Why does milk go sour? The pasteurization that they
do on it is not complete, so there are still live
germs in it. It is possible to fully pasteurize it,
and they do it in Europe. There, you can buy milk
in boxes on the shelf not refrigerated, and it lasts
a long time. . But that significantly changes
the taste.
Wow. Sometimes you come across something and you just
have to pause and put it in your blog. I'm listening
to Dr. McWhorter talk about language again. And he
said we have a word processing problem. It has become
too easy to write things. Books have gotten longer
and longer. And he mentions that Clinton's autobiography
just came out, and it's four hundred thousand pages
long. Yay!
Kiss a wookie,
kick a 'droid.
Fly the Falcon through an asteroid.
A very unimportant person.
So, it looks like they cured someone of AIDS.
That's just trippy. It is not really a practical solution,
but it's hopeful. And they weren't trying to cure
the AIDS, it was just incidental to the other treatment.
It was a person with leukemia, and they gave them a
bone marrow transplant. But they went specifically
to a donor that had the known genetic immunity to
AIDS. The bone marrow is involved with making the
blood cells affected by the disease, and afterwards,
the person stopped aids medication and hasn't had the
disease any more, for some fairly long period of time.
It's not really practical as a cure. A bone marrow transplant?
that can kill you on it's own. The genetic immunity
is very rare, maybe 1% of Europeans, but that's still a lot
of people, though a lot less than the number of people
with AIDS in the world. And I think you still have
to match up the donors. But possibly they can look
at cultivating huge amounts of the cell cultures,
and maybe they can do more fancy gene therapies
along these lines. And maybe it's not a fluke
and wouldn't always work. But it's darn hopeful and
promising.
So Obama won. That's a relief.
Don't forget about lymph. It requires moving around
to work.
I finally brought Melissa her Starbucks, a venti non-fat
vanilla latte. And she gave me a hug right then. So
I got two--one on first seeing her, and one on leaving.
But that's so subservient, that maybe that's what it
was. I kind of feel a little different now. Add that
to how she was talking about Ashley, who had been
dating two guys, that one relationship was hard enough.
So discouragement. She had a particularly radiant smile
this time. Not for me, so much. And maybe I just have
other droopinesses going on with me. Seems like there
was something else. I often send a little thank you
text right after. Didn't get a reply this time, though
she's been having phone issues, so you never know with
that. So, she dvdr records some vampire showm,
and was talking about it with some guy, Tom, a screenwriter
who has redwine with the steak and tomatoes.
I talked about how I had a dvdr, but it won't keep the
program. She told me to take it back. I'm not
good about that. I'm not sure if I've ever taken
anything back. So maybe that made me feel bad.
Quote from Trey Parker--"You know, when people ask if I believe
in God and Jesus, I say yes, and I believe in
Luke Skywalker and I believe in Santa Claus."
This was in the commentary about the imaginationland
trilogy, which is about the power of story.
Happy Halloween!
I have a bit of a cold. I didn't go to the book discussion
at Aimee's last night. They were talking about
_Frankenstein_. And so I didn't get to go see Melissa
afterward. Sadness.
So, googling bardog, I found the blog of a regular who
goes there, Paul.
A pretty serious blog. I think he does websites, too.
Wow, so it's 9:15. I've had one kid come by. One.
None of the neighbors has their' lights on, so
I can see us getting passed by. It was a cute little
girl, maybe seven. She had a car at the curb and her mom
was out with her. Winged something with pink. Maybe
a faerie princess or something. I don't know. I don't
know little girl stuff. But it was nice. Somebody's little
angel.
I think boys like the idea of extorting people. Threats
of violence. It's such a visceral guys thing. But thats
not a girls perspective at all. I think they like gifts
of food. I've written elsewhere that little gifts of
food are part of a basic courtship ritual that also hits at
an amazingly primal level. I'm thinking of a theory
or story I heard about one time how it was part of
a basic courtship system that was involved with women no
longer having a distinct time of being in heat, and being
always receptive. So they got, um, fed more often.
And probably more than anything else, a guy demonstrated
his ability to provide.
Wants are infinite. That's in the sense of want
meaning not to have. There are an infinite, that is
unending, number of things you don't have. But of
course, part of the idea of wanting is to desire.
You don't desire everything that you don't have.
But when you get stuff, just having it isn't
enough to keep you happy. Happiness is funny that
way. You can get used to anything. It is more
the change in things that makes you happy. So
you have to keep getting stuff. And if you keep
getting the same stuff, then you get used to
that. So maybe you have to get more stuff, or
maybe different stuff. Maybe better stuff.
Just trying to keep happiness going is a
tricky thing. Well, OK, you have a certain
level of happiness that you kind of stay at.
But if you want to be a little bit happier,
that's the kind of thing that takes that extra work
and is hard to maintain. I suppose that some people
who work so hard, don't have so much of the other
things going for them to make them happy. The consumerism
in Amreica, and some of the puritanism of the culture
does serve to keep down a bit of the happiness,
so people work to get and make the more stuff.
Somehow, relationships are good for
helping you to be happy. And the don't have
quite the same issues with just getting tired
of getting more of the same stuff has. I suppose
in relationships, the kinds of things you get,
stroking of various kinds, is often kind of new
stuff.
Kind of powered through to the end of _Happiness Hypothesis_.
There was only 50 pages left but it was getting kind of
slow going. I guess I have other things going on.
In the last chapter, he considers the question "What is the meaning of life?"
Kind of an interesting analysis, too. He was a philosophy
major, then went into psychology in grad school, because
philosophy in general had lost the human element and
was all into logic and word analysis. And for psychology
it was pretty darn philosophical-- moral psychology,
if you can imagine such a thing. Anyway, the meaning
of life. He first tries to understand what the question
is trying to ask, and comes up basically with "Tell me
something to help enlighten me about life." OK, fine.
He also distinguishes two subquestions. What is the
meaning of a whole life in general, and how can
I find a meaning in my life. It's interesting to
divide the question like that because religions generally
can say that God did everything for a reason, so god
had a reason for creating life in general, and your
life in particular. But you got to understand that
Haidt is an atheist. And evolution and science basically
say that there really wasn't a reason or purpose for
life to happen. It just happened because of various
material causes, not really for a reason. So, honestly,
some religious people do have real concern over evolution
because it does really challenge their understand of life.
But Haidt manages to find a kind of atheist out in his
second part of the question. It is still possible
to find meaning within your life. This is the basis
of existentialism, though he doesn't talk about that.
But he does go and talk about work, and how you
can have work that kind of gives you meaning. I'm
not sure I quite get it all, but a lot of it was
about how being part of a group can be meaningful.
So went to the big party at Dan McGuinness. It was
Brad's (of Super 5) 38th birthday, and also Julian's
(of Transitt) 25th. I got to sleep at about 8 before
that for a party nap. I forget what all I was doing.
I had gone to see Religulous. Thought it was boring
basically, and not very funny, but wasn't really so
bad that I wish I hadn't seen it (which does happen).
Seems like I was posting to email lists. Anyway, so
waking up at around 10:30, I'm thinking maybe I won't
go. I couldn't think of anyone there that I might
want to see. But then I remembered Kimberly. I really
want to dance with her some time. She's so vibrant.
But she never has anyone to dance with, though she
does and really likes to.
I didn't of course, but of all things, Chris did.
I think I've heard him specifically say he doesn't
dance. And I said it was sweet of him to, and he
said something about doing it to get laid. I don't
know. I saw him hanging out with some dark haired
girl for quite a while. I don't know what happened
to her. And last I had heard he was with a little
blonde, Ashley. I didn't ask about her. And kind of in
the middle, he was hanging out around the bar, and he pointed
ouot this little red-head he called "really hot". It
took me a bit before I even got a look at her,
and I saw what he meant. And it was like, she was
standing there with three guys hovering around her.
Kind of pale, short red hair. Young, I guess.
Dressed up quite a bit for the place in something
of a professional looking blue dress. I don't
know. At the end of the night she was sitting at
the bar with just the one guy. Something about
her voice kind of turned me off, but she was quite cute.
Anyway, Kimmie. I don't know what she likes to
be called. I think I asked her one time how she
was doing, and I think she said she was pissed.
Like drunk. For some reason, she decided to bet
Brad she could drink more Jaegers, or go one to one,
or something. Ended up three behind. But Brad
was quite heavily into it, and Kimberly was pretty
close to being sick. She does seem to have a
crush on Brad. I tried to find her myspace page.
It seems like I remember one that must have been
hers under "kimba" but the references I thought
were there are gone. I don't know if you can remake
yourself like that there, or what. Maybe it's
just renamed, or I don't remember correctly.
Could have been someone else. But anyway,
I think her buddy, kind of a big girl whose name I
didn't get, took her home. So it didn't look good
for Chris. Oh well. His best hook is his guitar
playing, and he didn't do so much of that after
I got there. Kind of a big acoustic jam. They seem
to have fun with those. Perusing the myspace,
I see that Brad wants to be a screenwriter. Seems
like I got called a writer by mistake one time.
So, yes, a journal can be a person's notes as he tries
to understand something. A blog, though, unfortunately,
is generally something more occasional. You have something
you want to write about. I say "journal" because that really
kind of implies daily, and a little bit more disciplined.
A blog is generally extermely casual, and there isn't
even necessarily anybody who reads it. It's public
in a weird sense of the internet, but just for the person.
I don't know. These days blogs also usually imply the
big blog engines that also have comments and communities and
things, which personally, I don't do. I think that's because
generally a blogger is generally a more sociable person than I.
But that's fine.
So, I'm proposing that there is a lot that is mental that is
not intelligent. That suggests to me now that there might
be a science of intelligence. I say that because I am
watching this thing on linguistics, and I get interesting
glimpses of how it is really a science, and not just a
kind of general study. It's a science because there are
attempts to have theories that can be proved wrong, and
some are proved wrong. Now, the context for me, of course,
is this AGI stuff, where there are just lots of ideas
about how to go about things, and there aren't so many
ways of just showing that things are wrong. The particular
thing I have in mind is the one guy who is proposing
mathematics as an AI complete domain, and insists that
language is not because language is just a communication
protocol. Seeing the intricacies of linguistics,
that just seems to me crazy talk. But if you want
to have a science of intelligence, it needs to be solidly
distinguished from general psychology and from computer
science.
Two things. Theres a theory that depression is adaptive for losers in a social
dominance hierarchy. And the ed past tense suffix was a grammaticalization of the
word did. Shorter like gonna.
The style of the previous item is curt because I thought of them
when my computer was already off, but to get them down,
I typed them on my small phone keyboard. I need to
at least keep my bluetooth keyboard handy so I can
type spontaneously like that. I key it in my car in case
I feel like writing in a starbucks or borders or sitting with
Melissa or something.
I just looked over an intriguing document. It had left it last
night to look at later and I picked it up this morning.
It was a document describing contributions to M.U.S.
organized in various ways. Generally I don't even
look at it, but this year, I had donated something (finally)
so I looked over it. They arrange donors in categories
based on how much was given, so you can tell within
some fraction how much they donated, and the significant
of course whether they donated at all. Plus for some
you can see what they are doing. A doctor in my class,
Owen Tabor gave some amount more than $5000. It seems
like I talked to him somewhat recently. I've been thinking
I need to go to one of the things, and maybe I'll talk to him.
And there was always the possibility of giving a chapel
speech. I need to come up with some outlines or something
and submit a proposal. Since I'm pretending to be
a philosophical blogger, it seems like I should be able
to come up with something. I've given an AI talk a couple
of times, so that might be a little more natural for me,
but I would want to inject a bit of found wisdom,
maybe something about understanding people. I remember
Cliff came back the year after he graduated and talked.
I wonder if he has an outline or something.
Dang,
Buffet is buying stocks. Of course, he had been full
in bonds when I was in stocks, so it's a little late for
me. But recently I've tried to buy more, though it
was still fairly high. And unfortunately,
this paycheck is going to have to go to expenses.
And I already lost a bunch. But at least I can keep
buying when I get money in with some confidence.
Ah, that was different using the big sword in the form.
It was really heavy, and I did have trouble just holding
it up after a bit, especially the second time. But
I got a much better sense of the use of internal
power that it cultivates. The little wooden one
moves too fast to interact with body balance, but
with the heavy one, the moves and turns really make
sense. And hopefully my arm will get stronger.
Having language as the main part of intelligence
and intelligence just being a guide for the
rest of or unintelligent selves, can mean that
some of the rider of the elephant in a sense can
be completely external. We can let other people
be in control. and an agi can do that as well.
d player. American quality. Hit it and it works.
I know no one likes me, why do we have to have a holiday season to emphasize it?
I got the bagua broadsword. It's big. standing on the
ground, it comes up to my shoulder. You really do
get the feeling that it is, like they say about some
of moves in the form, for killing horses.
OK, so I'm not planning to go see Melissa on Friday night
(tomorrow). My reasoning is sure, there was a bit of
feeling unwelcome, but there is a birthday party for
Brad of Super 4 on Saturday night, and I don't want to
go out late every night. I'll go Sunday. But if Melissa
sends me a text, I'll probably go. I feel just somewhat
inclined to not go. I might go see a movie. Or
maybe the Mensa meeting, which is at Swanky's, a pretty
good Mexican place. Come in early. I've got lots of
reading I want to do. Sure.
Can we do this naked? That's a nice thing to be asked.
Guys like looks. Girls like talking.
Happy Ides of October!
Talk about writing to find meaning. So I have dreams that
wake me up, and I can't get back to sleep. And not so much
for being scared as for having something to think about.
When I saw Melissa on Sunday, I decided to try something
new. Haidt suggested that touching for little children is
something they need to feel secure. He talked about
the experiment with the moneys with the cloth fake surrogate
mother who would go cling to it even if it was fed by a tube
coming off a wire surrogate mother. So, contrary to
what psychology had thought, it is _not_ attachment to
the breast. And he said that it was unconditional love between the two.
Anyway, so I decided to pet Melissa a little more, just kind of
patting her shoulder and back. Didn't even touch skin, just
on her shirt, and in retrospect, I should have had just a bit
of skin contact, which makes a big difference. And I don't remember
her bristling, exactly, but she didn't really seem to like it,
or come to get more. She has pets, so she knows how they will
come up to you if they want petting, but are sometimes finicky
or particular. So at this point, I don't know what she feels
about my doing that. But anyway, the dream. I forget what
all was happening up to that point, but for some reason,
I reached down and gave the ass of her jeans a squeeze, and
she just gave me this hard, deeply disapproving look,
like "what do you think your doing? I don't think of you
that way" I guess it's just something that I'm afraid but
expect would happen. But right now, I'm trying to find meaning.
Well, this kind of thing has to be natural and developed,
and not a surprise. And I don't know have my touching played
out for Melissa. It might have been a little unexpected.
And I think it was more from her kind of non-reaction that
I had the overall feeling of being unwelcome, at least in
addition to the thing with Dmitry. And I was doing this
when I went to stand next to him. Maybe a little bit of
it also, was that I was trying to get comforted by Melissa,
like the baby monkey. Hmm. For Haidt, this discussion was
in the context of trying to explain relationships, and
he was talking about how even adult relationships are built
on this sort of basic attachment mechanism between infant to adult.
And there are actually two separate pieces, the attachment
and going to parent that the baby does, and the caregiving
that the parent feels and does. In all this, there is thrown
the whole mating thing, which is a compeletely separate
bit of functionality, but it uses some similar chemistry.
I forget all. I don't know for sure how all the different
pieces are working in me in this situation.
I've been wanting to write a port to the AGI list, about
how not everything that the brain does is intelligence.
Using the analogy Haidt uses of the rider and the elephant.
It's important to AGI as maybe some things they have to
develop are part of the elephant, but they want to use
intelligent methods for them. One intriguing bit is that
the elephant does learn, but it's learning about what is
good and bad to do in a situation or what things attract
and repel it. But I haven't been able to sit down and write
it. So I'm at least trying here to get down the idea, before I forget,
and maybe I can think about it some more and say something
better thought through.
So, my portfolio went down 33%. I just realize the harsh bit, that
to get backto where it was, it has to go up 50%. So, I've
heard that psychologically, bad things are like 5 times more
powerful than good things. There's that, and it's a reason
not to pay attention to the short term ups and downs. But
just mathematically, looking at percent change, the way up is
a much longer road than the way down.
I think we could probably do OK with Johny McCain.
My Dad is a supporter, though my mom is voting for
Obama. She was for Hillary, but they didn't quite
turn her off. I think my Dad must have felt bad
enough when they supported her that he was already ready
to look elsewhere. Anyway, Johny just seems at least
better than little Bush. Little Bush was always pretty
clearly a criminal liar and sociopath. It seems like
he got support because there just are people who think lies
are a good thing. Religious people especially can
be like that, but just emotional people in general
really think that making people feel good is just a
better thing than really sticking to any real facts.
Of course, that just personally makes me freaking
pissed, but it's the way it is.
So, now that the lectures are getting into
historical linguistics, I'm seeing that my
personally interest in languages really is
about historical linguistics. I kind of what
to study Latin, Greek, Proto-IndoEuropean,
Sanskrit, and then the Later Romance languages
(like French Spanish and Italian), and
maybe German just to get a historical perspective.
And not so much actually really learning languages enough
to properly use them. Because, really,
who do I need to talk to? And I put this in
contrast to Holly, who actually does speak
Italian and French, and bits of other things.
Her German is better than mine, though I
think to her she barely has any, but that's
only because she really knows what it's like
to really know another language, and mines
only a tiny, wimpy smattering. But something
John McWhorter said. There was an old linguist in the 1700s,
Rask or something, who the story goes spoke
25 languages. John said he really doubts that.
It depends on what you mean by speak. Because
with language it's a matter of use it or lose it.
So the question for me, if I want to seriously
learn one after all, is what language do I
really want to use? I have these two little
ones that I pretend I want to learn, Latin and
Greek. And that would be about reading.
Actually, I asked a German professor about studying,
and he suggested I take the summer class on reading
German, because with reading, you have only one
(I think he said) skill instead of several
to learn. And now my understanding those is
better. For speaking, you have to be able
to come up with the sounds, come up with the
morphemes, and put the morphemes together
(lets call it syntax),
and use the pragmatics in a way consistent
with how they do in a particular language,
because that's actually different between languages.
Meanings is only one of several areas.
And the abilities of generating are also
different from the ones of recognizing them.
