Meta-Metta

2010-04-23T14:08:00.002Z

The Devil's Got A Gun To My Head
and he really wants me dead
but just forget it.

Burning lanterns cast out the shadows
Light dances in dark corners
The firefly with clipped wings still flutters

You can put me in a jar
fill it with milk and honey
make me sweet and fat and full

But the Lord has his hand on my head
he'll protect me from the dead
so just remember.

Templates for Mindfulness

2009-05-05T19:21:00.003Z

Life is a constant stream of new challenges and pitfalls. Around every corner, something pops up to snag us and pull us down, just as other things come into view that lead to greater clarity and joy in life. A book I've been reading recently ("In This Very Life", Sayadaw U Pandita), reminds us to 're-apply helpful conditions from the past', a practice which I have found very rewarding.

The key is simply to notice what sorts of events in your life lead to a state of flow. If you're not paying attention, the up and down swings may seem arbitrary or completely random, but if you look a little closer, it's pretty easy to see that's not the case. Sure, life will throw us a curve ball, but there are certain conditions that help tow the bottom line. These are probably different for everyone, but what follows are some of mine.

Keeping Things Neat

I work from home. That means that if I want to, I can really live in a giant, nasty mess, and the worst that might happen is my girlfriend might nag me from time to time. But when my place is clean, I work better. What's more, the act of cleaning and keeping things tidy feels refreshing in and of itself. It's hard to remember this when I'm stressed, or miserable, or bored, but in the end, less clutter in my room means less clutter in my mind.

Staying Productive

I'm generally happier when I'm getting stuff done. I'm lucky enough to say that pretty much all of the projects I work on, even my commercial work, is stuff that I value and want to see move forward. It's easy to flow when I'm working on something I'm passionate about. Day to day, the hardest thing for me is getting started, and the second hardest thing is to avoid getting distracted. Lately, I've been using the Pomodoro method, which has been working quite well when I use it, and in the past, I've used minimal ZTD and enjoyed it. The particular system doesn't matter so much as it does to have one and actually use it. Without that, I'm way too busy watching slap chop.

Keeping my Mind Sharp and my Heart Open

Though it's usually the first good habit that I break whenever I start feeling at ends with life, there are few things that come close to the transformative power that insight meditation has on my life. As it turns out, more and more geeks are getting into this stuff, so just like when people ask me how to install Ruby on OS X, I can tell you to go over to HiveLogic to get the lowdown on Mindfulness practice.

Lots of people value this sort of meditation as a form of effective mind hacking, and it's great for that. However, as a practicing Buddhist, I look at it as a vehicle to give me greater insights into deeper spiritual questions. What I do know is that when I pay attention to my actions, I'm more aware of the impact they have on others, and that in turn, changes the way that I look at things as well as the way I live my life.

I am happier when my stress doesn't pour out on other people in arguments, when I am not quick to judge or condemn, and when the spirit of generosity comes from within rather than via some ulterior motive. Mindfulness meditation, along with some studying of contemporary and classic Buddhist texts, helps me do those things.

Taking Care of my Body

Staying clean. Eating well. Getting up and moving about. Paying attention to posture. Not sleeping too much or too little. Taking breaks from work to make sure I'm well hydrated, and that I'm stretching whatever limbs have been falling asleep while I type. All these things sound simple, and are simple, but are easy to forget if your mind is elsewhere. I find if I listen to the physical signals my body sends me, and heed its advice, I'm rarely regretful.

I guess that pretty much sums it up. Just a few reminders to myself, and a call to anyone who might come across this to sit down for a few minutes and think about the things that improve their conditions in life. You can't control what happens day to day, but you can set the stage, and that is deeply tied to what will ultimately play out.

The other 338 pages of a 451 page "Emergency Rescue Bill"

2008-10-02T16:10:00.006Z

I'm pretty sure that between cheap Puerto Rican Rum (sec 308, DIV C) and protections from terrorists (sec 402, DIV C) will fix our mortgage problems right away!

Here's the table of contents for what starts on page 113 of 451:

DIVISION B

TITLE I—ENERGY PRODUCTION INCENTIVES

Subtitle A—Renewable Energy Incentives
Sec. 101. Renewable energy credit.
Sec. 102. Production credit for electricity produced from marine renewables.
Sec. 103. Energy credit.
Sec. 104. Energy credit for small wind property.
Sec. 105. Energy credit for geothermal heat pump systems.
Sec. 106. Credit for residential energy efficient property.
Sec. 107. New clean renewable energy bonds.
Sec. 108. Credit for steel industry fuel.
Sec. 109. Special rule to implement FERC and State electric restructuring pol-
icy.
Subtitle B—Carbon Mitigation and Coal Provisions
Sec. 111. Expansion and modification of advanced coal project investment cred-
it.
Sec. 112. Expansion and modification of coal gasification investment credit.
Sec. 113. Temporary increase in coal excise tax; funding of Black Lung Dis-
ability Trust Fund.
Sec. 114. Special rules for refund of the coal excise tax to certain coal pro-
ducers and exporters.
Sec. 115. Tax credit for carbon dioxide sequestration.
Sec. 116. Certain income and gains relating to industrial source carbon dioxide
treated as qualifying income for publicly traded partnerships.
Sec. 117. Carbon audit of the tax code.
TITLE II—TRANSPORTATION AND DOMESTIC FUEL SECURITY
PROVISIONS
Sec. 201. Inclusion of cellulosic biofuel in bonus depreciation for biomass eth-
anol plant property.
Sec. 202. Credits for biodiesel and renewable diesel.
Sec. 203. Clarification that credits for fuel are designed to provide an incentive
for United States production.
Sec. 204. Extension and modification of alternative fuel credit.
Sec. 205. Credit for new qualified plug-in electric drive motor vehicles.
Sec. 206. Exclusion from heavy truck tax for idling reduction units and ad-
vanced insulation.
Sec. 207. Alternative fuel vehicle refueling property credit.
Sec. 208. Certain income and gains relating to alcohol fuels and mixtures, bio-
diesel fuels and mixtures, and alternative fuels and mixtures
treated as qualifying income for publicly traded partnerships.
Sec. 209. Extension and modification of election to expense certain refineries.
Sec. 210. Extension of suspension of taxable income limit on percentage deple-
tion for oil and natural gas produced from marginal properties.
Sec. 211. Transportation fringe benefit to bicycle commuters.
TITLE III—ENERGY CONSERVATION AND EFFICIENCY
PROVISIONS
Sec. 301. Qualified energy conservation bonds.
Sec. 302. Credit for nonbusiness energy property.
Sec. 303. Energy efficient commercial buildings deduction.
Sec. 304. New energy efficient home credit.
Sec. 305. Modifications of energy efficient appliance credit for appliances pro-
duced after 2007.
Sec. 306. Accelerated recovery period for depreciation of smart meters and
smart grid systems.
Sec. 307. Qualified green building and sustainable design projects.
Sec. 308. Special depreciation allowance for certain reuse and recycling prop-
erty.
TITLE IV—REVENUE PROVISIONS
Sec. 401. Limitation of deduction for income attributable to domestic produc-
tion of oil, gas, or primary products thereof.
Sec. 402. Elimination of the different treatment of foreign oil and gas extrac-
tion income and foreign oil related income for purposes of the
foreign tax credit.
Sec. 403. Broker reporting of customer’s basis in securities transactions.
Sec. 404. 0.2 percent FUTA surtax.
Sec. 405. Increase and extension of Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund tax.

DIVISION C

Sec. 1. Short title; amendment of 1986 Code; table of contents.
TITLE I—ALTERNATIVE MINIMUM TAX RELIEF
Sec. 101. Extension of alternative minimum tax relief for nonrefundable per-
sonal credits.
Sec. 102. Extension of increased alternative minimum tax exemption amount.
Sec. 103. Increase of AMT refundable credit amount for individuals with long-
term unused credits for prior year minimum tax liability, etc.
TITLE II—EXTENSION OF INDIVIDUAL TAX PROVISIONS
Sec. 201. Deduction for State and local sales taxes.
Sec. 202. Deduction of qualified tuition and related expenses.
262
Sec. 203. Deduction for certain expenses of elementary and secondary school
teachers.
Sec. 204. Additional standard deduction for real property taxes for non-
itemizers.
Sec. 205. Tax-free distributions from individual retirement plans for charitable
purposes.
Sec. 206. Treatment of certain dividends of regulated investment companies.
Sec. 207. Stock in RIC for purposes of determining estates of nonresidents not
citizens.
Sec. 208. Qualified investment entities.
TITLE III—EXTENSION OF BUSINESS TAX PROVISIONS
Sec. 301. Extension and modification of research credit.
Sec. 302. New markets tax credit.
Sec. 303. Subpart F exception for active financing income.
Sec. 304. Extension of look-thru rule for related controlled foreign corporations.
Sec. 305. Extension of 15-year straight-line cost recovery for qualified leasehold
improvements and qualified restaurant improvements; 15-year
straight-line cost recovery for certain improvements to retail
space.
Sec. 306. Modification of tax treatment of certain payments to controlling ex-
empt organizations.
Sec. 307. Basis adjustment to stock of S corporations making charitable con-
tributions of property.
Sec. 308. Increase in limit on cover over of rum excise tax to Puerto Rico and
the Virgin Islands.
Sec. 309. Extension of economic development credit for American Samoa.
Sec. 310. Extension of mine rescue team training credit.
Sec. 311. Extension of election to expense advanced mine safety equipment.
Sec. 312. Deduction allowable with respect to income attributable to domestic
production activities in Puerto Rico.
Sec. 313. Qualified zone academy bonds.
Sec. 314. Indian employment credit.
Sec. 315. Accelerated depreciation for business property on Indian reservations.
Sec. 316. Railroad track maintenance.
Sec. 317. Seven-year cost recovery period for motorsports racing track facility.
Sec. 318. Expensing of environmental remediation costs.
Sec. 319. Extension of work opportunity tax credit for Hurricane Katrina em-
ployees.
Sec. 320. Extension of increased rehabilitation credit for structures in the Gulf
Opportunity Zone.
Sec. 321. Enhanced deduction for qualified computer contributions.
Sec. 322. Tax incentives for investment in the District of Columbia.
Sec. 323. Enhanced charitable deductions for contributions of food inventory.
Sec. 324. Extension of enhanced charitable deduction for contributions of book
inventory.
Sec. 325. Extension and modification of duty suspension on wool products; wool
research fund; wool duty refunds.
TITLE IV—EXTENSION OF TAX ADMINISTRATION PROVISIONS
Sec. 401. Permanent authority for undercover operations.
Sec. 402. Permanent authority for disclosure of information relating to terrorist
activities.
TITLE V—ADDITIONAL TAX RELIEF AND OTHER TAX
PROVISIONS
Subtitle A—General Provisions
Sec. 501. $8,500 income threshold used to calculate refundable portion of child
tax credit.
Sec. 502. Provisions related to film and television productions.
Sec. 503. Exemption from excise tax for certain wooden arrows designed for
use by children.
Sec. 504. Income averaging for amounts received in connection with the Exxon
Valdez litigation.
Sec. 505. Certain farming business machinery and equipment treated as 5-year
property.
Sec. 506. Modification of penalty on understatement of taxpayer’s liability by
tax return preparer.
Subtitle B—Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and
Addiction Equity Act of 2008
Sec. 511. Short title.
Sec. 512. Mental health parity.
TITLE VI—OTHER PROVISIONS
Sec. 601. Secure rural schools and community self-determination program.
Sec. 602. Transfer to abandoned mine reclamation fund.
TITLE VII—DISASTER RELIEF
Subtitle A—Heartland and Hurricane Ike Disaster Relief
Sec. 701. Short title.
Sec. 702. Temporary tax relief for areas damaged by 2008 Midwestern severe
storms, tornados, and flooding.
Sec. 703. Reporting requirements relating to disaster relief contributions.
Sec. 704. Temporary tax-exempt bond financing and low-income housing tax re-
lief for areas damaged by Hurricane Ike.
Subtitle B—National Disaster Relief
Sec. 706. Losses attributable to federally declared disasters.
Sec. 707. Expensing of Qualified Disaster Expenses.
Sec. 708. Net operating losses attributable to federally declared disasters.
Sec. 709. Waiver of certain mortgage revenue bond requirements following fed-
erally declared disasters.
Sec. 710. Special depreciation allowance for qualified disaster property.
Sec. 711. Increased expensing for qualified disaster assistance property.
Sec. 712. Coordination with Heartland disaster relief.
TITLE VIII—SPENDING REDUCTIONS AND APPROPRIATE
REVENUE RAISERS FOR NEW TAX RELIEF POLICY
Sec. 801. Nonqualified deferred compensation from certain tax indifferent par-
ties.

My concerns about the Senate financial services bill, without commentary

2008-10-02T14:43:00.010Z

The news sources I've read seem to be devoid of direct references to parts of this mega-bill the Senate just passed, so I decided to give it a quick skim. The items on the list are the ones that caught my eye as cause for concern.

You can grab the bill via C-SPAN

SEC. 101. PURCHASES OF TROUBLED ASSETS.
(c) Necessary Actions (especially 1 and 3)

SEC 107 CONTRACTING PROCEDURES.
(a) Streamlined Process
(b) Additional Contracting Requirements

SEC. 113. MINIMIZATION OF LONG-TERM COSTS AND MAXIMIZATION OF BENEFITS FOR TAXPAYERS.
(d) CONDITIONS ON PURCHASE AUTHORITY FOR WARRANTS AND DEBT INSTRUMENTS
(3) EXCEPTIONS (especially (A))

SEC. 115. GRADUATED AUTHORIZATION TO PURCHASE.
(a) Authority

SEC. 119. JUDICIAL REVIEW AND RELATED MATTERS.
(a) Judicial Review
(3) LIMITATION ON ACTIONS BY PARTICIPATING COMPANIES

SEC. 122. INCREASE IN STATUTORY LIMIT ON THE PUBLIC DEBT.

SEC. 125. CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT PANEL.
(c) Membership
(2) PAY

SEC. 136. TEMPORARY INCREASE IN DEPOSIT AND SHARE INSURANCE COVERAGE.
(a) Temporary Increase in Deposit Insurance
(1) INCREASED AMOUNT

DIVISION B—ENERGY IMPROVEMENT AND EXTENSION ACT
(all of this division)

DIVISION C—TAX EXTENDERS AND ALTERNATIVE MINIMUM TAX RELIEF
(all of this division)

Please consider taking a look at just the table of contents for Division B and C. Then, decide for yourself (regardless of their relative merit), whether they have anything to do with Division A.

If anyone has any comments or questions about the sections above, or issues of their own with this bill, feel free to post them here for discussion or contact your state representatives.

旧金山之旅

2008-09-30T16:45:00.008Z

Celebrating with the groom's dad, who taught me that Chinese drink wine like shots.

Arugula: The Rocket Plant you can cook with!

2008-08-12T18:59:00.005Z

Sometimes, OS X makes me chuckle. A simple 'Also know as...' would have made this far less entertaining.

No more programming here

2008-08-06T16:52:00.002Z

When I started this blog, I wanted to make it about 'whatever I wanted to talk about'. Despite the enjoyment of writing that way, only a handful of people might enjoy reading that sort of blog, which might explain the lack of comments here.

So, I've decided to start up a new blog that's dedicated to just technical content. Though it makes me a little bit sad that people are often only interested in what you excel at rather than simply what you like to do, I think this approach will be better, allowing me to focus on greater quality on the other blog, and allowing this blog to devolve into a playground for my vaguely artistic interests.

Depending on what you like, you'll be getting more of it either way.

These boys are not brothers, they are friends

2008-08-02T19:36:00.003Z

It's really interesting how Rosetta Stone uses visual learning to teach language, and I'm often really impressed by their way of coming up with suitable imagery to teach sort of complicated concepts.

This one is "These boys are not brothers, they are friends", from my Chinese language version:

I thought the use of race difference was a bit surprising, but then I thought about it. How else might this concept be illustrated? I couldn't think of a better way, but does anyone have any ideas?

"September 11th" Security Fee

2008-07-29T15:22:00.001Z

Jia just booked our flights for Lone Star RubyConf and for the first time ever, I noticed the "September 11th" Security Fee on our bill. I rarely even look at my flight confirmations, but this got me a bit confused.

I looked it up, and sure enough on the TSA website, a $2.50 fee is charged every time anyone gets on a plane in the US. Great, so not only do I need to be treated like a criminal at the airport, stripping off my shoes and belt and holding my laptop out in its own tray, ensuring it lays flat for inspection, while I try to dig the loose change out of my pockets to avoid getting a metal detector jammed between my legs... I need to also pay for the pleasure of doing this.

I know the money to pay for the TSA has to come from somewhere, and if this prevents too much of it from coming out of tax dollars, that's an improvement. However, why can't the airports / airlines pay for this? Despite the perceived 'security' the TSA offers to passengers, I think many people would be just as happy to fly out of an airport where they didn't need to go through in-processing comparable with most prisons. But just because the government is scared, we need to pay to make them feel more comfortable.

It's a shame that this money that goes to the "September 11th Security Fee", can't go to you know... paying for the costs of withdrawing the military from Iraq. Or for improving real homeland security, such as hiring people who won't um... ignore claims such as "We are going to fly planes into such and such buildings on such and such a date". Or maybe, and this is a crazy idea, we could use that money to reduce our foreign imperialism and increase our foreign civil aid programs. Any of those things would make me happy.

But as much as an idealist as I am, I can compromise. If you're going to ask me to pay for a service I despise, just call it "Security Fee". Don't throw September 11th in there to make me all weepy eyed and complacent. Don't make me feel like I'm doing my patriotic duty. Just let me know that I'm paying a Security Fee so Bruno the police academy dropout can ask me several questions about the magnetic Go board I sometimes bring on the plane. Then, I'll resume thinking that our government is just an inefficient, lumbering beast that can't quite figure out how to get things right, rather than some fascist state where nationalism can be used as an excuse to skim money out of every nook and cranny.

2008-07-21T16:46:00.001Z

The Great Wall between us wasn't built from stone and earth,
But this didn't make it any easier to penetrate.

I came in setting the world ablaze,
trying to thaw your frozen heart.

But my cultural revolution, left unchecked
went from a great leap forward to two steps back

And now that my fire has spread too far,
I need your cool waters to keep me safe.

My chaos and your calm, can work together.
We've learned how to love
now let's learn how to live
with each other.

After a Night of Being Drunken, Choose Dunkin

2008-06-18T21:22:00.009Z

If only product advertisements reflected real humanity, you might find things like this in a magazine spread:

The creepy picture of Paul and I shows a sharp contrast to this real advertisement:

I have to admit, the hot woman attempting to fellate the pile of donuts is definitely more sexy than our hung over, depressingly shirtless bodies, but what are you more likely to encounter in life?

A sheet of ice

2008-06-18T16:13:00.003Z

A sheet of ice, miles high, no end in sight
Climbs through the cold air towards the sun
Until it stops climbing, starts melting.
Drops of water cascade back to the earth
A fine mist at first, later a torrent
Forming rivers, lakes and oceans
Water a divine form of energy
Imbued with sunshine
Gives life to a single tree
And then another, and then a forest
The forest becomes home to rabbits
Chipmunks and geese, and the myriad creatures
The flora and fauna, hunted and gathered by man
Give rise to advanced civilization, to humanity
Man repays the earth with poison gas
First bringing a great warmth
Then bringing endless cold
Leaving nothing living in its wake
A sheet of ice, miles high, no end in sight.

