zZZzzz...whadda? who>h

Having been awake ffor around 22hrs now I'm begging to get very tired, especially as for most of time I have been inside reading or writing. I shall soon go on a quest to the garage to purches Relentless.


And you can tall mysdhhhc xh


Yeah, I fell asleep at this point and proceeded to type several hundred lines of "h" then c, a space, x and h again. Hmm. What could that mean?


Bugger all.


I reckon I was out for about 45 mins, then I woke up, proceeded over to the aforementioned garage and purchased two cans of 50:50 Relentless, a Boost (food of the gods/junkie) and a KitKat chunky Caramel.

Sooooo 320mg of caffeine, various other dubiously effective stimulants and SUGAR LOTS AND LOTS OF SWEET SWEET SUGAR, and 3 hours later I feel slightly less bushwhackered. I'm aiming to make it to 2100 before sleep, but I expect I'll crash before then, so more relentless might be required. If anything I'd be mildly interested in the effect of 2/3rds of a gram of caffeine in a day. I got the shakes once, which was horrendously disturbing at the time (that there is probably an indicator I shouldn't do this again, funny how nostalgic hindsight is, the sly trickster). I still can't write that fricking blog post though. Or the other massively more important report I should be cracking on with.

When I was working nights I was regularly pulling 24hr and even 36hr days (I think the record was close to 40? Nearly fell asleep on the canal towpath in Guildford that time, and had to pace back and forth on the train home) without the assistance (if such mind fucking tomfoolery can be called assistance, rather than self-inflicted torture) of chemicals. This must be easier if you ease yourself into it, rather than going from a good 9hrs sleep a night (admittedly mostly done during the day) and low-intensity uptime, to a 30hr day. It seems to be especially hard when you don't have anything especially important or urgent that needs to be done. Pressure motivates me, which pisses me off, because I wait until really close to deadlines to do anything, so the quality of my work suffers and I get stressed. I hope to remedy this at uni by working incredibly hard, and, of course, playing just as hard.

Anyway, enough of this bullshit, maybe I'll plug away at the other blog for a while, erm....nah, I'm not gonna start the other project today, watch some videos, continue listening to loud music (currently I'm trying to see how high I can get my average plays per day on Last.fm, it's 67 atm, my only friend on there has hers up to 123), play shitty online games, maybe play some slightly less shitty xbox games, same old crap really. Fun fun.

A comparison of th....SQUIRREL!!!!!

I cannot focus today. I am trying to have a reasonably productive day, as I only woke up at 1350 (fuck, that's actually after most of the east coast of America). So to compensate I determined I was going to start finishing some of the dozens of jobs I have to do. Also my sleep schedule is so fucked I decided I'm staying up until 2100 tomorrow so I can get up at a sensible time on Saturday, sod what my body says, I'll power through with dangerous amounts of relentless (my energy drink of choice, what of it? Red Bull tastes like a marinated rat died in a can)

But, mother trucking curses, I was trying to write a post I thought up the other day, whereupon I cleverly wrote the notes down on a piece of paper which yesterday I PROMPTLY FUCKING LOST!! So the words upon the paper (don't be pedantic, yes I'm typing it, I'm allowed to use a literary device in a dubious manner, I'm frazzled right now, leave me alone) are making even less sense than they normally do. EVEN TO ME. You can probably tell can't you? You can can't you?! CAN'T YOU?!?!? DON'T DENY IT YOU BASTARDS!!

Another issue that's pissing me off is that at the moment, caps lock is on. See the problem there, caps lock is on, but it's lower cases. Shitty keyboard. I can't be arsed to figure that one out right now.

So, why the fuck am I stupid enough to be clever and right the notes down, then loose the crap I put them on, causing more stress that there would have been had I not written any notes? Son of a bitch.

Also, even if I've gone to sleep far too late and am only four hours in, why do TWO alarm clocks fail to rouse me? HUH? I could probably be brutally sodomised in my sleep and I wouldn't even notice. Seriously, that shit freaks me out every time, it's like I've temporarily died, the alarm clocks are seriously loud, and not a peep out of me.

Fucking arse. I become so demotivated when everything goes wrong on me like this. Anyway, move along, nothing to see here. Seriously, fuck off.

