Wednesday, December 9, 2009

climategate

Oh good, they've proved that man-made climate change is a big hoax. Let's all celebrate with a new coal power plant. Don't worry about letting your SUV's idle a little too long out there people, it was all a hoax to make money. No need to get interested in electric cars and trying to reduce our carbon footprint. That's a relief, I thought that maybe we'd have to adapt to a cleaner, more responsible lifestyle. Phew....

Monday, December 7, 2009

lolcats

I'll admit, I really enjoy those lolcats pics where the cats speak in terrible English. They're a good a time.



What I can't stand is the plethora of comments that you usually see after these things where people comment in terrible English and they all just look really retarded.

Friday, November 27, 2009

his image

I've been reading this article that my parents have about evolution and creationism. Being a Christian publication, there's a lot of arguments reused that always seem to go back to a small passage in the bible.

One is that if man was created in God's image, how could humans have evolved from something else through random variation?

That our physical being was set in stone and that physical being is God like.

This is something I've had a problem with for a long time. Growing up in a Christian household, even as a child I found contradictions with teachings in the bible. When I first heard that we were created to look like God, I assumed that it must be in a metaphorical sense, or in some manner other then our physical being.

Everything about our bodies is related to our environment. We have enough muscle mass to hold ourselves up in this planets gravity, we have lungs that breathe the air on this specific planet. If God created light, what was he using to see before he created the universe? We have eyes that are specifically adapted for this light. If it was much darker, we would have evolved a different form of eyes that could see in darker environments.

The only way God could look like us is if the Christian perspective of God is seriously skewed. If we were created by aliens from another planet similar to ours, then perhaps we would look somewhat alike.

Monday, November 23, 2009

games

There's an odd satisfaction to finishing off a game of solitaire. Double clicking each card even though you know you've won, it feels like the best part. Like finishing off the last numbers of a sudoku. Solitaire is an odd game, there's not really any strategy to it, (not that I know of, anyway), it seems like you get a deal that wins or you don't. I suppose there's a couple ways you can screw up, and there might be a solitaire expert out there that's like, "damn you kid, there's so much more to this game then you realize!" but to me it seems like when you play solitaire you're just going through the steps to see if you have a winner or not.

I still play it from time to time while waiting for this slow ass internet.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

another wasted weekend

I'm going to go to sleep right away because I have nothing better to do.

another week of work ahead of me

I think there's a light at the end of the tunnel.

Paying off my debt, saving up, getting a house, an education, taking a vacation

I'm telling myself this because I'm pretty sure that as long as keep these positive images in my mind everything will be fine.

who are you and why should you care

everyone has their own problems, aspirations, distractions, escapism, depression, suppression, indecision...

there's not really any point in writing this.

just words

just another day.

Does anyone think it's weird that they have a vampire on sesame street? This is a character that needs to kill other people and suck their blood to survive. What a messed up concept. It's like having a zombie teach kids about dental hygiene. "After every corpse I eat, I make sure I brush my teeth."

maybe I should delete all the stuff above that comment

whatever, no one reads this

Friday, November 20, 2009

happier

I think I was happier as a Christian

I was happier as a child too

We all have to grow up sometime.

Friday, November 13, 2009

nothing in to something





I stumbled on this image this morning. While I am pretty much in the atheist/agnostic camp, I have to agree that the whole notion of a universe and life itself coming in to being entirely on its own is extremely bizarre. Yet, saying that life and the universe were created by something else creates that same problem when you think about, where did God come from?

No matter how you look at it, matter and life coming from nothing doesn't make sense. God had to come from somewhere. To just write off the entire universe as coming from God but to ignore how God came in to being doesn't make sense.

Friday, October 16, 2009

slow space travel

Something that I've been thinking about lately is that maybe all of our sci-fi ideas on taking shortcuts to visit distant stars and galaxies is all just fiction. Maybe no matter how much effort and time we put in to developing new technologies, maybe we'll never be able to get anywhere much faster then we can right now.

Here's an interesting article on how long it would take to get to the closest star (Proxima Centauri), which happens to be 4.22 light years away.

One of the most optimistic theoretical methods, is nuclear pulse propulsion, which could possibly do it in 85 years. Granted, if you wanted to search for a planet that contains life, you would probably have to go much farther then that. Now, unless we figure out a way to freeze people for the duration of the trips, we would have to have a space ship so large that it's like it's own little planet. Some sort of self-sustaining craft that could recycle all the water and oxygen required to keep people alive. Depending on how fast we could realistically go, we would have to have generation after generation living on the craft.

If someone asked me if I wanted to go in to space, never see a planet again, only to raise a family so that future generations could make new discoveries, I would definitely say yes. As long as the spaceship was comfortable enough.

I know we're all kind of waiting until it's really necessary to do something like this, like if the planet is doomed or over-populated. We're also hoping that science can develop new technologies to do it in a faster way, but maybe we'll never come up with something that's any faster, and we should at least consider the idea of going with what we have right now. Is something was threatening human life, at least we could be somewhat ready if we started working on it. We can all see that we're filling up the planet quick, and we see our children as potential problems as over crowding is becoming a serious issue. Working on a project like this could shift that view, to one that's more optimistic.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Sometimes I think about all the things I think about.

Food, drink, sex, etc.

I wonder, how much of this thought time am I wasting and when can I get to the good stuff.

How can I just get right to the point.

What the fuck are we here for anyways?

What are we doing?

Sunday, October 11, 2009

crazy dream

So this morning I woke up from this dream. I was driving down the number one highway and there was a lot of snow on it in some areas. (Yesterday was our first snowfall that stayed on the ground). At one point, I started skidding in my truck and did a complete 360. I stayed on the road and was fine. (Yesterday, my brother and I were trekking through the boonies, and as I was driving down the dirt road to get there, I started skidding a bit and recovered.)

So, for some reason, I was driving my bike instead of my truck, and was heading under the Steinbach underpass when all of a sudden huge chunks of snow fell down from overhead, just barely missing me. Traffic had to stop, and my dad was one of the first to be there. We both grabbed a large chunk and moved it off the road. At that point my brother tried to hug me and I pushed him away. I remember hearing someone say something like "how rude to reject a hug like that" or something to that nature.

