Beware your search terms. Increasingly in society it’s seen that every word can be related to something sexual. I have friends that I can’t even say “I’ll go do it” around without them giggling like I made some dirty comment. Most collaborative online efforts are speckled if not littered with perverted humor graffiti, easily the lowest level of humor. The most upsetting thing is that usually the only way to learn an ordinary term has been escalated to a dirty term is to say it or search for it unknowingly. Luckily Google is on my side with this one and they do a pretty good job of showing the non dirty results. But may it be said, “be careful what you search for, you just might find it.”
Literary Extravaganza!
So this post was straight up for homework, but slightly funny, in my humble opinion. The assignment was called “literary extravaganza” in which we needed to do two literary works of some sort somehow related to computers in society. Like a Haiku, or a 140 character story. Here are my results
“With pleasure I watched him shatter 4 floors below. Goodbye Lappy. Your demise in this way satisfies my destructive needs perfectly.”
Note for the next one, the word “meme” we use to refer to internet memes, which are jokes or videos that spread at viral rates. Like Charlie bit me, lolcats, or the old spice guy
“Haikus are so lame
Like a meme with no humor
I’d rather eat dung”
I didn’t like that as much, but I had to relate it back to computers. My original draft was
“Haikus are so lame
Like a paraplegic cat
I’d rather eat dung”
Other runner ups for the middle line included:
“Like flaming llamas with hats”
“Like Charlie biting my hand”
“Like David at the dentist”
“Like those Harry’s puppet pals”
Ahh blogs and your ability to share all my useless thoughts no one really cared for, well done.
Random Thoughts 7
Monday, November 23, 2010
- So I sang in church yesterday. I was somewhat nervous because I want to make sure I’m singing for the right reasons and not just to show off or toot my own horn. But I kept thinking about it and putting it off. Finally 2 Sundays ago I was reading my patriarchal blessing and it mentioned not only speaking the words of testimony, but singing them too, and I was like “OK FINE!!!”
It went well, a lot of people complimented me after. I found the best way to respond is just by saying “thanks” until they change the subject haha. But anyway I decided that singing (or speaking) in church is like a mass ice-breaker, even if only in my mind. I find I’m much more willing to talk to people I don’t know when I assume they heard me sing/speak. I guess I just don’t worry that they may think I’m weird or what not because I know they saw a portion of me that I’m proud of. I’ve got to keep this in mind next time I’m in a new ward and don’t want to sit in a corner with the 2 people I know anymore.
- I talked to Chuck for an hour today about how I’m graduating and what I should do next. Three main things came out of the conversation.
1. If I want to teach someday, I need at minimum a bachelors, probably a PhD, and now is the time to do it. Chuck is highly confident I have the thinking skills. My reservation is the lack of real world experience, which brings us too…
2. The earliest I could get in the program is like September or January anyway, so I’ve got a year where I should get a internship/job and get some real experience. Which is very very exciting to me. Also I’m super nervous about the unknown.
3. Chuck gave me permission to hit on his returned missionary daughter haha.
So yeah, life plan, apply for grad school, get/start an internship/job in January.
- Sunday morning I knew it’d be cold, and my scarf was dirty so I knew I needed to prepare for warmth some other way. So first I chose a good looking sweater, and then went on to find a tie to match. I spent like a full minute looking at the different ties, trying to decide which was best. But then I was like, “that’s it, as a male I’ve reached my maximum limit of cloths choosing time, just give me that one.” I choose a green one (I think). I’m pretty sure it’d didn’t match my sweater, and I cared very little.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
- I still have stage fright. Monday’s activity was a ward potluck + talent show. I signed up for a talent, planning to sing a song. I ended up chickening out and sneaking home when no one was looking though. I should add my primary justification was that I think music for talent shows is overdone, and it looked like EVERYONE else was planning something musical too, so I felt lame and bailed haha.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
- So I was playing this physics based flash game, and I had the thought “man, it sure would be easy if I had some way to move straight up, guaranteed” and I remembered back in 9th grade in some class playing some game on a computer as partners, and every once in a while you had to move a spaceship from left to right without touching the top or bottom of the tunnel. I’d take the ball out of the mouse and just spin the x axis wheel inside and move across perfectly in record time, my partner thought I was genius. We can’t cheat like that so easily haha.
