Over Ambitious

My mouth tastes like blood. I nearly pass out multiple times. For some, this would be an ideal reason to quit, and to stick to what they're good at. But for me, the shock at my bodily deterioration reaffirms my determination to reorganize and reallocate my time and energy to fortify my weakened frame. I will admit to over ambition at this starting line. I tried to pick up at pursuing a what in my prime I would consider easy, a simple ride up a hill, a ride which I could have devoured for breakfast at the top of my game. Legs ached and throat was dry and so I even turned for a more modest slope. But soon my throat cried for drink and I let gravity pull me back to level ground. Before I could reach a source of water to quiet my pleading gullet, my vision began to darken, the adrenaline was retreating and an oxygen deprived haze settled on my mind. I tried to sit at the street light corner but the light to cross said walk, and so I did. I found a place where to tie my bike, and sat to clear my head. The shadow on my mind departed and a blinding light moved in its place. This is not defeat, but a vision of truth, a clear view of my current state to break my unrealistic expectations. Blinded, breathless, shaking, I stumble towards the doors, I stumble towards recovery.

Yep it is time for me to start exercising regularly again. It's time to do spring cleaning on my life. Over the past week, the online job hunt hasn't gone so well. I did get contacted back for a job that it turns out I was really in no way qualified for. Unfortunately that was just a method of filtering to make sure that I was an actual human and not a robot submitting resumes. They didn't really want a phone interview as their initial (robot sent) email indicated. I also saw a short youtube video this week about the economic situation in manhattan kansas. In the video they mentioned an engineer that has been unsuccessfully searching for a job for eleven months. I understand that this individual faces his own particular set of issues when looking for a job, like the bogus "Overqualified" problem, and probably the lack of demand specifically for nuclear engineers in the area, but if he can't get a job, where does that leave me, especially when it comes to trying to find a job online? I'll keep looking and trying to submit resume's but I have a feeling that not much is going to happen till I actually can walk to the places of employment and meet people face to face. There is so much screwed up with this economy. Don't get me started.

~Floyd

Plans are coming together

Well, I've refined my resume and sent it off to a few promising companies. I've also found a few online services that I may be able to apply to in order to earn a few extra bucks. We've decided to live in housing graciously offered to us by my sister. Now it is the waiting game. This is the worst part about job hunting, you have no way to actually measure your progress. That and HR managers have no obligation to send you a "no thank you" letter just to make sure you aren't holding out hopes that you will get hired. The only closure you get is that your resume and application will be held on file for only 30 days. The other problem is that I still won't be in manhattan for almost another month. No employer wants to really consider having to wait for a month for their new employee. If I could telecommute that would be an entirely different story, I would start today. But it seems that Rural Kansas is sadly dry on the whole telecommuting businesses.

Since I am on the topic of finding jobs, and will be for the next month or so (probably), I applied to the local Target in manhattan. Immediately after I finished the application I knew I wasn't ever going to be considered for the job. I think I may have mentally noted this last time I was on the job hunt, but I don't know if I ever expressed it in a public fashion. I have filled out some of these big company applications before and I've noticed that they are horribly flawed. At the same time I've noticed the flawed nature of the applications, I have also realized why the service in some of these large companies is typically so terrible. First, these companies don't want actual people working for them. If you answer the questionnaire honestly and admit that you have any sort of "flaw" in their eyes, or that you don't match up with their ideal paradigm, then you probably will not even be considered. Second, they don't want people, they want tax credits, so if you've been unemployed for six months, or been on welfare, then they will definitely hire you, till they lose the tax credit, then it is out the door for you again.

Now I am not implying that if you have been on welfare that you are a terrible worker. Frankly, I feel sorry for you if you have had to be on welfare. I am sick of the fact that our economy is so broken that it is absolutely requisite to have some form of public welfare just to keep people alive. I'm sorry for the fact that it sometimes happens that a person will be hired on just to benefit a company through a tax break rather than because of their actual talent. That sounds frustrating. But back to the application.

Because the company's interests, and limitations are the way they are, this is generally what happens. They hire on two types of people, people willing to lie on the questionnaire, and people who are stuck in the revolving door of unemployment/employment. In other words, they hire people of unknown quality and people who are perpetually being frustrated. Don't get me wrong, I hate making generalizations, and these companies do occasionally actually get a gem of a worker who is happy and helpful at the workplace. But why then have an application process anyway?

It seems like it would be more efficient to just keep a running queue of interviewees during the whole shift as long as there is an opening. In fact, I feel that the open positions would be filled faster and more effectively that way. It would also seriously limit the ability of the corporation to simply keep the revolving door of unemployment swinging, because it would take much more of the company's time to screen for that, rather than the potential employees time. On top of all of this, it would bring back the much needed human element to the job market world. I am sick of interacting with computers, sifting through scams, and getting roadblocked--and having my time stolen--by automatic filtering applications, in order to get a job.

I still don't know how to articulate this rant well. But that pretty much sums it up. On a more lighthearted note. I do find some job postings to be absolutely hilarious. I found one the other day for a porn film on craigslist, I wasn't aware that such industries would be so open and forward as posting their "now hiring" on something as public as craigslist. And I also found another one which is incredibly sketchy today, some businessman asking for a female college student to come to his office a couple hours each week to give him a massage... no experience required, just a headshot. That one probably should be flagged for probably being deceiving. It doesn't really sound like a back massage the way he put it. Of all the ridiculous things on the internet.

Till next week,
Floyd.

The Job Market and Laptop Repair

This post will be a rather boring and un-enlightening week in review. As you already know from my last post, my wife and I are moving to Kansas in about a month. This means that I need to find a job in a rather odd time of the hiring season. Most jobs open up around graduation time, basically this month. And so, while there is a plethora of jobs being advertised right now, most of them will be displeased to hear that I won't be around till next month. It is just one more drawback on top of an already heaping pile of drawbacks (lack of a bachelors degree, lack of experience in fields I want to work in, and the virtual disappearance of entry level jobs that pay anything close to a livable wage).

