Having Sex with Information

I have a confession to make. I not the good guy I keep telling you about! I suffer from a modern illness. I am an information nymphomaniac. It’s true…besides relationships and the warm fuzzies…its only information that keeps me alive. As boring as I make it sound, it is actually pretty exciting stuff. The world today is pretty much exploding with information; you just have to decide how much to listen to, and what your field of interest is. Don’t take it all the information you hear seriously, because it’ll do something awful to your head. Why do you think suicide, depression, murders, rapes and other unmentionables have risen so quickly in the 20^th (and 21^st) Century? It’s not the population increase that’s to blame it’s us and our knowledge. We’re getting overloaded man!

I like collecting stuff, but its all information based. Most people will ask you sooner or later:

‘What do you do in your spare time?’

Well my answer will be…I have sex with information. I can’t help it…I’m a whore. I’ve been blamed as being a nerd because of this. Although when you think of how much is out there just waiting to be absorbed, we should all be rushing like crazed American shoppers…shouldn’t we? Most of the time when I learn something new…I get a kick out of it, because it means that I’m growing myself, I’m becoming more resourceful to others, and its just great to know more stuff. This is all well saying all this because it always easier said than done. Before I confuse the heck out of you, allow me to elaborate.

The other day I was talking to a friend of mine at the ice rink. I was talking to him about skating (ironically). I referred to an episode of Dirty Sanchez (the welsh version of the American, Jackass TV series). I started off the sentence, “Have you seen the episode when…” My friend nodded his head, naturally. But instead of saying he’d seen it, he said, ‘Dude I’ve got all those episodes!’ I replied, “I know you do…but have you seen it?” His reply was still the same. Eventually he could see that I didn’t think his answer qualified for a yes in my books, so to get me off his back, he surrendered and admitted he’d seen it.

After a while I said to him that there is a massive difference between owning something, and actually processing (watching) it. Put it this way, if a guy has a lot of girlfriends, this doesn’t automatically mean he’s slept with them all. People are making the same assumption with owning stuff (that is information based). I say I’m an information whore, because I’ve tried and tested most of the river of knowledge swimming around my room.

One good way I’ve come up with, in terms of sorting through the crap on my computer, is to back up all the stuff I want to keep on disc (CD and DVD). So this way I can sort through the shit I’ll never actually get around to and delete it. If you’ve read other bits of my blog you will notice that I do a bit of computer gaming, and this means that I end up leeching a lot of random crap I won’t always get around to.

My point is…? Well, don’t get swamped by information around you. Rather sort through it all, choose what you don’t need and toss it. If you’re male and you’re battling with space on your hard drive, go and delete all your porn. Most people think I’m mad when I say this…but at the end of the day it’s gonna give you a virus one way or the other. I (personally) would rather keep something that I can benefit from. Don’t complain about having too much crap if you’re not going to do something about it all. Companies produce trash cans, waste paper baskets, and cardboard boxes for a reason.

Opinions are always welcome, since I’m giving mine so often.

 

PhilosopherPoet

Shoot yourself its Christmas…

I admit, Christmas has already gone, but still it doesn’t change the fact that this month is one of the most depressing months a human being can live through in the entire year. Forgive me for I don’t have the figures right in front of me this time. I can tell you though that suicides rise drastically in the month of October (for various reasons). In November they dip slightly…and then in December BOOM! They are back up to a fatal statistic.

To most people it’ll strike you as odd. It is (traditionally) a festival celebrated by Christians, although plenty other people are happy to see it as a time of festivity and join in on the family dinners, giving of gifts, and drinking more booze than usual. As long as the birth of a 2000 year old religion is left out of the picture…most people seem happy about it.

Now going back to the depressing part of it, you’re trying to jam together mismatched families that normally stay away from each other. This is because every family will have explosive personalities that will rub up someone the wrong way. Despite all the festivity, it is clear that Christmas is a recipe for Family Drama. I was reminded this on a few occasions. One happened when I was working at the local Take Away/Restaurant and as I was finishing my shift, and eating my meal…I listened to a couple (in their thirties) struggle with an emotional sister.

