fuckphilosophy.com

It has been awhile.

I was walking past a Boys and Girls club today and I saw a bunch of large paintings in the window that were done in a very childish style, but couldn’t have been painted by a child. It made me think that it is probably adults that like childish painting more than kids actually like to paint them. Do kids actually like to do art? I know kids are forced/expected to do art from the very get go, but I suspect that kids actually don’t have any kind of desire or preference for it one way or another. We have all just been brought up to assume that that is something that kids do; when you go out, bring some crayons so that the kid can have something to do, because kids love art. Is it not that adults love kids’ art, and kids like to do things that get that kind of loving approbation?

Another thing I was thinking: I was walking down the road and I looked down and saw a kid in his yard with a baseball bat and a tennis ball, looking like he was about to toss the ball up and hit it up over the fence into the road. Then he saw me, and ran away and went inside. The kid knew that it is wrong to hit balls into the street. Sometimes people will saw that kids don’t really understand the difference between right and wrong, that kids can be so cruel, etc. Kids know that shit is wrong. I remember doing terrible things that I knew were horrible, but I did them anyways.

I have realized later in life that my father subjected me to his flatulence for decades. I smell my own mature flatulence and recognize the smell. I never knew what that smell was all that time.

Here is another (Part 1here) inherent drawback to pedestrianism (more below on the problem with terminology). Dudes have flashy-ass cars that change color, and rims that appear to spin backwards and everyone looks at them and says: ‘That is a crazy-ass lookin’ car, and inside that must be the driver‘. Some people skateboard, and so they are often seen on skateboards, or carrying skateboards, and people look at them and say: ‘Oh look, a skateboarder‘. Some people ride a push-bike/bicycle and they are all accessorized and fancy, so fancy that you can tell just from their dress and accessories that they are a rider or a bicyclist or whatever. They get to hang out on the street standing on their bikes chatting because they are all riders. So what if you are a walker? The problem with being a walker is that you are indistinct from a driver who is walking to his/her car. Once they get in their car: ‘Ah, I knew he was something: a driver‘. If you are a walker and standing on your feet on the sidewalk chatting without a bike or a skateboard or something, people would just think that you had nothing to do. Do you see what I’m getting at?

How do you distinguish a walker (stupid term)? The problem with being a walker is that you are indistinct from a driver who is walking to his/her car. There is no such concept analogous to a driver, or a skater, or whatever. Once the dude gets in his car: ‘Ah, I knew he was something: a driver‘. Or what if you are walking super fast with marching arms or jogging or whatever; you know what they are. They’re only doing that because they’ve been driving and sitting all day. But if you are a walker and walking or hanging around on your feet on the sidewalk, chatting, smelling the butterflies, without a bike or a skateboard or something, people would just think that you had nothing to do. Hence the negative connotations with the term ‘pedestrian’ (see my previous post about the problems with this term). Do you see what I’m getting at?

One of the problems I would like to address here is terminology. The word ‘pedestrian’ doesn’t even capture the concept I’m envisaging. Drivers are pedestrians when they are walking back and forth from their cars. I guess skateboarders are even kinda pedestrians. But then ‘walker’ doesn’t really capture it either, because the concept I have in mind isn’t limited to only walking. The concept I am trying to define is one who walks, takes buses, trains, subways, and isn’t averse to biking, but not as cliquey hipster thing, just as another means of transportation. Anyways, here is my candidate term that best captures this concept: an ambler. To amble is to “to go at a slow, easy pace; stroll; saunter” (dictionary.com). I’ll get there by some manner or means/route/etc. I’m not just going to hop in my car and plow through town honking and cutting off people and then fall out all over the place. An ambler. ‘Amble’ is at least better than ‘rambler’, or ‘drifter’. And what about ‘loiterer’? What the fuck?! You see what I mean – all these words for going slow by foot, or standing on feet have these loser connotations.

The problem I will address next time is: how to distinguish yourself (from all those silly-ass drivers and riders) as an ambler.

This post is over a month old – something I started, but never finished, but here it is:

Take a look out the window. Doesn’t it look a little skankier than it did before? I’m talking general skankiness, and not any bullshit gender specific variety. For example, I just got home from vacation and there was a skanky blanket on my doorstep. It probably didn’t help that I got some smoked salmon for Christmas, and that was all I had to eat when I got back from the airport. But still, I’ve never gotten smoked salmon for Christmas before, so it still supports my point. Also, after I got back from vacation it was really humid and warm, so humid that it was beaded up and running down every surface around. Sweaty skank. Also, suddenly my jeans that I hadn’t washed for months since I bought them started smelling like mildew, and I can’t get rid of it.

Parallel to entropy (or perhaps identical with entropy) is an increase in skankiness. Look at movies from the 50’s or something compared to movies today.  Clearly an increase in skankiness. Actually, on second thought, there must be cycles of skankiness. Cave men were probably pretty skanky. The primordeal soup had to be pretty skanky, but before the primordeal soup, the water probably wasn’t very skanky. The heat death of the universe doesn’t sound very skanky, but some time after the Big Bang, when all kinds of shit is going down like physical laws separating out, and unfathomable forces, atomic particles fused together, etc. that all sounds pretty skanky. The weather has been doing some skanky stuff in recent years you’d have to admit, but an ice age certainly isn’t skanky.

