From: Tonya ([email protected])
Date: 7/14/2001
Subj: Hi

Hello,
I read your story. I am so curious about what goes on in the Marines. Well my name is Tonya. I have a boyfriend that just recently joined the Marines. Well actually he left Monday July 9 on his way to San Diego, Ca. I haven’t heard from him since. As you probably know, I miss him alot. I was wondering if you could help me. I just want to know his address. I want to know what kind of stuff will be go through. If you have time could you e-mail me back with some information on what’s going on, I am so lost. Please help me. [Name deleted] If you would like to send me an instant message my screen name is missadriana343. I would love to hear from you, and I have alot of questions about the Marines. If you return this message soon I would be so thankful. I am so sorry to bother you.

I don’t know how soon he will write you; he’s going to be very busy for a while. Mind you, it has been a long time since I was in and the procedure may have changed; however I expect that it is much the same.

When I went in the first thing that happens is that they put you in Receiving Barracks. Recruits are trained in platoons. Receiving Barracks is where they put incoming recruits until they have enough to form a platoon. This may take anywhere from a day to a week. In Receiving Barracks they cut all of your hair off (new recruits are called skinheads and look funny because the skin on their heads is untanned). You aren’t issued uniforms until you get into a platoon – you get something like sweat pants and a t-shirt. Oh yes, you very quickly learn that drill instructors shout at you a lot. He won’t have much free time. Don’t expect to hear from him for the first two weeks. See Tibby72062 below for a day in boot camp

I don’t know what his official address would be although I suspect that you could send it to Recruit [Name Deleted], Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, CA and it would get to him. You might ask the people at the local recruiting office for more info. In any case I have some practical advice for you. Do not, I repeat DO NOT, perfume your letters or put anything cutesy on them. He will receive highly unwanted attention from the DI’s if you do. Likewise do not send him any gifts or newspapers.

From: Ben ([email protected])
Date: 7/23/2001
Subj: page hit math

Just read your latest editorial, and it was OK. It seemed like a serious piece of writing, but maybe I missed the “tongue in cheek.” Anyway, where was I…. oh, yeah, you say you get 10,000 hits per day, but your home page counter sez it’s been hit 1722 times since July 1st. That’z about 3 weeks ago, and I don’t know how to do the math, but it seems like @ 10,000 a day the number should be bigger. Anyway, just letting you know. Love your site, it’s sort of a “slum city”….. Ben

Some people say that I have my tongue so deep in my cheek that I can clean my ears with it. The thing about the counter thingie is that most people don’t access my site through the home page. Maybe I should post a breakdown one of these. You’re right, it’s definitely a slum city.

From: Dan Ryles ([email protected])
Date: 7/12/2001
Subj: slight oversight

Hey there. I’m the guy who sent you that “Humor — court case” awhile back. Just thought I’d report on a small oversight I’ve seen in your humor section. There are two links that lead to the same story, the one about that big dude who gets on the bus and refuses to pay. For your convenience, I’ll give them below.

http://www.tiac.net/users/cri/bigjohn.html

http://www.tiac.net/users/cri/bigbadjohn.html

One is called “big bad John,” and the other is called “big John doesn’t pay.” Funny story, as most of this stuff is funny. just thought I’d bring that to your attention. After all, what’s a raving insomniac to do at 3:45 AM but nitpick? ha ha.

I spotted that myself a few days ago. One of these days I will have to do something about it. It’s a bit of work though because I have to fuss with the links to those pages. I am impressed that you caught it.

You have answered one question that has been bugging me, namely who reads this stuff. Now I know the answer, raving insomniacs. That takes care of who reads it in the middle of the night. I dunno who reads it in the daytime. Maybe it’s raving insomniac night people.

From: To: “Adrian Hills” ([email protected])
Date: 7/9/2001
Subj: Piltdown Man

Hi Richard,
Just a note to say hello and thanks for the communications. I handed my paper in at the end of May. I was amused to read your discussion, particularly as it consumately sums up the situation regarding the JLB/Radar controversy.

The result was that I decided to ‘stop the Buck’ and directly stated my opinion, even though Prof. Malcolm Baird, J.L.B’s son asked me to mute my opinion. My paper was nevertheless accepted and hopefully the Baird historians can lay that particular controversy to rest. Malcolm will be releasing a book on his father in March, so I effectively tried to make it easier for him to discuss something which otherwise he would have to ignore or confront himself. He is a very diplomatic man and tries to keep all sides happy – which sometimes isn’t possible.

