The way I tally it, I've only ever been on one date in my life, and the girl had asked me out. We were in junior college. I found her very attractive for reasons I can't remember. She was in my Economics class. I wanted to know her name. Attendence wasn't taken verbally, and no one had a chance to socialize in class, so I grabbed the sign-in sheet and counted back the names until I found hers. But being the socio-sexually repressed person I am, I didn't do anything with her name. Leastways talk to her.
I turned 19 years old. This would be a long year. After class the day after my birthday I was about to go drive to a bank and cash my birthday money from my grandparents when she stopped me. She asked me to go to lunch with her, and If I hadn't already oddly been interested in her; If it had been any other girl in the world, I would have said no. I've rejected every advance every girl has ever made. It took me a long time to even realize this.
I will now list for you every one of those times (because Baby, there aren't that many).
In 4th grade a cute girl I really liked and talked with alot dispatched her friend to ask her if I liked her. I said no. Pretty muched killed things there.
In 5th grade this beautiful girl I'd tease/joke with and talk to all day really obviously liked me and I was completely oblivious, it would be a chapter in itself listing all the ways she tried to get me to show any reciprocity.
In 6th grade another cute girl dispatched a friend to say she had a crush on me. I ignored the information and never talked to her. Until, well, things were much worse socially for me.
In 8th grade a gorgeous and lovely new girl to school asked me if I would go to the school dance with her. I literally laughed in her face while telling her no.
Now at this point you must be thinking A. What the hell is wrong with this guy? and/or B. What a dick.
But the story is a bit more complicated. Certainly my actions were stupid, but I didn't know this at the time.
Jump to high school and by then I was a social wreck. I made no new good friends. I played water polo, I socialized at lunch, but otherwise I was completely withdrawn. Most teens were becoming social beings, learning their "place" in society. All I knew was that I didn't feel comfortable existing.
I had crushes of my own. One girl I held a crush from 3rd grade until 8th grade. She was as smart, if not smarter than me (which is unsual in a human, not bragging by any means, this whole story is about how much I suck as a human. But I have a relatively high IQ, a decent memory, and enough wit to weave myself a facade of a genius. However I am often too stubborn to ever be wrong, to my own detriment). Laura was her name. By 5th grade I was infatuated with her. She asked me to "couple's skate" once at a class trip to the skating rink. I held her hand while skating in a circle, and that my friends is the most sexual contact I had with a girl until I was 23. Sexual not even being remotely the right word, more like held hands as classmates, not even friends. I meant to ask Laura to dance with me once in 6th grade, but the opportunity never arose. A couple years later Laura went off to another school and stories trailed back of her turning into a boozey slut. While this wouldn't be the last time a girl chose liquor and cheap sex over me, the nature of school rumors must temper that claim to be being only "probably true". And I do have to give a bit of leeway in that she technically didn't choose "over me"'rather "beside me" as I was little more than a stump as far as I or she was concerned.
After Laura left there was a void and I filled it with a couple other smart cute girls as my default "crush". A girl named Allison took top spot eventually and by default held that title throughout high school, as I really was dead inside by then. By sheer coincidence Ally's boyfriend in high school became a friend of mine. He didn't know I knew her; and he'd tell me all about his continually unsuccessful attempts to have sex with her. All he ever got by the end of sophmore year was making out and some breast play. Kind of a hallmark of what a dipshit I was (probably still am) when Ally asked me to sign her yearbook in 8th grade I wrote (this was 15 years ago, and I still remember) "I don't know you, do I?" Two years later when her boyfriend asked me the same thing, on the spot I wrote him a short story about Vikings and Viagra.
It wasn't until college that I began to feel some self confidence. First of all I managed to graduate high school, a daunting task considering my fucked up family life that I'll have to get into to tie all this crazy shit together. Secondly I had my own car I paid for from a job I'd been working at since I was 13. Third I was a college student, free to succeed or fail at my choosing. Finally I was pretty good looking, having been on a swim team and then getting on a good diet. I was literally self made from head to toe. Yet all that gave me just about enough confidence to only talk to a few people in the quad, and rail about politics and philosophy which I was increasingly interested in.
Back to this girl I liked asking me to lunch. I said ok and we start walking to her car. On the way it comes up that I had just turned 19. She proceeded to punch me in the arm 19 times. This was a ritual I was unfamiliar with, but it was also the most a girl had touched me in my life (except holding hands, which is more like one long touch).
The One Date In My Life
We go to Chilis. I order a burger, but I was too self conscious of looking gross eating it so I let it sit there and I talked instead. But let me back this up, make it more real, she ordered the burger, I was too self conscious to even read the menu, I looked at it, but I couldn't read it. I just ordered what she did. I have good table manners, or more precisely I am capable of fine etiquitte. My French Canadian grandmother and my hyper-intelligent social butterfly mother both embedded me with the necessities of good table manners and how to not gross out a dinner date. But burgers, American to their messy core, are like a middle finger to good manners. The only proper way to handle a burger is to not. No food in hand, no shoving all my food at my mouth at once, no letting dripping ingredients spill about, no having to put down what I couldn't finish, no food on my face, and oh lord no crunchy squishy chewing sounds of a half dozen ingredients at once.
She mercifully went to the restroom and I quickly ate most of the burger in a matter of a minute. Of course when she returned she pointed this out, and I was even more embarassed than I could have imagined. Things went only downhill from here. She insightfully pointed out that I never asked her for her name. And like a lamb to the slaughter I told her why I already knew it. Then for the love of God I tried to steer the discussion away from pointing out all the stupid shit I was doing, and proceeded to get into a tirade about gun control.
She never talked to me again.
While there have been times in my life that I have gone places and done things with women with which I had romantic interest/sex with/one night stand/deep feelings of love/etc. There were never 'dates' proper, that is that much lauded cultural practice of courting. I hardly think post coital meals, or snacks between girls I just met, or elaborate evenings with women I loved who entirely had no idea I was doing my absolute best to show affection could possibly count as "dates". Dates are something definable, they are in pursuit of getting to know someone, often someone practically or completely a stranger, where each can examine the other. Well borne acquaintances, and cheap meetings with lustful and brief interludes just can't fit the bill.
Tuesday, May 03, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Every lane but yours is moving
I was listening to the semi-scientific Podcast for howstuffworks.com on "Murphy's Law" and they mentioned the psychological belief that while you are driving, you might find that every other lane around you is moving but yours seems to stand still.
I know people believe this, and some of them are those jerks that have to cut into any lane that is moving. But to claim that all lanes move equally, or that there aren't slower lanes is simply wrong. Having driven up and down California in the the hearts of the worst traffic America has to offer I have gained a great personal understanding of how traffic flows.
The allusion that this idea is on par with "the grass is always greener on the other side." fails to acknowledge that grass is greener on someone's lawn. It's either yours or your neighbors, on average if you have two neighbors there's a 66.66% chance the grass is greener on the other side. With that in mind, I would like to list a few real-world conditions that might elicit this supposed false psychological condition.
Rubbernecking I hate you rubberneckers. Really I do. Combine rubberneckers, with most driver's moronic propensity to tailgate even on the highway, and you get a ripple effect. The ripple appears in the form of a slow-down. And if there are enough cars coming steadily, the slow-down will ripple on for hours long after whatever on the side of the road has left. What annoys me the most is that having a car simply pulled over to the side will cause a slow-down as every person has to look at the car.
How it slows down one lane more than another: Rubbernecking requires actually being able to see what's so interesting. I've found that if a slow-down occurs on the right, then the right lane(s) will slow more than the left lanes, and if an event occurs on the left, the right will less likely be affected. So you might find that you're just driving along, both lanes moving smoothly, then for no damn reason you have to slow down because the car in front of you is slowing down. The other lane(s) might just keep going, after a period of slower driving, sometimes for a few miles, you'll reach some magic point, and be able to speed up again.
How to avoid, solve this problem:
1. STOP RUBBERNECKING!!!
2. If you see a car off to the side of the road in the distance, get in the farthest lane from it.
3. Keep at least two car lengths from the car in front of you while you're at a good speed. If you see the car in front of you starting to slowly brake, don't brake, take your foot off the gas for as long as you safely can. This will create a buffer that will help to ease the slow-down. I have a theory that would require actual science or testing, but I believe if enough cars kept a decent buffer the occasional moron rubbernecker could be negated and a slow-down ripple could be eliminated.
4. While lurking about I found another blog with someone else's funny and rather detailed idea on how to break up a rubbernecking jam. Basically his idea is for a person to slow down even more than the rest of the group, forcing a large gap to form, then speeding up and getting out of the jam, hopefully setting the line of deceleration back far enough that people won't want to slow down to rubberneck. http://www.cockeyed.com/science/rubbernecking/rubbernecking.php
Highway Exits When you're on a highway that has critical exits and high traffic, you will hate this. Basically a lot of drivers want to get off the highway, perhaps in one of a series of important exits, and the traffic starts piling up. The best example of this is coming off the Bay Bridge going into San Francisco. San Francisco has an almost non-existent highway system. And all of downtown encompasses only a few quick exits. If you miss them, you're next exit is going to be literally across the street from Daly City.
How it slows down one lane more than another: All the downtown exits are on the right. Most people coming in to the city know this. So they preemptively get in the right lane. So as more people get into the right lane, the more it slows down. The more it slows down, the more people want to get into the right lane. The other lanes stay at a normal speed, and the right lane comes to a crawl. What's worse is those who want to come into the lane at the last second. They have to stop dead in their lane, causing cars to quickly stop and back up, and they require the already slow lane to come to a complete stop to let them in. If you're in right lane, and you don't have any plans of exiting any time soon, you are in hell, the only thing you're thinking about is getting out. The problem for you is, now you're going 5 miles per hour, and the lane next to you is doing 65. You have to risk life and limb flooring the vehicle to just change lanes.
How to avoid, solve this problem: The best thing you can do is time your entrance into the exit lane. Maybe 1 or 2 exits before your exit you should start trying to get in. This way you won't be that asshole blocking two lanes at your exit, nor will you spend 30 extra minutes sitting in the slow lane. I believe if most people followed this, then the exit lane wouldn't be as plugged up as it gets, but there's no social intelligence on the road except perhaps most red lights being followed and people usually driving in the right direction. You have to act on your own best interest.
Slow Drivers Whether it's a big rig, or an old lady, slow drivers have created an entire subculture in the long empty roads of this country. They serve to ensure every poor bastard who's ever driven on a highway has been forced to slow to some arbitrary speed like 59 in a 65 making each person question their choices in life as some asshole 50 feet in front of them has managed to take hours of their life.
How it slows down one lane more than another: Big rigs tend to stay in the slow lane. They are professionals, they don't hope to ruin your day, but if you let them they will. Slow drivers tend to be bad drivers. One has to be fairly oblivious as a human to drive too slow on the highway, and thus more often than not, you will find these morons sticking to the fast lane. I can tell you on a number of occasions I've had to stay in the slow lane going 80 passing up a row of them doing 50 in the fast lane. The concurrence of douchebag slow driver in the fast lane, big rig in the slow lane does occur regularly. Basically if you're on a highway with two or fewer lanes you will get screwed every so often, it isn't so much that they only effect one lane, but they only affect a small region of a highway. They create a pack of cars that is led and trailed by open road.
How to avoid, solve this problem: I mentioned that a subculture has spawned from slow drivers. It's really fascinating actually, because I've never heard anyone else talk about it, and I didn't realize it existed until I had driven a route across California nearly 500 miles about 5 or 6 times. In general when slow cars hover around big rigs, or you get that convoy of big rigs where they take turns passing each other, you end up with a pack of cars all going 54 miles an hour in the 65. The slow drivers don't care, they'll do this their entire life. The average driver doesn't enjoy this, but they'll wait it out. The speeder really hates this, he'll either be speeding up and then dropping back repeatedly, cutting people off trying to find the better lane, or just tailgating the hell out of people like that's going to convince the entire pack to speed up.
Then there are the lane changers. These are the true professionals. They don't get mad or complacent in a pack, they get good. The lane changer doesn't speed, they don't have to. The lane changer doesn't cut people off, nor will the lane changer willingly slow anyone down. The lane changer is the alpha driver on the highway. You must become one if you ever want to get out of these packs. To be a lane changer is very simple. Whenever you find yourself slowed down by a car, you get in another lane. If there's a car slowing you down there too, get in the next lane, repeat. If there are cars blocking all the lanes, look to the one that is going slightly faster, get behind that car and continue. Soon enough you'll be able to work your way through an entire pack of cars until you get in front of them. You will find it was just two assholes staying about the same slow speed, and everyone else unwilling to pass them up. While in the pack it may appear like the highway is just bumper to bumper full of traffic, as soon as you get out, you'll realize it's open for miles. Of course the longer you drive the more of these packs you'll run into. And that's how you'll realize you're part of a community of special drivers. As you work your way from pack to pack, you'll notice a few other cars are doing the same thing you are. You'll end up cutting about 1/6 off your drive or about 10 minutes per hour, this really adds up on long drives, it also helps you keep focused, as you have to actually think while driving where your next move in changing lanes is going to be. Another benefit is that you'll be spending most of the time in open roads, rather than being cramped in a pack of cars, subsequently you'll statistically less likely to be in a car accident.
Now it's important to make a fine point on the speeding. I find a hard speed limit to be a bullshit number. Whether it be 65 or 80. The DMV and the law is enough of a bureaucratic smartass system that they acknowledge road conditions determine actual safe speed. And while driving 50 in heavy fog and rain in the night is a stupid idea, the speed limit doesn't magically dictate the "safe" speed during sunny clear days with no one else around or any road hazards whatsoever. If you're in the middle of a valley with visual range 100 miles in every direction and there's no car for 10 miles around you and it's perfectly sunny and clear and the road is in great condition and you have a good safe car, you should be able to drive 250 miles per hour without the police giving you shit. Obviously that's not how it works out though. They're so logical when implementing max speeds during poor conditions, but when the conditions are good, all of a sudden we have to adhere to an inflexible number hammered out by lobbyists and politicians. Despite popular belief, if the speed limit says 65, then 66 is speeding. By that logic we're all criminals; almost every driver speeds every time they drive. I don't even know how no one has put a check on that. The number on the sign should not be the mathematical dividing line between "safe" and being pulled over and paying hundreds of dollars. If they want people going no higher than 65, the sign should say "Speed Range 55" and say you can manipulate your way up or down 10 mph based on conditions. But no, that would be A. assuming people have any self responsibility, and B. it would cut into ticket revenue, which is the real reason all vehicle and driving infractions exist at this point.
So when I say a lane changer doesn't speed, I'm not talking about the state's police version of speeding, I mean the lane changer isn't doing 90 around cars doing 60. It's not safe. Lane changers are decidedly safe. And that I want to hammer in. Because you probably never notice the Lane Changer proper, most people notice the shitty driver who has to do no less than 90 like their life is the movie Speed 3. Those psychos will kill someone, they speed too damn fast for the cars around them, they are forced to make rapid and dangerous lane changes simply to prevent from colliding with other vehicles, and they don't give a crap about cutting you off. I'm also not talking about those dipshit overly aggressive drivers who feel that if they aren't cutting in front of you, you're somehow wronging them, those are the people who will flip you off while nearly smashing into you getting in front of you. I've seen them when they get in front of everyone, they don't go any faster, they just wait for more cars to screw with. Those aren't lane changers, those are assholes, and I wish they would be sent to jail or fined their car for that.
