Procrastinative Thoughts

2012-01-31T20:03:00.002-06:00

Entropy, my non-corporeal nemesis. I often find myself not only at odds with her, but, more tangibly, with how the rest of the world copes with her. We can only further the inevitable heat-death of the universe. What we choose to order is of the utmost consequence.

2011-12-26T23:39:00.001-06:00

Not the Same

2011-11-08T19:10:00.003-06:00

Sometimes I forget that we are not all the same. We are all individual worlds spinning around in blackness, two telescopes pointed outwards, scanning the unknown for signs of life. Sometimes we find it. The signs. You can never really know for certain. Our scientists make their best guesses, draw up hypotheses about how life must work on other planets. We don't know though. We do not travel to other worlds, walk on the grass and speak with the people. It is hard not to operate under the assumption that we share a common consciousness.

When I was in fourth grade I decided not to talk so much. Much of who I am is very deliberate.

I almost biked to wisconsin.

2011-05-29T18:44:00.005-05:00

2011-04-12T01:09:00.006-05:00

2011-03-30T15:54:00.001-05:00

2011-03-28T18:05:00.001-05:00

2011-03-26T02:51:00.000-05:00

Cell Phone

2010-11-13T03:29:00.000-06:00

Why did I get a cell phone? It was a conscious decision of mine 5 years ago. I dont know why though. One day I rode my bike to the t mobile store and gave them a bunch of money. Maybe I just wanted friends. In the long run, I don't think it helped.

Allegory of the Cave

2010-10-24T21:17:00.000-05:00

Between the third and final escalator on the way to work, I used to find my shadow. I would imagine that he was someone else. Someone else strapped into this job - not me. I was above him, observing. In many ways, my life has improved since those days. I might have some kind of direction, a little bit of purpose. In other ways I am much more like the shadow then I was before, completely disconnected.

2010-10-11T14:24:00.000-05:00

I was sitting in a subway car in New York City. This wasn't real new york, because the the subway car was sparkling white with blue trim; the clean was pristine. I was sitting on the blue seat and I was looking through the plexiglass when something next to me caught my eye. It was a worn, orange backpack, the contents of which were spilling out onto the bench. On the top of the pile was something that looked like an ID card. I examined this more closely. It was some kind of libertarian driver's license that proclaimed that the holder was fit to drive and didn't need the help of the government to prove it. The name and the face on the card matched my friend, Graham. I resolved to take the backpack and its contents in order to return them to my friend. I would have to be sneaky because I was worried that I would look like I was stealing the backpack. I placed the orange backpack inside my navy one and ran off the train.

I flew out of the station. Ran down winding corridors of stone. I was unsure if I was being perused or not. In the interest of caution I acted as though I was. I finally came to an opening to the outside. There were no doors, just an opening in the stone to rain and mist. I appeared to be on the side of a building, though I could only see about one story above and below. The rain seemed to fall from an upper cloud and pass my face on its way to the lower. I thought that it would be cool if the rain didn't hit the ground but somehow re-mingled with the aerosolised water that made up the cloud above the street. I imagined that the people below were walking through a mist; I hoped this was true. I was being rained on but I didn't seem to care. I moved down the ledge on the outside of the building a bit, took a seat and removed Graham's backpack from my own.

"What are you doing?" The girl was smiling as she ate a sandwich under her umbrella. She seemed like a pleasant sort of person, the kind that wasn't terribly concerned that they were on a ledge on the outside of a building in the rain. She was wearing red sneakers. I told her that I had happened upon my estranged friend's pack and I was going to search inside to see if there was anything with his address on it in order to return it to him. She offered to take the bag to Graham, as he was her neighbor and it would be no trouble at all. I let her, because I trusted her, also I was having a lucid dream and I wast tired of dealing with the backpack.

The city of New York was a caricature of pictures I have seen, overly simplified and sterile. Once the girl had finished her sandwich and left with Graham's pack, the upper clouds began to lift and I could see higher up my building and some of the surrounding ones. They were all grey stone, with widely spaced windows. I knew I didn't live in new york, nothing was right here, there wasn't any odd detail poking out of the fog. It was a shell of an idea. Were I actually lived was another mystery. I tunneled in an out of this idea as I shifted in and out of sleep. Even a few minutes after I was finally awake all I was sure of was that I wasn't in new york.

Yesterday I Realized

2010-10-06T14:09:00.000-05:00

I was at a job interview and was being told that the job had full medical, dental, etc. I considered that this was a legit, grownup job and was immediately disconnected from the idea of actually having it. I don't know what I would do if I were to be offered the job. I think I like being a bit of a underemployed, financially challenged, failure. Anything is possible when the only way to go is up.

Driving

2010-09-15T23:34:00.000-05:00

The other day I was driving the drive between Saint Paul and Wisconsin. It was night and I was wondering why I wasn't terrified out of my mind. Then I remembered.

