Hmm…

dinosideways.net

Anyone have any idea what this is?

On Axioms

Today we held a debate of sorts in school.  A few of us took on the roll of political thinkers from the enlightenment.  Among those represented were John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.  I was Hobbes.

I got picked on a lot (apparently people don’t like me saying that they are inherently evil).  For the most part I fielded all the questions well, and I think that even though I personally don’t believe in Hobbes’ theories, some of the audience may have afterwards.

The main point though is that none of us could have ever won an argument with each other ever.  We believe three fundamentally different things about the nature of humans, three mutually exclusive axioms, for they can never be proven.  I realized that if one begins with one of these axioms, and follows reason, they would conclude that the political philosopher who agreed with that axiom was correct.  If that same person chose a different axiom to begin with, they would reach a completely different conclusion.

I think it’s safe to say that human nature is at its heart unknowable.  Issues of free will, or fundamental good or evil become non-issues, axioms to be thought over by yourself, defining beliefs to keep you up at night.  These axioms, however, can not be debated.

I don’t think I made my points clear at all,

Ethan

A Poem

Once he was a herder.

Next he was a birder.

He contemplated murder,

But that would not be lawful.

Later he’d do dishes.

He’d wasted his three wishes.

The pancake was delicious,

But it was not a waffle.

He played a game of catch.

He played a game of fetch.

He felt a need to stretch,

But still he had no softball.

Now he was exhausted.

His only book: he’d lost it.

Oh! How much it’d costed,

That had been quite awful.

 Nonsensical much?

Ethan

And Your Bird can Sing

I haven’t stumbled recently, which is the real reason I don’t have much to say….

Not to be condoning vandalism or anything, but try writing, “I am cooler than thou.” somewhere.  I guarantee you’ll feel better after.

Anyway, I made up a word, win + wonderful = ?  Did you guess winderful?  Exyeahctly.

No, seriously people, stop saying guesstimate.  Just stop.  A guess and an estimate are exactly the same thing.  Sure, we could quibble over the relative education of each, but in the end it doesn’t matter.  At all.  So stop.

Automagically.  Now there is a cool word.  Something that is automatic does not imply that it occurs magically.  Something that is magic could take a lot of work to pull off.  Plus, when we think of automatic, it implies technological.  But when we think of magic it implies just the opposite!  Who would ever think that two words that are opposites in our mind could work so well together?  Certainly not I.

Tell me that you’ve heard every sound there is, and your bird can swing.

Ethan

SPIN

Woo!

Sorry, to all none of my readers about the delay.  School has been catching up with me finally.  Sad day…

SPIN

That video is ridiculously cool.  Well edited, which really makes all the difference in terms of whether or not a movie looks professional.  And that does indeed look professional.  The camera never hangs too long on any one place, which is my main complaint with badly edited film.  A hanging camera is a sure sign of made-with-imovie-in-an-afternoon-because-I-couldn’t-be-bothered-and-didn’t-realize-that-people-would-see-it-itis.  I mean come on, some of us do nothing but browse youtube.  Please make your video good, for us?

Not that a professional look is the same as excellence.  The Office, or at least the British version does an incredible job of getting a badly edited look.  This style enhances the “Crap Documentary” feeling that is already there.  It makes the entire show seem more real, and in my opinion, funnier.

 Have you ever been to electric lady land?

Ethan

Four Logical Points, Some More Important Than Others

Point the First:  If I proclaim that something you know for a fact to be true is actually false, it is very unlikely that you will get offended.  You may disagree with me, and give me evidence to the contrary,  but  you’re not going to take it personally if I still don’t agree with you.  Becoming offended when confronted with an argument is an example of an ad hominem attack.  You are dismissing my arguments because they insult you, without refuting the claims.  At best, you are hoping I’ll go away and shut up for fear of offending you more, you are pulling emotion into an argument, which up to that point was logical.

Point the Second:  If I confront someone about why they believe in their religion of choice, they become offended.  Not all the time, of course, I have had reasonable conversations with people about their theology.  However, nine times out of ten, the confronted individual will start acting irrationally, disagreeing with everything I say.  The worst cases involve the subject of my research to act as though I just insulted them.

Point the Third:  This is the logical conclusion of point the first and point the second.  People are generally not certain of their religion.  My theory is that no one actually absorbs what their religion is teaching; they don’t look at the primary source, the bible for example, but rather look at secondary or even tertiary sources, the preacher or rabbi.  Not that secondary sources are necessarily bad, we would end up no where if we didn’t build on what others have already figured out.  However, if we don’t look at the primary source we can never draw our own conclusions.  If we never draw our own conclusions, we can never be sure of anything we know.