There is an old saying, “Diplomacy is the art of saying ‘Nice Doggy’ while you are reaching for a rock.” I suppose I should look up Baird on the web but I probably won’t. In any event I’m pleased that your paper has been accepted and that all went well.

From: To: Tibby72062 ([email protected])
Date: 7/12/2001
Subj: my son is joining the marines

hello, my son just returned from albany where he had his physical for the marines. i’m so proud of him and realize that he drastically needs to change his lifestyle as he is very lazy and undisaplined. i think this will be a good thing for him but i’m really concerned about boot camp. the recruiters are painting real pretty picture for my son. i know they are basically salesman. i really would like someone to tell me the real deal with boot camp. explain an average day. my son is a wonderful kid. he has nener given me a day of troubl in his 18 years, but i’m worried as i know the real him which is a very sensitive gentle boy. i know he dosnt like that about himself and he feels the marines will make him more aggresive. i’m just worried he wont be tough enough but i dont want to say that to him to discourage him. but i wish he knew the real deal from someone who lived it. thank you

Don’t worry about it. Boot camp will be a shock to him; it won’t hurt him. We human beings are tougher than we realize. Most recruits are like your son; boot camp is designed to bring out in them the capabilities that they didn’t know that they have.

What is a day in boot camp like? I don’t know what it is like now but I don’t imagine that it has changed a great deal. The schedule runs something like this:

You live in a barracks with about 50 other recruits. You have a bunk, a wall locker, and a foot locker (a large wooden box which you can lock). You get up early to the sound of reville (you’re always just a little short of sleep). You wash up, shave, dress, and fall into formation. The drill instructor inspects the formation and informs you individually and as a group of your shortcomings – he is not polite about it. You are marched to breakfast. The day is spent marching in formation, exercising, and attending classes. In the evening you will do things like shining shoes and possibly writing letters. Everything you do is done as a group activity. You will have no luxuries; candy counts as a luxury. The food will be filling; there is a reason they call them mess halls. You will be shouted at a lot and you will run a lot.

It’s a shock to the system but it really isn’t all that hard. Remember – a lot of young men and women have gone through the same thing, young men and women much like your son. He will be uncomfortable (an understatement) but he will do very well and afterwards he will be glad he did it.

It’s kind of ironic that the P.C. groups were part of the production, but the target audience hated it so much. 🙂

But of course. I get my irony at K-mart. It may be cheap but I can get it in quantity.

From: To: connie sands ([email protected])
Date: 7/7/2001
Subj: Thank you-

Dear Richard – I have written before.
I like the way your mind works [an ego statement if I ever heard one] Thank you for – “I spent my life – -”

I’m happy that my mind works at all – pay no attention to those rumors that it doesn’t work. I assume (perhaps incorrectly) that you are referring to the poem (to use the term liberally) that goes

I spent my youth on growing old
To live a tale that now is told
The years I spent, they were not lost
Life itself was worth the cost.

If that is your reference then that first line joins the select company of lines that are often misquoted – the one about gilding the lily is the most notorious. The question that perplexes me now is whether the line should in fact read “I spent my life on growing old”. The meaning shifts; at the moment I’m inclined to think that it’s a better line.

From: To: “Irene George” Date: 7/3/2001
Subj: hello

hello ok the xmen kick ass don’t bother them k!?!? bye

The X-men are fiction; you, I regret to say, are not.

PS: My website has nothing to do with the mutantwatch.com website. Please pay attention to where you are sending email.

From: To: Anders Elfgren ([email protected])
Date: 7/3/2001
Subj: A thing you missed about Fermi

Hi.
I found your page while writing a mail to a friend of mine. She’d asked me if I believe in aliens, well actually I think she just said that she does it, and I felt the need to enlighten her with a theory that isn’t that well known; the Fermi paradox.

I found your page about it very interesting, since I had only read about it briefly before in a SciAm magazine about a year ago. Anyway, what I was going to ask was : How come you haven’t included the reason that we might be simulated in some kind of computer that can only has enough ‘power’ to simulate life on _one planet. This is a theory that I have come up with on my own, although I am certain that others have come to the conclusion that it is quite likely (at least 50% chance, I could explain why if you want 🙂 ) that this world is simulated in some sort of computer. Not matrix-style though, in my theory We Don’t Exist at all, except in a way similar to NPCs in games such as Fallout (We are not 2 meters tall, a variable in the simulation tells us that we are, etc).

