The Cat

I saw a cat walking along a road today. He looked almost exactly like the one who was run over a couple weeks back. It was a sad reunion of sorts. I really can't stand watching something get run over and die in front of me. A cat's requiem, and a moment of silence.

The Meaning of Everything

There is no greater meaning to life than realizing that life is ultimately meaningless. Being born is meaningless. Living life is meaningless. Dying is meaningless. Trying to die is meaningless. The greatest hope that people harbour is the one that tells them that their lives have meaning.

If one lives, only to die eventually, then there is no point to living life because it will end. If one lives, and is immortal, there is no point to living forever because living is meaningless. If an afterlife does not exist, living life is meaningless because one simply ceases to care after one dies. If one has an afterlife, living life is meaningless because one will end up there anyway. If living life is a way to attain a good afterlife, what is there to ensure that the afterlife is not meaningless as well? And what if one asks in the afterlife, "What is the meaning of the afterlife?", and gets a slow... nonchalant... shrug in reply? Irony. But irony is ultimately meaningless.

Aeon Flux and Brave New World

I watched Aeon flux yesterday. There were some interesting issues raised in the film, and several parallels to Huxley's Brave New World. The concept of artificial birth, the usual sheep-like conduct of the people. The city is a sanitized, self-contained futuristic metropolis. As always, the people are portrayed as sheep, though their conditioning is not like what one finds in Brave New World.

It is interesting to see a similarity to the Guilds in various science fiction works. The Guild is always advanced and acts as an overseer of the common population. In this case, the foating ship turns out to be a cloning facility, the function of which is unknown to the people. It is manned by an ancient, which is a common feature of the Guilds. When the ship crashes, it serves as a symbol of freedom when it knocks the wall down that separates the city from the rest of the world.

The issue of cloning is scientifically questionable, though. The clones seem to retain memories of their previous lives. This is an example of past-life regression, however, and is something that is a rather real phenomenon. Could some memories be genetic?

We also have the typical freedom fighters. Strangely enough, Hollywood freedom fighters never seem to have a true cause. Rebels without a cause, they seem to try to introduce the idea of freedom to the masses by overthrowing a regime of sorts. However, what of the people who have no concept of freedom? Many people have no idea of what it is like to live without a regime over their heads, and simply start following the leaders that emerge and wind up under yet another regime in the end.

In search of the bitter truth and freedom.

The truth is said to set one free. But what happens when the sheer shock of the truth paralyzes one who cannot handle the truth. It is a sad condition when one cannot handle it. What is true freedom? One can think one is free, but is in reality constrained by those beliefs. One can force one's freedom from the constraints of society but wind up enslaved by the needs that arise in that "freedom". The central paradigm of liberty is that it exists only in the mind. There can be no true freedom.

Egg Jams and Executions

The Egg Jams are past. Executions should be allowed on the condition that humans are the ones to be executed. I've yet to see humans being executed for carrying the bird flu or ebola.

I'm currently preparing a master set of Sandman comics. It's really incredible how many comics there are in existence. Wishlist: Death Note manga.

Living a lie

Dear Fenris,
Which would be better: Living a lie and be reasonably comfortable in the deception, or to break forth in truth, be free on the inside but chained by the weight of reality? Worse still, which is the truth, and which is the lie? Or do the two positions change with the seasons? I don't know the answer yet, but I'll figure it out somehow. I always say it, but never seem to figure it out. But there is always one truth:
Remember that I am an illicit procurement specialist.

Perfection

If perfection is the pinnacle of refinement, then it stands to reason that there is only one possible form of perfection. And if perfection is perfect, then there is no way that it can be improved. That would make perfection stasis, since any deviation from the ideal would be going backwards. Is heaven perfect? Is there ever progress in heaven?

Long Distance Relationships

It is difficult to maintain long-distance relationships. This is especially true if one would wish to preserve the closeness that was once present before the other went away. The ties that bind grow distance with the passage of time, and the newer fads and interests are seldom accurately relayed across all that space. Morever, there is no shared experience to go with the discussion, even if the new interests are in common. The relationships invariably and inevitably drift further apart.

Why?

Some people seem to have everything going for them, but nobody really stops to question whether they had paid a high price in exchange for their good fortune. Why me? Because.

My moss is growing well on my pot of bonsai. I spotted a small caterpillar on one of the little plants growing there. Instead of becoming philosophical on how a bonsai caterpillar would wind up on a bonsai pot, I chose to ask it the question, "Can you fly?"

A Memory

A birthday. It was interesting to think of a birthday that had no people coming to celebrate. All 6 cameras in the house failed to operate, and the only one that did, failed after taking 37 shots from a 36 shot roll of film. Now, I wouldn't say that the birthday was an entire disaster, but it was interesting to note how technology always manages to fail at the proper time. I don't know about others, but technology doesn't like me very much. hehe

Nothing Ever Gets Through!

