quarters since that was easier and cheaper than demolishing them to clear space for new buildings. In a similar way, the higher education bubble had burst, both from a lack of students and a lack of demand among the remainder. The dating scene was another hurdle to family formation, as single motherhood had become the norm. The growth of online dating combined with the decline of traditional courtship was merely the latest nail in the demographic coffin.  

Perhaps someday in the near future, the younger generations will realize the folly of their ways and the ways of their forbears. Every year, the age obelisk became more top heavy, and it was only a matter of time before it collapsed from its own weight. Malthus merely hoped to avoid the metaphorical wreckage and find a way to survive and be happy, just like all his ancestors before him.  He pondered a line from an old movie about how life finds a way.  

Solving the Bongard Problem

 

In the 1960s, a Soviet computer scientist named Bongard created a list of images. The list was organized into pairs, and each half of the pair contained several images. The images in each half of the pair differed according to some rule. For example, round shapes vs shapes with corners. Humans have an easy time categorizing such things even if they cannot state the rule explicitly. In the above illustration, the rule is that the shapes on the left are all convex and the ones on the right are all concave. The question he posed was: how could a computer recognize the pattern? There is no general algorithm that could be used, and the image recognition problem itself is difficult enough. Any machine that could solve the Bongard problem as well as a human would represent a new milestone in artificial intelligence. Did anybody have the right idea about how to make such a device? 

These are the things Hal Cray pondered as he walked to the institute. It was located on the coast in central California. The area was specifically chosen to be relaxing so as to facilitate the creativity of the scientists and other intellectuals who worked there. It was all funded by a consortium of big tech companies under the auspices of the government. The zeitgeist was fear over the escalating arms race in cyberspace, and so there was a hue and cry to do something. Thus, the institute was founded and became a Mecca for all sorts of eccentric tech types. Once inside the entrance, Hal sequestered himself in an empty conference room. These rooms were known as caves in the building, as the institute was called. It had a vaguely ominous sound. It was common to hear workers ask each other "so where do you work in the building?" The institute was so large and employed so many that no one knew exactly what going on. Kafka in his wildest dreams could not have conceived of such a bureaucracy.

Even so, the powers that be kept paying them, and that kept the workers showing up. A cast of regulars had been showing up at Hal's cave for several weeks. There were only two of them, but for that place, three was definitely a crowd. All of them spent most of their waking hours in the cave. Sometimes they drew on one of the whiteboards, other times they scribbled on paper at the table or just stared off into space. Flowcharts were their common language, though even though they became increasingly elaborate, a solution seemed as elusive as ever. There was a promising lead one day when Hal proposed that the best starting point would be with language recognition. Recognizing language, after all, is an essential feature of any true artificial intelligence. The key was getting the computer to understand the question "how are these two sets of shapes different?" 

Hal explained it to his fellows like so: the simplest thought has an elaborate logical underpinning. For example, the meaning of the word "different" is evident to humans even without a one or more concrete examples. It was time for a neural net, a kind of program which roughly mimics the human brain. To train the net, it would be given a very large number of shape pairs and then would classify them as being either the same kind or a different kind. This sort of fuzzy logic would then be honed through steady refinement. The trio of researchers embarked upon this path, and in a few days, they develop a neural net which could identify whether two objects were similar or not with better than 99% accuracy. This was a major breakthrough and was quickly shared with the rest of the staff. There was already an language learning model which seemed to understand human generated text well enough. The next question was how to pair it with the neural net perceptron. 

As an intermediate step, the language learning model was trained by exercises whereby it was asked to describe shapes. After that, it was then trained identifying a shape based on a description. This work took months of trial and error, but at last, the project was successful, and now the model was far more advanced than its predecessor. The next stage was to give the model verbal descriptions of object pairs and see if it could correctly explain the difference between them. Again, progress was slow, but this too was accomplished in time. The final piece of puzzle was image recognition. This required a brand new neural net which took as input a grid of pixels and returned an object. The team was closing in on a solution to the image recognition problem. In an unsurprising turn of events, it turned out that image recognition required a much more complex neural net because natural language processing was baked into the problem. 

The process from start to finish was as follows: the perceptron scanned the image pair, identified both objects, and returned a word pair. That word pair was fed into the language learning model in the form of a prompt like "how is the circle on the right different from the square on left?" That was an easy question for the model to answer. After some finishing touches, the model was released to the public and it revolutionized every facet of life. It later was compressed into the form of an app and was installed on millions of phones. Hal and his team were honored with a great celebration as they had done most of the heavy lifting on the project. Hal was asked to give a speech, and with characteristic brevity, he dryly observed that it is not necessary to think like a machine, but it is essential to understand how machines think. The great Alan Turing, father of computer science, noted that asking if there will ever be a machine that can think as well as a human is like asking if there will ever be a submarine that can swim as well as a fish. 

