I need a thread
Thread Topic: I need a thread
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Nope
I haven't watched new animes in a while -
lol its years old hehe...and u should XD its so cool..
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I mean I haven't watched animes that are new to me.
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ohhh....kk well if u do its a good one...so r u still in school? or have u graduated already?
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I'm in school right now, in History. High school.
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oh wat grade? im 10th
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I'm a cosmologist.
What's that?
It's a kind of religion for intelligent atheists. -
What's next?
To prove it. One single unified equation to prove it all. Wouldn't that be nice, professor?
Yes. Yes it would. -
The Theory of Everything quotes are LITTERALLY my life
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I wrote another story involving ben
A mad long one, the one that's canon I think -
Seven across - Time.
I checked my watch, but not before straightening the face, then setting the time seven minutes ahead. The methodical tick tock tick set me back into a panic and I threw my overcoat on. Gazing one last time at the newspaper thrown carelessly on my table, I headed out to work. The headlines had been solely about rising tension in the east, indecision from the south and uneasiness to the west. Politics were too broad, too powerful and not organised enough. The rich had power, the poor could die, and the middlemen were pawns. There was a mathematical concept and a probability of being in the three. I didn't bother calculate it.
"Hey, move the hell out the way! Idiot!" A cyclist swerved around me, and I looked back at blue trail of a man. He darted like a jet through traffic, but grazed a truck and it was too late for him. He dragged against the pavement, his skull grating against road, and arms flailing. The crowd of people that looked in awe started to circle around him. Exhaling slow, slicking my hair back and continuing on, I thought about his pure anger. He called me an idiot. But he was the idiot, was he not? He went in to traffic without looking.
I continued on, down the sidewalk. The uneven concrete was wet and cold, and resulted in the most empty noise in the world. Dozens of murmurs were still flooding the street - even traffic had halted to their assault, but as I walked on, I heard nothing. After all, noise was nothing more than vibrations in the ears. Vibrations weren't noise, they were feelings. As far as feelings go, I'd like to think I have none. I know this is untrue; at the end of the day I feel every single word, name and saying. It's much easier to pretend like I cannot feel, to be stone, to be whole, when really I'm just broken. -
The road at this point is destitute. The old little cafe on the end of the block has long past reached its prime, and few people still inhale the sickly sweet aroma of chocolate and coffee. Every so often, I stop by for a cup of tea, six packets of sugar and a drop of cream. But not today. The tattered red and blue awning waves in the wind, like a ghostly trail of better days.
I bump into a man, who smells of alcohol and dark sins. He flashes me a look of pain and misunderstanding, removing his poorly tailored suit coat. Had he not been so well groomed and dressed, perhaps if we had met on another street, I would have took him as homeless. In a few months, this would likely be the truth. When I looked back, he was gone. The walk was empty once more, frigid morning sun illuminating untrodden cobblestone, shining on the hollow streets with an unnecessary sympathy.
Large steps approached my field of view on the horizon. I imagined what I would look like to the nonexistent passerby. The "eccentric genius" type , lanky and awkward, suit cladded, swinging a leather briefcase to the rhythm of his unnaturally strange gait. Probably a professor or the like. I scoffed at the common idea. A man in a suit could be a clerk, just like a man in a t-shirt could be developer of a multimillion dollar company. The regular population was so dull in their assumptions and ideals.
Two, heavy wooden doors remain as my only obstacle, as the gate from hell into a slightly worse hell. I pulled one open, and it revealed the worst thing in the whole of my life. The receptionist at my place of work: University. Mrs. Miller was a woman in her mid forties. Often she wore ill fitting dresses that likely stopped zipping years before. To compensate, she wore a oversized blazer in an alarmingly hideous shade of yellow. I was unsure if she had a husband, but if she did, I'd hope he would have told her of her current appearance, and that her messy bun of strands of highlighted brown hair didn't aid her in the least.
"Hello, Professor Grant!" she announced in her miserably sing song voice, something of a middle aged Marilyn Monroe on heavy narcotics. "I swear, you show up earlier and earlier everyday."
I glanced down at my watch, subtracted seven minutes and noted that it was 7:30, the regular time I showed up. Perhaps it wasn't just her voice with the air of heavy narcotics.
