Damn. And after the post that was essentially in worship of trains.
Fuck.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Public Transport
I'd like to first renounce certain of my statements in a previous post regarding environmentalism. In the post, Why Going Green is BAD (Yes, You Heard Me, BAD) For the Environment, the title contained a sweeping declaration against all environmentalism, when the article just addressed buying organic food from places like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. The title of the post will be changed as soon as this post is completed.
The reason for this decision to change the title is not because someone brought this to my attention (you guys never comment on my posts), but because I am riding on a Bolt Bus to Baltimore and I've realized how much I care for public transport, or, more accurately, shared transport.
I took a train to get to the bus, which is very nicely equipped. It has actual seatbelts (like the ones that go across your chest and are usually found in cars, something that I have never seen on a bus before), electric outlets, and apparently wireless internet. I say apparently because this post was written in a notebook on the way down after I foolishly decided to leave my laptop at home because my bag didn't have enough space and I thought that I wouldn't be able to use it until I got to Baltimore and set up, because the bus shouldn't have Internet, which it did. I only found this out because when I get on the bus, I see all of these people with computers working on them and the woman across from me is checking her Facebook page, so I assume there was wi-fi.
The train was a New York City subway, so I can't really expound on this, since almost everyone has riden on some sort of subway.
By the way, every time I get on any sort of public transport (excluding buses), I always think of one of my favorite games, Locomotion by Chris Sawyer. By the way, I am part of the small cult following that they mention in the article. So, in the game, you are the CEO of a transportation company and you set up a transport network with buses, trucks, ships, trams, planes, trains, and boats. I haven't played it in about two years, so I'm going to look for it on eBay or BitTorrent as soon as I can.
Anyway, the bus is one of the coolest that I have ever been on. Unfortunately, it is just a bus. If it were a train, with actual cars and all of the amenities that this bus has, I would love it and figure out somewhere that I had to commute so that I could ride it everyday.
Well, maybe that's a little drastic, but I f*cking loved that bus. But in my opinion, no matter how awesome a bus is, it will never be as fast, cool or dependable as a train (excluding Amtrak). I mean, trains pretty much trump every other mode of transport. They are not hindered overmuch by the weather. They don't usually crash. They don't have to deal with much traffic. They don't induce seasickness. They're realatively quiet. They don't produce much pollution. And best of all, they usually stay at ground level.
Unfortunately, trains are not as common as buses, highways, or planes. Planes do have the advantage if large bodies of water need to be crossed, beause they can travel a more direct route than trains. And highways had a lot of potential, but due to poor administration and overpopulation by cars, they became the nightmare that we now know as the American superhighway system (You notice I am only addressing the United States. I don't know enough about, nor do I have the inclination to research other countries' transport modes). However, now others are realizing the potential of trains. In California, there are plans to build a high-speed train down the length of that state.
The bus is stopping. I'll try to muster the resolve to finish this post later, but I highly doubt I will. And for those who care, I'll post the next installment of Dogs of Wrath tomorrow. Just so you know, I didn't figure out how to install the proper code.
The reason for this decision to change the title is not because someone brought this to my attention (you guys never comment on my posts), but because I am riding on a Bolt Bus to Baltimore and I've realized how much I care for public transport, or, more accurately, shared transport.
I took a train to get to the bus, which is very nicely equipped. It has actual seatbelts (like the ones that go across your chest and are usually found in cars, something that I have never seen on a bus before), electric outlets, and apparently wireless internet. I say apparently because this post was written in a notebook on the way down after I foolishly decided to leave my laptop at home because my bag didn't have enough space and I thought that I wouldn't be able to use it until I got to Baltimore and set up, because the bus shouldn't have Internet, which it did. I only found this out because when I get on the bus, I see all of these people with computers working on them and the woman across from me is checking her Facebook page, so I assume there was wi-fi.
The train was a New York City subway, so I can't really expound on this, since almost everyone has riden on some sort of subway.