I used to be insanely scared of driving. The idea of steering a ton of steel at tremendous speed was not an appealing one. Not only do you have to worry about your own actions, but the actions of others (also piloting their own hunks of metal) and random chance can trigger catastrophe moments notice. The forces generated by moving objects at that speed are enough to turn what used to be a person into many distinct, widely separated fragments. While I was learning to drive, I would emerge from each driving session with my shirt soaked through with nervous sweat.

The only way I managed to accept driving as any kind of a routine activity, was to confront my own mortality. I had to get in the car and think to myself, "I may die, but I guess that's okay." To be honest, I don't think I dealt with it in a particularly healthy way. I harnessed the power of slight depression and borderline recklessness. I was only able to cope with driving because at some level I was okay with dying. This is not how I imagine most people are able to drive. I imagine that most people are able to drive because they don't really think about the consequences of driving that much, or that they rationalize away the risk because they perceive it as small. The way that I imagine most people cope with driving seems healthier.

I remembered that I wasn't terrified out of my mind because, as I rounded the S curves, it was kind of okay if I died. Here I am, an ant in the colossal scheme of things and I find it hilarious. We build massive cities and vast networks of roads. It is fucking amazing, the amount of control we have exerted over our environment. Even if the kid in the next lane decides to bend over to pick up his cellphone and careens into me and I fly out my front window and end up in seventeen different pieces and none of those pieces are very good to look at. Even then, what a ride.

Want

2010-08-23T21:28:00.000-05:00

I want to lay face down on the grass.
I want to stop having miniature panic attacks.
I want to be financially comfortable.
I do not want to be rich.
I want to travel on a regular basis.
I want to ride the subway all day long.
I want to ride my bike all day long.
I want to fill the streets with sod and the lawns with prairie.
I want to speak all languages.
I want to have seven percent body fat.
I want to learn about something new every day.
I want to live in the city, on the top floor of an apartment building.
I want to live in the mountains by the ocean.
I want to have perfect pitch and a photographic memory.
I want to sleep in a hammock with a book on my face.
I want to touch sea anemones.
I want to make my own sourdough bread.
I do not want to go shopping.
I want an interesting job that takes four to seven hours a day.
I want to understand everyone.
I want to throw a party at which the guests dance until the morning sun rises up over the grocery store.
I want to dig for freedom.
I want to stay up all night in the back seat of a car, watching water drops inch their way past my eyes.
I want to break it down into its component parts, then reassemble them in a variety of ways.
I want to go sailing.
I want a glass of milk.

Bike Ride

2010-08-21T17:18:00.001-05:00

The smell is the dry, dusty, sharp kind that hangs about under stands of red pines. It is localized. Just faintly reaching the trail when the stands are close enough for it to compete against the manure and river water and sunflowers. The sap must be boiling. Half a mile distant, the temperature gradient of the rising air causes undulations in light rays. The asphalt appears to be flowing. The sap fades abruptly and I am surrounded by a floral nectar. A rolling green and yellow.

This whole thing is nice because it unplugs my mind from the constant and rapidly changing stimulation it usually receives during leisure time. It is halfway between reflection and meditation, free flowing and cathartic. Alternating between issues, which eventually need to be addressed and transient concerns. A smell is not sharp. That has no meaning.

Found

2010-07-23T11:05:00.000-05:00

I've been going through my things, packing for the move. I found an external hard drive with some photos I had taken on my trip to London. Here is a selection.

2010-07-11T19:04:00.000-05:00

I had a dream that I was a different person. Also, I ate my brain with a spoon. I didn't want to eat too much of it, but it tasted so good it was hard to stop. I remember feeling lucky that I managed to abstain from my cerebellum and brain stem.

Sorry

2010-06-29T19:45:00.000-05:00

Stolen from Kate Beaton:

2010-06-26T02:16:00.000-05:00

"Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and broader view."

Part IV

2010-06-02T19:52:00.000-05:00

In the years after I was told that we were not able to return my brother, I made several attempts to take him out of the picture using slightly more fratricidal methods. One of these dramatic scenes took place at a departmental picnic my family was attending. The adults were eating and having conversation around a couple of picnic tables. A short distance away, a few baby-grub things, including my brother, were crawling around in the grass. I was standing by myself, in awe of one of the most awesome objects I had ever laid eyes on.

It was a green and yellow tractor. I believe it was used as a maintenance vehicle for the institute. The tractor was well worn and had body rust, but was definitely in fair working condition. Larger than a lawn tractor, but smaller than your standard farm tractor, it was one of the more impressive tractors I had ever seen this close up. It was also unattended.

It was an open invitation, and I accepted it. I was positively delighted to be sitting in the tractor seat, bouncing up and down and gripping the steering wheel. What's more, none of the adults seemed to notice or care. I was having a ball. Then I glimpsed the Best Thing.

The key was in the ignition. At two years old, I knew about some important things. One of these things was that if you wanted to make a car (or a tractor) go, you needed to turn the key. This was probably on of the better moments in my life up to this point (especially considering that many of the other moments in my life involved trying to fit myself into my duplo barn; these were not good moments). I leaned forward, one hand on the steering wheel, and grasped the key.