"Yes. Sign me in," I murmured. "Quicker than yesterday, as well, please," she looked me up in down and pursed her red lipstick coated lips.
"Sure thing. You act as if you're God almighty. You have mail, by the way. From Dylan and whomever else," I restrained myself from groaning in distaste, sweeping the letters from the box just next to the counter. A loud stamp signalled that she had finished signing me in.
"If I was God almighty, I would have smote you already," I said bluntly, walking away from the audible gasps of the patrons in the lobby, including Mrs. Millers. Perhaps that had been too off putting. -
The lift beckoned me to step inside, but the idea was enough to have me fraught with uneasiness, and I pushed through the door to the stairwell. Three floors was easy. Two sets of stairs for each with a fair wind was no more than a minute and a half journey. People hated exercise, which, although a pity for themselves, was grand for me. Empty places was a sweet reminder of reassurance and allowed me to think.
Just as fast as I had thought this, however, it was over. My office was the first on the left, the cherry wood door remained locked unlike the other offices, and displayed only a nameplate. The hall was almost silent, with only the slight scuff of my heels making noise on the linoleum. When the door was swung open the burgundy carpet greeted me and with an expert sweep at the light switch, light sprung over surfaces and space at millions of miles in a second. I glanced over the blackboard behind my desk, and every other item - books, papers, folders, my name plate, my desk in whole - to make sure nobody had been rummaging about.
"Ben," I heard behind me when I took my first footsteps. I turned to see Brian McArthurson, one of the few colleagues I bother associate with at all. He flashed me an overly large grin and raised an eyebrow as a greeting. "I got my carpet. I got my f---ing carpet. I'm a professor now. I can teach mathematics."
He announced his professorship to me in the most enthusiastic I had seen him in a long time, waving his left arm frantically at the office across from mine. Only professors got carpets. It was nowhere near a McKinner award, like I had been awarded, but it was a prestigious university achievement on its own.
"Yes," I agreed. "Now you can t-teach M-mathematics to a whole student body whom will never appreciate maths in the s-slightest. I was hinted at being God by M-mrs. Miller. Care for me to rain down lightening to the tune of the pres-sidential anthem?"
"What the hell do you Brits say? Sod off?" He snickered with an accompanying eye roll. "Bloody wanker?
"Pip pip, cheerio," I mused, slicking back the untidy wave of hair over my forehead. He sneered, sending me off with a wave and closing his office door. I closed mine as well, grabbing a piece of chalk in my left hand, twirling it in between my thumb. I had given my "dream job" of being a professor up for the next semesters to have free time, as long as I worked on the mathematic-engineering department on a new project. Although most of my colleagues would much prefer to hang themselves, as I would like the same opportunity, I was the most desired and accomplished out of everyone on the board. So for a few hours each day, I helped design a computer system. The idea was that this computer could recognise and then redesign astronomical sums of information - meaning it would hold, calculate and redesign whatever the military needed. I placed the chalk back.
At twenty, I graduated summa come laud, two years after beginning university at Cambridge. At twenty-three, I had a PhD, a McKinner medal of Scientific Achievement and a mere two years later I was a full professor and Cambridge Fellow in the UK, and a professor months later in the US. In America, I am currently one of six that posses a McKinner award, and one of eighteen in the UK. As a twenty-three year old student with a double major in maths and physics, I answered two of the many unsolved mathematics problems. I ponder why anybody saw this as an importance as the questions had been close to being answered for several decades, and were both quite similar in their respective selves. Forty years after anybody made a big deal about them, I solved two for an enormously large sum of money and an award.
That is what makes me so qualified to work in a team made up of six nearly mathematically illiterate engineers, four sorry excuses for mathematicians, Brian, an incredibly attractive man named Emond, and our miserable wretch of a boss, Professor Laverty, PhD as he'd say.
