{"id":424,"date":"2010-02-25T19:00:05","date_gmt":"2010-02-26T02:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/?p=424"},"modified":"2010-02-25T19:00:05","modified_gmt":"2010-02-26T02:00:05","slug":"rant-of-the-day-whatever-the-fuck-comes-to-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/?p=424","title":{"rendered":"Rant of the Day – Whatever the fuck comes to mind"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nThat is the image that appeared first in a Google image search when I entered “whatever the fuck comes to mind” in the search box.<\/p>\n

Not bad.<\/p>\n

I was going to blab a little bit about how I’m reading a lot of Roman history now.\u00a0 I was going to do this when I talked about Peter Hammill’s song “Pompeii”, but since I couldn’t find a YouTube link for that song… I didn’t.<\/p>\n

On Wikipedia… which is sort of like a Quantum Encyclopedia<\/a>, I’ve been reading about the Roman Consuls.\u00a0 Before bed, I have been in the habit of loading Wikipedia in Firefox on my first computer, then navigating to the “List of Roman consuls” page.\u00a0 Most of the entries are brief, and only contain information on when such and such held office, and when he was killed by his enemies.<\/p>\n

No, I’m kidding.\u00a0 The Roman Republic period wasn’t as violent as that Star Trek episode where Spock had a beard.\u00a0 That was more like the Roman Empire.<\/p>\n

Did you know that the folks who got together and killed Julius Caesar minted fucking coins in celebration of it?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nGood god, that’s morbid.\u00a0 I mean… Good Gods, that’s morbid.<\/p>\n

Speaking of Star Trek… the original series is where it’s at.\u00a0 Far more female androids appeared in that than any of the other shows.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This one is from the “I, Mudd” episode.\u00a0 Rather, it would have been from the episode had it not ended up as a deleted scene.\u00a0 This is one of the “Anna Belle” series androids, number 007 to be exact.<\/p>\n

Harry Mudd was a fool.\u00a0 He had a whole planet full of androids all to himself, and he wanted off.\u00a0 Fucking dink.<\/p>\n

Back to Roman history…\u00a0 So when I’m going to bed, and if I’m not too tired, I let my screen reader read up on some of this stuff for me.\u00a0 I never got into Roman history until I read a book called “Cicero”.\u00a0 It’s a recent book, and I’m far to lazy to get out of my chair and walk into the other room to go to my bookshelf and look it up.\u00a0 You can read about Cicero on Wikipedia… but be careful.\u00a0 If it says that he was a 3-time winner of the Kentucky Derby, then you should check the references to verify that.<\/p>\n

Greek history got me interested in Mathematics, by the way.\u00a0 You see, I was never interested in Math while I was in school.\u00a0 I can’t do Math.\u00a0 I literally can not perform simple arithmetic calculations in my head, or with the aid of pencil and paper.\u00a0 I do have the answers to some equations memorized.\u00a0 Examples:<\/p>\n

2 + 2 = 4
\n12 x 3 = 36
\n50 \u00c1\u00b7 5 = 25<\/p>\n

Ha, kidding about that one.\u00a0 I know that 12 x 3 = 48.<\/p>\n

But seriously, my difficulties with doing arithmetic are basically a disability.\u00a0 Unless I have a calculator.\u00a0 I deal with arithmetic every day at work, and I’m still employed, so I must be doing something right.<\/p>\n

Higher math functions… or rather the ideas expressed in English behind them… are just fascinating to me.<\/p>\n

So the Ancient Greeks came up with lots of Geometry, some Number Theory, and even the beginnings of Algebra and Calculus.\u00a0 Just by drawing in the fucking sand, man!\u00a0 And paper.\u00a0 Yeah, there was that too.\u00a0 Well, technically not paper, but similar.<\/p>\n

And the Roman army killed Archimedes!\u00a0 Bunch of dinks.\u00a0 They would have fucking killed me if I called them that.\u00a0 Look at this guy… the Roman Emperor Caracalla:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nHe’s all “What the fuck is YOUR problem?” in that bust.\u00a0 He would have snapped me in half like a twig if he heard me badmouthing the Roman Army like that.\u00a0 He was an exceptional Roman soldier from Gaul, and he was the meanest son of a bitch at the time, so he became top dog.<\/p>\n

Then his body guards stabbed him to death while he went off the road to take a piss.<\/p>\n

Fucking Roman Army.\u00a0 Bunch of dinks.<\/p>\n

I don’t think I’ve called people “dinks” like this since I was in grade three.<\/p>\n

Tee-hee.<\/p>\n

Well, I’ve run out of things to say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That is the image that appeared first in a Google image search when I entered “whatever the fuck comes to mind” in the search box. Not bad. I was going to blab a little bit about how I’m reading a lot of Roman history now.\u00a0 I was going to do this when I talked about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,14,3],"tags":[558,168,205,206],"class_list":["post-424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asfr","category-fembots","category-miscellaneous","tag-fembots","tag-rambling","tag-roman-history","tag-star-trek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=424"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":431,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424\/revisions\/431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}