Η Eπιστολή Aπιστη

kentox @ 2008-09-28T23:31:00

2008-09-28T21:34:12Z

I have to migrate my blog soon! (And by soon, I mean eventually. This coming week is going to be stressful as I try to jump on top of my classes and wrestle them back to the ground.)

Nobody reads my blog, so nobody need care! But pro tip: if you friend drostie now, you might accidentally catch wind of my future blog entries, when I finish migrating. Maybe.

Earlier, I wrote this. Internet was crap at the time, so it couldn't be posted until now:

The twilight hour approaches, and I look out of my window: at any given moment, one-to-five mosquitos swarm at the glass, seen only by virtue of being backlit by the fading sky. Luckily, the window is closed and my walls are white, so it's usually a simple matter to track them and retaliate when they're inside. Two victory carcasses are already mounted upon the walls -- only two, testament to the security of the bare-bones room.

But sadly, the window is not airtight, and the scent and light piques their curiosity. With canals and dikes et cetera everywhere, mosquitoes are ubiquitous in the Netherlands. They have also become persistent and vicious, and are apparently particularly attracted to my smell. And maybe it's the fact that I'm a foreigner, but I'm much more allergic to Dutch mosquitoes than to American ones. I am not alone on this matter. And two years ago, when I lived in Delft, I prayed desperately for some mosquito netting in my studenthuis, because they would *always* come in, and tracking them and crushing them became an art form. If only I had gone to Amsterdam more often, I might have seen "Klamboe Unlimited", a store which sells only mosquito netting ("klamboe") and nothing else.

In het Nederlands, the name for mosquitoes is muggen -- and the Dutch g is a fricative, so it sounds like you're hawking up a loogie. In English, the proper term is "bitches," as the ones that try to bite you are generally females in heat.

When I'd read the Amber diceless tabletop role-playing game rules, I was amazed at the power of conjuration: creating objects out of thin air. I still think that it's my favorite power from the series. For example, here's how an Amberite could bypass evolution and eliminate the mosquito menace once and for all: conjure a lightning elemental and tell it to zap every single mosquito on the planet. Hard. Sure, people will wonder about the massive reports of miniature ball lightning seen worldwide for a month or two, but the world will be a much better place forever after. Or the mosquitoes will evolve electrical grounding. Either way.

kentox @ 2008-09-21T23:29:00

2008-09-21T21:59:33Z

Good god...

When statistical mechanics is Done Right^TM, it looks like Absolute. Fucking. Magic.

I'm serious. When I become a professor, I am going to push, lobby, and bully the faculty into letting me teach the statistical mechanics course. I am going to start the course on the first day with a wizard hat¹, and just start with a one hour lecture that will blow peoples' minds. It will go like this. (Yes, I have tried to do this whole lecture into a mirror, timing myself to make sure that it fits into a 1-hour time slot.)

- - -

Welcome to stat mech, I'm Chris Drost, I'll be your professor. Here is the syllabus; read it on your own damn time. Today, I want to blow your mind away, completely and totally. Hence, the wizard hat.

We start from two assumptions: first off, that you have these crazy notions of 'distinguishability' in your head, such that two systems which are completely in every way microscopically different might, to you, seem indistinguishable. Two cups of coffee, for example. Plausible, amirite? We call the things which you *can* distinguish, 'macrostates'. And we call all of the actual states of the particles 'microstates'.

Now, the natural first question is to ask, 'how many?' -- how many microstates are there for your macrostate? We call the answer the 'multiplicity' of your macrostate. So, going back to the cup of coffee, what we *can* distinguish is, say, volume and temperature, and total number of particles, and maybe sugar content. What we *can't* distinguish is the N particles -- which each have a 3d position vector and which each have a 3d momentum vector. 6N variables, where N is of the order of 10^22 or so.

Now, just speaking hypothetically, lets say you've got two systems which you want to consider together. System 1 is in macrostate M1 -- whatever that is -- which has multiplicity W1. System 2, likewise, is in macrostate M2, with multiplicity W2. What's the multiplicity of the coupling, (M1, M2) ?

Well, for each microstate in M1, there must be W2 different microstates in M2 that could still lead to the state (M1, M2). So we have W1 * W2 different microstates for (M1, M2). Multiplicities multiply, dudes. It's not very surprising that they do, but we don't like things that multiply. We like things that add.

So we define what we'll now call the 'entropy,' as S = k log W. It is the order of magnitude of the multiplicity, times a special scaling constant. I hear your complaints: 'Oh, we learned dS = dQ/T in thermodynamics class!' -- don't worry, we'll get around to it.

The important thing here is that you get rid of these ideas that entropy is "the measure of disorder" or something like that. Sure, you tend to be finnicky, so the states which you describe as "ordered" tend to have very low multiplicities -- whereas "disordered" is everything that's not "ordered," so it has a very high multiplicity. There are comparatively few ways for my shirts to be hung up on hangers in my closet, as there are for them to be in a big heap on my ground. But I want you to get the idea that entropy is just a way of counting multiplicity -- the order of magnitude, in fact, of that multiplicity.

Hammer that into your mind: Entropy is a phenomenon that occurs when certain microstates all "look the same" to you, when those microstates are all very distinct. Entropy is just a way of counting how many of these microstates there are within the macrostate.

I said that there were two assumptions, and I've tried to expound the first one, which is that there are lots of microstates which you say are 'all the same,' but which are fundamentally different. My second assumption is that nature doesn't care. (*writes NATURE DOESN'T CARE in big bold letters on a chalkboard.*) We assume that nature doesn't care about what you consider the same, or different. This means that the sorts of little microscopic changes that are always happening in this world-in-constant-motion tend to *randomize* the microstate, much like picking a microstate at random for your viewing pleasure. It also means that the macrostate with the highest multiplicity is just the most likely one that you'll observe -- Just because it has the highest multiplicity.

Now, you see that I am wearing a wizard hat. I plan on doing magic around now. So let's just watch.

Let's take our system 1 and system 2, which have energies E1 and E2, particle numbers N1 and N2, and volumes V1 and V2. We put them into thermal contact -- they can't exchange particles or volumes, but we put some metal plate between them that's a good conductor of heat. What do our assumptions say will happen after the changes randomize their microstates?

