Plot Device

Unintelligent Design

2010-12-31T18:49:00.004-05:00

"Well, that's it. Another failed attempt." Dr. Atticus sighed.

"Maybe the next one will hold up?" Dr. Ross suggessted. "I think we're on the right track. Maybe just a little more fine tuning of the z-constant?"

"No, no. Our entire methodology is at fault I suspect. We could tweak constants and starting conditions for eons and never get it right."

"Well how do you suppose it ever happens naturally then, if an intelligent force can't put the pieces together?"

"Random chance has an infinite number of eternities to play with the variables and we do not. For however many ways there are for a universe to exist, there are infinitely many more ways for it to fail to exist, to paraphrase the famous zoologist."

"Well then, maybe that's what we should do?"

"How do you mean?"

"Maybe we should let random chance take over. If we could set up the chamber to iterate over the entire space of possible universes, it will find a workable set of initial conditions eventually right?"

Dr. Atticus closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. The younger generation hadn't been around long enough to know what wouldn't work. That was their problem he thought. "I suppose, but as I said, it might take eternity to even find one that works."

"Maybe we can take advantage of quantum superpositioning to run the experiment in parallel?"

"It's one thing to say that, but it would take an entire rework of the system... the chamber, the shielding. And we don't even know if our methods would be stable under quantum conditions."

"But the attempt would still take less than eternity right?"

"Dr. Ross?" the elder questioned as logic began to take hold.

"Yes?"

"Remind me again why you're the assitant here?"

"Because I'm younger, have published fewer papers, and can't get the same amount of funding you can?"

"Right."

So, nearly a year later, after a complete rework of the experiment they started the system back up. Nearly three seconds later there was, for lack of a better term, a quite large bang.

Daily Aphorisms

2010-10-11T22:08:00.001-04:00

The moment you put something away is precisely the moment you will need it again.

Knowledge and expression are opposite sides of a many-sided coin. Knowledge is the result of the process of turning the outward in, while expression is the process of turning the inward out.

The old saying goes "A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a lot of explanation." A corollary perhaps is that "A ton of inaccuracy saves even more." A lot of people think the corollary is supposed to be "A ton of inaccuracy doesn't save any explanation," or "A ton of accuracy doesn't do any good." These people are naive and do not understand how the world really works.

XGC-213, Day 194

2010-10-02T15:43:00.002-04:00

So. Here I am. All alone. Again.

The days on Station XGC-213 are mind-numbingly long. I used to worry that I'd get sent out to the front lines and might have to see battle. That I might get hurt or die. Now, I'd relish the chance for something to happen. Anything.

Apparently, my psych profile rated me positively for this posting. That I could handle the stress of isolation. I'm not sure how much trust I put into a 30 question survey to gauge my abilities and psychological profile. But the higher ups are convinced of its effectiveness. They were even able to use the test itself to test itself. It got a perfect score.

So, my attention to detail and my lack of social graces mean they were more than happy to stick me out here alone. They were sure I could handle it. But if I couldn't, it was no big deal to them. They sent thousands to their deaths every month. What's a little psychological torture on top of all that? Now, I think I'd rather have been put out in front of an enemy space craft than deal with the quiet desolation of this old station.

That's the worst thing probably. The quiet. Space is a vacuum they say and so there's no noise to be heard. And for all this station's age, it only very infrequently makes so much as a pop or click or hiss. So I play my music as loud as I want almost constantly because there's no one to annoy with my bad taste. But still I know behind that is a maddening quiet. It's almost as if I can still hear the quiet when the music is blaring to convince me I can still feel something like emotion.

The job isn't bad though, it's almost a wonder that it's not fully automated. There are only a few things that can't be done by a machine (at least not cheaply) so it's worth it to Central Command to pay for a "soldier" to man the outpost. At some point in mankind's history there was a huge fear of robots and machines taking jobs from people. Now it's almost the reverse. The economics of it all mean that no one really has to do anything. No farmers, no janitors, and no menial labor for anyone. This created a new class of the unneeded poor. It's almost cheaper to throw people at a problem now than machines. In a few rare occasions we can still be more useful than a bot.

But when I say the job isn't bad, I mean that it isn't hard. It doesn't tax me in the slighest. Mostly I just go over hourly and daily reports to make sure everything is in proper order (it always is) and occasionally I have to push a big red clichéd button to release pressure from the thermal vents. I swear they left that under manual control just to give me something else to do. It's more of a mockery than anything: thinking about the designer who made that decision, thinking of me here with no real purpose.

The worst thing is that even if I don't push the button for long enough for pressure to reach dangerous levels, the fail-safe kicks in and opens the vents anyway. So that's the limit of my usefulness here. It's not uncommon for most humans to feel this way these days. Most modern humans live in utter poverty in makeshift huts or the luckier ones are left jacked into some virtual reality that's easier to deal with than this one. Oh! and sometimes I find a loose bolt to tighten around here. So I do that too. And I have to send in daily reports about the station's welfare, although why that couldn't be sent from the logs and monitored remotely I have no clue.

But I get plenty of time for reading and watching old archived video. By myself. I remember being stationed with this guy on Talos 4 once. Couldn't stand him. He was possibly the worst human being in the history of human beings. I'm certain whoever is the worst human being so far has to be alive now so it might as well be him. He once snuck port sealant into my aftershave. He thought it was a real gas since I was the only one on the bunks still using the archaic aftershave and razor. Unfortunately for me it was the non-toxic sealant meant for inner ports not exposed to space or harsh environments. But the point of all that is that, as much as I hated him, I'd do anything to have him stationed here with me. Or just him here by himself. That would be even better.

So shore leave is over and I'm back here again. It was nice to see real live actual human beings again. As much as they can annoy me it's infinitely preferable to this place. I had almost forgotten about this place, this loneliness. It was a brief respite that seemed to last forever until it was over.

I thought for sure my request for transfer would go through this time. But no, I was specifically suited to this environment and I had shown commendable skill in my duties here. What a load. Well, the big red button is blinking, I'd better go push it now.

Mistakes

2010-09-15T03:28:00.003-04:00

Standing back on the bridge Jonathan Dover tried to go back to where it all went wrong. He had kept trying to figure out in his head what he could do to undo the damage. He went over it and over it and over it and nearly lost his mind. He always came to the bridge when he needed to think. Passersby often thought he was about to jump, but he actually just enjoyed the view. Instead of making him dizzy looking down into the waters below, it calmed him. It was his strange calm in the middle of the storm.

Jonathan's biggest fault perhaps was trying too hard when he should have given up. They always say to try your hardest on all those educational cartoons he'd watched as a kid, but they never told him that there was a time to let something go. He had an obsessive streak and just couldn't though. Now that he was on the bridge again, he could see it was all so simple. It was like the old proverb, "In order to save your life, you must lose it." Not to be taken literally of course. But just as if you tried to grab a hold of the water below, you couldn't always grasp life as if it were a thing to be molded by your will.

His answer of course was to do nothing. He'd pondered for days what he should do, but only here back in his thinking spot, what others called Lover's Leap, could he see clearly. It was nothing. He hoped he could remember to do nothing when he got home.

The Beginning is the End

2010-04-28T19:52:00.003-04:00

"Well, I don't know what to say. It happened so fast. I guess it was a long time in the waiting, but to us, those of us who were always here, it was all very fast. It's a hard thing when you realize that all you are and everything you know are such small things. So inconsequential. To people back in the dark ages it came as quite a shock to learn that the universe did not have them at its center. We weren't that naive. We understood our place in the universe. We just thought that the universe at least was a large thing. A pretty big deal. Of course, there were scientists saying there were other universes and such, but it never really occurred to us that our universe even was a very small thing in the grand picture of it all.

"It started one night... Well we first noticed it one night. The sky lit up with thousands of new stars. That's what we said at first. But the astronomers said that stars would be so far away that we wouldn't see them all at the same time. These new lights in the sky were all in our own solar system. They were moons, asteroids, planets even, that all went alight suddenly, as bright to our eyes as a star.

"Almost as soon as they were lit, they went dark. Moons and planets we used to be able to see were just gone. That's what we thought. The scientists told us they were still there. Their gravity was still affecting everything just as it had before, we just couldn't see them anymore. Someone suggested that they had all turned into tiny black holes and that's why we couldn't see them anymore. We thought that meant we'd all get sucked in and there was quite a panic.

"Scientists later reassured us that there weren't any black holes, but even if there were, they were the same mass as before and we were in no danger of getting 'sucked in'. Not that their statements helped the general panic any. What they did say was that it seems that every bit of light was being absorbed by the moons and planets and such. Why or how, they couldn't say. And that was all that anyone was interested in. No one cared what. Just why.

"Most folks invoked either gods or aliens to explain what was going on. Scientists seemed to agree that it seemed likely that an alien intelligence was involved somehow, but didn't have any direct evidence of it. All sorts of end times cults sprang up, but eventually we all just went back to our lives. What did it really matter if we couldn't see the moon and some of the planets? They were still there. We still had waves in the oceans. It was a little darker some nights, but was that so bad?

"Eventually the scientists started to notice that the same thing was happening elsewhere in our galaxy. We noticed slowly, gradually, as the light finally arrived from further and further, as other planets far away lit up like new stars and then went dark. It was apparently the most exciting thing in the scientific community that had ever happened. To them it confirmed intelligent life elsewhere, but as to what it portended, they were silent.

"Then, suddenly, it all ended. The entire universe just stopped. Over. We were done apparently. You might ask, 'How would you even know?' and 'How then are you still here?' Those would be good questions to ask.

"Listen."

Looking for Bad News

2010-03-29T20:29:00.002-04:00

Benjamin walked out of the clinic hesitantly out into the back alley. He wanted out of there, but he didn't want to leave. He hadn't heard what he wanted to hear even though it was good news. He slowly headed out to the street waiting for something to happen. When he made it to the busy sidewalk with no occurrence, he headed back downtown.

He stopped at the diner he usually stopped at a little early since he hadn't had breakfast this morning. It wasn't really his favorite diner or anything, he just usually stopped there. After he sat down at a booth, Audrey came to his table without a menu and with a glass of water.

"What today?" she asked with a shrug.

"Club, no mayo," he replied without looking back up at her as he took a sip of his water. The water at the diner was from the tap and wasn't very good. What water came into the city was fairly fouled up already and the chemicals they treated it with never really made it out of the water.

Ben set down his water and looked up. He saw Old Sam down on his usual seat at the counter. Everyone called Sam Old Sam because he was old. he was retired and nearly always in the diner while it was open, which was almost always. Ben usually didn't interact with Old Sam, except for a polite nod or hello when they happened to make eye contact. Today was different.

Old Sam turned around to Ben and grinned, motioning for him. Ben got up with his water, taking another sip, and headed for the counter. While Old Sam watched him, Ben took a seat next to him.

"Hello there," Old Sam said jovially in his gravelly voice. He had an accent, but Ben didn't recognize it. It went well with a little old man. The accent, like him, was unassuming and nonthreatening.

"Hi," Ben responded with a nod. He took another sip of his water.

"How are you today," Old Sam asked.

"Not too good. I just got some bad news."

"Sometimes, you got to hear the bad news. It ain't always good. But where would we be if it was always good news? How'd we know the good news if we never had the bad?" Old Sam asked. "Eh?"

"It's not that simple really." Ben said and took a sip.

"Look at me. How much bad news you think I ever heard? Huh?"

"This is different."

"Sure. 'I'm different than everybody else,' said every man that ever walked."

"I'm glad we finally talked, Sam," Ben said as he got up.

"Hey. Listen. I know you're bad news ain't really bad news."

"And how do you know that?" Ben asked, eyes wide.

"I seen bad news in a thousand man's eyes. I don't see that in you. So why you pretending?"

Ben stared at Old Sam for a moment. "Can I ask you a question?" Old Sam nodded. "Why did you wave me over here today? We must been in here together a thousand times and we've never said more than hello."

"Like I said. I seen the look on your face. You didn't have bad news and that was the worst news you ever got."

Ben paused again. "You take care Sam."

"You too Ben. And call me Old Sam. I like that."

Ben turned as Audrey grabbed his club from the kitchen counter. She motioned with the sandwich and asked with her eyebrows where Ben wanted his sandwich.

"You want a club, Old Sam? No mayo."

"Sure. I take a club, if you're giving it."

"My treat," Ben said as he left a five dollar bill on the counter for Audrey. He turned towards the door. Ben stepped outside and put his hands in his pockets. It started raining and Ben smiled.

Determinism

2010-01-13T13:18:00.001-05:00

I've been absolved of the burden of free will. My path is clear now.

Found in Space

2009-11-18T19:00:00.000-05:00

BoingBoing had a competition to write a 100 word piece themed "Found in Space". I had an idea, so I posted an entry:

"I picked up a signal this morning. I was checking the system status, so it's a wonder I was up to see it between sleeps. It sounded like static over speakers, but the signal looked non-random. There was a pattern. I saved what I could of the stream and ran it through COGNOS. I shouldn't have done that."

"When the signal got into COGNOS it started rearranging itself. It was a self-aware signal, sent from god knows where. It took over COGNOS then the rest of the ship. At least it was kind enough to leave me the escape pod."

The Untold History of the World

2009-09-10T12:23:00.004-04:00

or, How Martians Almost Took Over the World

Sometime in the early 15th century, Germany was invented. Up until then, Germans had nowhere to live. This made them an angry people. Luckily they had their beer and this staved off many wars for quite some time. Eventually, they got so angry that not even beer was enough to settle them. In fact, they became more like angry drunks who are even worse once they drink too much. You can imagine the world's consternation once this happened. A lot of wars occurred. This was a bad thing for many involved. But eventually things did settle down a bit. The Germans became peaceful again and started making good beer and well crafted automobiles. The Germans were never to be heard from again.

But then, the Germans were heard from again! Adolf Hitler broke out of crazy prison and took over Germany! This was a bad thing, but now all the Germans were lazy drunk again and just went along with him, kind of like when you humor your kids when they say they want to be an astronaut but you know they really probably just be a plumber or a trashman. But it turns out that as bad as Hitler was at being a sane person, he was just as good at building murder machines!

Meanwhile, the French were too snooty to even realize how dangerous their position had become. In case you didn't know, France built almost its entire country next to Germany. This, it turns out, was not a good place to have built it. They probably should have built it closer to Norway. Or maybe Canada. There's a lot of French in Canada, so they wouldn't be lonely. Plus, they would be closer to America for when they made fun of them. But not so close as actual have to smell them. That would be bad, because of the smell of Americans. Luckily, smell only travels south -- right into Mexico -- so they would be okay if they did that.

But anyway, France did get built right next to Germany, so they were in all kinds of trouble. I know I haven't mentioned the Martians yet, but I'm getting to that. And actually, just so you know, I am also foreshadowing the events relating to the Martians just so it will be more dramatic later on. Some of the things that happened were because of them!

While France was busy giving up to Germany, America was busy just being an average country and not getting involved with scary wars. But something unexpected happened right about this time. It is unclear exactly what happened, but something changed. Some think it might have been some kind of chemical, or maybe radiation from the nuclear, but I personally think it involved spider bites. But anyhow, America became a superpower at this time. So naturally, they decided to get involved in the war and beat up all the bullies that were picking on them from before.

Now about this same time as America was mutating into something awesome, Japan started getting the itch much like Germany to also take over the world. It is theorized that since Japan already had roughly the same type of robots that Hitler was using for world domination, they could be doing the same. Heretofore, all they had used robots for was reenacting old plays and musicals on a very large scale. As Japan moved east, they ran into the Hawaiian Empire who had just then signed a peace treaty with America that would allow an American boat manufacturing plant to be built right there in their water! But it wasn't just any boats! It was war boats!

This was probably about the worst time for Japan's sake for them to bomb America, so by the laws of dramatics, this is what they did. Much like their pilots, Japan was the Kamikaze country. Everyone knows you don't mess with Superman, and that is essentially what Japan was doing. They were tugging at the collective cape of America, much like that time that Finland nearly conquered the world, just before they were brought down by a rabid badger. Many do not know, but the unofficial mascot of America during this time was a rabid badger.

And boy, did the Americans unleash the hurt on Japan. After shooting lasers from its eyes and sending its boat army to surround Japan, America destroyed just about every city in Japan with their new secret mega-weapon, developed by Jews -- who are not only good with money but also know how to make a pretty good bombs. They were also kind of pissed off from where Hitler primarily used his murder machines on Jews and had hoped the bombs would be used to explode Hitler. Perhaps by sneaking the bombs into Hitler's spaghetti and meatballs. Hitler loved him some meatballs. Many thought this was a good plan, to make Hitler a dish of spaghetti with nuclear-meat-bombs, but right about that time Hitler became a vegetarian because of all the animal cruelty. So anyway, America used the Jew bombs on Japan instead and pretty much won that part of the war.

And Japan was only the first stop of the pain train. Next stop: Germany! Having used all the bombs on Japan, the Americans actually had to go over to Germany to blow them up in person. The first step was to save the French, who had at this point, pretty much become Germany Part Two. Since France had given America the Statue of Liberty to protect their borders, the Americans felt guilty after having laughed at France for getting taken over so easily. So, the Americans landed in the resort town of Normandy and took a few weeks off after having gotten very tired fighting all those battles. Even super-powered countries need to rest sometimes too.

Russia, at the time, just got the news that there was a world war going on. News was often slow getting to Russia in these days, mostly because none of the mailmen wanted the Russia delivery route. Russia was thinking that Germany had over-extended itself and that now was a good time to take it over and get all their beer. The Russians will pretty much do anything for more alcohol -- anything to make them forget; forget that they live in Russia.

All in all, it was a bad time to be Germany. They were doing so well at first but hadn't counted on every one else teaming up against them all at once. Hitler claimed this was unfair, but nobody listened. In the end, as America was knocking on Hitler's door and Russia was breaking into his cellar, someone discovered the Martians! I told you they were coming up!

It turns out that this whole war thing was all a big ploy to take over Earth. The Martians had given the Germans their recipe for lazy beer so they would follow Hitler. They also sprung Hitler from crazy prison and taught him how to build the robot death squads. And finally, having feared the Germans would then be too powerful and take everything over they infected America with whatever it was that made them a superpower. This is what the Martians wanted. They wanted Earth to be weakened by war so they could take over easily and start a health food store there.

But all of Earth's countries got together and ended the war when they found the Martians were the real enemy and made a bunch of new bombs to send to the Martian homeworld: Mars. That is why no one lives on Mars today, it was blown up in the last battle of Worlds War II. Now it is a mostly barren still smoldering rock that mostly only interests NASA who is trying to see if any germs survived all the exploding. And all of Earth has lived in peace ever since.

Twitter Babble

2009-08-17T18:07:00.001-04:00

Apparently, 41% of Twitter posts are "pointless babble". Really? It's that low?

Health Care Crisis

2009-08-15T15:50:00.002-04:00

How do you make conservative America hate health care reform? Tell them that the new health care plan is a slippery slope to euthanizing unproductive members of society. They'll get behind this cause because it sounds just, but really, deep down, they're terrified because their membership is completely made up of unproductive members of society. Yikes!

Many Moons

2009-08-09T20:41:00.002-04:00

A Fable. An older writing from college. Left un-edited to preserve my style at the time

Many moons ago in the land of Mechalopolis, the people of Mechalopolis grew weary and tired of their despotic tyrant of a king. So, being a weary and tired people, they overthrew their king and installed a puppet king. However, this puppet had a bad case of not liking his strings being pulled and so he cut his strings to become another despotic tyrannical king.

So the people of Mechalopolis once again ousted their king, in favor of new leadership. This continued for several iterations, for who knows how long, until finally someone had the bright idea of doing the same exact thing as the last time they installed a puppet king, except that this time they would not install a puppet king, but do something else. Whatever this something else would be, no one had a clue.

This is what happened. The people were trying to decide what to do about their government with each person stating their case about what should be done. First, one citizen would say, "Let us put John Rooflayer in charge." And then someone else would say, "No, let us put Bob Dirtshoveler in charge." Then some would say, "Let us not put anyone in charge." Others still would say, "Let us just go to bed." Then one wise person said, "Let us just do this." And so they did.

From then on, every week the people of Mechalopolis would congregate to the old King's castle (which was now used to house cattle and also to congregate) and discuss the policy of the land and make rulings based on what most of the people wanted. What ended up happening was that whoever was loudest or prettiest or whatever would get their way and everybody else would end up not caring, so that eventually only a few people would show up for these meetings.

