You only live once

My grandfather passed away a few days ago. It was unexpected, but not entirely surprising. He was being good about taking all his medicine, and there were no recent serious health issues, so there were no short-term indicators, but he had coronary surgery a few years ago and wasn't in perfect health, so it isn't entirely surprising. It still sucks; he was a good person to have as family. None of my friends ever met him, but I doubt I will do him justice or keep your interest if I attempt to describe his life, in addition to the fact that I don't know it all that well. So instead I will try to depress you and talk about death, because it is each one of our fates, and the fate of everybody we will ever know (baring advances in medicine that could make immortality possible, because I believe those advances won't come in our lives if ever.) Unfortunately, death is simply something we are forced to accept and deal with. Being depressed over the loss somebody is natural, but that does not mean we should not try to grow from the experience. I think I take death well, and not because I am uncaring or insensitive; I cared a lot for my grandfather. I deal with death well because I understand its importance. Without living beings dying we wouldn't be capable of making room for the next generation. After a few generations without death there wouldn't be enough resources to keep everybody alive. Also, it allows the species to make progress genetically, albeit over much longer spans of time. In a perfect world nobody would die who didn't choose to do so, and there would be enough resources for everybody. We live in a much more constrained world. Our bodies fail us, our resources fail us, we were not built to last forever and neither was the world we were born into. But dying does not erase one from the universe. The fact that one existed still holds and will hold forever. All of ones actions are permanent in this nature. Dying prevents you from creating new actions, so it is important to perform all the actions you wish to perform while you are still capable. Once you have lived, forever you will have had lived. In that sense, you never die. But you still do, in the classical sense, so you better do your stuff now.

Cupajo

So they are no longer together, so posting this is in vain (sortof), but Cupajo is an amazing band. You can listen to some of their songs on their webpage. I highly recommend listening if you like acoustic guitar. And no, I have no relation to the band (although they were local) so I'm not just trying to sell some albums. I played piano, but it was just a hobby, never a career, and I could never do what they did. So yeah, listen. You won't be disappointed.

Finished

No more finals ever again. I'm out. Took my last exam, and all I have to do now is get a cap and gown, and go through the graduation ceremony. Well, that, and start making a living. I'm thinking I should become a corn farmer.

It's funny, laugh dammit.

I used to say that flying cars wouldn't ever catch on because they wouldn't be fuel efficient, but apparently they are if you compare them to hummers. Figures, just when I decide to get a monowheel someone comes out with something cooler. Maybe I'll just walk and wait for a teleporter to hit the market.

Religion

I would not call myself a religious person. I was raised in a Jewish (father)/Christian (mother) house with a little exposure to the two ideologies, but it was never pushed on me. I've been to synagogue a number of times, and to church less. I don't believe either religion, or any other religion for that matter. I would still consider myself spiritual because I understand the limitations of describing our existence through any model of understanding. To clarify, consider modern science: through it we try to understand the nature of the universe we live in, but it is confined to be an understanding of how something could work. Even if we were capable of designing a model for the universe that predicted perfectly every observation we made --I do not know whether we are--, we would be leaving unanswered the question of how the thing which that model represents comes to be what we call "actual". Metaphysics, which is religion as far as I am concerned, is a necessary consequence of science.

What irks me, as a thinking being, is how people accept mythology as truth. Maybe Jesus is the son of the Christian God, or perhaps not and is just a prophet, and Muhammad is the last of said prophets. Or perhaps Zeus is the supreme ruler of Mount Olympus. Maybe we are all suffering in the cycle of birth and rebirth to acquire Nirvana, or the universe follows The Way because it is its nature. Or perhaps, these are all valid interpretations of a more supreme truth. I like to think that these are all simply stories we tell each other to comfort ourselves and guide us to follow more cooperative behavior, and teaching them as truth dims the minds of truth seeking agents. I tend to not accept anything to be true and rather let myself work under fuzzy logic and reason about uncertainty. On a fundamental level, I do not even know that it is "true" that I exist. This thought was hard to accept, but it is even harder to try to communicate; I will leave that task for later. I think there is more worth in reasoning about observations than there is in accepting other peoples beliefs as our own.

But please, don't believe me either. Think for yourselves.

found my next vehicle

I've decided the next automobile I'm getting. It's here. Well, that or a hoverbike.

