To debate, means to listen to the other side.

The terminal end of the year is a shining beacon towards which we are moving at a very average pace. It is the time for reminiscing, and the time to think of the future. And, for now, it is time to talk about projectile-based weaponry.


It is often the case that people who are pro-guns, so to say, are more able at argumentative reasoning than the people who wish stricter gun control. Now, while the beginning of the argument goes relatively well, with the host bringing out the obvious problem of bringing guns to where little children run around and the counterpoint being that children are not limited to schools, thereby the danger of a kid acquiring a gun is present everywhere a gun and a kid are somewhat near to each other. However, the next point that is made is about assault rifles. The problem here is that while firearms can be used in self defence, the likeliness of anyone using an assault rifle for it is pretty slim. A small revolver or a semiautomatic pistol can be carried in a small purse or strapped to one's body, limiting access to it by third parties - first they'd have to see it, then make a quick play for it. An assault rifle kind of sticks out, literally. You don't want to look like you're going into a war zone when you are walking into a meeting where you are supposed to look trustworthy. And at 2-3kg, they weigh about a laptop, so one does not really want to lug one around on one's everyday business, especially in addition to a laptop.
In fact, the assault rifle has a higher rate of fire, a larger clip and the bullets fly a wee faster. Where does that come in handy except for a war or a zombie outbreak? Even if you are burgled at your home, a small handgun is probably a better choice due to room limitations. If you need more bullets than are in a small clip, you are doing something terribly wrong. Since we have no experience with zombie outbreaks, the only reasons to own an assault rifle is if you were part of the military (though technically the soldiers rarely 'own' 'their' guns) or a SWAT team member (the same technicality). So civilians really have no reason to own assault rifles. And yes, I do realize guns can be jolly good fun, I doubt that is sufficient reason to endanger the public this much. While smaller weapons do pose a threat, the threat is somewhat smaller due to the incapability to shoot a lot in a short amount of time. Moreover, the self defence value is really important. After all, you can't really get rid of all firearms.
Small handcannons are quite sufficient. Assault rifles are a bit too much


Happy new year and may you have better health than I do right now.

Isn't being realistic a little bit too pessimistic?

We are constantly reminded that perfection does not exist. We must settle for something that we can have, but we are always left wanting more. It is a sad fact of life that we all know, we can never have it all. And yet, here we are, chasing perfection.

What poses a problem is the definition of 'perfect'. If there is something more it could be, then it is not a whole. Yet as engineers can confirm, if you can remove something without losing function, then it is inefficient, wasteful. Defining 'perfection' is a deep dark maze with no way out, the more you try, the more lost you get. But defining something or someone 'perfect' for you, that is another matter altogether.

Then again, being human isn't exactly perfect. Out of all the things and being we could've been, we ended up with the one species that's 'greatest' achievement is the ability to efficiently expire all of us by pressing just a few buttons. Sometimes the bar for perfection has to be lowered. After all, some consider love perfect.

Even if we find someone to call perfect, it is a pretty long shot to hope that they think the same of us. And even that might not be enough.


And by perfection, I do not mean the small town constantly bothered by sandworms.



Also, a fun remark I found while reading a review about the new HP Envy laptop-tablet combo:

"No touchscreen option for Windows 8, no downgrade support for Windows 7"

Don't think it is worth the price tag.

What do you want?

There comes a time every year, when one has to wonder... has what we've done been good enough? Have we been successes or failures?

While our past actions carry their part in an assessment such as this, the more important factor to consider is our values. People differ violently from one another, we don't all hold the same things to be important. Some wish to be painfully honest about everything, others consider it best to hold their tongue. There are countless options between the extremes, especially when it comes to the people you hold dear and/or trust. Was it right to stay quiet about your feelings until there was nobody to tell them to? Was it right to push life into a new chapter by leaving behind the previous? Was it right to make a long commitment just in order to not get irritated by inactivity? While we cannot change what we've done, these thoughts are difficult to ignore. Regret may be useless, but that does not mean it will just turn its back and walk away.

So what if we cannot change history? Maybe we can change ourselves in the present to merit a better future? Doubtful. We are what we were and the only way to change what we are is to change the events that happen and/or the environment the events take place in. Changing a single element amongst many is likely to be in vain. The change can be quickly undone or made insignificant. A closed system likes to preserve the Status Quo, compensate for sudden alterations. But motion, of necessity, requires a change of perspective. One cannot change at a standstill.

Time and tide wait for no man

So, the world did not end. But what if it had?

Last night I came across a question. "If the world were to end tomorrow, would be be happy with what we've achieved?" To be honest,  I did not even think to answer that question, but another popped into mind. If the world were to end tomorrow, would anybody care what we've achieved? After all, it would be as if somebody hit the big red reset switch...

Another question is 'what does the end of the world entail exactly?'. I mean, a zombie apocalypse isn't the 'end of the world', it is the 'end of the world as we know it'. Does the power just go out like in Revolution? Does a disease wipe out almost all of human population like in Jeremiah? Why do people believe the human race would survive the end of the world? It appears folly to think that people would survivea nuclear holocaust and the nuclear winter thereafter. How many people are required to repopulate the species?

In any case, there are some safe facilities built for the purpose of withstanding extreme conditions and sustaining life within. The problem lies in their size and the speed at which these places can be populated and sealed. Whatever happens that ends the world, it isn't going to be pretty.

Because we have to move silently, merely gazing upon our toes.

University is an extremely effective institution. Sure, it allows for some education, but what it really excels at, is killing creativity.

When we think of school, we also think of the problems stated in maths and physics, our desperation trying to solve them. We remember the essays that were written in the blink of a cosmic clock that attempted to solve or analyse grave problems in our society or events that happened before we were born. We recall the 3D structures of chemical compounds and the grand folly disputes of philosophy. What we learned, we had to understand. Not any more.

What we find now is that memorizing is key. And not in just subjects like anatomy, where practice would be difficult to implement, but in physics and chemistry as well. Sure, we can remember some quotes from some smart book about 'information' or electronic paramagnetic resonance, but we do not need to know what we can talk about. If we do happen to comprehend what we are on about, it's an accidental bonus. Nothing of importance. You can't call it a physics exam if you leave 10% of it to actual implementation of your knowledge and use the 90% to ask for memorize stuff. Lest we forget, "Knowing how to think empowers you much greater than those who only know what to think".

Gone is the logical thinking, gone is the creativity. Our thinking gets confined to a small box. Soon enough the only thing keeping you from going ultimately mad is a daily game of sudoku. And we must obey.



When it comes to losing my mind, I might skip a weekend and thus face a possible 3-day break. Perhaps even longer. But I ain't gonna die, keep checking back.

"Do you compute?"

Clarity. Something in great shortage in this place and age. It is difficult to know things for sure, especially things concerning other people.

Imagine a world where you could 'read' other people's true opinions about you. Naturally, this would have to be a long-term deal as opinions change as sure as the turning of the worlds. Opinions change in a matter of hours, sometimes even minutes. But wouldn't you really like to know how somebody felt about you? Someone you met but a few months ago that you have grown fond of or someone who has simply been around for a long time and is barely a friend. Do they merely tolerate you or is there something more to it? Do you sense something or are you delusional?

A really great upshot of such an ability would be the ability to fix the opinion. Misunderstandings happen, wordings are never perfect and people can get the wrong idea. Knowing when somebody misreads you gives you a chance to make it right, explain your true meaning or intent. If used right, it would give a whole new level to honesty. If used wrong, it's a weapon. But as always, the definition of 'right' and 'wrong' depend on morality and the aim of the person currently evaluation the 'rightness' or 'wrongness of the method.

A problem with 'reading' opinions is that opinions often enough consist of emotional data. Feelings that cannot be translated into words well enough to convey the original meaning. Even the effect of a single hormone, oxytocin, is hard to put into words without making it a long list[1] that makes it sound like a wonderdrug of sorts. This will obviously lead to translation problems.

Then again, if you can't understand the person by reading his or her opinion, you probably don't 'get' him or her with or without the help of a magical seventh sense. Sure, it can give you a boost of confidence, but if there is no spark, magic isn't going to cut it. And if you do understand the person, you 'get' what they mean and feel when they talk with or even confide in you, you probably don't need a superpower to see what they feel. After all, if they go so far as to let you peek into their mind, they trust you. And trust is a great place to move forwards from.



The last boost of posts was related to the long pause preceding it. The Christmas-themed videos are related to the coming holidays (obviously).

I said that.

