The zombie post.

Contrary to my normal blogging procedures, I decided to title this post before I wrote it, only because this is my attempt to reincarnate my blog in order to retain my sanity as I sit here at 1:36 in the morning, unemployed, and with no definite plans for the future.

Thus is my life.

So, recap please? Sure thing... self.

As far as I can remember, I began this blog to discuss things th- wow REALLY? Firefox is trying to correct the word "blog". ugh- As I was saying, to discuss things of which I am thinking of At this instant (in a direct shout-out to the title). For the most part I try and keep my writing away from personal problems and issues, but instead discuss ideas and instances of which I feel can be applicable towards most people.

I really love the effectiveness of a paragraph break.

The subconscious act of preferring to read literature with more frequent paragraph breaks is interesting to ponder. At first I thought it was due to the negative associations with long essays in school, and extensive readings that you read and forget about two sentences later.

And then I realized... yeah. that's probably why.

BUT I also came to the conclusion that it can't be that way for everyone, because some people actually enjoy writing essays! And yet it still seems that some of the most successful blogs make efficient use of paragraph breaks in order to keep people reading.

My best guess? Visual organization.

I feel its easy to assume that visual clutter makes things difficult to comprehend, whether it be your bedroom, desktop, or side drawer full of strange trinkets you haven't actually used since the third grade but hold on to anyway for nostalgic reasons (true story).

A visual, spatial organization pattern is immediately triggered when we see line breaks. It becomes easy to jump around and even skip whole paragraphs completely sometimes because we are able to skim the reading easier. A quick glance at the first couple of words of each of these paragraphs gives you an idea of where I'm going with the post.

And then the lobsters began to attack! Drenched in butter and steaming hot, the leader lobster began to snap at you until you realized that this paragraph doesn't have anything to do with my post. But a quick skim down the page will show that it sticks out because of the first couple of words.

This identifiable characteristic of text seems to be how we judge a blog post, and therefore allows us to determine whether or not we want to waste our time with it. Which is unfortunate because a huge block of text could actually be a very enveloping novel, but without proper paragraph placement (or PPP as I like to call it. HA) it is carelessly tossed aside without a second glance.

Moral of the story. USE THE ENTER KEY ALWAYS.

Thanks. Sleepy. Slates out.

Check me out, im Human!

Finally. Done with school, done with work, chillin out maxin and relaxin at home. This semester was a shit show, and finally being home without having to do any work for awhile is a nice change indeed. I'm hoping to write more over summer since my brain isn't really working too much. I find the easiest times for me to write are when i haven't really been forced to think a lot. Guess i just have idle time for my brain to really get going.

So ill just continue from where i left off those many months ago.

Lately I've been thinking about the wonders of the human body and mind. A couple of weeks ago i needed to get into the fridge, but both of my hands were full. (Yes. there IS more to the story...) With peanut butter in one hand and my two slices of bread in the other, i put the bread in my mouth and open the door. I grab the jelly, and now i have two hands occupied. The door continues to swing open and now I'm left with a new situation, "How will i close the door before it swings too far and hits something?". Reacting, calculating, and deciding at a blazing 215 milliseconds, in a very fluid-like motion, i stick my foot out, catch the door softly, and quickly close the door shut while putting my delicious snackysnack ingredients on the counter. All this happening within just over a second. I realize this doesn't sound like some sort of impressive feat to most of you, but let's take a second to put ourselves in the place of a child, or even more sci-fi, a newly born sentient being. Whether it be a robot, a human, or a lil puppet-like droid-type... thing (the movie "9"). You have just been born/created/booted-up, and you do not yet have any sense of mobility, muscle movement... you are barely even aware of the fact that you HAVE limbs. You look around, using your neck muscles for the first time, your eyes for the first time, and you look down. You notice that you are attached to a body with arms and legs. Some quick brain causes your appendages to twitch, and lets assume that your natural/built in self-awareness kicks in. It takes you awhile to understand that you are in control of these bony fleshy sticks. Break time.