The tractor had been left in gear, when I turned the key it immediately started rolling forward. Nice. I was moving forward at around two miles per hour, maybe about half as fast as walking speed. Directly in from of me, probably ten feet away, grub-brother was drooling on the grass. This was my chance. Ramming speed! my beautiful tractor.

Unfortunately for my plans, my mother noticed this chain of events almost immediately after I turned the key. She let out a scream, dashed towards the grubblet and scooped him up, out of harm's way.

Foiled.

WHAT THE FUCK, WHAT THE FUCK?!??!?!?!

2010-05-13T01:25:00.000-05:00

Flash Mobs

2010-04-30T23:28:00.000-05:00

I am

2010-04-26T15:27:00.000-05:00

Running down an escalator. Not so much running, as a controlled fall; my heels strike the edges of the steps just hard enough to propel me forward to continue my descent. I am listening to Superheros by Daft Punk on my headphones. Pew pew pew pew pew.

Sitting in the crawlspace under my house in Missouri. It is dark and wet and salamanders slide between the pools of water that have accumulated in the thick clay soil. I am devising plans for my escape back to Toronto. I carefully diagram each plan with a green coloured pencil in my spiral notebook. None of these plans are viable; I lack an adequate understanding of physics, or perhaps, am engaging in a little too much wishful thinking.

Skating in circles, alone on the rink. Reading a book in the softball sand in the setting sun. Studying for my AP exams in a concession stand on the edge of an abandoned but well lit football field. Attempting to float while the vacuum robot churns happily away on the bottom of the city pool.

Sitting on a bench in a metro station, feeling just as comfortable as I ever have in my own room. My walls, my floor, my trains.

Using a small stick to poke a hole in a bag of grass seed, which a man is trying to sell to my mother. A month later there is a bright strip of newly sprouted grass down the middle of our, otherwise barren, Urbana lawn.

Lying, limp, in a snow drift. Giant snowflakes are streaking across my field of vision; illuminated in amber streetlights set against a pink, city-glow, sky. I am drun, and think I am warm because of it. I resolve to skip my classes, which turn out to be canceled anyway.

Standing on a rock surrounded by cold spring-morning water. I woke up early with another boy at the retreat. We are looking upstream at the rays of the early sun catching on the spray of a small waterfall before reflecting in infinite directions on the rapids below.

Running up an escalator. The arches of my feet touch the edge of the steps so my heels hang free. I can see blue light in a narrow ellipse above. I am listening to Face to Face by Daft Punk on my headphones. Dun dundund dun dun.

I am on the internet

2010-04-22T03:27:00.001-05:00

I need to go to bed.

Spring Cleaning

2010-04-14T18:40:00.000-05:00

I've long had an internal superstition. Whenever I randomly recall something, I am terrified that I am only remembering it because my brain has decided to delete it. I concentrate as hard as I can to commit that thought back into my memory in order to hold on to it. I have no idea if I am successful or not. When I think back, I can never remember what it was that I was trying not to remember for the last time.

It could be a random fact, a place of beauty, an inside jokes, the smell of dust settling through a ray of sun. Are they gone? Am I basing myself off of a foundation that no longer remains?

Brapadap

2010-04-08T09:57:00.000-05:00

I've taken to using two tea bags per cup of tea. This is a slipper slope, an incredibly satisfying slippery slope.

Now that it is warmer out I wake up to a new life every morning. It's the same feeling as waking up for the last day of school.

I'm pretty sure that everybody in this town was hibernating too.

This video makes me want to have children.

2010-04-02T17:51:00.001-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSjRRswSEgE&feature=related

2010-03-27T18:26:00.000-05:00

My apartment is the third to middle ice cube on the bottom ice cube tray in a stack of ice cube trays. Looking through it, it is apparently transparent.

There are faint ghosts of childhood.

Automatic

2010-02-24T20:41:00.000-06:00

Today:

Self checkout
Smartrip
Museum
Museum
Smartrip

I haven't spoken a word out loud to anyone.

Incomplete

2010-02-23T23:59:00.000-06:00

This backup project will ultimately fall short. I owe it to try.
It has an interesting effect on me. I'm not really living in the present anymore so it makes it hard to pick out the details that will matter.

Impressions

2010-02-17T00:15:00.000-06:00

The semi-constant theme of my daydreams has been the mind and consciousness, or the lack there of. To accept that we are tied to these physical bodies forces me to concluded that we are dying every second of every day as whatever it is that makes us "ourselves" gets replaced by something new. This is a satisfying, if somewhat depressing, conclusion.

(Here is where I venture somewhere slightly absurd.)

How about if we think of ourselves as something altogether different from a capsule inside our skulls. Let us take the uncertainty of our physical boundaries to an extreme. In this case a person's personality is a finely woven set of memories and tendencies. In my fantasies a BCI would allow for this fabric to transcribed and replicated elsewhere. But what if this is happening to a certain extent already?