Weathering the Storms

2008-06-09T04:18:00.009Z

The more I look at life, the more I realize that everything happens in cycles. We get all excited about some new way of looking at the world, and then the novelty value dies down. We're back where we used to be, or we're off on the next big quest to change our lives forever.

Sometimes, it's worse than that. We go on a diet only to start binge eating a week later. We spend three days chomping away at some big project we've been getting behind on only to let the whole thing collapse as soon as we hit another major roadblock.

Other times, our hopes let us down. We get in a fight with our lover, and then in another fight. Eventually, the fights lead to a really big blow out, and for a little while after that, all is calm. Wow! We've really made it now, we've figured out the source of our pain and suffering, and we've finally made it past it. We'll never fight again! Two days later and some bickering about who's turn it is to take out the trash ends in slamming doors and flowing tears. Who were we trying to fool?

Sometimes we can even see where things are headed before we make our decisions. This reminds me of watching the ending of a movie first, realizing it sucks, and then sitting through the whole thing from the beginning anyway. I have no idea why we do this. What I do know is that after careful observation of the last week or so, I know that if I sit down at my computer in the morning to check my email before doing other things, I'll stay there until the late afternoon. Every morning it's the same thing, "Oh, I'll just check my email quick, take a shower, have some breakfast, and then do a little meditation." Every morning
for a week, that has turned into sitting around, poking casually at Ruport and Prawn and some other projects while mostly wasting my time reading blogs and responding too excitedly to low priority emails. I haven't done my sitting practice in a week, and it's all because 'checking my email' takes about 6 hours, when you add in all the distractions and side tracks.

It seems like the more out of control we get, the easier it is to make it a habit. I think this is why we get fat, this is why we do drugs, or failing that, end up depressed and disdainful of society. When these feelings really set in deep, we are quick to say that we want to change. We want to change, but we're waiting for things to calm down on the job. Or we're going to turn things around, we just need a little more time to get our motivation up. Whatever the reason is, we can come up with infinite justifications for why tomorrow is the day that our lives will turn around for the better.

I say fuck that. I'm starting today. From all of this self-observation, I've found that when I eat too much, drink too much, fall behind on my work, get mad at my girlfriend, and generally act miserable, I feel miserable. When I sit around being lazy, dreading the things I need to get done, I have a near constant feeling of self-doubt and unhappiness.

When I get off my ass and do something I'm supposed to do, I feel incredible. When I go out and get some exercise, I feel like I've given my body a gift, just showing a tiny bit of appreciation for this bag of skin and bones that needs to hold up for as long as I'm in this world. When I can sit down and have a conversation with someone and have my mind and heart fully present for them, I feel the immense joy of connecting with them. When I'm not carrying the sort of stress and self-loathing that comes with being pre-occupied about all the things I'm supposed to be doing and haven't done, I'm much less likely to have negative feelings to project onto others.

The world is better when we yield to our sense of duty. So long as our responsibilities are really things that are vital or at least complimentary to our well being, fulfilling them brings immense joy. Every day, we're immersed in a hurricane full of temptations and tribulations. Amazingly, what I'm starting to realize is that as humans, our purpose isn't to keep running away to dryer climates, or hiding under our pathetic little umbrellas. It's our job to weather the storm. If we can do this, there is tremendous satisfaction to be had.

The problems we face are simultaneously hard and simple. But the truth of it all, is that we need to figure out how to live. We've all got our problems we've been itching to fix. I say, anyone who reads this, take up the challenge to start in on them and make a change. If you're not doing it for yourself, do it for your friends, your family, your co-workers or your partner. Realize that you're not too weak to face all the things that seem to be controlling you, and then prove it.

We can't expect to escape from our problems overnight, that'd be underestimating the forces we're up against substantially. What we can do is whenever we're given a choice between improving our life and making more problems, we can choose the former. When we choose the latter, we can learn from it and pick up where we left off. Let's look at mistakes as nothing more than bumps in the road, rather than letting them derail us.

For the next month, I'm going to try to carry a single thought in my mind, and that is to change my life for the better. I'll post a month from now and let folks know how it goes. If you're interested in taking up this challenge too, let me know. It'd be a great joy to know that there are others out there doing this with me.

It isn't a huge commitment. It's thousands of tiny ones, all trivially easy to do on their own. It might start with not having an extra donut, or not flipping off that asshole who cuts you off in traffic. It might arise from cleaning your apartment or calling your brother who you haven't been on good terms with for a while. Start with anything simple and positive, and place one foot in front of the other from one positive action to the next. If you get side-tracked, just pick back up with a simple task and move forward from there, don't beat up on yourself. Maybe we can't change the world this way, but we can at least bring a little more happiness to our day to day life, and that's a start.

Joy to the Word

2008-05-28T17:02:00.005Z

Maybe I'll be a terrorist when I grow up,
that's something you'll never hear in America.
I'm having a beer with breakfast,
allegedly because I want to see if my brew is ready yet.
The taste does take me away from fighting through the night
wipe tears off the window sill, wipe fears off my heart.

Maybe I'll be a preacher when I grow up,
but then America might brand me a racist or a pedophile
I'm breaking a mirror at lunch,
supposedly because I believe bad luck can cancel out
Flowing blood does take me away from a heart beating in fright
Brush stains from the tiles, brush fire from my mind

Maybe I'll be a troubadour when I'm all grown,
but in America we call them the homeless and demented.
I'm killing a dove at dinner,
purportedly because peace lies on the opposite end of war
Broken wings do take me away from a mind lost in flight
Glide a knife across the tabletop, glide sorrow across my soul.

But maybe for a moment, I'll just stop and listen.
I'll open my eyes and see this moment for what it is.

Then I'll just be a poet, and through that I'll grow
Not an American, no need to call that place my home.
I'm writing some prose before bedtime,
simply because my words have crawled out from my fingertips
Violent verse doesn't necessarily imply a violent mind.
Speak truth in pretty lies, Speak in parts about the whole.

My New Time Clock

2008-05-22T20:17:00.009Z


require "rubygems"
require "rbosa"
require 'ruby-growl'

def make_it_rain
 itunes = OSA.app('iTunes')                     
 itunes.back_track
 track = itunes.current_playlist.search("Let It Rain")[0]
 track.start = 15
 track.finish = 42
 track.play(:once => true)

 g = Growl.new "localhost", "ruby-growl",
             ["ruby-growl Notification"]
 g.notify "ruby-growl Notification", "Make It Rain!",
      "$$$$$$$$$$ "* Integer(@money / 100)
end

print "Hourly Rainfall? " 
rate = Float(gets)    

time = 0
next_hundred = 1

start_time = Time.now

trap("INT") do
 puts "\nYou worked for " +
 "#{'%0.2f' % ((Time.now - start_time) / 60) } minutes"
 exit
end

loop do
 sleep 5
 time += 5
 puts "$ #{'%0.2f' % @money = (time / 60.0 / 60.0) * rate}"
 if @money.to_f / 100 >= next_hundred
   next_hundred += 1
   make_it_rain
 end      
end

Because everyone wants a small celebration complete with hip-hop and dollar signs filling the screen every 100 dollars they make!

El camino del Rey

2008-05-15T20:12:00.000Z

Anyone want to go with me?

Recursive Dreams are Scary

2008-05-12T15:46:00.003Z

Last night I had a rather creepy experience. Though I can't be sure, it might have been due to the combination of a late night meal, over tiredness, and doing a short but intense Vipassana session right before bed. Anyway, the scary thing was that I dreamed I couldn't wake up.

I've got really good dream recall, and have been practicing gaining lucidity in dreams for many years now. Realizing I'm dreaming is not a big surprise to me, and it happens maybe once a week or so on average. A common side effect of beginning to influence your dreams once you realize you are dreaming is that you tend to wake up.

This time the problem was every time I realized I was dreaming and started poking around at things, my wakeup was false. I was dreaming that I woke up. This has happened to me before, and usually just means I've lost my lucidity and that leads me back to the normal chaotic realm of dreams. This time I remained fully aware of what was going on.

As this continued to happen, I began to get more panicked, and with it, my dreams become more frightening. The thing more-or-less started when I walked into the hallway of our apartment and found a room that didn't really exist in our building, and my mom suddenly appeared.

From that, I went to waking up in the bed with my girlfriend kneeling over me crying saying "Please don't kill yourself". Then when I started to float, I knew that was a dream, and woke up again, this time wishing to wake her up and make sure what I dreamed wasn't real. When I tried to get her to roll over, she spun in place but her back was always to me. So I woke up again.

This time there is a sickly looking dog laying at the foot of the bed and she's crying again, "You know I love animals!". At this point my mind starts getting so tightened up, I start frantically repeating "I have to wake up".

Thoughts go back to "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and at the time I'm cursing the movie for feeding my imagination, because as powerful of a scene that is to see, it sucks to live through it.

I start thinking more existentially: "Why can't I wake up?". My mind recalls all of the lucidity triggers it can, in an attempt to gain control of the nose-diving jet my brain has been piloting through all of this. Each time I wake up, I try to float. Again and again, it works. Fuck!

I look at the clock and the numbers are all fuzzy. Doesn't matter, I keep falling asleep and waking up and each time things get blurrier and slower and foggier. I feel like the scene around me is melting and that my muscles and arms are mush. I look out the side window ready to resign....

Wait, the side window? Our bed faces the window. Eureka!

Moments later I'm kissing my sleepy girlfriend and rambling on about my scary dreams and I'm sure that even if she was humoring me for the moment, she'd rather get back to bed. After a few minutes I calm down, knowing for sure that I was no longer dreaming.

What a wild ride that was, but I'm glad it's behind me. Oh crap... I'm starting to float again.

Good ol' Kerouac

2008-05-09T18:55:00.000Z

On Courage, Take Two

2008-04-21T03:40:00.002Z

Nothing takes more courage than truly loving someone.

I am blessed with that opportunity now.

Judgement of Solomon

2008-04-16T17:48:00.008Z

From Kings 3:16-28

16 Now two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. 17 One of them said, "My lord, this woman and I live in the same house. I had a baby while she was there with me. 18 The third day after my child was born, this woman also had a baby. We were alone; there was no one in the house but the two of us.
19 "During the night this woman's son died because she lay on him. 20 So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while I your servant was asleep. She put him by her breast and put her dead son by my breast. 21 The next morning, I got up to nurse my son—and he was dead! But when I looked at him closely in the morning light, I saw that it wasn't the son I had borne."
22 The other woman said, "No! The living one is my son; the dead one is yours."
But the first one insisted, "No! The dead one is yours; the living one is mine." And so they argued before the king.
23 The king said, "This one says, 'My son is alive and your son is dead,' while that one says, 'No! Your son is dead and mine is alive.' "
24 Then the king said, "Bring me a sword." So they brought a sword for the king. 25 He then gave an order: "Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other."
26 The woman whose son was alive was filled with compassion for her son and said to the king, "Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don't kill him!"
But the other said, "Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!"
27 Then the king gave his ruling: "Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother."
28 When all Israel heard the verdict the king had given, they held the king in awe, because they saw that he had wisdom from God to administer justice.

This is a well known story, anyone who's grown up anywhere near a bible will recognize it, and so will many of those who have not. To me, it's a particularly beautiful one, too. It shows the triumph of selfless compassion over jealous attachment, and praises Solomon for his clear and just decision. But like most things biblical, this is just a story, an ideal for us to make room for in our hearts. Reality is often much more harsh.

Not all Kings are as wise as Solomon. A disinterested King may have said '"Fine, if you are willing to give up the baby, problem solved." No blood would be shed, but the damage would still be done. It seems to me that in our society, not many value the kind of selflessness and willingness to sacrifice that this story portrays. Has the world really changed so much since the time of Solomon?

Or maybe the problem is actually a different one. Maybe there just aren't very many kings at all any more. How would this story change if these two women were left to resolve this issue on their own? One thing is for sure, the claim of the first woman would be put to the test. How likely is it that the second woman, after hearing this selfless proclamation, would give up her jealousy and attachment in the name of what was truly right for the child? How likely is it that the first woman, if faced with actually having to give up her child, would actually do it even if she knew that she was the right one to take care of the child? Could her selfless words transform into selfless action? This story gives us no insight into that.

What of the child? Would he know the difference one way or another? If all the baby craved was milk and a warm arm to cuddle in, the two 'mothers' would appear about the same to him. Without preference, without a basis for comparison, the baby would be lost to fate, having no ability to know who he truly belonged with.

When I say that I think the story of Solomon's Judgement is beautiful, I mean it. But most of what makes it beautiful to me is how complicated the situation gets when you take out the wise ruler and the triumph of compassion over selfishness, and you begin to look at what it means to really let go in the name of love. It is a risky road to walk, and doesn't always have a happy ending.

The question is whether it is a path worth taking in the first place, and though I believe in my heart it is, that's a tough hand of cards to play when dealt.

My Own Walden

2008-04-15T14:40:00.008Z

For the last couple days, I've been daydreaming a lot about my cabin in northern Vermont. It is really way up there, in a tiny town called Lunenburg which is almost in Canada:

This place has no running water, no phone service, and no centralized heating. It has been in my family for generations, as a 'camp' or refuge. My dad is a factory worker and though I know little about his side of the family, I think they too went that route. Our Vermont cabin was a place they could go to forget about the daily grind and be immersed in the beautiful peace and quiet of nature.

The cabin is on a dirt road that is a couple miles long with only two neighbors. Except for our cabin and the two other houses up there, there is nothing but forest surrounding the lands. I always found it amazing that we had a brook running right alongside our property. As a little kid I spent hours upon hours splashing around in the mud, eating raspberries, and keeping an eye out for moose and bear. I didn't usually see them, but sometimes I did.

High up in the mountains, thunder sounds different. Instead of a clap of noise coming down from the sky, the thunder at the cabin sounded like it was rising up out of the ground, like a struck bass drum. The wind was like this too, you could feel the ground breathing.

The morning smelled like morning, and I have no idea how to put that in words. Something about the evaporating dew on leaves and pine needles leaves an unmistakable scent. At night, the air was cool and crisp, even in the warmer months.

My mom always used to say that the mountains were beautiful because they looked different every time she looked at them. This is of course, true. Go there in the fall and you'd be convinced God was a painter, in the winter, that he was a skier. Though you rarely needed to wait for the seasons to change, the mountains wore their emotions on their sleeves, and you could see their darkness in rain, and brightness in the sunshine.

When I think of looking at the stars on a clear night from this tiny cabin, I realize this is where I met God, not in my force-fed religious schooling. When I think about this, it makes me want to show my own kids this some day. I want them to see that beauty and wonder are all around them, not just crammed up in some books to be passed down by holy men.

This tiny little cabin, with barely enough room to fit a family, became a warm place at night. My family didn't usually spend a lot of time together, but when we were there, it was different. My mom and dad would play Setback, my brother and I would play the good old NES on a TV that barely worked because it was used so infrequently. We'd all eat our meals together, and we'd laugh together.

Ever since I was little, I always dreamed about going up there with someone I loved, to spend a quiet weekend and explore together. New Hampshire's White Mountains aren't far, and places like Franconia Notch or Mt. Washington are too amazing to describe. Actually, this almost happened once, with Emily. She got really sick half of the way through the trip though, and we ended up at the hospital and my childhood dreams were somewhat dashed by the cold reality of life. Nevertheless, this is still one of my 'dream vacations' because it seems so romantic.

When things started to go bad between my parents, we stopped going to the cabin so much. It got into disrepair, and really started to fall apart. I think it took a while for my Dad to get his heart back into it after they split, but these days, he's up there working on it most weekends in the summer. Though I'm sure he enjoys the work on its own, I know why he's doing it overall. He wants to pass this down to me and my brother, the way his parents did to him and his brothers. He's the only one who uses it, and I think the same thing will happen with me.

Still, you can bet that even if I end up doing something crazy like trying to raise a family in Boston or NYC, I'll be spending some weekends up there. If for nothing else, to show a new generation a glimpse of more simple times, where high speed internet wasn't as essential as food, water, and basic shelter. How many kids in America these days have ever even used an outdoor toilet? My guess is not so many, but mine will.

We don't need to throw away our creature comforts or renounce the convenience of modern society, but we need to be careful not to forget about what is pure, simple, and natural. My cabin gives me a great opportunity to remember that.

On Courage

2008-04-14T18:00:00.005Z

For some reason when I think of courage, I think of some ridiculously masculine quality, like a hero blasting through enemy lines to save a damsel in distress, and maybe some babies, too. You know, something like Rambo.

This of course, is extraordinarily silly. Though war-time heroes romanticize the notion of courage and make for good cinematic value, real courage comes in many forms, most of them far more subtle.

Even if it's not blood, guts, and burning bodies, sometimes the courage involved in self-control is as admirable as any heroic conquest. It takes a tremendous amount to know that before you can run, you need to walk. And sometimes, on a hurt ankle, you may need to stand still for a while before you can go anywhere at all.

It takes great strength to utter the words "I'm not sure". We spend all our lives trying to be so sure of ourselves, that we forget that we don't always need to have all the answers. The act of creating the needed time and space between yourself and the sources of your confusion is a challenging, honorable task. We always forget this. We think the world demands us to figure out our problems 'right now', which is probably half the source of our problems.

Perhaps the most courageous thing of all is realizing that as life changes, our needs change. That our seemingly natural attachment to that which brought us a sense of completeness and satisfaction isn't always natural after all, and the courage comes in braving the storm of breaking old bonds to form the new ones that are needed to allow your heart to grow.

Of course, there is a balancing truth that sometimes we are taken from that which is really most important to us by the passions of the present moment, looking at the world through rose coloured glasses. This too, takes tremendous courage to deal with. Gently stepping away from temptation back to which makes you feel wholesome and skillful is no easy task.

To me, a very difficult practice has been to acquire a "don't know" mind. A mind that finds itself attracted to the wholesome and gently detached from the unwholesome without any prejudice about how 'Things are supposed to be'. It takes a lot of guts to be able to live this way and simultaneously offer a sense of stability and fidelity to those you love. However, wouldn't it be great to master this skill?

Sometimes courage involves knowing what not to say, and when not to say it. So I'll stop writing now. :)

Alice, Who The Fuck Is Alice?

2008-04-14T17:46:00.004Z

Louis Hunter, AKA Hunter Blue, AKA Chicken Delicious.

A rare and wonderful find at Mimi's piano bar in NYC, one of my favorite places on earth.

Hunter is the one that told me I was 'like a fucking comet'

Priceless

2008-04-13T18:11:00.003Z

Love for Akron/Family

2008-04-13T16:54:00.005Z

I like all sorts of music, but for some reason, when I'm feeling sad, Akron/Family reaches directly into my heart and brings me warmth.

sorrowed boy
with so much mind
you look so tired
with glassy eyes
your quiet pain
i feel the hum
beneath the surface
a steady drum
you're like a child
when you've been wronged
your heart is aching
but you're still strong
come back alive
when stars collide
you can feel the universe
behind your eyes
and you find your body
in between the waves
a sonic haven
for the lonely days
your mood so mellow
how your colors bloom
you steal the evening
from an empty room
and i might not of seen you
if i looked too hard
but i just gave up
and here you are
you'll sweet the sound
and break the melody
that was already broken
now it's fixed for me

not everyone's the way you are
you are a blood star

- Sorrow Boy - Akron/Family

Learning Mandarin

2008-04-13T04:43:00.003Z

On not killing bugs

2008-04-13T02:43:00.003Z

People who have spent some time with me over the last year or so may have seen me do something which seems quite silly on the surface. If I find bugs in my apartment, I usually do not kill them, instead I chase them around and try to capture them and then relocate them to just outside my door. I don't blame people for thinking this is a little weird, it is. However, this is one of the more rewarding practices I've integrated into my day to day life, and maybe with a little explanation, it will seem a little less silly.

