Building a better now

It seems that my entire life everything has been preparation work for some sort of unknown future. All of it some sort of schooling, or work towards a place where I have the skills I need to do something else something grander. I think everyone feels like this like we work hard to be at some other place than where we are now. Or at least that's what society tells us. Then after all that time, we are dropped. So much build up so much work towards a goal, and then we drop.

It feels like we are seeds falling from one of those trees with the helicopter leaves. We make ourselves to head out as far as we can, then we let go and see where the wind takes us.

But the time comes and we hit the ground and I'm thinking that part of building a better tomorrow is to be a better now. It's not a stop and smell the roses thing. I don't think that it's about always enjoying what's around us (sometimes the flowers are brambles) but rather to work as if right now is really here rather than a starting point to somewhere else. It may be that but things like cleaning up at home make things better for now and the future. I just think that part of our work should be making now a better time and let the future surprise us at least a little.

A big fear.

So I read about the second most scary condition I've ever heard about and I promptly tried to forget about it. Locked-in syndrome, where you are stuck in your own body but can't move or communicate with anything except maybe your eyes. The only reason I bring this up is I saw the movie Inception it made me think of all the things associated with dreams. And one thing I thought about is a moment that I've felt only 2 or 3 times in my life.

It's a moment between waking and dreams where your body is frozen your arms can't move, nor your legs, even when you tell them MOVE, it's as though they were covered in lead. The moment might only be a minute, but it feels like forever. The weight of your bed tells you that you are not dead but you can't move. Absolute terror.

You come back to life, to feeling and moving and it's 3 am in the morning and you feel tired as all hell but damned if you'll sleep again tonight. It's just too much.

The first worse problem I can't really say, not because I don't know, but it changes from day to day and from hour to hour. But always at number two is being trapped unable to do a thing.

The walls are bleeding.

So I'm working at the Marjorie Barrick museum right now for my class and we are making a thing of twine and staples. I'll post pics when it is done. The way that it's made there are shadows on the wall that make interesting patterns. So my teacher decided that duplicating the effect with a drawing on another wall would be a great idea.

This he left up to me and another student and we set about making some pattern on the wall using a chalk-line filled with red chalk to create the effect. If you have ever had a cat scratch yourself and seen the after-effect the color is the same and since we only did it in lines to me it looks like the beginning of a b-movie special effect. The walls want to bleed. I didn't start it out to look like that but right now it's pretty cool.

It makes me think about what other things might look good in a dose of b-movie horror effect.

A warning for females wearing pants.

So here's the thing. I'm constantly in a place where people are active. At least right now. Artists seem to have an the problem of being attracted to shiny objects and getting interested in the weirdest things. And we are always trying to put things where they don't belong. So anyway people are moving about in random ways around me.

Which brings me to the point whenever a girl wears pants and bends down in to pick something up you know that almost fetal position bend to get close to the ground. Any time that happens there seems to be a design flaw in the pants and people's underwear show. Guys wear baggy clothes most of the time so I'm safe from their cracks.

However since most girls wear tight clothes I often get a view of their underwear. I'm not sure that people know this. I'll grant you I enjoy it but I feel bad that they don't seem to know it's happening. I'm just letting people know so that way I can enjoy the view having let people know that this happens.

Laterz.

Money

I don't understand why I should fear deflation. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/4-Reasons-To-Fear-usnews-2745725653.html?x=0 I have never understood why growth should continue indefinitely especially in a world like ours with limited resources. We've been in a growing economy for so long that I'm surprised that we haven't had a period of deflation long before.

Granted the article talks about deflation leading to unemployment. I'd like a job for sure but maybe since more and more people have no jobs and we can't find a thing for them to do that the unemployment means things must become cheaper so that people can afford them again.

The other thing the article says is that under normal conditions that debt becomes less over time in a normal economy while in a deflationary economy it grows. I call bull on that. Especially on interest rates that grow verses the inflation rate debt nearly always grows faster than inflation and when people have increased incentive not to fall into debt which I believe is a good trend then I can't think that deflation, at least deflation that reflects how the economy really is rather than where we think it ought to be is bad.

Group projects never go well

I think that my professor is in the business of making things difficult. With his constant interference in our group project nothing is getting done. If someone has an idea he seems to make sure that everyone disagrees on it. If everyone likes it he shoots it down. Groups are hard enough to handle without an outside "observer" who grades you and acts as if he doesn't understand the simplest drawings and concepts. Today is the middle of week three and he acts like we haven't done enough to work on our project when every step of the way he's alternately told us to do a project on our own, work together, take a week to look at the area we are working in, and baffling ability to change his mind ever 30 minutes I'm surprised anything gets done at all.

In the meantime we have group members who act helpful but aren't, and a another video project to work on that we have yet to begin.

When the group dynamic is constantly being destroyed by it's leader it's doomed to fail. In any case I've got until Aug 6 with this class. After which new and more interesting hurdles will have to be faced.

Cat people are crazy and I'm one of them so don't read this cat post.

