Category Archives: Writings

What is a PhD?

Science is a room full of toys and a PhD is where you take a screwdriver to one of them, bash it until the batteries fall out, spend many years trying to get the batteries back in without breaking it, mangling it even further, swap screwdriver for a mallet, ultimately give up, ram the screwdriver in a doll’s eyesocket, take the photo and have it laminated, then become exceedingly interested in a speck of dust on the windowsill until someone has mercy and shoots you.

At least, in theory.




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Being a baby is a bit like playing a text adventure


You are in a room. There are objects scattered around. One of them is blue. One of them is a circle. There is a face here.

What do you do?

> Put circle in face.

The face is not a container. Please try again.

The face is now sad-looking.

You see a hole of some kind.

> Use blue thing in hole.

It won't fit.

> Use blue thing in hole.

It fit, but now it's stuck!

> Pull blue thing from hole.

It won't come out!

> Use circle on blue thing.

Now they're all stuck.

> West

You don't know that direction.

> Forward

You are in a room. There are objects scattered around. One of them is blue. One of them is a circle. They are stuck in a hole. There is a face here.

> Hit circle.

It made a satisfying bomp sound.

> Hit face.

Something happened!

> Dig.

Success! You have acquired:

- A thread of something.

> Use thread.

You don't know how to do that. The thread is in your mouth.

> Take thread.

Well done, you took the thread! Your hand is in your mouth, with the thread.

> Examine world.

You are in a room. You are now hungry. You have started to cry.

> Forward.

It doesn't work. You are hungry. You are crying.

> Cry.

Yes.

 

 

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1999, revision 2

Adam woke and heard himself speaking
In a language he didn’t know
Would’ve spoken was he not weeping
Paralysed at the keyhole
And the keyhole was beeping
And the candle flickering low


You wandered in an empty world
Cross and clover and thistle
Just mush and blood and bone
And still you think you’re sleeping
Flesh and bone and gristle
The earth beneath is creaking
I thought I knew a little
As I walked the world alone


Adam wore dark glasses
He always shaved his face
He was flesh and bone and gristle
And they say
The shadows say
That Hell is a fearful place



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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.