Me not crazy like 12 Galaxies.


For those of you who don’t follow the comments…you might want to try and read this one. I don’t quite know what it’s about, my eyes glazed over.

Just so you know what kind of evil person I am, I actually contemplated disemvoweling that magnum opus before mentioning it. Just the thought of hundreds of people struggling to interpolate the vowels in a long gibbering screed brought a wicked smirk to my face.

Comments

  1. Mooser says

    Thanks! I was searching for that thing. Now I can download it and study its every nuance. It’s got a lot.

  2. says

    Funny you should mention 12 Galaxies. I was talking to a friend last night about my favourite street folk in San Francisco, and mentioned that I got off work as the same time 12 Galaxies guy did. (At least, at the same time he would leave his corner for the day. The shuttle would drop me off at the Montgomery Station and he’d be tucking his sign under his arm and heading down to the trains.)

  3. pradeep says

    PZ, please put a 2500 word comment limit. That post was 80,863 words in 183 printed pages. Seems like the author just cut and pasted a book into the comments.

  4. says

    Wow. An entire insane Master’s thesis, submitted by blog comment. Now I’ve seen everything.

  5. Gary Bohn says

    jesus PZ, where the heck do you find these people? You must have one priviledged soul to get such spam. All I ever get are adds for penis enlargement.

  6. says

    Wow — that one rates a full Timecube! (We might even be edging into Library-of-Babel territory.) I’m sure there’s a catchphrase as good as PYGMIES + DWARFS buried in there, if only we could find it. This bit, for example, has a certain appeal:

    The gods want to play both sides of the coin.

    As does this:

    It was magic that led people into homosexuality, promiscuity, addiction, degeneracy. IF YOU FEEL MAGIC REPEL FROM IT, as hard as that may be.

    And this:

    Orgies with 10 similarly beautiful women. Just think how bad this tactic fucked Italians.

    And I haven’t even skimmed halfway through.

  7. Wrought says

    Clearly written by someone mentally ill and, as such, not that funny really.

  8. Alex says

    Wait a minute…..perhaps that’s a result from that monkey experiment with a million type-writers?

  9. Shadow Boxer says

    Holy Sh*t! (literally)
    That just went on and on and on, didn’t it!? Scary to think there are people out there with THAT much time on their hands…

  10. says

    “IF YOU FEEL MAGIC REPEL FROM IT, as hard as that may be.”

    I thought I felt magic once, but it turns out I was just sitting on my cellphone. :P

  11. Bureaucratus Minimis says

    PZ: I think the guy is crazy. Seriously, clinically, crazy. The kindest thing (for all concerned) is just to ignore him. The kindest thing (for your readers) is some sort of length-limit on content. On the off chance that he’s not crazy, but just a contrarian pretending to be crazy the length-limit would also work.

    Pradeep: Please, please tell me you didn’t actually waste paper to print this.

  12. Ray S. says

    THE GODS ARE ASEXUAL. THEY HAVE NO SEX ORGANS NOR RECTUM.
    WHEN THEY TAKE CHILDREN THEY HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO BECOME “GOD-LIKE”, for ASEXUALITY IS SUPERIOR. This is the optimal ascention senario and represents the highest life form possible.

    Was all I had to read to know the writer has a Phd in Mental Imbalance. I sure hope he finds and takes his meds soon.

    BTW the above quote appears at least twice in the screed.

  13. Alex says

    Ok, I got a great idea for a utility. Instead of disemvoweling, how about randomly swapping the words of the entire post…..or is that what happened already?

  14. MikeM says

    Man, I just don’t have a couple spare weeks right now to read that. That’s a good thing, because I’d go insane if I tried.

  15. kid bitzer says

    “BTW the above quote appears at least twice in the screed.”

    well, i mean, sure: it really bears repeating.
    i mean: these things are important;
    they’re things you should know.
    and that’s why i’m bothering telling you so.

    twice. and for 80,000 words.

    yeah, that’s a pretty sad case.

  16. Tulse says

    So the ScienceBlogs comment system will hold for moderation comments with a couple of hyperlinks, but will let you post the unabridged Encyclopedia Insanica?

    That was…wow.

  17. says

    Just the thought of hundreds of people struggling to interpolate the vowels in a long gibbering screed brought a wicked smirk to my face.

    The thought of anyone trying to figure it out sans disemvoweling is already disturbing.

    I don’t know, could be clinically insane, could just be another chowderhead trying to figure out everything without having learned much in the first place. It’s no worse than many religious treatises, although I realize the latter have more sanction to avoid clear thinking.

    What I don’t like is that we almost never get to find out what afflicts these people who expound their lunacy on the web. Larry Fafarman is the only goof that I recall someone who claims to have known something of his condition (his brother, purportedly) who basically confirmed that there is something wrong with him, but that he’s not an asylum or thorazine crazy-type.

    Glen D
    http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

  18. Chris says

    Ah, the nutters do enjoy a good bout of verbal diarrhea. I wouldn’t have found my favorite quote without the occasional sentence displayed in all CAPS:

    “THE GODS ARE ASEXUAL. THEY HAVE NO SEX ORGANS NOR RECTUM.”

    I don’t really want to know how he determined that gods are asexual since they don’t exist (except perhaps in his fevered delusions). I suppose it could be like picking up a puppy and looking under its tail: “Hey, this god has no sex organs nor rectum. I better tell someone.”

    I agree with pradeep@3. Put an upper limit of some kind. Of course, that probably won’t stop him from posting it in multiple chunks. At least he’d have to work at it.

  19. Vernon Balbert says

    I stopped reading when I got to “Don’t be a statistic.” I was laughing too hard to read any further. I’d LOVE to know the statistics of who ends up being damned or not and the data by which he comes to that conclusion along with his methods of collecting that data.

  20. Andrew says

    I just did a quick (ha!) scroll-through, and all I saw was something about “the Boot (Italy) and the Scandinavian penis.”

    Um, so… yeah.

  21. says

    WHY IS THIS PERSON NOT TENURED AT BOB JONES UNIVERISTY?!

    WHAT ARE THEY SO AFRAID OF?!

    Quick, somebody put me through to Ben Stein’s agent; I think we got another conspiracy on our hands.

  22. Dahan says

    Really, if you think about it, that comment makes about as much sense as anything in the Bible, Koran, or any other bit of dogmatic drivel. This one just hasn’t been around as long or had anyone come in and do a little bit of proofreading and spellchecking yet. I eagerly await Cuttlefish’s succinct summation of this work in poetry or prose.

  23. Cat of many faces says

    My favorite bit,and i think the one that makes the most sense, (i’m quoting here, so please don’t hate me) is:

    ————————————————————————————————
    ————————————————————————————————
    ————————————————————————————————
    ————————————————————————————————
    ————————————————————————————————
    ————————————————————————————————
    ————————————————————————————————
    ————————————————————————————————
    ————————————————————————————————
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    ————————————————————————————————
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    ————————————————————————————————
    ————————————————————————————————
    ————————————————————————————————
    ————————————————————————————————
    ————————————————————————————————
    ————————————————————————————————
    ————————————————————————————————
    ————————————————————————————————
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    ————————————————————————————————
    ————————————————————————————————

    As far as i can tell he must have fallen asleep with his finger on the dash key. That is if it isn’t a programs output.

  24. Ichthyic says

    Orgies with 10 similarly beautiful women.

    now that’s what I’ve been waiting for:

    clone orgies.

  25. Mr Miles says

    Quite frankly, I simply don’t see the benefit of not having a rectum.