Language. A method to converting and conveying information. There are many, but they are all analogous. But what if one were to not know any language and then attempted to learn?
The main issue at hand is obviously the concept. For someone who does not know anything about verbs, it is rather difficult to explain even simple things such as dying. Teaching nouns is generally pretty easy, as long as one confines oneself to fruits and cheeses. The differences between air, space and outer space would be lost.

The problem is very similar to decoding messages written in a foreign language. Sure, there are a few recognizable patterns, but for there to be meaning, one has to look at the context around the unknown. If you still can't imagine it, think of the first time you looked at a Russian text.

This is precisely the problem computers have nowadays. The definitions are generally hard-coded into their systems, parts of their code. Teaching such a concept from zero would be rather difficult and time-consuming. And obviously impractical. So now they have certain words they listen for and basically guess what the input meant. Usually they guess right as most of the communication with computers is in English and English happens to be a simple language. The fact that the programming languages used are often based on English doesn't exactly hurt, either.

And then you wonder how the Daleks learned English.

The past does not, and cannot, specify the nature and position of every person in the world or event in the future. What it can do is describe the underlying fractal pattern which creates them.

"You are stealing me, you will steal me, you have stolen me. Oh my, tenses are difficult, aren't they?" - Idris

Future is important, as previously[1] mentioned. But so is the past. If we had a chance, just one chance to change a single thing in our past, what would we? Would we do something personal, change something in our past, or go for something more... global? Stop ourselves from making a past mistake or simply kill Hitler? If we chose either, we still have to think of the consequences. Every action worth changing causes a ripple, a line of events that follow. If there was no Hitler, perhaps there would've been some strategic genius instead? If we had not made a mistake in the past, perhaps we would have messed up even greater a bit later?
Once we have decided on a change and carried it out, we can observe the consequences. We, and only we, know the original timeline. So if the current situation turned for the worse, would we mind? It would be natural to mind making a mistake on a global scale, and especially so if the change directly affects us personally. Then again, if nobody else know how bad we messed up, why should we?
Regret is a natural reaction. Certain events trigger certain actions that are unlike us, extremely improvised and not of our nature. Even if nobody else knows, we know. We know that we did something we wouldn't in our right minds. We know we did something risky without a safety net. It's purely based on emotions and not logic, after all, regret is rather useless as one cannot change the regrettable action. Well, unless we enter the current hypothetical situation, in which we are painfully likely to cause even more regret.
Changing the past is a decision that has to be made with a heavy heart, ready to cause great pain. Even if we don't create a paradox, we could create something even worse.

The future is not in the past.

It is important to look forward. To want to be more than what you are. Because if there is no progress, what is the point of action? If the status remains the same despite your best efforts, why even try? Action should cause reaction, a wave, a ripple of some kind, just to have meaning.

"Words offer the means to meaning, and to those who will listen, the enunciation of truth." - Alan Moore

 People want different things from life. Some desire greatness, power over others. Some wish financial success and material wealth. Some value intelligence over anything else and thus wish to make significant contributions to science, some believe that the thing that makes them feel the best is making others feel better. Others merely want a family to call their own and financial security, to live in love and not in poverty. Some are satisfied by a simple life on a farm, away from the busy sprawling cities. We all have our hopes and dreams, and certain things we can be happy with. Certain milestones or objectives that are more than mere waypoints on our road of life. They are the steps we refuse to fall from, bridges we cross just once. They are what we can call 'enough'. Just about 'enough'. The bare minimum of happiness.
But once reached, one cannot bear remaining stagnant. It'll do for a while, but soon enough one will want more. It is human nature, it is the reason why people always complain about the present state of things whatever that state may be. And I do mean whatever. The lack of change is one of the most irritating forces there is. That's why people stuck in confined spaces for a long time can go a little wacky, to say the least. It is upon that nature that we act, make a move for progress. Not to act would mean not to matter.
However, to act mean to have a possibility to act, a chance to make a change. And that is what many of us lack for most of our lives. A white collar worker cannot initiate a promotion-inducing chain of events at any time. The action has to be well-timed, or it will remain arbitrary, inconsequential. In that case, it might be better for the action not to have taken place at all. For an action to matter, it does not only have to be purposeful, bringing along some kind of advance, but the time for it also has to be bode. But we all need actions that matter.
Actions offer the means to matter, and those who will act, an accomplishment of significance.

Look beyond the horizon.

I am what I am because to be less would be too little.

While it is true that we are what we were, we are the result of the influences of previous experiences, it is also probably true that life is not predetermined. If it were, we would never have to take responsibility as our actions are not decided by us and thus we could do anything at all. I we could choose to do anything, that is. But as just mentioned, probably we can change our lives, influence our well-being. Be our own lucksmiths, so to speak.

A large part of our success can be contributed to our mindset, our outlook on life. Feeling confident makes you look confident, act confident, stride through difficult situations without too much hassle. In the words of the Gibb brothers, "Well now,  I get low and I get high, and if I can't get either, I really try. Got the wings of heaven on my shoes, I'm a dancin' man and I just can't lose.". Feeling unstoppable pretty much makes you unstoppable. Until you meet an immovable object.

What we do, what we accomplish by our actions, matters. Our thoughts form the Universe, after all. To do them well, we need the aforementioned mindset, and naturally motivation. A great motivation is aiming for something really far and really, really difficult to get. None of that Isaiah Berlin's "I determine myself not to desire what is unattainable." stuff. You never know what is unattainable until you try time and time again and fail to see anybody accomplish your aim. And that can take a lifetime. Sometimes more.

What remains to be a problem is that people listen to other people, and other people can be real jerks. Everyone's a critic and everybody lies. Your ambitions can be ridiculed, your logic questioned, it can cause your mindset to falter. Some people are innately very persuasive even without using logical argumentation or derivation, some people impact using cold, brutal, honest logic. Either way, it is your beliefs that are at risk. And losing one's faith can be a mighty dangerous thing.[1] Especially if it happens to take place when one is emotionally compromised due to other, perhaps even unrelated events already.

What you see is what you get, unless you start thinking. By thinking, you empower yourself, you get an edge over many others, you take a leap in the direction of your destination. This destination depends on your aspirations, motivations, determination, will and strength of mind. Alas, the destination remains unknown until the moment it is reached. No worries, the trip is generally the best part of it. What we do when we reach the destination... I guess we'll see about that when the time comes.

"There comes a time when you look into the mirror, and you realize that what you see is all you will ever be … and you accept it, you kill yourself, or you stop looking into mirrors."

Medicine isn't exact. Psychology isn't a science.

"Do we really need a reason? We are animals, killing is in our nature."

The quote is from a relatively new movie simply named "Pathology". It is about a pathologist that starts playing a game with other pathologists, a game where each of them kill someone random and the others must then figure out how it was done. Apparently (although this was not mentioned) one of the rules was that the cause of death has to be determinable (so no cremating after the murder). Spoilers.
The game went on for quite some time with the method always being determined (be it forced inhalation of liquid nitrogen or feeding nitric acid with booze, the methods were pretty unimaginative). Finally, the protagonist's fiancée came to town and the protagonist wished out of the game. Naturally, that was out of the question as he had already tasted the fruit and, as such, trapped by the game. So he decided to kill all the players. With so many targets (5) and a very limited time schedule (any death within the 'circle' would implicate the protagonist in the eyes of the remaining players, thus he would endanger himself and his fiancée), he had to take out everyone at once. He had to blow them up.
Sadly, he got sloppy. The one time it really mattered to be thorough, he got sloppy and did not make sure he got all of the targets. The 'dungeon master' survived, killed the protagonist's fiancée, after which the protagonist decided to carry out an autopsy on the DM... while the DM was still alive.

What bugged me was that out of the 5 other players, only 2 had a beef with him. One, who he slept with on multiple occasions, was killed by the DM shortly before the explosion. The other was the DM. The rest were unaware of the coitus or that the DM was going mad. By 'mad' I mean on a senseless killing spree. Stabbing many random people, without causing a genius mystery, without the mental thrill of outsmarting the others. Also, the DM was jealous over the protagonist due to the damsel he killed. So, the only person the protagonist really had to kill was the DM (as the damsel was already deceased) and call it quits. When two players die, it's rather easy to explain the wish to stop hanging out with people who kill each other, who are wildcards, who cannot be trusted to play the game objectively. The one thing the protagonist had to do is make sure the DM died. He didn't. Instead, he did the risky thing and hoped everyone was deceased, even though he was near the explosion. He refused to be methodical, he refused to be logical.