Well, we have some multiplicity W = W1(E1, N1, V1) * W2(E2, N2, V2). We go looking for the maximum by taking a derivative and setting it equal to zero: (^∂W/_∂E1) = 0, with constant N1, N2, V1, and V2 -- but E2 can change according to the formula of conservation of energy: E1 + E2 = E = constant. We get that:

^∂W/_∂E1 = ^∂W1/_∂E1 W2 + W1 ^∂W2/_∂E2 ^∂E2/_∂E1 = 0.

We also have that ^∂E2/_∂E1 = -1, from our constraint that E1 + E2 = E. (E2 = E - E1.) So we get that:

¹/_W1 ^∂W1/_∂E1 = ¹/_W2 ^∂W2/_∂E2

How's about that? We suddenly derive that, after they jostle around a bit, there will be some quantity that will be the same on either side -- a system property for each system, because only 1's appear on the left hand side of that equation, and only 2's appear on the right. And it is ¹/_W ^∂W/_∂E (= ^∂S/_∂E, to within the constant k), keeping N and V constant. Can you say temperature?

Unfortunately, temperature is not very well-defined on its own, and thermodynamics and statistical mechanics have to define it. But inspired by Carnot and the others who defined entropy by dS = dQ / T, we define the 'thermodynamic temperature' T as:

¹/_T = (^∂S/_∂E)_N,V

What we've just proven, though, is that for this definition of temperature, if you let two systems exchange energy with each other, they'll do so until they come to the same temperature. Useful stuff!

We can play the same trick by now letting the thermal-contact plate move back and forth. The derivatives are exactly the same, except this time we find that (^∂S/_∂V)_E,N is the same on both sides. With a little dimensional analysis (S has units of joules / kelvin; pressure has units of joules / m³), we have that:

(^∂S/_∂V)_E,N = ^P/_T

And for this definition of pressure, the pressures on both sides of our divider must be equal.

And finally, when we start to let them exchange particles, we define the 'chemical potential' μ as the amount of energy that it's worth to add a particle to the system, and we get that the chemical potential is the same on both sides, as defined by:

(^∂S/_∂N)_E,V = ^-μ/_T

... where the minus sign will be explained shortly.

In total, then, we've got

dS = ¹/_T dE + ^P/_T dV − ^μ/_T dN

Or, solving for dE:

dE = T dS − P dV + μ dN

This is called the 'thermodynamic identity.'

Now you see why the minus sign is correct: it makes μ into the amount of energy which you get when you add a particle (dN = 1). You might wonder if there should have been a minus sign also for pressure, but you can quickly convince yourself that there isn't -- when a gas expands, for example, it usually has to push against something, and that tends to take energy. (Even if you pull the wall away yourself, the particles that bounce against a receding wall tend to come back with lower velocities, so dE should be negative when dV is positive.)

Okay, so that's an example of how the theory lets us define pressure, temperature, and entropy sensibly. Now let's even go further, and do two concrete examples, so that we're REALLY doing magic.

First, the ideal gas. We start by doing our multiplicity calculation, summing over all of the 3N momentum components and all of the 3N position components. In turn, we're going to partition each of these into a position-momentum box of size h, so that we keep W dimensionless. (Hi, quantum mechanics! What are you doing here?) It will not affect anything except the dimension of W, and the classical theorist has no reason to use Planck's constant for h, but let's be pedantic and semi-classical anyway.

We have that:

W = h^-3N ∫_Lp d^3Np ∫_Lx d^3Nx

... where we need to define the limits of integration Lx and Lp for our integrals. Our constraints for the x integral are that all of the N particles must be within some volume V, so that ∫ dx ∫ dy ∫ dz = V for any one of them. Putting all of the 3N dimensions together, the integral over the Lx limits must be just V^N.

We have a different constraint for Lp, because we have a fixed total energy E, so Σ ^p²/_2m = E. But that's just a volume integral over a 3N-dimensional ball with radius sqrt(2mE). We write the answer to that as just C_3N R^3N, where C_n is the volume of the unit n-ball [C_n = π^n/2 / Γ(ⁿ/₂ + 1)].

So we have that:

W = C_3N (2mE)^3N/2 V^N / h^3N

And this means that:

S = N k log V + ³/₂ N k log E + constants

Now, start taking partial derivatives! Use our definitions for P and T!

So, first off,

¹/_T = (^∂S/_∂E)_N,V = ³/₂ N k ¹/_E

E = ³/₂ N k T

You've seen that formula before, but here we've derived it from our two little assumptions: that you see macrostates, and that the macrostate with the highest multiplicity wins because nature doesn't care what you think. Magic, I tells ya!

But if that doesn't leave you breathless, the derivative with respect to V is:

^P/_T = (^∂S/_∂V)_E,N = N k ¹/_V

P V = N k T

No way? Yes way! I just derived the ideal gas law with those two assumptions and two simple 3N-dimensional hypervolume integrals!

And did you think that was impressive? Let me also finish by doing the specific heat of metals for you, right here, right now.

We model N particles as 3N harmonic oscillators -- one in each dimension. We assume that the particles are cool enough that they're basically stuck in their own potential wells, unable to affect their neighbors much, or to be affected similarly. We start with the same principle, that:

W = h^-3N ∫_Lp d^3Np ∫_Lx d^3Nx

However, this time, each dimension is tangled up by the fact that:

Σ_i ¹/₂ k x_i² + ¹/₂ m v_i² = E = constant

Which we "circularize" by using the angular frequency ω = sqrt(k/m), into:

^2E/_m = Σ_i (ω x_i)² + v_i²

W = m^3N (hω)^-3N ∫ d^3N(ωx) ∫ d^3Nv

This is a 6N-dimensional hypersphere with radius sqrt(2E/m), and if you expand C_6N, you get:

W = (^2πE/_hω)^3N / (3N)!

S = 3 N k log E + constants

The first number in parentheses up there is just the number of energy quanta. Roughly speaking, this is also the quantum mechanical result, which is that if there are Y energy quanta, then there are (Y + N - 1) choose (N - 1) different ways to spread them over N oscillators.

Most importantly, you can see that:

¹/_T = ^∂S/_∂E = 3 N k / E

E = 3 N k T

This means that solids which fit our description should have specific heats on the order of 3R, where R is the gas constant. R = 8.314472 J/(mol K), so 3R ~= 25 J/(mol K). Let's look on Wikipedia for solids with specific heats between, say, 24 and 26:

Lithium: 24.9 J/(mol K)
Beryllium: 16.4
Boron: 11.1
Carbon: 8.5 (graphite), 6.1 (diamond)
Sodium: 28.2
Magnesium: 24.9
Aluminium: 24.2
Silicon: 19.8
Sulfur: 22.8
Calcium: 25.9
Scandium: 25.5
Titanium: 25.1
Chromium: 23.4
Manganese: 26.3

Et cetera. Especially among metals, the approximation holds very well. (Personal note: And we didn't need no steenking Drude-Sommerfeld model to get the result, either!)

