Pieces of my soul

Every so often I attempt to clean my house. At one point, I had over 2,000 books, most of which I am not reading at this time - not enough hands. I whittle down my book collection - I donate a few hundred every year and "recycle" the truly awful ones. In the process of all of this whittling, I noticed something - I was sadden by this act of cleaning.

Who am I? Who are you? Am I just an island, defined by nothing other than mind? Are things around me actually part of me? Can I be better defined as "me and my environment"? Things around me have memories associated with them. When I scan over my books, I see the titles and remember what was in them. Without those around to remind me, my memory of them will fade over time. So, by getting rid of the books, am I not also getting rid of pieces of me? I have to be defined as "me in my environment". So, any changes to my environment are changes in who I am. By cleaning, am I not killing myself, throwing away pieces of me?

The same goes with buying new stuff - I have to change some aspect of myself to adapt to the new items. I am a different person after I buy something - which is why I buy so many books. :) If only I could absorb the information in them... but I digress.

This led me to realize something! eBay. Why is it so popular? Because it allows people the opportunity to try and recreate an earlier version of themselves! People can find the stuff they had as a kid, for example. I've seen it - people talk about something from their long lost past and get all misty-eyed. They obviously have the memory of the object, but for some reason, once they acquire it from a place like eBay, they are different. They have a clearer picture of their memories from their past - they have partially recreated themselves from the past.

So, maybe a company that could focus on recreate ones childhood, or some other past point in time, by selling items that allow you to be that previous person - now that would be a killer company. I even have a company motto: We sell you pieces of your soul.

The Edward

My Ant Brethren

Fellow Ants, lead me your sound listening devices. I am here today to speak about global warming. We have seen the effects of it - some of us exploding as the sun's ray focus down on some of us individually. Some say that those who were fried to a crisp were sinners in the eyes of a god, but I say No, we are all to blame!

There is no force outside of us and our world. Can you imagine a giant somehow focusing rays of the sun upon us? First off, it would take years for any creature to travel from the nearest life-bearing colony to here. Then, you think that this being would have nothing better to do than to burn us one at a time? I say those kinds of beliefs are not only unfounded, but are the kinds of thoughts that have lead us to this point. We have to live in reality, with the known rules of the Universe.

It is true, living in this modern age, that we have indeed discovered the very core rules to the Universe, and we should be thankful that we live in such enlightened times! With this knowledge, we know that the earth must be getting hotter, we have to look no further than the the sunspots that pose such a treat to all of us. Who wants to end up burnt to a crisp like Larry was just yesterday? Scouting for food, looking to help the colony, and now he is gone and we have to make up the slack.

Then there are the poisons. Sometimes it seems as though the earth gives us big quantities of food in those black buildings that suddenly appear, only to try and poison us. Or the mists from the sky that raid our villages. Or the hotels that seem to attract our roach cousins.

I saw it is all our own fault. Look how many of us there are on this world. Obviously we have an impact. Therefore we must be the cause of these global catastrophes. We need to turn our greatest minds to the task of solving this problem, to come up with lists of little things we can do that will make big differences! For surely, the fate of the world is in our hands!

The Edward

The Sqeam are coming!

There are a lot of posts in the queue waiting to be finished, but I had a dream last night, a dream of The Sqeam. They told me that this was more important than those other posts - I was to let The World know that they are coming. I thought it was odd that there was no "u" after that "q" in their name, so I guess the only thing missing from the invasion of The Sqeam is U!

They kind of look like plant pods, but with more than one tentacle out the top with a pad at the end of each tentacle. Maybe some leg-type things out the bottom. I didn't get to observe them directly, I just got to see a shadowy outline of them on a cereal box. I think they are going to be marketing a new breakfast cereal sometime soon. There were always two of them together, so maybe they function in pairs - this might be a weakness of theirs that we can exploit!

Though, now that I think about it further, I do not think that they were telling me all of this in order that we might prepare for a war or physical assault on our World. I think they that they are a race of traders and marketing people, out to capture The Universe's collective imagination with innovative product placement. I think they also have a movie in the works. Hard to say, it is a bit fuzzier now that I am more awake.

Anyway, I've done my part now. I've told The World of The Dream of The Sqeam in my blog that is read around The World. Now it is up to them to arrive ASAP and for us to either welcome them and their products and services, or shun them, potentially leading to a conflict of Epic Proportions! But only for a limited time.

The Edward

Defined by Fate

With all of these superhero movies coming out, it got me a thinking: what determines if a person becomes a superhero vs a supervillain? Is it a choice or is it decided by circumstance?

For example: Say this dude eats some tainted meat, but not just any tainted meat, tainted organ meat (say in a steak and kidney pie gone bad). Now he has a super power! What power, you might ask? I'll give you a hint: his is called The Organ Grinder. Yep, he has the power to turn anyone's organs into ground mush just by thinking about them. Could this person every be a Super Hero, or no matter how good or moral he is at the core, would he become a Super Villain? How could he uphold justice with this power? "Stop, thief! ...or you will regret it!" "I've just Ground your left kidney, it is not to late to turn back, thereby saving your right one from a similar fate!"