When I first started changing lanes, when I'd get out of a pack I'd speed up to about 90 in the open road, and have to come back down to 60 when I'd reach the next group. After going through several packs, I noticed I wasn't shaking the other lane changers who were doing about 70 in the open road. There I realized speeding does very little for cutting down the hours. It does help somewhat, but as a practical matter there's no point risking the ticket when the guys not topping off 20 mph slower than me are sticking with me because by the time I reach 90 I have to slow down again for another pack. Of course I did drive fast as hell a couple times getting lucky with the traffic and managed to make a good 8 hour drive (with no traffic, no stops) become a 6 hour drive literally averaging 80 mph even after making a couple stops. I was about to beat the 6 hour on the return making about a 5 1/2 hour run (averaging 87 MPH over 480 miles) but a cop car came up beside me flashed its light, and the guy gestured for me to slow down, so I slowed to 65 the rest of the way and still did it in 6 hours. When I get up to this speed, it becomes increasingly harder to shave off hours. 8 to 6 is great, and I'm moving the average from 60mph to 80mph which is pushing it like a beast, but to go from 6 to 5 hours I'd have to jump up to average 96 mph which simply isn't happening. Even If I floored it across the entire state of California going 110 whenever I could, the traffic would force me back down to 60 or 55 every few miles and there's no way to make that up. So I have learned from thousands of miles of driving across thousands of miles of California through the biggest cities and the emptiest valleys that the most efficient long distance driving is to just ride that safe comfortable high speed limit, occasionally taking advantage of opportunities to go maybe 5 to 10 over, and popping out of every pack trying to get me to go 60 or less.
That's my wisdom for those who don't want to always be the guy in the slowest lane. One final point, if you're in a real traffic jam. Not like the false ones I've listed, but one like where the only highway to the Bay Area is literally backed up two valleys inland about 70 miles from the actual shorline, there's no trick. At least not one that I've seen. You can try lane changing, but you're never getting out of the pack. And ultimately if you keep lane changing in bumper to bumper, you're going to piss yourself and others off needlessly as you come to realize the futility of your efforts. The best thing to do is just take the opportunity to relax. Don't be that one crazy asshole who snaps and drives on the shoulder at about 80 trying to weave into traffic 100 cars per bound. Of course if you're late for something that won't forgive you, meh I can't deride you unless you're unsafe. The worst I had it was one time I had a job in San Francisco working a Fleet Foxes concert, I left extra early just so I might get a chance to enjoy the city for a little while, and lo a jam backed me up on the Bay Bridge for 40 minutes. 40 MINUTES ON THE BRIDGE! If you've ever crossed it you know it takes 5 minutes even in heavy traffic. And what would have been the worst traffic jam I've ever seen took place in San Diego after the Warped Tour. I was at the Coor's Amphitheater which is located in the middle of the desert, the parking area has ONE EXIT for thousands of cars. We left before the concert was over, in fact the biggest band of the night, the Dead Kennedys had just got on stage when we left. But even then with only ONE FREAKING EXIT FOR THE PARKING LOT OF THE BIGGEST THEATER AREA ANYWHERE NEAR SAN DIEGO it was a pure roadblock. Long story short my friend was driving, we waited nearly an hour just to be able to back out of our parking spot, no exaggeration, and then he just said fuck it, moved some traffic cones, and floored it, cut in front of a thousand cars by plowing through the center cone area and popped out in seconds. Sometimes you got to do what you got to do. But come on man, really? You're in the fucking desert, there's literally nothing else out there, the parking lot is surrounded by 4 roads, and there's only 1 god damn exit, which actually faces the road with all the loading/unloading traffic right in front of the amphitheater. They bring this on themselves. That's what you have to realize. Be safe, try not to get ticketed and fund their idiocy, but otherwise take every opportunity to get out of the pack. They might say the idea of thinking you're always in the slowest lane is a psychological fallacy, but that's because those sons of bitches are always in the slowest lane, and they have no clue there's a way out.
I know people believe this, and some of them are those jerks that have to cut into any lane that is moving. But to claim that all lanes move equally, or that there aren't slower lanes is simply wrong. Having driven up and down California in the the hearts of the worst traffic America has to offer I have gained a great personal understanding of how traffic flows.
The allusion that this idea is on par with "the grass is always greener on the other side." fails to acknowledge that grass is greener on someone's lawn. It's either yours or your neighbors, on average if you have two neighbors there's a 66.66% chance the grass is greener on the other side. With that in mind, I would like to list a few real-world conditions that might elicit this supposed false psychological condition.
Rubbernecking I hate you rubberneckers. Really I do. Combine rubberneckers, with most driver's moronic propensity to tailgate even on the highway, and you get a ripple effect. The ripple appears in the form of a slow-down. And if there are enough cars coming steadily, the slow-down will ripple on for hours long after whatever on the side of the road has left. What annoys me the most is that having a car simply pulled over to the side will cause a slow-down as every person has to look at the car.
How it slows down one lane more than another: Rubbernecking requires actually being able to see what's so interesting. I've found that if a slow-down occurs on the right, then the right lane(s) will slow more than the left lanes, and if an event occurs on the left, the right will less likely be affected. So you might find that you're just driving along, both lanes moving smoothly, then for no damn reason you have to slow down because the car in front of you is slowing down. The other lane(s) might just keep going, after a period of slower driving, sometimes for a few miles, you'll reach some magic point, and be able to speed up again.
How to avoid, solve this problem:
1. STOP RUBBERNECKING!!!
2. If you see a car off to the side of the road in the distance, get in the farthest lane from it.
3. Keep at least two car lengths from the car in front of you while you're at a good speed. If you see the car in front of you starting to slowly brake, don't brake, take your foot off the gas for as long as you safely can. This will create a buffer that will help to ease the slow-down. I have a theory that would require actual science or testing, but I believe if enough cars kept a decent buffer the occasional moron rubbernecker could be negated and a slow-down ripple could be eliminated.
4. While lurking about I found another blog with someone else's funny and rather detailed idea on how to break up a rubbernecking jam. Basically his idea is for a person to slow down even more than the rest of the group, forcing a large gap to form, then speeding up and getting out of the jam, hopefully setting the line of deceleration back far enough that people won't want to slow down to rubberneck. http://www.cockeyed.com/science/rubbernecking/rubbernecking.php
Highway Exits When you're on a highway that has critical exits and high traffic, you will hate this. Basically a lot of drivers want to get off the highway, perhaps in one of a series of important exits, and the traffic starts piling up. The best example of this is coming off the Bay Bridge going into San Francisco. San Francisco has an almost non-existent highway system. And all of downtown encompasses only a few quick exits. If you miss them, you're next exit is going to be literally across the street from Daly City.
How it slows down one lane more than another: All the downtown exits are on the right. Most people coming in to the city know this. So they preemptively get in the right lane. So as more people get into the right lane, the more it slows down. The more it slows down, the more people want to get into the right lane. The other lanes stay at a normal speed, and the right lane comes to a crawl. What's worse is those who want to come into the lane at the last second. They have to stop dead in their lane, causing cars to quickly stop and back up, and they require the already slow lane to come to a complete stop to let them in. If you're in right lane, and you don't have any plans of exiting any time soon, you are in hell, the only thing you're thinking about is getting out. The problem for you is, now you're going 5 miles per hour, and the lane next to you is doing 65. You have to risk life and limb flooring the vehicle to just change lanes.
How to avoid, solve this problem: The best thing you can do is time your entrance into the exit lane. Maybe 1 or 2 exits before your exit you should start trying to get in. This way you won't be that asshole blocking two lanes at your exit, nor will you spend 30 extra minutes sitting in the slow lane. I believe if most people followed this, then the exit lane wouldn't be as plugged up as it gets, but there's no social intelligence on the road except perhaps most red lights being followed and people usually driving in the right direction. You have to act on your own best interest.
Slow Drivers Whether it's a big rig, or an old lady, slow drivers have created an entire subculture in the long empty roads of this country. They serve to ensure every poor bastard who's ever driven on a highway has been forced to slow to some arbitrary speed like 59 in a 65 making each person question their choices in life as some asshole 50 feet in front of them has managed to take hours of their life.
How it slows down one lane more than another: Big rigs tend to stay in the slow lane. They are professionals, they don't hope to ruin your day, but if you let them they will. Slow drivers tend to be bad drivers. One has to be fairly oblivious as a human to drive too slow on the highway, and thus more often than not, you will find these morons sticking to the fast lane. I can tell you on a number of occasions I've had to stay in the slow lane going 80 passing up a row of them doing 50 in the fast lane. The concurrence of douchebag slow driver in the fast lane, big rig in the slow lane does occur regularly. Basically if you're on a highway with two or fewer lanes you will get screwed every so often, it isn't so much that they only effect one lane, but they only affect a small region of a highway. They create a pack of cars that is led and trailed by open road.
How to avoid, solve this problem: I mentioned that a subculture has spawned from slow drivers. It's really fascinating actually, because I've never heard anyone else talk about it, and I didn't realize it existed until I had driven a route across California nearly 500 miles about 5 or 6 times. In general when slow cars hover around big rigs, or you get that convoy of big rigs where they take turns passing each other, you end up with a pack of cars all going 54 miles an hour in the 65. The slow drivers don't care, they'll do this their entire life. The average driver doesn't enjoy this, but they'll wait it out. The speeder really hates this, he'll either be speeding up and then dropping back repeatedly, cutting people off trying to find the better lane, or just tailgating the hell out of people like that's going to convince the entire pack to speed up.
Then there are the lane changers. These are the true professionals. They don't get mad or complacent in a pack, they get good. The lane changer doesn't speed, they don't have to. The lane changer doesn't cut people off, nor will the lane changer willingly slow anyone down. The lane changer is the alpha driver on the highway. You must become one if you ever want to get out of these packs. To be a lane changer is very simple. Whenever you find yourself slowed down by a car, you get in another lane. If there's a car slowing you down there too, get in the next lane, repeat. If there are cars blocking all the lanes, look to the one that is going slightly faster, get behind that car and continue. Soon enough you'll be able to work your way through an entire pack of cars until you get in front of them. You will find it was just two assholes staying about the same slow speed, and everyone else unwilling to pass them up. While in the pack it may appear like the highway is just bumper to bumper full of traffic, as soon as you get out, you'll realize it's open for miles. Of course the longer you drive the more of these packs you'll run into. And that's how you'll realize you're part of a community of special drivers. As you work your way from pack to pack, you'll notice a few other cars are doing the same thing you are. You'll end up cutting about 1/6 off your drive or about 10 minutes per hour, this really adds up on long drives, it also helps you keep focused, as you have to actually think while driving where your next move in changing lanes is going to be. Another benefit is that you'll be spending most of the time in open roads, rather than being cramped in a pack of cars, subsequently you'll statistically less likely to be in a car accident.
Now it's important to make a fine point on the speeding. I find a hard speed limit to be a bullshit number. Whether it be 65 or 80. The DMV and the law is enough of a bureaucratic smartass system that they acknowledge road conditions determine actual safe speed. And while driving 50 in heavy fog and rain in the night is a stupid idea, the speed limit doesn't magically dictate the "safe" speed during sunny clear days with no one else around or any road hazards whatsoever. If you're in the middle of a valley with visual range 100 miles in every direction and there's no car for 10 miles around you and it's perfectly sunny and clear and the road is in great condition and you have a good safe car, you should be able to drive 250 miles per hour without the police giving you shit. Obviously that's not how it works out though. They're so logical when implementing max speeds during poor conditions, but when the conditions are good, all of a sudden we have to adhere to an inflexible number hammered out by lobbyists and politicians. Despite popular belief, if the speed limit says 65, then 66 is speeding. By that logic we're all criminals; almost every driver speeds every time they drive. I don't even know how no one has put a check on that. The number on the sign should not be the mathematical dividing line between "safe" and being pulled over and paying hundreds of dollars. If they want people going no higher than 65, the sign should say "Speed Range 55" and say you can manipulate your way up or down 10 mph based on conditions. But no, that would be A. assuming people have any self responsibility, and B. it would cut into ticket revenue, which is the real reason all vehicle and driving infractions exist at this point.
So when I say a lane changer doesn't speed, I'm not talking about the state's police version of speeding, I mean the lane changer isn't doing 90 around cars doing 60. It's not safe. Lane changers are decidedly safe. And that I want to hammer in. Because you probably never notice the Lane Changer proper, most people notice the shitty driver who has to do no less than 90 like their life is the movie Speed 3. Those psychos will kill someone, they speed too damn fast for the cars around them, they are forced to make rapid and dangerous lane changes simply to prevent from colliding with other vehicles, and they don't give a crap about cutting you off. I'm also not talking about those dipshit overly aggressive drivers who feel that if they aren't cutting in front of you, you're somehow wronging them, those are the people who will flip you off while nearly smashing into you getting in front of you. I've seen them when they get in front of everyone, they don't go any faster, they just wait for more cars to screw with. Those aren't lane changers, those are assholes, and I wish they would be sent to jail or fined their car for that.
When I first started changing lanes, when I'd get out of a pack I'd speed up to about 90 in the open road, and have to come back down to 60 when I'd reach the next group. After going through several packs, I noticed I wasn't shaking the other lane changers who were doing about 70 in the open road. There I realized speeding does very little for cutting down the hours. It does help somewhat, but as a practical matter there's no point risking the ticket when the guys not topping off 20 mph slower than me are sticking with me because by the time I reach 90 I have to slow down again for another pack. Of course I did drive fast as hell a couple times getting lucky with the traffic and managed to make a good 8 hour drive (with no traffic, no stops) become a 6 hour drive literally averaging 80 mph even after making a couple stops. I was about to beat the 6 hour on the return making about a 5 1/2 hour run (averaging 87 MPH over 480 miles) but a cop car came up beside me flashed its light, and the guy gestured for me to slow down, so I slowed to 65 the rest of the way and still did it in 6 hours. When I get up to this speed, it becomes increasingly harder to shave off hours. 8 to 6 is great, and I'm moving the average from 60mph to 80mph which is pushing it like a beast, but to go from 6 to 5 hours I'd have to jump up to average 96 mph which simply isn't happening. Even If I floored it across the entire state of California going 110 whenever I could, the traffic would force me back down to 60 or 55 every few miles and there's no way to make that up. So I have learned from thousands of miles of driving across thousands of miles of California through the biggest cities and the emptiest valleys that the most efficient long distance driving is to just ride that safe comfortable high speed limit, occasionally taking advantage of opportunities to go maybe 5 to 10 over, and popping out of every pack trying to get me to go 60 or less.
