Chaser Stunt

It's old news, but I'm adding my bit about it.
I thought it was damn funny, and served its purpose.
Did it make it to the news in your APEC country?

Russian Tankers and Machinery

Had a psychedelic dream of flashbacks to when I was in Cuba, and I saw an old Soviet cement mixer still in operation, slowly chugging its way up a steep incline, pollutant spewing through its exhaust pipe as its socialist messages inscribed on the mixer spun. The mixer must've been 50 years old, and the 25-year-old Russian Ladas, their steering wheels now reduced to the bars underneath, sped past it angrily.

Socialist realist art, I have to say, is awesome stuff; I'd like to see its productio n well past the death of the ideology. The stark, 2D characters, their red fists impossibly holding children as their smiley, cold faces beneath the sun turn proudly towards sleek tanks somehow tiptoeing through fields blooming with flowers

Vagueness

Vagueness, I love it. One of the harshest criticisms that we can make of another person's mind is that the thoughts within it are vague..."not thought out well"...'unsophisticated' by virtue of an impoverished vocabulary or a variety of other ailments.
But I love vague people. Through their vague utterances and the less-vague responses of people, I learn more about how they, and their peers and parents think. To be more specific (less vague?..hm. maybe not), I learn about what associations most people make. Less vague people often work with the same assumptions and associations, but cloaked up in more sophisticated language.

This sentence is false

One of the supposed paradoxes of logic - if

"This sentence is false" is true - then it is false - which presents a contradiction. But if it is false, then it is true, which also presents a contradiction.
"BUT WHICH ONE IS IT?"
There are thousands of other examples of the same structure - some which involve combinations of sentences, some of which refer to others. Etc.

I have a problem with their logic...
What exactly, the fuck, does the above sentence refer to? To the SENTENCE? A sentence is a string of words, and if it doesn't make reference to something real or representative of something real - like a tree - or a concept - then it may just be a MEANINGLESS sentence. Does a meaningless sentence need to be true or false? I don't think so.
In any case, the sentence doesn't make sense, because the statement which it attempts to say is FALSE is...empty. No logical statement is by itself a contradiction - false and true simultaneously. We need to work with premises and statements of fact and then test whether other sentences are validly implied by the above, or not.

Glossary Game

Something I play when I'm bored in psych class...

See how well you can define things in the glossary...

Hey you learn a few things. Like how to think about the terms precisely and economically, and you get to anticipate what terms probably mean and see how right or wrong you were.
Just a quirk.

Perfect Victim

Crazy - This woman was abducted when she was 15, and kept in a dungeon for 20 years as a sex slave (amongst other things) - repeatedly tortured psychologically and physically, and kept barely alive. The man and his accomplice wife who captured her would take her for walks on a leash in their gigantic backyard. Gradually, she became convinced that she was the legal property of her tormentor, and when the couple let her roam around the town 20 years later (telling her to be back by that evening), she obeyed, knowing nothing better. Years later when out on the town she realised that she was a slave, somebody finally managed to convince her that this was not legal, and she allowed the memories to come back...

Fascinating and sad how deeply confused people can become over time.

But Life

Often we think "Hey, I'd like to do this now, BUT..." or "I'd like to see you now, BUT..."

Obviously, we're not entirely free to do what we want to do when we want to do it...we can allow some spontaneity in to our lives, but many things require a great degree of planning, and this has various, often unanticipated consequences for one's own happiness.

Life and other mundane things are the "but"

I often think when people talk about their "soul"and things like that (or spiritual needs), they're talking about those high-order needs like self-actualisation - reading, the development of a distinct and strong personality, the achievement of one's potential.
Eating and drinking and sleeping and shitting are usually thought of as not connected to the "soul" or "spirit", because the soul or spirit (for me, the brain that wants to think when it wants to think) longs to not be dependent on anything, not to be living bound up in flesh, to be waiting for a paycheck to clear or to work just to allow one to work more rather than to live.

This is also why when people are too busy with life that they tend to complain that there is a spiritual void in their lives. It is just not being able to focus on things that one WANTS to focus on, and when they want to. Those on a spiritual quest might find that void filled with a little more more free time in which to think. To use their brains. If they haven't forgotten how.

***

Capitalismis a good slave and a bad master

The Poor

Grow or decline not in strength, certitude or spirit, but in numbers only.