At nearly forty, he had nothing better to do with his life than this project. Asserting his dominance like a vindictive animal, nitpicking to pieces invisible mistakes when the team worked too well, and screeching in furious slurs at the lightest slack, he was somewhat of a caricature of a real person amongst others. I saw right through him, of course, he was likely a prodigy at one point, until he realised too late that he possessed the work ethic of a dead snail, and no longer could his carefree attitude guide him through life. In actuality he was but one of many of the same types of people in his field. But the newer postgraduates were unaware, frightened by him even, and tried to please him far too hard. -
Seated in the leather office chair at my desk, I rummaged through the letters I had. Almost a dozen that day, not nearly a record, but close to it. The first few were "fan mail", from freshmen whom were going into my field. They'd heard about me somewhere, from a classmate of mine who'd become a professor, or the papers. I quite longed for my work to be taught in classes, but it'd been far too soon for that. They wrote to me, wishing to be my students someday, or my colleagues. I scoffed, and wrote them back frankly, denying their chances of being colleagues, but agreeing on the plausibility of teaching them. Often, the students who wrote would write back as if I behaved a certain way because I'd upset them. Besides the implausibility of that, seeing that I'd never met them, I'd tell them I was replying to them as if they were a colleague, and they'd become infatuated all over again.
The next letters were from other Cambridge Fellows, speaking as "friends" with me, telling me about the new breed of wunderkind, whom weren't quite "as good" as I, but would be in a similar boat. They asked how the work was here, asking if the students were the same. I replied that they weren't, they were indeed American, not British.
I got one letter from a high school student, saying that I was indeed his favourite person, an idol and that he wanted a PhD in physics because of me. He said his thesis would be the ToE, and he'd be the most famous physicist. He asked if I would consider writing a paper on it with him. I snickered until my rib cage ached, and promptly tacked the letter to my cork board, before replying that I would if he got his PhD, and became the winner of the McKinner award at twenty-three like I had.
A good friend, Jane, wrote me as well. I put it off to the side to read later, and reached for Laverty's letter. It read:
To Grant,
It sickens me that you treat me with such disrespect.
If I was in you're position, in your sick mind, I'd make some room for some discipline. As I can tell this will not happen, I'm informing you that I've gone to the higher ups to have you removed from the case.
As they all know you well, and know your grotesque behaviour even better, I'm sure they will act. As I can do nothing more than this right now, I'll tell you to take this letter and do you know what with it.
As this isn't a work related letter, I have all rights to say this. I hope you catch the quickest flight back to England when you get fired. Toodles.
Professor Dylan Laverty PhD
I exhaled deeply and threw away the letter. Obviously they wouldn't fire me, but this would certainly be on my record. I stared at the last letter and shot a glance at my watch. Only six more hours of this nonsense. I thought, reaching for the stiff envelope. It wasn't postmarked except for the address. The paper looked official and government style. It was addressed with "dear recipient", and at first it seemed like a joke.
I was being told that I was a part of government project now. The computer I spent hours labouring on was now designated to be used for something else. The body of the letter was vague and ambiguous, but mentioned that as of next week, I, along with several others, would be under new management. I was to tell nobody outside of the computer project, as they were informed that several of their members were going to be leaving.
I slid the paper into an empty drawer and with an air of desperation, grasped at Jane's letter. She mentioned how that now that she was done in England with school and done being away from home, she was coming back to the U.S., and asked if I'd meet her for brunch on the 22nd of April, meaning the next month. She knew I liked to be prepared, and I wrote a letter of agreement. She asked how I was and I lied, saying something pathetically obvious like "never better" and "I'm loving work". It was sufficient and I stamped it. A knock on the door disturbed the silence as I wrote her address; sudden waves of anxiety washed over me and I struggled over starting my sentence. -
"P-please, come in," Brian walked through the door, and caught me with his charismatic grin. "Brian. What b-br-brings you two steps over here?"
"The letter, Grant. C'mon, fess up. What'd you get?" I stared at him in confusion, my hands frozen in the position of writing the address. "Do I need to spell it out? Are you in the government thing or not?"
"Well, yes. I am. I assume you are as well." He nodded, shutting the door and propping himself on my desk. I scribbled the end of the line and shoved the envelope into my desk, as Brian peered at it. He snickered and patted me on the shoulder, as I failed to withdraw quickly enough.
