19.9.03
Entropy
There's a series of books. The first is slim. The second is twice as thick as the first. The third is twice as thick as the second. The fourth is the same size as the third but uses smaller print. The fifth is the same size as the fourth but uses thinner pages.
Also, the Queen of Hearts once asked, while stranded in a foreign book - "If there are two people in a room and one has left, then which one is left? The one who *has* left or the one who *is* left? They can't both be left, can they?"
For this, I blame entropy. We live in a universe which (so they tell us) is constantly expanding, yet also plagued by an infinite amount of entropy. So, kind of like the dilemma involving a force which cannot be resisted and an object which cannot be moved (or, indeed, a Stormtrooper that cannot hit the broad side of a barn and a Star Trek Red Shirt who cannot survive the encounter), what is it, exactly, that happens when everything is getting bigger and breaking down at the same time?
Well, I figure, you end up with a lot of broken crap.
Or, in the case of the book world, a lot of useless hyperbole padding out an endlessly expanding series.
Or, in the case of the Queen of Hearts, the most varied and mutable language in the world that still seems to have decayed to a point where "through" looks like "thrug", where "literature" is used to describe fiction, but "literal" is used to describe overly factual, and where it is apparently impossible for a poor card-knapped monarch to describe a person's exit without causing severe confusion.
Fiction is increasing at an exponential rate. Unfortunately, so is the entropy-fried crap. As a writer, this worries me. What if I get entropified, published anyway, and you all end up hating me? I mean, hating me more than the science-geeks are hating me already for that dodgy pseudo-physics literal deduction back there.
Of course, I suppose the most important question is, do you agree?
Am I right?
Or am I left, with the Queen of Hearts.
There's a series of books. The first is slim. The second is twice as thick as the first. The third is twice as thick as the second. The fourth is the same size as the third but uses smaller print. The fifth is the same size as the fourth but uses thinner pages.
Also, the Queen of Hearts once asked, while stranded in a foreign book - "If there are two people in a room and one has left, then which one is left? The one who *has* left or the one who *is* left? They can't both be left, can they?"
For this, I blame entropy. We live in a universe which (so they tell us) is constantly expanding, yet also plagued by an infinite amount of entropy. So, kind of like the dilemma involving a force which cannot be resisted and an object which cannot be moved (or, indeed, a Stormtrooper that cannot hit the broad side of a barn and a Star Trek Red Shirt who cannot survive the encounter), what is it, exactly, that happens when everything is getting bigger and breaking down at the same time?
Well, I figure, you end up with a lot of broken crap.
Or, in the case of the book world, a lot of useless hyperbole padding out an endlessly expanding series.
Or, in the case of the Queen of Hearts, the most varied and mutable language in the world that still seems to have decayed to a point where "through" looks like "thrug", where "literature" is used to describe fiction, but "literal" is used to describe overly factual, and where it is apparently impossible for a poor card-knapped monarch to describe a person's exit without causing severe confusion.
Fiction is increasing at an exponential rate. Unfortunately, so is the entropy-fried crap. As a writer, this worries me. What if I get entropified, published anyway, and you all end up hating me? I mean, hating me more than the science-geeks are hating me already for that dodgy pseudo-physics literal deduction back there.
Of course, I suppose the most important question is, do you agree?
Am I right?
Or am I left, with the Queen of Hearts.