Voices in my head, shut the fuck up

I was lying awake in bed last night (see I was trying to sleep so I could get up at a time that wouldn't be considered by normal people to be late afternoon, but couldn't because the previous two nights I'd been awake till 0600 playing Assassins Creed 2, if I ever get into MMORPGs I'm finished) and amongst the multiple things (see below) rattling and chasing each other round my brain like foxes screwing on top of the dustbins I realised I am currently reading Halting State by Charles Stross, whilst listening to audio books of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow and 1984. How the fuck can I follow all that?

Maybe the propensity (is that even a word?) to flit between websites, articles, media sources and constantly having music playing in the background has given me so much practice I have now elevated my ability to do parallel thought processes to some super power level. Frustratingly, with physical tasks I am still typically blokeish and if someone asks me to do two things at once I'm fucked. Texting whilst walking makes the probability of my face being rudely introduced to a lamppost better than even, and the chances of me tripping over a PERFECTLY FLAT SURFACE almost certain.

I reckon I can switch between sources of consumption types easily, but if I have to actually do anything my brain throws up. If I'm writing anything important, or doing anything which requires a reasonable amount of attention I need to concentrate on it for the output to be anything other than a pile of dung. I don't have to sit down and think about it for hours, I can keep it running in the background so to speak for days and ugly, half formed ideas and theories drag themselves out of the slime for inspection and are either poked, prodded and tortured into a reasonable, sensible plan or are beaten back down with the mental equivalent of a baseball bat. I tested to see if I was understanding all the stories I am consuming and I could explain where the plots had come from and were going, so obviously this 'give-this-thought-process-attention-or-it-will-aggressively-rape-whatever-it-is-being-applied-to, leaving-you-confused-and-frustrated-and-with-more-work-than-you-had-in-the-first-place' rule doesn't apply to consumption.

Anyway this was all going on in one of those 3am oh god, oh god why can't I sleep slightly neurotic moments. Another part of my head was compiling a long list of all the stuff I had to do the next day. Another was getting stressed about not being able to sleep and the increasingly long list and IMPORTANT LIFE CHOICES THAT DEMAND ATTENTION AND HAVE TO BE MADE NAO and money (money's always in there somewhere). Another part was playing the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme tune. Yet another was analysing all this in a slightly amused, smug yet intrigued manner. And the final part was telling all the rest to please be quiet(not in those words you understand).

So yeah, that was my head space. Not a mood conducive to sleeping. I had to write the list down and put on some instrumental cello music and wait another 45 mins before I could drift off. I got about half the list done today; but have just realised I've now lost it, which is really going to frustrate me, and it's 2am. Bastards.

Foibles (maybe) of generation Y

Well, I suppose I could be classed as Generation Z, depending on where you draw the line. I was born in 1991, do I qualify? Anyway, on with the words...

So I just discovered Tumblr (I thought it was just a photo sharing site, fool) via a competition Gawker is running. The competition was brought to my attention via foursquare (one of the entrants) who posted a link on Twitter (also one of the entrants). I read all this using Tweetdeck.

The competition asks you to vote for the 'Most likely to Succeed'. I voted for foursquare. 

Not because I enjoy or like using the service, actually I've never used foursquare. But because I think it is the best idea. This perhaps is one of the aspects that sets me apart from my peers, my use and acceptance of social internet tools is much greater than theirs, and I tend to think of the implications and business potential (in so far as I understand or assume it, I am 18 and a student, this hardly qualifies me as a business guru - actually that point is rather irrelevant) rather than how the item can benefit me personally. This, of course, may just mean I devote far too much time to the internet, and that my life is much more boring than theirs; but no matter, I shall continue. 

Location based information is, in my opinion, the next thing we need. Much discussion is, perhaps incorrectly, bandied about referring to Web 2.0 (and now 3.0), the semantic web, metadata and contextual information. Avoiding discussions about the validity of this idea, we have started to take tentative, baby steps in this direction. As I write this there is a box asking me to enter 'Tags' with which to mark this post with metadata (I dislike that term, and may indeed be using it incorrectly myself). The user generated web 2.0 has existed for quite some time now. I spend more of my time at social media sites or sites containing user created content, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Dailybooth, Yahoo answers, Formspring and Wikipedia than I do at the other sites I visit like Wired.com, Popular Science, the BBC, Mashable and others. 

Location related data is the next way of encouraging user participation in the web. If I am in Hyde Park, for example, and there is a critical mass even passing through and someone tweets about it. I want to know, I want to have that information made available to me instantly and in a way which insists I pay it attention. I don't really care if there is a flash mob in Glasgow at the same time. Equally I may want to receive tweets from people whom I don't follow, but who have information relevant to my interests and are nearby. This way I will never miss an opportunity to see something great because I was paying attention to something on the other side of the world. Unfortunately this has happened to me already, it was most disappointing. 