"Writing your lover? Jane? Is she beautiful, Ben?" I forced a fake smile and shook my head at his ignorance. "Hey, do you want to head down to the workroom, maybe work on that computer you fiddle with when you can't be bothered with us?"
He laughed. He had a loud chuckle of a laugh, which you could hardly avoid if you had a full conversation with him. Everything was funny with Brian. Another faux smile was enough to convince him, and we walked down the hall to the lift. He always insisted on taking the lift down, much to my discontent. He talked to me much of the way, and I was somewhere else. He likely thought I was just absentminded - brilliantly absentminded. In honesty, I just didn't care. I looked down at my watch again.
"Hello, Brian. And Ben too," a voice murmured in the empty workroom, an extremely large and well lit area, which had been many conference rooms at one point until it was merged as one. The ugly floral print on the walls suggested it had been redecorated sometime when it was first constructed, and the extensively scuffed wooden floors aided to that conclusion. I gazed to the end of the room, where Edmond sat, fiddling with a motherboard and a screwdriver.
Edmond was a thin man, about fifteen to twenty pounds heavier than me, and only an inch shorter. His dark hair was more or less a birds nest, falling just above his eyebrows but created long "dog ear" sideburns. His pale face was triangular and thin; coated in light freckles and his beautiful green-blue eyes stood out in the Ivory. His smile, crooked teeth and all lit up all of his features, causing light creases at his eyes and around his cheeks, and a more defined jaw. His voice was deep, which begged to differ with how he looked. The best part about him was his laugh - genuine and revealing - a mix of awkwardness but openness.
"Hello!" Brian shouted, causing reverb in the open space. "How are you?"
"Well. Just working on my own little project. You?" I shuffled off to the left to design my own machine while Brian and Edmond chattered. In mere seconds I had tuned out their words, focusing on my thoughts alone. The machine I was going to build was going to advance science by more than I could imagine. As someone with majors in a completely different field, computer science was still my top interest. I had taken numerous courses, finishing them in weeks instead of months, building hundreds of PCs for my own professors
at university. It was my programming that most of the work had run on when we were building for the military. I still wished to get a degree in it, however. I considered going to MIT to complete a few years' studies to get it, but I wasn't sure if I should just leave my position as professor to go.
"Professor," after what seemed like thirty minutes, the deep voice of Edmond destroyed the silence that was not only in my mind, but the one caused by the absence of Brian. It took me a few minutes to come back to reality, as I turned my head to see his wide eyes examining my work. I gestured for him to continue, but he seemed to be awestruck. "You work so fast... What... what is this... this project?"
"It-it's a c-computer," I stuttered, mentally scolding myself for sounding so stupid. "A su-super, ah, ah, computer. It wi-will respond to a human with its own set-set of emotions. In theory, it will reprogram itself, therefor l-learn-learning from humans."
"It will pass the Turing test," he whispered, stepping back as if he were approaching God. "Your machine will pass the Turing test."
"Alan," I mumbled. "His n-name is Alan."
"Named after Turing himself! Clever, Prof-"
"No, no, not n-na-named after T-Turing," he looked at me and furrowed his brow, to which I reciprocated. "Do you not understand?"
"I understand professor. What does "alan" stand for then? Is it an acronym?" I judged his attractiveness. His face was asymmetrical, but he possessed such a wonderful voice and smile. My eyes darted away. He probably had a girlfriend, waiting for him to come home at the end of each night. I silenced a sigh.
"N-nothing. It doesn't stand for anything," he stayed silent, as if he were picking up on my lie. And then he laughed, and I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.
"Should have named it Bombe Jr.," he chuckled, sitting down behind me, watching as I continued to work. I felt myself get hot; I wouldn't dare look at him. He'd never throw me anything other than a sideways glance if he figured out I was a homosexual. Hours ticked by with little more than a few questions from him, and uneasy stuttering from me, until he finally noted that he had to finish up his thesis. He came back with a stack of papers, books and a folder minutes later, sitting with his back to me on the ground. I was kneeled myself, and every so often I would glance over our shoulders to see what he was writing or reading in a book. He was twenty four, only months away from submitting his thesis to a committee. He was indeed smart in his own aspects, those being physics and engineering, like what I had once upon a time set out on.
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