For most of my life, the reaction to a small gnat or moth flying near me was simple and automatic. It can be described in one word, clap. With a single blow, the bug would fly no more, would stay away from the TV or from my face, or whatever. It could be flicked off to the floor or wrapped up in a tissue and discarded. Problem solved!

But after learning a bit about the Dharma, and reading a bit about those who practice compassion for all sentient beings, from humans on down to mosquitoes, it struck a chord with me. I especially found this behaviour to be quite beautiful on retreat, where on more than one occasion I saw a random yogi chasing after some small insect with a cup and a napkin, trying to catch it to bring it outdoors. This action could not be summed up in a single word, it was distinctly different than the death clap that most of us have successfully mastered on the front lines of the war on insects.

I must admit, it is quite difficult for me to comprehend the notion that even an insect has sentience and the precious sparks that separate living entities from non-living entities. I think it is wonderful that some people have reached a level of compassion great enough to deeply value all forms of life, but I don't think I'm there yet. Instead, I look at this practice for its metaphorical value.

When you take a few moments out of your day to safely remove some insect from your living space rather than eradicating it effortlessly, it is an opportunity to remember how precious life really is. I find that by doing this, it helps me apply compassion and loving-kindness in the more crucial parts of my life, especially when dealing with people. Though it is always a challenge to remain mindful, I think that this has helped prevent me from death clapping people in conversations at least a few times, and has cultivated a greater sense of the value of simply being alive in my heart.

One indication of the influence of this practice on my life is that for a little while, I started killing bugs again. In the late months of summer, some fruit flies started to make my apartment a permanent home for themselves, and they became sufficiently annoying for me to start killing them on sight. Though it occurred to me another option would have been to keep my apartment a bit cleaner, I didn't really think much of it.

However, now that I look back on it, the period of time in which I was killing insects was around the same time that I stopped meditating for a few months. It's not that I think my sitting practice makes me some sort of insect messiah, but this does make me feel like the two are certainly connected.

So this is why I do not kill bugs, and why I hope that I can keep up with this practice. We owe it to ourselves to really understand what it means to be alive. Without this, we may end us mindlessly clapping our way through a graveyard of beings we've killed out of convenience or lack of compassion.

If we can remember to avoid killing a moth, leaving a little space in our hearts for patience and calm when someone cuts the line in the grocery store becomes a whole lot easier. If we can learn to love even the most insignificant beings, our most significant connections will become all the more precious to us.

Joyful Attachment

2008-04-11T15:41:00.005Z

The last few days I've been experiencing some rather strange feelings. These unsurprisingly arise from my oh-so-complicated romantic life. However, as the title of this post suggests, I've felt a sense of 'joyful attachment', and I don't really know what to make of it.

As a Buddhist, I recognize that attachment is a root cause of suffering. That by clinging to things, we ultimately stand to be hurt when they change or fade away. I don't know whether it's dust in my eyes, or what it is, but for the last few days I've mostly been saying 'so what' when I feel the effects of my attachment to this one particular person.

Sometimes a skillful way of dealing with attachment is to use some restraint, to put some distance between yourself and the object of your attraction. Once this is established, it is possible to see the attachment for what it really is, and that in and of itself tends to lead to more skillful actions and the loosening of the binding feelings of attachment.

At least, for me, that has worked for things in the past. Right now, I'm totally ignoring any sort of common sense or rationality. The only subtle difference between what I'm doing now and utter blindness is that I can see the risk of a train wreck up ahead. I know that if I'm not careful, pouring so much passion and energy into something will derail us.

It's like my mind is telling me that some space is needed, if nothing else, to catch up on the more mundane bits in life. But something else, some deep and powerful energy is telling me, the more attached I get, the more joyful this whole thing is. I'm actually liking the feeling of the danger of the whole thing, I'm excited at the risks that it brings, and that's a tenuous state to be in. I'm used to feeling like attachment eats away at me, steals energy and makes me feel all tied up. Instead, I feel energized, the more I dive into this.

It's times like these where my practice is most difficult of all. I actually long to simply accept the fact that I'm love-drunk and stupid, and I really want to ride out that wave. But there is something within me that demands a higher level of awareness and compassion. I know in my heart that some skillful renunciation combined with a sense of equanimity will be the only way to truly protect my heart and the hearts of those I care about.

It's easy to take a step back when things are going terribly, but so much harder to do so when you feel like things couldn't get any get better. But such strong feelings always need a little bit of quiet space to run their course, if you don't want to be steamrolled over by them.

I read this somewhere and I know it now more than ever, things have a way of sticking with you until they've taught you whatever lesson you're meant to learn from them. I have to be honest, life is a clandestine teacher sometimes.

My trip to Busch Gardens

2008-04-10T03:57:00.014Z

My brother took these pictures. As you can see, he really enjoyed the sky ride. A lot.

Murakami makes me sniffle

2008-04-06T21:22:00.002Z

Once upon a time, there lived a boy and a girl. The boy was eighteen and the girl sixteen. He was not unusually handsome, and she was not especially beautiful. They were just an ordinary lonely boy and an ordinary lonely girl, like all the others. But they believed with their whole hearts that somewhere in the world there lived the 100% perfect boy and the 100% perfect girl for them. Yes, they believed in a miracle. And that miracle actually happened.
One day the two came upon each other on the corner of a street.
"This is amazing," he said. "I've been looking for you all my life. You may not believe this, but you're the 100% perfect girl for me."
"And you," she said to him, "are the 100% perfect boy for me, exactly as I'd pictured you in every detail. It's like a dream."
They sat on a park bench, held hands, and told each other their stories hour after hour. They were not lonely anymore. They had found and been found by their 100% perfect other. What a wonderful thing it is to find and be found by your 100% perfect other. It's a miracle, a cosmic miracle.
As they sat and talked, however, a tiny, tiny sliver of doubt took root in their hearts: Was it really all right for one's dreams to come true so easily?
And so, when there came a momentary lull in their conversation, the boy said to the girl, "Let's test ourselves - just once. If we really are each other's 100% perfect lovers, then sometime, somewhere, we will meet again without fail. And when that happens, and we know that we are the 100% perfect ones, we'll marry then and there. What do you think?"
"Yes," she said, "that is exactly what we should do."
And so they parted, she to the east, and he to the west.
The test they had agreed upon, however, was utterly unnecessary. They should never have undertaken it, because they really and truly were each other's 100% perfect lovers, and it was a miracle that they had ever met. But it was impossible for them to know this, young as they were. The cold, indifferent waves of fate proceeded to toss them unmercifully.
One winter, both the boy and the girl came down with the season's terrible inluenza, and after drifting for weeks between life and death they lost all memory of their earlier years. When they awoke, their heads were as empty as the young D. H. Lawrence's piggy bank.
They were two bright, determined young people, however, and through their unremitting efforts they were able to acquire once again the knowledge and feeling that qualified them to return as full-fledged members of society. Heaven be praised, they became truly upstanding citizens who knew how to transfer from one subway line to another, who were fully capable of sending a special-delivery letter at the post office. Indeed, they even experienced love again, sometimes as much as 75% or even 85% love.
Time passed with shocking swiftness, and soon the boy was thirty-two, the girl thirty.
One beautiful April morning, in search of a cup of coffee to start the day, the boy was walking from west to east, while the girl, intending to send a special-delivery letter, was walking from east to west, but along the same narrow street in the Harajuku neighborhood of Tokyo. They passed each other in the very center of the street. The faintest gleam of their lost memories glimmered for the briefest moment in their hearts. Each felt a rumbling in their chest. And they knew:
She is the 100% perfect girl for me.
He is the 100% perfect boy for me.
But the glow of their memories was far too weak, and their thoughts no longer had the clarity of fouteen years earlier. Without a word, they passed each other, disappearing into the crowd. Forever.
A sad story, don't you think?

From Haruki Murakami's On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning

Snowfield

2008-04-03T04:14:00.003Z

Wind picks up a white curl of frozen crystals
the horizon emptied of all obstructions

Rays of sunshine break into a thousand tiny diamonds

I stand still, then knees hit glacial sands
tears lie dead in their tracks
assailed by the cold

Just one breath

A single image of her silent beauty

the memory of her voice
mentally sketching the curves of her cheeks

Faint aftershocks from locked lips that seemed destined to explore
Cold hands becoming warm again

Cracking ice, falling walls of glass
A raging waterfall, sonic like a fountain

Blood flows through hearts again
but they are not mine.

There is no me. Only you.

Sandalwood

2008-04-01T18:49:00.003Z

Sandalwood is a perfectly imperfect society, founded on love and only love. It was born in a coffee shop, from the spoken words of a few beatniks and the *tha-thump* *tha-thump* of their bongos.

At first it wasn't as much a place as an idea, a dream. The hip cats and the riff-raffs, they knew what it was without ever needing to know where it was, or where it would be. They built the villages, one word at a time. They built the sandy pathways of the market place, one beat at a time.

Sooner or later all these kids crying revolution, all these future guerrillas, all these freedom fighters figured out that there's a big wall called "Put up or shut up" that all lofty ideas crash down on. The sell outs sold out, stocks in souls go cheap these days, anyway. The bandwagon lost a wheel, and all the oxen died. The weak ones trailed ass back to town, leaving nothing but the strong ones behind.

Kids with long hair and a long history of struggling with the man, founders of Sandalwood. Sons and daughters of the revolution who found religion by killing their God, founders of Sandalwood. Sandalwood was once just an idea, but there were a few who made it a place.

Artists, musicians, hackers and painters. People who believe the only crime worth punishing by death is ennui. Yes, once, Sandalwood was just a folk tale, told to the college lot with their warm espressos and cold hearts, in hope that they'd melt a bit. Most didn't but a few did. A few couldn't help but let go.

Signs flew up around Yale, then around Columbia.

"Hey smart kids, do something groovy. Sell off all your property and buy back your souls. Follow us to Sandalwood."

Two weeks go by, then fifty kids meet for the first time ever at Penn Station, waiting to board a train heading west. Between them they've bought 250 acres of land in the middle of nowhere, USA. Between them, they've sold off everything except for a backpack filled with a few days clothes and miscellaneous sentimental artifacts.

I'm one of those kids. You think I'm on vacation, but I'm really gone for good. Don't worry about me though, It'll all work out okay.

Dan players are evil

2008-03-26T02:36:00.002Z

Mark succeeds at making me facepalm.

Working with the five precepts

2008-03-24T19:28:00.006Z

A while ago, while reading Goldstein & Kornfield's Seeking The Heart Of Wisdom, I attempted to work through their exercises on the five Buddhist precepts. This was quite an interesting and difficult challenge. I would recommend it to anyone interested in developing a stronger ethical base, not just practicing Buddhists.

Of course, if you do practice Buddhism, this is a great way deepen your practice as well, as it encourages you to engage in daily mindfulness. I am going to use this post as a sort of diary of my notes and reactions as I work with each of the precepts. This is mainly for my own good, but I hope that the results are interesting to those who might be reading as well. If others are interested in working on these exercises at the same time as me, let me know, because it can be very helpful to have someone to share your experiences with.

Keep an eye on the comments section if you'd like to track my practice, or follow along on your own.

Prose The Lord

2008-03-23T18:09:00.012Z

She says, all I want to do is keep from hurting you. I say, all you gotta do is not hurt me. She says, I just want things to be simple, I say, yeah, that sounds simple. For so long we've been playing with the label makers, from "Just Friends" to "Future Baby Maker". Each new label, another line of glue, sticks to our hands, makes us wish things weren't so sticky, makes us wish we didn't have to get out the paint thinner every time the world around us changed.

One night, we get tired of scraping off the goo, the residue. Remnants of a poem, no longer a metaphor:

Hearts tied like shoestrings
Legs tied like pretzels
Hands wrapped, doubts snapped

I think that my words can paint pictures
but your lips bring poetry in motion - 01.14

The dove seems so majestic as it flies in through the window. The dove tears shit up as it tries to make its way back out. Not quite naked but skin against skin, we realize, we've been living a lie.

I'm the only one for her, except for when I'm not. Sometimes, she thinks I'm her personal Jesus, other times, her Romeo. No one really knows what's going on, and my words fall on deaf ears that hold eardrums pierced by my incessant pining, my pitiful whining.

I seek salvation in a bottle, it doesn't come. I seek salvation in my old Buddy, it doesn't come:

I seek identity in anonymity.

We do not forgive, we do not forget. We are legion. Expect us.

Yet this, is not my salvation. Am I mocking myself? I've attached my face and name to it, I've already fallen.

I search for serenity by standing in solidarity against oppression. Free Tibet!

But these Chinese are not the ones who steal away my sleep at night. My personal doubts won't be eroded by my global activism. My chronology got lost in the waterfall, let's rewind.

She needed time, and I needed space. So I dropped the bottle and went back to the rock:

When you can't conquer romance, conquer nature. Make rocks your bitch. Make the rocks beg for mercy as you kick and climb over their frozen bodies. Cut your hands, bleed on them. Bang your knee, swear at them. Get to the top, and proclaim in front of one good friend and a lot of birds, that you're the king of the world. Then remember, how ridiculous that all sounds.

Remember that the heart and mind carry the weight of your love and attachment whether you're at the top of the world or down in the gutters. I get up there, and I say, "I wish she was here, she needs to be here"

And a week later, she was. "Let's just be friends", take two. The remix. And she and I go back between a rock and a hard place and overcome it together. "What, you waiting for me to take a picture?". You already have, dear. Keep it in your heart if you will.

And a day later, there's a four hour visit involving some elephants I shed a handful tears over, and some Kung Fu we shared laughs over. Go Go Power Rangers! And for some reason, the "White Bro" is not something I can call my friends.

Her hands reach for mine, my lips reach for hers, and the former is okay but the latter won't do. It's all my fault, except for when it's not. We're everything and nothing, the good and the bad.

"You started it!", a boy like me cries. "You don't know when to stop!", a girl like her shouts back.
But what happen? Did someone really set us up the bomb?

Nah, we just threw the label maker off the rocks and let it shatter where it landed. There is a sensual beauty in the fact that even our most serious arguments have humor. Even our deepest doubts have some shining light in them.

I'm not the only one in her life, and she makes it clear. She's got a secret-agent lover man off in the mists, and I've said, the less I know the better. I've said, we can't be doing this. She's said, we won't be doing this.

But me, I'm a fucking comet. I'm a ball of fire and ice that'll shatter any inhibitions that fall before me. She thinks I'm some kind of Jesus, but I'm Shiva, The Destroyer, The God of Death.

I'm every spicy food she's ever eaten. I'm the setting sun, burning through the sky reminding her that she can't hang on to the light. She's that lover that never really existed, but is more real than anything just the same.

She says she's cold as ice, I say "Watch out, you're gonna melt".

And for those who read this, even if it's you, mystic 20....

Don't worry about me. I'm just having fun. :)

Things don't have to hurt

2008-03-22T20:52:00.004Z

Sometimes, you reach for something you can't quite grasp. Other times, you grab a hold of it for a moment, and then it slips away. So much pain and suffering can be seen in moments like these.

The worst feeling of all is having something you've wanted for so long swing into reach, only to disappear as quickly as it arrived. But it's not the moment that causes this to happen, it's the white knuckled fists still trying to hang on to a bird that has already taken flight.

So, we try to be smart. We tell ourselves that we just won't run after the things we know we can't hold in our hands. We tell ourselves to limit our desires to that which is attainable, and when we do this, we're happy. But the heart and mind are not obedient. It seems like the stronger a person is at rationalizing, the more they struggle with accepting irrational truths.

Sometimes, the mad dash to catch a falling star is part of life, even if we know it's not where we should be. Sometimes, the only way to figure out what is right, is to do something wrong. The world unfolds in front of us, showing us the way, we only need to look and see what it is telling us.

The thing is, even if we slip up, even if we defy our best intentions to maintain control and discipline over ourselves, it's never too late to loosen the ties which bind us. The pain is mostly, not due to reaching for that shooting star, but through assuming that holding that star was really meant to be.

It is up to us to choose how we perceive things. We can say that we are so unfortunate because we never succeeded at holding a star in our hands, or we can say we were so lucky to get the chance to touch one.

In my life, I bounce back and forth, sometimes I follow the former path, sometimes the latter. However, I know that when my mind is clear, the path of gentle detachment makes me feel at ease.

This is not about being disconnected with the world, but more about feeling at ease with the world as it is. How do we go from complexity to simplicity in life? Not by yelling "Be Simple" at the world in a futile battle cry. Instead, we must allow ourselves to experience complex situations, make our mistakes, and do our misdeeds that we know aren't going to make life easier. Then, when we have come to accept that, we simply exhale them. Let them drop out from under us, and turn back to the world with a mind of equanimity and joy.

How beautiful would life be if we could turn moments of attachment and doubt into feelings of gentle curiosity and acceptance? How wonderful would it be to dive into the waterfall of life, and not try so hard to find a log to grab hold of and pull ourselves out?

With every moment, we are given the opportunity to turn a negative into a positive. It is my hope that I will be able to do this more and more often, for myself and those that I love.

This is why a four hour goodbye doesn't need to be so sad. It teaches us a valuable lesson. A falling star sometimes isn't meant to be caught, but that makes the moment no less beautiful.

Fuck This Shit

2008-03-21T16:15:00.002Z

Ahahaha.... A great reminder of what I don't want out of life. :)
It's not that marriage is a bad thing, it's that the cookie cutter really needs some reshaping.

Introducing Prawn

2008-03-19T20:31:00.007Z

I just couldn't resist:

New RubyForge Project Submitted

Project Full Name: Prawn
Submitted Description: Prawn is currently vaporware, but will perhaps eventually be a clean replacement for PDF::Writer, focusing on being tiny and nimble, just like the majestic sea creature.
License: Ruby License

The RubyForge admin team will now examine your project submission. You will be notified of their decision.

Hopefully Tom has a laugh when he sees this description. :)

If the RubyMendicant donors vote this up, Ruby will be blessed with yet another poorly named project!

I've been trying to think of an acronym to fit this...

PDF Reading And Writing Neatness

PDF Rubyish And Written Nimbly

But you know... I kind of just like the name Prawn. Some folks think shrimp are wimpy, I think they're little fucking troopers.

The Interesting Thing About Anarchy

2008-03-19T04:34:00.002Z

I've been following Project Chanology with great interest. Though I won't express my sentiments about Scientology publicly, due to the risks involved, I will at least say that I morally support the effort to demand accountability from a predatory, dangerous organization such as the Co$.

I won't claim to be nearly as knowledgeable as others on this topic, and probably am even much less interested in it than those who are at the core of this project, but it seems to me like there is enough verifiable claims in the message of their protests to lend some credence to their campaign.