When you meet somebody on the street, a little corner of their fabric brushes up against you and makes an imprint. A nervous tick, an obscure analogy. We save these little impressions up for later use in our own patchwork quilt. Know someone long enough and the patch grows bigger.

In this sense every bit of your fabric that you share with others is backed up for later use on the cloud. When you are gone its still there. You can't be erased without erasing everyone you've interacted with.

Edit: I think what I was trying to get at here but may have ineffectively conveyed is the idea that because our individuality is nothing more than our combined experiences and memories then there are not really any rules that confine it to our body and transfer is already happening.

Part III

2010-02-16T15:39:00.000-06:00

Part of the reason that my parents hadn't initially known how often I had been going over to Oma's, was that from a very early age I did what I wanted and did not see any need to tell anyone about it. Also my room was outfitted with some sweet sliding glass windows so I could pretty much come and go as I pleased. And now some unorganized but memorable thoughts from this time period:

Oma had a teenage daughter who babysat me sometimes. She was not quite as fun as Oma but she was still nice. She is now married with a son of her own (much to Oma's delight).

My neighbors on the other side of our house had a dog named stazi who was small and brown and happy and ran in circles most of the time.

Beyond their house there was a boy who was just a little bit older than I was. I used to play with him sometimes, but not that often because his parents didn't really like foreigners, I think. I don't remember his name but he had dark hair and was ever so slightly mean to me. The thing was: he had a tractor. This tractor was The Shit. I could have driven that petal-powered-motherfucker all day long. It was large (relative to a 3 year old boy) and had a functional shovel attached to the front, which was controlled by two levers that allowed for some serious digging and dumping action. Man, I loved that tractor.

My first word was "Traktor", that's the German word for tractor. I loved tractors and all other types of construction equipment (der Kipper, der Bagger, der Kran). When there was a construction site in the area my dad would take me there so I could watch. For my second birthday my mom took me to a tractor convention in a nearby town. It is a fairly normal thing for little boys to think construction equipment is awesome. I don't know if its all that normal for little boys use it for attempted manslaughter.

Translation

2010-02-09T12:24:00.000-06:00

Those who are not tech literate have their own (fairly consistent) language when refering to technology. Some examples:

UBS's = USB Cables
USB's = USB Flash Memory Storage Devices
Notebook, Nettop = Netbook
Windows = Microsoft Office
Hard Drive = Desktop Computer
Computer = Monitor
The Internet = a Wireless Router
Dellstar = the Ultimate Notebook

In addition, RAM and hard drive capacity are the same thing (if you have enough, quote the higher number; if you want more, quote the lower). Video cards increase the quality of any DVD's you may watch on your computer.

The best way to respond to this type of language is not to correct it, and better yet, to adopt it if someone you are speaking with uses it. Any sign that you think that they are using a term incorrectly will be interpreted as a personal assault on their intelligence.

Part II

2010-02-01T12:25:00.000-06:00

This is still very much out of order and possibly incorrect, as it is on the beginning edge of my memories.

I was still living in the house with the strawberry patch when Anthony first made an appearance in my life. At slightly less than two years old, I don't think I comprehended how seriously shitty a new baby was going to be until after my brother was born. The new grub demanded almost all of my parents' attention. Ever the pragmatist, I told them that we should should just take Anthony back to the hospital (that's where he came from, after all). They responded that no, they couldn't take him back.

"Don't worry, I know how to get there," I assured them.

With my parents spending all their time on larva #2, I found a new person to dote on me and give me affection. I referred to the wonderful woman next door as "meine Oma". I don't think I can remember her real name but that woman treated me as if I was her own grandson. It was great. Most days, I would wander over to her house and she would pick me up, set me on the counter and fed me. She fed me weisswurst, quark, kucken, ovalmaltine and all sorts of wonderful Bavarian food. The upshot of this was that I was rarely hungry when it was time to eat at my own house.

My parents were worried enough by this that they took me to a doctor, who, after testing my blood, found that I had several nutritional deficiencies. When the root of the problem was finally found, Oma was asked to please not give me so many sweets and maybe some fruit once and a while. Even after this whole ordeal, I was pretty much ruined by Bavarian food. On the rare occasions that I wasn't already full from a trip to Oma's house, I would turn my nose up at a meal and proclaim that "das ist greislich". It took a colloquial Bavarian to German dictionary for my parents to find out that greislich means disgusting.

Gone Forever

2010-01-09T23:05:00.000-06:00

Somewhere between there and here I have amazing and beautiful thoughts. As a rule, I do not write them down.

Placeholder

2009-12-24T22:28:00.000-06:00

children vicarious nostalgia

The Google Auto-complete

2009-12-19T17:38:00.000-06:00

Jamal Introduced me to this. I can't get enough of it.

Another Celebrity Sighting

2009-12-19T15:26:00.000-06:00

Ideally while you read this, you should also listen to this:

I saw Edward Norton on the subway the other day. Or was it Tyler Durden? In any case, he was standing there on the far end of the platform, motionless and isolated. A vacant look occupied his face. His arms hung limply at his sides. The sleeves of his tan trench-coat rippled slightly in the wind originating from the depths of the tunnel. I don't know what Tyler Durden was doing down there, but he almost certainly wouldn't want me writing about it on the internet. I may have to go into witness protection.