- I don’t believe I have a widely diverse set of influences, which sounds sad, but I do like the person I choose to be mostly, so it’s not a huge deal. Having a higher number of different opinions sounds fun though.
- "Having been brought up in a serf owner's family, I entered active life, like all young men of my time, with a great deal of confidence in the necessity of commanding, ordering, scolding, punishing and the like. But when, at an early stage, I had to manage serious enterprises and to deal with [free] men, and when each mistake would lead at once to heavy consequences, I began to appreciate the difference between acting on the principle of command and discipline and acting on the principle of common understanding. The former works admirably in a military parade, but it is worth nothing where real life is concerned, and the aim can be achieved only through the severe effort of many converging wills." Memoirs of a Revolutionist
Apparently this was written by an anarchist, and I have no idea what his other views were, but I love this quote above. Efforts made by ones free will far exceed efforts produced by coercion.
Friday, November 26, 2010
- Went to the temple today for the first time in 5495.4 miles. Not good Corby, do better.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
- So in order to get rid of annoying dating ads on the side of Facebook I've been marking them all as "uninteresting". It seems to be helping by the way. I had a terrible thought though, what if I mark them uninteresting enough times that the ad engine decides "ohhhh, it's uninteresting because he doesn't like women!"
Agency Much?
It’s funny how the effectiveness of agency shows up all around us. Salesmen who believe in their product sell better. Kids who kind of like the chore get their chores done with less nudging. People rally to causes and produce results no one would believe possible (how was America founded?). Technology has taken this to the next level, Wikipedia, volunteer news sites, and open-source projects have truly world changing potential. More and more people seem to recognize that agency trumps coercion. If only our government would get the memo!
Random Thoughts 6
Wasn't on my computer much Sunday, forgot to post this. But here it is now :P
Monday, November 15, 2010
- If you get some sort of prompting or “personal commandment” as it were that doesn’t really apply to everyone, it’s harder to get feedback from people about it.
- I never really knew what the difference between patents and copyrights was. I got a decent explanation today. Basically, concepts are patentable, implementations are copyrightable. Implementation being the actual method of applying the concept.
- Why do sneezes usually come in at least sets of 2?
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
- So most people learn on a rewards system naturally. When they get what they want they continue to do things that way, when they don’t get what they want they tend to rethink. Well, not at first, but eventually. And I guess often the rethink is more often “I’m just not going to associate with them anymore” than it is “I’m going to try associating with them differently.” Anyway, I decided Jason doesn’t have this system functioning very well. We’re terribly blunt with things we like and dislike. Not that everyone should be subject to others likes and dislikes… but anyway, as far as I can tell, Jason just wants to be validated.
One way to validate him is to respond to his pointless questions. The problem is even if you validate him for a while he isn’t satisfied and keeps wanting more, that’s a different topic… anyway the original catalyst of this post is I decided I’m going to be extra blunt with him. IE: yesterday I’m eating, Jason asks “what are you doing?” I respond “eating.” Jason says “why would you do that?” I respond “that’s a stupid question and I’m not going to respond.” To which he says “I’ll kill you Corby, it’ll happen, just you wait” (which he also says 300-400 times a day, and we also discourage verbally.) anyway, I give a clear verbal unambiguous “no.”
Later, when he asked “how should I cook my eggs Corby?” I respond “poached.” I’m not really sure what poached eggs are actually, but the point is I responded to his question instead of telling him it was dumb, because although it’s still an unimportant question, at least it’s not “do I feel like conquering china or watching anime Corby?” or “why would you do that?” or “Corby, your death will come.” Ugh. Let’s see if he learns!