However, there is a real problem that faces this group, and that is their association with Anonymous, of 4chan and 711chan fame. Or more accurately, it is the fact that some members of this group wish to paint a picture of a 'reformed' collective dedicated to peaceful actions in the name of human rights. This to me, is just silly.

Equally silly is any media who chooses to paint the group as homogeneously a bunch of mischievous hackers and miscreants. The Church of Scientology has gone to great lengths to support this view, but without even taking a position on the political issues here:

A group of people conversing and organizing anonymously are by definition, undefined in motives and purpose.

I pretty much feel like this sort of 'smoke screen' has actually served to gain the group a lot of media coverage, even if some of it has been negative. We're seeing something truly amazing here, regardless if you're interested in the actual issues at hand. The internet is being used in an extremely innovative way to empower common people to fight against things they perceive as oppression. Even if this isn't my fight, or yours, we can learn a lesson from the methods this group uses.

Still, I wonder if those interested in furthering this fight against Scientology would benefit from a little more specification. The media commonly speaks about Anonymous, but rarely about Project Chanology. The former is very hard to put a finger on, running the gambit from lolcat pics, to terrorist threats, to stolen myspace passwords, to political activism. The latter project has proven to be peaceful, effective, and extremely well organized given its decentralized nature.

My feeling is that the media needs to know about Project Chanology, and that the Anons fighting this fight need to let them know about this. Now that the shock factor of the group has been established, its probably time to put a little more focus on it so that people like my parents can start understanding what this sort of thing is really all about when they hear it on the news.

Maybe that's a little too much to ask for from folks going for the epic lulz, but I think it'd do a whole lot to broaden the effort and separate those who would cause crime from those who are doing a good thing for society, if only through their demonstration of the power of civil action.

Also, to really go for the win, some of these kids will eventually need to take off their masks. It will take a whole lot of acceptance from society to get to that stage. It's fine if they're not ready for that yet, I don't blame them, they're dealing with a scary opponent. I think it's a worthwhile goal to work towards though.

Of course, because the whole thing is leaderless and anonymous, your 'cyber-terrorist' and your 'civil-warrior' might be one in the same person. However, simply labeling this as a sub-project inspired by Anonymous, and not the overall goal of the collective, would be a sufficient way to bring more common, non-hackish people into the masses.

This post is in response to a YouTube video I just watched, which said pretty much everything I haven't been able to put in words while talking to friends about this. If you're into this sort of chaos, check it out:

Sadness about Tibet

2008-03-17T18:51:00.004Z

The recent uprisings in Tibet have made me very uneasy. It's interesting how the whole media coverage has been centered on how this situation is complicated because of the Olympics in China this year. Come on now, does that mean that government suppression of peaceful resistance would be okay so long as the worlds eyes were averted? Give me a break.

It's interesting to me, because I've talked to some of my Chinese friends about this, actually, just before the riots broke out. It seems like they don't see the same picture that the western view paints, they look at the Dalai Lama as being a separatist, though all of the writings I've seen from and about him in English say no such thing.

It's amazing to me that people can see this so radically differently. This post almost makes me nauseated in its unabashed propaganda:

I think it'd easily move someone who didn't think about this issue or didn't have background on it, but if you look into it a little deeper, you see that the argument is about Tibet's separation, not Tibetan religious autonomy under Chinese rule.

The cases it makes are laughable, it brings you through some dramatic music that almost makes *me* want to weep and pray to Chairman Mao, until you realize that the primary argument is that all the maps drawn by Chinese rulers included Tibet. Even if this *were* an issue of Tibetan independence, that wouldn't hold water.

It culminates suggesting that North America should return its lands to the native people here, and that Australia should treat its natives better and 'head back to Europe'. Honestly, though this seems like it'll never happen, what's the point of this argument? That China is every bit as land hungry and nationalistic as Westerners, and somehow, that's okay? Fine, but it doesn't win me to any cause. History has shown us that these acts by Europeans were atrocities, not justified sacrifices in the name of nationalism. People who do not see it this way will continue to cause suffering in the world.

I don't know what's going on in Tibet, no one does. You can watch the Al-Jazeera video which is a compilation of footage shot by Xinhua (Chinese Government's Official Media), but I have a hard time believing their coverage would be any more fair and balanced than Fox News, and that's scary.

Even in this Han Chinese-leaning video, they make two important points:

1) The footage we're seeing is coming straight from the PRC, not any dissenters

2) The Tibetan people are more interested in religious freedom than material wealth

Still, the footage shows violence that's clearly not faked. It is a shame that we don't know what's really going on, and who provoked who. Without independent analysis, how can we?

The Dalai Lama is not, as this news footage implies, the 'head of the Buddhist church', since there is no such centralized thing, but is indeed the spiritual leader of Tibetan buddhism and the the Tibetan people. He has advocated non-violence and seeks an independent investigation of the situation, seeing as how the media is portraying him as the mastermind behind this chaos.

Meanwhile, the Chinese have blocked YouTube and are systematically trying to disrupt any attempts to voice dissenting views of the situation.

Of course, I have my biases. As a practicing Buddhist who has read a number of the Dalai Lama's books, I admittedly trust him on his word. Still, I don't discount the possibility that the Tibetan people may have caused a violent uprising in the hopes of going beyond the Dalai Lama's wishes for autonomy, in a fight for independence. I think this is a dangerous road to go down, and I hope that the violence stops immediately and that things can become stabilized.

Nevertheless, The Dalai Lama is giving me reasons to trust him, by suggesting the situation should be independently reviewed and denouncing the violence. The Chinese Government have not given me a reason to trust them, as they are actively trying to silence any dissent. They use the fact that the Dalai Lama will not order the Tibetans to call off the protests to paint him as counter-revolutionary. Hopefully, those with thinking minds will realize that until we know what's going on in Tibet, no one can make any demands for surrender that'd make any sense, regardless of who is right or wrong.

It is sad that in situations like this, I feel so powerless. I can only send thoughts of loving kindness to the Chinese and Tibetans involved in this, and hope that peace will come, without the need for forceful suppression.

Good Cop

2008-03-17T02:01:00.001Z

This goes to show you not all cops are bad. LAPD officer giving a polite word of a caution to Anonymous at the March 15th rallies against the Church of Scientology.

Ramblings from East Rock

2008-03-14T17:33:00.004Z

Got a chance to escape from my apartment this morning, and wrote a bit while enjoying nature.

The word forever,
always promised, never true;
save my love for you.

~*~

The stream in the wind,
waves forming without effort;
Birds fly overhead.

~*~

People go to work,
while I sit on this high rock;
To thine self be true.

~*~

Branches in the wind,
wave hello then say goodbye;
It is so still now.

~*~

The clouds promise rain,
a cold mist is in the air;
Where did the sun go?

~*~

Sun behind a cloud,
Shining through its foggy veil;
A hidden gemstone.

~*~

Weakness in my knees,
I wish she were here with me;
So I could be warm.

~*~

And now, time to stop being so whimsical and do some Rails work.... (sighs)

Love Lies

2008-03-08T18:55:00.004Z

Difficult questions in love suck! If only I could make up great lies like this...

Dinko reminded me last night that in matters of romance, I have to remember to take care of myself, too. I guess I haven't been doing too good of a job of that lately.

High Stakes Drunken Monopoly

2008-03-03T14:09:00.011Z

A while ago, Anarchaia caused me to stumble upon some simple clarifications of Monopoly rules that made the game go more smoothly. Lots of people complain that Monopoly takes too long to play, but I don't think that's really the problem. It's more like the action goes too slow, and you spend a lot of time on the boring aspects of the game, such as waiting for all the property to be bought up, or letting some douchebag stay in the game two more turns because on his last buck he managed to land on Free Parking and win your doctor's fees or some shit. Bo's post helps with that, but last night, we went a step farther by actually changing the game a bit.

These rules are meant to be played when you are possibly drunk, as we were. They keep the action and tension high and encourage people to spend money quickly, thus speeding up the game.

0) Only use 50s, 100s, and 500s for currency, with each player starting with $1000. Round 0-24 to 0, 25-74 to 50, 75-124 to 100, etc. Making change with the bank sucks, and so does paying 6 dollars for something, and this avoids that. This means that Baltic Avenue can go suck a fat one, unless you get some houses on it.

1) Mortgages and housing development / deconstruction can happen any time during the game. You don't need to sell all your houses and hotels before mortgaging a property, but may not mortgage any property in a color group before selling all the houses / hotels on that color group. These things do not need to be done on your turn, but must be declared between dice rolls. Yes, this means you can shift your housing developments during the game to follow your opponent around the board. Yes, that pisses people off.

2) Properties are by default, free. Your opponents can start a bidding war, which then becomes an open auction with no limits and no special order of bidding. Increments are of course, at a 50 dollar minimum. You may threaten to sell houses, mortgage properties, and make side deals during the auction. All of these things only happen if you *win* the betting. If no one bets, the player who lands on the property, gets it. If you won't pony up $50 just to force your opponent to pay $100, you're probably a wimp and will lose.

3) Mortgages and housing are paid back at whatever rate you borrowed against them. I don't know the monopoly rules on interest, but there is none in this variant. Mortgages are valued at whatever the back of the card says, after rounding. Houses are sold at however much you paid for them, not some fraction of that.

4) You can trade mortgaged properties. These stay mortgaged when they trade hands. All side deals are permitted unless the rules (or these modifications) prohibit them.

If it's not readily apparent, this turns a game that is typically highly dependent on chance for the most part and frugal purchase planning for the rest of it into a game of extortion, deception, and greed. I feel like there is substantially more strategy involved, because you can change the game landscape when it is not your turn. You can also try to purchase properties for lower than their mortgage value, which serves as a one-time cash bonus later in the game.

Also, because the ability to own a full set of a given color can be devastating in this variant, it makes it a real shit fest when the last property of that color goes up for grabs. Some players are willing to pay a ton of cash to neutralize the situation, and the player who holds the deeds to the rest of the color group is likely to bet the bank to get it. All it takes is a little bad luck after one of these deals to have you waving goodbye to the sucker who payed $3000 for Kentucky Avenue just because he was afraid of some hotels going up.

All in all, I had more fun playing this way. If you try it out, let me know what you think.

UPDATE:

Idea for next time: Allow bank forclosures.

On your turn, as many times as you'd like, you can initiate a forclosure against any of your opponent's mortgaged properties. The player is required to pay off his mortgage in full immediately (can sell houses or mortgage other properties to do so). If the player does not do this, the property is then released back for open bidding (unmortgaged). This works the same as when a player lands on an unowned property, all players may participate.

The idea here is this will *really* speed up the game as a rich player can simply 'knock out' a poor player by outbidding him and performing a hostile takeover of their properties. If this works out when I try it, I'll post back here.

The trickery of thought

2008-02-28T23:18:00.008Z

When the ignorant mind looks at a card trick, it sees magic.

When the thinking mind looks at a card trick, it is deceived,
too trapped in the thoughts of how it all works, what the gimmick is.

An awakened mind is more likely to find the card stuck underneath the table, the same card the thinking mind deduces through limited reasoning must be up the magician's sleeve.

This is a whole other kind of magic, the kind that can be seen in reality.

Rent A Kitty

2008-02-21T18:22:00.003Z

Disclaimer: I actually like cats and care about animal rights, and would never do this in real life... well... unless it made me really rich :)

I don't know if I've managed to find weird friends, or if this is just something a lot of people do and avoid talking about it, but one of the most entertaining boredom killers for me is to think of absurd, disgusting ideas and discuss them with friends. I often do this simultaneously with various friends over chat to see what their similarities and differences in reactions are. Here are four anonymized conversations to give you a sample.

Conversation 1:

me: I had an idea for a service

rent a kitty

you get a kitten for 6 weeks

and when it gets old

you return it for a new one

perpetual cuteness!

A: heh
I'm afraid to ask what you plan to do with all of the 6-week-old kittens. I actually like cats.

me: I actually didn't think that part through
give them to you, I guess
you got room for a few thousand cats?

A: I'm also quite afraid to try rentakitty.com... rule 34 being what it is

me: hmm... just parked

A: maybe someone else had the same idea and got stuck on the logistics of handling that many cats

me: Well if you think about it
you'd need breeders to keep up with demand

 
A: heh

me: and if you could sell a few from 'thematurekitty.com'

A: that doesn't sound good

me: for people who don't want the burden of a baby kitten

A: true

me: try to keep it at a constant growth rate proportional to the demand
I'll need some scientists and shit
and economists
it'll be a very complicated operation

Conversation 2:

me: idea for a web 2.0 money fest

"RentAKittie"

I mean... everyone loves how cute kittens are

but then they grow up

we solve that by swapping out your cat once every 6 weeks

B: what do you do with grown up ones?

me: Oh... I don't know.  Give them to the Icanhascheezburger people?

B: I had an idea for a website a while back
Basically it is like American Idol, but with puppies
and people vote by donating money

 me: ahahahaha

B: and the puppy with the least amount of money loses..... its life....
I wouldn't actually kill the puppy
just tell everyone I'm going to
then tons of people would donate
and I'd get lots of publicity
kind of like that dude with the bunny
http://savetoby.com/

 me: lmmfao great idea

Conversation 3:

me: I have a great idea that will make money flow like water

"Rent A Kitty"

you give people a kitten for 6 weeks

and then when it gets old

replace it with a new one

perpetual cuteness

C: What will you do with all those cats?

 me: you mean the leftovers
?

C: Yes.

 me: idk.  I guess I'll run the business in Calcutta
then it won't so much matter, now will it?

C: /me laughs.

 me: maybe I'll run another site
'the mature kitty'
for people who don't want the burden of a young kitten

C: I'm sure your could work an affiliate deal with householdpetporn.com.

 me: ahaha
actually... I'd probably keep the cats
We'd need breeders to keep up with demand

C: True.

 me: ahaha... I told 4 people about that idea
and without hesitation
everyone asked
"What will you do with the cats?"

Conversation 4:

me: Get rich scheme...

rent a kitty

everyone loves cute... loveable kittens

but then they grow up!

so... 6 week rental then a replacement comes to your door!

D: whereas we, with no moral scruples about destroying the adult cats once they have outlived their usefulness, can take on the moral burden of doing so. A valuable service! kind of like confession.

 me: ahahahaha
and to be fair, many will be needed to be retained for breeding
especially if the service takes off

D: true, only the cutest survive

 me: We'll have a scale that measures how wuvable they are
maybe even a post-rental survey
is this kitten the most wuvable kitten you've ever seen?
we sort them in boxes based on that
and the ones that say "NO" just go into a giant pit of fire

D: also have an un-cute kitten service. Someone out there must need that.

 me: and a mature cat service
so actually... we could probably cut down on disposal costs quite a bit

D: or just a service for peple who like to throw cats into pits of fire

 me: if we learn how to operate in many niche markets

D: gotta run to class...

 me: ooh, right, we could get paid for their labor

D: but this definitely has potential!

Fuck the awesomebar, pass it on.

2008-02-19T19:31:00.004Z

I'm enjoying the Firefox 3 builds, but the Awesome bar generally sucks, all around.

The reason?

Most hackers will expect when they type something like:

gma

you will get back a list of urls beginning with gma in your location bar. This is similar to the way that completion works on the command line and in our text editors, and is how Firefox has always worked up until now.

Instead, FF3 searches page titles, bookmarks, tags, recently visited urls, most visited urls, and does a full text search on these string rather than starting at the beginning of them. Great for people who don't know what a URL is, fucking unbearably annoying to someone who just wants to type two or three characters and be done with it.

I think the awesome bar would be quite awesome for some people, so long as it could be disabled. However, from the rumor-mill, it sounds like the FF2 url bar has been scrapped to avoid code bloat.

To me, this is just a sign of how Firefox is increasingly becoming an end user commodity, which encourages ass-raping developers in the name of more downloads. Sad... really

This kind of thing cannot be tolerated

2008-02-14T04:24:00.001Z

Disgusting. I'm glad this guy got suspended, and that's the least that should be done.

Rewrite

2008-02-08T17:50:00.001Z

In a paper boat on a sea of ink I float along,
Waves of inspiration and clouds of doubt
see-saw at my heart's fulcrum

With a pen, no... a quill,
And a parchment, no... papyrus

I write the stories of 1000 men, no...
I write the story of a boy and a girl

The cute couple, they're ~~in love~~, ~~infatuated~~, inordinary friends.
Not quite extraordinary, but far from normal, they dance.

And he is I and she is her and my only gift is the soul of a poet,
A gift weak enough to never pass as a day job!

And she is an enigma, a dark and beautiful marble soaked in fog.
Through our trust and honesty, I can still see her face staring back at me.

But what lies beyond the horizon?
I want to write us a love story, but maybe our destiny
points to simple companionship

They say it's not the writing, but the re-writing that counts.

They say that one should not ride magical sea tortoises at dawn.

But they seem to have forgotten, it's all turtles, all the way down.

LJX: Looking Backwards, Looking Forwards

2008-02-04T16:49:00.002Z

There is always something magical about art projects that seem to spring from the void. The LiveJournal Experiment (LJX) that has spilled across my blog for the last several days is one of those projects.

Now that the 'story' has been told, I can take you behind the scenes and explain what I was going for here. It may not make your jaw drop, but maybe a little insight will reveal that I wasn't just trying to avoid boredom; There was a message or two in this, after all.

At this point, if you haven't read the entire story, you really need to do so if you want this to make any sense. Here are the posts, in order:

River of tears
River of Honey
The Trash Barge
Writing All Wrongs
Heart it Races
Full Disclosure (non-fictional interlude)
Knock, Knock, Knock (written by Jia W.)
The source of the Nile (written by Mark M.)

The first thing that you'll notice now that we're peering behind the curtain is that "Heart it Races" was the last fictional post I wrote for the series. The final two posts were written by my friends, after I wrote the interlude which shows the real line by line categorization of what we've lovingly been calling "Bullshit Factor". It turns out that this had not been planned originally, but resulted from a near disaster I accidentally cooked up by writing Heart It Races.

As it turns out, at least in the meta-sense, this story was extremely present-tense. Throughout each post, typically any true event listed had actually occurred between the time of the previous post and the creation of a new one. In this way, you actually were viewing my life through a kaliedoscope for the last week and a half or so.

Because of this, all the ideas were fresh and unfiltered, which gives the story the unsettling realism that many people have commented on and at least a few have been fooled by. I wrote the first post originally without any disclaimers beyond a 'fiction' tag, which did result in a couple apologetic emails being sent, me being a bit embarrassed and not realizing how I probably tugged on some heartstrings by accident.

At the time of writing River of tears, I didn't have the idea for a continuous series in mind. I mostly thought that maybe I'd write stuff like that from time to time, in a LiveJournal style fashion to entertain folks. The idea was that drama like that *is* interesting, but it's usually quite unpleasant to look at when it involves real emotions. I figured, I could give people a glimpse of a train wreck without making them feel guilty for taking a macabre interest in the blood, guts, and burning bodies.

Ironically, fooling a few folks is what made me realized maybe there was something deeper here. The second post, River of Honey, was clearly marked fiction, but only at the end. My idea here was that everyone would have to remember the famous saying: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me"

Surprisingly enough, I did manage to fool some folks twice. This is when I started talking to my friends about maybe expanding the story to prove a point, which I hazily described as a desire to gut-punch the LJX readers until they gasped for an air of truth. Though the sentiments were generally similar among friends, Mark's words of caution stood out the most.