Eavesdropping is not my strength by any means, but from what I heard I was able to pick up that (the husband of the couple) was having trouble calming down his sister, who was having a break down at the other end of the cell phone. I’ve been through my own fair share of family drama, so I really felt sorry for this happy couple. The woman who I served, seemed really genuine but then I had only met her that evening. So by now most readers will be calling me a cynic, and saying I should take in a bit of optimism for a change.

So hear are a few reasons why you might think of killing yourself at Christmas.

1 People are drinking more than usual, so they make comments they are likely to regret later.

2 Some people aren’t feeling positive about the year-end. Despite this they put on a ‘brave face’ and talk to the family members that they only talked to last year.

3 Arrangements are being made. No one wants to feel left out, so there’s more pressure to be a part of something at Christmas.

4 This means that people are trying to organize you, and planning events means planning people. (see point 3). Most people want to be left to their own devices.

5 Memories of the past are brought to mind, as family visits are more frequent this time of year.

6 Christianity is promoted to many who are tired of hearing about it. The fact is just like people don’t want to be told how to be better parents; it’s the same with religion. You can’t convince someone, who’s happy with the way things are.

I might be making you feel worse about this time of year, but really my point is to make you not blame yourself. Is the end of December…and many is feeling hollow because the Christmas rush has died.

Well don’t blame yourself for what you can’t change. Go easy on yourself and the family. Instead of rushing to events, give yourself a break! If there were no deaths or fatal injuries in you or your family, count yourself lucky. Things could be worse, and despite the odds we’ve all survived another Chaotic Christmas.

Take Care

 

PhilosopherPoet

Bring back some Christmas cheer!

Since Christmas is dawning on us I thought I’d offer up some words of encouragement to those of us who’re feeling down during this time of year. I found these images while rummaging through my archives and doing some organizing.

 

PhilosopherPoet

Blogging Terms For Beginners

(This list comes out of Wikipedia, thought that those new to blogging can benefit from it. It’s also just good to refresh your memory once in a while!)

A

Atom
Another popular feed format developed as an alternative to RSS.

Autocasting
Automated form of podcasting that allows bloggers and blog readers to generate audio versions of text blogs from RSS feeds.

Audioblog
A blog where the posts consist mainly of voice recordings sent by mobile phone, sometimes with some short text message added for metadata purposes. (cf. podcasting)

B

Bleg
A blog article that begs for something, such as a donation or product sale.

Blog Carnival
A blog article that contains links to other articles covering a specific topic. Most blog carnivals are hosted by a rotating list of frequent contributors to the carnival, and serve to both generate new posts by contributors and highlight new bloggers posting matter in that subject area.

Blog client
(weblog client) is software to manage (post, edit) blogs from operating system with no need to launch a web browser. A typical blog client has an editor, a spell-checker and a few more options that simplify content creation and editing.

Blogger
Person who runs a blog. Also blogger.com, a popular blog hosting web site. Rarely: weblogger.

Bloggernacle
Blogs written by and for Mormons (a portmanteau of “blog” and “Tabernacle)”. Generally refers to faithful Mormon bloggers and sometimes refers to a specific grouping of faithful Mormon bloggers.

Bloggies
One of the most popular blog awards.

Blogroll
A list of blogs, usually placed in the sidebar of a blog, that reads as a list of recommendations by the blogger of other blogs.

Blogosphere
All blogs, or the blogging community. Also called blogistan or, more rarely, blogspace.

Blogware
A category of software which consists of a specialized form of a Content Management System specifically designed for creating and maintaining weblogs.

C

Collaborative blog
A blog (usually focused on a single issue or political stripe) on which multiple users enjoy posting permission. Also known as group blog.

Comment spam
Like e-mail spam. Robot “spambots” flood a blog with advertising in the form of bogus comments. A serious problem that requires bloggers and blog platforms to have tools to exclude some users or ban some addresses in comments.

D

Desktop Blogging Client
An off-line blog management (posting, editing and archiving) tool

F

Fisking
To rebut a blog entry in a line-by-line fashion.

