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newnumber6Haven't done one of these in a while.
I'm hungry.
Dream Foo: Possibly the weirdest dream ever. I was walking down the street and spotted a sign advertising a BKV/Mark Millar hosted "Prisoner/Runaways cosplay contest". So I went in and saw that the idea was to pair up a Prisoner character with a Runaways character. Mark Millar and BKV were there too in costume, although I didn't see Millar. BKV was Number 6 from The Prisoner, though I don't know who he was with (maybe Millar dressed up as Nico). Another pair, I can't remember if they actually appeared in the dream or if I just thought it would be a weird idea, was Molly and the silent butler (since they're both shorter than all the other characters you could pair them up and have them played by people at normal adult sizes).
Meh, I want to RP again, but I'm still too damn picky.
Commercials annoying me recently: What the commercial is vs what impression I get from it! -
"I CAN'T HEAR THE FAJITAS SIZZLING!" - Taco Bell products are highly enjoyed by the mentally challenged, but not for the taste!
Dr. Z answers a letter from a soccer mom asking about the car. He shows off all the features. She tries to talk but he completely ignores her and shows off more stuff and talks about the awards won - We don't care what you think, we just want to tell you about our car.
Future Shop's 'Here are the 4 most important steps to recovering your data' interrupted by an emergency ad - We're more concerned with selling you stuff than of actually being of any help.
Many different breath mint commercials - OUR PRODUCT WILL LEAD TO YOUR DEATH IN THE VERY NEAR FUTURE (WTF is up with that trend, anyway?)
Fido Commercial Where everyone argues on dinner - Greek food is the only food everyone's happy with. Woo! (Okay, this didn't so much annoy me, but I hate the song they use in the commercial)
Any of the text-to-join-a-trivia-game-for-$.50-a-question ads. They don't make me thing anything in particular, just get me really annoyed. Shut up.
New TV season starts soon. So far the only new show I've seen and kinda dug was Jericho (downloaded the first episode). Still have hopes for Heroes, but haven't seen the first ep yet (I know it's available, I just haven't gotten around to it). And of course returning shows are love.
Oh, and remember the convention? Turns out I was right. According to another browncoat (who actually saw me but didn't know who I was or that they knew me from online), Christina Hendricks (Saffron) showed up on Saturday, pretty well right at the exact time I was leaving the convention. If t'weren't for bad luck, sometimes I think I'd have none at all. ;)
Book Foo:
Finished: Ender's Shadow, by Orson Scott Card
Thoughts and selected quote behind the cut (very low on spoilers, probably safe even if you haven't read the book):
I actually find that, although I think Ender's Game is the better novel (and if you're only reading one, read that one), I enjoy Ender's Shadow more. Bean's story just interests me more. His strange outlook and growing into humanity, and the fact that he seems to be a bit more of an 'active' character than Ender, more in control of his own destiny, whereas Ender just reacts to what happens to him, so I find that more engaging.
"Nero, you are an example to all of the children on this shuttle. Because most of them are so foolish, they think it is better to keep their stupidest thoughts to themselves. You, however, understand the profound truth that you must reveal your stupidity openly. To hold your stupidity inside you is to embrace it, to cling to it, to protect it. But when you expose your stupidity, you give yourself the chance to have it caught, corrected, and replaced with wisdom."
The quote is of course meant in a mocking way, but I kind of like it on face value, nonetheless. I don't practice what I preach always (mainly due to shyness issues), but I like the idea that, in a quest for more knowledge and better understanding, you shouldn't hide your ignorance about things, as even if you're corrected on something it gives you a chance to learn. To give the most smallest, trivial example, I never use a spellcheck (unless I'm submitting something very important, of course), with the hope that if I make a mistake, someone will correct me, and I'll be more likely to learn the correct spelling out of the embarrassment of the correction.
And, from later in the book:
"It slowed him down to have his own thoughts move around in circles--without outside stimulation it was hard to break free of his own assumptions. One mind can think only of its own questions; it rarely surprises itself."
This is something that worries me from time to time. I spend so much of my time alone. And yeah, I think a lot, but sometimes I wonder if I've exhausted the capabilities of my own mind to really advance on its own, and since I don't really talk to enough people to get different experiences, and I can't really surprise myself with new ideas or get refinements/corrections to old ones, I'm sort of stagnating. I mean online I do talk, and I post my journals, but I rarely have long extended conversations that don't devolve into silliness and fandom references. So I feel like I'm only thinking of my own questions too often.
Started and Finished: Shadow of the Hegemon, by Orson Scott Card
Again, thoughts and quote (and again, very low on spoilers).
