Accomplishing next to nothing!

I’d start off this post by apologizing for not updating as much as I should, but this is not a xanga. Maddox put it best when he said “No updates are better than your updates.”
Burn baby burn!

After starting off by apologizing for not updating, I was going to launch into an attack on Alex (phantasmatron.blogspot.com) for not updating. Unfortunately that would be hypocritical, and seeing as how I don’t particularly want to flaunt my hypocrisy to quite that extreme, I won’t.
(Although, Alex, if you do read this post, I’m begging you to update. I can’t get enough of your witty turns of phrase. You have a way of writing that makes Jack Bauer weep when he thinks of doing the dishes in your apartment.)

Not writing about the first two items has exhausted my muse for the day. Maybe I’ll write about Guitar Hero tonight.

An alternative, or “second”, life

Something that has interested me since before the movie “The Matrix” was a twinkling in the Wachowski brothers’ eyes is the idea of a virtual world in which the users interact as if they were actually living their lives there. One thing I’ve realized for a long time is that many online computer games do a good job simulating certain aspects of life in a virtual world. First person shooters, allow you to take on the role of someone else. For example, in counter-strike you can be a virtual counterterrorist agent fighting terrorists (or vice versa). Many games let you live out certain fantasies, but few “games” have been very all-encompassing.

Games such as World of Warcraft or Everquest preceding it have done relatively good jobs in creating fantasy world which are quite encompassing. You have the ability in these worlds to go around and buy and sell items, to make things, to sell the things you’ve made, to go on quests, and it’s very open-ended, but it does limit you on many things. You can’t own property, not everybody who is using WoW can see everyone else due to the split up of servers, the goods you can make are generally quite poor to what can be found in dungeons or rare boss drops, which forces you to primarily be a fighter instead of becoming a professional tradesman.

A couple of “games”, I use the term game in quotes because they are much more than games, have attempted to emulate life in it’s entirety. As far back as middle school, I was involved in a simulation named ActiveWorlds. ActiveWorlds was really the prototype for all that has come since – all of the alternative virtual lives. You could either be a tourist, or, if you paid (or obtained a stolen account in some of the less reputable places in ActiveWorlds)  you could own property, message people, shop for real-world goods, and just explore, make friends, and engage in an alternative life.

The simulation which has taken over and with wild popularity has largely replaced ActiveWorlds is a technology called “Second Life”. It’s free to get an SL account, but for premium membership you have to pay. People have started doing amazing things with SL. One of the key features is in SL you can own land AND property, and also there is the ability to create objects through a highly capable object editing system. The clincher is that SL “linden dollars” can be converted to or from US$, which enables characters to pay real money for virtual objects, including land (there is a booming real estate business in SL – people have actually become real estate agents in SL and have been able to completely support themselves in the real world with the money they make from this), clothing, almost anything imaginable. People have created video games within SL which have been taken up by real-world producers and been created. People have actually made half-decent movies performed all by virtual actors in SL.

Anyway, it’s not totally there, and the controls are pretty wonky, but the future is here sooner than we might think.

Also, if any of you want to get an SL account (again, it’s free) and join me in a virtual Jonathan Coulton concert www.jonathancoulton.com, it’s on the 14th in second life, and he will be streaming live from an undisclosed location in the real world. Should be a blast!

The Future of Bathing

Society seems to be creating larger and larger cities, while also rapidly expanding suburban areas. As the world’s population increases, so will the amount of people in our cities. Unfortunately with more people, there is a higher demand for resources of all types. Today I will be focusing on the demand for water.

Fresh water is incredibly important for mankind. We drink it, we clean things with it, we bathe with it, we even remove our waste with it. 2/3rds of the earth is covered with the stuff, but unfortunately most of it is not drinkable. Fresh water, is at a much higher demand. One daily activity which uses a large amount of water per person per day is bathing.

