#81 Not quite what I had in mind

I've never blogged this far away from home before. Pubs bore me dreadfully. I knew I was bored when I found a speck in the paint on the wall. I looked up at it and thought, "This is the most remarkable wall speck I've ever seen." True enough, it did resemble a halbadier, but at that very moment, I realised how wretchedly bored I was. Pubs are not for me. I'm beginning to think Cons (as in conventions) aren't for me either. 200 miles and 4 hours on a bus for this? Deary me. Dreary me too far that matter.

Pascals chart needs updating if Aubrey de Grey gets it right. Adding 2 more variables will make things a lot more complicated. I'm still ending up with permutations of the old question set, but I had hoped for a few answers. Wishful thinking.

Stains wash, wounds heal, memories fade, eventually. What power we would have if we could forget!

#56 Setbacks

All the fineries of this world ultimatley cost time. Some more than others. This monitor is very nice, but it will soon be useless. It goes against the new way of thinking. Reality offers more, so spending money undermining reality makes no sense. It would be nice to have, yes, but I can get by without it.

I wish I could guarantee at least partial completion of the grand objective. Sadly, it's a chip away per day affair. Some parts will hopefully be simpler than others. Maybe I didn't expect myself to go out walking every day, but I had hoped to lose a few pounds. Any day now. The problem now is keeping things interesting. The same old route has become tiresome. I'll need something fun with incidental weight loss.

Time for sleep now. There's nothing on the Internet really worth 4am. Not really.

#54 A Quarter twice and a third of a dozen

So I'm 25 now. And indeed I will be for a long time. Its nice being able to forget what age I am. I'm really wishing life was more like Oblivion. Man, I'd be sooo good at life if it were. I guess I'll just have to get the hang of this reality style interface. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Rationalisation of life as a system derived from a simulation of life isn't such a smart move. But I think it has its merits. A simulation allows for consequence free mistakes. Then again, games are fun. Games become less fun the closer they get to real life. Second Life I find appaling. The graphics are just broken. I have no other word for it. That in-your-face interface is failsauced and licenced to the ballistic chicken company. Oh what a shame.

Jewel cases just can't encompass the artwork of the old prog rock records. Some of those were awesome. The old vinyl record sleeve for Thick as a Brick came with a sodding newspaper! That's awesome! I mean I know Spinal Tap are doing a lot with their new CD, but what are you supposed to play with while you listen to your new record you went to the shops to buy. If you even got that far. The pictures were brilliant. Am I supposed to pass on my old hard drives full of digital pictures to my kin? That aint the same.

And it's my birthday. I'm watching the sun rise as I do on most days, looking out the window as I type. I'm so glad I learned how to type. The hills look lovely. I do wish they'd turn out the streetlamps a little earlier though. Surely we could save a heap of carbon if there was a better way of going about municipal lighting.

That stabbing pain I had in my right lung went away. I can still feel the spot where I got it. Not swine flu of course. Probably just a nasty strain. How I did it is anyone's guess. The new raincoat works a treat. It's not so good at keeping my legs dry but it should keep the rain off if I get caught out.

I'll figure out how to wire this TV for audio pretty soon. I got my 7.1 calibrated quite nicely. The t7700s I use from creative aren't true 7.1 per se since they upmix from 5.1 and clone the side and rear channels, so I use an RCA splitter from the side channel to distribute the sounds from the card straight to those 2 speakers. Only downside it that I can't adjust them with my volume dial. I did manage to list out my channels though. That'll save me time later. Maybe I should swap the RCA over to handle front left and right? Might make more sense. the side speakers are tucked in a wardrobe and behind the curtains. I have to turn them right up with the equaliser. It's reasonably well balanced but you know how I love to meddle.

Time to sleep. Last time for my 24 year old self. I think I'm 25 years and 44 minutes old right now. Gladly recording this for some other day.

Below is my car ear (carear), heading off into the dawn.

