10000 days

Who deserves success?

2011-05-07T08:25:00.002-05:00

Audience intentionally picks wrong answer on French millionaire

I just read this very interesting article about how different cultures react in "who wants to be a millionaire" when the participant chooses to "ask the audience". While the American version has people typically answer with what they think is correct, other countries will intentionally pick the wrong answer to mess with the player. Why do they do this? In France, they say they'll pick the wrong answer on a question they think is too easy for the player to ask the audience, because they don't think he deserves to win. In Russia, they have a general mistrust for people that gain sudden wealth.

Personally, I don't like when people gain sudden wealth either. I don't like that people are born in to wealth, I don't like lotteries or gambling, and I also don't care for companies that succeed too quickly. (Like Wal-mart, or Starbucks)

A lot of people seen the Will and Kate wedding, and they thought, what a lucky girl. She was once a commoner but she won over Wills heart and now, she's a princess. Watching some of the news, it showed all these girls waving signs that said, "MARRY ME HARRY". The whole thing left this foul taste in the back of my mouth. Can't society understand what's really going on here? These are people that haven't worked to get their fame and fortune. They were born in to it. The monarchy is a remnant of a time where dictators ruled the world. You were either born in to power or you killed to get there. Prince William is nothing more then a descendant of one of these dictators, and it's disgusting to have witnessed the world make a big deal about their wedding.

I could go on about how I hate the monarchy and how I'm embarrassed to have the queen on all of our Canadian money, but that will have to be another post.

Who really deserves the success they have?

I've been thinking about this more lately. I feel like our money system is flawed. I think the problem is the value that we put on things. Artistic value is all over the map. Some person can draw a flower and it's a million dollar painting, another can do the same thing and no one is interested. It all depends on who and where its sold. How much is your time worth? How much is an opinion worth? What about an idea? What about hard physical grunt work? Why do the people that slave all day get paid less then people that push pens?

dreaming about stand up

2011-03-01T09:10:00.005-06:00

I had two dreams about doing stand up last night. The first I was in Brandon and there was a big festival happening. Denis Leary and Norm Macdonald were there and I was headlining. Denis asked if I was nervous and I said yes. I remember looking at my joke list and seeing a lot of different topics but I couldn't remember what I was supposed to do with them. I started writing down jokes that I remember at the bottom of the list.

I've heard people say that you can't read or see numbers in a dream. The words usually look all jumbled and don't make any sense. I clearly remember seeing the words in this dream.

My second dream I was following either Louis C.K or John B. Duff, I can't remember which, and they did a whole set on making the bed. I remember ignoring all my prepared material and improvised the whole set on the same topic. It was odd, because I haven't really been able to improvise yet.

Some day, I'd like to get there. I was wondering what really good improvisation is. Is it the ability to come up with an original joke on the spot. Or is it just that you have so much material in your head that you can work it in to any category.

laughter

2011-02-27T08:08:00.001-06:00

On Monday, I went to Dylan o Conners to do some comedy and the only people there were other comedians. Scott, the guy who organized it, felt bad for not promoting it enough. I still had fun, I think it provided one of the funniest moments I experienced in the Winnipeg comedy scene. When one comic was onstage, he noticed a couple people heading inside, and someone mentioned that we should all laugh really loudly when they come in like we're having the best time. So we did, and man did we laugh. It was so funny.

comedy in a church

2011-02-09T11:20:00.003-06:00

I had this dream last night that I was doing a comedy set in a church. I did alright, and was asked to another set, but the woman asking was very mean about it. She said, "just make sure you fucking smile while you're up there"
When I went up, no one was paying attention, people were talking to each other and I just gave up and walked away.

Kim

2010-10-28T08:20:00.002-05:00

I had this dream last night where I was at this old hippy house I used to hang out at. I opened the door and Mike was there, and in my dream, I knew I had managed to go back in time. I went to see my friend Kim who was hanging out on the couch and I warned her about going on the bike ride. I told her how she would be killed if she went.

After that, I went to a store and bought a giant ice cream cookie.

Castles and Aliens

2010-10-26T07:45:00.002-05:00

I had two really creative dreams last night. This morning, I had this dream where Colleen and I were driving up Waverly and we seen this bizarre light in the sky. It was very strange, the light was unusual in a way that is hard to describe, part of it was shining on the moon and another somewhere else. It was coming from a weird alien looking thing in the sky. It landed in a building and we pulled over. Someone else who was also pulled over said,
"That's the animal research center."

So after a bit, we kept driving, and a weird very tall looking figure in a cloak crossed the road in front of us and was running along side us in the ditch. I tried to get its attention by yelling at it but I didn't want to sound intimidating so I was making these strange muffled noises to get it to look at us. I was also making these noises in bed, and it woke me up.

Colleen said, "what was that?"

I explained my dream to her.

The dream earlier in the night, I was in a castle and there were these people trying to get in and I was fighting them off with a sword. I was stabbing and cutting a lot of people, but like my other dream where I was doing violent things, it felt more like a video game then anything else. After losing the fight against the people, the situation reset, like a game, and I was fending them off again. This time, I threw them all down a pit, one by one. It was really easy, like finding a flaw in AI. I proceeded down in to the castle where I was fighting more people. The one thing that wasn't like a video game was that when I got stabbed or cut, it hurt.

Darth Vader

2010-10-22T08:52:00.002-05:00

I had this dream last night where I was Darth Vader. For some reason, I kept the light saber attached to my neck rather then at my hip. I was throwing the light saber at groups of enemies and using the force to move the light saber around. Even though I was cutting large groups of people down, it felt more like a video game then actually killing mobs of people.

Tigers on a cliff

2010-10-20T20:06:00.002-05:00

I had another bizarre dream where Colleen and I were hang-gliding and we landed on this cliff. We were supposed to follow these tour guides along a rope bridge but there were these tigers in the way. There was another rope bridge but a large herd of tigers were crossing it and coming towards us. We dropped down on to this ledge of the cliff where we thought they couldn't get at us, but one dropped down and started licking Colleens face. I petted it, then woke up.

Living on Mars

2010-10-13T16:45:00.001-05:00

I had this dream last night that I was living on Mars. The ground was all red at first but over time grass started to grow and a few trees were here and there. It was very surreal and I'm very happy to have a dream like that.

10,423rd day

2010-07-08T07:48:00.002-05:00

Where am I at?

Since performing at the cavern, I've made multiple return trips, and performed a couple times at a few other venues.

My tent got all smashed up and I'm presuming it was a bear. I went a bought a new tent, but it's a little too small for my cot, so I'm not sure if I want to bring it back or use smaller bedding. It's one of those pop up tents that you just throw out and it sets itself up. I'm still trying to figure out how to get it back in the bag. Camping in the wilderness of Manitoba is absolutely nuts right now. I've never seen so many mosquitoes.

I'm looking for an apartment. I found a really nice one at an amazing price, but the guy was trying to tell me that before I can see the place, I need to send him money and he'll deliver me the key. I'm almost certain it was a scam, so I told him forget about it. I'm not that desperate for an apartment that I would just send someone money and hope to get a key delivered to me. If I need a place to sleep, I just need to bust out the pop up tent and there we go, all set.

