Will of the People

For a long time I've been investigating various topics around the central interest in my life, "what is the nature of man?" (yes yes, I hate that the term there overlays a gendered one but I can't figure another word with the same gist). From neuropsych to philosophy, history to sociology, most of my interests are different angles to try to get that big picture - all these disciplines are relevant to each other, to the extent that I don't think the central question can be approached without adequate understanding of each - the physical limits of the brain, the just-in-time nature of memory, the ugly and complex ideas that make us different from the simple and clean way we'd otherwise see ourselves.

Yet another, possibly already said, question - interesting on surface and meta levels (example is particularly relevant to the practice of this essentially philosophical question) - given a highly unusual perspective, how might one build the necessary amount of similar views in others to form a subculture. Potentially, those with strong natural charisma can use that to draw people around them and, provided they have a coherent-enough perspective, spread it that way.

Let's imagine someone with a perspective that's unusual in American society, but is just as coherent as the stereotypical city-living Liberal-secular Democrat and the small-town Conservative-religious Republican. ( Read more... )

I recently reread the Bhagavad Gita - just like the Christian Bible and the Quran, I find many of the values expressed actively repugnant. It is, nontheless, an interesting read - not as fun as the Ramayana though.

Head: has been full of stories and the like that beg to be drawn or written, some of which actually make it to paper. Occasionally I've passed some of these on to more art-capable people..

Semi-recently got some tea that is quite good, unfortunately so good that the flies like it. Whenever I brew it, tiny flies appear from parts unknown in my apartment and buzz all around. I'm not sure what to think about this.

This is turning out to be another weekend.( Read more... )

Viktor Mayer-Schonberger spoke at Google suggesting that the internet damages a fundamental human and societal function - that of forgetting. It's very interesting, highlighting a gamble that I long ago comitted to both as a socialist and as a transhumanist - that we can adapt. (I am listly prone to dislike human memory itself, given what we know of it - he does not consider the negative aspects of human memory nor how, should we commit to using external aids (like Wikis) to help us organise our thought would help us avoid some of the problems he mentions) - the biggest criticisms he makes, that of silly intolerance of either difference or improprieties in the past, are things that openness would force us (eventually) to discard - prudishness will be weakened by our new openness. Nontheless, his concerns are real, and despite a commitment to new openness and digital rememberance, I recognise that my hopes that we can grow to meet the challenge may be false ones.

I thus nervously reject efforts to aid his cause, hoping the cost won't be too great. It is nontheless a very interesting topic and talk.

I really wish Google would not close comments on these things (or allow authors to close comments).

Wondering who, if I had to get three other people to join me in a real version of the Left4Dead experience, I'd bring. To make it much simpler, I'd assume that everyone knew how to use weapons and could run/jump/bash zombies in an equally proficient way (without this, I would probably be a terrible choice myself given that apart from the potato cannons my grandpa occasionally made, I've never to my memory fired a firearm).

I suppose most people wouldn't want to name their team, for fear of offending those excluded.

Emiliana Torrini's 「Dead Things」 is a song that captures disintegration into hikikomori and a retreat to memory very well - it's one of those "meaningful songs" to me. It also makes use of an unusual "musical instrument", making something we've all heard into a conceptual bridge.

Importance of and goals in participating in online forii (really rather partisian and a bit philosophic):( Read more... )

As extensions of feminism:( Read more... )

Note that in general, when I issue statements of this kind (often using "We"), I am asserting norms, practices, or philosophy that are part of a particular identity that I have been working to define, as part of a general project of writing norms that are a synthesis of the (potentially separable) norms of liberalism, secularism, socialism, and academism.

A Program draws near! Command?( Read more... )

Kudos to those of you who will get this.

On days when I don't walk to work, I usually walk up the street to Temple Sinai, which has the nearest bus stop. Outside the temple is a large, square-trimmed shrubbery, which during the times I'm waiting for a bus tends to have a lot of birds playing inside. It is a puzzle to tell, from the vibrations of the leaves, ( Read more... )

Portable cups for coffee/tea produce the most amazingly ugly stains when some coffee/tea dries onto the top surfaces.

Tonight: Planning on getting this damned bit of event system code in Emulab done, and hopefully I will never need to work with it again in my life. *stomp* *stomp* *stomp* Ideally won't leave work until it's done.

But... first I think I need to get a sandwich. HO HO HO

I wonder if it'd be possible to revoke the corporate charters of the RIAA and MPAA. Meaning: possible in the "could people make it happen", not "is this legally possible in theory given our system".

It would be nice for copyright abolitionists (such as myself) and copyright moderates to assemble a list of companies we'd like to see unplugged and take action to either revoke their charters or their license to do business in as many states as we can. From our perspective, they are always working on ways to harm the public interest, and it would be nice for us to try to always be working on unplugging them and spreading our views in ways more effective than theirs. I wonder if the EFF would be an appropriate vehicle for this, or if that would be too divisive for them.

What is instinct, and what is done about romantic/sexual relations:( Read more... )

I have been moderately obsessed with the traditional Russian song, Катюша. At home, because my apartment has numerous flaws in terms of keeping the cold air from outside from entering, I have also been dependent on the warmth of cats to keep my legs warm. (blah blah band name 「Dependent on the Warmth of Cats」 blah blah - it is interesting how the -ent version describes the state and the -ant version describes one in that state, while they are pronounced practically the same in all but the most careful levels of enunciation).

Finally: For those of us who (sigh) follow PZ Meyers, I think he's almost completely wrong on his opinionating over the Sunsara Taylor/Ethical Humanist Society mess.( Read more... )

It is awesome when people can joke around through music.

It would be interesting to try to write a comedy skit done entirely this way - no physical humour, no words.

