The Truth

The Truth.
"So lets recap: There is a lady that works over at that restaurant, which you cannot for the life of you remember the name of. She is a waitress, and you a regular customer. One day, as she is waiting on you, she gives you a little wink. Nothing more. Just a wink. And you--being the interpretive type--come back to the restaurant later in the evening, 'just to get a drink'. You meet up with this lady, and you talk, and have fun talking. You cant remember anything that is being said?

This is a wonderful story. But you must realize that the entire story is false. the entire reality is a figment of your imagination. What do I mean? You are imagining the entire thing. It did not happen, it is not happening, it will never happen. Sorry."

That’s what the psychologist told me. His name is Jim, he has short, trimmed hair and stands a few comfortable inches above me. And I tell him what is on my mind. He generally proceeds to tell me I'm wrong, and that I need to conform. to be like everyone else. To think normal thoughts, to have normal dreams. To understand that reality is reality, and fiction is fiction. I tell him no, reality can become fiction, and fiction reality.
the psychologist, a strait shooter, politely and sincerely asks me to give him an example. Can i provide an example where fiction has become reality? I ask him if he remembers Alexander the Great. The Psych says "Yes, he was one of the most brilliant strategic minds ever to live, he--" I interrupt him there. “How do you know he lived?” the psych sees where I am going. History is unconfirmed. And isn’t it easy to blend mythology with history? Aren’t myths based on history? Which is which?

History is fiction. Somebody wrote history. Were this persons writings, and the actual events that happened, one in the same? the very well may have been. But you, a smart and sensible psychologist as yourself can not tell me to my face that every single event that has ever been written down in any book, ever, is 100 percent, completely accurate. what about, say, propaganda? How much propaganda have we successfully identified as such? Certainly more of the enemies than our own! How much is being fed into us as we speak? When 2% of a country tells the other 98% what happened, what’s stopping the 98% from saying: How do you know? How do I know? Because you told me.
The psychologist, he says: "you hold a valid point, but history is irrelevant to your current situation." how so? I ask, tying not be be prying. Jim, or Joe, or John, or whatever his name was, his reply was simple: "you can not merely think of something, and have that thought become reality. It defies rules of the way the universe functions." I tell him I agree, a small smirk pops onto his face, he is waiting for more. But in vein. I tell him that no, I cant think something into an actual event, but, I can make every single relevant person believe that this event has taken place, and thus the exact same response, the same reaction is generated. There is, say, 1 year later, or even a few hours later, when the event has passed into memory, no difference in any noticeable, or discernible way between what actually happened, and what...actually happened. It’s the reaction, not the action, that matters. An action takes seconds and involves few people. A reaction, or the memory of an action lasts for much longer, involves infinite many people, and can be manipulated. 

There is no such thing as now. It is a pleasant way of explaining things, but sadly, there is no such thing. Only future and past, and I am not so sure of future. Disappointing, I know. Just take the following few statements: Time is relative, reality is observation, light needs to move to reach somewhere, your brain makes predictions on moving objects that it presents you, and lags on reaction time, and merges it into one ‘now’. Now, with that swirling in your mind, (especially that time is relative bit) you will eventually come to the conclusion that there is no now.

James, which was in fact the psychologist name, or at least he responded to that name, leading me to believe it was his, James chuckled to me. He told me that I, am merely saying that by mastering the art of the lie, I can force a lie into the minds of the listeners, and let them believe its true. He had to say that word. Lie. Such an ugly word, bent and deformed, and misused beyond the dictionaries true intent, so much so the dictionary added more definitions for the word lie in order to appease the users: to deceive, to trick, not to tell the truth. I will give him that much, these realities that are so apparently part of my mind, they are not the truth. yet. but they soon will be. They will be fact. 100% to the bone verifiable fact. and then, at that point, it really doesn't matter what has actually taken place.

I stand up and tell James I have to go to the bathroom. He tells me that's that OK, and I that the restrooms are on the left, two doors down. thank you I reply, but when I leave the door I turn right. go to the water fountain, take a drink, and walk back into the room.
"one of the sinks has a broken sensor." James says, as I walk back into the room.
"hmm, I didn't get that one" I say, knowing that that was just a test, to see if I did really go to the bathroom. you see, I left out one small, teensy, regardless, detail in the above story. I did go to the bathroom. I did not go to the water fountain. What do you believe? Did I go to the bathroom, or the fountain? Does it matter? No. It doesn’t.

