News:

Can anyone ever be sufficiently committed to Sparkle Motion?

Main Menu

Reunion

Started by bugmenоt, November 20, 2017, 02:33:50 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

bugmenоt

Reunion with two old friends. Initial subject: The newly released Firefox Quantum. Subject quickly changes to quantum physics. First I'm having difficulties following because I am conditioned to activate the noise filter as soon as somebody claims to have knowledge about quantum physics (reason: repeated depressing encounters with the "a 15m youtube video taught me everything about quantum physics" / "Fuck SI units, my yoga teacher's definition of energy is all I need for understanding this" / "My cousin built a perpetual motion machine in his garage, but it doesn't work anymore because the oil industry sabotaged it" learning type). However, the old friend is a legit physicist ready to provide valuable insights, patiently trying to minimize misconceptions. What was initially planned to be an evening of blunt intoxication turned out to be an evening of informative intoxication. Subject changes to quantum encryption, then IT security, then programming languages, then linguistics. We try to drunk call Noam Chomsky at one point, without success. Change subjects with increased frequency. Fight over which russian anarchist had the mightiest beard. It's Kropotkin, not Bakunin. End up mutually accusing each others of being closet Stirnerists, making everybody angry for a short while. Find back to IT subjects via crypto-anarchism. Have techno-babble for a while. Question comes up "what's the first file you remember having on your computer?". Obviously it's not porn. Physicist friend says he remembers a weird PDF he got from me before he had internet access. Holy shit, it was the first book of Wilson's Illuminatus Trilogy. The nostalgia. Talk about the books and related matters for the rest of the evening.

Next day. Look at phone, find note to myself: "look up the No-cloning theorem". Look it up. Click some links. Read article about Nick Herbert, whose proposal of superluminal communication provoqued others into developing the No-cloning theorem. Apparently he's also into esotericism. Guy's still alive and has a website. http://www2.cruzio.com/~quanta/. The website is a fossil from the 90s but waitwtf: "Tributes to Pope Robert Anton Wilson"? Two photo galleries dedicated to RAW. They were buddies. Heh. I hope he never stops randomly appearing.