Month: January 2004

“I’ll do the glass o’ water too”

V has a bit of a problem. It appears that someone is entering his apartment…and just moving stuff around. Yesterday, he came back and his computer was off. And his door was unlocked.

The landlord doesn’t know anything about it, and nothing has apparently been taken, but he’s understandably a bit pissed.

So I ICQ’ed him and suggest using a thin piece of scotch tape and tape the door to the door frame. Silverlotus suggested giving a warning shot: getting a glass of water, and arrange it so it’s right behind the door. If someone comes in, then they’ll be a big splash.

Anyway, we wished him luck and went off to see Matrix Revolutions (taking advantage of Rockwater’s Dinner and Movie deal for perhaps the last time).

When we came back, I discovered that V has devised a plan that every geek would be proud of. He installed a keylogger on his PC and bought a cheap webcam. He then rigged the ‘cam to record when it detects motion, and upload images to his FTP server!

He promises he’ll use the glass of water trick too.

Critical Thinking: A slave to moral fashion

Paul Graham writes a rather long-winded essay on how the definition of morals, taboos and heresies shift from time and place. Criticizing nuclear weapon stockpiling in 1950s USA would have you branded as “unamerican” or a “communist”. Preaching religious tolerance in Europe during the Crusades could get you imprisoned. Both were unpopular opinions in their times, but now are accepted as moral truths.

In essence, he hits the nail on the head on why critical thinking is important. Catastrophic events such as the Spanish Inquisition or the Holocaust occur because no one questioned the common beliefs at the time. Innocent folks died because not enough people were able to realize, and say, “Hey, something’s not right here.”

Graham offers some suggestions. “Instead of being part of the mob, stand as far away from it as you can and watch what it’s doing. And pay especially close attention whenever an idea is being suppressed.”

Be wary of labels. “If a statement is false, that’s the worst thing you can say about it. You don’t need to say that it’s heretical. And if it isn’t false, it shouldn’t be suppressed. So when you see statements being attacked as x-ist or y-ic (substitute your current values of x and y), whether in 1630 or 2030, that’s a sure sign that something is wrong.”

It doesn’t mean you’re right and they’re wrong, but you have to reach that conclusion independently. Or else you end up being a lemming.

And pillows are like giant Mini-Bites

“Someone once told me,” my sister told me, “you can tell how a man will treat his wife from how he treats his mother.”

I have a a funny relationship with my parents. It’s not that I hate them, it just seems like we just tolerate each other’s existence. But I have been a bit aloof, and I could always use the advice. Apparently they are, in the end, simply concerned. I have always wanted the best in life, so they just want to make sure that I’m getting it.

“You are probably one of the most financially and emotionally stable of all your peers. Don’t f**k it up.”

In the D Drive: After Furmac bought the Red vs. Blue DVD (essentially the “Office Space” or videogaming) and showed it to me, I was excited to get my hands on Halo PC. If this is the best Xbox game, I feel sorry for people who own an Xbox. Not to say it’s a bad game, but it ain’t no Half-Life. The mentally-challenged AI and poor level design really hurts it. Most of the levels are mindless jaunts into mazes of identical-looking corridors and rooms, and to add insult to injury, the storyline often requires you to turn around and trudge back the way you come. Its saving grace are the great vehicles with great physics.

Another game I’m playing is the freeware side-scrolling RPG called The Spirit Engine. The graphics will remind you for Final Fantasy 1, but the tactics and skillsets are actually very well done. You will definitely have to read the Help to understand the nuances between each character, skill, item, and weapon.

The Way

I think that humanity’s propensity for assigning special significance to particular dates or intervals of time is a little silly. After all, they are just numbers, human-made measurements. For example, New Year’s just means we’ve been on a small planet that have just happened to have made yet another trip around some star.

Of course, as we grow older, and our primal needs (food, shelter, safety) are satisfied, it is natural for us to start thinking on a more philosophical bent. I don’t think it is the long lifespan and accompanying mandatory bouts of boredom has anything to do with it; I doubt a homeless person thinks more beyond where his next place to sleep is. It’s easy to be philosophical when your belly is full and your hands are warm.

So what is the point in life? I am not sure. My goal is to be well-liked. Not necessarily famous, just known to be a good person, – helpful, kind, has a sense of humour, the guru, the confidante. In other words, the Fifth Business (ala Robertson Davies). A person with integrity, intelligence and good manners.

I love Silverlotus with all my heart and she loves me too, and it also makes me very happy. I am a resolute believer that things always “work out” simply because, statistically, things have always panned out in the end. (She, btw, believes the point in life is to amass all possible knowledge in this world.)

Perhaps it’s a repressed child trauma thing – an innate desire for people to like me, to not ignore me. Even now, I find concepts such as betrayal and deception unsettling. It doesn’t mean I have an issue getting ahead of the pack; just as long as it was a fair fight.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to do too, as a child. I locked on to computers when I was eight, and decided whatever I did, it should involve them. I don’t think I would ever be a Bill Gates in this way though – I just don’t have that streak of ruthlessness.

I think that with the heightened level of education and information flow, people will be getting their mid-life crises sooner. We are getting rich faster, meeting more people (virtually or physically) and learning about how they and their cultures live. So I believe we get the “grass is greener on the other side” ennui at an earlier age.

(At least some of us. Most people are too busy paying down their car, finding the trendiest bar and checking cellphone voicemail to think beyond the next paycheck or business trip. We would call these people “shallow” I suppose, but they have willed themselves not to think about the tomorrow and thereafter and concentrate on closing that big customer deal or whatever.)

So I dunno. But perhaps what you’re feeling is guilt for running your life how you want it, companies or friends or signficant others or family be damned, and it makes you feel you have to make it up to the world in some way. Personally, I do not feel this way, but being the Fifth Business invariably means being accomodating and compromising. The downside is, it doesn’t do much for the ego.