Creating Gods

I was considering the construction of gods, and really...the concept makes no sense to me. Let's assume for a moment that there is no supreme deity out there, and everything is just a result of a random mess of random events. So if one doesn't exist, I suppose the reasonable thing to do is to create one, right?

Err...that's the part that kinda gets me lost. I mean, hey...if I wanted to create something, even something make-believe, I'd really rather create servants or worshippers for myself. Yanou, give myself a sense of control and superiority, rather than having something else lord over me. The lording over bit sounds like a wee bit too much work for my taste, seeing as I wind up having to appease my own creation.

In fact, if I did create something, I'd rather not have to please it or anything. That's just like using work to create yet more work for myself...as if there wasn't enough to do already. But hey...whatever turns them on, eh?

Everything Is Meaningless

I was thinking about the working person's life, and life in general, and yeah my conclusion is that life is meaningless. Really. Work all day, go home to do some admin, prepare food or eat out, maybe a spot of canned R&R, then back to work again. Even the breaks from work aren't particularly long. Most of the vacation stretches are precious short...if one even manages to get that long stretch in the first place.

Then comes the things to do when on vacation. Go someplace else, right? Like say maybe some far-off land. Just to see things, to reassure oneself that the lands actually exist and they kinda look like what they do on the postcards. Hell, maybe the world is flat and nothing exists outside the country's borders, eh?

And after all that work crap (insert mothering/parenting somewhere along the way, seasoned to taste), there comes retirement. At that point, most people are just too damned tuckered out to really chase anything. That's assuming their physical frames are still capable of much. And the brains. Brrraaaiiinnnsss. Ultimately? Nothing much remains.

After which everyone dies, as if they've never lived. No mark on history. No blaze of glory as they get the hell out of the mortal plane. Season with a bit of afterlife, if one swings that way. But it's a bit moot, considering that most mortal realm achievements don't map over to most afterlives.

Life is just a sad sad sexually transmitted disease that is the leading cause of death. Sometimes I wonder why I bother going on living, and I don't always have a good answer to that question. I just do, I guess, sort of like doing time. And taking photos. Maybe that's meaning, in some way.

Make Or Break

I think sometimes it really just takes a hit to make or break an artist. I've been trying to hunt down the tracks by Magnet, and boy are they hard to locate. Scratch that. It seems that the earlier tracks just aren't "out there". Which is pretty sad, considering that some people are really rather eager to grab his best works.

I guess there's just something different about his style of music. I do like country, but unfortunately even country gets stale over time. The randomness of electronica and synth can add quite a bit, when mixed in with classical music or even opera. Then again, maybe my tastes are somewhat eclectic, so I can only really count on the indie scene for my fix.

For the indies, even free distros of certain tracks off their website can make a huge difference in increasing their following. Without the big names to sing their praises, it's really mostly up to the marketing skills of the artists and the adoration of their fanbase.

A Money-Saving Heuristic

I am a user of some big ticket items. And since big ticket items often have big ticket accessories, expenses can rapidly pile up, resulting in a drain on critical financial reserves. To avoid this, I took a good look at my personal desires for an item. The problem with decision making is that just about everything looks desirable, especially if it's sold at a lower than normal price. Hence, some rules need to be in place.

In order to select the highest priority purchase, I would ask whether the item is necessary. That is, it fulfills some kind of want/need. These are ranked in order of how I order my own hierarchy of needs/wants. I ask myself whether I will use the item immediately. It's pretty obvious if an item is non-essential, since it is a nice-to-have-sometime-in-the-future (a safety net item like a first aid kit, for example, is excluded from this consideration). A yes to this bumps the item up the list. Then I ask myself whether I will use the item often (beyond the new item syndrome window period). While difficult to honestly and accurately answer for sure, a yes to this would bump the item further up the list. Then comes the question of whether the item is at an affordable price bracket. Technically, just about everything that isn't obscenely expensive is actually "affordable", so the only real gauge would be to weigh the item (at price-value) against other items (even if dissimilar) according to the price-value.

If a list of items is tabulated according to that heuristic, a reasonably objective comparison can be made against one another. Thus, it becomes easier to decide between having 300 units of enjoyment item A vs 1 unit of high enjoyment item B. To be sure, just about every item is non-essential. One needs surprisingly little to survive, and very few items are true "essentials". However, to live a reasonably enjoyable life, some luxuries are called for. Most things that we spend on are luxuries anyway. However, going by the heuristic helps eliminate most of the nice-to-haves, and actually maximize utility by ensuring that items spent on will actually be enjoyed.

A further consideration would be cannibalization of utility, since having increasing luxuries actually reduces one's utility of other (usually older) luxuries. Should something fail muster in this analysis, it's a good indication to pawn them off. By that logic...that includes most of the items in my room. =p

2012

Humans can be incredibly egotistical. Apparently, a cataclysmic event resulting in the extermination of humans is to be regarded as the "end of the world", regardless whether other life forms survive and if the planet is still physically there. Technically, wouldn't that be the end of the human world, only? Anyway, it seems that 2012 is slated to be something of the sort.

Personally, if I really had to go with one of the "prophecies", I'd buy the change of an era on 2012 story. So things might change on 2012. Even a major change. Ok that makes sense. After all, that's what the prophecies seem to be saying anyway. If different cultures somehow managed to stop predicting humanity's future after 2012 (or somewhere thereabouts according to their calendars), it need not mean the elimination of all humans. Quit being egotistical! (though I'd look forward to that if true =p)

In fact, if it does not portend the end of an era, it can also mean that humanity is finally free of silly prophecies, in that the future has become too fluid to predict with any sort of accuracy. Considering the rather poor record of precisely worded prophecies, I would be inclined to believe that humans would likely stop bothering with prophecies after 2012. Hah! Well...like that's gona ever happen.

Setting Up The E3

One really does learn new things the longer one holds a piece of equipment. When I had my E510, I was pretty happy living with having my AF on the shutter half press. Of course, I've since seen the error of my ways. The problem with that setup was that every time I tried to fire off a shot, the camera would cycle the autofocus and that could sometimes result in a missed shot if the autofocus decided to miss.

Then I discovered that switching autofocus over to the AEL button solved that issue. Since autofocus triggers only on AEL, the shutter half press no longer resulted in a pesky AF cycle. That also opened up the possibility of my using manual focus mode in conjunction with my autofocus. That is, using the single autofocus + manual focus setting. Lovely.

Now, it seems that I finally have a good use for the manual focus ring on my lenses. Previously, my carefully set manual focus would've been ruined by the camera's smartass adjustment of focus for me. Yet it was quite tedious to constantly cycle between manual and autofocus modes. Guess I have my ideal compromise for now, and man am I lovin it. =p

Harry Potter 6

Right, then. I'm no big HP fan, and I don't think I'd start that soon. But anyway, my friends do call me out to watch those things, so I guess that means I'm gona have to write a review on it.

Frankly, I don't think this was a particularly good HP installment. I mean, I generally expect magic duels and special effects in the show, and well...whatever they had in there just wasn't quite satisfying. Yes, Dumbledore dies. Everyone knows that. It does feel odd watching a show that every other mother's kid knows the ending to. Sorta like everyone's already spoiled. I just didn't like the idea of Dumbledore tipping over quite that easily after he managed to do a Gandalf and wipe out a whole swarm of undeads.

Ultimately, the thing I liked the most about the HP series is that it's gotten darker over time. Undoubtedly, it's not just an effect of growing up for the characters, but also an influence of our contemporary world situation leaking into the story. Bag searches, anyone?

I'd have to give this one a 6.5/10. It's not particularly memorable, and as one reviewer put it...pretty much here only to set the stage for the story ahead.

The barber who shaved

I encountered this paradox online: “There is a village where the barber shaves all those and only those who do not shave themselves. Who shaves the barber?”

Now, at face value, the paradox does indeed appear to be paradoxical. That is, we’d assume that the barber is a part of the village, and is therefore referenced as part of the villagers who either shave themselves, or the villagers who don’t. Obviously, if the barber is a villager, is himself, hasn’t shaved himself, and has no one to shave him, he will be unable to shave himself without violating the statement.

Yet there are a number of assumptions already in place. Moreover, it is not mentioned whether the statement is true across all time frames. The simplest solution would be that the barber simply shaves himself. Why? Because at the point of time at which the statement was made, the statement was true: he only shaves those who don’t shave themselves. However, since he’s a part of the group of non-self shavers, he’s obliged to shave himself, therefore violating the statement. Thereafter, the statement ceases to be true. QED.

Then we can consider that, perhaps, the barber wasn’t in the group of people who either shave or do not shave themselves. This can be true if:
1) The barber isn’t himself. He’s a RED spy.
2) We consider the barber to be outside the village (and therefore beyond those groups
3) We consider the barber (vocation) to be separate from barber (the person)
4) We consider that someone else is shaving the barber.

If 1 is true, we’d have to spycheck him, just in case.
If 2 is true, we’re assuming that both groups are from the village. Hence, he may not be a part of either group, enabling him to shave himself without violating the statement.
If 3 is true, he can also shave himself without violating the statement, since the vocation of barber is separate from the person of the barber.
If 4 is true, well, that greatly simplifies things, doesn’t it?

Why Can't You?

It's funny how egoistic people can be. Whatever they wish to present as their social front, it seems that at their heart of hearts, just about everyone (with the usual bell curve exceptions) is self-centered. Now let's consider a common expression: If I can do (insert activity), why can't you? If that doesn't sound self-centered, I don't know what does.

Basically, saying something like that assumes that everyone should be essentially the same as the speaker, since the speaker's perfectly capable of doing something and thus everyone else ought to. Not...necessarily true. For example, I can't reasonably ask a blind person to just see...simply because I can, right? And just 'coz I can and want to, I can't rightly ask others to do the same because they might not share my sentiments.