That's my wisdom for those who don't want to always be the guy in the slowest lane. One final point, if you're in a real traffic jam. Not like the false ones I've listed, but one like where the only highway to the Bay Area is literally backed up two valleys inland about 70 miles from the actual shorline, there's no trick. At least not one that I've seen. You can try lane changing, but you're never getting out of the pack. And ultimately if you keep lane changing in bumper to bumper, you're going to piss yourself and others off needlessly as you come to realize the futility of your efforts. The best thing to do is just take the opportunity to relax. Don't be that one crazy asshole who snaps and drives on the shoulder at about 80 trying to weave into traffic 100 cars per bound. Of course if you're late for something that won't forgive you, meh I can't deride you unless you're unsafe. The worst I had it was one time I had a job in San Francisco working a Fleet Foxes concert, I left extra early just so I might get a chance to enjoy the city for a little while, and lo a jam backed me up on the Bay Bridge for 40 minutes. 40 MINUTES ON THE BRIDGE! If you've ever crossed it you know it takes 5 minutes even in heavy traffic. And what would have been the worst traffic jam I've ever seen took place in San Diego after the Warped Tour. I was at the Coor's Amphitheater which is located in the middle of the desert, the parking area has ONE EXIT for thousands of cars. We left before the concert was over, in fact the biggest band of the night, the Dead Kennedys had just got on stage when we left. But even then with only ONE FREAKING EXIT FOR THE PARKING LOT OF THE BIGGEST THEATER AREA ANYWHERE NEAR SAN DIEGO it was a pure roadblock. Long story short my friend was driving, we waited nearly an hour just to be able to back out of our parking spot, no exaggeration, and then he just said fuck it, moved some traffic cones, and floored it, cut in front of a thousand cars by plowing through the center cone area and popped out in seconds. Sometimes you got to do what you got to do. But come on man, really? You're in the fucking desert, there's literally nothing else out there, the parking lot is surrounded by 4 roads, and there's only 1 god damn exit, which actually faces the road with all the loading/unloading traffic right in front of the amphitheater. They bring this on themselves. That's what you have to realize. Be safe, try not to get ticketed and fund their idiocy, but otherwise take every opportunity to get out of the pack. They might say the idea of thinking you're always in the slowest lane is a psychological fallacy, but that's because those sons of bitches are always in the slowest lane, and they have no clue there's a way out.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Pineapple on Pizza
So I'm trying out new Podcasts, and I decide to listen to an episode of "Fresh Air" an NPR show hosted by Terry Gross. The guest is an American author named John Marianai, plugging his newest book How Italian Food Conquered the World . Immediately I'm annoyed by this asshole. He has this Peggy Hill way of over exerting himself pronouncing Italian words. In general trying to pronounce words correctly doesn't annoy me, what was annoying is that he'd stress the hell out the words, like each "parmigiano" was like climbing a mountain. To make it worse he kept saying Naples. Naples. Naples. THE CITY IS CALLED NAPOLI. If you want to insist on calling it "par-May-giiiiiiii-Aaaaa-nooooo" like you were just dragged out of a fucking vineyard in Sicily, you might want to call the Italian cities by their god damn actual Italian names. What made things even stranger, to the point I knew I had to tell someone, was that every so often during the interview he would break into Italian accent on completely English words. Now this guy is not Italian, his parents are not Italian, he's clearly not fluent, why the hell is he breaking into an accent he doesn't have?
What's got me in a huff is what this interview culminated into. Marianai admitted that Italian food proper didn't conquer the world, real Italian food hasn't even conquered Italy, each region has its own dishes. It was Italian-American food that has spread globally. The very nature of Italian-American food is a modification on the original. Particularly bigger portions, with more and new ingredients. Not one damn item called "Italian" in America is pure to its Italian origins. And let's not begin to get into how tomatoes, an Italian staple, are originally from the Americas. So this guy has acknowledged that the food has evolved, and has continued to evolve. He specifically praises Wolfgang Puck for his innovative pizzas, like a "Jewish style" with caviar, salmon, and sour cream. Then this New York liberal host Terry Gross asks him "like I don't understand pineapple on pizza and things like that, um could you explain that?" (really, you don't "like um" understand pineapples? are you living in a fucking pineapple? it tastes good that's the long and short of most food, and when it doesn't taste good there's 2 other options 1. only choice, 2. Need the vitamins, I've solved all your inane food questions till kingdom come).
This fauxtalian dipshit's response is incredibly more snooty than the bitch's question "Well that is very typically American...corporate" and proceeds to rip into California Pizza Kitchen. Again, fucking tomatoes are American, you're cool with that. Puck puts fish eggs on a pizza, that's art. But pineapple goes too far!!!! In fact pineapple can't simply be an odd divergence, no it's a corporate America concoction. And we all know from being Americans that there's nothing more evil, disingenuous, and deplorable as that which is developed by American corporations. I would contend that even if he were right, what difference does it make who married pineapples with pizza? But there's a problem, he's dead fucking wrong, not only were Hawaiian pizzas not invented in America, they're NOT FUCKING CORPORATE you socialist self hating American wannabe Italian moron!
Hawaiian pizza was created in 1962 in Ontario Canada by a regular restaurant owner loooong before your precious Puck came along and started really making shit up.
He continues "let's as you say call it a Hawaiian pizza and put on pineapple, and I think at a certain point a pizza stops being a pizza, or at least stops being a good pizza, or anything like a good pizza." (emphasis mine)
Wow. 30 seconds later this "purist" says to use canned tomatoes to make marinara.
So altogether I don't think this would have set me off except it's at least the third time in the last couple weeks where I've heard somone say Hawaiian pizza isn't real pizza. I heard Adam Carolla going off about it too. Pizza, in America is a dough base, usually roundish, usually a tomato based sauce on it, often pesto or a cheese mix, cheese is usually a main ingredient, then you put on top WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT. Certainly if you broach a new level like putting entire sandwiches or lasagna on top it might gain a "hybrid" status based on bulk weight, but otherwise it's all fucking pizza. You want "pure"? It doesn't fucking exist! At this point people usually chime in with the Margherita style pizza, it's often called a "classic" "true" Italian pizza. While yes it was created in Italy, it was created as a GIMMICK!! A publicity stunt! Pizzas were already well established, the margherita was made just as a gift to the Queen of Italy, intentionally only using 3 toppings that matched the colors of the new flag of Italy. That's about as fake an origin as one can get! The Hawaiian has a more natural and honest origin than the hailed Margherita.
What's got me in a huff is what this interview culminated into. Marianai admitted that Italian food proper didn't conquer the world, real Italian food hasn't even conquered Italy, each region has its own dishes. It was Italian-American food that has spread globally. The very nature of Italian-American food is a modification on the original. Particularly bigger portions, with more and new ingredients. Not one damn item called "Italian" in America is pure to its Italian origins. And let's not begin to get into how tomatoes, an Italian staple, are originally from the Americas. So this guy has acknowledged that the food has evolved, and has continued to evolve. He specifically praises Wolfgang Puck for his innovative pizzas, like a "Jewish style" with caviar, salmon, and sour cream. Then this New York liberal host Terry Gross asks him "like I don't understand pineapple on pizza and things like that, um could you explain that?" (really, you don't "like um" understand pineapples? are you living in a fucking pineapple? it tastes good that's the long and short of most food, and when it doesn't taste good there's 2 other options 1. only choice, 2. Need the vitamins, I've solved all your inane food questions till kingdom come).
This fauxtalian dipshit's response is incredibly more snooty than the bitch's question "Well that is very typically American...corporate" and proceeds to rip into California Pizza Kitchen. Again, fucking tomatoes are American, you're cool with that. Puck puts fish eggs on a pizza, that's art. But pineapple goes too far!!!! In fact pineapple can't simply be an odd divergence, no it's a corporate America concoction. And we all know from being Americans that there's nothing more evil, disingenuous, and deplorable as that which is developed by American corporations. I would contend that even if he were right, what difference does it make who married pineapples with pizza? But there's a problem, he's dead fucking wrong, not only were Hawaiian pizzas not invented in America, they're NOT FUCKING CORPORATE you socialist self hating American wannabe Italian moron!
Hawaiian pizza was created in 1962 in Ontario Canada by a regular restaurant owner loooong before your precious Puck came along and started really making shit up.
He continues "let's as you say call it a Hawaiian pizza and put on pineapple, and I think at a certain point a pizza stops being a pizza, or at least stops being a good pizza, or anything like a good pizza." (emphasis mine)
Wow. 30 seconds later this "purist" says to use canned tomatoes to make marinara.
So altogether I don't think this would have set me off except it's at least the third time in the last couple weeks where I've heard somone say Hawaiian pizza isn't real pizza. I heard Adam Carolla going off about it too. Pizza, in America is a dough base, usually roundish, usually a tomato based sauce on it, often pesto or a cheese mix, cheese is usually a main ingredient, then you put on top WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT. Certainly if you broach a new level like putting entire sandwiches or lasagna on top it might gain a "hybrid" status based on bulk weight, but otherwise it's all fucking pizza. You want "pure"? It doesn't fucking exist! At this point people usually chime in with the Margherita style pizza, it's often called a "classic" "true" Italian pizza. While yes it was created in Italy, it was created as a GIMMICK!! A publicity stunt! Pizzas were already well established, the margherita was made just as a gift to the Queen of Italy, intentionally only using 3 toppings that matched the colors of the new flag of Italy. That's about as fake an origin as one can get! The Hawaiian has a more natural and honest origin than the hailed Margherita.
Thursday, August 05, 2010
Time travel's only course
People continually dismiss or outright argue with me when I tell them about the nature of time. Simultaneously my knowledge of time isn't represented in any big theories as far as I know, and Wikipedia certainly doesn't have anything about it. So I'm going to post here something I figured out when I was 12 years old. The nature of time and its application to time travel. If there's something wrong with what I say, please point it out, if you have a question, please ask. If it makes sense to you, ponder about why this information is wholly unavailable to the public. Is this novel information, have I put together something new for the world?
First I want to dispel the "common" views of time and time travel. I just read what Wikipedia had to say about theories of time travel (back in time) and they were put together in a couple general categories.
=Alternate Dimensions=
These are touted as "paradox proof" theories because they completely ignore "time travel" and propose the ability to enter an alternate "dimension" that may coincidentally look exactly like the past. Essentially these theories rely on an unknown and entirely imaginary view of the universe. Similar to Russell's Teapot and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the design is based on the lack of evidence, not actual evidence, thereby ensuring the theory can't be proven wrong. There may be alternate dimensions, but there's literally no evidence of it. However this is irrelevant and basically a cop-out to the question "Is it possible to move back in time?" with the customized add-on "In the same dimension".
=Paradoxes prevent certain events from occuring=
Admitting that certain actions taken by travelling back in time would be paradoxical (like killing your grandfather before he gets your grandma pregnant) these theories suggest you can still go back in time, but somehow those paradoxes won't happen. Theories along this line don't entirely dodge the theoretical paradoxes of time travel (like the dimension theories), they try to contain them. Bradbury's A Sound of Thunder simply and inexplicably declares since you are one person, you can't go back and meet yourself, so if you do go back to some distant past, you'll pass yourself returning. This fit in the narrow confines of the short story but didn't even begin to address what would happen if you went back to your own childhood. Interesting to note that this short story is where the term "butterfly effect" originates. In the story, the main character accidentally steps on a butterfly during the age of dinosaurs, comes back to his time and finds there's a different president, words are spelled different, etc. The movie Time Cop suggested you could see your past self, but not touch. Again, this is really a limited explanation, saying the same matter can't occupy the same space, but no person is ever "the same" all people are at all times in motion and changing, and in Time Cop there's like a 20 year age difference, certainly by then their skin wouldn't even be of the same cells. The latest big budget adaptation of The Time Machine delt with the paradox of taking actions in the past that would prevent the time machine from being invented. The guy builds a time machine to save his love, but if he saves her, he won't build the machine, so when he does save her, something else just kills her. Kinda like that inexplicable series of films "Final Destination", there's no explanation for "who" is making people die, and even if people are meant to die, isn't extending their life for even a fraction of a second already a negation of necessity? I mean, if you were going to die by mugger, instead get hit by a car, won't there be implicit unavoidable side effects, like a good driver feeling bad for the rest of his life, and an evil mugger just killing someone else? Basically all these variations imply that you can change some things but not others, but the very ability to change anything, makes everything possible. If you can save someone's life for a minute, you've saved them nonetheless. Do it a thousand, or a hundred thousand times, and you'll have bought your time paradox. Or to put it in another way, these theories give a moralisitc quality to time. As if time gives a shit if someone dies, but also doesn't care if someone from the wrong time is just walking around. If there were a force that could force events to occur, why would it let you do anything at all? This is elemental theism, like in old Greek myths where mortals "fight" universal forces.
=There's no going forward=
I'm using movie references, because the theories aren't any more complicated, and at least films try to hammer out the kinks. A good one is the idea that you can only go back, not forward. Because forward doesn't exist yet. I love this kernal of conception because if you build on it, it reveals the flaws in all these theories. But I won't get ahead of myself. Time Cop sort of followed this, but the movie opens with guys from the future killing Van Damme's wife. So the question would be, if people can come from your future, then if you hop into their time machine and go to their present, then haven't you just gone into the future? The "Terminator" films try to cover up this flaw by saying only human tissue can go through, and that their machine only goes back in time. But again, it doesn't really solve anything. Because if at any time anyone can come from any future, then at all times, the future is just an open door.
Overall these theories create as many paradoxes as they try to negate. Who was the father of the first John Connor (infinite time loop paradox, although I came up with a smart-ass answer to this, the first John Connor, the one we see as an adult in the first movie had no idea that his buddy would nail his mom, in his time line his dad is just some random guy. Sending back his buddy broke his continuum, and he stopped existing, however his buddy got Sarah Connor pregnant, and 50/50 chance it was a boy, she wrongly assumed this was THE John Connor, and so names this boy, essentially the real Connor's half brother, John Connor, and this kid has to live up to the real Connor's legacy, paradox averted. But I've really digressed here).
=The Intentional Paradox=
I flat out don't like time travel stories with this attitude. The Terminator is one of these, trying to claim that John Connor could only exist after his adult friend from the future bangs his mom. That's probably why I came up with that alternate possibility. Another one of these is Professor Peabody and his Wayback Machine, I don't know where the hell that cartoon came from but when I was younger it was attached to episodes of Underdog. Anyway so Peabody is a dog, and there's a stupid boy who's is assistant or something and they keep going back in time to make things that already turned out fine, turn out fine. The way it's presented is that if they hadn't gone back, things would have been different than what we know them to be, as if the past was waiting for Peabody and the idiot to fix it. The television series Heroes pulled this shit too, a time-travelling "Hiro" goes back to the age of Samurai, and finds out his hero from history is an immortal douchebag alcoholic Limey. Seeing that the drunk couldn't pull off the legendary acts he was known for, Hiro fills in for him...but then how could Hiro ever hear the story in the first place? Intentional Paradox, that's how. Bullshit. The newest time travel movie, Hot Tub Time Machine, among other insane, impossible, and absurd ideas about time travel, did its own intentional paradox, when a kid goes into the past, and is then reborn as the same person but with a different dad, right after said different dad altered the time line to destroy the kid. Jesus that was stupidity at its finest. Still a funny movie, on DVD or BluRay now.
=Misc=
The fun of time travel stories is that they pretty much just make up rules without any factual reasoning to fit the plot. Back to the Future had a ball with the idea that if you change the past, you can view its effects while it's happening, like seeing photographs or people disappear, or words in newspapers change, equally speculatory are films that suggest you won't see the changes until you get back, like Time Cop, and The Butterfly Effect, however even between those two films there's a huge difference, when Time Cop Van Damme went back to the future, he was surprised to see how things were changed and had no memory of the alternate timeline (this is a common assumption) in The Butterfly, when Ashton goes back to the future, he immediately acquires all the memories. Another common one in many stories, even if not overty acknowledged is that even after someone goes to the past, the present continues. Sometimes this is an extremely important plot point, as it was in Star Trek: TNG's series finale, 3 ships from 3 times had to go to the same place in space at the same time, yeah, how could it be the same "time" if they're definitively separate times? Most of the other examples I can't think of off the top of my head but they are all tv/cartoon interpretations, where the "ticking clock" somehow keeps ticking even with the ability to travel through time. By the way, I hate that so many entire series' of cartoons rely solely on the "ticking clock" for plot drive.
