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Biography is either masked ball or epitaph. As you find me, so we are.

Tuesday 17 July 2012

Measured response

A giant flea – A tiny tree – The sighs? – Our eyes are blind – You see

Friday 13 July 2012

#8612


Translators prove that you’re not me -
Do prisons show us who is free?
Experiments within The Cell
Sought out a cause for human hell.
Zimbardo traced the evil fruits
To situation’s attributes;
But who’s Observer, who’s Observed?
Inside the circle all is curved.
A lone Christina saw The Cross
The men had made. She sensed a loss
Of self control.  It’s ever thus –
The way a Me grows from an Us.
For, from the moment Selves emerge,
They’re swallowed up within the urge
To join the others in a purge
Of weakness.  And so weak, they merge.
The Stanford basement’s here and now.
Look! Check around you.  Notice how
You copy.  Reproduce The Code.
You are The Seed and you’ve been sowed.
Self-preservation is The Rule;
But it was written by a fool.
There is no Self and nowt’s preserved,
And no one gets what is deserved.
There are no prisons but The One
We fail to see.  My rhyme is done.

Monday 9 July 2012

Two Generals' Problem


(To J.N.G.)*

Two Generals stood on a hill
And both were General A
Like twins who started life as One
But found a unique way

You might sense they’re identical
Though they’re A World Apart
And neither knows how he might say
When the attack will start

So while the surgeons start their fun
It’s lucky that I’ve gone quite numb
The brain’s a body that’s begun
To think what’s gone has almost come

As one fine day Jim sailed away
So black and white must fade to Gray
And sail straight on passed Farallon
Where no one turns an EPIRB on

Reflecting is indifference
And Truth a one-way glass
That magnifies inference
Before its feel can pass

Maternal dust and swirling ink
Both scattered matter in the drink
Seek Five Alive and space to think
If you don’t swim you’re bound to sink


*James Nicholas "Jim" Gray born January 12, 1944 - lost at sea January 28, 2007 -declared deceased May 16, 2012.  Computer scientist and winner of the Turing Award.  Writer on many things including the Two Generals Paradox, a thought experiment demonstrating the problem of communicating over an unreliable link.