Wednesday, April 02, 2003

 
As you can see, my former conclusion on how to speak faster has aided my ability to post. Bam. That's a 45 degree bit of progress.

Okay, phil, calm the arrogance down.

But, I will provide a post that shows how to apply the accelerating order principles to your brain?? What, are you crazy. Yes.
posted by Philip 1:04 AM

 
Passing reference to my long religious post two days ago. In addition to the emotional statements that those who believe in convential religions are party to, I should come up with new ones. Since this is going to be something that may last for a while, I'm going to take my time thinking and researching for good names for things to worship.

I can already think of a new "thing" to add to the mosaic of spirituality that I want to create. This general exponential increase, this sort of line that's at about 10 degrees at the moment, and will eventually pick up until it's a 90 degree angle of singularity-like progress, it neems a good avatar. Some chimera of sort. I've been referring to it, as I did in the "My Goal" post right before, that I need to muscle over it, or wrestle with it. Wrestling with a chimera sounds pretty neat. So, project, got to research into some historical myths about dragons in Medieval and current culture. Combine with some Matrix/chrome like style, and bam, we got a winnar.
posted by Philip 1:03 AM

My Goal

 
My goal, outside of the usual humdrum of taking care of my feelings in the "real world," is to somehow set my thinking in such a way that I can not only muscle my way on top of whatever's at the bleeding edge of accelerating order now, but to also set myself up so that I'll be set to still be on top when the exponentials spike up and the singularity blows up.

This is what the latest set of posts entail. Realizing that's what I needed to do was the effect of the overbloggage this past Sunday.
posted by Philip 12:59 AM

 
Observation about the Current Tech and Accelerating Order. Things are more likely to be produced and less likely to be deleted. You throw something onto the Internet and Google, and it leaves a trail that just never seems to die. Read an article once, painted a nice image of changing e-mail addresses. He imagined that still, at his old e-mail address, for a long time at least, he would continue to receive e-mail there. It would of course bounce, but by the fact that e-mail would be still sent to it would acknowledge the presence of a ghost. Ghost in the Shell.

So think: exponential hard drive capacity expansion, human hesitation to erase, that stupid dialog box when you delete. Further proof that we're merrily marching along to the Singularity.
posted by Philip 12:55 AM

 
No but really, what if I could blog as fast as I could think. Really, I can pretty much type my stream of consciousness. I guess that's a start. Maybe what's stopping me, maybe it's the public nature of this blog. I have to sort of, craft and punch my ideas into shape so that it can be communicated to somebody other than number one. Also, there's the tip of the iceberg thing. My stream thinking touches the tips of many icebergs of thought, and so if I were to just mention them in passing, I'd have to tap the whole iceberg so as to not leave you completely in the dark. Or maybe I can create a new way of speaking or thinking or whatever that'll allow me to just disclose the tip in a certain way such that you can get, at least maybe, 85% of the rest of the iceberg, by filling in the blanks yourself.

This is how me and Dell have an affinity, we both love efficiency like the masses love inefficiency.

PS, I'm reading Nietzsche now, similarities, thanks, him, color my blogging negative tone.

PPS, also, blog, slow-down, like to read my writing

PPPS, single words, annoying, try other tip method thinking.

PPPPS, Possibility personal orwellspeak = new blogspeak

PPPPPS, Too much fun.

PPPPPPS, Will inform creatively on this new form. Expect: creative compression. Expect: new beauty. This is why I love blogging.

PPPPPPPS, okay, let's take this semi-seriously okay. Well, I don't want to make it like, single punches of words. That'll first just be too annoying, and it'll just give you an impression, but without the context, I doubt any serious matter will get transferred. Orwellspeak, well, that's kind of annoying. I think, well, what I think I'm getting at, well, I don't want it to sound like poop. You should still be able to read it with ease. Stream-of-consciousness is nice because it is well read with ease. There's the tip of the iceberg phenom. I bet I could speed things up 50% just with some parsimony of words. Things can get too wordy and Orwell wrote an essay on being too wordy. So, that might help. I could also just be more creative with my presentation. Instead of long logical introductions, I could provide simpler and more beautiful constructions. I just have to make sure I don't sacrifice beauty for speed. Although speed of delivery is an aesthetic... in the sense that you get a chunk of good ideas, rather than clumps of great ones.
posted by Philip 12:44 AM

 
What if I could blog as fast as I could think. I can almost type as fast as I can think, thanks to the Dvorak Keyboard layout. You know, if Apple decided to truly "Think Different" they would offer, as an alternative, a Dvorak-enabled keyboard. Then advocacy would be effected, interest would emerge, and then maybe an intelligenstia of Apple owners will put pressure on everybody else to do the right thing, and type SOME FRIGGING DVORAK!
posted by Philip 12:42 AM