This one takes place on Earth, dealing with the ground wars that follow the end of the Bugger War, and the Battle School children as valuable commodities. I enjoy it on the whole, a couple rough spots, but I like it. Card does a good job of portraying the kids intelligence believably enough that, well, it doesn't break my suspension of disbelief (though it perhaps bends at times). He also does one thing that's very hard to do... he makes war interesting.
See, I have a confession to make. Wars, generally, bore the hell out of me. At least, the actual logistics of the whole thing. An individual battle might be exciting, particularly when it focuses on a small group of people), but the strategy of it tends to bore me. Hell, in a lot of books, when they start talking about even specific battles my eyes start to glaze over and I skim, not really having any real mental image of what's going on. (I also don't play chess, so I suspect I might simply have a blind spot for this sort of operations). But at least in Card's work, perhaps in part because he's discussing plans and counter plans, or maybe it's a product of a clear writing style, but I actually enjoy the planning sessions and ideas. I have zero idea on the plausibility of any of it, but I don't really care, either (much as I don't care about guns, so it doesn't bother me one bit if a gun described in a book is technically impossible, uses too many shots, etc). So at least there's that.
Anyway, a quote that struck me, not really all that related to the plot itself or any of the above:
"What a laugh, though. To think that one human being could ever really know another. You could get used to each other, get so habituated that you could speak their words right along with them, but you never knew why other people said what they said or did what they did, because they never even knew themselves. Nobody understands anybody."
One of the ongoing themes in the Ender/Bean series, although it's something I fear might be true. I remember reading about how, in general, humans were horrible at predicting their own actions. Like for example, people given $10 and asked to donate some of it to charity, but the amount was completely up to them and nobody would know how much or how little they donated. Or rather, they're asked what would happen if that were the case (and the answers themselves were anonymous). People routinely predicted that they, personally, would give more than they did in the actual situation. And that's just a simple experiment. When you get to more complex things, I sometimes get the feeling we don't really know what we're do. We think we know, and then we do whatever it is we do, and then later we make up justifications for it. Sometimes we're right, and sometimes we're wrong (if we learn from our past behaviour we may be more likely to be right, but the answer is sometimes counterintuitive.)
It's like my whole shyness thing. Most of the time I don't feel shy. I can more or less easily imagine myself going up to somebody and saying almost anything. The only thing that makes me believe I _won't_ do that, is my memory that in almost every single situation that's come up like that, I haven't been able to when the time comes. If I didn't have memory, I'd be perpetually getting close to talking to people, and then realizing for some reason I can't. Hell, based on prior experience, I start to build up rules for when I can and can't talk. I'm not deciding on the rules, I'm going by experience and realizing things like, "Yes, I can perhaps (but not always) meet somebody without pain if it's at some place I'm already going to be for another reason. But I can't (usually) do so if I have to actually specifically go and meet somebody and it's not a situation I already would have been.' I also have much less trouble going out to meet somebody I already know in person than someone I probably know even _better_ online. I don't know why it is, I just know that it is. It's part of the ruleset I've figured out, by groping about blindly. And hell, I can't even remember all the rules and subrules (and provisional subrules based only on one or two attempts), as they're so complex. I'm a mystery to myself. I have no idea what makes me tick.
I think this is part of why I'm so adamant on the idea that computers can be intelligent, that anything that behaves as though it's intelligent, is, whether it's biological, electronic, or a man in a Chinese Room (who receives input to the environment as chinese symbols he doesn't understand, looks up his response in a huge book of symbols, and writes out the corrosponding symbol, while understanding none of it. It's a typical thought experiment in the field of AI). It's because I'm not entirely sure we're not (and sometimes I completely believe we are) just an incredibly sophisticated simulation of intelligence. Not just other people, myself as well. If we can't even really know ourselves, than our consciousness might as well not exist. But that's certainly not satisfying, so the only other option is to simply say that behaving as though you're intelligent means you're intelligent, even if the intelligence doesn't make sense. Ergo, AI Rights are important, because you take away them, and you take away human rights.
Started: Swan Songs, the Complete Hooded Swan Collection by Brian Stableford (Wednesdays)
Will be starting: Shadow Puppets, by Orson Scott Card (Fridays and Sundays)
Ha-ha, today I found $20! Of course, it was _my_ $20, but it was $20 I thought I must have lost somewhere, perhaps in the laundry. Turned out it had somehow got on the floor near my hamper.
That makes me feel better.
Working on a WIDW for Runaways after BKV leaves, based on a thread on the BKV forums (put some initial thoughts there, these'd be a little more detailed).
Haven't really written much, writing-wise, this week. Well, anything (aside from my![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
alternaljournal). Still been good about not napping if I don't write first, at least, but I was getting into a decent rhythm (wtf is up with that word, it never looks right) going. Oh well, maybe I'll officially declare this week a vacation in honor of labour day holiday and get back in to the rhythm.