(i did go to the bathroom, in case your curious).

We talk about dreams, or some other jargon for the remaining 15 minutes, and then a buzzer lightly rings, the session is over. I stand up, and shake James' hand. "Thanks Jim" I say. he reply's that his name is actually James. I replied: "what's in a name?".

There really was a lady in a restaurant, and i really did return later.
I really did go to the bathroom.
The psychologist’s name was actually James.
and that is the truth.

 

I sat down to write some funny for my book. I though a (bad) pathological liar talking to a psychologist could be funny, constantly changing his story, etc. I ended up with this piece of philosophical crap. It isn’t crap, it just isn’t funny, and I need some funny!

Communication

There are four primary types of communication. Here they are in order of importance.
The first is one-to-one (1-1). This is also known as conversation, and simplifying it would be telephone conversation.
The second is one-to-many conversation (speech). Holy shit we have a lot of this. Speech, broadcasting, television, radio, magazines, advertisements, etc.. This is the most existent type of communication, but not the most popular by choice.
The third is many-to-one. The best example of this is democracy. While this communication is not great, it’s methods are being improved on every day, and some of these methods are what i am here to talk about in this article.

The last is many-to-many. Before the dawn of the Internet, the best example of this type of communication [that I can think of] would be a food fight. Put people in a room, and they will break into small 1-1 and 1-few conversations, or perhaps a 1-many, if that 1 spoke loudly enough. What is surprising from a philosophical point of view, but not from a practical point of view, is why this large group does not break into many-to-many conversation? The reasons are simple.

To have many-many conversation, one must have order. With the food fight/disorderly classroom examples of many-many conversation, the second law of thermodynamics takes its place, and while people fight to be heard and have a voice (to become 1-many, or 1-1), the volume level increases, and disruption happens. When 1-many fails, the 1 tries nearby 1-few (who can hear him) and such continues in a way that, while complicated conversation that may weave in and out of smaller conversations, is decidedly not many-many. Simpler conversation is easier.

In some cases, a 1-many can be classified as a few-to-large, and yes, this is many-many conversation, it isn’t really the point that I am making and is just arguing semantics.
How does one get this order? Before, well, technology-- it was difficult. There were no channels to use. So it didn’t happen. Now, I can give you a prime, perfect, and wonderful example of many-many conversation that nearly all of you have taken place in: Wikipedia. (Wiki’s in general). With the Wiki, a central thread is open to be read by the masses, but instead of being written by one person (1-many, as it were) it would be written and collaborated on by many. With things such as moderators, version control, and *cough*respect*cough*, the inevitable hassling and annoyances of a few untrustworthy few can be canceled out, and as Wikipedia has demonstrated, the concept of many-many can be successful. With the right control, moderation, interference, and editing, many-many conversation is not only possible, but practical. Who doesn’t love Wikipedia? Look at the amount of information it has been able to generate, store, and give out! It is a lot -- a LOT of information. Behold the power of many-many communication. A lot of power, ideas; in a little amount of time. It has worked better (efficiency) than the many-one approach of regular encyclopedias. many submit in information, which is reviewed and published by one (turning around to become one-many upon publishing). In a way encyclopedias are almost many-many. They are many-one-many; Which is close, and encyclopedias do have a lot of information, but does not quite cut it in achieving this cooperative powerhouse or general efficiency/speediness. Even so, encyclopedias are still impressive.

While I have yet to explain the explicit benefits of this sort of conversation, I hope it is apparent. Wikipedia power can be unleashed upon the world. Through collaboration, we can succeed. Succeed is an ambiguous word, and rightly so, as I can inherently not be specific enough to elaborate.

There are several methods of many-many conversation I can present to you, in a way to catalog these, and hopefully develop a feasible model that us humans can use to our advantage.

The first is a wiki. A Google Wave. a public whiteboard/bulletin board. A shared Google doc. Or some other form of real time collaboration, with version control.