(.64^.5)/.01 % finished with finals

Or, for the numerically handicapped people, 4/5 finished. Nothing quite like 3 days in a row of 8am finals to reinstitute my respect (or at least reverence) for institutions that run on a tight schedule. Not everything is 11am classes or dinner until midnight apparently. But that's the end of that; I have a 10:30am exam on Monday in artificial intelligence and I am done. Then I have a short break, graduate, and start work in June. I must say, the closer I get to being out of school, the more I look forward to just doing whatever. I'll still be tied down by work, but weekends, evenings, vacations... I will have a lot of time to bike, camp, read, program, whatever, and won't have homework to get in the way. I want to bike the C&O canal from end to end again some weekend this summer, anybody interested is welcome to join. (I think we'll just carry our supplies with us, and I know a few campsites along the way.) I figure 3 days should be long enough to have enough time to relax; we used to do it in 4 days, but had small children with us so we couldn't go that fast. Anybody have any other ideas?

Google

Apparently, google.com has found my blog profile. Or, at least user lists for topics in which I'm a member, which then link to my profile. (I randomly google my name to stroke my ego, and usually come away depressed.) This is faster than I thought it would appear.

On a related note, I always think it's a good thing if I can search google for "gimp video" and get what I was looking for.

Fire

-- Fire, Ohio Players --
[...]
Fire (What I said, child, ow)
Fire (Uh-huh)
Got me burnin', burnin', burnin'
Got me burnin', burnin', burnin' (Yeah)
Got me burnin', burnin', burnin' (Yeah)
[...]
----

So, there was a fire down the street last night. Got up at 2 at the beckon of fire trucks with their strobe lights and the flashes of the rotating colored lights. Still don't know if anybody was hurt (I hope not, but does that really need to be said?), but I walked down with the rest of my roommates, who were all up too, and the damage was pretty extensive. The house is probably going to have to be torn down, but I'm not an expert on the art of house repair, so what do I know? Still, there were a lot of fire trucks for such a small street, and we have a hydrant in front of our house, so they were close even though the house was 5 or 6 houses down the street. So let this be a lesson to all of you: brush your teeth every night, and sleep in clean pajamas, or in the nude, whatever suits your taste.

Man v. Nature: The Road to Victory

We need oxygen to survive, we need clean water, various minerals, amino acids, carbohydrates. Nature is the only thing we have that provides us with what we need to survive. We depend on nature, and are a part of nature, and yet we are killing the world. Rain forest deforestation, fertilizers and plastic fibers in the oceans. The ozone hole. The witnessed extinction of species at our hands and the projected extinction of many more, including our closest living relatives: chimps. Fossil fuels. By destroying our ecosystem we destroy the only thing that puts clean air in our lungs, clean water in our stomachs when we are thirsty, and food in our stomachs when we are hungry. Smart, don't you think? Maybe we should start looking for better alternatives than our current suicidal approach to controlling the environment. But what do I know? I know I don't like what I see.

Chinese Phonics

My last Chinese final exam ever was this morning, and now I'm left to ponder why I took so many Chinese classes in the first place. Well, it was because I didn't like my architecture professor. Wait, that doesn't make sense. Let me explain. I was trying to take multiple classes that overlapped so that I could draw from all of them and do better all around. So, I took Chinese history, Chinese poetry, and Non-western architecture. At the time, I was going to take a bunch of higher-level architecture classes to take care of a requirement we computer science majors have where we have to take four 300-400 level classes in another field. I hated this architecture class, partially due to the professor, partially due to the fact that we weren't designing anything, whereas in my first architecture class we got to. So I decided not to apply to the architecture school (I also wasn't sure I'd get in, or if they'd let me in if I wasn't going to major.) But I did well in my Chinese poetry class. Got an A in fact, and thus started my poorly planned trip into a field I knew nothing about.

Now that I'm out, I feel I have learned a lot. For example, there are a lot of Chinese people in Chinese classes. Also, a lot of them speak the language. And some of these classes are a lot easier if you know the language. Also, I can eat three burritos from Chipotle in a day and not get sick. Okay, I didn't learn that in class, but the burritos do have a lot of rice.

I'm going to hell.

I hate early exams

not because I dislike getting up in the morning, but because it makes going to bed feel like a responsibility. Sleep should be a gift from the world at the end of a long day, not a chore done to get good grades. Unless you're sleeping with the teacher, then it's ok.