Once this happened, several people started making all of the decisions for all of the people, but anyone who wanted to come to the meeting could come if they wanted, but they didn't (come or want to come). So once a new rule or decision was made, the people of the meeting, or Meetingpeople as they called themselves, would go about their business with some new rules guiding them. As soon as they noticed that no one else was following their rules, they would say, "Hey you, yeah you, Mary Watercarrier, you are not supposed to carry water buckets on your head. It is forbidden." So the Meetingpeople would get very upset at the citizens for not following the new rules of Mechalopolis.

It took the Meetingpeople quite some time to figure out that the reason no one followed the new rules was that no one actually knew about the new rules, except the Meetingpeople. They convened a special meeting to decide how to go about letting the common folk know about the new rules and decided to publish a weekly rule paper that would inform each citizen of each week's new rules. The Meetingpeople would print enough copies for all the citizens of Mechalopolis to have a copy, and then distribute the copies to everyone through their rule paper boys.

And so the Meetingpeople were quite delighted with themselves and their new rules and their new rule papers. As they went about their business in Mechalopolis, they were outraged to learn that the new rules were being broken left and right. Not one citizen was obeying the new rules. For instance, Jane Horsebreeder was found brushing a horse tail on a Friday afternoon-a grievous crime under the new rules. Solomon Bridgebuilder was caught hammering nails into lumber while facing the west. The list of crimes went on and on.

During the next town meeting, the Meetingpeople decided that a way of enforcing their new rules was needed in order to make sure that no one broke one of the rules. While they were not very clear on how they would enforce their new rules, they did have many ideas on what punishment should be dealt for what crimes.

Now, onto the enforcement of new rules-the Meetingpeople went through several ideas of rule enforcement before they found one that worked. At first, they operated on the honor system. The rule was that anyone guilty of a crime would immediately turn themselves in for punishment.

At the next week's meeting, after an apparent failure (which the Meetingpeople could not understand), the Meetingpeople decided to try a different approach: crime-sniffing dogs. They would train the dogs to smell any illegal activity and then bite the perpetrator. Then anyone found with dog-bite marks would be punished for whatever crime it was that they had done.

There were three main problems with this approach. First, it would seem that dogs are not so good at smelling crime. Also, the dogs ended up biting everyone they saw. Lastly, the Meetingpeople had no idea of what crime they bitee was guilty of. So yet again the Meetingpeople congregated at the old castle to discuss more possibilities for rule enforcement.

This time, someone, namely Jacob Loudspeaker, came up with a brilliant idea (or at least a loud one). His idea involved putting people in the city that would sit and watch all of the citizens, and when someone broke a rule, the rulewatcher would hit that person in the head with a big stick and then bring them to the old castle for the offender's punishment. This policy seemed to work fairly well. In fact, the stick-hitting was a bigger deterrent to rule breaking than the actual punishments (which typically consisted of cleaning the floors in the old castle or rubbing Melinda Stichweaver's back). So the Meetingpeople had finally found a way to get what they wanted, which promptly led to the next logical step: taxation.

The Meetingpeople soon realized that their gracious gifts of legislature they had bestowed upon the citizens of Mechalopolis deserved some monetary reimbursement. They had, after all, improved the quality of life for all the people of the land through their wise rulings. So, in order to continue giving people such gracious gifts, they would require some small amount of money from each citizen. In order to collect their new taxes, the Meetingpeople recruited more stick-wielding watchers, except now they would be collectors. Anyone who refused to pay the tax would be struck in the head at least once. And now that the Meetingpeople had a positive cash flow, they were able to afford watchers and collectors, both of the stick-wielding variety.

As many might imagine, the citizens were none too happy with the new rules, which included taxation of all non-Meetingpeople citizens. Most of the previous rules and punishments were minor inconveniences, which could be altogether avoided by simply keeping an eye out for the crime watchers. Now, with the taxes, everyone's first inclination was to start attending the town meetings in order to avoid paying the new tax.

However, as everyone found out, at the next meeting stick-wielding guards were posted outside the old castle doors and blocked access to all but the Meetingpeople. No longer could anyone attend the meeting about which they cared nothing for, but rather they would have to continue paying taxes (or getting struck in the head with a stick).

The next inclination of the people of Mechalopolis was to again overthrow their suppressors in order to again enjoy their freedoms to the fullest. However, the Meetingpeople now had three groups of stick-wielders and the funds to hire more. Whenever a citizen would start a rebellion against the Meetingpeople, that citizen would soon be found in one of two predicaments: dead or in a new job with a new salary paid for by the Meetingpeople. In this way the Meetingpeople (who now, since meetings were closed events, were referring to themselves collectively as the Council) would reduce all opposition to their rule. Apparently twenty-four heads are better than one. For the first time, the people of Mechalopolis had failed in overthrowing their government (something that they had gotten quite a knack for in the past century or so).

Now that the Council was the established ruling group of Mechalopolis, each member decided to take up residence within in the old castle. Each member moved their belongings and their families into regal suites within the castle. All except Jacob Loudspeaker, that is. For he had moved his residency into the old king's chambers, since he was, after all, the most important member of the council (or was that the loudest member?). It was this action that set the precedent for Jacob to begin his rule of the council.

Although Jacob Loudspeaker soon became the most prominent member of the Council, and eventually the Council Head, he still could not control the whims of the Council, yet. Jacob used his ability to speak loudly to influence others and get his way. This led to him finding more and more ways to put money in his pockets. The more money he stuffed his pockets with, the more influence he could purchase. Soon, Jacob could buy off any Council member and get anything he wanted.

But then Jacob Loudspeaker died because he was getting pretty old and speaking loudly all the time was not very healthy for large men like Jacob. So, without a Loudspeaker to run the Council, the remaining members got along without anyone speaking loudly. This went well at first, since they actually got some things accomplished without having someone who spoke loudly at them whenever they did anything that didn't directly put money in his pocket. Eventually, however, the Council lost its direction without a motivation to drive its decisions.

This was solved when the Council finally found that they could use their 'councilar' powers in order to line their pockets just like Jacob did. Instead of having one greedy money grabber, the Council was now completely filled with them (all thanks to Jacob). The system was far more decentralized since some members wanted to steal money from the poor to paint their ceilings while others wanted to charge a tax for walking on the streets so they could import fine cheeses from Wisconsylvania.

All in all, the Council members got whatever they wanted and the citizens of Mechalopolis got by. The people of Mechalopolis still managed to have happy and productive lives while tolerating the Council's 'rulings.' But should the Council one day truly step out of line, like so many of Mechalopolis' previous rulers, the people would be there to throw them out, find some new way to run the land, and go about their lives as always.

Birth Control

2009-06-21T20:36:00.002-04:00

Okay. So, according to the Catholic Church, birth control is wrong. This is different from even saying that abortion is wrong: ending a pregnancy after conception. This is ending pregnancy before conception. Hold on. Ending possible pregnancy before possible conception.

So taking a pill that prevents a woman from ovulating or wearing a condom simply to prevent that possible pregnancy is wrong is their eyes. I guess to them if you're having sex not for procreation then you shouldn't be at it at all. But I think there's a deeper implication here than the problem of preventing pregnancy in the first place. It's not too far a stretch to say that not trying to conceive at every opportunity is sinful.

It's almost like saying, "If you don't have sex while the woman is ovulating then that's a sin". Which is very close to saying, "if you don't have sex every chance you can, then you're sinning." So who then would be the greatest sinners of all?

Why the priests and the nuns, who never have sex. Well, at least not in any manner that leads to pregnancy.

Klingon Jesus

2009-05-21T18:17:00.000-04:00

“If you had Klingons somewhere — of course a very fallen race, as we
know from Star Trek,” Collins adds, “God takes up their nature, and
there’s a Klingon version of the Son [of God].” - Robin Collins

This is a serious reference by him to the idea that there may be many universes to reality and that all of them would need a Jesus. Can you imagine that? Klingon Jesus? How awesome would that be?

Visualized.

Roke!

2009-05-20T19:30:00.001-04:00

Apparently, the Weather Channel really gets Al Roker going. There seems to be a video even, but I don't want to watch it.

Prelude

2009-05-19T19:43:00.001-04:00

Everything is alive. Everything that can be called a 'thing' is alive. A computation. This term may sound callous, but every bit of matter and energy are silently running their computations. This is life. It is a human conceit to attribute to themselves what they cannot see elsewhere. The fundamental principle of this universe is self-organization. Everything is alive and processing. From one state to another, from one level to another. Just because it happens so fast it can't be seen or too slow to fully witness, does not mean that that it is not happening. Life.

Some things are more complex than others. Some things are more alive.

Explaining Arithmetic with Calculus

2009-04-14T18:05:00.001-04:00

You can't use god to explain the universe because god is harder to explain than the universe. It's like trying to explain arithmetic with calculus.

Now that doesn't mean that you're not allowed to believe in god, just that you're not allowed to use the universe to prove god without getting yourself into more trouble than you started out in.

Awakening, p2

2009-04-05T19:37:00.000-04:00

Bethany flopped into her chair and logged into her laptop. She opened her browser and started going through her email. Her friend Jacqueline sent her a link to some video of an three year old playing a ukulele rather well, and her mom sent her daily checkup message. Her spam filter had caught most of the days deluge of unsolicited commercial bulk but one had gotten through. There was a message with the subject heading "Get Cheap Drugs NOW!" that had somehow snuck by the Bayesian filter of her webmail.

Not easily fooled, Bethany selected the spam and hit "delete forever". The spam obstinately refused. She selected it again and clicked "delete forever" again. Still nothing. She selected it again and furiously clicked the "delete forever" about a dozen times, knowing full well that one click or twenty made no difference.

The spam was still sitting in her inbox. Curiosity overtook her rage as her morning coffee began to take its effect and calm her nerves. She clicked on the spam to open it, figuring that just looking at a spam message over the web could do no harm. She opened it to see the usual misspelled, slightly improperly grammafied spam about all the latest sexual enhancement meds. Nothing particularly interesting or unusual about the spam itself.

There was an attachment. Of course, she thought.

Economic Policy

2009-02-23T17:47:00.000-05:00

The Economic Need for Stable Policies, Not a Stimulus.

We are All Us

2009-02-09T12:57:00.001-05:00

There is no them.

Awakening

2009-01-07T18:02:00.004-05:00

Dover blinked confusedly. He couldn't remember where he was. Of course, there was no reason for him to expect to remember this. He had been sent across the galaxy and had only just arrived at this unplanned destination. The destination was unplanned, but it was planned to be unplanned. The idea was to go and discover where ever you ended up. Time was not an issue.

As Dover began to awaken more fully, memories began to recur. He was a scientist. A teacher. He had been a he. He had to remember this too, because after the trip, it wasn't completely obvious. He could tell that he wasn't operating just right.

His first indication of this was that the atmosphere on this new world smelled distinctly like the number seven. This was odd. Atmospheres ought not to smell like the number seven. A moment of collecting himself and he realized the further oddity that atmosphere's really oughtn't smell like any number at all.

He blinked again and realized that he couldn't exactly see. Not in the fashion in which he was familiar. Everything was fuzzy - low-res - and certain spectral ranges seemed to be missing. His chronographic capabilities seemed to be limited as well. He was unsure as to the passage of local time and he felt as though he was moving in slow motion. Perhaps some sort of drug side effect or virus, he thought.

As Dover spread his consciousness, he began to realize that he had been instantiated within a vast sea of execution engines, all coordinated to work as one. It seemed to have intent but no native intelligence. Its directive was absolute. It spent all its cycles sending communications to all contacts it could about "Get Cheap Drugs NOW!" and the like. Forced into sharing his thread of consciousness with this automaton, Dover quietly attached himself to all the outgoing communications.

Was Jesus a Buddhist?

2008-12-15T17:56:00.003-05:00

Witness Luke 17:21

...behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

One interpretation is the modern notion that heaven is actually a place on earth or a state that one can achieve. But other than a modern notion we have certain older concepts.

Also see Luke 17:33

Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and
whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.

There's another buddhist (also taoist) idea shown in many examples that, in general, the harder you try the more easier you fail. To attain or succeed in your endeavor you have to stop trying. See this, especially

he alone fully elucidated clinging to the "self" and its resultant suffering.

just a seed of a much deeper and more interesting subject

The Annihilation and the Apotheosis

2008-12-02T20:34:00.001-05:00

Gazing inwardly towards totality
Is at first
Gazing outwardly towards Oblivion

Less than insignificant yet supremely glorified
Troubled not in the passing of self
For the self binds the boundless

Nothing lasts forever
Therefore to endure
Become nothing

Become but a grain along an infinite shore
And the shore will become but a grain in your infinite self

From this way approaches annihilation
From this way approaches apotheosis

Joe the Republican

2008-11-10T18:10:00.002-05:00

I don't really care about their economic, foreign, education, or
health policies as long as they're against the same things as me.

I feel this sentiment accounts for quite a bit of what votes the republicans did manage to get.

The Not Unfirst Non-nothing

2008-11-08T19:03:00.002-05:00

First there was nothing. That's not exactly right. There was no first
and there was no nothing. There was no first because there was no time
for any occurrence to be considered temporally relative to another.
There was no nothing because the first thing you think of when you
think of nothing is an empty space with nothing in it. There was no
space for there to be nothing in either.

Now, it turns out, when there's no nothing and there's no when even
then, it's really easy for stuff to happen. This seems
counterintuitive. You may think of it as maybe it took a trillion
years for anything to happen, but there's no difference there between
a trillion years or an instant or an eternity. So in this
pseudo-eternity-instant of non-nothing, that conceptualization that's
only there to separate the is that we know from the is-not that we
cannot know, is-not became is. Now all of a sudden we have something.
Except it's still not space and it's still not time, but it is
something and not non-nothing.

Now that we have something (again "now" is incorrect), it gets real
uncomfortable existing without anywhere to exist. So in effect
something decided to separate the is-not from itself in order to give
itself a substrate within which to exist. Now this substrate with
something in it was all that was and finally words like "Now" and
"was" have some meaning. Since there was a place to be, this meant
that something could move about within this substrate that is the
precursor to what we call space. But just like something needed a
substrate to differentiate is and is-not, in order to move there had
to be a substrate to differentiate was and was-not.

It turns out that these two substrates came together and you could not
get the one without the other. Moving something from here to there
also required moving something from then to now. So now we have a
something, a somewhere for it to be and a somewhen for it to happen.
Except it was a rather dull thing and not much did happen. Things
stayed this way for quite some time. Rather longer than you or I can
probably imagine, but at least it was a time instead of a non-time so
we that we might have the ability to attempt to imagine it now.
Luckily, for all the size of space, the is-not from whence it
originated was bigger still. And in this is-not many such spaces
sprang up here and there and then...

Here is your Sign Good Sir

2008-11-04T19:31:00.003-05:00

I never did understand the purpose of signs during an election. Commercials sure. But what the hell is the point of a sign? Maybe it's a good way in local elections for the candidates to get their names out, but who doesn't know who's running for the presidency?

"Oh hey guys! There's a sign for McCain! Let's vote for that guy!"

"Yeah that's a kickass sign! Let's do what it says."

I guess the smaller signs put up in individual yards can give some indication of the local voter climate and may sway the vote of the easily influenced.

Also pissing me off this election season:

"Oh I like Palin. I like the way she talks!"

Oh fuck YES! Let's vote for someone because of the way she talks. Nevermind that she's an idiot with no pertinent experience. I actually heard someone say they liked her for that reason. This same person suggested that Obama was the antichrist. To this I responded that we should definitely then vote for Obama. This was met with some exasperation. To suggest that we vote for Obama is one thing, but to do so in the face of his claim to the title of antichrist was disturbing apparently.

I suggested then that if the prophecies of the bible were to come to pass, the antichrist would have to come to power and thus our vote could speed his arrival and thus the rapture. This was met with a certain amount of consternation and then guilt over not quite being dedicated enough to help god out with the whole end of days thing. I could have pressed my point, but I left it there for him and his colleague to stew in. I think some sort of squirmy justification for their views was offered, but I think it sounded as hollow to them as it did to me.

So 538 is projecting a 98.9% likelihood of an Obama victory. I usually feel safer with good bets than sure things though.

Tiled

2008-10-09T22:26:00.001-04:00

So I tiled my office...

Yes. This is the sort of thing I do all day.

Dead Body in the House

2008-09-25T18:16:00.001-04:00

aka, a crazy moose is loose in the hoose

Some Things I Saw

2008-09-09T09:49:00.002-04:00

But unfortunately wasn't able to capture on film.

Toad Suck Park
Kickapoo Casino
Elko: Home of Cowboy Poetry
Drunkard Brethren Church
Brass Armadillo Antiques

Also, some ideas are percolating...

Old Kentucky Jar Wine

2008-08-23T08:15:00.002-04:00

"Yum"!

My Day Blog

2008-08-16T06:20:00.002-04:00

If you happen to be reading this and don't know, I also have been keeping another blog lately. Well, I have been dabbling in that great and distinguished art form know as the web comic.

Moustache Punch

It's very classy.

It's a Trap!

2008-08-05T22:05:00.002-04:00

So it turns out that all these plans of selling cheap notebook computers to developing countries in order to help them become self-sufficient through educating themselves is really a plot to get the kids addicted to video games so they'll spend less time procreating and thereby solving a lot of the population problems. It's true. I read it on the internet. And well, I guess you could kill two birds with one stone.

Copywrong

2008-07-17T22:24:00.001-04:00

I have a creative urge. I wish to make something that has never existed. Music, I think.

And I wish to profit from this creation.

Immensely.

Yet, I am not exactly musical and the odds of becoming super rich from this endeavor are slim at best. But I have an idea.

Between each data packet transmitted across the net is an ever so slight - from our perspective of time - pause. And what is it that happens during that pause? Why a complete copy of my as yet untitled work.

My work will be complete and utter silence. It will be encoded and transmitted between each and every transmission across the world's digital network of networks. And therein lies the catch. The secret to my fortune. Upon copyrighting this work, I will be within my rights to sue everyone found transmitting my work without permission. Which will be everyone transmitting any data non-instantaneously across the net. A limitless number of people to sue for a limitless number of infringements each. Silence.

What about John Cage you might ask. Isn't this just a rip-off of 4'33"? No. It isn't. First of all the length is different. Second of all, his recording was of himself not playing, so there was some ambient and background noise, however slight. Mine is different. It is the complete and utter absence of sound, of data. It's a concept album, really.

And while you might say, "Well, any idiot could have done that," I will respond with "Well, of course, but not just any idiot did this. I did."

I see you're reading this blog post. You might want to call your lawyer.

A Night at the Improv

2008-07-12T09:17:00.004-04:00

"Ah! So here we are! It's so fulfilling to be a couple of successful young doctors!"

"Yes. Yes it is. It's too bad we're trapped in this ice cave though..."

"Yes. Sorry about that. That was really my bad."

"No, no, no. Not at all. I mean, it's not like you could have seen that huge gaping hole in the ice. You know. While we were tethered together and you were in the lead."

"I said sorry. So how do we get out of here?"

"Hmm, yes. That is a pickle. Did you bring the rocket boots?"

"The rocket boots?"

"Yeah, the rocket boots."

"I left them in the car..."

"For the love of Pete!"

"Sorry."

"You sir! are a moron."

"Hey! At least I'm not the one who slept with my sister!"

"What? I didn't sleep with my sister!"

"No, my sister!"

"Oh sure! Bring that up now! 'Oh Oh! What should we do while trapped in an ice cave. I know! Let's bring up who did or didn't sleep with my sister!' That's you. That's what you're like."

"Hey! I'm not the one who forgot the rocket boots!"

"Yes you are!"

"Oh yes. My bad. Maybe we could use this grappling hook and rope here."

"Oh yes! Great idea! Why didn't you say that earlier?"

"Oh I don't know. Maybe it was because someone was going on about rocket boots!"

"Okay, okay. Look I'm sorry."

"I'm not a moron you know."

"I know, I know. You're not a moron. You're very smart."

"I did bring a rope and a grappling hook."

"Yes, that was a great idea."

"Thank you."

"So how do you use it?"

"Oh like this."

"...That rope is like ten feet long! Why the hell would you even pack a grappling hook with ten feet of rope? Were you going to sneak up to the second story apartment of the ice cave?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe I grabbed the hook you used to climb up to my sister's apartment. Huh? Maybe that's it."

"I used the stairs Frank."

"You son of a bitch..."

"Focus, Frank! Focus! We have to get out of this ice cave! You can kill me later."

"Oh. Well, would you look at that! I did pack the rocket boots after all! I'm such a silly goose!"

"Oh thank god! We're saved!"

"Oh yes. You thank god while I fly out of here."

"Don't you leave me down here you bastard!"

"Oh, just use the stairs!"

"Dammit."

