Climbing into my Ivory Tower

When I went out for Dinner with Peter a few weeks ago, he said something interesting. He was reading a novella that generally demonstrated how inequality of power is a necessary development in society, because it generates a group of people who have time to do things that aren't strictly related to survival, such as research, creating art and literature, formulating new philosophies, etc. In other words, if everyone was of uniform power standing, the world would be like a stagnant pond, no differentials in energy to produce useful work. He said also it's dangerous to think like this, because it could turn you into a conservative. =op

I think that bearing that in mind, it's also important to note that large disparities in power standing are equally dangerous. Just because you need a 5 Volt Potential difference to run a flashlight doesn't mean that hooking up 50KV to it will make it better. At some point the bulb will explode and you won't have a flashlight at all.

It really does seem that all is about balance. I've been thinking a lot lately about sociality balance. The balance between rebelling against all that is society in the name of individuality, and conforming to a mindless grey groupmass thought process. The sad state of affairs, I think, is that most people are sitting in one of those two camps, and I think like most things, the hardest thing to do is maintain the balance between them. The closer you get to being in one of the camps, the harder it is to move back to the middle again. I think there's great dangers to thinking in any extreme way, and that there are parts of each side that are appropriate for different circumstances.

Perceptive Realities

Had coffee with Iris this weekend. I've come to realize we have basically no common ground at all anymore. Since we've broken up, she's released any mental clamps she had locked for the sake of socializing with me, and has spun off into her own thing.

This is good for her, I think, as it means that she's driving her own life solo now, but at the same time basically annuls any understand we have of each other. The outing was... fine. However, when we were dating, I often felt that she didn't really care about things I talk about, that she listened because she loved me, rather than she cared. Since she does no longer, she doesn't have that hold. There were also some poignant remarks about guys she's been fooling around with that were made, I think, to make a point to me.

I think the point could have been made in a less gouging fashion.

Suffice it to say that with the termination of the evening any doubt I may have had lingering about relationship possibilities have been permenantly severed. She'll go and have her life, and I'll have mine, and we're both the better for the fact that we aren't tethered to each other.

Apart from that, there were the usual jingles of Family Easter Celebrations, and much gravy filled food to be eaten. The end of term Kendo party appearantly went very well in my absence, but I wasn't really feeling up to getting smashed that night. Both Kerri and Kristin cancelled on Sun, so i've mostly been left to my own devices.

Things to look forward to:

Jazz with Cas on ... Saturday? (yay!)
SC3 comes out Thursday.
...
That's a short list. Things to do. Add more to the above list.


Based on readings and observations, i'm beginning to really believe that no matter what camp you sit in, almost nobody wants to hear anything they don't agree with. This is probably directly stemming from the fact that most people's opinions stem directly from their immenent surroundings and upbringings, and the worldview is limited to paying the next bill.

People are constantly clamoring over each other trying to get to the top of the pile, and if anyone states an opinioning of differing persuasion, they are denounced as a lesser being, if not publically or consciously, although often both. The problem with this behaviour is that it is in general harmful to the majority of people, and humanity overall. You can't even denounce playing the pile game at all, because you inevitably get caught up in an anti-pile pile (i.e. a counterculture), and start spending your time trying to be the best at screwing the other pile.

It's a rather debilitating circumstance, and unfortunately appears to be geared into our lizard brains. If it's unavoidable, I guess the best thing to do is get into piles that recognize what they are, and at least try to generate benefit overall in the shuffling that goes on, if not trying to somewhat mitigate the behaviours that crush those underfoot.

I've clearly been coding too long today.
I think I should see a shrink, just to see if I can really wig her/him out.

A busy weekend

Tonight I'm seeing Iris for coffee. First time since we broke up, hopefully all goes well and I don't feel like crawling into a hole and dying at the end of the evening.

Tomorrow is the big Family Easter at G&Gs. Core family this year, which should be a good time. Get to hang out with Tyler, might have to kick his ass at hold'em. Plans for Friday evening... Coffee with Jon et al.?