What does that leave us, though? The admission of hypocrisy in projecting the public face? Or is it the self-centered nature of people blinding them to the possibility of alternatives...

Printer Calibration

I finally got down to calibrating my new Epson T50 printer. It's a typically tedious business, getting the output to match precisely (or as close as is practical for precision adjusted by Eyeball Mk. 1) what my monitor displays. After 5 max quality prints, I finally managed to squeeze out something that looked pretty much how the picture was displayed on my monitor. *Happy happy*

That might sound a bit anal, but frankly I'm never happy seeing something come out of my printer that doesn't look almost exactly like how I've seen it. I mean, it's bad enough that my jpgs will invariably look different on someone else's monitors. Since the print is the true litmus test of a properly exposed image, that's something I really can't live with.

Anyway, now that my printer's finally doing precisely what I want it to, it's time to get down to doing my actual photowall project. Yep. A wall...covered in photos. That oughtta keep me occupied for awhile.

Hell Is Symptomatic Of Mental Illness

I am greatly disturbed by the prospect of an eternal hell. Indeed, I have no wish to visit such a place, if it did in fact exist. Such a proposition does not sound terribly welcoming, what with all the fire and brimstone and sodomic demons with pitchforks.

However, I think it is a suspicious notion, especially one used in the context of God. Let's recap the assumptions: God is good and merciful, judgmental, perfect and all-knowing. Also bears rank of supreme creator. Sounds good so far. So that means, by creating humans, there was full knowledge of what'd become of them. Ergo, it's probably a given that some of God's creations will wind up in an eternal hell. Nasty.

But wait...there is a contradiction somewhere. If God were indeed good and merciful, nobody would end up in hell for eternity, because even those who fall short of acceptable standards of goodness would be forgiven eventually. But if it were eternal, it's very much akin to creating something knowing that the creation will not be very good at all, then repeatedly damaging the creation in sheer angst. That...does not sound very much like a perfect God. In fact, it implies that God is grossly inefficient, sadistic, insane, or a combination of the three. Why...that's blasphemy!

Being quite unwilling to be a blasphemer, I would have to choose between disbelieving in God, and disbelieving in an eternal hell. Now, both can be quite incredible, but I think the latter is by far more incredible. If I had to choose between the two, I'd say that an eternal hell simply does not exist, given the assumptions people make about God.

The Soul...?

There are times when I wonder if there's a sort of explanation for what, exactly, a soul is. The soul in the sense that spiritual people believe in, the thing that supposedly animates the conscious and sets them apart from the unconscious. In fact, I think the soul is separate from life in that the soul is effectively a form of consciousness rather than life itself, which seems to be little more than a set of ongoing chemical processes. Not quite the cultural perception of a place that has a vibrant, appealing way of life, though perhaps it is related.

If I were to consider what a soul is, I'd think that since the belief is that they're unique things that live on after the living creature's untimely demise, I'd think that it was a sort of energetic equilibrium that is established by the peculiar and unique material makeup of the physical form. While this is probably impossible, that'd mean that a soul living on after the body has died has somehow managed to hold those energies in equilibrium even after separation from the physical form.

The loss of equilibrium (leading to the "death" of the soul) or a detachment from the point of anchorage will result in the physical form losing its soul, and thus might be to all appearances alive but not quite "whole".

Burkas Are Freedom

It is an apt day to talk about freedom. Yet freedom can come in strange forms. In fact, freedom can even be found where others see only oppression. What better symbol of female oppression than the burka. A form-hiding outfit that covers just about everything (even the eyes), the burka seems to be about as oppressive as they come.

Yet the burka itself represents only an overt form of oppression. It is far easier to see the overt than the subtle. Take for example the oppression of capitalism. The standards of beauty. The burka, ironically, can represent a sort of emancipation from these. The burka is anonymous. Nobody really cares (or can actually tell) if you're wearing nothing inside. Now that's freedom from fashion, from people judging just how skimpy (or prudish) your outfit happens to be. It's freedom from the chains of capitalism that urge people to buy more outfits they don't really need. It's freedom from the judgment of the form one has that never ever seems to match the unrealistic standards set by the fashion world. It frees one from the oppressive need to pick, match and coordinate outfits from a wardrobe full of clothes that one might never wear. (I'm sure we all know this one =p) The irony of choice is that sometimes it means we're denied the choice not to make a choice. Surely nobody would wish to see me decked out in some truly awful colors on poorly fitted outfits. Yet if I genuinely wanted to do that, I find the choice is less than desirable, considering that I don't like to be ridiculed overly much...

It is even the freedom from the prying eyes of men who would gladly oogle women who may be less than happy about being oogled. Imagine the time and brain power savings for men, when they spend less time thinking about sex and more towards productive thoughts or even other non-sexual forms of entertainment. Certainly, no bicycles will crash when a burka-wearing geisha looks at a man. Hell, it even serves as an umbrella, in keeping one exotically pale skinned under the harsh light of day. Brollies are just so victorian.

Then comes the harmony. No, not the enforced harmony of highly regulated societies, but the peace of anonymity. Yup, even men would benefit from wearing burkas. Not only is gender masked by these fine outfits, one's unique appearance is masked as well. That means poor sods getting trounced by street toughs by mistake will no longer face those problems: The toughs would have a hard time spotting the fella from a distance. Besides, men can finally be excused for being utterly unfashionable.

With all these benefits, the burka seems like the perfect universal outfit for everyone. Making women wear these might be oppressive, but everyone wearing it would be...consensus. Yes, freedom can come in strange forms. Oh, and happy Independence Day, one and all =p

Growing

Hopefully, everyone grows over time, in various ways. However, the most important thing about growing is knowing when growth occurs, and if it is in the right direction. The basis of comparison is between past and present, so I guess records play a huge part in making that happen.

Unfortunately, memory is a rather faulty medium of record taking. There's a tendency towards omissions and embellishments. If the memory isn't faded at the time of recollection, it's probably inaccurate anyway.

For my shooting, I guess what I do appreciate is my own tendency not to throw things out. Especially digital things. Not necessarily a good habit, but handy in this instance. I remember (with my faulty memory, of course) the first photography lessons I took, and how I talked about the photography greats back then as if it were a new discovery.

At that time, I dare say my shots were...well...crap. They still are now, but they're crap mk ii. Yet the only way I could've known that for sure was to actually grab the old ones, laugh at them, then laugh at the current ones...only a little less loudly. Sometimes louder, in fact, if they turned out worse than the ones I took a couple years back.

I guess what's true about shooting is basically what McCurry said about his own shooting: It's basically 1 great shot in 1000 others. I used to believe that the great masters made a masterpiece in every shot they took. But after hearing accounts from other people in the business, it's really a matter of a whole load of effort, with the experience and skill to back up those attempts. Probably some luck, too.

Still, I think that's where the difference between an accomplished and a novice shooter will lie: The accomplished shooter will fire 30'000 shots in order to get the scoop. The novice will fire 30'000 and still not get it. Maybe one day I'll find my way out of n00b'land. One day.

The Nature Of Mortality

Mortality is a most curious thing. It's a big pile of steaming denial. People are born only to die, after all. That's the lot of mortals. Yet when I was informed that my friend finally managed to take herself out today, the revelation just got me meditating on mortality.

She never really died. The thing is, though I couldn't really feel her in the mortal realm for some time, I never did manage to trust the more subtle senses. But she only managed to die today, just about 2 months after she bought the farm. Screw the euphemisms. She died. And successfully, this time.

Yet ultimately, tragic or no, the death of a human is just an inevitability turned reality. It's the knowledge of death proper that brings closure to a doomed life anyway. Farrah Fawcett died. Michael Jackson died. It's pretty fashionable for mortal beings, after all. But then many still feel the unusual oh it's so surprising that so and so was alive yesterday, and dead today.

What fascinates me is that my friend basically became a Schrodinger's cat for awhile, being neither dead nor alive in my cognition due to ignorance (I did think her dead, but didn't manage to verify that), until the moment of closure came and I was like ah! so it's true. To be sure, I never really did have much faith in her survivability given her worsening mental state, but I guess death does interesting things to one's psyche. For one, I think she's basically experienced a net improvement in her mental state, if it still exists. Since I don't sincerely believe in a hell for humans (not permanently anyway) and the Christian assurance of heaven (though quite pretty creepy to me), I think she's better off regardless the actual presence of an afterlife. Nonetheless I do say: Rest in peace, eh? Oh, and I think one of my CDs is still at your place.

P.S. Fawcett has great taste in cameras. She was handling an E1 with an FL-50. Mmmm...

Blade: The Series

I like vampire stories for some odd reason. They're...fascinating. But nobody should mistake Blade for a vampire story. I just enjoy it as a soap of sorts. Basically, the series is a whole bunch of blood/fang porn and has a most amusing Assassin's Creed logic.

One funny thing about these pop vampire thingummies is that the narratives are basically excuses to bare fang, drink blood and maybe fight a little while they're at it. Admittedly, I do like a good cultural show, and Blade has some cheesy culture in it. Not quite classy or realistic, and chock full of continuity errors, but I guess I grow attached to such things, if only to see where they go.

Mmm...but the Assassin's Creed logic never fails to tickle me. Just as Altair somehow manages to go around unnoticed while bristling with weapons, Blade can walk around looking like a silver-decked vampire slayer with a katana on his back, and nobody bats an eyelid. Seriously. He can clomp through a hospital with his trenchcoat and boots, then draw a gun and nobody ever seems to notice. Nobody ever calls the cops on the heavily armed fella marching down their corridors. Admittedly, the only ones who ever seem to notice are the baddies.