Another method is the thread. Above I brought up the example of the bulletin board. It is from this concept that, what can be considered the first electronic many-many method of communication was created. This was the BBS. The Forum. The Threaded conversation. Essentially, each person would add their comments, their two cents, to the end of an article.original post. One person would start it, yes - so it could be many-to-1 (such as blog comments) but, just as blog comments often do (see reddit), threads thread out. The branch and break, and different people have different conversations, responding to different people. It varies, and can just be groups of 1-1 conversation inside on another, but often it is true many-many conversation in its development. People replying to multiple other peoples posts, and all relating to an original subject.
One last method I do not have the expertise to comment on is Source Control, as in programming (SVN, GIT, etc.).

I hope you are starting to get my drift. People: We have the technology. Google docs, Google Wave, Wiki’s, a giant whiteboard, all of this is available, free. Let us, as a collective, take advantage of the resources at our disposal and become more efficient. I am trying to use it, but my attempts at real time collaborative writing in Google docs usually fail because not everyone is online at the same time. The tools still offer an advantage because not everyone needs to be present at the same time. I hope to start more projects that try and take advantage or many-many conversation. I hope you do too. Lets try it and see what happens, see what needs changing, development, refinement.
In the spirit of experimentation, here is the link to the Google Doc where I wrote this. It is public and anyone can access and edit, for example, if a reader out there knows something about Github and wants to offer his opinions. I will republish it here if anything interesting happens. Such as someone actually, positively, editing it.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1acZU8JmkJtegiKR8mnaGsU0Uw41UBd_Q3bslNduWnms/edit?hl=en&authkey;=CJ76vPwN

Back on Facebook

I deleted my Facebook account a while back for two few main reasons: I was spending way too much time on it, and I didn’t like the way Facebook was handling my privacy.

While I still don’t like the latter, school is all but over now – finished my last AP test, decided on college, etc. So, with the anticipation of a new android smart phone (sync with contacts), I have returned to Facebook. Primary goal: Keep in contact with my friends. Secondary goal: Use it in college when making friends. So I basically returned to Facebook for the same reason, to stay in contact. It’s a shame that the tool that so many people use to stay in contact is so locked in and un-open.

Still Life with Woodpecker

Came across an interesting quote while reading Tom Robbins Still Life With Woodpecker, which was published in 1980, if I am right.

I’m not so far gone that I expect technologists to be interested in designing machines for artists—why, if novelists got wooden typewriters, poets would demand that theirs be ice. What is more likely is that technology will bypass artists, that a day is coming when our novels will be written by computers, the same devices that will paint our murals and compose our tunes. If I’m chuckling, it’s because I’m imagining a computer, programmed to produce logical variations on the eighteen possible literary plots, U;m imagining that computer trying to deal with what happened in Leigh-Cheri’s attic. If I’m chuckling, it means that the Remington SL3 had better watch its P’s and p’s and Q’s and q’s

--Tom Robbins, Interlude after chapter 17, Still Life With Woodpecker. (click here)

Dancing With Hands

I found this article while doing some research on club juggling. It compliments this post I wrote a while back. Yeah, its juggling related. Ignore if you please.

I turned 18

Well, I have done it. I have survived for 18 years, and a day. About. I never thought I would get this far. That isn’t a morbid thought, it’s just I have trouble thinking about the future in anything more than broad ‘I will be in college, whoa!’ sense. It’s a surprise that I am still here.
So do I feel more mature? Older? More awesome? Short answer: No. I will enjoy my privileges Thursday nights while hanging out at a Bdubs. They try and make us require parental guardians. Well, fuck you! I’m 18 now! Ha-ha! Sticking it to the man!
As far as gift go, I now have 2 24” monitors, as opposed to a 24” and a 19”. It’s a nice change. I got steam balance I have yet to spend, and some cheap juggling clubs. Think bowling pins. I can not wait to continue practicing with the clubs. Juggling them makes me feel like a juggler, a performer. It is a good feeling.
One of the reasons juggling is so impressive is because anyone can do it. Nobody hasn’t once held a ball in their hands, and tossed it in the air. Us jugglers just take this to an extreme. I agree, It’s pretty awesome. Clubs are more for performing, while ball juggling is more for skill. Now, it is all for performing, but juggling balls one has to develop their skills to surpass other jugglers, focusing on the talent aspect. The talent aspect is why I like it so much. Club juggling is more for performing. It obviously requires talent, that’s why its awesome, It is much more visual than ball juggling. To put it in other words, it’s the mindset of the juggler. When inventing new ball tricks, they are layering patterns in new and interesting ways. When inventing club tricks, its just “What would look cool”. This isn’t perfect (it isn’t dipolar), but I am moving on.
I am going skydiving! I don’t know where or when, but that’s pretty motherflipping awesome. I will also learn how to fly. Also don’t have logistics of it, but…yeah.