    “Orgies with 10 similarly beautiful women. Just think how bad this tactic fucked Italians”

    All the sudden I’m wanting to visit Italy.

  26. DougMN says

    PZ, I’m with pradeep on this one – a word limit is a must…… but, then we would get to see this type of masterpiece. Hmm- ok now I’m torn.

  27. silence says

    Given the length and incoherence of the screed, I have to wonder if it wasn’t produced by software.

  28. Rodeobob says

    Actually a quick google search on the phrase “I hope people in Enterprise, Alabama have become” shows 11 hits of this particular screed (not counting Pharyngula), all posted within a few days of each other. It might be worth checking how many of the blogs that got hit used a CAPCHA; if none of them did, there’s good odds this was computer-generated.

  29. says

    ah, and to think just this morning I was complaining to a friend that my blog wasn’t very popular and got few comments.

    I swear, I’ll never worry about comments on my blog again.

    thank you, PZ

  30. says

    While trying to read that pile of madness, somewhere around the fourth sentence, my brain literally turned itself inside-out, crawled down my spine, leaped from my mortal rectum and went shopping for a Joni Mitchell CD.

    I don’t think I’ll ever be quite the same again. In fact, right now, words taste like buttons and my fingers see limes where my typing keys should be.

    Yowza! That f***-ed me up.

  31. says

    Wow. What a thing of beauty. :)

    Looking at his/her name makes you wonder…did s/he paste the entire essay into the “name” line as well?

  32. Will Von Wizzlepig says

    I wouldn’t get too excited that he graced this site with his presence- he seems to be posting his schpiel on any blog he can find.

    Just google the “THEY HAVE NO SEX ORGANS NOR RECTUM” bit. Other phrases show up on other sites.

    I have the feeling he’s trying to become internet-famous or something. Like goatse, maybe. And no, don’t go investigating goatse at work, or if you have a weak stomach.

  33. Jason says

    “NOR RECTUM”

    OH! All this time I thought the gods were just anal retentive…

  34. Stephen Wells says

    To be fair, there was at one point considerable debate concerning whether Jesus’ dung had remained on Earth or been raised into heaven with him. So establishing that the gods have no rectums may seem really important. If you’re INSANE.

  35. Ryan F Stello says

    The funniest thing is that even after all that, he/she thought they needed more in the name field….and hit a max character check:

    Because of their innocence, because of their purity children are god’s favored people. What childre

  36. Kevin L. says

    I can’t help but wonder if there’s an audience out there for this sort of thing. I mean, if I were to take this jumbled mess to a publisher…

  37. jimmiraybob says

    I took this phrase out and Googled it:

    …reincarnating you a racoon…

    I figured that it was unique enough that it might turn up some hints. You are not the only one getting similar treats. One site was a gaming “Sonic Adventures 2 Battle Cheats” site…whatever that is, but it might have some tie in with the software idea.

  38. Bureaucratus Minimis says

    Rodeo Bob @ 35:

    What’s a CAPCHA?

    BTW, The religion blog of the Washington Post has been hit by similar postings recently, but they filter them out.

  39. silence says

    Bureaucratus Minimis: a CAPCHA is a Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. Basically, the idea is to present a task at which humans are very good and the current state of the art in software is very bad. If the task is completed, then you’re probably dealing with a human.

    The most common example is asking a blog poster to recognize a series of random characters which have been distorted and partially obscured.

  40. pradeep says

    I didn’t print it. I just snagged it into MS Word and did a word/page count.

  41. Marc Buhler says

    I’m with IanR (#38) on this…

    whoever this is is just pasting the whole thing into any box the “tab” key takes him to next.

    Check the e-mail address he put down – se it that was 183 pages long, too!

  42. Skwee says

    @Bureaucratus Minimis-

    A CAPTCHA is a small image with a distorted text & background used to determine if a user is human or not. Computers cannot solve CAPTCHAs. You’ve probably seen one while registering for a website.

    I strongly suggest using them in the future.

  43. Drekab says

    I feel the urge to spend years studying that crazy, I don’t know if I’d survive though. My favorite line so far is:
    “Telepathic requests constitute temptation.”
    which has a very pygmies + dwarfs feel.

    I also love the use of repetition in the middle of otherwise
    they instruct the computers to roleplay
    they instruct the computers to roleplay
    they instruct the computers to roleplay
    complete sentences.

    All placating aside, I think you’re filth.

    God, this stuff is brilliant.

  44. Glenn says

    ScienceBlogs needs to update their “Having problems commenting?” link:

    Having Trouble Commenting?
    Occasionally users have problems commenting on our blogs. There are three main reason for this:

    [1, 2, 3…]

    4. You are batshit fuckin’ crazy. Take your meds NOW.

  45. Inigo Montoya says

    my brain literally turned itself inside-out, crawled down my spine, leaped from my mortal rectum and went shopping for a Joni Mitchell CD

    Feh.

  46. JT says

    I think this is a good example of why you may want to put a character limit on posts here.

    Being a science blog, posts can get rather long and detailed, but I think something like a 50,000 character limit would be unlikely to interfere with legitimate posts while putting a stop to 513,443 character monstrosities like that one.

  47. CalGeorge says

    “Because of their innocence, because of their purity children are god’s favored people.”

    I guess this person has never read “Lord of the Flies”.

  48. says

    Manifest Destiny forever, baby!!!

    Tough call between bot and crazy person, but I’d go for crazy person. It makes too much sense (strange as that may sound!).

  49. silence says

    Ok, after looking at a several variants of this screed, I’m more convinced that this is an actual nutcase, rather than software.

    In particular:
    1. there are a lot of posts on sites with CAPTCHAs.
    2. The posts are appearing slowly — perhaps a dozen a day.
    3. The screed changes over time, but relatively slowly, in ways that look and feel like a person might do, rather than the much more dramatic changes I’d expect to see if this was a randomly generated screed.

  50. CalGeorge says

    Reader’s Digest version:

    “The Amish in Pennsylvania is the clue…”

    “The Amish people are pointed in the right direction.”

    “The Amish in the United States is the clue that should guide your decisions:::Focus on simplicity, strive for purity.”

    “The Amish are in Pennsylvania and elsewhere as a clue to the disfavored:::Live simply, strive for purity.”

    “Let the Amish be your role models. This is truely the decent way to live.”

    etc. etc. etc.

    Yeah, we got the message!

  51. says

    I feel the urge to spend years studying that crazy, I don’t know if I’d survive though….God, this stuff is brilliant.

    I’m with you. I’m curiously drawn in by its Mandelbrot-like recursive beauty. Curiouslier and curiouslier….

  52. Cat Faber says

    Aagh! The crazy; it burns!

    Though personally I think being reincarnated as a racoon sounds kind of cool…

  53. silence says

    CalGeorge: There aren’t a lot of Amish in Louisiana or California, yet the screed is peppered with references to those being “God’s favored land”.

  54. says

    I’m sure it says something terrible about me that all I could retain from that was that “the gods have no rectum.”

  55. Torbjörn Larsson, OM - owner of a Scandinavian penis says

    The guy/girl has a thing for Scandinavian penises:

    In an environment like theirs it is relatively easy to identify the corruptors among them:::Knowingly or not they actively lobby against this environment which seeks to preserve the China of old. Use these clues as you would the god’s geographic clues, Italy’s Boot and the Scandanavian penis, and avoid the god’s tools of corruption.
    […]
    In an environment like theirs it is relatively easy to identify the corruptors among them:::Knowingly or not they actively lobby against this environment which seeks to preserve the China of old. Use these clues as you would the god’s geographic clues, Italy’s Boot and the Scandanavian penis, and avoid the god’s tools of corruption.
    […]
    [My emphasis.]