Revolutions don't happen quickly, only change does. When people talk about "The Russian Revolution" or some other event confined to a time period of a few years, they're talking about changing circumstances in Russia, not a change in Russians.

Human behaviour in all its potentialities is invariant over the short-term, but changing circumstances and political realities create a strong illusion that human behaviour is highly variable...unless one wants to narrowly define human behaviour as just whatever they happen to be doing in some corner of the century.

What I'm interested are revolutions in the way that people think. Take the Darwinian Revolution...that has been taking place for more than a hundred years.... or the possibility of real changes in our genotype. and the consequent effects..

Free Will

Confusion, illusion, error, self-deceit and deceit all rolled in to one.

Maternalistic and Paternalistic Societies

What exactly is a maternalistic society and how would I know if I were in one? Refer to the past if you must, but try to imagine it as an adaptation to or restructuring of the world today.

Experiment with dog

Haha, I pretend that one of his toys is having sex with the other, to see his jealous reaction. Having a dog is endlessly fun. Trying to work out what is going on in his little head, how he feels about things, and how he will react is always amusing.
And cruel.
For every one of my experiments (even those that give the dog food), the dog is wondering why he must jump through such strange loops to get the food which I deliberately entice him with, making him so jealous!

Sport

People screaming. People, often those who feel powerless, feeling part of something bigger, being outraged or sad or joyous. The mania and the passion of the crowd and all the ridiculous behaviour that it creates. People crying because their team lost. Hey, I've been passionate before about Australian Cricket Team/Newcastle Utd/Rugby Team/Hockey Team/Swimmers etc etc etc (list goes on forever)...but tears...because your team lost? Gimme a break! The Game more important than life? No way!

I'm rediscovering the joys of playing sport after a long period of laziness but being a spectator usually doesn't do it for me.
Except for Rugby Union.... Go The Wallabies!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lawyers

Which professions primarily involve an optimistic attitude, and/or idealism, aside from, say, some roles in the UN?

I was thinking that lawyers can and must be "pessimists", in a "poor mood" because they have to be able to anticipate everything that could go wrong in a contract when advising you.
The one that catastrophises the best and anticipates every single snare and disaster is the best lawyer

Banana Smell Everywhere!

Can somebody explain this???

I ate a banana 4 nights ago, and I've been smelling banana ever since. Everywhere. Not only at home. It's a strong smell, and it's ALWAYS there. When I go to sleep and wake up and when I'm at uni and at the movies and even when I'm eating other foods, I'm smelling banana. All the time.

This is the third time this ever-present-smell thing has happened, and each time, it has involved banana - last time it lasted for about 6 days.
It's doing strange things for my memory too - am constantly remembering things that I did during the last 'episode' of all-present banana smell. I'm busy trying to enjoy myself now so that I'll have good memories for next time...
Btw, I've not had any traumatic events occur in my life involving a banana

Efficiency

No, people, email does not make life 'easier'; that we can instantly communicate with anyone anywhere does not make life easier overall.

No technological fix will permanently make life easier - this is because life is a competitive game..Any invention which increases our productivity (letting us do what we could do in eight hours in two) will only raise the expectations of us, and we will still work 8, but accomplish much more perhaps. Anybody who tries to achieve the same number of things in two will be destroyed by those willing to work as long or longer than before.

Strange Crime

Excerpts from a dictionary of crime:
-A man who would hold pre-pubescent girls at knifepoint on their way home from school, ordering them to take off their shoes and socks. He then licked their toes and ran off
-The panty bandit - a man who would rob stores, order women to take off their panties and run off.
Read about the Panopticon!

Ignorance

Often enquiring about the certainty of another's opinions shows very quickly how ignorant they are; there are some people who believe very strongly that we (and/or humans) know a lot, and others who are sure we know very little.

And others have no idea what exactly, the fuck, "knows a lot" or "knows little" means.

United States

When I went to study in the USA, what I found odd was the vague familiarity of America. It's people and the way of life. Obviously America is varied (although not as much as most countries are, perhaps). But nothing was very foreign, and some things seemed more familiar than their 'equivalents' in my home country, Australia. For example, the archetype of "the nerd" in Hollywood movies such as "Revenge of the Nerds" seemed more easily recognisable in America than at home. Such is the power of Hollywood to alter one's identity.