Judaism

So today I went to a Chabbat Dinner. It's pronounced with a definitive rolling in the throat, a very hebrew word. It is, after all, a Hebrew dinner officially starting the Sabbath, and it was for me very much a learning experience.

I have never been exposed to jewish ritual, or even culture. I spent the majority of my educative years in suburban Minnesota, filled with scandinavian folks brought up as Protestants, and occaisionally Catholics (like I used to be). I haven't been exposed to judaism really at all and so this was the immersion.

It was quite fun, really. They sang lots of songs in hebrew and we had DELICIOUS food (all of it Kosher, naturally), and after there were a WHOLE lot of songs. I found out the hard way it's tradition not to talk in between washing hands and eating (In our house, growing up, dinner was the only time the whole family got together, so we did a lot of talking about everything no matter what).

It was a great opportunity to ask lots of questions (and yes, to those of you who know me, I did my very best to be respectful and keep the jewish jokes to a minimum) and work to understand the jewish faith. It was interesting to be there when people were performing a religious ritual that likely meant something to them (I would say about as much as church meant to me as a catholic) when I was a complete outsider to their belief structure. It was clear they meant what they did and it was important to me, but to me it was all words. Religions are funny that way. Their god is no longer (was, but is no longer) my god.

Religion is weird that way sometimes. I have a hard time reconciling the hope and solidity it brings people with the despicable acts it can inspire people to perform. As such, I'm really having a hard time knowing just how to feel about such an event. I want to revel in their solemn and private faith and feel perfectly fine about observing such a thing, in fact being part of it. I don't want to feel bad, like an imposter or an intruder to such an event. I don't really agree with religion, condemning it on account of it's worse parts. One bad apple spoils the barrel, of sorts. Or perhaps more like nukes - everybody in the world has one, but it only takes one use of one to ruin everybody's day.

Some days I just don't know. Being fencish SUCKS.

TRH

The Fallacy Of Hope

Dour, ain't it? Hope is in the air this election season, almost as much as bullshit. It creates an interesting mix, this concept of how things may change along with how shitty they are now.

Now, I usually leave politics out of work, contenting myself to visit harm upon their egos at the expense of their mothers and housing situations with both efficiency and cruelty. Of recent, even politics has crept into the mix as we chat Obama/McCain occaisionally. Pretty much everybody there seems Obama-y, so no concerns. Interesting thing my boss mentioned, though.

See, the economy has been rough on her. She mentioned the store's just barely been getting by this year due to the harsh economy, and then said with a hint of sarcasm, "But we'll elect a new president into office and then everything will get better!"

It interested me because I think people have been thinking that he's the political "Easy Button."Here's How it is, folks: he's not. I certainly believe he's better than McCain, but he's not going to fix anything right away. Nobody ever could. It's the nature of the American system, how the bureaucracy works.

I'm not saying this to dissaude anybody from anything now. It's cynical, yes, and that's who I am. I'm putting this out there to prevent cynicism one year into President Obama's first term, when little to nothing has gotten done, the world has progressed as though nothing had happened and everything seems like McCain may have been the quickfix we passed up. I'm sure things will get better, but likely by the time I retire. Oh, and did I mention? I'm 22.

Maybe I should just cryogenically freeze myself until then.

TRH

Dillematime, GO!

So I have this roommate. She's not so bad, I guess, in her own way. A fair bit OCD, kind of uptight, but she pays half the rent and half the utilities and I haven't woken up with a knife in my chest yet, so there you go. Thing is, she's moving to a dorm again next month, right when they open.

I liked living on my own. I could wander around butt naked all I liked, I had the TV completely to myself (although she doesn't occupy it too much), I didn't need to worry about keeping the other couch cleared off, the dishes got done when I decided they needed to and I never got yelled at for not doing enough to keep the place clean.

At the same time, though, it's actually clean now, at least by my definition. Plus, all of my utilities and rent (which, notably, I once managed on my own) are cut in half, freeing up a good bit of funding each month.

And so my dillema - do I get a roommate? Do I live on my own? Ugh. At any rate, the ad is up and four hours after going up I had an email already. A room close to campus for $150 does not stay empty long in this town...