"People tend to believe they own their interactions with people"

Being me, my response was something similar to:

"Fuck them, that's not true. People own their reactions"

With this in mind, the actual motivation behind the LJX project was born. The goal was simple: to make the story mix enough reality and fiction so as to be impervious to analysis. It feels like human nature to try to rationalize other people's feelings and thoughts. It is all too tempting to take something that is said by someone you know and say "Oh, even though she said this, I know this is what she must really be feeling." Though that may feel like the natural approach, this is what permits us to apply our own ego to a situation and come up with a reaction that is appropriate for what *we* conceive the problem to be. My goal with LJX was to create a scenario in which it would be difficult to follow this common social dynamic.

My friends seemed sure that it'd be tough to get anyone to really trust me that any particular event had occurred in the remaining parts of the series, and they had an easy time convincing me of this. Instead, I chose to set up a believable tone, which was that this whole story was some sort of calling out from me, expressing my deep concern for an increasingly chaotic, even delusional, frame of mind. Whether people bought this or not, I think it was at least plausible, and that the effect was sufficient to keep people guessing.

The fourth post, Writing All Wrongs, managed to set this hook in deep. While the previous three posts had been romantic, this post broke down into some highly meta, highly self-doubting commentary. At this point, I realized that this was probably the climax of the work, and wished to put together 3 more posts so that there would be a nice symmetry and then kill the story off.

The fifth post, I had trouble coming up with a topic. I finally asked Jia, who some of you will know (through the kaleidoscope) as Bertha by now, and she told me Valentines Day. This brings us to the point where I got myself into hot water. Though I had been keeping Jia in the loop about this whole thing, and she seemed to be taking it in stride, this "Heart It Races" post I guess succeeded in the gut-punch effect I was going for, but on the wrong person.

We talked about this a lot, and I finally got around to explaining to her what I'm explaining now, which is the motivation for this whole project. Though I'm not quite sure it fixed the problem, giving her a clear sense of what I was doing and allowed her to at least tolerate my strange behaviour. Right now, you might be wondering to what extent this thing was a secret love letter to Jia, held out in the public for all to see. Anyway, Fuck all y'all who want to know that, one thing I'm glad about is now that LJX is finally done, I can keep parts of my reality private, where they belong. :)

However, I couldn't have the lead supporting character in this story fall out from under me, leaving me with nothing but a sad ending, so I asked Jia to write the 6th post. With this kind of arrangement, I knew for sure that I couldn't be blamed for anything sounding too real, or awkward. Without revealing too much, I was pleasantly surprised that she kept the theme of romance.

The original plan was that she'd send me a rough sketch of a post, and that I'd 'voice' it to make it more believable. However, after reading what she wrote, I decided to run it unedited. I thought the juxtapose was wonderful. I'm not sure what the reader's reaction was like, if you've been following this work, please share your thoughts. Nevertheless, I thought it was great to have a subtle shift in POV, which at least in my mind, forces the reader to completely and utterly give up on trying to 'figure me out' through this work. This red herring was a great set up for the final trick, which was to bring Mark into the picture.

Mark is my Go teacher, which somehow makes him my life coach as of late, whether or not he likes it. However, he was in an ideal position to serve as a quasi-independent observer, because he knows both about the goings on in my real life as well as this fictionalized account of it. His last post is a beautiful mockery of the whole thing, managing to continue to use bits of my real experiences and mash them up with other crap and a lot of sarcastic and ironic humor that shows the true spirit of this project.

Now I must admit, I highly doubt I've reached the lofty goal of totally changing your perception of the world. However, if you've gone through this whole thing, I bet you've felt *something*, and that's probably good enough. This was, first and foremost, an attempt at a 'nerd love story' in which the story itself is one big hacking problem. If it manages to make you think about the way you react to events in other people's lives that you witness, then I've really gotten more than I bargained for.

Thanks so much to Mark, Jia, and the several folks who have been giving me tips and ideas as they've read along. I'm actually glad most of that discussion went on outside of this blog, as it added to the shock factor in a number of places, or at least, so I hope.

Now that the story is over, Meta-Metta will now resume its regularly scheduled program of less whimsical persuits.

The source of the Nile

2008-02-04T07:59:00.000Z

As far as I know, this is the end of this; consider this speck of world fully explored. Possibility will have to encompass something greater.

As I sat down with my coffee and muffin, I read over again where I've been recently. It's funny, I've been in on the secret from almost the beginning, and so have you, but trying to see it all from an outsider's perspective is still daunting. Hell, even seeing it from my own perspective is daunting.

For example: "I" know that I hate coffee, but *I* don't know that. Or is it that I gave up coffee, and have just been trying to tell myself that I hate it? Either way, here I am, drinking the coffee, hating it. My relationship with the remaining half-muffin is even more complex.

Wait... what's that inside the muffin? A slip of paper? It's a chinese fortune muffin? But my fortune is just a bunch of random words, strung together. It's too early in the morning and late at night for this. I almost gave up and asked a bro for help. In fact, I tried to, but fortunately inspiration struck, and the bro was pretty useless anyway.

7:00 AM me: fuck! I totally don't get this puzzle Bertha sent me
7:06 AM me: whoa
solved it :)
7:14 AM bro: hiya bro.
what's the puzzle?
7:15 AM me: holiday commemorate continue somehow acceptance military
sometimes
revolve pretend truthful breakup without everywhere computer downtown
girlfriend cuddling thought nineteen counterpart
I was trying too hard
:)
7:17 AM bro: hm, I'm not getting it...
7:19 AM me: it looks too much like spam!
but the solution is dead simple
7:32 AM bro: still nothing, unless she's saying she wants go out with
you on valentine's day, if the answer has anything to do with the
semantics of the words.
but I doubt that it does. still overthinking on the form of the words
me: hah, I didn't get that if it's in there
The answer is simply a numeric reduction
only one letter from each word is used
bro: hm. I've tried like 8 forms of that :)
me: But I think you got stuck in the same trap as me
bro: probably
me: but it's because I was looking at the whole sequence
not the individual words
as it turns out, she just uses G as a mask on each word
so you pluck the 7th letter out of each, and you get it
7:35 AM bro: awww
I had tried up to the 4th letter. I suck.

It's hard to keep up when the messages are like this, a perfect combination of obscure and obvious, trite and profound. And the messages are everywhere now: the bottom of the cup of coffee has a rot13 sonnet. The slight disturbance of the fabric of the futon is a calligraphy that demands interpretation. If I just think about it long enough, everything will make sense. Last night's rooftop vision will mesh seamlessly with my breakup with Alyssa which will tie back in to the view from east rock and the arrangement of cranberries (or is it chocolate chips) in the muffin. The knots in my hair contain knowledge the world was not meant to know.

But then, it's all at a bit of a remove, too. I'm seeing the whole world wrapped in its significance, but then it breaks down again into the meager stream of bits with which I interact with the world. The thin gruel of a chat room through which I can query why things are and how they became, but never truly experience them as they are. I can influence events only indirectly, as if by suggestion, but never truly choose. The action is always flowing at least two steps ahead of understanding.

There is knocking at the door again! It's some kind of pattern... no... not morse code... something a little bit trickier than that.... My mind whirls with the possibilities.

But then, I suppose I could just open it and find out.

Helle ilotes!

And that marks the end of the LJX fiction. I'll have a post-mortem up soon explaining the whole thing.

Thanks for reading!

Bro poem

2008-02-02T17:07:00.000Z

Many many months ago
I found a bro, his name was Moe

It wasn't a pleasant meeting though
this poor bro, he stubbed his toe.

How he did it I'll never know
But this sad bro was full of woe.

LJX: Knock Knock Knock

2008-02-01T16:57:00.000Z

I know the last post said 'To Be Continued', but that was part of the meta-fiction. Besides, that stuff was getting too intense for comfort. So for now, let's go back to another time.

11 o'clock. Who's knocking? I get night visits sometimes, but neither Pete nor John called today.

I open the door, just enough to stick my head outside. There she is; holding a computer and a box, Bertha is standing in front of me.

"not right now!..."

I am shouting to myself in my head. My apartment is such a mess, with stuff everywhere; half-empty bags scattering on the floor; and some unidentifiable stuff stinking in secret corners.

"As a rule, unexpected visits should be blindfolded. And it's safer to also cover your nose."

As a good girl who always listens to her parents, Bertha covers her face using the pink sleeve of her pajama and steps into my apartment.

"I think my router is broken. And for some reason my laptop can't connect by Ethernet. I figured you probably were still up and can take a look……"

"Yes sure I guess I can give it a check".

I settled her down on my sofa-bed; fortunately the bed is still clean. Her computer works apparently in my apartment. Her router was messed up on a strange parameter; I would say it's a trojan but probably not a good idea to make it so scary. She left happily with all the
problems fixed.

Worked for a little bit, and had my routine 3 hours of sleep, I woke up following another soft knocking, knocking.
"I'm doing some work but my system suddenly crashed! I'm afraid I lost all my work."

She looks pretty miserable this time. I checked her hard drive. The system file is pretty much messed up. Fortunately there is still a way to recover the documents. I burn the file she needs on a disk, and that was that.

It's late in the night. Everything is very quiet, except my forever-moving machine still swinging; and I swear I hear the bamboo growing. She is sitting there reading my book, like an angel. My heart is beating like crazy. It might be a perfect time to grab her in my arm. But we are only friends, and I should let her go. So I just sit remotely to the door and watch her leave.

Worked for another 4 hours, the work is almost done and my head is ready to explode. Knock, knock, knock comes again. I open the door but this time nobody is there. On the floor is a tray with a glass of coffee and a huge muffin.

"hey, you know I hate coffee".

I manage to get along with the usual discomfort to unexpected kindness.

This is a very bright morning; I refill myself with the fresh air, as I explore the world full of possibilities.

LJX: Full Disclosure

2008-02-01T06:07:00.001Z

So, there are still two more posts left to be seen in the LJX story. I've got some tricks up my sleeves for those, and I'll explain them in the end, but for now, I'd like to take a short pause and give you a sight of the true complexity of the story so far, with respect to its truthfulness.

I'm sure you realize by now if you've been reading along that this is more of a psychological project than a literary one, so in that vein, I'd like to invite you to take a deeper look into what's going on.

I've taken the first 5 posts and compiled a single PDF which is color-coded to show 3 attributes on two scales. Essentially, this shows line by line which parts of the story have been either true, false, dramatized. I've split them up into 'thoughts/opinions' and 'events' so you know when a falsified scene reflects true beliefs of mine or when a true event has been dramatized or has an non-real reaction from me for effect.

Of course, without asking me a ton of questions, this isn't going to really allow you to 'make sense' of the story. What it will allow you to do is see how quickly I have been shifting between fantasy and reality, and the blurring effect it tends to have. I'll talk more about that when I finally wrap the project up and explain the motivation behind it.

Again, I hope this is fun or at least interesting for you. Since it's got a scheduled end time now, if you've been mostly ignoring my blog for the last week because of it, you'll be able to take me off the blacklist soon.

Please let me know if you have any thoughts about what you've seen so far, or suggestions for the final parts of the project.

NOTE: Please notice there is no fiction tag on this post. This is real, kids... no meta-meta-meta-fiction here.

The end of an era

2008-02-01T04:16:00.001Z

Photo Taken 2008.01.31

It was bound to happen sooner or later

LJX: Heart It Races

2008-01-30T14:31:00.000Z

So far I've been standing still in time, mind anchored firmly to the present. But if this is fiction, who's to say I need to do that? The powerful thing about delusions is that they aren't limited by the numerous constraints of reality.

Fast forward and it's February 14th. Valentines Day. Half my life I dreamed about what it'd be like to have the perfect romantic evening; The other half, I cursed the day and the greeting card companies that invented it. Though you have no reason to trust me by now, I can say that I've spent exactly two Valentines days in the company of another, and that somehow I managed to have a lackluster time throughout both of them.

It wasn't the people, but the predicament that ruined the day. One year, I ended up at American Steakhouse, the family restaurant where you can get steak, shrimp, and food poisoning all for $9.99. The other year, I ended up in an empty pizza place. Actually... now that I think about it, that one wasn't so bad after all, if far from memorable.

But today, February 14th, 2008 is different. It's easier for it to be different, because I actually have my own place now, and I'm a whole lot more independent than when I was younger and still just a student. I can actually afford the expensive dinner and... well... wait, let's re-write that part. Cliché romance isn't romance at all, and it makes my stomach turn a bit when the most creative guys I know somehow become retarded and think that a greeting card, some chocolates, roses and a fancy French or Italian dinner is somehow impressive. I don't know, I'm sure some girls go for that, but it's just not my style.

Now look what I've done, I've started to introduce the chain of events without introducing the actors. How silly of me. This meta-fiction stuff, it's getting me confused, so bear with me.

So it turns out, in this reality at least, the girl in my building that I've been crushing on actually does exist. Through all the layers of obfuscation, I think you'll be calling me the boy who cried wolf, but she is real and quite stunning. I couldn't believe she'd be willing to spend her Valentines Day with me, even if her mind was only set on friendship.

I guess I should describe her, but to do that, I should give her a name. For comedic effect, let's call her Bertha. I've always wondered what it'd be like to have a beautiful girlfriend named Bertha, so that'll keep me laughing while I write this.

Bertha is Chinese. She's smart, she's interesting, and I can recall every detail of her face when I imagine her, which is something I am typically *terrible* at. I would say she was beautiful, and may go to fisticuffs with someone who said she wasn't. Or at least, have a really surly thumb wrestling match, which I would flat out win through mad passion.

Hahaha.. Bertha. Still funny.

Anyway, perhaps the most incredible thing Bertha offers me is how accepting she is of my insanely complicated personality. Every time we talk, I feel like she's the counterweight on a seesaw that typically is anything from stable. Through all my meditation, I've only ever found acceptance and comfort within my chaotic mind, not inner tranquility. The fact that she lets me see a glimpse of serenity means the world to me, and that's why I need to write an especially good Valentines day to show my appreciation.

She shows up around 8pm, after a pretty long day at work. I told her I'd cook dinner for her and that we could just hang out, maybe watch a movie. As soon as she shows up, she seems all excited, and I can't figure out why. She pulls out a sheet of notebook paper and tells me that it's a game record from earlier in the week. Not too long ago, I got her into Go, so that didn't surprise me much. I told her I'd look at it after we ate.

She wasn't happy with that, so I gave in and took a look. At only 10 moves, I knew she was full of it, but it had me curious:

q14
d14

6-4 point? Weird!
d12
q12

Bertha... what the hell is this? If it weren't for the symmetry, one of these players would have lost already...
k3
k13

Hmm... this is starting to look like "Get Strong at Subtle Invasions"
f15
o15

Umm... the players mutually wanted to create an M ?

Amazingly, I still don't see the significance of the two moves to come
p9
e9

Ooooooooh.

I blush, and then I don't know what to say. This had to be the nerdiest, but cutest thing anyone has ever done for me:

I don't even think about it, I just hug her. And I realize that's the first time we've ever actually touched each other, not counting the one silly ballroom dancing class we took together. And though it feels like the right thing to do at the time, I suddenly find myself a bit embarrassed.

I look up, she's not weirded out, and that's a relief. "You took all 10 moves to figure that out? Maybe you're not so smart after all.."

We share a laugh and some eye contact that lingers a little longer than normal, and then I grab a big knife and slam it into the squash that has been sitting on my table, proving my ADD.

"I'm hungry. Let's cook."

TO BE CONTINUED.

Writing All Wrongs

2008-01-29T08:08:00.000Z

I continue the so called "LiveJournal Experiment" not to convince you that I'm telling the truth, but because I've started to believe some of my own lies.

I guess this is the challenge of trying to do an immersive art project, figuring out how deep it's possible to dive in without drowning. Nonetheless, I went to the rooftop of my apartment tonight with a notebook and flashlight to seek inspiration and a bit of adventure.

I don't think we're supposed to go up there. The door is locked, but our apparently very trusting super has hung the master keys to the building on a nail next to it, making it far too tempting to resist. I go up there sometimes late at night, when I feel like I need a little space from the world to do some thinking, or... maybe more honestly... brooding.

The last few days, my mind has been mush. I guess that's only natural when I've suddenly realized I'm the main character in my own fictional life story. Though it feels like a romance so far, I'm not so sure where it's going to lead me. Sitting on the roof, I contemplated where I could take it next.

I scribbled fast, but most of the ideas fell flat. I can't very well write that I jumped off the roof and died, because then, who would be writing this post? Besides, those who know me may never believe a story of suicidal tendencies, since they've really never been in my thoughts. I guess it's interesting that 50% or so of people have thought about killing themselves at one time or another. I never had. The closest I came was on a rough night, uttering the words "I hope I never wake up" to someone, I forgot who. But aside from that silly frustrated uttering, the thought has never really crossed my mind.

I started drawing some mind maps, but none of them led me to where I needed to be. I want to be sure to turn this story around, I don't want it to be a tragedy. I know this blog is just a single feed in a sea of many for most of you, and I don't want you to skip over mine because my story is depressing you. So I'm looking for an upturn, I'm searching for something believable but a little larger than life to keep you smiling while you read this.

While I was dreaming of good vibrations and tumbling aimless chicken scratch onto paper, reality presented me with a story more interesting than I could dream up. It so happens that our roof is level with the third floor of the building next door. Though I never really paid much attention to it, it turns out that if you wanted to stalk my neighbors, my roof is the ideal place for it.

I'm usually pretty oblivious to my surroundings, but the flurry of movement across the way was unmistakable. I guess I only caught the tail end of it, but a nasty fight had broke out between this guy and his girlfriend, and the moment I caught was her slapping his face and running away to slam the door to her room, locking it behind her. I watched as the guy futilely banged on the door a few times, and then quickly disappeared.

Just moments later, I see him get in his car, and speed off. This sight really hit me hard. After writing what I did the other day about my 'breakup', it was a whole lot more shocking to see something like it happen before my eyes. Part of my heart sunk, but my brain was spinning. I had to write this out, because capturing a rare moment in reality like this isn't something that just happens every day.

Every time I write, I lose track of time. Minutes tend to melt into hours and I sometimes even forget where I am. That's hard to do on a rooftop at night in the winter. A strong gust of wind quickly pulled me out of my writing induced coma and I took a look around to get a sense of how long I'd been there.

I look over and see the girl who had just moments ago (or hours, who really knows), sobbing and lying on her bed. For the first time in a while, I feel genuine sympathy for the feelings of a near stranger. I also started to feel like I was being a little creepy, looking in someone's window from the roof. I figured that it was about time to make my escape back down to the second floor before someone called the cops, but then I got distracted.

The guy who had left in such an enraged hurry was back. I stood there, wondering what was on his mind and hoping that he'd leave this poor girl alone. It's funny how I managed to take sides in what was essentially a silent movie, but knowing 'men' in general, it was probably his fault she was so upset.

But then, he surprised me. It was too dark to see it when he got out of his car, but he had brought something back with him. He goes and knocks on her door. She ignores him. He knocks again, same (lack of) response. Finally, he looks strained and yells something I can't hear, and slumps down to the floor with his back to the door. She seems moved, and finally gets up to let him in.

