Words from a Bruin Clerk

"My goal in my rugby career is to try to get rugby bigger than soccer - and, if that means being really fruity, so be it."

-- from the New York Times, a piece on rugby fashion

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So I think two practical fundraising tactics are (1) selling our old jerseys, if we can every find them because some one may have walked off wtih them and (2) making a calendar of Men of UCLA Rugby.
Come on now, you cannot knock down a good idea.

What is disturbing about this trend is that now whenever I see people wearing a rugby shirt, I would need to second guess if whether or not they actually play rugby.
Rugby uniforms should be for actually rugby players, such as myself and teammates, not some weak cheek guy wanting to pretend that they play the best sport in the world.

Now this makes it easier to find porn. One only need type ____ . xxx

A New Ending For Porn

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Of course, this makes it equally easy to block porn sites especially those pesky pop-ups which appear at the most inappropiate times when doing a shared/public search.

"Seven, you've been around humans for a while now. What do you think about--love?"
Seven gives Harry a tolerant look. "We're scanning for microfractures. I don't see the relevance."
Harry , "Just curious."
Seven, "Parental love, romantic love affection between friends. Specify."
"Romantic love," Harry says.
Seven considers. "An attraction based on sexual desire when it facilitates procreation."
Harry chuckles. "I guess I'm asking the wrong person."
Seven, "Not at all. The Borg have referenced this condition in over 6,000 assimilated species."
Harry's eyes go wide. "Condition? You make it sound like a disease."
"Physiologically, it bears a striking similarity to disease. A series of biochemical responses that trigger an emotional cascade impairing normal functioning."

Esign Harry Kim and Seven of Nine in conversation, from episode "The Disease" from Star Trek: Voyager

From today's New York Times,

New love can look for all the world like mental illness, a blend of mania, dementia and obsession that cuts people off from friends and family and prompts out-of-character behavior . . . that could almost be mistaken for psychosis.

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Better live by the Holmesian maxim My brain has always governed my heart.

Love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things. I should never marry myself, lest I bias my judgment.

Sherlock Holmes, 'Sign of Four'

This racy image comes from a San Francisco 49ers training video that was supposed to be humorous -- but no one is laughing. The in-house film included off-color racial jokes, lesbian porn, a spoof of gay marriage and topless blondes cavorting with team PR director Kirk Reynolds.

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Lest one forgets, 'It was meant to be funny'. Keep in mind, this is a private training video, not something to be shared to the public. Even if so, from what I have seen, there is nothing more racy than what one may see on the Dave Chapelle Show.

(Link to the videos http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.…)

A UC Berkeley junior studying abroad jumped to his death from the Arc de Triomphe late Monday night in Paris, police said.

James Lee, 20, who was studying at the UC Center in Paris for the spring semester, jumped from the prominent monument in the heart of the city in what police are calling a suicide.

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I do not know if this is a tragdey or a piece of weird news.
Imagine travelling all the way to Paris to commit suicide.
Now, if that was not in his plans when he departed for Paris, then that begs the question what happened to encourage him.

In the Daily Bruin this morning I read about the hundreds of students and staff who must move out of the Club California apartment complex because some other company plans to build $300-700K condominiums.
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Who the heck can afford to leave there? Obviously, some wealthy students or staff members.

Housing is the biggest problem anywhere there is a college or university campus. Finding an affordable place to live for students is a problem here at UCLA, Berkeley, and even at Yale and at Oxford.

Then there are the episodes of town v. gown.
I remember one case in which some old lady who lived next door to a frat complained about the noise coming from the frat house.
Now unless the lady lived in her place since the late 1800s, I happen to know the frat house was there for over a century. What the heck was she thinking moving into fraternity row -- a bunch of quiet, celibate monks?
I think it unfair to expect a quite neighborhood when living next to a fraternity house. (Mind you, I like my silence, but I do come to expect certain aspects when living in or near a fraternity.)

A solution I was thinking . . . ( Collapse )

What are solutions to the ever present housing crisis that plagues every college or university?

My Garfields will be so happy with me.
I was just going for a bag of crisps from the student store when I passed by the table full of Beanie Babies plush animals and such.
My eye spotted the Pooky from far away.

How random. Imagine finding a Garfield item such as that in the UCLA student store.

SETI is a scientific project in the Search for ExtraTerrial Intelligence.

A principal principle the SETI people use is Frank's Equation.
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(reference)


It occurs to me that Frank's Equation may be apply to soulmate searching.
Let me suggest a more practical scientific project, STIMulance (Search for The Ideal Mate)

Here is my equation for a mathematical estimate for finding that ideal mate.

M = R x f_g x G x f_t x f_a x f_m x L

• M = the number of potential companions
  
• R = the human reproduction rate
  
• f_g = the fraction who are of the desired gender
  
• G = the number of potential companions who live within a reachable geographic location
  
• f_t = the probability that the potential mate lives contemporaniously i.e. that they were not born centuries ago or that they are yet to be born centuries from now
  
• f_a = the fraction that are of appropriate age i.e. the potential mates are not 8-years old nor 80-years old
  
• f_m = the fraction of potential mating partners who are of sufficient maturity for mating
  
• L = the lifespan of potential mate (one hopes that they do not die before possibly meeting)
  

It is often claimed that birth is the mircale of Life. I disagree. The true miracle is the fact that two people met (or find) each other and that there was a simultaneously agreement to engage in a coitional activity.
Anyone can have sex. Birth is a natural consequence of that sex. The real mystery is finding that 'special' some one with whom to have sex.

. . .the achievement of Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Times Past , which he dismisses as "the greatest monument to human egotism in the history of story-telling."

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Not surprising Booker would make such a claim about Proust because Remembrance of Times Past does not fit neatly into his prescribed taxonomy of plot.
In fact, Booker has overlooked the single most major plot ever invented in the recent century that even Shakespeare could never have foreseen: Man v. Machine.

We may recall from our high school literature class where our teachers listed the basic plots, as conceived by Shakespeare (I have yet to confirm that Shakespeare ever did think or write this list):
(1) Man v. Nature
(2) Man v. Man
(3) Man v. Self
(4) Man v. God

Of course, over the years, others have suggested more and refined the list to fit their pet literary theories.
I think this basic four list is sufficient to include all plots which involve literary story-telling of fictional quality. Remembrance of Times Past is not exactly fictional in the same way Beowulf or Pride & Prejudice are suppose to be.
In the last century, I new major plot was invented, perhaps since the introduction of the Industrial Revolution, the new plot theme in fiction was/is Man v. Machine. This major theme was certainly not available nor possible for Shakespeare to conceive.

"We are claiming something extraordinary here," acknowledged astrophysicist Michael Murphy of Cambridge University in England, one of the scientists who reported possible evidence of a change in the fine structure constant at a scientific conference earlier this year. "And the evidence, though strong, is not yet extraordinary enough."

At another science conference, a group of Berkeley scientists reported that alpha is not changing, based on their independent analysis of light from galaxies.

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Whose correct? Who which university will prove to be the one with the better observations and conclusions?