So, back on my bike, I remember traveling a fairly long ways when I noticed a train up ahead. Despite the fact I was on a bike and had all the time in the world to stop, I hit the brakes just within centimeters of the train. All of a sudden the train started to derail. With too much traffic behind me, I started climbing along the edge of the ditch, holding my bike while scaling it. There was a train along side the ditch as well and it seemed to be reacting to the train. So I ditched the bike and started running. I managed to get out of the area without getting hurt.

That's around the part where I woke up. The first thing I thought about when I woke up was making sure everyone was alright, while calling 911, and re-routing traffic until the authorities arrive.

I like to finish my dreams, even if I know they're not real. Especially an epic dream like that one.

My brother always likes to analyze dreams when I tell them to him. He's always looking for symbolism and things like that and I usually reply by saying a dream is just a trip in your imagination. There are messages and things, but to me, it's only saying how you view the world, or what you like to imagine.

For example, in other dreams like the ones I had last night, I never get hurt. Chaos all around me, but I'm just fine. I think I have confidence that no matter what happens, I'll usually make it through without a scratch.

I don't worry about a lot of things in life. I'm not careless, not really anyway, but I don't live my life in fear.

But if the dream taught me anything, it's that maybe I should watch where I tread because you never know when something crazy might happen.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

"Afghan Taliban say they pose no threat to the West"

Did they ever?

There are a lot of things that bother me about society. A big one is that I can't trust media outlets. One big offense is American media stating that Saddam Hussein never let the UN inspectors in, and that's why they invaded. Anyone that remembers the details at the time knows that UN inspectors had been let in and were searching but Bush still invaded anyway.

After finding out that media companies can and do change the facts to try and re-write history, I can never tell if a statement like this is really true or not:

"U.S.-led forces with the help of Afghan groups overthrew the Taliban government during a five week battle which started on October 7, 2001, after the militants refused to hand over al Qaeda leaders wanted by Washington for the September 11 attacks on America."

In many ways, the two motives seem similar, the US demanding something that the country can't provide, and they invade anyways. In one situation, it's Osama Bin Laden, and in the other, it's weapons of mass destruction.

8 years later, we're all still tied up in this mess with nothing to show for it.

The Taliban have never been a threat to the west. One disturbing fact is that these Afghanistan people were delivered weapons and assistance to fight off communism and then the very same people that helped them stay independent have now invaded and are forcing democracy on them. Isn't that entirely hypocritical?

The media would have us believe that Afghanistan is a terror breeding country, one where terror camps are producing more and more terrorists to inflict terror among the American people. Are you terrified yet?

It seems like the only people creating terror are the media outlets.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Paying off debt

So I moved to my parents and finally have internet again. It sure is annoying to not have it around after being used to it for so long. My parent's call it "high speed" internet, (it's really slow). It's better then nothing.

I never thought I'd be 27 years old, single and living at home. Without having to pay for rent (/as much rent), I should be able to pay off my debt pretty soon. I should have done this a long time ago. Living by myself in an apartment was pretty expensive. I really wasn't sure what else to do.

It's nice to be out of the city, the drive in and out to work is long and tedious, but I like being able to see the stars at night.

Monday, August 24, 2009

meh, fuck the central topic idea. This has always been a blog for babbling about whatever. I'm not really out to gather a lot of readers anyway, just keeping an archive that might exist for a very long time.

I wonder, if everything written here on blogger could be saved for a millennium? Maybe longer? Sometimes I think about people reading my online journal from the far future to study their primitive ancestors.

If so, then hello future people, I hope things are going well.

So I've always wanted to camping out in the wilderness. Even though I grew up in the woods, I can't remember actually going out and setting up a camp.

Since I had to bring my cat out to my parents (landlady asked me to get rid of her), I thought, might as well do it this weekend. Instead of dropping her off, I went out to where I was thinking of setting up (my dad's quarter section, off in the boonies.)

I wasn't sure exactly what would happen when I let her out, but I felt like I've been holding her in a box for the years I've been living in the city and thought that she should have the opportunity to be truly free.

At first, she stayed around the truck. I started looking around for a camp site, which was next to impossible in my dad's land. The place is normally a swamp, and with the rain we've been having, the water is pretty high.

I was going to drive further down the road to inspect for more places, but the road was getting pretty thin. I've gotten stuck on roads like that before, usually when trying to turn around, so I decided to turn around first, where it was more open, then back in. I opened my window to see where I was going and then all of a sudden the cat jumped out. This time, she took off.

"shit."

I thought to myself...

At the time, I wasn't totally sure I was going to camp at all, but after she didn't come back, I thought, "might as well just wait for her."

I eventually did find a suitable area in my dads land, but it was pretty far from where the cat took off, so, I set up on the road. (It's a dead end road, mostly over grown)

It wasn't too bad for camping in a ditch next to a swamp. I gathered a bunch of dead wood, made a fire, and made some hot dogs. The cat must have smelled the food, or maybe was just cold. By the time it got dark, she was back. She was a little scared of me, almost like the feral in her was coming out. Or she was scared I was going to take her away. Eventually, she warmed up to me, and chilled out by the fire.

It was a pretty cool experience. For the first time in a while, I got to see the stars in vivid detail.

In the morning, I let the cat out of the tent and boom, she was off having an adventure. I really want to find a tiny webcam that I can attach to her. She probably seen a lot of cool shit. She must have had fun avoiding the water by climbing things.

I ran out of water and tried a few survival methods to get clean water from the swamp. I tried distilling it with a pot and a plastic bag, but I couldn't get it quite right. I tried running it through cloth to filter it out, and I drank a little, didn't get sick, so I guess if I was ever really desperate, that method kinda works. I was really proud in the morning after I made my own coffee filter out of a piece of paper and a napkin. Best coffee ever.

Before I went out, I found an old tool kit that I wasn't using. I decided to label it "Macguyver Box", and put a whole bunch of random shit in there. A lot of stuff, like a broken light bulb, I put in there with the hope that I'll figure out what to do with it eventually. After camping, I think I want to get rid of a lot of the useless stuff and just have survival gear in there. I put the multi-tool and tape to the most use.

I think I'd like to go out to my Dad's land and build something. He got the land for a song, and while it is swamp, it could be a cool place to live. I picture putting up a bunch of board walks and having a very Caribbean swamp style home, like an old voodoo lady is going to jump out and scare ya, lol.

