It seems like mastering a technical craft requires one to be concerned with details of some object of production. The thing is, a lot of details are things that no one notices consciously unless they are done poorly. So, a lot of what goes into mastery of something is not appreciated. Producing things is only rarely a route to widespread acclaim it seems, but possibly a reliable route to satisfaction. Do you know the name of the architect of the building you are in? Do you know who designed the sneakers you are wearing? Maybe you are like me and have no idea who these people are who affect such basic parts of your existence.

If the senses are flawed and the mind only so capable, how can one ever comprehend reality? I am interested the idea that computers can extend the mind. This is not new; soime have constructed around themselves an artificial environment that is aimed at aiding their cognitive abilities and their ability to sense the world. Sensor networks are going to become an increasingly important part of this environment. We already have incredible power to see around the world. But all of this is afrtifice. The systems we make are so often fragile, brittle, and lack the robustness and ability to propogate and continue themselves found in nature. Can discrete things ever fully stand in for an analog world? Sometimes I wonder if the important take away point from quantum mechanics is that the analog world is secretly happening discretely. Other times I think, "wait, I don't actually know anything about quantum mechanics!" A little bit of understanding is equivalent to a very large lack of understanding.

I am afraid to tell people I love them because I am afraid that I do not or will not or cannot mean it. That they will ask too great a sacrifice of me. I am afraid to love because I am afraid to die. I am afraid that what I might think is love is throwing away some part of my life. In point of fact, I am lead to believe that love is essentially just like dying for someone, or giving up your life for them every day. I am not prepared to love another person because I am selfish; I fear that I still want my life too much to do anything but take from another person.
( there is more )

I need to stay in the present.

Lately my life has become a combination of house hunting and trying to avoid house hunting. Ironically, house hunting has actually turned into people hunting, as I have decided that the best place that I am going to find is the one I am living in right now, and that the best thing to do is rent it myself and try to find some people to share it with.

I do well and badly with processes like these. Well, because I tend to give it a lot of thought and effort constantly. Badly, because I tend to obsess over an unending source of stress. It's as though the clear, attainable goal that I can see in "Mission: Find a place to live" or "Mission: Find cool people to live with you" becomes a good motivation to work towards something, but I am also unable to turn off that motivation very easily when I am not distracted.

I think I'm finding people for my place, though, which is good. I'm going to be away from the 10th to the 28th, traveling to Thailand and Laos, so I really would like to know that I have somewhere to stay when I come back so I don't have to stress over it. I think I should have somewhere to go, but it just takes so long to put together.

What is a space? A space is a potential place. A place is a specific environment, a collection of consistent stimuli to the senses. When I see, hear, touch, smell and taste enough of the things I remember or that I expect, I know that I am in a place. When I am lost, I can be nowhere at all, or somewhere depending upon how I choose to sense my surroundings. Places and spaces are related to movement; they are defined in part by the ways in which one can enter and travel through them. If I walk through a door that I walk through every day, and I encounter an unfamiliar set of sensory experiences, then it is possible that I am in a different place, and certain that the space is different.

I'm starting to think that those I envy don't have special skills at knowing how to be hurt less by other people. Quite the opposite, I think it may be that they just choose to endure more for greater rewards. Everything comes with a price. Some things are worth more once obtained than what one pays, but everything has a price. If I'm not willing to lose anything I have, then I can't expect to gain anything new.

I hate it when I have to sit there for 10 seconds for your JavaScript image fade in to finish.

Please, stop doing this to me. I just want to see your pictures.

I am envious of those who trust their own ideas.

We'll induct over fancy made up sentences describing what I do.

Base case, the null sentence. It's a well known fact that wise people often know when to hold their tongue. So, saying nothing at all can surely be considered smart. So, we're good on the base case.

Now, assume that P is a paragraph made up of |P| sentences which are elements of set M (M for Malarky), the set of fancy made up sentences that describe what I do. We shall construct a new paragraph by adding a sentence from M into P, creating a paragraph with sentence cardinality of |P|+1

By the inductive hypothesis, P sounds smart. Regardless of the content of the new sentence that we add, the original elements of P will still sound smart.

So, even if the |P|+1st sentence in our new paragraph sounds average, or even dumb, it is accepted that not every one can do smart stuff ALL the time. Even Einstein had to brush his teeth.

So, the addition of this new sentence can not be considered to detract from the original smartness of P, which we can accept as given thanks to the inductive hypothesis.

Therefore, our newly constructed P', which is P+an element of M, must still sound smart.

Thus, we have satisfied the requirements of the inductive proof; and so we conclude that making fancy stuff up about what you do makes you sound smart.

Q.E.D.

Wanted, for crazy harebrained schemes:

Copies of Flash, most things from CS4 (particularly Photoshop), and Maya, and specs for laptops that can run them comfortably.

Or suggestions as to how they can be obtained for cheap. Seriously, what should I actually pay for these?

Also, what kind of specs would a laptop for working with 3D graphics have? forget playing games, though presumably that is possible on such a machine, what is needed just to learn how to work with graphics and make something that shows you know what you are doing with sufficiently modern graphics stuff.