TRH

First Amendment Responsibilities

Hello fellow foolish humans,

It seems the world is in the proverbial shitter. I say proverbial because really most of this "shitter" stuff going on is trivial and/or somebody else's problem. ANYTHING going on in sports - the answer is "all of you morons shut the hell up and sit the fuck down". Problem solved. Rivers flooding in the midwest - tragic, yes. Donate money to the Red Cross, or if you really feel a need to help I'm sure they could use sandbaggers and volunteers for rebuilding. Join the Red Cross and volunteer for that disaster area.

More problems exist than this, and all of them are forcibly inserted into your brain by various news media. Wouldn't it be nice if people actually thought through these problems with a pragmatist viewpoint? The solution to every worry is to simply look at the problem in the mindset of "what can I do to help?" Frankly, the solution is very very often "practically speaking, Nothing". Myself, I have no money to give and no time to volunteer without VERY seriously subverting my college plans which I need to keep up a bit for financial reasons.

So, the question is, what can YOU do about Gas prices? The Iraq War? Controversy surrounding the Beijing Olympics? The answer is practically speaking, not much. Write a letter to your representatives and senators if you really care that much. Vote in November. And then, once you've got that done, STOP WORRYING. Turn off CNN. Shut off your computer. Grab a frisbee, or a book, or something else. The news media has turned sour, and while they still give factual information, they rather unfortunately give it over and over and over and over and over again until it is beat into your brain and they have nothing else they could fill the time with but their own gut feelings and opinions regarding news presented as facts.

In short, televisual news is full of fail and text is better.

TRH

Personal Beliefs, or lack thereof

I have a friend who lists herself as Agnostic. I myself list myself as such as well. Funny thing about Agnosticism though. See, to call yourself Christian means you believe in the Jewish God, that your soul was saved two thousand years before your parents even met, that random Holy Spirit thing (Honestly, Brahma/The Force makes more sense than that one). To say that you are a buddhist means that you believe in the Noble Eightfold Path as a solution to the Four Noble Truths, all that. To say that you are an Atheist is the other end of the spectrum, to believe explicitly that there is no deity, higher power, great and all knowing intelligence, anything. Effectively, it is to believe that there is nothing to the universe beyond what we have noticed (and a few things we haven't quite noticed yet, but may mildly suspect, like Dark Energy, which is a whole other blogpost in itself.)

There is a wide area in between believing in one faith and dogmatic set, and believing in absolutely nothing. That spectrum, to me, is all agnosticism. Some call it spirituality without belief, some call it unknowingness. I call it apathy: I really don't give a crap whether or not there is a god. It doesn't concern me. If I die and there is nothing at all, then nothing happens, obviously. If I die and there is something there, then I'll simply argue that I lived my life as I wanted to and that while there may not be things I'm proud of, I don't believe I need to defend my lifestyle to anybody. I am a sentient thing capable of making choices for myself so far as I know, so if there does turn out to be a god then he/she/it is not better than me.

As a psychologist once told me, Agnosticism is a very humble choice because it's about admitting that you DON'T know. It's the idea of giving up any specific beliefs, accepting that it's as-yet unmeasurable whether or not there is a god (scientifically speaking), and that you don't need a religious institution to tell you how to live or save this "soul" thing. It's effectively saying that you don't know who's wrong or right and that you don't need to know.

So that's Agnosticism to me. Apathy. Don't know, don't care.

TRH

Crap.

As of five PM last friday, the spring 2008 semester at the University of North Dakota ended. Given as how I entered in the Fall of 2004, I have now completed four calendar years at this particular institution. Being as how I'm not done with the program (probably another year to go) I am now officially a Super Senior.

It's not really someplace I want to be. I'm financially independent, live in my own apartment, have a car that you wouldn't expect to see Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers cruising around in. I maintain a job that pays the bills, I even have a resume and coverletter that I could, if necessary, modify for use for another company. I'm pretty much ready to enter the real world as a productive (albeit lazy and eccentric) adult.

But I can't. Even if I want to move somewhere else, meet new people, do far more interesting things, I can't. I almost have a college degree, which means I don't have a college degree. Granted I should be finished with my commercial pilot's certificate, so I'll have a marketable skill, but the degree lends it even more credence. Also, a degree is required for my plans after college.

I really don't want to be here though.

TRH

Tactical Error Detected

Or: And a Stopover in Reykjavik!

So I've been pondering going to Europe for a couple weeks this summer. Planning it out, financially and otherwise, and I was all but decided that I wanted to go. Just needed some kind of catalyst to tell me that it really needed to happen.