    … so on and so forth.

    If it weren’t for Italy’s Boot making for a hardcore S&M scene, I would appreciate it.

    OTOH, I thought a Scandinavian penis was the god’s tool of corruption.

  56. Torbjörn Larsson, OM - owner of a Scandinavian penis says

    The guy/girl has a thing for Scandinavian penises:

    In an environment like theirs it is relatively easy to identify the corruptors among them:::Knowingly or not they actively lobby against this environment which seeks to preserve the China of old. Use these clues as you would the god’s geographic clues, Italy’s Boot and the Scandanavian penis, and avoid the god’s tools of corruption.
    […]
    In an environment like theirs it is relatively easy to identify the corruptors among them:::Knowingly or not they actively lobby against this environment which seeks to preserve the China of old. Use these clues as you would the god’s geographic clues, Italy’s Boot and the Scandanavian penis, and avoid the god’s tools of corruption.
    […]
    [My emphasis.]

    … so on and so forth.

    If it weren’t for Italy’s Boot making for a hardcore S&M scene, I would appreciate it.

    OTOH, I thought a Scandinavian penis was the god’s tool of corruption.

  57. defectiverobot says

    So I scrolled all the way down and there was no punchline!

    Not even a crappy ASCII text picture.

    If I’m going to invest 6 seconds of my time scrolling down, I want a goddamned punchline or crappy ASCII test picture!

  58. Evan says

    Holy crap.

    Inigo Montoya: Here’s a windmill. Perhaps you’d like to tilt at it.

  59. Ichthyic says

    Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson, OM – owner of a Scandinavian penis

    now all you need to do is append that to your handle.

    Torbjörn Larsson, OM, OSP

    and challenge anybody who asks to figure out what THAT stands for.

    :p

  60. says

    my brain literally turned itself inside-out, crawled down my spine, leaped from my mortal rectum and went shopping for a Joni Mitchell CD

    Feh.

    Posted by: Inigo Montoya

    Sorry. I can’t brain today. I have teh dumb.

  61. David Marjanović, OM says

    Clearly a human nutcase::::::::::I diagnose 0.95 Tc, and that’s a minimum. I don’t give 1 Tc because the global conspiracy against him and the call for killing all “educated stupid” is missing, but the sheer size of the thing… wow. Just… wow. It’s clearly clinical in any case. Needs professional help.

    I’m sure it says something terrible about me that all I could retain from that was that “the gods have no rectum.”

    ASEXUALITY IS SUPERIOR. Several times.

    I think the nutcase is a gay man and totally freaked out by that fact.

  62. David Marjanović, OM says

    Clearly a human nutcase::::::::::I diagnose 0.95 Tc, and that’s a minimum. I don’t give 1 Tc because the global conspiracy against him and the call for killing all “educated stupid” is missing, but the sheer size of the thing… wow. Just… wow. It’s clearly clinical in any case. Needs professional help.

    I’m sure it says something terrible about me that all I could retain from that was that “the gods have no rectum.”

    ASEXUALITY IS SUPERIOR. Several times.

    I think the nutcase is a gay man and totally freaked out by that fact.

  63. David Marjanović, OM says

    Torbjörn Larsson, OM, OSP

    ROTFL! Six minutes before midnight, my day is saved :-)

  64. David Marjanović, OM says

    Torbjörn Larsson, OM, OSP

    ROTFL! Six minutes before midnight, my day is saved :-)

  65. Brain Hertz says

    Wow. That comment presents the best argument I’ve yet seen for making the Timecube scale logarithmic…

  66. says

    Between this and Time Cube guy, I now know just how far from insane I actually am. Not that I’d been worrying about it, but it’s nice to know.

  67. catta says

    Aw man, and I thought I was the first to find the other blogs this has been posted to. Some fascinating Crazy there, but I wonder if this isn’t some sort of virtual, verbose Toynbee Tile. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toynbee_tiles) It certainly makes about as much sense, and the urge to run a heavy vehicle over the post is fairly strong.

  68. PipeUp says

    Rubber-room bonkers, this little sausage, I grant you, but at least s/he can spell (mostly). That’s a big improvement on the usual porridge-brained diatribes.

    Just wondering though: what’s with the multiple colons? Does it “mean” something, or was s/he using it for dramatic purposes, like ellipses?

  69. Kseniya says

    So the Amish have infiltrated yet another thread on Pharyngula!

    This is very suspicious.

  70. CalGeorge says

    A nugget of wisdom in a sea of weirdness:

    “In California we experience high real estate prices.”

    So very true!

    P.K. Dick was the poor man’s Pynchon. This guy’s kinda like a poor man’s P.K. Dick.

  71. Ichthyic says

    This is very suspicious.

    you mean, considering they (Old Order) don’t even allow electricity usage in their homes?

    must be New Order Amish.

    Oh, hell, don’t even bother trying to figure it out. Not worth the time.

  72. SimonC says

    PZ, just delurking to ask whether the the disemvowelling feature can be reversed to a de-consonanting mode. A screed that long would have all the makings of some serious backing vocals. aaoa….oeoeieoeaoouu.. oooiiieee…aauuiiee – etc.

  73. Tony Popple says

    The last time I met someone who wrote notes like this one, it was a poor man who had slide into a life of extreme paranoia and delusion. Everything was a government conspiracy. He would never enter or exit a building the same way because he believed the government was trying to vaporize him from space with a satellite-based laser.

  74. markbt73 says

    Stupid Flanders. I knew it was all his fault.

    I think the blank lines are so you can add your own crazy, if you want to. Like Really Mad Libs.

  75. OrchidGrowinMan says

    Wow. That sounds like John Nash at his worst (“A Beautiful Mind”) (or Dr Bronner’s Soap), except that it’s too repetitititive (Max Headroom?); I suspect it’s an artistic result of the same technology used in spam filters: the technology has gone far beyond looking for keywords, and now develops its own heuristics looking at the vocabulary, pattern and other parameters, based on submitted spam samples. In response, the spammers develop their own technologies, maybe the same kind, with, as input samples, messages they know got past. What if you were to REVERSE the technology and “deconvolve” an innocent text into uber-spam? What if you set the engines of the two sides against each other in a cyber-match and logged the output?
    It DOES, in several places, make a plea to analyze it for some sort of “hosting service” or such. In fact, it sounds like a successful, creative and… reprehensible… piece of advertising.
    Since a smaller example of gibberish (in a paper!) was discussed here before and led to an interesting discussion of plaigiarism, maybe somebody should run a check on this? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23032838/
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._H._Bronner

    This is one exemplary (and repeated) bit to illustrate my points:

    Search “finalprophet” and the Man in the Moon paragraph to find my free web hosting sound file site
    ———————————————————————————————
    Good health displays favor of the gods.
    Those who (re-)earn god’s favor don’t have to engage in many of life’s unpleasant tasks:::::
    1. Using the bathroom
    2. Monthly “visitor”
    3. Brushing your teeth (bad for your teeth)
    4. Exercise
    5. Sex
    6. Housework
    7.
    8.
    99.
    100.

    Only the disfavored eat.
    Only the disfavored use the toilet.
    Only the disfavored get their “monthly visitor”.

  76. says

    Here’s my favorite part (repeated twice):

    Street racers would be smart to take their racing out to the dirt track, but they are best served by refraining from this activity.
    BBQ/meatheads would be wise to “Know your cuts of meat” and chose only Kosher beef/chicken, but they’d be best served by becoming vegetarian.