By the way, every time I get on any sort of public transport (excluding buses), I always think of one of my favorite games, Locomotion by Chris Sawyer. By the way, I am part of the small cult following that they mention in the article. So, in the game, you are the CEO of a transportation company and you set up a transport network with buses, trucks, ships, trams, planes, trains, and boats. I haven't played it in about two years, so I'm going to look for it on eBay or BitTorrent as soon as I can.
Anyway, the bus is one of the coolest that I have ever been on. Unfortunately, it is just a bus. If it were a train, with actual cars and all of the amenities that this bus has, I would love it and figure out somewhere that I had to commute so that I could ride it everyday.
Well, maybe that's a little drastic, but I f*cking loved that bus. But in my opinion, no matter how awesome a bus is, it will never be as fast, cool or dependable as a train (excluding Amtrak). I mean, trains pretty much trump every other mode of transport. They are not hindered overmuch by the weather. They don't usually crash. They don't have to deal with much traffic. They don't induce seasickness. They're realatively quiet. They don't produce much pollution. And best of all, they usually stay at ground level.
Unfortunately, trains are not as common as buses, highways, or planes. Planes do have the advantage if large bodies of water need to be crossed, beause they can travel a more direct route than trains. And highways had a lot of potential, but due to poor administration and overpopulation by cars, they became the nightmare that we now know as the American superhighway system (You notice I am only addressing the United States. I don't know enough about, nor do I have the inclination to research other countries' transport modes). However, now others are realizing the potential of trains. In California, there are plans to build a high-speed train down the length of that state.
The bus is stopping. I'll try to muster the resolve to finish this post later, but I highly doubt I will. And for those who care, I'll post the next installment of Dogs of Wrath tomorrow. Just so you know, I didn't figure out how to install the proper code.
Thank You, 69.141.124.55
Well, I recieved my hit counter report yesterday and I'd first like to thank the owner of IP address 69.141.124.55 in Montclair, New Jersey. I appreciate your regular visits, and I'd also like to apologize if you don't want me putting your IP address and location up here.; message me and I'll take it down.
So anyway, once more, I'd like to thank you for your visits, which were hopefully inspired by my shameless self-promotion on the various websites that I am a member of (by the way, I now have a Facebook page. Become a fan). Please continue visiting and I'll post again soon.
So anyway, once more, I'd like to thank you for your visits, which were hopefully inspired by my shameless self-promotion on the various websites that I am a member of (by the way, I now have a Facebook page. Become a fan). Please continue visiting and I'll post again soon.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Extended Addendum
Oh, and by the way, I am very close to getting Dogs of Wrath, The (I should delete the "The" when referencing the work, it's annoying me [Oh, little parenthetical asides, how I have missed you! What fun we shall have again! {I love Deadpool, and am not so keen on the fourth wall, by the way. Just in case anyone was wondering where the "parenthetical asides" thing came from} Oh, yes we will! Yes we will!] But I like it as a pun) up for sale on the blog. I know that I said if I didn't get it up by the 2nd, I would just continue with the installment posts, but I feel that it would be a bad idea to offer the entire thing for free. I swear this time. If it's not up for sale by Monday, the 22nd, I will put up some more posts.
If anyone out there is reading this thing (I know you're there. I know you visit the site. [ Statcounter dot f*cking com tells me that] Read the damn blog!), please take the time to comment telling me whether you think this is a good idea.
And in case you guys think I can't follow through on anything, suck it. I just deleted my Twitter account.
If anyone out there is reading this thing (I know you're there. I know you visit the site. [ Statcounter dot f*cking com tells me that] Read the damn blog!), please take the time to comment telling me whether you think this is a good idea.
And in case you guys think I can't follow through on anything, suck it. I just deleted my Twitter account.
Friday, June 5, 2009
The Saturation Point, Part 2
There are six and a half billion humans alive today. At an average weight of 150 pounds, that is a total biomass of 975 billion pounds, or 487.5 million tons of biomass.* This number may not quite match the biomass of several other species, such as ants, or beetles, but it is still an impressive figure.