 
Can I criticize a whole medium? Can I be so bold as to say that fiction writing itself sucks? Woah, woah. I guess I can be as bold as to say anything. Or maybe I won't have to say it. Outright, that is.
posted by Philip 12:39 AM

 
If you write fiction, can you please stop using a litany of physical features or fashion to kick off a characterization. I'm talking about beginning with something like this: "He was in his forties, tall, no fat on him, dressed in a pair of stained Dockers and a navy-blue sweatshirt cut off raggedly at the elbows." I tend to skip over this stuff. Even though it tells me stuff, sure, it's just so, blah. It's not that it's just superficial--I recognize that addressing something superficially is an aesthetic. But, well, what can I say, it's just uninteresting and uncreative. I'm like that guy in Adaptation. "Don't use voice-overs in your fucking script."

(Reference from "When I Woke Up This Morning, Everything I Had Was Gone" by T. Coraghessan Boyle in yesterday's New Yorker)
posted by Philip 12:35 AM

 
Some may ask, an an incredulous manner, "Phil, why do you blog?" I then respond and say, "kind sir, why do you think? Don't tell me you think simply for it's utility."
posted by Philip 12:30 AM

Tuesday, April 01, 2003

Meta-blog

 
In an amazing turn of events--or not so amazing to those watching carefully--I have blogged like crazy again today. The first post of today, on "shock" art, I never intended to post here when I wrote it, so that was kind of an after thought. Plus, it was later in the day too, so I had the whole morning, noon, and early afternoon, to not blog. Weird huh? Yeah, I over-blogged yesterday, Monday. Sunday was also over-bloggage. I had been checking around to different blogs and exploring all the software that has exploded onto the scene in the last year, and I was so amazed at how much has happened while I was locked in school. And I was never really locked, they had Internet access, but oh yes, even at Stanford, with it's free-floating shopping period and attend-whenever-you-like attitude, you can still be locked...more to follow. Also, there was the spoken word thing in the evening which turned out to be lopsided. Lopsided in the sense that the gravity of the event was not in my delivery but in my nervous anticipation earlier in the day (combined with the over-bloggage). Needless to say, I was pooped when I woke up this morning, and my body ejected whatever desire I had to blog. Plus, I stopped attempting to get my site noticed, I removed the link from my away message, and since it's the first day of a new month, my hit counter showed a big fat 0 for once. Yeah, scary. So the day went around semi-blithely.

That is, until, I actual got some fan mail. Woohoo! Actually, for like the 20 seconds I took reading the e-mail and for a good 2 seconds afterwards, I was in bliss. But immediately afterwards, and for like a good hour, I was frustrated. Why? Because I knew this would motivate me and consume me to continue blogging. I tried to hold onto the doldrums of my current day. I prayed that the impending tide of enthusiasm for spitting philosophisms would somehow magically go away. I suffered, and then I said, what the hell, why am I being an ascetic, try running up face with your temptation, your addiction, your passion. I did, I blogged, and now I'm here.

And this all relates to my earlier post, on a true test for a passion.
posted by Philip 11:38 PM

 
An excerpt from Phil's Original Dictionary:

metasilly \meh-tah-sil-lee\, adjective:
1. Having silliness that is expressed explicitly in a statement and implicity in the structure of the statement
2. Recursively funny
posted by Philip 11:20 PM

 
Somebody should post a blog about blogging, and turn it into some meta-silly recusion joke thingy.

wink, wink.
posted by Philip 11:14 PM

 
Evolutionary Biology BLOG!

"Spandrels, the spaces above an arch, exist as a necessary outcome of building with arches. In the same way, they argued, some features of organisms exist simply as the result of how an organism develops or is built. Thus researchers, they warned, should refrain from assuming that every feature exists for some adaptive purpose." I'm going to be talking about this a lot in the future. I will probably argue over whether religion is a spandrel and also the improper or uninformed usage of the word "spandrel."
posted by Philip 11:12 PM

If it takes two to tango, why not salsa dance?

 
I was having dinner with my best friend from third grade and I asked myself, "in 3rd grade, how the heck did this guy become and stay my best friend?" It couldn't have been that he just so happened to be sitting next to me in class; there have been lots of people that I've sat next to who haven't become friends. It couldn't have been that I chose him; think about it, a 10-year old pondering, "hmm, this person has qualities I identify with and therefore I'm going to hang out with him." Sorry, dosen't hold water. And it can't just be random selection and us then sticking together; if it were, then the only way it could stick day after day would be through personal hard work--and you know how children are, they don't make conscious lunges toward anything.