There are electronic boards hanging in the stations. They display information about incoming trains such as train length and estimated time of arrival. Sometimes there is no ETA, only the word: ARR. I assume this is because you can never tell when a pirate-train will arrive at the station.

This one time, David and I saw the most badass thing to ever happen on the metro.

A train pulls up to the station unannounced. All the windows are blacked out. Once the train stopped, three dudes (dressed in all black and carrying shotguns) step out simultaneously from three different cars. Then a guy, also dressed in black, pushes a large wheeled box from the front car to one of the middle cars. The three armed men step back in and the train moves on.

We had just witnessed an elaborate bank heist. The robbers had dug into a bank vault from a nearby subway tunnel and used a hijacked subway train to move the take, disguised as metro employees, through the metro system until they jumped the tracks onto an abandoned rail line and rode off into the post-apocalyptic sunset.

This is what we witnessed.

I really don't know if this bothers anyone else, but. Some of the time the speed of the escalator handrail is slightly more than that of the escalator stairs themselves! This bothers me to no end. It threatens to pull me off balance and drop me into the pit of elephant seals below. "Elephant Seals?!?" you say. I promise to record them one day.

Part I

2009-12-17T19:38:00.000-06:00

Shorty after Halley's Comet last banked round the sun, shooting back out of the plane of the solar system, a rather unremarkable event took place on the west coast of North America, in a town called Eugene. A small, squirmy little larval human was born. Well lots of them were, but one of them was me, or at least would become me at some point. I scored a 10/10 on the APGAR test and I probably fucking cheated.

I don't remember anything about Eugene, but I am told that it rained for months and months and there were many bums and many hippies. When I was around six months old, my father was offered a post-doctoral position at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology at Starnberg south of Munich. We all packed our bags (except me: I was a bag) and hopped the pond. My cat, Miss Kitty, had to stay in my aunt's basement in Waukesha, I wouldn't see her again until I was five. I don't think she ever really forgave us.

Erling (the village we lived in) is the first home I can remember. We lived in a few houses there but I'm fairly certain I can only really remember the last one. Here is the address:

Panoramastraße 6

82346 Andechs, Germany

I think that's it.

Some of my earliest/most pleasant memories revolved around the strawberry patch in our back yard. The strawberries must have been planted there for a long time because they were abnormally small and sweet, the way that strawberries that have been planted there for a long time sometimes get. I would sit on my ass and eat those things like candy right off the plants. One day, I waddled out to my strawberry patch to discover that it had been picked clean of all its berries. I guess my landlord must have been in the backyard too, because I remember asking him where all the strawberries went. He replied that an albatross had eaten them all. I accepted this as a plausible explanation. In retrospect, that motherfucker lied to me. What a lie to tell a child.

I'm not me.

2009-12-16T17:26:00.000-06:00

The many parts are not self consistent.

Not quite right. A bit off.

2009-12-16T16:21:00.000-06:00

I'm manic. I'm reeling. I'm not directionless. I'm omnidirectional.

I'm caught in loops that can't escape my mind. Spinning around; they cant get off the conveyor belt. They sit there with legs crossed and arms folded, a dull look in their eyes. Not quite human: malicious dolls waiting their turn in the uncanny valley. Chop chop chop.

chop.

Carve it down. Whittle and hew. Sculpt a place in the universe. Make it change. Tear it down.

Don't know what flipped the switch. Matters not. Switch got flipped. Bitch got tipped. Turned on.

Nothing is ever going to be the same again. Until it is.

Plugged in and passive. Consuming and excreting at a constant rate. Unfazed and content while the other half is screaming. Ultrasonic, unheard. Looking for the few brief moments of clarity.

There is a chance. An opening. In that time the words come flooding out rapidly and without order. Streaming out into a puddle on the floor. Its all there but its all wrong.

Try to scoop them up into piles but they just sink back together oozing and dripping and mixing. Diluted and devoid of meaning. Signal to noise ratio.

Night ride: panic and excitement. Branches grasping for the stars streaming by. Faster till blurred. Pothole. They are still streaming, I'm motionless.

Pretending to read. Words stare back, so many hieroglyphs spread about the page. Got to fit in, good at blending. He thinks he can blend with any medium. They have their suspicions: he's not quite right. Telltale signs and inconsistencies. Its all a bit off.

Humans like consistency across individuals. They like nothing more than to relate to something they thought was their own. I thought I was the only one who did that! wow.

All the same. Be the same. Behave. Beehive.

Apoptosis. Its autumn and you haven't changed a thing. Just another small part of the pile of leaves. Soon the tree will rot and the leaves will become fodder for a new tree. Meet the new tree, same as the old tree.

The fuzzy blue print of the mimeograph. The old cassette tape. Follow the instructions. You can be us too!

Its rude to tell people that their German last names are oddly fitting. Don't be rude to Andrew Klein.