Maybe lacking an internet-capable mobile device makes me see their potential more, I intend to purchase one before I go to uni in October, and the figures speak for themselves when one realises there are over 4 billion mobile phones, and only about 1.3 billion (estimated) computers. It has been said that most web browsing will be done on mobile phones soon, data consumption recently overtook minutes in the US, and location based information will be an exciting development. I think peoples interest and enthusiasm for this, and the effectiveness, is demonstrated by how Foursquare has already made steps to monetising its services, whereas Twitter is still languishing in some sort of weird massive continuing loss area. 

Maybe whilst I am at uni some developments can or will be made in this direction, as a closed campus environment with lots of technologically savvy adults is prime for location based informatics. And I will have a new phone, I am interested in possibly importing an HTC Evo 4G, but I am unsure if any UK networks work using CDMA. But nevertheless, if you're going to Warwick, you'll have to fight me to be the Mayor. 

Incidentally, as I wrote this a long time ago, in the middle of the night (which I shouldn't do), Foursquare won the poll. Told you, sort of. 

Yahoo Answers

This is a cross post of a question I answered in a very long rambling discussion type way.

The question was from a user called "Gay Vegetarian Atheist" the guy clearly likes adjectives.

"If you could create your own society, what kind of society would it be?

Every time I hear this song ==> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXpulL9ZXGU&feature=related

I always think of what it would be like to live in a different society.
Would you like a more advanced or a more in-tune with nature society?
Would you like it to be open minded or open-minded to a certain extent?
How would you and whoever is in your society govern themselves?
Where would you be, in a city or on an island or jungle?
Would you wear things created from nature or no?

List goes on.....I'm curious! Don't forget to listen to the song!"

My answer:

ESSAY TIME!! :) Deep breath, &...GO>>

First of all I should establish some things about me. I disagree with Malthusian views, it has been proven that we escape the trap; I am of the opinion that morality is objective, this doesn't mean I am right but I like to think I am closer than some people; my political & social views are broadly Social Liberal but I do not think this is the absolute solution to everything; I would like my society to be Egalitarian; & I am an atheist, everyone else seems to have mentioned this too.

1) Firstly as I also have transhumanist views I do not think an advanced society & one in-tune with nature is mutually exclusive. I think it is possible to build a massive technologically advanced city without impacting very negatively on the natural environment. In my utopia presumably some cities would be natural spaces, some would be a different aesthetic & exclude nature more, without negatively effecting it. Likewise with areas within the cities, & individual buildings. (This wouldn't be regulated, it would just depend on the wishes of the occupants of the building when it was being built, as I am sure people with different aesthetic appreciations would want to build different buildings or live in what they consider to be a more aesthetically pleasing area)
Some people may well decide to return to nature & live without the benefit of any or most technology, here minimal disruption to the natural environment would be accepted (felling trees for firewood, collecting materials for building, hunting animals etc)

2) Open minded, however, this is not something anyone can force upon somebody. In my society education would be the most important thing, I am of the opinion that intelligence is affected by environmental factors almost exclusively, & minimally by genetics. Everyone would be entitled to & have access to the same education. This education would be excellent & would provide the basis for people to think rationally, sceptically & intelligently. Also the importance of un-biased arguments would be promoted & during education all the multiple viewpoints of all arguments would be presented to the child. The state, & the people would not interfere with the relationships of consenting people. As far as can be avoided the state will not interfere with people, as long as those people are not interfering with others lives or infringing others rights. So (for example, hypothetically) if a Ten year old is considered mature enough to fully understand the ramifications of their decision & to be able to consent, they can have sex with someone who is 35 if they so wish. (I doubt any ten year-olds are)

3) Through the application of direct democracy. (everyone who wants to be involved in the legislature & executive processes can be) hopefully the benefits of the education system would mean people carefully considered issues, looks at the evidence, & drew their own conclusions from them rather than being swayed by lobbying (or by bribery I suppose), as I said as I think that morality is objective & so I think that if people are educated well enough & look at the evidence & draw their own conclusions then (assuming all the sources are impartial & present the evidence without bias) the conclusions drawn about what we have to do or should do will be the same & the only disagreement may be minor issues on how we proceed to accomplish that aim. This might not work I suppose.