Overall, the movie hinged on the general assumption that pathologists, like fighter test pilots, have to be slightly mad, different from the general public by their thinking and distance from emotions. But what they appeared was rather different. They appeared to be like career soldiers, classic binary thinkers. Relatively unimaginative, always relying on simple steps, straight conclusions pertaining to only the current situation. No joy, no pain, like machines. The only satisfaction being the hope of being better than the rest, of making it further, of being the last man standing, of winning. For pathologists, especially for those who believe that what they find can benefit those who are still alive, such a game is rather illogical. People who have chosen their career to help people, who live in the hope that their work helps people, are not the people who would start cold-blooded murder circles, even if it is just for kicks.

You can’t be perfect all the time.

Time for a lousy topic. Memes.

The subtitled pictures have been around for a very long time, but in the last few years they’ve emerged from the caves of 4chan to the mainstream media. Some people still remember cats and ‘cheezburgers’, but the main source of meme intake appears to be 9gag. In a relatively short amount of time, kids on messageboards geeking out and complaining about everything became trendsetters for something… peculiar.

The main thing a meme is, is transitory. It’s here one moment and gone another, sometimes even using current events as background for the purposed of sharing a pun or subjective criticism. But even if it happens to be entertaining or funny, it is only so the first time you see it, very rarely a little longer. Afterwards you simply ignore it as it offers no new information, no new joke, no new emotions. Just a reaction ‘I’ve seen that one already’. And so they disappear, sometimes getting dug up a few years later just to bring scorn to whoever dug it. However, since people in general are not very creative (sure there are some brighter crayons around) and thus the same memes or concepts of memes get perpetuated ad nauseam.

So a meme is something you enjoy for a mere moment, later it simply becomes obsolete thrash that the Internet is full of anyways. It comes in many shapes and sizes, and yet it is annoyingly repetitive in its nature and its content. They rarely offer new ideas, new points of view, they only have so many words to use. Quite frankly, it is more interesting to read ancient blog posts or listen to old videos of TEDtalks or at fora(.tv) than attempt to enjoy captioned pictures, one of a dozen maybe creating some kind of reaction, if you’re lucky.

 

Moreover, it might actually be more interesting to old (false) advertising than keep checking for new content.

“Why is it that every time I mention faith you think I’m talking about God?”

“The pragmatic survive, and the determined thrive, but faith manages.”^[1]

It is kind of the basic message that echoes through Michael J. Straczynski’s creations, be it the space opera Babylon 5 or the post-apocalyptic drama Jeremiah. It’s a powerful message, and it applies in most cases. Exceptions always exist, as long as sociology is involved.

Pragmatist – you want to do something, you find a way, you get along. You will not suffer from much ordinary trouble as you only aspire as much as is practical, as is necessary or effective in terms of your survival or the continuation of your gene line. You make do, but never become anything truly great, never progress beyond the level of an average person in terms of material value, reputation, life quality, etc. They are the average Joes in our community.

The determined have a different point of view. They set their eyes on something really, really hard to get, and then they work to achieve that goal. Often enough they are successful, because they work for the goal practically non-stop. Their actions are generally methodical, thought through and purposeful, as opposed to the immediate, short-term decisions of pragmatists. They thrive because their aim tends to be idealistic, even unreachable. But that doesn’t stop them from being noble, from doing their best just because they can try to make the world a better place, because they have a mere chance that trying hard will move them an inch closer to their goals, that a little extra effort makes a change.

But both of these are outdone by people with faith. Not because they have someone watching over them or karma treats them better, but because they are even more motivated in their actions than the determined, and their devout belief in their ability to achieve their aspirations is nearly unshakeable. This means they are effectively impervious to drops in motivation due to unsuccessful attempts (or miserable failures, as one might put it), because, as previously mentioned, faith manages. A person with enough belief in something is like a wrecking ball that keeps on going. This can, at times, be a problem. Once upon a time there was a failed German artist that believed he could make the world better by getting rid of all people who infected a pure nation. While his belief lead to many scientific discoveries and an interesting tactic, nowadays better known as ‘zerg rush’, it also caused a significant drop in human population. This was generally received as a really bad thing to happen. But he showed the power of faith, of belief.

In general, faith has a way of making a person happier. You can take all the math in the ‘verse, but undertake a task that you don’t believe in and it will shake you down just like the turn of the worlds. Faith keeps the task possible, tells you you’re losing before you fail, makes it a goal. And in the end, faith manages.

“Don’t nobody go nowhere”

Inactivity. It drives us up and down the wall, we constantly need to do something, anything. All is fine as long as we keep going.

It can be as simple as doodling or checking Facebook during a lecture, playing cards or learning for something more than a week ahead of time during breaks. But it is something we do, even when we are with other people, we do it while talking to them about all kinds of subjects, but we still do them. We search for things to do. We’re used to multitasking, we don’t even think twice about it. But isn’t there something we’ve lost by always multitasking?

Most of our conversations have turned either information-specific (we ‘need’ to talk), boredom-related (there’s nothing else to do anyways), or simply ridiculous (‘sarcasm’). Talking for the sake of talking is gone, it’s a thing of the past. Thus now we learn more factual information about the people we converse with, we find out about their lives, about their wishes and aspirations. But we often miss what could be considered the most important part of a person – the essence. Who is the person really, how does he or she think, what are the simple things they ponder about daily? The factual information gives us the background of the person, the ‘essence’, so to say, tells the story of who the person is on the inside. And to know that one must talk to another person for the sole purpose of talking to that other person, of enjoying his or her company for a while longer, of finding out more about the person than many other fellow peers. It’s a simple enough thing to do, but it is rarely done. Time is a diminishing resource and we all have things to get done. Just talking is no longer a must.

Perhaps now the only solution is walking while talking. It’s still multitasking, but it is very likely to be less of an attention hoarder than, say studying or playing Monopoly. So perhaps it is better to take a long walk for the sake of conversation, for the sake of getting to know another person. It can be in a random direction, it can be aimed, but it is a slow walk that keeps away the impending case of ADD and does its best to avoid interruptions. It keeps us going.

Times, they are a-changing

Generally, time travel is thought of as a negative thing. Change one thing in the past, perhaps as simple as making somebody arrive someplace a few minutes later than they should or stepping on a butterfly, and you unleash a cascade of events eventually leading to extremely negative consequences. Not to mention the high risk of creating a paradox, an event that prevents you from travelling back in time in order to create the event preventing you from doing that. It's a risky business.

But is it really all that bad? We think it is bad or impossible because we are not exactly happy with the situation of... well, pretty much everything right now. If someone could change the situation by going back in time and altering events, they'd probably have done it, perhaps prevented Bieber from becoming a hit, and we wouldn't feel so bad. Or would we?

Suppose there has been a time traveller. Suppose that time traveller averted a huge catastrophe. We wouldn't know. Suppose he increased our life quality significantly. We wouldn't know. We would still be stuck in our ways of complaining about Status Quo. When we do not know what we've lost, we can't know what we're gained. In a way, it is the reason why the Doctor is so little know within the people who have not yet quite grasped time travel in its entirety.

The main problem with time travel though is getting back. If you go to the past, you will have inherently changed it and the future you will go back to will no longer be the same. Keeping the machine with you could also be found slightly problematic - this would mean that the distortion field is outside the time machine, not inside. Even if you don't want to come back, you don't want somebody else coming after you or messing up your plans using your machine. And when you've solved that problem, you are still in a strange time where you have to survive somehow. That ain't easy.

Time travel poses many problems, but whatever you do, there's a pretty slim chance anyone will ever find out about it.

Sometimes even warmth can feel cold.

By now, it has become apparent that logic is almost always more practical than emotions. But what are the advantages of being stiff, cold, calculated person (like Sheldon Cooper, PhD used to be), as opposed to someone really perky and loose?

Well, the first thing would obviously be the lack of emotions clouding your judgement. If you do not show what you feel, what you feel becomes less important within you as well. It is the age-old psychological effect, which is why when you stand up straight, you start feeling more confident; why when you wear clothes you don't like you feel down; why when you wear a bow tie and a brownish jacket you want to pull out a screwdriver from your jacket pocket. The upshot here is that when you make decisions, you think them through, you are more likely to avoid impulse decisions which are more likely to bring negative consequences.