Mobius.

Bike Ride

2009-12-02T16:48:00.000-06:00

I went on a bike ride yesterday and it was fun. I went south from my house along the capital crescent trail. Stopped along the Potomac for a bagel:

After that, I meandered through Georgetown for a bit crossing over rock creek park. I wasn't really sure where I was going but I saw a cool TV antenna:

I crossed the Dumbarton bridge, which sucks compared to the Duke Ellington Memorial bridge, except that it is guarded by four of these rather impressive gents:

I liked the moon:

Thats all folks.

Ethics and Empathy

2009-11-25T13:27:00.000-06:00

I've been struggling with this.

I would like to think of myself as a logical being, I would like to think I make the choices that I do based on a logical thought process with a minimum of emotional interference. A problem that I have with this is that a completely logical being is completely selfish. Any altruistic acts are inevitably designed to benefit the actor in the long term.

This troubles me.

The explanation, I assume, is that I am not a logical being. There must be enough sentiment in me that I am troubled by the consequences of completely logical action. This is nice, I guess.

But wait.

What are emotions? Where did they come from? If emotions are just a set of tools with which evolution has equipped us with to further our genes, then they too have a logical basis of action. We feel sad when others are hurt because most likely they were our kin or would have provided some evolutionary benefit to us. Our empathy serves an extremely logical purpose: the proliferation of the individuals' genetic material and that of their kin. These emotions are based in logic, but they do not always work in concert with each other or with the other logical systems of our minds.

Which brings me back to...

my logical self. Perhaps there were some things I was overlooking. I made the assumption earlier that a logical being would only be interested in its own survival. That simply isn't true. It might be that the root of logical morality is curiosity. I realize that as a human I can accomplish a finite number of things before I die. If my goal is experience the world to its fullest in my time on it, I must act unselfishly to facilitate others in achieving their goals, no matter how small, so that I and the rest of humanity can appreciate them.

It is possible and convenient when the emotional side syncs up with this process but care must be taken identify when it does not.

There is more to this, but I'm hungry.

Forecast

2009-11-10T22:57:00.000-06:00

“Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky in morning, sailor’s warning”

My grandpa always says that. Not the grandpa that lives on a boat though. When I see a red sky, I think of both of them.

mask on metro count: 3
swine-flu threat level: pale cornflower blue

Wherein I talk about the subway some more.

2009-10-31T22:56:00.000-05:00

I am sitting in the concrete tunnel. I like how the plants grow where the condensing water meets the eerie fluorescent glow from below.

There he is. He is waiting for the Glenmont bound red line train. It's Theodore Roosevelt. And, he has been shot. The stuffing of his red, weather-inappropriate parka is streaming out.

"It's okay," he says, "These saved me." He produces a shattered pair of spectacles from his left breast pocket. My face is blank with disbelief.

My train comes and Teddy is lost in the crowd.

There is an unwritten rule on the subway not dissimilar to a simplified concept of orbital sharing by electrons: when the train first begins to fill the (two person) benches are all initially taken by lone passengers. For the most part, riders do not begin to sit two to a seat until all the available seats have at least one occupant. The interesting part is that once this point has been reached, there is more initial resistance to seat sharing (activation energy, if you will) than there is later on when the majority of seats are shared, regardless of the fact that the seat seekers are just as in need of seats. It's as if people are resentful that they were picked first to sit next to.

I kind of like it when someone picks me to double-seat with. It makes me feel approachable.

I am thundering through the tunnel at a tremendous speed. The lights on the walls lining up perfectly with the star guitar in my head.

I am a goddamn cliche.

"Timothy." My meditation is broken.

"Timothy Lanik, your presence is requested on the roof of the train."

After a moment I make my way to the doors.

"Doors opening."

The wall, the concrete and cables, is streaming by a few feet out. It is a belt sander moving past the train at reckless speed.

I slowly clamber up the side of the car from the open door. Inside some of the passengers watch, but when I catch their glances they redirect them to the floor. I pull myself up onto the roof.

"Please stand back, doors closing."

Now the belt sander surrounds me on three sides. I hold my hands up like hooks above my head. They tear two parallel grooves into the belt. As the grooves deepen, my body is pulled up by capillary action, catapulted into the sky.

Make Like a Tree

2009-10-28T14:41:00.000-05:00

BCI

2009-10-25T21:29:00.000-05:00

I still can't purchase a comprehensive brain computer interface. I thought I was living in the future, dammit.

Fraud

2009-10-23T18:35:00.000-05:00

Even though I'm selling you this computer, I don't really know anything about it.

I know next to nothing about windows 7 and have never had a copy of windows vista or 7 installed on my home computer (if I had to use windows all the time, I would be using windows 2000).The sum total of my hands-on windows 7 experience has been while showing it to customers just like you.

I don't know any more about this computer than you do. When I help you compare it to other computers, I am simply comparing the specs, which are printed on a little card situated directly in front of the display model. Any additional information I provide you with was obtained (mere seconds ago!) from google.