=Why time travel theories are created=
People imagine a past that doesn't exist, but because it did exist at one point they conceive of a way to return to it. The time machine, is really just a manifestation of memories. It is a projection in narrative, that is a recreation of the human mind. The cultural perception of a time machine allows one to revisit the past, as a present self (this is memory incarnate) this machine also allows a person to see the future (our mortality and daily grind suck the fun out of our regular path to the future), or change a past event (desire and regret). The best proof I can offer that the common portrayal of time travel is purely self-serving wish fulfillment is that in all stories of time travel, the method of travel is accessible to only a very small number of people. If time travel were possible in the way it's portrayed in all science and stories, why wouldn't there be millions of time travellers? Why wouldn't there be a total collapse of society and functional reality? A while back I addressed this by writing a short story that takes place in a world where anyone can travel through time, so "reality" becomes as fleeting as a flicker from a match.
I love time travel stories, not for their science fiction, but the underlying goal of the story, to seek answers that can never be had in our real lives (what will the distant future be like or what if a different choice had been made) and to allow people a second chance at something that burns inside them, an everlasting regret. The "Back to the Future" films deal with this, amidst all the bitching about affecting past/present/future, by the end every character's life has been completely altered to their satisfaction. So it is the narrative, and journey of imagination, that I love in time travel stories, but they are all wrong. And now I will tell you how.
=Joshua's epiphany in 7th grade=
So I was at my house and the brother of my friend comes to the door. I see him through the screen door, and I walk towards it. Bam! The nature of time hits me. Almost a "Eureka" moment, but to this day I don't know what the trigger was exactly. I didn't shout eureka, I calmy said aloud "This is it, there is only now".
I had realized that our common perception of time is that it is a place. That there is a now, and a then. That we actually "pass through" time. Whether it's conceptially continuous or fragmented, it doesn't matter. The common portrayal is that there is a past just waiting for someone to visit.
But time is not space. Time is a measurement and a function of motion. That is, if there were no motion in this universe, even if it were full of matter, then time would not exist. Time is effectively the acknowledgement that the arrangement of the universe alters. And this is what most time travel theories get wrong.
To put it bluntly, you can't build a machine to "go" into the past, because there is no past. This world IS the past. There is no duel 1985/1955 this is 1985 and 1955, and all other time, past present and future. What most humans regard as "the past" is psychologically another world. But in terms of true functionality, there is only one time, now. It has always been now, and it will always be now. Time is a measurement of objects just rearranging themselves. Every atom of your childhood puppy is still in this world. Every atom of your future grandchildren is in this world right now, maybe some of it is in a tree, much of it is in the soil, in the sun, in the air. There is only now, but your childhood puppy suffered the effects of mechanical breakdown, and lost the ability to manipulate existing matter in its image. Eventually, things you are stepping on, mowing, breathing, drinking, will be pieces of your great great grandchildren. They are here now, as is your dog, but not in the forms of your paychological conception. Human minds create a chronology to make thinking easier. Imagine seeing a cup of tea, as both plants and mud, a satisfying drink, and broken glass, urine, and a breath of energy in a person. Past, present, and future. I know I'm teetering on Buddhism at this point, but Buddha was right in this regard. The nature of existence is motion, yet our minds tend to create stagnant perceptions.
Reality is quite different. There is no 1257 that can just be dialed up in a phonebooth, no 1985 that can be "returned" to in a car. There is always now, and now is always.
But, alas, this does allow for one way to "time travel" provided the technology existed, if you had the power, however that may be, to rearrange all energy in the universe, AND, if you had some blueprint, or tracing method of the arrangement of all energy, matter, etc. from a fixed point, and providing for the matter necessary to both create this world, and put yourself in it (thus requiring some compromise) you could effectively travel "back in time". But it is in this requirement that you might realize a few things, 1. All those paradoxes about time travel are bullshit. If you could recreate the past with yourself in it, then it is, by definition not really the past, so if you happened to kill your grandfather, there is no paradox, your real grandfather was destroyed the moment you manipulated the entire universe, and this recreation of your grandfather might have produced a child like your father, and that man might have produced a child like you, but it isn't you, because the only way to "go back" in the past, and "be" in the past requires keeping yourself with you, essentially stealing those atoms and molecules from the wind and trees and shit, so it can never be "your" past, as time is always now, and this recreation can't be 100% accurate if you're not dismantled in the process. Those aren't your atoms, you're borrowing them, and some of what you call you, was a part of your mother and father and other parts were in other arrangements, so that to ever truly recreate the past, no one, and no thing could "visit" or observe or "travel" there. Well, as long as we assume energy can neither be created nor destroyed, otherwise that would be one of those teapot unanswerables.
I beg anyone to tell me why I'm wrong. Although I'm not looking for theories. Because, you know, teapot again, I don't care what the teapot has to say. What I have written is just a blunt observation of how energy transfers get labelled as eras.
=Random=
I mentioned Time Cop a lot, probably because there aren't a lot of stories that take as many liberties with time travel, most films use time travel as a pretext to create a "fish out of water" or redemption story, Time Cop didn't play that noise, the time travel was the story. It was Van Damme's most successful film earning over $100 million globally in '94. The movie takes place with the "present" set in 1994 and 2004.
I alluded to Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, making a total of 2 written stories, 1 tv show, and 6 films not counting sequels. I'm sure I could have pulled out many more, every incarnation of Star Trek, and many of the films use time travel in various ways. I didn't even want to get into Bill and Ted's version, where it's more like the anti-butterfly effect, and was it Bogus Journey where they just keep dropping time travel cages on each other? That was ridiculous. But Bogus Journey was all fucked up, instead of just time travel, it had aliens, God, heaven, hell, the Grimm Reaper, mother fucking evil robots, Jesus, oh and excessive yet mundane time travel.
First I want to dispel the "common" views of time and time travel. I just read what Wikipedia had to say about theories of time travel (back in time) and they were put together in a couple general categories.
=Alternate Dimensions=
These are touted as "paradox proof" theories because they completely ignore "time travel" and propose the ability to enter an alternate "dimension" that may coincidentally look exactly like the past. Essentially these theories rely on an unknown and entirely imaginary view of the universe. Similar to Russell's Teapot and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the design is based on the lack of evidence, not actual evidence, thereby ensuring the theory can't be proven wrong. There may be alternate dimensions, but there's literally no evidence of it. However this is irrelevant and basically a cop-out to the question "Is it possible to move back in time?" with the customized add-on "In the same dimension".
=Paradoxes prevent certain events from occuring=
Admitting that certain actions taken by travelling back in time would be paradoxical (like killing your grandfather before he gets your grandma pregnant) these theories suggest you can still go back in time, but somehow those paradoxes won't happen. Theories along this line don't entirely dodge the theoretical paradoxes of time travel (like the dimension theories), they try to contain them. Bradbury's A Sound of Thunder simply and inexplicably declares since you are one person, you can't go back and meet yourself, so if you do go back to some distant past, you'll pass yourself returning. This fit in the narrow confines of the short story but didn't even begin to address what would happen if you went back to your own childhood. Interesting to note that this short story is where the term "butterfly effect" originates. In the story, the main character accidentally steps on a butterfly during the age of dinosaurs, comes back to his time and finds there's a different president, words are spelled different, etc. The movie Time Cop suggested you could see your past self, but not touch. Again, this is really a limited explanation, saying the same matter can't occupy the same space, but no person is ever "the same" all people are at all times in motion and changing, and in Time Cop there's like a 20 year age difference, certainly by then their skin wouldn't even be of the same cells. The latest big budget adaptation of The Time Machine delt with the paradox of taking actions in the past that would prevent the time machine from being invented. The guy builds a time machine to save his love, but if he saves her, he won't build the machine, so when he does save her, something else just kills her. Kinda like that inexplicable series of films "Final Destination", there's no explanation for "who" is making people die, and even if people are meant to die, isn't extending their life for even a fraction of a second already a negation of necessity? I mean, if you were going to die by mugger, instead get hit by a car, won't there be implicit unavoidable side effects, like a good driver feeling bad for the rest of his life, and an evil mugger just killing someone else? Basically all these variations imply that you can change some things but not others, but the very ability to change anything, makes everything possible. If you can save someone's life for a minute, you've saved them nonetheless. Do it a thousand, or a hundred thousand times, and you'll have bought your time paradox. Or to put it in another way, these theories give a moralisitc quality to time. As if time gives a shit if someone dies, but also doesn't care if someone from the wrong time is just walking around. If there were a force that could force events to occur, why would it let you do anything at all? This is elemental theism, like in old Greek myths where mortals "fight" universal forces.
=There's no going forward=
I'm using movie references, because the theories aren't any more complicated, and at least films try to hammer out the kinks. A good one is the idea that you can only go back, not forward. Because forward doesn't exist yet. I love this kernal of conception because if you build on it, it reveals the flaws in all these theories. But I won't get ahead of myself. Time Cop sort of followed this, but the movie opens with guys from the future killing Van Damme's wife. So the question would be, if people can come from your future, then if you hop into their time machine and go to their present, then haven't you just gone into the future? The "Terminator" films try to cover up this flaw by saying only human tissue can go through, and that their machine only goes back in time. But again, it doesn't really solve anything. Because if at any time anyone can come from any future, then at all times, the future is just an open door.
Overall these theories create as many paradoxes as they try to negate. Who was the father of the first John Connor (infinite time loop paradox, although I came up with a smart-ass answer to this, the first John Connor, the one we see as an adult in the first movie had no idea that his buddy would nail his mom, in his time line his dad is just some random guy. Sending back his buddy broke his continuum, and he stopped existing, however his buddy got Sarah Connor pregnant, and 50/50 chance it was a boy, she wrongly assumed this was THE John Connor, and so names this boy, essentially the real Connor's half brother, John Connor, and this kid has to live up to the real Connor's legacy, paradox averted. But I've really digressed here).
=The Intentional Paradox=
I flat out don't like time travel stories with this attitude. The Terminator is one of these, trying to claim that John Connor could only exist after his adult friend from the future bangs his mom. That's probably why I came up with that alternate possibility. Another one of these is Professor Peabody and his Wayback Machine, I don't know where the hell that cartoon came from but when I was younger it was attached to episodes of Underdog. Anyway so Peabody is a dog, and there's a stupid boy who's is assistant or something and they keep going back in time to make things that already turned out fine, turn out fine. The way it's presented is that if they hadn't gone back, things would have been different than what we know them to be, as if the past was waiting for Peabody and the idiot to fix it. The television series Heroes pulled this shit too, a time-travelling "Hiro" goes back to the age of Samurai, and finds out his hero from history is an immortal douchebag alcoholic Limey. Seeing that the drunk couldn't pull off the legendary acts he was known for, Hiro fills in for him...but then how could Hiro ever hear the story in the first place? Intentional Paradox, that's how. Bullshit. The newest time travel movie, Hot Tub Time Machine, among other insane, impossible, and absurd ideas about time travel, did its own intentional paradox, when a kid goes into the past, and is then reborn as the same person but with a different dad, right after said different dad altered the time line to destroy the kid. Jesus that was stupidity at its finest. Still a funny movie, on DVD or BluRay now.
=Misc=
The fun of time travel stories is that they pretty much just make up rules without any factual reasoning to fit the plot. Back to the Future had a ball with the idea that if you change the past, you can view its effects while it's happening, like seeing photographs or people disappear, or words in newspapers change, equally speculatory are films that suggest you won't see the changes until you get back, like Time Cop, and The Butterfly Effect, however even between those two films there's a huge difference, when Time Cop Van Damme went back to the future, he was surprised to see how things were changed and had no memory of the alternate timeline (this is a common assumption) in The Butterfly, when Ashton goes back to the future, he immediately acquires all the memories. Another common one in many stories, even if not overty acknowledged is that even after someone goes to the past, the present continues. Sometimes this is an extremely important plot point, as it was in Star Trek: TNG's series finale, 3 ships from 3 times had to go to the same place in space at the same time, yeah, how could it be the same "time" if they're definitively separate times? Most of the other examples I can't think of off the top of my head but they are all tv/cartoon interpretations, where the "ticking clock" somehow keeps ticking even with the ability to travel through time. By the way, I hate that so many entire series' of cartoons rely solely on the "ticking clock" for plot drive.
=Why time travel theories are created=
People imagine a past that doesn't exist, but because it did exist at one point they conceive of a way to return to it. The time machine, is really just a manifestation of memories. It is a projection in narrative, that is a recreation of the human mind. The cultural perception of a time machine allows one to revisit the past, as a present self (this is memory incarnate) this machine also allows a person to see the future (our mortality and daily grind suck the fun out of our regular path to the future), or change a past event (desire and regret). The best proof I can offer that the common portrayal of time travel is purely self-serving wish fulfillment is that in all stories of time travel, the method of travel is accessible to only a very small number of people. If time travel were possible in the way it's portrayed in all science and stories, why wouldn't there be millions of time travellers? Why wouldn't there be a total collapse of society and functional reality? A while back I addressed this by writing a short story that takes place in a world where anyone can travel through time, so "reality" becomes as fleeting as a flicker from a match.
I love time travel stories, not for their science fiction, but the underlying goal of the story, to seek answers that can never be had in our real lives (what will the distant future be like or what if a different choice had been made) and to allow people a second chance at something that burns inside them, an everlasting regret. The "Back to the Future" films deal with this, amidst all the bitching about affecting past/present/future, by the end every character's life has been completely altered to their satisfaction. So it is the narrative, and journey of imagination, that I love in time travel stories, but they are all wrong. And now I will tell you how.
=Joshua's epiphany in 7th grade=
So I was at my house and the brother of my friend comes to the door. I see him through the screen door, and I walk towards it. Bam! The nature of time hits me. Almost a "Eureka" moment, but to this day I don't know what the trigger was exactly. I didn't shout eureka, I calmy said aloud "This is it, there is only now".
I had realized that our common perception of time is that it is a place. That there is a now, and a then. That we actually "pass through" time. Whether it's conceptially continuous or fragmented, it doesn't matter. The common portrayal is that there is a past just waiting for someone to visit.
But time is not space. Time is a measurement and a function of motion. That is, if there were no motion in this universe, even if it were full of matter, then time would not exist. Time is effectively the acknowledgement that the arrangement of the universe alters. And this is what most time travel theories get wrong.
To put it bluntly, you can't build a machine to "go" into the past, because there is no past. This world IS the past. There is no duel 1985/1955 this is 1985 and 1955, and all other time, past present and future. What most humans regard as "the past" is psychologically another world. But in terms of true functionality, there is only one time, now. It has always been now, and it will always be now. Time is a measurement of objects just rearranging themselves. Every atom of your childhood puppy is still in this world. Every atom of your future grandchildren is in this world right now, maybe some of it is in a tree, much of it is in the soil, in the sun, in the air. There is only now, but your childhood puppy suffered the effects of mechanical breakdown, and lost the ability to manipulate existing matter in its image. Eventually, things you are stepping on, mowing, breathing, drinking, will be pieces of your great great grandchildren. They are here now, as is your dog, but not in the forms of your paychological conception. Human minds create a chronology to make thinking easier. Imagine seeing a cup of tea, as both plants and mud, a satisfying drink, and broken glass, urine, and a breath of energy in a person. Past, present, and future. I know I'm teetering on Buddhism at this point, but Buddha was right in this regard. The nature of existence is motion, yet our minds tend to create stagnant perceptions.