So it must be more like I had personality X and he had a personality Y such that X and Y compatible types. Then, in an alphabet soup of personalities in one classroom, given enough time and interaction, the pairs unite, realtionships form, and finally, best friends emerge. It's not THAT simple. You have to throw in some other fun imperatives, such as insecurity due to lack of friends forcing those with no friends to make way into groups. There's also the compromising gene. Don't forget other hidden variables such as interference from the teacher--teachers work hard to disincubate "columbine" loners.

Sure, all of this is obvious--or rather unobvious because we don't think about it; developing friendships isn't a mystery and isn't interesting. What is interesting, is, given the way I presented it, consider this: what if you changed from X to Z. I know it's hard to change who you are inside, but what if you decided you were going to radically change the way you socialized. What if i nstead of being loud, you chose to be quiet. Instead of talking about cars you chose to talk about computers. What if you chose to make everything funny, or lace a porn joke at every turn. One trick you could pull is trying to be pseudo-intellectual and make every phrase some kind of poetic stunt. You could change, like, ten features, and then, when you add in the multiplying synergies the ten would have on themselves, you would cease to be an X and begin a new life as a Z.

And THEN, THEN, if consistent enough, wouldn't your whole social map completely change all around you? Wouldn't the friends you formerly hung out with just drop off like a cold magnet? Wouldn't old non-friends all of a sudden start to go, "You know what Z, I used to not like you (X), but you (Z) are all right." Wouldn't your relationships with your boss, your family, your co-workers all be completely flipped upside down? Now you see the gravity of what I'm getting at.

The only way to answer these questions is, well to try it yourself. I've tried experimenting a little bit. Stop, I hear something, it sounds like, "What? You're changing yourself so you can get rid of your friends? What about us, us!" Okay okay, I'm not some superficial loser who's searching for a better crowd. I was searching for something and my observations above are just an effect that became apparent after what I had done.

So, in Memento-style reverse cinematic fashion, I begin, or rather, continue with what lead me to the above conclusion.

I frequently recalled a piece of advice I've heard over and over again, "Don't try to change others, change yourself." Or it's more along the lines of, "It's not what others give to you, but what you give to them." As annoying as those little tidbits are, there's some truth to them.

I decided to say, "Hey, what's up with my social behavior." It was more like the way George Constanza or Jerry Seinfeld say what's up: "What is up with sliced bread these days?" That way of thinking was somewhat counterproductive because it was funny and I could never take it seriously. It was more of a complaint rather than a search for an answer.

But, one day, I decided to be a bitch to myself, and deconstructed my social patterns. Conclusions (skip if you hate reading personal crap):
- Everytime somebody tells me something I disagree with, I find that I have to defend myself
- Most of my conversations with others have as a frequent topic of discusion, me
- A lot of the things I say tend to step on the toes of the other person
- If I say something and the other person disagrees, I get into verbal fights
- I always win arguments
- I always control the pace of conversation

I was so surprised by these revalations. I was even more surprised at how surprised I was. It just goes to show how little we know about ourselves even though we are right under our own noses.

Nontheless, I have since made an effort to reverse all of those old tendancies. I try not to step on other people's toes, I try to let other people control the conversational pace, and I now avoid defensivenes.

And, in trying this for just a little bit, things have been SO much better. My relationships with people are starting to get so much more pleasant. I'm finding that I'm starting to hang out with all new different kinds of people. And the predicted effect of losing old friends actually never really occured. Phew! Instead, it led me to the conclusion that my friends liked me for more static, content-based reasons, such as we shared the same hobbies or have a mutual assistance history. Plus, when I'm with old friends, my old habits kick in. And also, because of the history with my old friends, I expect the only effect on those relationships will be less thorniness. (but you never know, that's a risk, and yes, this is scary.).

So, if you're looking for some simple life-altering change, toss out your Tony Robbins care package and Stephen Covey books. Just change your behavior around people. Break apart your social pangea, and let the continental drift of your lifestyle open up new worlds.

PS. To all you... well, I was going to say something else (read below). But to all you naysayers, thank you for continuing to naysay. If it wasn't for the statistical recurrence of the naysaying I get, I would have nothing to analyze and work from.

To all of you rapid-fire, naysaying, counteractors who categorize all personality changes with being superficial, you will see that the socialization changes I undertook are all reasonable and don't really affect "who I am." Rather the changes help carry forward a long-awaited maturity in my social skills.

But, they do have a point. One can think too much, blah blah blah, yes a trillion disclaimers, Sure, but, nonetheless...

wink, wink.
posted by Philip 10:52 PM

On "shock" art

 
On Plastic there's been this uproar over the Chapman Brothers defacing original Goya's. This is truly controversial, and I'm not ready go about advocating it straight out, but I do want to present the counter-point to the knee-jerk reaction that I saw on plastic. I posted it there and it follows here.

This is great art. I'm not being disingenuous, just bear with me for a moment.