- I’m a big fan of the head nod. It’s really nice to have some means of saying “hey friend, I see you’re in a hurry, so I won’t make you wait for me to come all the way over there just to say hi. Instead, I’ll acknowledge your presence from here without even moving my arms.” Or even “hello fellow classmate whom I recognize is a classmate but I don’t even know your name. Let’s share this moment of joint recognition with a head nod.”
- Some lady just stopped in the hall, pointed at my arm rest, and said “I like your tray”. I said “thanks”, but… random.
- Found out today I actually can graduate this semester still. Uhhh…
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
- a van just pulled up next to mine, apparently unaware I'm in mine. The van has similar modifications so a quad can drive it, but the wheelchair-bound fellow was in the passenger seat position, and someone else was driving, and was pushing the wheelchair when they left. I'm thankful for my independence :)
- I’m procrastinating right now, upon saying the above to Amelia the following followed
Amelia: I'm astounded at how independent you are. Honestly. The way you figure out a way to conquer any obstacle amazes me
Corby: Which makes my inability to write a stupid industry profile even more astounding.
Amelia: psh! It's not the lack of ability, it's the lack of motivation
Corby: I'd argue that's the case for most things people fail to do.
True?...
- One of my high school friends changed his relationship status yesterday to "Married to Home Work"
So I sent Home Work the following
"I can't believe you've been leading me on Homework. After all the time we've spent together? I thought we were something special. But here, I find out you've been dating Jon behind my back? AND you're engaged?! Not to mention I found this out over Facebook!
I'm shocked, hurt, and heartbroken.
~Corby"
And she responded
"Um no, you've got it all wrong. I'm not engaged to Jon. We're married.
Of course you're finding out through Facebook, I knew what a scene you'd make at the wedding.
~Homework"
Awesome.
- If I ever want to learn something interesting, all I need to do is find an XKCD comic I don’t understand and learn why it’s funny.
- “In a pedestrian setting, running into someone is a good thing; in a car, not so much.” (Here Comes Everyone Pg 201) Although funny, this has a very valid message. Neighborhoods used to be close because people would run into each other at the market, or talk to each other as they were out doing yard work. Today it’s different, usually someone gets straight into their solitary car without even going outdoors to run errands, and at any given supermarket the chances of running into someone they know is quite low. I think Facebook might be somewhat turning this back around, for those who leave the chat option on anyway. Facebook chat provides a way to “run into someone” digitally and strike up a conversation they might not have had otherwise.
- biting my nails was suddenly elevated to very high priority tonight. Weird.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
- I still have a lot to learn about communication. With the help of this blog to write down ideas I’ve had, I tend to have ideas more often. I feel like lately when I hang out with women I talk too much though. Although I’ve mentioned so and apologized, the girls always say it wasn’t the case, but still… I just had the thought maybe bringing up neat ah-ha’s I’ve had isn’t always the best idea in casual lunch date style conversation. I’m not bringing up things like CS principles or anything, they’re things that as near as I can tell they do genuinely find interesting. But even if they do find it interesting, they’re just barely being exposed to this angle whereas I’ve had tons of time to think about it, so I’m still in control of driving the topic. I’m not very good at useless small talk though, and I’m not terribly clear what the middle ground topics are. Oh well.
- If you just feel like writing, write a rant about the effect of society objectifying women.
Friday, November 19, 2010
- This book talks a lot about social tools like blogging and meetup.com. Note to self: if you’re married with young kids and you’re looking to find them playmates, check meetup.com or similar networking tools.
- I like that I seem to have a decent capacity of abridging and communicating ideas. However, I’m sometimes saddened to do so. Sometimes I want to say “just go read the chapter!” Yes I can convey the idea, but if I’m explaining a 30 minute video lecture to you in 3 minutes, you won’t be getting nearly the depth. It’s like watching the movie vs reading the book. Someone gets a sense of the main characters and the idea of the plot. But they don’t have a nearly as good of a sense of what the characters went through, or how it felt, or how impactful the events were.
