The Inevitable

Check a calendar, and you might find something special. It's the end of a year, but it is, in fact, even more than that. It is the end of a decade.

Possibly your first full one. In 1999, I was but a child, not the intellectual (ie narcissistic), well-rounded person I think others consider myself to be. And who knows where we all will be, at the dawning of the next decade. That's a huge ten years away. We will all have moved on. God knows if I will even correspond with the people I hold dearest to me now. I'll have a real job, and my own house and (maybe) a blog with a decent following. I feel, in this time of sentimentality, that a gesture to you, our readers, nay, guests, is in order. This time, 2019, I will make a post on this very site, and acknowledge you, the people of my past, and show you that we do not forget, only reprioritize. Mark your calenders, you won't want to miss it.

As of the writing of this post, in 3 minutes, the decade will be over, and will just be another decade in our rear view mirrors, and much later, merely a footnote in the century. But to those of us who lived through it, it was so much more. We all lived, loved, lost, and felt, in that decade. It was much more vibrant than the echoes of the decades that preceded us. Our culture will soon be so outdated, that to imitate it is to invite scorn. The Dark Knight will soon be an obscure flick for only the hardcore-est movie buffs, and Lady GaGa will (if the is a God and/or justice) be resigned to the fate of Rick Astley or Britney Spears.We will have lived through some very good, and very bad times. We witnessed the evolution of the internet, but also of war against a foe we neither relate to, or undertand. I hope we can just learn to cope as well as we can and survive.

I'm not sure if Torwch or I sya this, but thank you, to all you viewers. You don't comment as much as we might like (wink, nudge), but I digress. To the new decade evryone. Chins up.

Merry Christmas

Um Geesh de Bork Bork, everyone.

Toychests and Schizophrenia

I visited my relatives in jolly old Victoria this weekend, which explains the unnatural silence you might have observed. Whilst there, I found my uncle's large collection of old books. I scanned through the Tom Clancy and Robert Ludlum, and found a book that really caught my attention: a memoire of Tim Allen, one of my favoritre comics and actors. Upon returning, two things became very apparent. One, my basement was flooded for God knows why, (my laundry room and storage room are ankle deep in ice cold rainwater), and more relevant in terms of this post, this man has a great grip on motives. Two passages come to mind that I wanted to discuss.

The first was, in hindsight, a remarkable insight on why guys like war so much. The answer, is simply,  the toys are so incredibly awesome. Let's face it, without the grenades, rifles and robots with grenades and rifles, war is not all that cool. You get to live in squalid conditions, get no comforts of any sort, and are likely to die at many points in your day. But getting a chance to wear that awesome arctic camoflague and shoot bullets at stuff, well isn't that just almost too cool to pass up. That's also why war is appealing in video games and playing in general. Jacks is fine, but until we add half-pipes and roller-blades, guns win that footrace.

The second, is something I've probably mentioned, if not already demonstrated. Allen said, and I agree, that you need at least 4 different personalities to function in today's so-sie-ee-tay. Yourself when your hanging out with buddies, yourself around your love intrest/girlfriend/wife, yourself around adults (including friends parents), and yourself when you're by yoursef. I have noticed that the more smoothly you can transfer between these 4 phases, the more "adjusted" you are. Also, this allows for asnother "love is" metaphor that my wussy "you, by yourself" mode is dying to share: dating is seeing if you like the person's "hanging out" mode, liking someone is being able to tolerate their "by themselves" mode, and love is actually liking it. (Love is also the dyslexia you didn't know you had coming out stronger than usual, but I'll delve into that one later, preferrable never.)

Tadah. Hope these gems will satisfy you until Christmas, because I intend to enjoy mah holidays until then. Right on Boxing Day, I have big plan for a week long thing, so watch out for that.

Cryptography is golden.

I made a creative!

Where does creativity come from?
Do we simply regurgitate things and words that we have seen or learned in slightly different patterns?
What is original though?

All deep questions, all in great need of answers.
Fortunately for my sanity, this post will answer none of them.

In my honest (read: blunt) opinion, creativity arises out of that wonderful core of our beings that makes our lives unique. I speak, obviously, of conciousness. Can a computer be creative? No, it can create eye catching fractals and patterns by following certain simple programs, but this "creativity" is actually the work of the programmer.

Here is an example: Imagine you hold an art contest between a high-school student and a rock; perhaps a medium sized one. Which of them will generate more creativity? The students art will be bland, perhaps ugly, but it will have a small kernel of creative thought. The rock though will do nothing.

A very ugly post indeed, but just like CPR or heart surgery (very excellent simile) life-saving operations do not have to be pretty.