    Are you sure this isn’t a writing example from some sort of Artificial Stupidity computer program?

  77. Inigo Montoya says

    Here’s a windmill. Perhaps you’d like to tilt at it.

    Gracias. Just give me some room to get up to speed . . .

  78. Turdus says

    Um, what is a “Seabiscuit type” temptation? I can’t for the life of me figure out what that might mean. I can has lowbottomy?

  79. Crudely Wrott says

    “THEY HAVE NO SEX ORGANS NOR RECTUM”

    Well of course! That’s what makes them so mean.

  80. says

    Speaking of galaxies and nut jobs, has Bad Astronomy been taken down by a DNS attack? I know Phil had a troll surge last night, but I haven’t been able to get in since this morning.

  81. David says

    Bloody hell!!! Don’t direct us to lunatic rants like that again. I come here to get a sense of peace from the world.

    Shame on you, you wretched swine, PZ!

  82. says

    @85
    I doubt it. Would a program really have the intelligence to parse the meaning of “Know Your Cuts of Meat” and then relate it correctly to the actual act of choosing? Even further along these lines, would a program be able to correctly identify “vegetarianism” as an alternative? To give value judgements in the linguistically and logically proper way (if in a batsh*t crazy manner)? It may not be rational, but it seems to have at least some sort of logical construction… I think it would require a more advanced program than exists to construct this.

  83. ennui says

    This thing needs a title::::::::::: How about::::::::

    L. Ron Hubbard’s Guide to the End of the World?

  84. defectiverobot says

    Lab Lemming,

    You beat me to the question. I haven’t been able to get into BA either. Anybody know what’s going on?

  85. says

    This thing needs a title::::::::::: How about::::::::
    L. Ron Hubbard’s Guide to the End of the World?

    I was thinking:

    I CAN HAS PEEYAR?!

  86. says

    “I mean, textbook example (of TLDR) and everything.
    Posted by: Aaron Lemur Mintz”

    I think this might be more a textbook example of what Terry Pratchett calls CHARISN’TMA. Fascinating, like passing a horrific traffic accident with strewn severed body parts which you are compelled to stare at; you can’t help following along to see how stupid it can get . . . and like the energizer bunny it just keeps getting stupider & stupider . . . and you keep going & going . . .

  87. Ichthyic says

    I CAN HAS PEEYAR?!

    ya know… now that I think about it, I wouldn’t put it past Spazio to post something like that out of spite because we wouldn’t ‘validate his feelings’.

  88. AlanWCan says

    I think we have a winner ladies and gentlemen. I give that a firm 10 timecubes.

  89. Skwee says

    Please, please, PLEASE don’t disemvowel it PZ! Our children’s children’s children’s children are going to need full historic documentation of Internet trolling & spam at their best.

    I am absolutely fascinated by this thing. Moths are to a flame as I am to #14. Never before & never again will we be so astounded by the writers of ronpaul.com. When these things turn up again, we will simply groan & delete them. Never again will this(these) nut(s) be as wondrous & new.

  90. qedpro says

    “THE GODS ARE ASEXUAL. THEY HAVE NO SEX ORGANS NOR RECTUM.”

    Am i the only person who wants that on a bumper sticker?

  91. says

    PZ,

    I think you should “disenvowel” (such a lovely word) this post so we can use the BIBLE CODE on it. Who knows what fascinating insights are awaiting us.

  92. AlanWCan says

    SimonC #80: Well, I wrote a quick script to disemconsonant the loon. Here’s the first bit (I couldn’t bear to scroll more than a few pages through it).
    Are we ready? A one, a two, a three: A Wimoweh, A Wimoweh, A Wimoweh eoeiioeeeaueoeiuiieaeoaoeeoeaieeaueooiouaoooeaeieuaoueaeaieaeoiaiiooou
    uieeooieoaouaueieeiiaaieaueaauioiueoiiueiieauaeoeieeeieoueaeioioeeiaie
    eaeeioueooieaeioueioaaiouieeaioiiiiaaiiaioioieoaeiouioieaeeieaioiaiiee
    eeoioeeauiouoaooiueeaiouaoeaUEOUoueaoueoueeouaoeouaoeoaooueaoe-eaoeeue
    aaeooieiieeoOOOEAO::::EOAEEEAIOeEAOEEAIOoeeoeIeoeoueaieiueaieoieaiooae
    eaioeoaeoeeoeIeeoeooaoueeieaoiueaueeiieeeaeiioueuaioeaoeeoeaeeiaeeoioe
    eeiioieeiiioaIaoeuieieeaeeoeoeeieeieueoaaeiioueuaioo-eeoeoeeeeieieuaio
    auaeiaieaioueououeiieaaeieoeueaeoeaaiiueaaeooieiieeoOOOEAO::::EOAEEEAI
    OeEAOEEAIOoeeoeIeoeoueaieiueaieoieaiooaeeaioeoaeoeeoeeeoueoeoeeoiaeiee
    eaaooiuaeeaoaiaaeeaaeoieeaeeeooeeaioeoaaoiaeoeauauieeoieeeaioeoouieeio

  93. Hypatia's Girl says

    “Your virginity may have bought you tens of thousands of years up there. My adivce to those who have made their mistake is:::STOP THE BLEEDING NOW!!!”

    that is (currently) my favorite part.

    I really feel as though I must be in favor with the gods, rectumed or no, as I only recently started following this blog, and now, 183 pgs of found poetry.

    @Skwee- smiles at ronpaul.com writers

  94. Steve_C says

    I think it’s a bot. It has a library of paragraphs from which to select using key words to select the order. It’s gotta be.

  95. chuck goecke says

    Thank gawd that blogs don’t consume trees, just more renewable resources like brain cells.

  96. says

    If it IS a bot, it’s only organizing and distributing the drivel. A bot certainly didn’t write it. It makes too much sense, if that makes sense…

  97. Budbear says

    Just a few thoughts.
    1. WTF!
    2. When did the Amish start using computers? Are they powered by mules running around really fast?
    3. I wish I had a Scandinavian penis half as long as that post. My fame would be guaranteed.
    4. In Brooklyn, we call that “one crazy-ass mofo”.
    5. I managed to get through 2 paragraphs before I passed out. Does anyone here have any idea how I can scrub the inside of my head clean again? I’m getting flashbacks.

  98. Skwee says

    At the very least, we should purchase a domain name for it & post the different versions with the comments they have sparked. Preferably, the URL will sound like that of a porn site, thus introducing more people to the phenomenon. My personal goal is to acquire a Wikipedia page for it. On it, it will simply be called “#14”, as Pharyngula is probably the most popular blog to have been hit.

  99. Venger says

    My eyes rolled back into my head about 2 inches and it took me over a minute to scroll down it all. A lot of repetition caught my eye, did they just copy paste an entire thread into a single post? Did anyone manage to read the whole thing and retain sanity?

    I put it in an office program, got 510651 characters, over 80,000 words, 142 pages at the default font and page size for my program.

  100. Ichthyic says

    just more renewable resources like brain cells.

    well, renewable in the sense we can create more with offspring, anyway.

  101. Budbear says

    One more question. If that post was disemvoweled would it make any less sense?

  102. JohnnieCanuck, FCD says

    thalarctos,

    He had just about exactly the same effect on me. Left me wondering if Comment #14 is going to inspire more turns of phrase like that.