The external effect is that it, in theory, decreases ambiguity. What you say is what you mean and nothing more. No hidden meanings, no snarky comments, no subtle hints. This has a couple of issues as you need to word what you say a little more carefully so as to not accidentally say more than you wish to mean. Unfortunately, with such careful wording and of habit, people try to find hidden meaning in what you say. Fortunately, this is usually not a problem as generally these false-positive hidden meanings tend to be either implausible (they don't make sense in the context at hand) or irrelevant enough not to matter. But there are a few cases when people read too much into, for instance, a proposition.

There is an additional effect that could be negative, but with enough logic on your side, you can turn any negative part of it positive. Being rigid means being predictable. If practicality and logic are your weapons and whatever you strive towards is your aim, then your actions will be, in one way or another, connected with reaching your aspirations. It does not take a genius to work out that a binary thinker can be used as any other person, but a strictly straight arrow will have a hard time doing anything against being used. Any move can be anticipated using the rules of logic. Fortunately, as you know someone wants you to do something that benefits him and not you, and you know what he expects you to do, according to the same laws of logic, you can go one step further - you know what the other person will do in order to get you to do the thing he wants you to do. A mighty game of psychology, but it works. It is like giving your enemy your communication codes during a war to direct him to insignificant targets and clear the way of his forces so that your main strike team can simply walk in without any opposition. Diversion.

The downside is also evident. Appearing cold and emotionless inherently means people will have a hard time reading your emotions. People won't know if you're interested in the topic or them, unless you explicitly state so. Then again, if you don't state so, people have a tendency to assume quite a bit. These assumptions are also the reason why even when you do state something about your interests, your words will be met with scepticism - did you say that because you meant it or because it is of use to you?

All in all, it is quite clear that being rigid is quite effective and practical. After all, it is what most of us are like online anyways, for others at the very least. If nobody can read your emotions, you are rigid. But it has to be understood that nobody is absolutely completely emotionless, something has to remain. Something that lingers, that influences the person, that makes the person accept certain people as friends, something that makes the person move closer to a few people that he considers special to him. You might not see it, but it is there. And when it shows, it's worth it.

"Keep yourself alive, keep yourself alive, it'll take you all your time and a money to keep you satisfied."

Sometimes it is better to do things that damage you, as it may slow down the diminishment of your soul. Taking care of your life is important, one should preserve one's life. But one must not forget the age-old saying 'To live is to risk.'. There is no way to live in a safe bubble all your life, so why not try something risky on purpose?

Many people who practice extreme sports say that the danger gives them a sense of freedom, a sense of mortality, a sense of change. In a way, it enriches their souls, it adds to their life experience. It might not be sensible and is definitely something one should not recommend others to do, but it is a way to break the barriers of everyday life.

To achieve this goal, one does not necessarily risk one's life. Sometimes a small risk is enough to create change, to keep your mind sharp, to keep your emotions functional. Saying 'yes' when one should say 'no', making good friends with people you barely know and can't relate with, keeping in touch with lost causes... all perfectly innocent ways that have the potential to increase drama, drive emotions up, keep you alive and kicking. Just about enough to stop the regress of the soul, the ever-constant decay that happens due to daily stress and routine. Have a little colour in your lives.

The road we walk is not easy, but it is the only road we are on.

Fate. Karma. Tao. Different ways of saying things are the way they are supposed to be. They are also things people decide to either believe or not believe in.

It is actually quite difficult to explain how it works. Simply saying 'it is so because it is supposed to be so' contains a logical fallacy, saying 'our actions lead to a preset result that cannot be foreseen or changed' does not explain why the result cannot be changed. Divine intervention?
In a way, fate merely states that every action has a result, a consequence bound to that specific action in the specific conditions in which the action is performed. Hitting a gold ball results in it flying off (unless it is nailed down) and posing danger for anyone near its landing area. In the same manner a failure to be present at a subjectively important event results in a change of social status. It's the laws of physics expanded to include sociology, thus departing from science in general.
Since the laws of physics work (well, they have worked pretty well so far), there is a good chance the same concept can be used in other places with relative success. The main problem is the abundance of variables that tend to be unknown to the observer. Even when the variables, such as people's actions, are known, it remains a game of bridge - you know the odds and you play the best you can with the knowledge you have. But there is always a chance that the odds are in your favour but you get blindsided by extremely uneven hands. You may know the probable result, but you can never take every single thing into account. Fate is unpredictable, it can only be confirmed in hindsight.
This makes fate kind of a smoking gun. You observe an outcome, you know what caused it, but firing a gun does not always result in smoke coming out of it. It is chance, luck, or simply someone's diligence that caused the weapon not to jam. You only know it works because you witness the result.
The problem with fate or karma or whatever you wish to call it is the lack of evidence that results are definite events. Believing in fate means believing in predestination, that we simply live out whatever tape deck we were born to follow and have no choice to change our future or present. Every decision, every impulse has been marked down by someone or something somewhere.

"We are all aware that the senses can be deceived, the eyes fooled. But how can we be sure our senses are not being deceived at any particular time, or even all the time? Might I just be a brain in a tank somewhere, tricked all my life into believing in the events of this world by some insane computer? And does my life gain or lose meaning based on my reaction to such solipsism?"

In such a case, even the knowledge of fate has to be preset by fate itself. This poses yet another problem: things don't exist for no reason. If fate has a purpose, it most definitely does not have one for us. That leaves outside influences. There is very little point in pondering about the identity or essence of the influence or influences, it would be highly theoretical and based on a wild unproven theory. But the possible purpose of causing our world to work based on 'fate' is quite a nut to crack. After all, if 'fate' was created by something that knew all the variables and the purpose of it is to calculate the ultimate question, so many of us probably wouldn't have read about it.

In conclusion, saying 'things are so because they are meant to be so' has a hitch of an undefined entity that 'means it to be so'. To be more precise, the problem is less in the nature of the aforementioned entity, but the motive of the entity, the reason it 'means it to be so'. If you can think of a logical reason why anything or anyone would create fate that makes us believe or not believe it, feel free to comment.

"Some would ask, how could a perfect God create a universe filled with so much that is evil. They have missed a greater conundrum: why would a perfect God create a universe at all?"

Explaining emotion with logic is easy as a lion.

Some people fear computers and robots. There is actually a relatively good reason for that - they can't think of a reason why a robot would act altruistically. To be more specific, what would motivate an absolutely logical entity to save a random person from harm or death?

The three laws of robotics, proposed by Isaac Asimov, include 'a robot must not let any human being come to harm by action or inaction' (paraphrased). It was a preset knowledge, an axiom, not a logical conclusion derived from something else. This law caused quite a fuss in the movie 'I, Robot', where a learning and thinking artificial intelligence finally understood that humans are a problem. They tend to be very self-destructive and for their own benefit they should be devoid of freedom and succumb to the care of robots. Some people will lose lives in the transition, but after the event, life loss should become minimal. It was the logical conclusion, a reasonable transaction.
The 'will' to live is an emotion and insufficient. We don't always get what we want anyway, perhaps death is what we need? Proving that life is 'good' and death is 'bad' is quite a problematic task. After all, let's keep in mind that whoever said 'death is merely a part of life' was probably not dead at the time he said it.

People are not snowflakes, there is a finite number of personalities. By allowing a single person pass over to the other side, odds are that there is someone just like the dead guy or girl somewhere still living. Thus, the world as a whole does not lose anything unique by a death. And it's not like there are just a few hundred people around, there are billions of us on this tiny planet. And even so, we destroy snowflakes, sometimes deliberately. We catch them on our warm gloves or mittens and enjoy their demise as they melt away. It is partly because we know snow to be transitory, of the moment, it will stop existing soon anyways. But the same applies to human beings. Death is inevitable, sooner or later it will catch up to any person. So why not let people 'melt away'?

Sure, there are instances in which letting someone die can cause future problems to the self, one can be accused of criminal negligence and might even be publicly crucified. Jail time is nobody's favourite pastime and bad publicity can cause hindrances in one's professional and personal lives. But if the inactivity (or activity, for that matter) goes unnoticed, why do anything to save a life?

The question here is, and I stress this, about the logical justification of preventing death (per first aid, calling help, moving someone out of danger, giving a warning, etc.), not the justification of causing death. Negligence, not murder. Although manslaughter does have its problems in the same logical department, it also requires motive, which generally is either emotional in its nature or derived from an emotional component. Anyone can justify action or inaction with mere feelings.




Naturally there are exceptions, especially if the person dying is not simply a 'random' person, but someone of some use (material or emotional). But the problem is in the general sense.

Check-in.

Ah, it's been a nice weekend.