I also could explain that John talked about
the concept of morpheme, which I think is
really interesting. It's kind of a little
word part unit, but it includes the idea that
ends, like s in English for the plural, that
mark different things. In other languages,
the endings might mark tense or case but
in Enlgish we might just use additional
words, like auxilliaries like 'have' or 'will'
or instead of the dative ending, maybe 'to'.
And there are prefixes for 'not' and various things,
like German will add 'auf' but English will
have prepositions. Anyway, hearing the sounds
of language, too is a different skill. Just
getting individual sounds. And then being
able to tell where different words are
broken up in the stream is surprisingly hard.
In writing, quite a bit of that is simplified.
So for reading, you start at a different level
in the thinking process. But like he said,
it's a matter of how much you use it. Also,
you gotta remember that one of my interests
in learning about this kind of thing is
to understand all the parts enough to be
able to get a computer to be able to handle
them, and it just so happens that computers
are absolutely great at 100% precisely remember
things that it has been told how to do.
One of the problems, or course, is that language
is incredibly muddy. Amazingly so. Real
language has errors that pop up at all levels,
and it uses the sort of redundant information
at the different levels to constrain the
different things going on. Computers in
programs are almost never intended to deal
with that kind of situation. Very deliberately,
they handle situations and data where everything
has an absolutely correct value, and is right there.
There is no juggling and managing of constraints
to get a nice, and provisional approximation.
There are a few bits and styles of programming
that even deal with handling and dealing with constraints,
but even those are logical, true/false constraints.
It seems like some of the AGI guys seem just a little
concerned about just getting a system with enough
constraint knowledge manipulating power, and that's
really all the problem of AGI is. Anyway, we'll see.
I guess a way of putting what I am trying to say
is that people think of intelligence as something
in complete control of a mental system. But it is
my conjecture that intelligence is only something that
intervense at time in the workings of an intelligent
system in order to deliberate and apply additional
new knowledge.
Going back to the analogy of elephant and rider,
I notice that it had to be an aspect of the elephant
that it learns good and bad things. This is necessary
for an unintelligent process to benefit from an
intelligent overseer. And in this analogy, the
intelligence can be external. In fact, computers
right now server that function, and not even just AI,
though specialized AIs do that too. Also, with
this type of evaluating how much you like or
dislike something, a system of evaluating constraints
with gradients is just more receptive and open to
the control and modification by an intelligence as
rider.
It seems like an opportunity for reflection. I just left
Bardog, feeling unwelcome. Melissa had to get me out of there.
She did it by asking if I wanted a cup. So I just downed
the rest. She had opened a new can, so the mug was full.
And it's not a problem from me to down a full glass like that,
though she was saying it would give her a headache. It's
not her fault that she has to get me to leave, I'm sure
that's the bosses rule. But that makes me feel not
quite so welcome. But that simply added on to the thing
before. I had my leg up on the next barstool. No
place to rest your feet on the bar, so you can only
rest them on the bar on the stool, but that's got
your knees bent, and right now I have a touch of gout in
my left knee so it's sort of stiff, and I needed to
have it straightened out a bit. And I thought I had
my feet sticking out, because I don't like having
my feet on seats anymore than anyone else like it.
But the cook or chef, or whatever he is, Dmitry, was saying
something about having my feet on the stool. I didn't
hear him, and Melissa tried to pass it on, "your feet"
and he said, it's not a sofa. OK, so I get up,
and stand over there next to all of them. Standing would do.
He asked me if I was tired and needed to go home.
And I was trying to even gauge if there was reason
to discuss anything. He was tired, and maybe cranky.
I guess he could use something to yell about. And
he cares about the bar. But I end up not saying anything.
They were drinking bloody marys. Super hot. Chris
was saying how he was addicted. I had just read something
about how it does actually make you release natural
painkillers, so they do have a slight drug effect,
and I said that to Melissa standing there. But
overall, I got the feeling of not being welcome.
The idea of the place is that it is a neighborhood
bar. Most of them live down there. And I guess it's
just feeling a bit cliquish. So my first reaction
is that maybe I'll think about skipping a week going
down there. I hate to do that to Melissa, so I don't
know. I guess I need to think about it.
I have to admit, I've not been in as happy a mood lately
as before. Work frustration, and working on the weekend.
I need to try to catch up, but I left problems hanging
around.
People emphasize the negative over the positive. Mentioned that in Pretty woman,
which was on the screen when I was out at bardog on Friday.
Speed laws and drug law make cops seem like bad guys keeping us from doing what we
want. But they are really good guys keeping us safe. They are really bad guys out
there.
I was driving and really wanted to dictate some stuff. Seems like phones shoud be
able to do that. But then i thought you really should be able to call your computer
for that. Computers really should work better with people talking to them over
phones. Thats a business i want to get into.
And a fun thing id like to get into is computer singing.
Went out to the farm over the weekend. The house is practically done. The kitchen
looks like the kitchen of a real house, not some simple cabin. Nice white cabinets.
On Friday, actually a bunch of hugs. LeAnne was there, and pretty toasted, so
we hugged a bunch. She drank absinthe and puked. Actually mentioned putting it
in my blog. And there was some girl who recognized me, and I guess just felt like
hugging.
So, something Haidt in _the Happiness Hypothesis_ refers to briefly is
some results of someone about the benefits of writing in recovering from
a trauma. He had people write about the thing 15 minutes a day for 4
days. The benefit was not from venting the emotions, it was from developing
an understanding of it. The first day was not enough, because that
is only about things already figured out. It's continuing to think
about it and figuring more things out that is valuable. So I guess
a reall benefit of blogging is finding meanings for things.
Wow, so putting money in the stock market, I'm now down
20%. If I had just put in in a mattress and not touched it,
I'd have $10,000 dollars more. If I had put it in something
safe that bears interest, I would have made something.
I think the best things I was seeing were 4%. I don't
know, it's harder to calculate since it's been going
in over a period of time, and I've already forgotten how
long it's been. The calculus class actually talks about
how to do this exact problem, with an approximation of
continuous investment, like daily, instead of bimonnthly,
or whatever it's been. Inconsistent. And with computers,
I could run something. I don't know, it's kind of sad that
I don't think well enough mathematically to just work it
out. Plus I wasn't managing it all sensibly. Just lazily,
with I suppose some misplaced confidence in the value of
staying in the market. A guess approximation I'm using only
has the conservative gain of 2000. So net loss of 12000.
One thing that I expected to be important in all this is that
when you are in the market, you psychologically think about
how well you are doing compared to everyone else. So you
share the pain. And it's all been an experiment and learning
experience. If I had just kept in in cash, I would have
spent it. If I had kept it in something making money, I
would have taken stuff out and spent it. Having the value
go down makes me think I should hold and not sell, though
possibly that doesn't make total sense. I could have gotten
out. It just swung 8% in one day. If I had gotten out the
day before that, and then put it all back in, whatever it does,
it would have been a net 8% gain. But you can't work with
hindsight like that. It just works on you psychologically.
So I'm wondering what's going on with Melissa. She made
an effort to be special nice to me. I think she must have
felt a bit stronger feelings for me. So she does the physical
action of getting me an saving cans of lemonade. She had
to tell people about it, and it was work. I didn't act
anywhere appreciative enough at the time. And I think I
made her feel a bit silly and awkward. And then, like I
said, I yakked about stuff she didn't care about, which has
the effect of making her see I'm not really someone she's
interested in. So I blew her feelings. But it always
happens that the more you know someone, the more you find
things you don't like. If you're lucky, by that time you've
formed enough attachments and connections that those are not
enough to completely turn you off. But Melissa and I don't
have any of that yet. It was even such that I actually
felt a little less attracted to Melissa, though from my
angle it was a bit of a different mechanism. You tend to
lost interest in people that seem to like you too much.
Anyway, interacting with Melissa has always been a learning
experience and I won't let go. Hopefully not in the sense
of clinging. I do cling too much. But I try to be as faithful
as I can be. I mean, we aren't even friends, so I can't help
but give her space. And that's actually another thing that
touched me. There was a waittress, Ayanna, and she told
me that Melissa had said that she had a friend who never drank.
She was wondering what I was having (it was a sprite and
cranberry) and was thinking it was a shirly temple. Somebody
on Sunday had one of those. Maybe I should try it. I
looked it up and it's ginger ale or sprite and Grenadine and OJ.
I've never had Grenadine. I looked it up and it said pomegranate
and cherry. I asked Melissa and she said it was just cherry,
though it was originally supposed to be pomegranate,
and she just used cherry syrup. OK, so I'm smitten, but that's
not news. And feelings. So complicated.
Gosh, so hanging out with Melissa, I think I really bored
her talking about a bunch of stuff that I've been reading about.
We just felt distant. But she had brought some lemonade
in cans in, just for me. That was just so sweet, I guess
it made me feel like talking. But the talking was bad.
Oh well.
Happy first day of Fall!
I ate the okra that was leftover. I used to just hate
okra, but I think this batch just must better than usual
And it wasn't fancy or spiced up or anyhing. Maybe
that was good. I don't really like spicy stuff. I
guess I just like the bland stuff. I mean, I eat
plain microwaved chicken with either a microwave potato,
plain rice, sometimes plain white bread, or crackers.
Salty crackers is probably about as exciting I can get.
So I'm boring. And clearly not just with the food.
My writing is pretty boring. I don't really care for
new things. Or risky stuff. Lots of people do.
I think they get a bit of pleasure out of scary stuff.
And it seems like from their perspective, I must just
be timid. At least that's the sort of judgement about
myself I seem to inherit when I try to understand and
accept their value system. But I'm not so sure. I
kind of suspect that it's just that emotionally I
don't really get any kick from that stuff. It's more
about emotional reaction. I don't have good associations
with that feeling of newness or strange scariness.
Maybe I just haven't had the good experiences that people
have had where they have learned these associations.
I think I've heard people talk about the excitement
of meeting new people. Never had that. It seems like
that must come because it turned out something good,
let's say pleasurable, came out from it. For me,
not so much.
So I went to see Melissa at the new place she is at,
Bardog Tavern. I guess I was probably in trouble when
she was able to wear something that showed a lot more
skin. And really, she payed what seemed to me a whole
lot of attention, standing with me for little breaks
and chatting about how things are going with her. The
whole evening though, I was really horribly withdrawn
and didn't talk much. Just pitiful. Boring. One little
four-eyed girl just flirted with me stunning. Kind of
squeezing in beside me, and actually brushing up against
me. The place was packed wall to wall, so she had an
excuse. But me? Did nothing with it. From what I'm
reading, women are mostly attracted verbally, and I
had nothing. At least I get it now. But, sweet little
Melissa. The staff actually drank a bit. I swear
alcohol just makes that girl act sweeter.
Wow. So Stanford
is putting some of its computer classes on line for free. This includes
the robotics class that I took. I guess I don't really
lose anything if they start to give away something I paid for.
And taking for credit forced me to do work that I would not
have done otherwise. Staying up late and missing sleep.
I ended up not doing so well on the final, but I had at
least learned a bit, I think. And now there are a couple
more things that I'd like to do. The machine learning one,
I think.
Jonathan Haidt. A social psychologist.
with main area of moral psychology. I just read
an essay on liberal vs. conservative morality
by him. It was from the atheist mensa list, but I passed
it along to the humanist list. And then I got his
book _The Happiness Hypothesis_. Started on it. It's
in the pile now of ones I've started. And now somewhere
a ted lecture from him
popped up, and I'm listening to it.
So, not so good on the broadsword form Tuesday. I was doing it
too fast.
There was a little girl I've seen at a couple of meetups.
And a couple of weeks ago, I asked her if she'd like
to go talk some time. And she said sure. She sounded up
for it. Tuesday I sent an email asking her to lunch
on Thursday. She could have said yes. She have said no.
She said not now, not ever. Ouch. I guess it was
actually a little more complicated than that, but that
was close. And I'm not real happy with women right now.
So, I charged up my ipod, and the first song
that came on was "The Great Gig in the Sky".
Pink Floyd keyboard player Richard Wright died today.
How did it know?
Trouble sleeping. I guess that's to be expected.
My mom has trouble sleeping, and I'm not sure about
my dad, but I know he sometimes gets up at 4, and he
does the whole nap thing. So I suspect I have inherited
sleep issues. A schedule would work. Today, though,
they again had little last minute things at work, and
I was really needing to get out early and take a nap
before kung fu, but I only got maybe 20 minutes.
Still, on the super restricted sleep diet, you are
supposed to go four hours and then take a 20 minute nap,
so you end up with 2 hours a dau, and it's supposed to
work well for some people. Your brain adjusts to going
immediately into the most restful REM sleep, or whatever
it is. The transition period is supposed to be terrible.
And I suspect that there is a flaw in it that only people
for whom it really works will be able to follow the plan
and make it to the stage where it works. That is, it
can only work for some people. Neil Strauss, the jounralist
who studied pickup artists and wrote _The Game_ describes
trying it. And while he was trying to do it, he came up with
a technique for getting two girls to make out together,
to set up the mythical menage a trois. So dude, while already
clearly an overachiever, was still burning some pretty
freakin' high octane while he was doing it. So a micro nap
for me before kung fu, and then it really worked me up.
I guess excersize can do that. And I hit a couple of glasses
of chocolate milk. I've largely cut out the caffeine,
so I'm extra sensitive. I'm sure that's a factor. But I was
really tired today because I only got 6 or 7 last night.
Stayed up because of the Memphis Atheist meetup. It was
pretty horrible, though. I said almost nothing. Less than
usually. Too many strangers, I think. I don't like strangers.
It makes me quiet. And that was especially bad because I
mostly went to see this one little girl, another Melissa,
and then I was a sad sorry person. Pretty obviously turned
her off. And I had emailed her about doing lunch some time,
and she sounded really up for it. I did say thee that I'm not
so good in groups and one on one is better. But still,
not good to be with someone and have nothing to say. A couple
of weeks ago, we sat pretty far apart, but she did catch my eye.
This time sitting across, and nothing. Maybe there just
isn't much chemistry, but chemistry can be worked on a surprising
amount. If it's not too late.
So I saw an article in reddit about
how the more you get to know someone, the less you like them.
You always find things you don't like.
one of the comments does point out that there
is a logical problem with one conclusion about something
that seemed to counter this, studies about how you like
better people you know in that you
will only try to get to know people better when you know
you like them, but I think it does make sense. And
it really seems to make a difference if you, um, have some
fun to establish a connection, at least some kind of attachment.
The broadsword form is really coming along. I'm starting
to be able to put some real power into swinging the sword,
so it makes a nice *swish*. And it's not simply from
swinging it with effort, it really does involve getting
the body movement and footwork coordinated properly to
build up the speed. Which is I think what internal power
is about to a big extent.
And then there is the really bored girl having sex.
Happy 9-11!
Went to see Super Five at TJ Mulligans Trinity.
I saw Kimberly the blonde brickhouse. Jenny seemed to be with Brad.
Matt. Danny sat in for Chris.
Madison is Vince's 9nth grde daughter, does taekwondo, is dyslexic.
Kimberly has a great smile. I think it's a shame she didn't have
anyone to dance with. Next time I see her, I need to ask her to
dance. I think she's one of Brad's myspace friends.
Would you believe, my interent connection is out. Augh! The withdrawals! I'm
getting the shakes. I've got the phone, though, and it has a bit of an internet
connection. And I've broken out my bluetooth keyboard so I can sit here and type at
the borders. Got to relax, though. I'm all tense. Maybe its because I'm sitting
at a table instead of one of the good slouchy chairs, and maybe it's because of
barbie over there. OK, barbie just left And I guess typing at the keyboard, maybe
I might scrunch my shoulders. The level is probably a little higher than it reall
should be. Not so bad. No speed records, here. But dang, no interent. And the
netcharts server went down in the evening, so i was getting constant messages. I
waited till morning to go out and deal with it. Too much! I sat in the parking lot
at the office. I looked for other places. Mcdonalds seemed to be doing things
through at&t. Starbucks is doing things through tmobile. I think i have something
for them becaue of the olpc, but i never got it going. I may need to. I've got to
catch up on the feud with keith on the mensa atheist list. Argh.
Man I don't know what dude was thinking. I thought clone wars wars good. Not as
good as the original stuff, but better than the new, first, three. Sure, ani is a
dick-weed. That's been established. Ahsoka has his bad attitude. Now he gets to
see how it feels. Well i'll like it. And i thought sticky was cute. I didn't wtch
it at first because the reviws were so bad And maybe it lowered my expectations.
But honestly, i really did like it. Maybe just a Romp, but that's what I wanted.
Adventure. The bravery of the clones. Serious professional soldiers. Dying. The
chaos of war.
Relax. So, I'm sitting in borders. They didn't have change for a hunderd. I think
someone gave them something large and took all their tweinties. For maybe a three
dollar drink, I think ami said. Super tall hot blonde chick is sitting at the
table to my right. There weren't any tables, but one by the door, but I ordered,
and this one opened up. I coulod look over when she was further awy but sitting
about eight feet away, not so much. Did walk past and got this amazingj look down.
But there were these too little chicks. Seemed like they might have been, um,
together. Skinny little four-eyes, and some crew cut almost mohawk girl. Foureyes,
was looking at some books on add she should read, in addition to the one she gave
her already. And there was a gift card 4I gave her. I don't know, seemed really gf
and gf. But I thought 4I was cute. Maybe it was the bra strap showing. She got me
to hover a bit inpsychology where she was looking, and I chanced upon some stuff by
Robert Greene. The thing that stood out for me first was _War_. The study of war
is in a sense definitve for the study of martial arts. Martial meaning war.
Overall, large battle strategy and war history, maybe not so much, but I have seen
treatments on generalship for single combat. I've read one thing on war strategy,
not really my area. I'm not so big on the history, but I why not? It good to
expand. It looks like it's mosstly based on Sun Tzu, but I guess using more recent
examples. And then I saw that he has another book on Seduction. Well, hey, I've
been reading about that lately. What a coincidink! So I guess I commited. And he
has a book on power. I guess he's doing machievelli. Might as well get the set.
They are only 18 bucks each. That's pretty reasonable. And, would you believe
sports illustrated has a thing on just chicks in body paint? And it looks like it's
all their regular supermodels. OK, I can support that.
a couple of little emotional turns. I went to the little Thai place to
check it, out, Bangkok Alley, I think. I actually asked Doug to come
along, and he's only recently found that he really likes Thai food.
It was fine, and I paid for it. Standing out in the parking lot,
Doug was thanking me on it being good, and it hitting the spot. And
I suddenly had an odd feeling of liking having done something nice
for someone else, and how it can be nice in itself, without really
having any motive or trying to get something out of it. So there was
that.