#53 The waiting game sucks, let's play hungry hungry hippos

The continuing cycles of mania and depression take their toll. I helped cut grass. I'll have to make up for lost miles tomorrow. An intention might be all that's required. Something to turn the taps. I'd like to thank everyone for stopping by. Apologies to myself of 6 months later. It's a fine illusion that's plausible and possible.

I can never quite remember what it was I had intended to do at about this time. Actuality will occur in a manner entirely unexpected. Zombie Paintball. Interesting idea. Maybe I'll need help.

If life were a game of Oblivion, I'd have won by now.

#36 Personal struggles with the vaguries of reality

Now we all know children suffer horrific nightmares. It's been documented. That's just them trying to rationalise existence. Dangerous business altogether.

I've gone back to reading Plato. Nothing has really changed since his day and ours. I did realise something though. The reason you can never be happy where you are, in that happy medium is because your brains wants new stuff. It needs to learn in order to grow. Such is the same with people. We learn to grow, and grow to learn. This is hard, therefore it is worthwhile. It's the routine that really kills you. Like I said before, you are (or sometimes I am) the sum total of collected memories. The old tree falls in the forest again. Only now, there might be a camera in the sky to see it. The most noble of occupations then might be the development of technologies to ease the human burden. It certainly gives cause to the Luddites to complain. Think back to the yesterdays before mobile phones and the internet. Was it easier? Was it happier? Can you remember?

By this merit, the most useful exercise is the development of your memory. Paramount to this is a means of committing things to long term memory. Forgetting the past repeats mistakes in the future. Though because human memory is invariably fallible, we must instead rely on our technologies. Writing and its offshoots. How abhorrent would it be if we found something truly static?

We are living in a most interesting age,
when the word has been freed from it shackling page

#35 Time and Senessence

The worst part of it all is that we only get one go on the carousel in the fairground of life, and when that ends, all we have is what we've left behind for our descendants. Certainly, there is a large set of common human experiences such as health, sickness, love, depression, hunger, thirst, anxiety, bliss and joy, but if it's happening to you, it's different. Sons will forever watch their fathers striding forward less with each passing year. As their own strides stretch, their fathers' wane and shorten.

Seeking of course the beautiful uniqueness in every moment to find its grain of perfection. A fine way to live, since it means stopping to look at the sky and the unique clouds that will never be before or since. So similar though, that they are en masse unremarkable. Such is the nature of a place in time known as the 'present'.

When man first began roaming the earth, he had only 4 directions to choose from. Backwards, forwards, left and right. The same idea applies to early video games. Eventually, man learned how to soar like the birds. 2 more directions were put within his grasp.

The directions of time have yet to be conquered. If something can happen, no matter how unlikely it is, it will eventually happen somewhere. Man has crafted devices and machines to conquer the skies and see where eyes could not. So indeed it will be time, someday, for time to be but another direction. Like any of the other 4 directions however, it too will have its limits. How far can you run or walk before you fall over? How long do you have left to get as far as you can? Why bother if indeed the end will come and only your memories will persist to evidence your existence?

Simply perhaps, because the alternatives are unacceptable. We live for our ancestors for our children. All things said are intrinsically, intuitively known, though their mention is not perhaps a waste of time as many would see it. Technology and its advancement is our legacy. To what end we cannot know.

If I break my computer I can fix it using my spare. This is not the case with Planet Earth - our sum total of absolutely everything. We must be as who we best are for others, and they for us.

#32 Now for something completely different

I have to accept that whining is counterproductive. It is the linguistic equivalent of cocaine. Everything is in place. Now I can enjoy Christmas. Yes, I'll fix it. I'll have to. What I'm becoming is unacceptable.

I hope to prove myself wrong.

Certainty is merely a lack of doubt. Recent psych tests suggest I am an INTP or an ESFP. Don't rely on clichés. Knowing which end is the business end helps.

I saw that coming.

Aww, that's nice. Hey! That dinosaur speaks Irish! Neat!

I suppose I could write up my game reviews here, maybe even start a new blog. Then I could resume where I left off.