I have some sort of weird mail filter imp guarding every sort of mail I receive. I'm sure that it's an imp or a similarly mischievous being or entity or whatever it is. My important emails never get through even though I have it nearly empty and have no filters on it. My snail mail comes late at best and goes missing sometimes. Even my phone SMS messages can be delayed by hours~~! Then again, I'm quite positive that technology hates me, so that could be a reason. It isn't really a case of ineptness. Stuff works when I'm staring at it. It just fails when I look away, or in front of me when I blink.

Yellow Submarine

I agree that The Beatles' Yellow Submarine is a remarkably silly piece of film, but it is also a rather interesting work of art. It incorporates cubism into a running animation that has a rather surrealist feel to it. I note the inclusion of contemporary icons into the background art as well. It would be a great piece for Cultural Studies analysis.

Reasoned, reasonable reasoning.

The society of modern humans is full of reasoned, reasonable people who do not reason very much. People are dissatisfied with the idea of being happy without a reason, and demand a reason to be happy. Upon receiving such a reason for happiness, they feel liberated to be freely happy without reasoning beyond the surface veneer of reason provided as an excuse for happiness. Happiness, as biologists would claim, is a result of chemicals gathered and interacting with the brain. Thus, there really should not be a reason for reasoned happiness, simply because there is no reason that necessitates it. It is proven beyond a doubt, however, that the people are reasonable. They can be reasoned with and made to accept reasons, however stupid, as long as they are reasonable.

The Housework Paradox

When tidying a room, one must seek to eliminate trash from the room by physically removing it from the area. Rearranging the room would only serve to move the same trash around, and the room becomes increasingly impossible to tidy. Unfortunately, the "it may come in handy" principle is a great hindrance to such efforts. An item may be useless at the moment, and should be removed in order to prevent the buildup of trash in a room. However, this may result in one buying the exact same item later on in life when the item is actually needed. One may be inclined to store the item in an "appropriate place" instead. This may be even worse, given that storing an item thus would likely result in a junk heap somewhere, with the said item buried under years of it-may-come-in-handies. The law of kipple is such: Kipple spreads. If there's nothing that we can do about it, chances are that we simply should not do anything about it. There's no point running; you'll only die tired.

Are your leaders lying to you?

If a country is subjected to the mass media geared only towards protecting the interests of the ruling party, with the citizens screened from all outside influences, how can any one stand up to the regime? Would anybody know? The citizens could be deceived to a point that they accept what they are told. Moreover, if impoverished, they could well be so preoccupied with their day-to-day living that they have neither the time nor inclination to question the words of their leaders. This could also happen in a fairly developed country, when lies are fed to the people on a daily basis. How, then, could they know when their ears are filled with false promises and misinformation? Worst of all, would they say, "Would it matter?"
Freedom and stability are often viewed as mutually exclusive: The more freedom, the less stability. If this argument holds water, it stands to reason that all freedom should be sacrificed in return for stability.

Lightning

There was a lightning storm today. I was appreciating the thunder when a great big flash of lightning lit the sky and managed to synchronize with the circuit breaker tripping. Totally trippy. The power was out only in my unit. The other units were still lit. Anyway, I reset the breaker and all equipment appears to be in order. The other computer has trouble booting, though. It wasn't on at the time of the outage, so I wonder at whether it has anything to do with the surge.

Egg Jams

The egg jam's are a-comin'
Can ya smell 'em comin'?

Yuh. It's that time of year again. The big ugly things that are just a waste of time, and the source of a lot of stress. Timer started, Fenrir! Two weeks remain! Make your time! Move zig! For great justice!

Economic Escalation

I'm positive that the current capitalist system will collapse on
itself in the future (near or otherwise). People are working harder and
harder, and employment is reduced in a bid to improve efficiency. To
maintain employment, people would have to work for less pay (which
encourages further exploitation of the working population). Moreover,
employers will be inclined to work their employees harder if they wish to
remain competitive. Monetary flows keep the economy running, and slacking
off would have disastrous effects, not counting cyclical fluctuations. I
would think that the future would be very interesting indeed.

Dilbert!

It's a little spacey to have watched 12 hours of Dilbert. I now have the urge to grow pointy hair and commit random acts of management. That cannot be a good thing. I think synergy would be the only solution to this problem that is as big as a horse standing under a waterfall. Dilbert is addictive. Be Warned. Incidentally, it also turns out that I actually watched Season 1 AND 2 of the Dilbert animated series. Pretty heady stuff.

Oh. I'm pleased to announce that I managed to get my Navi to manage my Porta-Navi. Turns out that the Porta-Navi isn't up to the task of managing the Navi. (Remember Problem 79, Fenrir) Anyway, the trick was to map the Porta-Navi as a Network drive and work from there. It was a pretty simple solution that toally slipped me by for some time. Anyway...it's a good thing to note, Fenrir. Remember My Computer.

Samhain

Came and went. Just like that. Perhaps I should have done more than let it pass me by. Then again, time is what we have lots of.

Finishing Fable: TLC. Turns out to be the first Microsoft game I actually enjoyed. Uh oh. Dark side shift detected.