I'm hungry.
Dream Foo: Possibly the weirdest dream ever. I was walking down the street and spotted a sign advertising a BKV/Mark Millar hosted "Prisoner/Runaways cosplay contest". So I went in and saw that the idea was to pair up a Prisoner character with a Runaways character. Mark Millar and BKV were there too in costume, although I didn't see Millar. BKV was Number 6 from The Prisoner, though I don't know who he was with (maybe Millar dressed up as Nico). Another pair, I can't remember if they actually appeared in the dream or if I just thought it would be a weird idea, was Molly and the silent butler (since they're both shorter than all the other characters you could pair them up and have them played by people at normal adult sizes).
Meh, I want to RP again, but I'm still too damn picky.
Commercials annoying me recently: What the commercial is vs what impression I get from it! -
"I CAN'T HEAR THE FAJITAS SIZZLING!" - Taco Bell products are highly enjoyed by the mentally challenged, but not for the taste!
Dr. Z answers a letter from a soccer mom asking about the car. He shows off all the features. She tries to talk but he completely ignores her and shows off more stuff and talks about the awards won - We don't care what you think, we just want to tell you about our car.
Future Shop's 'Here are the 4 most important steps to recovering your data' interrupted by an emergency ad - We're more concerned with selling you stuff than of actually being of any help.
Many different breath mint commercials - OUR PRODUCT WILL LEAD TO YOUR DEATH IN THE VERY NEAR FUTURE (WTF is up with that trend, anyway?)
Fido Commercial Where everyone argues on dinner - Greek food is the only food everyone's happy with. Woo! (Okay, this didn't so much annoy me, but I hate the song they use in the commercial)
Any of the text-to-join-a-trivia-game-for-$.50-a-question ads. They don't make me thing anything in particular, just get me really annoyed. Shut up.
New TV season starts soon. So far the only new show I've seen and kinda dug was Jericho (downloaded the first episode). Still have hopes for Heroes, but haven't seen the first ep yet (I know it's available, I just haven't gotten around to it). And of course returning shows are love.
Oh, and remember the convention? Turns out I was right. According to another browncoat (who actually saw me but didn't know who I was or that they knew me from online), Christina Hendricks (Saffron) showed up on Saturday, pretty well right at the exact time I was leaving the convention. If t'weren't for bad luck, sometimes I think I'd have none at all. ;)
Book Foo:
Finished: Ender's Shadow, by Orson Scott Card
Thoughts and selected quote behind the cut (very low on spoilers, probably safe even if you haven't read the book):
I actually find that, although I think Ender's Game is the better novel (and if you're only reading one, read that one), I enjoy Ender's Shadow more. Bean's story just interests me more. His strange outlook and growing into humanity, and the fact that he seems to be a bit more of an 'active' character than Ender, more in control of his own destiny, whereas Ender just reacts to what happens to him, so I find that more engaging.
"Nero, you are an example to all of the children on this shuttle. Because most of them are so foolish, they think it is better to keep their stupidest thoughts to themselves. You, however, understand the profound truth that you must reveal your stupidity openly. To hold your stupidity inside you is to embrace it, to cling to it, to protect it. But when you expose your stupidity, you give yourself the chance to have it caught, corrected, and replaced with wisdom."
The quote is of course meant in a mocking way, but I kind of like it on face value, nonetheless. I don't practice what I preach always (mainly due to shyness issues), but I like the idea that, in a quest for more knowledge and better understanding, you shouldn't hide your ignorance about things, as even if you're corrected on something it gives you a chance to learn. To give the most smallest, trivial example, I never use a spellcheck (unless I'm submitting something very important, of course), with the hope that if I make a mistake, someone will correct me, and I'll be more likely to learn the correct spelling out of the embarrassment of the correction.
And, from later in the book:
"It slowed him down to have his own thoughts move around in circles--without outside stimulation it was hard to break free of his own assumptions. One mind can think only of its own questions; it rarely surprises itself."
This is something that worries me from time to time. I spend so much of my time alone. And yeah, I think a lot, but sometimes I wonder if I've exhausted the capabilities of my own mind to really advance on its own, and since I don't really talk to enough people to get different experiences, and I can't really surprise myself with new ideas or get refinements/corrections to old ones, I'm sort of stagnating. I mean online I do talk, and I post my journals, but I rarely have long extended conversations that don't devolve into silliness and fandom references. So I feel like I'm only thinking of my own questions too often.
Started and Finished: Shadow of the Hegemon, by Orson Scott Card
Again, thoughts and quote (and again, very low on spoilers).