Flog
A portmanteau of “fake” and “blog”. A blog that’s ghostwritten by someone, such as in the marketing department.

Feeds
RSS Feeds

M

Milblog
Term for blogs written by members or veterans of any branch of military service – Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marines. A contraction of military and blog.

Moblog
A portmanteau of “mobile” and “blog”. A blog featuring posts sent mainly by mobile phone, using SMS or MMS messages. They are often photoblogs.

Multiblog
A blog constructed as a conversation between more than two people.

P

Permalink
Permanent link. The unique URL of a single post. Use this when you want to link to a post somewhere.

Phlog
Type of blog utilising the Gopher protocol instead of HTTP

Photoblog, A
A portmanteau of “photo” and “blog”.

Photoblog
A blog mostly containing photos, posted constantly and chronologically.

Pingback
The alert in the TrackBack system that notifies the original poster of a blog post when someone else writes an entry concerning the original post.

Podcasting
Contraction of “iPod” and “broadcasting” (but not for iPods only). Posting audio and video material on a blog and its RSS feed, for digital players.

Post
An entry written and published to a blog.

Post Slug
For blogs with common language URLs, the post slug is the portion of the URL that represents the post. Example: http://domain.com/2008/01/this-is-the-post-slug

R

RSS
Really Simple Syndication is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts.

RSS aggregator
Software or online service allowing a blogger to read an RSS feed, especially the latest posts on their favourite blogs. Also called a reader, or feedreader.

RSS feed
The file containing a blog’s latest posts. It is read by an RSS aggregator/reader and shows at once when a blog has been updated. It may contain only the title of the post, the title plus the first few lines of a post, or the entire post.

S

Spam blog
A blog which is composed of spam. A Spam blog or “any blog whose creator doesn’t add any written value.”

Slashdot effect
The Slashdot effect can hit blogs or other website, and is caused by a major website (usually Slashdot, but also Digg, Metafilter, Boing Boing, Instapundit and others) sending huge amounts of temporary traffic that often slow down the server.

Subscribe
The term used when a blogs feed is added to a feed reader like Bloglines or Google. Some blogging platforms have internal subscriptions, this allows readers to receive notification when there are new posts in a blog.

Search engine friendly URLs
Or for short, SEF URLs, implemented with a Rewrite engine.

T

Templates
Templates, used on the “back end” of a blog that work together to handle information and present it on a blog.

Theme
CSS based code that when applied to the templates will result in visual element changes to the blog. The theme, as a whole, is also referred to as a blog design.

TrackBack
A system that allows a blogger to see who has seen the original post and has written another entry concerning it. The system works by sending a ‘ping’ between the blogs, and therefore providing the alert.

V

Vlog
A video blog; a vlogger is a video blogger (e.g. someone who records himself interviewing people of a certain field).

W

Warblog
a blog devoted mostly or wholly to covering news events concerning an ongoing war.

PhilosopherPoet

Grabbing games and sucking stuff

At the moment I’m still trying to shake off the residue of a heavy LAN (Local Area Network). In short, for the less technical-minded, its a massive event of computer people and/or gamers that gather around and get up to a lot of fun. It’s not solely for the nerdy either. Most of the people you meet are really great fun, and also really good with computers. Personally I think anyone should just come along and try it out. I can’t guarantee that you’ll love it, but I’ll try anything twice (that isn’t fatal, of course).

(The hall where it all happened.)

If you are about to leap into this experience, there are three warnings I should make you aware of if this isn’t your forte.

1 Don’t expect to get much sleep

2 If you aren’t interested in computers, make sure there is some other element that excites you…or you could get very bored very, very quickly.

3 Go open minded.

The last is most probably the hardest since everyone has that stereotypical computer nerd image lurking in their minds. Yes you will meet a whole heap of geeks and the like, but keep having fun. The odds are that most of the people around you are, so try not be a stick in the mud lol.

(A fellow gamer)

Back my brief update of the events…

It started off on a Friday afternoon. I was only able to join in the evening, which meant that I did miss the first few hours, that didn’t seem to dampen my spirits at all, though.