#29 The grand problem - and the importance of memory

I suppose I enjoy writing as much as reading. Things on paper are happy to sit and leave my crowded head. The grand problem is a sort of question. I noticed IT contains a great variety of people who might otherwise be better suited to finding themselves in other domains of expertise. The loneliest man is the one with the most specialised knowledge. This leads to a fair assumption. What has us here with our ability to congently process things must be the loneliest being in existance.

Our language will require time to evolve before it can accurately describe abstract concepts like creation, life, death, all the big stuff. If I were to say a simple word like 'set', the number of meanings behind the utterance would require careful examination of circumstances to establish the intent.

That's how language works anyways. I'm quite sure someone before me has written all I've thought of and someone hence will do the same. In my own small way, writing myself perhaps even for myself is all I think I can do.

I marvelled at myself the other day. A form needed printing. I knew nothing about it, but inside 30 minutes, I had it filled out and printed. I can pretend to know so much. This is actually very bad for me. As a child, I would find myself in a state of inquiry and attempt to find an answer. The best efforts of parents and teachers often consisted of uninformed opinion. This was of course before the days of wide spread internet and wikipedia - though also before Yahoo answers, so I suppose i should be thankful.

My old University professor set us a race one day. He challanged half the class to find an algorithm in the library. The other half had to use the internet. The library team won. Books are much harder to destroy than electronic records.

My second point refers to having an ability to find yourself. Genetics chimes in here. My scant knowledge of the subject is based solely on a few documentaries I saw on TV. Marker genes appear to play a key role in our development. That whole argument goes back to Nature V Nuture though so it's a bit of a dead end.

The finest hour is almost here. Practical applicability of philosophy is something I should probably work on, though justifying faith sometimes necessitates leeway with logic. Logic fails faced with mysterious ways. We can trust it though I'd sooner trust a higher power. Logic is a tool born of mans hand.

Belief is a powerful idea.

Though I think perhaps I will be at a terrible loss someday. Even my own memory will some day succumb to senescence. I suspect Chris has hardly thought of the long term ramifications of setting up this site. These I believe are worthy writings so I'll copy them to my personal blog. I'm referring to the future of this post. Will I read it again in 20 years and smile at my simple foolishness? Maybe. If it's still here.

It might have been Freud who wrote about the death instinct. In order to give offspring a good shot at life, parents inevitably die. Life ends to begin anew. Only memory remains. But even memory fails eventually. Paper rots, magnets fade in potency, stones erode. Why do we not despair?

A head full of useless knowledge sits atop the body of the lonely man. He'll volunteer it readily to try and help. It is viewed as advice. Advice is a form of nostalgia (so says Baz Luhrman). He is dismissed, often without thanks, beneficial or otherwise. No one cares to hear it. The self, the brain and the body. All trying to work as best they can.

We simply go by as best we can. What more can be asked? I should wish for a better motivation than the pursuit of wealth though it's the best we have. People generally don't need any philosophy to toil and buy food nor should they. It is a wasteful burden. A part of me can be satisfied accepting the third option - don't worry about it. I think perhaps the grand problem might be the other part which cannot but stay active. This part wants to try and form some scaffold. Maybe an idle dalliance, but angry at being dismissed so. Written in a language few people would care to write, fewer would care to read and fewer still would care to comprehend at all.

Dense. Ha!

#26 Things fall apart, computers fail, resolve leaves

Computers can do much good for this world. They can spread stories like this one.

Sometimes they break. Sometimes when they break I must fix them. Often, I am the only one around who can do this.

I am the only one.

This fact is complicated.
I am needed. Good. I am alone. Bad. I can fix it. Good. I have to learn how to fix it. Bad. I can try to explain the problem to others. Good. They won't understand. Bad. If I do fix it, people will say well done and forget about it. Bad. I can't be sure my fix will hold. Bad. I don't know if it will break again. Bad. I don't know how to fix it. Bad. I don't know how to fix it. Bad. I have to try and learn how to fix it. Only I can fix it. Bad. It's my fault. Bad. I created the problem. Bad. I didn't mean to cause a fuss. Good. Computers are wasting my life. Bad. I am wasting me life on computers. Bad. Chocolate. Good. Too much chocolate. Bad. There are too many things I don't know. Bad. I am addicted. Bad. I know. Good. I don't change it. Bad. I want to change. Good. I don't know if I want to change. Bad.