Think about how incredible it is for one to be self-aware. Robots, after years of development, are only beginning to scratch the surface of what we could even consider "self-awareness" ( Here is an amazing TED Talk that might give you an idea)
The process of understanding ones self, ones body, and how to manipulate the body is not a simple task. Let's bounce back shall we?

So in the great case of the peanut butter n' Jelleh (... and fridge).... (and bread.) what exactly was i thinking? Well, looking at it from above, i seem to have a full understanding of my body and how i wanted it to move, the current situation, the physics of the current situation, the possible solutions to said situation, and was able to make a decision on how i should act. It was effective, it was brilliant, and it was FAST (brilliant being a relative term, but so be it). Researchers spend YEARS of development and testing in order to create a machine that would catch a ball thrown to it, resulting in a machine that is TOLD what it looks like, TOLD how it should act, and THEN allowed to act (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fxzh3pFr3Gs gotta cite ma sources! =] ) (<-- ugh i also hate how a smiley in parenthesis looks awkward). Most of us do what these machines are built to do without even giving it a second thought.

Next time you're going about your daily activities, give it a second to think about how incredible it is that you DO that things that you do. Catching a ball, balancing on one foot, breaking your fall while tripping on a step, all these are, in reality, thousands of calculations being done in the blink of an eye. So when you hear about the "power of the human brain", and how people are able to muster up the strength to save a life, or resist pain, or even cause one to see things that aren't there... Back up a couple million years of cranial development and think about how far we've come, and how far there is to go.

Heh, 1:43 AM, and im still awake watchin movies.

Its gonna be a good summer...

-Slates

The post that just didn't make it.

Impending.

I have not posted lately due to an increase in schoolwork. This increase in schoolwork lead to a decrease in idle thinking. My focus has been brought to Pro/E and Machine Design, rather than allowing me the brain capacity for social observation and pondering.

Calling upon Steve again for a word of inspiration, he has given me "Impending". As in, "impending doom!". His reason for this is because i am sick. He understands me to be in a sort of "dark" state of mind, which, on the contrary, isn't the case. Unsure of what state of mind i'm in, i can assure you its not dark. It's more... distracted, unfortunately. I tend to get sidetracked now while writing this. Stumbling upon cool internet doo-hickeys and knick-knacks, my attention knows no boundary lines. So, circumstances considered, "dark" would be a pretty inaccurate way of describing my mood.

Why... does my head hurt... =[

abrupt.

Sorry guys. This is all i can muster right now. I think its nap time.

Or more Dan Brown.

Distraction!

-Slates

The Ping Pong Paradigm

I've been playing Ping Pong a LOT (yes ladies and gentlemen, that is TWO words) lately, and only recently have i started to see some real improvement in my game. This probably explains why i was in the union for a collective four hours playing the noble game of table tennis nearly non-stop. Pushing my time limits, almost being late to volleyball practice, is definite reason to consider this an obsession at the moment. I was almost not willing to stop at around 8:00 PM because i was so addicted to the blistering speeds me and Simon were playing at. Executing a full arm swing and watching the sharp curve of the ball slam into the opponents side of the table is way too satisfying.

I am convinced this why i take on so many new interests during the course of even just a year. I have a healthy obsession with progression. The moment i pick up a potential hobby, i subconsciously assess whether or not that day's learning progressed at a self-standardized rate. Whether or not i continue with this new hobby depends on this progression session. "Have i gotten good quickly?" I ask, "How good?","Is the graph of progression a linear or an asymptotic curve, to which i eventually flat line to a certain level of skill?" Questions like these determine the amount of habitual practice of such a hobby. For most situations, the learning curve flatlines at a certain time, which is why i move on to different things so quickly. The graph of learning for me is something like x = y^2. Where i learn very fast to begin with, but as time continues, the rate of change of skill vs. time just decreases steadily, to the point where all my hard work doesn't seem to be getting me results. I draw the line (asymptotic line?) at this point and pick up something new.

Trying to avoid rambling on about this, because i want to keep my readers, here is a complementary graph to provide a visual explanation.