The original Goyas are just art. It's just man splitter-splattering material in a pretty arrangement on canvas. How much did the original Goya's enrich your life? It's not even some of Goya's best work. How much better was your life or anybody's life better because of the existence of these prints? You may have taken a glance at them or read about them a while back and for maybe a good 20 seconds you felt kind of good. Or, you were instructed that Goya was a great man and that this was one of his works, and that gave a little sense of awe, but I bet that that feeling lasted a good 5 seconds as well.

By defacing it, they're first making an in-your-face statement that people take art way too seriously. How much anguish did their defacement cause compared to the anguish you felt when instead of 284 Iraqi's killed, it was 285. Art is nothing. We love it and it makes us feel good, but really, it pales in comparison to the other practical necessities of life. It's the ultimate triumph of subjectivity, and that is why the Chapman's feel it necessary to tear it down.

The act of defacement is apparent in looking at the pieces, and the feeling we get about this act is strong. The act is so wrong, so evil, so terrible. And that is one set of emotions that the Chapmans are trying to evoke. They want you to feel the gravity of sin that is caused mixed with the insanity of caring about art's destruction in the first place.

The resultant mixing of the two is, well, hilarious. It's pure comedy. The choice of the clown heads adds to the effect. It creates an erie, spooky, absurdist feeling about the piece. I look at the piece and I get the same feeling that I get when reflecting about the state of affairs in the world today. Everyting is just so absurd. War, this glorious tradition of honor and bravery, has turned into Bush's pet project and a circus on FOXnews. The Chapman pieces represent the same horrific absurdity.

Also, look at how much our world and values have been defaced in recent times. Resonating with that current sentiment is also one the Chapmans strengths.

And yet, they didn't go far enough that the defacement is that defacing. The originals are still photographed and available. So if someone just had to get their eyes on the pure pure original, I'm sure they wouldn't fly to wherever to see it, they'd probably just look it up. Besides, it was privately-owned anyways. These pieces were going to be nothing until the Chapman's chose to "deface" it. Ask yourself what's worse: them defacing it and showing it, or them just never showing it at all? If we believe in Chomsky's "effects-based" method of thinking, their presentation at least shows something while as them keeping it is the same as them destroying the Goyas and not saying anything about it.

Plus, if you look at the works, the defacement does not completely cover the entirety of the Goyas. You can still get the same understanding of the work and ignore the clown-heads. Also, the colors and positioning of the clown-heads does not interfere greatly with the harmonic visual aesthetics of the original Goyas.

Another interesting way to think is, what if Goya had done these prints and put on the clown-heads himself. It'd be called genius, probably not only because it was Goya's, but because of the clown-heads. It would be hailed as a prophet's vision of impending post-modernist tragedy. So another message is the "who takes credit" concept. i.e. if five people worked on a painting and person A was told this while as person B wasn't, why would the painting change?

I'm motivated to speak on this for a couple of reasons. 1) I genuinely think it's great 2) Nobody on plastic has come out praising the piece, so I feel it's my duty to speak out and 3) I was thinking of defacing my own art work. I was going to put big slashes through my paintings. Of course I'd have original photographs, but the slash through something I cherished so much would be so evil, so suicidal, and yet so absurd, because, after all, they're just paintings. The challenge of getting over my emotional scruples also attracted me to it. I still can't get myself to put slashes through them. The question keeps bothering me, "Why is it so hard for me to do this?" Breaking that limitation would be truly triumphant and my hope is that that break-through would be transferred to the viewer.


posted by Philip 7:13 PM

Monday, March 31, 2003

 
File Compression: New Tool for Life Detection? :: Astrobiology Magazine :: Search for Life in the Universe - "Create a digital image of the rock; then compress the image file. The more the file shrinks, the more likely it is that life was responsible for building the layers." Very blogworthy. Not only does it introduce me to stromalites, but it shows a good use of file compression. Since craggly layers of rocks are more likely to contain life, they're harder to compress because they have a richer set of data to convey in an image.
posted by Philip 9:49 PM

 
audblog audio post
posted by Philip 7:07 PM

 
Disclaimer: the following flies in the face of religion, God, etc.

I need a God or some God construct. I'm a staunch atheist. I always envy those people who have a belief in God because they are so much more calmer than me. Crap can happen to them and everything's okay because "God is watching" them.


Deconstruction.


The key is, create a religion or some substitute for yourself that doesn't violate the truths that you believe in, lack of God, abstract mathematical origin, and Law of Accelerating Returns, etc..


Create symbols that evoke the same emotional responses.