- So I have my standard parking spot at my apartment, part of the benefit of being able to park in handicapped parking at a complex that’s vastly populated with people under 21… and next to in a normal parking spot there’s a guy who saves his parking every day by rotating between his Grand Cherokee and his motorcycle. Whichever one he’s not using he leaves the other there so he can save his space right next to the door. I just had a thought how dumb this is. I don’t think he saves any time by doing so. If he’s saving the spot with his motorcycle he has to get out of his truck, move the cycle, park the truck, and move the motorcycle back. Wouldn’t it be just as easy to park 150 feet further and walk?... oh well.
- “Any new claim on someone's time must obviously offer some value, but more important, it must offer some value higher than something else she already does, or she won't free up the time.” Here comes everyone 262
- “Arguments about whether new forms of sharing or collaboration are, on balance, good or bad reveal more about the speaker than the subject.” P 297. I actually think this can be generalized to be more like “Arguments about whether anything is good or bad reveal more about the speaker than the subject.”
- So if I’m taking a homework break to get food, I prefer to bring female companionship. However, I’ve found that the success rate of texting/calling girls and asking “hey can you get food RIGHT NOW?” is less than 10%, and as I usually don’t have 10 different girls to call, I don’t succeed every time… I was thinking today on my way to Wendys (having failed to find companionship even when giving a 90 minute notice) it would be nice if there some sort of social tool that you could set yourself to “available to do something”. I think it’s likely someone I’d like to hang out with was sitting around at their place or could also use a homework break, but I had no way of knowing without calling everyone individually. Oh well.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
- “Material objectives consume too much of our attention. The struggle for what we need or for more than we need exhausts our time and energy. We pursue pleasure or entertainment, or become overinvolved in associations or civic matters. Of course, people need recreation, need to be achieving, need to contribute; but if these come at the cost of friendship with Christ, the price is much too high.” – Marion D. Hanks
- I have a ridiculous social urge this morning, it doesn’t make doing homework easy.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
- So we were up playing halo at 1 AM and the fire alarm went off. Apparently it was caused by some dofusi (yeah, plural for dofus right? Actually I looked it up, and the plural for dofus is dofus… anyway) who were playing with a bouncy-ball or something and hit the fire sprinkler. It ruined their 4th floor room and the thirds floor as well leaked in the first floor. Yikes. Random fact, in my bedroom there used to be this plastic dome case set over the sprinkler and we had no idea why. If the sprinkler went off it would focus all the water out a hole in the bottom. However! That case would have prevented such an accident haha. The sad part of this story is, we figured this was a false alarm and just kept playing Halo. Lucky for us we were right, but how often do you think somebody gets hurt because of the same assumption?... what is the point of the alarms if everyone ignores them? I think they still serve some purpose, they at least put everyone on guard so they’re considering running if needed. Or if someone came to the door and said “the building is on fire! You have to get out!” while the fire alarm was going on, people are more likely to believe it.
- hmm, so for the most part I like teaching, but sometimes I feel like I’m terrible and some days I do great, and it largely depends on the material I’m trying to teach that week, which I have limited control over. I mean, I can tell my own stories and what not, but then I may not really cover the stuff in the manual, which is in there for a reason. The best I can do is just try to go by the spirit I know, but I don’t always feel like have that. Today as a lesson on adversity with Jeremiah. I was trying to tell his stories and follow the lesson pretty well, but I could tell the class was bored and I wasn’t flowing at all. So I switched over to telling my Twilight Zone and Evan Almighty stories, and it went well… Good thing I’m actually Sunday school pres right now and don’t need to teach regularly.
Why is World of Warcraft so Compelling?
As a former World of Warcraft gamer for nearly 4 consecutive years, with fluctuating levels of commitment between casual and hardcore, I feel I have a good amount of experience which allows me to give some insights as to what is so compelling/addicting about World of Warcraft.
Why is World of Warcraft so compelling? Because MMORPGs provide an alternate reality where a player can log on any time and achieve something, gain progress in some meaningful (in game) way, and everyone loves feeling accomplished.