I have no idea if brand X is any better than brand Y. I have my suspicions that they are all exactly the same. I am, however, trying to get you to buy brand Y, just to see if I can. The next customer I have is going to be sold brand Z. I feel this gives the department some consistency, as if it were an evenly buttered piece of bread.

Printers are worse. Much worse. Please don't buy a printer from me. I am frantically making shit up.

Subway

2009-10-23T18:16:00.000-05:00

Things I like:

lights on the tunnel walls
lights on the station floors
covertly watching people through the reflections in the windows
when the escalator handrails are warm (why is this? they aren't always warm)
how windy it is in the entrances
bouncing my wallet on the smartrip reader
when it's foggy in the station

Things I don't:

people who stand on the left on the escalators
teenagers who look like they are going to jump on the tracks
when the train stops in the tunnel and I think its going to be the station but then its not and I'm like "awwww man"
slow people walking in front of me when I am trying to transfer

Best:

overly informative conductors

I am probably a crazy person

2009-10-18T21:51:00.000-05:00

View Larger Map
Sometimes when I am alone, or think I am, I open my mouth and words come out. They are not my words; I didn't think of them, they just come out. Sometimes, the really creepy times, they are relevant to my current situation but not conscience thoughts.

Is this a thing?

Things

2009-10-17T15:50:00.000-05:00

Need to:
Clean the Kitchen
Get Canadian Passport
Apply to more jobs
Apply to grad school

Done:
Ate bacon
Spilled orange juice on carpet
Read

Und dass so was von so was kommt

2009-10-15T21:09:00.000-05:00

Panda
Scissors
Spectacles
T8 Torx Screwdriver
Sharpie
Towel
Post-it
Suitcase
Shortwave Radio
Notebook
Receipt
Tire Iron
Rucksack
Small Wooden Box

Bread is mocking me.

Ball

2009-10-13T18:27:00.001-05:00

My father patiently tries for over an hour to teach me to hit a ball with a bat. I give up and climb a tree.
View Larger Map

Human Condition

2009-10-09T11:37:00.000-05:00

Occasionally I am quite surprised to find myself in this body. I'm struck by how bizarre it is: I visually observe the world through these imperfect eyes, have telekinetic control over a lump of matter extending to my extremities.

It isn't me, the lump that is. One could cut most of it off and I would still be me for a while. I am just a brain sitting in a a skull attached to a body. It isn't me. Is it?

Am I these thoughts? Electrical impulses and chemical signals and neural connections. Or is the body me too? Am I my feet and hands and torso and face? Are my toenails me? They are now dead, but were once living cells in my body. What about the five or so pounds of bacteria that inhabit my digestive tract (some of which are necessary for survival)?

Arbitrary.

The point is: there is no me. Just a vast organization of cooperating systems that promote their own survival and self-replication. Some of these systems work together and form the illusion of consciousness, more of a hub for interaction than a control center.

Occasionally several systems in this organism experience a temporary and incomplete self-awareness.

Who Knew?

2009-10-05T18:34:00.000-05:00

Did you know that there are times zones that differ by an odd multiple of 30 minutes from most other time zones? Here is one. WTF Newfoundland.

Collapse

2009-10-05T14:19:00.000-05:00

I prefer the wave function before it collapses. One could run simulations to predict the possible outcomes, explore the ramifications. Once the measurement is made, it cant go back to the indeterminate state.

Affair

2009-10-01T15:12:00.000-05:00

It's like drawing
where the pavement meets the grass
from the balcony
its not hard
coming up to meet me

you are alien
surrounding me
I breathe you in
choking
keep my calm

a splayed branch
twisting up and through
guts spill out my back
an illusion of choice

force of tension orthogonal
to confusion, resolve
seen you in dreams
reaching out in flashes
dancing light, cavern walls

I am no more me than you
or I
Pass the baton

Trashed

2009-09-30T13:00:00.000-05:00

You know when there is a really nasty, full of broken shit house in a movie or tv show (usually a wretched hive of scum and/or villainy)? Do they pay people to trash the house? Can I have that job?

Dream

2009-09-14T16:59:00.000-05:00

Last night I had a dream that I was in New Hampshire. I was also going to move there soon but I had to get a job in DC first. Also moving to NH involved sailing on a ship. I was worried I wouldn't be able to get my bike there.

Today, in addition to freaking out about job interviews I looked at grad schools online and freaked out about those as well. Then I bought some cheese. I didn't eat any, but I think the act of purchasing the cheese and knowing that its there makes me feel better.

I know very little about working retail, but I think I know enough that I don't want to do it for the rest of my life. Maybe I should go back to school. Like undergrad. Maybe just a few biology courses. Why didn't I do that before?