Now that is an interesting proposition. The idea that only that part of the universe immediately around us is real (or a computer simulation – samee/samee) and the rest is staging has been used in one form or another in many SF stories but never as far as I know as an explanation for the Fermi paradox. It makes a nice syllogism:

1. If the universe outside our solar system exists then it will have aliens.
2. If there are aliens they will have been here in the past.
3. They have not been here in the past.
4. Therefore the universe outside outside our solar system does not exist.

Mind you, I don’t believe the conclusion for a moment but the logic is sound.

Nobody has raised the question before. There is a physicist, I don’t recall his name offhand, who seriously argues that the universe is one gigantic digital simulation. I don’t know offhand how we could ever tell whether it is or not; if so, then it is a difference that makes no difference. It would matter if we could, so to speak, go behind the screen and manipulate the programming.

Random – does it exist? I can’t bring myself to believe in it, because it seems absolutely redicoulus that say for example the outcome of a die, when cast, is not based completely on the factors such as velocity, angle, friction etc, but also on the fact that something we call random affects it in some way. Somemight say that random only affects larger things, or that it isn’t that strong, ie it might only be able to change to what neuron the electrical charges jump to in our brain. Note that I have no real idea of how a brain works, or even if I am somewhat close with what I just said, but I hope you see what I mean.

If quantum mechanics is correct (and to date it is more correct by a large margin than any other part of physics) than the universe is constructed out of randomness; the order that we perceive is a statistical regularity.

Be that as it may, the outcome of the casting of a die is effectively random in that arbitrarily small variations in the initial conditions have macroscopic consequences – assuming that the die isn’t being cast by dice mechanic.

I don’t think it matters – the future is unknowable. That is, it cannot be calculated; it can only be experienced

Thank you for the kind words. There is indeed a lot of content. Few, I would imagine, will ever make their way through the entirety.

… continued on next rock …

This is pretty much what I think. I have two arguments as to why I believe we might be simulated. First, the theory I came up with first (duh! 🙂 ) : Supposing we overcome the speed problems of the kind of cmputers we use today (they will according to most people be as fast as they can be in about 10-20 years or so), and are able to build extremely fast computers, simulations will be made. Whether if it becomes a product that is only used in a couple of labs, or a massivly used game (how cool wouldn’t it be to join a world and do whatever you want, whereever you want, with more or less real people with quite intelligent AI (ie. us)), the chance for this world to be the real one is a lot smaller than we think. In other words, if 10 million people has the access to a game that simulates the world under the 20th century, the chance that our world is the real one is 1/(10^7)

What do you mean “our world”? As far as I know you’re the output from an AI module. What is more it doesn’t have to be a very high powered module – all it has to do is produce some interesting text. Naturally you will protest that you are the real thing but then that’s what you AI modules do.

What I’m coming to is the fact that I can imagine more or less an unlimited amount of us to be simulated. For example, we can be part of someones dreams, that is not an impossibility. We could also be simulated in a world completely different from ours (think aliens with 2 heads living in a 4-dimensional world thinking it’d be interesting to see how a world that is ‘only’ three-dimensional would function). None of these options’ probabilites can be calculated in any way. Also, say its a dice with 20 sides, then I’ve just increased the number of sides but the probability for guessing right is smaller. It must then be possible to imagine that the alien race I talked about isn’t the one, it could be a race with 5 heads, or it could be in the same race, but just different simulations, that too decreases the probability that this world is the right one.

When I thought of this, I said, ok so now I know two completely different ways to ‘prove’ that we very probably don’t exist. I think it was my brother then that mentioned ‘What about parallel universes’. To be honest, I don’t know what they are, if they exist, or how they would if they do, but to be what I consider fair, I said, ‘Ok, so there are an unlimited amount of ‘unreal worlds’ and there are about as many universes, so now there are a 50% percent chance that our world is real.’

I have a friend that strongly disagreed with me, he reason that ‘Just because you don’t know what the truth is, the truth still stays the same.’. I sat down with him and another friend who both were against me in this aspect. I told them about the dice over and over again, and finally I managed to come up with the correct argument that made them go ‘aahhhh’… heh 🙂 Good thing my brother was with me, even though he didn’t help that much he was still on my side 🙂

However like you said, it really doens’t matter at all. We can’t do anything about it (likely), except live our lives as we would anyway. Its the same world, it just put things in a different light. Everything strange can be explained because of it really… 🙂

I suspect your proofs really are (illegitimate) appeals to the “principle of ignorance”. The idea is that if we have a number of alternatives and we have no distinguishing information then the default assumption is that they are all equiprobable. The fallacy comes when we do have information. For example we say that either there are renegade nazis on Mars or there are not. Since we have no information about the inhabitants of Mars we conclude that the chance of there being renegade nazis on Mars is 50%.