My impression has been that 2009 is pretty skanky. I would welcome any other confimatory evidence from my readership.

I think we should try to cover up events like mall stampedes and shootings, brawls, etc. We can’t let the rest of the world know this shit happens. We Americans like to hear about it, but people in other countries would get the wrong idea if they caught word of it. Newspapers shouldn’t carry the stories, people shouldn’t talk about it, malls should be cloaked in a surveilance and media-free zone. Maybe malls should be granted autonomous status, enter at your own risk, so America can wash their hands of mall stampedes and shit. They should be granted some kind of fronteir wild west trading post status. People should know that if there is a really big sale, then the employees and the customers need to come armed.  Damn that sounds American! Back to the cloaking idea. There needs to be a kind of cloaking bubble, the malls shouldn’t have windows either, maybe underground would be better, underground with nightvision goggles, except there would probably be way more deadly stampedes if the malls were underground. There should be no windows and lots of blind corners with those globe mirrors to see around the corners. There would probably be a crowds of vigilante/mercenaries standing at the edge of the cloaked shopping zone that will go shopping for you. It will need to just become silently understood that if someone went shopping and didn’t come back, then you don’t talk about it, the coronar understands, etc. (Americans, y’all understand this I know.)

Here is another idea: maybe they could create a kind of Everquest or what the hell ever other reality-usurping online games people play, an online game that is combined with online shopping, but not just a game – you actually buy stuff this way. Now we can put the malls underground, and you have to buy nightvision goggles and shit if you really want the good deals. There will still be mercenaries too. They are the people who make a living off this online shopping world. I like that idea, and I bet other Americans will like it too.

Afterthought: this second idea should be incorported into the Tron sequel that is coming (see my tronsequel.com blog). Getting sucked into some kind of second life/Everquest whatever shopping world, and then there would be all these stampedes in the dark, and a cloaked black market that is underneath the underground mall, where the really big deals go down.

I just realized that the English name for our planet is really weird: Earth. I’ve been reading a paper that uses this name over-and-over again. At some point I looked at the word and didn’t recognize it. It made me think of elephant ears, shaggy turf hanging over a drop-off out of a Loony Toons cartoon, like Bugs Bunny’s burrow. Like Dr. Seuss goofy looking elephants with shaggy tufts of hair. ‘Earth’ sounds like the name of the planet where all these tufty goofy creatures burrow in the shaggy turf, and have crooked bucked teeth and are named Earl and they can’t even pronounce ‘Earth’ because of their teeth, sounds more like “Earf”.

I have questions about the standard urinal design. They’re all pretty much the same. Here is the question: Where should I be pissing? Where should I aim? This is actually an honest question. Just because the word ‘fuck’ is in the name, doesn’t mean we’re not serious here at fuckphilosophy.com. 

Here is a description of the urinal: There is this large wall that curves out on each side. So one option is to blast straight into the wall. The problem is this: Try this in shorts. If you have hairly legs like a man (like me) your hair will ring like antenna as thousands and thousands of piss mist coat your leg hair. I don’t like the idea of all this mist to be getting all over my pants. So, I don’t think that the wall is meant to pissed straight into. 

Sometimes there is a blue disc in a little plastic cage, or other kinds of mats and shit. I used to think these cages and shit were a good thing to piss at, because you weren’t just plowing straing into a wall, but it would all get caught up in the cage and there would be no mist. But then the other day I went back to my office desk and looked down and noticed a bunch of blue shit on my pants. Chunks of that blue disk were splattered all over my pants. So, now I’m not so hot on my piss-on-the-cage technique.

At the bottom of the urinal there is often a little pool. I don’t think most people piss into the pool. I’m pretty sure I’ve paid attention to whether other people were pissing into the pool. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s what it seems like. Anyways, I’m pretty sure the pool has the same mist problem.

The technique that I currently think is the best is to try to find a surface that you can get a really low angle at. By “low” angle, I mean pissing at the surface at as close to parallel to the surface as you can. I’m not so tall, so sometimes I stand on my tiptoes so that I have a little more height on the wall. My theory is that if you get a really low angle on it, the surface will just catch it all, no spray. It would be the difference between snowboarding on a halfpipe and landing on the flat surface at the top, or coming right back down into the halfpipe again.

Also, that weird jaw that comes out at the bottom that has the pool in it? The only thing I can think is that that jaw is there to catch drips.

There ya go – my collected wisdom on using urinals.

Oh yeah, I don’t know how we came up with this urinal design, but it could be improved upon. I’ve got some plans drawn up. Contact me.

