# Renewal

Hullo, since I last wrote I’ve been to Brisbane and Sydney.

In Brisbane I met Oliver Daly ([sufface.net](http://sufface.net/)), who
has not been scanned yet.

In Sydney I met Kevin Chang ([[long
url](http://www.es.usyd.edu.au/geology/people/postgrad/kevin/kevin.htm)])
and Tina H. ([volatile.org](http://volatile.org/)):

This is [Kevin Chang](2001-05-20_kev1.jpg).\
This is [Tina H.](2001-05-20_tina2.jpg).\
This is [Tina H.’s back](2001-05-20_tina1.jpg).

Sydney is a satisfactory city; I would work there. At Circular Quay I
watched two boys go through the full cycle of seagull-flexing
experiments:

1.  **The Standard.** The feeding of sensible, bite-sized pieces of
    bread to the birds. This experiment quickly becomes tiresome.
2.  **The Dummy.** In this, one _makes to throw, but does not_. The
    seagulls to leap into the air in the direction of the putative feed.
    This is highly amusing to those of a certain age. The dummy measures
    seagull stupidity; seagull stupidity is found to be medium to high.
3.  **The “Big Gulp.”** A straight-forward test of the largest piece of
    bread a seagull can swallow in one go. Method is to dole out
    successively larger pieces of bread until the seagull is forced to
    split said piece with little seagull buddies. The largest piece of
    bread a seagull can swallow in one go is determined to be
    fascinatingly large. (Both the experimenters and the subjects find
    this experiment exciting.)
4.  **The Tease.** Experimenter places piece of bread on the ground
    close to their person: the tease produces a measure of how close
    seagulls are willing to approach in order to obtain food. There are
    two experimental conditions: (A), in which the experimenter stands
    perfectly still, and (B), in which the experimenter makes
    threatening movements toward any seagull eyeing the food, but does
    not make contact with the bird. As predicted, making threatening
    movements (variant (B)) increases the minimum approach distance.
5.  **The Charge.** (Once supply of bread is exhausted.) Involves
    running at the flock, causing it to launch itself into the air, and
    at the heads of frightened by-standers. This experiment is often
    halted prematurely by experimenters’ parents.

I was pleased to find that the barber shop in Kings Cross (area of sex,
drugs, general illicit-ness) has–for while- you- wait reading
material–Hustler magazine.

I also bought a mobile phone. The thing I like most about this phone is
that it has a number of in-built text messages that you can select and
send, without having to input anything. The most useful is the “I love
you” message. Previously, one had to laboriously enter such a message
letter-by-letter, wasting valuable time. With this innovation, only a
few keystrokes are necessary. I’m hoping I can get it down to one
keystroke. That would be brilliant. Even better would be to program the
phone to send the message automatically whenever it’s turned on,
whenever it’s turned off, whenever it’s bumped, or once per hour,
whichever is less.

According to Christian theology, if you die and go to Heaven, what
happens if someone you love very dearly does not make it? Are you happy
despite their absence? In spite of it? Do you forget that they existed?
No answer seems satisfactory.