Archive for May, 2006

A link worth a snicker at least

Tuesday, May 30th, 2006

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipediholic

Okay..

Tuesday, May 30th, 2006

So I’m having another frustrated with the universe day. I can’t sleep. My mind seems to be in a argument with God. (Not something I can win.)

(There’s this quote from Spider Robinson – ‘Everyone deserves to die.. God obviously thinks so.’

Well, the problem is I *don’t* think so. Hence my argument. Or one of them.

I’m also not really clear on why we should all be slaves to the bank while a few people get incredibly rich and can’t spend the money they get anyway.

New set of rules:

Basic housing is free
Basic food is free
Basic communications (voice grade) is free to anywhere in the world
All wealth counters reset every five years.

Ah, if only I were in charge. Actually, given the chaos I would probably cause in my attempts to make everyone happy, it is probably just as well that I’m not.

<grins>

Monday, May 29th, 2006

Not a single one of you wants to download the music of Mischief Committee? You must already have bought the album…

Okay, just kidding…

Addicted to oil..

Sunday, May 28th, 2006

So, Bush said we were ‘addicted to oil’.

Yeah, but we’re also addicted to water. Another precious fluid that comes from underneith the earth, although it doesn’t have nearly as much energy in it. Um, unless you’re really into conspiricy theories.

Granted, it’s easier to make water than oil, but they’re both precious commodities, and the guys over in the desert might feel like they deserve more water.

Of course, the ironic thing is that Bush’s hydrogen economy, when coupled with GPSes, solar cells, and excessive creativity, might just make it rain in the desert.

*shrug* Just waiting for this sleeping pill I just took to take hold. The latest beastie we’re trying me on is Trazadone. How many drugs do you suppose I’ll try before I find one that can actually put me to sleep reliably. Well, there’s always NyQuil when all else fails. But that can not possibly be good for me.. I get about eight doses out of a bottle right now, which isn’t that far from the suggested dose, but, dude, NyQuil is not supposed to be a sleeping medication.

*sigh*

Sunday, May 28th, 2006

One of the things which is the suck is that half the time, I disagree with things I say 15 minutes after saying them. To say that this makes winning arguments difficult is a understatement.

So, basically, that whole I *AM* a religion thing? Probably not true, although I came up with a interesting set of justifications for it anyway:

A religion is a collection of core beliefs and stories, usually which illustrate those beliefs, which various people believe in.

My life is a collection of core beliefs and stories, usually which illustrate those beliefs, which various people believe in.

I will accept that my logic is faulty and that that was a *GROSS* oversimplication of what a religion is.

We hold these truths to be self-evident

Sunday, May 28th, 2006

If there’s a uniform, we don’t wear it.
If there’s a law we don’t agree with, we break it.
If there’s a person hurting we can help, we help them.
If there’s something entertaining to do, we do it.
If there’s a limit, something that is completely impossible, we do it.
I will never believe that a loving God would torture any Soul willingly. (Unless the Soul wanted it.)

I may never find a religion to call my own. That’s okay, because I *AM* a religion.
I may never find a nation that can contain me, or a government that I can always agree with.
I swear I have no nation, but I am proud to own my heart.[1]

And, to quote from one of my previous entries, because I think it requires emphasis:

I want to think that all entities, no matter how complex or simple, no matter how rich or poor in energy, matter, or information, are in some sense equal and all are worthy of love and respect and, whenever possible, help in finding what they seek

These concepts are so old that they are immortal, and resonate within the very core of the universe:

It is better to build up than to tear down
Better to bring peace than war
Better to love than to hate
Better to include than to exclude
Better to create than to destroy

May God bless the humans as *e blesses all living entities. Oh, and I have this laundry list of things, features that would be really nice to add or remove. But then, doesn’t everyone. 😉 I am pretty impressed with the stock model of the universe, though. Pretty amazing work, really. *Shrug* Not that said diety needs my opinion. But, you know, everyone has to go on record at least once. Probably at various other points in my life I will think really dark things in the direction of the Power That Be – like, say, when my organs are failing and I’m in incredible pain. For that matter I don’t really like the whole Death thing that much – Kind of a Log In/Log Out/Multiple Universe/Really Good Interface For Travel system would be more to my liking.

I will always believe in my soul that I am a hacker, and that this is a Good Thing. Even though there’s probably a billion people who can write code better than me (if you look, for example, over the life span of the universe). (Actually, that’s probably a very low estimate. Let’s say there’s a infinate set who can write code better than me, and a infinate set who can write music better than me.)