I'd like to note the two interesting curves of snowboarding and skateboarding. Both of which i continue to enjoy to this day. Snowboarding on one hand i picked up EXTREMELY fast, but only to see no significant change following that initial start-up. BUT notice the graph begins to increases in slope to "now", which is why it leads me to believe that with more practice, there may be another spiking period in the near future. Skateboarding on the other hand i have done for ages, and at a certain point, i peaked, and my skill has only decreased with lack of practice and motivation, so therefore it makes sense that i rarely skateboard anymore.

Yep. That is the phrase of the post today, "Obsession with progression" It's not something I'm gonna get over fast, but I'm alright with that.
This post felt weird, i wrote mostly about myself, rather than something everyone can relate to and create questions for themselves... Oh well. Go suck a D yo.

-Slater

Oh, I know that song.

So while im waiting for Adam to finish in the bathroom so i can go shower, i thought id write about a person we are all familiar with. Some of us know him/her as "That guy". Yes, even if it is a girl, i refer to her as that guy. Because "that guy" provides us with something only few other people can deliver, a collective annoyance by the rest of the crowd. Who is "that guy"? (wow its fucking snowing hard out.)

I am talking of course about the guy at every party, event, or social gathering, that conveniently stumbles upon a guitar and is just utterly compelled to play for the rest of us, regardless of how inappropriate it may be. Perhaps "stumble" is not sufficient enough to describe how they come across the instrument of destruction. It's more along the lines of "room-to-room-search-for-any-acoustic", and if that doesn't work, there is no hesitation to ask the host... and guests... of the party if they've "seen one around". "That guy" then takes it upon himself to gather the only two people at the party who happen to know him, and recreate his own mash-up of D-string muted power chords, unfinished, off-tempo fingerpicking solos, and the chorus of one song "you probably havent heard of". Probably for good reason.

Asking yourself what his motivation is, it becomes apparent. Recognition. Not attention really, but recognition. Independent on whether or not everyone notices him, as long as he can get just ONE person to acknowledge that he is playing a song they know, and that they possibly think he is playing well, he is satisfied, and can go home happy with the musical erection in him subsided.

After countless trial-and-error runs, I've come across fairly effective method of conquering "that guy". If you ever happen to be at an ultimate frisbee team mixer, or that fancy wine and cheese party, or even that chill night at the house where your friend brings a buddy who he claims "hes cool, no no hes definitely cool" and come across this social anomaly, walk by him, stop, bring half of your attention towards him and the guitar he posesses, and just say "wow, dude, you're pretty good." Now walk away, feeling like superman, confident that you have just trumped the Lex Luthor of the party. He feels fantastic, is satisfied with your acknowledgement, and will get up. Under the impression that "ill leave them wanting more" (when in reality, hes just out of songs to play), he retires, puts away the guitar, and continues with the party, jello shot after jello shot.

Here's to you "that guy", and more importantly, here's to you those of you who conquer this fiend.

Cheers,

-Slater

I liked liking things before they were popular, BEFORE it was popular.

"Dude, are you kidding me? I liked (insert pop culture reference here) way before it was even popular"

This phrase has plagued me for years.

No matter where you live, what you do, or what your social status is, you have most likely come across or even uttered these words yourself at one point or another. Ill admit it, i have. Although i hate the idea of self-anointed superiority through recognition of oneself as the initial "trendsetter", i have to say its something that many of us, myself included, submit to daily. Whether you let it be known publicly, or like to keep it to yourself to make you feel like king of the world, you do it, and most of us don't give it a second thought.

Even more so is when a person finds out something they liked for awhile has become popular. Without blinking, that persons... let's say band, immediately becomes less appealing. Admit it or not, it happens. All of a sudden now, that person feels less "original" and more conforming, or at least fear strikes them that they will appear to be conformist to the latest trends. All the while, every person that constitutes the audience to which the band is popular to, is doing nothing but simply discovering a new band.

Why then is the illusion of mindless, robotic, zombie, all obeying commands by the media instantly depicted in our heads? As far as i can tell, it is because we all see the rest of the world as one group of people, and less-than-often visualize them from an individuals perspective. When you come across a new band you seem to enjoy, you don't enjoy it because people TELL you to enjoy it, or because your friends like it. You listen to it because you like it. Reasons other people seem to conform to the masses are merely networking friends, and by word of mouth. No one person is told by a government official, or by the president of Sony Records to encourage people to listen to this particular band. Therefore it seems this kind of conformity is only experienced by everyone according to everyone. But id assume not many people consciously make the choice to conform.