Let me give an example, what if anytime you had a few hours free, you knew you could go to the mall and there would be any number of stores there willing to pay you $10 an hour to do some sort of simple task like folding clothes or juicing lemons or shelving merchandise? You wouldn’t have to pre-arrange when you’d show up, or how long you’d stay, or have any previous experience. There was simply an endless supply of $10 an hour tasks that anyone can do any time.
Better than that though, what if these $10 an hour tasks weren’t tedious boring tasks like the examples above, but things you might have fun doing, like playing ping-pong, or trying on new clothes, or climbing a rock wall. There are hundreds of different tasks you could do to earn your $10 an hour. Maybe you don’t like trying on new clothes, but you love ping-pong, and you can be rewarded any time to go play! Each of these tasks are designed specifically to be challenging enough to be engaging, but easy enough that you can generally succeed. And even if you don’t succeed, you still get $5 an hour for trying.
In addition to these great solo $10 tasks, there are various people from around the world that you can interact with if you want. You can even gather 4 random friends (or bring up to 4 of your own friends) and participate in an hour long task that you participate in as a team and get paid $15 an hour plus the chance to receive bonus cash. For example, you sign up with 4 other people to play three 5v5 basketball games against some robot opponents. After winning each game, one of the 5 of you gets a bonus $50 in addition to the 25$ hourly wage. Once again the robot teams are designed to be challenging and require that you work as a team, but they are still easy enough that you’re likely succeed. Even if you fail you can try as many times as you’d like and still get the $50 bonus once you win.
In addition to these $10 solo tasks and $25 five person instance tasks, you can organize or join with 24 other people to have a 25 man paintball battle against very challenging robot opponents. These paintball battles need all 25 people to work together to be successful, and take a time commitment of 3 or more hours, but for every team your team beats, 3 or 4 people receive $200. If your team is good, you can beat as many as 10 opposing teams which results in 30-40 $200 bonuses. As with all the other options so far, these once again are designed to be very challenging, and require all 25 people to work together to succeed. But the teamwork combined with the $200 bonuses make the experience very rewarding. And if you form a guild of mall friends, you can have regularly scheduled paintball battles where friends you know you can count on show up to team up with you, and you have a system set up to make sure everyone is rewarded fairly with their share of $200 bonuses based on how often they show up.
It doesn’t end here, if the idea of taking on challenges against robots doesn’t appeal to you, there’s places where you alone, or you as part of a group of 2, 3, 5, 10, 15, or 40 can compete against other groups of the same size at various different tasks of your choice, and you’ll get paid $25 an hour for losing or $50 an hour for winning. You’re paired up against opponents of a similar skill level so there’s always a good chance of winning or losing.
Basically, these in game worlds provide a massive number of in game options which all reward you with in game accomplishment. When someone plays a game like World of Warcraft, they can see the progress they’re making through getting money, or leveling up, or improving their gear, or earning achievement points, and so on. In real life, even when going to work and knowing you’re earning money, the fruits of your labors are not immediately apparent. More likely they come in a bi-weekly lump that never feels like enough, and you’re painfully aware some entity decided to take a cut of your earnings. In a game, the rewards of your effort appear immediately, and you get to keep all of it yourself. In contrast, it almost makes a real job feel like imaginary achievement while video games are the real tangible achievement.
So why is World of Warcraft so compelling? I believe it’s the sense of accomplishment. I assert that people who struggle with video game addiction have a very weak differentiation between accomplishment in real life and accomplishment in games. Since everyone likes to feel accomplished, and video games are much easier to succeed at than real life, they prioritize video games over real life.
Random Thoughts 5
By the way, I plan to post these every Sunday, for a while anyway. I also wrote less this week. Most of the time I thought of something I wanted to write I wasn't in a position to write, and then I forgot. Sad Story.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
- So I had a random thought the other day. Whenever I tell people I can’t smell, the first thing 99% of people ask is something like “then you can’t taste either?” yes I an taste, they’re separate senses for a reason! But then there’s often someone who brings up that when they plug their nose they can’t taste at all, while others say if they plug their nose it just dampens the taste but it’s still there. What if the people who can’t taste when they plug their nose have no sense of taste?