Hybrid Cars

So... I'm planning to get a hybrid car and find some claims that they aren't as fuel efficient as the car manufacturers claim. So now what? Consumer Reports and Wired News, along with another blog, leave me with an uneasy feeling about getting one. Now I'm just hoping my dad does decide to get a new car (he's been thinking about it for a while) and give me the 92 Honda Prelude. No, I don't want to rely on my parents, but I also need a car soon and don't have a lot of time to go out and test drive. Getting a hybrid would have made things easy since I would only have to test drive 3 cars. Now I have to rethink everything. On the plus side, though, now if I get a car it won't have to be so friggin expensive.

Maybe I should look into turbo-diesel car. I've been hearing good things about them, and they can run on biodiesel. Hmm

Wants and needs

We have too many of them. Americans, among people in many other countries, typically want a lot out of life. I understand this because I too want a lot of things, but I think I want a lot less than most, which is what helps me be so happy. Well, that, and that I get of most of what I want. I want food, shelter, friends, and ways to pass the time. Since I enjoy thinking the problem of passing the time is solved, and since I have a job the food and shelter problems are solved. And I'm lucky enough to have a bunch of decent, intelligent people as friends. Everything else I have, I don't need, and wouldn't be heartbroken if I lost them. I don't need a fancy house, or a fast car, fancy electronics (although they are fun, if you have them), clothes (other people seem to disagree with me there), or most of what the television tells me I should want. I do my best to not buy into the consumerism that has been plaguing our country since the end of world war two. Still, I'm not perfect, so I'm bound to slip up here and there and buy something I don't need. What worries me is that to remain competitive in this world we have to have a strong economy, which people need to buy things, and since people need very little to survive, we all end up buying things we don't need. And where does this money go? Some of the money we spend goes to pay workers, some gets spent on products used to make products, but that doesn't add anything other than business to business transactions. A lot of money, however, goes to those who own the companies but don't to a proportional amount of work for the money they receive. This wouldn't be inherently bad so long as people got what they needed, and the rich could simply get more things. The problem comes when the things the rich people can buy is control over portions of the population. Money should have no place in politics. It should have its place in government, but that is different: the government needs money to pay its workers. Money shouldn't impact elections because then the rich, who may not be the best leaders, will have more of an impact on government than the average citizen. What compounds the problem is that business can benefit from policies put in place by the government.

The solution? Stop buying things you don't need. Stop paying so much attention to mass media. Money influences politics because the average citizen allows it to. If more add time on the television and radio didn't correspond to more votes, campaigns wouldn't be so sensitive to funding.

I'm not very good at writing about things like this. Maybe I should focus less on the problems and solutions, and just present a possible world where the problems are much less severe. Please, feel free to comment if you have anything to say. We can work to make things better.

No more classes, ever

Actually, I may be taking classes next year, too. I'm graduating this year, get that part straight, but the job I'm taking at the astronomy department lets me take two classes a semester without having to pay tuition. But I'm done taking classes for my undergraduate degree. What's even better, or worse depending on how you look at things, I slept through my first class, so my last day was even lighter than I expected. I got to sleep in, still got all my papers in, and have only studying left.

Oh, on another note, as you may or may not have noticed, my posts have been lame. I think so, even if you don't. My intention in starting this blog was to write bullshit philosophy. Because, you know, everybody would love to read that instead. Like anyone wants to read about my boring day-to-day events anyway. Yes, I am dull. But at least I am happy.

I love being able to program

See that little add on the top of this webpage? That's because I figured out how to get rid of it. Granted it isn't hard if you know what you're doing, it's still nice to be able to solve these kinds of problems. If anybody has a blog here and wants help, let me know.

One quick post, then back to homework

Natalie came over (for those of you who don't follow celebrity gossip, we were going out) and we decided, on her initiation I will admit, that we would probably do better as friends than in a relationship. I can honestly say that I think this is best. She's cool, but we're way too different for a relationship to work. Not heartbroken, just a little upset it didn't work out. So now what? How about I finish my fucking homework so I can graduate.

I will post later, promise

I have 2 papers due tomorrow, 3 exams this week, and 2 exams next week. So I won't post much until after I am finished with this semester. On the plus side, though, this is going to be my last undergraduate semester. I am looking forward to the free time... and all the blackjack and hookers I can handle (I can't play cards, and prostitutes are dirty, so maybe I'll just read a lot.)

First Post

This post is just to let me see how this site works. I'll probably not put anything interesting here so you can just skip the rest of the comment. Or, you could just finish reading it.