2010-06-09T20:50:00.000-05:00

comedy

2010-05-31T08:26:00.002-05:00

I went to the Cavern last night and told a bunch of jokes. The room was cracking up. I'm so glad that I managed to pull it off.

it felt so good to make the whole room laugh like that. It's like this: This could be the beginning of something amazing, or it could have been one absolutely incredible night that I'll remember forever and that's it.

Either way, I'm fine. Nevertheless, I didn't have enough time to do my whole set. I had fifteen minutes of material and then found out at the bar that I could only do five, so I started off by saying this is part one of a three part series as a joke. But now I guess I'm committed.

At one point, the guy flashed his light at me, I said, "oh shit, it's like my ex-wife when we were making love, are we done yet? geez.." I should have said, "My sex is kind of like watching lost, it's good but every once in a while she's just, let's just end the damn thing already."

That's one of those jokes that have a time limit on them. As lost gets older, it gets less funny. Maybe I could have the punchline be something like,

"I keep you in the mystery, what's he going to do next?"

hmm... maybe it needs work, but w/e, thought since I was talking about comedy I might as well put down a couple jokes without using all my good stuff.

I do have to come up with some good shit for parts 2 and 3, I have material but I used all the best last night.

I have to go check on my tent, I went to go see it last night at 4 in the morning after the show and it was completely dark, I stepped in to the woods that are normally dry and felt about a foot of water. So, yea, it's probably floating away right now. Hey, maybe I can use it as a mobile home. I'm moving up in the world.

I can probably work that in to a joke... lol... my mind is just twinkling right now, it's like a jalapeno high.

Short Story: The Trip

2010-05-05T07:40:00.003-05:00

Eric watched the sun set.

"Have I ever watched the sun set in it's entirety?" Eric thought to himself. He had been staring out his small apartment window for a few hours now. "This will be the last sunset I ever see."

Eric raised the pen and continued to write.

"If I had more time, this suicide note would be a suicide novel. I'll spare you the apologies and all the reasoning as to what has brought me here. Just know that this is not your fault. This is the only choice left for me to take."

This was a lie, and Eric knew it. He didn't have to steal his fathers gun when he went to visit last Sunday, he didn't have to put in the bullet, and he didn't have to pull the trigger. Yet, he still chose to do so.

The bullet penetrated his brain and in a few short moments, he was dead.

He didn't expect to feel any pain but for the first time he could remember he felt the greatest pain that he had ever felt. Like every cell in his body was being tortured and Eric was frozen in time as the pain reached it's peak.

"AAAAAGGHHHHH!!!" Eric screamed.

All of a sudden, it stopped. There was nothing but white.

"I suppose that is better now, yes?" A strange voice said to him. This voice was part robotic, part human, part... something else that Eric couldn't put his finger on. It had a soothing, purring sound to it.

"What the fuck?! What the FUCK?!" Eric yelled out. In the whiteness around him a strange figure of light appeared before him.

"Well, that wasn't too smart now was it...." The voice seemed to come from the light. "Eric? That was your name, yes?"

"Yea..." Eric replied

"You... how can you understand this... fucked up." The voice explained to him. "Maybe you can explain to me how someone with such an exceptional record can resort to suicide."

"Exceptional record?" Eric asked, still dazed from the trip.

"Yes, it says here you were quite heroic in 1820 as a firefighter, you saved a lot of people, in 1536, you made significant advances in the medical field."
"Rein... carnation?" Eric muttered.

"It'll come back to you." The voice said. "How could a character with such a high value for life resort to suicide?"

"I had nothing to live for..." Eric explained. "My wife left me, I was fired, I was swimming in debt..."

"Yes, and now it's starting to seem petty, isn't it. We gave you a life, Eric, and you threw it away. These trips don't come cheap, and if you can't handle the 21st century, there's no way you'll be able to handle the 31st century."

"Is that the year we're in?"

"No, that's where you were headed if you passed, but I'm afraid you failed miserably Eric."

It was starting to come back to Eric. This was life, to exist in this time period, he had first needed to prove himself again and again in many different time periods prior. He had gone through many times now but now this thing was contemplating erasing Eric from existence. His problems in the 21st century really were starting to look petty and insignificant when compared to the big picture.

"Please don't erase me." Eric begged.

"I don't think it is quite time for that, but you will have to repeat a few cycles. I'm sorry Eric."

"No, please, don't send me back. Let me stay here, please."

"Good bye Eric."

"Agghh!" Eric yelled as the unbearable pain started coming back.

The scream started to get muffled and everything got dark for Eric. Then light flooded his eyes and the scream started coming back, this time from the mouth of a newborn infant. "Wahhhhh" The scream filled the room of the hospital. Eric was now gone and while the body was different there was still the same essence within. When his eyes opened, he was now in 1943, born in a German hospital. Eric, or the body formerly known as Eric would have to prove himself once again.

story idea

2010-04-15T10:33:00.004-05:00

So, I'm moving out of Winnipeg, back to the country. I'm planning on doing a lot of camping. I want to write, I have this book idea I really want to work on. I also want to take some pictures. The land that I'll be camping on is very close to where I was born, and ties in to my story idea. I was born and grew up in the middle of a forest on the edge of wilderness and farmland. I had long bus rides an hour to and fro, where I came up with this.

It was about this alien creature that slips from another dimension in to ours and begins terrorizing the forest. It begins to stalk the big yellow school bus and one day attacks it. The little boy saved the kids on the bus, and later kills the creature, but its corpse was nowhere to be found, and no one believed him.

My teacher loved it, I got full marks, and was going to keep writing the story, I had plans on writing that the boy later grew up and slipped in to their dimension, where he finds out that the creature wasn't an evil monster, but an intelligent creature in a hostile environment. At the time, I was heavily inspired by "Jurassic Park". Also, growing up in a religious household, I didn't want to accept evolution, and was thinking of alternate theories. Different species slipping from one dimension came from that. I think what I was trying to say is that we don't really know what's going on, there could be something like this happening, even though it's a very rare event.

For reasons I won't disclose at the moment, I abandoned the story, but have recently been thinking about it more and more, and want to get it all down. The story itself has evolved and the idea is that every so often, different membranes holding universes like our own will get close enough that if the conditions are right, the information will get mixed. This happens a lot in open space, but when two planets align, sometimes certain things will slip from one brane in to another.

This can cause certain planets to be tied to one another, and in very rare circumstances, creatures can slip from one to another bringing in very different genes that were adapted from different environments.

Originally it was meant to be an alternate theory to evolution, but the story in its current state says that this is what causes such dramatically different species.

I've heard of panspermia, which says that life can travel from planet to planet, this is a notion that life travels through dimensions.

pandimensia?

no...

Anyways, I don't think I want to publish any more in this blog because I believe I have some really great ideas to take this from an old idea I cooked up on long school bus rides to a really great story.

I should look in to getting a cheap laptop...

2010-02-19T09:00:00.002-06:00

wouldn't it be cool if there was some way to see back in time?