This one takes place on Earth, dealing with the ground wars that follow the end of the Bugger War, and the Battle School children as valuable commodities. I enjoy it on the whole, a couple rough spots, but I like it. Card does a good job of portraying the kids intelligence believably enough that, well, it doesn't break my suspension of disbelief (though it perhaps bends at times). He also does one thing that's very hard to do... he makes war interesting.
See, I have a confession to make. Wars, generally, bore the hell out of me. At least, the actual logistics of the whole thing. An individual battle might be exciting, particularly when it focuses on a small group of people), but the strategy of it tends to bore me. Hell, in a lot of books, when they start talking about even specific battles my eyes start to glaze over and I skim, not really having any real mental image of what's going on. (I also don't play chess, so I suspect I might simply have a blind spot for this sort of operations). But at least in Card's work, perhaps in part because he's discussing plans and counter plans, or maybe it's a product of a clear writing style, but I actually enjoy the planning sessions and ideas. I have zero idea on the plausibility of any of it, but I don't really care, either (much as I don't care about guns, so it doesn't bother me one bit if a gun described in a book is technically impossible, uses too many shots, etc). So at least there's that.
Anyway, a quote that struck me, not really all that related to the plot itself or any of the above:
"What a laugh, though. To think that one human being could ever really know another. You could get used to each other, get so habituated that you could speak their words right along with them, but you never knew why other people said what they said or did what they did, because they never even knew themselves. Nobody understands anybody."
One of the ongoing themes in the Ender/Bean series, although it's something I fear might be true. I remember reading about how, in general, humans were horrible at predicting their own actions. Like for example, people given $10 and asked to donate some of it to charity, but the amount was completely up to them and nobody would know how much or how little they donated. Or rather, they're asked what would happen if that were the case (and the answers themselves were anonymous). People routinely predicted that they, personally, would give more than they did in the actual situation. And that's just a simple experiment. When you get to more complex things, I sometimes get the feeling we don't really know what we're do. We think we know, and then we do whatever it is we do, and then later we make up justifications for it. Sometimes we're right, and sometimes we're wrong (if we learn from our past behaviour we may be more likely to be right, but the answer is sometimes counterintuitive.)
It's like my whole shyness thing. Most of the time I don't feel shy. I can more or less easily imagine myself going up to somebody and saying almost anything. The only thing that makes me believe I _won't_ do that, is my memory that in almost every single situation that's come up like that, I haven't been able to when the time comes. If I didn't have memory, I'd be perpetually getting close to talking to people, and then realizing for some reason I can't. Hell, based on prior experience, I start to build up rules for when I can and can't talk. I'm not deciding on the rules, I'm going by experience and realizing things like, "Yes, I can perhaps (but not always) meet somebody without pain if it's at some place I'm already going to be for another reason. But I can't (usually) do so if I have to actually specifically go and meet somebody and it's not a situation I already would have been.' I also have much less trouble going out to meet somebody I already know in person than someone I probably know even _better_ online. I don't know why it is, I just know that it is. It's part of the ruleset I've figured out, by groping about blindly. And hell, I can't even remember all the rules and subrules (and provisional subrules based only on one or two attempts), as they're so complex. I'm a mystery to myself. I have no idea what makes me tick.
I think this is part of why I'm so adamant on the idea that computers can be intelligent, that anything that behaves as though it's intelligent, is, whether it's biological, electronic, or a man in a Chinese Room (who receives input to the environment as chinese symbols he doesn't understand, looks up his response in a huge book of symbols, and writes out the corrosponding symbol, while understanding none of it. It's a typical thought experiment in the field of AI). It's because I'm not entirely sure we're not (and sometimes I completely believe we are) just an incredibly sophisticated simulation of intelligence. Not just other people, myself as well. If we can't even really know ourselves, than our consciousness might as well not exist. But that's certainly not satisfying, so the only other option is to simply say that behaving as though you're intelligent means you're intelligent, even if the intelligence doesn't make sense. Ergo, AI Rights are important, because you take away them, and you take away human rights.
Started: Swan Songs, the Complete Hooded Swan Collection by Brian Stableford (Wednesdays)
Will be starting: Shadow Puppets, by Orson Scott Card (Fridays and Sundays)
Ha-ha, today I found $20! Of course, it was _my_ $20, but it was $20 I thought I must have lost somewhere, perhaps in the laundry. Turned out it had somehow got on the floor near my hamper.
That makes me feel better.
Working on a WIDW for Runaways after BKV leaves, based on a thread on the BKV forums (put some initial thoughts there, these'd be a little more detailed).
Haven't really written much, writing-wise, this week. Well, anything (aside from my
alternaljournal). Still been good about not napping if I don't write first, at least, but I was getting into a decent rhythm (wtf is up with that word, it never looks right) going. Oh well, maybe I'll officially declare this week a vacation in honor of labour day holiday and get back in to the rhythm.
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