How Road’s are Named

This is some general information everyone should know. I am by no means an expert, so please correct me if I am wrong anywhere.

Many places are in a grid. Generally, numbers for roads going one way and letters for their perpendicular counterpart. for Indianapolis and beyond, numbered roads go east/west and named roads go north/south but are not alphabetical such as with DC.

In Indianapolis, you tell people where you are by first saying the numbered road, then the nearby cross named road, and then another nearby larger named road. Confused? Shouldn’t be. I live at 106th and Town, west of Meridian. (note: Township line road becomes town at 96th street. You can be at 96th and township or 96th and town, but 96th and town is preferable)

As you go north, farther away from downtown, the numbers go up. Roads are numbered by (more or less) linear distance away from the city --away from what would be 0th street but is Market street. In the city, we lose the numbered convention. Confusing streets are North, East, South,and West street. Its confusing because when we see a north in a road name it usually means that that road runs north of south. For example, “West 86th st”. it goes east/west and is farther west of the center of Indianapolis then east 86th street is, although it’s the same street. I can be on South street West and West street South. Don’t be confused. South street is SOUTH of the center (circle center). West street is WEST of the center. South Street West means I am south west of the center, driving east or west.

The other tricky part is knowing which roads are one way or not, but if all else fails just start driving in circles until you find a road going in the direction you want. Knowing one way roads is just practice. There probably is a logical system behind it, but I don’t know what that is (maybe it alternates or is optimized for traffic flow).

Now on to neighborhoods. Unless you live in one of those strange houses that are right off of a main road (always a friend or aunt, never you, right?), you live in a neighborhood. It might be gated, or have some fancy entrance. It might not be marked in any distinguishable way, but driving along all the speed limits have dropped to 30 and kids and bikers and dogs litter the sidewalks, which also just appeared. People put houses near other houses.

Prepare for some knowledge to be imparted to your face:

• A road connects to points. Maybe two towns.
• A street is within a town/city/area. It is often lined with homes or buildings and has driveways sticking out of it.
• A drive can be like a long driveway leading up to a house or cluster of houses. Often, a drive connects back to the street you turned off to get onto the drive, similar to triple digit highways.
• A way is a small, or minor road that may or may not connect anything
• A court usually ends with a cul-de-sac (type thing) and most often will make you turn around, although other roads can connect to it (so it may not be dead end)
• A boulevard (BLVD) is a wide, pretty road with nice things to look at and often has big sidewalks with trendy restaurants that have small round tables to sit at and watch the angry drivers go by. median down the center, multiple lanes. (maybe)
• An avenue has trees on the side. It is lined with something or other pretty and most likely foliage.
• An alley or alleyway is between buildings, and you probably can’t drive there.
• Bay,Gardens,Manor,Passage,Pathway,Place,Terrace,Trail,View and others are all names for small roads, most likely suburban.
• Cul-de-sac’s are probably court, but can also be cove, green, or place
• Some people like to be cool and name roads from what they look like: Crescent, Circus, Circle, Loop
• Some are geographical in nature (get it?): Canyon, Causeway, Grove, Heights, Hill, Knoll, Mount, Parkway
• Some are named for function: Way, Bypass, Loop, Plaza, Walk.

And now you know. Use this information to prevent you from getting lost in your friends neighborhood! Or, whatever.

Highways are an altogether different matter, but much simpler because there are accepted standards.