So I bought a round trip ticket from Minneapolis to Paris for the time I was considering going. And I'll be stopping in Reykjavik International for about an hour each way. I almost sort of wish I had a day or so in that city, Iceland would be really cool to see in the summertime.

Anyways, I'm going to Paris! I've still got to buy my Eurail Pass, as I want to go to a number of other places: Rome, Venice, Marseilles, Geneva, and this little town called Courchevel up in the French Alps. The last one for the Airport, more than anything else, although I think I'd like to go mountain biking.

In France.

Mountain Biking in France.

I'm going Mountain Biking. In. France.

Wow.

TRH

Epic Fail is Epic

On "The Daily Show" last night they covered the epic failure of Bear Stearns, an investment bank, as well as the monstrous bad advice from some financial talking head on TV, telling somebody who wrote in that the company was fine and that a pullout from them was ill-advised. Anybody who happened to short-sell Bear Stearns over the weekend just about doubled their money, as it fell well over $50 from $60, crashing horrifically.

I didn't short-sell them. I don't do much with the market. However, I did get thinking a bit, and I do have an e-trade account. I hopped on, threw a few dollars in it this morning, and I've already made about $20 in the hour that the market has been open. I figure if it's high-risk, as they could crash completely, but even if they go from five dollars per share (my buying price, approx.) to one per share, I'm holding fifty shares and lost $200, and they've nowhere to go but up or complete failure. Also, at fifty shares, every penny upwards if $0.50 for me. What's more, they are going to do everything they can to try to get their stock up higher.

There is always the risk of the company dissolving, at which point I lose my $250, but that's why the market is a risk. Furthermore, I got in the morning after Jon Stewart told my generation that Bear Stearns is at a historic low - with any amount of luck, lots of people will be buying in later today, pushing up the price. If I'm very lucky, I could double my money in a month, maybe even more. Imagine if the stock ever recovers, back up to say, 50 - that's multiplying my money by 10! That could be within a year or so.

Basically, their failure is my bread and butter.

TRH

Two Laws and a Coefficient

T = G * H * S * B

where...

T :: Time to becoming Myspace
G :: Growth rate in hundreds of people per month
H :: Henderson's Constant, an as yet unknown number (likely an expression of months squared)
S :: whether or not high schoolers are allowed, 1/4 if they are not, 2 if they are
B :: whether or not there is a blog function, 1/4 if there is not, 2 if there is

I said that earlier. Now I've actually done Research though!

I estimate that Facebook became Myspace when applications were first added, making it more about duping your friends into littering their profile page with crap than other stuff. This was May 24, 2007, a mere 38 months after facebooks inception and only 7 months after it allowed high-schoolers to join. Given this information, and some critical thinking about the above formula, I need to fix it a bit.

For one thing, I was wildly wrong about the growth rate. It appears that facebook now gains about 1 million new users per month, at least according to this chart:


That number off to the left is users IN MILLIONS. As of March '07 (one month before I estimate they went Myspace) they were at 15 million users, and you can clearly see the upwards jolt once they allowed the high schoolers in. I'm not sure blogging has anything to do with it now, I think it may just be about how many users, because the more people you have using an online service or utility, the more idiotic something tends to become (Henderson's First Law of The Internet). Of course, everything will eventually become idiotic (Henderson's Second Law of The Internet).

Regarding the chart, we clearly see users per month approximately double immediately after they're allowed in, from about 250,000 - 500,000 per month to better than 1 million per month (it took four months to climb from 10 million to 15 million). So high schoolers are clearly part of the equation, but really only insomuch as they influence the growth rate. At this point, It's about the growth rate simply multiplied by my constant, which is obviously no longer a constant.

In aerodynamics, every three-dimensional object moving through the air has what is called a coefficient of lift and a coefficient of drag. They are multipliers thrown into the lift and drag equations (respectively) that shape the equation for that particular object. Other factors apply, such as speed and air density, but these ones particularize it and can only be found in a wind tunnel through trial and error by actually charting the lift and reducing all the variables. In other words, it's EXTREMELY difficult to know the coefficient of lift of a wing you've only drawn or build small models of.

I postulate that it is not Henderson's Constant, but in fact Henderson's Coefficient, or the Coefficient of Myspace, which would innately factor in high schoolers, applications, music sharing, and all the quirks that social networking sites offer. This number, only calculable after the fact, indicates time to becoming Myspace. Notably, Myspace themselves hit 15 million users approximately one year after it's inception, growing intermittently up to 1 million new users per month up to and persistently at that rate after 18 months.