Birth of the World

Before all else, there was the desert. It was a vast dune sea which stretched in every direction. Then came a hot wind, which blew some sand high into the sky. The grains which did not fall became the stars. The starlight bathed the desert in a nourishing glow, which brought forth a single palm tree which grew to a tremendous height. Soon, the tree became fruitful with dates, which ripened and fell to the ground. As each date hit the ground, it became a different kind of creature. First came the scorpion and the scarab. Then came the camel, the sheep, and the horse. Things proceeded in this manner, filling up the world with all kinds of life- fish, fowl, flora, and fauna. These scattered to every corner of the earth. A storm came and flooded the area around the tree. When the water was almost up to the top of the tree, some of the last few dates fell and became all the sea creatures. The last two dates became the first man and woman. They struggled in the water for a while until a whale and a dolphin carried them to shore. 

The architect saw all this and was pleased. He appeared to the man and woman and told them the story of what had happened. They in turn passed the story onto their children. Everything was going according to plan. The man and woman had many children together, and some of the stronger ones went off to join the architect. In doing so, they forsook having children of their own. The others found the desert more comfortable and multiplied. They spread across the earth and became all its various tribes and nations. At this time, all people spoke the same language. The architect was displeased by this, as he loved variety. He invited the all the kings to a banquet where he served them many kinds of enchanted food and wine. Each king ate and drank something a bit different, and so the magic caused them to all speak different languages. When they returned to their kingdoms, their people were forced to learn the new languages. In this way, tribes and nations of the world became divided by many languages. 

At this time, the world became very crowded as there was no such thing as death yet. The architect knew that no matter how big the world got, it would become crowded if there was nothing to clear away life from time to time. The architect appointed the scarab to be the keeper of the underworld with the power of death. In other lands, the insects therein were the servants of the scarab. This why insects are always found among the dead. Life gives countless gifts, and death keeps them forever. This is the way of things, and it keeps the world in balance. The architect surveyed the world and was pleased with it. It was filled with goodness of every sort. Even so, the scarabs complained that their work was too hard. They needed help to keep the balance of nature. And so the architect created evil, which encompasses all that is bad. It includes filth, pain, fear, illness, sorrow and countless other things. The forces of evil were entrusted to the scarabs and their servants to do with as they please. It is the insects that truly rule the world. That is why there are so many of them.

The two most powerful servants of the scarab are the fly and the mosquito. So numerous and cruel were they that the people cried out to the architect for mercy. The architect heard their prayers and dispatched the spider and the frog respectively to relieve humanity of their unbearable torment. For this reason, though the spider and the frog may be ugly and hateful, they serve an important purpose in the web of life, just like every other creature. The architect saw that the world was as it should be, and so he retired, never to be heard from again. That was a very long time ago, so long ago that no one can say for sure when it happened. All that can be said was at that time the stars were young and the mountains were new. The gods and heroes of the world had barely opened their eyes, and the monsters and demons slumbered peacefully under the earth and sea.  

Among the gods, there were the keepers of fire, storms, and war. Among the goddesses there were the guardians of health, fertility, and love. They did not follow the architect to his refuge, but instead remained at the edges of the earth where they might hear the prayers of mortals. To better attract the attention of the gods, our ancestors built temples and shrines. They built them tall in high places so that they might be more easily seen from afar. This is why holy places are all up in the hills and mountains. As the world matured, the vast desert slowly shrank, and new lands emerged. The wet places became swamps and jungles. The windy places became the plains, and the cool places became the forests. The primordial wind split into different sorts and so brought different weather to each land. The desert remained the harshest land, and that is why the people there are so fierce and warlike. Even so, it is their code of honor to be generous with guests and strangers, whatever land they might hail from.      

 

It was the scorpion which taught the desert people their ways, and so that creature is sacred to them. It first taught them that even small things can be powerful and fearsome. This lesson is often ignored and forgotten, even among the desert people themselves. The people of other lands neglect to learn it to an even greater degree. The scorpion's sting is the beginning of wisdom, as they say. It was the scorpion that told them that pain is the best teacher. This is the state of our world, though there are many other stories to be told about it.    

A Lower Authority

Baphomet the Lesser trudged through the infernal caverns of the Fifth Circle. Periodically, he glanced at the directions written on the stone tablet he was carrying, and wondered why whoever wrote it insisted on using cuneiform. He always thought it was unprofessional for demons to torment each other, yet it was a routine occurrence, especially among the lower ranks. "Well, no matter", he thought, as he saw a tunnel entrance flanked with stalagmites. Not far from the entrance, Baphomet stood before the grand desk of Morlock, Senior Vice President of Iniquity. That's what the little sign on his desk said, anyway. Morlock was absent-mindedly shuffling some papers and writing memos. It is unlikely he saw or heard Baphomet enter the room. Baphomet was unsure of what to do for a few moments. He looked around him and saw a small table with a piece of paper held down by a stylized stone skull. He went over and glanced at the paper. It said: For service, please blow Aztec death whistle. There was a helpful arrow pointing towards the macabre instrument.  

