Sharing stuff

I've come to a new level of belief in sharing stuff. As in practically, loaning things out to people. I don't use half the stuff I have all the time.

Maybe what I should really do is sell some of the stuff I don't really use at all.

But about the stuff that I use occasionally, I think I'd like to make more of a policy of loaning stuff out.

Does anyone want to borrow anything?

Peter

Sick day, I donno, whatever

af;iheao8 yfpoq8t 3n790[uwe'gaew89[t0p83ty03
8t'p98ahrp;giv8h;ge;FHTE;OHI`G;VFIUHG;AUDH;G
OIVUY;OH:OUIH'ih;`oih;ogiah;ofihdbvjzkfbn.kf
aefkl;af;leajf;iejahgf;hb;kihflgivuahwelge;o
gjdios;nvzheg;ioweuartylekdjvbmnzcxbvi832yql
aeku,jvbcjzbv,ua.skuzdghv,qy248aht,gjkd`bv,d
u8t5kasofiuh3lq2ehwuibsv`.dkjbvliubhlahjwefg
a;osdjkvbn.kzdjnv.8uy234qilutefn.kjv`n.szkdu
aslbfjneUI23GHFBLIUewblvjuanw;euhb;iouh4pu8h
d;`soiuvhelq8hiuvn.kjzsuhv liu2h3vihaldjkbvg

There's a big block of text. It's like, some
thing. Something, in courier font. A block o
f text. Text of block.

Irrelevant.

I think I'm gonna go crazy..................

Peter

Sick day one

So yesterday I started feeling sick. So today I spent the day in softcore solitary confinement. What's new with me: I'm sick, but that gets old fast.

I devoted myself to the chewing up of internet bandwidth, to limited hedonism, and most of all to complete laziness.

Peter

But it won't make you happy

When I was a kid, I liked this song by DC Talk that had the line:
"And my 200 friends couldn't fill the void in my soul"

I always thought it was like, metaphorical. But now on FB, you can easily have 200 friends. (So long as your peer group is also into FB.)

How many hundred friends does it take to be happy? There is no such number.

Peter

Torture

After reading an article on CNN, I feel it necessary to voice my own opinion about torture.

Torture is totally reprehensible, and is technique used by the morally bankrupt. How is torture different to small scale terrorism?

Christ was beaten and tortured (and eventually executed) in order to save me. But was he was saving me to a life where I would beat and torture?

If a person has had a fair trial, and they are given just punishment, then maybe I could feel ok with that. But if an untried man or woman is punished, how far justice from the land?

Peter

Boring to write

Well I think it's about time to explore all the possibilities of art and life and life as a continuous performance and performance as life. Where will it all go and who will it all affect and whatever has been done about New York? Why is it so cold and why does it seem like the four walls of the world are collasping around me and man this blog post is getting boring to write

Peter

Metal fans congregate in a tramping hut with an SMT line

So I dreamed that I was tramping in this random place. I stopped at this hut, I'm not sure who else was in my tramping party, but I think there might have been only a couple of them with me. Maybe it was my immediate family, I donno. There were a bunch of other people at the hut, and the hut had this sort of rectangular floor layout. It was a normal width, but there was this passageway into a back part of the hut, where they had a surface mount assembly line! Weird! I was trying to fix this design, so I was looking around for a surface mount 1 watt resistor. Then I kept walking and it looked all high-tech, like a particle accelerator or something, or maybe it was still the SMT line. Then as I walked past all that (the hut was very long I guess!) and I came into this big room full of a bunch of people. It was an acoustically treated room that had really good reflective properties. And it was in a wee back room off that big acoustically treated room that I met Chad Moore. Not many people will know of Chad Moore, but in real life, Chad Moore is the vocalist of the Christian death metal band Soul Embraced. In the dream, he was different than in real life, younger and I think a bit thinner, but I can't honestly say I really know what Chad Moore really looks like. But anyway, I was a bit star struck, and I tried to engage him in conversation. But before long, the crowd that was in the acoustically treated room realised that this was Chad Moore and they started all clapping. At was at the clapping that I realised that it was an acoustically treated room, because it echoed really well and sounded really good, in an echo-y kinda way.

Then I woke up.

Peter

Incomplete Insurance

So I got myself some contents insurance. But for some reason, the policy doesn't cover acts of terrorism. I thought that was the exact sort of thing that it should cover. Big, unlikely events. But no. War and terrorism are excluded. I guess that's ok, since they are really rather unlikely even on the scale of unlikely things. And they aren't much more costly (in terms of my contents) than plain old burglary. So I'm not too worried. Although my flatmate reckons that I'm more at risk because I'm American. Maybe so, but even still, my point holds. I think.

Peter

Splinters

So I haven't had internet for the last month.

That was interesting. Now it's back.