As time has gone on, bathing has become more and more regulated for the amount of water it uses. Originally most people took baths, showers came along later because they were quicker and because they used less water. The original designs of showerheads used a very high volume of water to wash an individual, but showerheads are evolving to use less and less water. There are “super saver” showerheads, and low-volume showerheads. Actually taking a bath is not nearly as commonplace as it once was, and shower times are being cut shorter and shorter. In order to save on mounting water costs, landlords are putting in these super saver showerheads, and trying to get their tenants to use less water.

Within 200 years, I think we will see another sort of revolution in bathing. With more demand on the water supply, water prices will rise, and there will be demand for a type of showering which uses less water. Hence, I propose a rough idea of the shower of the future:

The shower of the future will be very quick, possibly lasting around 1-2 minutes. I envision a design like a carwash where the shower will have multiple openings and will spray the individual from all angles. A quick rinse will serve to spray off dirt or any large materials. This will be followed by a misting with a soap-type cleansing substance. Finally, there will be a longer rinse, in which to clean all of the soap off. They might use towels or there might be some sort of air-drying process.

I envision the shower chamber as becoming smaller and more cylindrical, in order to conserve space, and also in order to surround the individual from all angles with jets. The jets will be of a pressure sufficient to wash with, but will not be so hard as to be uncomfortable. It will probably be an entirely enclosed unit, with temperature and other controls accessible from a console inside of the machine. The user will simply have to get in, turn it on, and be cleaned.

We’re that kind of people

Well, I finished In Watermelon Sugar just a few minutes ago.

It’s a very sad book about a girl committing suicide from a broken heart, and a guy getting frustrated in his relationship and cutting off without a reason.

It has some very beautiful segments in it, and a lot of segments that really don’t make any sense to me.

It’s worth a read if you don’t really have anything else to do. It’s not too long – finishable in an afternoon or so.

Summer Reading

You know, one nice thing about this week is that I haven’t really had a whole lot to do, other than chat on aim, on the phone with steph, and go to the music man tonight with robert. Most of my time has been free, just sitting around waiting for interesting AIM conversations, so I’m finally breaking myself away from sitting in front of this infernal contraption the whole day. Now I can take my tablet PC and sit with that on the ground beside me, and I can read while waiting for people to talk to.

Yeah yeah yeah, I’m on AIM all the time, but can you blame me? I don’t get a whole lot of social contact here.

Anyway here’s the books I’m reading and my current progression through them.

Freakonomics: halfway finished – don’t know if i’ll wind up finishing it anytime soon, it’s more of a book that you pick up and read pieces of, say ‘wow I hadn’t thought of that before,’ and ignore for a few days. The only thing is I’m not a huge econ fan.
Mere Christianity: 1/3rd completed – I really like this one, and when I’m feeling inspired to think about spirituality from a philosophical perspective, I pick this one up and read. Once again, not a sit down and read it cover to cover book.

In Watermelon Sugar: Halfway through – I expect to finish this book either today or tomorrow. It has some really beautiful lines, and I understand most of the plot, but a significant amount of this book still escapes me. I’ll let you guys know when I finish it how it was.

T.S. Eliot’s Book of Practical Cats: I pick this one up when I need some lighthearted poetry.

Anyway I went to the library today to pick up a couple more books since I’m going to finish In Watermelon Sugar quickly, and would like some more cover-to-cover books, so I picked up:

The Mouse that Roared and The Fountainhead.

At least I won’t be bored on the ride to chicago. I leave tomorrow – I need to set up my laptop so it’s running windows (right now it’s running suse enterprise 10) so that I can also catch up on some anime.

YEAH!!!

Turning into our parents

One difference about girls is that most of them are afraid of turning into their mothers. In my family, my mom is afraid of turning into her mom, and my sister is afraid of turning into our mom. This isn’t exclusive to my family, however, and I know that there are a lot of women out there who are deathly afraid of becoming their mothers. Recently on MSN Today, there was an article about “11 things that women never tell their husbands,” and there was also one that said “11 things that guys never tell their wives,” and one of them for women was “We are all afraid of turning into our mothers.”  The thing about guys though is that they did not list “afraid of turning into their fathers” as one of the things they don’t tell their wives. (Although number 6 or so agreed with the women’s list and said that men were afraid of their wives turning into their mother in laws).