The other one was when I was getting some gas at Exxon. I
go in to pay--I've been paying cash mostly--and I see this woman
whom I jut find attractive. Kind of thin, maybe about my age.
She's facing away at first, and she turns around, and I smile at
her, and she says in a friendly, kind of flirty way, "hi sugar!"
Now, I don't know for sure that her hubby wasn't behind me, but it
seemed directed at me. And the car she was in was next to mine,
so she talked about how cute it was, Really just flirting, I guess,
but I really just felt some kind of chemistry with her. A brief
passing, but it was kind of neat. It does seem like lately I noticed
that there are just some women I feel chemistry with. I don't ever
follow through and do anything about it, which I guess is, wimpy,
and maybe it can just be the kind of flirting that makes people
feel attractive, which is nice.
i read something
interesting about perfect pitch.
They created a test for it that doesn't require
you to have musical training, which was something
they used to need to tell if you had it. Perfect
pitch is the ability to recognize a note absolutely,
not relative to some other pitch. And it turns
out it happens quite often in non-musicians. I
didn't see how much.
And it turns out that most animals use perfect
pitch. They knew about it from birds, because
they recognize tunes, but if you transponse the
tune (move it to a higher or lower key), they
can't recognize it any more. So they are thinking
that it's relative pitch, which most people use,
that actually takes more mental work. It also
makes me wonder if people with absolute or perfect
pitch always also have relative pitch or have
maybe sometimes have just learned to fake it with
their absolute pitch. Since these are usually
real musicians, I'm guessing they usually have
both. I wouldn't be surprise if non-musicians
with perfect pitch might have trouble with some
music because they are bad at the relative pitch,
and sometimes they can't deal with transposed
songs.
I've been posting to other lists. And I'm not getting
replies to my actual posts, but I'm seeing how my
contributions are affecting the conversations. It's
kind of neat.
So, I went out to Dan McGuinness to see Super 5. It
was almost 1 when I got there. They were on a breakd,
so I hung out with Vince and Michael a bit (the bass
player and drummer). I do notice I didn't really
have much to contribute. It was jam packed with
people. There was a blonde with a cute body who
seemed to like the I will survive at the end. I guess
she hasn't always been treated so well. She and
and a friend were hanging out with some guy, but
it seemed like they left alone, which I thought was
kind of sad. One incident stands out, just a bit of
a moment. I was walking through the crowd, and I
passed right next to this table where I noticed a few girls,
I think it was four of them. And I paused for a couple
of seconds, and looked fairly deeply at this little
four eyed girl in the middle. I looked at her for maybe
a second or too. And one other girl said "Hey dude!"
and maybe one other said something like that. And
I turned away and smiled and moved on.
So, I've decided not to take biochemistry. It didn't
really fit with the plans I think I have, and I really
would not have done anything with it. And the tipping
point was Firday morning, when I started getting up
at about 6:30 and thought if I can't make it into
work by 8, then it may be too hard to have an 8 oclock
class. Messing with sleep can be pretty uncomfortable.
And I didn't make it in till after 9. I play on
the computer too much in the morning. And it's
just reading stuff. I need to play with programs or something.
And I had been thinking about auditing the compilers
class from Stanford. I've still got a month, and somehow
I find it really nice to have a person standing up
and explaining. I've got several teaching company
class videos, and there's something I like about it.
It could be just the qualia of people, which I've
noticed I miss sometimes. In california, I used
to go to Mensa meetings, just for that, the sensations
of being around people, though I never really talked
to them or anything. But I looked a little more
at the Stanford class, and it's based on lex and yacc
or bison. Those are standard compiler tools, sure,
but I had just looked up the MIT class, and it's
based on Java. That's really much better for me,
and it would be tools I would actually use. I
ordered the textbook that does compiler stuff with
Java. Maybe that will be good for me.
Happy Ides of August!
I went to see Melissa. It sounds like Pearl's is imploding.
The got rid of LeAnne and a bunch of other people. Melissa
has been offered a place at Bardog Tavern when it opens in a few
weeks. Head bartender, shift 8-3. So I've been trying to
cut back, but I guess it's easy to lapse. And maybe
bartenders aren't usually so friendly.
That was way too frustrating! The last bit was getting this blutooth keyboard
working again. It needed to have some sort of passcode entered and didnt really
explain what it meant. But the evening didnt start so well. I felt like going out.
I first tried to go by the verizon store to get a car charger for qrack, but it had
closed ten minutes before. I tried the Thai place and it is closed on sunday. I
went by dan mcguinness and saw tiffany She was really bored. And i tried to tip
her my usually amount, and she ran out after me and said she couldnt take it. And i
caved and gave her less. But grr, i hate when they do that. I can understand that
they feel bad and all. And maybe they can come to terms with it. So i go over to
borders. I did find some cool stuff. A pretty funny book on philosophy. Plato and
a platypus walk into a bar That's the title. I had thumbed through the last time a
was in and put it on the list. But i didn't have any small bills to put for it
with, and i didnt want to break a c. The trouble with German food is that no matter
how much you eat, an hour later you're hungry for power. But somehow sitting in the
bookstore, i was to inhibitted to properly laugh at all this stuff. Plus, um, front
this month proclaims that it is britain's funniest magazine. OK. That is something
i like about it. And kevin smiths book about his boring life. There's a psychology
today i've been seeing with a hot chick on the cover and stuff about taboos and
backup partners. Im intrigued so im giving it a shot. I still haven't decided if im
going to take biochemistry. Tiffany is still taking general ed stuff at southwest.
Argh. I need to be doing ai programming. I need to be getting on with things.
So I didn't go see melissa. She tested and said she would be working a party, so i
wouldn't have been able to even go sit with her till that was done, but i thought i
would just go by later, then i took a nap and slept too late. Missed my chance. I
guess. On firday, i didnt go, but at about one i felt like going out, so i checked
out where super five was playing, and it was doc watsons. I didnt know where that
was, but when i looked it up, it was a place that i had been to, maybe it used to
have some other name, or maybe i didnt pay attention. I went, and i saw a guy
fromcbc, i think his name is matt, and he sees me and says andy, and i think i said
matt, but i dont even know if it's right. I see him at roys quite a bit. It was
sad and cold, but what could i do. I got in in the middle of their last song. I
talked a bit with vince and chris. Chris told me about his mugging. I wrtoe about
that in an email to the mensa martial arts group. He talked about what he would do
now. And some kind of gun disarming move they teach. I think it was a kote gashi
and i tried it and did it with the wrong hand and messed it up. My aikido is so
weak. Whatever. A hot chick with like a whip
Happy eight eight oh eight!
Happy Birthday, Melissa!
So, clicking between channels, I say this thing on PBS.
I didn't see what it was called, but it was several guys
kind of pretending to be the Beatles. Doing their songs
and they looked and sounded kind of like them. And they were
even doing some of their shtick. But it was just a bit off,
and I just thought it was irritating. I couldn't get into it
I only looked in for a couple minutes. It was a weird
feeling. I guess it hit my aversion to lies and fakery.
Plus the guy doing Paul was playing right-handed. Surely
he could have learned to play left-handed, if he knew he
was going to play Sir Paul.
Cellular South, Argh! They have a commercial, or
maybe it's several commercial. They are using _Dear Prudence_.
But, in the version they have, in the spots where the should
be saying "Dear Prudence" they just leave it out. I love
that song. And they just mutilate it. It's really annoying
me. At least enough to write about it. I was pretty mad
when they used _revolution_ in the car commercial, but at
least it was still the same song. Now it's like they are
erasing the important part of this piece of art. Mona Lisa
without the smile. Grr.
Happy Kalends of August!
Last weekend I went to see the _X-files_ movie. To me,
the story was unimportant. I was just happey to see
big moving pictures of Gillian Anderson. I found it
oddly disturbing to see her in bed with that Muldur
dude, but that's life. Yummy, yummy, yummy.
I've seen a picture of her without the pancake make-up.
I love the freckles.
Well, that was just pitiful. Melissa texted me to ask if
I was coming, and I said yes. I doubt I would ever really
be able to say no to her. I just wouldn't want to. And she
was thinking she would be by herself, which was why she
reached out, but it ended up pretty busy, actually. The
most pitiful thing was that two really pretty girls sat
down right next to me, but I didn't say anything to them.
And they wanted to smoke, so they went outside after just
a few minutes. But not saying anything. Just pitiful.
And I didn't say anything to Melissa about wanting to cut
back or the dating book I was reading, how it suggested that
I was just hiding at the bar, about as bad as staying home.
I'm not sure that's right, though. I mean, two cute girls
sat down right next to me, and there were plenty passing through.
I guess I don't have what it takes. Maybe a seminar wouldn't
be too bad.
And I went to see Jennifer at the Pony. She was saying
that if the law changes next year like they are playing, she'll
just quit. Something about keeping distance, and she wouldn't
have any fun. I need to get her phone number before that.
I'm still unhappy that I lost Alexis. I need to make some
kind of effort with Jennifer, though she doesn't do as much for me.
More than anybody else I've seen there, though.
So, yesterday I filled out the online form to be readmitted to U of M.
And I finished reading chapter 1 of the biochemistry book. It ended up
not being too bad. I'm still a little shaky on the stereochemistry.
It was nice that Doug was kind of encouraging, so I felt like moving
a little closer to taking it. We'll have to see though. One weird thing,
Chapter 2 is about water. I mean, water? I guess there are a lot of
properties and effects involved with the interaction of different chemicals
with water, but that seems like a pretty strange subject for a chapter.
I watched the Batman movie. It was OK. I guess it was good, but it didn't
really seem to have anything in it that I cared about at all. I looked back
and I didn't think so much of the first one, and really, I didn't think so
much of this. I remember some time concluding that I need to stick to
comedies, and this sort of affirms that. And maybe I'm a little depressed.
One thing, though. I went out to see the showing at 10:20, but three screens
were sold out and I had to wait for the 11:40. So I went over to the Fox and
Hound. Saw some mixed martial arts fights. There was one between one guy 6'0"
and a guy 6'8". The littler guy was more agressive, and it was over in half
a minute from a choke sbumission. But I'm waiting there and I check my phone,
and there's a message from Melissa asking if I've seen the Batman movie yet.
She tried the midnight one, but it was sold out. I sent her a pretty long message
about wantng to see the Thursday night but it was sold out, and waiting for the
one I saw. But I don't know. I'm trying to cut back going to see her, but if
she writes me, I would probably go see her.
I read a little in the biochemistry book, but I didn't get too far. Maybe
I'm not that into it. I looked at the problems at the end of the chapter
and they just seemed like work. Maybe I'm just getting too lazy. I'm more
into just reading than doing any kind of work. There are so many computer
things I need to be doing. I finished up _Dating for Dummies_ and _Martial Mechanics_.
Just kind of powered through them to be done with them and forget about them.
I finished the Teaching Company class on _Philosophy of Mind_. What were some
of the things in it? I remember compatibilism, the idea that Free Will is
compatible with determinism because free will just means that your actions
follow your desires. People get confused because they think determinism
would mean that you would be coerced into doing things, which aren't
according to your "will", but really, free will just means that you
want to do something, and you do that, instead of something forcing
you to do something else. I'm not sure what else there was. Must have
been other stuff. He talked about Functionalism as the best answer to the
mind-body problem. The mind-body problem is how there seem to be two different
kinds of things in the world--stuff, like bats and trees and cars, and mental
things, like thoughst and how things feel. Descartes approach of dualism said
that there are just two separate types of things. Functionalism would
say there is only one type of stuff, but mental things is an aspect of how
that stuff acts. The example is a hand and a fist. When you open a fist,
it goes away. And it isn't made of different stuff from your hand, but
it isn't identical to your hand, because the fist can dissappear while your
hand is still there. When he is talking about AI, he talks about GOFAI--good old
fashioned AI, which is symbolic-- and connectionism. But I don't think
connectionism is as promising as one might think from how prominently he
talks about it. He mentions movies and fiction a surprising amount,
like _Blade Runner_. It was alright.
I'm roasting the other pork roast. The last one was about 8 pounds and this is a little bigger,
just about 9 pounds. I didn't eat the last one all at once, I froze half and finished
it a couple of weeks later. But even when eating way too much meat, I was losing weight.
Mostly because I was eating less of other stuff. I hope it goes ok this time. I'm down
to about 195, though it fluctuates. I think I've got some momentum, but I did just bounce back
up a little. But while I'm roasting it, a bunch of flies have come in. I don't know where
they have come from, but I've killed about half a dozen in the last hour. It's a big
enough house, and there certainly could be cracks in walls somewhere, or at least some
kind of path to the outside. Flies certainly can smell cooking meat. I think it probably
smells like rotting meat to them, which they like. I'm out of bread. I'm out of crackers.
I'm out of chicken legs. The roast is all I'll have to eat until I go to the store,
and I'm trying to hold off on that as long as possible. It's already been quite a while since
I went.
Happy Ides of July!
Oh, that was bad. I've got some honey that my dad wants me to eat or drink, or whatever.
I've found a way of using honey that I like. I make honey lemonade. It works pretty
well so I can have sugar water in small doses--as opposed to making half a gallon of
kool-aid and drinking that down altogether, as I am wont. There's no wonder I
got up to 205. I'm down to about 197, though it is a bit of a plateau and I don't know
if I'll go back up, down, or what. My dad has his own honey in little squeeze bottles,
but this is someone elses, and its in a glass jar. But it's totally crystallized, plus
it has some wax comb on top. I've decided I really don't like wax in my honey. And I
have to get it out with a spoon, and I need to take a fresh one, so I've got a bunch of
dirty spoons sitting around. So I've dose this with the little plastic squeeze bottles when
the honey gets to the bottom, and it's too thick. Put it in the microwave to heat it up,
and it runs better. And it should get the sugar to dissolve. Since this is a pretty
big jar, I had to put it in for a while. Now, microwaves don't heat evenly--they
can't always pentrate too far under the surface, so I was figuring it might carmelize
a bit on the outside. I've got McGee's _On Food and Cooking_ so I can learn more
about carmelizing, but I glanced at the appendix on basic chemistry, and he did mention
that some things don't change phases-- they break down first-- and sugar is like that,
it may melt (or maybe it won't I'm not sure yet), but before boiling (or melting whichever
it is) it will break down or carmelize. maybe it's oils that smoke instead of boiling.
So the honey is heating in the microwave. And it doesn't seem too bad. It's not
all liquid, but it's pretty hot, and I stir it, and it all becomes a clear liquid.
And I make a little lemonade, and put some ice in. Can you guess what I got wrong?
The wax was melted too. I was think I would have wax at the top at some point in the process.
Maybe after it cools. But now I had lemonade with little bit's of wax floating in it.
And I put a spoon in the honey to scoop some out. It was pretty hot, then trying to rinse
the "honey", I end up with a spoon coated in wax. Grr.
I did go get the biochemistry textbook. A hundred and thirty freaking dollars. I have
to calm down a bit vefore deciding whether to take the class.
Happy Bastille Day!
Happy Sunday the 13th!
I'm sitting around kind of bummed out at the thought of not
going to see Melissa any more. Plus my wrist hurts.
But why should it be so bad? Well she is nice, but
I think it may have just been too much pretend. I
do have a history of just pretending that things
might happen that keeps me from the more scary work
of trying new things to get stuff to happen. That
dating book does say not to hide at home, but also
talks about hanging out in the bar can really be the same
thing. It didn't really seem to have all that much
useful to tell me about going out there, and I've
gotten to the point just before where it's describing
the actual, and those haven't been as much as a problem for
me, so I've put it down and I'm looking at other stuff.
But I'm kind of torn as to whether I can even quit
doing to see Melissa, or even whether I should. It's
gotten a little easy. But the bad experience gave me
a bit of a wedge, so we'll see.
I've started on the new Teaching Company class on the
Philosophy of Mind. There was one by Searle from a long
time ago. This is similar, but it isn't pure Searle.
I have another class on Buddhism, but that's audio.
This one is video, so it kind of fits in the spot I
have in my life for watching Simpon's DVDs.
Looking harder at taking Biochemistry. I looked up
the class online. I went by Tiger bookstore looking
for the textbook, and I did not see it in the Chemistry
section, but there was one in the biology section,
and I thought they must be different classes, because
the textbook seemed so much more like biology than
chemistry. And I was thinkong the course number was
4300 something, and I think the biology one said 4500 something
maybe so I was confused. But I think they must be the same
class. I also got a book, McGee's _On Food and Cooking_
which Don Knuth recommended. It's got a lot of biochemistry.
It seems like a basic useful kind of life background
knowledge to have. So I'm a little more psyched to take
it. Plus, of course the dating book recommended taking
classes. Maybe I should go for the adult ed where I might
see people more my age, but hey. I do have books on dating
young women, too.
I should write about it and move on. I was thinking I
needed to not write, and just hold it in my brain, where
it will have more effect, but hey. So I haven't been
having such a good week, but as i was drving, I was thinking
how even a bad week for me is superfantasticus compared
to the stuff going on with Melissa. And I go down there,
and there is a really big party downstairs. OK, so
they rented the space and I maybe I shouldn't have
invaded their space, but they were just about done,
and it was just me. I ordered some food, and had it at
the bar. The manager dude asks why I'm sitting there,
since it's their family thing. I saw I'm hanging out
with Melissa, Whatever. And it's a buffet, and they
say to dump the rest, so Melissa grabs a little plate of it.
And manager dude Dave yells at her. And she gets across to me
that it is "really inappropriate" for me to have been down there,
so I hang out upstairs for about 20 minutes while they clear
out. But it's a harsh 20 minutes. A twenty minutes of
thinking about how they didn't want me there. Something to remember
there have been times I've gone there and been disappointed,
but that was just because Melissa was busy and maybe I didn't
get as much attention as I'd liked. But never actually unpleasant
like this. So I don't think I've had anything bad to keep
me away, other than just the thought that I might have been
wasting my time. Now I have.
And I brought up taking biochemistry maybe in the fall.
Melissa was talking about how it was harsh, though it
sounded like that was for her. I should have said something
how it wasw probably more because she never got any sleep
while taking it that she didn't do so well. Otherwise
she was a straight-A student. And I barely manage to
get it in, but I asked her if she would help me out if
I had trouble, and she was nice about it, but she basically
said no way. And she said that she couldn't explain biochemistry,
and she did mention the tutor that she had, who was good.
But you know how it is. And Josh was sitting there.
Josh asked me why I would be taking it. I tried to explain
that I'm interested in chemistry, and I've studied
bioinformatics, and also biochemistry is one of the possible
pathways to nanotechnology, which is also one of my interests.