In one bright bit of news, a friend of the family dropped by for a short visit last week and mentioned that we should call ahead to the local church leadership in the area and try to get help from ward and stake employment specialists. It sounded like a fantastic idea, so I spent most of last week trying to get into contact with someone who can help me. It was difficult, it seems they recently changed the employment specialist in one of the wards, and the branch's employment specialist lives in the wrong town. And so with hope I called up the last ward and found out that indeed they are willing to help.

This employment specialist has done an okay job, other than the fact that she seems to disapprove of my job seeking standards. I don't feel they are unreasonable though. Simply put, I don't want to work in a call center because I already know I would be terrible. I don't want to be a salesman pushing a product that I don't 100% believe in. I need to have a job that I can pay rent, utilities, food, gas, and student loans on. Lastly, I want to be able to support both my wife and myself so that my wife can start working on her own business. In other words, I need to be earning about as much as I am earning now. Yet this employment specialist keeps riding me about how I need to be willing to take a janitorial position that won't support me, and keeps saying that my wife needs to be a secretary or take some other full time job.

I don't think that it is part of her calling to be judgmental of my employment lifestyle choices. I can understand that it can be frustrating, especially in this economy to meet my demands, which I find to be frankly ridiculous. I'm not asking to have a lifestyle of new cars or ultimate leisure, I don't take part in expensive past times, I am simply asking that I can pay rent, utilities, and food so that my family can live on one income. A janitorial position paying $10.68/hr doesn't cut it in that area.

On the positive side, I do have to hand it to her, she did locate a company that has several open positions that I would be perfect for, and which may actually pay me a livable wage. These positions have not been posted on any of the other job aggregating sites. So this weekend, it is time to draw up several resumes, and start to schmooze up to the HR Manager.

In other news, I have an old game that I've been wanting to play, but when I install it on my newer laptop, it gives it a bad case of the recurring Blue Screen of Death. I've played it on my older laptop before and so I know it would work. But the old laptop has been having problems with overheating lately. I figured, what the heck. It is out of warranty, I might as well just try to fix the problem myself. So I looked up a guide on dismantling my old laptop and went to work. I was surprised at how intensive the process was actually going to be. To get to the cooling element, you have to dismantle the entire laptop from the keyboard down. With each plug I pulled, each ribbon cable I disconnected, and with each screw I pulled out I silently prayed in my head that I wouldn't break something important.

Then I finally had it all apart and I looked at the fan and aluminum heat dispersion fins, It wasn't nearly as clogged up with dust as I had expected, so I decided it must be the thermal paste that has worn out. I went to Radio Shack and picked up a small tube of the paste, looked up some guides online of how to apply the paste, and began to take the heat transfer plate off the board. It wasn't pretty, the old paste was gunky, put on poorly, and hardly there. The GPU only had a half torn poorly applied thermal pad on it, and that was the piece that was getting particularly hot in my old laptop. I checked to see if Thermal paste would be okay for a GPU and found that while it is alright to use it, there can be absolutely no excess past that squishes onto the board around the GPU Die. That may only apply to actual Graphics Cards, but I heeded the warning nonetheless. I carefully spread the thermal paste on both the CPU and GPU, secured the thermal transfer plate, and began to button everything back up.

Just before hitting the power button I turned to my wife and said "If this thing even starts up I'll be happy. If I get even a few degrees better cooling, I'll be ecstatic." Sure enough, everything turned back on and worked properly (other than the microphone and the caps-lock light. The plug with the wires to these two parts broke while trying to remove it, something that several people complained about in the comments to the dismantling guide. I tried to manually reinsert the wires, but I think I got them crossed because I couldn't remember which way they went.). It will take a while for the thermal paste to cure and get optimal performance. But I'm already seeing 10-20 F difference. Hooray for the power to do things yourself.

Floyd.

Improbable State Change...

I took my last final of the BYU winter semester 2014 yesterday. Freedom is sweet and terrifying. I have not graduated. I do not have a bachelors degree. I am changing colleges to hopefully pursue a different program. There is one catch, I am moving two states away from my current position to a town that is two hours travel away from my nearest relatives or friends (as far as I know). I have checked the MIT living wage calculator for the area and at minimum to support my wife and myself I need to be making about $13.15 an hour in order to survive. If we are planning on having kids (which we hope to do sometime), then the sum I need to make is closer to $16.30. And none of these figures are taking into account the student loans we will be paying back. We don't really have much in the way of savings and the move is planned for next month. This means I have to find a relatively well paying job or other forms of income, 2 states away in a very short time, in an area where I don't have a network previously setup. So I'm back to blogging again to document this crazy transition in my life.

So, what do the prospects look like? In this economy. Meh. There are very few jobs offering wages in the range I need, and the ones that do, require 2+ years repairing complex electronics, or working in the O.R. at a hospital, oh yeah, and a degree. I would much rather not extend the student loan debt we already have. Starting out your professional life tens of thousands of dollars in debt never seemed like a good idea to me. It is a pretty bad social program which pretty much equates to slavery.

Speaking of slavery. It occurred to my co-workers and I a few weeks ago that we seem to remember being taught in school that back in yon early days of the republic, a person could elect to go into indentured servitude for 7 years, at the end of which he would receive a piece of land on which to build a house. We compared this to today and the fact that in our society the average worker slaves away at their job and even then can barely pay off their mortgage and student loans in 30 years. hmmm..... 7 years, 30 years, 7 years, 30 years.... Am I the only one who sees a problem with this.

I guess I'll be back next time with hilarious job descriptions.

~The Floyd

Black holes and dimensions...

We now take a break from the usual political fodder to bring you a glimpse into the wild landscape of what Floyd thinks about in his idle time...

So, I have decided I am not a normal person, in my idle time I don't go scheduling my coming week, thinking about games I'd like to play or TV shows or books I've read (well sometimes, but rarely compared to the other things that go through my mind). I think about things like world economics, political intrigue, and Unorthodox origin of the universe theories (and by unorthodox I mean both the creationists and most scientists would probably laugh at me). But here goes...