Reality is quite different. There is no 1257 that can just be dialed up in a phonebooth, no 1985 that can be "returned" to in a car. There is always now, and now is always.
But, alas, this does allow for one way to "time travel" provided the technology existed, if you had the power, however that may be, to rearrange all energy in the universe, AND, if you had some blueprint, or tracing method of the arrangement of all energy, matter, etc. from a fixed point, and providing for the matter necessary to both create this world, and put yourself in it (thus requiring some compromise) you could effectively travel "back in time". But it is in this requirement that you might realize a few things, 1. All those paradoxes about time travel are bullshit. If you could recreate the past with yourself in it, then it is, by definition not really the past, so if you happened to kill your grandfather, there is no paradox, your real grandfather was destroyed the moment you manipulated the entire universe, and this recreation of your grandfather might have produced a child like your father, and that man might have produced a child like you, but it isn't you, because the only way to "go back" in the past, and "be" in the past requires keeping yourself with you, essentially stealing those atoms and molecules from the wind and trees and shit, so it can never be "your" past, as time is always now, and this recreation can't be 100% accurate if you're not dismantled in the process. Those aren't your atoms, you're borrowing them, and some of what you call you, was a part of your mother and father and other parts were in other arrangements, so that to ever truly recreate the past, no one, and no thing could "visit" or observe or "travel" there. Well, as long as we assume energy can neither be created nor destroyed, otherwise that would be one of those teapot unanswerables.
I beg anyone to tell me why I'm wrong. Although I'm not looking for theories. Because, you know, teapot again, I don't care what the teapot has to say. What I have written is just a blunt observation of how energy transfers get labelled as eras.
=Random=
I mentioned Time Cop a lot, probably because there aren't a lot of stories that take as many liberties with time travel, most films use time travel as a pretext to create a "fish out of water" or redemption story, Time Cop didn't play that noise, the time travel was the story. It was Van Damme's most successful film earning over $100 million globally in '94. The movie takes place with the "present" set in 1994 and 2004.
I alluded to Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, making a total of 2 written stories, 1 tv show, and 6 films not counting sequels. I'm sure I could have pulled out many more, every incarnation of Star Trek, and many of the films use time travel in various ways. I didn't even want to get into Bill and Ted's version, where it's more like the anti-butterfly effect, and was it Bogus Journey where they just keep dropping time travel cages on each other? That was ridiculous. But Bogus Journey was all fucked up, instead of just time travel, it had aliens, God, heaven, hell, the Grimm Reaper, mother fucking evil robots, Jesus, oh and excessive yet mundane time travel.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Monster.com waste of time
I've had at least 1 serious resume' on monster.com since 2006. I have NEVER received a job offer. I do have a valid resume. It's just that no company has ever actually looked for a good employee. That's not how the system works. It's more like with women, they just wait for guys to hit on them, and they choose from among that group. Even if a chick gets wet just looking at a guy, 99% of the time she would not ask him to ever do anything. She'd flirt. But in the long run flirting is worthless, even bitches in long term relationships who would never date a guy would still flirt.
Anyway, a couple years ago I added a less serious resume' realizing no one reads those things anyway. I was right, my
2 current resumes on monster have been viewed a combined less than 20 times in 2 years. Fuck you monster.
Here's my funny resume.
No one is interested in my years of expertise and accomplishments. You are cowards, and you want safe hires. You're burned out from online apps, so no businesses actually hire online anymore, you guys just leave your information up here because your boss says you need it. So I'm just going to tell you the truth. I am the hardest working son of a bitch I have ever met. I started working when I was 12. By age 13 I was on my third job. I paid for all my food and clothing from that point on. I've worked in auto shops, I've painted houses, I've laid cement, I've torn up cement. I've spent 8 hours a day in 100 degree weather pulling weeds with my bare hands. I've torn down pallets with crowbars, and I've built sheds. Have you ever torn up non skid? No you haven't, I have, for days. I've weed-whacked mountain sides. You think I'm kidding? I don't even care. No one will hire me, you are cowards and I am too qualified. I'm smarter than you, I have a better education than your boss. You are threatened by my skills. I remember working 18 hours a day for months at a time, doing anything from washing pots in a huge kitchen, to fixing pipes, to cleaning filters in ventilation. I solder microcircuitry when I'm bored. In my spare time I study the other two languages I speak, I work on my writing skills, which are better than yours. I have a security clearance from the Federal government higher than your business knows about. I had a higher reading comprehension level when I was 9 than you ever will. I don't even know how I could exaggerate, I haven't even mentioned all the careers I'm already an expert at. I honestly don't think there's a more qualified person than me, anywhere. Maybe if you brought Ben Franklin or Tesla back from the dead, I could slap them around a bit. I'm better than you. And you wouldn't even consider hiring me.
Anyway, a couple years ago I added a less serious resume' realizing no one reads those things anyway. I was right, my
2 current resumes on monster have been viewed a combined less than 20 times in 2 years. Fuck you monster.
Here's my funny resume.
No one is interested in my years of expertise and accomplishments. You are cowards, and you want safe hires. You're burned out from online apps, so no businesses actually hire online anymore, you guys just leave your information up here because your boss says you need it. So I'm just going to tell you the truth. I am the hardest working son of a bitch I have ever met. I started working when I was 12. By age 13 I was on my third job. I paid for all my food and clothing from that point on. I've worked in auto shops, I've painted houses, I've laid cement, I've torn up cement. I've spent 8 hours a day in 100 degree weather pulling weeds with my bare hands. I've torn down pallets with crowbars, and I've built sheds. Have you ever torn up non skid? No you haven't, I have, for days. I've weed-whacked mountain sides. You think I'm kidding? I don't even care. No one will hire me, you are cowards and I am too qualified. I'm smarter than you, I have a better education than your boss. You are threatened by my skills. I remember working 18 hours a day for months at a time, doing anything from washing pots in a huge kitchen, to fixing pipes, to cleaning filters in ventilation. I solder microcircuitry when I'm bored. In my spare time I study the other two languages I speak, I work on my writing skills, which are better than yours. I have a security clearance from the Federal government higher than your business knows about. I had a higher reading comprehension level when I was 9 than you ever will. I don't even know how I could exaggerate, I haven't even mentioned all the careers I'm already an expert at. I honestly don't think there's a more qualified person than me, anywhere. Maybe if you brought Ben Franklin or Tesla back from the dead, I could slap them around a bit. I'm better than you. And you wouldn't even consider hiring me.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Things no one gave me credit for
I'm in the mood to Rodney Dangerfield a bit. I get no respect.
- In 1994 I pulled my brother's ass out of the ocean while he was being swept away by a rip-current.
- In 2003 I recruited a winning team of sailors for a tug-a-rope tourney.
- In 2006 a fire on the bridge of the USS Fitzgerald knocked out the nav lights for the ship. It was nighttime and the Fitz was in the middle of Tokyo Bay, a crowded waterway to be sure. All the electricians were busy with the fire damaged circuits, and apparantly eveyone else had their heads up their ass. For no logical reason it fell to me to fix the situation. I mobilized my team and got port/starboard/aft lights up just in time. Just seconds after setting up the port and starboards I was heading aft and on the fantail I watched as a huge ass cruise ship barely turned to avoid us. They were about 50 feet off port heading aft. Although technically later on the Captain did get back on the 1MC after thanking everyone else and said "Oh yeah and thanks to the EWs for helping out". I just like telling that story, because when you look at
it, obviously I wasn't the only person doing anything, rather it was because our division wasn't doing anything that we could mobilize.
- In 2007 douchebags ran San Diego's world famous "Street Scene" concert right into the ground. All these morons kept bitching that Street Scene was "too popular" to be held downtown. And that it was getting in downtown's way. You can look this up if you don't believe me, but Street Scene was THE ONLY REASON downtown San Diego was revitilized. It turned literal crack houses into world class restaurants because the concert brought so much money downtown. Anyway these fuckers, including most San Diegans and the media railed against the Street Scene, like fucking Jews against Christ, they killed their savior. Then along came me. I went on a fucking one man crusade when I found out they had ruined Street Scene. I sent every asshole in the industry a piece of my mind. The next fucking year they held the concert exactly where I told them to, which was in East Village a block from my apartment. It was a fucking epic success for them. Only problem for me, I didn't live there anymore, and nobody has sent me a fucking thank you.
-2010 I helped two women pass Biology class by studying with them and tutoring them. As soon as the semester ended, they completely blew me off and wouldn't even talk to me. Bitches. I also helped a guy with his Economics final, he said thanks. That's all I'd ever hope for. Fuck.
I better think up some more or I'll be out done. Seriously most people are very appreciative. I wouldn't ever claim I've given more than I've got. It just sucks when the big stuff I do goes unthanked.
- In 1994 I pulled my brother's ass out of the ocean while he was being swept away by a rip-current.
- In 2003 I recruited a winning team of sailors for a tug-a-rope tourney.
- In 2006 a fire on the bridge of the USS Fitzgerald knocked out the nav lights for the ship. It was nighttime and the Fitz was in the middle of Tokyo Bay, a crowded waterway to be sure. All the electricians were busy with the fire damaged circuits, and apparantly eveyone else had their heads up their ass. For no logical reason it fell to me to fix the situation. I mobilized my team and got port/starboard/aft lights up just in time. Just seconds after setting up the port and starboards I was heading aft and on the fantail I watched as a huge ass cruise ship barely turned to avoid us. They were about 50 feet off port heading aft. Although technically later on the Captain did get back on the 1MC after thanking everyone else and said "Oh yeah and thanks to the EWs for helping out". I just like telling that story, because when you look at
it, obviously I wasn't the only person doing anything, rather it was because our division wasn't doing anything that we could mobilize.
- In 2007 douchebags ran San Diego's world famous "Street Scene" concert right into the ground. All these morons kept bitching that Street Scene was "too popular" to be held downtown. And that it was getting in downtown's way. You can look this up if you don't believe me, but Street Scene was THE ONLY REASON downtown San Diego was revitilized. It turned literal crack houses into world class restaurants because the concert brought so much money downtown. Anyway these fuckers, including most San Diegans and the media railed against the Street Scene, like fucking Jews against Christ, they killed their savior. Then along came me. I went on a fucking one man crusade when I found out they had ruined Street Scene. I sent every asshole in the industry a piece of my mind. The next fucking year they held the concert exactly where I told them to, which was in East Village a block from my apartment. It was a fucking epic success for them. Only problem for me, I didn't live there anymore, and nobody has sent me a fucking thank you.
-2010 I helped two women pass Biology class by studying with them and tutoring them. As soon as the semester ended, they completely blew me off and wouldn't even talk to me. Bitches. I also helped a guy with his Economics final, he said thanks. That's all I'd ever hope for. Fuck.
I better think up some more or I'll be out done. Seriously most people are very appreciative. I wouldn't ever claim I've given more than I've got. It just sucks when the big stuff I do goes unthanked.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Updating
I've been really "busy" with school. So I haven't done much of anything else in months. I'll be done in a week or so, for a week or so, before summer school. In the meantime, I'm going to try to make a blog just about Stockton.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Serious Gold Panning
My father and I went north-east from Stockton, over the first mountains of the Sierras, north-west of Lake Tahoe. High high up. There was snow on the ground, all we could see for miles was mountains and valleys with thousands of pines. We drove down down into a valley, to a town on the edge of nowhere, Washington California, population about 200. They all stared at us. We continued on to the one lane road that serves two way travel, it hugged the mountain side, and believe me, that's fantastically exciting on its own. Hairpin turns with no guarantee there isn't another car coming your direction on this one lane road next to a steep cliff with no rails. We came to a fork of the Yuba River and parked the car. We had to walk from there. Down down, to the river's edge. There had been water shooting out of the sides of the rock everywhere we drove, but now, up close, scaling this steep edge to the river below, it was much more fascinating. We could see where springs had come and gone, leaving loose rocks all roughly pointing riverwards. At the top, there were giant, maybe 15 foot high, hundreds of feet wide piles of stones, remnants of the 1849 gold rush. It was only a couple years after the gold rush that these massive piles of rocks were made, left over from the massive industrial operations on these mountains and rivers extracting gold. It was only a few years after that that California banned massive gold mining tactics like blasting and dredging, preserving the Sierras (unlike some now much uglier parts of America) and ending the gold rush. Yeah, I bet you didn't know that, the government ended the gold rush, they didn't run out of gold.
Finally we came to the river's edge. Just for the hell of it, I grabbed some loose rocks, and I panned them, using a spring that was shooting out perfect clean/clear water. I planned on just diving in the river. This water was crystal clear, and I thought the better panning area might be on the other side. Some parts of the river were about 10 feet deep, and I could clearly see the bottom. But caution got the better of me, and I checked the water first. It was ludicrously cold. I started panning close to the bank. I found gold in nearly every pan. Although it was very very little gold. Fingerprinters I called them, because they could fit between the ridges of my fingerprint when I picked them up. I came up with various names to call my gold if I should find anything larger.
Bill-payer: about $100 worth of gold. It would be enough to pay a bill.
Pay-checker: about $1200 worth of gold. This much could survive me a month.
Year-wager: $35-38K this was the first value I came up with, 1 Kilogram of gold is about $35-38,000 and would be about a year's wage.
After an hour of panning, I ate some lunch out of my pan. My lunch was a Lunchable.
I cooled off my Capri-Sun in the ice-cold river.
So at some point I was thinking, this river is too cold for frogs. If there was a frog that could tolerate this river, it'd be one hardcore fucking frog. Then I looked over and saw a small pool near the river made by one of the springs. Because it was much more shallow it was obviously a bit warmer, and it was full of moss and mold etc. I thought, now there's a place for a frog. Then I saw a frog, so I grabbed it.
Anyway, back to the river, I decided to cross it. By the time I had explored the other side and come back I was relatively wet from the waist down. I decided why not go all the way? So I jumped in the river and let it carry me downstream. I reached a broad area, where it branched. The river was shallow here, but slow, one part of the river took an extremely sharp turn, becoming very rapid, and the other part just went to a pool of moss with a couple very beautiful waterfalls coming out of the rocks.
Ice cold, and probably dying, I started swimming back. I finnally came out and warmed up a bit. Then I went back to panning. I found a rock that had gold color in it. I thought it was gold. My dad wasn't so sure.
After another hour, we were fairly worn out and unlucky. We packed up and climbed out of there.
When we got home, my father tried further techniques to identify the gold color, and couldn't. I still think it's gold. I stated that if it is gold, it would be a Sam's Breakfaster: about $3-4 worth of gold, enough for a Sam's Cafe' ham and eggs breakfast.
So altogether, we had a great time. I brought home snow and threw some at my brother, we brought home gold. I'm convinced I have a little nugget of gold. I have an unidentified species of frog. We got some photos, so I'll be putting them up here.