I still may do it. i need to go get the textbook and look at it.
But it won't be an opportunity to hang out with Melissa.
Maybe if I take Biochem 2 in the Spring when she does. But
I shouldn't think that way. The most significant thing
about the class for me is that it is at 8:00, so I could
reasonably take it before work. That's a big deal.
But I don't know if I'm going to be going down to Pearl's
as much any more.
I have been looking forward to going to see Melissa.
It's Thursday, and I was thinking that I would go
after kung fu class. And I often wimp out, and logically
I was thinking about how I always end up staying up
later, so I don't have an excuse not to go down there.
But I got home, drank probably half a gallon of
water, and rinsed myself off. I weighed myself,
and even with the extra water, I was still just
under 200 lbs. I think I was that this morning when
I skipped breakfast, too. But in any case it seemed
like I have gotten a little momentum to losing a little
weight, and I now had a reason not to go out and eat.
But the big thing was that I saw my gut in the mirror,
and I was kind of disgusted and really just didn't
want to eat anything. And I was kind of tired, so I
lay down a bit. That's the kind of thing that happens.
I'll be tired, especially since I haven't eaten.
Then I will decide not to go, and eat something,
and suddenly have energy. So I should have just gone.
And I did eat something. I finished up some leftover
barbecue that really needed to be eaten. I was from
the fourth, so it was almost a week old. And it wasn't
very much, so I don't feel too guilty. But I also
got a chance to start on _Dating for Dummies_. I
finally dug it out of its box, which was a lot harder
than it should have been. I must have missed it the
first time I checked the box it was in, and it was a couple
of layers down. The process to look for books involves
moving and lifting some pretty heavy boxes. And, like
I said, I had to go through them twice to find it,
because I missed it the first time. Generally I have
an idea which box something might be in, but I missed
slightly with this one. Anyway, I think I may be
ready to read it now because I have a bit more understanding
about myself. For me, the trouble with dating isn't
simply that it's scary. Maybe it is to me to some extent,
but there are just things about dating that I don't
like, not the least of which is the people. Anyway,
I'm a litle bit clearer, so I'll see how it goes. Already,
she has made some anthropological claims that I disagree
with. Like how dating is different in that women didn't
use to choose mates or that marriages were always either
rapes (I mean, just grabbing them) or aranged. That's
just crap. Courtship is ancient. In some theories,
it was an important part of human evolution. We'll see.
Also, in a mensa email list, they gave personality type
percentages, and I forget which group it was, exactly,
but there were like 24% INTP (there were 33% INTJs,
which I don't care for so much). That's a huge increase
from the general population, where it is like 1%. So
there are places where I might have a lot more luck
with the whole approach of getting to know bunches
of people. Dating may still all be an E or J thing,
so I'm still wary.
Happy Kalends of July!
That was completely pitiful. So I'm at the bar at Pearl's, and there's this
cute girl sitting a little ways away. Maybe a little over-weight but really cute,
and dressed to show off her cleavage, show she "has the cab sign out". And then
she comes and sits next to me. And starts talking to me. Said her friends
were trying to get her to talk to people. I don't know, I was lame. And while
she was sitting there, another cute girl comes between us, and brushes against
me a bit--naturally with the part that sticks out the most. It was an accident,
of couse, and she was apologizing profusely--she didn't mean to crowd me.
And I said she could get as close as she wants. And then she just was apologizing
more profusely. Maybe too creepy? I don't know. I'm just sitting there trying
to eat. It was really full. Lots of girls dancing. And yet again I wimped
out and didn't dance with any of them. Seemed like they could have used a guy
to dance with. So I don't know. Maybe I'm not ready, or not into it. I
really need to lose a few pounds. I think I've decided that the seminar in two
weeks is too soon. There's one in New York in a month and a half. I should
shoot for that. I'm not sure I'm ready for the windy apple, but it would
give me an opportunity to go there.
I watched Wall*E. It was really good. But I can see why Ebert gave it
three and a half stars, not four. It had some factual sorts of things
that didn't make sense and took me out of the story, and I know that
bothers him sometimes as well. And it seemed a little manipulative.
But it was sweet and heartfelt, and had deep and disturbing sorts
of social commentary. It could easily be the best movie of the year,
but movies in general have been getting pretty weak.
I'm thinking of going to a dating seminar. Specifically,
the
Mystery Method seminar in Chicago on the July 11 weekend.
And it's led by a guy they're "the Don", who seems like
about the best fit for me. He's a mensan, and a bit older,
though not as old as me. I'm not sure the whole thing
is right for me, though. I read a bit about dating
coaches. One girl writing about them is saying they
wanted her to spend 15 hours a week. Man, that's
sounding like work. And that's also the kind of time
these pickup people are talking about you need to spend.
And then I thought about my other hobby, the kung fu.
I only spned, maybe 4 hours per week on it, possibly
more if I do spend a good bit of time, but then only maybe
5 hours. Not very much. Doing it for a year I guess
makes a difference, but you get out what you put in,
and I don't put in very much. And they were saying
15 hours because that's about how much you should
spend on a job search. Dating is a similar thing,
since you're looking for that important situation
that you will spend a lot of time in. But who does that?
I never spent enough time looking for a job, which is
why I haven't worked much, I guess. I just stumble onto
things and get lucky sometimes. So, maybe I don't
really have the interest or commitment. But I'm
curious to learn some skills I guess.
And
the little girl in the article said she didn't like a lot of
things about dating, but I think my problem is a lot worse. I don't
like a lot of things about dating, but I also don't like
stupid people, and to me, almost everybody is really, really, stupid.
Mensa is supposedly the top 2% in IQ, but even a lot of them don't
seem particular great, and I have to try to appreciate other
things about them, like how nice some of them are. And I guess,
the IQ is not enough, really, so that's part of the thing
with even Mensans. They also need knowledge about things
that I'm interested in. But generally Mensas are pretty good,
I just throw it out as a case how I probably would have trouble
with just Jane Doe. *sigh*. So I don't know.
I just finished rereading Buscaglia's _Love_. He idealizes it
the way NFs do. But for him, "growing" in love was a way of
life. And it isn't about learning more, like it might be for me
and the NTs, ir is about doing and becoming better in doing
than in knowing. Always being natural. So "growing" is possibly
the best word to describe it. One of the things I had trouble
with is that he claims very strongly that there are no kinds of
love--there is only love. Now, I, as an analytic rational, just
know that this is wrong. In Greek, there are even three different
words that come across as love in English. And I know that
there are many distinct things that contribute to the complex
thing we can call love. But, we rationals are basically by nature
not as good with all this feeling stuff life the idealists, the
NFs like Leo. So I (or maybe we) really need to just suck it up
and listen to what they have to say. One thing is that it has
to be done, not thought about. And he is talking about loving
all men. I'm also introverted, and I'm not into loving lots
of people the way Leo was. So at best, I try to focus on one person.
I really need to expand. Leo also emphasizes not having expectations
or requirements. I think this is just his idealization again,
but, yet again, I need to trust that he's really the expert, not
me, even though I believe I know what I'm talking about.
So what does this really have to do with anything with me? Well, for
one, I'm trying to look at how I'm hanging out with Melissa.
Now, it's just work for her. But as a service person, her job
itself is a bit of the practice of love. And I have to admit,
I like hanging out because she does make me feel loved. But
I did just find out how limited it is. Over the course of about
a year and a half, I asked her to go do something with me maybe four
times, and it never happened. And I asked a couple more times
in desparation recently, but nothing. And it's the summer,
and when school is out, she always gets closer to her boyfriend,
though during school it seems like they get distant. It seems
like the past couple of thanksgivings she spent with Randy (an
old friend of hers) and to me it doesn't seem like any kind of
real relationship if you don't spend at least this holiday together.
But whatever. So she isn't available to me, or at least not interested,
romantically. I thought I had conceded that a long time ago,
but I guess I still cling to a bit of hope in that, but that's
not the biggest thing, I think. It had been my decision that
despite not going there, I would take this as an opportunity
to just bask in loving someone, and it doesn't hurt that it's
someone really beautiful. So I go see her, and I'm happy to be there,
and she indulges me--she actually gives me a bit of her quiet
time on her smoking breaks. A couple times, though, lately,
she has kind of gone off early with Josh (her BF) and I haven't
gotten the time she also gives me as she is cleaning up at the end of
her shift. Two weeks ago, I went down twice, and she left for
fathers day at about 10. Last week I decided to take a break.
And I've been thinking and reading about love--and sex. I've got a
book on _love+sex with robots_, and another bonk, which is just
about sex. The most interesting thing from _bonk_ so far is that
they have figured out the main predictor of how easily a woman
will have orgasms. It's the distance from the edge of the vagina
to the clitoris. Closer is better. An inch is a pretty good
dividing point. About the width of a thumb, actually. in the robots
one, they mention real-dolls. I looked at their site. It's
probably not for me, though. I like freckles. And narrower shoulders.
The biggest one seemed almost right, but maybe it was a little big.
And I guess, I like pleasing more than to just be pleased, so it
would probably just be a boring thing for me, anyway.
But then I read the Buscaglia. A real teacher of love. So
that's what I've been thinking about. I'll probably go hang out
with Melissa again. But I need to expand out an see some more people.
Mand, what woke me up was that I in some dream, some guy said
something about going to hell, maybe me, and I got angry and said,
don't you know hell doesn't really exist? It's just a story told
to children to make them act nice.
And I get on line. I check out a porn site I have bookmarked,
funberry.com. And it has been replaced by some sort of christian
teaser message. Kind of trippy, really. And if chritianity weren't
a big money-making scheme, in addition to whatever good things
it may do, I'd be a little less troubled by it. The mafia does good
things, too.
I don't know what the deal is. I don't eat steak very often, but it seems
like often when I do, I also end up watching the _Lisa the Vegetarian_
Simpson's episode.
Wow! I went to sleep at 6pm and got up at 7am. I was thinking I would go see, well,
you know, but I just was tired, and wasn't feeling quite so up to it.
I've been commenting on the reddit page about Eliezer Yudkowsky's blog stuff about
quantum mechanics. I'm trying to read more about Quantum mech, since it was brought up in
Lana's philsophy meetup group. I had seen a page explaining it in a way better for computer
and math people.
So I was talking to a guy Charles about martial arts at Pearl's. He had some lady friend who
studied Wing Chun. We were talking about how tough women can be. And he said they were
built to take a pounding. Heh.
Happy Friday the Thirteenth!
I went to go see Melissa on a Thursday night, which is unusual. My parents come into town,
and we usually have dinner together, but they came too late for me to have dinner before
going to kung fu, so i hadn't eaten anything. Melissa understood this story to me I was
hungry, and I was starting to get a headache from not eating, but to me, I was more trying
to give a reason for coming to see her. Should I need a reason. I felt a bit of distance,
but she was sweet and tried to talk about how the benefit on Friday went well. I didn't
talk about how beautiful I thought she looked, or the silly reasons I had for not sitting
with her, or how a few things recently made me feel that we weren't as close as I thought,
not really friends. But I guess that's OK. I got there at about a quarter till 10, and
the bar was full (though all the table were empty). We got out of there a little before 12,
and it was earlier for her because her boyfriend Josh came by to pick her up, and this time
they rushed to get done. I think Randy was going to let her go as soon as they got done with
the money not to hold them up. i ended up talking to Josh about martial arts. He's interested
in studying Aikido. Kenny talked about how he used to wrestle in high school. All fights
end up on the ground. Josh actually said that's been his experience(!). I don't know,
man, I've never really gotten into a fight. I don't think the other guy would look very
pretty if I did. I guess I don't know. I was hoping to persuade Melissa to accept some
help, but couldn't with the boyfriend around.
Anyway, it wasn't even midnight. So I went to the Pony. It's kind of losing its charm,
but Camille was nice.
There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy--Shakespeare wrote
it, so it must be true. A comment on the limits of human knowledge.
So I'm driving in to work. And A guy has pulled into the lane in front of me from a side street.
Not completely blocking it, but about halfway so I can't stay completely in the lane to get past.
Now, as on-coming traffic, I started with the right of way, but since he was in the way, he had
the right togo on and get out of the way, so in that situation, he did actually have the right
of way at the time. But he just sat there. And I didn't slow down or anything. Whatever he did,
I wasn't going to hit him, but maybe he didn't know that or trust me or something, so he just kind
of froze like a bunny, I guess. Oh well. I don't know if I was obligated to slow down. I was obligated
to yield and not hit him, but I decided to just quickly change over lanes halfway, which was really
not the right legal move, I suppose. Live and learn. No signaling, either. I'm still not sure if
not signalling is really illegal. What if I just don't feel very communicative?
Went to the benefit for Nicki Krueger at TJ Mulligans 64. It was supposed to start at 6 but I got there
at around 6:30 and they hadn't started, and few people had gotten there yet. I had felt like eating
tater tots, and I didn't see them on the menu, but I got some chicken tenders, and the guy asked
if I wanted fries, tater tots, or onion rings. Bonus! I kept wishing I was just doing my form.
It gave me time to think about _Kung Fu Panda_. They did start playing at about 8. It was
three bands I like, Transitt, Super 5, and Mudflap King. They were collecting at the door, but
I didn't feel up to conspicuous donation, so I gave them a 20. But they had a bucket, so i put
a c-note in early. I ended up putting in three. This was a benefit because Nicki's family had
their house burn down and lost everything. Has to be rough. They ended up with 945 in the bucket
and 800 at the door. So they did pretty well. Melissa showed up at about 10. She was wearing
something sleeveless and low-cut, and just managed to get a lot more beautiful. I got a hug, and she
was talking, so I moved on. And she was with her boyfriend, Josh. I just heard that they have been
cool on occasion, but I that's how it goes, and I guess I'm glad she has someone. I didn't want to
hurt her feelings, but we aren't really friends, so I didn't go sit with them. And then at some point,
I was walking around and she came over to talk. After I left her before, I must have gone outside,
because she said she followed me out, but then I was gone. I had come in a different door from the
one I went out. And she was thinking maybe I had left without saying good-bye. She said
Randy hadn't come over and said hi, and she didn't go over to him either. She was saying
I should come over and sit with them, but I had a really nice seat where I could see the cool guitar
playing, so I didn't join them. She said something like she didn't know why I didn't come join them.
Oh well. I didn't want to hurt her feelings, but there you go. And quite a bit later, I got up,
and someone took my stupid chair. I talked a little to Randy, and asked him if he had said hi to
Melissa, and he said no. There are some people he just doesn't choose to spend time with.
And I said, well, she could have come over to say hi to him, too. I did go over there, and sit
with them. I was on the other side of Josh from her, so I could at least try to be friendly to him.
They left shortly after that, though. I could have sat next to Melissa I guess on the side away from Josh.
It was a chair by the wall, though. I like to sit where I can rest my head on
a wall. Oh well. I stayed around till they were closing up. I though I was sitting by myself,
but Courtney sat next to me, and then after that, Nicki. Nicki was crying a lot. I think it
was all too much for her. She and Courtney were dancing a lot, and seemed to be having a good time.
And I noticed Courtney doing some thing, scratching her boob or something. The inside left.
By reaching into her cleavage. Kind of trippy with the cleavage hanging out like that. Did I
mention she was cute? But I didn't have the guts to dance with
any of them. But that's how it usually goes. I don't really know them, anyway. Melissa asked
me if I would come see her this week. I said probably.
Well, I posted it to the mensa martial arts email list, be let me stick it here:
I just saw Kung Fu Panda. I thought it was fun. Really pretty good,
but it wimped out a bit, I suppose. And truly it had very little to
do with kung fu. Archetypal coming of age kinds of stuff like in Star
Wars. Lot's of star power, and good acting. Maybe a touch of the
American Zen food. It had a theme about there not being any secrets,
and I've seen that pop up on occasion in martial arts. I have a book
on tai chi called _there are no secrets_ that I started and haven't
gotten through, so maybe I'll finish it. It seems like there are
actually some secrets, but they aren't as big a deal as one might think.
I also saw the trailer for Star Wars: the clone wars. An animated
romp that really sounds like the kind of thing people were looking for
in a Star Wars movie.
someone thanked me for the review, and just tonight I wrote again:
That was sort of a quick impression review, but I thought about it a
little more, and found something more I wanted to say. I said it
wimped out, and I didn't want to go further because it would be
talking about the ending, and it's somewhat rude to spoil the end, but
I thought it was a bad ending and on further thought, I believe it is
not bad to spoil a bad ending. And I found the ending to be really
amazingly good, but it just slightly failed at the end. Part of the
genre is to have a big fight at the end between the good guy and the
bad guy, so that should be expected. The good ending I'll contrast it
with is the one from Kung Fu Hustle. That, I'm thinking more and
more, has to be one of my favorite movies, and it ends with not just a
defeat of the bad guy, but a humbling of the bad guy, and the good guy
offering friendship to the bad guy and touching him. In the fight at
the end, the good guy fights with an incredible love for kung fu, and
with no anger or hatred or vengeance or anything, in contrast with
almost all the other characters in the movie. It was looking like two
kung fu brothers fighting, and I was thinking maybe the bad guy would
accept it, but it takes the conventional ending. I think they had to
do that, because in our culture now, it has become a good thing for
bad guys to die. i think that is horrible. That's what I didn't like
about the latest Star Wars--the Jedi started killing people. That
just isn't the way I had come to admire. I real martial master has no
need to kill. Anyway, I'm thinking I will probably need to go see it
again.
getting really frustrated. Melissa admits she's being stubborn. and it isn't
me personally, she won't borrow money from her parents, either. I like to
think I'm being persistent--which is when you stick with something you know
is good. Stubborn is when you stick with something you know is bad.
And she keeps saying she has stuff going on, but won't say anything more.
So has has closed down, which is also frustrating. I can only guess it's
boyfriend stuff, because she doesn't not talk to me about that stuff.
And I guess that's fair, because I'm no longer being so caring and sympathetic.
Happy D-Day!
I've been playing call of duty 3. Finally. Got my wii going. That was one of the
main games I wanted for it, but the controller by itself is too unsteady to really play,
but with the gun stock attachment that I got for christmas, it is quite playable.
So I found how to get a google satellite map of the house at the farm
Google still doesn't recognize the new name of the road that we are using--Babian's Way,
but they know about clark road, so I can use that. Unfortunately, I
don't know the exact house number for clark road, as opposed to 109 Babian's way,
which is the address we use. I can also get
the cottage by the lake. Google maps is pretty darn cool.
I can show the house in memphis,
but it's obscured by trees.