  103. Sastra says

    I wonder if there’s any truth to the rumor that this was the rough draft copy of “An Apology and Unification Theory for the Reconciliation of Physical Matter and Metaphysical Cognizance” before the requested revisions from the Answers Research Journal‘s peer review were met.

  104. Blaidd Drwg says

    WOW. I tried wading through that post, got about 500 words in, and realized that I didn’t have the slightest clue what he was talking about, and I didn’t have on a life-preserver.

    I may save that thing, so I can read it the next time I have an annoying overabundance of normalcy in my life (not that I can see THAT happening anytime soon…)

  105. LeeLeeOne says

    It’s a bot – it’s too obvious. Someone’s playing hack and spam programming games when they should be working. I wonder if this is how a virus gets started – they find a few popular or medium popular sites and test blast their way into them with obviously bits and pieces of screeds that have been harvested and mashed together from over the net. This is not the work of a schizophrenic.

  106. Steve_C says

    I agree with LeeLeeOne, when I saw the part about europeans drive manual,
    that’s beyond crazy. Gotta be a bot hack.

  107. Betz says

    Maybe PZ should have, in addition to “Preview” and “Post”, a button labeled “Do You Already Have a Mental Healthcare Practitioner?”

  108. Captain C says

    Definitely between .95 and one TIme Cubes, as per several above. I just can’t tell if it’s a human (who has time for this?) or ‘bot (awful creative for a ‘bot). Either way, it’s going to take us weeks to mine out all the funny stupid…

  109. Ragutis says

    #s 91 & 97:

    Bad Astronomy has worked fine for me. I’ve probably checked it 3 or 4 times today with no issues.

    As for the topic of discussion… is guanophrenia an actual word? Because if not, it needs to be made so. It would really come in handy for describing this kind of thing.

  110. Ichthyic says

    Bad Astronomy has worked fine for me. I’ve probably checked it 3 or 4 times today with no issues.

    must depend on which side of a potentially busted router you are accessing it from.

    out here in So Cal, I can’t access it either.

  111. Beth B. says

    They’ll being me back in the Preditor clone host for the MarijuanaErradicationProgram “gone awry”,

    This is the part I currently find most disturbing, except for all the rest of it.

  112. Andrew says

    This weirdness has been all over the intertubes. I just randomly selected a piece of nonsense and put it in the search engine. Google this portion, it’s all over:

    They have said they reincarnate sexist men as pigs.
    Consideridering black misogyny, how many black men do we have locked up in pig pens?
    The gods love their irony:::From one cage to another.
    More than one has enjoyed their own kin at black’s beloved BBQs. This is VERY important to them and they SEE TO IT the right meat is delivered.
    Empathy is very important, and vegetarians have achieved a high level of empathy.

  113. says

    I Googled a few phrases from different segments. The results brought back different web sites for different phrases.

    No guesses yet on the origin or motivation. Where it falls on the human-machine / sane-crazy plane remains open.

  114. Skwee says

    From what Andrew posted above, you may be under the impression that while the author of #14 is a delusional racist, he (what follows has convinced me it’s a he) is aware of sexism in our culture. Perhaps he’s even a feminist. That’s not the case. Behold:

    “I address the boys, tell them to NOT engage their sisters in roughhouse play.
    This is very important for they use this interaction as justification furthering their efforts towards masculinization. Too many females today were too physical with their siblings and it toughened them, ruining the one special thing about them.
    The purpose of the masculinization of women of the last 40 years was to pave the way (justification) for The End, for it brought mankind’s collective favor down.
    Dolls foster a nurturing, caregiving nature with girls (and is why fewer are playing with them today). Because of it girls want to be good, and playing with dolls helps more remain uncorrupted once the gods employ temptation.
    Because of it the gods can justify the favored gender’s desire to be good and the subsequent positive results.
    Girls are god’s most favored people. Help them fix their problems and get off Earth before puberty renders them failure.” And a lot more.

    By the way, I saw an endorsement of McCain in a version of this on another site. Is it in this one?

  115. Azkyroth says

    At least this one isn’t uncomfortably close to the length of the longest story I’ve ever written.

    Just so you know what kind of evil person I am, I actually contemplated disemvoweling that magnum opus before mentioning it.

    I believe you mean “Magnum Opiatus.”

  116. aporeticus says

    The crazy, distilled. Here are counts of some of the more interesting and numerous words:

    gods: 982, disfavored: 441, clue: 241, evil: 241, good: 211, black: 187,
    italians: 186, blacks: 165, children: 160, manifest: 152, destiny: 148,
    earth: 143, god’s: 142, behavior: 135, think: 134, clone: 131, temptation: 128,
    planet: 120, italian: 118, century: 117, women: 117, god: 114, disfavor: 101,
    tactic: 99, favor: 98, tactics: 91, clues: 90, preditory: 90, artificial: 86,
    society: 84, intelligence: 80, hurt: 77, problems: 77, computer: 73, states: 68,
    magic: 65, united: 64, sex: 59, bad: 59, white: 58, men: 57, aids: 56,
    redwhite&blue: 50, war: 50, theater: 50, boss: 50, lie: 49, chinese: 49,
    reason: 48, corrupted: 46, culture: 44, savior: 44, california: 44, males: 44,
    africa: 43, fuck: 42, christianity: 42, prophet: 40, clones: 39,
    reincarnated: 39, females: 38, reality: 38, telepathic: 37, jews: 37,
    temptations: 36, music: 35, jesus: 35, telepathically: 35

  117. says

    I believe you mean “Magnum Opiatus.”

    No way. If opium were involved, they would have fallen asleep before finishing.

    Somebody was on the third day of staying awake on some kind of hallucinogen.

  118. silence says

    MaJeff: its pretty clear that this was written over a period longer than 3 days. Google reasonably unique phrases, and you can find (slightly altered) versions of this from fall of 2007. I think the author has been steadily expanding on the rant for at least six months.

  119. says

    I actually mentioned the rectumless nature of God in my blog posting that you can find via clicking my name. I smell plagiarism.

  120. Andrew says

    I think the author has been steadily expanding on the rant for at least six months.

    A new art form has been born. The Evolutionary Blog Rant!!!
    It begins as a zygote of nonsense, and slowly evolves into the grand ravings we see before us today. It is verbal Dali.

    PZ, I pray you appreciate the role you have been allowed in this burgeoning masterpiece.

  121. Pierce R. Butler says

    SIWOTI!

    It’s going to be a long night, because Someone Is Wrong On The Internet.

  122. bybelknap, FCD says

    Well, I think I’m going to have to buck the trend here and just say that this person is a prophet in need of followers. Where do I sign up to be an apostle and do I get to wear a comfy robe of some sort?

  123. says

    I’m guessing this is computer-generated.

    While the words don’t make any sense, there is a theme and variation going on in the structure of it. Variations of this are posted on dozens and dozens of blogs.

    While a good many of the blogs are politically oriented, some are not.

    Just about all of the targeted blogs have active comment threads before “12 Galaxies” shows up.

    I did find one site that is not a blog but a restaurant page that has customer comments which were invaded.
    http://www.mycuzini.com/crawley/

    For a funny example of this kind of text generation, go to Scott Pakin’s automatic complaint-letter generator:
    http://www.pakin.org/complaint/

    This might be a programmer just having some fun, but it doesn’t look like it. It could well be a test for some spammer software.

    It reminds me a little of the “Master and Margarita” spam from a few years ago.

  124. croor says

    all i can say is that a monkey hitting keys at random would have come up with more meaningful sentences in that long a post than this lunatic.