This concern for EXTREME individuality causes me to have great dislike for the following things:
-Indie Rock bands.
-People who ONLY like Indie Rock bands.
-People who look down upon people who DON'T listen to Indie Rock bands.
-Hipsters (see above.)
-Girls who identify their characterizing quality as "random"
-People who you can picture saying "i don't like being told what to do" (cuz in life, eventually, you gotta be told what to do. I've come to accept this, you should too.)
-Vegetarians who love to let people know they're vegetarian. Directly or indirectly.
-Hippies.

I don't like writing dislike-lists, so ill say here that the people i respect most in the world are nerds/dorks/geeks. Little of what they do is defined as "cool", or "in", and yet we the people of the science and maths continue to enjoy ourselves. Oblivious as to what other people are doing/thinking, we'll keep on doing vector calculus for fun, solving rubik's cubes, LARPing, playing WOW (which i don't condone, but nonetheless, do what you do) and enjoying ourselves, whether our GPA be a 4.0 or a 2.3. Here's to you my fellow brethren.

I like things because i LIKE THINGS. It doesn't get much simpler than that. Everyone, as smart, dumb, educated, ignorant, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, aware or unaware of things as they may be, is an individual. And there is noone else like them. So for those of you so concerned with not conforming to the rest of the world, relax. You've got nothing to worry about.

Just do your thing.

Gonna go listen me some Green Day, Good Charlotte and Linkin Park. Thanks.

-Slater

Wait... What?

First day of classes tomorrow. I had the hardest time typing the "first" of that sentence... Stumbled all over the keyboard several times before i got it right...

So as tomorrow marks the beginning of a new semester, it also marks the beginning of new habits for me. Habits that i have to force myself not to break. But creating a habit is more difficult for me than most. The problem arises in memory. Although i can recall things, i have a very difficult time remembering things. If asked what the speed of light is, i can reproduce this fact in a heartbeat. But when asked (if even by myself) to remember to do something as simple as send an important email, or do an assignment, i find myself unable to keep this task in mind for the majority of the day. Unfortunately what DOES stay in my head is the deadline. Or that might, in fact, be fortunate for me anyway.

On a normal day, i have frequently have a nagging in the back of my head that at a certain time, sometime in the future, something needs to be done. The problem is, that is a true fact for A LOT of things. Taking out the garbage. Doing the dishes. Eating. This is the foundation of my predicament. As tasks are completed throughout the day, i have a feeling of accomplishment. 1 task down, 2, 3 and so on. So when the time comes to actually do what is called upon by me or others, i am so convinced that i've done everything that needs to be done, that my day is over.

Even worse, to try and force myself to remember these things, i resort to various methods. Keeping a notebook in my pocket was my first (and current, i figure id try again) attempt at recollection. By writing things down in a medium that is accessible and portable within my day-to-day activities, i surely should be able to look back upon this and know what needs to be done. Right?
Wrong!
This deceptively places another thing to remember! Now, instead of "Remember to schedule a group meeting.", its "Remember to write things down in your notepad so you dont forget to remember to schedule a group meeting."
Two things! Two things to remember now! =[ So then this necessity to remember to write things down escapes me, and i am back to square one. If i cant remember to remember things, im hopeless.

What i try and do more often than not, is strategically place some sort of marker. Which, upon seeing, will trigger a response to do these things. This is no new technique of course. The old string-around-the-finger has been used for decades, but to this extent of frequency, perhaps not. Haha boy am i a headcase....

There's not much of an unanswered question in this post as much as there is a pending solution.
And i guess this is an explanation to anyone who i may have let down simply by lack of memory. In no way do i ever mean to offend you or do you mean any less to me. Sometimes i really just cant help it =\ But make no mistake. I am doing what i can to work on it =]

Sincerely,
-Slater