Now, I know vampires are able to use glamors or other ways to influence the human mind, but that does not seem to be the kind of thing for Blade vampires. They're mostly the highly physical sort that prefer to go at it with fists, blades and guns, often in that order. Interestingly enough, that Assassin's Creed logic never seems to be explained. I can only assume that the assassin gains special benefits just for being an assassin: Nobody ever notices that you've got a shitload of weapons all over you. =p

Being Value-Free

I like to think of myself as value-free, of being quite logical in thinking. Yet I realize that it is quite impossible to be value-free in the first place. Even the being value-free is a value in itself. Among others, I also believe in personal freedom (within rather liberal limits) and individuality.

With the guidance of those values, I am really quite incapable of value-free thought. The best I can do, perhaps, is to be quite relativistic and arbitrary, which would pretty much piss off anyone who believes that people should be consistent.

That would also be a problem in doing analyses, and perhaps the best thing I could do would be to state my stand early on, and perhaps list the values amongst the limitations to make it clear that I have not actually made a value-free judgment. Then again, that would beg the question of whether it is in fact possible to be truly value-free, and if there was actually any benefit to being so.

The Centurion

My new system was fitted into a Coolermaster Centurion casing, which I promptly assumed to be a primarily showy piece that's quite impractical to take down and clean out with any sort of frequency. Well, I'm glad that I was dead wrong about that.

I had to take it apart to give my ram another upgrade, and then I noticed the metal plates blocking the drive bays. Now, all casings have some form of these: The thin plates that must be pulled out in order to fit new drives in. Unfortunately, try as I might, I really couldn't remove them. Obviously, I had to take the pesky front panel out, and I had no clue as to how I would go about doing that. The front panel appeared to be fixed in place with plastic split knobs, and no visible screws. I assumed that the knobs were a PITA to deal with. The wires were running out of it and I was loathe to have them come out.

Then I tried tugging on the front panel. It gave slightly, so I tugged a bit harder to see how I would remove it. Then the entire panel came out in my hand. The first thing I noticed was the elegance of the design, since the wired parts were actually set into a separate panel. That meant that I could easily take the casing apart to remove the grills and free up the drive bays, and to remove those pesky metal plates which were interfering with my airflow.

After successfully removing the plates, I noted that the airflow was significantly improved. For one, the entire front panel is now a completely freed intake. Frankly, I don't know why the early casings weren't designed this way. During the days of relatively low power computing, the generous front intake could easily allow for passive cooling. Ah, well. I like my Centurion =p

The Pursuit Of Pain And Pleasure

While science and technology appear to have advanced greatly since millennia past, the cognitions of humans seem to have strayed little from that of their ancestors. Arguably humans are still little more than animals, or perhaps at most poorly calibrated automatons programmed for the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain.

Take the average person and put him in a room with numerous other individuals. Ensure that one exit remains, then light a fire that spreads rapidly through the room. Predictably, all the individuals will move as one, pressing urgently against one another in an effort to get out as quickly as possible. Despite the efforts to train humans in the procedures of fire evacuations, it seems inevitable that their animal instincts for the avoidance of pain will take over, and the incredible agony from the sheer heat will drive the conditioning right out of their heads.

The pursuit of pleasure is yet another problem. Where no pain is involved, the presence and absence of pleasure will suffice as a motivator. An example is the liking for potato chips despite the associated health and weight problems. The quest for survival here does not seem to apply, since even data indicating the harmfulness of such things merely sinks in at a conscious level but is quickly laid aside in the face of immediate gratification. Admittedly, I am not immune to such lures.

What would be most interesting is evolving the psyche to enhance the ability to suppress such non-constructive drives in order to channel that energy and attention towards something better.

The Lycosa

Right, then. I finally got tired of my noisy old Prodikeys and figured I'd like to reward myself with something...classy. Well it was a tough decision between the vanilla keyboards and gaming keyboards, and I kept asking myself...is the darned thing worth it. Now, there are undoubtedly loads of vanilla boards out there, but most were ugly, had bad layouts, combinations of both and all that rot. Basically, nothing fit.

Then I spotted the Razer Lycosa (http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-keyboards/razer-lycosa/razer-lycosa-keyboard). Damn. A decision like that would do horrible things to my nonexistent street cred. I mean, I've already got Razer stuff on my desk. Computer table. Whatever. I call it my Navi. Razer fan just didn't cut it. Then again, I never like letting street cred get in the way of what I want and what I like. I liked the layout, the shape and basically the no frills buttons. I never know what to do with a zillion macro buttons anyway, and the Tarantula just well...it had a gawdawful delete button cluster. Anyhoo, it became a grudge match between the Lycosa, Arctosa and Lycosa Mirror. The Arctosa rapidly fell out of the game because of the lack of backlighting. Only the Arctosa and Mirror were left. Now, I would've taken the Mirror except for the downright silly fact that it's just one big fingerprint magnet, and didn't have rubberized keys! The real unique selling point of the original Lycosa was the rubberized keys that felt oh so good. And, well, I heard it was a rather quiet keyboard. Lycosa it was.

I like to think of backlighting as a really nice aesthetic option. When I'm feeling like having a nice glow from my keyboard, I keep them on. When I'm sick of lights, I have something that's like Das Keyboard. Neat. Slim, low profile, small size. Neat, too. Rubberized keys...now that's something else. It's like having a keyboard version of my Lachesis. Smexy feel. Probably gona be a bitch to clean eventually, but hey...it's the feeling, man. Besides, this keyboard's really responsive. No squishy buttons here, and the thing didn't rattle as I was pounding on it.

Now for the nasty bits. I didn't like that they had the silicone nipples under the buttons integrated with the rest of the keyboard mat. That basically meant I'd have a much harder time getting each key replaced if/when they broke. I'd probably replace the keyboard before then out of its invariable morphing into sheer ugly gunkiness, but that's my pet peeve. Oh, and the keyboard's not exactly silent, but it is quieter.

Anyhoo...after shopping around a lot, I found a store that sold it at a rather lower price than the rest. Hey...it's their overheads, man. Got my new toy and I'm now happily pounding away on it. I can see its health bar going down down down already...

Lovebombing: A Useless Tactic

There are times when I wonder at the methods of some...less savory organizations. Apparently, one way they gain recruits is to "lovebomb" them. That is, to express strongly and repeatedly the members' love for the new recruit, thus gaining their trust, friendship and quite an unshakable faith.

It puzzles me how such a tactic can work. Ok let's assume for one that I do not notice that the love is fake. As in something uttered from lips with little substance to back it up. Doesn't seem particularly attractive. Someone talking about love all day would probably make me feel seriously ill, and I might just silence them by some rather unpleasant means. Seriously. I don't feel bad about taking extreme measures when someone's being that annoying.

Then assume that I somehow want to receive such affections. I guess that would require me to be in quite a receptive state. As in needing that kind of love. I don't know...never actually believed in that sort of love. The love that I believe in cannot be expressed in words; only in actions. It does make me wonder, though, how people can be seriously convinced into believing that mere words and a few superficial deeds can buy them a new family. Then it makes me think...man what's become of the state of families nowadays?!

On Bioshock

Bioshock is undoubtedly a really well designed game. It plays like a level 1 all the way from the beginning to end. By level 1 I mean the way most games are rather well designed for the initial levels, then the other levels just fade into a blur as they become quite formulaic. That's surprising considering that Bioshock basically has only one art style.

That said, the atmosphere is absolutely terrific. Subtle sound cues, the sounds of Rapture coming apart, all set to the calm 50's music create a grand contrast to what's going on in the game world. That is, not forgetting the groans and stomping of Big Daddies, of course. Combined with a believable city going to ruins, the levels are really somthing.

The levels are special because of gate events (allowing access to different areas) while having a really handcrafted look throughout the game. There are always items in likely and unlikely places, encouraging and rewarding explorers. The constant respawning of enemies here and there would keep the conquerer types busy. Even achievers and socializers aren't left out, what with the rewards for doing well and the suggestion of sentience in the enemies (while not "real", the illusion's pretty good). Moreover, the key players are fleshed out with the tape recordings that are scattered throughout the game.

The weapon upgrades and "magic" abilites (Plasmids) are also fully customizable to the player's gameplay style, and the weapons system rewards players who go out of their way to explore the levels. More importantly, the game does not force players to move forward, which is a great annoyance in other games where exploration just does not seem worthwhile. A touch of Fatal Frame, with the photography and upgrades is a nice touch, too. Hell, even the hacking is nice in having players playing a minigame, though admittedly it got old after while because I made it a point to hack everything in sight. Who wouldn't =p

What's interesting is how the pacing of the game is so tightly tied in with the tutorials. When something is about to happen, the player is warned in overt and subtle ways. Sometimes the voiceover instructs directly. At other times, the instruction is hinted at in the monologue. Even the game environments start off looking rather pristine (suggesting a rather well-maintained Rapture) and then becoming increasingly torn up as the core areas are evidenced to be sites of great conflict.

I especially liked the twist in the story, and how the player's actions can, to a limited extent, vary the gameplay. Specifically: Will you harvest or save the Little Sisters? Moreover, the madness at the heart of Rapture is rather well played out. Steinman's madness is seen to clearly progress as the player gets closer to him.

Given what's been achieved so far, I really do wonder if Bioshock 2 would be able to repeat the success of its predecessor. There's always the temptation to tweak what already works, and there are always those pesky publishing deadlines... Ah, well. There's just so much to learn from Bioshock.