Like a giant reflective galaxy (or giant mass) that sends back all the photons that hit it. So the sun would shine on Earth, the light then bounces off and hits the mirror galaxy and comes back to Earth where we observe the past. Of coarse, there would need to be some sort of futuristic technology that could absorb the Earth's photons but filter out all the other ones. You would only be able to see on clear days, and the right time of year, but it's an interesting concept. One, that could provide absolute proof of things that happened in the past.

I've thought about this often, and I think about the most interesting things, like the "first ever" moments.

I wonder when the first word was ever spoken by a human. To see the first person trying to convince other people how to speak and how to use language would be fascinating.

I know some people believe that we were created with language or that a species that lived in the sea taught us how to speak.

I would love to see the real truth, to be able to look back in time and see it unfold.

that's it, back to Winnipeg!

2010-01-25T06:57:00.002-06:00

So I found a place in the city. I'll be moving in with 2 other people whom I've never met. I think it should be interesting. I'm a little nervous, but excited at the same time. Living out in the country is great but I really got to get out of my parents basement. I remember when things weren't going my way, I used to always be able to say, at least I'm not one of those bums that's still living with his parents. Now all I have is, "at least I'm not homeless"

I could probably afford to rent my own place, but I really like how things have been going with my finances lately and in the long run, I want to get enough to buy or build my own house and maybe rent some space to people. So moving in with these other people should be a bit of a learning experience as to how that would work. It'll be nice to meet some new faces as well.

I'm definitely not looking forward to the moving part, but I think I'm just going to take what I need for now and pick up more as I go.

Tiger

2010-01-06T06:20:00.002-06:00

So EA was a little unsure on if they should go forward with another Tiger Woods game. Personally, I think his recent situation would make some interesting mini-games. "How many woman can you cheat on before the media finds out?"

climategate

2009-12-09T07:47:00.003-06:00

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....

lolcats

2009-12-07T20:33:00.004-06:00

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.

his image

2009-11-27T07:38:00.002-06:00

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.

games

2009-11-23T07:29:00.002-06:00

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.

2009-11-22T20:55:00.002-06:00

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

2009-11-22T20:41:00.000-06:00

happier

2009-11-20T06:53:00.000-06:00

I think I was happier as a Christian

I was happier as a child too

We all have to grow up sometime.

nothing in to something

2009-11-13T07:41:00.006-06:00

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.

slow space travel

2009-10-16T07:20:00.003-05:00

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.

2009-10-13T21:14:00.001-05:00

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?

crazy dream

2009-10-11T05:37:00.002-05:00

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.

2009-10-07T07:34:00.002-05:00

"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.

Paying off debt

2009-09-30T08:02:00.002-05:00

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.

2009-08-24T08:44:00.002-05:00

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.

evolution and games

2009-08-22T09:16:00.002-05:00

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.

2255

2009-08-20T13:53:00.002-05:00

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/

2009-08-20T13:36:00.002-05:00

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.

4 things I hate

2009-08-12T07:21:00.003-05:00

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.

What's so wrong about wearing a headset?

2009-08-06T07:34:00.002-05:00

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?

my reasons

2009-08-05T07:20:00.003-05:00

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)

2009-07-25T10:50:00.000-05:00

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

2009-07-22T16:36:00.000-05:00

a shitty fucking poem

2009-07-16T09:42:00.003-05:00

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.

loneliness

2009-07-10T07:46:00.003-05:00

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.

2009-07-08T17:30:00.001-05:00

space and water

2009-07-05T05:47:00.003-05:00

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

The Sims 3 and piracy solution

2009-07-04T08:17:00.003-05:00

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

2009-07-04T06:58:00.004-05:00

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?"

One of these days

2009-06-22T07:24:00.002-05:00

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.

2009-06-05T05:11:00.003-05:00

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?

random thoughts

2009-05-28T17:30:00.003-05:00

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?

game talk

2009-05-24T09:23:00.002-05:00

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.

Ten thousand and one

2009-05-12T08:57:00.002-05:00

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

10000

2009-05-11T08:08:00.002-05:00

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.

2009-04-18T23:18:00.001-05:00

arena idea

2009-04-13T08:04:00.003-05:00

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

new bf2 vid

2009-04-02T16:02:00.000-05:00

hey

2009-03-04T08:27:00.002-06:00

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.

smoke monster = grey goo?

2009-02-14T17:00:00.004-06:00

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.

bf2c highlights final day

2009-01-30T08:19:00.001-06:00

bf2cfinaleZcuts.avi

Click the link to d/l the high quality version

Lost

2009-01-23T09:08:00.000-06:00

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.

paradigm shift

2009-01-20T16:07:00.001-06:00

paradigm shift from Caleb Friesen on Vimeo.

bf2c video

2009-01-09T11:37:00.001-06:00

Xfire vid of me tearing up ppl in da choppa.

2009-01-08T07:31:00.000-06:00

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.

2008-12-31T08:37:00.000-06:00

I stumbled on this, this morning.

I really do hate this kind of crap because once you figure it out, it's just a trick.

No matter what, your getting D. It starts with a math trick, pick any number, you end up with 4, which equals D. There are not a lot of countries that start with the letter D, I think Denmark may be the only one. Then there are not a lot of animals that start with k, and there is only one fruit that I can think of that starts with the letter O.

Although I will say, I picked kitten, then nectarine, and felt pretty proud that I forgot about the most obvious choice, kangaroo.

But the point is that the whole thing is trying to trick you in to believing you picked a random number and you just happen to think the same as everyone else. It's stupid, I hate when people try to play tricks on you.

I hate when I got to the grocery store and see something labeled 2 for 4$, that if I just buy one, it rings up 2$...

Why didn't they just price it at two dollars then? They're trying to trick you in to buying two.

Bad business practice... this day and age, companies really need to "win people over" especially with the fact that a lot of customers have an easy option to get digital products for free. You have to treat your customer like your friend, and help him/her get your product easily, and not with so much confusion.

this dream

2008-12-27T09:42:00.000-06:00

I had a dream last night. I was strolling along the Pakistani border when an American military official approached me, he said, "Son, we're going to need your help."

"Me?"

"Yes, the president's plane has been shot down over Pakistan and we need to get in there quick."

"ok..." I said, pondering the dangers ahead.

"The problem is, we have a uav up, a predator drone, but the only thing controlling it is this mouse and keyboard. We simplified the controls, but you need to be able to jump between modes so you may end up allowing the vehicle to fly by itself while you operate it's weaponry."

"Now, you'll have to understand that the drone is rather far away so there's a little bit of 'lag' in between what you see and what's really happening..."

I interrupted him right there, "Don't worry about it, I got this."

---

it was a day dream. It's interesting how the military and video games have found a meeting point with unmanned aerial drones.

It's no wonder that America's worried about other countries hacking our systems, never mind building your own army, just take over the one your trying to invade.

That's a scary thought, but what a great video game idea.

---

The hitbox lag is a joke about Battlefield 2. The game has a poor net code and that's just how it plays:

At first it can be pretty annoying and is a turn off for a lot of gamers, but for some, it's a challenge and feels good when you have a lot of skill.

