Birdsworth - latest additions

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[Bywren]: Birdsworth, I still can't get over your use of the phrase "Jiminy Cricket" as a replacement for "Jesus Christ".
[Birdsworth]: I don't see how it's any different than using "heck" or "darn". Softening profanity and obscenity in polite conversation is a well-accepted practice!

[Bywren]: Yeah, but there are more well-known and accepted replacements for "Jesus Christ", such as "geez", "cripes" and even "criminy"!
[Bywren]: Saying "Jiminy Cricket" will make your listener lose their train of thought and be fixated on the odd usage of an old Disney character, throwing off the flow of the conversation!
[Shelley]: Oh lay off, will you? You're taking this far too seriously.

[Shelley]: If Birdsworth wants to use esoteric minced oaths in casual conversation as embellishments to put some extra flair into his verbal stylings, who are you to judge him?
[Bywren]: Pah! Whatever!

[Birdsworth]: Uh, well, uh, wow, Shelley, um, thanks for standing up for me there!
[Shelley]: Think nothing of it.

[Birdsworth]: (thinking) I have no idea what half those words meant.
[Birdsworth]: (thinking) Did she put me down back there?
[Birdsworth]: (thinking) Looks like another long night with the dictionary for me...

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71

[Birdsworth]: Jiminy Cricket, it's hot out today!
[Bywren]: Uh, did you just say what I think you just said?
[Birdsworth]: What? It's blazing out here!
[Bywren]: Not that, the other part. Jiminy Cricket?

[Birdsworth]: Uh, I guess... I don't really stop to take notice of my expletives.
[Bywren]: You call "Jiminy Cricket" an expletive?
[Birdsworth]: Well I don't like to say "Jesus Christ". I think it's kind of offensive.

[Bywren]: So you replace Jesus Christ with Jiminy Cricket.
[Birdsworth]: Yep!
[Bywren]: Doesn't that seem kinda, you know, sacrilegious?
[Birdsworth]: What? Oh no!!! I've been trying to respect people, but all this time I've only been offending them more!

[Shelley]: Uh, Birdsworth. I'm pretty sure Bywren is just messing with you. I doubt anyone considers it sacrilege to not use their Lord as a curse word.
[Birdsworth]: But how can we be sure?

[Birdsworth]: Maybe there's a sect out there with a centuries-old tradition of "sacred cursing", and I've been inadvertently worshipping Jiminy Cricket in their eyes!
[Birdsworth]: I'm like the ultimate sellout!

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54

[Bywren]: You know Birdsworth, perhaps you don't need to put so much thought into your search for a new operating system.
[Birdsworth]: Why is that?
[Bywren]: Like most users, you probably don't care what goes on in the background of your operating system. You only care about the desktop environment and the application suite.

[Bywren]: The desktop environment is the way you open files an programs, like by clicking an icon or selecting from a menu. [Bywren]: The application suite is the set of common programs that provide basic functionality, like an email reader and a text editor.
[Bywren]: What's interesting is that these two components are being actively recreated by Google using web technology.
[Birdsworth]: So what does that mean?

[Bywren]: It means that you can basically use your web browser as your operating system! You just go to Google's
page and that's your desktop. From there you choose whatever program you need, and it will run right in the browser too.
[Bywren]: It'd be like every computer is your own personal computer, because everything's the same when you go to Google and log in.
[Bywren]: Think about it!

[Birdsworth]: Whoa... I wouldn't even need a computer anymore!
[Birdsworth]: I could just use friends' computers, or go to the library or some computer lab.

[Birdsworth]: I could be, like, a computing hobo, travelling from town to town to beg for spare keyboard time.
[Birdsworth]: Brother, can you spare some bandwidth?
[Birdsworth]: I promise I won't use it to go to Beer.com!

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[Birdsworth]: Hey guys, it looks like I'm not going to have to learn a new operating system after all!
[Birdsworth]: Microsoft is releasing a new version of Windows: Vista!

[Birdsworth]: It's going be really neat, too. It has this feature called Sidebar where you can put little programs called "Gadgets", just like the Dashboard in Mac OS X.
[Birdsworth]: It also has lots of fun screen effects and smooth graphics processing, just like Mac OS X.
[Shelley]: So... basically they're just stealing all of Mac's stuff.

[Birdsworth]: Oh no! Actually it's got a lot of other new stuff as well!
[Birdsworth]: A whole new way of managing files, lots of new security settings, and massive updates to all the default system programs.

[Shelley]: It sounds completely different than the current versions of Windows.
[Birdsworth]: Oh yeah, totally different in almost every way.
[Shelley]: So if you bought it, you'd have to learn a new operating system.

[Birdsworth]: But... but... it's Windows!
[Birdsworth]: Therefore it can't be a new operating system, right?!
[Birdsworth]: Dangit Shelley, Don't mess with my logic!

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39

[Birdsworth]: I guess the truly frustrating thing about being rejected is that you never know quite why.
[Birdsworth]: It seems like generally the girl wants to spare the guy's feelings, so she tries to soften the blow in any way possible.

[Shelley]: Of course, what you call "softening the blow" may in fact be the actual truth.
[Birdsworth]: But I'll never know that. If I could count on girls to never lie in order to spare my feelings, I could get a lot more information!

[Birdsworth]: When I get rejected, I want the girl to be brutally honest with me. Sure it might hurt at the time, but the knowledge I'd gain about how I present myself would be priceless!
[Shelley]: So if you were to ask me out right now, you'd prefer that instead of saying "I'm not interested in dating anyone right now", I say "I would never date you, because you're a noisy, obnoxious, self-absorbed jerk who never cares about anyone's feelings but his own"?
[Birdsworth]: Yes!