Terminator: Salvation

Another installment in the interminable Terminator line. Sometimes it makes one wonder if the series of movies will ever end. Of course, this being Terminator, my expectations of the movie have been watered down somewhat. After all, this is meant to be a "cultural" show with lots of special effects, and it doesn't fail to deliver.

Oh, did I mention that the show's got the hunky Christian Bale and Sam Worthington in there? Now, while it would be rather satisfying to see them duke it out, sometimes it's just sufficient to have 'em showing up. Pity about the absence of washboard abs this time round, but hey we can't expect every movie to be 300.

I suppose what pleased me the most about the show was that it was full of boss fights. Now, most movies nowadays revolve around massacring wave after wave of enemies to get at whatever it is to blow it up. Simple enough. However, in Salvation, we've got the typical virtually indestructible terminator bots, which while few in number, can really dish it out before going down.

I also liked the Bioshock twist in the show, though of course that would be a spoiler so I shan't include it here. Suffice to know that Arnie's obligatory appearance is somewhere in there. Anyway, one thing I never got about the Machines is that, unlike in The Matrix, they never seem to get down to using swarm tactics. One would think that if people had such difficulty with their small number of T-bots, they'd be totally overrun if say 3 T-bots decided to show up all at once. Moreover, why doesn't machine city have like loads of super long range, hyper-accurate sniper rifles to take down infiltrators?

Nonetheless, the movie is a bit more "realistic" than the usual stuff out there. For once, not every vehicle's a pinto. Things actually take some effort to blow up, and not every enemy blows up in the resultant explosions (where's the fun in that? =p). Overall, I'd say the movie gets a 8/10, which is fairly generous for any other movie, but this...is Terminator.

Can Values Be Arbitrary?

When a perspective is taken, it is often done in relation to others. It creates the illusion of non-arbitrariness, because there is a point of comparison. For example, the standards of morality are compared with that of the rest of the world, other cultures or even the past. In relation to those, one finds one's value.

Yet values do not have actual "value" attached to them. They cannot be evaluated in isolation. In fact, that sounds dangerously like arbitrariness already. Worse yet, the very selection of the points of comparison cannot help but be arbitrary, because they are compared with something that has no intrinsic value to begin with.

Where is the standard of validity, then? While it is easy enough to invoke the supernatural and to point out historical precedents, I think it is difficult to deny that values can and are arbitrary. After acknowledging this, there is nothing wrong with accepting arbitrary values. However, it must then be acknowledged that since they are arbitrary, values can actually be changed. They are certainly not set in stone.

The Arts

When I consider the origins of the Arts, my current conclusion is that they come from a sense of comfort. They are the result of a certain spontaneity born of comfort, for doing something in exchange for nothing. The state of comfort may even arise within a time and space of tumult, when one finally is at peace with the condition of the surroundings, and finally gains the sufficient detachment to feel that sort of comfort. No time or space is ever absolutely perfect, so the state of perceived perfection must come from a form of detachment.

However, that spontaneity cannot arise from a constant crisis mindset. When one feels constantly harried, at risk of one's life and that society is on the brink of collapse, it is difficult to feel creative because one is constantly struggling to survive, and has no time for the creativity that comes with comfort.

Ultimately, there must be a point of acceptance, whereby the chaos of life is momentarily tamed, and one watches from a distance, then makes works that awe and inspire. Yet the creativity cannot come without some measure of chaos, otherwise it takes the form of normalcy and challenges nothing. In being unchallenging, it becomes difficult to awe and inspire. Without that, how can something be called art?

The Standards Of Others

The standards of others, like the standards one sets for oneself, are likely to be arbitrary. The standards set by society, however, are likely to be even more arbitrary, because the first is set for an individual or a small group of people, but the other is set for a massive number of people. Living by the standards imposed by others can be a major drawback, since one becomes constrained by arbitrary standards that do not challenge one's abilities to the fullest.

The greatest weakness is the desire to seek approval. While some may claim to strive for greatness, and that greatness is an intrinsic desire, there may yet be a desire to become great and thereby gain approval for that attained position. Such satisfaction does not feel true to me, because it comes from others and not myself.

The standards of the self, though arbitrary, are way more satisfying. This is simply due to having standards tailored to my own limitations, finding those limitations and breaking beyond them. Of course, I am still trying to cultivate ever more self-awareness, such that the standards become less arbitrary and more true to my personal abilities. To me, that is the way of growth. Not just to cling to any established standard that may be beneath me, yet convincing myself that since I have matched a lower standard, I am content.

Living For Others

Many societies are conditioning their respective members to basically live for others. Living for others involves doing things for the sake of gaining others' approval, being better than others, and other sorts of extrinsic motivations. I guess it works well (in theory) as a method of social control, but I personally believe that living for oneself will ultimately trump the concept of living for others.

I am not saying that one needs to be completely selfish and ignore the needs of others, or even to be a complete asshole to everyone else. While some modicum of charity and civility should be maintained for the benefit of all, the motivation for such actions should not be for the sake of one's public "face" (I'd look good doing this). Instead, I believe that rendering social good should be from one's own desire to benefit others (not from some fuzzy concept of "social good"), otherwise one can skip the step. "Doing good" with the implicit expectation of having it reciprocated in some way is a good recipe for disappointment: Even if others are feeling charitable, their charity might not fall on you.

The alternative is not to have society/community before self, but indeed to have self before all. I would say Love Yourself. It may sound selfish and self-centred, but I believe loving oneself is the root of love for everything else. As they say, being IN love is a weakness, but having love in YOURSELF is strength. Intrinsic motivators are incredibly powerful because nothing on the outside can shake them. If a teacher would suddenly choose to dislike me, I would still be motivated to work just as hard. If the teacher's negative bias were to cause my grades to suffer, I would still know that I did my best and the fault is not my own.

This is not to say that one should have blind faith in oneself. Blind faith is also a form of weakness in choosing to believe something regardless of the facts. If I did not do my best when studying, it would be foolishness to think that I did and therefore deserved my own grades. One also needs to recognize one's own weaknesses and to overcome them. When one can fully live for oneself, one is secure in one's own being, and can eventually get to doing things for others, because one is finally secure in the motivations for one's own actions.

Ascetism And Pleasure

I find some religions very strange in the contradictions between ascetism and the pursuit of pleasure. Now, some do instruct their followers to deny worldly things in pursuit of enlightenment of some form. That seems like an interesting enough proposition, considering that the assumption is that the world is something everyone wants to get away from. Life sucks enough as it is, eh?

Then comes the problem. The ultimate result of ascension is some form of eternal pleasure. Now, I can understand that humans in general wish to avoid pain and gain pleasure. It's a simple enough to understand sort of hedonistic drive. Unfortunately, in religions that purport to deny the world, it seems quite counter-intuitive. After all, isn't pleasure a distinctly worldly thing? One cannot be sure that anyone can actually experience pleasure as humans understand it once they're dead. Do ghosts/souls/ascended beings actually have some way of processing pleasure? That question's probably one of theology, so I'd leave you to form your own conclusions.

Even worse is the pursuit of enlightenment in avoidance of pain. That's very much along the lines of the this-world-sucks-I-should-leave-it mentality. In the choice between eternal pleasure and eternal agony, the choice is quite a no-brainer. I'd be rather a lot happier not screaming in pain for eternity. However, such a simple dichotomy of choice raises a question: Is there no state in-between, and is the appearance of these very simple options present to distract people from other possible goals?

To me, "enlightenment" should have its merits as an end in itself. If one wishes to pursue enlightenment in order to gain pleasure or even to "ascend" and thus become superior in some way, then the path to enlightenment becomes an means to an end. It is no longer the ultimate goal. Some may ask: So why pursue something for its own sake? For now, my personal answer is: Why not?

Being A Flake

Dangit I hate to admit it, but I do tend to be a flake at times. Dr Manhattan, might I join your club? Anyway, it can be rather annoying to haul my butt out all the way to a computer fair, only to realize that it wasn't at the usual place. Hmm...right. Perhaps I was mistaken about the location. The logical thing to do, obviously, was to haul butt down to the other usual location. Surprise surprise. It wasn't there.

Now, it's common enough for me to mistake my dreams for reality, and my dreams are vivid indeed. However, it seems highly unlikely for me to mistake the *date* of the event, especially when it was so clearly stated on the computer fair's webpage. This caused me to doubt my sanity, though of course one can never be certain about sanity with one like myself. Nonetheless, it was a good thing to head to a terminal to investigate this further.

After a simple search, the exact same page came up. Ah, I was not mistaken about the date after all. The location, however, appeared to be different from the two usual suspects. Hmm...obvious enough. I must have missed that little detail. Interestingly enough, however, that little detail turned out to be the *country* where the computer fair was held. WHOT!? Yes, another country was holding a computer fair by the same name, with a similar website appearance and whatnot. Lovely. Now let's hear it for the flake! Hip hip! Errr...well I forgot the rest.

Running With Wolves

There are times when I walk alone along a long path at night, and things get really boring. In fact, it is a terrible drudge to move slowly along the pavement. Being used to the speed of four wheels really does little to one's time perception when walking home. Of course, a comparable (though not equivalent) mode of transport would be on four paws.

Sometimes it just feels strange, yanou. Walking along and feeling like running, but on fours instead of on two legs. Now, that wouldn't make sense, since that would be awkward given one's anatomy. Then again, the flights of fancy do not necessarily have to make sense. Probably results of a bored mind on long boring solo trips. Ah, the joys of having a camera as a companion.

God Might Be Random

The assumption most people have about God is that She is personal, omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient. They also assume that God created the universe. As a result of the act of creation, the world is created out of the randomness within a controlled random system. This is quite a logical leap, however. Given that God is omni-everything, it is highly limiting to assume that She would act in ways of ordered thought consistent with human sensibilities. After all, the mind of God is by definition unknowable by mere mortals. Randomness as a motivation (or arbitrariness, if you will) is not out of the question. Fun/amusement might be that motivation as well, if one were to imprint God with a human desire.

