Njord and Oscar are still working away at the EYSS. Their study is moving into the practical phase of testing the ellipsoids of other materials. Njord seems to think that he needs a better testing device and has presented plans for a new hammer to me. I’m not sure if we have the facilities to make such a hammer here, but I’m sure he’ll get something figured out.

Dave’s project to fill in the on-board wiki has been progressing a bit slowly because she decided to go with a “depth-first” approach, and the continued infighting & new discoveries on the origin of man and our links to the other apes and primates have pulled her in. I’m sure we’ll get it sorted out eventually, even if comes down to us whopping there randomly before the debates finish.

Something which occasionally comes to my mind is the cyclic nature of fashion. In it’s own way, clothing can be a method of time travel: If one wears a particular style, it becomes easier to emulate the mental and social state of the period from which the clothing originates. Within the last hundred years, clothing has been brought back with particular fervor, especially if it represents the opposite of what the authorities represent. Many people immediately associate this concept with “hippies” and “punks,” however there many, if not all, fashion waves are intended to rebel against the establishment.

Another group it’s easy to point at is the group known as “goths,” who appeared in larger and larger numbers after the punk movement. However, it could also be said that the original Gothic style followed from the Romanesque era in the same way. Both the punks and 11th century Romans were known for their colorful depictions of war, divergent beliefs, and broken glass. As a response to the darkening times around both Gothic movements, clothing became darker, ideals became more nihilistic, and music became more refined while also managing to somehow become more barbaric.

Even better, the mirroring doesn’t stop there! Much like the (relatively) short Baroque period, there appeared the Abercrombie & Fitch age. Both brought color back into life, were supported heavily by the control groups of the time (the Catholic church and MTV, respectively), and were largely vapid & intended to impress others. Furthermore, they were shortly followed by a mixing with their previous style. The monster created from the original Gothic period and the Baroque years was know as Rococo, while the combination of the new Goth and A&F’s clientele created Emo/Indie. Both styles took the shape and philosophy of their older parent and twisted it into the frock of its successor. Think of the most fashion-savvy indie chick with the most thickly-caked eyeliner you can, and you will know roughly what to expect out of what was essentially gothic architecture and clothing covered in gold. There’s still a hint of what made the design meaningful, but it has been largely drained away by mass-production and the attempt to make something pretty that was originally intended to be harsh, even cruel.

However, on the other hand, each of these movements has been opposed to it’s predecessor in some way. This becomes even clearer if we consider the Baroque and A&F times as transition periods. Then we come back to the swinging pendulum of time. Throughout history, humanity has gone through periods of development, followed by periods of despair, then repeated the cycle anew. Since we’re in a socially positive style right now, the best way to get ahead of the progression of time would be to start looking into the darker styles of the past. This could be particularly useful if the collapse of society happens as some people are now predicting, as many of these darker eras also include very effective defense architecture. Either way, being tall, dark, and handsome (or beautiful) is always a good way to ensure you’ll never be lonely.

Since we’ve had such a busy week, please excuse me for the somewhat short post. As always, I’d be glad to answer any questions about time travel (or most anything, really), so if you have a query, just send me an email at docttt.metaphysics@gmail.com

- Dr. Thurstone Tesla Turing

As far as the lab goes, Oscar has joined Njord on the EYSS (Ellipsoid Yield Strength Survey) project. This was actually at Njord’s request! He wanted Oscar’s assistance in comparing the strength of a normal chicken’s egg to that of similarly shaped structures of different chemical makeups. In the meantime, Dave has been assisting me when she can, and Alexis has even come to the lab as well, though I believe she’d rather stay in the offices than come here.

In addition to Dave’s class going extremely well, she’s begun a research project aimed at filling in the on-board wiki program of the StumblePad in order to provide more information for us in the field. I must admire her ambition in this project. So far, she has been pouring over every history book she can find, even doing some extensive translation work, in order to provide a complete and useful history of our world’s past. Eventually, I’d like to provide her with a way to download future-history files from any computers we might encounter in order to fill in the gaps on the possible futures of Earth, thus providing an even better picture of our universe. This may be a pipe dream for now, though, since the StumblePad’s processing power is already tied up so much that we can only visit Earth-based objects, such as various points in our own history, and anything originating on Earth such as the space shuttles (though this is unlikely, since the “landing” space would be very limited, and probably marked as unsafe according to the safety net protocol).

Now for our weekly discussion topic: Always carry a business card! This is more of a safety issue than you’d think, plus it allows for much easier schmoozing. Whether you’re traveling through time or just traveling abroad, try to keep a business card around, because your official identification won’t mean a damn thing. To most common folk, any driver’s license, birth certificate, or other government issued ID not issued by their own local government is completely unfamiliar and may even be viewed as a forgery, however, the business and calling card has been a universal gesture in various forms for centuries, perhaps millennia (depending on the advancement of local civilizations).

Now, if you’re simply traveling abroad, you should be safe with a card that has all of you standard information translated into the local language, but time travelers have it a bit more rough. Our situation breaks down to two possibilities: Either carry a bunch of cards in a bunch of languages or carry one that can display many languages. Obviously, both courses of action have their perks and drawbacks.