Footnotes
¹Not that wizard hat.

kentox @ 2008-09-18T12:25:00

2008-09-18T10:25:22Z

Sitting on the temple steps are different types locked in their corners -- pairs talking, an occasional group passing through, as the pigeons strut in the noonday sun. Here, a woman enjoying a coffee; there, a man walks, looking for food; the young man to the side, basking in the sun, thinking about -- anything?

Our prophet sits on the temple steps, too, a ghost to us, as we are to him. "Nothing is worth anything," he says to himself -- you can read his mind if you look closely. We all felt it, and nobody could do anything, and we all knew that he didn't mean it anyways. What he meant was something more like, "I want to be loved again," but what his mind repeated was simply "Nothing is worth anything," over and over again.

The pews in the temple are full of quiet people who had nowhere else to go, and just wanted some sanity inside the confusion of the world. And inside the temple, you can go as high as you wish; enlightenment is free -- just walk the path and study carefully. But sitting atop the world, you lose touch with those at the very bottom, the lazy ones who will forget today's wisdom in the months that they spend here tomorrow. That's, I think, why people come up this far in the first place.

Another priest falls back to unenlightenment. Another child molester, or just someone who got bored or tired? We'll never know for sure. We sail in circles in the night, and are consumed by the fire; and that's just the game we were born into.

kentox @ 2008-09-17T18:33:00

2008-09-17T16:57:50Z

I've made friends with another NL/US dual citizen -- a cute lesbian geek named Josine/Josina. We've got a rather shared history, surprisingly, so I feel obligated to help her along with her confusions. She went to Smith; I went to Cornell -- so of course, I'm understanding a bajillion things that she's missing.

She learned Quantum Mechanics without Linear Algebra, dudes. Quantum mechanics is linear algebra (in funny hats). But she'd seen vectors and dot products and determinants and the like before; she just hadn't had a formal course in them.

So I took it upon myself to teach her a nearly four-hour crash course in linear algebra, which took the second half of the day.

The first two hours were devoted to some review of
(1) What linearity is [ f(x + y) = f(x) + f(y), f(kx) = k f(x). ]
(2) Why every linear function can be characterized as a matrix.
(3) How to do matrix multiplication.
(4) Coordinate systems.
(5) A little bit of matrix inversion (especially the 2x2 case), but not the explicit case of solving linear systems.
(6) Questions, some problems.

Coffee break! I illustrated Scott Aaronson's "Proof by Pizza" and explained calculus in under a minute to a crowd of undergrad physics majors. I got a round of applause.

The second two hours covered:
(1) Eigenvectors. ("Making f(x + y) = f(x) + f(y) even simpler.")
(2) Eigenvalues.
(3) Eigenvalues in Quantum Mechanics.
(4) Matrices as seen from their diagonalizing coordinates.
(5) The determinant of a diagonal matrix, and the physical interpretation of it.
(6) Determinants in general, det(AB) = det(A) det(B), det(A^T) = det(A).
(7) Why, if M v = 0 for a nontrivial v, then det M = 0. (just diagonalize M).
(8) How to actually find eigenvalues [ derivation of det(M − λI) = 0. ]
(9) Finding an eigenvector with a given eigenvalue.

It sounds like more, but I didn't have to talk at great length about how to do determinants with Josina -- she understood from the start. She just didn't know why they were important and what they physically meant, so I tried to show her.

All in all, I thought it was a pretty good crash course.

kentox @ 2008-09-07T22:52:00

2008-09-07T21:21:47Z

I think I'm swearing off of prostitutes for good, now. It's only partially because I finally got ripped off by one; I found another afterwards that was both more fun and more casual. No, the real reason, I think, is that I've found out what I was using the RLDs to find out. I won't burden my livejournal with details in any public entries.

Well, maybe I'll go back to the RLDs in Den Haag again sometime. I like the lighter atmosphere there. In the Walletjes, it seems like if you ever ask, "do you do kissing -- can we kiss as we have sex?" the answer is always "no." I... find that hard to understand, but it's rather standard. (My brother suggested that maybe they thought it was too intimate. Seriously? You'll suck my dick, fuck me in three positions, and you're still thinking that kissing me is *too intimate*...?)

In any case.

After I hiked around 10-15 km total through Amsterdam on Friday night, we went to Mom & Dad's 40th anniversary party and met the family for a big reunion party. I managed to down my third full glass of beer ever. I have trouble with the stuff, but I hear that this is the only way to build up the taste that makes everyone else like it so much, and I've decided to work on that.

We had a lot of fun. There was a playground where our entire American posse, plus some of the other kids, just went to have fun. I was spun in a bizarre centrifuge by my brothers, shouting "Oh you bastards, oh you bastards!" over and over again as the world spun and the G-force kicked me back into my chair. I never really felt like throwing up because of it, though. Maybe I'd make a decent air force pilot, if I lost the weight. (I don't know the exact rpm I was going, but I was at least a meter from the center and I think it was going a little faster than 1 Hz, so that puts me at something like 4 g's. So that's nothing, but still, my brothers automatically wanted off -- I had no real problem with it other than shouting "oh you bastards" as the railing ground in against my back.)

Classes start back up tomorrow. Good God this is going to be a tough semester.

kentox @ 2008-09-02T22:08:00

2008-09-02T20:32:50Z

We took our first "Ethics in Engineering" lecture today. The lectures are optional; but there are compulsory discussion sections. And nobody that I've talked to likes our lecturer.

The professor stated several times that ethical systems were correct or incorrect mostly based on their consistency. During the lecture-break, I went up to him privately and argued that he was dead wrong. He more or less floundered.

If you don't see why he is dead wrong, take any ethical system you like, and add on the premise, "also, only people with mustaches can justify ethical beliefs according to those principles; everybody else should ask someone with a 'stache about what's ethical or not." It's not obvious that this new ethical system is any less consistent than the old one, but it certainly seems much more wrong.

At one point I also pointed out that in English, things can be contrary without being contradictory -- e.g. it is both true that (1) the sky is blue, and (2) the sky is black and speckled with stars. The first is known to any schoolboy; but the second is true at this particular moment in this particular place. (Actually, it was rainy for all of today, so I doubt that there are stars. Same difference, though.) His response to that was to (apparently) redefine "contradictory" to include that. I told him that then he was throwing away his precise sense of logical contradiction. And then he lost track of where we were and said "listen, I have to go do... stuff," and ran away.