Then comes the matter of being omni-everything. If that were true, the only thing that would be relatively unpredictable would be the presence of a random system ordered by simple rules. An ordered random system would be unpredictable, and result in the spontaneous generation of order as defined by the simple rules imprinted in the beginning. Life as an ordered system can be entirely possible within the framework of a random system, as the gross characteristics may appear ordered when the core of it is randomness. The particles within humans still move randomly, changing their trajectories, acceleration and velocity in accordance to the rules within the random system.

Since the generation of life may well be random, and not intended to serve some unknowable higher purpose, it is hubris to assume that God is personal. That is, God actually caring about humans at a personal level. For something that is omni-everything observing a controlled random system, it is unthinkable that one particle should be more interesting than another, or at one human be that much more special than another. In fact, the very event of a divine intervention might be the result of the creator of the system adjusting it to ensure that it remains in a state of randomness. After all, a random system moving towards order would become increasingly predictable and that is undesirable by virtue of the fact that an omniscient being/force would already know what would happen.

So why the thought of a personal Creator? Humans have needs. One of the needs is for affirmation or "love". Understandably, most humans simply do not have the energy to "love" everyone else. They can probably do that for a few fellows. What happens, then, when a human is isolated, or feels so due to circumstance? The logical thing to do would be to conceive the idea of something that has unconditional love for the average human, and thus provide a constant supply of "love". If there are instances of divine intervention observed by humans (or thought to be divine intervention), they can understandably be attributed human feelings and assumed (with much hubris) to be the personalized care of an omni-everything deity.

Of course, the consideration of a random God is not without flaws. The key assumption is of course that if there was a reason for creation (of the universe and not earth specifically), and that the reason is fun. This would again assume a human side to Her, and that is quite an assumption given that God isn't quite limited by the foibles of humanity. Moreover, it's understood in terms familiar to the limited cognitive abilities of mortal minds, and the real reason might be well beyond human language and cognition. However, if that were the case, as far as the human intellect is concerned, the reason for creation and everything about life might as well be random: It is ultimately unknowable.

The Recession Effect

When the recession was declared in the press to be particularly serious, I noted an interesting pattern amongst my friends. Everyone was talking about the recession and how they should cut back on spending. Being concerned, of course (heh. heh. heh.), I asked them why that was so? Were they retrenched? Were their parents or relatives fired? The answer was no.

Recessions have an interesting effect on spending, because people are likely to start cutting back on spending simply because of the economic climate instead of their own financial situation. It is understandable to cut back if the finances have gone south back home, of course. However, such caution in a large scale is part of the recession problem in the first place.

Companies that try to cut back in anticipation (or in response to) poorer business tend to decide to fire people sooner or later. These people might not be picked up by other companies because...those are cutting back, too! Eventually there will be a bunch of unemployed people who are unable to spend, further driving business down. The situation worsens. I think most will understand where this cycle leads.

Now, the interesting thing is recovery. Surprisingly enough, the opposite situation can happen during a "recovery". When enough people convince themselves that the recession is over, they start hiring and spending again, driving business back up. The one we're seeing now is likely premature considering the international problems at the moment, but is an illustration of just how sentiment can cause self-fulfilling prophecies.

Camera Favoritism

I loathe to waste assets. Cameras are assets. One thing that's been bugging me when I had multiple cameras was that certain bodies invariably wound up with less utility than others. Especially when one's a "backup" or at least a special purpose unit. That is when camera favoritism occurs: One camera winds up sitting in the dry cabinet for unhappy amounts of time.

My solution to the problem, of course, was to downsize. Where possible, a unit that duplicated the capabilities of another would be pawned off. Ultimately, I wound up with a single dSLR, a large sensor prosumer and a compact camera. Each serves a different function. The compact is a backup take-everywhere unit. Light duty, but gets the job done. The large sensor prosumer is a bit of an oddity. Large and heavy as a dSLR with lens attached, but the prosumer was cheap to obtain and has a really superb lens that is reasonably versatile. It's also relatively silent. As a result, it winds up in situations where good image quality is required but fast shooting speed, the flexibility and heft of multiple lenses prove unnecessary. Finally, there is the dSLR, with fast speed and long glass to take care of the more extreme demands.

While the three bodies admittedly overlap in focal length coverage, there is a reduced possibility of camera favoritism, since each body has its use. Ultimately, I find myself using all three from time to time, as opposed to when I had two dSLR bodies and routinely left one at home because it lacked the capabilities of the other body. It seems like a more tenable solution for the moment.

Superstition And Control

Humans are superstitious animals by virtue of the nature of learning. There are some unknowns that are quite unverifiable, yet the unknowns serve as a fertile seedbed for fears. After all, people do not enjoy the prospect of nasty things happening to them, and it is a small price to pay to adopt rituals that avert such nastiness. Depending on one's culture, that nastiness will vary. Older cultures may have spiritual fears, the contemporary capitalist culture will have materialistic fears.

Given that superstition involves fears of the unverifiable, it is a simple enough matter to exert control on others through manipulation of those fears. It stands to reason that one would wish to minimize those fears, and such a solution comes from the injection of unverifiable snippets disguised as "facts". After all, since both problem and solution are unverifiable, it is easy to assert that the resurgence of unpleasantness is attributable to a lack of adherence to (or belief in) the unverifiable solution. Such is the power of the unverifiable, when humans allow those fears to force them to cling to a superstition.

Once this control has been established, one needs to have either an ongoing unknown that continually threatens to shatter that illusory peace that salves the psyche, or to continually establish new unknowns to keep the fear fresh. If one can keep that momentum going, the constant presence of problems and introduction of solutions can keep the superstitious loyal for extended periods of time, perhaps sufficient to establish one's dominion over a large group of people for enough time to do extensive damage to whatever one detests.

Takes A Dunkin

I suppose today's entry will be somewhat...different from the usual stuff. That is, my phone survived a rather unique and really rather disgusting event in its product lifespan. I was in the toilet and the phone decided to take a little walk out of my admittedly really shallow pocket. After slip sliding off my thigh, onto the floor, across the really well polished tiles, it took a nice smooth slide across porcelain right into the water. 10/10. Oh, and it was yellow water, thanks to yours truly.

After a brief moment of bemusement (that the phone was actually still working underwater) and horror (that the phone was actually still underwater), I had to reach a paw in to grab stinky out, flick the water off, then strip it down so that the battery wouldn't fry anything for good. Thankfully, it seemed to be mostly functional at that point, so I had high hopes that it'd power up just fine after a rest in my dry cabinet.

Of course, it did survive, with all functionality intact. Surprising, considering that it wasn't exactly marketed as a weatherproof phone. Beats the snot out of the E3s which didn't survive a washing, huh. Then again, this is something that I would not be particularly thrilled to retry. As a side note, no, the phone doesn't smell of pee and/or poo since it's been cleaned. Yeah. Cleaned. *sniffs* Eww.

It's Not The Same

It's that time of year again. The last one in a line of 4. Semester's over, summer break's in, new computer, room cleared and messed up again. It almost seems the same. Theoretical freedom and time to hunker down to do the things I love. But then I look back on everything else and I find that things just aren't the same anymore.

Now, one key difference is responsibilities. Never was I ever obliged to actually do something during my summer breaks. That's nasty. People have few enough holidays as things go. One thing is I never can really cut loose when there are responsibilities. I do not like leaving things hanging, so I get my butt out there and slaughter them as best I can. Then another takes its place. And another. And another. It never ends, does it?

Still, I guess I'll still try to get my life back in shape. Things change, nostalgia remains. Therein lies the bite. Well whatever. New rig, no more restrictions. It's time to have some fun!

Room Clearing

Clearing my room from the aftermath of a semester of study makes me think of a game of musical chairs. No kidding. It really does. Now, the early stages of cleaning up are really more like a massacre. One moment there's a lot of stuff everywhere. Later on, it all just...disappears.

Then comes the hard part. After tossing out and/or rearranging everything, there remains the question of what can be done about the stuff that's not meant to be thrown away. The question seems easy enough, until one realizes that all the drawers, bookshelves and other containers are full as well.

Of course, this is really an exercise in irrationality. Obviously, if something's been left alone for long enough that they're forgotten and left in a drawer for ages, they're not terribly important. Aside from important documents in archive, of course. If that's the case, it's really a no brainer about what should be tossed. Then there's the case of the Too Cool To Toss syndrome.

TCTT is something any RPG'er will be familiar with. Suddenly the inventory's full of really cool stuff that the player can't bear to part with, then another cool item pops up. It seems that something's gona out-cool something else. Hence musical chairs. Toss the less cool item out to make way for the cooler one.

And the cycle continues with every storage space in the room. That's where the real irrationality comes in. Shouldn't most storage spaces be devoid of anything but truly archive quality stuff? Well, I guess ultimately it's a case of deferred decision making. I'll just decide on all that stuff at my next spring cleaning =p

Wolverine

What can I say? I am disappointed. Scratch that, I am deeply disappointed. When it comes to a movie about my favourite mutant, I pretty much expected a lot more adherence to canon. I mean, they've been doing just fine with other comic book adaptations lately, so this was really pretty bad.

Hmm...how do I begin? Frankly, the early part of the movie was fine. I liked the introduction though they largely skipped through Wolverine's history in the Wars. Nevermind that Victor really wasn't his brother. In fact, I was rather more pleased by the portrayal of Victor's growing madness than I was with Wolverine's development as a character. Although...well, this being Wolverine, I kinda expected a bit more blood and violence (I know, I know, it goes against his personality, but I've watched 300 and was spoiled by it) Anyway, Gambit was really quite the character in this show. Way better at what he did than I remembered. Sort of a Gandalf, really. That's not to say I wasn't pleased with the eye candy.