---

I went to future shop yesterday. I've always loved shopping there, because that's where you can buy the future.... but at what cost, future shop? What cost?

Tomorrow will come and we'll be like, where is it? Oh yeah... we sold it... in a shop.

at the future shop.

I got myself an 80 dollar headset for 20 bucks!

:D

9863 days = 27 years

2008-12-24T10:11:00.000-06:00

27 laps, the Earth revolves the sun at an astounding 30,000 mph. So strange that we can't feel that. I wonder if life would lose it's serenity if the universe flashed by us...

Everything seems so slow, when it's not... The sun, carrying us, flies around the galaxy at 485,000 mph.

That is insane... If we break our land speed record of 763 miles per hour, it's like, which direction in accordance to our orbits was the vehicle traveling?

In relation to our galaxies black hole, it could have been going around 500,763 miles per hour.

That 763 miles doesn't seem to be that big of a deal anymore. Here, in relation to our Earth, that seems so fast, and yet our entire galaxy is traveling towards some "great attractor", passing a thousand kilometers in a single second. Our galaxy covers what that vehicle does in an hour in a second.

I wonder what life would be like if we could actually feel or see just a bit of that speed...

Would we ever have a moment of peace?

I've had the pleasure of witnessing 27 laps around our sun, but that's only like 1 millionth of the orbit around our black hole.

A small fragment in time. They say our sun has traveled around the galaxy 25 times since it's birth, but I wonder if maybe there were a few faster rotations in it's earlier days, maybe it's more like 27

that would be epic.

And yet, it doesn't really mean anything... I wonder what life would be like if we lived in a binary star system and our planet had some kind of complex figure eight rotation, one that's always changing... How would we keep track of anything?

What would it be like if our days and nights were always changing? 7 hours of night here, 10 days of light there.

That would be weird.

The world as I see it

2008-12-23T10:08:00.000-06:00

By Albert Einstein

"How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving...

"I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible.

"My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude..."
"My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and reverence from my fellow-beings, through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to understand the few ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware that for any organization to reach its goals, one man must do the thinking and directing and generally bear the responsibility. But the led must not be coerced, they must be able to choose their leader. In my opinion, an autocratic system of coercion soon degenerates; force attracts men of low morality... The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the political state, but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.

"This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor... This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man... I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence -- as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."

wind turbines on buildings

2008-12-20T21:20:00.001-06:00

Check out this article.

best band/clan name ever

2008-12-20T08:40:00.000-06:00

I was thinking, if someone was losing himself to dementia, is it like an alternate demention?

Demention

I was like, wait, that's not a word... best band name ever though... look at it, so robust and conflicted...

Is he trying to spell dimension? Does he mean De-mention, like trying to take back something he said? And the word sounds like demon, but it's spelled men, so that just adds like 4 more dementions.... lol

demented...

lol, I looked it up, some techno band was over that shit.

Demension with an S looks available... if this is your band name and you make it big, you owe me buddy.

best bf2 videos

2008-12-14T08:43:00.000-06:00

Now for something entirely different:

My favorite videos from bf2

This is one of the oldest bf2 videos of a guy named Redux from Europe. In Bf2, the chopper was meant for two people, but the game was very action-orientated, and you could switch seats on the fly. When you jump to the gunner seat, you can use the machine gun and tv guided missle, but the chopper spirals "out of control". Or rather, the developers programmed it to spin in a clockwise motion.

You can control this by how you're flying the helicopter when you switch seats. This led to an extremely engaging experience that I doubt the developers ever intended.

Redux was the first person that I've ever seen to take this flying style in to tournament play.

This video is from another chopper enthusiast that must have spent a huge amount of time gathering his footage. A lot of the shots are not just against fast rolls or slides (hard to hit), but also around and through objects.

The one thing I loved about BF2 was that there were so many firsts. Like, first time hitting a jet with your helicopter missles. In this video you see him not only hitting jets, but hitting them as they go under bridges and through tunnels, something extremely hard to pull off.

I wish I could have recorded more of the things that I pulled off. I never had a computer that could handle it.

That shot is like threading a needle while hitting a dust particle that's passing by on the other side.

Here's another old one with 20id, one of the best teams of bf2. What I loved about 20id was how creative they could be. Clever usage of pixel shots is shown in this video.

Here's a video with me in it. I come in around 5 minutes in. (my nickname is Hatchet)

I used to play for a team named crack clan. I was invited while playing CSS and discovered online tournaments through them. When Bf2 came out, I jumped all over it. Here was a great teamwork based game where so many different things can happen. I left crack clan over some disagreements. They would have these crazy plans that I thought were just plain stupid and I was always one to voice my criticism. I went over to a team called "Network of exceeding Tactics" and flew with a guy named Irish. We tore a lot of teams up and at one point, no one could touch us. What we were especially good at was killing a lot of ground targets, fast. We were a terrifying force. Irish was a good guy but had a terrible temper.

I forget exactly why I left Net, I think they just became inactive in bf2 after a while and I joined Team Dynamic. It was around then that I teamed up with Zman, a younger guy from Texas. This kid was amazing with the tv missle. When we were on our game, no one could touch us.

We climbed to the top of the 2v2 chopper ladder and stayed there until it got boring.

There's a couple other videos that I remember were pretty awesome and if I can ever find them, I'll try to update this post.

snarf - Hosted by Putfile.com

Snarf dominating with c4 back when you could chuck it. They later patched it so you couldn't do that because it was just too damn powerful.

Life is a prison

2008-12-14T07:48:00.000-06:00

I talked to a man once, he said he attempted to commit suicide and flat-lined for a minute.

He mentioned that it seemed much longer then that. He told me that he woke up in an entirely different form in an extremely unusual luminous world.

Some thing bright and formless spoke to him and said, "Congratulations inmate #99s7, you have served your time."

It was then that he remembered everything, before his life on this Earth, he was an awful man. Thinking about all the torment and despair he had to endure on Earth and not knowing anything, he felt terrible for what he did. All the time being stuck in a meaty body trapped with other prisoners and not having any purpose or understanding...

He explained that it was only through suicide, can you escape your prison term.

My friend couldn't take this, he attacked the form that was revealing this information to him, and before he knew it he was waking up from out of a coma, in this world.

---

Hi, I made up this short story to illustrate a few points.

A lot of religions either intentionally or unintentionally teach that life is suffering, that there is something much better out there waiting for us.

When I was a child, I sincerely believed in heaven and one of my first questions was, "why don't I just kill myself?"

And this thought, like a seed, lingered throughout my teenage years.

Common sense (cause well, pain sucks and pain = death), and "Christian" logic, like saying "thou shalt not kill" includes suicide, prevented me from doing anything stupid.

Nevertheless, I wanted to die. Sometimes people wonder why teens start smoking...

Suicide is a result of firmly believing that this moment, right here, the one your experiencing right now, is garbage.

It's taking a made up story like "life is a prison" and believing it.