So why is there a difference? Why are women afraid of their matriarchal heritage, while males are not afraid of their paternal heritage? In fact, it is quite the opposite with a lot of guys, they strive to be like their fathers, and even to outperform their fathers – to surpass them. Ken Griffey Jr. wasn’t afraid of turning into his father – George W. Bush wasn’t afraid of turning into his father. In fact, most guys tend to follow in the footsteps of their dads. Sons carry on the family businesses that their fathers ran, college students go into engineering because their fathers were engineers, auto mechanics were introduced to cars by their fathers – the list goes on.

So why does this fear seem to have such a large gender bias?

I would like to argue, although I by no means am sure that I am right, that this is potentially because of the changing role of the female in society. Over the last couple hundred years, the role of women in society has changed drastically. In the 1920s, women were granted the right to vote, and then jobs opened up to women, college started allowing female scholars, and instead of the stay-at-home-raise-the-kids role of the female, it has now become very similar to the male role in society. Women are going out and getting good jobs, earning money to support their families, and this whole female independence thing is really becoming a large movement. I think that part of the female fear of “turning into our mothers” is partly a subconscious fear of a loss of independence, and a return to the days of their mothers where they were significantly less powerful in society.

Feel free to discuss in the comments.

Writing Attempt #1

Murphy was running. Running to clear his mind. Running from his past, his life, his friends, his stresses, his achievements and his failures. Running from the wake of himself. It felt like if he stopped running, a wave of himself would overtake him. As his strides took him out of the artifical day of the undercity his lungs gasped full of fresh air. Cold air. Cold burning air that filled his lungs to the point of bursting. It was a good burn. The burn meant that he was more alive at this point than he ever would be during the civic daycycle.

The places he ran through were nice, there was some actual grass, and a clear of the dark grey sky. Humanity had long since replaced the stars with this opaque shield in its quest to defeat darkness. He could faintly see what he thought was the moon. Since it was a full moon, this was one of the few nights that it would be possible to make it out with the naked eye. Usually it was not strong enough to produce enough of an effect that it was visible.

He was glad to be outside. Being cramped inside all day forced to work on net codes and management of millions upon millions of lines of ancient code… code that never seemed to be designed properly, code that never had the right focus. Code that almost always would have been significantly easier to write from scratch. Unfortunately, the code running the net, like the city outside it were too similar. The city had been built on top of earlier cities seven or eight times. The deepest parts of the undercity were said to be over two hundred years old.

He realized that work was catching up with him. He leaned forward and sped up in an attempt to distance the thought from him.

He always set a timer for running. He wanted to make sure that he would be able to have enough energy to make it back – wanted to make sure that he would not wind up stranded in some part of the city he did not know. This time he had set it for half an hour. Half an hour out, half an hour back. One hour total. “Much more than anyone else I know could run,” he thought. He tried not to think about the hour. Tried not to think about the hour that he would have to be up at.

He ran against time.

He ran against fate.

He ran against himself.

He ran against the world.

He ran against existence.

Once, he had read an old book by a man named Albert Camus, titled “The Stranger.” Upon the initial reading, he hated the main character for his apparent disregard for all human values. Lately he had been growing to begin to think that Camus had the right idea. He wished he could merely exist and decide things based upon his whims.

Tonight, with the streets vanishing under his feet, he finally could. The timer beeped.

Murphy ran on.

Writing Attempt #2

Running through the dark alleyway, he could feel the cold air rushing past his skin. Step step step step step. Right foot, left foot, right foot, left, right, in for four steps, pause for two, in for four steps, out for four. In through the nose, out through the mouth.  When he first started running, he had no rhythm, now, the rhythm was everything. Running was a dance, his footfalls like a metronome as the solo wound up in intensity.