List of emotional responses:
- "God is watching me"
- "I pray to God at night for certain things"
- "Before meals, I give thanks to God"
- "God has a plan"
- "God loves me"
- "We are created in God's image"
- "We implement God's will on Earth, that's what we do"
- "God will take care of things"
- "God is on our side"


Okay, let's see, equivalent emotional response


- "God is watching me" = X ensures well-being
- "I pray to God at night for certain things" = I can look to B for hope
- "Before meals, I give thanks to God" = Positive things in life derive from C
- "God has a plan" = There is a secret unity in D
- "We are created in God's image" = We are composed of elements of F
- "We implement God's will on Earth, that's what we do" = We should work toward plan G
- "God will take care of things" = Things outside of my control are executed by H
- "God is on our side" = Support is derived from J (skipped I for confusion).
- "There is life after death" = Something positive occurs after K
- "I look to God for answers" = L helps me make decisions


People are pretty cool without having a particular doctrine or dogma, so I don't need a Jesus construct. Believing in God was enough for Voltaire. If it's good enough for Voltaire, it's good enough for me. I also don't need a heaven construct or moral framework or Satan, I take care of those things on my own.


Like some parts of religion were designed by our desire for certain things. Other things are spandrels that just managed to perpetuate because they always accompany civil and therefore successful societies.


Something about being a person. I can't say, "Thank you Pythagorean Theorem for the unity you've blessed us with." There needs to be an agent of some kind. Something about having a person, or "being" friend that's there with you, you can relate to it more, and since people are the only thing that "have" intention in our view, you know.


so, let's see.


Where do all the good things that happen to me come from?
I'd say it's history, history has provided most of positive things. In The Pianist, they brought up the historical imperative, or that good luck is the way of the world. Like history, certain patterns, they repeat. Well, simple patterns, like food, food will always be there, I can count on that, just historically that's always been. Or that there will be people, or that there is sunlight, you know. Somehow, I can place my faith in history, past perpetuates in the future. No guarantee, and there's no guarantee that God'll put everything good for you, but you can take solace in it. You should, anything 99.9% should be truth anyways.


C = Some historical statistical principle character to ensure good things will happen


What ensures my well being? Well, it's mostly me. But this is a non-self spirit. More of my impetus, my emotion. Where did my emotions come from? Ego, superego, Id, etc.. My instincts, I kind of want to say my DNA. My programming, my human essence, just my nature, self survival of sorts. To humanize it, sort of, look to a character that represents survival instinct rule in everybody


X = survival instinct, the me gene will keep me well


Where can I look to or what can I look to for hope. There is a tendancy that if you want something, somehow somewhere along the line, it just happens. The multiplicity and complexity of solutions to problems just seem to float around in this connected world. If I have a problem now, eventually, I'll find a way, a solution to it. More of an implication of the existence of things like time multiplied by the tremendous combinatorial explosion of general activity and events in our life. I don't want to say survival instincts here.


B = complexity multiplied by time provides hope for things we want.


What do I look to for a guide, well your emotions and passions, is the best way to find the answers, look "within" as they say.


L = Our emotions can serve as a guide


What takes care of outside of us? Who runs the show for everything else in the world or things that we don't directly control. I can combine this with the plan thing and the unity thing.
Secret unity to everything. Thank you Kurzweil, law of Accelerating Returns. We're all working toward some vague accelerating order thing. we don't know EXACTLY how it works, but by tapping our emotions we can figure it out. But that'll be L


D = G = H = Secret Law of Accelerating Returns unifies a plan of everything, hard for us to access, but it exists, and that's all that matters.


God is on your side? Well, it should be that Truth is on your side. So some symbol for truth.


J = Some Truth things gives us faith in ourselves that God is on our side so to speak


Ooh, life after Death. Well, the africans have this thing that if you die, your spirit and memory lives on. Everything you touch and affect does it someway permanently change, and you cannot leave the earth without permanently changing it somehow. Every mark is somehow made by you. So, it's like running your fingers through the clay of time. Or rather your mere existence etches something permanently in the 4-dimensional cone that is our life.


K = 4-dimensional cone etching takes care of permanence and life after death


That more or less covers it. I'm sure there's things I've left out, but once we create the actual characters, I'm sure we can extend them. I'm kind of thinking of making like 2-3 characters. Some are just kind of exclusive of each other, such as 4D etching and law of accelerating returns, so they need separate figures. I kind of like how the Ancient Greeks had multiple Gods. It worked when such a theory was plausible. Now, well, all the theories I've presented above, I believe those on faith anyways, might as well attach a character so I have something to pray to, and to remind myself of the truth of these faiths that I hold.... because, sometimes, I forget.


I always intended this to be published, but keeping the desire to publicize this kind of put a constraint on free thinking. Well, I did a compromise. Kind of scrawled and turned off all the strive-for-attention thingy that I kind of have generally on when I'm blogging. But I've also revised and organized things post-splurge in order to make things more shareable.


Next step, since this was big enough as it is, is to actually put some thought into naming these characters. Their name can't be God or over-soul. I haven't heard of any good constructs before, although, with the Internet and things these days, I bet somebody has come up with them. It won't take long, half the fun is in making them up on your own, especially since it'll be well personalized.