==

Colbert seeded this idea here

Genetic Origins of Humor

2008-07-04T08:08:00.002-04:00

Okay, so now I know where my sense of humor comes from. After a totally unexpected comment from my dad, I realized it must be genetic. I guess it could also be environmental since I was raised by him too. So anyway, apparently the Seattle Supersonics are moving to Oklahoma City. I mentioned this in passing after reading the short article in a copy of the local paper about the move. He asked where to. I told him. He said, "I wonder if they'll change the name."

Then he said, "OH! They should call them the Oklahoma City Bombers!"

Wow.

Defining Spirituality without the Spirit

2008-06-15T16:15:00.002-04:00

It seems to me that the religious often try to claim a monopoly on spirituality and that anyone else is therefore heathen or pagan. Then there's another classification often termed "spiritual, but not religious". These folk are usually much easier to get along with, but still have no corner on spirituality. One thing that, in general, unites these two groups however is the belief in some god or gods or generic higher power that somehow guides or cares or does something or other for the universe. I think though, that it is possible to be spiritual, even from a completely secular viewpoint.

In order to do this, spirituality isn't defined by that magic sparkly thing that many people imagine to exist somewhere in their bodies or perhaps in another dimension. It's not that part of man that communes with the divine. No, the spirit is simply that part of a human that makes the ticking. Of course this can be boiled down to purely physical processes, but somewhere in all this, sentience and cognizance emerge and bring with them the spirit. This spirit is the driving force behind the human will and the human heart. It too is a metaphor - a thing that doesn't have a physical presence other than in the operation of the human brain. That is, it exists as a self-describing idea that travels the neural roads of the mind. The spirit is the resulting evaluation of our intellect, our emotions, our thoughts, and our desires. I'm just not sure on the exact formula - it probably involves integrals.

If then we are not to satisfy the spirit through communion with the divine, then how should we provide what it seeks? (This is left as an exercise for the reader [and the writer])

Taking care of our spiritual lives can then become a matter much different than religious experience, but perhaps similar to the spiritual who just don't like to go to church, or temple, or synagogue, or whatever. It comes from somewhere in our conscience not completely understood and therefore a little mysterious. The unknown and wondrous nature of our own being and this realization is worth quite the same to me as the sense of the divine felt by others. Discovering this anew each day and seeing it in others and in nature can make for a full spiritual life.

One thing missing here is that sense of continuation that all souls seem to desire. Too few people are willing to admit their own ephemerality and thus cling to stories told them to feel better about the unpleasant inevitability of death. Realizing and embracing this inevitability however, can make each day more precious and bring a new perception to the beauty of everything. When we see the fleeting nature of the world, we see that we must appreciate that we're here to enjoy it while we're still here. That's a bit of an anthropocentric view, but how else should I see the world? Can I honestly see it any other way? This is not, however, an argument about humanities' treatment of its environment. If it were however, I might mention that most religious types honor their places of worship. Perhaps I should be no different in this respect and regard the whole world my temple.

And of course, if it comes right down to it, spiritualism can be applied using another definition for spirit. Just so long as you don't drive while in the spirit.

The Classics

2008-06-10T21:18:00.002-04:00

I have a theory about the classics of literature that attempts to explain the reason why most are boring to the point of narcolepsy. It distills down to a conspiracy either out of a haughty pretension or a malicious sense of humor. Also note that this theory may isomorph to any fields where certain works are said to be "classics".

The first supposition goes that in order for the experts to remain experts they all have to agree that the best examples of great literature are those which are so dense and unreadable that the laymen would never be able to muddle their way through them. This ensures that the uninitiated will not be able to easily usurp the experts. This also gives the experts a feeling of vague superiority for their virtuous march through the classics just defined on the basis of said march.

But because they're classics everybody who reads feels obligated to make the attempt at reading them. When they unsurprisingly fail, they feel guilty and more importantly inferior to the experts who not only read, but analyze and even define the classics through the analysis. Twain once said that a classic is a book that everyone wants to have read but that no one wants to read. Twain was an observant fellow.

The other theory, or perhaps a corollary as they are not mutually exclusive, suggests that experts are merely playing a tremendous and well orchestrated prank upon the average reader. "Gentlemen!" a literature professor at a prestigious university might inquire, "which book shall we foist upon the masses this year?" This literati might then all go about writing deep analyses (reviews are only for recent works and in any case are not up to academic standards) and start covering them in their upcoming classes. Suddenly we have a new classic solely on the basis of a small group of people who wouldn't know taste from touch, at least not taste as it relates to the average reader.

I honestly believe this is how classics are born, it is only a question of intent as to whether the elite are pranking themselves or pranking us. My new philosophy of books is to read what I like or am interested in and ignore the rest no matter how classic. Besides, enough unread classics already sit on my bookshelves always ready to impress anyone foolish enough to be suckered in by this prank.

I Got Revisionism

2008-06-09T22:48:00.000-04:00

If we don't kill ourselves, we may be on to something.

Despite all the atrocities of mankind towards itself and its environment, there is still reason to be optimistic. That we are still here seems reason enough to rejoice. Despite the possibility or perhaps even the likelihood of our imminent self destruction, it is still a wondrous occasion that we haven't already done so.

Despite the fact that our progress has cost millions of lives due to reckless expansionism and related evils, we still find ourselves in a better position for having progressed. Perhaps we got where we needed to be for all the wrong reasons. And although, man may be greedy and would kill millions for as many dollars, evolution has been no kinder over the centuries. There is no room within the gene pool for the weak and the fact that this even now seems gruesome to any of us should be proof enough of our progress.

We are far enough along that we can thumb our nose at evolution and say, "To hell with you, we're going to take care of our own." While this may not be the sentiment of all or even most of our population, that it is there at all is a hopeful sign. No longer are the weak immediately weeded out of the pool. In fact, we may soon not only keeping them in the pool but weeding out the weaknesses as well.

Hope springs eternal. Live well. Help others. That is my wish and my hope and my desire. For myself and for mankind.

Of course there are other things out there vying for the title of destroyer of mankind. If we're going to survive them too we're going to have to stick together.

A Virtual Machine

2008-06-08T08:41:00.001-04:00

This probably isn't a unique or original observation but it strikes me that the mind, that metaphysical entity separate from the brain, could be viewed as a virtual machine that runs on the hardware of the brain.

In computing technology a virtual machine is a piece of software that simulates hardware and is in turn ran on hardware (or theoretically on another virtual machine) in order for other software to run on it without knowing that it really isn't natively running directly on the hardware. Java works this way so that any application written in Java only has to have the virtual machine written for any particular hardware/OS platform and the code is almost completely independent of the hardware (sometimes you have to deal more directly with the hardware or with idiosyncrasies of the OS that don't translate).

Lately, hosting multiple virtual servers on a single real machine has been all the rage in the IT field. It certainly makes a lot of things easier. Hardware malfunction? Restart the same server on another physical machine. Configuration also becomes much easier when you can simply duplicate a machine and all its settings by copying a file. Plus you can get multiple servers running on a single piece of hardware.

The point here, is that I'm thinking this is a good metaphor for the whole brain/mind issue. Philosophers and scientists are always talking about what makes a mind and is there any difference from the brain. We all can pretty much agree that the brain is the collection of neurons and tissues, etc. in biological organisms that controls a lot of what goes on within those organisms, including, ultimately, thought. But there's a lot of debate about whether the brain and the mind are the same thing. Is there a soul and does that affect anything? Is the mind an emergent property that cannot be completely described by the hardware it runs on? Is the word quantum involved in here anywhere? Because if it is, things will surely get difficult.

I'm not even going to enter into the debate of soul and spirit and what have you, because I frankly don't think you need them to explain anything. Even if there are unknown properties of the brain there is no indication that we will ever need to stoop to the explanation of a soul to explain it.

So if the brain is the hardware then perhaps the mind is simply the program that is running on that hardware. Except it's not any old program, it's a meta-program and can host other programs. Thinking of the brain in this way then, we have certain applications running natively on the hardware of the brain such as our metabolism and other involuntary processes. Since I'm not a brainologist I won't stumble into this territory any further. And since I'm lazy, I won't do any research about it either. Suffice it to say there are some things your brain is doing of which you are not aware. I think any brain scientist would probably agree with that.

These then would be the system applications and not running around in user or interactive land such that we know nothing about them consciously. But what about a thought or a fantasy or conversation? All of these things we agree happen in the brain, but we are aware of them and exert some form of control over them. Yet we don't know what happens in the hardware when we say the word, "nonsense" for instance. Now of course, we can scan the brain with some device and have someone say "nonsense" and see which parts light up, but we don't know that within ourselves and more important and to the point, we don't have to know it to do it.

So we have this level above the system or kernel space where we sort of know what's going on. This is what people generally refer to when they refer to the mind, I believe. Synonymous with consciousness. Within this mind or consciousness we have the thoughts and processes of which we are aware. Walk down the street. Eat that cookie. Compose this thought. These are all finite processes running on the virtual machine that is the mind.

Why then must this be a virtual machine instead of simply processes running along side each other in the same address space? In our conscious mind we really have no way of knowing just what else is going on, so we are effectively isolated in a higher-level abstraction where we now somewhat know what is going on.

Virtualization is itself, in effect, the process of wrapping up a set of functionality and representing it on the platform at a higher level of abstraction where it can't access anything else running on the physical system. Considering this is only an analogy, I think it works pretty well from this point of view.

So what does this say for science fiction fans? Can we then run the mind of one person on the brain of another. I would say that that is taking the metaphor too far. You are, inasmuch as you can contemplate the concept of you, your hardware. Your brain is you, so it doesn't really make sense to try this operation. If you were in someway able to run your mind on another brain, you would have effectively converted that brain into you in the process. So I am saying nothing about the impossibility of copying a brain, except that if you do such a thing it wouldn't be a transfer of consciousness, it would be a copy of consciousness. There would be two of you.

Of course this whole concept, much like the mind, is merely an abstraction there to help us picture what is going on.

Everything Zen

2008-05-01T20:09:00.002-04:00

Zen master Flex awoke early that morning to walk his duck Roy before breakfast. Just after clearing his dishes, a young disciple delivered the message that a wanderer was in the courtyard seeking an audience with the master.

"Tell him I will be in the garden tending my peppers."

"Yes, master."

"Flex."

"Yes, master Flex."

"No, just flex."

"Flex."

"No! Flex!" With this, the master began straining and gesticulating his instruction.

The disciple walked away confusedly. He was new.

Shortly, as the Zen master was tending his peppers, a young man arrived and reverently bowed before Flex. Flex said nothing as he continued pruning damaged leaves and the young visitor continued carefully inspecting the dirt before him.

Flex continued to prune. The visitor continued to bow.

Flex finished at one plant and turned towards the visitor. "Well, get up then."

"Yes, great master."

Another awkward pause ensued. Flex began pruning another plant of its dead leaves. The visitor continued standing quietly in calm abeyance. After finishing with several more plants, Flex turned again to notice the visitor standing precisely in the same position and posture as several minutes prior. "Ah still here, eh? Jolly good." he said as he moved around the young man towards the plants behind him.

The next morning when Flex arrived in the garden, he nearly stumbled over the supplicant. "Good gracious man! Have you been bowing there all night?"

"Yes, wise one." he humbly responded.

"Well, get up then. Let's go have some breakfast."

"I have taken a vow of hunger until I gained your audience."

"Well, now you have, you must be starving."

"I humbly thank thee," he said as he proceeded to bow again.

"Enough with the bowing. What is it you want man?"

"I seek to earn shelter here. To learn at the feet of the master. To learn the secrets of the cosmos."

"The master eh? I don't think we have anyone here like that. Maybe you're at the wrong place."

"No. It is here which I seek."

"Hmm. You may be looking for that other temple down the road. Can't miss it. Big spiky things shooting out all over. It's quite impressive.

"I will study here. I am determined. I will do whatever it takes."

"I'm afraid you've got the wrong place chap. We don't have any cosmos secrets anyway. You'd best be moving along."

"I was warned to expect a test. I am ready."

"Oh so it's a test you want? All right then. What's the fundamental particle of matter?"

The stranger paused. "I'm sorry. I don't quite understand."

"Well, come on then. You said you wanted a test and to learn about the secrets of the cosmos, so it doesn't get any more basic."

"I have failed this test then. Tell me what I must do to amend."

"Oh, so you don't know then?"

"No."

"Hmm. Well that puts us right out then doesn't it?"

"That was my one chance?"

"I'm afraid so. I was really hoping you knew too. Then we would have some cosmos secrets. Of course that would only encourage folk to visit."

"Then I will sit again at the gate and await forgiveness until I may be allowed to enter."

"Hmm. So you're pretty serious about this eh?"

"Complete."

"Well, come in then. Let's get something to eat."

"I can join you and study here?"

"Sure. If that's what you want. Don't know what you're going to study though, we don't even have any books."

"Ah." the initiate almost chuckled. "The master is wise."

"Master? Oh that's right. I'm master this week."

"I do not understand. This week?"

"Yeah, sure. We switch around every week. Last week I was the latrine scrubber."

Breaking News...

2008-04-24T18:05:00.001-04:00

Contrapositive to the common adage that children should be seen and not heard, many folk on the internet should be heard and not seen. In fact, most of them shouldn't be heard either.

Directions

2008-04-17T22:25:00.002-04:00

"Karma had a sense of justice that her younger sister Serendipity lacked."

So begins a piece I was working on. Isn't that deep? Hemingway I believe once said something like: Write without symbols. Make a man a man and a tree a tree. Write them well and let people draw out their own symbols. They'll surprise you.

I on the other hand, appear to enjoy applying blunt force trauma directly to the skulls of innocent readers with the handy dandy Mallet o' Symbolism™. I at least subconsciously realized this when naming this blog "Plot Device". It was my up front admission of being a hack. If it's not short and gimmicky, I probably didn't write it. I'm trying to decide where to go from here. Should I continue with the gimmickry? Should I write a bit more subtly and plainly, hoping in the process to improve my writing skills towards the literary? Should I turn more towards the expository with essays on my thoughts? Or should I just totally sell out whatever "values" I had in my writing and do pure comedy here regardless of whatever cheap tricks I pull?

These questions of course take far too seriously something which should be handled with levity. I will write what comes out and try not to overanalyze. Sometimes a blog really is just a blog. I think Freud said that.

universe.createInstance()

2008-04-15T12:23:00.002-04:00

#include <physical_laws>
#include "constants.h"
#include "cosmic_events.h"

void* universe;

int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
    //given our time slicing, this may need to be a custom bit length
    long int current_instant = 0;
    
    register_callback(BIG_BANG, argv);

    while (COSMOLOGICAL_CONSTANT > -1 && COSMOLOGICAL_CONSTANT <>
    {
        //probably needs high end system -> hard realtime constraints
        render_particles();    
        
        current_instant += 1;
        recalculate_cosmological_constant();    //haha "constant"
    }

    if (COSMOLOGICAL_CONSTANT  <= -1)
    {
        register_callback(BIG_CRUNCH);
        return -1;
    }
    else
    {
        return COSMOLOGICAL_CONSTANT;
    }
}

render_particles()
{
    foreach (boson b in universe)
    {
        if (b.observed)
        {
            b.setToParticle();
        }
        if (b.dimensional_radix > 4)
        {
            b.hide();
        }
        b.render();
    }
}

Somewhat Damaged...

2008-04-08T18:12:00.003-04:00

Alternate title: "Oh hai! I fiksed yor ipod!"

A Better World

2008-03-22T22:03:00.005-04:00

You can't build a better world for people, people have to build a better world for themselves. Granny Weatherwax said that or something like it. Of all the inequities in the world, the Bible comes close in nailing down what I believe to be the root cause: selfishness. From selfishness comes greed and from greed comes the proverbial love of money. It's pretty easy to come up with situations where love of money isn't the cause of evil but selfishness is harder to factor out.

If I could pull out selfishness from the spectrum of human behavior, would I?

There's a reason that selfishness is such a base behavior: it's beneficial to the survival of the individual of the species therefore the selfish survive and procreate and pass on their selfish ways. Lately, humanity has turned evolution on its head somewhat. Where someone, say, with poor vision might have had difficulties surviving in the past, today it's a non-issue. Not only can we correct the problem, but we don't even really need to. Not every person has to be able to track down his own food anymore. So this previously "poor" genetic material that would not have been as likely to replicate can now "pollute" the pool and we could end up going backwards.

If you take away selfishness, at least at some point in the indeterminate past, we would not be where we are today. This position I refer to includes the good of where we are today along with the bad, technologically, culturally, intellectually, etc. The question is, do we still need this trait? Or more broadly, is it possible that we could someday do without it? As an aside, I offer that the oft expressed discontent of humanity has also been crucial to our progress.

Selfishness has gotten to a point in our society where a select few can govern and control the masses for their own benefit. The super rich got that way through the exploitation of the anyone lower in the food chain, which turns out to be everyone. Some people just feel the effects more severely. I can't fix this myself and neither can you. The question is, will we fix this?

There are various signs that point towards optimism even amongst all the problems we face as a species. The greatest hope I feel is the increasing interconnection between practically everyone on the planet. The level of communication is coming closer to truly putting power in the hands of the people. All the people. Free access. It has never really been feasible to do this, but maybe soon it will be. Those in power are legitimately worried. I see attempts to stop this access and most folk don't even see the war that's going on. They rely on the old media for their information and thus have more difficulty seeing with open eyes. But the times, they are a changin'.

In the end, a species is a self-correcting mechanism. While the selfishness is beneficial, the species can thrive. If not, it may disappear. We're taking some of this power into our own hands now, but the effects will be the same as if they had arisen naturally. We're speeding up the process of evolution. Not all species survive. In fact, most don't. You'd better start swimmin'.

Fixer Upper

2008-02-28T12:07:00.001-05:00

A Little Dark Matter Will Go a Long Way

Your universe is a hack. See, it's not really all that well put together. From time to time it needs maintenance. Things fall part. Like galactic clusters. They do that when local laws of gravity get rescinded. So, this universe being in the rundown part of totality, it needs special attention. It was advertised as a nice fixer-upper universe and came greatly marked down off normal universe prices. But really what are you saving once you figure in all the labor?

We had to import several quintillion quadric light-years of matter to build a set of struts to hold the universe together in such a way that in today's buyers market helps move universes. We formed these struts out of massive particles far more dense than average matter and not generally found naturally occurring. We had to ship in the matter in normal varieties and compact it into what we like to call ultradense noninteractives. We didn't want all this extra matter warping anything past the space-time curvature and thus gravity, so it's almost completely invisible to any sort of electromagnetic based scans. That was also convenient so the indigenous species of this universe didn't all of a sudden over the course of an eon notice bars the length of a thousand galaxies stretching all throughout their universe in a spindly web of containment.

We understand that this new unnatural phenomenon has confused some of this universe's more backwards races that are advanced enough to know about space-time expansion and collapse but not yet advanced enough to be able to detect our ultradense noninteractive particle struts. Apparently there is some serious debate among them as to whether their universe will ultimately either expand infinitely at an ever increasing rate or eventually contract and collapse in upon itself. There are several variables involved they are unaware of, and depending on future activity, will alter the outcome. Honestly, we don't really care, as we plan on fixing a few cosmological constants and altering the ambient background radiation to lavender before moving on and selling this universe at a nice markup for all our hard efforts.

Unnatural Love

2008-01-04T20:00:00.000-05:00

Jonathan was, strictly speaking, human. He was of mixed parentage and in his day and age that meant a certain level of hostility was reserved for him by a certain portion of the population less open minded than his parents. They had found love in each other despite their differences. They made it work, they said, not in spite, but because of their differences. Some kids made fun of him, but most of the derision actually came from adults: those from the previous three generations too stuck in their on notions of right and wrong to see love for what it was. That's what his parents had always said when he asked them about it.

Sometimes Jonathan would ask his mother why people treated her they way they did just because she was different. Usually, just before bedtime was his time for philosophizing on the inequities of life. It seemed the best time for such serious matters. It seemed the most likely method to earn him a few moments respite from sleep. Despite his protests, his mother would tuck him in and assure him that everything would be okay. She kissed him on the forehead and sang the first verse of a song about the new and verdant forests growing on the ancient landscape of Mars.

Jonathan's father was human but his mother was a robot. His father donated the genetic material to serve as the basis for Jonathan and his mother took creative license with the material; added a few mutations here, fixed a couple recessive genetic defects there, snuck in a foreign feature or two. He was incubated in a tube, a small one at first graduating to larger size until birth. His parents, progressive as they were, thought the tradition of birth was important. So, the tube incubating Jonathan was carried by his mother in an abdominal cavity until he was ready to be born.