After a huge amount of time, I've had the pleasure of using Linux (Ubuntu, to be exact) again. To my surprise, it is pretty decent. WINE (WINE Is Not an Emulator) really helps it.
However, it has faults, things that it lacks but Windows has. One would most definitely be a blogging client. Now, after a long search, I did find one that was able to connect to Blogspot, but it has no (embed) code support - text only. The result: blogging in a browser.
Secondly, and more importantly, there is a huge lack of .one support. Sure, most Linux users probably don't use OneNote all that much, but if the file contains information about the stuff you wanted to do for which you started using Ubuntu, it is a slight problem. Now, for clarification, the details of the action are the file, the large plan is in the head, and the action itself should result in a mix of the two. Why that needs Ubuntu, let's leave that be as mysterious as the nature of 'that'.
Thirdly, a lot of settings are not available via the UI. What I, personally, miss is the ability to change scroll speed on the mouse. A basic thing to expect, but lacking nonetheless.

All in all, Ubuntu is relatively smooth, integrates many applications (like the mail client, any IM clients, music player, even a Facebook status reader (really, that this is even installed as default)), even Optimus works (the NVidia method that switches between the Intel graphics chip and the NVidia chip, with the purpose of increasing battery time when powerful graphics is not needed). It is surprisingly intuitive (12.10 is, a couple versions back it was a nightmare), but I cannot help but think that Microsoft as a company has made some really good choices. They have made extremely nice programs (such as OneNote) and made sure that the practicality of them would not be surpassed by freeware or anything on other platforms. The toolbar is minimalistic in Windows and takes only the space it requires, unlike the Ubuntu one that consists of two bars and has a huge ribbon thing that has things only at the extreme ends.

Well, back to fiddling with it.

Politics and afterlife. A kind of double post.

So, the news are in. Obama^[1] won.

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“Take away death, what remains?”

Being immortal in the present is quite complicated. The main problem would naturally be the paperwork – pretty much every person is on record somewhere, more and more people have their private information (fingerprints, DNA) stored somewhere. Sure, you could head to somewhere less civilized, but then there’d be little point in being immortal. The perk of being immortal is that you can enjoy life with lessened risk. That means you can enjoy more stuff, you don’t have to worry about dire consequences, unless you really, really manage to mess something up.

Now, one might say that being tracked is not a problem, let someone find out you are immortal, why not? Well, anyone with such an incredible ability would soon find himself in a dark laboratory being tested on. That means poking around in your body, introducing you to new methods of inflicting pain, testing your capabilities of regeneration, etc. That research would go to create more immortals, the first test subjects would probably be supersoldiers, capable of causing mayhem of epic proportions. Something you would generally like to avoid. I, for one, would prefer not to be the cause of some mad-hatter’s world domination, but that might just be me.

Back to the topic at hand, avoiding being noticed and stuck in a box for testing, poking, and probing. There’ll be probing. Obviously that rules out most types criminal activity, that would create a high chance of somebody finding the same fingerprints at a crime scene or on a criminal (you) more than just a couple decades apart, and that would raise a red flag. Residing in the U.S. is also problematic because of their insistence on giving people information about your fingerprints when you try to enter the country. The new ‘bionic’ passports or whatnot complicate things further. In the old days you could simple move around, take up a new identity, none would be the wiser. After a few identities, you could start the loop again, the people who knew you would have died of various causes, including old age, by then. But now… now one could pull a Helen Magnus – stay hidden by either getting rich and building a hideaway underground in the middle of civilization, or simply building a hideaway in the middle of nowhere.

It’s actually quite unpleasant to be immortal. Getting a job is a hassle, voting a complication, buying a flat an inconvenience, having a valid driving licence a nuisance, carrying around valid identification a bloody bother. You have no job history, no (believable) birth date, no (believable) social security code, no (valid) birth certificate… all in all, it would be easier to die. Then again, as this logic (‘if I had died some time ago, I would not have these problems’) applies to everything, and precedent states that death should not be considered a viable way of avoiding problems, one must just accept life on the sidelines, hiding in the shadows, staying behind the curtain, travelling incognito, and remember that everything is transitory, of the moment.

Broken identities.

We are all damaged goods.

None of us can really say we are normal. We all have our quirks and issues, there most definitely is something wrong with us. It could be apathy or trust issues, being a glutton for punishment or being overly sceptic. Or having great difficulties talking about oneself without seeming very smug.

This is why we seek out the shortcomings of others. We seek weakness that would console us, something that would make others not be better than us. Sure, all of us are not dealt the same cards, nobody is really equal. But just knowing that others are at least as messed up as you really let’s you know you are not an anomaly.

There is nobody perfect for anybody else. Just compatible mistakes. People who ignore the shortcomings or play them for strengths make good friends or life partners.

There is something in each of us that qualifies us for dismissal from a relationship as far as somebody is concerned. But we make do with what we got. We live our lives, some become someone really great, some become people we never want to meet again. But we continue to live our lives nevertheless, we find friends, create families, start new life. We are all damaged goods, but that is merely what we are, not what we do. And it is as general as saying we are all human.

In your face. Literally.

The skull is an amazing piece of construction. There are ridiculously many small pieces it consists of. The outline is pretty much a few larger bones, but the face, oh the face, the face is like a jigsaw puzzle. Lots of pieces that barely fit together, mostly by leaving huge gaps between one another.
For instance, take the eye hole, the small place where one of your eyeballs is located. A half-sphere hole that is made up of 7 bones. The nasal cavity has even more bones, but that’s because it is called one hole even though it has a bone wall smack in the middle of it, dividing it into two, but it is still called one nevertheless. Pretty much all of the bones are connected to a single bone right in the middle of the skull. This bone is somewhat peculiar – it has two sets of wings.
To make matters worse, there is a set of tiny holes and a horn of sorts right inside the forehead. One of those holes may or may not be a hole. It may or may not contain a vein. That vein that may or may not be there also may or may not reach the nasal cavity and drain it. That may or may not be a problem as the nasal cavity can contain all sorts of bad stuff you don’t want heading towards your brain^[1]. It’s not an exact science.

This should be about it.

“As the EU brought along ERASMUS and Schengen, it also brought along a new age of international cooperation for many new member states. It has also brought up the problem of having many different languages in a relatively small area. One of the many topics that have been raised due to this has been learning different languages in school - whether it should be mandatory or voluntary, should it be done at all?

People in Eastern Europe have no problem answering this, on the one side, there are countries that have German or something extremely similar to German as the native language, and most of the English-speaking world. On the other side they border with the enormous Russia, that has at certain points in history forced Russian culture, including the language, to be incorporated local cultures, sometimes to extreme extent. Most young people in these countries learn English and Russian at school, however well pupils actually communicate in these languages differs a lot, dependant on the pupils' personal background (nationality of self, or of parents, or of closest acquaintances, for instance), motivation, abilities, etc. Often enough, by the end of secondary school, the young graduate will have learned at least 3 foreign languages.

But countries where the native language happens to be a popular language throughout the entire world, or our small corner of it at the very least, can be reluctant to 'force' their young to study a foreign language that many would probably never use. This is painfully obvious in the United States, but for the sake of this topic, let's limit ourselves to the EU.

Since English is the most popular language within the EU, most young Frenchmen and Germans learn it anyways, but England is a problem. For every other country, the foreign language that should most probably definitely be taught at school would be English, but in England, that is no longer a foreign language. While learning Welsh would be interesting, it probably would not be very practical. The languages that could be of use for more than an insignificant minority, would be French and German. But even so, learning French would perhaps yield better results than learning German. After all, learning more languages before adulthood has proved to be an excellent method of developing a systematic mind that can cope with huge amounts of input even at old age. Furthermore, polyglots generally have higher IQ. This may lead to other perks, such as long life^[1] or increased rate of learning new techniques to keep up with the changing requirements for certain positions of employment.

All in all, the EU has played an important role in opening borders and encouraging cooperation beyond borders, but it has barely changed the need to learn languages. The languages taught may have changed, but foreign languages should be taught at all times (in the sense of past, present, and future) to schoolchildren, from primary school to secondary school at the very least. Often enough during university studies, one has to learn an additional language, such as Latin, anyways. Perhaps the language that is taught is not that important as a whole, but the process of learning a language most definitely is important and has significant positive consequences.”

 

The quotation marks are there for a reason yet again. The Status shall be Quo again soon.

Enjoy the magic of computers:

I sure hope long quotes do not become a habit.