So, lets just look at a few principles of our known universe. Light travels at, well the speed of light, usually this is referred to as c, approximately 299,792,458 metres per second or 186,282 miles per second (from Wikipedia) Nothing we've seen really changes this speed much. Now... Black holes. Black holes are super dense clusters of matter, so dense in fact that it creates a gravitational field around the object that is so powerful that light itself, going as fast as it is going, actually can't escape once it's crossed a certain threshold of that gravitational field. That threshold is called the Event Horizon... So... Lets just say for theoretical purposes that you throw a light emitting object into the black hole and that it actually is able to keep emitting light all the way past the event horizon. The very moment it crosses the event horizon it emits a photon of light that is going in the exact opposite direction of the black hole.

How fast is that particle of light going? Well, according to our normal three dimensional thinking, so long as the particle of light stays at the event horizon, it is not moving at all, (unless it rotates around the surface of the event horizon orbiting the black hole, but that is a negligible detail...) But, light is always traveling at the speed of light, ya know approx 185,000 miles per second... So what is this particle of light traveling across to keep up the speed sufficient enough to stay at that event horizon?

This is where things start to get funky... (Break out your old R&B music) So the light is traveling across something, and that something is being pulled or stretched backwards into the black hole at the speed of light effectively making the particle of light stand still. Could it be that space itself is getting stretched and sucked into the black hole? Well, if that is true, then wouldn't everything eventually be pulled into a black hole? Not entirely, because we have recorded that space is being created in our own universe all the time. There is a noticeable red shift everywhere we look, like the universe is constantly expanding from every point at once... So lets just assume for the sake of argument that enough "Space" is being created that the black holes can stretch and suck in as much as they want and the rest of the universe will be will be fine. But if black holes are sucking the space in, what happens to it when it is in the black hole?

Time for the crazy leap. Lets just assume that our universe exists inside a black hole that is in another universe. We can never directly interact with that universe, the event horizon prevents us. But the space that is getting sucked into our black hole in the other universe would start showing up in our universe, and because it is hitting such an infinitesimally small target in the other universe, it would show up all over the place in our universe (I don't know like from every point simultaneously... manifesting itself as a slowly decelerating universal expansion) And the same would happen with any sort of electromagnetic radiation that landed in our black hole, it would show up everywhere at once in our universe (And manifest as a slowly cooling background radiation as our universe continues to expand) In which case, if these kinds of things were true, then that would mean that there are an infinite number of infinitely large universes, each containing an infinite number of black holes which would each be their own universe, all nested together in a never ending stack... Turtles not only all the way down, but all the way up too...

Yep It is a rough theory I know. That is how my brain works... A few screws loose but always an adventure. I'll stop there and give your brains some time to recuperate from encountering the mess that is this post. Till next time

~Floyd

There's not a president for me...

So the three main presidential candidates that are flooding the media at the moment would be Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, and Ron Paul. You would think that between the three options I should be able to support one of them... But I can't. I think no matter who wins, even the unlikely Ron Paul, we the american people will lose.

Starting from the top, Barack Obama has pushed for more government power. As far as I have seen from the news in the last four years he has increased government spending and debt by increasing welfare benefits and instating government issued and mandated health care and next he has said he plans on letting the taxes go up... Here is the problem, I don't really trust the government very much. So far they have been passing more and more and more and more laws to the point where there is not a chance that all those laws can ever be enforced cause no one really knows even half of them. So the idea that the government is actually competent to manage things better if they have even more of my money seems absurd. Government has been neglecting the responsibilities it should be taking care of, and instead been trying to stick its fingers in everyone else's pie and in effect screwing up everything that they should keep their noses out of. All these social issues, Abortion, Gay Marriage, etc, Government shouldn't have a say in any of it. And yet Barack wants to continue in that direction, having the government go on signing more laws they can't pass, managing poorly the programs already in place, and sticking its noses into issues it should stay they heck out of.

Mitt Romney, A Two faced puppet of big business. Mitt Romney has flip flopped way too much on all sorts of subjects and in my opinion he is doing it just to get votes, or rather, his advisers have told him to change his stance so that he could pull in all the extreme right folks. Then you look at who is funding Mitt Romney? Big companies like AT&T... He has promised to leave the tax cuts in place and from what I've heard, he has also been advocating for the letting up of several regulations on large corporations. One frightening example I've heard of is that if Mitt Romney becomes president, he intends to sign laws which will make it more appealing for corporations to stop providing company funded health insurance to it's employees. Frankly I'm not very trusting of large corporations either, especially when I see how much some companies and CEO's make and yet how little they care to reward their workers. Not to mention the sheer quality of work that large companies are outputting, they are charging more and more for less and less. I've bought two pairs of shoes and put them through regular work wear and both pairs of shoes were unwearable within 6 months. Companies seem to be only out for one thing, to screw you out of more money.

And last but not least (well maybe) Ron Paul, The guy that wants to blow up the Fed?!? Don't even get me started on this guy... His whole campaign has revolved around one thing, shutting down the Federal Reserve. This guy has obviously not taken a good economics course and actually learned what the Fed does. Our economy is like a steam engine, and the amount of money in the system is kind of like the steam in a boiler. If you get too much steam (inflation) the whole thing blows up, if you get too little, you don't have the power to drive your pistons. That is why you have something on the boiler called a pressure regulator valve. The Fed, that is the pressure regulator valve. If you take that off then there is nothing stopping this crazy emergent economy we have to possibly go screaming off into inflated ruin like so many other countries have done in the past. What with gold bugs trying to already defraud our currency, once the faith is lost in the currency, it is over. The Fed has been one of the most responsible, well educated, highly regulated organizations in this whole country. And Ron Paul's main aim is to tear it down... But it doesn't stop there, What would he do after he tears it down? I have no clue. No one will say what his stance on everything else is. He is so monomaniac about the Fed that I have no clue what he will do about welfare and healthcare and social security and foreign policy... oh wait... I did hear him say something about foreign policy, "Lets give Iran Nukes" *HEADDESK* Are you kidding me? That's it I've to to stop talking about this guy...