3.5) This also ties in with point 2, once everyone is educated enough to make their own decisions & examine the evidence then in theory risks of actions would be understood. So in my utopia no drugs would be banned, if people wish to take heroin they may as long as, once again, this doesn't cause them to infringe upon the rights of others or interfere with others lives. This may not work as some drugs are chemically addictive - so reliance begins through no fault of the user - & some neurologies are more susceptible to addiction, so we'd see how that goes. Pot & Ecstasy would certainly be legal straight away. The cost of damage to your body caused through the use of drugs would not be covered by the state. If you OD on heroin & require medical assistance, that was your error, you were fully aware of the risks & the state will deal with you in the way which allows the most benefit to the most amount of people, (so if you're a world class immunologist & it's your first time they may well save you) this would probably mostly be euthanasia. I don't know how that program would work. Also, the stronger the drug the higher the taxes would be to cover potential medical costs & dissuade use.


N.B 1 > I do NOT like the idea of a forced atheistic nation, this encourages the view of atheism as another religious choice when it isn't. I do not think better education leads to more atheistic tendencies, studies have shown both positive & negative correlations between faith & education. Also it is a theory of mine, & others, that a theistic or at least religious point of view is the norm for humans, as there are many more theists than there are atheists, many people believe in "something out there" & whether this is purely a psychological trait of humans or not atheists shouldn't try to stamp out religion to this extent, banning things is not normally good. As in my utopia people can make their own balanced decisions (any sort of forced acceptance of religion would violate your rights) I think organised religious groups would decline & people would simply practice their own belief & expand their spirituality at home.

N.B 2> Dan seems to be very intolerant of intolerance. The human condition is inevitably a spectrum to some degree & that level of "if anyone was intolerant of any kind of person why would be stoned to death. literally, with stones" means that if anyone disagrees with Dan they get killed. Also suggesting war is not wanted in this society but that people would be stoned to death for disagreeing is a slight contradiction.

4) Don't know, probably somewhere warm though.

5) People can wear what they like, as long as (again) they don't infringe on others rights. And what they are wearing is morally correct (whatever the hell that may be, I know what I consider moral in terms of clothing but once again this doesn't mean my opinion is correct with respect to objective morality) Personally I think I'd look good in leaves, as long as the weather is suitable (see 4), & I don't really like too many wearing clothes (I normally go top, bottom, & underwear 9/10 times)

N.B 3> Every citizen of my utopia would be paid a living wage (assuming money is still around, which I can almost guarantee it will be) equal to about £10,000-£15,000 today. I would also look into using technology to develop cheap, comfortable, basic accommodation for individuals & families that would be provided to them for free. Basic sustenance (consisting of an tasty nutritional gloop & carb & fibre replacements) would also be provided for free. All healthcare would be free. And all education would be free (up to & including post graduate level). The living wage would then be paid on top of this.
Taxes would be uber high to pay for all of the above. Additionally there may be problems as no one would have to work due to the supply of a living wage, hopefully people would still want more than £10k could supply & also want to do more or improve the civilisation or the race as a whole. A small number of phenomenally high-skilled workers would also mean pay would be high.
Criminals would be dealt with on an establish-why-they-are-doing-it, then correct & rehabilitate the offender basis. Certain crimes would carry a prison term. I think it is possible that if the reason someone does something can be established then a way of letting them achieve the same result in a moral manner can be found. For example if rapists get off on the control & infliction of pain aspects, send them all off to BDSM clubs. Not sure what to do about murderers though? The remaining criminals who are presumably determined to be mentally ill are sent to mental hospitals (obviously)
Enemies of the state, those who wish to destroy society for whatever reason (as if anyone would want to, haha) are free to leave at any time. If they continue to attack our society, they are treated as an aggressor & the military deal with them.
As the state is responsible for education, if any parents are seen to be providing biased, prejudicial, misinformative, or just incorrect views to their child. Or if the child is being indoctrinated into any opinion that they have not formed, considered & accepted independently (whether it be religion, lifestyle choice or whatever). Or if the actions a parent takes is not in the interests of the child. (This shouldn't happen as the parents themselves have had a un-biased, sceptical, rational, factual education & should be able to make rational decisions of the best for their child, however emotion normally wins over rationality, e.g. Bubble Boy) Then if necessary the state will remove the child from that parents care. The child can go back once the parent has shown that they will - or it is determined that they will - act in the best interest of that child.
A major focus of scientific development would be nano-manufacturing, which in theory would allow anyone to create anything as easily as someone types & prints a letter now. Clearly this would screw up traditional economic models, but I am not going to speculate on that as that would make this answer about ten times longer.
And most hard technology, engineering etc would have biological bases, so it would be more environmentally friendly & in sync with nature.