Is he a scientist? I don't know. But I don't think he's a philosopher. They said that they're importing an American who will take over the course, so I'm hoping-against-hope that such a person doesn't say such crazy things.

The discussion section was a bit better, but my classmates got stuck on the epistemic questions -- how do we know that the chemical is poisonous / that we are polluting the environment / that our Proplast TMJ implant will malfunction? I asked in the middle if we could maybe turn to interesting ethical questions like what value is, and which values were conflicting in our hypothetical scenarios, and how you resolve a conflict if you have two opposing values of your own. People took the bait a little, but not really.

kentox @ 2008-09-01T09:45:00

2008-09-01T07:46:53Z

My Stat Mech professor looks like a twin of John Oliver, from the Daily Show. And his class has (so far) been easier than any Cornell course I can remember from recent history.

There's something about covering Griffiths' entire Introduction to Quantum Mechanics in one semester that prepares you for everything.

Kill me now.

2008-08-31T09:50:48Z

This country doesn't understand sleeping in. The required classes start at 8:30 in the morning, and I've got a 1-hour commute to the university.

Cornell also had an 8:30 class, titled "General Relativity." The instructor just couldn't understand why more people didn't want to do differential geometry so early in the morning.

kentox @ 2008-08-30T12:14:00

2008-08-30T10:14:45Z

"This family really likes cheese and eats pretty much nothing else, and their child comes into school with a big lunch pail and says 'gee, cheese sandwiches are so absolutely wonderful; I love cheese.' Do you agree, strongly agree, disagree, or strongly disagree?"

People shuffle from corner to corner, and I find myself in the Strongly Agree side. And I'm in stitches and tears, laughing at a private joke which I cannot stop laughing at. The other students shuffle around the room for several minutes, which is what it takes for me to regain composure.

"Now, those of you on the Strongly Agree side: what are the reasons for your position?"

We look at each other. I boldly step forward first, channelling a kid from Darrow named Parker Kraus through my living essence.

"Cheese is an absolute good!" I bellow, and the entire room starts laughing hysterically. "It is known to go incredibly well..." -- and now I falter, trying to suppress my own laughter at my upcoming punch -- "... with other cheese!" Oh goodness me, I have the whole room in stitches, but that includes myself.

Eager for one last joke, the coordinator of the bizarre activity asks, "Well, do you have any other reasons?"

One of the other people in our group says, "And it's good for vegetarians!" which does not get much laughs. I continue with the momentum and say, "And it may not be good for vegans, but vegans are pretentious!" That got them all laughing again.

When the Strongly Disagree side had to present their case, the man just said, "well, I really just don't like cheese," against which I bellowed, "HEATHEN!" to the laughter and applause of the rest of the room.

This went through another phase -- about smoking bans in apartments and bars -- where I was on the Disagree side. I strongly contemplated starting off in the same voice, with "Smoking is an absolute good! It goes very well with other smoking!" but tried to contain myself.

In a third scenario, they put up some of either Rembrant's or Van Gogh's paintings and said that a woman behind us at the museum said something about the artist being detailed, expressive, sympathetic, emotional, etc., etc. -- and we were supposed to agree or disagree with her.

"Chris, is there anyone else with you on the 'Strongly Agree' side?"

I looked to my left, to someone standing nearby, and she edged away. "No, there is not," I said.

"Well, give us the case for strongly agreeing with this woman!"

In the same bellowing voice that spoke in absolutes, I said, "I want to meet a woman at this museum, and I think it's important to be polite!"

Again, the whole room was floored with laughter.

I spent the rest of the day playing Guitar Hero with a cute, short, nerdy girl who's already spoken for, named Josine, and a Dark-haired Scandinavian-looking Dutchman named Tom.

Food in Wateringen, or, Why I'm Getting the Hell out of Dodge.

2008-08-24T20:56:34Z

At eight and nine o'clock, all of the supermarkets in Wateringen are closed, and if you've missed dinner so far, you're stuck with two tired dining spots: a falafel space named "Oase" on the street-of-many-names, and a Chinese place located in the twisting ennui north of the city proper.

I went to the Oase a couple days ago. "Wat wil je?" he asked, looking at me as if I were a hobo. "Sate," I said. He looked at me blankly. "Sate?" I asked. More blank stares. "Satetjes!" I said. "Come on, you've got to know what sate is, it's right on your menu. And I know I'm pronouncing it right."

"Oh, Engels!" he said, or something like it. He motioned to me to point out what I wanted on a menu. And when I did, he pronounced it exactly the way I thought it was pronounced. "Yeah, that's what I've been saying!" I opined, clearly distressed. He talked with a fellow cook, then set about tossing my skewers of chicken on a dirty metal grill. He kept shooting me these dirty looks, as if he expected me to steal something. I looked around: there was nothing for me to steal, unless I wanted to steal a bar stool.

Needless to say, I wasn't going back there again tonight. So tonight I went to the Chinese place instead.

It was the most depressing restaurant I've ever been in -- and I've been in several depressing restaurants. It's like, having soaked in the ennui of the streets around it, it has just emerged as this deep speck of suck, crystallized into an eating establishment. I was literally, actually, almost in tears as I left the place.

The waitress who rung me up tried to look cheerful as she charged me 19.90 euro for a 5 euro meal. I think she even went to get me a 10-cent piece, which I feel is adding insult to injury, so I left before she returned. I don't know -- why the attempt to be cheerful at the end? I think deep down, she was aware that the experience as a whole was downright horrible for me, and here I was, paying four times what it was worth.

The lesson? If you find yourself in Wateringen and it's 8 or 9 pm, go to sleep hungry. Temporary starvation is much better than any options this backwards town has for you.

Edit: It occurs to me that future-me will probably not remember why the restaurant was so depressing, so I might as well detail it here. Imagine this, future-me:

Suddenly, here you are, at the Chinese place. You walk inside and ask if the waitress speaks any Engels, or whether you need to talk in Nederlands. She answers that she understands a bit of English, but your grasp of Nederlands is probably even worse. Okay, so you ask if they're still open for dinner, and she says yes, then double-checks with some other man to make sure. He jokes, in Nederlands, about how late it is to be eating, before he sits you down at a lonely table facing the tired streets. The decor is a passionless brown everywhere you look. As you get sat down, a waitress asks you if you want anything to drink. You ask for a cola.