So to sum it up, I think we should just change our flag to a white flag that says Welcome to America, surrender your Rights, To Government or Corporations. Yeah, I think that would about say it all...

I guess if Ron Paul actually won, his ineptitude might finally bring everything crashing down and we could start all over again... Like a reset button on the computer. Hmm, save your work guys...

Till next time,
~Floyd

Voting...

Just writing a short little something here that I realized today while talking with my wife in the parking lot of the mall. I've heard a lot of people say that If you don't vote in the elections then you shouldn't be allowed to complain about the country. But here is the thing, Voting is nothing more than voicing your opinion about any specific topic weather it be about health care, taxes or who you want your next president to be... So isn't not voting simply voicing your opinion that you feel none of the available options are viable? If yes, then not voting is another form of voting. The only thing I wish is that the option of not voting was given a little more sway. I propose that there be a law instated that says that if a certain percentage of people register to vote and then choose not to fill in any of the choices for their vote on any particular issue, then the election or whatever was being voted on gets thrown out and started over with more or new options. Because seriously, I cannot in good conscience vote for any of the presidential candidates that I am currently aware of.

This kind of law would certainly be revolutionary, You would have to register to vote even if you didn't plan on throwing your hat in with any candidate, and if you did plan on supporting a candidate you would definitely make sure to participate lest those who don't vote at all overthrow the election entirely. It would increase participation across the board and finally give people like me a voice. I could finally, in a legally powerful way, voice my frustrations with the socioeconomic system we as the American people have built.

Anyway, more on those frustrations to come. I'm open to conversation, if you want to hear about my specific frustrations in any area drop me a question in the comments. Unless someone seriously wants to hear about something else, I'll probably outline my frustrations with each of the three major candidates soon.

~Floyd

Busy life...

I really wasn't expecting to blog tonight. I was expecting to go clean up my old apartment. But when I got there, the power was finally disconnected. I guess when I was on the phone with the utilities people last week to tell them to not turn off the power while my wife was still in the house, they must have told me that I couldn't re-schedule the shut off till next week and in my panic mode I must have said something along the lines of, "Ok, That is Fine, Do it."

life comes back to bite me in the butt sometimes.

I have been rather stressed lately... I would outline my week, but it was too packed and I just don't have enough time to do it justice and it also contains some sensitive material... Suffice it to say. Monday car breaks down, go to work come home look for car. Tuesday, buy car go to work. Wednesday, wake up finish packing house, pick up U-Haul, drive to apartment, wait for carpet guy to get done, move in, barely get U-Haul back in time. Thursday, More moving... So stressed physically, I don't think I've taken a crap in three days... THREE DAYS!!! Friday, More moving, Wife begins to feel a bit under the weather. Saturday, More moving, grocery shopping, finding book shelves. (Every three days we are not out of the old apartment this month translates to $50 in rent now owed to the old apartment) Sunday, Go to church, find out our congregation's boundaries are changing, we are being put in an entirely new congregation (as in the congregation was not organized until yesterday) Today being the 6th, we now owe the old apartment $100.

In the upcoming week we have to finish cleaning the old apartment and get out, then we have to settle on which insurance to get and get all the rest of the legal work done on the car.

Anyway... My life is too busy at the moment to really consider much of anything philosophical. Though I would have loved to give my opinions on freedom of belief, my stance on Gay Marriage, and a hand full of other things. but right now everything else is crowding my thoughts.

On Drastic Changes and Life Hacking

For the last few months, I have been feeling a tad bit lost... I'm not really sure lost is the right word, but it fits well enough and so for now I will use it. I keep having the feeling that no matter how I use my time, it is not a good use of it. This could be just some illogical snippet of my mind that won't let me rest entirely. Or it could be some deep inner struggling trying to get out... "I don't know" has been my mantra through this whole issue though. Am I using my time unwisely? "I don't know." If I weren't doing what I am doing now, what would I be doing? "I don't know." Why do I feel like I am in such a funk? "I don't know." and on and on.

So... I decided, along with the counsel of my wife, that I should shake things up a little. First off, I have uninstalled all but two or three games on both my Laptop and my Desktop. It felt like I was burning a security blanket. I had mixed feelings. I spent (wasted) long hours tracking down, installing, and testing those games to make sure those games worked, and then I haven't really taken the chance to play hardly any of them. Having taken an economics course, I know the time I plunged into that effort is now considered a "sunk cost" and I shouldn't feel so bad about moving on with my life. But it is still hard.

Second thing I have done is I have set my home page as something other than facebook. For the LAST (approx.) FOUR YEARS, my home page has been facebook. But frankly, when viewed from a lifehacking perspective, that is a horrible thing to do. Every time I get on the internet to do something specific I have to go through the attention minefield that is facebook. All it takes is one enticing looking post and I'm finished, 15 minutes are automatically sucked away from my life as I scroll down the endless series of updates till I find where I left off. Now I have to actually go seek out facebook when I want to message a friend etc... Which hopefully will mean that when I go to facebook, it will be with a purpose unto itself, rather than a purposeless wandering, or a risky passing by.

These two changes have gone over smoothly enough for the first day. Of course, I've had plenty of other things to keep my mind occupied today, what with my car dying, then figuring out how to get to work and get home from work, how to get a new car and soon, and on top of all that, preparing to move across town on Wednesday and fixing my bike which has been out of commission since October 2011. Ahh, I remember that week well, On Monday the back tire on my bike went flat. On Tuesday, I take the car to school, it was a frosty morning and as I tried to go through a low visibility intersection I got T-Boned. And on Friday I proposed to the woman who was to become my wife the following March. I imagine this week will be nearly as eventful as that one was.

Well, It looks like I am back to rambling on this old blog since It is one of my new home page selections. We will see how long I can keep it up, though I promise you nothing. I make no promises this time regarding length, content, or frequency of posting, just some insight into the brain of Floyd aka Stealth Blue. Enjoy, for what it's worth.
~Floyd

On Abandoning projects...