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
- I like these two quotes in the sequoia research lab. “Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, how will you ever debug it?”
- and “code like the guy maintaining your code is a serial killer who knows where you live.”
- “Fame is simply an imbalance between inbound and outbound attention, more arrows pointing in than out.” (Here Comes Everyone p91)
- I actually contributed to the research lab this week! Chuck had a presentation on Thursday and wanted some statistics on how many human developer related papers have been submitted to ICSE in the last 10 years, so I jumped on and figured it out. There are a lot of cool papers I want to read now.
Friday, November 12, 2010
- Nothing specific triggered this thought, but I think women should be feminine. I dislike how much more masculine women are becoming nowadays. Many are becoming sporty, or think it’s stupid to cry, or push people out of their life so they can prove their independence. It’s sad to me.
- Watched Skyline with Micah tonight. Gotta say, Skyline has to be one of the dumbest movies I’ve seen in a long time. Aliens coming to harvest our brains? Really? Real original. But spending time with Micah made it worth it.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
- People have mentioned that your expenses seem to inflate quickly to match your income, I believe it, although my income hasn’t fluctuated for years so I haven’t tested it personally. I found a similar principle too though. My homework motivation inflates/deflates to be just under the amount needed to get everything done. This semester has been comparatively easy, which is nice. But since it’s easy, I’ll be productive one morning and then essentially think “what should I do next? Oh wait, I’ve been productive all day, and this semester is easy, so I must be done!” when really I had more to do. Oops.
- So I mentioned a while back I’m going to consciously focus less on dating. Which I’m bad at. And honestly if the measure of succeeding at said goal is actively making plans with women less than I’ve failed. However! That wasn’t my objective really. In fact, part of the problem is I didn’t really clearly define for myself what my objective was. I now have a better idea though! I’m going to consciously suppress trains of thought like wondering what it would be like if I was together with so and so, or day-dreams about having these powerful bonding conversations with a girl. I’m instead going to focus on A, just having fun, and B, simply making sure she has fun. I’m going to be less dormant because I’m worried about what they might think and be more my spastic self because it’s more fun, and if she doesn’t like it then whatever. Basically I guess I’m going to attempt to date without allowing my focus to be actually obtaining a girlfriend. Because that being said, somehow this week I’m doing dinner with Erin Wilkes Tuesday, Jen Bybee Thursday, I’m pen-palling with Haley Cole on Facebook, and last week I met this girl Miranda at church who I’m supposed to bring to church with me today and sit by, she’s not responding to texts though… (later addendum, I knocked on her door and she came to church :) )
Sunday, November 14, 2010
- “I am convinced that there is no simple formula or technique that would immediately allow you to master the ability to be guided by the voice of the Spirit. Our Father expects you to learn how to obtain that divine help by exercising faith in Him and His Holy Son, Jesus Christ. Were you to receive inspired guidance just for the asking, you would become weak and ever more dependent on Them. They know that essential personal growth will come as you struggle to learn how to be led by the Spirit.” Richard G Scott, Oct 2009.
- Your pat blessing says study the life of Joseph Smith. Do that.
Copyright vlog
So I had to do a position video blog for my class, and it had to be under 2 minutes, and this is what happened.
Coming to a society near you
Facebook is penetrating every aspect of our lives. From posting Facebook updates in your car through OnStar, to a custom browser built to tie Facebook and browsing together, to new ways to scam people or sell their information. Even the British Queen has a Facebook so Britain can see what their taxes are paying for. Google changed the world when it made breakthroughs in its mission to “facilitate access to information for the entire world”. I doubt anyone fully understood the implications of such data connectivity. Facebook does more than just connect people to data though, it connects people to people. Is this a change for the better or the worse? Who’s to say? What is for sure is change there will be, and it’s only in the early stages.