Unfortunately, that's where the producers started taking excessive artistic liberties. The bitter rivalry between Wolverine and Sabretooth started to look more like sibling rivalry over who's the best than something truly personal resulting from Sabretooth killing (instead of pretending to kill) Wolverine's beloved. Wolverine seemed a lot more enthusiastic about the Weapon X project, and came out of it a lot more whole than I remembered.

The worst part was Deadpool. When Wade first made his appearance, he was practically a Jedi, cutting bullets out of the air with a pair of katanas disguised as blurs. After he emerged as Deadpool, he was downgraded by having katanas stuffed in his wrists instead, had his mouth sealed (How does Deadpool trashtalk like this!?) and had Cyclops's eyebeams. That most certainly deviates way too much from the real thing. Poor Wade!

Overall, I'd say the movie would've gained a lot of points if they actually cut out the last half hour or so of total nonsense towards the end. But since they didn't, and I respect the director's decision, I'd say this movie's a 6/10

Earth Hour

Earth Hour is a very nice gesture in support of the idea of environmental conservation, and to make everyone realize just how much technology has infiltrated everyday lives. It makes people think about just what life would be like were there no electricity for a mere hour, yet provides an experience that is quite a stark contrast to just what we're used to at that time when we do have electrical power.

However, I fear the gesture is very much like what V-day and Christmas have come to mean: A single feel-good day/moment, then back to the usual programming. In light of the demands of everyday life and the routines of work/entertainment, it becomes all too easy to forget about environmental conservation. It is too easy to waste electricity without realizing it. On a large scale, this may mean that the effect Earth Hour has on the big picture can be quite minimal.

Perhaps it would be better if Earth Hour were combined with a daily reminder. A constant presence of a meter, or even one of those cheesy stickers would probably work mighty fine in conjunction with Earth Hour. With enough awareness, it might even be Earth Hour all hours...not just during an artificial lights out hour, but a conservationist lifestyle incorporated into everyday living.

The Soul Of Things

Things have souls. Even objects and constructs have souls. Without which, they would be but piles of dross. What is gold without the value people believe that it holds? What is air without its oxygen? What is a movie without its key scene?

When one censors a film, one must take care that they do not remove key parts that give it its true flavor. The censors must be careful that they do not reduce a show from one about fighting for one's ideals to one that merely glorifies violence. They should avoid creating a mangled piece that is without meaning or purpose.

What would V for Vendetta be, if Hollywood had decided that it would be fine to include the eucharist scene? What would it be like without Valerie's scene? It is well and good to portray a struggle against an oppressive authority, yet how is that struggle different from that of every stereotypical story of a rebel that succeeds against the odds? V was different by showing the State for what it was: Draconian, but also hostile to the sexual minorities and perpetuating the hypocritical lies and corruption that some religions promote in V's world. That much would have been lost had the two been removed. That is the soul of V. Without which, V would just be any other struggle-against-authority show, a rebel without a cause.

The Misplaced Enjoyment Of Money

The love of money is a dangerous thing, when laced with the wrong motivations for actually loving it. To be truthful, I'm not even sure it's possible to love money itself in a "correct" way, since it's really money's buying power that is attractive. In fact, money left unspent is just a large pool of potential, and stays as potential until actually spent.

Of course, it's also true that money kept in reserve has its uses, such as for unforeseen crises. Such as sudden unemployment, illness or something of the sort. It pays to keep such a reserve. Yet the reserve provides such comfort that some have transferred their enjoyment from the items money is spent on, to actually watching their bank accounts grow. From an individual's perspective, that really makes little sense since they'd be quite unable to enjoy those funds once they're old and infirm, or if they suddenly die.

Sometimes I wonder at those who just love watching their accounts grow (while not actually saving for anything, like a crisis fund or the next really big ticket purchase like housing). For those, wouldn't it simply make more sense to just program a number simulation that constantly ticks up the amount of money in a virtual bank account? After all, given their spending habits, they'd never spend enough to realize that the numbers are fake, so all they get would be pure, unadulterated satisfaction.

Can: i-bomb?

I had this hilarious experience related to me by my teacher earlier today. He said that someone on the bus reported that there was a suspicious package on board, causing the driver to stop the bus and investigate. Obviously, the item was rather alarming: It looked exactly like a sealed can of no-frills tuna.

Now, we all have watched those action films, where some tiny device winds up blowing up most of a city block. Or so it seems. Clearly, the bus driver figured that this was it. It was the i-bomb. Scary stuff. Just as any rational movie-goer, the bus driver decided that the can of tuna could've been some anti-matter conversion device, so he stopped the bus.

Everyone out. Nobody's taking any chances. Not in times like these anyway. Not when the American Dream came true and we wound up living it.

How Straight Are You?

I find it rather amusing when people say things like hey! that gay person hasn't tried sex with males/females (whichever's applicable), so they clearly have not met the right person and thus are gay. At a glance, it seems like a rather compelling argument. One does not truly know unless one tries, right?

Unfortunately, nobody ever seems to consider the converse. I mean, every other person who thinks he/she is straight has never actually tried sex with males/females, right? Wouldn't that make them potential gays who never found the right gay lover?

I also take issue with the rather bizarre idea that sex is the defining factor behind one's straight/gayness. I mean, whatever happened to virginity till marriage (or civil union or whatever have you)? If people believe that, no wonder gay (and straight) people are being all promiscuous, ever-eager to please the fickle masses about their true sexuality.

Children Are Vampires

Children are vampires. That much everyone can probably agree on, in principle. Now, the allegation is pretty obvious, all things considered. First, we have to begin with the definition of a vampire.

A vampire is an undead, blood sucking monster. From the various vampire lore, it is not always established that vampires are indeed vulnerable to sunlight or holy relics. Since nobody can really confirm that, we shouldn't jump to conclusions. Most do, however, agree that a stake to the heart can be rather debilitating for a vampire. Hence, we'll go with that for now.

Let's consider the child, then. Children were once fetuses. They start off sucking blood in the womb (yes, yes we know the biology, but it sure looks like it =p). Check that off. Children, as defined by adults, have no life. Technically, that would make them undead. Let's check that, too. Children, especially those under the age of 2, are called "little monsters". Right. Good. So we have an undead, blood-sucking little monster. Hence, we may conclude that children are indeed vampires, though many do grow out of that phase. That's why most adults no longer truly believe in vampires.

Of course, I did postulate that, based on this particular logic, other creatures may be vampires, too. Take for example Hitler. Given the Christian propensity to sing about drinking blood, I would have to assume that they are, at least metaphorically (and some claim literally) blood drinkers. Hitler was Christian. That makes him a blood drinker. Just about everyone agrees that he's a monster. There goes another. And of course, as a Nazi, he certainly had no life. If Hitler's a vampire, and so are children, beware, people. Vampires walk amongst us.

Christianity Out Of Context

There are perhaps few things as alarming as hearing certain Christian hymns taken entirely out of context. They are so freaky, in fact, that I think any wanabe demon or vampire worshipper could probably take the lyrics verbatim and change the background track some, then use it as their worship song. Or dirge. Or whatever that may be called.

If one steps back from the religious considerations, and takes the lyrics literally, one would be hearing songs about craving for blood, drinking it and eating (human) flesh. Rather unsavory things that are frowned upon in polite Christian society, methinks. Sometimes when I hear that, I feel a very strong urge to bring in some animal sacrifices, draw a rather elaborate arcane-looking summoning circle right in the middle of the church sanctuary, then slaughter the animals and babble some untelligible spell. It'd sound like I was talking in tongues anyway.

How Free Is Free?

Free will is truly the ability to make and execute decisions within the framework of what one knows, and what one is able to do. Everything beyond those boundaries is beyond the limits of free will. Choice becomes irrelevant when one lacks either the knowledge or ability to do anything about it.

Consider the case where I create a species of creature that's only capable of doing bad things, as defined by my concept of good and bad. While they are perfectly free to operate without my intervention, or imposing my will on their thoughts after their creation, they are also unable to fathom non-bad actions, because I created them to be so. Hence, within their range of awareness, they have free will. Unfortunately, I am quite aware that they do not, since I am aware that "bad" is not the limit of the possibilities of the range of actions.

Hypothetically, the only way to truly have free will is to be omnipotent and omniscient. That's because one would know all, and be able to do whatever one decides on. Of course, then we'd then be faced with the innate limits of power: The more powerful one gets, the less one is able to choose to do nothing. Every action and inaction one chooses will have consequences. Then again, if we regard the choice to not make a choice to be excluded from the considerations of free will, an omnipotent and omniscient being would truly have free will.

The Importance Of Humanity

It is Friday the 13th. Lovely day, it turns out. The 13th really has too much bad press. See? If you show it lots of love and concern, Friday the 13th will not come and bite you in the back. Do unto others and whatnot...

I was meditating on the importance of humanity, and I figure that humanity is an artificial construct that is seriously over emphasized. For one, nobody can really define what humanity is. Is it genetics? Conduct? Thought patterns? Sure, everyone's got a subjective opinion of humanity, which is quite invariably linked to the cultural beliefs that they hold (and probably take to be natural and globally generalizable).

So the question really is whether humanity as a concept is important. While it arguably encompasses concepts like compassion, kindness and other things deemed to be "good", it will be quite sufficient to be a "good" creature, regardless whether one is truly human. Just how important is humanity then?