Soo... any of you still following this blog may have noticed the absence of new posts for the last few weeks. Have any of you had the brilliant idea and urge to undertake some large project, such as, I don't know, dissecting a lot of basic philosophical principles, and then you get a little bit into it and you realize that it is perhaps more effort than it is worth. Or perhaps you have found something that was more important to you?

Yeah...

I'll admit, I hate it when I do something like that. I want to show that I can stick it out to the end of something that I have started. Of course this creates a problem. What if there is something more important, more worth your time, do you stick with the thing that is less worth or do you move onto the next thing? Granted this isn't a universal question, There are lots of things you obviously should not so flippantly abandon, a devoted loved one for instance, that is something you should stick to till the end of eternity.

But as far as projects are concerned. I think that this question is definitely applicable. I think that it is important to have a trial period for these sort of things. You try it out, and you find out that it doesn't work. We do this all the time. We take classes in school for subjects that we may not be truly enthralled in. It may be the last class in that subject that we take, or we may even pull out of that class. But was it a waste of time? No. It was an experiment. It was a worthy trial.

We should not feel so ashamed for having tried and failed. In this philosophical project I have failed. It is now time for me to move onto the next thing, the next trial, to find something that sticks.

So... Yeah... I know that this post meanders, and repeats itself a bit. I suppose I will leave you with one gem of wisdom I collected today while at church.

We have a class on relationships in our church. The teachers, (a recently married couple) decided they would try to boost our hopes of getting married ourselves by passing around a wedding invitation for a friend of theirs. They informed us that the friend that got married was close to 42 years old.

They told us his story which for the most part was ho hum to me but there was one part that stuck out to me. They said that this friend's mentality while dating was that he looked at his life like a puzzle and that for the longest time he was looking for a girl to fit the one missing piece of the puzzle, in laymans terms, He had a lot of expectations, and a very distinct idea of what he wanted his future wife to be like. Then he met this girl whom he found he liked but didn't fit the puzzle at all. Then he had this brilliant realization that perhaps it isn't about finding the one that will fit the puzzle you already have, but instead finding the one you want to build a puzzle with. In laymans terms, perhaps you shouldn't have so many expectations, but instead you should just find one you like and try to make a new life with them, if it works out, it works out, if it doesn't that will hopefully become apparent.

So the overall moral. Make The Dang Attempt. Deal with the consequences afterward... Got it? Good.

~Floyd

What is Life?

Since I am tackling the basics to start with, like tackling knowledge last week, I might as well jump to the next large interrogative, defining life. Keeping in mind what was said last week, take a skeptical view of what is here on out expressed in this blog as it is not expressed with the intent to be irrefutable knowledge, but as a system of coherent beliefs, a paradigm, expressed for understanding, a form of two way communication between myself and the world around me.

What is Life? This is one of those topics that, like a greased pig, refuses to be pinned down easily. Many definitions have been brought forward to be put to the test. I will only go through a few of them here, for a more thorough coverage of the various views and definitions I would suggest starting with the wikipedia article life. One of the manners of defining life is the list of phenomena that seem common to much of the life here on earth, namely, homeostasis, organization, metabolism, growth, adaptation, response to stimuli, and reproduction. Of course it is notable to state that Fire itself seems to arguably have most of these qualities. There are also some life forms which seem to bend these qualifications quite severely such as biological viruses (though some will argue that viruses might not be allowed to qualify as alive.)

However, there exists the question of machines and computer artificial intelligence. As modern computer programming becomes more and more complex, there occur programs which take on more and more of these qualities that we see in biological life. Where and how does one draw the line. Should it be drawn? And with that there are also many other questions that branch out into areas such as universal rights that we keep trying to grant to all living things. There are those who fight for animal rights, well what if popular belief could be swayed to believe that advanced computer programming is at some level alive, will there be people who would fight for the rights of the programs to not be erased. Of course that is mostly tangential at the moment, yet it is still useful information for grasping why it may be important to have a belief or a position on this topic.

As far as my belief and position on this topic goes, I take the frustrating position of the existence of a soul. I do this because somehow somewhere there still seems to be independent will in much of life, Much of our actions can be tacked down to biological process and neurological arrangement, but deep down there is still an element of randomness that seems incapable of being fully explained by either. Randomness here implying that there are no absolute laws that dictate outcome other than perhaps statistical law. That is a blog for another day.

So what is a soul? How do we determine if something has a soul and is therefore alive? Is it practical to believe in a soul, or even practical to try and make the distinction between what is alive and what is not according to the possession of a soul? Why abandon the list of biological qualifications? Should I feel bad about killing the bacteria that give me a cold every year?

These are all fine questions. Sadly, I came unprepared to answer them this week. I have been distracted by lovely fourth of july festivities, and friends and family, and other activities. But now that I have a bit of a direction to go. I'll be putting some thought into these questions and I will answer them as best I know how in accordance with my paradigm next week.

Knowledge (It's Fickle)

Knowledge is a fickle thing. Let me explain. I am sure that you have been in this situation before, especially if you have spent longer than 30 minutes perusing the internet. But have you ever been in the situation where you "know" something to be true, and yet there is someone out there who disagrees with you and says that what you "know" to be true is actually false. You try to prove to them that they are wrong and that whatever the subject in question is, it is really true. But they won't hear any of your "proof" and actually will begin to defend themselves and start throwing out "proof" of their own to support what they "know". How does anyone win this confrontation? Can it be won at all? Should it be won?

When both sides have "proof" and "know" they are right, the means of conflict resolution are somewhat slim, either one side has to voluntarily concede to the other, or there is the tried and failed method of gathering your gang and winning by numbers. You could agree to disagree but that doesn't really solve the question of who is actually right and who is wrong, who's knowledge is validated and who's knowledge is a load of candy fluff. You could try scientific inquiry, but either side can complain that the tests weren't conducted quite right, or claim that the scientists were bribed or bought out, or they could simply refuse to believe that it can really be testable, or throw out any one of dozens of arguments to try and trip up their opposition, bringing us back to square one on the subject, How does anyone win in this situation? As far as I can tell, There is none. Not even if one side concedes, because then the two of them are going to meet another person who disagrees with them. And another after that. And another after that. And the conflict will just rage on and on and on and on and ad infinitum. Even if a large number of people were convinced that one thing was correct, does that mean it is right? History contains evidence that perhaps masses don't make absolute proof. There have been popular beliefs that have been abandoned by later generations?

