Acceptable in a six-year-old
When Niall had his sixth birthday last month, we had a birthday at Chuck E Cheese’s. Because they’re six, my mom made the other boy1 a small bag of “stuff” so he wouldn’t feel left out. We warned Niall of this in advance, and at first he was very upset, then worked through it, making sure, in his words, “His toys won’t be bigger than mine, will they?”
I was listening to a truly vile Republican on KPCC today — one of those insufferable brats who worries that his fellow citizens could get rewards, too, but might — might might might — be OK with it if he can guarantee that he will be much more equal than everyone else.
Niall is six, and I can work on training him out of it. The Repubs, though: I just want Obama to match the picture and say:
1 Yes, singular. Really, it’s OK: 1 is the ideal number of guests as far as Niall is concerned, being the smallest integer greater than or equal to the number of guests he’s comfortable having (approximately 0.4). There is so much of me in him. While I think I can program out the greed in him, I have no idea how — or, indeed, whether — to code having an easier time at parties, or to like people more. Something something Jenn something something LiveJournal something something the first indication of a culture clash is people who would use fucking LiveJournal in the first place something something [redacted].
Subscribe by email
November 10th, 2009 at 12h57
Socialization is hard to predict in the long run, and at Niall’s age I don’t even know prediction with anything approaching accuracy is possible. From the ages of four to twelve, I was an introverted kid somewhat famous in my family for having only one friend at a time. I would latch onto a single kid to the exclusion of all others, and I was extremely possessive of that particular friend. Like other forms of monogamy, it was an inclination that I’d eventually outgrow.
At 12 I discovered D&D, so the number of people with whom I was comfortable socializing increased from one to four. Then at 16 I attended my first LARP, which raised my comfortable social number from four to somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty. At 18 I got my first hit of MDMA, which prompted a jump from thirty to several thousand. Today I’m extroverted to a degree that I don’t think that anyone who knew me at Niall’s age could have guessed.
Goes to show you never can tell.
November 11th, 2009 at 01h39
See, one shouldn’t do drugs. They keep one from realizing that, on the whole, people suck. They’re kind of like religion, Pokémon, and E! (4.26082048) that way: once you leave, you never think of going back. Except, you know, for the inherently antisocial drugs I might favor. Gah I don’t understand the draw of stimulants, hallucinogens, or — um — whatever class MDMA is in. But I suppose that’s because I like to be sedate, alone, and don’t like to wander too deeply into the alleys of my fucked-up mind.
See, that’s like “There on the red carpet is 4.26 Entertainment News” Right? Γ(z)? Log-convexity? Anybody? OK, sorry.
November 11th, 2009 at 01h51
Right? Γ(z)? Log-convexity? Anybody? OK, sorry.
You know, ten years ago I would have been able to derive that joke for you if I had graph paper or MathML. I just discovered that … um … I can’t now. The explanation would involve this:
Anyway, here you go.