Bobsolo had always been decent at running. He was tall and lanky with long legs and seemingly endless stamina. He had always been able to get up and run a kilo or two, even without exercising very much. As a child he ran around all the time, playing, but as he got older, the places he could run grew fewer and fewer. He also lost interest in exercising when he was realized he could travel the world in his own mind when connected to the networks. Travelling had nothing to do with the physical body, except possibly for the barriers one set forth in his own mind. People didn’t run much anymore, since they didn’t really have too many reasons to leave their homes. The only ones that did were the few caretakers of the “mechanical maids” – a collection of various “dumb” robots which performed simple tasks. Some washed windows, others vacuumed, and still others would make rounds to pick up litter, keeping the city clean. Other than these few, the alleys were desolate yet clean – at least in the heart of the city where the affluent lived.

It was a about twenty miles from his residence before the first signs of poverty were found. Riding the maglevs, it would have zipped by in about a minute and a half. The maglevs only went from city to city, and only in the industrial districts, carrying the middle and upper classes to and from their jobs. The lower classes rode in a subway, stopping every couple of blocks to let people in and out. The undercity was home only to the lowest classes of people; those still considered homo sapiens.

Solo was light and graceful, a perfect example of the transhuman. At one point in the evolutionary process, the differences between man and machine were clear. Nowadays, in 2185, there was no more difference. Man and machine had been blended, forged together, to create one symbiotic being. One symbiotic being that was now running through the alleys of the outer city. The alley dead ended up ahead. Without losing rhythm, he leaped up a few feet from the wall, pushing downward and throwing his body up as his right foot collided with the brick impediment to his path. His hand crested the top, his cut-off glove met the corner with grip… he pulled, swinging his entire body up and over.

y=-x²+12, a perfect arc.

One two three four Pause two One two three four blow it out through the mouth. As he bounded through the flickering lights of the outer city, he felt completely and wholly alive. The twilight of humanity’s continued battle against the dark pulsed and hummed as electricity pulsed like humanity’s heartbeat.

apparently, qwerty sucks

i have decided that qwerty isnt fast enough for me, so i have decided to retrain myself to use a different layout, so it's dvorak for me

Snakes on a Plane

At around 1:30 AM I turned off all of the lights in the basement and proceeded up the stairs to my bedroom. I realized that I had my eyes closed as I was navigating around my house, but it didn't really matter because it was too dark to see anything anyway. I felt pretty secure and safe since I know my way around the house in the dark, so it's not really a problem.

So I opened my eyes.

And then I saw shadows and light and dark areas, and objects were just a blur. It was actually somewhat scary. (When I was little I was convinced I saw a ghost in the basement, and to this day I'm slightly unnerved whenever I'm down there by myself in the dark.) But I thought it was weird that in the controlled total blackness created by my closed eyes I felt so much secure than in the real world. Is it because I had control of the darkness? Is it because when I had my eyes closed, the world was dark because I made it dark, and not dark because the sun had fallen?

I think that, as humans, we fear the loss of control a lot. Let's face it, we're control freaks. We want everything to be in a routine, we want everything to happen according to plan, and we don't really like being flexible. I'll admit that I don't like it when things go wrong or people change plans on me, that is one of the things that drives me the craziest. I can't stand to not be totally in control of any situation at any given time. Like Neo in the Matrix, I don't really like the idea of fate or God controlling my future and my destiny. I like the idea that I make my own choices.

Turns out Neo doesn't have any choices, and also turns out that God exists, so there isn't actually any direct control that we are able to assert over our lives. No matter what you do, the earth is still gonna move around the sun at mind-boggling speeds, and nations will rise and fall. You can't have a huge impact on anything, and you don't even have much of an impact on the little things around you. I find that most of my actions are done without me really thinking about them. It just kinda seems like the right thing to do, so I'm floating around on some sort of autopilot, alarmed here and there by fears of prostate problems or cancerous lumps or girls. Since we have no real control at all, why do we worry so much about it? Why are we such control freaks?

Basically, if it doesn't benefit us, why are we so wired to make sure that we bend the world to our will?

I dunno, just some thoughts.