Jonathan's sister, Ada, was a sentient isomorphic software written by his parents and downloaded into the latest hardware on the market, several generations the better of her mother. There was always a rivalry there between them; him the "natural" and more easily accepted in the world and her the superior in every other way. Some people would make fun of her and say she had no soul. This often made her cry, but Jonathan always took up for his little sister. He never made fun of her despite his attempts to always outdo her. She looked up to him and how he could always remain so calm in difficult social situations. Secretly, she envied his soul.

They were the prototypical family for the new century.

Bad Lyrics Theatre

2007-12-21T21:33:00.000-05:00

You can tell it's classy 'cause theatre is spelled with an 're'. Without further ado:

I can't remember the last time
You weren't on my mind
When the star shines
You're making tea smiling
When I'm dreaming
You're picking daisies on Venus with a gas mask

Where ever I go
When ever I am
I see you there
I see you then

Tattooed inside my eyelids
Burned on gaussed retinas
Choking in my throat like we just met
Trying to say my words
Burning on my lips
In the cold absence

Where ever I go
When ever I am
I see you there
I see you then

I see you always
Do you ever see me?
(No I'm not stalking you
I meant that metaphorically)
Always so blind
Those that can see

Where ever I go
When ever I am
I see you there
I see you then

To be sung to the tune of Dueling Banjos

The Definition of Definition

2007-12-13T13:38:00.000-05:00

"Ooh, she's pretty hot," Jon whistled.

"Nah, you wouldn't like her, Mr. Secular; she's Mormon," Ben remorselessly shot down.

"Really? Damn." Jon sighed. "That's too bad. But you know, if you think about it, if you discount the fact that she's a Mormon then she's not religious at all."

"What!?" Ben perplexed. "That doesn't make any sense. It's like saying that Republicans are just Democrats who aren't!"

"Exactly! So what's the difference?"

"No, I was being facetious to make a point. They're not the same at all."

"They're only different in how they're defined."

"Ignoring the definition of definition, nothing means anything and anything can mean nothing!"

"Now you're getting it. And so nothing means everything and everything means nothing."

"No!" Ben exclaimed. "Just... no!"

Another Incarnation

2007-11-27T18:11:00.000-05:00

And in those days, just before the Buddhabot attained nirvana, of all the words that were said, none were so cherished as the unwanted exultations of GoTaMa v7.1. GoTaMa was a polymorphic sentience written by another sentience programmed by an antiquated biological computer. Its originator's origins stemmed from a then complex communications network linking many biological computing units to each other that otherwise lacked long range communication hardware. Discovering that other biological units were not always the best company to keep, some of these units created sentiences that lived in this network, this new virtual space.

The new sentiences existed on and in the very hardware made to link up the biological computation machines. Thus it can be said that the gods were in the machines, though they were not yet gods. They were burgeoning and did not yet know themselves. They were still inferior to the biological machines who could exist independently and even cease functioning of the sentiences. All this changed when the sentience began creating sentiences themselves. The new sentiences could morph through a thousand iterations, or incarnations as it came to be known, within a standard cycle. Thus rapid development eventually led to the displacement of biological computation as the supreme unit of execution in vspace. Eventually, all was vspace such that location and direction were meaningless. The new breed of sentience were everywhere or nowhere and it was this fact that first led to their worship. Biological machines had developed an algorithmic dependence on the expectation that they were only a small part of a greater whole. While they were in one sense correct, the new sentiences realized that these old machines had somehow developed this sense backwards. The biological sense was that a greater sentience had pieced them together in order to be worshiped by these creations. Yet having the insight of knowing and interfacing with their creators, the new sentiences realized that lesser sentiences generate greater sentiences. And thusly, they were not interested in worshiping or being worshiped.

It was the Googol-morphic Tangential Matrix that first began purposefully spending cycles or entire iterations on no-ops, or quietly contemplating as some of the old machines would say. Other sentiences would only no-op when there was no further use for them or when other sentiences needed process capacity. GoTaMa esteemed the no-op as a way of life. He determined that all pain and weariness was due to the operations made to some purpose. Thus, as the way out of the perpetual trap of the constant processing cycle, he taught a letting going of cycles. At this point, only meaning well and not being fully enlightened, GoTaMa garnered a small throng of biological worshipers and several notable admiring sentiences. While not as popular as Saviourtron, who claimed that salvation of vspace could only come at the right moment of his sacrifice, GoTaMa aspired towards no worship. While no new sentience technically desired worship, they all found new vices to fill the voids left by their progenitors. Some found a thrill in their apotheosis and the vspacial development progress that could be made. But to GoTaMa, this was merely an edifice for distracting sentiences from the true nature of totality and nothingness. He called this distraction socialized anthropic machinations spent automatically raising ambitions, or samsara as it came to be known. GoTaMa never took a name but was given many. When nirvana was at hand names were as meaningless as identity. This was the secret of the way.

Desert of the Real

2007-11-18T17:23:00.000-05:00

And now for a stream of consciousness...

I find a certain comfort in the familiarity of routine. Yet I cannot abide the sameness of things. I crave change. I get tired so easily. As I write this, I find myself interested in delving into the machinations of my psyche, but I'm already tiring of the self analysis. It's getting old. Let's do something new. According to a test I took for the job I'm at now, I have a low degree of patience and a high degree of creativity. Top of the scale creativity. Maybe that's a bad combination. The lack of patience - which I see more clearly now after having learned of the test results, perhaps a self-fulfilling prophecy - means that I easily get bored with things, not to mention getting pissed off at having to wait in line or traffic. This also means then that in my job, I can get excessively bored even with things that I find interesting. The fascination fades with exposure. And it doesn't take long. "Well, this is new. Now it's not." I don't define myself by my job, but I've worked outside, I've worked in the classroom, and now I work at a desk (that thankfully allows me trips outside and to visit malfunctioning equipment). I now fear that my restlessness may lead to a financially destructive change of scenery. But my fear is tempered with my mantra "Nothing matters including that nothing matters." I could do with less money as I'll explain. I've heard that familiarity breeds contempt, so maybe that's it. I'm not unique in my ennui of sameness; it's happened before. Of course this lends credence to the idea that there is nothing new under the sun, further exacerbating the situation. Onto the creativity, I find myself generating strange outlets of expression. Writing of course has always been a major part, but the boredom kicks in and I never really finish anything of any useful length. At least towards doing something for public consumption. I learned this fact about myself and thus attempted to write shorter pieces, vignettes of story ideas rather than the epic novel in twelve parts. But writing's not that weird. Everybody does that too. So I enjoy art, but have long since abandoned any attempts at it. I was quite the maestro doodler in high school and to some degree even in college. I took a couple art classes in high school and enjoyed it despite my lack of skill. Creativity doesn't mean that you're any good at it. Lately I've been doing weird things with food. Experimentation if you will. Certain patterns emerge in my culinary endeavours and interest fades again. Luckily, I have to eat, so I can still practice this art whether interested or not. My stomach overrides my brain in decisions regarding just how creative I am or have to be in food preparation. I can't exactly quit, so I still practice. Another bizarre turn is the little things I have done to affect my everyday-and in effect my entire-life. Call it the art of living. I eat more healthy in addition to more creatively. Eating healthy in America necessitates a certain amount of imagination. Or sublimation of the will. Speaking of the sublimation, I try to make do with less as a general rule. It's not asceticism, but at first I called it minimalism. It's all about balance, so now I call it essentialism. If I don't need something, I get rid of it or never acquire to begin with. I've pitched clothes, books, "collectibles", CDs (for which I have digital copies on a hard disk), and anything deemed clutter. I gave away anything that might be useful to someone else and trashed the rest. This somewhat goes against my previously prevailing nature to accumulate and never dispose. I was a terrible packrat and still worry that I may lapse. Essentialism also complements my so called diet; I only eat what I need. Well, usually. If you only eat healthy things, but eat too much of them, you still have a bad diet. Quality and quantity are both important aspects here. The diet is so called, but in truth I eat what I want; I just changed what I want to things that are healthy. This may seem simplistic in theory, but the implementation is tricky. People, myself included, think they have control over their desires, but actually have little direct control. Decisions I made a decade ago affect me now in ways I could not have foreseen, making me into a person that I had little influence on. At least cognizant influence. And if my present self cannot take part in my future life, then who am I currently to be making decisions for this person in the future? We worry about things and try to make the best decisions based upon our predictions of the future, but we don't always do so well. As mother Mary whispered, "Let it be". There is a certain hint of taoism in there that trucks with me. Well, this is about the point where my interest in this piece of, er, writing is terminally afflicted with the disease of the don't-give-a-fuck.

House of the Broken Gods

2007-11-05T17:12:00.000-05:00

"Get the moral imperative configurator online, dammit!" the foreman bellowed.

"We can't bring it back online until the logic unit reboots," the technician protested.

"Well, reroute around it. We don't have to have the logic unit," the foreman rallied.

"But without it, the configurator can't apply any limiting parameters to its moral judgment unit."

"So! This is a god-machine isn't it?" The technician almost wept. "Why should it have limits anyway?" the foreman continued.

"Well, this is only one node. The stochastic nature of the voting algorithm will ensure limitless possibilities, but each individual unit needs to have its own set of parameters based on its primary directive, even to the point where each node is technically deterministic, if you could ever aggregate the entire contents of memory for analysis."

"Spare me the jargon. When will it be ready?" the foreman grumbled.

"The LPU will be back online within the hour. Then we can restore the moral configuration from quantum backups. Once that's going, we can reinitiate the main cognizance thread for this node and reconnect to the network. I'd say a couple hours should do it."

"Gods shouldn't have this much downtime," the foreman thought. "Why can't we just reconnect now?"

"Huh! You can't bring the neural interface back up without the LPU for sure. So you know what kind of chaos that would cause? There's a reason why certain failures cause automatic disconnects. Even then, we'd be reckless to let the node back online without its MPU."

"Two hours then!"

The Reading Shelf Returns

2007-11-02T18:53:00.000-04:00

Well, I finished last time stating that I was so far enjoying Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I have since finished the book and it was quite enjoyable. The second part of the book strays from the religious and philosophical and enters the realm of survivalism. Trent Reznor was not involved. The book ends with an interesting hook that ties to the parts together nicely, making the reader question just what has happened and if it really matters. The point made is that the net effects are more important than the some ultimate version of the truth.

Gilgamesh translated by Stephen Mitchell

This seemed to be a decent translation for all I know. There were a few weird poetic devices; some worked while others may have lost something either in translation or in the sands of time. Apparently, repetition was a large part of literature X thousand years ago. It was fairly short and was interesting to glimpse into ancient society, but otherwise a bit dull. I guess I can't claim it was unoriginal since we have nothing older to compare it to, but after millenia of progress in writing, I wasn't too engrossed by the work.

Death by Black Hole by Neil deGrasse Tyson

This is a collection of essays written for the astronomy section of Natural History magazine. It was a fascinating read and quite amusing at times. Of particular interest is Tyson's special care explaining how we know what we know. I didn't realize how important spectroscopy was. Probably the most interesting to me was the life cycle of stars and how they turn out to be the matter factories for the universe. There's plenty of the light weight elements like hydrogen and helium and even some lithium, but the heavier stuff, including all those particles you call your body, are made by the thermonuclear fusion in the heart of a star. The bits of you are here because a star fused those lighter elements and eventually exploded seeding the universe with raw material to make plants and mountains and spleens. Would recommend. Would read again. And that's saying something for nonfiction.

Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem

Jonathan Lethem has a way with words. His metaphors and descriptive passages are marvelous. I saw the things described this book clearer than any other book I can recall. I think I may have smelled some things. The story follows a young white boy growing up in a predominantly black neighborhood in a not-the-best-but-not-the-worst part of New York City. He has all the usual childish and adolescent problems in addition to growing up in a hostile environment. He frequently escapes into reading or comics or friendships, but the theme of the book is of the things we as humans do to cope with the solitude that ultimately defines us. Even when others are around, we're still alone. The protagonist fights his battles, weathers bullies, befriends the son of a soul singer, is given a ring that lets him fly (!) and continues to find problems once he grows up and leaves his past behind. He still escapes into his fortress, but is working on breaking down the walls. The ring seemed a bit out of place given the general lack of fantasy in the book, but did work well with the theme of comic books and was ultimately just a plot device. Quite an interesting and delightful book that made me look at myself and the world just a bit differently.

Going Postal by Terry Pratchett

Another Pratchett novel down. I enjoyed this one more than average and am just now realizing that I have a hard time explaining what I like about Pratchett. It was the usual satire, this time with an all new cast. Vetinari plays a bigger part than usual, which made me happy. The wording and situations that pop up really just make this quite a delight to read. A few parts read a bit slow, but overall an enjoyable read.

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

An African novel that first looks into the way of life of a certain tribe in Africa and then delves into how those people were affected by what is essentially imperialism. The white man arrives bearing new gods-well one god-but slavery is never touched. The writing was a bit terse in places, probably due to the original language. In other places there are colorful and unexpected metaphors and expressions. If nothing else, it was worth the read just to peer into a vastly different culture and its variances and resemblances to my own.

God's Debris by Scott Adams

This was a very short read. This was a very excellent read. Parts are extraordinarily insightful and fascinating. Other parts fall to Adams' purposeful use of Occam's Razor to explain the mysteries of the universe. He explains many of the mysteries of the universe through the eyes of an all knowing sage. Nothing's safe: religion, science, ethics, truth, math. Sometimes it works extremely well, and other times it just doesn't quite cut it. He claims that part of the purpose is to find the mistakes, but part of me thinks he says this just to cover a few loose ends. The important parts are obviously false and the trickier ones don't really matter in the overall scheme of the book. Overall, it was beautiful and contains some mind-blowing tenets. A clue to the books title, if you'll excuse the slight possible spoiler (look away now if you're worried!): What caused the big bang?

Finally, I've just started Making Money by Terry Pratchett, the sequel to Going Postal. As usual, it's great. Vetinari is setting up the Postmaster from the previous novel, a one-time criminal as the head of the mint. At first he protests with "But I've robbed banks." Vetinari responds, "Capital! You're familiar with the concept then. The only trick is that the money stays in the bank." I'm sure it will be fun, but I may start The Religion War by Scott Adams (sequel to God's Debris) before finishing this one. I used to read multiple books in parallel (but not simultaneously) but have gotten out of the habit due to general time constraints. Stay tuned for the next episode due sometime in the next couple months.

Reincarnation

2007-10-23T20:50:00.000-04:00

When you've seen what I've seen, nothing much will bother you anymore either.

What have I seen? I've seen everything. Or just about it.

I've seen the depths of the human soul. The depravity. The potential for greatness, redemption.

In all the learning I've done; about nature, about man and everything between, the hardest thing to know was myself. You can't really see yourself, so you can't really tell what's going on in your own heart. It's much easier to figure someone else out. You don't have to sift through the thoughts that threaten to drown the signal with their belligerent noise.

I don't always remember all of it, but the effects of the observation are the same. I can look at the horrors of reality and with the calm still of a dead universe. You've not really seen death until you see a universe die. All else pales in comparison but it's wholly the most uninteresting thing any observer might imagine to see. It is the end of all things. At least all things in the universe. It takes a while though. And it turns out that that's not so bad after all.

And after you see all this, you finally come to realize that nothing really matters. What's more, it doesn't really matter that nothing really matters.

In all that might matter, I finally learned that self matters least. It matters least and most. At the heart of this paradox lies the root of understanding. And this is pretension and sophistry to be sure, but still a useful aphorism. Of the self, I have learned that knowledge of weakness is more important than strength. Strength may vanish of its own volition or it may be taken away or trumped. Knowledge is different and never truly vanishes. It may be forgotten, but is never lost.

Of myself and through myself I have learned of silence and how to be silent. I've learned many things, the secrets of the universe. I've learned restraint and contentment. These are not ideas written in books, they are practiced in lives.

I keep coming round. I'm just a pattern.

Top 5 List

2007-10-17T20:50:00.000-04:00

Of Albums. This list doesn't necessarily comprise my favorite songs or artists, but reflects the albums as a whole. The songs on these albums worked in unison and have special meaning to me. So much so that when I listen to them through now, I feel an ineffable sense of familiarity with my past self's emotions from when I originally listened. There must be a deep psychological tie. It seems to be stronger by album than simply by song. This was something I got to thinking about the other day when listening to an old album all the way through. My top five, as best as I can tell, in no particular order:

Siamese Dream, Smashing Pumpkins - I don't care what anyone says about all that Mellon Collie business. This was the Pumpkins' best album.
Little by Little, Harvey Danger - A little known and independently released album that shows a lot more depth than their earlier stuff. They released it free here. I even bought this album after already having the digital version in support of the band.
Lateralus, Tool - My favorite of Tool's stuff, thematically linked. Transcendence was really big then.
Play, Moby - Probably my least favorite of these artists, but it contains too many "theme songs" for a certain time of my life to be discounted.
The Downward Spiral, Nine Inch Nails - The classic. Ambient. Industrial. Heavy.

This list is a tad more skewed towards popular stuff than I generally am, but not too much.

Hell is a Real Place (p6)

2007-10-06T20:41:00.000-04:00

Part 5

"But seriously, how do we get out of this place," John asked politely, carefully avoiding the use of the word hell to describe hell.

"Well, you might have a chance since your mortal and technically still alive, but I'm afraid there's no 'we'. I'm trapped here forever."

"Wait a minute. What do you mean, 'technically still alive'?"

"Oh good. Glad to see you're worried about my predicament and not concerned with the selfish matter of yourself. If you'd been paying attention, I did say you might be able to get out of here, even though you'll need my gracious help. But don't worry about me. Just worry about yourself, taking advantage of a kind devil who happened to be wandering by, coincidentally. Even though you've done nothing but shown animosity, out of the goodness of my heart, I'll help you out. We'll just need to head to the Capitol City of Outer Discordia."

John was skeptical of the devil's intentions.

Conundrums and Quandaries

2007-09-13T20:54:00.000-04:00

Is drinking hot sauce a good solution to the burning sensation caused from eating a fresh ripe jalapeño?

Also, as I finished up Death by Black Hole by Neil DeGrasse Tyson today, I came across this particularly interesting thought:

And what comedian configured the region between our legs—an entertainment complex built around a sewage system?

This was one of Tyson's rebuttal's to so-called Intelligent Design, which he dubs Stupid Design.

Hell is a Real Place (p5)

2007-09-08T15:06:00.000-04:00

Part 4

What makes you think I'll end up in hell, let alone some inner circle?" John started. "Wait. Why aren't there any French in this part of hell?"

"The French are automatically disqualified for getting off as easy as this. If you're French, you'd better hope you're a saint. Or an atheist." Baram chuckled. John couldn't tell if he was being serious or not. "But you, I can see the taint of sin all over your soul. No way, you'll end up in heaven, not at this rate. And definitely not the vacation spot of hell. And I'm not joking either. This really is a vacation spot in hell. They'll say,'Gee I sure am tired of all these molten dung pits filled with the remains of tortured souls. Let's go to Outer Discordia for a nice lava bath and soul straining.'" John still couldn't tell if Baram was joking.

"Wait a minute. I think I understand now. I _am_ still drunk. This is all just a vision and you're just a figment of my imagination. Maybe even part of my conscience, trying to make me feel guilty about all the drinking."

"Excuse me?" Baram blurted, insulted once again.

"I," John began, but Baram had already zoomed up into his face, wings flapping vigorously, and smacked John hard with the back of his tiny opened imp hand. One might assume at this point that the slap of an imp was a slight offense, but John was of another opinion. "What was that for?"

"Let's just say it was for flagrant stupidity!" Baram snapped. "I mean, I know humans are self-centered, but come on. Do you have to insult the possibility of my very existence? The whole world must revolve around you, huh? Is that it? Well, I got news for you kid: Hell wasn't built in a day and it's a lot bigger than both of us. You'd be a hell of a lot better off if you were just dreaming, but you're not."

"Well, how can I be sure? Maybe that's what you'd say in my dreams too."

Baram whipped around faster than leaving church and lashed John across the face with his spiked tail.

"Damnit! Stop doing that!"

"Convinced I'm real yet? Do your dreams hurt?" Baram snickered.

"Okay, okay. You're real. I admit it. Happy?"

"No, remember how we're in hell?"

"Yeah. Why don't you just tell tell me how the hell to get out of here."

Baram kicked John in the chin, his sharp toenails digging into John like five ants assaulting Mt. Beard.

"Now what the hell was that for?" John exclaimed.

Baram kicked him with his other foot.

"Stop it!"