I started from scratch, literally. I had a beautiful 500GB hard drive that died a few hours before the LAN. still, despite my loss I was running on a fresh format of Windows, so all my processes and graphics were very smooth. From a software perspective I did manage to update my AVG Free which seemed to hold me in good stead. One thing you have to look out for at a LAN is viruses. Espcially when there is gaming involved people generally have all their firewalls down, which means a bug could do damage. Quite honestly IMO, if you don’t have an anti-virus at a LAN I think you’re in danger.

(They were playing Guitar Hero – World Tour.)

So this time I went for the sole purpose of socializing. Once or twice I went to do serious gaming/leeching which was also cool, but most of the time I’m way too hyperactive to stay plugged behind my PC. So for those who don’t game everyday of their lives, I can proudly say that I didn’t spend every single minute gaming. At the moment I’m still shoveling coffee down my throat, so I won’t always be totally coherent, but here’s some things I can tell you that I did:

smoked hookah (hubbly-bubbly), drank COKE, ate bunny chows, took photos of the event, took one or two surprise photos, forgot to brush my teeth, installed a hard drive in my computer, recharged my cell phone, fed a stray kitten – they were hanging around the venue poor things :’( , managed to give at least two people frights while they were concentrating intensely on their game, gazed dreamily at my fish-tank screen, tried to recover about 300GB of data a friend lost, took more photos of tired people, played about 10 minutes of Call of Duty 4, slept on my massive matress, drank coffee, walk around, watched other gamers leap up and down when they won/lost, and sucking/copying one or two new movies.

This was my computer at the lan, it looked very impressive

So to cut a very long explanation short, there’s plenty to do you’ve just gotta go grab it. I really enjoyed this LAN. Some people complained about the price and about other ‘nitty gritties’, but at the end of the day a LAN is a LAN. I didn’t see the point of getting all worked up about it all.

At a mass event you can’t make every happy. I’m sure its an ideal every Admin would like to see come true,but then they’d kinda lose their jobs at the same time.

PhilosopherPoet

Backgrounds for Blogs

I was browsing Digg.com and came across some interesting backgrounds for blogs. If any one is interested, here is the link you should cut and paste into your browser:

http://www.photoshoproadmap.com/Photoshop-blog/2008/11/30/60-impressive-free-high-resolution-textures-and-backgrounds/

PhilosopherPoet

Curiousity of the Goth

I’ve always had a fascination with Goth culture, mI love the artwork and the atmosphere. I listen to a lot of metal, and music that doesn’t reflect this genre, but when it comes to designs and images I seem to crave them. I think its a fascination with the dark side that has drawn me to the culture. To describe death creatively is quite an art.

I also find tattoos on a woman to be very attractive. The downside side about them though is you have to have them while you’re young. Once the wrinkles start creeping in you’re pretty much carrying warped images with you. Thank goodness for plastic surgery nowadays, we now have the ability to iron out our skin, just don’t expect to smile much in the end. No, literally your skin will bhe so tight and smooth, you will only manage what will look like a grimace.

So enjoy the tats while you’re still young. I also think its mainly younger people who are attracted to the Goth side of things, because once you start getting on in years, you are surviving more and more people. You’re going to more funerals and staring death in the face in a regular basis, so day dreaming doesn’t quite cut it any more.

PhilosopherPoet

An old song sung the same

This is a song that used to fit the job that I did, which literally work in a factory. Thankfully that doesn’t apply to me any more. However, this is still one of my favorite songs, so I thought I’d add the lyrics just for interest sake. Of course I’ve also added pictures to brighten things up.

PhilosopherPoet

Richard Cory – Simon and Garfunkel

They say that Richard Cory owns one half of this whole town,
With political connections to spread his wealth around.
Born into society, a banker’s only child,
He had everything a man could want: power, grace, and style.

But I work in his factory
And I curse the life I’m living
And I curse my poverty
And I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be
Richard Cory.

The papers print his picture almost everywhere he goes:
Richard Cory at the opera, Richard Cory at a show.
And the rumor of his parties and the orgies on his yacht!
Oh, he surely must be happy with everything he’s got.