When for all we know, this moment is the best there is.

bionics

2008-12-13T08:01:00.000-06:00

if you could would you ever install memory chips in your head so your memory never slips?

I've been enjoying this ask500 site a lot, and asked this question recently. It's been an interesting subject to me because I don't think we are that far off.

Other things to think about:

"What would it be like if you had a calculator that you could access with your mind, giving you perfect instant mental math every single time?"

"What about GPS? How far will google maps go? Could you get a satellite image of your position uploaded to your mind in real time?"

I don't know if I would do it. In a way, we're already plugged in to computers, recording information that's stored in the computers memory so we don't have to.

Remember a time when you had to memorize phone numbers?

Now we have our phones do that for us. It's not plugged in to the brain, but it's hooked up using our "natural" plug-ins, our eyes and ears.

How long before we're implanting tiny blue tooth headsets in to our ears?

sigh...

2008-12-11T16:18:00.000-06:00

"A groan of tedium escapes me, startling the fearful"

As I drove my beaten up small pick up truck to work this morning, I got to see a pair of sundogs, only emphasizing the weatherman's dismal warnings of a cold future.

Working outside in a Winnipeg winter wouldn't be so bad if it was just the feeling of the cold. Tools freeze, gloves make everything clumsy and everything becomes slippery and dangerous. Frustrated, I wanted to put a couple boards on the roof really quick and didn't feel like nailing down a board to keep me from sliding off.

That was a mistake. When I started walking on the roof, my feet started to slide, I tried to do the "fall flat" technique which almost always works. This time, I just kept sliding. There was that moment where "oh no, no, no", turns in to, "this is happening."

Know what I mean? When denial of the moment turns in to acceptance.

Luckily, I landed in the right way and in some snow to cushion the fall. No injuries, so I just went right back up the ladder and finished the job.

On the way home, I passed this semi truck and seen that the light ahead was turning red so I started to coast. Some douche bag behind thought that I wasn't coming up to the red light fast enough for him, so honked at me, passed in front of the semi on my right and jumped in front of me only to slam on the brakes at the light.

He was staring at me the whole time, saying some shit that probably wasn't very pleasant.

I just stared right back, in such a blank way. I almost wanted to antagonize him just to see what he would do. I was in one of those state of minds where I just don't care...

"Is this a test? It has to be. Otherwise I can't go on."

nine something something

2008-12-02T07:22:00.000-06:00

I have a lot of stuff that I've been meaning to write about. It's strange because I have no idea who I'm writing to or 'when' I'm writing to. A strange notion that came to me when I thought about the difference between writing on the internet vs. writing in a book.

The internet could be around for a very long time...

It's very likely that people from the future will be studying our old blog entries and messages to one another to try and understand the past.

So every time I write something, it's like, what kind of audience do I have here?

The reader could be someone from facebook checking to see how things are going in my life, or it could be someone from the year 2320 trying to see why a half-black president was such a big deal to us, or why didn't react to the Canadian party decision in a different way.

(Why is there such a big transfer of power at the same time of the United States anyway?)

There's the conspiracy theorist in me again, lol.

So I think to myself, who do I write to?

Then I freeze up. I know I should have a voice that speaks to everyone, but I'm not quite sure what that is.

In the end I know that something is better then nothing, so I'm just going to type.

I remember reading about a man that would try to write without thinking so that his mind just flows on to the paper.

I've been thinking about brain theories after seeing this video. It's interesting because we all have brains but it's not very often do we stop and think about how they're working.

I was thinking about how we lose our memories because generations of brain cells didn't teach younger generations that information. Think about a really old memory, like when you were a child. A lot of times the memories that come up are ones you've thought of before. In your body, there are only a few cells in your eye and brain that stay with you your whole life, the rest is being replaced on a constant basis.

So by thinking of recent memories, your teaching younger cells to hold on to those ones.

Now, how much information can be stored in these cells? I've heard of people that can remember everything they see. Maybe they've just found a way to train their cells better.

Generation after generation of cells that are getting stronger and stronger.

But then, I've heard of someone that has a perfect memory but a poor imagination.

Here's a guy that argues that the brain has a central "controller" that determines how the brain works.

...

We all forget things, all the time. Computers have given us contrast, (and allow us to 'store information' without putting the effort on our cells). We can see how weak our minds are.

Or is being able to forget things a benefit?

If someone told you something like, the sun sits still.

So you believe for your childhood life but then decide through logic and reason that that statement is false. You need to forget about it, how would we ever handle any new information if we didn't discard the old?

This has probably all been discussed and I should take some time to educate myself on the subject so I can catch up.

The reason why I write it is because I have a lot to say and despite the audience, I should write more often and quit letting all my good ideas disappear.

In a way, passing on information to younger people is a lot like how our brain works.

9831: hmmm

2008-11-23T19:20:00.000-06:00

ever wonder about the fact that there are millions of different species on this world, but we only eat so few?

And of those few species that we've chosen to domesticate and eat in such huge quantities, two of them (pork and beef) are sacred in two major religions(Hinduism and Judaism)?

9831: strange awakening

2008-11-23T15:22:00.000-06:00

This morning I woke up to an odd sight.

1. My cat's treats that I keep in the cupboard with her food was on the floor, but it didn't look like she even ate any of them, since they were all in the bag and none were spread around. Weird, I thought to myself.

2. Her bag of food was on the counter with a hole in it, and in the cupboard was a pile of her food. This was the strangest thing because there's no way she could have put the bag on the counter. Now, for a good long time, I knew that she figured out how to open cupboards, and have seen her exploring every one except the one with her food in it. She had never broke in to there before and would always patiently wait for me to feed her instead of helping herself. So, it wasn't that weird that she got in there and rip open the bag, but how did it get on the counter?

3. In the middle of the floor was a big puddle of water. Her water dish was untouched, and there was no evidence of anything spilling on the floor. There was no evidence of any leaks of any kind. Where did the water come from and how did it get there?

My best guess is that I was sleep walking. I must have walked in to the kitchen and found that she had broken in to her food cupboard, and for whatever reason, took the bag and put it on the counter. Then I somehow poured water on the floor. Who knows? Maybe I was dreaming of a fire in my kitchen. Maybe I was trying to grab a drink of water and missed.

I wish I could have caught it on video.

9830: Waking life

2008-11-22T12:13:00.001-06:00

Here's a cut from the movie waking life that I wanted to share.

9830: another one of my crazy theories

2008-11-22T10:35:00.000-06:00

In the comments, I made a joke about life coming from dead planets in the form of a supernova. I don't take it too seriously, but it's fun to play around with the possibilities.

Supernova's may be the cause of sped up evolution as the gamma rays from a nearby star radiate a planet. This has been brought up before.

Here's my thoughts. What if a planet was blown up by the star, and somehow the information of the life on that planet was passed on to another?

like a highlander, the next planet would obtain that information, and all the evolutionary work of the dead planet could be absorbed by a nearby star system.

It's really more of an example to show that there are many many other possibilities out there. Now, I know a lot of creationists will dismiss any theories as attempts to get God out of the picture, but to me, that's the lazy way of not trying to explain how God could have created life. Maybe we just need to understand the parameters that He has to work with.