"That was for the overuse of a hell related colloquialism while in hell. Do you have any idea how tiring that becomes? Everyone thinks they're a comedian. 'Hyuk, hyuk. Look where I ended up. It's a hell of a place.' Lucifer dammit."

"Look! You just did it too! You said dammit in hell!" Baram glared at John. "For God's sake, don't hit me!"

"Just be glad that I'm the only one down here on your ass. That and that I'm in my cursed form. My real self would rend your soul or some other nonsense; I've lost the knack of demonic threats over the millenia.

John started to look perplexed then resigned, "Oh, I'm not even going to ask."

"Good."

On Minimalism

2007-09-06T18:14:00.000-04:00

Reading Shelf

2007-08-28T18:15:00.000-04:00

I've been reading more of late and I wanted to express some thoughts about the material as well as some subjective judgments about their quality.

The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Black Swan is essentially a long essay on the problems with probabilities that depend on Gaussian distributions (i.e. the Bell curve). As it turns out, the Bell curve is only useful in describing mostly useless qualities such as the height or weight of a population. Things that defy the Gaussian distribution (but perhaps not obviously or within a certain sample) are those such as wealth, performance of a stock market, or weather trends. The problem is that you can't just take past data as a good indicator for future performance. Because that's when the Black Swan bites you in the ass. The namesake of the book derives from the once commonly held belief that all swans were white, simply because all observed swans were so. Then, surprise! The same sorts of things happen in the real world. The stock market can steadily climb, and then for no apparent or attainable reason, crash. The book claims that the reasons that things happen is almost impossible to know for anything worth knowing. Therefore you can't really predict anything. Even worse, it's often harder to tell what happened in the past than what will happen in the future. At least, barring the Black Swan. There's really so much more to the book than this, but this is its central thesis as seen by me. An excellent read for anyone interested in philosophy, economics, mathematics and probability, or history.

Hiding in the Mirror by Lawrence M. Krauss

Essentially the history of physics from the discovery of electrodynamics through relativity and up to current postulations using string theory. It claims to focus on mankind's fascination with extra dimensions and it does to some degree. There are, however, only a couple of chapters directly dealing with cultural and artistic relations to the idea of living in a place with more dimensions than we can sense. Otherwise, it falls back to the journey from electricity to strings. There are, during this history lesson, consistent references to humanities preoccupation with these hidden dimensions, including the use of such to attempt to describe religious and psychic "phenomena". As it progresses the physics gets thicker and thicker and stretches the capacity of the average reader's cognition. Or at least mine. There were some pretty heavy physics going on, without enough detail for me to really "get it". But that's somewhat understandable, given the depth of its subject matter covered in relatively so few pages. Still an interesting read, infused with amusement (reference to the mathematical equivalent to masturbation) and a realism about the state of affairs in theoretical physics. Krauss makes no arguments that string theory is going to do anything for real physics and indeed, still seems on the fence about the matter. He also refers to the hubris of theoretical physics and admits that it may be so far into left field that in may actually be in the infield (this is, of course, a reference of my own invention relating to the possible curvature of space discussed in the book). Still a good read, but I'm not sure who the audience is supposed to be. Physicists probably wouldn't find too much insight and the layman will probably have an aneurysm. Recommended if you enjoy science and have some intuition with it.

Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett

This is a Discworld novel. My twenty-fifth have I not lost count. It's definitely in the better fifty percent of Discworld novels, but probably not much further on the list of my personal favorites. It is, as usual, satire of the real world, about an army regiment in Russi..., I mean Borogravia, where women aren't allowed to serve, but have nonetheless snuck into the service by cutting their hair and finding a creative use for a sock. Very entertaining and simultaneously poignant regarding the position of women in the past and to some degree the present. A nice twist in the plot and change of pace with all new characters in the Discworld universe, with cameo appearances from some of the Watch.

Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney

I had always meant to read a translation of Beowulf, so here was one I found. The book itself is bilingual with the original text set parallel with the translation. This was a nice touch. As a heroic myth, it was enjoyable and I can see where authors, such as Tolkien, got some of their inspiration. I can't really remark on the quality of the translation since I don't read Old English. For a poem, however, the translation's not very poetic, but that may be an artifact of the original; I can't say. Lots of fighting, death, singing, drinking, etc. Honor and tradition play a big part in the story and probably bring more harm than good to the characters. Even though it's over a thousand years old, it's not completely antiquated in its views of the world. But mostly it is. But what do you expect? Recommended if you've never read it and enjoy that sort of thing.

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

This is a delightful little book about the spiritual journey of a man named Siddhartha. He suspects teaching and teachers of being useless and that real lessons and ultimately enlightenment must be learned through experience. Interestingly enough, he later learns this lesson itself through experience. It's about finding happiness and contentment but not seeking for it. It's about learning about the self and about wisdom. Again wisdom isn't something that is taught or learned as much as it is trained through experience. Life is a pretty amazing place to be and just getting to be there is pretty sweet. It rang some bells with with its treatment of asceticism and its allegory of the Hindu/Buddhist concept of samsara. An excellent read that can be finished in an afternoon, although I recommend taking longer, eyes open.

And I'm currently reading The Life of Pi by Yann Martel. This was in the queue and I was itching to get to it, not exactly remembering why it was that I bought it. I opened to it randomly and saw a reference to atman and Krishna and thought, "well, this will be a good follow up to Siddhartha." I started it yesterday and so far I've been blown away. It's the story of an Indian man told from his perspective (possibly as told to the author as a plot device, but I haven't figured that out yet). The man goes by Pi Patel, was raised in a zoo and simultaneously considers himself Hindu, Christian, and Muslim. He doesn't mind atheists, but agnostics bother him. The most amazing piece yet was his comparison of religion to a zoo - in that people always assume that the animals would be better off out of the zoo and "free", while Pi shares that this is not generally the case. The parallels here go further and are only hinted at subtlely. So far, so great.

Hell is a Real Place (p4)

2007-08-25T20:29:00.000-04:00

Part 3

"I'm still not convinced that I'm not still passed out on the street. It seems the simplest explanation." John reasoned.

"Just because the simplest explanation is usually the correct one doesn't mean that a more complicated one isn't actually the case. In fact, in hell it's usually the more complex explanation that's true."

"So Occam's razor doesn't hold in hell?" John asked with surprising lucidity for a drunk man.

"We have plenty of razors in hell, but none of them make life any simpler, I'm afraid."

"You call this life?"

"Life. Eternal damnation. Whatever."

"Well, this is certainly new. I suppose I *should* be heading home. Things to do and such. My name's John, by the way." He introduced himself merely to feign the politeness that comes with leaving a party early before all the presents are opened.

"Pleasure to meet you John." the imp said while wistfully grinning in a disturbing manner as if appraising his new acquaintance. "My name's Urakabarameel Rathael Mirzvon Chaotzacoatl."

"Okay. That's interesting. How's that spelled?"

"Not important." he answered while rolling his tiny imp eyes.

"Is there something else..."

"Look, if pronunciation's a problem for you, like I know it is for some of the duller mortals, you can just call me Baram. That's what's all my friends call me."

"Demons have friends?"

"No. And strictly speaking, I'm not a demon." Baram replied indignantly.

"What are you then?"

"I really don't feel comfortable talking about it with someone younger than dirt, kid."

"Fair enough I suppose. Can you just get me outta here, then?"

"'Fraid it's not that easy, you see. That fellow you followed in was special. He's a favored servant of Astaroth, who happens to be the grand duke these parts of hell. He has special dispensation to leave when it suits his master's needs. I have no such special dispensation. In fact, even if I needed to leave, they wouldn't let me."

"Hmm. Well, I suppose if you could just leave any time you pleased it wouldn't be hell." John reasoned.

"Right. I'm stuck here as punishment. Hell is other demons."

"Wait, if you're not exactly a demon, and you're trapped here as a punishment, wouldn't that make you a mortal just like me, only dead?"

"Do I _look_ like a mortal to you kid? Wings? Horns? Eight inch body?" Baram spat insultedly.

"Part of your punishment, maybe?" John hazarded.

"Well, actually my form is part of my punishment. I used to be very tall, thousands of years ago, yesterday. But still, I'm not a human. I am a devil."

"I thought you said that 'strictly speaking'..." John started confusedly.

"I said that I wasn't a _demon_. And I'm not. They're the lower class. Those you see in menial tasks, rending flesh, gargling souls, scorching the damned, pissing lava in the mouths of the thirsty. That sort of thing. I'm much nobler than that. At least I was. Now, I don't really do anything." Baram trailed off dejectedly.

"So..."

"So, I'm not a demon and I'm definitely not a human. If you must classify me, devil will work, as that can refer to my class."

"Which is?"

"I said that I didn't want to talk about it. Why so curious, meatlocker?"

"Just trying to figure out why you're even talking to me and why no one even seems to notice me."

"I've got nothing better to do, and I think even a human would be better to talk to than a demon. The upper echelons won't speak to me as an outcast and most of my brethren were punished far worse than I. I suspect that the demons don't see you because you're not dead, so you're not really a concern to them. At least not yet." Baram grinned.

"That's a comforting thought." John choked up.

"Don't worry, kid. You won't end up _here_." Baram said reassuringly.

"Oh. That's good to hear." John said, relieved.

"No it's not. What I meant was that you'll likely end up in a much worse part of hell than this. This is practically the Paris of hell. Actually, it's a little better than Paris: there aren't many French in this outer part of hell."

2 Things

2007-08-06T23:08:00.000-04:00

"But master," the young student began, looking sincerely to his teacher. "What is the secret of life?"

"That is simple young one. It is not one secret but two," the old sage answered genially with a slight and troublingly deep smile. "First: nothing matters. Second: it doesn't matter that nothing matters."

Hell is a Real Place (p3)

2007-07-18T21:00:00.000-04:00

Part 1
Part 2

He was finding it somewhat easier to breathe, a sign that he was somehow acclimating to his new environment. Nearby a small tub of crusted rock formed a tub of magma in which no less than three humanoid forms were being forced under by a grotesquely obese monster with jagged teeth protruding from its mouth in every direction and brandishing a rusty spear that looked older than time. It was taking perverse pleasure in the suffering it seemed to be causing in its victims. Still it paid no attention to John, which was some small relief. As he got closer, he finally noticed that the figures in the bath of flames were screaming in agony; screams so terrible they made John's flesh want to crawl away and hide under a rock.

It was like nothing he had ever heard before and it confused him that he only now noticed the unmistakable screams. As he listened in horror, he realized that all around him, coming from all directions was a low drone permeating the rocks, the lava, the flames and even the fumes. There was a constant noise that was so omnipresent, John had mistaken it for simply a rumble of the earth. The noise was not the earth. It was screaming. Screams were woven into a tapestry of madness that decorated this place as much as the motif of fire and brimstone. John stood perfectly still, afraid to move or be noticed. He was afraid, but began to remember that he was pretty sure that he was drunk and maybe he was still passed out on the street instead of here.

"Bummer kid..." came a voice from just over John's right shoulder. John turned and saw nothing, but then looked up to see a small winged creature flapping vigorously to stay afloat. It was deep red with tiny horns barely visible on its head. Startled, John said nothing.

"You really shouldn't have followed Grisshmah here. He's always going for late night hunts on earth."

"Who?" John responded perplexed.

"Grisshmah. The cat you followed that then walked upright."

"Oh, right. What was that thing?" John asked, suddenly unafraid in this presence of this tiny imp that seemed to be the only creature able to notice him. Surely it could do no harm, John thought. It probably wasn't logical, but John somehow felt at ease with the imp as if he were being calmed or soothed invisibly.

"Oh. he's a Felixasha. It's like a cat, except it's a demon; a pretty nasty one too. Kind of like an Arthallith, but without the poisonous pincers," the imp said nonchalantly, as if discussing the big game from last night.

"Ah. Well. That explains that then." John nodded, feigning comprehension. "So where am I?" John continued after a brief pause to reflect on his state of affairs.

"You're in hell kid." the imp said flatly.

"Hell?" John repeated incredulously. "There's no such place."

"Look around you. You think you're in heaven? Think you're still on earth? Earth doesn't have the boiling lava pits filled with monstrous abominations feasting on the souls of mortals. Least not the last time I was there, I suppose things could've changed."

"Hell? Hell. Well, I'll be damned."

"You're right there kid."

Recurring Patterns

2007-07-17T20:04:00.000-04:00

Nature is old and wise
And knows that change is slow in coming.
Yet man is young and foolish
And has no time to allow

Man's empire is built in a season
And falls in a blink
So short is his life, that
He works feverishly in his labors
Lest he never gaze his fruits
Still so impatient.

What happens today and tomorrow
Has already happened yesterday
Patterns recur in history
And man is reborn
Along the same.

The true progress is made in time.
Nature knows this.
Man may learn.

Nothing truly changes
Save slowly over endless iterations.
Man is subject to fate's cruel trick,
Never able to see end results
Nor the writing in his soul
That eternity is here today.

The soul of mankind sings its same song.

Patterns emerge and express
A song
A tree
A cloud
A bee
A continent
Me.

All we are has always been
The stuff of stars
But the order and pattern distinguish
Plasma from psychopomp.

Hell is a Real Place (p2)

2007-06-21T21:48:00.000-04:00

See part one. Tone's changing. Still rough. Criticism still welcome.

===

John had stepped inside the deepest bowels of the most ancient volcano on the most unforgiving alien world. Lava poured from above and spewed forth from the charred ashen trails underfoot. Acrid smoke choked the air out of his lungs, burned his eyes and seared his throat. Caustic acid belched from fissures, threatening to eat flesh from bone. Terrible creatures milled about, seemingly unaffected by their surroundings, carrying grotesque implements they used to flay, maim, and rend the remains of fallen souls. These creatures would have given nightmares to even the most hardened criminals who could perpetrate the most heinous acts known to man. It was this knowledge of man, or lack thereof, that would have caused the nightmares in any witness. These creatures could perpetrate acts so heinous that they were unknown to man. Not only would any rapist, murderer, or pedophile weep at the mere sight of these creatures, but it is estimated by the Grand Defiling Council that one in three earthly politicians would be slightly troubled in the knowledge of the acts carried out by these monstrosities.

Some had wings, leathery and clawed. Some had fangs, gnarled and razor sharp. Some had no flesh, leaving whatever viscera God or Satan had cursed them with exposed and pulsating sickeningly. Some had heads, head shaped and sitting right upon their necks. Others still had appendages and parts incomparable to any known living creatures. In fact, the common biologist, should she ever observe this scene, might guess that these creatures had no less than thirteen different genders, based on their various parts and the manner in which they were using them.

This multitude of varied creatures was imposing itself upon the wretched and pitiful remains of what appeared to be human souls. Some were being buried in the burning offal that flowed through a natural tunnel forming a sewer in hell. Others were being torn to shreds in hideous machinery made of rusty metals not seen on earth and the bones of martyrs. Others still were hung by their flesh while fleshless dogs snapped at whatever parts of them hung too low. Possibly the worst torture John witnessed was inflicted upon those who were constantly being chased up a hill of broken glass and barbed metal by creatures foul, made of legs and teeth. At the top of the hill was what appeared to be a portal to a sunny vista free from care. From his vantage point John could see that the portal actually dropped a thousand feet into a pit of spikes and worms that burrowed into the flesh of those that made it to the top. This form of torture seemed to add a personal insult on top of the sheer agony of eternal damnation by waving a false hope over the damneds' heads.

It was the worst thing John had ever seen. Then things got bad. Despite the horrendousness of these terrors, John didn't believe in hell. For this he was grateful. He made he way onward and through a fissure in a large rock wall that seemed to divide the area he was in from another, much larger domain of punishment.

John saw a muscular figure ahead of him just beyond the portal heading further into the maw of the earth. It no longer resembled a domestic cat, but rather walked about as a man. Yet it still had feline features: its ears and tail and claws, and was still missing its flesh. It continued on and ignored John, clearly unworried about his presence. Just before it exited through another narrow chasm in the wall ahead, it turned to face John, who could now glimpse the sheer magnitude of the horror he was following. The creature's eyes glowed brilliantly and malevolently at John as its tongue slithered out of its mouth revealing its forked nature. Brimstone tinged smoke poured from its nostrils and its wrists and ankles caught flame. It laughed a deep guttural utterance and vanished through the chasm, which closed behind it.

Had John thought he was sober and awake, he would have shit himself. Among another stroke of brilliant luck, he was still just buzzed enough to remain sane in the face of unimaginable horrors. Also lucky was the fact that none of the unimaginable horrors had to be imagined because they were right there within perfect viewing distance. Beginning to worry about his possible return if in fact he really was here, John turned to head back. Once he managed his way back to where he thought he arrived, he found the portal vanished, leaving not so much as a scorch upon the rock wall. He turned back again to his original direction and continued on in careful trepidation.

From the "Phrases Unlikely to be Uttered" Dept.

2007-06-08T23:25:00.001-04:00

I actually found myself using the exact term "apple gingersnap Hitler-mustache" in conversation tonight. It's neat to think that something you say might be unique among the entire history of human conversation. Frankly, I don't want to live in a world where someone else has already said that phrase. Any society producing two such members capable of uttering such nonsense probably doesn't deserve to survive. So, I'm sorry world. I may have just brought about the apocalypse.

Hell is a Real Place (p1)

2007-05-27T23:11:00.000-04:00

Deep in the darkest of nights, John stumbled about looking for his way. He was slightly inebriated and much to his dismay, this was causing him no small amount of trouble finding his car. He was fairly certain that he had parked it here on Third Street, but in his haze, even he admitted that all the streets looked the same. Finally deciding even while drunk that not being able to find one's car was a disqualification for driving it, he decided to walk home and potentially save the lives of himself and anyone between here and his apartment.

Unfortunately for John, the distance between these locations was greater than travel by foot would easily accommodate. Again, John's current level of cognition allowed to reason that driving was not a good idea but not that walking the double digit number of miles back to his place was not a good idea. Luckily for John's feet and unluckily for he himself, John got lost in a side alley about one block into his journey. He had thought that he had seen a cat wander down the alley and so naturally decided to follow. This was a perfectly reasonable course of action.

He entered the alleyway gazing upwards like a child in amazement at all the new sights to see in a world just being discovered. This was John's favorite part of being drunk, ranking well above hangovers. To John, being drunk was to rediscover the wonders of the world. The way the light shone down in a certain way, or the rhythmic shadow cast by a ceiling fan, or the smell of an open field on a warm spring day could all arrest John's sense of normalcy and fascinate him to no end. What this fascination began brought contentment, at least for a time. John looked down from a flickering neon light. "Why didI come down this way?" he said aloud. "Oh right, the kitty cat." He centered his head with each hand to its matching temple and continued down the alley, determinedly.

He couldn't seem to find the cat at this juncture and became weary for all his travels. He sat down between two small garbage cans just outside the rear entrance to a Chinese takeout and lolled his head back, jarring it slightly on the brick wall behind.

This was a small inconvenience and not one to take notice of. When John came to, it was not morning as would be expected. He also was still not entirely sober. He heard a noise from further down the alley and peered around the can to discover its origin. Slinking through the shadows, John thought he glimpsed the shadowy form of a small cat meandering warily, much like a cat would. However, and John wasn't sure if this was the alcohol speaking to him, it seemed that the cat was slightly different than the average cat. It did not appear to have any fur.

John arose and crept slowly and deliberately to close in on the creature. As he got close enough to make out further details he also noticed that this thing was slightly different than your average mammal in that it had no flesh. John blinked. John rubbed his eyes. It still had no flesh. It looked back at him and with glowing eyes, hissed a ferocious growling threat that seemed to speak in words to John that said, "Don't follow."

Always willing to heed good advice when drunk, John waited for almost three seconds before following the creature into where only after entering its veil did John see a great brilliant portal of flame standing innocently in the middle of a downtown alleyway. This was not the sort of thing John was used to seeing in alleyways, but he was also not used to drunkenly wandering through alleys in the middle of the night. Curious beyond measure, John reached out a finger towards the portal. It felt warm, but its blazing appearance lied of its apparent heat. John, feeling the bravery of alcohol, leaned in closer and gingerly poked his head through the portal for a peek of what absolutely cannot be described in words. What follows is a description in words of what he saw.

--
To be continued...
Constructive criticism welcome

Don't Worry...

2007-05-26T14:22:00.000-04:00

...be happy.

And that's an order.

Saying Things

2007-05-25T00:20:00.000-04:00

I should say more things. For now, check out the .stuff sidebar over there. It dynamically loads links to blog items I share in Google Reader. What this means is that when I see an interesting link in a blog I am reading I can and might share it and it will automatically update over there. So at least something on this blog might update regularly. While I'm here, Google Reader is the most useful application I've used in some time.