Can the battle for absolute knowledge be won then? That is a dang good question. I think not. I think that the best we can do is stake our position on a subject and stick with it, and agree to disagree if no one is going to concede. If we are wrong, we are wrong together. That is the nature of the beast known as knowledge. Knowledge, as I stated above, is fickle. We can try to predict things, and we can even be pretty good at it, but knowledge about the future is non existent, the best I'm afraid we can do is prediction. For example, you can predict that the sun will come up tomorrow, and for all practical purposes, you are probably right, the sun will probably come up tomorrow, but the fact is that other possibilities could exist, There could be a freakishly fast moving black hole that is approaching the sun from the exact opposite side of the sun where we might not be able to see, and in the night the sun could be absorbed by this black hole. I will say, it is not likely that this will happen, but it could, and therefore I can say I bet the sun will come up tomorrow, but I don't absolutely know it will happen.

Should this battle be won? For pragmatic purposes, No. Just as having genetic diversity among a species better grantees the species existence as a whole. Having a diversity of opinion and belief or "knowledge" helps to keep our social and political systems in a state of balance, and it creates conditions for the existence and development of a wider variety of life styles, skills, problem solutions, etc that may be needed to deal with problems that might arise in the world.

Anyway. So it is my belief that we can have strong enough belief that we can rely upon it like knowledge, but that absolute irrefutable knowledge can not be obtained. (Ironically, and I have seen this happen, there are other individuals who do not believe this basic premise on knowledge outlined here, and they do believe that some sort of absolute irrefutable knowledge exists and that, of course, they possess it. So as I am writing this, I know that there are others out there who would disagree with me even on this point of basic philosophy. I maintain that it is their right to believe the way they do, and I will not dispute it.)

~Floyd

My Philosophy on Philosophy (ad infinitum)

When people hear that I am majoring in Philosophy they give me this incredulous look and always ask “And what do you plan on doing with that?” In that tone of voice that just screams wariness. Officially I am just majoring in philosophy so that I can get into a graduate program... Un-officially, I am going to use philosophy to, how say, guide my life.

I make that last statement with a healthy dose of trepidation for the simple fact that what I mean when I say that I will use philosophy to guide my life is almost definitely not what you understand when I say such a thing. Language is a funny thing like that, it doesn’t always fulfill it’s purpose of conveying meaning like you want it to. Luckily for me, I understand that language is finicky like that and so I can try to elaborate and put into context my misleading statements so that you can understand what the heck I actually mean.

First off let me talk about what Philosophy means to me. In my opinion, everyone is a philosopher, wither they like it or not. Everyone is trying to find some form of Knowledge, or at the very least, some set of beliefs by which to run their lives. This set of beliefs in a whole can be called by different names, a paradigm, a lifestyle, or in my terms, a personal philosophy. Everyone has a personal philosophy even though many do not actively recognize it is there and/or have not found a way to articulate what their personal philosophy consists of.

Everyone develops their personal philosophy through their lives in different ways and at different times. A lot of people are taught a philosophy via their religion or culture and they stick with it. A personal philosophy consists of lots of various aspects, for example, one develops an Epistemological view, which is to say, one develops a means for determining how they individually “Know” something, and what can be “known.” Everyone has different and varying views when it comes to this subject. Some people decide that knowledge is acquired through life experience, others believe knowledge to come from scientific testing, still others believe that knowledge comes from some sort of Authority. Another example is that most people have some idea of how a “perfect society” would work, or they don’t believe in a perfect society all together, This constitutes their Political Philosophy. Some people believe that communism is the way to go, others believe in “good old American capitalism” and so forth and so on. Once again, sometimes people don’t know how to articulate or describe their ideas of the perfect society. None the less, most everyone has a few opinions on the subject of how to run society.

So now back to my original statement. I am going to use Philosophy to guide my life. Do I need to major in the subject in order to do so? Not really. As I just explained above, everyone has their own philosophy, in a sense, everyone already does use philosophy to guide their lives. So then why do I study philosophy. A large part of life is interacting with other people. The more I understand about other philosophies, the more I will be able to intuitively grasp the individual philosophies of the individuals around me, and thus I will understand others more. This isn’t to say that I will agree with everyone’s individual philosophies, because as a matter of fact, I have my own reasons for sticking to my own personal philosophy, just like everyone else. But I hope to be able to set aside my own comprehension in order to better function with those around me.

Thus my life will be guided by philosophy. Not just my own, but by the influence of the philosophies of everyone around me. This is the reason I consider philosophy to be important.

~Floyd

The Philosophy board

I live on the third floor of an old Victorian home. There are two windows in the room where I sleep and they face respectively east and north. This means that, effectively, it is a struggle to sleep in past 6:30 in the summer because sunlight pours through my window about that time, not to mention that my landlord owns chickens who begin to cluck wildly at about the same time.

So this morning, unable to sleep in, I prepared and restlessly made my way to church 30 minutes early, a feat that made me grumble in my previous ward. Due to the fact that I had nothing better to do for 30 minutes and the fact that my church meets in the basement of one of the university buildings, I began to meander the halls and read the various posters on all the department bulletin boards. Most of the postings were for scholarships that I couldn't qualify for, or study abroad programs that I wasn't interested in, but then I came across the Philosophy department board (which I might add was rather bare, much to my dismay, as I am going into the philosophy program for an undergrad) I found on the Philosophy board a notice regarding a convention that was being held somewhere out in Poland about how to fight against the philosophy of Nihilism (click for wiki article).

And that long exposition was just to tell you this.

