Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Napalm Brain, Scatter Brain

By now you will have noticed that I like to talk at length about the fine line between certain opposites, as it were.

Actually it's so fine it's ridiculous.

You are aware that there is a fine line between insanity and genius.

You are also aware that 99% of the time, an attacker is somebody who the victim knew.

And then you are also aware that 70% of all statistics are made up on the spot.


Anyway, I just thought I'd point out another two things that came to mind recently.

Media Snake:

I always talk about the media. It's one of my favourite things to do. Today I want to say that in my personal opinion, using my own crafted stats, that the media has so far, to date, only output 10% useful information since I can remember and 90% of the time, they are inciting, hateful, biased (in spite of apparently being known as a neutral source of information) Popular journalism always seeks to scapegoat some poor fecker who was getting off on something random or else band-wagon jumping, in order to make the sales. Popular journalists are scum. A real journalist would never get hired by a popular edition purely because only a select few would actually find what they wrote about to be interesting at all. Most people don't care that footballers sleep around, for example. No one cares about tabloids really. Some of us care about the state of the world economy, but don't need to be reminded every day about the slight changes going on. And why do they constantly try to remind us that someone in Botswana got impaled while riding a motorcycle to a funeral? Generally, humans are a depressing bunch. Just like our need for companionship makes a pretty penny on "Valentines Day", our insecurity and general critical nature assures the sale of the daily rag. So, if I haven't read a paper, cover to cover since 2008, how come I know that the world bank is in tatters, ACTA is moving through the court system, people in Ireland are getting raped by the Irish government and that generally, people are getting fucked over one way or another all over the world? It doesn't take a genius to figure out that there is one thing in control here... human nature and the manipulation of it. Get a life of your own rather than join in the punishment beating of another's. Stop buying the rag and promoting the use of mind numbing tabloid "knowledge" and sensationalism.

The truth is, you may die of unnatural causes or you may not.. it's a big bad world full of mad people. We all know one, I'm sure.

You may get caught doing what you like to do, or you may not. Just give up stalking others and justifying it as "normal", eh?


Brain/Computer/Space

Three things that fascinate me and I have been obsessing over for as long as I can remember are the human brain or mind, Space and the technical wonder that are computers. I find, once there is enough interest in any of the above and once your mind is open enough, the line between each obscures less and you start to see the similarities between each.

The similarities are amazing. The human mind is unbelievably expansive. Apparently, there is no end of knowledge we can store in our brains and we are able to recall information easily, the more dormant our temperament. It's well documented that the human psyche can be manipulated easily in a deep sleep or "hypnotised" state. Basically, the busier we ain't, the more easily our mind recalls things it once learned or knows to be true. Why can we quit smoking? We know we need to, somewhere deep inside. Ever struggled with that song name or actor and you try try try, but cannot recall? Then, suddenly, you're watching TV or having a bath or having a wank or whatever, you suddenly remember. Fascinating stuff. Computers work better the less physical memory you are using. It's fair to say your general processing will run a lot quicker when you're not over-encumbered with thoughts or commitments.

And so on.

Space is as expansive as our minds allow it to be. OK, bit of a controversial statement, depending on your scientific disposition or knowledge. The truth is, we only know as much as we have discovered and once we know of it, well there it is. We can always find out more by exploring a little bit, just by watching, observing. Maybe one of our satellites will drift off a little further and detect something we didn't previously know. Our thoughts can drift through our mind and uncover an idea we never fathomed before just the same. The idea becomes a project and the project becomes knowledge soon after a little theory. Both the study of Space and the human mind is all theory based. Nobody knows, but a little prodding around soon uncovers information. It's probability based... one can not know the minds of another, nor themselves truly, just as one cannot know the distant reaches of space. It looks only as our earthly perceptions will allow us to deal with.

This is of course, theory too. But you get my drift.

Computers are as fascinating as both of these subjects. Computers just seem to "develop" over time, though not without the work behind it of course. Technology expands as fast as the mind, as fast as the knowledge we gain to give them momentum. Our brain can be comparable to the mother board of a PC... we have the direct memory access to the situations that need our attention most. Our attention sub-divides and deals with scattered tasks like that of our RAM, like as if the more we learned to deal with, the better our minds could cope. Our brains are much like a hard disc, expanded by our determination to remember the times of our lives we cherished most in great detail. Our processors help us to deal with major turning points or pivotal moments, times when we need to think on our feet or move with great haste. We can quit processes and situations with simple commands or "keystrokes". Our chipsets are only as useful as the user that's manipulating it, the hardware that depends on it and the "speed" or intelligence of the individual who it's assigned to. It seems the more we need to know or understand ourselves, the more our machines need to expand and support us. We are a fortunate bunch indeed. Rather than simply "forget", we can store our knowledge on our body's natural outer appendage. Our computer.

Anyway, this was just one thought process of many. Ironically, I have used the technology in front of me to store one tiny tree of thought development that maybe took me a few seconds to picture. My hands cannot move as fast as my mind. My mind will not move faster than I allow it to.

Makes you think, doesn't it?

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