The thing about ants and beetles though, is that they have a clearly defined place in their habitat’s ecosystem. They leave a minimal impact on their environments, and daily, hundreds of thousands of them give up their lives after a short struggle to provide sustenance for some creature greater than themselves.
However, humans? We do not have a defined place in the ecosystem. We kill and eat almost every single animal on the planet, and are not consumed ourselves except by accident. We have caused untold harm to the Earth, harm that may be irreparable. But the most telling, significant difference between our philosophy of life and that of the creatures that operate solely on instinct is that human beings almost unilaterally refuse to give up living if another alternative can be found and we view those who have differing views as to this fact as in need of therapy and counseling.
And if we are injured and declared to be nearly beyond repair, we will turn all of our willpower, intelligence, and funds to find a way to cure ourselves in order to remain alive, even though we may be in incredible pain (Example: Chemotherapy). And if there is no possible way to be healed, we will freeze ourselves in the hope that one day technology will be developed that will be able to cure our ailment.
But why do we go to these lengths? It seems that after a certain point, we would realize that it would be better, easier and cheaper to give up on life.
But no.
We don’t.
We continue to fight to stay alive and the important bit of this is that with our intelligence and determination, we will probably very soon raise the average lifespan to above ninety. However, humans would likely not stop having unprotected sex, and as a result, the population would increase even faster than it is, since there would be more people alive at any given moment. And as the lifespan continues to increase, as more cures for diseases are found, humans will die less frequently, which will lead to the population density increasing to the point where basic sanitation will become nonexistent and we drown in our own filth, our elderly bodies that have lived longer than humans were meant to live too aged to provide the strength that might once have saved us.
Now let me pause in my predictions of doom and catastrophe to insert some logic into my arguments.
Yes, excess will kill us unless we get our waste under control.
And yes, the population is growing at an absurd rate. As much has been said before. However, the apocalyptic scenario that I painted is probably a bit over the top.
. . .
This is why I never do sequels to posts. The fire, drive and inspiration that consumed me during the writing of the original post is gone, leving me to write a moronic, insipid, unenthusiastic piece of work.
Fuck.
* HamdenRice at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x111533
The thing about ants and beetles though, is that they have a clearly defined place in their habitat’s ecosystem. They leave a minimal impact on their environments, and daily, hundreds of thousands of them give up their lives after a short struggle to provide sustenance for some creature greater than themselves.
However, humans? We do not have a defined place in the ecosystem. We kill and eat almost every single animal on the planet, and are not consumed ourselves except by accident. We have caused untold harm to the Earth, harm that may be irreparable. But the most telling, significant difference between our philosophy of life and that of the creatures that operate solely on instinct is that human beings almost unilaterally refuse to give up living if another alternative can be found and we view those who have differing views as to this fact as in need of therapy and counseling.
And if we are injured and declared to be nearly beyond repair, we will turn all of our willpower, intelligence, and funds to find a way to cure ourselves in order to remain alive, even though we may be in incredible pain (Example: Chemotherapy). And if there is no possible way to be healed, we will freeze ourselves in the hope that one day technology will be developed that will be able to cure our ailment.
But why do we go to these lengths? It seems that after a certain point, we would realize that it would be better, easier and cheaper to give up on life.
But no.
We don’t.
We continue to fight to stay alive and the important bit of this is that with our intelligence and determination, we will probably very soon raise the average lifespan to above ninety. However, humans would likely not stop having unprotected sex, and as a result, the population would increase even faster than it is, since there would be more people alive at any given moment. And as the lifespan continues to increase, as more cures for diseases are found, humans will die less frequently, which will lead to the population density increasing to the point where basic sanitation will become nonexistent and we drown in our own filth, our elderly bodies that have lived longer than humans were meant to live too aged to provide the strength that might once have saved us.
Now let me pause in my predictions of doom and catastrophe to insert some logic into my arguments.