And yeah, for this stuff you really should get a desktop, but I'm basically nomadic anymore, and a laptop is one more step towards the ideal of needing less of an apartment and more of just simply a place to sleep. If I can live in a conveniently located storage locker, I'll be doing good on the level of total possessions possessed.

Damn, once again books are my weakness. I need a kindle. Too bad they're $400 dollars.

Why should you wake up in the morning? So that you can change who you are.

What should you do today? Seek and take on conflict, or prepare to.

What would it mean for computers to emote?

Hell, what does it mean for me to emote?

Musical computers. Babbage's harmony engine.

I want to see sheet music source code.

Is being a good person simply doing whatever you want to without hurting others? What in there makes you good? Is it even possible to live without having hurt somebody?

Is it doing good for others that does the trick? How much good? What if it's temporary?

The only objective fact is that the physical universe exists and has certain properties that can be discovered/manipulated by science to satisfy human needs/desires. Absolutely nothing in itself commands obedience, honor, respect, admiration or veneration. All aesthetic and moral goods/universals are projected by individual human beings onto the otherwise neutral and indifferent physical universe on the basis of desires that are also not subject to any objective criterion of evaluation. All potential objects of knowledge, desire and willing are identically valueless and meaningless except insofar as they satiate the desires of individual persons. Laws exist to ensure survival and protect the goods created and defined through democratic consensus. A "good person" is someone who pursues his or her individual project of physical/intellectual/emotional hedonism "without hurting anyone else." Hurting other people is not objectively morally wrong, but to socially sanction it would be materially and logically undermine the non-violent context that our pleasure-maximization projects require.

Individuals are encouraged to live life with an attitude of maximal self-entitlement and ability. The first *moral* principle entails that the universe and/or other people *owe* me whatever I dream for or strongly desire. The second *metaphysical* principle is that the universe and/or other people will necessarily or by some immutable law give me what I work towards or strongly desire. Unfortunately, such attitudes feed a narcissism that tends to dehumanize ( or see other persons largely as means) and fall into despair (extreme frustration with/hatred of the self and/or the world for failing to meet the excessive demands made upon them.)

Sex is a physically pleasurable shared experience that may also be emotionally intimate and/or potentially procreative. Like other physical processes, it can be recreated and redefined by persons to serve whatever ends (all equally legitimate) persons are attempting to pursue, be it recreation, romance, procreation, etc. It is important that society ensure that individuals have the power to prevent/eliminate any undesired consequences of sex and enable persons to it as long and as much as possible.

A successful life consists in the accumulation of money, fame or sexual experiences. Good parents both position and encourage their children to do likewise. Good children are those seen as potential accumulators of large amounts of fame or money. Paradoxically, people become resistant to the idea of having (any or many) children *or* of taking care of older persons because they frustrate this process. In addition, old people without much money or fame who are not having sex are not seen as really being alive or having a life worth compromising one's own pursuit of pleasure to preserve. We *admire* persons who are really famous, rich and/or have great sex appeal because they have what we know we want and everyone else wants. Through them, we worship what we desire and partially participate in those things by imagining we're them.

- William Ballow, May 15, 2009

I want a digital ink monitor.

No one is responsible for the ways they wrong you, but you are to blame for every thing you do wrong.

Why do I feel obligated to act responsibly when those around me aren't doing so?

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have an announcement to make!

I, pastrylikewolf, will be the best 24-year-old...
EVER!

What can you do when you are working on a problem and you feel that, in trying to define the problem and subsequently the solution, you are failing to capture necessary things, indicated by the fact that from the start your solution seems like it will not work, but you just don't know what they are?

When you are trying to solve some problem, what do you do if you feel like you have not fully grasped how to determine that the problem has been solved?

I need to pay attention to and care about details more.

If Good reigns, from whence evil? If Evil reigns, from whence good? If Death reigns, from whence Life? If Life reigns, from whence death? If Order reigns, from whence chaos? If Chaos reigns, from whence order? If there was ever nothingness, how could there be something now? If the first something was eternally self-sufficient and changeless, then what could induce a change such that it caused the world to be?

Philosophy CANNOT answer ultimate questions; it can only answer sub-ultimate questions and show what follows from and within *chosen* assumptions. The question of what religions and philosophies are excluded by such observations I will allow readers to tackle on their own.

To seek truth "objectively," that is, to seek truth by attempting to look at and participate in reality "from the outside" or "beyond oneself" is *start* the search for truth under the assumption that the seeker is not human but God. Genuine objectivity involves seeing things as they truly are, *including* ourselves; and this is something that can never be accomplished "objectively," as the term is popularly understood.

"Believe in order to understand."

Why believe that's necessary and what singles out one among the many possible objects of belief *prior* to understanding?

I am staying up late and I don't know why other than I just don't want to go to bed. It's almost 4am, which is the most desolate time ever. I want to eat or drink something yummy. I can't though because nowhere nearby is open. Ohhh, insomnia.

I had a fun time talking to people at the ACF campfire, eating smores, and playing Korean hand slapping games.

I've been thinking about personalities a lot lately and why it is people have different personalities. Why is it that some people seem so much more relaxed, easy going, outgoing and willing to not take themselves too seriously? Are they unaware of something that other people realize? Or is everyone else just missing out on having fun?