Finally we came to the river's edge. Just for the hell of it, I grabbed some loose rocks, and I panned them, using a spring that was shooting out perfect clean/clear water. I planned on just diving in the river. This water was crystal clear, and I thought the better panning area might be on the other side. Some parts of the river were about 10 feet deep, and I could clearly see the bottom. But caution got the better of me, and I checked the water first. It was ludicrously cold. I started panning close to the bank. I found gold in nearly every pan. Although it was very very little gold. Fingerprinters I called them, because they could fit between the ridges of my fingerprint when I picked them up. I came up with various names to call my gold if I should find anything larger.
Bill-payer: about $100 worth of gold. It would be enough to pay a bill.
Pay-checker: about $1200 worth of gold. This much could survive me a month.
Year-wager: $35-38K this was the first value I came up with, 1 Kilogram of gold is about $35-38,000 and would be about a year's wage.
After an hour of panning, I ate some lunch out of my pan. My lunch was a Lunchable.
I cooled off my Capri-Sun in the ice-cold river.
So at some point I was thinking, this river is too cold for frogs. If there was a frog that could tolerate this river, it'd be one hardcore fucking frog. Then I looked over and saw a small pool near the river made by one of the springs. Because it was much more shallow it was obviously a bit warmer, and it was full of moss and mold etc. I thought, now there's a place for a frog. Then I saw a frog, so I grabbed it.
Anyway, back to the river, I decided to cross it. By the time I had explored the other side and come back I was relatively wet from the waist down. I decided why not go all the way? So I jumped in the river and let it carry me downstream. I reached a broad area, where it branched. The river was shallow here, but slow, one part of the river took an extremely sharp turn, becoming very rapid, and the other part just went to a pool of moss with a couple very beautiful waterfalls coming out of the rocks.
Ice cold, and probably dying, I started swimming back. I finnally came out and warmed up a bit. Then I went back to panning. I found a rock that had gold color in it. I thought it was gold. My dad wasn't so sure.
After another hour, we were fairly worn out and unlucky. We packed up and climbed out of there.
When we got home, my father tried further techniques to identify the gold color, and couldn't. I still think it's gold. I stated that if it is gold, it would be a Sam's Breakfaster: about $3-4 worth of gold, enough for a Sam's Cafe' ham and eggs breakfast.
So altogether, we had a great time. I brought home snow and threw some at my brother, we brought home gold. I'm convinced I have a little nugget of gold. I have an unidentified species of frog. We got some photos, so I'll be putting them up here.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
What I don't know
I don't write or talk about things I don't know about or understand. Or, at least what I don't know about, or think I don't understand. Or maybe what I don't think I understand.
Isn't digital its own analog? Fundamentally even analog follows patterns, bumps, digits if you very so kindly would accept? But even then I suppose digital would still be a subset of analog, as it is characteristically quantifiable in integers.
So I started noticing the number 255 everywhere, and it was annoying me, because I knew it meant something in hexadecimal. So I looked it up, and lo, it is the highest number used in hexadecimal coding for colors (this can be used in html and CSS to indicate what color something should be, for example, if I designated this page to be blue: 255, red: 0, and green:0, this page would be completely as blue as could be displayed. Note: 255 in Hex is written "FF". If you want an easy example, open MSPaint and make a custom color, you'll see the color values go up to 255.
While looking up hexadecimal I noticed a joke on Wikipedia using Hex.
"If only dead people know hexadecimal, then how many people know heaidecimal?"
This reminded me of a binary joke I learned in binary class. "There are only 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary, and those who don't."
Anyway the whole reason I wrote this is because I don't know what "tort" is. I looked it up, and I'm still confusd. Why would "tort reform" be on the mouths of people like Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart daily, when no one gives a fuck, and never has? It is simply a too encompassing term for what they really mean, which is a trillionth of what they imply. They don't want to reform the entire justice system. They want frivolous lawsuits to stop. That's like calling a grain of sand a beach.
History channel told me today that the word "pepper" is sanskrit in origin. That's cool.
Isn't digital its own analog? Fundamentally even analog follows patterns, bumps, digits if you very so kindly would accept? But even then I suppose digital would still be a subset of analog, as it is characteristically quantifiable in integers.
So I started noticing the number 255 everywhere, and it was annoying me, because I knew it meant something in hexadecimal. So I looked it up, and lo, it is the highest number used in hexadecimal coding for colors (this can be used in html and CSS to indicate what color something should be, for example, if I designated this page to be blue: 255, red: 0, and green:0, this page would be completely as blue as could be displayed. Note: 255 in Hex is written "FF". If you want an easy example, open MSPaint and make a custom color, you'll see the color values go up to 255.
While looking up hexadecimal I noticed a joke on Wikipedia using Hex.
"If only dead people know hexadecimal, then how many people know heaidecimal?"
This reminded me of a binary joke I learned in binary class. "There are only 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary, and those who don't."
Anyway the whole reason I wrote this is because I don't know what "tort" is. I looked it up, and I'm still confusd. Why would "tort reform" be on the mouths of people like Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart daily, when no one gives a fuck, and never has? It is simply a too encompassing term for what they really mean, which is a trillionth of what they imply. They don't want to reform the entire justice system. They want frivolous lawsuits to stop. That's like calling a grain of sand a beach.
History channel told me today that the word "pepper" is sanskrit in origin. That's cool.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
To horse, you gallant princes! Straight to horse!
Stockton California. Named the second most miserable city in America this year by Forbes. It was #1 last year, and #2 the year before. It's also the only city to have such a high ranking streak. Stockton California, top of every list, violent crime, car thefts, illiteracy, home foreclosures, unemployment, etc. Stockton California, the great boiling-over melting-pot;
% of Population Foreign Born
Stockton - 31%
LA - 29.6%
San Francisco - 28.3%
New York - 22.8%
And only 1/3 of the foriegners in Stockton are citizens. Not to suggest that Stockton is bad because it has more foreigners, as I explained in much more detail in a previous blog, it's that Stockton is a storm, and California seems to just dump all its problems into this storm, and hope nothing escapes.
As I mentioned in a previous blog, 70% of Stockton's murders go unsolved. I have lost count of how many people have been murdered in 2010, but here's some news from just the past week.
There were at least 6 shootings in Stockton from Saturday to Sunday this week. 6 shootings, in 2 days. And there were many many more crimes in those 2 days, and more shootings throughout the week.
So here's Sat-Sun in Stockton California:
1. "an 18-year-old, was hospitalized in critical condition after he was shot while sitting in a parked car"
2-3. "A home in the 1700 block of West Lane was targeted by gunfire twice. Police report as many as 10 people may have been inside the home at the time of the shootings."
4. "Another shooting occurred around 8:50 p.m. Saturday. Two teenaged girls were walking on the 700 block of Sutter Street when they were approached by a black male teenager, about 17 years old, wearing a maroon hooded sweat shirt and baggy dark blue denim pants. He asked to borrow a cell phone and they complied. When the victim asked for the phone back, the suspect took a handgun from his waistband and shot her. She was struck in the lower body and taken to the hospital, where she was listed in stable condition."
5. "A 22-year-old man told police he was walking into an apartment complex when he was approached from behind by another man who asked, "what you got?"
The victim said he didn't have anything and continued walking. The second man then pulled a handgun from his waistband and fired a shot in the air before shooting the victim in the foot, police said."
6. "Later that day police responded to a report of a drive-by shooting in the 1300 block of East Harding Way. The victim told police he was walking in the area at about 10 p.m. Sunday when a car containing three men drove past. He said he then heard gunshots and was wounded in his hand."
Now what's interesting is how quick the police (and everyone else) are to write off every shooting as gang related. There is a prevailing attitude in Stockton that if you get shot, it's your fault. While Police can't solve 70% of murders, and they've solved nothing them I'm going to mention in this blog, they immediately released that two of the people shot were brothers, and therefore were probably in trouble with a gang, so of course they deserve it.
Here's some more love in Stockton:
"Three McDonald’s restaurants were robbed Monday night and Tuesday in apparently related robberies." "by a man who claimed he had a gun."
"A 49-year-old man was shot in the face Thursday night near an east Stockton liquor store." "the assailant was riding a kick scooter and was wearing a white T-shirt with bones and a cross on it. He was carrying a black backpack."
Of course Stocktonians don't just keep their fun in Stockton, increasingly I've noticed Stockton is tied in with crime all around northern California.
More recent news:
"Two teenagers were shot at the Jackson Rancheria early Sunday morning in what officials say was a gang related incident." "The shooter is reportedly associated with the Norteno gang and based out of Stockton. His name has not been released."
"Two people have been arrested in connection with two separate shootings in Concord overnight in which one man was injured, Concord police Lt. Jim Lardieri said." The gun police believe was used in the two shootings was recovered and had been reported stolen out of Stockton, Lardieri said."
==Notice here, that it took an outside force to bring in a couple Stocktonians. Left to their own accord, the Stockton Police do not do so well.==
All of these events occured in the last 2 weeks, all the events in Stockton were this week. This is not a comprehensive list of recent crimes, just what I could find in a couple minutes. This is by no means a crime wave by Stockton's standards, it is Stockton standard.
And yet, I don't have a right to protect myself? I want to be able to bear arms here. But California law demands that if I open-carry (conceal carry is illegal) the weapon needs to be unloaded. So basically I would have to advertise that I'm armed, without actually being armed. Wonderful, who do you think a criminal would shoot first? Also, the entire state of California has been experiencing a bullet shortage for over a year. And Schwarzenegger just passed a law that will make bullets extremely hard to obtain, for law abiding citizens. So while I still can, I ordered 300 rounds of ammunition online, and I'll probably order another 1,000. This is just short term though. I'm doing what I can to convince my family to get out of this city. I plan on leaving the state and/or country as soon as I'm done with college. I'm done with Stockton, and California.
In the mean time, just in case you have some illusion there are safe parts of Stockton, here is a map from Google Earth, I added red dots showing where just these most recent events occured. If you want a more comprehensive map of major crime locations, people have tried to do that, but they can't keep up with the crime. Basically it's just a completely covered map of Stockton.
Click on map to view larger. I displayed Stockton with the north to the left to fit the screen.
*All data and quotes stolen from other websites.
% of Population Foreign Born
Stockton - 31%
LA - 29.6%
San Francisco - 28.3%
New York - 22.8%
And only 1/3 of the foriegners in Stockton are citizens. Not to suggest that Stockton is bad because it has more foreigners, as I explained in much more detail in a previous blog, it's that Stockton is a storm, and California seems to just dump all its problems into this storm, and hope nothing escapes.
As I mentioned in a previous blog, 70% of Stockton's murders go unsolved. I have lost count of how many people have been murdered in 2010, but here's some news from just the past week.
There were at least 6 shootings in Stockton from Saturday to Sunday this week. 6 shootings, in 2 days. And there were many many more crimes in those 2 days, and more shootings throughout the week.
So here's Sat-Sun in Stockton California:
1. "an 18-year-old, was hospitalized in critical condition after he was shot while sitting in a parked car"
2-3. "A home in the 1700 block of West Lane was targeted by gunfire twice. Police report as many as 10 people may have been inside the home at the time of the shootings."
4. "Another shooting occurred around 8:50 p.m. Saturday. Two teenaged girls were walking on the 700 block of Sutter Street when they were approached by a black male teenager, about 17 years old, wearing a maroon hooded sweat shirt and baggy dark blue denim pants. He asked to borrow a cell phone and they complied. When the victim asked for the phone back, the suspect took a handgun from his waistband and shot her. She was struck in the lower body and taken to the hospital, where she was listed in stable condition."
5. "A 22-year-old man told police he was walking into an apartment complex when he was approached from behind by another man who asked, "what you got?"
The victim said he didn't have anything and continued walking. The second man then pulled a handgun from his waistband and fired a shot in the air before shooting the victim in the foot, police said."
6. "Later that day police responded to a report of a drive-by shooting in the 1300 block of East Harding Way. The victim told police he was walking in the area at about 10 p.m. Sunday when a car containing three men drove past. He said he then heard gunshots and was wounded in his hand."
Now what's interesting is how quick the police (and everyone else) are to write off every shooting as gang related. There is a prevailing attitude in Stockton that if you get shot, it's your fault. While Police can't solve 70% of murders, and they've solved nothing them I'm going to mention in this blog, they immediately released that two of the people shot were brothers, and therefore were probably in trouble with a gang, so of course they deserve it.
Here's some more love in Stockton:
"Three McDonald’s restaurants were robbed Monday night and Tuesday in apparently related robberies." "by a man who claimed he had a gun."
"A 49-year-old man was shot in the face Thursday night near an east Stockton liquor store." "the assailant was riding a kick scooter and was wearing a white T-shirt with bones and a cross on it. He was carrying a black backpack."
Of course Stocktonians don't just keep their fun in Stockton, increasingly I've noticed Stockton is tied in with crime all around northern California.
More recent news:
"Two teenagers were shot at the Jackson Rancheria early Sunday morning in what officials say was a gang related incident." "The shooter is reportedly associated with the Norteno gang and based out of Stockton. His name has not been released."
"Two people have been arrested in connection with two separate shootings in Concord overnight in which one man was injured, Concord police Lt. Jim Lardieri said." The gun police believe was used in the two shootings was recovered and had been reported stolen out of Stockton, Lardieri said."
==Notice here, that it took an outside force to bring in a couple Stocktonians. Left to their own accord, the Stockton Police do not do so well.==
All of these events occured in the last 2 weeks, all the events in Stockton were this week. This is not a comprehensive list of recent crimes, just what I could find in a couple minutes. This is by no means a crime wave by Stockton's standards, it is Stockton standard.
And yet, I don't have a right to protect myself? I want to be able to bear arms here. But California law demands that if I open-carry (conceal carry is illegal) the weapon needs to be unloaded. So basically I would have to advertise that I'm armed, without actually being armed. Wonderful, who do you think a criminal would shoot first? Also, the entire state of California has been experiencing a bullet shortage for over a year. And Schwarzenegger just passed a law that will make bullets extremely hard to obtain, for law abiding citizens. So while I still can, I ordered 300 rounds of ammunition online, and I'll probably order another 1,000. This is just short term though. I'm doing what I can to convince my family to get out of this city. I plan on leaving the state and/or country as soon as I'm done with college. I'm done with Stockton, and California.
In the mean time, just in case you have some illusion there are safe parts of Stockton, here is a map from Google Earth, I added red dots showing where just these most recent events occured. If you want a more comprehensive map of major crime locations, people have tried to do that, but they can't keep up with the crime. Basically it's just a completely covered map of Stockton.
Click on map to view larger. I displayed Stockton with the north to the left to fit the screen.
*All data and quotes stolen from other websites.
Sunday, March 07, 2010
spacing blogs
Except for 3 wayward months. I have at least one blog post here from every month since September 2004. So that's 64 of the last 67 months. I think this is a decent, (albeit not nearly comprehensive) timestamping of my life and writing.
This is really good considering all the 3-4 months I spent at sea at a time. Many of my blogs have been written in various foreign nations, though I usually don't mention them, except rarely in an offhanded manor.
This is really good considering all the 3-4 months I spent at sea at a time. Many of my blogs have been written in various foreign nations, though I usually don't mention them, except rarely in an offhanded manor.
Friday, March 05, 2010
Redistricting.
One argument against term limits for congressmen is that people should be allowed to chose when their representative leaves office. Unfortunately in California, ha ha, it is not your choice! A practice so diabolical it has two names, gerrymandering, or redistricting.