But I work in his factory
And I curse the life I’m living
And I curse my poverty
And I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be
Richard Cory.

He freely gave to charity, he had the common touch,
And they were grateful for his patronage and thanked him very much,
So my mind was filled with wonder when the evening headlines read:
“Richard Cory went home last night and put a bullet through his head.”

But I work in his factory
And I curse the life I’m living
And I curse my poverty
And I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be
Richard Cory.

Global Social Networks

This is the twentieth century phenomenon. You can talk to someone instantly, share intimate thoughts and feelings with them, but still be a country or continent away. Internet chat rooms, were the beginning where some level of secrecy and mystery could still be held. Now with facebook, and other social networking tools, you can exchange photos, and even talk to someone with text or actual speech. It’s crazy to think that we’re exchanging information with people we consider safe just because we’ve spent hours with them online.

According to psychology an ape can only fully remember 55 people it meets. Humans, the number gets slightly bigger…our number is 150, but it still makes me wonder, when the average person on facebook will have 300 contacts. Also nowadays people are hiding away in the technological world. Why should we rush out and see a rock concert when we can  hide in our beds and listen to our iPods? Why go out and socialize when we can poke people on face book, and tell everyone our moods on Twitter?

I have to admit, I have a few contacts that purely exist as online contacts. They are people I’ve gotten to know really well. Or at least as well as you can with a keyboard in your hands.  It’s a crazy thing to interface with someone you’ve never seen, but you still trust them! Here’s another weird thing, people actually want to know how I’m feeling throughout the day. I’m not sure myself sometimes, but it’s very addictive. It also allows people to start to express themaselves more freely. Giving a short message about how you feel isn’t just like writing thoughts down in a journal, is saying something and knowing that you’re going to be heard by someone out there.

PhilosopherPoet

Go Easy On the Pagans

I recently started new part time work at a restaurant. I can’t complain since I get a free supper, and get paid for helping people fill their stomachs. I also get to watch loads of MTV, since that’s all that the restaurants TV is left on. Whenever I want to change it to something interesting like the Discovery Channel, I’ll only get to see a few seals, and then it’ll be back to the usual adolescent girl jingling her fake wig, and flashy clothes.

Anyway last night was a quiet night. I get to work with a rather nerdy 29 year old guy, who makeas me feel seriously mature. Most of the time when I see a guy whose more a birhgt-eyed boy than man, the warning words (Watch Out He’s A Christian!) normally float through my head. But this time I didn’t want to be too hard on the blood and judgement thing. So continued to work with him, and sure as nuts, he couldn’t resist and told me about his ‘faith’.

It really doesn’t matter to me. When I told him it wasn’t my kinda thing, that made matters worse. If I lied and told him I was all holy and righteous, I could’ve got away with a lot less preaching…but I couldn’t put myself in that category. I’m talking to him telling him that my folks were pretty lame when I burst upon the world in all my screaming glory. They gave me a normal run-of-the-mill name that came out of the Bible. I was okay wth it back then since I didn’t know life out of the cot. A name is something you live with. Having a name becomes like an old shoe that you wear, and eventually you’re aware of its creases and the sound it makes.

This was how we moved onto the conversation of god, and believing. After he told me about how true and reliable everything was I said this to him. I first quoted Ghandi saying, “I’d be a Christian…if it weren’t for Christians.” He gave a nervous laugh at the statement. I continued and said to him, “What if you’re wrong? What if all this time and energy has gone to nothing?” Well, he didn’t have an answer to that…

All he said was that he’d rather have a back up plan. All I’m saying is c’mon Bible Bashers, give us pagan people a break. I know Happy Heathens are probably more scary because people outside of the ‘true faith’ should be lost and confused, but just keep to yourself. You would go give people advice on how to discipline their children, or how to behave in public, because that would be considered an insult. Well, since your perspective on life is even more personal consider it an insult if you try and convince people you know better. I see it as a form of harassment…so go easy on the Pagans!

PhilosopherPoet