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
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Friday, June 6, 2008
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
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
Sunday, May 11, 2008
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
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
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
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
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
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
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
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
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
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
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
Friday, February 15, 2008
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
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
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