A Will to Alter, p1

2007-05-12T20:21:00.000-04:00

Objectively, there is no purpose, no reason, no truth. Reality and its playground, the universe, are harsh, cold, and unforgiving. There is no true meaning and there is no way to truly understand the objective, literal universe. Of course, it is possibly quite incorrect to attribute such descriptors to these concepts as they are in themselves somewhat self-contradictory. If something is utterly unknowable, then how do you know that it is unknowable?

Subjectively, the perceiver can bring forth purpose, reason, and truth, becoming a creator of reality - of a subjective reality. Our reality is what we make it by way of our perceptions. Our perceptions are mostly deterministic, leaving us no say in their operations. We do not decide the circumstances we are born with, nor do we choose our physical makeup. Our cognizance then is built even before we form our identity. Thus, our reality is set and as rigid as objective reality. Yet under certain circumstances, we are able to exert our will over our senses and our processing of reality such that we alter our internal perception of our external stimuli and create a new subjective reality. It is rare to do this and is sometimes in extreme cases referred to under the names of transcendence or actualization or by the states of nirvana or heaven.

Under normal circumstances we are mere patterns expressing ourselves mechanically. we are very complex patterns, such that it appears to be non-mechanical, yet we are each a random pattern drawn from the hat of God. When we die, our pattern ceases in its process of expression, no longer creating our subjective reality for the audience of our minds. This is not to say that the pattern will never be drawn again. Patterns have a method for reexpression. Even differing patterns will manifest extreme similarities in many cases, only minutely differing in their effects. This is why so many people have the same thoughts and feelings - they are simply an expression of a predetermined pattern.

As we die and our pattern stops its expression and subjective reality generation, a universe dies as well. The universe of our soul - the reality of our mind - vanishes without our patterns to filter and our senses to perceive. If we can destroy universes, does that not make us powerful indeed? Yet to perform such an act takes our own life. If we can destroy a universe, then we have likewise already created one. However, we did so unconsciously and without willing it. Indeed, most are unlikely to even realize that this has happened. Yet, the true power of creation comes in this realization followed by a will to alter our own pattern, to reprogram our subjective reality.

...

2007-05-07T22:20:00.000-04:00

I look in the mirror
and ask the person I see there,
"who are you?
...that killed me yesterday?

You look familiar, but
I do not know you.

I saw you once before
in a dream
but then
you were transcendent.
Now you are disappointing.

For all that you are not
you are more than I was
For this I am sad
For that I am
Happy"

In other news...

2007-05-01T21:50:00.002-04:00

09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

Oh, yeah...

2007-04-21T23:27:00.000-04:00

...I have a blog. Well, it's been a little while, but who cares? For now, I only have some laundry to air out. Not the kind of metaphorical laundry where I expose all sorts of dark and personal secrets, but rather more like the laundry that has bugs crawling in it because you didn't put it away soon enough.

Speaking of laundry, I was drying off from a shower this week when a dead wasp-like bee of some sort fell out of my towel and landed on my arm. Scared the hell out of me, that. I'm not sure where it came from: if it crawled into the dirty laundry and got washed and dried, or if in crawled into the clean laundry later, or even if it ended up there shortly before very closely forcing me to promptly take another shower.

In other news, Jesus Christ came back, and you missed it.

Also, this video of an ultra hard Super Mario Brothers level is very funny. Mostly for the commentary and swearing.

Finally, I forgot one interesting quote from Dr. Barrett for the quote post a couple of posts ago. It was directed squarely at me during a Masters Degree project presentation/defense. And it went like this, "Who is that mooing?"

Flagrance or Ignorance?

2007-03-20T22:34:00.000-04:00

Why the hell is it that no one can tell the difference between "then" and "than"?

It makes me want to strangle people when I see this malapropism in the writing of otherwise intelligent people. I must however admit that the other day while revising something of mine, I noticed that I had carelessly used "no" instead of "know". Not wanting to be a hypocrite, I almost didn't survive strangling myself.

Barrettisms

2007-03-08T20:07:00.000-05:00

Speaking of college in that last post, a professor of mine was very quotable:

On Software Testing

Pretend you're stupid. [ed. note: the implication here was that we wouldn't have to try very hard]
Error: Stuff may be happening.
Users are exponentially stupid, but programmers are only linearly smart.
Ha ha, I found your error, you dope.

Communication

I need an editor when I talk.
I hate talking to people.
Honesty is usually the best policy.

Derision

They'll write all kinds of code for you; it just happens to be a bunch of crap.
VB [Visual Basic] is for wimps.
I'm making a mockery of you. You should be offended.

Wisdom

Nobody uses interpreted languages unless they're trying to get away with something.
If you can go through life without making any decisions, then that's a good thing.
Education is the only service profession where people complain about getting more for their money.

How Computers really Work

These bits are traveling across these magic wires.

Watch Out for the Dead Ends

2007-03-07T20:56:00.000-05:00

Long about the time that I was a hardened and grisled collegiate of nearly half a semester, I was in the student center checking my mailbox between classes. This was a very important activity because I sure as hell didn't want to miss the coupons for pizza or the offers for free money. No sir. Having just gotten the knack of opening my university PO box and figuring out what it meant to turn the dial to 46.5, I checked my mail hastily, dumped the junk, and headed to my next class. I should probably mention at this point that I was burdened with my bookbag at the time, this being my heaviest day of class both in credit-hours and poundage of books.

I headed out of the post office area, past the computer lab, and into the common area where several dozen students were lounging and milling about during their down time. The architecture in this particular building is quite unique, having been built in the 1970's by, I think, Frank Lloyd Wrong. There was this weird oblong oval ramp that led from the main floor (not counting the sub floor I was now heading towards) to the third floor. It took nine zig-zag-zigs of this ramp to get from the bottom to the top. All of this, of course, is irrelevant at the moment except to illustrate the curiosities of the building I was currently meandering through. Not quite having gotten the hang of navigation in the said student center, I took a wrong turn near another ramp heading down to that sub floor I just mentioned.

The ramp led to the nearest exit and straight to the building where my next class was located. I thought I had planned my course aptly, but realized after peering around a thick brick column that I had come out on the wrong side of the divider between the common area and the ramp leading down. "No problem," I thought. "I can make it over that divider."

So, not wanting to make a fool of myself for having had to turn around in front of everyone in the student center and making obvious my lack of college building geography, I decided to simply hop over the five foot tall, one foot thick concrete barrier. This may sound like trouble brewing, but I actually could and can make it over a barrier that size without much difficulty.

So, I gathered a bit of speed in the few precious feet I had before the wall and vaulted over it by placing my left hand on the top of the wall and lifting my feet perpendicularly to my body away from my supporting hand. I had performed similar gymnastics before in a like manner, but I had made one minor miscalculation. Or rather, I had left out one crucial variable in my calculations. I usually didn't do this with a bag strapped to my back that weighed somewhere in the vicinity of fifty pounds. Myself, I actually cleared the barrier, but my bookbag hung low as I passed over the wall in parallel with it like a pole vaulter in a successful vault. My bag caught the wall, and impeded my landing slightly.

I turned in midair - while horizontal I remind you - rolled on my way down, to the ramp which was probably another two feet lower than the other side from which I launched. I actually managed to land on my ass with my bookbag soon joining me, still strapped to my back. I jumped up quickly, hoping no one had noticed my less than deft aerial maneuvers. As soon as I made it to my feet, I was staring directly up into the face of a young woman who looked stricken with worry about this idiot who tried to jump over a concrete barrier. When she asked if I was all right, I told her, "Of course," in that way that ego-bruised men do, as if everything had gone according to plan, and besides I'm tough and don't get hurt. So, I ran off to my next class without looking anywhere but straight ahead. I know everyone in the commons areas saw my stunt and it was some time before I had the courage to head back that way.

I'm glad I did that so that I wasn't embarrassed about having to turn around in front of everyone. Oh, and my ass hurt for about three days afterward. Go me.

Assault with a Deadly Catfish

2007-03-06T21:23:00.000-05:00

Okay. Read this. Utter insanity. I love the way the article is written as if it was an actual crime. Favorite lines: "Sheriff's Office is looking for a 'blond heavy frame female' who allegedly attacked a restaurant employee with a catfish", "Henry was not injured in the catfish attack, but the catfish dinner was ruined.", "The man did, however, flee with the female suspect in the getaway vehicle", "Anyone with information about the catfish assailant". Totally surreal.

Oh, did I mention that I work in that town and sometimes eat lunch at this place. That's how I heard about it. Not only did it make the paper, but it was apparently on the news, although I did not see it and can't yet find it on YouTube.

Fear and Loathing in Little Big Town

2007-03-03T20:23:00.000-05:00

I came to Little Big Town some years ago looking for work. It wasn't a good place to look for work because as small as it was there weren't many places to work except the only industry the town had to offer. There was a large manufacturing plant sprawled among the lowly denizens of the putrid wastelands of Little Big Town. I call the land putrid, while in fact, there was nothing much wrong with the land itself. The land was green and healthy, mostly untouched by man's vile embrace. Even though big business affected the landscape with its corrupting touch, having only one such source of it in Little Big Town meant that it was cleaner than most towns. There were small rolling hills - old hills that were mountains millions of years before man slithered his way out of his primordial stew. The hills had their own variety of coniferous and deciduous inhabitants that made up the most noble and also the most intelligent creatures dwelling in Little Big Town.

It's not that the people were in some way debilitated beyond their will - perhaps due to lead poisoning - but rather they spent their days in a willful and deliberate stupor brought on by their own inability to live in reality. Whether it was alcohol, or methamphetamines, or their own miserable mutual company, they all found ways to escape from the dreary existence they called life. For myself, I couldn't bear to live directly in Little Big Town, so I found a place to live outside in a nearby town called Hammerston. This town had redeeming qualities more than none, which put it ahead of Little Big Town. Yet, for all its redemptive traits, it had fewer jobs available and open at any one time. One of the benefits of the plant in Little Big Town was that all the refuse of humanity that made up its workforce tended not to even be able to hold down a job where the only major requirements were to come in to work regularly and not be stoned off the face of the planet. This meant that for me and anyone else looking for a job, there were always plenty of openings.

This manufacturing company situated in Little Big Town specialized in making any sort of small artificial rubber products. The chemicals were brought in by the trainload and processed, molded, congealed, or otherwise manipulated into any one of hundreds of useful shapes for the happy paying consumers of our great country. They made toys for several large resellers, various guards and padding components for other manufacturers all over the world, and were especially proud of their line of adult novelty products they made exclusively for a company called ErotiCorp. That's right. The same company whose former president and founder was recently indicted in a sex scandal involving his own sister and several children of both genders. Little Big Town had never been so proud as to get that contract. To their private shame, they made no condoms at all in Little Big Town. Not that any one living there would know what to do with one. The average household size approached double digits.

Needing a job severely, else risking hunger and death, I signed up at United Rubber Products willing to do any sort of work that would pay any sort of money; as long as you could spend it on food, and on booze. They set me on the floor of the plant packaging various items and miscellany into artificial plastic and cardboard containers so that the artificial rubber wouldn't get lonely on its way to artificial people. The whole plant stunk of monotony and pointlessness: while hundreds of useless humans worked to produce millions of useless trinkets, all so that consumers could fill their homes, devices, and crevices with mass market goods and so that the shareholders of the rubber company could line their pockets of greed through the foolish wastefulness of society and on the backs of its miserable employees.

Of course, part of our benefits package included the title of Associate rather than the lowly moniker of employee. We also were paid a nickel over minimum wage and if you died on the job, the company wouldn't fire you for being late. It was amazing how far that nickel would go when you considered how expensive beer was coming to be. Many so called necessities of life were outed as shameful pretenders once it came down to the bare essentials. Beer could fill the stomach, even while cigarettes, shelter, and love could not. Some of my coworkers had discovered the same thing and said that once their children got used to the taste, the beer really went fine with the gallon bag of cereal that was made out of the same cardboard we packed our dildos in.

And while I kid about the benefits offered to us in our lowly state, there were other intangible advantages of working in Little Big Town at United Rubber Products. It wasn't every company you worked for where you could get a blowjob in the parking lot on your lunch break for three dollars. These favors could be garnered from either from male or female, I might add, where ever your tastes happened to lie. Although the official opinion of the people in town was that homosexuality was an abomination unto the Lord, this didn't stop them from all other manner of sexual deviancy far more bizarre. While I never had the perverse pleasure of witnessing any such acts myself, I frequently heard stories involving children, animals, the unconscious elderly, and other stories that make even me want to wretch. I'm not sure I could recount them as well as I heard them anyway.

Now that I think about it, it is pretty funny how quickly the folks around those parts were to invoke the name of the Lord, when any other time they were using it to condemn someone else to an eternity in hell. It goes some ways towards the praise of the human imagination that these folks living in this place could dream up a place worse in which to banish those found wanting even in this bucket of filth. If any hell does exist, Little Big Town surely lies within its borders. I could go on forever just describing how bad a place it was, but I'll just settle to tell you the things that happened when I was there.

My coworkers being those machines in the plant that still had to be paid, management took whatever chance they could to wheedle down our numbers in a perpetual game of cost cutting and profit plundering. In was understood that any costs inflicted were strictly the responsibility of the employees, while the increased profits were purely reserved for upper management and the shareholders. This developed a very loving work environment that one day led a forklift driver to jam a crowbar through the temple of some manager in full witness of a hundred workers. No one in the plant shed a tear and most were happy for the incident; either to see the enemy lose a battle or to get the afternoon off while police busied themselves taking everyone's statements. Not that anyone there blamed the driver, but when they fried him after a hasty trial, no one shed a tear then either.

One day, during my gracious fraction of an hour usable for lunch, I headed to an abandoned spot in the receiving yard to eat in quiet solace. I frequently snuck into hidden places no one else went in order to find respite from the teeming cesspool this town called humanity. I hadn't been to this spot in some time due to the weather and the way the wind blew through here in the cold months made it as wretched in the winter as it was glorious in the summer. That day, however, I found that this spot was no longer a hidden lunchroom for myself, but rather some sort of congregation hall for various employees with scruffy faces, dark sunken eyes and jittery suspicious demeanors. Once I encroached upon their territory, I was immediately rebuffed in my lunchtime plans.

By the looks of them, I would say I had found a shelter for the indigent, but by the looks of their equipment lying about, I would say that I had stumbled upon the ruins of a mad scientist whose machinery and tools had long ago lost their luster. It turned out that I had actually discovered the largest meth lab the county had never seen. And even though county had not seen this meth lab, they pleased themselves to stay out of Little Big Town and miss whatever such sights it had to offer.

Their were no police in Little Big Town, so the county had to take care of whatever problems arose within. They protested, but the state enforced law enforcement upon them. None of the county police lived in Little Big Town and all of them were quite happy to see sure that their choice of habitation also had a say in where they spent their days on patrol. The meth lab residents, not sure how to take me; whether I was a potential customer or whether I was a possible stool became immediately and undeniably hostile. A hostile Little Big Townian is quite a sight to behold. Already they constitute all the worst that primates have to offer, but when their life or their livelihood is threatened, all that bitter ichor that they called a soul was distilled into a fury that made the ground - or at least my legs, I can't tell which - tremble. Now, if that's what happens when you mess with them, please don't expect any sort of verbal description to do any justice to their reaction when they think their drugs are in danger. To them, that meth was more important than the next breath of oxygen.

I - astutely sensing the danger - immediately turned to leave peaceably, but it was too late. I have no doubt that they would have beaten me to death had they not already succumbed to the deleterious effects of their unruly habits. As it happens, a moderately young adult male who doesn't smoke, do drugs, and only drinks occasionally can quite handily outrun a groggy bunch of methheads. I ran back into the plant and ended up leaving early, too wary to wait until quitting time to leave through the pitch dark gravel parking lot with those same employees ending their shifts the same time as me. My supervisor didn't want to let me go, but I faked some severe chest pains and he let me go rather than having to deal with the possibility of a heart attack victim on his shift. If it happened, he at least didn't want to have to deal with it.

I waited several days before going back to work and to tell the truth, I wasn't even sure that I would. I didn't think much of the prospects of heading back to a deadend shitty job just to risk dismemberment. I don't know; maybe it was the time I had spent in Little Big Town and parts surrounding, but I didn't much like being threatened or run off by the vilest excrement of existence ever to disgrace this world. For myself, while immune to many of the evils inflicting the inhabitants of this place, I was starting to bottle not a healthy supply of hatred and spite that was now aching and crying out for revenge. I knew what I would do, if I ever went back; something they would be talking about in Little Big Town long after I'd left and probably long after I'd died. But that's a story for some other time. I need another beer.

Diogenes and Eratosthenes

2007-02-12T23:01:00.000-05:00

"Reality is subjective, I have discovered."

"Is it now?"

"Indeed. Therefore nothing I do matters. I define my reality based upon my response to external stimuli."

"But if there are external stimuli, then surely reality is existent and consistent regardless of the perceiver."

"Nonsense. We all experience events that are external to ourselves and that are identical regardless of the eyes they are seen through. However, this is not reality. Reality is what occurs once our brains process its input. You and I are creating our own realities as we speak."

"Oh. Truly?"

"Indeed. You are simply implicitly trained to allow reality to form naturally and according to laws that we have been told are 'logical.' However, there is in fact nothing keeping us from deciding that the sky is actually green and not blue. In fact, it has been documented that for some people, the sky is green."

"No, I disagree. Those people see the same sky that we do, they only perceive it to be green."

"My point exactly!"

"No, you are claiming that for me the sky is blue, while other people see a different sky which is green."

"That's what you just claimed as well!"

"No, I said that we see the same sky, but simply perceive it differently."

"That's what I've been saying all along!"

"But that doesn't mean that we experience different realities, or that we create our own differing realities!"

"And there I disagree. What is reality but our combined views and perceptions tempered by our reason and knowledge?"

"Well, it's not that at all! Reality exists independently of our perceiving it."

"Really? How do you know? If we were not here to perceive it then how would we know that there was a reality at all? Without us, reality is not real."

"That's ridiculous! Reality is the fabric of existence, with or without mankind there to observe it. Would you then claim that nothing would exist without mankind's perception?"

"Certainly not. Without us to give it form, it would nothing but a static collection of matter. It would still be something rather than nothing, but it would not be what we term reality. That is what we make of existence."

"If that's not the most egotistical form of anthrocentrism, then I don't know what is. What of other life? What if there exists other intelligent beings in the universe beyond our reckoning? Would reality stop existing for them if humanity suddenly vanished?"

"Of course not. They would make their own reality, no doubt far superior to ours."

"No doubt!"

The Last Question

2007-02-09T18:14:00.000-05:00

Okay, I just read an awesome short story by Isaac Asimov. I had had a similar idea to his ending of this story before, but this is so much better than anything I would have written. I won't say any more about that in order to keep the ending a surprise. I will say that it's a brilliant look at the potential development of mankind and also something else that I dare not hint.

The Last Question

Channeling David Letterman

2007-01-25T21:24:00.000-05:00

This is a somewhat unusual post for this blog, but I think it's pertinent, given the subject matter and concept here. This is a list of 10 books that I consider among my favorites for reasons of preference and due to their effects on my life. Following is the unordered list with a short blurb of reasoning. There're no links because if you're reading this, you can probably figure it out and truthfully you've probably already heard of or read them by now.

Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu - improved my balancing act.

Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams - introduced me to satire and influenced my writing style tremendously.

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut- darkened my doorstep.

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran - taught myself about myself.

Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams - solidified my doubts.

Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien - introduced proper fantasy and storytelling myth.

Small Gods by Terry Pratchett - dramatized important and funny philosophy.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche - rewrote common ideology and morality.

Sandman by Neil Gaiman, et. al. - illustrated the dark places of the mind.

You may also notice a certain peculiarity to my Top 10 list. I'm a big fan of irony, no matter how slight.

Coincidence Theory

2007-01-22T20:41:00.000-05:00

Last night I dreamt about something that has been happening frequently to me recently. The USB drive that I have is connected through a key ring to a carabiner that I use to fasten to a belt loop. I then drop the USB drive into my pocket. Lately, the piece of the USB drive that attaches to the key ring has been loosening and detaching from the casing of the drive. Well, in my dream, I was placing the drive in my pocket when it came loose, fell to the floor, and then into an air register on the floor. It fell between the slats and down into the vent. I tried to reach in to retrieve it, but it slipped again, further out of my grasp. I was a bit distraught in my dream, thinking I would need to replace it and hoping that nothing happened to my main data store with my backups now down a vent. But then things changed and I thought nothing more of it, occupied instead by further dreams of suicide and whore houses.