Sat. I have a coffee date with my sister, lots of things to hash out with her, Sat. evening will involve going to the final UW kendo practice of the year, getting my ass kicked, and then getting tanked out of my mind.

After waking up, hopefully in someplace recognizable on Sunday morning, I shall drive back to Toronto, where I have a quasi-date with Kristin. Then, exhausted and drained, I shall collapse into unconciousness, and be held accountable for the work I have done in the last three weeks to Colin, my boss, who returns from Australia after a 3 week vaction then. That'll be the 28th. I need to have this CRM project shipped by the 31st.

Fuck.

My next job

One of my favorite tech people, Jeff Hawkins, has just started a new company called Numenta.

Numenta works on AI based on a new type of Memory System they call Hierarchical Temporal Memory (HTM), based on Jeff's book.


Someone over there is getting badgered into letting me work for them for four months. Maybe not this term, but one of these terms.

A lesson in Kendo

I get this email from an old Sensai:

Hello boys and girls(?)

Robin and I will go to Waterloo together on Saturday. Eddie might join us as well. BE READY for this event as you definitely need change of scenery from studies or work. Let's have another memorable time in Waterloo.

Looking forward to seeing you guys soon.

Cheers,

Sung-yong

---------------------


Translation:

Hey Kids,
Robin and I are coming to waterloo to fuck you guys up. Finish your work ahead of time because you will
be incapable of doing so the day after. You will definately be wasted. Let's have a time that will haunt you and we'll
talk about forever.

Cheers (as in beer)

Sung-yong.

Prom Photo - Testing out Picassa 

Oh, and additionally

Bill Nye is coming back with a new show called Eyes of Nye

That's wicked.

The Weirding Ways

Alright, I picked up Monty from the vet (The poor cat is wobbling around from the drugs), got home, I get a phone call, figure it's my mom calling to see how he is.

No, it's some girl, on a very bad cell phone connection.
Says her name is Jessica... something, I couldn't hear the back end because the connection was so bad. The conversation goes something along the lines of this:

Me: Hello
"Jessica": Hi, is this Angus?
Me: That'd be me.
J: How's it going?
M: Uh... Just fine, who is this?
J: Jessica!
M: Jessica.... who?
J: Jessica
M: I'm sorry?
J: Jessica , You gave me your number!
M: I did?
J: Yah, at the mall, don't you remember?
M: No, I don't. Which mall was this?
J: Promenade
M: Ok..... How long ago did I do this?
J: Like half a year ago
M: Sorry, I just got home, and my cat is wobbling around, just got back from the vet.
J: Your cat? Do you have a girlfriend? Cause you said you have a cat. I have a dog.
M: Right...

M: Look, My cat is falling over, can you call back later?
J: Yeah alright, bye
M: Bye


Throughout all of this, I hear laughing, or some kind of static or something in the background. That was one weirdass call. I barely go to promenade, and I have no recollection of ever giving my number to any random girl.

The vote: Prank call.

But why? And why at my Home number, where I spend little time and am frequently ... moved away from. Like I would have been half a year ago.
Weird.

Giggles and Tears

Get em' while you can:
Mr. Ethnic Clean
Alesse


The problem with living with my mother is that she really cares about her work. She loves every single one of her patients (Refers to them as her children). This makes her one of the best nurses you can imagine to have, but it also means that she's got over 300 children who are critically ill. And it means that it is to her, in some way, like losing a child everytime one of them inevitably dies. She's one of the most wonderful people I think I realistically know, but my god, How can you work in that kind of environment and not distance yourself from them? I guess it's more beneficial for them that she doesn't.

I can imagine getting passionate about my work, but not emotionally involved in it like that. But I guess it's not her work for her, for all the complaining about it she does, It's her life, and she loves it. If she didn't care for those people the way she does, she wouldn't be there at 6 am working hours before anyone else gets to the hospital, and leaving well after the sun sets again.