Whee! Side note: I'm celebrating kind of. I've always had, before I baptised myself Catholic and after High School History Class when I became agnostic, this general "blahness" about me. It's not because I have nothing to do, or other crap. But I think man reached a certain point 10,000 years ago where the capacity of his brain required that he had some belief in some over-arching superpower greater than him or he would be likely to commit suicide or lose track of the real world. So yes, if this works, it'll be an end to the "blahness" !


Uh, human arrogance pervades. I feel arrogant with what I'm doing, somehow. Yet, I must do it. Well, let's see the obligitory cautionary things:
a) Only base it on truths you believe in.
b) Don't create any categorical imperatives


That should be good enough. I hope/think/experiment
posted by Philip 6:33 PM

 
Last blog outside my 9-to-5, or now, 10.5-to-5. But here's a preview of what's to come:
- Russian doll answer to a mundane "why"
- The wisdom of being nice
- Biases toward handicaps
- How the word "why" developed
- If it takes two to tango, why not salsa?
posted by Philip 10:10 AM

 
Today's non-sequitors: Christopher Pike and Glengarry Glen Ross
posted by Philip 9:47 AM

 
This is kind of meta-silly. But the best excuse for anything goes something like this (sorry Kristin): "I know. I'm sorry. I can make all the excuses I want, but they're just that, excuses."
posted by Philip 9:44 AM

 
The true test of a passion or "love" is to see what happens after an excessive splurge. A real passion can never reach a true excess such that it lost. Maybe that's why it's called making love, not enjoying love. Every time you go at it, you try to tap an excessive spike of carnal passion. If after the man falls asleep, wakes up, and encounters his groggy-eyed partner semi-awake and cuddling, if then, there is still love, then a "true" love has been made.
posted by Philip 9:35 AM

 
Is the U.S. Waging a Virtual War? - "Computer viruses, worms, and electronic "pulses" could be doing substantial damage in Iraq" The best way to win a virtual war is to just get any .goviraq e-mail address and subscribe them to the best porn websites. Even the best spam filters won't save 'em!
posted by Philip 9:06 AM

 
I promised I wouldn't blog into my 9-to-5. But certain ideas, certain thoughts, are just too important. The future will be blogged!
posted by Philip 9:04 AM

 
How Total Information Awareness will dupe Google - "TIA promises search engines that will consign Google to the Stone Age. TIA's dialog technology will listen to your words, then link you to a trove of data that makes today's Web look like the library of an illiterate."
a) scary.
b) what's the problem people have with Total Information Awareness anyways? Religion, political correctness, punishment of the outspoken, and a general desire to be "liked" have already put a "filter" on acceptable and appropriate thinking.
c) do I really think that the government could match Google? Based on the government's fubaring of a simple Dungeons and Dragons war game I somewhat question their ability to trump Google. And if other companies, like Microsoft and Yahoo! can't surpass Google, how could the US government.
d) this is just like the RIAA touting "PressPlay" to win the war on "Internet-terrorism" i.e. music piracy.
e) by the time they finish a system that scans e-mails and what not, there'll be new systems of communication that'll be unbounded, secure chat, anonymous blogging, the matrix?
f) by the nature of the reaction within this article, I get a feeling a lot of people will be pissed off. It seems too challenging for a right-wing press-mongering machine to write an opposite story. "Look America, we're all going to be safer now!" Plus, if enough people are pissed off, all we need is the next voting cycle to change everything.
g) yet, by the very nature of my litany of doubts on the US government, after a few self-fulfilling prophecies later, I could end up being sooo wrong.
h) nonetheless, I'm always impressed by man's ability to accept things the "way they are." If such a system were proposed by Bush, "for the good of the United States, mankind,
God's will on this very Earth, and an end to (brown) evil doers, we must sacrifice," the future will still be gay, but it will be gay within a sandbox. I and you already live in a sandbox by the very nature of needing things to survive in this world, so that's not that big of a deal. Plus, I know people who have told me that, "I wouldn't mind livin without control as long as I'm happy." hrmph.
i) so, on the balance, I'm vaguely against this TIA thing, in which case, I take solace in a thing that Americans lack: a fear of the use of violence. Piss off Americans, and they will fire.
posted by Philip 9:01 AM

 
Did an open mic for the first time today at Galokas in San Diego. I dressed in all black, had my hair combed ultra normal, and did a few twisted things that I doubt anybody noticed. Nontheless, it was really fun. I was hella nervous before, and going up there to stand and deliver was not what I expected. I expected to just be nervous and wanting to dish out what I said, but instead, it turned into something powerful. After I said, "Man is just" I paused in silence for a good five seconds--eternity in spoken word--and then, bam, bam, bam, like the daggers of thought I intended to lob, I delivered. The applause I got was comparable to the others, which was comforting.