Knowing People

I am constantly disturbed at how readily my parents would rely on first impressions to get their measure of people. That is, they're quite happy to have one look at the person and his/her conduct, then decide whether they want to get to know the person better or whether to be friends and such.

The problem here is that they're essentially allowing confirmation bias to rule their heuristic. Say you decide that someone's bad, so you look out for bad things and refuse to get to know the person better. In all probability, even rather excellent specimens of humanity would be prone to making highly visible mistakes from time to time. Should one be looking out for those same defects, one would feel justified in concluding that the said people were just...bad.

Then again, my method is probably not quite suited to what most are used to. It may even be deemed to be socially naive. However, I stand by my belief that people should be given a chance, and that it takes months to truly have an estimate of someone's measure. So even if someone gives me a seriously bad gut reaction, I'd be wary but not dismiss the person offhand. There can be treasure in junk, after all. Of course, if it is proven that the person means me harm, or has no intention whatsoever of being friendly, I think there's no shame in admitting that someone's just not friend material. At the very least, though, try to avoid dismissing anyone offhand.

I Hate Authority

I hate human authority. I do so with pride and a vengeance. The way things stand, authority, especially in the modern densely populated countries, is synonymous with bureaucracy. Perhaps it is bureaucratic authority that I abhor, but then again I am skeptical of authority in general. Authority is synonymous with power, and power corrupts. Concentrate power within a small circle of people (relative to the general population) and what you have is a disaster.

Why? People don't care. They really don't. In fact, it seems to be in the nature of humans not to care, regardless whether they are gen pop or in seats of power. That is why it is dangerous to invest any human with too much power over others. Thus, guidelines are needed to let people know what they should, shouldn't, can or can't do. So, what happens when someone needs something done? Refer to the guidelines.

Guidelines are rigid, and often poorly written. They mostly have no provisions for gray areas, despite how often those things may arise. Besides, it's a great excuse for the lower ranking bureaucrats to thump their rulebooks and say that things cannot be done. It almost sounds like a bad church, where the priest/pastor thumps the divine rulebook to a completely accepting population. What happens, then? Why would I hate authority? Because despite all its inefficiency, it is probably still a necessary evil, and I still don't like what it does to people even out of necessity.

WWIII?

Given the global situation, I sometimes wonder whether we are looking at a looming WWIII. And I'm not referring to just the current recession, which is undoubtedly a contributor to population pressures. However, while there may be a buildup to another global war, it still takes a trigger to set everything off so it may yet be averted no matter how gloomy the situation gets.

Besides the population pressures from a global recession, there are the international tensions that seem to be building up here and there. Tensions in the Middle East (Iran, Israel, Iraq, Palestine), Russia's aggressiveness against Georgia, the shift in power between China and the USA, political unrest in some parts of Southeast Asia, India and Pakistan's constant rivalry can all become contributing factors to a global war when allies are drawn into a conflict.

While there is a low probability of a war right in the middle of this particular recession (assuming it doesn't develop into a Depression), there is also the matter of Obama apparently trying to appease all sides at once. From a humanitarian standpoint, that is a highly desirable thing, and sure beats unpleasant favoritism whereby people are made to suffer at the whims of someone who doesn't agree with them. Historically, however, it is often these peacekeepers who ironically wind up supporting certain undesirable elements by not clamping down hard on them. Hopefully, the peaceable stance they're taking at the moment will rub off on the others, otherwise this could just be the beginning of a buildup towards WWIII.

Time Travel

Time travel in science fiction books has always seemed to be impossible, or incredibly delicate by virtue that the Butterfly Effect of causing a small change in the past could totally overhaul the future. This stems from the assumption that the timestream is a collective feature, and therefore everyone is affected by time all at once. Moreover, it is linear, so it becomes impossible for one to go into the past to kill one's father.

Theoretically, if timestreams were individual rather than collective, it is possible for the current reality to remain unaltered if one went back and did things that could incorporate themselves into one's past. For example, the inventor of time travel could go back in time to tell herself about how time travel works, and it was the basis of this self-informing that led to the creation of time travel itself. It may sound convoluted and contradictory, but it really just involves creating an individual time loop, where everything fits neatly into the past.

Also, this opens the possibility of a hero learning how to time travel, die in the past, get resurrected in the future and still not affect the hero's original reality. That's because the hero already lived through the entire timeframe, learned to time travel, went back to the past, died (probably without affecting other timestreams) and was somehow resurrected, then traveled to the future.

The Lot In Life

It seems that many believe in the concept of having a "lot" in life. By lot meaning they're somewhat bound to have a sort of social status, for example, and will never transcend that level no matter how hard they try. Well I say hogwash. Of course they never would, if they never tried, since they already figured it was hopeless to begin with! Quite the self-fulfilling prophecy.

Sometimes I think the regulation of self-esteem, and concept of a lot in life are methods of social control designed specifically to convince people that they should not aspire to advance far beyond their assigned station in life. If true, it is a well-established method to maintain social order by artificially encouraging the stagnation of the lower social classes.

Either way, the belief is unacceptable, since it not only prevents people from becoming the best that they can be, but also stunts the growths of societies that hold this mistaken belief. There is no limit to what people can achieve when they set their minds to it, and failure is an acceptable outcome when even one's best efforts prove insufficient. Still, one will never know the possibilities open to oneself without first trying, and if one first fails, one will not know future success if one does not get up and try yet again.

Friends

Friends. It is a frightening word. The very concept is disturbing because being a friend is a commitment that is not to be taken lightly. Yet just about everyone bandies the term at the drop of a hat, with no concern for what friendship truly means. This is creating a great mass of meaningless links, and the very dangerous illusion of social happiness.

There are different grades of friend, ranging from an acquaintance to a chatty buddy to someone who would go through hell itself with the one they befriended. The last one is of the highest quality, and exceedingly rare. Realistically, most friends will never be like that. However, the minimum standard I would hold a friend to is the willingness to hang on even when one is faced with difficulties.

It is easier conceptualized than realized, seeing as most are still dominated by their sense of self-preservation, and that is further bolstered by the self-interest that is common in modern society. Chances are, many "friends" will fade into the woodwork at the whiff of trouble, and are less than hesitant to truly risk some of their happiness to preserve their ally. With friends like those, who needs enemies? It's no wonder that it's advocated that people make friends with everyone: They're going to get stabbed in the back anyway, so they might as well be socially appealing before their downfall.

The Couple

The belief that a couple is the sum of two halves is rather misleading, whatever the intentions of whoever it was that created the concept. In fact, it is dangerous, when two incomplete individuals enter a relationship, expecting the other to make up for the shortcomings of the other. Perhaps that is why so many break up, if they were indeed built on such faulty foundations.

I think maturity is important for both people, and by my measure that means both will have to be fully realized individuals, or at least mostly fully realized. By being thus, both should have relative security in who they are, and at least the awareness and willpower to manage the insecurities that arise. Thus, the couple is not a sum of two halves, but the union of two wholes that turns out to be greater than the sum.

High standards, perhaps. However, people charging in with an eagerness to experience a sort of completion through forming a relationship are mostly doomed to failure. Perhaps it is possible by luck, but luck can only go so far. It is not the relationship that completes, but the ability of both parties to shore up one another during the down periods, and the maturity to manage disagreements without harboring insecurities they are unaware of. To me, that is the essence of an enduring couple, and the way they can get on in life strengthening one another without either becoming a drag in the long term.

With A Wide

The wide angle lens is perhaps my most neglected glass so far. Frankly, I've never really found a good reason to use it to get everything into a shot. In fact, that turned out to be one of the worst ever ideas I've had since everything basically got clumped into an amorphous blob that made little sense and had virtually no holding power.

And then I rediscovered the principle of getting closer. Most of the time, that's something I would only do with a macro lens. However, experimenting with that on a wide produced rather good results. In fact, the principle applied pretty well since getting close to a large building was very much similar to doing so with a smaller object with a macro lens.

After which, I also rediscovered the use of a polarizer, which significantly added to the vibrancy of the colors in the shots. The polarizer is probably one of the filters that has an effect which is quite impossible to replicate reliably in post processing. Anyhoo...this is a reminder to think globally, and experiment moar. MOAR!

Rational Correctness

Rationality seems to be popularly confused with correctness. While, undoubtedly, rational thoughts can be correct, not all rational choices are necessarily correct. In fact, one can be perfectly rational and completely wrong at the same time.

The problem seems to come from the assumption that people cannot be perfectly rational without access to perfect information. This seems rather unusual, seeing as the level of information should have little bearing on the procedure of a thought process, though it will undoubtedly affect the content and outcome.

This leads to the matter of choice, where choices are often seen as "bad" on hindsight, quite invariably due to the unavailability of information at the time of that decision. Still, chances are that the choice made at the time was due to a cost-benefit analysis at the point of time, and was really quite rational in nature. Unfortunately, it proved non-beneficial when the alternative turned out to be far better...

On Superstition

It seems that superstition is not merely a factor of human irrationality, though a large proportion of it is. Superstition appears to be primarily a result of the human inability to intuitively comprehend probabilities, problems separating causality from correlation and the human ability to learn from experience.

The curious result of this is the learning that particular actions cause low probability events to happen. Say for example the waving of a tree branch was quickly followed by rainfall during a drought. Waving it again at a time in the future caused similar rainfall in a drought. Sold! Clearly, the probability of rainfall during a drought...twice over...is quite small. Learning occurs, creating an association between branch waving and rainfall.

Unfortunately, there was no way to verify that the correlation was actually causality. To do so would require lots of branch waving at random times during a drought and actually checking whether it would reliably cause rainfall. In fact, even then the causality would be tenuous unless the exact mechanism of rainfall causation could be established. Superstition thus serves as a handy shortcut in "comprehending" such matters, then getting on with life. This is not to say that superstition is necessarily good, or even useful, but it is just a human tendency given the somewhat inadequate nature of the human mind.