Perhaps the highlander supernova theory is just Gods way of "saving data" from a lost planet.

9830: Princeton team challenges Darwin.

2008-11-22T10:30:00.001-06:00

taken from this site

A team of Princeton University scientists has discovered that chains of proteins found in most living organisms act like adaptive machines, possessing the ability to control their own evolution, which appears to offer evidence of a hidden mechanism guiding the way biological organisms respond to the forces of natural selection, provides a new perspective on evolution.

"The discovery answers an age-old question that has puzzled biologists since the time of Darwin: How can organisms be so exquisitely complex, if evolution is completely random, operating like a 'blind watchmaker'?" said Chakrabarti, an associate research scholar in the Department of Chemistry at Princeton. "Our new theory extends Darwin's model, demonstrating how organisms can subtly direct aspects of their own evolution to create order out of randomness."

The researchers -- Raj Chakrabarti, Herschel Rabitz, Stacey Springs and George McLendon -- made the discovery while carrying out experiments on proteins constituting the electron transport chain (ETC), a biochemical network essential for metabolism. A mathematical analysis of the experiments showed that the proteins themselves acted to correct any imbalance imposed on them through artificial mutations and restored the chain to working order.

The work also confirms an idea first floated in an 1858 essay by Alfred Wallace, who along with Charles Darwin co-discovered the theory of evolution. Wallace had suspected that certain systems undergoing natural selection can adjust their evolutionary course in a manner "exactly like that of the centrifugal governor of the steam engine, which checks and corrects any irregularities almost before they become evident." In Wallace's time, the steam engine operating with a centrifugal governor was one of the only examples of what is now referred to as feedback control. Examples abound, however, in modern technology, including cruise control in autos and thermostats in homes and offices.

The research, published in a recent edition of Physical Review Letters, provides corroborating data, Rabitz said, for Wallace's idea. "What we have found is that certain kinds of biological structures exist that are able to steer the process of evolution toward improved fitness," said Rabitz, the Charles Phelps Smyth '16 Professor of Chemistry. "The data just jumps off the page and implies we all have this wonderful piece of machinery inside that's responding optimally to evolutionary pressure."

The authors sought to identify the underlying cause for this self-correcting behavior in the observed protein chains. Standard evolutionary theory offered no clues. Applying the concepts of control theory, a body of knowledge that deals with the behavior of dynamical systems, the researchers concluded that this self-correcting behavior could only be possible if, during the early stages of evolution, the proteins had developed a self-regulating mechanism, analogous to a car's cruise control or a home's thermostat, allowing them to fine-tune and control their subsequent evolution. The scientists are working on formulating a new general theory based on this finding they are calling "evolutionary control."

The work is likely to provoke a considerable amount of thinking, according to Charles Smith, a historian of science at Western Kentucky University. "Systems thinking in evolutionary studies perhaps began with Alfred Wallace's likening of the action of natural selection to the governor on a steam engine -- that is, as a mechanism for removing the unfit and thereby keeping populations 'up to snuff' as environmental actors," Smith said. "Wallace never really came to grips with the positive feedback part of the cycle, however, and it is instructive that through optimal control theory Chakrabarti et al. can now suggest a coupling of causalities at the molecular level that extends Wallace's systems-oriented approach to this arena."

Evolution, the central theory of modern biology, is regarded as a gradual change in the genetic makeup of a population over time. It is a continuing process of change, forced by what Wallace and Darwin, his more famous colleague, called "natural selection." In this process, species evolve because of random mutations and selection by environmental stresses. Unlike Darwin, Wallace conjectured that species themselves may develop the capacity to respond optimally to evolutionary stresses. Until this work, evidence for the conjecture was lacking.

The experiments, conducted in Princeton's Frick Laboratory, focused on a complex of proteins located in the mitochondria, the powerhouses of the cell. A chain of proteins, forming a type of bucket brigade, ferries high-energy electrons across the mitrochondrial membrane. This metabolic process creates ATP, the energy currency of life.

Various researchers working over the past decade, including some at Princeton like George McClendon, now at Duke University, and Stacey Springs, now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, fleshed out the workings of these proteins, finding that they were often turned on to the "maximum" position, operating at full tilt, or at the lowest possible energy level.

Chakrabarti and Rabitz analyzed these observations of the proteins' behavior from a mathematical standpoint, concluding that it would be statistically impossible for this self-correcting behavior to be random, and demonstrating that the observed result is precisely that predicted by the equations of control theory. By operating only at extremes, referred to in control theory as "bang-bang extremization," the proteins were exhibiting behavior consistent with a system managing itself optimally under evolution.

"In this paper, we present what is ostensibly the first quantitative experimental evidence, since Wallace's original proposal, that nature employs evolutionary control strategies to maximize the fitness of biological networks," Chakrabarti said. "Control theory offers a direct explanation for an otherwise perplexing observation and indicates that evolution is operating according to principles that every engineer knows."

The scientists do not know how the cellular machinery guiding this process may have originated, but they emphatically said it does not buttress the case for intelligent design, a controversial notion that posits the existence of a creator responsible for complexity in nature.

Chakrabarti said that one of the aims of modern evolutionary theory is to identify principles of self-organization that can accelerate the generation of complex biological structures. "Such principles are fully consistent with the principles of natural selection. Biological change is always driven by random mutation and selection, but at certain pivotal junctures in evolutionary history, such random processes can create structures capable of steering subsequent evolution toward greater sophistication and complexity."

The researchers are continuing their analysis, looking for parallel situations in other biological systems.

9830: Intelligence continued 2

2008-11-22T10:25:00.000-06:00

As I look back over my previous posts, I noticed I tend to repeat myself.

But, like a lot of ideas that I cook up, I'm attempting to extend on them, and trying to find resolution.

Why intelligence? Maybe it's so we can spread to another planet and save life as we know it. Like developing fingers before stepping foot on land, perhaps we developed intelligence so we could get to another planet.

This is also a very different view of evolution since having intelligence may be a way to not only save our own species but all the other species on our planet.

When I think about evolution, sometimes it seems like it's own entity. Like God could be evolution itself. Perhaps the first time God ever seen the world was when He figured out how to make an eyeball.

9830: Intelligence

2008-11-22T08:58:00.000-06:00

Why did we evolve intelligence? Or for the creationist, why were we created with intelligence?

Now, from the creationists perspective there are a lot of questions that can be answered in a very ignorant manner by just saying, "because that's what God wanted, or, you can't question God's motives/ God works in mysterious ways."

Well, any logical person should ask these questions and not just leave them unanswered, whether your a creationist or evolutionist. Life would have gotten by just fine if we were single celled bacteria.

One observation I want to talk about is the fact that all lower forms of intelligence are comparable. A dog isn't that much smarter than a cat, and a cat isn't that much smarter then a rat, and so on. There would seem to be this huge gap between the intelligence of animals and man.

Why? How come there are no creatures in between the smartest apes and the dumbest man?

One of the things that I picked up from Stephen Hawking and his books is this concept of the new evolution.