“Recently I watched a debate concerning the abolition of the ERASMUS exchange program. It is uploaded as a Vbate in two parts (3rd and 4th speeches are in another debate) for all those that want to see it.

The proposing side (who wanted to get rid of ERASMUS) brought out the current economic crisis and the fact that a student foreign exchange program accumulates a lot of valuable money while it does not bring any immediate benefits, which are in great demand during a crisis. They proposed cancelling the program temporarily, "for a short time". While it would bring a short-term boost in liquid resources, cancelling such a large-scale program for a short duration just to reboot it in a year would cause far more hassle and waste than it is worth. Rebuilding such a program is no easy task to accomplish, the current staff would have to move on to other, more stable pastures, and getting them to return would mean even more problems. So most likely the program would lose a lot of valuable resources and effectiveness, not to mention trustworthiness. As a result, cancelling the program temporarily causes way too many problems, and by merely proposing such an idea, the proposition accepted that ERASMUS has to function, it is important.

Another very odd problem they mentioned was 'distractions'. By this, they meant that the independent life of an exchange student brings up new responsibilities, such as cooking or financing oneself, that hinder one's studies in a foreign university. Because every student that has not left their home country lives with their parents, goes to a local university, etc. In such a case, why do we even need dormitories? In any case, a rather poorly thought out argument for exterminating ERASMUS.

A third point was its impracticality - the universities are not equal and, as such, one cannot simply hop between universities without sacrificing pieces of one's education in the process. But if the universities were equal, why hop between them at all? What would be the point in going abroad, if the experience was the same as at home? Sure, certain similarities exist (which is why George Formby could say 'it's no different anywhere'), but that is why it is possible to temporarily attend an another university.

The benefits of temporarily going abroad to another university were already explained in the previous post - it is all about differing somewhat from everyone else with the same education. No two lecturers are exactly the same and no two lecturers teach exactly the same things and/or use the same methods to teach. Not to mention meeting new people, potential coworkers, employers, underlings, partners, advisors, and experiencing a new culture, thus teaching a person how a certain culture functions, making the person more tolerable towards different cultures and nations. On the whole, a very positive experience.

So this is why the proposition's arguments were shallow and weak. Next time let's see if the opposition fared any better.”

 

Again, the quotation marks are here for a reason. Origin: the same page as before.

Some quotations are short, this one is long.

“The aim of the Bologna process is to make European universities comparable. Sure, accredited curriculums are valid in every country in the European Union, which would indicate that the essential things studied are the same for each subject all over the Union. In most majors, it is possible to go abroad for some time and the courses taken at another university are considered comparable with or equal to the same courses offered at the home university, all thanks to ECTS. This way studying abroad is not simply a method of experiencing a different culture or making friends or acquaintances with potential future colleagues, employees, or superiors, it is an opportunity to receive education that is somewhat different from what everybody else in the home country receives. No two universities are exactly the same as every lecturer teaches in a different way. Some know more tricks to solve difficult problems, some teach a certain methodical approach that others don't. It gives the student an edge in the job market. The final diploma the student receives is equal to other diplomas of the same kind because the courses taken are equal. There are some differences in the attractability of the diploma for potential employers - an Oxford graduate is more likely to get a job than someone who studied in Riga. But both can apply to the same positions and sometimes the less likely candidate is chosen because of qualities possibly unrelated to the alma mater, but rather the personality, motivation, or the first impression of the candidates. This is, as I already mentioned, in most majors.

In certain fields, such as law and medicine, a year abroad is a somewhat more complicated undertaking than in, for example, biochemistry. While the final result of medical school is the same, a chance to start residency, the way the curricula are built up differs quite a bit. Some universities, such as LMU München, have officially divided the medicine major into two stages, 3 years each. In a way, it is like finishing Bachelor's and beginning Master's, but the first three years do not actually give a level of qualification. In most European universities the 3+3 concept is used, but the curricula are not officially separated. The first three years are so-called pre-clinical years, the years when the students must learn the theory of medicine, from the Latin names of all the tiny protuberances on every single bone (sulcus tendinis musculi flexoris hallucis longi, to all those anatomy geeks) of the body to different treatments to complicated illnesses caused by various pathogens. The second 3 years is for practice, rotations, for the student to get personally acquainted with the actual everyday life in a working hospital, to learn how each part of a large hospital operates and how to become a good cog in the well-oiled machinery. The difference between universities is mostly in the way things are taught, but somewhat also in when something is taught.

In 'normal' majors, the student has a number of obligatory courses he/she has to pass and a large number of voluntary courses. The student can usually decide when to take the obligatory courses, sometimes causing them to be ready for a Bachelor's diploma a full year before the nominal study time is over. In medicine, however, the obligatory subjects are set by year. If you don't pass it in the year you are supposed to, you either get thrown out or you take a year off and try again after a year has passed, but you do not get to advance to the next year's subjects. And this  causes the problem with studying abroad. There are surprisingly few cases in which studying abroad works as it would if the major was something simpler, like computer science. Generally, the people who study medicine and do go abroad, do it for a very short amount of time. This way they can still complete all the courses of the year at the home university, but gain valuable experience elsewhere as well. The other option would be to go for a whole year and repeat a year at the home university.

But this causes a rather important question to arise: if all accredited medicine curricula are considered equal or comparable in their results, why aren't the components of them considered equal or comparable as well? It would stand to reason that if two wholes are equal, then the pieces of the whole ought to be equal as well.

It gets even more complicated with residency. While officially, a resident is no longer a student, but an employee at a hospital, the concept of residency is learning through intense practice. In different countries, the duration of residency varies. In Estonia, for example, residency lasts for 3 to 5 years, depending on the specific field of study. Most surgical fields require 5 years. Lately, however, there have been talks between politicians and the medical student union about adding an extra year to the beginning of each residency that would not be field-specific (extending residency to 4-6 years). Some countries, such as Germany, still employ an extra year called Internatur for this purpose, but this concept was abolished in Estonia about 15 years ago. But the result of residency is still the same: one becomes a fully fledged doctor of medicine. So if the purpose is the same, the result is the same, the methods employed should be the same (otherwise the result would not be the same), why are there still differences between the systems in use in the European Union? It would appear that soon an Estonian medical student should do his or her best to start residency in an another country, such as Germany or Finland, as opposed to going there after residency, as appears to be the case right now.”

 

The quotation marks are for a reason. In fact,I strongly recommend you check out this place, as I did.

Per aspera ad astra.

Education.

One of the worst things school or university can be is too easy. In this case, those that don’t give a donkey’s backside about studying and those extremely fascinated by the subjects taught end up equal on paper. The results no longer signify the abilities, skills or knowledge of the people whom they are about. The people with great memory (or persistence) look exactly like the people with great processors (who improvise amazingly well using logic and derivation). Even the people who are great all-rounders look precisely the same, when one looks at the results. With such an education, a person’s efforts, no matter how great, are equal to no effort. So why even try?

Unfortunately, this is the case in many places.

It is a similar problem to the one stated in the previous post (the video) – there are very few choices that matter in the field of education. Especially now that education has fallen far behind innovation:

Sure, this is something vaguely similar to scientology, but the point remains. The speed at which new discoveries are made is staggering. It is exacerbated by an odd publication bias. There are papers published about research done without even remotely near the professionalism in mind that would be expected from established scientists (sometimes the tests are carried out on insufficient numbers of test animals, sometimes a control group is missing, usually the conclusions are as if sucked from a straw) and there are many papers on failed experiments that don’t get published^[1].

With all this malarkey going on, it is difficult to give modern education a positive assessment. Except that it is not too easy, as long as a person picks a challenge. And that is to be cherished.

The not-so-secret life of us

In the modern world, large chunks of personal data, especially our life stories, can be found online. That is to say, if you happen to meet somebody new, try binging (or, for that matter, googling) their name and see what you find. You’ll probably find out quite a few of their fields of interests, even the type of crowd they hang with – perhaps they use Google+, perhaps they use Facebook, perhaps they are on LinkedIn. By getting some small details or, in the case of very expressive souls, many small and large details, one can learn a huge deal about a new acquaintance. By learning about the events of the person’s past, you can deduce some sides of a person’s current personality.

In addition to the event-based information that lies on the intertubes, quite a few people blog. Either daily, weekly, or even more rarely, but there is a relatively continuous stream of information about the person’s thoughts, events that matter to the person, news that interest the person, etc. But it is there, and it gives a lot away about the person. The way one matures in time, the way one thinks about life, the reactions to events. In a way, it reflects the author’s soul.