I had criticisms of all the other spoken word artists, but in quickly sharing it with others, I find that it's just not popular to share such a high bar for art. I always believed in Nietzsche's conception of the Superman, and I wished others would try to make their art rise beyond the mundane. See, already, you are hearing the negative vibes: pessimism, cynicism, arrogance, and just plain bitterness. Why? Why? This is why I don't like revealing my personal thoughts or relating my personal experiences at times. The Truth, or at least my Truth hurts. So when people ask me questions, I try to only tell the part of the Truth that doesn't ruin the conversation into a wrestling match. The match usually ends with me losing and the winner being somebody who just stands over me and says, "See, you can't say X". Don't get me wrong, I enjoy everything. The ceremony of spoken word that processed before me was dope. It was funny, entertaining, and clever. But I must be honest when I emphasize how much I desire improvement and higher forms of art.

Hmm, something is wrong here.... I feel it's a waste, self-indulgent, and plain boring, to talk about my "standards" of art though. I think the compromise I can make with my socially "arrogant" attitudes and my desire to be a generally nice guy, is to be silent and prove my ideas through example. What you say says nothing. Action is what counts. And yet, with friends, especially close friends, I think speaking your mind is still a strong imperative.

I spent the time there with Chaz and Elaine. Elaine had heard of the place and helped me get the link on the left ("Urban San Diego"). It was really nice having friends with me. You can have all the theories in the world, but when you sit down after speaking and a friend gives you a handshake, it feels good. Plus, NOW, there's a whole world of San Diego culture to conquer! (dah!... maybe I should just go screw it, this is my blog, my space, let the arrogance flow like spit)

Here is the poem that I spoke:

"The Gay Funeral"
By Philip Dhingra

Man is just
An informaton processor
When we follow our passions to make love
and subsequently have sex
We are merely exchanging and merging blueprints
To create more information-processors
Who
Through the course of their life
Will struggle to exist
And repeat
what you started.
Now
That is not what life is ALL about?
At least for non uber-hormonal college students.
There is
ART
There is
science
and there is
war

As I take quiet walks
--a rare task these days--
I am always surprised by how
unaware we are of the superstructures
mushrooming around us

From drugs
such as TV
religion
courtship
shrooms
and real mushroom clouds over Bahgdad

The question then emerges
Who
Rules this earth?

Nietzsche once said,
"God is dead.
And we have killed him"

I revise and say,
"Man is dead.
And we have killed him"

Man first died when he chose to speak
When he chose to love
When he chose to submit his activities
To a greater good.

We are gathered here today
For another kind of greater good.

A pow-pow of the most
meta
significance

And we are also here to mourn
the impending death of man

But this will be a death
with little bloodshed

And as the movie The Hours
showed us
Death can be a gift
unto the living

But
What will live on?
Who will live on?

The struggle for existence continues.

I'm in no hurry though
I want to enjoy the Singularity
one precious bit
at a time.

###
posted by Philip 12:02 AM

Sunday, March 30, 2003

 
From iceplant radio - Michael Moore's new movie, called "Farenheit 911: The Temperature at Which Freedom Burns," will trace the economic ties between Bush administration officials and bin Laden, and chronicle the erosion of Consitutional freedoms in America in the wake of the 9-11 attack. Read original article
posted by Philip 12:52 PM

 
Truth be damned, the girl in the red dress (matrix) turns you on.
posted by Philip 12:34 PM

 
What is the Singularity?

You are so much smarter, enlightened, and cultured now than I bet you would have been without the progressive arc of the last 10 years. I have friends who were just clueless teenagers at one point and are now talking about things like, "finding their passion" or "living the good life." How did they get so advanced so quickly? All I can really say is network effects. I read a book, I send an e-mail, somebody gets a phone call, a suggestion is made to watch a cool indie film, an inspiration is produced, another thought is generated, somebody writes an idea down, a web page gets made, hits are produced, fame is created, encouragement is reached, desire is created, work is produced, freedom is reached.

Think, with the Internet and things today, you can now truly shine on your crazy diamonds. Your resume speaks shit compared to what a Google search on your name shows. What happened to Yahoo!, the great corporation Yahoo! Google is stomping on them. What happened to 20th century existentialism and continental philosophy? Transhumanism has superceded it in importance in a heart beat.

With every 24-hour cycle of sunlight, the Internet activity peaks, the electrical usage activity surges, and innovations are created, disseminated, applied in a geometric multiplicity of brobdingnagian proportions.

Sure, digital divide, blah blah You are only aware of the digital divide now because you read about it somewhere, probably on the Internet or on your cable news channel.

