Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Moving Stuff from A to B

My partner, Sal, is a software engineer. He's actually a robot scientist. He worked for NASA. He now works for Google. He's so smart. I love him.

Sometimes I will ask him what he is doing. His response is almost always, "Moving stuff from A to B." It's striking how often that answers is appropriate. Whether he is organizing files (moving data), programming (moving electronic data), or cleaning (moving dirt), he's moving something. From place A to place B.

Today he showed me this weird/awesome website about Cuil Theory. What is Cuil Theory, you ask? Well, it originally was just a joke about how ineffective the Cuil search engine was:

The idea was to lampoon the terrible search engine capabilities of the Cuil search engine, while providing a functionally stimulating idea about the interrelationship between tangential things.

There was some online nerdy math talk about it and they agreed that, "One Cuil = One level of abstraction away from the reality of a situation."

It then drank the blood of the interwebs and became amazing. It is strange and surreal and awesome and this kind of science-like formula for coming up with the most bizarre world possible. Times fifty hamburgers falling down the stairs twice and then swallowed whole. Are you lost? Good. Because I'm a hamburger. Seriously, go read the page. And also this online discussion. I'm soon going to turn this weirdness into fun poems. And by fun, I mean Cuil.

Where was I? Oh, moving stuff. So today I spent pretty much all day moving my stuff. I woke up and finally organized my bookshelf. It now looks awesome AND I can find the book I want. Plus, one shelf begins with a Science Education text book from my undergrad days and ends with a complete anthology of Shakespeare. I feel like John Cusak's character in High Fidelity.

I also organized my files, paid bills, put things into envelopes. Soon the United States Postal Service will move many things from A to B, A being San Francisco and B being Pittsburgh, among other places. Thanks, USPS. You are helpful.

Other stuff I moved today: office supplies, clean dishes, poems. From old boxes to new boxes, from the dishwasher to the cupboard, from my computer to an editor's computer, respectively.

In other weird math news, does monogamy = vegetarianism? Mayhaps.

Here are some pictures I took of all the stuff I moved from A to B. I hope you like them.