A turtle was happily swimming along a river when a scorpion hailed it from the shore. "Dear friend turtle!" called the scorpion. "Please let me climb upon your back and swim me to the other side of the river!" "No," replied the turtle, "for if I do, you shall sting me, and I shall die." "Nonsense!" replied the scorpion. "If I kill you in the middle of the river, you shall sink, and I shall drown and die with you." The turtle thought this over, and saw the truth of the scorpion's statement. He let it upon his back and began swimming towards the other side of the river. Halfway across, he felt a sharp pain in the back of his neck. "Why have you stung me?!" cried the turtle as his body began to stiffen. "Now you shall die as well!" "Because it is in my nature. I can not do different."

Sun Tzu said:

So it is said that if you know others and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know others but know yourself, you win one and lose one; if you do not know others and do not know yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.

Knowing yourself is vital to a battle, but knowing your enemy is vital to your very existence. Don't be tempted to idealism just to be stung by a scorpion!

Paprika is Satoshi Kon's latest animated movie. And while all of his work has been amazing, this one is in a separate class, a true masterpiece. The scene design, character art, animation, all superb. It was an absolute pleasure to watch. Every line, dot, and splotch of color was used to maximal effectiveness. Then, on top of that, an amazing soundtrack that immerses you into the world of Paprika. Paprika deals with something that Kon tends to touch upon frequently: the interaction and conflict between dreams and reality. Tired of interspersing this theme into his work, Kon takes it to its pinnacle, breaking down the separation and letting the view revel in the hot fusion. This movie was an absolute joy to watch, and that's something that happens to me very rarely. Go and watch it! I think it's on DVD, but I'm not sure. Either way, do yourself and everyone else a HUGE favor and watch the Paprika trailer!

When I read Mark Liberman using the neologism lolsingularity, I knew I had to register some domain names pronto. Soon, both the .info and .com domains were under my ownership, and a rudimentary page was up. Soon it'll look good, too! The lolmemes are accelerating in both the appearance of new variants and in their propagation, hence, the natural conclusion is that soon we will reach a lolmeme singularity, or a lolsingularity. What will happen? We don't know. It may be good or it may be bad. The lolmemes may enslave mankind, or we may eventually learn to coexist. In order for neither of these fates to be truly effective, we must become one with the lolmemes! Anyways, THE LOLSINGULARITY IS NEAR HERE!