There is no menu, and no plate, nothing. Well, there's something that looks like a drinks list in the middle of the table, but you've already ordered your drink. So the silence attacks you. What are you doing here, lost and alone?

She brings you a drink. "Um, I'm not sure how things work here," I said. "How does this restaurant work?"

She offers, "first, you get an appetizer, then you wander around." That, er, doesn't sound right. So you consult the drink-list-looking thing in the middle of the table, which informs you that this is a buffet restaurant -- hence the walking -- and that the buffet costs 18 euro. Suddenly, that 20 euro in your wallet seems like a lot less than the $30 which it actually represents.

You walk up to one of the waitresses. "Hi," you say, interrupting her -- though it's late and she has no more customers. "If dinner costs 18 euro then I really can't afford an appetizer." She clarifies, after consulting with her boss, that the appetizer is contained within that price. Okay, so your confusion is a bit sated. The appetizer plate appears soon after. The sugar roll looks like a fried dumpling, so you accidentally dip it in the sweet-and-sour sauce; oh well. Munch, munch, munch.

You get up and walk around. Where the fuck is the buffet? It's hidden a bit, and there is no real organization to it. Just five seconds after you figure out the general groupings within the disarray, some Chinese woman comes out of the kitchen, trying to explain the setup in broken Nederlands. Yes, I *know* that that purplish-and-white stuff is uncooked shrimp. I *know* that the man with the wok is going to cook it for me. Do you really get people who don't know these things?

And a buffet for 18 euro? Really?! All I want is a plate of rice, maybe with some knoflooksaus and stir-fried shrimp to go alongside. Well, that part they can handle for you: real shrimp sits alongside large portions of blatantly fake-crab meat on the stir-fry station. Vegetables carefully chosen, you ask the guy to stir-fry the whole deal for you, and he tosses them into some boiling water to blanch them. He blanches them for a bit on the longish side as his wok heats up slowly, takes the local garlic-based sauce, and stir-fries the concoction. No advanced prep here. Really, *this* is worth 18 euro? I could do this blindfolded. Hell, I even selected the vegetables for the stir-fry to complement each other, already. What's left? Do I at least get some artful arrangement, with a sprig of parsley on top? Nope: dump-and-run job all the way.

Fried rice sits in one of those generic rectangular metal food-buckets that buffets and cafeterias have -- the sort that are sometimes temperature-controlled by being immersed in near-boiling water. (Future-me will hopefully understand what I'm talking about here.) It looks painfully old. Decrepit soup sits in the next-door rack. Ugh.

So you take the plate of rice-plus-garlic-shrimp back to your little isolated depressing table, and eat quietly and alone. You go into meta-analysis mode -- why is this restaurant depressing me so? -- but that just makes the problem worse for some reason.

You finish the rice and stare out into the street, realizing that this just doesn't feel like a place you want to be. It's like if all the crappy social aspects of Burger King met all the crappy tastes of Chinese food as Americans cook it, and then decided that the resulting meal was worth thirty bucks.

The waitress arrives as you contemplate these deep truths. And contemplation is deserved: does it take intentional malice to set up a restaurant so horribly? She tries to be helpful: "You can go up for a second plate." I try to politely decline. "Well, we also have ice cream and fruit," she suggests, and I feel obligated to indulge her, if only because I want to see if they somehow messed up the ice cream, too.

Fortunately, they messed up this station only by not placing the bowls anywhere accessible. I already had an appetizer plate at the ready when the woman more or less demanded (or sternly asked) for me to trade with her. Into the huge voluminous bowl went a scoop of ice cream and a couple pineapple wedges. I really wasn't into this.

They had stolen my fork, so I ate the ice cream with my leftover soup spoon and my pineapple by spearing it with my knife. The one other group-of-people in the place left. I waited until they were gone, finished off my glass of Pepsi (which was the extra 1.90 euro on the bill -- really, $2.85 for a smallish glass of Pepsi?) and snuck out on my own. The woman tried to ask me for 19.90 euro with a huge smile on her face, but, as I said above, I wonder if she secretly felt ashamed to be selling me a $5 meal for $30.

She looked after me worriedly as I walked out of the restaurant. Now that I think about it, maybe she was distressed because, to all intents and purposes, it looked like she had stolen my ten euro-cents, walking off like that. But like I said, it would have been an insult to have been refunded only 10 cents of the 15 euros that they overcharged me, so I left.

kentox @ 2008-08-20T15:05:00

2008-08-20T15:35:21Z

"It's a god's wonder that you can start," he said on the triumphant telephone call. I ended my apartment search in Ithaca and started sending emails on July 31st. There were a bunch of people on vacation, but I finally found and emailed the right person on August 8th. On August 12th, I stepped on a plane to the Netherlands, which arrived early morning on August 13th there. A baby cried, keeping me from my rightful sleep.

The "right person" wasn't in the office until August 18th. I phoned him that morning, walked into his office the same day. He took me from admissions officer to admissions officer, to finally end at some New Jersey girl's office. The prognosis was positive, but indefinite. Key to the issue was the question: was there a formal restriction from the University barring my entrance, because I don't have a Bachelor's yet? Even if I met the course requirements?

He said he would use his kung-fu mastery to meditate on the question and return an answer. Instead, he returned more questions the following day, like "why didn't you leave an official copy of your transcript in my office?" -- stupid, stupid me -- and, "why do you only have one semester of Quantum, when Cornell's current program requires two?" -- because they changed it.

Biking through the rain and foreign streets, and the labyrinthine geometry of northern Delft, I quietly slipped my transcript into his mailbox. On the way back, the little red signs which told me how to return to Wateringen were misleading at best. You should see them. There's one place in particular where there's a little red sign saying "Wateringen: take a right here," where, straight across the intersection, on the road facing you, there's a big blue sign: "Welcome to Wateringen." Stupid lying little red signs. But I discovered that I can understand and ask for directions in Dutch. Prachtig!

Which brings us to today. Today I caught a train to Rotterdam Centraal to pick up an iPod -- in lieu of fixing my old one, they just gave me a new one. Score.

And then came The Phone Call. There is no restriction on having a Bachelor's if you have the right courses; whatever that man says, goes. And he says I'm in. So, I am.

~~Twenty~~ Fifty days or so after the deadline for admissions for even the Dutch students, with only a tenuous grasp of Nederlands and no Bachelor's degree, I have been accepted to TU Delft for a Master's degree in Applied Physics, probably concentrating on Nanoscience.

