I’m running out of words
I’ve had an incessant writers block. It’s the sort of writer’s block that is caused, not by a lack of writing, but a lack of ideas that are new or exciting. I remember i would think of something ridiculous and wonky, and write it down, now that doesn’t happen. I wonder if that’s part of growing up, understanding that the brain has limitations and that everything I know, I have already found out. Then again, what would that mean? That would mean that humans are finite beings, cut off from the boundless knowledge that is set in front of us and made concrete by the age of 20. Maybe I just need to drink more caffeine.
coupla ideas
if you take an oscillating laser, with a continuous sensor on the other end, you could in theory measure the gravitational pull perpendicular to that plane. think of a wheel. at the center of that wheel is a laser, and at the other end is a highly precise sensor. it could be used as sort of a gravitational radar which will be able to sense any and all forms of matter from nearly any distance. the laser would have to be ultraprecise and the sensor would have to be equally as calibrated.
gps our cops. our public officers should be tracked while on duty. also, police enforcement along highways should be in designated areas. these areas could be cemented once every 5 or 6 miles, and the signage would be more effective at policing high speeding then the appearance of a hiding cop. I once talked to an ex-CHP officer, and he told me that “90 percent of the job is being seen.” whats better then a marked enforcement zone that is well lit and has amenities like a restroom or phone. a rest stop for cops where they bust you.
I think that police enforcement should only be done by police officers. if we automate the enforcement of law, the citizens will be expected to understand and follow the law in the same way it is enforced. if it is enforced by robots, the people will need to be robotic in return. although that is probably what the government would love to see, I frankly don’t agree with it, and I doubt you do too.
Spontaneous Combustion Worries Me
I have never seen spontaneous combustion occur before, but it worries me deeply. At any point during your day, poof, you could explode. Randomly, sitting at the very desk you are sitting at, staring at the very screen you are staring at, you could blow up into an infeasible amount of pieces, disappearing in a red cloud of blood and guts. In your remnants, a mystery; one that can’t be solved with the careful eye of a detective, or the insightful perception of even the most truthful of paranormal experts.
No, these sorts of occurrences rest of the fringes of mystery. Like the creation of the world, “Fuck man, I wasn’t there.” So people will make educated guesses as to how this random explosion happened.
Now, I use the word “educated” in the most broad use of the term, for the word, “educated” can mean many things. A detective, for example, will have a different story than, say, the paranormal expert. The detective would say “well, there must have been a fire” while the paranormal expert would say “it must have been magic.” They would poke and prod around the red blotches of the former you, peeking and peering until they find an answer that satisfies their “education.” So there are piles of “experts” making “educated” guesses, explaining to their constituents why you have combusted, spontaneously.
All the while, does it really matter: why? There is a formerly breathing human being that has disappeared off the face of the planet in a most unfortunate chain of events. Who much cares how this chain of events occurred, rather, the fact that it happened. shouldn’t this body, or rather, pile of body, be quickly cleaned off the chair and wiped away from the monitor and be placed in a proper burial site?
But no, us living are selfish bastards. We need an answer for everything. The creation of he earth, however relevant to our current lives, is a question we ask purely for our own selfish need to have it answered in an “educated” way. Nobody cares about the 200 years later, everyone wants the cause.
So when something happens that kills someone else in an inexplicable way, we freak out. We send a detective and a paranormal expert, and if they don’t figure it out, we send another expert or a series of experts that all make their “educated” guesses, leaving those guesses up to the people to sort through. They want to know because it could happen to them. So if the detective says, “it must have been a fire.” people freak out. They rampage through town centers and kitchens throughout America, snuffing out every fire within their immediate radius, all so they don’t explode like you. Those people who agree with the paranormal expert will go on nationwide searches for ghosts and spectres. Billions of dollars will be poured into ghost and paranormal research in a massive race to curb the supposed poltergeist threat.
I’m not too worried about the actual spontaneous explosion, no. Rather, I am deeply worried about the repercussion of that death. I just don’t want some convincing douchebag telling people that the death was caused by something that sends waves of panic through the streets. I don’t want some little girl to be afraid of her toothpaste just because I exploded.
Mostly though, no one wants to clean up that mess, that just sucks.
I wonder where the sun has gone
I can’t fathom forever
internally its untrue
begin, end, continue; which one doesn’t belong?
Today took forever
Internal clocks tell time according to pictures and sound
but never reality
reality is a construct that helps us realise nothing
or the accumulation thereof
seventeen makes me grimace
right before everything
right after nothing.