Basically, political parties have become more powerful than actual elected representatives, and the parties work together, at the expense of voters, and their representatives.
In California, the Democratics and Republicans get together, and cut up California into congressional districts that give each party secured positions. The Democratics will give some conservative leaning areas to Republicans, and the Republicans give over liberal leaning areas. In this way, they draw districts that guarantee wins for both parties.
Of course they don't absolute power, and they have to sacrifice some representatives in order to achieve this. If you've ever looked up the history of a congressional district, you'll see every few years, the district is somewhere else, and this usually puts a new party in power.
I was looking up my current congressional district, the 11th, and I wanted to point out some of its travelled history.
Currently the 11th encompasses East-Bay, and swoops south then east, then swoops back up to San Joaquin County into Stockton. I should also mention, all you have to do is look at district boundaries to see they are politically drawn, not logically, in nature.
In 1912 the 11th District encompassed Imperial, Inyo, Mono, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and San Diego Counties, basically most of southern California. From 1933-1943 it was the district for Los Angeles County. Then it jumped to northern California and bounced back and forth for decades, until it came to where it is now in 2003.
Congressman Leo Ryan represented the 11th district in San Mateo in 1978, when he went down to Jonestown in Guyana because of the stories about people being forced to stay in the cult. He was ambushed at the airport and murdered by Jones' thugs. Congressman Ryan was the first and only Congressman killed in the line of duty in U.S. history.
The current Congressman, Jerry McNerney has held the seat since 2007. He is likely to win again in 2010. There was a really good challenger but he dropped out for family reasons. There are a lot of challengers on the Republican side, but no one stands out for me.
What is most likely to oust McNerney? Nothing. Fixed!
Case Closed.
Basically, political parties have become more powerful than actual elected representatives, and the parties work together, at the expense of voters, and their representatives.
In California, the Democratics and Republicans get together, and cut up California into congressional districts that give each party secured positions. The Democratics will give some conservative leaning areas to Republicans, and the Republicans give over liberal leaning areas. In this way, they draw districts that guarantee wins for both parties.
Of course they don't absolute power, and they have to sacrifice some representatives in order to achieve this. If you've ever looked up the history of a congressional district, you'll see every few years, the district is somewhere else, and this usually puts a new party in power.
I was looking up my current congressional district, the 11th, and I wanted to point out some of its travelled history.
Currently the 11th encompasses East-Bay, and swoops south then east, then swoops back up to San Joaquin County into Stockton. I should also mention, all you have to do is look at district boundaries to see they are politically drawn, not logically, in nature.
In 1912 the 11th District encompassed Imperial, Inyo, Mono, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and San Diego Counties, basically most of southern California. From 1933-1943 it was the district for Los Angeles County. Then it jumped to northern California and bounced back and forth for decades, until it came to where it is now in 2003.
Congressman Leo Ryan represented the 11th district in San Mateo in 1978, when he went down to Jonestown in Guyana because of the stories about people being forced to stay in the cult. He was ambushed at the airport and murdered by Jones' thugs. Congressman Ryan was the first and only Congressman killed in the line of duty in U.S. history.
The current Congressman, Jerry McNerney has held the seat since 2007. He is likely to win again in 2010. There was a really good challenger but he dropped out for family reasons. There are a lot of challengers on the Republican side, but no one stands out for me.
What is most likely to oust McNerney? Nothing. Fixed!
Case Closed.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
California's State Song Sucks
Most everything about California is awesome, or at least better than you. This is a scientific fact.
But California does have its issues too.
I think the most obvious is that we let Mexico keep Baja California. This is just wrong. Until 1846, Baja and Alta California were united. Just throwing that out there, in case any new filibusters were being planned.
Anyway I remember learning the song "California, Here I Come" in first grade. It's a catchy showtune. I sang it everytime I was coming back to California from parts unknown. I suppose I assumed it was the state song. Nope.
California's state song is "I love you, California"
I love you, California, you're the greatest state of all.
I love you in the winter, summer, spring and in the fall.
I love your fertile valleys; your dear mountains I adore.
I love your grand old ocean and I love her rugged shore.
Chorus
Where the snow crowned Golden Sierras
Keep their watch o'er the valleys bloom,
It is there I would be in our land by the sea,
Every breeze bearing rich perfume.
It is here nature gives of her rarest. It is Home Sweet Home to me,
And I know when I die I shall breathe my last sigh
For my sunny California.
I love your red-wood forests - love your fields of yellow grain.
I love your summer breezes and I love your winter rain.
I love you, land of flowers; land of honey, fruit and wine.
I love you, California; you have won this heart of mine.
I love your old gray Missions - love your vineyards stretching far.
I love you, California, with your Golden Gate ajar.
I love your purple sun-sets, love your skies of azure blue.
I love you, California; I just can't help loving you.
I love you, Catalina, you are very dear to me.
I love you, Tamalpais, and I love Yosemite.
I love you, Land of Sunshine, Half your beauties are untold.
I loved you in my childhood, and I'll love you when I'm old.
They're great lyrics, or at least they're lyrics reminding us of how great California is, but the song is unsingable. I don't know if it can be made to sound good. I think at best it comes off as sounding like an eastern European propaganda song.
Here's the absolute best version on YouTube.
Now compare it to "California, Here I Come" sung by Al Jolson in 1924
But not all our "official" things suck. Most of them are decent. California was the first state to have an official insect. The California Dogface Butterfly.
And our state soil is the San Joaquin.
-All facts and photos stolen from the internet.
But California does have its issues too.
I think the most obvious is that we let Mexico keep Baja California. This is just wrong. Until 1846, Baja and Alta California were united. Just throwing that out there, in case any new filibusters were being planned.
Anyway I remember learning the song "California, Here I Come" in first grade. It's a catchy showtune. I sang it everytime I was coming back to California from parts unknown. I suppose I assumed it was the state song. Nope.
California's state song is "I love you, California"
I love you, California, you're the greatest state of all.
I love you in the winter, summer, spring and in the fall.
I love your fertile valleys; your dear mountains I adore.
I love your grand old ocean and I love her rugged shore.
Chorus
Where the snow crowned Golden Sierras
Keep their watch o'er the valleys bloom,
It is there I would be in our land by the sea,
Every breeze bearing rich perfume.
It is here nature gives of her rarest. It is Home Sweet Home to me,
And I know when I die I shall breathe my last sigh
For my sunny California.
I love your red-wood forests - love your fields of yellow grain.
I love your summer breezes and I love your winter rain.
I love you, land of flowers; land of honey, fruit and wine.
I love you, California; you have won this heart of mine.
I love your old gray Missions - love your vineyards stretching far.
I love you, California, with your Golden Gate ajar.
I love your purple sun-sets, love your skies of azure blue.
I love you, California; I just can't help loving you.
I love you, Catalina, you are very dear to me.
I love you, Tamalpais, and I love Yosemite.
I love you, Land of Sunshine, Half your beauties are untold.
I loved you in my childhood, and I'll love you when I'm old.
They're great lyrics, or at least they're lyrics reminding us of how great California is, but the song is unsingable. I don't know if it can be made to sound good. I think at best it comes off as sounding like an eastern European propaganda song.
Here's the absolute best version on YouTube.
Now compare it to "California, Here I Come" sung by Al Jolson in 1924
But not all our "official" things suck. Most of them are decent. California was the first state to have an official insect. The California Dogface Butterfly.
And our state soil is the San Joaquin.
-All facts and photos stolen from the internet.
Perpetual Motion
I was reading about perpetual motion machines, and basically how they have been completely dismissed as they don't fit the laws of thermodynamics. But. I was thinking, who actually needs created or infinitely re-used energy?
Perpetual Motion, in its name doesn't explicitly demand the same energy perpetually moves, it is simply a description of a reaction.
One would only need to create something that runs continuously, by its own actions, not continuously with a finite set of energy. And it isn't the continued functioning that is against the law of nature, it's the re-used or imagined energy that can't be harnessed.
Looking at the goal of Perpetual Motion, I realize the standard has been set way too high for practicality. And the true desire for Perpetual Motion is not about what energy is used, but rather if it is costly to people.
A realistic goal could be set in two lengths, and as far as technicalities are concerned would be "perpetual".
1. Create a machine that requires no more input to function once it is built, that will last a life time.
2. Create a machine that requires no more input to function once it is built, that will last for as long as its energy source exists.
Both of these goals were met hundreds of years ago. Clocks have been designed that run on temperature changes. Earth's temperature always changes, the clocks continue to run hundreds of years later.
Now some energy has to be put in them to maintain their accuracy (setting the correct time), but this isn't the source of the power for the clock, and perhaps, already proof of concept in themselves, if you simply look at the device, not as a clock, but as a machine that moves parts powered by temperature, it has worked continuously for hundreds of years.
When you up the desired results, before the technology exists, sure you might need human input. Now maybe someone needs to make one of these clocks, but make it so the clock is also able to correct its own time (like storing excess energy in a battery, use a memory chip and have it readjust when it needs to, or something like that).
In the meantime, no one gives a shit about inventing a machine that needs no new energy, we just want machines that don't need human energy.
Solar Power, wind power, water power are all renewable and will outlast 1,000 human generations. I'd say that is sufficient to call it "perpetual".
Of course everything breaks down too. But I'm sure there can be ways to solve this when you have the energy continuously backing you up. It's hard to believe there's no perpetual motion, when you think no life could exist on this planet if water itself wasn't in a perpetual state of motion. Water turns to gas, becomes liquid again (or solid) comes back to earth. Water's motion gives resource of perpetual motion to feed plants, which in turn feed animals (who also need water). If water couldn't cycle in this atmosphere, the nature of our bodies could not function.
Anyway. So I was looking at one supposed non-functional example of Perpetual Motion called a "SMOT" where the T is for "toy" meaning it is useless.
Basically you can make a ball roll up an incline if you align magnets on either side. It is argued that this only works because the magnets help "convert" the potential energy of the ball into kinetic energy.
But electro-magnetism is its own force. It is energy. Thinking you can't convert it to kinetic energy is downright idiotic.
Now whether or not the SMOT can be made into a perpetual motion machine remains to be shown, as everyone seems to only make them straight.
But I was thinking, if the magnets can raise the ball on an incline, why not make an incline, have the ball roll up, but have a hole in the incline, the ball will drop, but have another SMOT placed right underneath, each SMOT would be set in a curve, each time the ball would move maybe a few inches up, then drop down, then a few inches up then drop down, SMOT to SMOT to SMOT until it comes full circle, and that would be perpetual motion. (people then argue that might work, but it would drain the magnets power, which doesn't count, but I disagree, I think the whole point of perpetual motion is finding ways of tapping into alternate energy sources).
SMOT
Perpetual Motion? lol. That is how an electric motor works though, converting electo-magnetic energy into kinetic energy through the motion of attracting and repelling magnets.
Absence of heat is absence of friction, thus "perfect" energy transfer.
The last video isn't about Perpetual Motion, but it does make me wonder, you see at the threshold, the rules change, and energy depleting liquid nitrogen actually becomes fuel for the levitation. If absence of energy, is a source of energy, if a system could drain energy completely, and then use it, it would be Perpetual Motion. And again, no one cares where the new energy comes from.
If you want to look at it in the big picture, if no energy can be created or destroyed, no source of energy is really an "outside" source. Call it Universal Perpetual Motion and you've jumped the technicality bridge.
Perpetual Motion, in its name doesn't explicitly demand the same energy perpetually moves, it is simply a description of a reaction.
One would only need to create something that runs continuously, by its own actions, not continuously with a finite set of energy. And it isn't the continued functioning that is against the law of nature, it's the re-used or imagined energy that can't be harnessed.
Looking at the goal of Perpetual Motion, I realize the standard has been set way too high for practicality. And the true desire for Perpetual Motion is not about what energy is used, but rather if it is costly to people.
A realistic goal could be set in two lengths, and as far as technicalities are concerned would be "perpetual".
1. Create a machine that requires no more input to function once it is built, that will last a life time.
2. Create a machine that requires no more input to function once it is built, that will last for as long as its energy source exists.
Both of these goals were met hundreds of years ago. Clocks have been designed that run on temperature changes. Earth's temperature always changes, the clocks continue to run hundreds of years later.
Now some energy has to be put in them to maintain their accuracy (setting the correct time), but this isn't the source of the power for the clock, and perhaps, already proof of concept in themselves, if you simply look at the device, not as a clock, but as a machine that moves parts powered by temperature, it has worked continuously for hundreds of years.
When you up the desired results, before the technology exists, sure you might need human input. Now maybe someone needs to make one of these clocks, but make it so the clock is also able to correct its own time (like storing excess energy in a battery, use a memory chip and have it readjust when it needs to, or something like that).
In the meantime, no one gives a shit about inventing a machine that needs no new energy, we just want machines that don't need human energy.
Solar Power, wind power, water power are all renewable and will outlast 1,000 human generations. I'd say that is sufficient to call it "perpetual".
Of course everything breaks down too. But I'm sure there can be ways to solve this when you have the energy continuously backing you up. It's hard to believe there's no perpetual motion, when you think no life could exist on this planet if water itself wasn't in a perpetual state of motion. Water turns to gas, becomes liquid again (or solid) comes back to earth. Water's motion gives resource of perpetual motion to feed plants, which in turn feed animals (who also need water). If water couldn't cycle in this atmosphere, the nature of our bodies could not function.
Anyway. So I was looking at one supposed non-functional example of Perpetual Motion called a "SMOT" where the T is for "toy" meaning it is useless.
Basically you can make a ball roll up an incline if you align magnets on either side. It is argued that this only works because the magnets help "convert" the potential energy of the ball into kinetic energy.
But electro-magnetism is its own force. It is energy. Thinking you can't convert it to kinetic energy is downright idiotic.
Now whether or not the SMOT can be made into a perpetual motion machine remains to be shown, as everyone seems to only make them straight.
But I was thinking, if the magnets can raise the ball on an incline, why not make an incline, have the ball roll up, but have a hole in the incline, the ball will drop, but have another SMOT placed right underneath, each SMOT would be set in a curve, each time the ball would move maybe a few inches up, then drop down, then a few inches up then drop down, SMOT to SMOT to SMOT until it comes full circle, and that would be perpetual motion. (people then argue that might work, but it would drain the magnets power, which doesn't count, but I disagree, I think the whole point of perpetual motion is finding ways of tapping into alternate energy sources).
SMOT
Perpetual Motion? lol. That is how an electric motor works though, converting electo-magnetic energy into kinetic energy through the motion of attracting and repelling magnets.
Absence of heat is absence of friction, thus "perfect" energy transfer.
The last video isn't about Perpetual Motion, but it does make me wonder, you see at the threshold, the rules change, and energy depleting liquid nitrogen actually becomes fuel for the levitation. If absence of energy, is a source of energy, if a system could drain energy completely, and then use it, it would be Perpetual Motion. And again, no one cares where the new energy comes from.
If you want to look at it in the big picture, if no energy can be created or destroyed, no source of energy is really an "outside" source. Call it Universal Perpetual Motion and you've jumped the technicality bridge.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Good and bad for the Olympics so far
I live in California. The Olympics are being held in Vancouver, BC. Vancouver is about dead north from where I am. Time zones are longitudinal. If anyone should be able to see these Olympic games live, it should be us here in Pacific. But no. Ever since who knows when, the assholes in the TV industry have decided Pacific Standard Time will NEVER be live. You know they show all the games live in Japan? Yeah. Way to go America.