Anyways, the cat did come back during the day, she slid out from under the tent after she wanted to take a nap, I guess.

I put her in her cage, and although she probably would have liked it if we stayed out there, I brought her to my parents where she'll have all sorts of other animals to interact with and a lot of cool land to explore.

It's pretty lonely in this apartment without her, but it'll only be a month and a week.

I've got to clean this place up.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

evolution and games

I've been thinking about sticking to a central topic in this space.

Video games have always interested me more then anything in this life, and I think, like soccer, it's a global phenomenon that we all take part in. Some people spout off stats from the NFL, but an acronym that's a little more worldwide might be SC3, or, Starcraft 3.

What is it about video games and games in general that captivate us so much?

I'm a FPS gamer, lately, I've been getting back to my roots with Team Fortress 2, and I was thinking about how a group of scouts can sometimes act like a flock of birds, especially when they're all focused on the same target. There are a lot of aspects to the game that remind me of the wild, like hording health packs reminds me of animals protecting food. There are many "fight or flight" moments. While, respawning is always available and the game never really matters like dying in real life does, watching a match play out reminds me of evolution.

Especially on a new map. Sometimes I think about how each round is a generation, the players that failed, adapt, and do something else to try and survive, they learn from the other players that live on, and try again.

There's a game that came out for the Wii called Dangerous Creatures. I don't own a Wii, but it looked pretty interesting. It tried to make realistic settings in the wild, where you play as different critters. As we study animals more and more and profit from bio mimicry, it makes sense to me that modeling them on the computer in more and more detail is a really good idea.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

2255

2255 <- the year I'll turn 100,000 days old.

273 years old

A million days is 27379 and some change

How fast will our life expectancy increase?

3 months every year?

what happens if that number one day becomes 4 months per year, and exponential increases in technology manages to continue this trend until it's one year per year.

Imagine being 99, and they say that the average life expectancy is 100, then the year after they announce it's 101, and so on. If the trend continued, it would out run you.

I can't imagine how, but it certainly would change the way we look at things. Accidents, murders.... would have much more impact if people had the ability to live 100,000 days

2255...

I was thinking to myself the other day. Growing up in a christian conservative household, I was taught that the end of the world was going to come one day, and the righteous would be taken to a much better alternate existence and the sinful would suffer for all eternity.

On the opposite end is science, who argued that our ignorance to our environment and passed history states that we will destroy ourselves or, the earth will face another mass extinction.

99% of all species that have ever existed on this planet are extinct.

What bothers me now is that both sides seem to be arguing for the same thing. That we're all fucked.

I wish there was an alternate, and strong view that everything's going to be fine. With the way we look at time, we have a very large amount available to us. With the way we've advanced in the last 100 years, that amount should easily be enough to preserve life and continue our species for as long as the universe exists.

It's not impossible, we just need to divert our energy from destruction and put it in to health, science, education, and technology. The strongest defense is not an offense, but a message. One that says, "we don't need an army, we're going to space. We're going to preserve the human race"

\o|o/

10101

Weee

Another day in the life of Caleb.

Packing up some stuff today, getting ready to move out. Found a shirt in my closet, brand new, very fancy. I have no idea where it came from, but it's a mans shirt. Someone must have bought it for me or something, I can't remember, it's so strange. I've never seen a shirt with a whole bunch of needles holding it together. I tried it on and it seemed to fit, reminded me of one of those Asian movies where there's that silent dude in the corner wearing a really nice black shirt.

Anyways...

I have to get rid of my cat. The landlady said shes going to get someone to replace the carpet that she tore up and that it's a good idea to get the cat out for when she's showing the place to other people.

So, I'll probably head out to my parents this weekend and drop her off there.

It's going to be pretty lonely without her. I don't know exactly why, but I spend most of my days completely isolated from everyone. I still socialize on the internet, but have become very introverted lately.

I don't have a lot of money, so I kind of keep things low key I guess. Trying to scrape by. Well, I guess if I'm living with my parents, the money thing should pick up.

I'm thinking, after I drop off the cat, to go camping and figure what I want to do with my life.

10101 days in, _____ days out.

I feel like getting in touch with nature and living with the bare essentials for a little bit might be a good way to gain some perspective.

A friend offered to rent a room out to me, I might take him up on it. I really want to meet the right woman, and it's going to be next to impossible if I'm living with my parents in Hadashville. Still, a little time out in the country would be the fastest way to get out of debt...

Will have to see how it goes. I've been putting this off for a while, was thinking about subletting, but since I'm really unsure on where I want to live, it's been hard to get things in gear.

But, it looks like, I'll move everything out to my parents, then take what I need from there.

I really don't need anything.

A trip through the wilderness should be good for me.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

4 things I hate

Hey, guess what, people like lists.

Let me rant for a bit as I count down 4 things that really bother me in today's society.

1. Bottled water


Water is everywhere. When we designed cities with water included, we went through the trouble of running millions of pipes to every single household and business. This is common. Every major city has it's own water system. The water is safe, clean and healthy. Yet some people don't think this is good enough for them. For the sake of convenience, or just because of the slight taste difference, they would rather pay far too much so that trucks can physically carry the water in a multitude of plastic containers over miles and miles, even as far as Fiji! This is fucking insanity. We are already standing on a much smarter system, where pumps bring it through pipes in a much more efficient manner. The people that sell it are making money off of your stupid fucking ass. Why the fuck are you buying water. Just get a goddamn reusable container and find one of the many taps around and get it for free.

2. So you think you can dance

How many fat fucking people sit down and watch this show as they gorge themselves? Why don't you take that fast food money and go get some dance lessons you overweight piece of shit.

3. Junk mail

Holy crap, why the hell are we wasting so much energy on cutting down trees, converting it in to paper, printing out millions and millions of ads just so people can inform me on the price of apples at the local supermarket?! A much smarter way of doing the exact same thing is to simply create a website for when someone is actually interested in buying whatever the seller is trying to sell.

I don't want to receive a million different ads that are irrelevant to what I need or want at the cost of cutting down more trees.