So I thought of something I need to try. Some time when I'm dreaming, I need to shoot force lightning
like the Sith in star wars. Now that would be cool. Flying is no problem. You can develop
any kind of ability you want when you're dreaming, especially with the lucid stuff.
I need to get into shooting the force lightning.
Churchill gave the we shall fight on the beaches...we shall never surrender
speech this day in 1940. I was at Pearl's, and I wasn't very hungry, but I wanted something
(actually potato soup, but that was a Mulligans or McGuinness thing) so Melissa suggested
the shrimp and grits. It was good, but it was a little much for me. So I thought of that speech,
and looked it up on my phone to consider. I told Melissa I wouldn't let a little bowl like this
defeat me. I believe she thinks I'm crazy. Which is true. She's been having some trouble,
and won't even see me to talk about helping her out. Kind of makes me mad. And maybe I think
she's being stupid. Which is not attractive at all. And yesterday I went by Mulligans 64 and
had a bowl of potato soup. Cute bartender named Courtney.
So Louie in the Ba Gua class mentioned that being in the Zone and "Flow" are the same as the tao,
which is what you are going for with lots of practice on forms.
Happy Memorial Day! And yesterday was Towel Day, but I forgot.
So, just as I was about to go outside and mow the lawn, it started raining. Oh well.
I ended up doing the yard. It didn't rain long, and it was dry
by the evening. Did other chores--washing clothes and dishes
and shopping. Seems like two days for a weekend doesn't give me enough
time to recover emotional and build up a desire to do things.
three is pretty good.
I've started cooking rice in a slightly different way. I don't add the water at first.
I heat the rice dry for a little bit. Not in oil or with onions or anything, like you would for a risotto or
pilaf, which was my inpriation. Just to toast it a little. But it raises the temperatur of the pot, and maybe the rice above
waters boiling point. Have to constantly toss the rice around to keep from burning what's at the bottom.
And if there was oil or anything else the rice would stick to the bottom and you couldn't shake it around properly.
One time I tried to use the rice pot that was sitting in the sink, and because it was wet, it
had this problem and didn't work--rice stuck in the bottom, so I couldn't do it long enough.
What it does is to heat everything up and store heat, so you can pour in hot water, and it will immediately
be boiling. No waiting at all for it to come to a boil, which is nice. Because waiting for it to
boil, or more specifically going away while waiting for it to boil, it can bubble up. Also, I keep the lid
on when cooking it, so I always risk it bubbling up. My mom just doesn't cover it, but I like to.
You can turn the heat down immediately, since it's already boiling. This time, I wasn't lucky, and it
did bubble and boil over a little bit, because it was still so hot. But generally, it works ok
pretty well, and I think it goes a litte faster. And I always put in a bouillon cube for some flavor,
but I've been doing that for a while.
I got through July in the Sudoku calendar. That took a while. I haven't been playing so much lately.
But a couple times I did the hardest level without writing done the possibles, so I think I'm getting
better. But this last fairly easy one, I had to. So I'm not super consistent.
watched the Indiana Jones movie. Kingdom of the crystal skull. Wasn't that great. Too silly.
What's her face was nice.
How about them oil prices? You could have bought at $100 and made 30%.
If you can't fly, then run.
If you can't run, then walk.
If you can't walk, then crawl.
But whatever you do, keep moving.
--a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Similarly, Dean Karnazes said: "Run when you can,walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up"
And on Firefly they added: "And if you can't crawl, find someone to carry you."
Happy Ides of May!
I've started playing darts, and I have already improved noticeably in a couple of days.
I'm sure I won't continue to improve steadily, but that was interesting. And it wasn't
from doing it more, it seemed more that sleeping on it helped, and practicing each day.
OK, maybe not drumming. I don't know if you can study massage anywhere. I
just got some material on massage therapy for fibromyalgia. Don't sound too bad.
Melissa had a thing one time where she got a massage and it messed her up for a
few days. Thye probably just overdid it. Have to go extra slow for that.
And there are so many drummers out there.
I remember people thinking that we wouldn't read any more.
Or write. But now the kids text all the time. Good
old fashioned reading and writing. And posting on the
little social sites. I don't do that so much. Writing
is more than encoded speech. It has nice features on it's
own. Quiet is private when you're jammed together with folks.
It isn't going away. I was a speech rec believer, but text
has some staying power.
Happy Tuesday the Thirteenth!
I'm glad I didn't call. She said she stayed in bed from Saturday night to Monday afternoon
when she had to go to work. That girl!
So I tried getting into the second chapter of Neil's book. I should quit. I think
to a lot of people, maybe he might come across as pretty smart--he talks about reading
"the great books"-- but to me he sounds thick as a brick. I don't really care for travelling
or motorcycles. It's not my kind of thing, really, but I wanted to give it a shot. I
do sort of have a preconception that drummers are stupid. This hasn't dispelled it.
So I'm no longer so psyched about playing. It is kind of a mindless thing, anyway.
What I need to do is develop a computer program that can properly sing.
Well, hmm. Neil is an ENTP, which is pretty close to me. But it seems quite far. The whole
risk-taking thing. I'm just not into it.
Happy Mother's Day!
So, I decided to come to Starbucks. Went out to Borders to pick up something by Neil Peart,
I"m hoping it inspires me to pick up the drums. And more specifically, I'd heard that he was
a pretty smart and interesting guy, somewhat intellectual. I just want to see if drummers can be
the kind of person I would want to be. I get the feeling they are kind of dumb and brutish--animal
as it were. I"m thinking again of taking up the drums. I had thought about it last year, but
I was just getting into the kung fu, and I decided it would probably be too much effort. I can
only put so much into things. And it"s probably never going to be too likely that i'll stick
with it. But it"s the same thing with the kung fu, and that's been a year now.
Augh, And I'm wishing I could just go see Melissa. She hasn't responded to my last two
text messages, but last night I went by, and she seemed to say something about her messages
being full. I went by about midnight and missed tom dick and harry playing. She hadn't been
sleeping and i wanted to know how she was doing. And I found out that she had gotten a couple
of hours after massively medicating. She was in some kind of real tortured, fitful pain
when she lay down. . Is it being too intrusive to want to know how she is? I guess.
OK, so I didnt eat anything, and came in late, but I wanted to give Melissa something for
being there. And this time, she wouldn"t accept it. Grr. She used to try that. And Chip
from Mudflap Kings did the same thing. Made me feel bad. Hmm. Maybe it's not so good of me.
It could be me trying to look important. And it could look bad. I have her number, I could call.
*sigh*
I needed to get out. I was pissed. I put the DVR on a UPS, but it didn't go a whole day
without being reset. So it must not be the power. The thing is just broken. I guess.
So, Neil Peart. My impression so far: Ugh. Me daughter die, ay? Me wife sad. She want
to die. She broke heart. She get cancer. She die. Me live. Me ride bike. Me get radar detector.
Me go fast. Cop take.
Shoot. So I wanted to go see TJ Mulligans 64. And I was thinking of shooting a practice rack
of pool. I've been thinking of taking that up. Again, maybe? I don't know. I tell people
we used to have a pool table at my house. It's conversation, I guess. I haven't played in
a long time. I don't know if I ever got consistent. So I'm in there. They have two tables,
and a couple of old hacks are playing at the other, and I check, and I haven't brought in enough
quarters, so I sit back. And the guy playing at the other table, plays a couple of the cuties.
Maybe they were with them, I don't know. One girl seemed to at least know what she was doing--
but had no cue accuracy, so couldn't make anything.
and I think the other, maybe named Stephanie, in the little cowboy boots (they were singing
that they were made for walking), had no clue. Did get the other one to help pick shots.
Anyway, they finish off the game with the guy, and they play each other. I guess. Never finished it
I think at some point, the guy came over and started clearing. So I was shut out of the table.
And they were pointing over to me. Actually, I was sitting at the bar watching, and there was
a group of the hombres, and one kind of gestured that I should go over. Man. But actually closer
than the pool table, there were some folks playing darts. Someone brought in his set. And I'm
thinking, well, that's actually a martial art. Maybe I should take it up. And I know a good bit
about poisons. Sounds like a hobby. I wonder if you could kill a squirrel with a dart. Buggers
are quick. Might not be able to toss it fast enough.
I just heard of something interesting. Skype has an API to for doing VOIP. I've wanted
to do some speech recognition, processing stuff again. It sounds like a good platform.
I really needed something with access to the sound stream data, and it probably has that.
There's a guy on the AGI list, Stephen Reed, who wants to hook something like that up
with the Sphinx recognizer, and some other system, with his text based ai system (texai).
We'll see how that goes for him.
It made me laugh out loud. I got a battery backup
uninterruptible power supply (welcome to the 90s)
so my digital recorder wouldn't reset all the time.
And as a bit of a nice side effect, now my desktop is
on interruptible. I've actually never had a problem
from that (I guess I've been lucky) but now I got it.
It's kind of nice that with laptops you get that reliability
automatically, although in windows world, it ends
up more likely that the computer will freeze up,
or your editor program will freeze up, or this actually
happened to me, you'll be doing something in a browser
window, and another browser window will crash all your
browser instances. Darn crappy software standards.
Anyway, it said on the box, lightning protection,
guarranteed(?!) Now, surge protection in general
means protection, not from lightning, but from smaller
elelctrical surges that can happen from, say, big
electric motors switching on and off, or other kinds of
things like that. But, problems with lightning are
so rare that they can perfectly reasonably have a guarantee
to protect against it. Not that it will protect against it,
or survive it in itself, but kind of like an insurance thing
where they will pay you for damages if one of those rare things
does actually happen, where lightning hits your transformer
or something. And it wasn't you just being stupid and using
it outside in a thunderstorm. I doubt any of these places
has even ever had a claim brought to them. It would be
kind of interesting to see. Now, the battery backup thing
is actually slightly more electrically isolated. And I suppose
it's possibly that the "surge protector" has something
to reduce overvoltage issues. But protection from lighting?
It just makes me laugh. Kenny at Pearl's yesterday was
saying how he lived on a farm as a kid, and he saw a cow
hit by lightning. It basically exploded. Poor Melissa
is such a sweethearted animal lover, she probably really
didn't need to here that. Or about the time a cow had it's
horn frozen to the ground and rancher had to chainsaw its
head off. Fun kid, that Kenny.
Yay! and my Wii works again! At Best Buy, in addition
to the UPS, I also got their little wireless IR sensor
bar. And I only wanted a wired one, so I didn't think
to get theirs, though I saw that they had one. And
I get it, and it has a plug to used it as a wired one.
Grr! I had order a cheap one online (with horrible messed
up chinese docs) and it didn't work. And then I took
so long to try this. So much gaming time lost. I tried
stuff out, and I was really rusty. And maybe the quiet
sudoku playing is getting to me, but I feel kind of
overstimulated. Now I just feel like sitting quietly.
Actually, that's what I do at Pearl's. Hmm. And I
just found out that Melissa hates to just sits still.
Some folks are just fidgety. That's totally not me.
And when I found that out about her, it just showed
me that we totally couldn't work, but I can't help
still being smitten. But the fidgety girls are
always so thin--it's part of the deal-- and everybody
likes thin. Man I used to be thin. Grr. I don't
know if I used to be fidgety. Brains themselves can
use a lot of energy, if you use them a lot. I don't know.
¡Feliz Cinco de Mayo!
I got through June in my Sudoku calendar. Halfway through the year. I'm not
using any external stuff to help, no "cheating", but several times now I've
resorted to a kind of guessing, which I'm not so happy with. I think it
would have been better to use the strategy search thing to maybe learn something
instead of doing that. My mom actually solve a blank belt level puzzle, though
she did use the solution when she got stuck on the last square. Still, I think
it's pretty impressive, based on how hard they can be. Trial and error can
be an effective approach.
I started on three books. None of them was very interesting, which I guess is why
there were three of them. I got a bunch in the mail, including several books
on coding. _Beautiful Code_ was the coding book I started. I also tried
Neil deGrasse Tyson's _Death by Black Hole..._ It mentions the question about
a tree falling in the forest making a sound or not, but he dismissed it as
a stupid question. Plus the chapter didn't seem to say anyhing, so I put it
aside. One of the atheist mailing lists wanted to discuss it, and they talked
about it at their book meeting. We'll see if I read any more. And there
was _Omnivore's Dilemma_, which I mentioned before. So I spent a lot of time
on the Sudoku, instead.
So, there are about 230 Google hits for "octo-lavo". It's a type of vegetarianism.
I'm guessing it's a type of vegetarianism where because you don't get enough
protein, your body has started to digest your brain. I think I've mentioned it
before, and I'm glad the idea is still going strong. It literally means "eight-washing"
and I think that kind of obsessive compulsion itself would indicate some level
of brain damage. But I have to concede that it's probably more a matter of
people getting confused by the term "ovo-lacto" which is a different type of
vegetarianism that includes eggs and dairy products. But a mistake like that
I think does also indicate some level of impairment, so I think my analysis stands.
And a nifty thing about this most recent Googling is that it now comes up with
a lot of pictures of the octo-lavos. Mostly skinny looking women. More corroboration,
I believe.
I was thinking of the octo-lavos because I started on _Omnivore's Dilemma_ for
Aimee's book group. I think that's another misuse of language. They mentioned
that the origin of the title term comes from some professor thirty years ago,
so I wouldn't be surprised at the mistakes. Ah the glorious, spacey 70s!
"Dilemma" of course implies having two choices-- that's what the "di-" in the
word means. Unless you broaden what you are trying to say to just mean a difficult
choice, in which case, of course, "dilemma" is no longer really the correct word.
So I'm not starting off with a good feeling about the book. But who cares? Why
stick to what words actually mean. Which is why I can embrace the term "octo-lavo"
vegetarian. Dude does mention the ovo-lactos, though, which is why I thought
of their sisters from the special bus.
Happy May Day!
Your zombie dictator demanded ritual cannabilism. Doesn't that sound a little crazy to you?
I finally finished the book of 180 Sudoku puzzles. The last section of about 30 was
actually moderately challenging, I guess is why it took longer than I was thinking.
OK, so what could the ritual cannibalism mean? Well if you look at it as Jesus was
one of the few enlightened folk who see themselves not as the smaller self confined in
this body, but just the same as (I almost said part of, but that's wrong) the greater
self that includes all things, then it makes sense. And it this sense of God that
they are really getting at. And it isn't a God that created everything back in the
past and occasionally tips things over or whatever. It's a god who is constantly doing
everything at all times even now. But, the thing is, that's either true or it's not.
And maybe it's only true as an explanation you work with and makes sense to you. Even
in the sense of true as in useful working theory, it could still be false. Because what does
it get you? For some people it's helpful to have an imaginary firend that's controlling
things, because it lets them be optimistic about stuff. It turns out that optimism
is useful in itself. There's that whole death not being such a scary bad thing,
but I think that value is a bit overstated, and really not all that good. It really
seems like people pretend that their loved ones going to a better plaes comforts them,
but for what I've seen, they are really pretty devastated, and it's more something that
supports them in their denial, and makes it a much more serious psychological problem.
A lot of it is crazyiness.
Hmm. So Aimee said she might come by Pearl's after going to the roller
derby. But she didn't. And she didn't send a message or anything.
Today I sent her a text asking how it went and said Melissa knew
somebody that did the roller derby thing, and maybe would like to
go sometime. I guess that was a little sad that I was mentioning
her in the message, but oh well. Now I'm finding that I'm a little
angry that Aimee just skipped without anything. I need to take
a hint. But I need to get over it too, and not be petulant. Maybe.
I think she's cute. I have general liked talking to her. She said
she'd like to talk some time. But she seems to have that thing
about not really being into telling the whole truth, in order to
spare people's feelings, a thing that just irks me. Part of being
a sweet person, I suppose. I'm just trying to think of what
the right reaction is. Don't be a doormat. Be tough and firm.
And don't chase. Be the prize.
A day of Shiva. On the way to work, a bird who was actually a little forward and to the
right, decided to dart in front of my car, and I hit him. I could see him fluttering on
the ground. There was a death recently in the family of someone from work. My car was
munched. A big branch from a tree fell on the house and put a hole through the roof, so rain
came in. We just noticed today, though it must have been there for a while. Somebody
just told me their relationship was having trouble. Just kind of some freakish stuff.
Nothing super big (well, the death wasn't good, but i hadn't even actually met the person).
But still, for a person who follows the signs, it's rather uncanny.
And when i switched on the iPod this morning, the first song that came up was the
first track on _Oh Brother Where Art Though_--"Lonesome Valley". If you know the song,
you know what I mean. Right now it's the Beatles' "Run For Your life".
I just saw on reddit something about a computer program
to help with memory (supermemo). I think my brother Freddie told
me about it, and he's using it to practice language
and learn Chinese, and also to help teach his kid.
It uses the known fact that we forget in a sort of
exponential decay, so it gives flash cards in a pattern
with exponentially decaying probability based on how
you have been remembering.
It made me think about how I keep reading the AGI list.
And I really get
kind of discouraged, because they really don't come up
with a lot of insight. So here is the latest thing
I'm thinking. They keep wanting computers to think
like people, but do not focus on finding out how
it might be possible to translate. how people
think about things to how computers think about things.
For one, If a computer can learn how to do things, it needs
to be able to write the specialized program that can
do it, the way a person can. People do chunking,
where they take some complicated set of motions or
things to do, and in a sense make them a kind of
"instinctive" pattern where they do it automatically without
thinking. Computer programs are kind of like that at
a completely different level--a different level in
the sense that in a person there is always some room
to break it open and change out a step or recognize
that something is going awry and fix it. Computers
get extremely locked down. There used to be a
notion of "interrupt" where a computer could be disrupted
and something else would go on, but that's hard to program,
and it is avoided in a real program. But it could be
a mechanism to make a computer program more intelligent--
interrupt it when it isn't doing so well and offer
possible improvements to the compiled code. That is
in a sense what programmers do when they revise code.
So it looks like I'm basically proposing that the proper
role for an intelligence on a computer is to be a programmer.
Computers do their own kind of thinking, and it should
be a goal of people to find out how to translate our
ways of thinking to how a computer does think, instead
of trying to figure out some magically essence of how
people think and getting some program to do that.
There might not be an essence (a simple thing we
try to call intelligence).
We use huge thought processes
involving billions of neurons--this involves huge
amounts of simple mechanisms. And what kinds of things
do these simple mechanisms do? The evaulate patterns.