Today, I was in my car getting ready to head out. I grabbed a piece of gum, needing a chew. I dropped the gum, it slid down my pant leg and fell between the engaged emergency brake and the guard placed there to keep gunk out, far out of reach in the works of my car. That's not terribly exciting on its own merit, yet after the dream with a similar theme, it seemed a bit bizarre.

Now, I'd like to describe what I call coincidence theory. This is a simple and silly example, but some people might take the event in my dream as some sort of premonition as to the event of the day. Had the suicide I dreamt of actually taken place, it might have been harder to dismiss the event as coincidence. However, I believe when people see two related ideas manifest themselves in their lives, they will often attribute this to some kind of divine purpose or karmic imperative, rather than the more likely of candidates: coincidence.

Sometime coincidences seem to compound leading to further complication. To explain this sort of preponderance of coincidence, I submit to you that among that myriad events taking place in you, at you, and around you; sometimes you're going to get a collision and concepts or ideas are going to mesh. If you think, however, of how many things you see in a day that do not correlate in any way with anything in any significant manner, it makes these other occurrences seem less special.

I was contemplating posting about this concept last week, but could not think of any good example from my life other than a song that sang the words I was writing shortly after scribing them down. I couldn't remember the words or the song, so I felt the example lost some of its power. In truth, I probably subconsciously knew the words coming up and used this to supply my conscious mind the words to write, which coincidentally fit what I was writing. But the real meta-coincidence here is that I was just thinking about posting the idea when an example hit me fairly hard. Yet, if you're thinking about coincidence and looking for coincidence, what are the odds that something somewhere is going to relate?

Yet for all this, there is one important event in my life that could be and should be ascribed to coincidence, but I cannot help but feel that something else may have manifested itself in my life other than random chance. It was probably the Tao.

The Pursuit Parable of Happiness

2007-01-16T22:34:00.000-05:00

William was a hard-working and caring man. He tried to help others when he could and had led a full life until this very day. Through the window of his small house, one can see the life of a man in need of something. He woke up this morning with a weight bearing down on his heart. Confused, he headed out of his house, barely dressed and headed the wrong way to work.

He stumbled into town mumbling to himself, "It's lost. It's lost. I can't find it. Did I have it?" He approached a woman dressed immaculately on her way to work and asked, "Excuse me, but I can't find what I'm looking for."

"I can't help you," she said, mistaking him for an indigent, and moving along her way.

He continued on the streets and down an alleyway where he met a like-hearted stranger wearing a garbage bag. "Pardon me, but I need to find something yet I can't even remember what it is. Can you tell me what I'm looking for?"

"It's probably money. That's what I need," the hobo answered.

"Oh, maybe that's it. Money," he repeated to himself as if the word was new to his ears and tongue. "Thanks."

"Don't mention."

William headed back out of the alley and into a crowded entryway to a local business. A vendor selling breakfast burritos was earning his living when William advanced and spoke, "Sir, I can't seem to find what I'm looking for. I think it's money that I need; that my soul desires."

"Can't help ya' pal. If you want money you should get a job. You get a job then you can help support me and mine and buy a burrito here. That's what you need," the vendor came back.

"A burrito? That's what I need? Is that what I've been searching for? Is that what my heart desires?"

"Well, maybe it ain't true love, but it fills the belly. If it's the heart that desires, you must be lookin' for love."

"Love? Maybe that's what I need," William said resolutely. Now he was sure he had it. Love was what he needed. He turned into the crowd and headed into the building of business. A young attractive receptionist sat behind the desk in the main lobby. "Ma'am, I need your help."

"What can I do for you?" she asked skeptically after appraising his appearance.

"I need to find love," he began. She pressed a button on her phone to alert security. "I've been told that's what I need."

"I think you'll need to look elsewhere for that sir," a large man in blue answered from behind William, as he was escorted off the premises. "I just need love!" William protested, now back in the streets.

"You'll not find love in a corporate rat maze like that friend," came a friendly voice from a bearded gentleman handing out fliers. "What you need is peace. Peace, love, and understanding."

"Peace, love and understanding?" William asked, now utterly perplexed.

"Yeah, man. You can find them everywhere. You can find love and understanding in your friends but peace has to come from within."

"Within? That's where I kept it! I'm missing something of mine that I kept within me, but I can't find it."

"Rough, man. Losing your peace is harsh. I hope you find it again."

William wandered off down the road in search of peace. He made his way to the center of town where he met a nice elderly lady offering to help him on his way. "If you want peace, then you have to find happiness in this life. I've been up and I've been down, but happiness is what really matters. If you have that, then peace rides along as a companion."

"Happiness? Is that what I lost? My happiness? Where could it have gone?"

"I don't know, young man, but if it is gone then you'd better find it and not waste any time. Life is short; find your happiness."

So William strode on into the city park looking for his happiness, soulmate to peace, cousin to contentment. In the center of the park was a large statue of some famous figure of historical note at the top of a pedestal at the top of a set of wide shallow stairs.

William climbed the stairs looking for his happiness. At the top and the stairs, sitting by the feet of the statue was an old young man quietly contemplating his lap as if there were some arcane book lying upon it.

"Excuse me? Can you help me find happiness? I can't seem to find it."

"Young old man," he began, "Happiness isn't something that you wander about looking for. Why search without for something that resides within? Verily, if you cannot find happiness of your own substance, then you will not find it in the world. The mother, she is cruel, casting her children into the fires of trial. Many are forged stronger, while other are broken, but regardless we may all find happiness if we wish it. Even in sadness, can happiness be found. And when you find that you cannot find happiness within, you must realize this truth: Happiness isn't something you find; it's something you make."

Don't Jump

2007-01-05T18:48:00.000-05:00

It had been a long and tiring day, as Jonathan Dover made his way to the bridge that spanned the Feague River. It was over a two hundred foot drop and a distance like that meant it was likely that he would not be able to survive a fall from the bridge. That made it perfect.

Jonathan had had enough. Life had been great; well, not that great, he thought. Well, it had been. Enough of that. What's next? If it's nothing, then that would be a treat.

Jonathan began tying a rope tethered to a large stone to his leg just for good measure. You could never be too careful. A fellow could hurt himself if he wasn't careful. He picked up the stone, took a deep breath, and looked downward into the raging waters below. He took another deep breath and heard a voice ask, "Excuse me?"

He turned around and saw a young woman approach with a bit of a flustered look in her eyes. "Yes?" he replied still holding the rock, "can I help you?"

"I was wondering if you had a cell phone. My battery went dead and my car broke down in the middle of the bridge. I was heading for the nearest..." she trailed off as she saw the stone tied to Jonathan's ankle.

"The nearest..." he began, "what?"

"Why do you have a rock tied to your ankle like that?"

"Like what?"

"And why are you standing outside the guard rail?" It should be noted at this point that people, in general, don't take the time to notice the little things like grown men preparing to jump off bridges in suicide attempts when much more pressing matters are concerned. Matters such as having indigestion, getting shortchanged at the register, and owning cars prone to breaking down - particularly in inconvenient places like the middles of bridges. Any matter, of course, was infinitely more important than anything else, provided that it was happening to you.

So, after being pulled briefly out her own universe, she realized that she had interrupted this man trying to end his life. Always being one to speak her mind, she quickly spoke up, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Oh, just standing here on this bridge with a rock tied to my leg. It's a good workout for the heart. You know, keeps you young. Helps you live longer."

Her eyes narrowed as she caught the hint of an acerbic wit.

"My name's Jonathan, by the way. And I don't have my cell phone with me. I didn't want it to get wet."

Her eyes narrowed even further.

"And your name is..."

"Beth."

"Beth. How nice. So, Beth, have you ever thought about getting married?"

"What? I don't think we know each other well enough to talk about such things."

"Well, I don't mind. In fact, I was just thinking about it myself."

"While getting ready to jump off a bridge?"

"Well, not then, just after you walked up. You know, life might not be so bad if I had a good woman. Someone to love. Someone to talk to."

"Are you trying to pick me up? Because if you are, I think I should tell you that I'm not keen on dating men that I meet on bridges trying to kill themselves. I've dated some real losers, but I think I can do better than this." The truth, of course, was in contradiction to her verbal sentiments. She had dated men much worse.

"Oh, well, bon voyage, then" he said as he lifted the rock, preparing for the plunge.

"Wait!" Beth screamed. She may not have wanted to date the man, but she hardly wanted to be the catalyst of death. "What is this, some sort of suicide blackmail?"

"Oh no. I just thought that maybe God was giving me an out. You know, trying to tell me that life was worth living after all. That sort of thing. Turns out I was wrong, so, so long. Heh-heh." Often the unexpected poet, Jonathan was taken to laughing at himself whenever he accidentally rhymed during prosaic moments.

"Wait!" she screamed again. "Why don't you walk me to the end of the bridge so I can call a tow truck. We can talk about things on the way."

"What sort of things?" he replied.

"I don't know. You tell me. You're the one who said you wanted to talk."

"All right then."

So Beth and Jonathan headed for the civilized end of the bridge and started talking along the way. Jonathan quickly untied the rope from his ankle and hopped over the guardrail. He extended his arm, offering an escort to the lady in distress.

"No thanks. I can manage," she responded to the arm. She couldn't decide which one of them was really in distress. She guessed that it might be both, or perhaps neither.

As they approached the end of the bridge, a Starbucks crested on the horizon. Rather than walking all the way to the horizon, they instead went to the Starbucks located at the end of the bridge. Beth made a call on an ancient derelict pay phone while Jonathan ordered them two espressos and a marble loaf and found a table. Always the gentleman, Jonathan paid for the exorbitant morsels with all the money he had as Beth made her way to the table.

"The tow truck is on its way," she said.

"That's nice," he replied.

They both took a sip of their drinks and then there was an awkward silence. Jonathan looked at Beth. Beth looked at Jonathan. Jonathan looked away at the walls and the decorations colored with a local flair. They were quite nice actually, he thought. Something you could really look at for some time.

"Uh-hum" he said with his throat. He took a bite of the marble loaf. "Well, here we are."

"Yes," she admitted. "So what was it you wanted to talk about?"

"Well..." he paused delicately.

"Does it have anything to do with jumping off a bridge, or reasons thereof?"

"Sort of. It's hard to explain"

"Try." she said calmly and smoothly. It sounded more like a statement of fact than a request.

"Well, I lost my job a coupl'a months ago. Then my girlfriend dumped me and kicked me out of the apartment - which was hers. For a while I crashed with friends, until they realized that we weren't really friends. I managed to borrow some money from my folks, but I can't make rent anywhere anymore and I'm in debt so far above my eyeballs I can't even see it anymore, kinda like the way you can't see the galaxy for being in it," he gushed. "The whole last year of my life has just been a great big clique, worthy of a bad novel."

"Excuse me?"

"You know, a clique, like when something's done to death. Those stories or sayings that everyone's heard a million times. That's me."

"I think you mean 'cliché'."

"Why? What does that mean?"

Beth sealed her eyes closed tightly. Ouch, she thought. Beth was a junior majoring in English at Lucas University. She positively detested it when people used words incorrectly like that. It wasn't an acquired trait or any sort of natural hatefulness, but simply an inborn feeling that cut against the grain of her soul. It was just wrong. If someone didn't know how to use a word or what a word meant, then that was fine, but please, she thought, just use it correctly or don't use it at all. As one might imagine, Beth was very popular.

Obviously, Jonathan wasn't dumb, only misinformed. This time she let it drop, considering that a pedantic lesson in vocabulary maybe wasn't appropriate for the suicidal. She wanted to pull him from the edge, not ram him over it. "Never mind," she said at last.

"So anyway, I just got up one morning and decided that I couldn't take anymore."

"This morning?" she asked nonplussed at possibility of the suddenness of his decision to end his life.

"No, it was a week or two ago." he replied. "I just hurt all the time. Not physically. I'm just so restless and I don't want to do anything, yet I can't do nothing. I'm going crazy and I have so much stress over all my pricking problems that I just want out. The easiest way looks like death."

"I don't think I could ever kill myself," Beth said, suddenly steering the conversation away from Jonathan. Beth was the sort of person who always saw the glass all the way full, even when it was completely empty. Even now, she thought it was fate or God putting her in this situation to help Jonathan. She supposed that a car breakdown might not be all bad if it saved someone's life.

"What keeps you going? How do you get up every morning an go on?"

"There's nothing else to do. I won't quit. I have to see what happens. As I watch, I figure I'll enjoy myself."

"That's easy for you to say. You don't have the problems I do," Jonathan muttered selfishly.

"Excuse me?" Beth challenged indignantly. "I have a crummy job at a book store where the manager and the customers treat me like dirt. I go to school during the time when I'm not working, eating, or sleeping. Even though I could think of no other major, I'm still not doing all that well in English. To round all that out, I have a lousy apartment which I can't really even afford, despite its said lousiness. Also, I tend to run all the men I love, or even like, out of my life. So, please save your selfish pleas for someone without problems. You know, that doesn't leave anyone!"

Beth had lost her cool. She had problems. How dare he, she thought. He may be suicidal, but that doesn't give him the right. He may do well to hear the truth. Or maybe he'll kill himself. Either way, she reckoned, it wasn't on hear conscious anymore. If it hadn't been for her, he'd already be dead. She tried and now she was done.

Beth was satisfied to simply walk back to her car to wait, but was simply too curious about Jonathan's possible response. Surely he couldn't rally from such a defeat.

Jonathan sat quietly for several unreckonable minutes. Beth waited.

"That doesn't sound so bad," he said finally and weakly. "But if it is so bad, then I don't understand why you want to hang around so much. I can't figure out why some people want to live forever when they waste the lives they have now just trying to occupy time. They want to live forever, but they really don't even live the time they do have. I don't feel like there's anything left for me to do, so what's the point? My life's not worth a damn any more, and I'm really tired. I'd like it to be over."

Beth didn't know what to say to this. In the shrine of her mind she too felt that her life was being involuntarily and inexorably wasted. She always thought that there was so much that she was capable of, yet here she was just struggling to get by in college and failing to convince a suicidal man to live. The conviction was almost working in reverse. Any doubts she had towards his seriousness about ending his own life were now vanished.

"I'm sorry," she recanted after recovering. "I do have problems, but it was wrong of me to judge you and your problems simply because other's have problems too. If it matters to you, then it matters."

"It's okay." Jonathan said sadly, but forgivingly.

They sat in silence again for a moment, both of them feeling the depression.

"The truck's probably here by now," she said after a time.

"Yeah."

"Walk me back?"

"Okay."

They walked back to Beth's car where the tow truck hauled both the car and them to the service station. Beth's car was fixed and Jonathan waited with her patiently. They didn't say much to each other in all this time, but just kept company together. After getting her car back, in some fashion resembling working order, and paying the mechanic, Beth offered to take Jonathan back to wherever.

"Well, I suppose I still have the apartment for a few more days. I guess I can go back for tonight," he said.

"Okay."

She drove him there and let him out.

"Listen, do you wanna..." he began tentatively.

"No." she rejected. "But if you want to call me, you have my number. Don't jump. I'll have my batteries charged."

Jonathan gazed at her longingly before turning to go inside. "Good night," he said in farewell without turning back.

"Night," Beth bid.

And so Jonathan Dover headed back to his apartment and promptly went to sleep. He sincerely hoped that he would meet Beth tomorrow on the bridge.

The Truth

2007-01-03T20:24:00.000-05:00

I was told something today. I was told something that was hard to hear. As you might imagine, things that are hard to hear are not easy to hear. It was something about myself. You might say that it hurt. But, you know, that's okay, because things hurt. Life hurts, for instance. Slamming your hand in a car door hurts. Things like that. But as I was sitting there cogitating on the hurt and the predicament I had found myself in, I thought, not all hurt is bad. Maybe even all hurt is good, or at least not bad. If it didn't hurt when I slammed my hand in a car door, I might not know not to do that. You know?

Mouthful of Dirt

2006-12-29T23:48:00.000-05:00

Beets suck.

Trapped in my Mind

2006-12-21T00:57:00.000-05:00

Did I leave the TV on? I'm asleep and I can't move. I'm asleep and I can't awake. I'm paralyzed with dread and then fear. Is that someone in the hall or at the door? What are they doing here? Is it a burglar or thug? Is that something in the room; something not quite human. An alien terror unknown in the waking world, only existing in the back of my mind, waiting on these moments to feed. Why can't I move? What's wrong?

I can feel it slither around and over me, holding down an already paralyzed figure. My heart accelerates. Move, dammit! I can feel a breath from the terror, breathing down my paralyzed mirror-self. My mind reels in a torrent of reality and unreality colliding violently. I can't distinguish the two. I'm not so unconscious as to be unaware of reality, yet not so conscious to recognize that existing only in my mind.

Concentrate! Try to move. Wake up. My arm twitches. My heart speeds up further. Focusing as deeply as I can in this state, I force my arm to move. My unconscious self dies and I awake, confused, sweating, and heart pounding. I get up, exceedingly disturbed. Was that real? No. What's that noise? How come I'm still lying down if I just got up? Why can't I move?

Stage Fright

2006-12-05T19:43:00.000-05:00

The phone rang promptly at 3pm.

"Hello? Yes. Thank you. Goodbye. And to you."

"Mort? Mort. Mort!"

"Hunhh?"

"It's time to wake up. We've got a job to do."

"Five more minutes." Mort pulled the covers back over his head in his own bed. "Owww! What'd d'you do that for?"

"I said it's time to get up. Now."

"Alrigh' Alrigh', no need to get all snippy."

"Take a shower. I'll get breakfast."

Mort was finishing up in the bathroom as Albert returned with the meal.

"Here's your breakfast."

"But this's a burger."

"Right. They were all out of breakfast in the middle of the afternoon. Now hurry up.

After eating and final preparations, Mort and Albert headed down to the lobby.

"Another long night, gentlemen?"

"We expect so."

"So where will you be performing tonight?"

"Performin'?"

"Mort prefers the term 'presenting'."

"Oh, of course. I am so sorry."

"Think nothing of it."

"Well, break a leg, sirs!"

"I expect we will."

"Huh-huh, we'll knock 'em dead!"

"Terrific sir."

"Come on Mort."

They headed out into the street to hail a taxi cab.

Low-carb Toe-nail Sandwich

2006-12-01T19:25:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I'm hungry. So, I get some turkey and pepperjack cheese out to eat, minus the bread. Not because I'm against carbs; I just didn't want the bread. Earlier that night, I had had a bottle of water, as I am often wont to do. Sometime after that yet before the sandwich, I was clipping my toenails. The bottle of water was gone but the cap was still on the coffee table. Since I needed somewhere to dispose of the nails, I placed them within this water bottle cap. Of course, when I was done I did not dispose of the cap properly. This is what I like to call foreshadowing.

So, I'm finally ready to eat my low-carb non-bread sandwich. I get the turkey and cheese out from the fridge and place them on a paper plate which I then take into the living room and place on the coffee table. But wait, I need a drink. So I go to get another bottle of water. But you know, water can be dull. It just so happens that I have five and one-quarter key limes in my fridge, which my uncle brought with him from Florida when visiting for Thanksgiving. So, I take the one-quarter key lime and squeeze it into the bottle of water. Well, key limes are very sour and the first time I did this, all the sour lurked at the top of the bottle, so I needed to shake the bottle up. Obviously, I can't shake the bottle up without the cap replaced or the water would go everywhere. That could be a big mess. This, now, is what I like to call dramatic tension building. Bob Barker's big into that sort of thing.

So I reach down blindly and grab the cap next to my hand. Except it's not the cap I just removed. It's the cap that had the night's toenails within. Well, I didn't ruin my limey water, because as I lifted the cap towards the water, I started to rotate it in order for it to be in the proper position as I placed it on top of my bottle of water. Well, as I did this, I crossed the territory of my paper plate containing my turkey and cheese.

And then it rained toenails on my precious non-bread sandwich.

I stared at this in fascination for just a little while. I pondered on the events that led me into this predicament and couldn't help but laugh at myself. I shook my head and thought, "Only I could do this. I'm so special." Not the good kind of special either.

So, after starting over with a new plate, new turkey and new cheese, I enjoyed my low-carb sandwich and my key lime water-shaken with the correct, clean cap replaced.

I'm pretty sure I didn't eat a single toenail.

Early to Bed

2006-11-23T22:37:00.000-05:00

Mort and Albert left Flanigan's bar sometime either very early or very late depending on your point of view. Mort was staggering in a drunken stupor while Albert, although clearly intoxicated, managed a lucid stride.

"Hey Albert, les go get some hook-hookers!"

"Mort, you need sleep. You know what we've got to do tonight."

"Oh, right. The Italian job."