Remember when Neo in the Matrix put his finger into the baroque mirror and pulled it out with some chrome-like goop. Remember when he was engulfed into the mirror and the camera went through a tunnel lined with the same chrome-like goop. Remember the sound during the transit? It was like a high-pitched scream interlaced with synthesizations. That is how I feel now. That is what's happening now. That is the singularity.

UPDATE: According to Buck Fudda RE: the sound referenced above: "they put his scream through an enharmonic filter with progressively deeper and deeper envelope, while simultaneously resynthesizing it with a granular synth of some sort (Kyma?), adding more space between the granules with each sample. The filter makes it sound progressively more like a bell...by adding the weird harmonics that are produced inside a bell." I'm sure somebody somewhere out there knows what the heck all of that means.

posted by Philip 12:16 PM

 
Design the best educational system? Idealistic me says, "give them one book." Which book? The Bible? Eh, too archaic. The Gay Science? Too Western. Sophie's World? Okay, we're getting better because it sparks further thought.

I think you can wrap up 98% of the education a child needs into one book. It's a book on great quotations that I found at a used book store. This tome is dense. It's about 1000 pages and is sorted by topic. Such as freedom, religion, love, war, and art. You flip through, looking for a particular concept, and bam, there's the best matured answers to all questions of gravity. You read a quote, pause, paradigm shift, and bam, you've short-cutted like 20 years of time wasted going to school or getting rug burns to figure this stuff out. Sure sure, there's things in life you want to figure out on your own. So skip the love section. There's a lot of stupidity and arrogance that would be worth bypassing in life.

Great Examples:

"Knowledge and human power are synonymous" - Francis Bacon.

"In America the president reigns for four years, and journalism governs for ever and ever" - Oscar Wilde.

"I have only one purpose, the destruction of Hitler, and my life is much simplified thereby. If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons." - Winston Churchill

A simple quote says it all, a compendium of man's greatest quotes speaks volumes.
posted by Philip 10:59 AM

 
Think. Try to think of a man who's been married for a while, who looks back at his wedding day with reflective bliss. I can think of many women who do, but usually it's to reflect on superficial things. "Look at the bridesmaids' dresses, how cute they were. Look at the chapel, that was grand." Shouldn't it be, "Look how great it was to unite with such a handsome man. Look how sweet such a formalization of our love was."

Just goes to show...
posted by Philip 10:44 AM

 
There's always the question, "At one point, something must have come from nothing" and I have the similar concern that the singularity--the one at the big-bang, not the one in 2020--must have a source. I was thinking that maybe the only thing that can come from nothing is mathematics, abstract tautologies or ideas. These are the only things that occupy no physical space. Like what if there was a book that contained the story of the entire world and or a conceptual computer program that provided the inital conditions and rules for the big bang, and through cellular automata, if executed, would produce us. Would these things have to be executed in order for them to exist?
posted by Philip 10:40 AM

 
Can you read a face? "Oh come on Phil, don't be superficial, don't judge a book by its cover." Yeah, yeah, but we DO read faces all the time. An Aryan femme fatale is walking idyllically around and a grumpy/disheveled looking old man, let's say, like some punk Chomsky comes around. He says, "Miss, could you point me to the nearest Museum of Post-Modern Art." Ms. Fatale, upon a split-second processing of Mr. Fomsky, scurries off, kind of pissed. Then, later that same night, a chiseled Kennedy-faced frat boy offers Ms. Marilyn a "special" drink. She accepts, and is worse off with the Kennedy.

Wait? That shows that she read the face, but read poorly, so didn't really read at all. But, I digress (always wanted to say that). No really, I think you can read a face. I look around, and I see certain faces and besides the initial pre-judgment that I'm programmed to eject, I start to think. I think, "Looking at this face, there's just certain things that this man just cannot express." Things such as a giggle + bawl. Or what about a sly smirk + resigned brooding. Or what about coyness + arrogance. Just some faces can NEVER express certain things. Some people have never said certain things or experienced certain feelings. The older they get, the more their face molds itself to suit whatever it has consistently communicated. After a while, it appears to cement so that the face limits the range of its expression to precisely what its owner habitually expresses.

In High School, it was more difficult to make such quick conclusions. Our faces were still fresh clay, waiting to specialize into the annoying pigeon holes of expression that we were waddling into. Hence, maybe that's why it's easier to mistake certain people for certain characters when they're younger, while as older people you can easily bubble-sort.
posted by Philip 10:35 AM

 
Journalist Embedded with FOX News - David Peterson, a reporter for the Akron Beacon-Journal, will be the only journalist living, working, and eating with Fox News staffers in the weeks to come." Thank you!
posted by Philip 10:15 AM

 
Earth Screen Saver for Windows - Get the best view on earth with this lit view globe screensaver doo-hicky. Many features, check it!
posted by Philip 12:00 AM