So there's my mother for you.

Lego Dealer

I had a dream last night that I was involved in some kind of Drug ring. Only it wasn't drugs, it was Lego. Or the drugs were somehow made into lego, or something. And I had to fight this guy who had no bones around his joints, but his tendons were made of steel or something. It was very weird.

Appearantly those little one piece round clear coloured pieces that usually get used for lights and stuff are worth the most. Just thought you should know that in case you ever find yourself dealing in illegal Lego.

Events of the last few days...

I can't imagine why anyone would care, but I guess that's not really the point of blogging, is it?

All week i've been fighting with code at work, the system I've been throwing code at crashed, and all hell broke loose. We had no idea what went wrong, but the company i'm outsourced to kept pointing fingers in the direction of my component. So after meticulously going through things, I discovered that it could not in any way be anything I had worked on, I'm digging through source code I've never seen before trying to figure out where the problem is. There's nothing more frustrating than trying to find errors when you have NO idea what's wrong, and you're trying to decipher someone elses code.

Needless to say, by the end of the week, I was pretty burnt. Had a good dinner and conversation with Peter on Thu. Talked for four hours about various and sundry, and left feeling pretty good about life and myself in general. No matter how much time you spend with that guy, i'm always suprised at the amount of knowledge and wisdom he brings to the table.

Friday night after ditching out of work early I spent the evening with Christine (Although i've been told to stick to Cas). In stark contrast to peter, who seems to never change in the time i've known him (although he maintains a much older relative position, so perhaps it's not a fair comparison), I find myself thinking that Cas has changed quite a bit in some ways, without changing essentially who she is over the years. Poor girl's been having a rough go of it lately, but i'm confident that she can handle herself and will resolve what she needs to resolve soon enough. Just need to keep myself on the rails and make sure I can do the same.

Got to bed at about 2:30, pretty much woke up at 5, and couldn't really sleep, feeling moderately hungover for 3 hours until I pried my ass out of bed, played some WoW, and went down to visit my dear consulting friend Steve, who remains as insane as ever. After a couple of drinks and lunch with him (where he tried to 'introduce' me to two girls who were, admittedly, hot, but i've no interest), I bailed out of there and headed to the Eaton Center to walk off the afternoon Jeigger. Randomly due to a miscommunication, and I assume, boredom, I ended up spending the rest of the afternoon shopping with Cas (I hope i'm not turning into NeoMike =op), hopped home for dinner, coffee with Singha, Jon and Randeep where I get to hear of all the random drunken tales of other people's St. Patrick's day.


And now I feel like ass. It's probably partly lack of sleep, over caffienated, and rub off from the bitterness of others, but my happy demenour of the last couple of days has sunken into a kind of bitter grumpiness. I nearly snapped at the kid working at Tim Horton's because the douche was chatting with some friend of his instead of getting me coffee at the fastest possible speed. That's not like me.

This post feels almost... Disingenuious. Like something my Mom writes in 'McQuarrie Musings' to talk about what the family has been up to lately. I think i'll get some work done on one of my projects tomorrow. I feel like saying I need to get my shit together, except, as was pointed out to me by Jon, my shit is always together, more or less.
I'm living in my head a lot lately, and much of that isn't coming out here, perhaps some other day.

Goodnight World.

Livejournal Assimilation

In moving away from Livejournal, I'm trying to find a way to seamlessly (or at least with fine stiching), access functions of my Livejournal Account from Blogger. There are certain features that Livejournal has, such as the Friends page, that I would like to still be able to access. It would also be neat if I could cross publish Livejournal to Blogger and vice versa.

The Macabre way to do this may be simply to place a link to my Livejournal Friends Page on here, and keep the login cookie stored on the computer in question.

A more interesting way may be to RSS my Friends page into an RSS agregator online, like Bloglines, and read it along with the rest of my feeds. That would in fact give me a universal 'friends page' for any syndicated site.