20 years stint leaves a pretty big dint. I'll need something big to fill a rather large void. Presuming of course I actually manage to pull this off. If I fix it, then the reason dies. I go back to the old ways, none the wiser. Then I stay up til 6:30am watching sub par television blogging to no one and thinking to myself - is that all there is? Don't bother watching the video here, just listen to the song.

If I am going to stick with computers, then I'll have to get smarter. It takes a lot of wherewithal to build a ladder out of a rut. I'll need tools to do it.
Any ideas?

#25 Irony it seems is not without a sense of humour

And so, in my quest to outsource those difficult life decisions to the power of the Internet, I have come across Chris Pirillo.

The Irony? Right here:




He's way ahead of me. I mean wayyyy ahead. Already has the wife and dogs.

Not much privacy though. If he goes off air for more than 5 minutes, 200 people start to wonder if he's answering a call of nature. Voyeurism if ever there was a thing. He can't even pick his nose without people making a point of it.

Not like the spire on O'Connell Street. I never got the point of that. A giant needle to get rid of a drug problem? Nahhhh....

Still, it's fairly natural to be a little envious of people with nicer stuff. Kinda gets religion involved.

Either way though, it could be a lot worse. If you have your life and your freedom, then count yourself lucky. The clothes on your back and the chair beneath your arse - along with everything else you have - are all gravy.

How then to supress the common greed? Satiate with ignorance perhaps? Defoe suggested the middle station, as he put it. The notorious B.I.G. advised 'mo money mo problems' (from the album life after death). So we are thus tasked to find a state where our material wealth offers us a state of simple comfort and nothing more. The man with the second house is left to fret and worry for its safety. To lessen this worry, there is insurance. Insurance costs money. Money costs time, unless you're lucky.

In the end then, you arrive where you started. Life is more than a defiant stand against senessence. Folks smarter than me have spent more time trying to pin it down for themselves. Still, I don't think a concrete definition of what life is and means will help, even if it is general enough to apply to the majority.

There will always be farmers. There will always be tools the farmers need, though they need not rely on others for this. You can tell where this is going. Farmers need tools, which needs metal, which needs metalworkers, who need miners, who mine ore, which is smelted by smelters, and they all need food. We also need scribes to keep track of things like how much food the farmer has and how much ore the miner has mined for the smelter who in turn will make metals for the metalworker. There will always be dishonesty and wickedness, so there will also always be laws and armies to defend the just. The just are fearful. The armies and laws do their best to minimise the fear by creating ever more complex weapons and legislation.

In only 8 lines, the complexity of the world has begun to spiral outside the comprehension of the ordinary man. It would be simpler if there were only miners and farmers, but the miners would eventually discover gold.

I'm sure the first original thought is written down somewhere. I just haven't read it yet.

#10 Stride

Handwriting skill improved today. Paperwork management, work habits and customer relations skills are also up.

Still working on it all. Hope you're all reading good books :)

Here's a picture of a TV oozing what might be cheese:

It's art Jim but not as we know it.

#9 Reality Intervenes

The real first day was today. Because my social stat is so low, working with customers is very difficult. The first week will be a true test. Toughness has been revealed as dangerously low. An offhand remark or angry person seems to cause a long lasting sometimes permanent confidence debuff, a stat that can't afford to go any lower. If it does, introversion will take a sharp rise, and social will plummet until confidence recovers.

The 'forget about it' ability needs to be learned. Otherwise the foibles of everyday life will eventually crush me. Toughness is low because of a long period of self imposed social isolation, largely related to the shyness trait. Why it should be that I can't take the mildest of knocks is yours to decide. Bound and retained such as these wounds are, remedied only by love. So we should hope.

Everything works out in the end. God plays dice, and the dice are loaded. Kay surah surah. Another Day another Dollar. Live to work or work to live.

Winter is coming.