As someone whose style in philosophical thought has wandered from logician to value-driven, ( Read more... )

Tonight I finally had some pumpkin pie (from allegro). Still tired from last night's migraine like I ran a 10k.

Challenge to random people who like challenges: name 8 songs you like that you don't think most people on your friends list have heard (you may be excused slightly if you're the kind sort who shares your mp3/ogg collection with your friends)

Also pondering: blog seems a near-total substitute for socialisation, and an unsatisfactory one at that - mostly one-sided conversations, interpersonal needs unmet. What to do given mental resources?

Code refactoring..( Read more... )

Last night gave me my worst migraine in over a year. ( Read more... )

Celestial Seasonings tea reminds me of many years ago living in Brecksville. The remaining boxes of tea bags I have may in fact be that old - given how seldom I make tea from them and that I've never to my recollection bought them, they may have survived the move from Brecksville, through the various dorms at OSU in Columbus, then the various apartments there, then the various apartments and offices here. It would be interesting to have a survey of what things have the most move-survivability - probably not gadgets (my One True Keyboards being an exception), usually not consumables (my tea being an exception). Pillows? Lamps? Teacups?

The weather is now terribly cold here.

Another election, this time I was too busy with work to really study for this test. Fortunately, Squirrel Hill's Town Hall (the JCC, really) reminded me to vote as I passed by it. I voted against Ravenstahl (who got both the Republican and Democratic nomination, the latter in a run-off, wtf) because I very strongly disagree with his handling of the G20, supporting Franco Harris instead - I haven't had time to do a lot of research about him but he seems like a moderate liberal with a decent (albeit not very political) resume. The rest of those running were the regular uninspiring options, some for offices that are not particularly political.

In the judiciary, I largely want judges who understand the Common Law system we have and how the public interest and rule of law work in such a system ( Read more... )

The shifting weather is proving terribly apt at summoning migraines. Recent flavour of depression has added strong flavours of jealousy and anger. I seem to be angry with a lot of people in ways that when I trace that anger, I can see that it's not for things I should expect them to (treat me better/give me a shot/whatever) but rather need and lack. The realising that their behaviour is reasonable doesn't make the feelings go away.
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Feeling that I deserve this lonely life.

At the Te Café, but about to head home because there's terrible music playing (Avett Brothers's "Love Like the Movies") and a terribly irritating guy talking like a motivational speaker to woo some girl nearby.

The programmer side of me is seriously rebelling over this damned stupid code at work. It'd be too simple to say it ruined my weekend (as my weekends are not usually anything more than sleeping 15 hours plus 1-3 repeats of lonely staring at the wall, philosophising, or sketching at some random coffeeshop combined with travel time), but I've been stressed out over it and working on it whenever I can make myself for the whole time. I have decided that I will not leave work today until it is done-ish (which I might chicken out on if it gets to be 11pm). On the upside, it provides more impetus to think about what code and coding should be like - the simple challenge of deriving what exactly is wrong about something that's lousy without becoming crazy-polarised and picking something else because it's an opposite that's probably even worse (in this case, formal software engineering).

Instead, let's talk about canons - not the misspelt kinds that fire nor Pachelbel's work, but in terms of stories. ( Read more... )

Jonathan Coulton's 「Re: Your Brains」 is in L4D2 as one of the bits of music that can be played on a jukebox! I wonder if I'm the first person to notice this! Other songs on the jukebox:

• A nice jazz rendition of 「When the Saints Come Marching In」
• Some lightly grungy song about being a homeless but well-armed 「bad bad dog」
• Another lightly grungy song about a guy with money and guns

Favourite weapon: Either the Frying Pan or the machete. The last time I did roleplaying I played a perverted old man who used a glue gun and a frying pan - there's something hilarious about attacking people with cooking implements.

Also, it's great to hear about musicians like Molly Lewis or Jonathan Coulton being successful and getting more exposure.

Inappropriate and offensive humour:( Read more... )

About race, identity, and politics, using Sri Lanka primarily as stage:( Read more... )

Earlier today (or maybe it was yesterday? With the sun being mostly gone, my not seeing other humans very regularly, and erratic sleep and food schedules, it's hard to say), I found this, a wonderful Japanese sketch of a Tetris game breaking the rules to frustrate its player. ( Read more... )

I've had a migraine ( Read more... )I've come to the conclusion that the best way to do portable backups of their (maybe I can say "our" again honestly?) terabytes of data would be to get two very small form factor computers running Linux and drop multiple 2T disks in each (surprisingly affordable). This would allow for offsite backup (move the system), selective recovery, and be at quite a low cost. Finding/building an appropriate configuration might take some thinking (power supply and cooling, mainly), but the problem has become much easier, provided we can keep the primary storage from growing beyond that means (a 2T disk can be had for less than $200 right now). Semi-related: I would love to be geeking out over SSDs, but I presently lack the hardware and my geeking out energy is in scarce supply - there are all sorts of projects I'm theoretically interested in but I haven't been in at all the right state of mind to do them.
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(political philosophy that's kind of half-baked switched to private)
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Scrapping my information gathering software - too many sources I used to use require passwords, have become broken, block bots, or have just changed too much to be worth rewriting. Interesting relation model differences:( Read more... )

I'm not sure why social software is so interesting.

Unrelated, not for the first time in my life, I am livid about Joe Lieberman. It seems like the health care reform is to be so watered down as to provide little significant change, in order to please people who will likely vote against it anyhow. I also have been working my way through some feminist theory works ( Read more... )

I wonder what the rate of new music listenitude is for different people - do we prefer a small set of favourite songs with rapid churning of new candidates, or some other permutation of those attributes? Tiers of songs?

I am thinking it would be nice to write an Ubiquity script to make it easier to post to my little bloglets.