Internet party! It's good to be me.

kentox @ 2008-08-16T14:55:00

2008-08-16T19:02:09Z

I visited Rotterdam yesterday, and Rotterdam and Amsterdam today. Of course, I visited De Walletjes (the main red-light district) there, and spent time with a nice Indian-looking girl.

Paying for sex changes the dialogue, for me, and not necessarily in a bad way. I like submissive girls, but I'm not really the dominating sort, so prostitution is a sort of happy middle ground. You know? She will do whatever I need, and I don't have to whip her into submission if she decides to be naughty.

I might add more later, but it will probably be a private entry.

Drostie op de Nederlands, or, Cheese Knife Kung Fu

2008-08-14T11:02:05Z

I've returned to the Netherlands and am staying for a bit in Wateringen, which is a small area just outside of Den Haag (The Hague) on the south side -- close-ish to Delft.

I just cut myself with a kaasschaaf, a funky safety knife that they use to cut cheese very thinly. Seriously. Do a google image search for kaasschaaf, and see what I cut myself with. It's an absolutely ridiculous thing to cut yourself with, and yet it has sliced a large amount of skin and about half of a nail almost clean off -- the remainder is still bleeding like hell as I blog.

It bled tremendously. I immediately tossed it in running water, like you would with a burn: that was my "I'm not thinking, I'm doing" response. That made it bleed faster, of course, but it might have cleaned out some spare cheese. I don't know. I then had to staunch the bleeding with paper towel after paper towel. Suddenly, I felt nauseated and dizzy -- like I was about to throw up -- which is weird because I'm not afraid of blood; it doesn't make me sick to my stomach.

Suddenly, I thought the best idea was just to lay down. So I did, while the woman-of-the-house Agnes immediately started repeating "blood, blood, everywhere!" as she cleaned it up. I tried to say, "I'll clean it up, give me a minute," but she either didn't hear me or didn't care. I suddenly had this vivid loss of hearing, as if the entire world was being heard through cotton balls, as a ringing in my head intensified. I had no real sensation of panic, so I was kind of sitting there wondering what the hell my brain was doing. Is this the standard "you may have chopped off an important limb" survival mode or something? Or did the water in my cut circulate some bizarre salt up to my brain? Or did I lose so much blood that my system went into a temporary shock mode? (The last seems unlikely, but I really have no clue how much blood I lost down that drain at first.)

So, now it's wrapped up with paper towel underneath a band-aid -- and the bleeding has now soaked the towel and started soaking into the band-aid. Typing with my injured finger is probably the last thing worth doing, but I write this journal for myself, and I want to make sure that I have a permanent record of the fact that I cut myself with a kaasschaaf. Agnes says that it's happened to her before, but I'm not sure I believe her. I probably wouldn't believe myself, ten years from now.

Another meaningless dream:

2008-08-10T18:45:08Z

I was in a house with a bunch of other people, and it was an urban or suburban environment, daytime. A bunch of us were playing games in some small living room. I got up to go to the bathroom.

The bathroom was in an odd place without a door, so that anybody walking down the hallway would see your junk if you started pissing in it. This didn't seem to faze me, even though the occasional person walked down that hall. I guess I expected courtesy to work its magic. Immediately after I flushed, a towel fell into the toilet bowl and got half-soaked.

I wrung it out into the toilet and felt a little bad about hanging it up to dry. I don't remember exactly what I did with it. But as I walked back to the living room, I noticed that every basin possible seemed to be filled with water, with fish flitting about. In particular, one part of the hallway was sunk a couple inches and tiled, and there were a couple fish in there, too. I remembered, in the dream, that Grant from Mythbusters would have been extraordinarily creeped out by this, but I just walked on through it.

I couldn't remember whether the toilet bowl was fish-less or not, and it saddened me to know that maybe, the housemate who was collecting all of these fish was going to be mad at me for my stupidity.

As I walked down that hallway, to the right I saw a huge, expansive bathroom area, perfectly clean, with no fish inside. I could have just gone to the bathroom there, and sidestepped the whole issue.

And then I woke up.

kentox @ 2008-08-09T15:31:00

2008-08-09T19:42:02Z

Last night I held a "Chris is going away!" party at Games Club. It was fun.

On Tuesday, I board a plane for the Netherlands. It's not for a special occasion: I'm going job-hunting and possibly trying to convince TU Delft to accept me for a Bachelor's or Master's degree. It is an absolutely ridiculous proposition that was advanced by my father. On an intellectual level, I can appreciate the deep stupidity of the idea as a whole. But on an impulsive level, hey, it'll be a little fun, maybe.

"So we took our chances and joined in the madness," and whatnot.

Dad still doesn't accept my predilections for cooking -- or any sort of professional artistic hobby, to be perfectly honest. That really isn't the part that disturbs me -- it's normal for parents to not understand their children, after all. The part that disturbs me is that he thinks that he *does* understand me completely. He will give me whole lectures about how he really knows that I secretly want to "advance my career path," and that I am locked in a cycle of "procrastination," that cooking does not satisfy me, et cetera, et cetera. I don't understand why the people who get these things so wrong are so convinced of their own rightness.

It looks like my AC adapter for my laptop might not ship until Monday. If that's true, then I probably won't get it on Tuesday morning, and I'll just be stuck without a computer in the Netherlands. My backup strategy might have to be lugging my desktop computer on the plane as a checked bag.

I'll be there until at least Christmas.

kentox @ 2008-07-31T22:01:00

2008-08-01T02:08:28Z

A riveting whirlwind, 40 minutes long, about why innocent, truthful people should plead the fifth and never talk to the police:

Lecture 1 - "Don't Talk to the Police," by James Duane, Professor at the Regent University School of Law
Lecture 2 - "Don't Talk to the Police," by George Bruch, officer of the Virginia Beach Police Department.

(I was linked to these by Bruce Scheier's wonderful blog, Scheier on Security.)

kentox @ 2008-07-29T10:46:00

2008-07-29T15:17:33Z

I haven't written about music for a while. So: first off, the guy who picks the music for Doctor Who: Confidential has eerily similar tastes to mine, except that the music on Doctor Who: Confidential is a little more poppy than I usually like.

Second, I've been on roughly a year-long Troubled Hubble kick. Troubled Hubble was an incredible band that sadly, broke up before I even discovered them. Required listening off of their (still active, surprisingly) web site: 1, 2, 3. There are also some YouTube videos with crappy audio quality, highlighting their songs on Making Beds in a Burning House, another absolutely amazing CD that I picked up by chance.