Really the only reason I wanted to post this was because I just saw a Japanese downhill skier and I realized they all get to have music playing when they go down. Her's was "Around the World" by Red Hot Chili Peppers. They do love their RCHP in Japan. Me too.
I'm going to tell you a little dream I had back then. I wanted to get my Colombian woman, dress her up in white trash clothing, and go to the Fuji Fest (which hasn't been held near Fuji since there was a big earthquake years ago.) only problems were the price (many hundreds per person) and the location (I was near Fuji, it was on the other end of Honshu).
Anyway.
I really like the music, don't like the not live.
Other stuff, it was awesome seeing those two Koreans wipe out at the last second in the speed skating putting Americans in 2nd and 3rd.
Really the only reason I wanted to post this was because I just saw a Japanese downhill skier and I realized they all get to have music playing when they go down. Her's was "Around the World" by Red Hot Chili Peppers. They do love their RCHP in Japan. Me too.
I'm going to tell you a little dream I had back then. I wanted to get my Colombian woman, dress her up in white trash clothing, and go to the Fuji Fest (which hasn't been held near Fuji since there was a big earthquake years ago.) only problems were the price (many hundreds per person) and the location (I was near Fuji, it was on the other end of Honshu).
Anyway.
I really like the music, don't like the not live.
Other stuff, it was awesome seeing those two Koreans wipe out at the last second in the speed skating putting Americans in 2nd and 3rd.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
I told you so
In one of my previous rants I mentioned people only engage me when they want something from me and nothing in return (but of course that part doesn't apply to vendors).
So this morning I was eating breakfast at school and a woman sits down in front of me, staring at me with those "I'm going to engage you because I want something for nothing" eyes.
Her: How much did you pay for that burrito?
Me: Uhh. I don't know. About 4 or 5 dollars?
Her: Why are you so hungry?
Me: This is my breakfast.
Her: Can I have some of your potatoes?
Me: No. Who are you?
Her: You're racist. You won't give me anything because I'm Filipino (she scowls at me).
Me: Are you serious?! Do you even go here?
Her: (mumbles something, looks at me nasty, gets up and walks away).
I saw her pacing by several more times after that and I planned on threatening her with police if she started anything. Not that I want to involve police in anything, but the campus doesn't have security, instead they have their own licensed police force. Then I started thinking, if any college can get its own legal police, and a private company like BART can have its own legal police. Can anyone make up a police force? Can I just sign some papers with the state and make myself a legal California police officer? (California has no "state" police, but any officer in California can lawfully arrest anyone in the state, including the Keystone Kops at my college).
I would make myself a police force. Then I could sidestep all the commie laws about bearing arms.
So this morning I was eating breakfast at school and a woman sits down in front of me, staring at me with those "I'm going to engage you because I want something for nothing" eyes.
Her: How much did you pay for that burrito?
Me: Uhh. I don't know. About 4 or 5 dollars?
Her: Why are you so hungry?
Me: This is my breakfast.
Her: Can I have some of your potatoes?
Me: No. Who are you?
Her: You're racist. You won't give me anything because I'm Filipino (she scowls at me).
Me: Are you serious?! Do you even go here?
Her: (mumbles something, looks at me nasty, gets up and walks away).
I saw her pacing by several more times after that and I planned on threatening her with police if she started anything. Not that I want to involve police in anything, but the campus doesn't have security, instead they have their own licensed police force. Then I started thinking, if any college can get its own legal police, and a private company like BART can have its own legal police. Can anyone make up a police force? Can I just sign some papers with the state and make myself a legal California police officer? (California has no "state" police, but any officer in California can lawfully arrest anyone in the state, including the Keystone Kops at my college).
I would make myself a police force. Then I could sidestep all the commie laws about bearing arms.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Lewis Carroll, mediocre writer, notorious pedophile
I read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass several years ago. Alice has been embedded in our culture through multitudinous repetitions and homages. What I realized reading the books, was that Lewis Carroll was a flagrant pedophile, and he wasn't that great of a writer.
I'll start with the bad writing first. You see, I've read references about the "deep" meanings of Alice's Adventures, and I've read about the complex math problems and philosophical dilemmas in the story.
Reading the books, I quickly realized they were very much "children's" stories. They were not deep. There was almost no character development. The story just shuffled from one scene to the next with no coherent progression and then it was over. I was very much let down. I realized a lot of the 'depth' and intrigue of Alice has actually been added on through the years. It isn't in the books.
Now, as for the seemingly serious accusation. Certainly pedophillia is serious, but it isn't much for an accusation, as I was to find out.
I first got suspicious while reading the book. It just seemed to focus on Alice the wrong way. But that wouldn't have raised any flags, had I not read the introduction. I don't ever read intros before I read books, because I've found intros try to lead a reader in a certain direction, and it's always written by someone who's already read the book (or wrote it) and assume you have too. So I read the intro after the 10 minutes it took me to read the book and I'll be damned if it didn't reveal his true nature. Alice was a real girl. Carroll actually wrote the books based on stories he would tell Alice. Although he was a priest, and a "family" friend, eventually he just started taking Alice out alone on trips. The intro mentions some unknown event caused the Liddell family (Alice Liddell's family) to forbid Carroll from ever seeing Alice again.
Now why does a parent need to ban a priest from taking their preteen daughter on trips? I don't know, can't think of any reason... except that he was molesting her.
Just reading his own books, and the intros to his books I was certain Carroll was a pedo. But then a couple years later I looked further into the matter. And this is some fucked up shit.
Carroll was a photographer. And he took lots of photos of naked preteen girls. Don't believe me? Google search it. They're online. Don't worry, if society decides child porn is "art" it's perfectly legal. Or don't search it and believe the hell out of me.
What's interesting is that I'm not the first person to realize this about Carrol. In fact books have been written about this issue. Even Wikipedia mentions the controversy, but somehow manages to dismiss it with "NPOV" (their magic word that allow Wikipedia articles to be completely biased as long as they do it in a certain way).
Anyway enjoy the latest movie version of a story created to woo a little girl into sex.
I'll start with the bad writing first. You see, I've read references about the "deep" meanings of Alice's Adventures, and I've read about the complex math problems and philosophical dilemmas in the story.
Reading the books, I quickly realized they were very much "children's" stories. They were not deep. There was almost no character development. The story just shuffled from one scene to the next with no coherent progression and then it was over. I was very much let down. I realized a lot of the 'depth' and intrigue of Alice has actually been added on through the years. It isn't in the books.
Now, as for the seemingly serious accusation. Certainly pedophillia is serious, but it isn't much for an accusation, as I was to find out.
I first got suspicious while reading the book. It just seemed to focus on Alice the wrong way. But that wouldn't have raised any flags, had I not read the introduction. I don't ever read intros before I read books, because I've found intros try to lead a reader in a certain direction, and it's always written by someone who's already read the book (or wrote it) and assume you have too. So I read the intro after the 10 minutes it took me to read the book and I'll be damned if it didn't reveal his true nature. Alice was a real girl. Carroll actually wrote the books based on stories he would tell Alice. Although he was a priest, and a "family" friend, eventually he just started taking Alice out alone on trips. The intro mentions some unknown event caused the Liddell family (Alice Liddell's family) to forbid Carroll from ever seeing Alice again.
Now why does a parent need to ban a priest from taking their preteen daughter on trips? I don't know, can't think of any reason... except that he was molesting her.
Just reading his own books, and the intros to his books I was certain Carroll was a pedo. But then a couple years later I looked further into the matter. And this is some fucked up shit.
Carroll was a photographer. And he took lots of photos of naked preteen girls. Don't believe me? Google search it. They're online. Don't worry, if society decides child porn is "art" it's perfectly legal. Or don't search it and believe the hell out of me.
What's interesting is that I'm not the first person to realize this about Carrol. In fact books have been written about this issue. Even Wikipedia mentions the controversy, but somehow manages to dismiss it with "NPOV" (their magic word that allow Wikipedia articles to be completely biased as long as they do it in a certain way).
Anyway enjoy the latest movie version of a story created to woo a little girl into sex.
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Songs that tell you to do stupid shit
I figure it's the epitome of collectivism, this ideal of producing a song, that is intended to not be enjoyed, but to get a bunch of people to make idiotic motions together.
A lot of them simply start with "Do the" followed by the dumbshit name they gave their dumb shit commands.
Here are some great examples, old and new.
The Hustle by Van McCoy
This one is simply called "The hustle" but makes sure to say absolutely nothing but "Do it" and "Do the hustle" for 4 godforsaken minutes. At least I assume the lyrics never change, as I am physically unable to listen past 2 minutes. And the idea of looking up the lyrics seems downright insane. You know what, fuck it, here's the lyrics to "The Hustle"
Do It
Do It
Do The Hustle
DO THE HUSTLE
Do The Hustle
Do The Hustle
Do The Hustle
Do The Hustle
Do It
Do It
DO THE HUSTLE
Do The Hustle
DO THE HUSTLE
Do The Hustle
Do the Ricky Bobby by B-Hamp
This song seems to be a 4 minutes of samples. But the songs it is sampling, were samples of covers, so most of the music just sounds like electronic failure.
Interestingly, from what I gather, the "Ricky Bobby" seems to be just making a pose, as opposed to doing any dance, so this is probably the least demanding of the social command songs.
Do Da Stanky Legg by G-Spot
ROFL
Humpty Dance by Digital Underground
I listened to a lot of hip hop in the late 80s early 90s, but it was mostly stuff like Run DMC, Beastie Boys, followed by Coolio and Snoop Doggy Dog, then eventually down the terrible path of gangsta rap towards Biggie, Tupac, Warren G, Nate Dogg. Shit I remember memorizing songs like "Regulate" "Keep their heads ringing" "Murder was the case" as a young tween. This particular artist eluded until the 21st century, although I do remember the line "The humpty dance is your chance to do the hump" from Weird Al's "Off the Deep End" album. Weird Al really introduced me to a lot of different music. I completely missed the "grunge" era until about '94 when I started actually realizing other people liked music too, and I got a flood of Nirvana, Aerosmith, B-52s, Cranberries, REM, from people like my mom, dad, and friends.
Anyway. Nostalgiagasm over.
Do the Bartman by Michael Jackson
Never heard of this song until 5 minutes ago. And I've always loved the Simpsons. Apparently this song was ridiculously popular when it came out. It was mostly written and produced by Michael Jackson, who was a huge fan of the show, but he couldn't take any credit because the song went on a different label.
Walk it out by Unk
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is shitty command music at its most shitty and commanding.
Lean like a Cholo by Kilo
This homemade video has 800,000 views. Jesus Christ. This song came out when I lived in San Diego, it has a special place in my heart, mostly because I've always liked calling people "Homes" "cholo" and "vato".
The Twist by Chubby Checker
It really took radio and records to change the music world, to make the music "industry". Certainly there were folk songs, world famous musicians, and composers, but it wasn't until you could print music and play it in perpetuity, that shitty pop music really took hold of this planet. It wasted no time, and amazingly even with so much modern technology, much of it still boils down to its origins. Pop music is the heartbeat of the unthinking unquestioning masses. That so many songs simply expect people (usually millions of them) to make bad motions with their body in celebration of communal activity blows my mind.
I'm not against dancing. I'm very much for dancing, but I think if you're going to dance by yourself, you should follow your own moves, and if your going to dance with other people, it shouldn't be to the commands of the macarena, or Beck's waltzing, or whatever the shit the Monster Mash actually expected of us. If people want to dance with each other, it shouldn't veil that communal dancing in invariably about sex, and with that, I wholly support two people getting really close and holding each other, and seeing if they can literally move together, as so often metaphors and reality link, and if you can't keep in step with your partner, you might need to find a new partner, and there's no better place to do that than on a dance floor.
A lot of them simply start with "Do the" followed by the dumbshit name they gave their dumb shit commands.
Here are some great examples, old and new.
The Hustle by Van McCoy
This one is simply called "The hustle" but makes sure to say absolutely nothing but "Do it" and "Do the hustle" for 4 godforsaken minutes. At least I assume the lyrics never change, as I am physically unable to listen past 2 minutes. And the idea of looking up the lyrics seems downright insane. You know what, fuck it, here's the lyrics to "The Hustle"
Do It
Do It
Do The Hustle
DO THE HUSTLE
Do The Hustle
Do The Hustle
Do The Hustle
Do The Hustle
Do It
Do It
DO THE HUSTLE
Do The Hustle
DO THE HUSTLE
Do The Hustle
Do the Ricky Bobby by B-Hamp
This song seems to be a 4 minutes of samples. But the songs it is sampling, were samples of covers, so most of the music just sounds like electronic failure.
Interestingly, from what I gather, the "Ricky Bobby" seems to be just making a pose, as opposed to doing any dance, so this is probably the least demanding of the social command songs.
Do Da Stanky Legg by G-Spot
ROFL
Humpty Dance by Digital Underground
I listened to a lot of hip hop in the late 80s early 90s, but it was mostly stuff like Run DMC, Beastie Boys, followed by Coolio and Snoop Doggy Dog, then eventually down the terrible path of gangsta rap towards Biggie, Tupac, Warren G, Nate Dogg. Shit I remember memorizing songs like "Regulate" "Keep their heads ringing" "Murder was the case" as a young tween. This particular artist eluded until the 21st century, although I do remember the line "The humpty dance is your chance to do the hump" from Weird Al's "Off the Deep End" album. Weird Al really introduced me to a lot of different music. I completely missed the "grunge" era until about '94 when I started actually realizing other people liked music too, and I got a flood of Nirvana, Aerosmith, B-52s, Cranberries, REM, from people like my mom, dad, and friends.
Anyway. Nostalgiagasm over.
Do the Bartman by Michael Jackson
Never heard of this song until 5 minutes ago. And I've always loved the Simpsons. Apparently this song was ridiculously popular when it came out. It was mostly written and produced by Michael Jackson, who was a huge fan of the show, but he couldn't take any credit because the song went on a different label.
Walk it out by Unk
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is shitty command music at its most shitty and commanding.
Lean like a Cholo by Kilo
This homemade video has 800,000 views. Jesus Christ. This song came out when I lived in San Diego, it has a special place in my heart, mostly because I've always liked calling people "Homes" "cholo" and "vato".
The Twist by Chubby Checker
It really took radio and records to change the music world, to make the music "industry". Certainly there were folk songs, world famous musicians, and composers, but it wasn't until you could print music and play it in perpetuity, that shitty pop music really took hold of this planet. It wasted no time, and amazingly even with so much modern technology, much of it still boils down to its origins. Pop music is the heartbeat of the unthinking unquestioning masses. That so many songs simply expect people (usually millions of them) to make bad motions with their body in celebration of communal activity blows my mind.
I'm not against dancing. I'm very much for dancing, but I think if you're going to dance by yourself, you should follow your own moves, and if your going to dance with other people, it shouldn't be to the commands of the macarena, or Beck's waltzing, or whatever the shit the Monster Mash actually expected of us. If people want to dance with each other, it shouldn't veil that communal dancing in invariably about sex, and with that, I wholly support two people getting really close and holding each other, and seeing if they can literally move together, as so often metaphors and reality link, and if you can't keep in step with your partner, you might need to find a new partner, and there's no better place to do that than on a dance floor.
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