I really love philosophy. There is stuff about it that I hate, like the fact that there has to be a thought experiments that produce philosophies like extreme Nihilism or Solipsism. But on the whole I love to delve into the paradoxes of our every day living and yet somehow figure out some way to get out unscathed.

Also, it gave me the idea that I should go back through some of the basic philosophic questions and begin defining for myself what my stances on those subjects are and why. And so I came up with a rather extensive list of terms, phrases, or concepts that I am going to be delving into one at a time. Philosophy really is a fascinating subject. If you don't believe me, look at the Wiki article on Philosophy. It's Huge. Also, a little tidbit of info, if you haven't tried this already, Go to Wikipedia and click random article, then click the first link that appears in the article that isn't italicized or in (parentheses), then repeat clicking the first non Italicized non parenthetical link in every succeeding article and you will eventually land yourself on the philosophy page. I am not joking. Try it.

We used to do soapbox nights at a friends house. I think we are going to start that up again.

Returning to the writing desk.

As many of you know, I like to write. However sometimes I lack the motivation or direction to write. Life currently feels busy. I have work, I am trying to focus on getting things prepared for school. There are girls to date and a focus on trying to get married. Etc, occasionally it is hard to find time to sit and write. And normally when I write I don't get more than a page out. This can be frustrating. But I finally did it this week. I wrote in various works three to four nights this week. I hope to keep this going, (though it is going to have a premature break this next week due to a week long backpacking trip)

I am quite pleased with what little writing I have accomplished. I feel that I am getting back in touch with the characters that I have loved and developed so much.

I recently passed my 8600 days old mark last Sunday. So far the 8600's have been off to a good start. I have been writing, I am living in a new apartment. I am going on this backpacking trip. I have been invited by a friend to join a small role play which I hope will be able to keep me in the writing mood. Things are just going well. I am happy. Let it not change for quite some time. And should it change, may there be friends there to lift me back up again.

Back to life as usual

Life is never entirely usual for me. But a time of major transition has just passed. I have just moved from one apartment, two blocks down the street to another apartment. My last two apartments were for me much more a temporary transitional arrangement. I think that this one is going to be a little more permanent. I stayed in my last two apartments about six months and nine months, This one I could see being in for a few years as I continue on with my schooling. I love this house. It definitely needs some fixing up here and there, holes in the walls that need patching and painting, tiles that need some replacing. An extra coat of paint here and there. But all in all, it has this unspoken charm to it, a colorfulness, a motif, age, and lots of stairs up to my apartment. I have grown to love stairs, they make me happy.

I just feel much more at peace here, in this place, with my new roommates, It is a beneficial arrangement. If you have heard about the Meyers Briggs personality profiling test then you might be able to understand that it is relieving for me (an INFJ) to finally live with an ENTP roommate. He is by nature more adventurous, something which I have desperately searched for in my own life, and I am intuitive grounded and a good sounding board, which is something that he also needs and craves. And so we satisfy one another's needs quite well. That and our method of communication is just very functionally good. Even when we are at our worst in our own personal communications (which Ironically may be said to be our best) when words break down and we can't find the words we want, all of our nonverbal communication skills kick in and we manage to understand one another better than we usually understand other people.

As such, in this new area, I am trying to make some changes. For one thing, I am going to try to cut even deeper into my free time and direct it away from video games and more toward writing. Again, I kind of wish I had a role play that I could play for a little while to get me back into the swing of typing and thinking fast and story composition. My brain craves that free form of play. But I have to be incredibly careful with it because I know that I have in the past been easily sucked into the vortex of addiction when it comes to such things. Bah, conundrum....

Well that is life... Conundrums.

~Floyd.

Where the revolution goes from here

While the idea that the revolutionaries could turn into a large movement died out in my mind, I have come to use this little stage in my life as a stepping stone into my current personal philosophy. It is still currently centered around the two principles of differences and understanding. However I find that it is far more refined then when I first started.

Up until today I had several pithy sayings up on the walls of my bedroom that had mostly come from my pondering of the ideals of the revolutionaries. I had them arranged so that I would wake up in the morning to them. Of course this didn't work out so well as I wake up at 5:30 ish and had to get moving from the moment I popped out from under the covers, I didn't have much time to sit and read through the sayings in the morning. I took the opportunity to read through some of them today and surprisingly found that my personal philosophy has drifted substantially from some of those pithy statements. I still feel strongly about the core elements of the revolutionaries, about developing understanding of people and communications, and understanding and accepting differences. But there were sayings like, "Dream Big and Stick to those Dreams." However I am now fully willing to defend small and humble dreams. The saying was more easily refined in a new saying, "What ere thou dream, try it. If it be good and right, stick to it."

I am currently in the process of attempting to articulate the new and more refined form of this personal philosophy... We'll see how well this goes after this week.

And thus is my life

~Floyd

Resurrecting the Revolutionaries

Against the Irony, and to drive away any remaining followers of this blog, I suppose I shall consciously turn away from the tried and true method of internet success, namely "stupidity", and instead talk about my idealism.

In the last post I mentioned my foray into YouTube land but I never really explained what I did there. If in the future someone reads this, progeny perhaps, and wishes to find those videos that I posted, I am sure you can search my old computers and I will leave a record of them there. For what their worth.

During my stay on YouTube, I started out incredibly Idealistic, I had seen what some of the other successful members of the community were bringing about and I felt that it was amazing and I had delusions of grandeur of doing the same. I had a cause that I was trying to promote, however my cause was admittedly a bit vague and shapeless. I called it the "Revolutionaries" movement.

Unlike Revolutions past, the Revolution that I wanted to bring about was one of the mind, rather than some sort of Governmental Revolution, or Educational Revolution. Granted, if a revolution of the mind occurred, then the Government and the Education System, the Economy and everything else would also change. But that is beside the point.