There's another indie band called MGMT which left its indie moorings to become a label-signed professional act. I wouldn't have seen them if they hadn't; my first experience was catching them playing Time to Pretend while flipping by David Letterman's show. I've blogged about them a little a while back, I believe: their album Oracular Spectacular takes all of the things I liked about Daft Punk and twists them in newer, weirder directions. I like them.

I was on a Blue Man Group kick as well, even though their lyrics are often somewhat generic and their latest DVD -- How to be a Megastar Live! -- is basically the exact same track listing as their last DVD -- The Complex Rock Tour.

The Hives can be somewhat touch-and-go, with a sound that reminds me somewhat of The Presidents of the United States of America, if they decided to add punk influences and get real instruments. But The Presidents were pretty sweet on their own, and I'm not sure if I like the way The Hives take it.

Jake Shimabukuro does absolutely ridiculous things with a ukelele. His songs contain pure joy.

I haven't gone through the SXSW Showcasing Artists pack yet this year. I downloaded it, but I just haven't been motivated. :-\

kentox @ 2008-07-25T10:16:00

2008-07-25T14:21:12Z

My video "How to Make Yourself Feel Icky" has finally overtaken the sum of *all* of my other YouTube videos in views. Now almost 5,000 people on the internet now know me as, "that dude who molested a fleshlight with a maglite."

The lesson for you? Never engage in $60 open-ended bets. Or if you do, don't lose them.

kentox @ 2008-07-23T21:06:00

2008-07-24T01:07:22Z

This video is... well... absolutely incredible. I've shown it to four other people now, and so far, it has brought smiles to everyone's face.

It contains pure joy. Watch it if you like being happy.

kentox @ 2008-07-22T21:08:00

2008-07-23T01:18:12Z

Cooked tonight for Mom and Dad, as well as Jan and Agnes -- two Dutch visitors. (Mom was running everywhere, picking up our guests from the bus station and Dad from the airport, so I kind of took this upon myself.) Five person dinners take a bit more mental effort, and I wanted to be lazy, so I avoided my normal fried-rice dishes.

It was a relatively simple meal: a salad with lettuce, cucumbers, onions, and tomatoes; salt potatoes, fresh corn-on-the-cob, barbecued chicken, a small fillet of salmon for Dad, who doesn't eat chicken, and garlic bread; pudding for dessert.

The only thing that required much preparation was the garlic bread. But that's relatively simple: 50/50 butter / olive-oil, add a couple cloves of garlic chopped extremely fine, add chopped chives and Italian seasoning. Italian seasoning, in turn, is just a magical blend of basil, marjoram, oregano, rosemary, and probably sage and thyme. It's like parsley: it's one of those finely-chopped things you can throw into a dish to add a background Goodness to it -- rosemary in particular is an absolutely wonderful aromatic. Bake in aluminium foil, 350-400-ish for ten minutes or so.

kentox @ 2008-07-20T01:25:00

2008-07-20T05:53:46Z

I saw The Dark Knight with Dani and Zach.

We varied on what we thought about it: I thought it was two movies glued onto each other, while Dani thought it was basically an entire TV season. (It might have been a little closer to half.)

The Joker is an incredible character in the movie, and is rather impossible to pigeonhole. He lies to pretty much everybody about pretty much everything. Is he a villain just because he's a traumatized sociopath? Or is it just a joke, to him? Or is it more like what both Alfred and the Joker opine: he's a chaos-advocate and anarchist who wants to stand tall and proud as the world burns? Or is it more like Batman's idea, that he just wants other people to be like him? Or is he suicidal, and just wants to go out with a bang?

I felt like the lead character (Christian Bale as Batman) went remarkably unexplored, by contrast. The amount of screen time that you're interested in what Batman is doing is about 5 seconds long, and ends with him using an interesting maneuver to flip a Mack Truck 180° about its long axis. The rest of it, you were just left with wondering "why?"

For example, Batman has to take on a SWAT team because they don't know that they're facing a bunch of innocent civilians. But why didn't he grab a two-way radio from them in the first place? Even worse, he's later shown in that same general scene to be in two-way communications with the guys back at Wayne Enterprises -- why not ask them to put him in contact with the SWAT team? (They apparently have already hacked into every cell phone in the world.)

Other than those remarks, not too shabby of a movie. I liked it.

(Pirates) plus (Wi-Fi) minus (Pirated Wi-Fi) equals (Entertainment).

2008-07-15T09:23:45Z

So there's this pirate named Drostie with some internet issues: he just installed a new wireless router, and -- wouldn't you know it? -- his router does just fine with a wired computer, but doesn't work with a wireless computer. The wireless computer goes, "HAY I SEES ME A BELKIN-BRAND ROUTER OVER THAR!" but then when you say, "Avast, me heartie! Board it and set sail," it goes, "um, it's not responding to our boarding party."

"Arr, clearly our party needs more cake."

Now, Drostie knows that he has a cheap Netgear wireless card in his computer, and so he tries to make sure that the antenna is pushed all the way into the card -- it has come loose before. When he does so, the computer goes all, "WE GET SIGNAL! MAIN SCREEN TURN ON!" -- and Drostie sees BitTorrent traffic on NetMeter. "Arr," he says. "'Twas the loose antenna all along."

Unfortunately, when he lets go of the antenna, the connection drops. He moves to adjust the antenna again, then lets go of it more carefully. But the connection still drops. So he just touches the antenna *very* lightly. Caressing it, you might say, because Drostie is probably one of those damn technosexuals, like all pirates post-Napster. And when he does so, he gets to board the Internets, and all is pretty rad except that he's fondling his computer's antenna in a way that doesn't look very appropriate.

Drostie giggles for about five minutes straight, uncontrollably, watching his BitTorrent traffic spike up and down to respond to his hand motions. He can't believe his eyes.

So he starts out by assuming that he's acting as an extra length of antenna, somehow. But arr, thems be a fishy thesis, because all of his attempts to connect metal extensions to the antenna fail miserably. Also, his wireless card was powerful enough to talk to the last router just fine. So, his computer is in love and she will not settle for some metal proxy. Not even if it vibrates.

He looks in vain to his bookshelf. Standing there in all its glory is his fleshlight, bought as the result of a lost bet requiring a humiliating YouTube video of the victor's choice. Drostie giggles again like a madman, but cannot bring himself to insert the antenna into the fleshlight to see if that would help. His computer probably has standards, after all; and when we are all governed by robot overlords in 2044, he doesn't want to be accused of techno-raping his computer way back in the summer of 2008.