4. Repetitive commercials


Speaking of ads. I watch a lot of Discovery. If I'm going to watch TV, I might as well learn something. The problem is that every 10 minutes, they barrage you with the same ads over and over again. It almost feels like whatever useful information I'm getting from the educational content is dwarfed by the repeated garbage in between. I don't mind getting free shows at the cost of an ad once in a while, but when it's the same fucking ad over and over again, it drives me crazy. One good example is nicorettes new method that allows you to get your nicotine through a device that you hold like a cigarette. First, I don't smoke, I don't care. Second, they show this one guy holding a pen in his mouth because he's craving a cigarette, and he gets ink all over his face. This disgusts me, can't he fucking taste the ink?! And third, when I did quit smoking, the last thing I would want is to be constantly reminded that I'm craving a cigarette. This commercial is on constantly. Lastly, isn't this just another expensive cigarette. They're just giving you nicotine anyway, now it's in a smokeless form that you can use indoors.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

What's so wrong about wearing a headset?

I stumbled on this article about wearing headsets in public. I've heard this again and again, that you just shouldn't leave one on. I really don't understand this. I find it strange that if you wear a golden hoop or put a metal piece through your eyelid, that's totally fine, but if that item has a function, an actual USE, then holy shit, that's just douchebaggery!

I personally don't have any piercings or tattoos. I don't see the point. I'm not going to decorate my body with holes and permanent ink to impress people. In the article, this is exactly the reason why you shouldn't wear a blue tooth headset in public. That it's saying, "hey, look at my cool gadget!" When, in my opinion, it's more of a convenience. Since I'm not allowed to talk on the phone while driving, a headset is just more practical and why should I feel like I need to take it off if I step outside of my vehicle. I don't care about what people think about me.

That being said, I don't actually have a bluetooth headset, but I use the old school method of ear buds with the microphone on the wire which leads to the phone. Of coarse, this is a little different because people are more comfortable with wearing ear buds since walkmans/discmans have been around a long time.

So I ask myself, why is it totally fine to walk around with some wires dangling to your pocket but it's not cool to use a wireless setup?

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

my reasons

Why would anyone want to become an agnostic/atheist?

It's an interesting question. With religion comes a lot of good things:

1. A community of people that you meet with once a week (or more). This can be a way of making friends that share your common beliefs. There is also a support system. If you just like to sing, they have that in church as well.

2. There are a lot of things you don't have to worry about. For example, death, purpose of life, man destroying itself. When you put your trust in God, you can expect that He will tell you everything you need to know after you die, and humans can't possibly destroy themselves since it was written that God will bring about the end of the world, not humans. A lot of people that convert feel a great weight lifted off their shoulders.

3. One of my main reasons for believing in God was that if you don't and the bible is true, well, you die and suffer for eternity. If God doesn't exist, then believe or not, you still end up in the same place. It just seems safer to go ahead and believe in God. It made sense to me that if you don't know where you're going, you might as well believe it's someplace good, so the time here is more enjoyable, less worrisome.

Now, I don't believe in God. Or rather, I'm one of those agnostics that's totally comfortable with saying, who knows?

I'm not going to sign on the dotted line out of fear. Sure, I might be more comfortable with believing in God and that I'll have eternal happiness after I die for doing so, but in my mind, the truth is the truth. Sometimes it's uncomfortable. There's no point in believing in something just because the belief makes you feel better when it might just be a complete falsification.

When it comes to worrying, sometimes it's good to be aware of the danger ahead of us. Sure, I could feel better by believing invisible unicorns will keep man from destroying ourselves, but that belief will only cause me to allow us to keep harming our planet. If I believe that all the knowledge in the universe will be given to me on death, why should I bother learning things here and now, where I can pass that information on to the next generation? Sure, if I believed in God, I would have a lot of anxiety removed, cause I really have no clue what's going on and I'm bothered by it. It's that lack of knowledge and uncomfortable feeling that drives me to discover more.

I hear that, statistically, more non-religious types further their education.

I really do miss having a large group of people to interact with on a regular basis. Maybe going to school would be a good replacement for church.

It's too bad that church is free and school is not. Maybe somebody should take the same donation based church model and just make free schools.

Lastly, on the topic of heaven. Somewhere at some time, some person was either told by God or simply made up the notion that if we do not have faith in God then we do not get to go to heaven. This idea may have come up long before the Jewish religion ever existed. Since then, people have added or tacked on more beliefs to this idea. For example, Mormonism is a fairly modern religion. Am I to believe that God sent out a new set of instructions for humans to get in to heaven?

If God is all-knowing and if there really is only one true religion then it must have been the first one to come up with this concept and every other one has just tacked on to that original idea. Why would God need to continuously update what he said if he knows all?

Now I know that the reason why so many religions say they are the only one that is real and if you don't believe then horrible things will happen is simply because that's the best way to get people hooked.

I refuse to be threatened to believe anything. I choose to believe the truth, even if death means I do not get to walk on streets of gold.

(why would they be made of gold anyways, material goods still have some value in heaven? And why streets, I thought everyone was given wings on their arrival, lol)

Saturday, July 25, 2009

10 Reasons
Michael Anissimov :: August 2004


10 Reasons to Live as Long as Possible

1. Because the universe has plenty of room.
2. Because eighty or ninety years isn't enough to try much out.
3. Because death is so final.
4. Because you'll get to see what happens next week.
5. Because a few thousand friends isn't enough.
6. Because you can then join the project to turn Earth into a Heaven.
7. Because boredom can't prevail against a flow of new, interesting places, ideas, and people.
8. Because aging and death are primitive and inherently unpleasant.
9. Because your loved ones and children don't deserve to see you perish.
10. Because if you don't enjoy it, you can end it at any time.


10 Reasons to Enhance Human Intelligence

1. Because stupidity stops being funny fast.
2. Because sitting in a classroom can be torture.
3. Because if we don't, somebody else will.
4. Because it's part of our species growing up.
5. Because people are suffering due to their own ignorance.
6. Because people are suffering due to ignorance of the wealthy.
7. Because dumb people don't know what they're missing.
8. Because it's the best way to improve our society.
9. Because our brains were meant to evolve.
10. Because it's already within our grasp.