From species to species, there is only so much information that can be exchanged in our dna, and this can be expressed in bits.

Once man created language, that amount of information that could be passed from one generation to the next was much, much more.

So you could say that once we passed that threshold, we soared above and beyond all other creatures by using a trick. Once we discovered writing, that passing of knowledge could now skip generations and be copied and spread around much faster.

Once again, we soared even faster above all other creatures. This is the new evolution, and it is a telescoping effect.

With this, we could appear to be much smarter then we really are. Did man need to be born with the knowledge of how to make a steam engine? No, they only had to take the knowledge from generations before and add to it. Or as Isaac Newton once said, "If I have seen further than others it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants."

But my main question is why? Why did we take that first big step? While other creatures seem perfectly fine with "ook, eek", in other words, "watch out", or "come mate with me", human beings went much farther then that. We created names for water, love, existence.

Another thing that puzzles me is the fact that we have a section of the brain dedicated to language. So, did we evolve that section of the brain and then start speaking, or did we start speaking and that in turn slowly evolve that section of the brain? (The latter sounds more logical to me, but one has to consider those odd looking fish that were developing fingers in it's fins before it ventured on to land.)

It seemed to have a plan, but how?

How could the cells in the body understand that they would need fingers on land?

"Evolution frequently produces adaptations that come to be useful in the future for a different purpose"

lol

2008-11-21T23:24:00.000-06:00

it looks like a face, he he he

9828: Behind closed doors

2008-11-20T10:00:00.000-06:00

I love conspiracy theories. There's just so much that's possible that we don't know about. I don't take any of them that seriously, but they're still fun to think about.

I watched a bit of CNN last night. The "big three" automakers were asking for money and the politicians were criticizing them for arriving in each of their own private jets. "You couldn't have downgraded to first class, or jet-pooled?" one said. "It's like someone arriving at a soup kitchen with a top hat and cane." another quipped.

I suppose Detroit felt that if the banks could get free money, that they could too. Go back in time 5 years and ask anyone which industry would need billions of dollars to stay afloat, and no one would of replied "banks and the auto industry".

What about the bank ceo's, they don't travel around in private jets? I can't help but think that the rich is ripping off the poor.

Anyways, back to the conspiracy theory. Have you ever seen, "Who killed the electric car?"

It's about GM destroying a fleet of electric cars that everyone thought were perfectly fine vehicles. They offer many compelling reasons for switching over from combustion to electric, and why electric cars don't need the infrastructure that hydrogen-fueled cars require.

This all took place in the 90's, around the time that GM started pushing suv's.

My theory is that the oil companies seen this move as a direct threat and paid the car companies large sums of money to not sell the electric cars and paid them more money on how many gas guzzlers they could sell. When the pressure from the environmentalists got to be too much, GM went ahead and began to work on the "Chevy Volt" (A new plug-in hybrid). The oil companies cut off their funding, and now without that added cash flow, the auto-makers are looking to the government to help them out.

did you know?

2008-11-18T19:01:00.000-06:00

I thought this was interesting

9826: Incredibots and Left 4 dead

2008-11-18T06:51:00.000-06:00

Incredibots!

This one's really cool, I didn't really have time to get in to it, but at first glance, it looks pretty slick.

Left 4 dead is finally done, and that's pretty cool. Co-op is where it's at. For me, when I play a single player game, I just can't get in to it. Throw a few friends in there and then all of a sudden the pressure's on. Gotta be there for my pals, and all that. It makes for a more rewarding experience.

It would have been cooler if each player had unique characteristics so you could play the game differently every time. Maybe have an RPG system in there. I have a feeling after you've played through each campaign a couple times, it'll probably get boring.

The developer has to ask the player, "What's your motivation for going through this same level again and again?"

Sure, the enemies may be in different places or whatnot, but to me, it seems rather pointless. Been there, done that, moving on.

Totem destroyer

2008-11-17T09:07:00.000-06:00

Another physics based puzzle game

I gave up around level 16

Frantic

2008-11-16T19:27:00.000-06:00

fun old-school top down shooter

I got like, 285 million at the end

9824: shift

2008-11-16T13:11:00.000-06:00

here's a cool game that came out a while ago. Obviously influenced by Portal, but still, a unique play mechanic and a cool little game.

459 seconds.

9823: Cameras

2008-11-15T07:06:00.000-06:00

I like thinking about the future. Hearing about the possibilities and wondering where time will take us is enthralling. Especially in these exponential times where our technology is progressing in leaps and bounds.

When the camera was first invented, it must have been the most amazing thing. Seeing an image frozen in time without an artists hand, must have been quite the spectacle.

Nowadays, it's no big deal. We're squishing more and more megapixels in to cameras with bigger memory cards at a smaller cost, constantly.

As a security device, it seems like a no-brainer. In the paper today, I read that more school buses are being equipped with cameras, and the government is setting up more cameras in high crime areas to try and catch criminals in the act.

Red light cameras are becoming more and more common. I admit that when they first came out, I was happy because I thought I never broke the law. Turns out that I do from time to time, but you can be sure that the red light camera's changed my driving habits so that I never try to "beat the red" when I see a yellow light pop up anymore, I stop when I know I have the space to do so.

This is a good use of technology. Without the expensive cost of police men watching every intersection, we now have cameras to do these things for us. I'm a prime example of a citizen that is now a better driver (although a little frustrated), because of it.

So, my prediction is that we'll see these come in to play more and more. Every intersection will come equipped with a red light camera. Streets that people didn't feel safe walking down will be equipped with a camera so if anything happens you can be sure that it'll be recorded. Satellite cameras will get more powerful.

Eye-witness reports do not hold as much water in court as we thought they did. Artists recreations of people can be way off. With cameras, the truth comes out.

With memory cards being able to fit an incredible amount of data, it won't be long until everyone has a camera on them filming all the time. Any crime that a person witnesses can be recorded. If the camera uploaded it's view to the internet, this could prevent someone from stealing the device.

"always-on" cameras could be worn in many different ways. The camera could be worn in a necklace, in a hat, or in a pair of sunglasses:

- More cool how to projects

Without wires, of coarse.

This will bring in a new wave of true reality television. People that have had interesting experiences happen to them could bring their footage to an editor who could try and get other angles from other sources. Reality shows that we have now are always far from reality as once you know that you have a camera on you, you start acting. When your just living your daily life with a camera that's always on, it's a different story.

The next step to something like this is image recognition. Say for example, your on a trip to a far away place, and you see a mysterious animal. You want to know what it is, so you use your camera to find a frame with a good shot of the animal, and the software can tell exactly what it is, giving you all the information you desire. Maybe you lost your keys, do a search for the last time the camera seen them. Say your on a job, and your looking for a specific tool that you misplaced.

There could be many other potential uses for always-on personal cameras. Many scientific studies could be conducted with large groups of volunteers.

Some big questions are, will they catch on and will they be socially acceptable? As shown in the video above, this can already be done with a little know-how. But what about the people that don't care to know how. Any cell phone company could issue a bluetooth headset with a camera installed, but where is the demand? Also, what can be done to negate privacy issues?