The light of tomorrow paints the canvas blue
tinges of dirt make it glimmer
collectively, we are artists
we inject what we paint
our own feces pulses through our veins
take a picture of the sunset, honey.
our exhaustion spread over us
like a blanket
or a bodybag
Is it worth it to tell you?
you cant fathom forever
you cant make me smile
your tendrils pad me down from head to toe
they find the flaws
never the solutions
break the speaker
his preachings are invalid now
the lies cover the point
the point which would stab the hearts
the hearts who fuel the shovel
the shovel who carries the dirt
the dirt who softens the spear
the spear who knows
Never rule out insanity, they say
everyone can be bought, they say
name your price, we’ll pay
I can’t wait for ever
Timid destiny
tell us who is right
can’t come out yet?
alright, I’ll take care of this
step back everyone,
I’m going to tell you all a secret
one that will enrage
inflame
incite
engage
Are you ready?
You aren’t
You never will be.
My Day with Ubuntu
So I finally decided to use Ubuntu on my desktop computer. I had been messing around with Ubuntu on my laptop, and I think I have an iso for nearly every version of linux there is. But I figured I’d try it on my more powerful computer (AMD 5200, 8800 GTS 640 SLI, 2GB RAM, 250 GB WD, 80 GB Maxtor, 650XL Corsair, not bad I’d say) and see exactly what i can do with it.
I uploaded a graphical installer, Wubi, which is basically a foolproof method of downloading, installing, and booting Ubuntu with barely any hassle. So I install it and boot it up, added a bunch of programs (a bit too many I think) and put together some interesting addons (themed it up, added tork, installed all the programs allocated for Ubuntu Studio [ I intend to use it for recording some songs when I get back to school ], and played with Compiz).
I was enjoying myself. Now, I must add that I’m that weird guy the likes to reformat my computer because I think of it as a new lease on life a metaphorical turning of a page… in other words, I am mentally amputated to my computer. Overall though I enjoyed the process of playing around with a new toy.
The hardest part seemed to be going back to Vista. Flipping on the computer was quick and simple with Ubuntu, turned right on and was ready to go. With Vista, it’s a bit bloated and egocentric (all owners of Windows are told that they own Windows at least 12 times before they hit the login screen, but you already know that). On top of that, it feels so slow next to Windows.
Now, I’ve been using Windows since 3.1, and I think it is a great product and wonderful piece of sofware, but I don’t understand why a free, open source, free, operating system can be so much quicker than its (extremely) expensive counterpart.
I don’t know, maybe I didn’t configure Windows right. I reformatted it in April, so I guess it’s slowed down since then. Maybe I have 100’s of spyware programs eating away at my CPU cycles that Norton and Microsofts Defender (and my rampant cynicism) didn’t catch.
I have a feeling that the next wersion of Windows better be damn good. Clean as hell, faster than a 7 year old from a dentists chair, and overall a good program that justifies its price above all competitors.
I Am John, and I Am a Cynic
Me-Hi, I’m John, and I’m a cynic
Crowd of people in uncomfortable chairs drinking shitty coffee from styrofoam cups-Hi John
Seemingly jolly man with buttoned long sleeve shirt and tie with a creepy smile-Tell us about your experience
Me-Well, okay then…
Today i wrote a bulletin on Myspaces bulletin system about the way privacy is handled online these days. It was long and elaborate, and within it contained the makings of a borderline conspiracy theory worthy of a tin foil hat.
At this moment, I still haven’t seen it posted.
I want to write it again, but I, in all my years of working with computers, didn’t take 12 seconds to save the damn thing. Well, I didn’t think it would get on anyways, seeing that its a News Corp owned subsidiary, Rupert wouldn’t want such things said to the fine sheep who mingle away on Myspace. The essay did have some points though that I want to iterate here, and seeing that it is an open forum, I will go along and do so.
Privacy is no longer a prized possesion, but a commodity that is bought and sold. Privacy is just a policy now, something that we forget about as we click quickly on the “I agree” box and scamper away, unknowingly hacking our personal freedoms away. We wonder where all this spam comes from, and we get filters to take our minds off the problem, but when the majority of our emails sent are unwarrented, and they somehow know how to get your email, I worry a bit.
The Patriot Act gives way too many freedoms to our government. I read the Patriot Act awhile back ago and nearly vomited. The amount of freedom this single law gives to those in power is absolutely, knee shaking scary. It’s the makings of thousands of paranoid schizophrenics the world wide, and for good reason. This law can give investigative agencies free reign to wiretap any, and all phones without legislative oversight as to who and why. It gives amazing freedom in its vagueness, and it includes passages that read like “books, records, papers, documents, and other items” where “other items” isn’t necessarily implied.