Need to:
Get Job
Get Apartment
Get Life
Transcend

Looking Back

2009-09-08T19:32:00.000-05:00

Searching for a job and filling information about my previous employers has shoveled up more employment related memories than I thought I had. Here is a list of some of my previous jobs, listed in approximate chronological order and labeled with their most memorable tasks:

- Warming House Sitter
- Football Field Sitter
- Softball Field Sitter
- Computer Takaparter, Putterbacktogetherer and Starter Uper
- Can Crushing Machine Operator
- Pool Nightwatchman
- Mail Getter
- Bucket Filler
- Light Bulb Changer and Stealth Sleeper
- Column Runner
- Computational Chemistry Homework Doer

About three quarters of my jobs have involved unlocking a room or building and then sitting in it.

A Bit of a Change

2009-09-05T23:47:00.000-05:00

I didn't procrastinate today. Or yesterday for that matter. I've been in DC looking at apartments and applying for jobs. I think the new situation has disoriented me and distracted me from my mission. I'll have to get back on the procrastination jet as soon as I can.

Uh Oh

2009-09-04T21:45:00.001-05:00

O.o

Self vs. Life

2009-08-28T03:40:00.000-05:00

Suppose the technology to back up or replicate the human brain existed. Now suppose you made a copy of your brain, and turned it on. The brain in the computer would believe it was you. It would believe that it had been the living breathing you then it was scanned and copied into this hypothetical technology. When it awakened it was as if it had simply jumped from your body and woken up in the machine. In a sense it is just as much you as your biological self is.

Now suppose the same situation, except that the moment your brain is copied to the machine, your biological self dies. The copy in the machine is the same as the previous example but this time it is the only existing manifestation. To the brain in the machine (you), you were living in a biological body and then the next second you awoke in an artificial form. One continuous entity.

Now you are dying. There is no machine. Your heart stops beating. You loose consciousness. You are technically dead. But by some stroke of luck you are resuscitated. The you that wakes up in that body. Is it the same one that was there taking its dying breath?

Could it be possible that you are dying every second of every day? Not in the biological sense. But in the sense that the information in your brain, the personality that you have, your stream of consciousness does not survive indefinitely in you body.

I have to finish:
Packing
Cleaning Dayton
Canceling Utilities
Finding a Job
Finding a Life

Post Graduation Procrastination

2009-05-21T19:06:00.000-05:00

I had thought about not updating this blog anymore as I don't have anymore schoolwork.

However, I still find things to put off: cleaning out my hood, finishing my resume, just about everything except sleeping and interneting.

Daft Punk is on the radio (!)

Movie

2009-04-30T18:12:00.001-05:00

Went through a bunch of crap today with the registrar. Apparently I never actually took chemistry seminar last semester... I guess I was hoodwinked! Who knew that you could be on the class list, attend all the classes and turn in the assignments without taking the class.

I went home and watched a movie. Its called Traitor. It stars Don Cheadle as a traitor. It was definitely one of the better movies I have seen lately. There was a bit of action, but that wasn't the main point. Cheadle played his character very well, everything came off very realistically. Combine this with the subject matter and you get a movie that is very thought provoking. I give it three point five out of four bow wows.

Also there was a scene with a TTC streetcar in it and I was all like "Toronto!" next line: "Welcome to Toronto Samir"

Things I have done today rather than write about compounds containing interpnictogen bonds.

2009-04-28T00:31:00.000-05:00

1. nap
2. smoke a cigarette
3. make tea (tey), at least three times
4. sweep the stairs
5. look at the garden, just look
6. stay up to date on digg
7. stay up to date on slashdot
8. read the majority of impudent strumpet
9. browse the bikes section of craigslist
10. browse the farm and garden section of craigslist
11. read trivial pursuit questions to my housemates
12. read the wikipedia page for atheism
13. read the wikipeadia page for llamas

Lights

2009-04-26T14:30:00.000-05:00

Right now I am supervising a computer lab. The lab has large windows with an abundance of natural light. Two students and myself were happily working in this environment until a third showed up and with out a second of hesitation flipped on the florescent lights. I get the feeling that if a student were to walk into a room and do the opposite (turn off the lights) there would be some kind of backlash for this behavior. Why the double standard?

Procrastinative Thoughts

Not the Same

I almost biked to wisconsin.

Cell Phone

Allegory of the Cave

Yesterday I Realized

Driving

Want

Bike Ride

Found

Sorry

Part IV

WHAT THE FUCK, WHAT THE FUCK?!??!?!?!

Flash Mobs

I am

I am on the internet

Spring Cleaning

Brapadap

This video makes me want to have children.

Automatic

Incomplete

Impressions

Part III

Translation

Part II

Gone Forever

Placeholder

The Google Auto-complete

Another Celebrity Sighting

Meta

Part I

I'm not me.

Not quite right. A bit off.

Bike Ride

Ethics and Empathy

Forecast

Wherein I talk about the subway some more.

Make Like a Tree

BCI

Fraud

Subway

I am probably a crazy person

Things

Und dass so was von so was kommt

Ball

Human Condition

Who Knew?

Collapse

Affair

Trashed

Dream

Looking Back

A Bit of a Change

Uh Oh

Self vs. Life

Post Graduation Procrastination

Movie

Things I have done today rather than write about compounds containing interpnictogen bonds.

Lights