He sheepishly shows her what is in his hands. A small bouquet of flowers, and some heart shaped card that looks like it was made from construction paper. She looks for a moment like she's just going to throw them right back at them, then she reads what's inside the card. They spend a long time looking at each other, and I can feel the tension, even from across the way.

In time, they come together in a loving embrace, she kisses him softly, and they sit down on the bed together. As they continued to talk, I realized that I've certainly overstayed my welcome on the roof, and that it's time for me to return to my own life, rather than simply watching others live out theirs.

In an instant, everything has come undone. I'm sitting here, looking at my screen, realizing that I've never been on the roof of my building, and that I don't think I've ever tried to look into the building next to mine, never mind whether it'd be possible or not. I look upon myself with great confusion, wondering why I'd conjure up what sounds to be a tragic tale, only to give it a happy ending that seemingly comes out of nowhere.

The scary thing is that while I was writing this, I was on the roof, and I was seeing every single detail I described here. It's only when I resign to finishing up the story and hitting publish that I realize this is all in my mind. Perhaps now that it is in your mind too, that makes it a little more real.

For those sick of all this, I promise you, it won't go on forever. Soon enough, I'll be back to things like Buddhism, Math, programming, and obscure humor. This is just a temporary thing, but I'd like to see where I can take it before it fizzles out.

I'd love to hear what you think of this so far, either here or via the usual other ways of contacting me. I've had some interesting feedback so far, and I'm using it to guide the story. Please take this lightly as I continue to explore the realm of quasi-fiction, and try to enjoy it if you can.

The Trash Barge

2008-01-28T20:13:00.000Z

When I started this fiction series, I didn't really expect it to be that effective. I thought maybe one or two people would be tricked for a split second, then quickly realize I was full of it, and have a laugh or two.

Instead, I had an Inbox full of emails that expressed heartfelt condolences for my loss, and exhibited genuine shock at my ability to be candid about such personal things. I sort of felt like a jerk responding with "Guess you missed the fiction tag."

But this is life, right? Mix-ups happen, and the results can be interesting even when they get a little murky. My only fear is that my friends might think I take their genuine concern for me too lightly, and that somehow, that makes them think I'm not offering them the respect that they deserve.

Actually, right now I'm in pretty hot water. It's probably foolish of me to write about it, because it may just make things worse. I knew that maybe there would be some ambiguity about whether this stuff was fact or fiction for people reading my blog, but I didn't anticipate anyone hearing this story third party through the grapevine.

Late last night, I get a call from my friend John. He's all stressed out and you can tell he's walking on eggshells for some reason.

"Hey buddy, hows it going?"

"Not bad. I can't remember the last time you've called me, what's up"

"Oh.... Pete told me what happened with your girl man, that's fucked up."

silence

I tried to figure out how to respond. A thought flashed back to an email I got that was wondering where the Metta was in all of this. I still don't really know how to explain it, but 'it's there somewhere'. I tried to explain it all to John, and his reaction was proof that I've not found a good way to justify what I'm doing here:

"You mean, you hoped that people would get all worked up reading this shit? Man, I can't believe you. You've done some messed up stuff before, but this takes the cake. Fuck you man, don't even talk to me"

click

Of my friends, I can safely say that John is one of the least interested in the arts, and it didn't really surprise me that he didn't see any beauty or truth in this writing of mine, even if it just barely survives in the shadow of all the lies and complications. What did surprise me was that I was so capable of writing something that effected so many of my friends in such a serious way...

Especially when this is still fiction. Sure, there is some truth hidden in here, but these words are nothing more than a story, designed to entertain and impact. I hope that this is fun to read, once you're in on the joke.

Though these weird quasi-fictional posts may be lacking Metta, they certainly have no shortage of Meta. You see, I do have a friend in the building that I sometimes flirt with a bit, mostly for fun, but also because if she ever presented me with the opportunity to take things more seriously, I doubt I'd shy away.

She's been enjoying my writing, and that's part of what makes me keep it up. It's funny how fact and fiction are increasingly melting the more I push on with this. I woke up this morning to a little sheet of paper slipped under my door that said:

8 5 12 12 5

Are you helle confused yet?  I am, but since this is so exciting, I can't wait to see what happens next!

River of Honey

2008-01-28T06:13:00.000Z

It's funny how things work out sometimes. Yesterday I wrote a fictional but apparently believable account of a rough breakup, and in the mix-up, ended up getting more than I could ever bargain for.

Though it may not be apparent to my casual acquaintances, there was a certain amount of truth in my last post. The breakup didn't exist, because Alyssa didn't exist. Actually... I met an Alyssa this week, but she was 6 years old and that's a little out of my age range. She did have a pretty name though and I was happy to use it here.

However, I have been writing poetry and drawing pictures, many of them coded, for a neighbor. She happens to read this blog, which I didn't really know. I guess this is a strange way to go about romance, but she was able to see that my last post was really more a statement of how strongly I feel for her than it was a bitter stab at romance. I guess you can call me a strange lot, and you'd be right. But that doesn't change things.

This whole thing opened up a can of worms though. She had a lot of questions about whether my past relationships have really been that violent. I told her truthfully, of course not. I mean, I've been through some rough patches, but I could never dream of the kind of drama I put forth in the last post. She asked me if I'm really prone to losing faith in relationships when things are less exciting. I told her truthfully, probably so. Maybe this is something I can work on, maybe it isn't, but it's fair to say that the death of more than one relationship I've been in has been the inability to stay interested.

I laughed when she asked whether my friends are really homophobic, because I didn't even know how to answer that. Maybe some of them are, but most of them aren't. I did tell her that general acceptance and respect for others is very important to me, and that the friends I keep tend to reflect this attitude. She asked if I'd ever *really* become a monastic, I said "I don't know".

Come to think of it, there wasn't much in the post that she didn't ask about. I guess I did too good of a job writing realistically, and she wanted honesty on all accounts. She asked where I hide my secret notebook, and I told her it's called Meta-Metta. She was skeptical, but I explained how unlike my technical blogs where I'm bound by public image to not stray 'too far' from the sanity mark, this place is one I can call my own. If I do a good enough job of mixing facts with fiction, information with noise, art with .... crap, that I have the freedom to say whatever I want. Those are my favorite types of secrets anyway, the kind that are right out in the open for all to see, but require a certain bit of extra knowledge to unlock them.

We finally got back around to the topic of my infatuation with her. This is something that had been going on for a couple weeks, but mostly in a way that could be described only as friendship. She asked what I really thought of her, and I tried to think it through:

9 12-15-20-5 19

She thought for a moment, and responded:

19-9-12-12-25

Seeing her sequence, I realized I'm dumb. With a little help from irb, I confirmed.

>> "ilotes".split(//).map { |e| e[0] - 96 }
=> [9, 12, 15, 20, 5, 19]

I started to correct myself, and she hushed me: "I only read the first two letters, and knew what you were trying to say." As if I needed a reminder of why I find her so captivating...

So it's not safe to say that I'm in love, but, I am definitely in lotes. What that means, I haven't quite figured out yet, but as long as it's fun, I don't mind seeing where things lead.

The rest of the night was boring-ish, at least, nothing juicy to write about. We watched Amores Perros, we acted silly and danced around my apartment to Regina Spektor and ate ice cream. After three years of utter singleness, I experienced something not-too-unlike cuddling. It made me smile.

That's enough for now. I'm sure the plates smashing were more interesting :)

And this of course, is still fiction. If I've surprised you again, I'm sorry. Feel free to assume that my blog is chock full o' lies (even though I'll try to use tags to distinguish truth from fantasy), I think there is a reason for this all somewhere, but I haven't put it into words yet. If you enjoy my writing, please let me know what you think. If you don't, tell me why (so long as it's not arguing preference)

River of tears

2008-01-26T17:00:00.000Z

NOTE: This is fiction. I plan to do a few more of these under the tag ljx (LiveJournal Experiment). Anyway, Enjoy!

So my girlfriend broke up with me last night. I can't say I'd blame her, but I do think she did it for all the wrong reasons.

What girlfriend you say? Oh, well, I suppose that has been something I've been a little too cloak and dagger about, with only two or three of you even knowing she ever existed. Even if I'm one to scream things from mountain tops, I can't help but yield to a stronger person who tells me to keep secrets locked tight within my heart.

The thing is, she's not allowed to date. I don't really know the back story because she never really told me it, but it seems typical enough: Asshole abusive dad, military type, controls everything she does in life even at 22. I didn't want to touch that shit with a ten foot pole, so it's fine by me that she wanted to be a bit clandestine.

Besides, I think the knowledge I was dating someone would cast aspersions into my social circle, who seems convinced that either I'm doomed to repressed homosexuality or that I'll eventually join a monastery. The latter seems more likely than the former, as my homophobic friends tend to mistake sexual confidence and general acceptance of others for sexual confusion. Nevertheless, neither of these things are true, because I have been dating a girl, if only in secret.

Alyssa was an interesting kind of girl I guess. Always keeping me an inch short of the foot of leeway I needed, knowing just what she could get away with. Being so submissive is not my style, but she had a sort of power over me. She has two of the three marks of romantic perfection, in that she's alarmingly beautiful and she's quite intelligent. The only problem was that, aside from the cat and mouse game and the air of secrecy, she was overwhelmingly boring.

Folks who know me, know I don't do well with boredom. Sure, we had some fun times for the first few weeks, but my interest quickly waned. Ever wondered why I've been playing so much Go lately? You have her to blame.

Once the fire dies out, the rest is just end game. I'd say that we had a nice September, and that it's just been downhill since then. Hell, I only saw her twice in January, and that includes last night. Speaking of which, might as well talk about that and get it over with.

She comes over around 11pm, piss drunk from the club and all fired up from talking with her dumb friends who hate me. Glorified valley girl replicas, these New Jersey queens do a good job of rattling poor Alyssa's confused head even if I am powerless to do the same. She's sitting on the couch while I finish up a game of Go, and I have to admit, with her slurring words like she was, I wasn't really paying attention.

Well, at least until a cup flew over my shoulder and smashed one of my favorite trinkets. It turns out, I had left some of my drawings and poetry out on the floor, and she had rifled through it, like she always did. I guess the cup was a sign she didn't like what she saw.

Rather than the uninspired prose and anemic doodles I'd been churning out for her in recent weeks, instead, she found deep, beautiful sonnets. Lovely limericks, and some handsome haiku.

She saw drawings that weren't exactly drawings, but coded messages of admiration and appreciation for someone who was... well... not her. The cup was just for the first one she saw. After she snatched my notebook from its not-secret-enough hiding place, my entire shelf of plates went crashing down onto the floor in what can only be described as a sea of glass.

I guess no one ever told her breakups don't necessarily involve breaking things. However, I took the hint, and before I could tell her that nothing ever happened between me and the... other girl, that it was mere curiosity and interest, she had already slammed my door and woken up most of my neighbors.

Something tells me I'll never see her again. Oh well. The only lesson I've learned here is that sometimes little lies pile up and make it hard to see the truth even when it's right in front of your eyes. Oh yeah... and also, that if you have a floor full of glass, don't walk around barefoot.

Prime

2008-01-26T02:20:00.000Z

seesaw gas mask
cakes make me gag
ace geek gem scams
see me wag!

Sand Castles

2008-01-19T05:03:00.000Z

When I was a kid, I never managed to find myself straying from the beach for too long. Summers in Rhode Island, winters in Florida, spring in Myrtle Beach. With my mother's love of the ocean came my own invitation to make amends with the sea.

Sometimes I'd swim until I felt like I'd pass out. Other times, I'd climb on some rocks searching for the sea creatures that'd scuttle about. It seemed that I could never tire of these simple pleasures, but when I did, there were always castles to be built.

Even when I was a kid, I had some weird aesthetic beliefs. I always wondered why people would come with cut out plastic buckets or fancy sculpting kits when all I really wanted to do was build sand castles. While the artistically inclined built their Magic Kingdom out of dirt, and while the less talented committed oceanographic terrorism with a well placed foot, I built earthy monoliths that resembled some kind of surreal, gritty otherworld.

Sand castles all eventually face the same fateful return to the elements, so it wasn't a matter of whether you could save them, but rather how you chose their death. Build too far away from the water, and your castle will crumble in the wind, or get trampled by the bikini Al Queda. Build too close to the sea and you may not even finish your grand masterpiece before the ocean decides to say hello in a not-so-subtle way.

To me, there was something beautiful about the collision between sea and earth. I built my castles well within reach of the waves, usually at low tide, just waiting for impending doom to roll in. Sometimes, I'd try to wall off my real estate in hopes of beating the moon at its own game, but that never quite panned out. Instead, what I came to realize is that when water is at the door, it's best to just roll out the red carpet.

Between the mounds of sand and clay, I'd snake a labyrinth of canals, with high walls, low walls, tunnels, twists and turns. I'd dig deep and make room for flood water in various spillover chasms. Extending out to the waves, a walled ramp extended warmly from my sand empire to the chaotic and mischievous sea.

The first wave to reach my endless aqueducts was always the most exciting one. The flow was slow at first, but soon gave way to raging rivers of mud and salt. Before long, I had set before me a Venetian wonderland. It all seemed so elegant at first, so peaceful even with the road to perdition clearly paved through my city's landscape. This of course, was not meant for eternity.

Little by little the circulatory system of my mud palace would collapse, as tunnels folded and walls crumbled. You could almost hear the groans of the sandy towers as they twisted and tumbled into the murky deep. Venice had become Atlantis in a heartbeat. All that remained were echos of imagination, and a solemn reminder that the nature of life is change.

The Miracle of Perception

2008-01-17T04:20:00.000Z

It's been a while since I've written about anything spiritual, so I figured I'm a little overdue. Though this is more a general stream of thoughts that have been going through my head, it is influenced a bit from my Buddhist readings, so I hope folks looking for that kind of stuff find it interesting. For those lurking, I'd love to hear your comments about my writing, as I may be doing more of this sort of stuff in the coming weeks.

The walk from my apartment to downtown New Haven is a little over 15 minutes. It turns out that this is more than enough time to think of hundreds of random thoughts and ideas.

Sometimes, I try to do walking meditation, but the thoughts still pour in as quickly as ever. Some of them recur enough that I feel like they might be somehow significant, and the topic of perception is one of the most common.

For those who know me, you might be familiar with my slightly eccentric view of the world. I really don't give much thought as to whether or not the things we see in day to day life are reality, but instead view them as sort of manifestations of our perception. Without this notion of 'I feel the cold air on my skin, so therefore it must be cold out.', I tend to find myself asking some rather strange questions.

A big one is "Why does the world appear this way?". Sometimes, when I'm carrying along a little more hubris, I think something like "Why do I choose to see the world this way?". This may seem a bit absurd, especially when I reiterate that I'm not asking these questions in a metaphorical way. However, you can easily imagine the difference between two lovers kissing in the rain, and a homeless man trying to stay dry in the rain. Why does the man choose to see hell and the couple to see heaven? Perception is the root of this, and whether it is controllable is not something clear to me, but it's at least interesting to see how much of a role it plays.

Another gut feeling I have as I simply walk through town is that many things are not as I remember them. Actually, it's more like nothing is ever as I remember it. Some days, the town green seems huge, other days, I don't even notice crossing it. Some days there are temporary changes, construction, fallen trees, whatever it is. These kinds of things are interesting to ponder because they force you to accept the fact that the world isn't especially well represented by an oil painting. By that, I mean, that our memories are simply snapshots, they're not anything close to reality on the grand scale. Truly, it's the difference between looking at a photograph of a sunset, and seeing one happen in front of your eyes.

There is another kind of surprise hidden in the perception labyrinth, and that is when something you thought you knew transforms into something entirely different. Imagine knowing a neighbor or friend for a while, always finding them somewhat attractive. Then, somehow, something they say or do causes you to find them inexplicably beautiful. Sometimes this is a fleeting thing and it just disappears soon after the moment expires, but other times, it just sticks. Every time you look at this person, you wonder what you'll be able to find in their eyes.

This kind of thing happens all the time, and yet we don't often stop to recognize it and appreciate the auspiciousness of it. Of course, despite my criticism here, I am no role model. I think a great contributing factor to my roughly 3 years of being single is that I've got perceptual blindspots up the wazoo. All too often, a budding infatuation has been cut off at the knees by distractions such as work or the persuit of some esoteric hobby (cough... Go... cough). The real shame is that all too often a break in awareness has caused me to give people reason to believe that I'm not interested in them, when the truth is usually that I simply forgot to stay awake.

At any rate, perception is an interesting thing. It's where phrases like "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" stem from. It's not necessarily something we need to strive to achieve, but it's worth wondering how great the world would be if we could just see it as a beautiful, happy place to live in. Without being delusional, I think that a little bit of perceptual optimism could go a long way to making a pleasant reality, at least in the narrow context of our own lives. With luck, this would help make it more true on a global sense, but hey, taking care of yourself is challenging enough, right?

The place our fathers know

2008-01-14T20:26:00.000Z

It's an igloo
ice walls, frozen cascading falls

It's a wigwam
Fallen trees, bark and leaves

Our own adobe
rustic mud caked bricks
made from the sun-dried clay

The old folks say
home is where the heart is

My home is always with you.

On Relationships and Marriage

2008-01-14T03:35:00.000Z

I asked my friend Jia to give me a topic to write on... and of course, she did a good job of picking something quasi-uncomfortable for me, whether she meant to or not. Nevertheless, I guess the result is at least interesting. My mind is still somewhat split between a negative outlook on these things and some sort of residual hopefulness and whimsy. It was only fair to write two poems:

1. The depressing one - Not so pretty

You say, "It's friday, I'm in love"
I say, tomorrow, I'll see you tomorrow.

Scribbled drawings in that notebook you gave me
'single petal flowers called never-he-loves-me-not'

And the poetry that once flowed through my soul
somehow became just a faint whisper in my mind

These days, there is no romance in my inspiration
the spring in my step is not a rebound of love

I once believed in riding comets
And then I learned they were made of ice

I remember when one day
I dreamed of diamond skies
and honey eyes

Now I've grown up
and my childlike-love has
found its place among other memories

Shackles like marriage? Sorry, you must be joking
I can't even commit to flirting.

2. The upbeat one - Echos of old times

I don't really know you all that well
But I know your smile

I don't know if we'll get along
But your eyes won't let go of mine

And I spiral down,
something says I'm falling
but I float on, held by a dream

Hearts tied like shoestrings
Legs tied like pretzels
Hands wrapped, doubts snapped

I think that my words can paint pictures
but your lips bring poetry in motion

Left feeling like a foolish boy
in the arms of a lovely girl

But all of this is fantasy,
because I'm still struggling with "Hello"

January KGS+ Tournament

2008-01-12T21:25:00.001Z

I'm participating in the American/European Daytime Kyu division. 5 games, Swiss-McMahon style pairing. Ranks listed below are at time of play, not tournament entry time.

Day 1: Undefeated, w00t!

Game 1, 2008.01.12 3:32 pm EST:
roque(W) 11k vs. sandalaz(B) 11k | B +14.5

Game 2, 2008.01.12 5:02 pm EST:
sandalaz(W) 11k vs. Amayama(B) 14k, H3 | W +31.5

Day 2: Two losses, one win

Game 3, 2008.01.13 2:02pm EST:
ken1jf(W) 7k vs. sandalaz(B) 11k, H4 | W +32.5

Game 4, 2008.01.13 3:32pm EST:
billyhand(W) 8k vs. sandalaz(B) 11k, H2 | W+72.5

Game 5, 2008.01.13 5:02 pm EST:
sandalaz(W) 11k, vs. ukeewu(B) 13k, H2 | W+ Res

Final Results: 6th place out of 22.