I never really got very far into my own idea because it kind of lost steam in the opposition, crushed by obscurity. But these are some of the basic tenets of the Revolution of the Mind that I wanted to see occur. I wanted people to understand the semantic problems that exist and realize how inarticulate our communication is. This involved lots of understanding of the concepts of connotations and how they influence everyone's lives. When these concepts were grasped then there is a natural road built to the fundamental understanding of the way in which we understand or learn new things. There is also another natural road built towards comprehending why there are so many disagreements in the world and what might be some of the methods that could be employed in overcoming or understanding the disagreements. Ultimately it is a basic model of how to understand the differences and similarities between people and their personal paradigms.

The second stage of the Revolution of the mind would come in the understanding of the differences in people and learning to cope with those differences and constructively utilize those differences to begin to build better systems. This involves a lot of self reflection and learning to understand one's own self and what your strengths, weaknesses, and preferences are. Then, instead of trying to destroy yourself to fit the mold that society tells you is right, you find out ways to work with yourself to make yourself work. There is a lovely term for this called Life Hacking. Look into it, you won't be disappointed. The trick though is not just learning to life hack yourself but learning to help others life hack themselves.

However, one can see in the realists point of view that this whole plan would not work because, the Masses prefer the stupid, enjoy trolling, only want to get ahead, don't cooperate, etc...

My life is mired in Irony.

Night all, See you next week.

~Floyd

The Irony behind it all...

I like independent films. If you like Independent films I would suggest that you check out Vodo.net as they have quite an eclectic collection of fascinating films. In particular, if you have the time, download and watch the film YouTubeLand. I had the pleasure over the weekend to watch this film, approx 101 minutes of assorted clips all collected from YouTube's grand library.

"But Floyd, Why do we care? And what does this have to do with Irony?"

Well, for starters, if you know me well, you know that for a time, I myself was a frequent uploader to a YouTube Channel. What was fascinating for me while watching YouTubeLand was the fact that I went through the exact same frustrations that every other YouTubber in the film experienced. The internal conflict with the concept of fame or popularity, wanting it yet not wanting it, none the less a fame that never came, the illusionary community that the internet is supposed to provide but yet fails to actually consummate, the frustrating reality that the average human occupying an IP address is not looking for enlightenment so much as they are looking for entertainment, and that this entertainment comes easiest when delivered through the medium of observing our own stupidity as a human race.

This tool, the internet, so long promised by every visionary that approaches it, to be some sort of medium for the sharing of wisdom, for the education and enlightenment of humankind, is used for barely more than a few giggles.

And here is the irony...

While I yet know that all of this is the fact of our existence. I can't help but want to write something inspiring... I want to point to a better way of thinking, I want to point to the exit sign that leads out of this silly theater wherein is preformed the daily drama, not of good vs evil, but of adolescent battle between mere opposing opinion. And I'd love to lead as many as would follow out the door under that exit sign. But every one grabs my arm and leg and shirt and says, "No... we are still enjoying the show..."

And so I continue to pull and try to get away from the persistent giggling...

my life is mired in irony.

~Floyd.

Here's the Noose, People, You decide.

While I may not be a fan of Obama, I am an enemy of Political B.S. And frankly at the moment, Obama is about to become the victim of a lot of political B.S.

Over the past several months, The citizenship of President Barack H. Obama has been called into question and this topic has only continued to increase in volume as time has stretched on. Today it was the lunchtime talking point between my coworkers. While I fully understand the implications of this accusation and the pending impeachment if it holds true and all the rest of the following consequences, I really don't see a logical way through this impasse.

"But Floyd, If he would just produce his birth certificate, that would prove once and for all if he is a citizen of this country."

*Evil glare*

Ok, let's think about this for a moment. Lets say he hands over his Birth Certificate. There are three scenarios that play out from here.

Scenario 1. Barack admits he is not a native born citizen of this country, He is impeached, and all of the rest of the consequences ensue. Tea Partiests have, well, a party.

Scenario 2. So, you have Barack Obama who probably has plenty of access to funds/ bribes/ benefits that he could discretely offer out to top grade forgers who could reasonably pull off making a birth certificate. Then what happens, It goes to some "independent" agency who tries to check the validity of the forged birth certificate. Seeing as there are very few unbiased/ un-bribe-able independent agencies (The count comes to a grand total of Zero) the Birth Certificate goes to some independent agency who is either biased or bribed and they portray their results accordingly. A fight ensues no matter what the verdict is because whoever looses can easily claim that the group was unbiased and or bribed. In the end we still don't know for sure. Or, the Tea Party yells louder and swings the verdict in their favor and get Mr. Obama Thrown out of office. He is impeached and all the rest of the consequences ensue. Tea Partiests have, well, a party.

Scenario 3. Barack Obama really is a native born citizen of this country He produces his legitimate birth certificate. Then what happens, It goes to some "independent" agency who tries to check the validity of the legitimate birth certificate. Seeing as there are very few unbiased/ un-bribe-able independent agencies (The count comes to a grand total of Zero) the Birth Certificate goes to some independent agency who is either biased or bribed and they portray their results accordingly. A fight ensues no matter what the verdict is because whoever looses can easily claim that the group was unbiased and or bribed. In the end we still don't know for sure. Or, the Tea Party yells louder and swings the verdict in their favor and get Mr. Obama Thrown out of office. He is impeached and all the rest of the consequences ensue. Tea Partiests have, well, a party.

Are you noticing a pattern here?

There is no logical way that a snowball will stay solid for very long in a burning crematorium. Likewise, there is no logical reason for Barack H. Obama to give up any Birth Certificate of any kind, it would be like handing over a noose and asking to be hung.

On a personal note however. If I were Mr. Obama. I'd give up. I'd resign. I wouldn't care what they said about me. I would give one final scathing speech about all of the B.S. in this country. I would let everyone have what's coming to them. I would expose as much of the dirty underhanded corruption, and express the sheer ungovernability of this nation, by the fact that we no longer work together, and have individually become so corrupt ourselves. And with that I'd step down, move out of this country, and watch it slowly implode despite the desperate efforts of the government and the people. We'd better all get our act together. It's hitting the fan, and there isn't anything we can do to stop it.

~Floyd