  125. Don N. says

    Ok, this is totally a silly Sokal – from the other side. Let’s just laugh and say we enjoyed it.

    Don N.

  126. says

    This seems as good a place as any to comment on a pet peeve of mine: the proper construction is “try to [verb]”, not “try and [verb]”.

    I know, I know, it’s a minor thing, but my meds ran out on Friday, and until I get my refill tomorrow I’ll be organising and reorganising the bulk food jars in my pantry by food type, texture, and colour. Or should that be food type, colour, and texture?

  127. says

    I know, I know, it’s a minor thing, but my meds ran out on Friday, and until I get my refill tomorrow I’ll be organising and reorganising the bulk food jars in my pantry by food type, texture, and colour. Or should that be food type, colour, and texture?

    Diff meds, but Thurs for me.
    sleep? non-anxiety? what’s that?

  128. Kseniya says

    Sort them alphabetically by the first initial of the person who actually made the jar. That’ll keep you out of trouble.

  129. Meret says

    “Wait a minute…..perhaps that’s a result from that monkey experiment with a million type-writers?”

    Maybe if they recycled the LSD-experiment monkeys…

  130. Rachel I. says

    I almost want to save that for later giggles. The parts about AI are just awesome… and one of #7’s quotes suggests a juicy question or two for my Italian friend.

  131. Pyre says

    “Girls are god’s most favored people. Help them fix their problems and get off Earth before puberty renders them failure.”

    “Help them… get off Earth” exactly how?

    Were I the parent of a just-pre-pubertal girl in the same city as that writer, I think I might consider moving with her to a different city. And state. And region.

  132. Baratos says

    I am going to post this on 4chan and watch the entire site grind to a halt as /b/ meets the only thing crazier than itself.

  133. Lilly de Lure says

    By the way, I saw an endorsement of McCain in a version of this on another site. Is it in this one?

    I don’t think so but I only got about half way through it even after several gins for mental cushioning.

    Do you think we may actually have found an endorsement that even McCain would not claim to be feeling “honoured” by?

  134. Pyre says

    Just think: had this been a Usenet screed, it would be taking up space on news-servers all over the world. Instead, only the servers of the blogs where it was posted must bear this burden. Thanks, guys, for taking this bullet for the team!

  135. anne says

    I don’t think it’s written by a bot. It has a message and an irrational kind of logic, and both the sex/religion/purity/secret plan etc. stuff and the odd connections and associations are common in psychotic people’s rants. Sounds like an intelligent psychotic male, probably schizophrenia or chronic psychotic mania.

  136. David Marjanović, OM says

    I think we have a winner ladies and gentlemen. I give that a firm 10 timecubes.

    Most certainly not. Remember: This is 1 Tc.

    I think you should “disenvowel” (such a lovely word) this post so we can use the BIBLE CODE on it. Who knows what fascinating insights are awaiting us.

    ROTFL!!!

    However, Greek (and Latin) n assimilates to the following consonant, and [mv] is easier to pronounce than [nv], so “disemvowel” is correct. For the same reason, “disenconsonant” is correct (with the “ng” sound).

    @Tulse, #19: You made me laugh so hard my prostate hurts!

    WTF. I thought you didn’t have one?

    I just can’t tell if it’s a human (who has time for this?)

    Stealing time is easy. How do you think I got here? :-)

  137. David Marjanović, OM says

    I think we have a winner ladies and gentlemen. I give that a firm 10 timecubes.

    Most certainly not. Remember: This is 1 Tc.

    I think you should “disenvowel” (such a lovely word) this post so we can use the BIBLE CODE on it. Who knows what fascinating insights are awaiting us.

    ROTFL!!!

    However, Greek (and Latin) n assimilates to the following consonant, and [mv] is easier to pronounce than [nv], so “disemvowel” is correct. For the same reason, “disenconsonant” is correct (with the “ng” sound).

    @Tulse, #19: You made me laugh so hard my prostate hurts!

    WTF. I thought you didn’t have one?

    I just can’t tell if it’s a human (who has time for this?)

    Stealing time is easy. How do you think I got here? :-)

  138. David Marjanović, OM says

    Do you think we may actually have found an endorsement that even McCain would not claim to be feeling “honoured” by?

    LOL! This hypothesis ought to be tested.

  139. David Marjanović, OM says

    Do you think we may actually have found an endorsement that even McCain would not claim to be feeling “honoured” by?

    LOL! This hypothesis ought to be tested.

  140. LisaJ says

    Wow! Crazy!
    You know, I was really wondering about the changes in the price of gas. I didn’t want to say anything here, for fear of chastisation, but now that crazy has so clearly outlined it for us it all makes sense…. I couldn’t get any further past this point. Wow.

  141. Kseniya says

    Most certainly not. Remember: This is 1 Tc.

    Yeah. I thought it was theoretically impossible to exceed 1 Tc.

    Lisa, changes in the price of gas are the work of the false gods Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and the other gas giants.

  142. CortxVortx says

    Re: #106

    “THE GODS ARE ASEXUAL. THEY HAVE NO SEX ORGANS NOR RECTUM.”

    Am i the only person who wants that on a bumper sticker?

    Or a t-shirt. I’d alternate that with “Beware the weeping angels. Oh, and duck!”

  143. Graeme Elliott says

    Could someone please provide me with a 100 word summary of that waffle. My eyes fell out of my skull after 3 lines….

    @#165 The sad thing is that I know where that quote is from! I’m lost lads, go on without me!

  144. Lilly de Lure says

    Graeme Elliot said:

    @#165 The sad thing is that I know where that quote is from! I’m lost lads, go on without me!

    Which one, the asexual and congenitally constipated Gods or the weeping angels?

    If the latter, I’m right there with you (Dr Who: 2nd David Tennant series “Blink”, one of the best Dr Who stories ever).

    If the former I’m absolutely fascinated, I’d assumed it was a deranged fantasy of his own making – please let the rest of us in on the secret?

  145. Mooser says

    If you thought there was anything strange about that post, I would advise you to not hang around Moosehall. Compared to what goes on here of a weekday morning, that was tame!

  146. says

    However, Greek (and Latin) n assimilates to the following consonant, and [mv] is easier to pronounce than [nv], so “disemvowel” is correct. For the same reason, “disenconsonant” is correct (with the “ng” sound).

    Also, there’s “disembowel” and its connotations to riff off of as well, a connection which gets lost when “m” changes to “n”.

    @Tulse, #19: You made me laugh so hard my prostate hurts!

    WTF. I thought you didn’t have one?

    You’re technically correct that I don’t have one as an organ, although we could certainly get into a discussion of complex and partial homologies among prostates and tissues and structures I *do* have, with references to evidence from species where females actually have prostate organs (cf., certain species of rabbit [1]).

    Or we could just stipulate that I find it perversely amusing to refer to “my prostate” sometimes for effect, and leave it at that. :)

    [1] Price D. Comparative aspects of development and structure in the prostate. Natl Cancer Inst Monogr. 1963 Oct;12:1-27.

  147. Alethias says

    Meh. He(or she as the case may be) was off their meds and making that post while on a manic high. They’ll hate themselves for doing it once they come down.

    I didn’t get very far into it, but I didn’t find it very funny.

    I agree that imposing a 2500 word limit to comments would be a good thing. But I don’t look at comments much and wouldn’t have read that one had PZ not called attention to it.

  148. Jordan says

    Has anyone done a letter-frequency analysis on this? I would guess that, unless we assume an extremely clever programmer, we could use that to find out whether this is a schizophrenic or a prankster.