[Birdsworth]: Wait, you don't really think that about me, do you?
[Birdsworth]: Because I-
[Birdsworth]: I don't think I could take that right now!
[Birdsworth]: *sob*

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[Birdsworth]: *sigh*
[Shelley]: What's wrong, Birdsworth?
[Bywren]: He probably realized what a loser he is.
[Shelley]: Oh hush. Go ahead, Birdsworth.

[Birdsworth]: Oh, there was this pretty lark that I've had a crush on for a long time-
[Bywren]: A crush? What, are you like twelve now?
[Shelley]: Bywren, be quiet!
[Birdsworth]: Anyways, I've really liked her for a long time, and I finally worked up the courage to ask her on a date.
[Shelley]: And?

[Birdsworth]: And she totally turned me down. Like, completely.
[Bywren]: *snkt* Heh.... Oh, it's ok, sport! There's other fish in the sea! You'll get your first kiss someday!
[Shelley]: Bywren!

[Shelley]: That is it! You are so dead, mister!
[Shelley]: Birdsworth, this will only take a minute. Then we can talk.
[Birdsworth]: It's cool. I'll just hang out here with my crippling emotional pain.

[Birdsworth]: Ooh... Actually, that looks even more painful.
[Birdsworth]: Shelley, I don't think his wing is supposed to bend that way!

35

35

Romantic Poetry Slam #5
"I Am"
John Clare
[Bywren]: I am: yet what I am none cares or knows
[Bywren]: My friends forsake me like a memory lost,
[Shelley]: I am the self-consumer of my woes-
[Shelley]: They rise and vanish in oblivious host,

[Birdsworth]: Like shadows in love's frenzied stifled throes:-
[Birdsworth]: And yet I am, and live - like vapours tost
[Birdsworth]: Into nothingness of scorn and noise,
[Bywren]: Into the living sea of waking dreams,
[Shelley]: Where there is neither sense of life or joys,
[Shelley]: But the cast shipwreck of my life's esteems;

[Birdsworth]: Even the dearest, that I love the best,
[Birdsworth]: Are strange - nay, rather stranger than the rest.

[Shelley]: I long for scenes, where man hath never trod,
[Shelley]: A place where woman never smiled or wept-
[Birdsworth]: There to abide with my Creator, God,
[Birdsworth]: And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
[Shelley]: Untroubling, and untroubled where I lie,
[Shelley]: The grass below - above the vaulted sky.

[Birdsworth]: Alternate title: "Lament of the Cognitive Scientist"

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[Shelley]: You know, we've been talking about cognitive science all week, and it's starting to get a little boring. Let's talk about something else.
[Bywren]: Sure.
[Birdsworth]: I'm cool with that.

[Birdsworth]: So, uh, how about that...
[Birdsworth]: uh...
[Birdsworth]: stuff...

Several awkward minutes later:
[Bywren]: Ok, I'm outta here.
[Birdsworth]: Ok, bye!
[Shelley]: See ya!
[Birdsworth]: So, Shelley, about that, um...

Several more awkward minutes later:
[Shelley]: I guess I'll hit the road, too...
[Birdsworth]: Ok, see you tomorrow!

A few minutes after that:
[Birdsworth]: Dang! Why didn't I bring up Noam Chomsky?!

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[Bywren]: You know, cognitive science does have some critics in the scientific community as well as the religious community.
[Birdsworth]: Scientists debating other scientists? Now I've heard everything!
[Shelley]: I really hope that was sarcasm there, Birdsworth.

[Bywren]: Many scientists take issue with cognitive science's underlying philosophy of Functionalism. Functionalism basically says that the brain can be treated like a function. You give it some set of inputs, and it handles them with a bunch of interconnected states and produces an output.
[Bywren]: One trouble with this is that it doesn't really encompass the concept of understanding.
[Birdsworth]: Give me an example!

[Bywren]: Ok, Birdsworth, suppose we sat you at a computer which was capable of giving intelligent responses to all my conversation.
[Bywren]: I say something, you feed it to the computer, then you read out the response.
[Bywren]: Functionally, you are making intelligent conversation. But yet you have no actual intelligence! A contradiction.

[Birdsworth]: Oh man, I never would have thought of that. Thank goodness I have you guys here to tell me about stuff like that.

[Birdsworth]: Hey, I think I just proved your point!

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[Birdsworth]: What about the soul?
[Bywren]: Context, Birdsworth. Context.
[Birdsworth]: Cognitive science! In cognitive science, there is no concept of a soul. This is the sort of thing that tends to really peeve religious types.

[Birdsworth]: In essence, cognitive science tries to reduce the mind to a processing machine, some sort of "consciousness engine". How does the soul fit into this?
[Shelley]: Well, cognitive science has revealed an incredible complexity in the mind. Perhaps adherents could ascribe this near miraculous complexity to be the creative workings of their god of choice?

[Birdsworth]: But what if we manage to decode the mind, and recreate it mechanically? It would be a soulless intelligence, and fly in the face of their beliefs!
[Shelley]: Presumably religious folk argue that this cannot ever be achieved, and our futile efforts only serve to further prove the existence of a god!

[Birdsworth]: Wait, so in theory those people should be in support of cognitive science, since its presumed continued failings will only serve to further support their beliefs.
[Shelley]: I suppose that at heart all religious people are
afraid that someone will someday prove their beliefs wrong.
This fear tends to drive their actions.

[Birdsworth]: Ha ha! Oh, those wacky religious types!