10 Reasons to Develop Molecular Nanotechnology

1. Because killing sentient animals is an cruel way to transform grass into meat.
2. Because fossil fuels are a pain in the ass.
3. Because humans can't fly without strapping ourselves into a rigid hunk of metal.
4. Because our houses and cities are too boring.
5. Because conventional manufacturing destroys the environment.
6. Because people shouldn't have to perform manual labor if it can be automated.
7. Because if biology can do it, so should we.
8. Because everyone deserves food, shelter, and clean water.
9. Because it's about time we cleaned up the mess we humans have made.
10. Because nanotech will be developed anyway, so we might as well be aware.


10 Reasons to Develop Artificial Intelligence

1. Because human cultures aren't exotic enough.
2. Because intelligence should be fluid, not rigid.
3. Because we need someone to help us organize the data we're drowning in.
4. Because aliens aren't showing up, so we should make our own.
5. Because the universe should be infused with intelligence.
6. Because we need new perspectives and thinkers.
7. Because it would be interesting to engineer new emotions.
8. Because sci-fi stereotypes need to be shattered.
9. Because evolution designed made us self-deceiving, and we need help to escape the trap.
10. Because AI is coming whether we like it or not, and it's better to be prepared.


10 Reasons to Learn About Science and Technology

1. Because it has the potential to save billions of lives, and prevent our potential extinction.
2. Because so many popular beliefs are empirically unsound.
3. Because it's the only way to significantly move our entire civilization forward.
4. Because science just means "stuff we know" and technology just means "stuff we can do".
5. Because it's the foundation and context of all other human affairs.
6. Because it makes the main difference between cavemen and modern man.
7. Because ignorance is nothing to be proud of.
8. Because it's challenging and useful.
9. Because progress in science and technology is accelerating.
10. Because our future depends on it.

http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/index.htm

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Thursday, July 16, 2009

a shitty fucking poem

no, I didn't think you'd understand
because I know that I can't

and we are only human

like a puzzle with missing pieces

I sit and stare at the unfinished picture

I know what I'm supposed to see
and what's supposed to be there,

but all that's left is an unfinished puzzle

so I just sit and stare.

until it's time to put it away
and face another day

work for a living

why can't I just live?

there are houses to be built

forests to be killed

survival of the fittest.

but for what?

the missing piece

so what's the point?

Of conveying my frustration

sometimes I just sit and cry

and I don't even know why

how pathetic is that?

Why can't I just sit and laugh

No, I didn't think I'd understand.

Friday, July 10, 2009

loneliness


stumbled on this image today.
I can relate to the woman in many ways, although I don't know if I truly am happy alone.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Sunday, July 5, 2009

space and water

So they say that life as we know it requires water. I wonder how the original life came to be. While swimming yesterday, I was enjoying the near weightless feeling when I started thinking about why life started in water.

I wonder, maybe life began before this planet existed and was a space based life-form and perhaps the water on our planet was a suitable transition from the gravity in outer space

Saturday, July 4, 2009

The Sims 3 and piracy solution

I'm not going to lie, I don't buy a lot of games and certainly don't like paying for "DLC" or micro transactions. The Sims 3, while built on a very nice engine doesn't come with a lot of the items that the original 2 games came with. These are now purchased online, item by item.

An idea I think would be really interesting is if they started issuing a free version of their game with all the features but, you're obligated to upload custom content which then becomes property of EA. This idea came to me when playing Spore, where the creature creator was a free download, and the creatures were uploaded to EA's servers and were actually used to populate other planet's when you bought and played the game.

A game like the Sims would be great for this, especially if the process of scanning things like furniture and digitizing become much more simplified. I've seen some videos of people scanning things with simple, every day, video cameras.

Now of coarse, you would need to know how to tag properties to the item, make sure it doesn't clip and all of that, but tutorials and good software can make this real easy.

People are going to download these games anyways, if Maxis provides the engine and the tools, they could potentially build a portion of the game and let the global community add to it, and later turn around and sell these, at an affordable rate.

Now, of coarse a lot of people would want to take advantage of this, and I could see it not working out in a couple ways, one, where everyone downloads the free version provides free crap that no one buys. Second, where the system is set up in a way where everyone that does get the free product actually provide a quality service that pays off, but people still pirate the game anyway, getting the game without providing a service.

In my opinion, the second outcome is the better one, so it would be ideal to shoot for a good system, and in my opinion, this would go really good when tied with beta testing.

For example, the sims 4 is announced and there is a big media announcement about this idea, one that sends the message that if any hacker want's to get their game for free, EA is saying, "alright, that's fine, but you have to do a little bit of work for us."

Sort of like a restaurant owner saying, "Alright, you can have a free meal, but you gotta do the dishes."

The first that sign up take part in beta testing and once the "item/product creator" is done, they get access to it with a bunch of support to help add whatever they want to the game, also, taking part in the construction of the game with feedback, and so on. Basically, wherever EA can find a service, this can be brought to the freebee crowd. "Freebee", like a bunch of worker bee's, lol, I like that.

So, the free game wouldn't come until the system has verified that you've provided some sort of service.

Yea, hacker's might find ways around this, but I think when it comes to the intelligent computer crowd, they would respect this idea.

Respect goes a long way in this new digital era. There are plenty of examples of businesses that have thrived because customers support their business model.

10055: The new evolution

I stumbled on this article from "the daily galaxy" titled: Stephen Hawking: "Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution"

I remember reading (or rather, listening to an mp3 at work) about this idea in one of Stephen Hawking's books, I think it was "A brief history of time".

Basically, you can break down DNA in to bit's and bytes, and that when we developed writing, through the brain that evolution created, we found a way to pass down much much more then what our DNA ever could.

It all reminds me of this clip from waking life:



(the new evolution part is after the girl's talk on language, which is also very interesting and damn I wish I could meet a smart chick and hear her talk like that, gets me all excited if you know what I'm saying)

I posted this clip a long time ago, but I keep coming back to it. If you haven't seen this movie, here's the link, yea it's a torrent, but it's the fastest easiest way to transfer this valuable information (that I'm aware of), and it's good information. It's the kind of movie that makes you think, again and again. Get's the gears turning...

Please, if you agree and enjoy it as much as I do, send the creators of the original content some money and ask that he write some more.

Back to the article:
Meanwhile, Hawking observes, our human brains "with which we process this information have evolved only on the Darwinian time scale, of hundreds of thousands of years. This is beginning to cause problems. In the 18th century, there was said to be a man who had read every book written. But nowadays, if you read one book a day, it would take you about 15,000 years to read through the books in a national Library. By which time, many more books would have been written."