What does it mean to say that a deterministic universe produced creatures that can have the thought: I could’ve done something else? What does this say about the universe? Of all the possible deterministic universes/different possible configurations/etc. we happen to occupy one in which we can conceive this fact, and not only that, but we have a very strong intuition that we have freewill. What does it mean to say that a deterministic universe produced creatures whose first intuition is to say that they have freewill? Doesn’t this seem a little incongruous? Kinda disingenuous (of the universe)? Is it strange that a deterministic universe would produce creatures that could conceive of determinism? Or does that just make sense in a fractal-like way? A prank? (Actually, to say that our first intuition is to say we have freewill is probably inaccurate. Rather, I’m guessing that the concept of freewill arrived simultaneously/immediately following as the concept of determinism/fate arose. It was in contrast to the idea of fate and determination that we wanted to say we had freewill. The concept of determinism caused us to conceive of freewill.) If this a deterministic universe, then what causes me to say I have freewill? There is a phenomenological feel that I describe as freewill. So the phenomenology is causing me to have this thought? I have a very strong intuition to say that the decision as to whether or not what I am doing is free or not MUST be something judged from conscious phenomenology, and NOT something that is produced unconsciously and is served up epiphenomenally. But why? Why would a deterministic universe produce creatures who would have strong intuitions that freewill is a sensation that is felt consciously?

I shave my head pretty close – every couple of days. I was walking home the other day, and a car drove by. The window was down and the person in the passenger seat said in a pretty low voice, almost under his breath, as they passed by me (so that I wasn’t even able to see them): Where’s your hair? I thought it was really funny then, and I am still laughing about it tonight. I don’t really know why it was so funny – that is what I will try to figure out here.

I was thinking that maybe it would kinda be like seeing someone walk down the street otherwise fully clothed and accessorized, but without any pants on. No, no, forget that, I don’t know what I was thinking. It would be more like passing some ordinary stranger walking down the road, someone with a home and kid and job or something, and with something like mockish snideness (said almost to yourself or whoever you are with, but so the person could possibly hear you or might interpret it as not meant to be heard clearly) say something like: Where’s your ghettoblaster? Something really incongruous like that. (I was trying to think of something that people without cars carry around to make themselves seem badass.) I guess it could also have just been a really stupid joke – like seeing a blind person and, in that same manner, saying (with a snicker): Where’s your vision? Otherwise, I guess it was funny that they didn’t just yell “hey faggot!” or something. They actually did a little bit of research; they dug up something in the couple of seconds that they had to prepare.

Whatever. You may ask: why the hell would someone think about some stupid nonsense as someone saying “where’s your hair?”, let alone write about it and think someone might think it was funny or interesting? When reflecting gets to that point, it isn’t fun any longer.

Remember the good ol’ days, back before when train conductors starting sending text messages? What a bunch of little girls those train conductors have become. Am I right? I’m preaching to the chorus, I know. Next thing ya know  they’ll be dressing their online pony friends, and hanging out in chat rooms for ponies. But this post isn’t really about what a bunch of sissies these train conductors have become. No, this is fuckphilosophy.com, and here we are concerned with the principles behind the matter. While I’m happy that there will be no more train wrecks because of text messaging, I think there were some other options that may not have been considered apart from just banning train conductors from text messaging.  Here are some: they could’ve just put a cell phone scrambling device in the conductor’s lair. Whatever, that one was stupid, but there are tons of possibilities. The most compassionate and all-around win-win of all the possibilities was that they could require that train conductors get certified to send text messages with their eyes closed. Or some other incentives like for every text message they don’t send on their shift, maybe they get an extra five dollars or something. That might not work, because you could just make up some number of text messages that you really wanted to send, but refrained from. You could also reward train conductors who catch other train conductors who are about to send text messages. That might work. Or they could just hire someone to stand there and watch to make sure no one sends text messages. Anyways, you see that there are lots of great options out there besides just banning train conductors from texting.

The new CERN nuclear accelerator is almost ready to turn on. In one year it will produce enough data to fill a 20 km high tall stack of CR-Rs. One CD-R is about 1.2mm thick. That is about 16,666,666.66 CD-Rs (or about 2,519,379.845 DVD-Rs). We’re gonna fuckin’ figure out this universe in no time! Just think about all that data!

I learned here that in 2006 there was enough digital data on the planet to fill 12 separate stacks of novels, each 93 million miles tall (to the Sun), and by 2010 12 stacks from the Sun to Pluto and back.

I can’t find any website where I can convert novels (in bytes) into CD-Rs, so I don’t exactly know how to compare these figures.

In this post from 2004, this man says that the Internet has less than half of 460 terabytes.

Unless my calculations are all fucked up, that 16,666,666.67 CD-Rs is about 10,579 terabytes.

That makes the data from one year of CERN use to come out to about 46 internets (2004-internets).

In this post from 2005, the Internet is 5 million terabytes. In this article from sometime in 2008, it says the CEO of Google said that the Internet is 500 million terabytes big.

That comes out to 47,263 years of CERN data.

The bottom line: The Universe better get a whole lot more interesting REALLY fucking fast if it is going to compete with the Internet.