I'm pretty happy with the results, though my last game was a little weird. I think black had a chance of winning still if he stuck it out... oh well.

Statement of Porpoise

2008-01-02T08:06:00.001Z

My friend's awesome grad school application:

Though some of the ideas were mine, his artwork shows that he clearly deserves to be in the Ivy League. I mean... Turtle, Swastika, Rainbow, Robot, Guy with a knife....

It's all here!

My Brother Is Getting Married

2007-12-19T11:28:00.001Z

So my brother called me up the other day to let me know he's getting married. I watched my usually rock solid abhorrence to all things matrimonial get sidelined temporarily in a feeling of genuine happiness for him and Maria.

It's interesting, how more and more each day, I'm feeling like I'm getting old. Of course, that's a ridiculous thing to say in my lower 20s, but nevertheless, there is some truth to it. Things like this just tend to serve as reminders that life is truly moving along at a quick pace, far faster than we realize.

One thing I've never really talked about much with anyone other than personal friends is that due to rather severe hypochondria, I've never expected to live more than two or three years beyond my current age. But I guess that's a whole other can of worms I don't need to open right now. I just thought of this because it's like... man... I didn't even think I'd see high school graduation, let alone attend my brother's wedding.

At any rate, I'm not sure what marriage means. Words like "forever" seem scary to me, but I know that for some people, these things really can work, and really make them happy. I hope that's the case with my brother, and that this brings him a sense of stability that he's likely been long overdue for.

Now if I can only convince them to convert to Judiasm so glass can be broken and they can be carried around on chairs. That would bring the fun into this whole murky matrimony thing.

Mazal Tov, Steve and Maria!

Windows 1.0

2007-12-15T22:25:00.000Z

Pure. Fucking. Class.

Rough Ideas On Trust

2007-12-06T21:52:00.000Z

So for whatever reason, today I feel particularly interested in the mushy ideas in my head. While taking a shower, this rough model of my personal general purpose trust metric fell out. I'll try to describe how I view trust as a whole, keep in mind I'm not talking about any practical implications of these ideas....

Now, I'm not talking about trust as a moral question, but entirely in the sense of resource allocation and access control. Yes, I think about things like this when I think about people in my life. Yes, that's probably insane. Nevertheless, it's reasonable to generalize this a bit. Let's think of this as a system to govern resources and access given to participants to solve a particular problem. Here trustworthiness is then defined roughly as function describing the level of effectiveness a given participant has at solving the problem. Effectiveness can be a negative or positive quantity, basically acquired by summing up the weighted result of actions in the course of working on a problem.

An effectiveness rating determines where a person falls in a series of roles. I suppose this could be scaled as needed, but in most situations, I can classify a participant as fitting one of 6 possible trust levels, a random and frivolous graph shows them below.

So basically you can see that each of these roles is in order of effectiveness from worst-case to best-case. One thing I find that is relatively controversial in society is whether trust is something that should be given by default and then adjusted accordingly, or that it should be earned.

I'm of the opinion that trust should be earned, however, I think that it's inappropriate to give someone a jail sentence before the crime is committed. Even moreso, I think that artificially limiting a participant's potential effectiveness is well... ineffective. Arguments that this is usually done with security in mind may be valid, but keep in mind my view of trust is as a function of effectiveness, not safety.

So let's say that in general the neutral role lies at zero effectiveness, with some weighted buffer zone on each side that we'll discuss a little more later. Typically, a participant that is neutral is not causing a net gain or loss on the effectiveness scale, but basically balancing out between their effective and counter-productive actions. A participant in this role is most likely kept around because of their future potential to become trusted, or because they're part of the greater ecosystem in which somehow their presence improves the effectiveness of others.

I haven't thought about how those interactions may work except in the fuzziest of ways, so I won't explain them here. Let's just say in this atomic model of trust, those interactions are unimportant, a neutral participant is basically like constants in Calculus, they just fall out of the equation.

However, a new participant's first action can never result in maintaining a neutral effectiveness. It will either improve or diminish things... for this reason, even though their initial score would be zero, they would have the same level of trust as a trusted participant. This is simply because presumably there is a difference in resource allocation between neutral and trusted participants, and the potential to perform good actions is better for those who have the needed resources.

The question of whether or not the potential to perform bad actions is greater for a trusted participant is not exactly relevant at the moment, this has to do with importance of the problem and I'll try to give a rough description of that later. For now, let's assume even if a trusted participant could kill everyone on earth, I might still provide the same resources to an unknown participant with some confidence things will work out. It's good to start with the absurd and work our way back to the practical world, so humor me. :)

Okay, so basically, what we've discussed so far is how new participants enter the system, and the rough trust levels which are laid out. I'll be staying far away from concrete details of what one might do with these roles once they've been assigned, or even what the 'resources and access' might be which this system governs. None of that is important, it will always depend on what the problem is.

We also know that a participant's first action cannot cause them to become neutral. They have the same resources as a trusted participant, and are kept as 'unknown' until they fall into one of the other categories. For this reason, the system gets very confusing if you do not make neutral a very small range. Realistically, this range should roughly represent 0 +/- some confidence factor. This confidence factor would roughly represent how sure you are that you're accurately calculating a participant's effectiveness, which probably would be some function of time and number of actions. The implication here is that it becomes harder and harder to maintain a neutral presence. You're either helping or hurting, and I think this is true in most cases.

Anyway, this brings me to the idea of weighting, and also what most of these roles mean in the context. The key here is that the weighting is external, and roughly represents the importance of the problem to whoever 'owns' it. Ownership simply implies the ability to grant resources, and for simplicity, let's assume this is a single source.

The overall weighting is simply an effectiveness range from worst to best. This range is based on the assumptions of if there are no participants other than the owner, what is the worst and best effectiveness that can be achieved. Using this, you basically have a seed from an authoritative source, and that scales the rest of the system.

Once roles are assigned, the distance between them can be tweaked as needed to fit what are basically risk vs. reward calculations, and this would probably get quite complicated as you tried to optimize different people's potentials. Let's assume that we're doing this as a feedback control system, and setting these levels can basically be done at random, that the effectiveness scales effectively consistently as you tweak each one, and the business is mostly to optimize them. Maybe if this wasn't such a crackrock idea, I would have some way to formalize that, but I don't. The best I can offer is my hazy view on what each role means to me:

Malicious: Net effectiveness is worst than the owner's worst case. This means that such a person most likely will not be granted any resources, but in fact, resources may need to be expended to prevent them from causing harm. However, because this system is dynamic, a participant needn't be permanently malicious.... if the confidence factor degrades over time, his score will eventually deflate to something less severe.
Untrusted: Net effectiveness is somewhere in the negative field, so more actions are harmful than helpful. Such a participant may have severely restricted resources and is likely only kept around because a) killing them isn't an option or b) they play an important part in the overall ecosystem, which is not described here.
Neutral: Net effectiveness is roughly a wash. It seems unlikely that this would really happen much in practice, but it provides a small buffer zone for those who either are extremely inconsistent or have disappeared for a while and need somewhere to come to rest. I mostly leave this role in this discussion for symmetry, it may not be needed.
Trusted: Net effectiveness is positive and sufficient for enough progress to be made that the participant is not considered Neutral, and thus is not immediately expendable. A trusted participant has access basically to all the resources needed to work on the problem directly, and has room for growth.
Helpful: Someone who raised the bar above the owner's best case estimates. This person eventually pushes the curve higher, and thus deserves all the same rights (in the context of the problem) that the problem owner does. I don't think it has a place here, but in practice, a consistently helpful person may become the defacto or actual problem owner, or in a multi-owner system, at least a partner.

After discussing these rough ideas, I realize I've mainly written them because they were fun to think about, not because I think they're particularly useful. It does vaguely represent how I view trust though, and I'm curious if there is anything practical hidden within there.

The appealing thing about this model is, like my actual outlook on how to trust people and with what, it's extremely decentralized and decomposable. You can break it up into as many parts as you want, change the importance levels of things, and generally go wild with how you tweak the overall system.

This is why I don't need to "like" you to trust that you'll do good work. It's why I don't need to believe you are honest to accept a gift from you. It's also why I probably have some sort of dementia that causes me to write such things. :)

Go Buy My Book

2007-12-03T14:59:00.000Z

Yeah, so what if the Ruport Book isn't done yet. Buy it anyway.

It will force Mike and I to get it to print on time. And that can't be all bad.

November KGS+ 13×13 American/European Daytime 2 Tournament

2007-11-18T18:57:00.000Z

First time I've ever really played 13x13, but I entered this one day tournament. I'll be updating status on my progress as the day goes on.

Game 1, sandalaz (W) [14k] vs. jebrallter (B) [18k] :
W+ Time (no show)
Game 2, sandalaz (W) [14k] vs. ukeewu (B) [13k] :
W+ 60.5
Game 3, sandalaz (W) [14k] vs yug (B) [11k] :
B+ Res
Game 4, sandalaz (W) [14k] vs amundsen (B) [9k] :
B+ 7.5
Game 5, sandalaz (B) [14k] vs just4ubabe (W)[15k]:
B+ 25.5
Game 6, sandalaz(B) [14k] vs TedYBear (W) [13k]:
W+ 44.5

Final result, 3 wins, 3 losses. However, I don't like counting that first game. :-/

Position 58/61 by McMahon scoring

Seven wonderful products of the human mind

2007-11-18T02:20:00.000Z

Buddhism
Email
Ruby
Go
The printing press
Beer
Mathematics

Why Security Questions Don't Work For Me

2007-10-23T17:33:00.000Z

2007.10.20 : stream of consciousness

2007-10-20T05:17:00.000Z

(originally hand written aside some lines and doodles)

words tumble onto paper like sand in hourglass hips swaying
in the sunroof of the town car dealer in the
lowest part of town, down. The wolf howls at the crab
cake looking for a milkshake fantasy and sub-machine
dream. Life flows sonic like a fountain, shouts
out the trout of the kings eye side.

Eagle eye droppers view [illegible] inside
a robot winged Satan.

Fluttering I
see nothing,
only trees,
grass
and
green

Skies lower clouds to the meadows and
the small chirping frog stammers "Rosebud"

MAA No Jutsu Club Monster Tournament 3th

2007-10-16T05:14:00.000Z

With a title like that, who could resist joining this tournament?

Looks like there are 200 players registered, nearly all of them above 15 kyu. That means I'm starting off at the very bottom of the ladder, but I'm doing it more for the learning experience than anything.

The tournament will last 2 months, with a new game every 3 days. I'll update my status here with wins or losses and links to the SGF files. If you are around during any of the games, please consider logging into KGS and viewing the games live if you'd like. :)

Game 1, 2007.10.15: amundsen [17k] (white), I won +199.5
Game 2, 2007.10.18: Yohdrag [15k] (white), I lost -22.5
Game 3, 2007.10.21: Nautica [15k] (black), I won +109.5
Game 4, 2007.10.24: Nfaifa [13k] (white), I lost -76.5
Game 5, 2007.10.27: Bye
Game 6, 2007.10.30: babercan [12k] (white), I won +3.5
Game 7, 2007.11.02: Bye (at RubyConf)
Game 8, 2007.11.05, saibnymn [12k] (white), I lost -42.5
Game 9, 2007.11.08, I forgot to log in :-/
Game 10, 2007.11.11, ronyazarez [14k] (white), I won by resignation
Game 11, 2007.11.14, Nautica [14k] (black), I won by resignation
Game 12, 2007.11.17, I logged in too late
Game 13, 2007.11.20, CartmanSP [11k] (black), I lost -5.5
Game 14, 2007.11.23, Bye
Game 15, 2007.11.26, Zardoz [10k] (white), I lost -78.5
Game 16, 2007.11.29, Bye
Game 17, 2007.12.02, Yohdrag [13k] (white), I lost -19.5

(note: opponent ranks are listed at time of game, not start of tourney)

On the cruelty of really teaching Computer Science

2007-10-09T15:33:00.000Z

A number of these phenomena have been bundled under the name "Software Engineering". As economics is known as "The Miserable Science", software engineering should be known as "The Doomed Discipline", doomed because it cannot even approach its goal since its goal is self-contradictory. Software engineering, of course, presents itself as another worthy cause, but that is eyewash: if you carefully read its literature and analyse what its devotees actually do, you will discover that software engineering has accepted as its charter "How to program if you cannot.".

The popularity of its name is enough to make it suspect. In what we denote as "primitive societies", the superstition that knowing someone's true name gives you magic power over him is not unusual. We are hardly less primitive: why do we persist here in answering the telephone with the most unhelpful "hello" instead of our name?

Nor are we above the equally primitive superstition that we can gain some control over some unknown, malicious demon by calling it by a safe, familiar, and innocent name, such as "engineering". But it is totally symbolic, as one of the US computer manufacturers proved a few years ago when it hired, one night, hundreds of new "software engineers" by the simple device of elevating all its programmers to that exalting rank. So much for that term.

From a talk by E.W. Dijkstra about the difficulties behind computer science as a discipline.

Small Wins Are Beautiful

2007-10-09T04:51:00.000Z

Thanks to ram for an excellent game on KGS.

RubyEast 2007

2007-09-29T21:34:00.000Z

Yesterday I attended the RubyEast conference at Penn State Great Valley. Aside from being difficult to get to without a car, I really enjoyed my time there and it's safe to say this is another example of why regional Ruby conferences rock.

As usual, I didn't take notes. Nevertheless, I'll happily throw out my hazy recollections for all to enjoy.

The conference was two tracks, which made this the first multi-track Ruby event I've attended / spoken at. Here's a list of the talks I attended:

Hal Fulton - The Future Of Ruby (Keynote)
Andrea O. K. Wright - High Art on Top of Low Level APIS: Building Games With Ruby
Ezra Zygmuntowicz - Ruby Performance: Tips Tricks and Hacks
Giles Bowkett - How to Kick Ass With irb
David Black - Per Object Behavior In Ruby

Hal's talk was neat because it provided a nice little summary of where Ruby is headed, and probably exposed some of the less experienced Rubyists in the crowd to a lot of information that'd be tough to cobble together otherwise. It was principally non-technical, but it did leave lots of room for discussion. A decent dialog emerged towards the end about selector namespaces and what they might offer us. David Black mentioned the existing Ruby implementations that do similar stuff, though it seems like they never picked up steam. Still, hopefully these will exist by Ruby 2.0, because it'd be nice to have a little bit of a safer way to do core extensions.

Andrea's talk was interesting because it was truly about low level 2d and 3d gaming APIs, which I don't have a whole lot of experience with. It seems like a fun way to look into C extensions and things like that, and her examples were nifty because Ruby and Video Games clearly equals fun. Some of the frameworks, like Gosu and RubyGame, are surprisingly capable.

Ezra's talk was a good reminder that part of the reason Ruby is slow is because we make it that way. He covered basic benchmarking, but then mostly talked in the context of his project Merb, which is basically a super lightweight and quick web framework for Ruby. Practical examples always help, and I'm already thinking of applying some of his tips, tricks and hacks to Ruport, to see what we can squeeze out of it.

Giles talk was mostly just reading over his .irbrc config file, which seems much less exciting than it actually was. There were lots of fun hacks in there, some I knew about and had forgotten, and some entirely new to me. At the end, an attendee asked the question "Can I tell irb to open my editor, then execute the code and bring me back to the irb prompt?"

With a couple suggestions from others, and a lot of yelling across the crowd from me, he actually got a simple example of this up and running during his code. We've improved it some more, and it'll end up on his blog, but if he doesn't post it soon, I'll share what I have. We even added in error handling and are working on history support. It's a great hack :)

Finally, as usual, David Black made an old topic (for me) seem new again. The best thing I took away from this talk was a great quote about Ruby's object-oriented model: "Classes launch objects into Object Space", which really shows clearly that class definition is just the beginning of a Ruby object's life cycle. If he posts his slides, I'll update the above quote to be accurate to what he actually said, because I'm just paraphrasing :)

After the conference, it was beer, pizza, and several games of Werewolf. Apparently it's the new craze among all the 1337 Ruby H4x0rz. I suck at it, I never survived a game, usually getting whacked in the first round. Some say this may be due to my close likeness to werewolves, but I think they're just bastards.

This morning we got together to hack on a project for the hopefully benevolent effort that is Ruby For Change. I'll probably post more on this later, but for now, hope this informal, spotty commentary has been interesting!

UPDATE: Oh, also... Mike and I talked about Ruport, Beyond 1.0. You can take a look at the slides, and please let us know what you thought if you were there.

The All Seeing Leprechaun

2007-09-17T16:34:00.000Z

Putting an adjective in front of a noun does not in itself make a mathematical concept. Cantor declared that an `infinite set' is a set which is not finite. Surely that is unsatisfactory, as Cantor no doubt suspected himself. It's like declaring that an `all-seeing Leprechaun' is a Leprechaun which can see everything. Or an `unstoppable mouse' is a mouse which cannot be stopped

From a nice critical essay on Set Theory as religion and other problems with foundational mathematics in the Academy by N J Wildberger.

Continuing Eggucation

2007-09-06T19:33:00.001Z

From my egg carton:

Use or cook eggs immediately after cracking.

Man, I wonder how many people out there are sitting around with idle cracked eggs. Oh, the humanity!

Is this food bad yet?

2007-09-04T14:13:00.000Z

As usual, the first link of Google wins again! I was trying to figure out how long it takes for eggs to go rancid, and found a chart of virtually all foods and their shelf lives. Seeing as this is a common question for me (sadly enough), this will be sure to come in handy.

Hormel, I used to think we had nothing to offer each other, but I was wrong!

My first Noonhat lunch

2007-08-30T20:04:00.000Z

I came across the Noonhat site the other day, which immediately seemed like a good idea to me:

The main goal of Noonhat is to connect us with people outside of our normal social, work, and hobby circles. It's easy nowadays to filter down to match on particular interests. I want to help all of us open up a bit and have good conversations with a wide variety of people. Occasionally, even people we may disagree with!

I tried to sign up in New Haven, but since the site only recently launched outside of Seattle, I got put on the waiting list there. However, I knew I'd be in Manhattan tonight for a sort of dinner discussion with Andy Oram and Karl Fogel, so I decided to put in for a NYC Noonhat lunch today.

This morning I got an email telling me I got paired up with Noam, who works in midtown Manhattan. We met and went for Vietnamese. He's working in corporate environmental affairs and has an activist background, so it turned out we had a lot to talk about. We got into stuff about the environment, about social networks, information freedom, free culture, and even a bit about free software / community driven development.

In a day where I'd be otherwise just getting a quick bite to eat while traveling anyway, it was nice to have some conversation, especially with someone who isn't necessarily interested in the same exact things as I am.

I'd definitely try Noonhat again, and would probably give Noam a call to get lunch again. He had some interesting thoughts on distribution models for scientific works that I probably would want to discuss a bit more.

So if you've got nothing to do for lunch, consider trying this out in your town. It's definitely fun, and a refreshing approach to getting people together in a world that seems to be a little too cliquey for own own good.