Yes, excess will kill us unless we get our waste under control.
And yes, the population is growing at an absurd rate. As much has been said before. However, the apocalyptic scenario that I painted is probably a bit over the top.
. . .
This is why I never do sequels to posts. The fire, drive and inspiration that consumed me during the writing of the original post is gone, leving me to write a moronic, insipid, unenthusiastic piece of work.
Fuck.
* HamdenRice at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x111533
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
The Saturation Point
If you guys followed me on Twitter, you would have seen the series of tweets I wrote last night about the world being oversaturated with people. It's not that these people lack talent. Not at all; however, any field that contains even the slightest appeal, writing, for instance, is now overflowing with aspiring authors, journalists, poets, songwriters, etc., which makes it harder for any of these talented people to rise to the top.
At first, one would argue, "Well, hey, doesn't that mean that the absolutely most talented are gonna get famous due to survival of the fittest?"
Oops, no, so sorry, wrong answer. First, let's all reflect on the fact that Thien Thanh Thi Nguyen (a.k.a. Tila Tequila) got a television show. As far as I know, she has no marketable talents, besides being extremely hot (she is) and having over 1 million MySpace friends, neither of which can truly be considered talents. Essentially, she's a whore. Her show just took up time that could have been given to someone who actually had talent.
Now for the second part. If you've read Malcolm Gladwell's newest book Outliers, you will understand how success is influenced not only by the person's talent, but also by many arbitrary factors. He uses the example of birthdays in Canadian hockey influencing success, with those who have earlier birthdays being more likely to become pros in hockey, due to the setup of the Canadian youth hockey league. His proposal is that a player, Ned, born closer to January 1 (which is the cut-off date for the league) will have had more time to grow and mature than a player named Ian, who was born December 31st of the previous year, so their birthdays are only a day apart. Because hockey apparently favors larger players, the January 1 birthday will be seen as more talented and pushed to attend special hockey programs that will result in his becoming genuinely better at hockey than the player born on December 31st who was not drafted into the special hockey programs. Because January 1 is better, he will be sorted into the A-1 league, Canada's top youth hockey league, where he will compete against the best youth hockey players, gaining experience. December 31st probably didn't get into the A-1 league because he wasn't sent to the advance hockey program, a result of him not being seen as talented at hockey.
The end result? Ned eventually becomes a pro hockey player. Ian does not. And this could have been reversed, or happened a totally different way if only one of them had been born a few hours earlier or later.
So if success can be based on something completely arbitrary, like birthdays, how can we say that "survival of the fittest" in relation to humans will let the most talented rise to the top. This is obviously an erroneous viewpoint. Ian could have been more naturally talented than Ned, but because of their birthdays, Ned was put into the advanced leagues, while Ian was not. If success depended completely on talent, Ian would be the pro of the two of them.
But because 6.5 billion people are living on this planet, it can be hard to sort out who of us is the most talented at anything. And talent is not necessarily and indicator of success. Again I offer up the example of Thien Thanh Thi Nguyen. Compare that to one of my friends. She has written several short stories, which I think are rather amazing, and yet, she is not famous.
Perhaps the "whoring" nature of self-publication is onereason why the talented rise to the top. To achieve fame in the way that she did, Tila Tequila was forced to self-publicize relentlessly, whereas my friend sort of expects that somehow, she will become famous.
If this is why the most talented do not recieve notice, doesn't it mean that there is something wrong with the model? I realize that the sheer numbers of people alive today prevent publishers and talent scouts from discovering everyone who is good at something, and that if you want to be famous, you have to put yourself out there, but still, there needs to be a way to certify that those who have true talent are exposed and discovered.
But again, as I mentioned at the beginning, the number of talented people on Earth is astounding, and seems preventative to anyone getting discovered and recognized. There are simply too many people.