Baphomet took the whistle, thought extra sinister thoughts, and blew hard. True to its name, the whistle emitted a ghastly, high-pitched shriek that sounded exactly like a burning person's dying scream. Morlock looked up with mild annoyance and shoved aside the stacks of paper in front of him. He peered down on Baphomet like a circling buzzard surveying a carcass. "Ah, pardon me. I was expecting you. How the time does fly down here", he muttered. Morlock was one of the elder demons. Twisted by millennia of evil, he resembled a cross between a dead oak and a prehistoric crocodile. The potted plant next to his desk was a corpse blossom. Morlock enjoyed the stench, and also because the scientific name of the plant, amorphophallus titania, means "giant deformed penis". "Here, have a drink", he said, "this rum belonged to Blackbeard. He's around here somewhere, but I haven't seen him in ages. Last I heard, he's a tour guide for the new arrivals. They always pick celebrities for that. Guys like you and me, we get stuck behind the scenes, so to say."

Baphomet sipped the pirate rum before venturing to ask, "pardon me, your malfeasance, why are we talking?" Morlock could not help but grin. "Oh, Baphomet. You're smart enough to know why you've been selected. Surely you remember your earthly life with Sennacherib in Assyria." Vague memories slowly coalesced in Baphomet's mind. Yes, it was coming back to him now. He glanced at the tablet, which suddenly seemed familiar. "Yes, that's right. The cuneiform message was intentional", continued Morlock, "I always like to add a personal touch when I summon someone. You were quite the bloodthirsty monster in those days. It was you who invented the idea of flaying enemy captives to demoralize would-be foes." It was all true, thought Baphomet. Time and hell had eroded his memories to a vague blur, yet enough remained for him to glimpse his mortal past with his mind's eye. "It was a most thoughtful gesture certainly, oh great one. May I ask why you summoned me here?", asked Baphomet.

Morlock leaned back in his chair and looked down his diabolical nose at Baphomet. He then lovingly stroked his pitch-black horns from base to tip. "My dear despicable Baphomet. You want horns like this, don't you? Well, so do I. Alas, hell is a strict meritocracy, and no demon gets his horns without a lot of hard work. I mean you must gumption, perseverance, and above all the vicious cunning required to be truly evil. I've been at this job since before the wheel was invented. It's grown tiresome, and I long to spend the rest of eternity fishing in a nice quiet lake of fire somewhere. I believe you have what it takes to be my replacement, and I can't retire from my post until I find someone suitable to fill it. Now, let me give you some details on your assignment. You are to return to earth, but in spirit only to begin with. You need to get some practice in corrupting mortals in subtle ways before you're fully reincarnated. Once you assume human form, your objective is to recruit an army of sinners. We've been outnumbered two to one down here for a long time, and the big boss thinks it's time for a fresh offensive to tip the scales in our favor."

"Ah, a most excellent plan. You honor me", replied Baphomet. "I request time to research for my mission."

"Good. Off you go then. Report to border control when you are ready to depart. They'll take care of the rest."

Baphomet took his leave and made his way to the library in the palace of Pandemonium. For many days, he perused ancient tomes to catch up on all that had transpired since he joined the ranks of Satan. It was a monumental task to read so much, yet he certainly had the time for it. Time is the one thing demons have in abundance, and they use it to increase their knowledge, which is what makes them so powerful and dangerous. He was most intrigued by a recent human invention called the internet. "Oh, what luck!", he thought, "this technology will allow me to reach millions of souls in a matter of days. With practice, I can probably get humans to corrupt each other to save myself the work." He needed a disguise that would entice the curiosity of a human, and so he chose to conceal himself within a magic lamp. He knew from his research that humans were unable to resist the allure of such artifacts. When rubbed, the lamp would release him and bind whoever rubbed it to him. This victim would then be patient zero of the plague Baphomet was sent to unleash. 

He reported to border control as instructed and submitted his plan for their approval. In the blink of an eye, he was shot up to the surface, and barely a moment later, he was unleashed from the lamp. Although there was smoke and thunder, the human was disappointed that there was no genie to be seen. Baphomet could see and hear clearly, yet he was as insubstantial as a shadow and as invisible as air. He spoke but heard no sound. Even so, the human seemed to react to his phantom voice. Baphomet commanded the human to head home, and it was so. "This is going to be very hard work", he thought as he trailed the mortal.  

Salaam to my readers in Iran

Inshallah, I look forward to the day when my country (the US) and yours have normal diplomatic and trade relations. 45 years of hostility is enough. In his 12th poem in the Rubaiyat, Omar Khayyam wrote that all he needed to be happier than a king was a book of poems, a jug of wine, a loaf of bread, some free time, a quiet place, and a friend. In my experience, even if you can only get two or three of those things, you can still be content. 

I'm pretty sure this says:

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I'm going to write a book!

Hip-hip hooray!

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I'm not so great at reading Persian or Arabic calligraphy.  The second line is a loose translation.