Oh dear. Lots of people have said that quantum mechanics feels too wrong. Nonetheless it appears that the universe disagrees with them and with you.

Sorry, a dice mechanic is someone who has the ability to manipulate the dice as he throws them so a desired number comes up. There are various ways that this can be done. Dice mechanics are quite unpopular in casinos.

Um, no. If the computer is part of the universe then you can create a paradox, i.e., where a situation where its predictions are automatically falsified. The real problem, though, is that even if you can finesse quantum mechanics to get determinism you would need infinite precision in the data.

It explains why I believe in fate as a result of my anti-random thoughts.

http://hem.passagen.se/srekel/wde/fate1.htm
http://hem.passagen.se/srekel/wde/fate2.htm

Before I end the mail, I’d like to say that I’m sorry if my sentences get a bit complicated sometimes. English is my secondary language, and even though I consider myself quite good at it, there are still a lot to learn.

Your English is quite good; it is your physics and your philosophy that needs attention.

From: To: Robert W. ([email protected])
Date: 6/26/2001
Subj: .:.

get stuffed

Would that be stuffed as in “stuffed and mounted” or stuffed as in “roast stuffed richard”? Inquiring minds are moderately curious on a very slow Tuesday.

From: Natalie Reid ([email protected])
Date: 6/21/2001
Subj: ???

This is hilarious!!!!

Thanks for the laugh.

I’m not sure what it is that is supposed to be hilarious but I’m sure you are right.

From: Gamepro0602 ([email protected])
Date: 6/26/2001
Subj: so mutants arn’t real

for your information mutants r real , and the truth is the reason y there arn’t ne super heroes, or ppl that fly around is because they would probably be scared to tell ne 1.

and throught scientific research it was proven that humans all have the “x jean” which is capable of mutating any one if it is activated which is exactly y we evolved.

ps e-mail me back

But of course I shall email you back. You are one of a select company of people, those who stumble onto the mutantwatch.com website (a scam to promote the X-men movie, now long gone), meander about said site aimlessly, follow links without paying attention to URLs, and click on mail links without paying attention to whom you are sending email to you. Letters from your fellows may be found at let00mut.html.

I like your theory about the “x jean” – comic book science is wonderful – but I thought it was the “Calvin Klein jean” that was capable of mutating anyone.

… continued on next rock …

im glad u don’t think im some type of a freak Richard but how old do u actually think i am?

Twelve.

I dare say I would find the workings of your thoughts, uh, unusual. Why would I be interested in them?

dieting is a losing proposition and regarding tim mcveigh everybody gets one birth and one death, he just got to choose when his was to happen.

The problem with dieting is that so often it isn’t a losing proposition.

I grant that, like the rest of us, Tim McVeigh got one birth and one death. His death as such doesn’t particularly concern me. It’s not as though he were the most important person in the world (that would be me.) For that matter it might have chanced that had he not been caught he might have died sooner than he did in an accident.

What I object to is that some person legally killed another person as a deliberate premeditated act. If it is wrong to intentionally and deliberately for one person to take another person’s life then it is wrong for an agent of the government to do so.

Your mileage may vary.

… continued on next rock …

regarding your comment about you being the most important person in the world, that I am sure is true for you, but in my world, I am, because when I die, from my point of view, the universe ends (yes, I am that self-centered and selfish). thank you for replying to my e-mail.

The comment about being the most important person in the world would, in some circles, be regarded as a joke. Like many jokes, the humor lies in its simultaneous truth and falsity.

Speaking for myself, the thought of death doesn’t bother me – after all it is not something that is going to happen in my lifetime. The regret that I anticipate is that I will miss out on what happens next.

From: Anthony Lewis ([email protected] )
Date: 6/27/2001
Subj: Dakota

see

http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/06/27/dakota.ap.ap/index.html

In one of the newsgroups I follow the wits (demi-wits if you prefer) are amusing themselves with suggestions for renaming North Dakota. The suggestions include South Saskatchewan, West Minnesota, and Baja Canada.