Random Thoughts 4
Sunday, October 31, 2010
- Oh! I just remembered I used to be the guy who wanted to be every girls favorite person even if I didn’t like them back! When did that change? I’m glad, but when? And who do I know who’s still like that? What can I learn from them?...
Monday, November 01, 2010
- I discovered something random today. Like 99% of BYU parking faces East/West, which is trouble if you want to park facing South so the sun can shine through port side of your van while you do homework in solitary confinement.
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
- Good news and bad news. The good news is, I seem to have enough time to do most the things I’d like. Read scriptures, listen to conference talks, do homework, spend time with people, even read a little for fun. The bad news is for the last week straight or so I have been SO TERRIBLE at focusing when it comes time to do homework! It ends up taking me like 3 hours over the whole week to read a 30 minute chapter. So I have the time, I just can’t seem to spend it as efficiently as I usually do, and it’s driving me crazy!
- later addendum: I did nothing for 4 hours this morning, but the last 4 hours since then have been all sorts of productive. Maybe I’m only useful after complaining about being useless haha.
- I had an interesting realization. I think of myself as witty (and cocky, but that’s not what I’m addressing here) but I believe I could be described as ‘reactionarily witty’ or some such. If someone told me to go write a funny short story, I’d have no idea where to even start. But I seem to be able to come up with funny or intelligent things to say all the time in conversation. Weird.
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
- For powerful writing, be aware of the ratio of glue to meat words.
- I tend to use wishy washy “I think that” and “maybe this is because” type statements a lot in writing and even in conversation. I think that (haha, I’m not changing that usage this time) I speak this way because people tend to butt heads if I don’t. If I say “this show is over the line” people who disagree get defensive or try to prove me wrong. But if I say “I think this show is over the line” people who disagree accept the statement much easier. Not saying they change their opinion any easier, they just don’t fight me as much. Which is good because my intention wasn’t to fight anyway.
What I don’t understand is, if I attach the words “I think” why does it make such a big difference? Of course it’s what I think, if it wasn’t, why would I be stating it? If I don’t include “I think” it’s like people assume I started the statement with “everybody knows that” or “science his undeniably proven”, so people tend to go “hey hey, wait a minute!” I’m going to cut more “I think” type filler words from my writing and verbal communication and see how it goes over…
- “not every problem needs to be legislated into submission.”
- Hmm, so often times if a guy seems too interested, a girl shuts down immediately. Like if he plans an elaborate date, or plans a date at all when he’s usually shy, girls assume the guy must be obsessed with her and they start thinking of ways to let them down gently before even giving them a chance. I realized this has an opposite, if a girl is bugged or feels devalued because the guy asked her last minute. There is a fairly easy balance to be point to with this though.
Thursday, November 04, 2010
- Good to Great talks about how when companies reach greatness, to us it seems like the company was an egg that hatched and is now a great company. But really, the company can’t think of any moment to point to that represented such an event, for them it was a process. I think most people don’t realize this is how most everything in life works. Take testimonies for example.
- I discovered I can take off my own shoes! I'd never really tried before. Haven't figured out how to put them back on though yet...
Friday, November 05, 2010
- I realized a good comparison of how I’d like my outlook on women to be. Note that this is not at all the point I’m at, but I’d like to want women the same way I want money. Money is great, I love having/getting money, for the most part if I have an opportunity to get money I take it and appreciate it. But I don’t ever think about how I wish I had more money. If offered money I don’t refuse because I’d rather be poor. Although sometimes I discourage people from giving me money because I feel like I didn’t earn it or because I know they’re low on money too… this sentence doesn’t have parallels to my analogy though. The point is, I’d like to be happy to have dating opportunities, and take them when I see them, but I don’t want to ever think about how I don’t have a girlfriend.