When you meet someone interesting, try binging or googling them. It makes for an interesting read and gives you an overview of the person in question. Naturally, you can’t learn everything online, but it is a good start.

So let us finish with a good old video that stars a person that really reminds me of a bright bloke in Harvard:

via

Life is like a fountain

A drop of water within it, actually. The drop, as a life, can go in a large number of different ways, each trajectory varying in distance, height, duration. As does each life.

On the way from being pushed out from the pipe to the moment of stillness upon landing, a life meets many others, changing with every influence, sometimes losing a small piece of itself or gaining a bit of others. Sometimes a drop grows, but it always loses energy.

The fall of a drop can create waves, marking the impact of its existence.

The course of a life is not preset from its inception, only one thing is certain. At one point it will lie with the lives that have passed for an eternity of tranquillity.

No man or woman is perfect, no brain infallible.

It would appear that scientists have conjured up a new method to find out how to test whether we are living in a computer simulation or in the real world: build a simulation (that would be able to simulate our known Universe) and test different scenarios, events, and see which fail. Those that fail must be the fault of the simulation, if it works in real life. If everything works as in real life, then real life must be a simulation, because currently nobody can build a perfect simulation. Now, one might think that if there is no perfect simulation, then any mistakes that are caused by the imperfections of our synthetic simulation might be fixable. Knowing modern coders, it will take only a few patches to start messing up normal stuff. Each patch eliminates a small bug, but creates a larger ripple that will have to be patched. Sure, it could be possible to create a simulation that is easy to manage with small code churn per update. Unfortunately this is more likely to happen if the simulation was created by specialists of physics, but the coding has to be the responsibility of computer scientists. Thus there is a issue with people. It is quite impossible to convey a large amount of detailed information that does not only have to be memorized but also understood in a reasonable amount of time. The elements of human communication and imagination limit this proposed simulation to the extent that it no longer indicates our status. The fact that something doesn’t work as it should could mean that the simulation is just not good enough. After all, we cannot assume we are as smart as or smarter than whoever created the simulation we are currently in – we have yet to create a simulation so complex, yet perfectly functional.

“We must dissent.”

It is general consensus that most people are not pleased with the government that governs them. As such, it should also come as no surprise that the government, a body of people generally ungoverned, consists of a huge number of people, few of whom are actually qualified for the job. This has brought to mind quite a few thoughts, small quotations of sorts, that aptly describe the situation.

“To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.” (D. Adams)

The main problem is actually the people who want to govern. Generally these are not the typical educated specialists of a given field, but rather people who are popular with crowds. Sure, they may have academical qualifications, but they rarely get to use that education in the specific field they were educated in. They get elected, they govern, efficiency is low. Those that would fit better, are generally simply not interested in the bureaucracy and power-plays and mind games that go on. Power only corrupts because it attracts the corruptible. Straight shooters get ignored (as was the case with Ron Paul), as they are not willing to make a splash using lies or deception. This is why we can’t have nice things.

“Man has killed man from the beginning of time, and each new frontier has brought new ways and new places to die. Why should the future be different?”

So when is the right moment to use nuclear weapons? Sure, I’ve explained the best way to use them as an offensive weapon, but the whole concept of nuclear deterrent is that it can be used defensively. But, as Mr Hacker so aptly put, how can one defend oneself by committing suicide?

Using a nuclear weapon has quite a few problems, for instance the minimum range. Before using a nuke one has to be certain the fallout won’t affect that person, country, institution, or whatever is that ‘one’ negatively. For example, in theory, Latvia would never be able to nuke Lithuania as the bang would be too big – it would be like nuking oneself, hardly a bright idea. In modern times this minimum range requirement causes a huge problem: the nuke has to reach far enough from the position it was fired from before any chance of interception. There is hardly any point in Norway nuking Moscow if the nuclear missile is intercepted above the Baltic Sea or a few miles from Riga or Tallinn. It’s even worse if Finland were to try to nuke Ukraine and the nuke would barely reach the Gulf of Finland before someone shot it down or caused it to detonate. It’s like playing tennis with an extremely high net – sure there is a tiny chance you’ll get the ball over, but more likely it’s going to drop right back down at you. Even if you get it far enough from you, it still has only a small chance of hitting the designated target.

The aforementioned examples are naturally probably never ever going to have even the measliest probabilities of having the possibility of happening, but the concept of nuke-blocking does work. And in a defensive position it is a very real problem as the aggressor is most probably prepared for any possible nuclear launches and is ready to shoot down any nukes before they become a threat to the aggressor. In the worst case scenario, the aggressor has to make a temporary tactical retreat due to scorched (or rather radiated) earth. To those that do not know what a scorched earth tactic is, it is the simple concept of destroying all infrastructure (buildings, roads, pipelines, power lines) while falling back. This makes it more difficult for the other party (the hostile army) to pursue or rehabitate the land.

In the end, it is obviously wiser not to use nuclear weapons, unless one no longer cares about one’s own future – anyone who actually used weapons of mass destruction would either get a taste of their own medicine or get to taste the medicine in different flavours (other models of the same weapon/retaliation attacks). This is partly with the exception of the United States – a country as powerful and large as that can probably nuke a smaller country without causing too severe consequences to the country itself. Unless it strikes at an ally or an another powerful state.

But if it is wiser not to use them, why have them? Well, to put it simply, it is to force salami tactics. Nobody actually wants to confront an enemy with nukes, not in a large-scale war at the very least. So the only option is to go slice by slice, giving the defendant a chance to recover from the initial attack and call upon its allies to kick the aggressor’s backside all the way back to wherever it used to be before the military conflict. Without the power of a nuclear threat, it could be easy to overtake a whole country by storm (or Blitzkrieg), but such aggression would only cause nuclear retaliation if it is possible. The difference is the amount of pressure put on the weakening country and its diplomatic and military options – the more options, the less likely it is that a nuclear weapon will be used. Basically, nuclear weapons are necessary for causing longer wars.

“Between love and madness lies obsession.”

What is love? Surely it must be something more than what Haddaway sang about.

Well, the feeling of love is caused by the release of certain hormones, one of the most famous ones being oxytocin, the poetically named ‘love hormone’. The release of these hormones is also connected with simple crushes, short-lasting attractions, which can cause confusion between love and lust. Which in itself would not be so bad, if we could be sure that whatever we are feeling was definitely more than a dream.

Neurologically speaking, the signals going through one’s brains when one is awake are indistinguishable from those being fired when one is simply dreaming. Therefore love itself could be no more than something we’ve dreamt up, as dreaming awake is not uncommon. Just think of how the first stages of love are generally described, the feeling of light-headedness, the need for personal proximity, the inexplicable trust, the quickly drawn conclusions about the likeness of the other to oneself… sounds pretty dreamy to me.

One thing we can rule out about love is that it is not a morbus, a disease. It is a (relatively) simple biochemical process that happens with almost every person at some point or other, quite possibly on multiple occasions. ‘Curing’ it would mean disrupting the natural processes that go on in one’s body. Oddly enough, even the trigger of the emotion is pretty impossible to ‘cure’. There have been different trials with different hormones, even artificially creating a jump in oxytocin levels when one is exposed to a certain object (such as a foto) or person, thus training the person to associate that object or person with the feeling of love. These experiments have failed.

So love is a function of our bodies, aimed to find better mates. This is slightly off-target when contemplating about homosexuality (and many different philias such as zoophilia or necrophilia), but these are practically unchangeable psychological conditions^[1]. It is triggered by spotting certain details, the conditions of which probably unique to the person spotting. It can drive us nuts, completely destroy our ability to think clearly or about anything else than the trigger. But in other cases, it can cause bursts of creativity, the ‘muse’ effect, it can create apparent self-confidence, often only present when the trigger is not around^[2]. It has side-effects that vary wall-to-wall, from drowsiness to hyperactivity, from extreme shyness to active social behaviour, from mental drainpipe to a dream factory. But to know what it is, I guess one has to experience it first-hand.

Knowledge is power, but power does not always bring happiness.

If ignorance is bliss, should I be dafter to be happier?

I am a strong supporter of mental powers. Philosophy, argumentation, thinking in general. One might even argue emotions should be subdued by intelligence, as emotions do not obey the rules of logic. It is no secret that emotions fog things up, they always have and always will.

Then again, emotions are required for joy, for exuberance. They are emotions. This would indicate that emotions are an integral part of eudaemonia.