So sometimes I figure that I should write what I know and since nobody ever has ideas for what I should talk about my ideas run along the lines of a day in the life of my cat. So here goes...

8:00 am:
Hungry, so very hungry... I wonder if I can wake the giant gently so it won't throw me against the wall and will get me some of that fooooood...

"Hey! You give me some chow!"

Bastard won't wake up and I"m bored maybe I'll stop his breathing holes that'll get em.

"Ahhh! That got him run!"

8:30 am

The giant has such wierd habits going in that room of wet wet torture. Why anyone would want to go in... there's a bug gotta chase it and show it who's boss of this place Me!

9:00 am

The giant's going back to sleep and locking me out! What diabolical things is he planning? I'll let him know I'm on to him.

Run! The giant is angry at me for no good reason I'm a good cat why's the giant so evil?

Noon

There he goes again giving himself the good food and giving me the crap! I've got to get the good stuff.

"Hey gimme that."

Wait a minute this stuff is all green where's the meat?!

Afternoon

House all to myself I'm gonna have a nap

6:00 pm

Giant's back let's see if I can get in good with him before I must fight the invisible goblins. He could be a great ally in the war.

7:00 pm

Goblins everywhere must run, fight jump and claw before my home is taken

8:00 pm

My poop is magic it disappears every night around this time. Maybe if I can poop now I can figure out where it all goes

8:15 pm

No clue where it all went but I'll find out eventually. I'm so awesome


Rest of night

Why does the giant always stare at the glowing rectangles they're so boring. Not like this lovely bit of string I've got. Oh string how I wish you'd move like you sometimes do I want to play tag.

Bed

fin

Spouting words every night for a year seems like a long goal right now.

Waking up is hard to do.

It was above 110 degrees Fahrenheit today. That's the kind of temperature that makes walking outside my air conditioned apartment stifling. And even thought I've got some temperature control it's easy to say that I'll be uncomfortable all day. Especially if I wake up and I'm sweating. Ugh.

Now as you may or may not know I have one class right now and the class isn't teaching me anything particularly important other than people can talk and talk all day about how helpful they're going to be and in the end turn out to be instead a pain in the ass. But I knew that already so I'm guaranteed not to want to go out but had to anyway.

In the meantime I also know that everything is expensive, I have no job and the gi-bill isn't enough to cover school and social life. Although I know that financial aid is one way to get through college getting that seems to be a series of jumping through as many hoops as one can especially if you're not from a poor family or you're a white man. Which might lead a person such as myself to start a "good ol boy" network that makes people hate white guys even more.

Anyway this is really just a rant to say that I can't wait to graduate and find myself a fulfilling job. I'm tired of being broke spending money on a piece of paper to prove that I can learn.

Time lapse blogography

Since I write my blog posts on a site other than Facebook, there's a gap between what I write about and what most people see. This has the interesting effect of aging my words so that when I see them next or more particularly when I hear people's reactions to them I'll have forgotten what I've written about and can revisit the subject.

In any case the lag isn't so bad that what I write about isn't still relevant and many times the time between allows for people to get some perspective on news items. But the issues that people like to comment on the most are the ones where you reveal a nitty gritty little item about yourself, like the number of Johny Cash songs you have on Itunes (21) despite not enjoying country music very much. I've also got a soft spot for girls who sing along with pianos.

Keeping busy

I am starting a new project today, papercraft the art of making models out of paper. Here's an example of something similiar to what I want do do. http://paperkraft.blogspot.com/2010/07/siren-v-neptune-papercraft-five-star.html

Other than that I have nothing new to say today.

Teachers

I have a love hate relationship with teachers. It's a problem of dominance and sub-ordinance It seems that teachers always have way to much power compared to how much I can influence my grades and in turn my life.

It's the problem of an imbaance of power it seems that teachers have no vested interest in keeping me healthy or successful and I have no care as to whether or not they keep their jobs.

In any case we can't care about each other without sacrificing our own general welfare. I've always been in favor of mentor-ships where both teacher and student care about the outcome of the class or experience but it seems that lately the drive to make both teacher and student a part of the outcome of the class is gone. No longer does the teacher want their student to succeed but merely to move on. This I think is the problem; too many people depending on the work of one, without taking responsibility for their actions. It seems a system destined for failure. I think the answer is more mentors and more teachers so that we can make sure that our progeny have our full attention and we care how they respond to life.

Without that I fear that our problems will only get worse until we learn to work together to improve our situation.

Quality time with people.

I think the hardest thing to do in today's world is spend time with other people. I don't mean interact and see people that's easy. I mean to get down and know people it's hard. I say this because I have more time than most people can possibly dream of 3hrs a day max at school and that's it.

However with the other 21 hours in a day I don't find that I'm meeting and working with other people. It seems that even with so many people unemployed, and more people than ever walking the streets that trying to gain a bit of someone's time is the hardest thing in the world to do.