And they make judgements about what kind of actions
are good in different situations, and boil them together
kind of competitively (that is, in parallel all working
at the same time to find what they think of is the best
answer based on how they have been configured at the time)
to come up with a decision about what next to do. The
final pipe is very narrow--we can't do very much at one
time, but if we have lot's of bits of brain, we can consider
a lot of possibilities. And the bits of brain, if they
are limited about what they can think about, and think
about a lot of things independently, and they don't
have to bother the rest of the bits of the brain until they
come up with something really good, and then the shouting
can get louder and louder until the whole brain gets involved,
and maybe we eventually decide to do something. And another
thing that people can do, is to come up with words and
descriptions to shout, and we can shout these to ourselves
inside in what is called "thinking" or deliberation,
which is already a big step above the unconscious processes
that happen in the bits of brain. And thinking in words
is part of the even huger system that lets us pass part
of the thinking mechanism on to other people, so the
thoughts can bounce around with them, and maybe bounce
back. It is a narrow and specialized pipe, but quite
general and something we have been highly adapted to,
on top of our underlying system. And it turned out that
we found a nifty external systme of writing where we could
put these wirds streams down.
Anyway, I need to contrast how computers think. Computers
have an incredibly narrow final pipe, and actually, it's
just one narrow pipe from start to finish. But it's incredibly
fast, and absolutely exact. Everything is remembered without
error, and all the evaluations are done now simply without error,
but with a precision of at least a part in a million or billion
or whatever you need, such that in a sort of vague sense, it could
exactly emulate anything that may be going in any of the simple
evaluators in our heads, exactly, tirelessly, and without
error. If we have some condition and known situation and
context that a computer can be told about, it can me made
to make the exact decision and take the action that we tell it.
Programming is a lot about describing the situations and
the decisions to be made in those situations. The basic example
of computers is doing arithmetic, which is really the fundamental
kind of operation in a computer. It can handle a simple
situation where you have two numbers, and you want to add
them and it can give the result--right now.
A person to do
this kind of problem will need to break it down into digits,
and add the digits that correspond in a certain way, and combine
them back to give one number, and in fact, a computer does
kind of break it down in a way similar to this. In people's
mechanism there is a lot of baggage, like we understand big
numbers and small numbers, and as we're thinking, we can sometimes
tell when we're going awry, and we don't often really need
to go through the long mechanical process of adding numbers,
so it doesn't too often become an especially natural thing,
the way some actions become chunked and automatic. We have to
keep thinking about it quite a bit. Some people become great
calculators, and it's very automatic and natural and easy for them.
I'm guessing they lose some of the baggage we have about it, whatever it is,
hearing the sounds of the numbers or seeing the digits or whatever
really slows people down. I don't know.
So what makes a computer different in how it thinks? It is
never also being distracted by other items in it's environnent.
It only focuses on things that have already been decided are relevant.
In a person's world, it is never known for sure what is relevant,
because other things can come out and suddenly become important.
But computers have tremendous focus. Just the stuff it's looking
at. Deal with those. And that kind of thing makes computers
stupid, because they don't know to, and can't consider other
things that may suddenly be relevant in what could be a new situation.
And they don't really look at so many different aspects and bits
of information in a situation, scene or context, and just
disregard the ones that are not so important. At least that's not
how we tend to program. We make sure they are only looking at
what's important. Not so much searching through big piles of
stuff for what it's looking for, though, in one important
but distinct sense it does that. There is a huge pile of storage,
that it can look through one at a time, or address any particular
bit according to an exact location. Locations in the real world
are not exact in this way. It seems like the word "location"
might confuse a person because of the unusual analogy. It is
kind of like a bin in that it is numbered with a counting number,
instead of having a position measured by a ruler. But there is
nothing in the world comparable to having billions of bins
where you can get to each one at the exact same speed. No
physical understanding can correspond, so maybe it isn't such
a good thing even to try to explain how a computer thinks in
its way. But lets just say it's one at a time, in a kind of narrow
sense, but it can do so many million of these things in a second, that
it can come to be close to what people do with doing a million
little different brain things at same time, all combining together to do
a few big things from a huge bag of possibilities each second.
One of the things people on the AGI list try to say is that
thinking is somehow probabilitic--that its evaluation is about
combining and evaluating the probabilities and making predictions
from those. I would say that it may end up something like that
in the brain because of how many little evaluators are operation.
Computers might be able to do something valuable and useful
along those lines in some approach, but it still isn't translating
don't to the basic natural operation of the computer. And as I think
about it, it might also be useful to translate to some kind
of probabilitic evaluation at some middle level to handle some
of the generality and exception and interrupt handling, but it would
still be best to have a way to compile down to basic machine code
when possible, and that should stay as an ultimate goal.
I wanted to get around to talking about how the kinds of
date we think about it situations where we can have rules
of thumbs about what my be important features to look at and
try to maniplute and act on, but it might not work. heuristics.
Computers are not so good about trying things that might not work
and then reacting to the results. Because we might file
away a result as something that might be used in a different
situation later, but for a computer we have something we
want done, and anything new or different is wrong, and
we just want it avoided, or at least thrown away if
we get the wrong thing. People have endless failuers
that we can profit from later. Computers not so much.
Doing some of the bagua sword movements, I'm getting a better
sense of the whipping motion that is one of the forms of the
internal power that they talk about. And from what I remember in
aikido sword training, that's the kind of thing they were going
for there, too. Not so much that you would use a sword, but
that you would get a sense of a particular kind of power
you develop from a proper whipping movement technique.
Ooo! a site to restore the pledge!
Aw, that's tricky! it uses a style in the replublican think
tank mode of manipulating the wording to guide the discussion.
Saying it's a restoration to take out "God" from the pledge.
I think it's interesting. The rhetoric here is that adding
"under God" in 1954 to the pledge made it a prayer establishing
a kind of generic cult of state religion. Hmm.
Happy Earth Day!
Boo! Somebody ripped the bumper trim off my car with
his pickup. It was in the parking lot at the kung fu school.
Somebody saw it and told us about it. It came off,
and they got out and set it back on. One of the students
who was a lawyer was out interviewing people and getting
contact info and statements. the cell phone numbers helped.
And the computer store guy checked their records and got
their name and number (we're pretty sure, I don't know
if it's positive. Filed a police report. Bartlett
police were there in a couple of minutes, but we needed
Memphis, so I had to wait for them. I don't think it
will really be a big deal, but sometimes that trim
isn't so cheap, and it was a pretty big piece.
The little lawyer was really mad at them, but I'm
not really so mad. They made a mistake, it happens.
What could they really do?
Wow, finally finished a book that has been sitting in my stack
for many months, if not a year. Steve Pinker's _Stuff of Thought_.
He has a bit where he talks about Stevism, how so many people
at a certain time were named Steve. And he has a section
about indirect speech and three different kinds of face
that people try to maintain, let me see if I can get it,
communality (kind of like a brotherhood or fraternal idea),
authority, and equality matching. When instead of just
asking for the salt, you say, I could use the salt,
you are trying not to seem bossy or above the other person.
And when trying to change a relationship, you need to be
indirect and say, would you like to come see my etchings.
Something about how relationships have to be natural,
and not ordered around and decided rationally.
Happy Tax Day!
I don't know what it is about my answering machine. That's at least the
second year that ants have had a little swarm under my answering machine.
It's in spring and rainy. I think it's their time to swarm. But I'm
not sure why they sit under my answering machine. Maybe it's warm.
I think by now it must have some kind of weird ant pheromone. A little
windex took care of them. Wrong place wrong time for them.
Been a little off this weekend. Oh well. I'm a little into June now
in my Sudoku calendar. I decided to swtich to my book I got for Christmas
for a bit. They had a section of 40 puzzles with only 6 numbers instead of
9. went through those just today. And I did 10 of the regular ones, but
this is a pretty easy book. there are 180 in all. Don't know how long it
will take, but probably not too long. I think Melissa kind of makes me
feel cared about, and I felt kind of rejected. I guess. People do have moods.
And I didn't exercise so much and I slept a lot. So maybe a combination
of things.
Ah, missed MLKj death day. oh well. Hope it was good for you. they
had folks in town. Hillary, McCain. Brian Williams got Obama
on the video from Indiana, and said, hey there's people that thought
you'd be here and they're asking about you, why aren't you hear.
and dude said, well there's people all over the country remembering
MLKj and celebrating his life. I thought I could do that best here
in Indiana and later in South Dakota. WTF? yeah, there you go.
there's an honest person. OK, put him on the spot, but dude.
Pearl's was super dead. And Tom Dick and Harry were playing. Melissa
sent me a text that said they were her favorite local band. I was
eating, and Melissa said she wanted a fillet. She hasn't been eating
much this week, and she wasn't sure she could finish it. Then she
checked the price, and it was too much. Maybe she would split it
with Randy (she did). But I said she has been buying me didn't,
I've been thinking I'd like to buy her dinner some time. And she said
no. I've taken care of her. Well, great. Maybe it was only for this
time, but I did ask her and she said no. I was wimpy about it, though.
I was thinking I would try to explain that I was just trying to bring
it up and maybe do it some other time, but I did not get around to that.
Talked about other things. And she didn't really care much about them
either. And I did finally tell her I liked the way the light from the
computer screen played on her face. But that clearly made her uncomfortable.
So that's the kind of thing that puts me in the mind to just let it go.
I did talk about it, because Melissa squatted down, and I ended up just sitting
on the ground because I couldn't keep in a squat. I just this week realized
that I have been doing many of the moves in my form wrong. They are squats,
but instead of squatting to get lower, I have been bending over. And this
week, I've been trying to do them correctly as squats, but it's been tough.
One time my knees really complained. I need to just do some squats to
build up. I've gained some weight, and my leg strength hasn't really kept up.
I'm liking the broadsword form, though. Unfortunately, in class, I swung
a little wild and ripped a hole in a little painting on paper that is
hanging in the class. I really felt bad about it. And Li Lao Shr gave me
some tape to fix it, and I didn't do much to try to straighten out the
paper before putting it on, I just stuck it on quick, so I did a poor job
with that, too. Feeling bad about that afterward, too. It was a really jagged
rip. And then I look, and there's a little notch out of the tip of my
wooden sword. I must have stuck it into the wall. Rough. I really did
feel bad, but with time, it's gotten better. I watched Louie do the form
on Thursday, and I noticed that he doesn't stick his hand out so far the
way I'm doing. A mistake I'm making, I guess.
So, at about 10, I texted Aimee about coming to Pearl's. She wrote back that
she was in Alabama with her folks, and that we should plan something. Hmm.
Plan? Maybe that's what I'm missing. No plan.
And when I left it was only 1:30 so I was thinking of going to a strip club,
but it was still the same. Somehow being with Melissa was enough and
I didn't really feel like going to see any other girls.
Some people just like to be alone a lot. Things aren't
set up super well for them. OK, us. But we like to
be with other people sometimes, just not all the time.
And I think the extroverts, who are the majority,
just can't fathom it. And they set up thing where
you are around people all the time, and they think
it's great, and they don't know that not everyone
is happy with it. One big example would be church.
Some people must just think it's the greatest thing
to get together with a bunch of other people. And
they probably just have this natural tendency to
think that people who don't like that are just bad
in some way. And of course, maybe for other reasons
they think people that don't go to church are bad,
but that's got to be one of the factors. And introverts
maybe will try to be nice and put up the effort to
go, and you can see how they're making an effort, so
that counts for something for them. And then there's
the whole marriage and family thing. If you just
want to be by yourself a lot of the time, that's
just going to be constantly irritating.
And I think
some of that, that I just want to be by myself a lot,
is why I haven't really tried to be with Melissa so much.
It's nice to see her at Pearl's sometimes. I also
get the feeling that she wants to be alone a lot, too.
She has said she tested as an introvert and does like to
have time alone. But what is it about being alone,
or what is it about being with other people that can
be a drain. Melissa seemed to show me some of that.
Melissa was trying to count out her money, and then
she needed Randy to get her some paperclips, and he
was kind of fussy about it, but he eventually did, and
then he kind of hovered about, and she just had to tell
him to go away because he was kind of bothering her
and getting in her space. But I was just sitting right
next to her. So Randy asks why I get to be in her
personal space, and she said I wasn't all, and she used
the yakking hand gesture.
And the other person I'm thinking of is Holly. She just
likes to be by herself. But not absolutely always.
She likes to be with other people sometimes, just not
all the time, and if you get into a relationship,
they just want it to be all the time. Or maybe it's
her. I know she made me want to be with her all the
time. She's really very lovable. But I wish things
could work out in a way that was good with her, that
she could still be with us and have the space she needs.
I don't know. She was thinking about coming to visit,
but had some stuff at work that made it harder.
I would like to go see her, but it is kind of her turn.
I miss Holly :( That's life, though. Maybe I should
take her to Paris. I want to go sometime. It'd be
nice to go with someone who speaks French. And the
name Babian is actually French. I think there's
quite a few of them out there in Frenchland, wherever
that is.
I've finished April in my Sudoku calendar. Just a little
behind the plan, I guess. I felt I needed to stop and
do something else, so I'm writing. It turns out
the puzzle I ripped out and gave to the kid was one
from May, so now I only have three to do in May. But
I guess they can wait.
I've joined the Mensa Martial arts SIG. And I joined up,
and the moderator wrote a message for everyone to welcome
me, and there were a bunch of emails welcoming me. I
don't think I've ever seen a group be that friendly.
I guess it was nice. I told them the story about how
BK Frantzis thinks O Sensei studied BaGua in China,
and one of the guys replied that it is widely thought
that he did study in China. And from what I gather,
as such a martial arts person, he certainly would
have looked into whatever he could find. He was
really seriously into it. Being Japanese, though,
of course he wouldn't be able to say anything.
Happy April Fool's Day!
So, I just couldn't do the Sudoku puzzles at the con very well.
I was thinking it was too distracting. I was working on a green
one (second easiest) and it took forever, and later I noticed
that I had made some mistakes in the hints I was writing down.
And I just could not finish the hardest ones. And at home,
with no TV on, they fell into place like usual. So those little
distractions from concentration make a difference. I am seeing
that just having the TV on makes a significant difference, but
I kind of like it because it makes it a little harder, and I'm
doing something else at the same time.
So I didn't lose anything significant like last year (my firefly
discs), but people did grab more than I wanted. There was a zombie
couple who offered an ultraman tape for a cup of m&ms, with the
con suite out of food, but since they were nice, I just gave it
to them. Then guber-dude must have seen them, because he asked,
are you giving them away, and I always get people asking me if
they are free, so I said sure, so he just grabbed the whole
smurfing cup, and I was too surprised to react with anything,
though I was thinking later how I needed to yell or something.
So I go get another cup and fill it up, And then I go off to do
something, and I come back, and one of the cups is gone, but they've
left one, and someone took the whole bag! Shoot! So much for leaving
it on the table to make it easier to refill them. And they were like
the big four pound bags. Really kind of got me down. Pigs.
I actually bitched to one of the con people. Telling someone made
me feel better. And I got out another cup. But took the new, now
last, bag off the table. And I watched a little closer, and I don't
think I went off. And there was a mousy older lady sitting at
a couple tables over. She must have seen it all go down. Never heard her
say anything. It's hard to let the meanness not get you down, but
I'm sure they all thought it was fine. If it's sitting out on the table,
I must want them to take it. Sure, that makes sense, doesn't it?
And people took my current mensa bulletin and newsletter. They
got the one that has the list of all the sigs I might join. The
only one I would have wanted to keep. I guess I could have kept
it off. And if they might have expressed some interest in why
they wanted it, I probably would have been fine and given it to them.
But just grabbing when I'm not there, just seems like something I
don't want to encourage. And maybe it was ust them trying to feel
like they were getting away with something. The kind of thing the
emotion of anger was made to deal with--cheaters.
There will be simple things that I want to do, and think about
doing, and then I don't do them. Generally involving other people.
And I've generally thought that I'm just being chicken, but I
think there is more to it. Maybe I'm not all that into it, just
not super up for it. Enough that if there is a little resistance it will
be enough to stop me. And maybe at the time it seems like the
other person won't really be into it. Like I was thinking of showing
Linda my bagua form. But she was always rushing around. And i
think of asking Melissa if she wants to do something, but it has never
worked out before, and she doesn't really seem that into it.
So Steven Seagal was at Pearl's. He and his posse got the downstairs to themselves. He did
have to come in the door and walk to the stairs. When he was leaving, he seemed to be hanging
around, and maybe he sat for a picture.
Happy Birthday to me! It's my 41st
Wow, Melissa even gave me a little cake. Brownie with ice cream and two candles.
She did share some. She later said it was bad luck to eat it by yourself. There
were two spoons with it. And three cute girls I didn't know told me happy birthday.
I think they were lesbians, because it was mostly a lesbian crowd, but it was
still nice. One gave me a hug. But still, I had wanted to tell Melissa she
was beautiful, and I didn't. We have gotten a little bit tired, I think.
And I wanted to ask if she wanted to do something sometine when she wasn't working,
but again I didn't. She did pay for my dinner. And she told me that she and one
of her friends, I think he was gay, went out a couple days ago and ran up a
$160 bar tab. And other people also bought them drinks too. So she does go
out some times. And drinks heavily. So I really need to be a part of that
some time. Maybe. *sigh*
I have gotten to April in my little Sudoku calendar. Quite a few of the puzzles in April
are already done, so there are only 17 left in April. May already has all but 4 done.
I've got MidSouthCon this weekend, and it seems like I will take it as a chance to
do more Sudoku. Maybe I can get through May. That's a little ambitious, so maybe not.
Even with that, I was able to finish the _Battersea Park Road to Enlightenment_ by
Isabel Losada. There was a picture of her
at the end. She's cute, or at least has a nice big smile. But the book was quite
fluffy. Funny in bits. She goes to a bunch of New-Agey seminars. Seemed to have
little to do with enlightenment, more self-help kinds of things. Expanding the ego,
I guess. And she has a chapter on a seminar on tantric sex. Didn't sound like there
was any actual sex going on, though.
Happy Good Friday!
Happy first day of Spring!
It was too much. I knew it was too much and I ate it anyway.
Read Obama's speech. Wasn't super impressed. I sat in the little deli and watched all
the neatly divided groups. So much in-grouping.
Started on the sword exercises, but my wrist is terrible.
I went out on St. Patrick's Day. I took a nap, but then checked out
where super 5 was playing, and they were at Mulligan's Trinity, where I've hung
out in the past. They and Mudflap kings. And I was talking to Jason, the
drummer for Mudflaps kings. He had joked before about not playing for very
long, and I had not realized, and it gave me some hope. But this time I asked
him, and he said he'd been playing drums since he was five. Hopes dashed.