In my opinion, there should be something that tells anyone around that the person is wearing an always-on camera. A little red light should be mandatory.

This shouldn't be something sneaky, but more a device that tells everyone around you that your honest and you expect others to be honest as well. With a camera like that, any time you have an argument over your whereabouts, you could just pull out your cell phone, and just prove where you were.

Likewise, if someone said something to you and later lied, saying that they never said that, you could just rewind to the conversation.

With cloud computing, this could all be uploaded to the internet as it's recorded, allowing you to clip and edit any sections you want to make public.

Someone could put their whole lives on the internet... On your deathbed, you could literally flash the whole thing before your eyes.

That's food for thought

9822: funny running game

2008-11-14T10:51:00.001-06:00

doh, missed a day already. Wow, lol

This games hilarious

I found a way to scoot pretty good, but could only actually run about 4 meters. I couldn't get the right technique to keep him going.

9820: flash games

2008-11-12T18:15:00.000-06:00

I've got a lot on my mind but not sure on what to write, so I'm going to try and keep this site updated daily by linking a flash game whenever I have nothing else to post.

Todays:

Missle game 3d

I got to like, lvl 2, and died so I gave up.

We are all psychic

2008-11-11T08:19:00.000-06:00

Physicist's say that everything that can happen happens. So, if the possibility is there, then it is inevitable. We may not witness it happening in our dimension, then it happens in another.

I heard one physicist say that this only applies to the microscopic realm, but others will say that it extends to the macroscopic.

So, if this is true, then we all have the possibility to see the future. In fact, we do it all the time.

In a game of chess, (or this neat flash variation), one has to predict the possible routes and see the possibilities to be able to play effectively. So a probable prediction is just as good as psychic ability.

I can go buy a lottery ticket and know that the numbers I chose are going to win because it's a possible outcome. I just don't know if I exist in the dimension that wins.

So I may be doing one of my alternate selves a favor, but I've found myself questioning the parameters of an alternate self.

In movies like "The One", in other dimensions, there is the chance of many different versions of yourself. Possibly billions and billions. But when your talking about other worlds, you have to wonder where do you begin and where do you end? At any point one of those particles is going to go in a different direction forming a different you. There might be dimensions where you look exactly the same with tiny differences, some with bigger differences and more where you look and act completely different.

So where do you begin and where do you end? Is there any connection at all?

I like to think about the possibilities. One idea I thought of is based on the idea that when your alternate selves die you become a little more powerful. Well, if you were ever in a car accident where you narrowly died, or are a thrill seeker that lives a dangerous life, then the chances are you're stronger because you're killing off your alternate selves. Obviously since people aren't gaining super powers like in "the one" that this is either very subtle or simply not true. (I'm guessing the latter, but it's still fun to think about)

There are other ideas you could stem off that train of thought. Let's say there was a dangerous event you had the opportunity to partake where the odds of surviving are 50/50. By participating, half of your alternate selves are going to die. What if losing your alternate selves made you weaker?

But then you have to ask, do these alternate selves continuously spawn off of one another and does it matter if some are killed off? Is this maybe a way to insure that we don't completely wipe ourselves out?

A lot of strange questions in the world of quantum physics.

2008-11-07T08:27:00.000-06:00

Here's Brian Greene on string theory. I like his way of explaining things, although I've read that the metaphor of the ant on the wire isn't really accurate.

Some people think string theory is a joke, like this guy:

I can't help but want to side with Brian Greene, I just don't get why this Garrett Lisi guy chose to speak about how he's probably wrong and that he's a surfer bum living out of the back of his van. Like, is he trying to brag about his life or is he talking about quantum physics?

Still, he makes a good point about theoretical physics being a long shot. They could both be wrong.

I like how it all revolves around the hadron collider, should be interesting.

Project Orion

2008-11-06T11:59:00.000-06:00

2008-11-04T19:51:00.001-06:00

reminds me of bonobo, a very cool band.

The Arecibo Message

2008-11-04T08:18:00.001-06:00

Do you know what this picture means? It's actually a radio message reconstructed from binary, and if there is intelligent life out there, it's quite the test on their intelligence.

Check out this website for a full explanation, it's pretty interesting.

9805: Music industry solution

2008-10-28T10:47:00.000-05:00

My prediction is that someone is going to make an open-source music browser where your money goes directly to the artist.

The users will be essentially purchasing a service, they'll buy the song and it'll be stored online for them, easily downloaded with no software required. That song will be yours forever. It should be able to be downloaded super fast, a smart p2p that can detect files in your direct vicinity to get it to you faster. It should have the option to play it online if you don't want to d/l it. You should be able to browse through other people's libraries and even listen to what they're listening to at the same time.

It should be a smart, intuitive browser, and when you buy rights to a song you should get anything you want from that song, lyrics, rock band tracks, tablature, videos, etc. It'll essentially be a bundle that the artist puts together, but you can pick and choose whatever you want to d/l, and the rest sits there to either be viewed online or downloaded later at your convenience.

The reason behind all these features is so that your actually paying for something that you can't get for free.

The storage, convenience, speedy d/l and cheap price that mostly goes to the artist.

Whoever develops the application gets a small cut to keep things organized.

The key would be in the device itself. The purchases that you make should have the option to show up on your phone bill. The browser is online and it should offer services like free radio.

If you hear a song you like on the radio, you should be able to click on it, and have the option to purchase it.

By being super cheap, like a quarter a song, it'll be worth it.

9804: Flying machine

2008-10-27T08:38:00.001-05:00

Everyone wants their very own flying machine.

Here's one for only 60k that you can build yourself in only 40 hours. It looks fairly safe, with four engines, if one breaks down, you can still have the others to make it to safety. If there's some catastrophic failure, there's a parachute for the whole thing. They're also talking about adding air bags under the seat for any hard landings.

Link to the companies website.

They're talking about having folding parts so you can store it in your minivan or suv.

Man, if only I had sixty thousand dollars.

How it works is pretty simple. To go forward, you pull the rotors down, changing their orientation and pulling you forward.

Normally, without a tail rotor, a helicopter would spin around in circles. That's where the dual rotor comes in. The rotors spin in opposite directions keeping it stabilized. To turn side to side (yaw), one of the rotors will slow down enough to turn the machine in the desired direction.

9801: video games

2008-10-24T09:40:00.000-05:00

Wouldn't it be scary if they found a way to develop unmanned military vehicles in a very cheap way, to the point where they were built so fast it was hard to find people to pilot them.

(this is an interesting movie/video game idea)

So what if the military issued another free game like they did with America's Army but people were actually controlling vehicles when they thought they were playing a simulation.

That would be freaky.

9801: predator

2008-10-24T08:34:00.000-05:00

Unmanned vehicles are the future of the military. I wonder how long it'll be before we see armies of these things going head to head.

Losses would be purely financial

9799: Escalopter

2008-10-22T11:09:00.000-05:00

Have you heard about people trying the escalopter?

Here's the video that started this new public display of silliness:

She looks like someone that's a lot of fun.

Here's a site dedicated to the escalopter