If one chooses to carry many cards, their variety is dictated by how accurate your time travel method is. If you’ve got a particular destination in mind, it’s a relatively simple process to research what the appropriate local calling card would look like, and have some made. However, as accuracy of time travel decreases, the number of styles you’ll need to bring increases. Make the target wide enough, and you could potentially end up carrying thousands of business cards that range from the traditional American 2×3.5 bit of cardstock to a donkey and/or pile of scrolls.

The other option available is to carry a card that displays your information in multiple languages. In this case, you’re sacrificing part of your ability to blend in for more convenient carrying, and the accuracy of your travel method comes into play once more. For the jet-setting businessman, having cards with multiple languages but in the style of your homeland marks you as a successful international business-person who still holds fealty to a specific country. For time travelers, there’s the always looming danger of being labeled either a witch or archaic because of what your card is made out of. The latter isn’t so bad, as you should be able to find someone who understands your situation, but go far enough into the past, and modern paper is even likely to raise eyebrows (not to mention the clothes you’re probably still wearing). The best thing to do in this situation is actually the same thing many smart American tourists do when abroad: Lie about where you come from. It doesn’t matter if you’re just visiting your neighborhood, circa 200 years previous, don’t act like you’re one of the locals and expect to be welcomed. If anyone asks, tell them you come from a far-away land, and use that to explain why you’re so different. This makes it easy to then give them your business card, no matter what it looks like, since they’ll often just assume it’s part of your culture and dismiss it as an oddity.

As always, I’d be glad to answer any questions about time travel (or most anything, really), so if you have a query, just send me an email at docttt.metaphysics@gmail.com

- Dr. Thurstone Tesla Turing

It’s been a busy couple of weeks for us here in the metaphysics lab! We made our first public appearance last weekend: it took three tries (time travel is amazing for correcting mistakes), but it ended up okay. I’ll do my best to upload general notes from the panel we did, but here is the gist of it:

Rules of Safe and Polite Time Travel
1. Observe the Butterfly Effect.
2. Don’t have complex goals.
3. Don’t talk about the (relative) future.
3a. Don’t be conspicuous unless it would be more fun or is unavoidable.
4. Always keep interesting items.
4a. Remember to refresh if those items are necessary later (relative).
5. Always keep your head (literally & figuratively).
5a. Know the “local” cultures.
5b. If possible, avoid offending said cultures; if not, play the angles.
6. Spoon.

We had good and bad examples of each rule from various anime and sci-fi sources to support our statements, and that part of the lecture went reasonably well. However, I personally had the most fun with the Q&A portion of the talk! The attendees had a lot of great questions, and I’d like to address some of them here.

Most of the questions had to do with a either rule #1, rule #4, or a combination thereof. The main topics were in meeting yourself and creating redundant items.

Firstly, whether or not you can meet yourself is entirely dependent on what kind of person you are. Chances are, if you’re someone who can handle consistent time travel, you’re the kind of person who could handle meeting a time traveler version of themself. I say “version” because as soon as you become a time traveler, you’ve removed yourself (the you that you are, not every other you that could be) from the timeblob. Thus, everyone who you meet who is “you” is still you, but any effect you have on their lives will not effect you since you are no longer part of any sequential timeline. This separation from the timeblob and every other version of you means that there’s no way to improve your personal history. Of course, anyone familiar with the many universes theory of quantum mechanics shouldn’t be surprised by this, since, technically, every possible point in time that encapsulates every difference possible in the universe is all happening at the same time.

Not only does this make it inconvenient for those looking to remove a childhood trauma, but it does actually make copying items and objects astoundingly easy. The general idea runs something like this:

+0:00: Take the box.
-0:30: Return to when the box was still there and take it again.
-X:YZ: Repeat ad nauseum.

Because each time you take the item with you, you’re creating a version which is separated from the timeblob, you can take it infinitely. The reason you must still go back in time in order to obtain a copy is so you don’t accidentally try to take the item from yourself. Now, again, many universes theory says that there are a functionally infinite number of timelines that contain the item, the odds against having to fight yourself for what you’re trying to obtain are slim, but why take chances? And again, because of MUT, have no worries about messing up the timeblob by taking the item, since all of the universes (with and without the item in question) already existed anyway.

As for lab news, I’ve made significant progress with the LifeStumble app according to the recommendations of my students; unfortunately, I have, in my enthusiasm, overcompensated. Now, instead of the completely random stumbling that happened before, the unit makes movements so small that they’re nearly imperceptible. In fact, we thought it’d stopped functioning until a little tweaking revealed that the distance traveled in time and space had been reduced to the nano-scale. So, progress, but still a long way to go. Oscar is doing a fantastic job assisting me in the lab, which has allowed Alexis to concentrate more on dealing with the university. Njord began what he’s calling his “Ellipsoid Yield Strength Survey”. I honestly have no idea what it’s about, but it sounds fascinating, and I’m sure he’ll bring good results in. Finally, Dave began teaching her class, Syncretic Religions of the Ivory Coast, last Monday. I sat in on a session, and was captivated by how treatment of those peoples during the colonial period has shaped their modern beliefs, and I would suggest that class or a similar one at other schools to anyone interested in anthropology.

I’d be glad to answer any questions about time travel (or most anything, really), so if you have a query, just send me an email at docttt.metaphysics@gmail.com

- Dr. Thurstone Tesla Turing

- Doc T

I hope you’ll enjoy my lessons and the adventures that are sure to come!

- Doc T