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Happy Ides of March!
Happy Pi Day!
Animals don't have an ability to learn from direct instruction. They don't
have a way of of thinking that a person is trying to get them to do something
that is good for them. They can learn, though. They can copy. Somehow
you can train animals. Dogs want to please people, and they might
be submissive enough to do what you want. I don't know. I'm just still
trying to get the thing with apes not understanding pointing. That's
just weird. Because they can copy things they see other people doing,
and they can use tools and figure stuff out. But they don't seem to
be able to teach or understand the idea of being taught. Maybe,
I don't know, I'm not an expert. But maybe there are some special
sorts of emotional and cognitive abilities involve. Could just
be a trusting nature plus a special kind of theory of mind or
understanding of motivations and an inclination to know that
people might want to help.
I forgot to say 'Happy Thursday the Thirteenth'. Sorry. Happy Friday the Fourteenth!
I did 5 Sudoku puzzles today to get me through January, and
most of February is already done from last year. only 2 days towards the end
were not. So pretty soon, maybe this weekend, I will be caught up to the
actual date.
So there was this big project I was working on. I even spent a good bit
of the weekend on it, and that's kind of stressful for me not to get
a break. It turns out I was mostly just making a small mistake and
not seeing it, otherwise I would have been a lot farther along. It
did still have a lot of complicated bits, but it was more that I had gotten
stuck on something. And then I find out they don't want it after all this year.
Maybe next year. One of the sad things was that although I did go see
Melissa on Saturday, I had to leave early, and she said she understood, but
she seemed kind of disappointed. It's bad karma to disappoint cute girls.
I made a video from the bagua class. They had the film, but I took the
raw DVD and made copies. But it turned out they had used a DVD recorder
that had not finalized the disk, and I had a lot of trouble dealing with it
and that was time I really needed to be working on the stuff for work.
I thought it would be quick and easy, but once I started, I didn't really want
to give it up, so I could at least have something accomplished. And then
there was something sort of wrong with the sound. I don't know exactly,
but I had to adjust the setting on the player to get the sound. When I
listened on the PC, it was only in one ear, so maybe it was something to
do with that. Several hours to do, and it was only a 10 minute video.
I ended up installing several things, including some stuff I got for christmas.
One of them didn't work on w2000, so I had to put it on my laptop.
Happy Leap Day!
They need to redo _Jurassic Park_ and put feathers on the Tyrannosaurus.
They had feathers. A whole bunch of dinosaurs had feathers. Not all of
them, but a lot of the mean ones did. Like the raptors. Most of the
meat eaters. There are still some folks who are holding out the
possibility that birds branched off earlier, but there is a lot
of evidence now. And a lot of dinosaur fossils with feathers. If you
think of it, it makes a lot of sense to have skin covered with something
like feathers or fur. There are always bugs trying to nibble at your skin.
Especially back then. Bugs were bigger and meaner back then. And
you did have UV radiation which could damage skin. And feathers insulate.
Over millions of years, sometimes it would get colder than other times.
They had cold periods sometimes, too. Overall it was warmer, but not always.
I think an important thing to ask is how enlightenment can even
be a good thing. Well, it frees up your actions if they
often get tied down by selfish greedy habits, or by
fearful, timid habits or by overthinking. At least in
the Chinese, Taoist influence on the Buddhist tradition.
The Chinese already had a mystical tradition of letting things
happen naturally without pushing. This (Taoism) is a completely
different source of enlightenment tradition and notions than the
Hindu/Buddhist, but it is really going towards the same thing.
It really seems weird, though, because in the Indian (Hindu/Buddhist)
mindset, the whole practice and searching process is about
discipline and control, but I'm pretty sure it's intended to
be pointless discipline and control that you eventual come
to realize actually _is_ pointless and empty because your
trying hard and do something is the same as you just doing it, and the
goal is your just doing it. Although really, it's just about getting
to the point where it's just a doing it, where you forget about yourself,
in the sense of being in the zone, or the notion of "flow" that
what's his name Polish dude was talking about. So the good thing
about enlighenment for life is that you are always, or at least more
often, in the zone. One of the deeper things, though from this
book I was looking at was that dude said he wasn't enlightened all
the time. I get that. Even after you start to understand what
it's about, after you have really seen the light, as it were, you can
still slip into old thoughts and habits. But those stick to you
less and less and drop away. If you keep at it, I guess. Those
habits can really stick with you, though, and maybe you'll just want
to stay with them instead of just staying in the zone.
That was a little bit of a weird dream experience. I was living in kind of
a college dorm like at CBY, and I had a bed that was kind of square
shaped, maybe a queen-sized. And I've been wanting to have a big enough
mattress that I could walk a circle on and do the bagua form. Part
of the bagua form is that your balance is low and provisional, keeping
mostly on the back leg so you could handle uneven or unsteady ground by
adjusting. You don't stay planted, the power is from dynamically
adjusting and being very sensitive and quick to adjust. So in
the dream, I was just walking the circle on the matress, until I
was just thinking about the dynamic balance and while thinking and
walking, just realized I was asleep and woke up. I also was wanting
to reattance things here in my room so I really have enough room to
properly walk in a circle. I have a desk, but I just realized
yesterday that I'm not using it as a desk, I'm using it as a shelf,
so I should really just get some proper shelves.
And an example of how maybe you might think enlightenment is not
a good thing. There is a Zen idea of how part of life should be:
when tired sleep, when hungry, eat. Well, this just doesn't fit
with how life works. You need to go to work, and work hours are
particular times during the day, and the times you have to eat
that will be convenient are before work (or maybe just in the morning
--there is a cafeteria open till 9:30 at hilton for breakfast)
at lunch time, and after work. So you eat on a schedule and that
works pretty well, mostly, but it isn't the naturalness that the
Zen people are going for, and it is actually that rigid, routinized,
zombie, empty mindless life that they are really reacting against.
And when I say in the zone, I don't mean like habitually and unconscious,
but a little more free and spontaneous and focused.
Goodbye, Bill Buckley!
A big part of writing is having something to say. So you need to
do something that gives you something to say, or at least think about
things. I don't know if I capture it. I don't do much.
Yay! So, now I have digital reception here in my room. Actually,
I have the dvr I was looking for. I actually saw the one I wanted online at
walmart for $200 (magnovox H2080MW8), and did the lookup for what store
had it, and the superwalmart I usually go to said they didn't have it.
The had on way on the other side of town, and I was thinking maybe I'd
go over there, but it was a long way and I didn't feel like it. After
work today, though, I thought I'd try the one I go to, and maybe they'd
have something similar. And then they ended up having it. Typical
computers, never really knowing what's going on. And I have it hooked
up so that my VCR feeds into it if I ever need to transfer anything over.
I've program the beginning of dave, conan and jim lehrer, and the simpsons.
that should get me. It looks like it doesn't actually want to copy DVDs
to the hard disk drive. That's a bummer. I was kind of expecting to
be able to do that. Oh well. We'll see how it goes. It does have
video inputs on the front. Maybe I'll find a way to output from the
computer to the recorder. OK, figured out how to copy to the HDD, great.
This weekend, I wanted to read more of the conference papaers for the agi conference,
but the ones I read just kind of seemed sad, so I didn't read so many.
Sad because they really seemed not to be very promising, and often
missing the point. One had some fancy looking math in it, maybe
probabilities or something, but it didn't seem to really go anywhere,
and didn't not particularly seem to relate to any problem of intelligence.
So I ended up mostly playing Sudoku. Kind of obsessively playing Sudoku.
I've got a calendar of puzzles, from last year, actually, but I didn't
end up doing them every day last year. The puzzles actually are quite
hard. Much harder than the ones in the paper, although they have four
different levels of difficulty from the easiest to the hardest, for
that set. The hardest ones in that set often get to a point where there
is no logical rule that I know that will let me put down the next number.
Sometimes when that happens, I will use a computer program on a website
that has some expert's collection of logical rules to see something I
didn't know before. And a lot of times, it will just be things I didn't
notice, though sometimes it will require some kind of reasoning I hadn't
thought of. The calendar actually started in September 2006 and goes to
December 2007, and There were stretches where I had done them all. I
did all of February. The occasional white belt. But this time
I was going to get through them all, in order. On Friday I was in
the middle of December 2006. I mean about on the 15th. By Sunday night,
I was to January 2007. And It's kind of funny, because you do a
black belt one, and these are really hard and can take a couple of
hours with quite a bit of just kind of staring, darting around
looking for patterns, but I'll find something and shoot forward, and
with the momentum, the next one is an easier one, so might as well do it.
I ended up doing a few in January, too.
But I also needed to be reading
those conference papers, and I had a book on falsely thinking you're
enlightened to look at. Plus, for some reason, I was moving my other
DVD player, and it totally did not want to work. The picture was
all red when I used the rgb cables. I actually had to go out of
the house to get an s-video cable. I totally didn't want to go anywhere.
And I went to see Melissa and the Tigers game. You might have guessed
that I went to see Melissa. Randy said see you next week. I think
I've gotten into a rut. An easier habit that makes it harder to
move to a better situation. And, like, Melissa seemed to like having some
one keeping her company, but I'm really afraid that I kind of let
her slow down and take it easy when she should have just been rushing to get out
of there. Seems like everything was done by onem but we ended up leaving
at 5. She had to handle the money and clean. I don't know. Something
clearly was wrong. Randy was really needing to get out of there, because he had to be back at
maybe it was 11. And Melissa was in constant pain. Her back was hurting.
I don't know if it would have helped to massage her back a little.
Seems like I always thing of a reason not to offer. But at least I
did keep her company. And I need a little attention, sometimes. Not
that much, I guess.
It works pretty nice for me, but like I say,
it's a rut. Things could be better, but I just keep going this way.
And yet, playing Sudoku, I'm mysteriously getting better. I am better
at seraching for things. The easier ones don't have any rules I don't
know, but they often have things that are just harder to find.
So I find myself getting better kind of mysteriously. I'm
thinking intelligence maybe isn't really something, we just keep
trying to understand how we are better than (other) animals,
and we just see how we act in a way we call smarter and guess that
there is some kind of essence of smartness or intelligence.
We have it, they don't. As opposed to we just have more than them.
Because there seems to be a qualitative difference. But you
can teach apes to count, and to understand words. And they use
tools all by themselves. One thing they don't have a lot of is patience.
And self control. And their aggression is such that they don't even have
an expectation that other people might be trying to help them.
It was a weird thing that they couldn't understand pointing.
I thing would be hidden, and someone would be pointing. to give
them a clue, and they never would get it. They could copy sometimes.
If a person was helping an ape, another ape might help. But if one
ape was trying to get something hidden, they wouldn't think to help.
Maybe, I forget how all the experiments worked. They might try to
do the same thing. Surely they think to cooperate. Lions will
cooperate in a hunt. Dogs and wolves cooperate. But the combination
happened in us. Apes, because they were in trees, could grab things,
which was needed for tools. Cooperation happens in some animals,
but apes not so much, I guess, except us. In this combination,
an ability to communicate becomes more important and valuable,
and it took several differnt levels of development (whole species)
to get to us. Our lineage kept adding more and more capacity once
it started in the combination we have. One thing about us is that we
are somewhat less aggressive and impulsive. And actually physically
a bit weaker. So we have to cooperate, and act smarter.
And there is a lot of knowledge that is involved with understanding
something. And it can involve things with certain labels tending to act
in different ways. But only sometimes. The example I've been thinking
of is a bird. Say you've got a bird. How are you further going to
decide if it might fly? If you got the bird from a grocery store,
probably it is already dead, and it won't fly. Maybe it's a chicken
or a turkey. Even when it was alive, it wouldn't fly. But maybe
a duck would. Unless it was asleep. Or dead, again. Or maybe it
was a wooden duck. Or a rubber duckie. Or it might just be a baby.
Or sick. Or it could have a broken wing. Toy birds don't fly, either.
Do birds in pictures fly when they are in the picture? Does a bird
in a picture of a flying bird fly? Why is a mouse when it spins?
The higher, the farther.
Aw, so the University of Memphis Tigers (ranked #1) lost to the the University of Tennessee Vols (ranked #2).
It was close, and could have gone either way. And Memphis still has a better record, 26-1 vs 25-2.
That's the breaks though. I was at Pearl's watching it. Lot's of tigers in there. Downstairs they
had a bunch of orange folk, though. There were a couple of older regulars in orange hanging out.
And afterwards, there was this one kind of short young guy in an orange shirt. I just wanted to
through him down the stairs. I am studying a martial art, after all. LeAnne, Randy, and Melissa all said
the Vols fans were obnoxious. I was telling LeAnne that those hillbilllies don't know any better.
And when it rains, it pours. I left the DVD player here in the den on all, night, which I often do.
I turn the TV and I thought it was always fine, but I guess not. This morning it no longer works.
It sounds like maybe it doesn't spin any more. And it has electromechanical parts, so I should have
thought that maybe it might wear out. Seems like DVD players these days are also not made to last
forever the way VCRs used to be. The Japanese learned their lesson. I've already lost one before.
I've got one it the other room I should move in here. But it's a multi-disc one, and I had it
special in my room because it helped if I was just too lazy to change out discs. But maybe I
could just get a DVR with a big disc and keep copies of things that I would normally just leave in
there. That's the ticket. And I want to get one to receive digital signals, which would mean I
would be able to watch digital channels on that old TV. And finally I would have an ability to record
stuff. My VCR is actually no longer able to record. So it's really something I need to finally do,
I guess. And maybe having the multidisc DVD in here would be good. I tend to keep watching the Simpsons,
but I'm finding that while I'm going through one (there are about 6 episodes on a disc, I'll take
that one out and watch something else, but I'll have to keep that one on the side and put it back in.
So, maybe like I used to say, there are no problems, only opportunities.
Happy Birthday, George Washington!
I saw a video on why some flames are yellow.
I thought I understood a lot about fire, but I guess I didn't know this. And the reason isn't temperature
of the flame, though I think flames can be different colors depending on the temperature. Flames are yellow
because the reaction at the top is not complete, and there is carbon soot sitting in the flame. The soot
is being heated very hot, and it is from that that we get the yellow color. At the bottom edge, there is
a little bit that's blue where the reaction is complete enough that there isn't any left over unreacted
carbon, but inside there is not enough oxygen getting to it. In propane torches which burn blue, there
are little vent holes tha mix in are, so they get enough oxygen. Dude in the video covers it up, and they
get an impure flame that leaves a lot of soot.
And then there was the Nova episode about the apes. They can learn quite a bit, but they are more aggressive
than people, and they don't have any expectation that someone else might be trying to help them out and
trying to teach them something. And they don't tend to try to teach, either. One of the subtle but
big advantages of people.
Yay! I've been working at this job at Hilton for two years today.
Argh. I'm almost done with season seven of _Voyager_. I had to
pause to vent. Now instead of just inventing techno-sounding
nonsense, they are just using actually words incorrectly. One
episode said something about "anti-matter radiation". Now,
anti-matter is something that's real. There is known physics
relating to it. There is no special type of anti-matter radiation.
It does create radiation when it is annihilated on contact with
regular matter, and that radiation is called gamma radiation.
And they used it again, but thye have been saying the doctor's
is at risk of "decompiling", presumably mean something like unravelling.
Unfortunately, that's not what decompiling means. It's a real word
and it means to take compiled code and process it to get it to
some version of source code. Nothing particularly destructive, I
guess, and certainly not what they seem to be talking about.
It's frustrating. Right now I'm just trying to tough it out and
finish this stuff so I'll be done.
OK. I finally got the bluetooth keyboard working. I needed to run something on the phone to activate it.
So I'm watching Star Trek Voyager, the seventh season, and there's and
episode where Tom asks B'lana to marry him, and a couple scenes later,
they are off on what must be their honeymoon, because the delta flyer
is trailing strings of something, cans or shoes or whatever, and the
old driving off to the honeymoon tradition. Seems like they all
tried to do something like that for Tark and Meg. But there was no
wedding at all. And it seems like such a different idea to me.
You say you're married, so you're married. It seems like the wedding
is really the deal. A friend of mine was saying she almost got married,
but it was more that she wanted the wedding, and the whole social
acceptance, normalcy thing. Plus the not growing old alone. I think
I'm not into the marriage thing, though one person really made me
think I wanted it. But this concept of a marriage without a wedding
seems intriguing. Something to think about. Plus there's the tax penalty.
Didn't there used to be a tax benefit from being married? Seems like
they reversed it at some point. I don't know. Anyway, I think I'm
going to try to be a little better at not talking about other people's
problems that they share with me. Except to say that Melissa really
is pitiful.
Happy Valentine's Day!
Happy Ides of February! Happy Wednesday the Thirteenth!
Happy Darwin Day!
Happy Chinese New Year!
Two much weird stuff today that I don't even want to
write about. We didn't have bagua class because
of the New Years. So I went to Pearl's, and they were all
sorry for because Melissa wasn't there. Am I that pitiful?
I hung out with Leanne instead. She use to work at the
titty bars. She said there were 9 trannies working there.
And she never even wasn't into shacking up until
Hunter there. Anyway, this weird stuff was better to
unload on Leanne.
Wow, it was super fat tuesday, but there were tornadoes. I went to the
bagua class, but it was closed. and the boys were getting together, but they bailed.
I don't know if it really got bad, though. Oh well.
Fundies, or 'mentalists, see great evils and like to fight against them. makes
them feel good, even if the evils really aren't that bad. Alcohol, drugs,
terrorists, poor people, and once upon a time, the darkies.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has died. He was a guru to the Beatles, and started
the Trancendental Meiditation stuff. Lennon got pissed at him for some
sort of sexual advances on Mia Farrow or something, I don't know the story.
"Sexy Sadie" was supposed to have something to do with it. Paul has said
he hadn't really done anything. Anyway. I don't really know that much about him.
I found some Banquet frozen fried chicken in Kroger again. Yay! so much for trying to lose
weight, though.
I slept for 13 hours Monday night. Then last night only 5 or 6. Felt like getting
up and writing, which I think was better than just sleeping. And it seems
like the average of the past two nights really is a bigger deal than just the
single amount in the night before. so that's an average of about 9 hours,
which ought to be ok. I actually don't feel so bad. Even though I slept that so
much, I still felt tired yesterday. We'll see how it goes.
Happy Super Fat Tuesday!
Part of the human condition is to have trouble sleeping sometimes.
Everybody has trouble sleeping, sometimes. One could even say
that sleeping through the night probably isn't even very natural,
since a lot of cultures are on the siesta, where everyone takes
a nap in the middle of the day. When I do that, I know I feel
a lot better. I guess they don't describe getting up in the
middle of the night, but I guess that must be something they do.