Another example: A man goes in for some therapy, but unbeknownst to him, his therapist is an alien mindbender. He imparts an ability to his patient by accident: anyone he touches becomes self actualized. Since he was going to a therapist, he was obviously evil to the core, but was trying to learn to suppress these urges. Now that he has Power, could he become true to himself and become a Super Villain? With that specific Power? "Now my Master Plan is in place! Soon, I will rule the world, right before I destroy it! All by the use of my Super Power of making people feel truly alive! Bwah-ha-ha-ha!"

The ability to make people's heads explode? The power to destroy the frontal lobe of anyone whose hand he shakes? Can change any one thing in the Universe, but a random person dies every time he uses his power? Can any these people become daring do-gooders or are they defined by their abilities?

The Edward

Blame the relatives

Operation Chaos has taught me something about the world. I hear people from the Democrat Party yelling that this isn't fair, and this should be illegal. I was asking myself, do they not remember when this happened before? When Clinton was locked in as the candidate, people from the Democrat Party voted in the Republican Party primaries. And when there were certain states in the general election that were already voting for a specific candidate, there was vote trading going on with people in swing states. (ie since it is all or nothing, states with 75% can have 24% of them switch votes in exchange for a state that is under 50% to move them to well above 50%, giving them two state wins, rather than one win and one loss.) Rush Limbaugh didn't invent anything new, this has been going on for years. And each time it happens, people are outraged that it is happening to them, as if it were the first time, and they vow that they will do repay this offense next election!

That is when it struck me, it is the first time for a lot of people, since they weren't the people in the party before. A new generation of voters have arrived on the scene, and for them, this is all new. I realized this is what happens in conflicts that last centuries. Before now, I never really understood how people could fight and kill each other over things that happened hundreds of years ago, well before they were born. Now it seems clear, it is from the present actions that were based on revenge all the way back, repeating itself over and over.

Someone offends. Rather than forgive, the other side holds a grudge. A few years later, they repay that grudge. The new generation doesn't see that this has happened before and blame their current injury on the people that hurt them. So they now vow revenge. This can go back and forth, because each generation is hurt by a previous generation on the other side.

If humans could instead just say "Wow, what they did sucked. But that is just who they are. We forgive them, but want nothing to do with them in the future. Let's move on." then these things would end. So it must be a part of human nature to not accept others for their flaws, but instead hold it against them, hoping for that day of revenge in the future. Our society at large is a reflection of who we really are, and that fact that conflicts can pass from one generation to the next speaks volumes.

The Edward

There is no LA!

I've talked about movie to LA off and on for many years now. The main thing holding me back was, I had never actually been there. True, I drove through it many times on my way to visit some good friends in San Diego, I went there for a taping of Who's Line Is It Anyway (but we spent the whole time at the studio), I went to shop in the Goth section with a good friend, and I went to Disney Land. But beyond they, I never really saw LA, just one block areas of two-ish locations.

Lately, I've been feeling the build up - I've been thinking of LA more and more. I just felt I had to move there - so I took some action last week! I found that I have a relative who lives there, and not only that, he has been there for 20 years and really loves it. Perfect, I went to visit him and asked that he show me why he loves LA so much! And he did!

He showed me around - I had a great time visiting! And since I've returned, I've been happier than I can remember. I realized something on this trip: There is no LA! Not the nebulously place in my mind. The place I visited was a real city, with real streets, with real people, and it wasn't the happy fantasy land that I had built in my mind. It is just another place. It is kind of like that place in Dark City, the place that the main character tries to get to through out the whole movie, only to find out that... well, you get the idea.

This proves two things to me: 1) It is not LA that I want, but what LA represents to me that I want - now I just have to figure out what the LA in my mind represents to me, 2) When I go to Vegas, I like it there, but when I return, good friends tell me that I am in a much better mood by far over what I was when I left - which means there is no Vegas either.

The Edward

Bugs in Google's Products

I guess if you label everything as "beta", you never really have to fix any of the bugs. That seems to be Google's philosophy. They claim "Do No Evil" is their motto, but their blog software, the very software I am using right now to write this, proves this to be false!

I was taught proper style was to put two spaces after periods. But Google knows better. I correctly format my blog posts, but as soon as I click the spell check button, it reformats my blog to only have one space. See, they know better! They are changing the very things that I am typing! I waste my time typing the spaces to begin with, then I go back and try to fix them before I post. "Do No Evil" my ass!

Then there is gmail. Seems like a great idea - why not keep all of your personal emails on a server somewhere and trust them to keep it safe and secure? In fact, when gmail was first launched, there was no way to delete an email, because why would you want to? I mean, just because you might have gotten an email with a password, or something that you do not want anyone else to every read, why should you have to ability to delete that? Google knows better.

Though, can one really blame Google? I mean they hire the best and brightest people that they can, so that they can all work on adsense. Most of the products people associate with Google, Google actually bought. Great business idea - make lots of money on a simple idea, then use that money to buy better products. Make money off of those, then repeat. Worked for Microsoft and a lot of other companies. Though, Microsoft has a research division that actually produces some interesting and useful stuff, like F#.

I guess I am tired of it all. I get tired of having to deal with incompetents, and so have bowed out of society. And yet, everything I want to do requires some level of computer/human interaction. I want to keep in touch with friends, but I have to deal with gmail losing emails for me. I have to deal with bad UI, with slow programs, with incompetent drives, rude people, law breakers, radio ads where they repeat the phone number four times, etc. Maybe Forbin was on to something!

The Edward