But we are now entering a new phase, of what Hawking calls "self designed evolution," in which we will be able to change and improve our DNA. "At first," he continues "these changes will be confined to the repair of genetic defects, like cystic fibrosis, and muscular dystrophy. These are controlled by single genes, and so are fairly easy to identify, and correct. Other qualities, such as intelligence, are probably controlled by a large number of genes. It will be much more difficult to find them, and work out the relations between them. Nevertheless, I am sure that during the next century, people will discover how to modify both intelligence, and instincts like aggression."


At around 3:30 in the clip above, the crazy professor states: "Before in the old evolutionary paradigm, one would die and the other would grow and dominate, but in the new paradigm they would exist as a mutually supportive, non-competitive grouping, independent from the external."

The part I want to focus on is non-competitive grouping.

Now, on the large scale, it would be very nice if we could get rid of war altogether, but competition and aggression are always put in a negative light. If it wasn't for competition, we wouldn't be advanced, we wouldn't be where we are today.

I've been playing a lot of video games lately and listening to these lectures on game theory and have been thinking about this for quite a bit.

When I play my games, and for me, my obsession has always been multiplayer, human vs. human type of games, I often ask, "why do I enjoy this so much?"

What is it inside our bodies that says, "let's butt heads, let's compete, let's see who's better."

This applies to every game we play, even "games" in business and relationships.

We're always fighting, our bodies will not let us drop competition and aggression. In my opinion, if it would have benefited us as a species, we would have evolved to be passive by now.

When we get to the stage of "self designed evolution", we're going to have to ask ourselves some very serious questions, like "what do we want?", and "what can we do that evolution hasn't already done?"

Monday, June 22, 2009

One of these days

I'm going to have to leave. I don't know where to go, but I really do have to change my environment. I have to adjust my lifestyle.

I've always been addicted to video games, but lately... it's all I do. I used to have a purpose, but now I have no one to work for, my goals are all gone and I've become comfortable with the fact that I will one day die.

I have to change that. I can't be fine with living and dieing a meaningless life. I have to do something.

I stumbled on this volunteer abroad website that looks pretty interesting. It helps you get hooked up with volunteer services in far away countries. I was thinking about volunteering, just to have something to do and meet other people, and I love adventures so this might be right up my alley. Just need to make some money to get started.

I wish I had a writing job. I know I could probably get one if I worked for it. I think I just need to find the right niche, the place where my kind of thinking would be appreciated. Maybe something to do with my interests, like video games... or maybe something else... maybe traveling?

I watched a bit of this show about a guy that just travels and eats. I can't stand it, probably cause I'm just so damned jealous. I wish I had a show where I could travel, but instead about eating, it would be all about adventure. Where to get your heart racing. That would certainly be a lot more interesting.

Friday, June 5, 2009

I've been asking myself a lot of big questions recently, like what's the meaning of life, and the follow up questions like, is there one at all, and should I bother thinking about any of it, or is thinking about it all just a big waste of time.

To many, I think, they don't bother thinking about it, they don't care.

I don't like that approach. To me, the fundamental purpose of our existence is the single most important thing regarding our lives.

So, I think it's a pretty big deal and deserves some thought.

To many others, there is none. No purpose to life, no reason for plants and animals, and it just happened. Which at first sounds awfully depressing, but to me it seems like the difference between a straight objective based game or an open ended game that never ends.

And when you look at that analogy, it seems to look like, that if there is a purpose to our existence, then once whatever that purpose is done, our existence is no longer needed. The games over.

A lot of Christians would believe that once humanity is done with, like, our physical bodies, our spirits will exist in a happier place for all eternity.

When you break it down, and try to look at that from an alien perspective, a notion that there's this alternate self, and alternate place that is perfect and so much better, it really seems to put a negative view on Earth and our own bodies.

I know, I'm bashing on religion again, and I've been doing that a lot, but I've gone down this path of logic and reasoning that has led me to believe that if we did have some sort of ultimate meaning, some sort of task or purpose to being here in this universe, that we would have been told what it is by now.

...

I remember one time I was going to write a book where the Earth was a cell in a massive body, like the galaxies of all the universe is an organ to some massive being.

The story was that human beings were injected in to the organ to fight off a virus.

I think I may have combined too many bizarre concepts in to one book idea, I probably wrote about it on this blog before. Sin caused things to be out of sync, and the hero of the story had to get in line with his alternate selves to unleash his super powers and defeat the evil virus and save the big entity.

The point being that in the book, there was an ultimate purpose for mankind.

And now I'm asking, well, what happens when we're done. I'm not saying, will this massive entity, either the fictional one I've created, or the ones written in the various bibles, have mercy on us and let us live in heaven where everything is fine and dandy, I'm asking, what's the point at that point in time.

Y'know? Like, what's the point of existing after we're done our ultimate task.

Point... that's a funny word, when I think about it, and I do this a lot, where I wonder how a word came to be, like where it came from. It would make sense if it came from the word point, like the point of a blade.

Which is at the end.

And now we've come full circle.

Which makes me think about a recurring purpose... but then, what's the point?

Thursday, May 28, 2009

random thoughts

Wouldn't it be cool if one day God came down to Earth and someone asked, "hey man, where did you come from?"

Wouldn't it be funny if he responded, "Oh, well, I'm the one that's actually a product of random evolution."

and after a while of contemplation, the scientists are all like, "Cool, can we study it?"

"That's why I made you"

and the religious people are all like, "holy shit." and then stop and consider the fact that they said the lords name in vain and God's looking at them like, "why the hell would I care about what kind of noise comes out of your mouth."

ok, so this is a bunch of random thoughts combined.

I was thinking to myself one time, about AI and creation and if you wanted to make something more intelligent then you, or you wanted something better... or evolved, you could make the AI compete against each other over and over again.

Like, what if God made evolution so he could think?

Sunday, May 24, 2009

game talk

So I've been playing a lot of TF2 lately. They recently released an update that replaces the snipers rifle with a bow and arrow.

When I was a kid, I used to have a couple bows, one was a traditional long bow, the other a compound bow. I remember being proud of my abilities and showing them off at camp. I wonder where those bow's are now.