Think I got all my thoughts on my perfect society down there. So, thumbs up for the longest answer ever on yahoo answers?


I can write so much if I decide to.

Shitty Advertising

Repost of a facebook note from 2/03/10:

I'm not going to visit any of the universities I applied for. I don't care, I'll go for the one with the best academic record, this is all that matters, everything else is what you make of it. I've been to so many open evenings I'm far too cynical now for them to do any good. For example; the blurb for Exeter uni's Engineering lecture hall:

"The School’s recently refurbished lecture theatre features comfortable seating, scratch-resistant benches and state-of-the art presentation equipment."

Lovely, so far so good, maybe the seats aren't fully adjustable £3k orthopaedic miracles but I get the point, you can sit on them, they have cushions and they're not covered in weird stains, wet patches or chewing gum, good.

"The projector screens can be used for video conferences, watching DVDs or videos, or displaying laptop or computer presentations." Well no shit, they're projectors, you can plug anything into them with the right cables, they could also be used for porn, or playing COD, or Forza, depending on preference, woop da woop. "Dual projector screens allow any two of these to be displayed concurrently. Oh wow, really, duh. But here's a thought, how about 3? That would be even better. Or, bear with me here, this is gonna sound crazy, four? This lecture theatre has been designed so that every one of the 164 seats can see the screens equally well. SERIOUSLY?!?! OMG!! Wow I never thought I'd go to a lecture theatre where the displays that are pretty much essential for any sort of teaching to be done in the 21st century could be seen by every seat, I mean at best you only expect 70% of the seats to be able to see the screens, everyone else is fucked, and usually only 87% of the seats are in the damn room. Well this is a real breakthrough, let me go and tell the world. And equally well too?! Wow have you somehow developed some sort of quantum seat so that everyone can sit in the same space at the same time, there is simultaneously no one at the back of the room and everyone at the back?!

"The use of variable lighting..." On no shit you installed a dimmer switch as well?! Fuck me this is real cutting edge "... and a microphone and sound system..." OMG i think i just wet myself with excitement! "... make this a suitable venue for any kind of presentation or meeting and also has video-conferencing facilities." Oh video conferencing huh? Yeh that thing that skype and a webcam has let you do for the last FOUR YEARS!

It's a goddamn lecture theatre, it should just work, anything else is an unimaginable, spectacular, massive epic fail.

(Apparently I felt the need to bitch about that... it's ok i'm done now, WOOOOSAAAAaaaaaah)

Dear Facebook

See, here's the thing:

Now, don't get me wrong, I am open minded, I am progressive, and I am quite a public person, I have accounts and profiles consisting of:

• 3 hotmails, 2 gmails, 2 ymails


• a facebook, a bebo (dead), twitter, youtube, social vibe, dailybooth & flikr


• a blog(dead)


• digg, bit.ly, foursquare, last.fm, amazon


• wikimedia/pedia

Additionally I comment on wired us, wired uk, mashable, engadget, gizmodo, bbc news, hack college, college humour and even porn websites using the same user name.

On the internetz I have decided to trust my data to Google, I use Google services a lot, youtube, picasa, docs, calender, reader, gmail, maps, earth, dictionary. I even use Chrome as my browser of choice.

I love Google.

Google and me are in a relationship.

And when you change your privacy settings and opt us all in, Google tells me about it by way of all the news sites I visit, and to be honest, I don't mind your changes, because as discussed, my life is pretty much all already online anyway. So I wade through your hundreds of privacy settings and check none of them will get me killed in trouble.
But last week you decided to start following me around the internet. Google is the only person I allow to do this, because I trust Google, they're not evil. I don't feel ready to trust you yet Facebook, I'm sorry, but that's how I feel. You're not honest with your friends users, because most of them don't understand what you're doing and most of them aren't as lucky as I am to have Google as a friend.

So basically Facebook..

The next time me and Google are making out, don't take a photo and then sneak in behind us and try to fuck me in the arse.
I don't like it.

We tried it once. It's not fun.


Tagged in this note: LarSe <3 ; MarZ >:(

Erm..

Blah blah blah blah blah
One day, in the not too distant future, maybe.....
Probably not :(