  149. says

    I think you should “disenvowel” (such a lovely word) this post so we can use the BIBLE CODE on it. Who knows what fascinating insights are awaiting us.
    ROTFL!!!
    However, Greek (and Latin) n assimilates to the following consonant, and [mv] is easier to pronounce than [nv], so “disemvowel” is correct. For the same reason, “disenconsonant” is correct (with the “ng” sound).
    Posted by: David Marjanović, OM”

    “Also, there’s “disembowel” and its connotations to riff off of as well, a connection which gets lost when “m” changes to “n”.
    Posted by: thalarctos”

    I would suggest looking in a mirror while you articulate “disenvowel” and “disemvowel” at various speeds to see which word is easier to pronounce. I find “disenvowel” much less unwieldy.

    I would also suggest trying a crossword dictionary, where you would find that English words with -nv- are about six to ten times more common than -mv- words.
    .

  150. Skwee says

    Baratos: I just tried to post it on Conservapedia & got kicked off. Now go, faithful minions, & redistribute it in the conservative blogosphere!

    Pyre: I posted that because it’s just one example of the scary & sociopathic rants in that thing. I actually spent a large portion of my day analyzing it, in an attempt to find PYGMIES+DWARFS 2.0. The closest I got was his contention that “the gods” are punishing Italy, because “Pasta is very starchy and fattening.” Yup.

    Lily: I discovered it in here- as well as an endorsement of Edwards a page or so down. On the whole, it’s only slightly less coherent than Hagee.

    Which brings me to another point::::: Were there multiple authors? Excerpts from it (I do believe we are the proud home of the longest version on the Intertubes) seem to cluster with sets of other excerpts. It’s too creative to be a simple bot, but I find it unlikely one person could do all that.

    Who & what are they?

  151. Torbjörn Larsson, OM says

    now all you need to do is append that to your handle. Torbjörn Larsson, OM, OSP

    Torbjörn Larsson, OM, OSP

    ROTFL! Six minutes before midnight, my day is saved :-)

    If it makes you happy.

    Of course, I would need an official reason to get it housebroken for the web. If you institute an “Order of the Scandinavian Penis” I might think about it.

    The guy/girl has a thing for Scandinavian penises:

    Is that a problem? *shrinks away*

    Not really. But when it comes to geography it is. There is an old and famous swedish children’s comic book that tried to redefine the outline as a horse’s head, with Norway as the mane and Finland as the front body. (The shtick was that the horse was owned and ridden by swedish kings, especially into Europe in the war times of the old superpower.)

    Not a very convincing attempt. Scandinavia still looks like a limp, dripping dick. And as I’m sure windy will tell you, Finland has the balls.

  152. Torbjörn Larsson, OM says

    now all you need to do is append that to your handle. Torbjörn Larsson, OM, OSP

    Torbjörn Larsson, OM, OSP

    ROTFL! Six minutes before midnight, my day is saved :-)

    If it makes you happy.

    Of course, I would need an official reason to get it housebroken for the web. If you institute an “Order of the Scandinavian Penis” I might think about it.

    The guy/girl has a thing for Scandinavian penises:

    Is that a problem? *shrinks away*

    Not really. But when it comes to geography it is. There is an old and famous swedish children’s comic book that tried to redefine the outline as a horse’s head, with Norway as the mane and Finland as the front body. (The shtick was that the horse was owned and ridden by swedish kings, especially into Europe in the war times of the old superpower.)

    Not a very convincing attempt. Scandinavia still looks like a limp, dripping dick. And as I’m sure windy will tell you, Finland has the balls.

  153. says

    Not a very convincing attempt. Scandinavia still looks like a limp, dripping dick. And as I’m sure windy will tell you, Finland has the balls.

    Poor Denmark.

  154. confused.brit says

    Aliens, of course, come to spread the gospel of the gods with no sexual organs or rectums!

    (it also explains the lack of grammar as aliens would be typing english as a second language)

    :D

  155. David Marjanović, OM says

    Yeah. I thought it was theoretically impossible to exceed 1 Tc.

    I would say it is theoretically possible to exceed 1 Tc — “simply” by being even crazier than the Greatest Thinker and Wisest Human. The practical feasibility of this, however… you know… in theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they aren’t…

    Lisa, changes in the price of gas are the work of the false gods Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and the other gas giants.

    LOL!

    Or we could just stipulate that I find it perversely amusing to refer to “my prostate” sometimes for effect, and leave it at that. :)

    One of us here has too many symptoms of Asperger’s. :-|

    I would suggest looking in a mirror while you articulate “disenvowel” and “disemvowel” at various speeds to see which word is easier to pronounce. I find “disenvowel” much less unwieldy.

    It is possible that your /v/ isn’t quite the same as mine (perhaps you’re using this one, though it’s not supposed to occur in any kind of English). Also, I’ve noticed that at least the English… like… actually open their mouths — as in, use their jaw joints — when they speak. I don’t do that, so, to articulate [m], I just need to relax the lips; other people may need to actively move them. Furthermore, in German we don’t have this sound and use [m] instead.

    I would also suggest trying a crossword dictionary, where you would find that English words with -nv- are about six to ten times more common than -mv- words.

    That’s because English doesn’t write the assimilation in native words — envelope doesn’t count, because it’s French and (in French) starts with a nasal vowel so that there is no [n] in it. In Greek and Latin, it was compulsorily written: I’m sure you’ve noticed the syn-/sym- and the con-/com-/col-/cor- variation.

    I find it unlikely one person could do all that.

    Again, why? All one needs is insane determination (check) and either lots of free time or the ability to steal time. Or even the inability to estimate how time is passing — which is what I have, demonstrated by the fact that I type this after 1:30 AM even though I’m supposed to get out of bed tomorrow morning.

  156. David Marjanović, OM says

    Yeah. I thought it was theoretically impossible to exceed 1 Tc.

    I would say it is theoretically possible to exceed 1 Tc — “simply” by being even crazier than the Greatest Thinker and Wisest Human. The practical feasibility of this, however… you know… in theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they aren’t…

    Lisa, changes in the price of gas are the work of the false gods Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and the other gas giants.

    LOL!

    Or we could just stipulate that I find it perversely amusing to refer to “my prostate” sometimes for effect, and leave it at that. :)

    One of us here has too many symptoms of Asperger’s. :-|

    I would suggest looking in a mirror while you articulate “disenvowel” and “disemvowel” at various speeds to see which word is easier to pronounce. I find “disenvowel” much less unwieldy.

    It is possible that your /v/ isn’t quite the same as mine (perhaps you’re using this one, though it’s not supposed to occur in any kind of English). Also, I’ve noticed that at least the English… like… actually open their mouths — as in, use their jaw joints — when they speak. I don’t do that, so, to articulate [m], I just need to relax the lips; other people may need to actively move them. Furthermore, in German we don’t have this sound and use [m] instead.

    I would also suggest trying a crossword dictionary, where you would find that English words with -nv- are about six to ten times more common than -mv- words.

    That’s because English doesn’t write the assimilation in native words — envelope doesn’t count, because it’s French and (in French) starts with a nasal vowel so that there is no [n] in it. In Greek and Latin, it was compulsorily written: I’m sure you’ve noticed the syn-/sym- and the con-/com-/col-/cor- variation.

    I find it unlikely one person could do all that.

    Again, why? All one needs is insane determination (check) and either lots of free time or the ability to steal time. Or even the inability to estimate how time is passing — which is what I have, demonstrated by the fact that I type this after 1:30 AM even though I’m supposed to get out of bed tomorrow morning.