Anyways, in the video game, it works really well, you want to charge up your shots to full, but just like in real life, if you hold the draw string for too long, it can hamper your accuracy. So you want to be able to encounter your enemies at the right time.

I think the most fun that I've had with it is taking out other snipers that still use the old sniper rifle. You have to be very quick, but the results of pinning a sniper's head to the wall is incredibly gratifying.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Ten thousand and one

So I've been using my dad's old beater truck for the past little while. I haven't paid my income tax for some time so they cut off my bank account. Now I'm getting letters from the bank telling me I need to make payments I can't afford. I asked to get a loan extension but they kept giving me the work around. After I lost my truck, I lost all my collateral, so they suggested I get a new vehicle. My dad bought an old Toyota Tacoma from someone in Hadashville and wants me to take a look at it, so I'm going out there today and will probably buy it. I can't use his truck forever and well, it has almost half a million kilometers on it, so it can't last much longer.

I'm going to have to find a new place to live. I really like my apartment, and the pool should open up soon, but these are luxuries that I really haven't been working hard enough for. These were things that I could afford when I had a double income and was putting in a lot of hours. I don't know why I let myself get to this place, but I'm trying to get out of it.

Well, I'm off to work. :P

Monday, May 11, 2009

10000

So, I'm 10,000 days old today. I didn't complete any of my goals :(

Since I started writing this blog, my wife left me and I lost my truck. I should write a country song.

But, after stumbling on the FMylife site, I can't help but feel disgusted at every single person that has to whine about the tiniest little things.

So, I try to remain positive.

I guess I should start a new blog, call it 20,000 days or something.

Maybe a billion seconds?

I was planning on doing a lot more writing, but I guess, with my current situation, it's hard to write anything without sounding like one of those whiners from that fmylife site.

I've been really depressed and I'm trying to get out of it.

Yesterday, I went for a good long bike ride. I checked out Kings park where most of the good trails were flooded over. A girl smiled at me, which was nice. I haven't had a girlfriend for a while now. I kinda just gave up.

:/

My cat can be such a bitch. She likes to sit on my lap when I'm on the computer but if I talk, laugh or type too much, she freaks out and attacks me.

She's like, "Pet me or die human!"

She's dragging her toy around right now, that means she wants to play fetch. I used to have a cat named Lynx. One day, I threw a cat toy and he brought it back, so I gave him a treat and that's how he learned how to play fetch, it was really unintended and coincidental. When we got Cinder, the cat I have now, I taught her how to jump on a pedestal on command. This was very easy, I used the words, "up, up, up" as the command words, and started with holding a treat over the chair. I did this every day, but got further and further back. Now, I just have to point, and tell her and she'll do it. Although, sometimes she just jumps up on whatever, and look at me like, "is this good enough?"



So, after I taught her how to do that, I thought I'd try to teach her how to play fetch. This was a lot harder then with Lynx, I remember showing her how to do it, and trying all sorts of different things. To get her to do it, I had to get her playing with the toy first. I remember the first time she brought it back, we had some friends over and I was telling them that I'm not sure if she'll ever do it. Then, in front of them, she brought it back for the first time. It was pretty cool.



The apartment we were living at the time didn't allow pets and we were trying to get away with having her with no one noticing. One day, they found out, and we had to send her to Amanda's aunt's for a while. When we moved to the apartment I'm living in now, Cinder forgot how to play fetch and I had to teach her all over again. Eventually she remembered and now, if she wants to play, she'll drag it to where I usually throw it, and then bring it back again, like she's just going through the motions.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Monday, April 13, 2009

arena idea

So I've been playing a lot of team fortress 2. They have this new mode called "arena" where players that die don't respawn until the match is over and are forced to watch the other players. This is nothing new, I think the first game to do this was counter-strike. The interesting thing about it is that it turns the game in to a spectator event where people can watch the last player on their team and root for him or ridicule him.

Now, one day I was trying to join my favorite server and waiting for an open slot and I thought to myself, why isn't source tv built in to this. Source TV is a way of watching a game play out with a lot of people without actually causing server load.

Maybe it was also the word arena that got the gears turning, but I thought, what if, for future games they made a server that when it filled up, the players waiting to play watched the action. The players in game that don't do very well get cycled out for the players waiting.

Another idea I had that I should get down is smarter spectator programming. Source TV has a delay so that players watching a match can't ghost, so the action is always a minute or so behind the time it was performed.

If the action is a minute behind, a smart server can see who's getting the most kills in that minute and automatically show it to the viewers.

For example: You want to play in the cool new server for this new big multiplayer game that everyone's raving about. The server has all sorts of appeal, maybe even prizes for the best players. It's "the place to be". So you load up, but it's full, so you watch and see all the best players being awesome.

In real time, Johnny G just got 3 sniper kills in a row. The server doesn't detect anything better so when the delay catches up to the viewer, it shows that 3 sniper kill streak to you. After that's over and Johnny G dies, it goes on to the next most awesome event.

If there was someway to show this spectator view to people that do not own the game, it would be a great way to advertise the game

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

hey

I put this in a forum post in rlslog:

The forum was about an Iraq documentary.

wow, a lot of stupid crap being said in here.

I mean C'MON!!
Johnny said:
"Thats what I hate about morons who have IQ of donkeys."

And then says this, "Thinking about i wish bush nuked irrq and kuwait and th=e whole gulf"

Wow! One of the stupidest things anyone ever could say.

One of the things that bug me about all this Israeli talk is that it's millions of miles away from where I am. What someone says over there, like, "Americans are devils, they all must die", I assume, words have been twisted by the time they get here.

I don't have any ill intentions to anyone that doesn't affect my life in any way, and I assume they would feel the same way about me.

But then Johnny here has to prove me wrong… and again and again, ignorant, stupid comments from both sides:

"US+Israel alliance is the greatest evil till date endangering the entire mankind, more dangerous than the Muslim terrorists. It is for these Zionists that no corner of the planet is safe anymore, not even the polar region. And they are already busy spreading their reign of terror beyond earth"

Wow….

Stupid. I mean, beyond earth… Watch out Mars, the Jews are coming!!

Talk about your stupid conspiracy theory propaganda.