- I sure end up saying stuff like “my body is angry at me today” really often, and it’s always true at the time. The last 2 weeks or so I’ve either been super tired or super light headed almost every day, and it makes it harder to get stuff done. I often end up just quitting for the day earlier than I usually would with the excuse I don’t feel well and I’ll feel better the next day. However, I had the thought, what if this was just normal for me now? Luckily I believe it’s not, but it’s certainly not uncommon for someone to develop a health problem that never really leaves them be. I need to find new/different ways to be more productive despite set-backs like fatigue or lightheadedness rather than using them as an excuse to play small.
- Know what’s more fun than seeing some wacky dressed college student? Seeing a wacky dressed person who has to be at least 40. “You mean, it’s been 40 years and you still haven’t matured? I’m impressed.”
- man, I’m introspective today. I was thinking about which jokes are ‘ok’ and which aren’t according to the Book of Corby, and I found it immensely difficult to contain in concise rules. For example, particularly lately my passiveness towards sexual humor has dropped a bunch. It bugs me enough to not sit in the room and watch flight of the conchords or family guy generally. It bugs me because it makes a mockery of very sacred values. So I was thinking, jokes that make light of church/my values bug me. But! Violent jokes are totally fine with me. Maybe it has to do with sexual jokes being taken far over the line while violent jokes aren’t, but really what makes “I will RAPE you!” not ok and “I will KILL you!” ok? Generally my thoughts were that violent jokes are ok because I don’t really think anyone is going to kill anyone, or tear your face off or stab you in the throat or whatever phrase I admittedly think is funny and appropriate still. But how is this any different value wise? I don’t believe my friends are going to rape anyone any more than they’re going to kill anyone. True raping is joking about destroying virtue and is a terrible sin. But isn’t murder taking away someone’s agency and a worse sin than fornication? Plus, I don’t mind fighting, but blood bugs me? A thought I had a long time ago is I’m not really tempted at all to be violent, but breaking chastity is a temptation. So maybe I don’t appreciate thoughts that might be stick in my mind with sexual jokes, whereas violent jokes are meh. But then this makes “appropriate” jokes entirely subjective to what someone does and doesn’t struggle with. Yeah, I have no idea how to put my standing into concise terms. For the record though I still think joking about sex is over the top lately, and joking about violence is fine.
- I think it’s funny when strangers apologize for not hitting a door opening button for/before me. People do realize the button is designed so that I can open the doors myself, not so others can more easily open doors for me, right? Working as intended fellas, no need to apologize.
Saturday, November 06, 2010
- So I was praying last night and asked “what can I be doing different?” that’s how I ended up quitting video games. Pretty much all through high school if I’d pray “what can I be doing different?” I’d feel ike “play less video games” at which point I’d think something like, “I don’t see what’s wrong with video games, what could I be doing different besides that?” and I’d never get any other promptings. I finally gave that up enough that I don’t get that answer anymore. That was a tangent though, the point is, recently, when praying about it I get the feeling to not read the novel I am -or planning on- reading. This basically makes me doubt my ability to get promptings as a whole. There are warnings about video game addiction, I felt I played excessively enough, sometimes things I encountered in video games would light urges to do other stupid stuff, I can understand the reasoning to suppress my time playing video games dramatically. Books on the other hand are all round reputably encouraged. I feel like what I really am being asked is to give up something important to me. The problem is I don’t know what I’d replace it with. I really feel I need some escape, some enjoyment, I don’t think I’d be prompted to never have time to myself. I just don’t understand L.
“Don’t steal, the government hates competition”
The title of this post is probably the most witty bumper sticker I’ve ever seen. However, despite the government's support, the real thieves are record labels. A recent article shows that when buying a song from iTunes, the recording artist receives a mere 4% of the money paid to Apple, and that’s only if the artist did all the recording themselves. 35% goes to iTunes, which seems fair. 61% goes to the record label. This is ridiculous. What’s worse, this isn’t even a crime of just record labels. Orson Scott Card points out how many companies essentially demand you to sign over your brain in order to work for them. Any idea you have while employed is company property. A change is in order, before you vote for a business by giving them your money, take a minute to see how they treat their creative soul.
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