The Survival Instinct

There has been something that's nagging me lately, and that's whether there really is such a thing as a survival instinct. With that being the urge to stay alive even when one consciously wishes for death. Sure, there's a whole school of thought revolving around the concept, and many people swear that it exists. However, I'm still skeptical whether it's an "instinct" or something people were conditioned to fear. After all, everyone's taught to fear death and most already fear the unknown.

Unfortunately, it really is frightfully hard to put this to the test. I would very much like to personally disprove it, but the only way for me to prove a lack of fear of death is to actually off myself and note what things are like just beyond the point of no return. By definition, that also means I would hardly be in a position to record my findings.

To perform the test, one would have to be dying by inches over a reasonably long period of time such that one can feel oneself dying and be fully able to panic about it. Of course, the absence of such a panic in the face of willful self-destruction would be quite a compelling proof that the survival instinct really isn't.

I guess some things are just really difficult to test, and it would probably be unethical to put others up to it as well. Still, it irks me to no end that people unquestioningly believe in the survival instinct regardless whether it is actually proven. Sure, some may claim that the fact that most people have not killed themselves is definitive proof that there is a survival instinct, but then again it sounds uncomfortably close to imbecilic bravado to have to off oneself just to prove a point. It's very much like a dare, only that the person who has the last laugh is the one who was not silly enough to allow oneself to be drawn into it. I mean hey...bowing to this one dare pretty much precludes one from trying out every other life-threatening dare one may encounter in future. What a waste.

God's Omnipotence

The philosophical question about whether God can create a stone so heavy that She can't lift it seems rather simple at first. It's an omnipotence paradox. Being unable to create that stone, or being unable to lift said stone will be taken as a sign that God isn't really omnipotent.

That does not seem terribly satisfactory to arrive at a stalemate this way. A logical approach would be to consider the assumptions behind the nature of omnipotence and creation. Omnipotence is assumed to be the pinnacle of can-do, meaning that God should hypothetically be able to do anything. Including creating a stone that cannot be lifted. Well, that seems fair enough. Omnipotence in creation implies that.

However, the assumption also means that it is possible for God to create another God that is equally omnipotent. Since it is by definition impossible for omnipotence to be superseded by something greater, I think it is pointless to ask whether God can create a greater God. Hence the question on the limitations of creation.

If creation were limitless, there would be no question about whether the stone could be created. It probably could be. Yet, creating a stone with an attribute (weight) that exceeds another (God's strength) is akin to the case of creating an even more omnipotent God (i.e. one that is greater than God Herself). The assumption that the upper limit of creation is omnipotence itself is also an assumption of creation's limit.

I figure that the absence of an equivalent omnipotent God (that's a monotheist assumption, after all) means that either creation is limited to creating lesser beings (while not implying God's inability, as creation does not define God) or that God simply did not bother with that exercise. Certainty in such matters does seem like hubris, since there can only be uncertainty with regards to the motivations of divine beings.

If we were to consider creation capable of creating a stone that is incredibly heavy, that weight would have to be precisely balanced with God's ability to lift it. In which case the stone will be precisely halfway between being lifted, and sitting on the ground.

Ponyo On A Cliff By The Sea

One word to describe Ponyo: Trippy. Ponyo is one trippy animation, and don't you forget that. It's almost as if Miyazaki ordered his creative team to let their imaginations run wild. Ponyo is somewhat random, strange and somewhat disjointed enough to give the logically-minded a brain fart, yet is able to be cheerful and pleasing at the same time.

Ponyo seems somewhat different from Miyazaki's usual environmentalist themes, since Ponyo is a celebration of the might of the ocean, and a little introduction to what's been lost in the oceans even before the advent of humans. As the human world is slowly overcome by the ocean due to Ponyo's unleashing of strange and powerful forces in the pursuit of humanity and true love, the creatures previously known only as fossils reappeared. They were even given a little introduction by the characters.

I think Ponyo is an interesting mix between the Little Mermaid, with a spot of Howl's Moving Castle, Totoro, Grave of the Fireflies, along with a touch of Ghibli'esque art. In fact, the art is slightly unusual in the extensive use of color pencils in the backdrops. As is typical in the fantasy-themed Ghibli films, the changes in the peoples' environments and the random strangeness of unusual events seems to be taken pretty well by the others. The lack of tragedy and true villians also leaves the film up to interpretation as to its meaning and intention.

Overall, I'd say this film was an audiovisual feast, with Joe Hisaishi behind the music and Miyazaki at the helm again. The film does not fail to disappoint, and has a nice healthy 9/10.

As a side note, Fujimoto called Ponyo "Brunhilde", which also happens to be the name of the valkyrie that was trapped in an eternal sleep within a ring of fire till a suitable human was brave enough to enter the said ring and thus rescue her...

Red Cliff 2

I usually have a policy against watching Chinese films. Unlike Japanese stuff, I really don't get Chinese films most of the time. But then again, I heard that Red Cliff 2 speaks the international language of violence pretty well, so I figured I might as well watch it.

As expected, Red Cliff 2 was perfectly epic. The Chinese sure do have enough people lying around to fill the role of extras. I always did hope to see some truly epic battles on screen, with loads of extras and explosions and such. Guess it delivered. The sheer brutality of siege warfare was successfully brought to the big screen, imo.

That aside, I was more than mildly disappointed at the historical inaccuracy of the depiction of said combat. I mean...the testudo hardly seemed like a Chinese battle tactic. Moreover, there were some major inaccuracies in the way Zhugeliang was portrayed (he looked uncomfortably similar to Orlando Bloom for some odd reason. Poor Takeshi Kaneshiro!) given his lack of flair. Of course, I did not seriously expect historical inaccuracy. 300 was inaccurate, too, to be fair.

Overall, I figure the film would get 8/10. Probably strongly influenced by the sufficiently brutal battle scenes.

Ze Moon

I finally got down to using my 500mm Pentacon lens to have a shot at the moon. Now there's an improvement over the Olympus 70-300mm, if only because the lens is much longer and capable of getting more details off the lunar surface by virtue of that alone. Currently, I need a new method of post processing to reduce the noise output while maintaining the ability to enhance details on the image. Oh, and perhaps to shoot on a clearer day so there isn't any haze out there to cut some details out. Yup.

Jerky's Gone

I checked downstairs this morning, and someone took Jerky away. Even the water dishes and my makeshift bed's been cleared. Now, I have no idea if it was the SPCA, some kind neighbor or someone else, but I'm sure Jerky will be in a better position than he was sleeping amongst the remains of the food we've been trying to get him to eat. Maybe he'll be put down, made into jerky or perhaps a vet will make him well again.

It's been nice knowing you, Jerky, even though it was for a few days. Perhaps this is something like what one feels when losing a pet. I lost one before, and under different circumstances, but I'm sure she's right fine wherever she is here and now.

Feeding Jerky

I went down to get some premium wet cat food for Jerky today. I warmed the tin before dishing it out. It's really telling when doing that around a domestic cat, seeing as how he responded immediately to the familiar sound of a tab being pulled on a tin of wet food. Unfortunately he was too feeble to do more than lick at the lump of tuna and whitefish. I wound up breaking the food into lumps with a scoop and he was really quite enthusiastic about consuming it. He polished off half of the food with ease, then went back to moping. Or maybe he was just tired.

Anyway, Jerky seems rather more responsive today. He was able to raise his head and full open his eyes. He even tried to sit up with difficulty, though he only succeeded in shifting his position. Quite an improvement from his original morose fetal position when I found him. Hopefully he'll be yet better the next day, though something would need to be done about his surroundings. I donated a disposable lab coat for his use as a makeshift cushion, but the food around him is bound to rot and will have to be cleared if he's unable to finish it. He'd need to be cleaned, too.

Jerky The Cat

There's this cat which is seriously sick. And he's decided to curl up to die downstairs. At first I thought it was most certainly the end of the road for him. And then he decided to mew at me. While it sounded more like Ouch than Hello, I figured that if he was spirited enough to mew at me despite being reduced to fur (his fur's still intact, after all), skin and bones, I got him some water. This was when I decided to call him Jerky, because he was so weak he could only struggle jerkily to control his head enough to lap at the water I provided.

This was when I figured that Jerky could probably do with some food. He turned out to be game enough to gnaw on a barbecued chicken wing (not proper food, I know, but it was all I had at the time) and would have finished all of it if I deboned the thing properly. Not bad, for a dying cat. Perhaps he has some fighting spirit in him yet. As long as he's willing to eat and drink, I'll provide stuff for him. Maybe he'll die, maybe he won't. But at least he's not going to starve or thirst to death on my watch.

The New Year

It's a new year! Or is it? All I figure is that it seems most curious that the rollover of a second can neatly demarcate a "new" year from an "old" one. If anything, it's a new day (or is there even such a thing?) and life goes on. When the fanfare and (admittedly) pretty fireworks die down, I find that nothing has really changed.

This begs the question of why anyone would bother with a rollover. Of course, it could just be a mass joyous self-deception to have the self-deception of believing that an era has passed and a new one beckons. A lie (that, if told often enough, may become truth) that something has changed, and that there's a clean slate. Besides, there's a chance that the complacency that something has magically changed over will turn to bitter disappointment when the reality hits and proves that nothing has really shifted without effort to that effect.

Maybe I'm a cynic, but I really do like New Years...primarily for the holiday. Otherwise, it's a practical matter to switch over my calendar and to ponder about how I should go about my life, one day at a time. Preferably without the illusory comfort of a line drawn in time.