He stumbles upon something interesting while fondling his computer, though: that he doesn't need to be actually fondling it! He could be about 1-2 cm away, and it would still receive his torrent traffic! (Yes, this pirate uses the metric system for distances. So sue me.)

He has no real original thoughts on this matter for the rest of the day. He starts off the next day with a bright new inspiration: what if he's somehow just *resonating* with the signal or so, so that direct contact isn't needed?

Drostie says, "Ahoy, laddies! I know t' 802.11g winds blow forth at 2.4 GHz. 'Tis the microwave scale, me hearties, about ten centimeters long. I know this because microwaves be horribly named. There be nuthin' micro about them." His crew stares and blinks.

"Don't ye see, me hearties? Me hand be on the same size. Maybe me hand be resonating!"

But his navigator named Reason said, "Nay, Cap'n, ye forget that the mighty seas of Wi-Fi be digital. Reradiated light would lose the signal!"

"Yarr," he agreed somberly, slipping into his cabin to think more about it.

After about half an hour, the captain emerged, declaring "Aha!" after a lot more thought. Well, pirates don't say "Aha!" ... so how about "Shiver me timbers and keel-haul me mum! That settles it! I'm no antenna extension! I be a conductor, a mirror, blocking the light just like murky bilge water!"

That was clearly the physics occurring here. But why would *that* boost the signal? (Okay, so pirates plus physics is a stretch. But bear with me here, I'm almost done.)

So, Drostie set sail for the smuggler's cove known as Wikipedia, where all pirate lore was written in scrawls on the walls of the bathrooms that they call "articles." One pirate had left the tip: "The wi-fi seas be risky, ye scurvy scum, for the 2.4 GHz waters be choppy and deep, and when the wind blows, the seas rise against ye, from the North or the East or the South. If ye can't make it one way, try t' other ways, and if ye can't do that, ye be stuck West, in port."

"Yar," Drostie said, "maybe t' rough seas be blowing me ship in circles. And maybe me hook be protectin' me ship, keepin' t' waves from crashing on t' aft deck." Why would noise be more affected by his hand than the signal? Drostie didn't know, but he thought it was very possible. His hand could be doing a short-period average of the one and not the other, for example. "Aye, let me try going East," he said, switching to wi-fi channel 6.

And it worked, and he made it to port, and found a good buxom wench for the night. Okay, so that last part is made up, but we can all be dreamers, can't we?

[In other news: Yesterday I went to some official ceremony where I saw Amanda Perl pokevolve into Amanda Wampler. Also, there was some subtext of eternal love and exchanging rings and other neat stuff. Someone even read from the Song of Solomon. That's the porno book in the Bible, you guys. I wanna do that at my wedding now: find some heartening romantic quote in some porno movie, and recite it as a wedding vow. "I vow to love you, honor you, and cherish you above all others, for as long as we both shall live. Also, did somebody call a plumber?"]

Magic Fingers + Computer

2008-07-12T18:00:46Z

I wanted to give a video demonstration of the utter weirdness of our new wireless router -- my computer evidently will not connect to it unless I'm holding the wireless antenna myself.

Needless to say, that's not workable. But I'll try to find something. I'm not exactly sure what's happening when I act as an antenna; I'm surprised to find out that I'm the right sort of composition to allow such things to occur. I need to test what happens as I use various metals as a proxy between myself and the antenna, to see if any of them have the requisite properties to take my place.

Thankfully, I won't have to deal with it after a couple of weeks! And I can always play offline games.

Enough about me. How are you?

kentox @ 2008-07-10T00:33:00

2008-07-10T04:36:03Z

From a boogenhagen-type-character's LJ, I've been directed to this particular 2006 rant by Ira Glass of "This American Life." He talks about storytelling in four clips, which I've arranged into a YouTube playlist:

Interesting perspectives, all.

kentox @ 2008-07-09T02:07:00

2008-07-09T06:08:21Z

Steel Train did a wonderful song on the 7/7/08 Conan O'Brien show, called "I Feel Weird." Their execution was impressive-but-odd; the lyrics are absolutely rich but were getting buried in a lot of added complexity. They can't possibly need four guitarists *and* a piano player. I mean, one of their guitarists has been outsourced to the *xylophone* of all things, and another to main vocals, because they're busy with overkill.

They've got a wonderful path ahead of them, I think. I'd just like to see them respect their lyrics more, because their lyrics are golden:

When I was eighteen
Everything was alive
Then the planes hit the towers
Then she died, then he died
A part of me disappeared
Six feet in the ground
Million miles in the sky
A fire burns, a fire burns, a fire burns
And it's mine
Oh I did what I did
What we did to survive
Five whole years of my life
I spent mourning you -- and why?
Girl you're still alive
You're too dead to keep inside
You take the years, you keep it all
I think I might feel:

(instrumental chorus)

So let's just let it all go
'Cause nothing can change
And if something is lost
Then there's something to frame
I just sing what I have
Oh I got this girl
Not yet crushed by the world
I count the freckles on her face
One-two-three-hundred-times-a-day
And sing a new song
Something I'd never hear
It's better love that I found
Bigger love that you fear
So deep inside me
Hot in this frozen cave
A fire burns, a fire burns, a fire burns
And it's brave

(chorus)

When I was eighteen
Everything was alive
Then the planes hit the towers
Then she died, then he died
A part of me disappeared
Six feet in the ground
Million miles in the sky
A fire burns, a fire burns, and I just
Let it all go
And I won't fear change
And if something is lost
Then there's something to frame
I just sing what I have
In the heavens above
In the song in the sky
A fire burns, a fire burns, a fire burns
And it's for you.

(chorus twice)

To be honest, the lyrics remind me somewhat of Tennyson. I realize that I shouldn't even pretend to make the comparison between a poetry legend and a rock band, but a lot of my favorite things about Tennyson's poetry come forward here: "Then the planes hit the towers then she died then he died" reminds me of nothing so much as "Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath," in the way that it trivializes something that is usually a deep emotional topic by the artistic use of time. The repetition of the earlier verses at the end, too, really reminds me of Tennyson's "sad mechanic exercise / like dull narcotics, numbing pain." But they take it the other way and turn it into a dedication and even, I'd say, a sort of rebirth. The lyrics are a wonderful and interesting perspective on old artistic questions; and I think that Steel Train needs to let them speak up more.