Also, the problems often get worse as people get older. There
used to be a thing where they thought older people needed less
sleep. But that was because they simply found out how much
sleep older people get, and they get less, but I heard that
it just turned out that older people have more problems sleeping.
Kind of a statistical thing.
And what's the deal that universally, people are less happy in
middle age than other ages? Saw it on reddit.
Did they just forget about teenagers?
I saw something on reddit that in Japan, it is a noticeable
problem for guys that can't come inside vaginas. I forget, maybe the whores
are noticing it? Something about too much spanking such that the feeling
involved isn't associated with what being in a vagina feels like. Could
be porn related, too. Also, a while back, there was one about how starting
late was associated with problems. That wouldn't necessarily be causal,
as I would think people who don't care as much would be likely to start later.
I think I remember reading that maybe 1 or 2% of people just don't care
about sex at all, so I'm sure there is variation. But, it kind of matches
also that maybe if you start late, you might not be used to the feeling.
I know personally that oral doesn't do anything for me, and it seemed like
it was more that I don't really associate the feeling with coming. Hmm.
I hate to get personal about this stuff. Maybe it's funny because I ramble
on endlessly about Melissa, but I think that's a little more universal, and
honestly, not so specific to me, though it is just what I'm feeling.
And I guess, while I'm on the subject, there was
a detailed article about sex for guy virgins. Maybe a little too much information.
I guess the thing I noticed that was mentioned was that sometimes guys can
have trouble coming, just as sometimes guys come too fast. I don't know
if any of that stuff could help that problem up before. And there
was another on kissing. One of the things
I did tonight was again watch that video I have on getting a woman off for
a long time. *sigh* I also got my 300GB SATA hard drive installed, and made
a clone of all my old stuff. It's nice to have a back up and more space.
Maybe I'll look at getting a better system as well. I won't be able to play
the latest Call of Duty. And I realized my stereo needs new speakers.
But I've also been trying to save up a lot of money this year.
Go Tigers!
We used to smile together a lot more. But maybe she was just too stressed out
and I was just scared. Husband actually left threatening (gonna kill you) messages
on her cell phone, and she filed a police report. Can't wake up in time for her
8:00 class. And then working a big party all by herself, and then the kitchen
messes up the food and the groom and groomsmen yell at her. Helplessness is the
worst. Things go wrong and they are out of your control. Randy asked if she
needed anything, and she said a gun to shoot herself with. That's a person who
has gone over the edge. I tried to just be there for her. But I couldn't smile
with her anymore. And I notice that, because Super 5 (well super 3/5) and when she was
hugging Chris, she had this great smile. But with me, not so much. It looked like
she was already getting better and was going to make it OK. But instead of going
to see her the next day, I just stayed home, watching voyager and went to bed early.
I don't know if it was too much drama, but enough for me to want to hold off a bit.
Damsel in distress, maybe?
So, I'm watching Star Trek Voyager. And I just have to admit that there is nothing
scientific here at all. It is not science fiction. It is space opera. That's a category
that Cliff suggested one time. The setting is space. They try to have sort of technical
sounding mumbo jumbo. They were dealing with a singularity, and Neelix was explaining
to Kes that the event horizon was an energy field surrounding it. Jesus Hairy Crumb.
And I could think, well, Neeliz is a chipmunk, and sure he could get it wrong like that,
but lawd have mercy, people. And now I'm trying to think, was it always like this?
Did the original Star Treks with Gene ever have any real science in them? I don't know.
Man. In the one where Data goes on trial to see if he has any rights, that was dealing
with real science sorts of social questions. How should we treat an AI? They actually
did sort of deal with that question again in Voyager when the doctor goes crazy, but
it is a freakish-fantastic artsy feelly thing there, and not realistic or scientific
or anything valuable like with Data. Brannon Braga is a pin-head, for one. This
question about the ethics of AI is something that might come up at the AGI conference
in a month.
And what is the deal with "bio-neural gel-packs"? OK, I can see them
as more efficient, but only more efficient in the sense of low-power. But that
might even be questionable to a comparable current similar technology. It would
be stunningly slower. There's a scene where they heat them up in order to cure
some kind of infection. Clearly they would have roasted them. The thing was just stupid.
Huh. I just watched a little special feature on the first season DVS by Andre Bormanis
trying to explain some of the real science that they tried to get involved with.
Sounded very lame. But at least maybe I could be a little sympathetic. I don't know.
Seemed like there was one bit that almost made me think there was some attempt in
there at being science fiction. That they explorer other types of life forms that
weren't so conventional. He said "non-corporeal". Now, "non-corporeal" to me
is already moving into fantasy to me, so it's not such a super positive bit. But they
were talking at least about a big physical alien type. Then he went into the
time-travel paradox stuff. I guess it's a personal bias, but I have always thought
time-travel stuff was just stupid. Never liked it. Makes no sense. Has no relevance
to anything. Why bother? To me, it's like watching the teletubbies. Definitely was a
space opera.
Happy February!
So I was reading Aldous Huxley's _the Perennial Philosophy_, and just a little way into it,
page 20 something, he starts talking about esp and PK. There was a time back then when
people were thinking that there was some real, scientifically verifiable, "supernatural"
kinds of things like that. Now it's discredited, of course, but they though it might
be real back then. Classic Star Trek actually had bits of this too. But I was reading this
and I had to put it down. I'm not sure if I can finish it now. Since that was brought
up so early, i can't help but think it must be important to the rest of it, so now I
don't really have a good feeling about it. So many other things to read, too. I'm
registered for the AGI conference at the beginning of March, and all the conference papers
are online and I need to look over them. Artificial General Intelligence. Now what
is called AI has sort of moved away from general intelligence, though that used to
really be one of the basic goals. This conference is
in Memphis. Stan Franklin is one of the hosts, but also Ben Goertzel who does the agi
email list and a few others. I'm looking over the conference site, and I see that the "outreach
director, Natasha Vita-More owns the domain natasha.cc.
A vanity site, sure. Some people are really into themselves. I saw one recently that
just seemed really embarassing. So I guess this isn't so bad. And some of these transhumanists
really are pretty into themselves.
That was kind of different. I just watched a Voyager episode called "Disease". The big subplot
kind of told a story about how romantic love is like a disease, making you kind of stupid, but open
to behaving in some ways that can be good. Bold as love, as dude said. And ensign Kim is getting
over it, and it pushed him to do extra work, which made seven think it was not just a disease like
she had first thought.
Didn't go see Melissa. Slept instead. And some of the atheists were going to trolley night, and
Aimee was going too with a friend. But others of the atheists were going out to dinner somewhere else,
and they were carpooling from a plaace out here, and I would have wanted to stay downtown, anyway.
So I was kind of torn, and just ended up sleeping. But then I got up and watched Star Trek Voyager.
I guess I could use a break from people. I've been tired all week.
So the teacher taught me the tournament form. On Tuesday it was just me, so she gave me a little
extra time. The moves were moves from the traditional form, there were just four additional
transitions and a different beginning, so there really wasn't that much different. She said it
was more interesting, and it really does seem a little more interesting. The movement with
the front kick is in it. But doing the drills with the old timer, I don't quite actually have the
front kick down, because it involves leaning back, and I haven't really been doing it that way.
I guess I'm still learning. And doing I did the form with them. In one of the forms, I completely
got lost and couldn't recover. We were going at their speed, which was pretty fast, and I could
do the movement by myself, but trying to watch them, I got out of synch, and lost my place, and
then just drew a complete blank. It was really terrible, I thought. And they were trying to tell
me what to do. Louie was saying the kick block. I hadn't really been thinking of the move as
a kick block, and only afterwards did that make sense. And the teacher was showing me the movement,
but that just totally didn't sink in. They were just standing waiting around. I could barely remember
which move we were even on, which I guess was the big problem. Oh well.
So Super Chris is big into the karate. I think he was saying his friend owned USA Karate, and when I them
play on Saturday, he said he had had a good class on Thursday. And as they were playing, there was
some kickboxing match on the screen, and we were watching it. He was talking about the vicious
kicks dude was getting into the other guy's inner thigh. Maybe some time I'll go visit one of those
classes.
Learned a couple of things hanging out with Melissa. Well, maybe three. My
pool playing sucks. I won once, and lost twice. I'm not consistent. I was
saying I was rusty, but I think I never developed consistency. Sometimes
I can make very good, smooth, shots, but generally I don't put in the
effort to do that. They got pool tables down there. One of the games
I lost was with the owner, Ray. I bit of a shark, maybe. Seems like
he almost cleared it all, and cut back to make the game interesting.
Anyway, thing two. It looks like the caffeine from the Dr Pepper is aggravating
the gout. I'm just noticing it, but it seems like it's been happening often
lately. I really drink too much of it, I guess.
And then thing three. I've been telling myself that I love Melissa, but it's
more complicated than I suspected. It is much more that I want to sleep
with her than I was admitting to myself. I was able to tell much better
this time because Josh was hanging out. And this time, Melissa admitted
that she had not been staying at her house because her husband is in town.
And Melissa never actually said she was staying with Josh, but it's clear
she has been. Somehow, I think I was pretending that they weren't quite
so together. And some of it was because Melissa has kept from coming
out and talking about it. I'm thinking probably because I don't want to
hear about it. So in denying the lust, I convince myself there is more
"plain love". I did this with Wynne quite a bit. And thinking about this
in the open really relieves the feelings. It is a striking sort of experience.
Brains are funny sometimes.
So, they have a really fancy coffee maker at work. They looked it up and it's
supposed to cost $5000. Something they are doing at the Hampton's maybe.
And I was talking to Brian about it. I'm guessing hotels are losing out
on restaurant business because people go out to Starbucks instead of
staying at the hotel. So they can surely spring for something like
that. And Brian was saying that it looked like it ran Linux, so I needed
to go check it out. It has hoppers on top with whole beans, so it grinds
them fresh. And it has a suction tube, which they stick into a milk
jug. Most of the drinks are milk drinks, like latte and capucino,
and mocha latte. Another hopper is chocolate powder. Simple setup
for some fancy sorts of drinks. I tried to get hot chocolate, but it
had run out of milk. It had a little sign explaining the different
coffee drinks. Espresso is hot water squeezed through finely ground
coffee at high pressure. Very concentrated. I actually got an espresso
shot one time without knowing what that meant. Was only a couple ounces.
A latte is a shot of espresso, and is 2/3 milk. A cappucino is roughly
that whipped. And I was telling Hunter and Melissa about this. What
was significant to me was that Melissa's drink is (venti) non-fat vanilla
latte. She said she drinks maybe three a day. And it hit me that
it's mostly milk. She drinks a bunch of milk every day. She probably
could actually live off that. From what she said she eats she sounded
like she was starving. A week ago, she had a brownie, and I asked her
when was the last time she ate, and she said probably the day before.
So I was starting to get worried. And I think there is still cause.
She said that this week, with all the stress from the beginning of
school, and being out of her house, she ended up in the emergency
room and they put her on oxygen or some breathing machine. And while
I was sitting with her last night, there were a couple of minutes where she
was obviously having trouble breathing. I actually suddenly felt deeply
scared for her. It was really odd. And then I totally chickened out
again. I was thinking I was going to go get Kenny to get her some Starbucks,
and not tell her it was from me. Man. Actually, it was Kenny that I managed
to beat at pool. I lost to Ray and Hunter. And I found I'm just no good
at competition. Got me all worked up.
So, there is some kind of going away party for some girl, Carrie, at Dan McGuinness
tonight. Military, being shipped overseas. Super 5 playing. Melissa said
she would try to show up if she gets off early enough. And I said I would
go. And later, Melissa mentioned it again, so maybe I should. We'll see.
Man, at the end of the evening, Melissa looked dog tired. Could barely
keep her eyes open. She actually started hallucinating. No way she was
going to even be able to drive, and she said she might call a cab, but I
said I would drive her if she wanted. And thinking about it as time went
on, I think that wasn't a serious offer so much as something to get her
doing something about it. She finally lay her head on the bar for a few
minutes and slept a little bit. That actually seemed to bring her back
to level where I thought she would at least survive the drive home. She
seemed tired, but at least not quite so dangerous. I really don't know
about that girl.
So, I think I just don't like dating. I don't like making plans. I don't
really like going out. I like just staying in mostly and hanging out.
Maybe to a limited extent hanging out in a bar, but not so much. It seems
like the Js, the kind of folk that are into the whole planning thing,
actually do like that stuff. It's just not me, though. And part of the
thing with dating is the expectation that it probably won't work out.
That's just horribleness piled on top of unpleasantness. There's a simpsons
commentary where they were talking about a dating service. This was one
where they got a huge number of dates. More than you could ever want.
And then people just stopped caring. Stopped trying to dress nice or
look good or anything. I haven't quite seen that, but I'm starting
to have that sort of feeling about dating in general.
And then there were the sad things that Melissa talked about, that
have been haunting her. And it was right about that time that
she was having trouble breathing, so it could have been about the stress.
She talked about this week the guy who dropped the four babies off
the bridge, in front of the mother. Hideously. It had really
been bothering her this week. And the other thing that was almost
as bad. Some guy was at her house, and pulled up the video
of the guy having his head cut off. Why make her watch that?
I was sitting at the side of the bar with the cash register,
but I had to walk to the other side where there's any opening
for them to get in and out and give her a hug. She seemed a little
confused as to what I wanted, but dang, she really sounded like she
needed a hug. Or maybe I needed a hug. I don't know. People
can be crazy terrible, sometimes, and now with all the media,
everybody has to hear about it. Darn, people are almost always
good, but you get those wacky, nasty crazy people, and that's
what sticks out in your memory.
It's people who do good, not God.
The thing is, it does make me feel good to hang out with Melissa, and I
like the attention. She seems to like the attention, too. To her,
though, it must just be about being friends. Everybody needs friends.
She hasn't done anything wrong, and I would hate to just cut her off
coldly. I don't know. We'll see.
Man, I'm playing a lot of Sudoku. I don't know if it's too much. I guess there are
better things I could be doing with my time. The programming, I guess, and maybe
even reading is better. But it's kind of mentally active. Just watching the Simpsons,
which is the other vegetative thing I do, is a lot worse. So it's a step up.
And I tend to do the Sudoku while watching the Simpsons. But I've found that
there are different levels of difficulty, and different types of performance
improvement that I can try for. One thing about staying engaging in an activity
is that it lets you have small increasing challenges. It's boring if it's too
easy, and frustrating if it's too hard. Programming on a big project wouldn't
have the same level of reinforcement and achievement, and reading only has the achievement
of learning things (which is something, though). That's for the kind of non-fiction stuff
I read, not fiction. I don't know about fiction. Different kind of thing. Anyway,
the Sudoku. There are puzzles wich I can do without writing down the candidates or
possibilities. I can find a definite next square always. But in the harder puzzles,
about the only way to solve it is to write down all the possibles, and then use the
logic to whittle away the possiblilities, like going from three possible numbers to
two, and then eventually something will let it go to one. I've got a big set,
in a calendar from mike, that has really hard ones like this. And there are different
levels of logic rules I might need to use. Sometimes I still have to break down
and use a computer, because I am not a master of some of the harder rules I
might need. And I have found that there were some rules I didn't even know at all,
but I'm getting better. There's learning how to use the harder rules, but
there is also just getting better at searching with some of the easier rules.
And then there is just practicing enough not to make clear mistakes. I'm doing
them pretty steadily now, but when I stopped for a while and started up again,
I did see that I made mistakes more often. One thing I don't do is just try things
that I'm not sure of, and then maybe fix them later. My mom does them like that.
So she is better at adjusting them later. And then i saw that it's not a skill
that I've developed. And with all of this, there is just trying to be faster.
I kind of like doing the easier ones just for this. I guess it's a time-waster,
but I do it in the morning waking up, and it seems to kind of get me going. I think
it's maybe a little better than just sucking in mass-consumption gossip and news.
So, the gout hit the knee, and has really messed up my bagua. It seems like it has gotten
mostly better, but my knee is still weak or something. And maybe from having to walk
funny, maybe the muscles are now weaker or something, and it seems like the old injury
hurts. During the day and normal walking I thought I was ok, but after the warm up
exercises, I'm clearly not back, and it impacts my form. Bagua does a lot of walking
with lowered weight and bent knees, and a lot of turning, so it is pretty hard on the knees.
The coach is really senstitve about it, and is trying to get me to go easy. And they
gave me some of herbal patch things which I'm finally trying. I seriously didn't think
it would take so long to get better, but one of the other student was saying that
it takes longer at my age. Grr. Plus, since I haven't been practicing as much, I'm
getting more rusty. Double grr.
I ♥ Summer. Summer Glau. She was River on Firefly, and now she's a little terminatrix. Really cute. And limber.
Happy Birthday, Donald Knuth!
Another year. Well isn't that spatial?
I spent hardly any time at ShadowCon. I totally missed Firday, and then I went in on Saturday at about 7,
and that was during feast, but I had eaten. Nothing much else was going on so I left to go to Pearl's.
I came back around 2, and there was a little belly dancing, but I didn't drum, and I didn't even bring
my drum in from the car. Maybe if I had been there earlier. I did see Roy, and Linda, the cute little
red-haired writer. I'll see her at MidSouthCon. at least i made an appearance.
But wow, hanging out with Melissa again. I decided not to get her her Starbucks, since it's so Super Chris's
thing. And Super Chris showed up. It seems to make her so happy. I think it's nice. I tried the char-broiled
oysters. with butter and cheese. yummy. and some raw ones for constrast. I wasn't positive on the deal, but I
think Randy was getting out early, and suggested to Melissa to go see a midnight movie _I am Legend_. And Melissa
ask me to go. How was I going to say no to Melissa? I was planning to go back to the bellydancing, but I figured
they'd still be at it, anyway. And I didn't really know them, so it really wasn't that big a thing. So I finally
saw Melissa outside of work. I liked it. She didn't seem quite so happy, but it was kind of a depressing sort
of movie. And my being there might have been weird for her, but I felt really comfortable or happy or something
sitting next to her. And no Josh. I'm not sure what's up with that. i didn't ask to hang out with her after.
Randy left kind of quick. I don't know that i should have. It was only two, so she could have gone drinking
somewhere. I hate that I might again have been dissappointing, but there were bellydancers maybe waiting. And a
funny sort of thing. Her foot fell asleep, so she was sort of hobbling. I tried to help her walk a bit maybe,
but she didn't really seem to be quite into that. It's no fun having trouble walking.
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