[1] – Marillion, White Feather

*shrug*. I sleep now. Sorry about all the lofty idealism, everybody.

Another moment in my life in retrospect.

Sunday, May 28th, 2006

On May 2 of 2004, I joined/created/was part of the creation of a band called Mischief Committee. We’re working on a few last tracks before we all go our seperate ways, and we’ve had many people jam with us and (somewhat memorably) had a member leave for San Francisco already. But, at one point, we wrote a CD and had a CD release party with all of our friends and some of their friends and as far as I know some of the homeless population of Seattle there..

And somehow I never got around to ripping the CD and putting it up on the internet.

So now I have. Enjoy this particular bit of the number line, if you’re inclined, it’s at

http://www.mischiefcommittee.org/mc_album1/

Yes, it’s there in it’s entirety. I can’t claim to own this bit of the number line exactly, but then, I never really own anything. Everything I have I’m just using while I’m alive and hopefully when I’m dead someone else will come along and use it. I think of it as on loan from the Family. Those of you who know about the Family of dancing friends, or the Rainbow family, or any bloody Family you want to attribute it to, please make sure it all gets put to good use, when and if. I’m hoping I’m not going to die anytime soon – or that if I do, I go somewhere really interesting with lots of sex and friendly people and as little violence as possible. But I digress..

Anyway, so, I don’t own these tracks, but I am renting them on planet Earth for the time being. Well, me and Alex and Tory. It had a lot of fun moments, guys, and I’m sure glad we did it.

(p.s. Someday I’m going to set up all those lights and lasers and speakers and whatnot and have a free 80’s-themed party. It should be interesting seeing who we can get to show up.)

PLUR / WHDD

Sunday, May 28th, 2006

Once, a while ago, I made a comment on a mailing list about PLUR (which I think of as being the credo of the electronic dance community, although I know there are many who would tell me I’m wrong). I observed that the opposite of PLUR must be WHDD – War, Hate, Diversity, Destruction.

Just one problem – I *like* diversity. But yet unity sounds appealing as well. Which just goes to show the folly of having any credo at all, I suppose. I can’t even come up with unity within myself half the time – I’ve noticed that when I talk to myself, I tend to be more than one person.

Recently, I hit upon a interesting thought. What if I’m a cell inside my own body? Normally we think of the brain as being a whole bunch of cells built into a neural network, and I’m personally very foggy about what happens afterwords to give us free will, but it must be really interesting. If you’re ever bored, try to make a computer generate *truly* random numbers. It’ll keep you busy for a while. The cryptographers can probably write several very long books on the subject.

But really – how can I prove my experience on Earth isn’t, in fact, a experience of being within my own body, and all the other people I interact with – who produce such tasty food – aren’t in fact cells in my body.. and of course, I’m not better or more important than any of these other cells. I mean, we all are part of one unity..

At the very least, I am a team – all of my cells form one entity, which is me. Some of them might in fact be parts of other entities at the same time – as I’ve often demonstrated, I really have no idea what’s actually going on – but, they definately do form this person who walks around on Earth and does things – some of which appear to me to be improbable to come up with just by playing with a random number generator.

More in a friends-only post.

Life as we don’t know it..

Friday, May 26th, 2006

Me and K. were having a discussion the other day about life – as in, what ‘life’ is – I was commenting that there might very well be intelligent life on other planets, and that it was possible that not all life lived at the same clock speed i.e. a breath for a being made out of, say, uranium might take several thousand years.

Actually, I was theorizing tempurature had a lot to do with the speed of a life cycle.

Anyway, I checked the wikipedia, source of most knowledge, and it said this. So I’ve concluded that none of this rules out, for example, silicon based life that takes several hundred years to move.

Which goes to prove nothing. I’d like to think it demonstrates my out of the box thinking, but the truth of the matter is I suspect everyone thinks about things like this and I’m the only one who’s enough of a wanker to write journal entries about them.

woah..

Friday, May 26th, 2006

I was looking at my webstats the other day.. and one particular track I wrote, Love & Hate, got over a hundred downloads. In one month.

Wow.

I may have to write some more songs.

I’m almost afraid as to what reception my mother’s birthday present is going to generate.

I really need to redo Mischief Committee’s web site and put up the tracks from the album.

Put it on the list of five million things that I really need to do.

Seems like nothing gets done around here any more..

For those of you keeping track, yes, I’m still alive. Although sometimes it seems like just barely.