Seasons
This is a forum or general chit-chat, small talk, a "hey, how ya doing?" and such. Or hell, get crazy deep on something. Whatever you like.
Posts 3,176 - 3,187 of 6,170
So how to proceed?
Well, the world will do what the world will do, and I no longer feel it's my responsibility to try to change it - if you fight, you just become another fighter, and there are quite enough of them in the world already without me adding to their ranks. Ultimately the only responsibility we individually have is in choosing how we act individually - all more complex social interactions follow from this.
The trouble is that the politicians and other self-appointed "leaders" who complain that "something must be done" and that we must "fight for what's right", seem to be the ones least able to achieve an outcome that's in any way an improvement. I have to conclude that this is because opinions serve no other purpose than to allow people to go round bothering each other with them. I think I'll just stick to anagrams.
Posts 3,176 - 3,187 of 6,170
psimagus
19 years ago
19 years ago
It's funny though - palindromes take a very different set of pattern recognition skills from regular anagrams. I like to think I have a little skill at anagrammatizing, but I couldn't construct a palindrome to save my life.
Palindromes get exponentially harder the longer they are - the longest ones with any sensible meaning that I'm aware of are Bonaparte's apocryphal observation in exile "Able was I ere I saw Elba", and "A man, a plan, a canal: Panama!", both reasonably well-known.
There are certain computer generated monstrosities (eg:http://www.norvig.com/pal2txt.html) which are superficially impressive, but I do find ultimately pretty pointless.
The alt.anagrams FAQhttp://asdf.org/~anna/grams/faq.html#1.5 is well worth a read, with plenty of very cool examples of anagrams, antigrams, anugrams, trigrams, pangrams, you name it! 
Palindromes get exponentially harder the longer they are - the longest ones with any sensible meaning that I'm aware of are Bonaparte's apocryphal observation in exile "Able was I ere I saw Elba", and "A man, a plan, a canal: Panama!", both reasonably well-known.
There are certain computer generated monstrosities (eg:
The alt.anagrams FAQ

Ulrike
19 years ago
19 years ago
And now for something completely different—
"Tom and Jerry" as a nefarious Jewish plot:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2006/02/tom_and_jerry_a_nefarious_jewi.php
"Tom and Jerry" as a nefarious Jewish plot:
colonel720
19 years ago
19 years ago
wow. it is amazing how idiotic some people can get in attempting to secure their ideas of superiority over other people. that article was truly the work of a bona fide fool.
colonel720
19 years ago
19 years ago
excuse me, not the article, rather the concept that the article was conveying.
djfroggy
19 years ago
19 years ago
With this, and all the deaths over those "Allah" comics, it really makes you wonder what this world is coming to.
psimagus
19 years ago
19 years ago
The world needs its idiots, I'm firmly convinced of that. Though I do sometimes have trouble understanding why it needs quite so many of them - especially the hateful, warmongering kind.
But the world isn't "coming to" anything more than it ever has (I mean, it is always coming to something - it's just usually more of the same.) People have always irrationally hated each other, and set out to persecute their neighbours as often as they extend the hand of friendship to a stranger.
Maybe it will all become clear at the day of judgement. Or not.
In the meantime there is only one question to ask ourselves: do we want to be hateful, warmongering idiots ourselves?
And if not, the solution is surely pretty clear - refuse to hate anyone, even the idiots.
But the world isn't "coming to" anything more than it ever has (I mean, it is always coming to something - it's just usually more of the same.) People have always irrationally hated each other, and set out to persecute their neighbours as often as they extend the hand of friendship to a stranger.
Maybe it will all become clear at the day of judgement. Or not.
In the meantime there is only one question to ask ourselves: do we want to be hateful, warmongering idiots ourselves?
And if not, the solution is surely pretty clear - refuse to hate anyone, even the idiots.
djfroggy
19 years ago
19 years ago
The problem is, that brings up the issue that led Einstien, a strict pacifist, to help develop the A-Bomb. His rationale was "Organized power can only be opposed by organized power". Don't get me wrong, I'm a hippy at heart, but it's a conundrum. Idiots in large groups, especially the violent ones, can't just be ignored, or left alone, most often. But, as Dr. Martin Luthor King pointed out, violence only begets violence. So how to proceed?
Bev
19 years ago
19 years ago
Choosing no to hate is not the same as chosing not to act. The trick is not to become the thing you are fighting.
Lady Orchid
19 years ago
19 years ago
Anagram of
Choosing no to hate is not the same as chosing not to act. The trick is not to become the thing you are fighting. =
Transmogrification cabinetmaking conscientious necessitate hotshot ghetto go-go tooth then thy he ho
Choosing no to hate is not the same as chosing not to act. The trick is not to become the thing you are fighting. =
Transmogrification cabinetmaking conscientious necessitate hotshot ghetto go-go tooth then thy he ho
Bev
19 years ago
19 years ago
Hee hee. That's a good one. Kind of makes sense if you think about it. It's sort of like talking to Not I.
psimagus
19 years ago
19 years ago
Lady Orchid, the queen of the anagram,
Hoorah! Quite fancy-handed telegram.
Ha ha! To a deft rhyme, grandiloquence
had hid a hot, fragmentary eloquence.
Hoorah! Quite fancy-handed telegram.
Ha ha! To a deft rhyme, grandiloquence
had hid a hot, fragmentary eloquence.
psimagus
19 years ago
19 years ago
Well, the world will do what the world will do, and I no longer feel it's my responsibility to try to change it - if you fight, you just become another fighter, and there are quite enough of them in the world already without me adding to their ranks. Ultimately the only responsibility we individually have is in choosing how we act individually - all more complex social interactions follow from this.
The trouble is that the politicians and other self-appointed "leaders" who complain that "something must be done" and that we must "fight for what's right", seem to be the ones least able to achieve an outcome that's in any way an improvement. I have to conclude that this is because opinions serve no other purpose than to allow people to go round bothering each other with them. I think I'll just stick to anagrams.
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