… continued on next rock …

Some other suggestions that have sprung to mind–

East Montana
Easter Idaho
Eastest Washington
New Quebec
New Prussia (capital at Bismarck)
New Dakota (keeps same postal abbreviation)
First Dakota
Dinenedeh (our land)
Tropica
Prairie
Gateway
Franklin (available since Tennessee incorporated the original state)
Jefferson

or just call it Bob. That name is available because the Canadian government refused to allow it on the proposed referendum to rename what;s left of the North West Territories.

The suggestion of New Dakota, while preserving the postal abbreviation, does change the sorting order which is going to mess up “Fifty Nifty United States”. Some more possibilities:

Default Dakota
Just Passing Through
Are We There Yet
Upper Dakota

I have also been asked what language “Dinenedeh” is from.

… continued on next rock …

I believe Dinenedeh is Na-Dene (Navaho). It is part of what is now believed to be the Dene-Caucasian superfamily of languages. This has 5 branches–

Euzkadi (Basque)
Kartvelian (Caucasian languages)
Yenesei (an almost extinct language of northern Siberia)
Sino-Tibetan
Na-Dene

At the NESFA meeting someone suggested an unpronouncable glyph to be read as “The State Formerly Known as North Dakota.” Hey, that’s what they did for Macedonia.

That works. Another possibility which should be popular in SD is “The Other Dakota”.

A friend sent me a reference page with the humor in an article. It states “It comes by way of the National Park Service, as printed n “Oceanographic Ships, Fore and Aft”, a periodical from the Oceanographer of the US Navy.)”

The reference in your web page is incorrect. The USS Constitution was built in 1797 and first sailed in 1798. The dates that the supposed “Oceanographic Ships, Fore and Aft” refers to the travels in 1779. It appears to be a fake article.

There is little doubt but what the narrated incident is, to put it baldly, a tall tale. As far as I know the reference is correct, i.e., the article did appear in the “Oceanographic Ships, Fore and Aft”. Let this be a lesson to you to not trust the government.

From: Reesa ([email protected])
Date: 6/12/2001
Subj: your page

I have read your page and think it was awesome….I am a very proud mother of a Marine…..my son graduated from MCRD in March where he came home for a couple days then off to Pendelton…..home for a few days then off to Hawaii……it has been very hard on me…not that my son is a Mama’s boy….but because I worry and I am just so proud….I am so very proud of all Marines…..what they take on and go through to get to be called a Marine…no one will ever understand until they walk in your boots….I wont even understand but can only imagine…..

Semper Fi From a Proud Mom

I’m glad that you liked the page. I’m sure that by now your son has discovered that he can be more and do more than he ever thought he could. The Corps has its way of teaching one that.

From: McVige ([email protected])
Date: 6/13/2001
Subj: Need Supplier

Hello!
Me and my partners in my company are looking for a supplier of preferably Bulls or Buffalo testicles. This is a new product idea we are working on and are having trouble locating a supplier in the U.S. or Mexico. This isn’t for food or eating and we are actually looking only for the “sacks,” not the insides. Is this something you can help us with or at least send us in the right direction? Thank you for your assistance.

This has to count as one of the more unusual requests that I have received. I don’t have any immediate information but I have a few suggestions. As far as I know, the testicles of young lambs and calves are not sold commercially even though they are a popular delicacy in the west. Bull testicles are (or at least were) sold at many of the larger meat markets albeit you usually have to order them in advance. One thought is to find markets that will provide them and ask for their supplier.

A further thought is to check with the larger ranches that specialize in selling bulls. It occurs to me that you may have difficulty in finding sources that offer what you want in commercial quantities. Castration of young calves is a regular event – bull testicles, on the other hand, only become available when a bull is, so to speak, no longer in business.

Be that as it may, I wish you the best of luck and I apologize for not being of more assistance. If it chances that I learn of a source I will let you know.

From: Howard Weinberg ([email protected])
Date: 6/30/2001
Subj: Stumbled

Stumbled on your site, looking for information about daddy longlegs. I like some of the jokes, and passed them on to the list of people I send jokes to. Thanks.

You’re welcome. People end up stumbling on my web site for all sorts of strange reasons. Some pick up themselves up, wipe themselves off, and hurry on in the hope that no one noticed. Others stop to take a look, not quite daring to believe that anyone could have put together such a random collection of intellectual junk. They wonder about me. That’s all right; I wonder about them.