There have been reports though, not from the media but from individual sources on blogs, where Myspace and Facebook profiles were accessed, while also being set to private, to aid in investigating crimes, such as people taking pictures of themselves smoking pot, and other uses of our tax dollars. I just can’t get over how scary this law is, and how important this next presidency will be in supporting our freedoms.
What’s especially interesting about Myspace, is who owns it. News Corp (Fair, Balanced, Fox News… and now the O’Reilly Factor) owned by the most self proclaimed propagandist since William Randolph Hearst, Rupert Murdoch. Now, why would they want Myspace? When they bought it, it was actually losing a fair amount of money, gaining in popularity, yes, but buggy and nearly unusable. 580 Million dollars later, Mr. Murdoch owned the lives of millions of teenagers, and with it, access to their email addresses, IP addresses, bulletins (which often includes survey information), web searches, friend lists, job information, messages between friends… basically, every nook and cranny of the lives of these people. Sure, it’s good for advertising, but we’re talking about Rupert Murdoch here, king of swing, Manda of Propaganda, crier for fire. This was the guy who said the greatest thing to come from a war in Iraq would be 20 dollar a gallon gas. I am appalled that in this “non-monopolistic” capitalist country, we have men like this who can control what we see, hear, and say, and now we blindly hand over every piece of ourselves to an organization of fear.
The thing I am most afraid of though is, we are going about our days like this isn’t happening. Maybe it’s the media, suppressing the message of the activist and calling them childish names so that all the viewers root on big brother like cows mooing right before their heads are chopped off. We have become a society that looks down upon free thought, and conformity is no longer an option, but a necessity. Our police are not protectors of justice any longer, unless justice is now the blind lady who shackles you into namelessness and oblivion. Our school systems grade on how well we stand in line, rather than how well we question its existence. It’s scary the direction we are going, and it has to end soon before Orwell has his way.
What we need to do is find ways around these media markets, and its creations like blogging and the Internet that can drive these things. When 5 major companies control our news, our news is no longer news. What we need is teams of journalists made from the black and white keys of the Internet revolution. Web 2.0 will give us, the people, a voice. One that can be heard from every steeple and every valley but as close as the swing of a mouse. We need to free up the Internet, giving access to all, not just the subscribed few. We need to be constantly watchful, and at the same time we need to constantly write our experiences down, and write them well. We need to live outside the box. In a way, we all need to be cynics, and we need to be proud of that, because at least cynics are looking rather than waiting.
Now aghast seemingly jolly man with buttoned long sleeve shirt and tie with a creepy smile-Now how does that make you feel?
Me- …
Heaven, Colored Orange and Brown
Sometimes I see the stars, but often in this modern metropolis, the natural anomalies are confused by our own synthetic lights and sounds. Our cars and our factories emit a light cloud that blankets the air around us, reflecting and refracting the lights that keep us bundles in a cradle of artificial security. I find it trivial, though, to see that the lights that once guided us in our travels to far and distant lands is now a thrown out thought in the minds of modern humans. I like to compare modern architecture with the grand statues risen by the brain and brawn of our forefathers. Stonehenge, for example, was made out of treasured rocks, labored hundreds of miles to the middle of an indistinct field, aligned in such a way as to praise and honor the stars that both signaled new beginnings, and signified their greatest idols. The Pyramids have tunnels that are positioned to channel the energy of these ominous lights and give peace and prosperity to their revered leader in the unknown of the afterlife. Meccan pyramids had rooms dedicated to the solstices, giving praise to its magic power to spring life from the ground. We see these buildings erected merely for the purpose of praising these stars, we pass by them on family vacations, we write about them in menial travel guides, but what do we learn from them? Are the only people who give mind to this magical relationship between man and sky writers and poets? Why can’t the average man look into the sky and be enthralled in passion, mouth agape, cheeks pinned slightly upward, eyes glistening in the shimmering light show produced by the never ending universe that surrounds us. Why can’t we stop? For one moment, just stop. We humans always feel so alone. We cushion ourselves in the open arms of the willing, and often are scorched by the offering, our loneliness replaced by the guilt that those open arms impress. As mankind has become faster, stronger, more socially intelligent, we often look straight ahead, a two dimensional world being perceived as all one can handle. I wish tonight I could walk outside and count every star that my ancestors had, but today, and in this place, such a wish will be left unfulfilled. But I can still look up and see our brightest of celestial neighbors, the ones most praised by those who erected such fine statues to their praise. So tonight, and all nights, I will look up in awe, and I hope you will join me.