Five Meditation Techniques for non-meditators

2007-08-20T22:54:00.001Z

Though I know that not everyone has the time or interest to deeply explore a meditative spiritual practice, I think we can all benefit from greater awareness and a deeper connection with who we really are. Though I'm completely an amateur when it comes to this kind of thing, here are five simple meditation techniques that you can try out on the way to work, during lunch, or other time that would just otherwise idly slip by. They're based on lots of the Buddhist stuff I've read, but aren't in any way limited to a certain kind of spiritual thinking or alignment.

Pay attention to what you eat. How many times have you savored the first bite or two of something to then be swept away by thoughts, planning, or worrying? Though we might not be able to eat our three square meals in a quiet contemplative state, picking one or two a day can do wonders for your mind. Don't push away thoughts when they arise, but don't let them encompass you, either. Notice the taste of your food, and how it makes you feel as you eat it.
Pay attention while walking. Again, it's all too common to decide on a destination, set the body to cruise control, and wake up at your destination, completely blocking out the trip in between. I try to focus on my breath and the contact of my feet with the ground. I also note any pain or tension in my body on longer walks, where it arises, when it gets worse, things like that. This is another time when you give your mind permission not to take your thoughts too seriously, let them come and go as needed, but don't worry about planning some super important project while you take a 10 minute walk.
Pay attention to your body posture. Every few minutes, or every hour, or as often as remember, check in with your body and see what your posture is saying. This simple process can be very effective in being aware of how you are feeling, as well as what your body is projecting to others. If nothing else, this helps keeps your limbs from falling asleep as you'll notice the awkward positions we put ourselves in.
Pay attention to what motivates your speech. Most of the time, we're responding to someone out of either an auto-pilot mechanism or some fight-or-flight mentality. If we stop to check in and understand "why" we're about to say what we intend to say, it makes it more likely that we'll speak with kindness and compassion. Sometimes, its very easy to forget this one and let some really painful or thoughtless words slip. That's okay, use it as a chance to see the effects that harsh words have on people, so that you can understand them better.
Pay attention to your thought process. Most of our thoughts aren't needed. They're just some sort of narration, designed to paint the world the way we'd like to see it. There are any number of ways that we do this, but if you simply begin to take note of the thoughts you are having, you might realize that very few of them are remotely relevant to your current experience. It's dangerous to be judgmental, though... the easiest way to piss off your brain and make it dredge up more miserable thoughts is to say "I shouldn't think that...". Instead, with kindness and patience, simply notice any thoughts you have throughout the day, or throughout some part of the day by labeling them as a thought. When we do this labeling, it seems like the brain naturally quiets down a little, and the less important thoughts seem to lose their grip on us. Again, we're not always going to be able to do this, and we'll easily get carried away by our thoughts from time to time. Instead of beating yourself up over that, just notice it, and resume the labeling.

Though I don't do all five of these every moment of the day, I do them as often as I can and they've really helped me in a lot of ways. I wouldn't suggest expecting them to help make your life easier or happier, because they won't do that. But I think if you try them out, they might make you feel a little more awake in your day to day life.

If you try these out, let me know how they work for you. Also, if other readers have simple day to day practices they use to hack the mind and understand it a bit, or bring themselves a little more awareness, please feel free to post them here.

Why I Like Foreign Films

2007-07-29T17:01:00.000Z

Ever since I got my NetFlix subscription, I've intentionally been looking for films that I probably wouldn't see on TV from day to day. A lot of these movies have been foreign films, such as Amelie, The Motorcycle Diaries, Pans Labyrinth and some documentaries: Zen Buddhism: In Search of Self and Ayurveda: The Art of Being

What I've really enjoyed about these films is not necessarily the raw content being presented. Instead, what I've really appreciated is the sort of cultural window they expose. Coming from the US, I won't for a moment pretend to think that motion picture paints an accurate picture of society, but instead, it's really like looking at a culture through a kaleidoscope.

Because of this, it makes it entirely possible for a film to still be enjoyable to the foreign viewer even if it exhibits the same old boring themes, type-casted actors, and pop culture references that are alarmingly obvious to domestic viewers. With the freedom to bounce around from culture to culture, I feel like the artistic value of films keep their novelty. It's true that many elements of film are transcendent of culture, but I've been consistently surprised about certain little things in each foreign film I've seen.

Beyond the cultural exploration, I've also been enjoying the requirement of reading subtitles. It turns an audio-visual experience into something that is somehow literary. It's easy to let the dialog slip by in a film in your native language, but when experiencing a foreign film, reading the subtitles is often a requirement to understand what is going on, and at least for me, reading makes the lines register more strongly than simply hearing them. To some extent, this might be similar to the experience folks had with silent films back in the early days of motion pictures. I think there is something a little deeper to it though, in which you get to hear and see the emotional expressions of an actor, but also need to read their words to tie it all together.

All in all, watching a foreign film every now and again has sort of refreshed my interest in movies. It's a whole lot harder to guess the entire plot based on what actor is in the movie, or who produced the film. Of course, spend enough time viewing any one culture, and you'll pick up on that pretty quick. Luckily, there are a whole lot of different movies out there!

ICFP Day 2

2007-07-23T14:19:00.000Z

Yesterday when I wrote my wrap-up of Day 1, we were performance tuning and waiting to get back results from various runs, all to get stuck on a riddle involving 1337 and a cheesy reference to GhostBusters. So although yesterday yielded faster implementations, we were not able to make use of them, and hit an absolute dead end.

Here's some statistics: 869 registered, 357 submitted, we came in at 116 with the same risk and survival chance (1160657,1.2719%) as those from rank 91-164.

This puts us in the top 1/3 of those who submitted, and top 13% of those who registered. Ironically, this is the best our team has ever done, though this sure does not feel like a victory.

For those interested in our implementation, feel free to browse it on the web. Our code may still have room for optimization, but we tuned the hell out of it, and though it is slow, it was working well enough so long as we batched tasks out to many machines.

Anyway, another year passed, another insane challenge attempted with only a modicum of success, but definitely a lot learned and plenty of fun along the way. Warm regards to all those who were involved in the competition, it was a blast yet again.

UPDATE (2007.07.24):

James has put up a short team summary page. I've also fixed permissions on our Trac so you should be able to view the source now...

O'Reilly Articles Released To The Community

2007-07-23T13:30:00.000Z

I've now released the following four articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 License:

Understanding ActiveRecord, Part I

Understanding ActiveRecord, Part II

Rails Testing: Not Just For The Paranoid

How To Build Simple Console Applications With Ruby and ActiveRecord

My draft copies are at home, so I'll post them some time later this week, but you're now officially free to do as you wish with these works, providing you follow the very permissive terms of the CC/SA license.

All code samples should be considered released into the Public Domain, which means you may do whatever you wish with them, though attribution would be nice.

I will try to release whatever articles I write under CC/SA when I can. Please keep in mind that O'Reilly contributors sign 30 day exclusive publishing agreements, so if in the future you'd like to do something with one of my articles before 30 days from publishing, I'll have to get permission from my editor (who may need to go get permission from someone else, I don't know). However, Once 30 days are up, I can make decisions about the licensing of the work, and will always err to the side of free documentation unless there is some reason I can't.

I hope that folks find this helpful, and please do share with me any interesting changes you make (translations, additions, code modifications, etc). Enjoy!

ICFP Day 1, Progress!

2007-07-22T13:25:00.000Z

After an entire morning wrestling with bugs and performance issues all around, the evening brought progress in the form of successfully running dna2rna and rna2ppm on the prefix provided in the contest specifications. This would not have been possible without an execution trace of the Endo

Shortly after getting the prefix provided by the spec working, we got one step farther and uncovered another image that will allow us to continue on. However, our implementations give us estimated times that exceed the competition deadline, so we'll be working today to tune them as much as possible. That means we'll be having fun with ruby-prof and scratching our heads thinking of better algorithms.

I did manage to cut our image rendering time down significantly through some memory-eating optimizations, but it may need to be tuned more before it is ready for real loads.

Anyway, I think any more information than that would be spoilers. We're now on the scoreboard and tied with everyone from position 21 on down (and possibly more, they hide the top 20 scores). Our current rank (team: Side-Effects) is #80. Much better than last year.

ICFP Contest Day -2,-1,0

2007-07-21T14:41:00.000Z

I'm out in Oklahoma City working on the ICFP Contest. This years task is amazing, and as usual, massive and complex.

So, if you've been talking to me the last couple days, you'll know that was stuck in the Chicago Airport from Wednesday 3pm to Friday 11am due to bad weather and even worse management by American Airlines.

That having been said, aside from being delayed on arrival and travel fatigued, I was still fairly productive yesterday. I now have a mostly working RNA interpreter that is drawing primitives from the RNA, and actually does a few other neat things like do ruby2rna and rna2ppm

The problem of course, is that I lack a complete RNA dump to shake any bugs out of the system and start seeing if we're going to have a performance nightmare. Caleb, Ed, and James have the dna2rna interpreter built, but are optimizing it because our language of choice, Ruby, is once again, far too slow to allow us to be naive.

This morning I'll be testing and optimizing the image processing code from the partial RNA dumps we have and trying to build some more simple tests for it. Hopefully, we'll figure out what's wrong in the dna2rna code, and get a dump later this afternoon. If that happens, we can start saving Endo!

hai friend

2007-07-15T15:06:00.000Z

actually i am new in ruby on rails
and i involved in that one

my problem is when i installed
gem install libxsl-ruby on windows i got some errors like it need zlib1.lib,z.lib etc lib file

actually my dead line is over pls can u help me asap

Sadly, this is a real email I received this morning. Maybe it's a joke. I hope so for the poster's sake.

On WebTwoOh

2007-07-14T19:23:00.000Z

It’s a framework that allows a proactive paradigm shift from a synergy of leveraging the long tail to an immersion-enterprise scheme of next gen usability and AJAX compliancy. And a buzzword.

- Ten answers to the un-answerable question: "What is Web 2.0"

PayR getting closer to production

2007-07-09T03:00:00.000Z

The payroll application I've been developing for BTree for the last couple months is now getting closer to being ready for actual use. It now boils down to bolstering the manager interface a little, reintegrating reports that were part of an earlier iteration, and taking care of some final first wave feature requests.

This isn't the first internal application I've built based on Camping, but it is definitely closer to being a real application than a quick interface for a command line tool. I might be able to get a beta release out on RubyForge by the middle of August if we get this system in production by the end of the month.

It is a bit specialized, but might benefit from some community insight. We're also going to be using this as the core application for fleshing out the Ruport book, so people will have a nice guide to its internals. Especially interesting is that this application contains most of the camping hacks I've listed on O'Reilly, as well as some interesting report running logic.

Anyway, more to come. The above screenshot is of the current main interface, intentionally Spartan. I'm happy that Mike Milner helped me get it to fit in 800x600, though I thought I'd never have to do that again. Turns out not everyone has quite left the "Giant World" from Super Mario Brothers 3 in terms of screen resolution.

Seriously Disturbing Google Security Issue

2007-07-02T02:59:00.000Z

Okay, so this is really ridiculous. If you saw my last post, it might have been clear that I was investigating a potential security breach, but I thought it was an isolated occurrence.

Consider the following, and then read on:

1. Google is single sign on. Web History, Gmail, Blogger, Groups, all use the same account for verification
2. You can't just force all of your sessions to log out. The individual session stay logged in seemingly as long as needed, depending on browser setting. This means that when you sign out once, it doesn't sign you out everywhere.
3. Changing your password does not force existing sessions to log out.

Turns out, there have already been several reports of the issue that I had. I was using Google Groups on the 29th, and all of a sudden, my email address swapped to someone elses. I can't remember the name exactly, khalamas or something like that.

I had to log out, and by the time I logged back in, I was told that my invitation to "Patriots For Conservative Values" had been accepted. I was added to the group as 'Redhawk', instead of Gregory Brown. I did not sign up for this group, and it wasn't the same email notification as when you are added directly by a group manager.

After several rounds of confusing conversation, the group there seemed to not know what the hell I was talking about, saying that they just thought that I was some well known person that goes under that handle from gop.com

They were fairly helpful all in all, but I didn't know what to believe seeing as this seemed incredulous to me.

I've gone and changed a ton of passwords, made full backups of my email, offshored many of my services to a different email address, and done as much damage control as I could.

Le sigh. What is worse, is that google doesn't log you out of all systems when you log out. This is usually a feature of sorts, but means that if a session is highjacked, who knows how long it will stay alive. :-/

If it's not clear automatically, the fact that google is single sign on means that depending on how long this lasted, email, web search, and all of that other stuff may have been compromised. That's really what I'm worried about, and will post details if I find out more.

UPDATE: A blog entry from a user with a similar experience, who got in touch with Google. They said they recently made some changes to fix the issue, but no more details are there.

UPDATE2: Looks like we have even more reports of this issue happening that I overlooked. Sighs.

UPDATE3: I've received word from Google employees that this was a known Google Groups issue, and has since been reverted. I've asked a few additional questions for risk assessment, such as how long the sessions were live, but haven't heard back yet. At the very least, it doesn't appear to have been an attack.

Friends with security experience or interests, please contact me

2007-07-01T08:39:00.001Z

Please get in touch with me if you'd like to help me explore a security issue I ran into. Use something like Freenode though, don't email me.

Sorry to be clandestine, I need some advice first. Most of my Ruby friends would be ideal candidates.

Reflecting a new found interest in privacy

2007-06-30T05:27:00.001Z

After tearing out most of the mailing list posts, I still had just shy of 20000 messages in the last two years. They're now in Mail.app, waiting to slowly be filtered through as needed.

My gmail account will likely soon forward directly to a yet-to-be-decided email address, but it shouldn't effect anyone who's mailing me.

Now time to go make my tinfoil hat...

Can the internet do this?

2007-06-28T15:47:00.000Z

Because of a very nice anonymous reply to my original Quit the Internet post, I wanted to share this story from a few months ago that really changed my views on net culture.

A few months ago I somehow ended up getting in a discussion with my brother's best friend, Tim about Second Life. I was basically talking about how amazed I was by how immersive it is, and how it is very easy to see how people see the lines blur between reality and their virtual representations.

We talked a bit about how each generation is getting farther and farther away from having to use real imagination or make real connections with the world. I was sort of taking the stance that although I didn't like where things were heading, that I can easily see why people are willing to make that leap.

Tim couldn't identify with that at all. I talked about how visually, the impact of viewing something like the Second Life environment was really stunning because you were actually seeing some strange things that you'd typically describe as exclusively human.... eye contact, body language, etc.

He was getting increasingly agitated by what I was saying, not really angry but you could tell he wasn't buying a word I was saying. He then surprised me by reaching out and grabbing the upper part of my arm and shoulder and looked at me in the eyes, and said "What about that? You'll never be able to have a computer do that, no matter how close it gets"

Now... I have a lot of faith in technology, in the sense that I don't see there to be an upper limit we'll ever find. But the closer we get to emulating pure realism, the farther away from reality we get. We can sell our minds the fantasy easier, but it only harms us more.

Maybe real life isn't as exciting as our imagination. Maybe it's becoming harder and harder to see the blurry lines between life experienced and life viewed. But you know what, Tim was right. There is a world of difference between virtual and real.

After nearly a month of trying to "Quit The Internet"

2007-06-27T14:49:00.000Z

I can has salf discaplin?

Interesting collection of Buddhist essays

2007-06-25T03:14:00.000Z

Just checked out a site that my friend Ara recommended to me. It's called Buddhist Spirituality versus Materialism and is a collection of essays about modern Buddhism, Philosophy, and Science.

It is rather strangely organized, as a big list in alphabetical order on a wide range of topics, but some of the stuff is pretty neat. The articles don't try to keep neutral point of view it seems, but I don't really mind that. Any time you read any sort of religious writing, you have to expect some degree of bias.

Here's one bit from this site I particularly liked, as I feel this is a major appeal of Buddhist practice in general.

Unlike most other religions, Buddhism isn't so much about things to believe, as things to do. It is a technology of mind improvement. This is why Buddhists often refer to themselves as practitioners rather than believers. The Buddha told his students to trust their own experience of the effectiveness of the teachings, and not believe things just because he said so.

Besides Buddhism, I wonder what other spiritual practices explicitly reject dogma. Perhaps Taoism? Are there any Western religions that do this though? I'm sure there are, but I've not investigated. Maybe someone reading this will know...

Summary of my latest ORA article in Chinese

2007-06-24T20:23:00.000Z

One thing that I find wonderful about being part of the online / open source community is that things are truly global. I had to use babelfish to get an idea of what this post actually said, but over on letrails.cn, there is a nice summary of my latest O'Reilly article "How to build simple console apps with Ruby and ActiveRecord".

I just get really excited any time I see discussions about things I've worked on in other languages. :)

Maxima is beautiful

2007-06-23T23:06:00.000Z

I just indirectly stumbled across the computer algebra system Maxima. It appears to be extremely well documented, clisp based, and reeking of awesomeness. Here are just a couple examples from the beginning of the manual.

Basics:

(%i1) factor(10!);
                            8  4  2
(%o1)                      2  3  5  7
(%i2) expand ((x + y)^6);
       6        5       2  4       3  3       4  2      5      6
(%o2) y  + 6 x y  + 15 x  y  + 20 x  y  + 15 x  y  + 6 x  y + x
(%i3) factor (x^6 - 1);
                              2            2
(%o3)       (x - 1) (x + 1) (x  - x + 1) (x  + x + 1)

Integration and Differentiation:

(%i1) u: expand ((x + y)^6);
       6        5       2  4       3  3       4  2      5      6
(%o1) y  + 6 x y  + 15 x  y  + 20 x  y  + 15 x  y  + 6 x  y + x
(%i2) diff (%, x);
         5         4       2  3       3  2       4        5
(%o2) 6 y  + 30 x y  + 60 x  y  + 60 x  y  + 30 x  y + 6 x
(%i3) integrate (1/(1 + x^3), x);
                                  2 x - 1
                2            atan(-------)
           log(x  - x + 1)        sqrt(3)    log(x + 1)
(%o3)    - --------------- + ------------- + ----------
                    6             sqrt(3)          3

Linear and Cubic Equation Solving:

(%i1) linsolve ([3*x + 4*y = 7, 2*x + a*y = 13], [x, y]);
                        7 a - 52        25
(%o1)              [x = --------, y = -------]
                        3 a - 8       3 a - 8
(%i2) solve (x^3 - 3*x^2 + 5*x = 15, x);

(%o2)       [x = - sqrt(5) %i, x = sqrt(5) %i, x = 3]

Non-linear Systems of Equations:

(%i1) eq_1: x^2 + 3*x*y + y^2 = 0$
(%i2) eq_2: 3*x + y = 1$
(%i3) solve ([eq_1, eq_2]);
              3 sqrt(5) + 7      sqrt(5) + 3
(%o3) [[y = - -------------, x = -----------],
                    2                 2

                            3 sqrt(5) - 7        sqrt(5) - 3
                       [y = -------------, x = - -----------]]
                                  2                   2

It also does 2d and 3d equation plotting via gnuplot. This gives me an excuse to get back into reading "God Created The Integers" and also encourages me to crack open my new issue of Mathematics Magazine.

Of course, I could also spend time on other things, like seeing friends and going outside, but who needs that! ;)