Secondary sources can point you in the right direction, and for relatively unimportant claims, or claims that are unreasonable to research yourself, they can be enough.  For claims that matter, and theology definitely matters, you should back them up yourself.  If I told you that your friend had just died, you might want to do some research yourself as opposed to just not calling him.

Point the Fourth:  Now, if you said global warming was a myth, I’d be offended.  But by my own logic that would mean that I am not sure of myself.  Bullshit.  You not accepting global warming, and continuing to drive your gigantic, gas-guzzling, emission-tastic SUV harms me.  I, unlike you, assume that we simply cease to exist when we die.  I rather enjoy my life the way it is, and would like to put off dying for as long as possible.  If you driving this SUV moves me closer to dying, I have good reason to be offended, you are essentially saying that you want me to cease to exist.

Also, even if you do get me offended, I’m still going to attempt to hold a reasonable debate with you.  I’m not going to go all brick wall on you and continue to repeat the same points over and over.

Conclusion:  Leave me the hell alone, or at least be reasonable about the whole conversion thing.  Don’t get offended if I say you’re wrong, you come to no harm if I end up in hell.  Also, for the love of everything good, make your own opinions.  Read your primary source of choice and try to understand it.

Heh, Ninjas,

Ethan

Death + Math

On August 30th of this year, the New York Times ran a front page article concerning the Virginia Tech massacre. If we assume that this is the last article that will ever be run on the front page of a national newspaper, then the story lasted 136 days. From April 16 to August 30th. 136 days / 33 people killed = a bit more than 4 days per person killed.

On August 6th, 1945, the atomic bomb named “Little Boy” was dropped on Hiroshima. 70,000 people were killed in the first blast. Thousands more died as a direct result from this bomb.

4 days per person * 70,000 people killed = 280,000 days until the final front page article. 280,000 / 365 days in a year = 767 years until the final article. 1945 + 767 = a final front page article in the year 2712. Yeah right.

There’s no doubt about it, the Virginia Tech incident was horrible, and I’m not belittling that. I’m just pointing out the lopsidedness of news.

Just a sobering thought,

Ethan

I am the Walrus

I don’t have time today, mostly because I only have a day to finish a journal I was supposed to be writing this entire summer.  Heres a song about that:

Ethan has to do a stupid journal

It’s stupid, and a journal

If it wasn’t stupid and a journal

it prolly wouldn’t be called a stupid journal

It was assigned at the beginning of the summer

And I probably should have started working on it at the beginning of the summer

Because I was supposed to write about things I did throughout the summer

But I only just started it, and it’s the end of the Summer.

(Chorus)

Oh no, Oh no, whatever shall I do?

Probably I should work on it and stop procrastinating by writing this song

because I only have a day

To write three months

And three months is longer than a day

by a lot

Now I have written another days worth

And I can’t figure out how to end this line with worth

And if I broke the rhyme scheme, this song would lose its worth

So I better think of a way to end the second line with worth

(Chorus)

 

 

Elementary penguins singing hare krishna, man you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allen Poe,

Ethan

 PS:  It turns out that the only way I’ll ever get hits is if I tag my posts with Ninja.  Now that I’ve mentioned the word, I don’t feel nearly as bad about putting a false tag.

Maybe Later

The question for today, badger badger badger or banana phone? (or both)

Me personally, I go for banana phone.  It’s just a better song.  More repetitive, and everyone and their dog knows it and hates it being stuck in their head.

Ring-ring-ring-ring-ring.

Badger badger badger is good, of course, but it slowly wore out it’s welcome, while banana phone aged quite well.  Also, who wouldn’t want a phone that doubled as a healthy snack.

Ding-dong-ding-dong-ding.

Additionally, the use of words in banana phone is much more clever than it’s mammal filled counterpart.  I mean, after the second line, you would expect something repetitive, but it changes to donana phone.  Pure genius.  Really, top notch.

Fun-fact, this song is now stuck in your head,

Ethan

When I Get Home

Thbpt will never take off, because of one reason:  School.

School is that damn thing that starts in a week.  That crazy institution that will sap more than 30% of my time, while force feeding me crap that I already know.  It’s crazy, apparently students are not physically able to pay attention in class, as that is the only explanation for the sheer volume of pointless homework that requires us to do no more than recap what we have been going over for three weeks already.

Anyway, even if I was able to keep a post-a-day average now (which I’m not), there is no way in hell I’d be able to while sleep deprived and wasting 8 hours of my day. 24 hours in a day – (8 hours in school + 10 hours of sleep + 3 hours getting home/eating/waking up/etc. + 2 hours having a good time) = 0 hours remaining =/= the 20 minutes it takes to write one of these things.

Sad day, I know, I just admitted defeat on a project that hasn’t been shown to anyone yet.  It’s borderline ridiculous.

I got a whole lotta things to tell her,

Ethan