  157. says

    Or even the inability to estimate how time is passing — which is what I have, demonstrated by the fact that I type this after 1:30 AM even though I’m supposed to get out of bed tomorrow morning.

    Even better. (IMHO)

  158. David Marjanović, OM says

    Wow! I posted a comment with two links, and it got through immediately!

  159. David Marjanović, OM says

    Wow! I posted a comment with two links, and it got through immediately!

  160. says

    One of us here has too many symptoms of Asperger’s. :-|

    Ah, but which one? :)

    To the degree that anyone can know someone through years of reading comments and nothing else, you’ve never struck me as particularly Asperger-y. It must be me!

  161. Kseniya says

    Ah, but which one? :)

    Ooh! A game! I say it was:

  162. – Professor Plum
  163. – In the Drawing Room
  164. – With the Misapprehension of Nuance
  165. says

    “One of us here has too many symptoms of Asperger’s. :-|
    I would suggest looking in a mirror while you articulate “disenvowel” and “disemvowel” at various speeds to see which word is easier to pronounce. I find “disenvowel” much less unwieldy.
    Posted by: David Marjanović”

    Actually it’s a skill used for teaching ESL. For example, it is easy to teach Japanese speakers how to pronounce “R”s and “L”s correctly by having them first watch the correct pronunciation in the mouth of the native speaker and then practicing with a mirror. It is easier to see an alveolar stop than to hear it.

  166. David Marjanović, OM says

    Eh, yeah. “Tomorrow” meaning “next time I’m awake”. :-]

  167. David Marjanović, OM says

    Eh, yeah. “Tomorrow” meaning “next time I’m awake”. :-]

  168. says

    I know…just playing. I use it the same way. I’ll be awake at 6:00am and talk about getting up tomorrow (which is about noonish). But both the “tomorrow” and the “morning” illustrate your point quite nicely.

  169. Sven DiMIlo says

    – With the Misapprehension of Nuance

    ARE YOU IMPLYING THAT I MISAPPREHENDED YOUR NUANCE??! WHAT, ARE YOU CALLING ME STUPID??! YEAH, WELL F

    what?
    no?
    sorry…carry on…

  170. David Marjanović, OM says

    It is easier to see an alveolar stop than to hear it.

    I just tried that in front of a mirror. It is easy to see, but only if I open my mouth much wider than I’d normally do, even when speaking English. My tongue simply stays hidden behind the teeth.

    But back to the topic (ermmm… not the topic of the thread, but still). I just remembered the Latin word involucrum. You have a point there. I’ll go to bed at last :-)

  171. David Marjanović, OM says

    It is easier to see an alveolar stop than to hear it.

    I just tried that in front of a mirror. It is easy to see, but only if I open my mouth much wider than I’d normally do, even when speaking English. My tongue simply stays hidden behind the teeth.

    But back to the topic (ermmm… not the topic of the thread, but still). I just remembered the Latin word involucrum. You have a point there. I’ll go to bed at last :-)

  172. David Marjanović, OM says

    I forgot…

    you’ve never struck me as particularly Asperger-y.

    The sheer nerdiness? The detailed pedantry with which I quote and answer? The willingness to immediately go off on a tangent for hours? The abnormal perseverance exhibited when answering cre_ti_nist copy-&-paste jobs without noticing how time passes? Nothing? :-)

    My argument was that either I’m incapable of understanding certain jokes (at least at the first attempt), or you like making thoroughly obscure jokes featuring technical terms that other people simply won’t find funny (…making such jokes is something I’m good at, actually, though it’s true I haven’t tried that online much).

    And now I’ll really go to bed. Honestly.

  173. David Marjanović, OM says

    I forgot…

    you’ve never struck me as particularly Asperger-y.

    The sheer nerdiness? The detailed pedantry with which I quote and answer? The willingness to immediately go off on a tangent for hours? The abnormal perseverance exhibited when answering cre_ti_nist copy-&-paste jobs without noticing how time passes? Nothing? :-)

    My argument was that either I’m incapable of understanding certain jokes (at least at the first attempt), or you like making thoroughly obscure jokes featuring technical terms that other people simply won’t find funny (…making such jokes is something I’m good at, actually, though it’s true I haven’t tried that online much).

    And now I’ll really go to bed. Honestly.

  174. David Marjanović, OM says

    Except… have you noticed my (parenthetical) obsession with parentheses? I have trouble keeping the burgeoning (and, alas, often unintelligible) complexity of my thoughts under control.

    Good night.

  175. David Marjanović, OM says

    Except… have you noticed my (parenthetical) obsession with parentheses? I have trouble keeping the burgeoning (and, alas, often unintelligible) complexity of my thoughts under control.

    Good night.

  176. says

    The sheer nerdiness? The detailed pedantry with which I quote and answer? The willingness to immediately go off on a tangent for hours? The abnormal perseverance exhibited when answering cre_ti_nist copy-&-paste jobs without noticing how time passes? Nothing? :-)

    You just described about 75% of the regular commenters here.

  177. says

    The sheer nerdiness? The detailed pedantry with which I quote and answer? The willingness to immediately go off on a tangent for hours? The abnormal perseverance exhibited when answering cre_ti_nist copy-&-paste jobs without noticing how time passes? Nothing? :-)

    Yeah, you do kinda remind me of me in some ways–what’s your point? :)

  178. Skwee says

    The reason I think it’s more than one person is the way it constantly switches gears. There is one god. There are many gods. The Bible is right. The Bible is wrong. I know irrational people often contradict themselves, but these are generally large ones that occur in different sections.

    And who on here doesn’t have several symptoms of Asperger’s? :)

  179. says

    Skwee @ #114: Your (probably half joking) comment inspired me to make madeofcrazy.com. It’s fairly simple (tossed together in an evening), but it breaks down #14 paragraph by deranged paragraph and allows people to comment on each of them individually.

  180. Flux says

    I’m sure others have made this joke/comment, but thanks for not disemvoweling it. It was unreadable even with them.

  181. says

    I haven’t read all the comments, so my apologies if I’m repeating an earlier point, but it seems people are assuming was created either entirely by one(?) mad typist, or by software. That’s a false dichotomy. A mad typist “seeding” some software, and/or “massaging” the output of said software, could, I suspect. rather easily come up with something like that.

    Furthermore, the generation of that text is independent of its posting on various blogs. Even if it is entirely machine-generated, that does not mean some loon isn’t manually posting it. (And no, you don’t need to use copy’n’paste, which makes it much easier.)

    However, the apparent mutation of the text in the various postings suggests–this is speculation–it is being copy’n’pasted, but with errors; i.e., in segments, and those segments are being scrambled (wrong order) or perhaps even one inserted into the middle of another.

    I started to do some analysis of the #14 text, but unfortunately messed up one of the steps, so these numbers aren’t quite right: There are c.6600 unique words (ignoring cAsE DIFFerences), of which c.1800 are misspelled. I think both values are bit too high.

    The most comment word is “the”. A surprisingly common word is “disfavored”. The spelling seems to be mostly(? entirely?) USAian.

  182. Graeme Elliott says

    @167: I have no Idea what that person was refering to…. I reckon it is a person, becasue it seems to cogent for a bot. I do however know about Blink, probably the best episode in a series of too many multi-part episodes… Come back Billie Piper! All is forgiven!

  183. says

    When I realized just how long the comment was, one thought came to mind: “I felt a great disturbance in the Net, as if billions of electrons suddenly cried out in terror and were completely wasted. I fear something terrible has happened.”