And then… Bam:

"All Muslims/Arbs should be killed, end of the problem the middle east should be nuked and then turned into disneyland"

Y'know, a lot of stupid hate can stem from a comment like that. Even if you say it with no ill intention, cause hey, these guys are halfway across the globe, why would we really want to hurt them?

But… saying something stupid like that, they can take that and say, look what they're saying about us?

There's a propaganda machine, on both sides… over here, it is the media, it has created this image that America is needed over there to stop this evil.

The propaganda machine on the other side, while I'm not really aware of it because I don't live there, I seen the effects of those riots over… cartoons.

That was disturbing. But some people over here, seen that like, wow, look at how evil the muslims are… but then, the smarter, more educated ones realized that it's simply the result of one evil man that speaks very loudly.

A propaganda machine.

The simple solution is to stop hate. Just quit hating, and question everything you hear.

And get a full understanding of the middle east conflict.

Growing up in a Christian home, I heard a lot of things about the bible and prophecy.

One was that the Jewish people, (God's supposedly "chosen" people), were going to be hated, and persecuted.

Now one might look at the holocaust and say "prophecy fulfilled", but in my opinion… and I tread on thin ice hear, but what the hell, what do I have to lose?

On the small scale, I think if one might want to fulfill a prophecy like that, they would invite hate upon themselves to do it. And exploit it.

I read this book recently given to me by my father. It was about the prophecy of Israel, and it repeatedly pulled out quotes about people hating Jews and wanting to kill them all. Now, this might be the case, but look at the quotes above, a lot of times, these are just the stupid few that talk too much, but to a Jew or Christian, they see these attacks on the Jews as proof of Gods existence, and it leaves me questioning, how far someone would go to do this, would they invite hate? Would they twist words through propaganda machines to do this? When are we going to look at it from a logical perspective and realize that maybe this prophecy was not the word of God, but just some man with a pen, a stupid man, a primitive one that couldn't possibly know as much as we do now.

I mean c'mon? A "chosen" people, God's a racist now?

Get real. We are all equal. We are humans, and we are all trying to understand many questions. And this stupid religious nonsense on both sides is causing billions and billions of dollars to be wasted, when we could be building new space probes, and rocket ships to take us to new worlds… something that we can all enjoy!

FIGHT HATE! Knowledge is the key.

Thank you for your time.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

smoke monster = grey goo?

Anyone watch Lost? I was thinking, what if the smoke monster was really nano-technology? Think about it, a "security system", the way it moves, maybe it was designed to terrify people to stay away from it.

That one scene that showed Echo's past before it killed him, maybe it did that because it was pre-programmed to take those shapes.

Looks like I'm not the first to think of this.

hmm, after reading a few posts, I wonder if that fence was designed to keep nanobots out, presumably after the technology got out of control...

Maybe the robots were designed to terrify any intruders, and protect the time travelling technology...

After reading about that "donkey wheel" pulling up anchor... it's like the people on the island have pulled up anchor and are sailing down the river of time, the writing is sooo brilliant!

Maybe Ben and the others are so secretive because they know that the technology must remain hidden... and that's why they have control of the smoke monster.

Why they all need to get back to the island is still a mystery, but how the show has played out over the years, is really amazing.

Friday, January 30, 2009

bf2c highlights final day


bf2cfinaleZcuts.avi

Click the link to d/l the high quality version

Friday, January 23, 2009

Lost

spoiler warning.

Just watched the first episode of the latest season, and wow, am I ever impressed with those writers. Somewhere around season 3, I was about to give up on the show, it seemed like no one really had a clue where the story was going and nothing was ever getting explained.

But then I stumbled on a site with a theory for it all... time travel, and all of a sudden, many strange things suddenly made a lot of sense.

"When are we?"

"Well John, that's all relative."

I love it.

The vision that the writers had from the start must have been huge. It's taken a very long time for them to explain a lot of strange things from episodes that aired years ago.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

My truck got hit by a car on the way to work yesterday. I was heading southbound on Waverly and a car was swerving wildly, it looked like he was over-correcting from having turned on to the street and accelerated too fast with icy conditions. Left and right, left and right, I thought for sure he would have straightened out, but now he's getting close to me and heading a lot faster then I initially thought. I was going about 60, and didn't want to slam on the brakes, so I pulled on to the shoulder and gently pushed the brakes to stop. It looked like he was going to go right passed me when, Bam, right in to the side of my truck.

Like a magnet. It was eerie, so surreal. But the highway was pretty busy, and it was bound to happen to someone.

Anyways, my truck went in to the ditch where it stopped fast and soft as snow naturally tends to do. (Afterwards, I kept saying... "If only I went straight in to the ditch, I'd be out with a tow and off to work.") Unless, it rolled or hit something in the ditch, that is.

Anyways, after getting hit, one guy asked, "Are you alright?", as he rolled by. I said yeah, but I had felt a sharp pain in my side as I crawled out, but I've always been like that, trying to tough it out.

Afterwards, I realized I should have gotten a witness. Now that I think of it, I'm really surprised no one stopped.

I don't think I'll need a witness though, Azeem, (the guy that hit me), seemed like a really nice guy, just seemed new to driving on icy roads.

After hitting me, his car came to a dead stop in the opposite shoulder, facing south, and traffic kept flowing. I waited forever just to cross so I could get the guys information. I really didn't want to jump in front of anyone, making them hit the brakes and skid just like Azeem.

I'm a little surprised at Winnipeg, I usually like to think as a general public, we're courteous. Or maybe we just don't pay enough to everything around us.

It's probably a little from column A, a little from column B.

Whatever.

The truck was getting pretty old so I'm thinking it might be written off.

I guess the important thing is that I'm not dead, it could have been over just like that.

I told the cop about my idea, about having driver training simulators for this exact purpose. How to react in emergency situations. If I had run a simulator like this, I would have known to go for the ditch to avoid an out of control car.

But more importantly, the driver that hit me only had his "A" license (which is a step above learners permit, I'm told), if he had run a simulator to help him know exactly how vehicles drive on snow and ice, he would known to not be going to fast, or to over-correct so much.

I think now might be a good time to bring that idea up with autopac and the drivers licensing service. It's time our government caught up with the rest of the world.

The funny thing is that there are already simulators for big rigs and things like that. It really wouldn't be that hard to bring this to the general public.