This is what I have so far.

T = (G * CM)

T :: Time to becoming Myspace
G :: Average growth rate of the past six months, expressing hundreds of thousands (ie: 100,000 per month is 1/1 month)
CM :: Coefficient of Myspace, an as yet unknown number, likely an expression of months squared thus matching out all the units.

Given that myspace rose up that quickly, I'll estimate that CM is somewhere around .1 for most sites, so that when growth rate consistently achieves 1 million per month time to becoming myspace is extremely short.

I have not yet studied growth rates for many other social networking sites or growth rates after idiocy is established.

TRH

For Your Reading Pleasure

Simon of Space, a novel originally posted on a blog by (somewhat famous) internet author Cheeseburger Brown, is now being sold in stores! If you were there from day one, read it through and see what the editing processing has changed, and if you weren't, I cannot recommend this story highly enough. It's worth reading for CBB's rich language alone, and the well-woven story and wonderful characters only add to the whole feel.

More of Mr. Brown's work may be found at his story blog, and a complete list of his stories may be found at his website, cheeseburgerbrown.com. There's also a donation box, as he is a struggling new author with a family to feed, as well as links to other self-published works of his and merchandise. It's really quite the quintessential internet experience.

TRH

An Exercize in Futility

I have tried this before. I am trying it again. Nothing I can do works.

I'm trying to get a car loan on my own in college.

I don't talk to my father for personal reasons, and my mother flat-out refuses to cosign because it "wouldn't do any good". It would, but she just doesn't want to drag her post-divorce credit score through any more dirt. I do wish she'd be honest with me and just say that though. That's a rant for another post.

It is impossible. I tried once before, with a car about three or four thousand dollars, to get a loan. Nothing worked. This time, I'm putting a $3000 down payment on a $7000 car (before tax, title, registration, f*cking warranty sold to me by a guy who was to nice for me to say no to, etc). Nothing will grease the wheels of commerce enough for me to get a loan, however small, through the dealership's banks. I'll try my own bank, of course, but I don't expect much.

If nothing else, I'll do the same thing I did to pay for my first semester of college - scrounge every drop of savings and credit I have anywhere. I've tallied, and it should come up to just enough if I scratch the warranty, which I kind of want to do anyways. I might need a bit of cash, but with any luck I can scrounge a few hundred dollars up here or there.

The biggest thing is, though, it's impossible for me to get even a modest car loan. My credit score is in the bottom end of 700, so it's not abysmal, and I've got a pretty good history of paying everything off, maybe one or two missed payments here and there on my credit cards. Other than that, I try to have them as close to completely square by the end of the month.

I just can't get a loan for a decent car, which is something I need to be able to do my job as a pizza deliverer. I don't know why the system is set up like this, but it seems that the world is financially against me just because I'm in college. Yes, it is a financially turbulent time in my life, and yes, I don't have much of a history other than a credit card with my bank and a series of student loans not yet in repayment, but that doesn't mean I'm automatically bad news. The banks assume that because I don't have much experience, I don't know what I'm doing, which means that I can't get a strong credit history.

The system is, like so many other systems, inherently flawed and useful only in educating ourselves not to be. It is also the best system we've come up with yet. A Nobel Prize in Economics (which, interestingly, is not a real Nobel Prize) to the person who comes up with a better judge of who will repay loans. Maybe we just need to institute Microloans here and have them count towards our credit history.

TRH

Huh...

Have you ever gotten the feeling that whenever IMDB reports that "this plot synopsis is empty", they're being slightly more truthful than you expect?

On a completely unrelated note, Facebook has become the new Myspace. I theorize there exists a constant which approximates how much time any social networking site will take from initial popularity to when it becomes effectively Myspace.

T = G * H * S * B

where...

T :: Time to becoming Myspace
G :: Growth rate in hundreds of people per month
H :: Henderson's Constant, an as yet unknown number (likely an expression of months squared)
S :: whether or not high schoolers are allowed, 1/4 if they are not, 2 if they are
B :: whether or not there is a blog function, 1/4 if there is not, 2 if there is

This time is measured as soon as an appreciable growth rate of more than 100 people per month is measured consistently (across three months). I suspect that the Henderson Constant is based on other features available in the site as well, and as such could be subject to chaos theory, applicable only as a rough estimator rather than a precise measurement, similar to coefficient of lift in non-simulated environments.

TRH