My guess is that we've made it so we travel farther and do more complex things daily than we used to and our mental capacity is just filled up. Sure I get on the cell phone and call people and interact via Facebook and my blog but it seems that everything requires money to do and I don't have it and neither does anyone else.

So lets hear it for deflation. Maybe if things cost less, we could stop worrying about trying to keep up. People have wanted raises and increased minimum wages for a long time but all these things do is make people keep turning on the hamster wheel of work and then nobody has time to sit down and chat.

Except me. And every time I call someone it feels like I'm interrupting important business. So people calm the hell down and lets have coffee.

A new post

It's hard to decide what to talk about when your mind is a million different places at once. But I thought I'd talk about a debate I recently listened to. It was about the morality of paying for sex.
The old joke is that you always pay for sex, and I think that's true, however the debate centered on the issue of prostitution. This is a dry post so I'd skip it if I were you.

At one point a speaker asked the question "If prostitution can be a fulfilling role for a person why aren't more men being pimped out? Don't you think they're missing out?"

While I usually don't answer rhetorical questions, especially to people who aren't near, this one provoked some thought in me. There are some areas where a man can be rented but they aren't nearly as prevalent as places to get women.

I think it might just be a problem of supply and demand. Basically there are more men who want sex than there are females to provide it. The world population ratio is evidence for that. http://www.geohive.com/earth/pop_gender.aspx There must then be greater supply of men than women demand.

However even in areas where this isn't as true say in the United States there is a historical case for having multiple females to one male whereas there aren't as many cases of multiple males to a single female with the exception of the sex industry. Men have been seen as providers (this is changing) women haven't historically had as much in liquid assets to afford the services of male sex workers.

There is also the problem of societal roles males have been taught to engage in seeking behavior whilst women aren't pushed to do the same. So we have social stigma against the receiving male and the dominant female.

In any case these factors lead me to believe that the market just can't support male sex workers and that the shear demand for sex keeps the institution alive when it comes to females.

However in the interest of Science I'll say in this post for anybody who wishes to prove me wrong that I know plenty of guys who'll go for this.

The problem with losing weight

I've been trying for some time now to lose the some of the excess weight from my body. It's hard as hell. And one thought keeps coming to my mind losing weight isn't as simple as taking off a pound here or there, since a person eats and drinks grows hair and loses it or may have less fat and more muscle.

The act of losing 10lbs isn't losing a only 10 lbs it's losing 2-3 lbs a day for a month after gaining 1.5-2.5lbs eating. At least if you want to keep off the weight.

Also every human activity we engage in requires some sort of building of trust and one of the fastest ways to do that is to eat with another person. Just think of dates. Coffee dates, dinner dates, to get to know someone well we eat with them. It's a matter of trust.

One Year of Blogging. The Challenge.

Sometimes I take people's joking suggestions seriously and I haven't regretted it yet. Though I may yet. Anyway the suggestion was that I write a blog post a day for a year. I'm going for it.

I'd like to make a comment today about knowing what it is you are doing, and why. It seems to me that many things happen because people don't know what they are supposed to do. That's fine I like being surprised. I think that finding yourself is a great thing. Looking for work, creating new art, and peanut-butter mixed with chocolate have all come from somebody who didn't quite know what they were doing at first.

But there are sometimes when you know what you're supposed to do and you just don't do it. I think this is happening in many safety checks around the world as well as some industry. I'm just going to focus on one: gaming.

The goal is to create games that people will buy, I know this but I think creating new ideas is more important. When people get on video games for being violent I think that's a stretch but there are at least 4 Call of Duty's and Grand Theft Auto games out there. They're violent but more to the point they've got no point to the violence other than following some formula.

After a while when everyone is copying everyone else things get stale and not exciting. So I think that game companies know they need to do something new. Which is why they're making more motion control and 3d technology. But the idea needs to be good. Maybe a game where you actually learn guitar instead of faking it would be a good idea. Or if that seems too hard to impliment, Piano, we already have keyboards and they can correspond to controls without too much work. Or better a game that teaches a person to draw, or animate things.

I think that we have lots of untapped ideas that want to get out. Maybe the tech is too expensive just yet but I have hope that we can get it cost effective and maybe revitalize my favorite pastime.

Especially now that games can teach me how to dance.

Another Ted Talk

If there's one thing in life I like it's people who work to make a difference in understanding our world and who try and use that understanding to create a better world. As such one of the things I've enjoyed most over the past two years has been the videos maintained for The Technology Entertainment and Design conference or TED. Although some of the things in it are frivolous the inventive spark and willingness to improve our world is one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen.

As a person I often feel that my duty to myself and my world is constant striving for improvement. Part of that duty includes letting others know what is available and informing myself. I figure that reciprocation is the key to these relationships. If I put enough of this type of thing out there and try to do things that improve the community a continual small return that grows will eventually outpace my efforts and the world itself (at least for humanity) will be improved.

Oh and I like the space program. Lets get more of that working.

Here's the talk:

Clay Shirky: How cognitive surplus will change the world | Video on TED.com