Which leads me to the necessity of a mass extinction event. Humans are so intelligent and geographically ubiquitous that the normal controls on population size (i.e. Drought, fire, natural disaster, famine, disease, predators, etc.) simply don't work anymore. At this given moment, I am sure that any number of these events is going on somewhere in the world. And is the human population plummeting? No. Even with these events occuring, the human population continues to increase exponentially.
This makes Agent Smith's revelation from The Matrix ring true: "I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague, and we are the cure." --The Matrix. (Can't believe I quoted The Matrix, but whatever).
Continued next week.
At first, one would argue, "Well, hey, doesn't that mean that the absolutely most talented are gonna get famous due to survival of the fittest?"
Oops, no, so sorry, wrong answer. First, let's all reflect on the fact that Thien Thanh Thi Nguyen (a.k.a. Tila Tequila) got a television show. As far as I know, she has no marketable talents, besides being extremely hot (she is) and having over 1 million MySpace friends, neither of which can truly be considered talents. Essentially, she's a whore. Her show just took up time that could have been given to someone who actually had talent.
Now for the second part. If you've read Malcolm Gladwell's newest book Outliers, you will understand how success is influenced not only by the person's talent, but also by many arbitrary factors. He uses the example of birthdays in Canadian hockey influencing success, with those who have earlier birthdays being more likely to become pros in hockey, due to the setup of the Canadian youth hockey league. His proposal is that a player, Ned, born closer to January 1 (which is the cut-off date for the league) will have had more time to grow and mature than a player named Ian, who was born December 31st of the previous year, so their birthdays are only a day apart. Because hockey apparently favors larger players, the January 1 birthday will be seen as more talented and pushed to attend special hockey programs that will result in his becoming genuinely better at hockey than the player born on December 31st who was not drafted into the special hockey programs. Because January 1 is better, he will be sorted into the A-1 league, Canada's top youth hockey league, where he will compete against the best youth hockey players, gaining experience. December 31st probably didn't get into the A-1 league because he wasn't sent to the advance hockey program, a result of him not being seen as talented at hockey.
The end result? Ned eventually becomes a pro hockey player. Ian does not. And this could have been reversed, or happened a totally different way if only one of them had been born a few hours earlier or later.
So if success can be based on something completely arbitrary, like birthdays, how can we say that "survival of the fittest" in relation to humans will let the most talented rise to the top. This is obviously an erroneous viewpoint. Ian could have been more naturally talented than Ned, but because of their birthdays, Ned was put into the advanced leagues, while Ian was not. If success depended completely on talent, Ian would be the pro of the two of them.
But because 6.5 billion people are living on this planet, it can be hard to sort out who of us is the most talented at anything. And talent is not necessarily and indicator of success. Again I offer up the example of Thien Thanh Thi Nguyen. Compare that to one of my friends. She has written several short stories, which I think are rather amazing, and yet, she is not famous.
Perhaps the "whoring" nature of self-publication is onereason why the talented rise to the top. To achieve fame in the way that she did, Tila Tequila was forced to self-publicize relentlessly, whereas my friend sort of expects that somehow, she will become famous.
If this is why the most talented do not recieve notice, doesn't it mean that there is something wrong with the model? I realize that the sheer numbers of people alive today prevent publishers and talent scouts from discovering everyone who is good at something, and that if you want to be famous, you have to put yourself out there, but still, there needs to be a way to certify that those who have true talent are exposed and discovered.
But again, as I mentioned at the beginning, the number of talented people on Earth is astounding, and seems preventative to anyone getting discovered and recognized. There are simply too many people.
Which leads me to the necessity of a mass extinction event. Humans are so intelligent and geographically ubiquitous that the normal controls on population size (i.e. Drought, fire, natural disaster, famine, disease, predators, etc.) simply don't work anymore. At this given moment, I am sure that any number of these events is going on somewhere in the world. And is the human population plummeting? No. Even with these events occuring, the human population continues to increase exponentially.
This makes Agent Smith's revelation from The Matrix ring true: "I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague, and we are the cure." --The Matrix. (Can't believe I quoted The Matrix, but whatever).
Continued next week.
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