Peter

25 Random Things About Me

Okay, so my aunt has tagged me on Facebook for this meme, and it's my nephew-ish duty to comply...

Rules:
Whatcha talkin' about? I don't need no rules! I tag none but those that tag themselves.

Really really random things about me:
1) I have a theory about humour where jokes need only amuse myself. I sometimes wonder if people hear me when I burst out laughing for no apparent reason as I'm trying to fall asleep.

2) I am a soft-core pacifist. I've thought a lot about pacifism and just war theory, and I've come to the current, tenative conclusion that there is such a thing as a just war. However, it seems like human war is generally unjust. Practically, I have chosen not to do engineering work for arms companies or governments and I am unwilling to be in direct service of a military. I voted US Pacifist Party in the 2008 US Presidential election.

3) I'm into heavy metal music, like, where the singers scream. I guess I'm falling down a spiral of sensory down-regulation where I need nastier and nastier music to get a kick. But it's a fun downward spiral of sensory down-regulation.

4) I'm in an argument with food. In some ways, I wish I could be middle aged and not have to eat as much. Yeah, it's stupid I know. Don't worry, I'll enjoy my youth.

5) All throughout school and undergrad at university, I wrote in pen because assessements had to be in pen. Now I'm using pencil.

6) I am a highly imaginary person. As a complex number, I would call myself something like 1.7 + j10. Other people are more real, and therefore would feel uncomfortable summarising themselves (or probably anyone) in a single number.

7) I am a city dweller. I grew up in Chicago, a city so big that it scares me when I go back. As a city dweller, I have developed a set of understandings of the world from that perspective. For example, I am opposed to guns and I believe that the 2nd Ammendment in the US constitution should be removed. In the city, there is no reason to have a gun. However, in the country, a gun can be just another sharp tool.

8) I type with more confidence than I handwrite.

9) I studied electrical engineering but I didn't learn electromagnetics.

10) It's been said that if you play guitar you can play bass guitar. I think the general feeling is true, in that if you play guitar it's easier to learn bass than flute, but still bass is a complicated instrument all by itself.

11) I used to dislike the sound of bass drums. I find get a pop/rock bass drum sound that I really liked. Now I don't seem to have that problem.

12) I've come to believe that maths is just a langauge and that it doesn't express fundamental truths about the world.

13) I've also come to believe that philosophy is a process and that it isn't useful for finding fundamental truths about the world.

14) I've found that fundamental truths about the world pretty much have to be assumed before you start doing anything. It seems like no one questions their own existence, even though "I think therefore I am" is actually arbitrary!

15) I've come to truth in Jesus and reject atheism. Atheism is useless and dead. There is no life purpose in atheism except the arbitrary.

16) Ironically, I am working on a project doing predictions of simple time-series sequences (like chaotic oscillators) but I doubt the predictability of most actual things.

17) I have a funny thing on my right wrist that's like a birthmark but not. It helped me learn left from right as a kid. Now I consider it a special feature and an outward reminder of the asymmetry of my body.

18) I regard asymmetry as an important element of art, philisophically speaking. Art should be almost symmetrical, but not quite.

19) I read and reread the Bible but don't get closer to understanding Jesus.

20) I find it aesthetically pleasing to not own a car, but eventually I'll probably want one enough and have enough money to get one.

21) I'm

22) running

23) out

24) of

25) things!

Peter

I Understand

I understand. I understand why people don't like metal sometimes.

I'm listening to Living Sacrifice now. I'm a latecomer to the Living Sacrifice thing. They're an old band. I remember finding them on iTunes in 2005 and thinking "Good guitar parts, but I don't like the vocals."

Listening to them now, my tastes have changed a bit. I can stand it, but even now, it sounds like trash. There is an angry white guy thinking he's so hardcore yelling about Jesus. The guitar parts just sound like trash and the drums sound like they're recorded in a garage. The guitar solos are like the sound of cutting metal.

But you know how people make sculptures out of garbage? That's kinda what I see in Living Sacrifice. They are the sharpest, the hardest, the loudest, the angriest, the most malicious, the ugliest, the nastiest. They are trash. It sounds like trash. It seems like at any moment, the music could degenerate into total noise, and sometimes it does.

I've got "In Memoriam", and some of the tracks are better than others. Some I don't really like, and they are just trash. Others I do like and they are more like extreme 1990's metal with artistic taste, balance and symmetry.

Hey, if you don't like metal, I can understand.

Rock on,
Peter

It's All Real

I never realised, but all the games about bandicoots are real.

-----

Also, I've been learning Python. I like. Batteries included. Works a charm.

Peter

New Level of Consciousness

I've reached a new level of consciousness! Get yourself a guitar! Quit engineering! Free your mind! Disregard everything I've ever said!

Peter