“If Eudaimonia, or happiness, is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence; and this will be that of the best thing in us.” - Aristotle

But doing things as well as one is able to requires doing it with wit, with intelligence, with a sound mind. Pure effectiveness can only be improved upon using the brain to figure out better methods of doing something. A paradox arises, which properly explains why either extreme is utterly useless. But a golden middle has to exist, an optimal ratio between mind and heart. How far off from that optimal ratio is our general way of thinking, how to fix our thinking to allow complete happiness?

Then again, if ignorance is bliss, am I perhaps better off not knowing?

Sometimes things happen. After that occurs we have to choose how we react.

Fate.

“The universe puts us in places where we can learn. They are never easy places, but they are right. Wherever we are is the right place and the right time. The pain that sometimes comes is part of the process of constantly being born.” – J. Michael Straczynski

We make plans, sometimes far into the future. We believe that everything will turn out the way we want it to, or expect it to. We love it when our plans come together, but sometimes they do not, sometimes they simply refuse to give in to our hopes and dreams, they insist on making our lives more complicated despite our desire for simplicity.

One might ask if it is fate or karma that creates these obstacles in our path, that makes us trip and fall when we finally achieve a stable stride. There is not much else it could be but meaningless coincidence. That could be a hard medicine to swallow, to accept that our happiness and hope are so often ruined by pure chance that just happens to strike when we feel most hopeful. As if it were done out of spite.

Nevertheless we try to cope with these setbacks, to overcome the difficulties. Sometimes accept the new conditions, as difficult as it is to accept the death of long-lasted hope. It may feel as if our souls are being crushed by an unstoppable force, but we always get back on our feet and keep going. There is no point in surrender, only in trying again. We have to stand up and continue along our path of life, reluctance to do so would mean defeat, humiliation, and the death of our spirits. We must continue, as we have no other course of action. We need to go on, because we choose to.

Maybe it is for the better.

In short.

Some possible definitions I came up with to get some useful books.

1. The purpose of life.

The purpose of life is to give each individual an opportunity to act according to one’s abilities in order to achieve personal mental satisfaction upon life’s end.

2. The essence of the Universe

The Universe is a bunch of huge objects kept together by non-existent ones.

3. The limits of human abilities

A human being can do whatever one really tries to. Very often people try to fail.

4. Faith

Faith is a torch that gives people the bravery to test the limits of one’s abilities even during the darkest of times.

5. Future

The future is the consequence of our present and past actions.

Objects in space are not as close as they appear.

The one way I am willing to listen to One Direction. A lot. Don’t ask me why one of them rubs the piano.

Objects in space.

Whenever you watch a movie that has really cool fake laser weapons (such as the laser blazer), you get to see the oddest ways lasers can hit something. Generally, the laser hits an object and the object disappears (or shrinks or grows), but nothing around or behind it is affected. Even if the laser is a tiny one, the entire object is hit, instead of a small part of it that is actually being hit by the laser. It is a simple trick of movie magic, a trick that has caused few questions about its obvious fakery. Why is that, one may ask.

It is because the general way of thinking about space around us is object-based. We perceive panes of glass as whole objects, not as results of small grains of matter. The same goes for couches, bags, even trees. Even when we know the objects are multilayered, consist of many different substances, we still think of them as (relatively) large objects. A book is a book, not a collection of paper sheets, a tree is a tree, not a mess of bark and leaves

This is merely an example of how used our brains are to simplifying things, generalizing everything and ignoring unique traits. For us, people are very similar and, excluding different looks and sounds, practically indistinguishable. Sure, there are small nuances that trigger interest or disinterest that we manage to recall about people, but nothing really deep. Very rarely do some people come along who we learn to know closely, their ambitions, logic of thinking, oddities of their sense of humour, detailed mannerisms, their logic-to-emotion ratio, even their mental connections. These are the few people we think about as abstract beings, something more than general people. These are the people we grow to care about.

“For every finger you point, three point right back at you.”

Back to American politics, Obama vs. Romney.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

“3. Thus the good fighter is able to secure himself against defeat, but cannot make certain of defeating the enemy.

4. Hence the saying: One may know how to conquer without being able to do it.” – Sun Tzu

This applies very well to most situations, including political fights. The problem with Romney is that he is a businessman, he wants to lead the country as if it were an enterprise. There is nothing inherently bad about the plan as the things that make a business successful are the same things that make a country successful: happy employees and clients, motivation to contribute in the employer’s benefit, economic and political stability, innovation, you name it. The problem with it lies in the size – Romney wants to lead the United States, an enterprise the size and diversity never seen before. He would need very autonomous branch offices, even branch offices of branch offices, which would micromanage certain districts; he would need regional governments that have almost no limitations. Any constraints upon their operation decreases their effectiveness as every area is different, they should be governed differently. And then they have to be willing to work together, which is yet another big problem.

The difference between branch offices and local authorities is that the company’s head office is supposed to nurture the branch offices to make them as productive as possible. Since there is no play for power (or very little room for it), that is not a concern. In the case of local authorities is that the state has to limit them from growing out of hand. Anyone who becomes too influential will start hindering the free operation of the state.

“Half of them are your enemies and the other half are the kind that makes you prefer your enemies.” –YPM on regional governments

Regional governments are not like branch offices, you cannot appoint anyone you want to lead them. The governors are chosen by the people, and they fall into two very similar, yet violently conflicting parties. If each branch office has different aims, principles and ideals, managing the whole system from a central body becomes a fool’s quest. You would end up with a horrible case of Buridan’s donkey – instead of two stacks of hay you would have over fifty of them! And just one ass – the country – that is being drawn in every direction, never actually getting anywhere before dying.

 

“I mean just imagine if you put defence in the hands of local authorities. Give the local councils a hundred million each and ask them to defend themselves, we wouldn’t have to worry about the Russians, we’d have a civil war in three weeks!” – YPM

Science is the art of finding the answers for the questions that are asked by philosophy.

Why question, why philosophize?

It rarely results in anything practical, but it often confuses the sprouts out of everyone involved in the debate. I’ve covered it before, and can yet again, as reasons are plentiful. I’ve covered the aspect of understanding others and simply asking ‘Why?’ about everything that one does not understand, it is an instrument of learning. But it is also an instrument of doubt, and doubt is good.

Probably all of you remember the KONY 2012 campaign that looked like either a sloppy rendition of pre-Afghanistan events^[1] or a well executed diversion^[2]. For a moment shortly after the video became a hit, a lot of people were sure that Kony would soon meet his premature demise due to an unexpected bullet originating from a rifle being actively used by American troops. Then came the people who doubted the positive result of such an invasion, who doubted what the campaign was telling them, doubted so much that they dug further and spoke up. Not in defence of Kony, but against the amorality of an invasion. Some were idealists (killing is bad by default), some were utilitarians (a war would cause more harm than the absence of it), some were just plain odd (killing him would make us no better than he is). But they all doubted what was said to them, what a huge number of people took as solid information, when it was, in fact, mere rumour. And that is what philosophy tries to teach, nothing can be known before it is pondered about. With simple things, such as knowing what a lamina arcus vertebrae is, pondering is rather useless because there aren’t that many alternative options. But when morality, principles or emerging sciences are involved, thinking through every new bit of information helps understand it a lot better.

Secondly, modern philosophers have an important role very similar to science fiction authors – inspiration. Asking ‘what if this were possible?’ aids scientists foresee possible implications of emerging technologies, thus helping put these new technologies into practise faster and safer, and it is a source of inspiration for researchers. If it wasn’t for Star Trek, maybe NASA would not be trying to build a warp drive^[3]. You might argue that this is the work of science fiction authors, but there isn’t much of a difference between such authors and philosophers. Both theorize about possibilities, judge their viability, take into account human nature, people’s hopes and dreams, both wonder ‘What if…?’. Let’s not forget, there are no career philosophers anymore who would simply lie down at a nice tree and think for hours, that is left for literature majors. But there are active writers that dream big and try to inspire people to do better. Just think about Neal Stephenson and his space elevator or CLANG.

Philosophers used to be the most respected educated professionals that led local life and educated others that followed centuries after they had already passed away. They turned into natural philosophers, they created the concepts of physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, etc. Then each small area of science started spawning their own specialists, general philosophers lost their significance. They changed, from simple dreamers who taught people to think to thinkers who teach people to dream. They have always had sidegigs, they always will. Nowadays we hardly notice them because they do not fit the traditional idea of a philosopher, but they are there, silently progressing the way we think. In a way we need them to keep moving forwards.