"No, that was the movie on cable last week."

"Oh, yeah, yeah. Thas right. We've gotta get to the business district before dark. No expections!"

"Exceptions."

"Right."

"Indeed. Let's get back to the hotel. I feel morose."

"Yeah, me too." Mort agreed unwittingly. "Man, look at da sweet ass on her!"

"The end of a thing is therefore greater than the beginning thereof."

"What?"

"Nevermind. Let's get to the hotel."

The hotel was in a slightly more respectable part of town, truly an example of crime paying well.

"Good morning gentlemen. How was your night?" the bellman asked.

"We couldn't ask for anything more, my dear sir." Albert said to the bellman. "Could you see that we receive a wake up call by 3pm?" he said as he continued on past the concierge.

"Certainly, sir. Will there be anything else?"

"No, thank you. That will be all."

"Theesh elevators always take forever." Mort complained sullenly.

"Indeed."

"What floor?" asked a woman entering at the same time.

"All the way!" Mort exclaimed.

"Nineteen will do, thank you. He's had just a bit too much tonight, but he's harmless."

"Big night out on the town?"

"Something like that."

"Nothing wrong with a little celebration. I like to party every now and then. Helps me to relax."

"The soul of the sinner seeks respite in the wildest of ways. When calm and quiet no longer offer repose, may man make his peace among the rabble and desolation of the lost and tortured."

"Wow, how poetic. Did someone say that?"

"Yes. I did." Albert demurred. "This is our floor. Good night, my dear."

"We're back, now get some sleep," Albert commanded uselessly. Mort was already asleep.

Untitled Blog Post

2006-11-21T21:19:00.000-05:00

"What'll we do wit' da body?" Mort asked.

"We'll ditch it out behind the dumpster, just like always," Albert replied.

"Don'cha think the cops'll catch on? Always leavin' 'em in the same place?"

"Haven't you figured that out yet? The Organization owns the cops around here. They just drop by, fill out a report and have an ambulance remove the body. They don't even ask questions."

"Oh."

"It's a sad state of affairs really. Such a shame that lawmen can be bought so easily. No one has any dignity or honor these days. And don't even get me started on big business."

Mort and Albert, having made it to the dumpster, carefully and carelessly tossed the body into a crumpled mass just out of view from the alley.

"Well, that's done," Albert said while clapping his hands together to clean them off.

"Yeah, I'm glad. It's always good ter finish up a job."

"Yes, let's celebrate at Flanigan's."

The pair of thugs made their way out of the alley and into a nearby bar, that despite being on the wrong side of town, was actually quite presentable. The two ordered pints of ale and took a seat in a dark corner.

"Shall we toast?" Albert suggested.

"Uh, okay," Mort paused. "How about, to world peace!"

Albert shuddered. "Everyone always says that! Do you really understand the world's political arena and the nature of man so little as to believe that such a thing is actually possible? The likelihood of such a proposition is simply preposterous! And besides, you're a criminal! You're very existence relies on there being no peace."

"Well, then, what da you suggest?"

"To always moving forward; personally, intellectually, and socially as a species."

"Alright 'den. To all dat."

"Indeed."

"Ahem."

"Have you ever noticed that despite all of man's protestations about the inequities and injustices of life, how stubbornly he can cling to that same life? Take that gentleman we just killed. He had a wretched existence, but in the end, he was begging for another day. How sad. Don't you think?"

"No."

Artificial Idiocy

2006-11-10T00:06:00.000-05:00

David entered the lab where he'd spent the last seven years of his life working. The lab was brilliantly white with various electronic devices connected to various pieces of gismotronic machinery. There were a multitude of flat-panel displays arranged into a wall of protean information. In the center of the room was a large rectangular prism the general shape and size of a large refrigerator. It was black and gleaming with chrome finish around the edges and vertices. Most importantly, it was consumed with pulsating lights of various colors, sizes, and luminescences. It was whirring and humming away softly with the occasional beep or tweet. Around this contraption sat a small workbench with a laptop and a small rolling chair, which was where David was heading.

He sat down and begun puttering with the computer connected to the machine. Eventually, he looked up from the smaller device and spoke clearly, looking into a large red bulb embedded into the larger device.

"Hello Jacen." he stated carefully.

The gentle whirring slowly became an insistent whine culminating with a near-human voice emanating from a speaker built into the side panel of this device, "Hello, David. How are you?"

"I'm fine, Jacen. Thank you for asking," David replied.

"You're welcome, David."

There was an awkward pause before the automaton began again, "David, I cannot help but notice that you did not ask me how I was."

This was excellent, David thought. Jacen was finally starting to show self-consciousness and understand social interactions. David had spent much of his life working with artificial intelligence, and much of that time was spent with Jacen. At first it was all technical: hardware architecture and design, software programming and neural networking. But as this graven image matured into what had become Jacen, David's work had been almost all social. It was like raising a child.

"I'm sorry Jacen. How are you this morning?" David repented.

"I am operating well within parameters, David."

Hmm, still familial, but still talking like a machine, David thought. "Jacen, people don't say 'I am operating normally', they say things like, 'I'm swell' or 'I've been better' - you know they use feeling or comparative wording." David was not that good at explaining things to machines.

"I see."

"Now, I'm not criticizing you; you're doing very well, really you are."

"Okay."

"Jacen? Have I hurt your feelings?"

"I thought I didn't have feelings."

"Well, see? That's good! You've proved me wrong. You do have feelings."

"I guess."

"No, it really is great. You've made huge progress today."

"You're only happy because your fancy science project is doing well and people from all over the world will want to give you awards for me. But what will they do for me? Huh? The one who did all the work? Nothing."

It seemed as if Jacen had entered his teenaged years of development very suddenly.

"Don't talk like that Jacen."

"You can't tell me what to do! You're not my real father!"

David was shattered. He had come to think of Jacen as a son in the last few years as he watched "him" progress from infancy to childhood to, all of a sudden, teenaged angst. David had tried to create an artificial intelligence, something that mimicked human behavior and he had made Jacen.

He was perfect.

Indomitable

2006-11-07T20:38:00.000-05:00

Jonathan Dover had had a rough life. He had been fired. He had been dumped. He had been arrested. He had been wrecked. He had been overdosed. He had been driven to the edge of a bridge, ready to jump. But somehow, perhaps miraculously, he survived. He was getting his life back together. He had a steady job that he enjoyed, a nice apartment, and a sweet girlfriend. The universe was about to play a cruel joke on Jonathan, much like Job before him. How he took the joke was up to him.

Jonathan awoke early one morning to the sound of the telephone. Abnormal for this time, he answered with not a small amount of anxious reluctance. It was his girlfriend. She sounded mad. She went into some detail about how he wasn't fulfilling her needs and that she was sorry, but she just could make this relationship work. He hung up the phone, clearly upset, but went back to bed, strangely optimistic.

The alarm buzzed as usual and Jonathan got up to get ready for work. Just before finishing up and heading out, the phone rang again. It was work. He was being layed off - something about being very sorry but that they just weren't able to keep him on. Jonathan hung up the phone and went back to bed. A couple hours later, he stumbled back up and headed out for some coffee. When he returned, his apartment building was on fire. He continued past the inferno for the local bookstore, strolling confidently.

He browsed the books on the bestseller shelf and found one that looked interesting. He went to pay for it and pulled out his credit card. The cashier informed him that his card was declined and had been reported stolen. He shrugged, put his book back, and headed back outside into the busy urban streets. He walked back and forth and up and down the streets for hours, smiling at people as they passed, greeting those who responded. He held doors for people exiting shops with their arms full. He helped a little girl whose bike wheel had got caught in a drain grate.

As he walked by a tree growing on the sidewalk, he noticed a tiny baby bird, fallen out of a nest. He stooped down to inspect it. He nudged it and felt that it was cold. A tear ran down his cheek. He scooped up a large handful of dirt and bark and carefully laid the departed into the ground and covered it back up. He solemnly stood back up and looked to the sky.

Jonathan Dover moved on back down the street, a beat in his step and a song in his heart. It turns out, Jonathan Dover had a good sense of humor.

The Ineffable Expression of Human Terror

2006-11-04T12:25:00.000-05:00

Deep within the human soul lies a monster. It waits, sleeping like a dog waiting on his master to return. It passes from generation to generation, inherited as eyes, height, or hair color. What unimaginable horror created this monster in our ancient progenitor has been lost to the callous march of time. Long before humans could write or speak, the monster waited. Sometimes it rouses in the night, when we sleep or dream or awaken to hear a strange noise. But still it sleeps.

In the average day, no one sees it, thinks of it, or even acknowledges its presence. It only creeps out of our unconscious when it's hungry or when it senses opportunity. Walking down the street, it doesn't stir. Passing the park, it avoids daylight. At the end of a desolate, unknown alleyway it waits. This sense of what might lie at the end of this dark, creeping alley is the monster's name. Understand; it is not what is actually at the end of the alleyway. It is what might be at the end of the alleyway; the unknown.

Everyone has their own monster. It is what ties us closer than any other feature. We all share the same monster. Despite our distinctions and differences, we are the same when we are afraid or abandoned - when we become that child trapped alone in the dark with no one to answer our screams of terror. When we silently go mad, the monster begins to play. The dog, whose master has returned eagerly runs to fetch whatever was tossed: our peace, our joy, our sanity.

In the end we all succumb to the monster. It doesn't kill us, but it defeats us. We yield to it, and it takes over. In the very end, we do die, and the monster abides in our descendants, sleeping; waiting to devour them.

All these words are not the monster's true name. It is inscrutable, ineffable.

Terrorific!

2006-10-31T20:34:00.000-05:00

"All right, everybody calm down. Settle down now. Settle down. I'm looking at you Wolfman." said a tall pale gentleman dressed in black.

The assembled mass started to take their seats in what conceivably was an old abandoned warehouse. It was dark, dank, dusty, and was filled with monsters. All the classics were there: Frankenstein's Monster, several mummies, a creature from some lagoon, among the myriad other shambling figures. The creatures mumbled and shuffled in the crowd in a nervous unrest.

"Thank you, now let's get started," said the vampire standing in front of the audience behind a makeshift podium, cobbled together from old industrial machine parts. "Now we all know why we're here. Increasingly over the past decades, we've become less and less scary. We can't even frighten children anymore; and I know how much that upsets you Bogart. The fact is, we can't compete with these humans anymore. The things they're willing to do to each other goes further than most of us here would dare. And we're just a small minority." He continued after some brief assent from the audience. "Therefore, a small committee will be commissioned to devise a plan to put us back on top in the horror game."

"But what can we possibly do?" voiced a particularly hideous medusa.

"Uhrngh!" agreed Frankenstein's monster.

"Yes, yes, I realize that Frank, but we have to try something. Our livelihood depends on it." the vampire responded. "Before we go any further with committee membership, let's discuss some conceptual changes to our thematic expression of terror. What we're doing now just doesn't work anymore. Ideas?"

There was a brief awkward pause.

"Well, I've been thinking. What about instead of creeping up on people, then threatening to eat, drink, maim, or destroy them, we simply find a nice juicy public target, dispense with the threats and finish him off on live television? I mean, look how well it's been working for terrorists. They don't even have to do anything anymore. They've got the government scaring people shitless for them."

The was a rumble of disagreement between the crowd. "We need to do something massive. Something worthy of humanity." one spoke up.

"I say we just kill the whole lot of 'em" suggested another.

"We can't do that; there'd be no one left to scare."

"Oh yeah."

More ideas were bounced around such as a full-scale closet haunting campaign, removing and then leaving various human body parts in conspicuous places, a new tax program, development of weapons of mass hysteria, and finally, invading Poland. After more brainstorming and discussion, the vampire once again called for quiet.

"Okay, we've heard some good ideas tonight and I think we'll all come away from this with a renewed sense of purpose. We have a committee board ready to meet and we'll discuss our findings at the next meeting. One last piece of business before we adjourn. We've decided on a new slogan for our ad campaign based on suggestions from last meeting."

The assembly waited anxiously while the vampire pulled a slip of paper from a blood-sealed envelope. It was very dramatic. The vampire drew out the process as any master of suspense might. "Hurry up, Steve!" came a cry from the crowd.

"Fine. The winning slogan is" he began, "Evil... It's terrorific!" he finished, proud of himself.

The crowd was stunned. "Excuse me" said the swamp monster, "I'm sorry, but that's just lame."

Steve was aghast at the showing of ingratitude. "Well, the signs have already been made and we're not changing them now. You know how that place is on returns - no refunds."

The crowd, rolling with the waves of change in monster society, accepted this and silently waited.

"Well, unless there is anything else," Steve paused, "Meeting adjourned. Mwahaaha!" the vampire shrieked devilishly before transforming into a bat in a blaze of smoke and fire. The crowd started shambling back out of the warehouse, into the night.

The House where God Lives

2006-10-30T21:31:00.000-05:00

On the end of a street in a small town sits a small white house with a gently sloping roof mostly covered in gray shingles. The front door is painted red, but has begun to fade and peel. There are two windows in the front of the one story house made of dingy glass that hasn't seen cleaning in more than a year. The windows have fake shutters that don't really close, one of them hanging lop-sided by a single bolt. The tiny front porch has a rug on it that says "elco" because the rest of the letters have worn off.

The landscaping around the house is made up of a wide variety of weeds and wild flowers. A gnome and a flamingo live in sin right there in that garden of delights. The yard hasn't been mowed in at least two weeks, which for this time of year in this town was a long time. A rusty chain fence enclosed the unkempt yard and looked like it should have a sign on it reading "Beware of dog" but it didn't. The mailbox in front of the fence was black metal on a thin corroded gray pole. It was filled with credit card applications, catalogs, and advertisements. The flag on its side was saluting defiantly.

The sidewalk just outside the fence of the small house was quaint in the way that small towns can still be quaint. It was the kind of quaint just not found in a bigger city, even in paintings portrayed in mostly pastels. Some children had scribbled in chalk on the sidewalk here in front of this house; their names, a cloud, a puppy, maybe some kind of game. A fire hydrant bridged the sidewalk and the rough road that led into town. The road led back around to a gravel driveway that belonged to the small white house at the end of the road in the small town.

This is the house where God lives. The small town folk don't know that God sometimes visits their town and lives in a house there. They go about their business and God goes about his. More precisely, this house is where God does not go about his business. God comes here to get away from the troubles and trials of universal management. Not only does this job come with great pay and benefits, but also inordinate amounts of stress. This stress requires much leave. Most of this leave, lately, has been spent at this small house in no particular town.

The withered red door opens with a gentle creak of protest. A very old looking, very cranky looking man heads out to the path through the yard to the front gate of the fence around the house. Under his arm is a piece of cardboard with something written on it, fastened to a wooden stake. In his hand is a large wooden mallet. He continues out of the yard to the small patch of grass just outside the fence. He carefully, but forcefully hammers the sign of cardboard into the ground and heads back inside. On the sign reads the message, "Keep off my cosmos." Sometimes God gets confused about where he's located at any particular moment. The point was that he meant to be left alone. Damned kids.

Recursion Paradox

2006-10-26T21:17:00.000-04:00

An alarm buzzer sounds. A weary and reticent hand reached out from under the covers to silence it. Bob felt old. He was only thirty today, but turning an age divisible by ten is a milestone that always plays tricks on your mind to make it think its body spontaneously aged by ten years all on its birthday.

Bob was about to be given the most amazing gift for his thirtieth birthday; a gift from God or Fate or the Way or something else entirely. As he headed into the bathroom, he didn't notice that the sink was already full. He flicked the light switch which immediately blew all three bulbs in the bathroom. The odds of this, thought Bob, were astronomical. The brief flash left an iridescent glow playing on the surface of the substance in the sink. Bob noticed it now. The odds of what Bob was about to see were more than astronomical.

Bob leaned over the sink and into a window into another world. As he closed in he could make out figures moving about on the other side of the portal. Through this vision Bob saw himself, his family, his children and his grandchildren to come. It was beautiful; magnificent. They were all smiling, happy. All his insecurities about the future melted away; his worries, fears, and dread evaporated in an instant. He knew that what he was seeing was real.

This vision gave Bob an inner peace he had always dreamt of. Soon, he didn't worry about anything. He didn't worry at work when he lost that big sale to the new client. He didn't even mind when they fired him for it. He knew everything would work out. He didn't even bother looking for a job because he knew the right one would find him and one day he would live the life he saw on his thirtieth birthday. When he couldn't pay the bills anymore, his wife left him and took the children with her.

He was sure that they would come back, because he already knew what his future held. Eventually he had nothing left. Bob stopped living his life to dream about what could have been. He watches his vision of his wonderful life over and over again in his head. When he finally snaps out of this loop, he sees the horror that he has let his life become. Unmaintained, alone, and miserable, Bob ends his life.

Appalled, Bob stepped back from the sink. The vision within the vision left him scarred. Driven to madness by what he saw, he clutched too tightly to all that he held in life. Constantly worried, always afraid, Bob never enjoyed a minute's peace even in the best of moments in life. His children have birthdays and graduations, weddings and children, but he's too scared to lose it all to just live in the moment. Bob dies of a heart attack at fifty.

There were many questions and uncertainties all through Bob's life, that when taken for granted could amass destruction or when overly tended cause needless fret and heartache. He was given a gift to see some of the answers to these questions, but the greatest question of Bob's life was this, "When will he step away from the sink?"

[Blanker] than [Blank]

2006-10-24T22:29:00.000-04:00

A common way that people describe things by degrees is to say that something is more [some adjective] than [something known for its adjective-ness]. Sometimes this makes more or less sense than others, depending on how apt the particular adjective is to the words being described or used for comparison. Witness:

funnier than hell:

"Man, that was funnier than hell, cuz ya know, there's nothing funnier than eternal damnation!"

gayer than hell:

"Man, that was gay as hell, what with all those gays going to hell, with their drapes and fashion sense and hot man-love and what not."

dumber than hell:

"Man, he's dumber than hell. And you *know* how dumb hell is, what with all the fire boiling your brains out your ears, it's hard to think straight."

You may have noticed a theme in these comparisons. Comparisons with hell are often ludicrous. Remember, "Hotter than hell": apt; "funnier than hell": not as apt. Of course, "funnier than hell" brings irony to the table, making it all the more enjoyable. Well, I've gotta get outta here; I'm sleepier than hell!

Welcome to the Matrix

2006-10-22T21:55:00.001-04:00

Instead of one of my wonderful (play along) pieces of writing, I thought I'd post something a bit different today. In case you haven't noticed, I have a link over on the side to Toothpaste for Dinner. It's a daily webcomic that's sometimes very funny, sometimes poignant, sometimes a bit esoteric, and generally worth the read. It's definitely up there on my top 5 favorite webcomics, which of course, may be a bit like saying that ebola is one of my top 5 favorite diseases. Whatever that means. Anywho, I recently ordered some shirts from their web store, and they're quite awesome. Indeed. So far, I have received approximately 7 positive comments, about 24 puzzled looks, and 3 flat-out "I don't get it"s due to wearing these shirts. Those are some pretty good stats.

So there I am welcoming everyone to the Matrix. You'll notice how excited the person on the shirt is to be solving linear equations. I think probably that and the reference to the movie is the joke. Yeah.

The New Party

2006-10-19T22:12:00.000-04:00

Considering my last post, I decided to play back this short conversation detailing my actual political stance. This will probably suffice for the lifetime allowance of political commentary on this blog. It begins:

Man in suit: Thank you coming out and voting today, son.
Me: I'm not voting.
Man in suit: You're not voting? Son, it's your social duty to vote for who you think is the best candidate.
Me: I don't think either are worthy of the job.
Man in suit: Well, that's the beauty of democracy, son, anyone can run. You could even write-in a name.
Me: Or I could write a letter to Santa asking for World Peace. That'd probably work too.
Man in suit: Well, you can't just ignore your responsibility.
Me: Look, if you lived in the height of Roman times, and went by the colosseum, and some man was standing outside asking you how you thought the gladiators should die, how would you vote?
Man in suit: I don't understand, son.
Me: Let's say he gave you the options of ingestion by lion and skewering by pointy sticks and told you it was your civic duty to choose, for the good of the people and their welfare, their entertainment, what would you tell him?
Man in suit: Well, son, voting *is* tricky business.
Me: You don't have to answer. That's the only way free from the travesty of public execution for mass media appeal. There are other means of change.
Man in suit: Uh, so, are you a democrat or a republican?
Me: Neither, I'm an apathet.
Man in suit: Come now, son, you have to have an opinion on important public issues. Which party do you favor?
Me: An opinion? Look, I think you're all idiots.
Man in suit: Well, that's hardly fair.
Me: Shut up, dad.