A Night At The Space

Works in progress. Vishal is taking a break from the laser harp and taking on a side project which should be done sooner than the harp. I am continuing work on the hank drum, and plan to create a double sided drum before painting it.

Here's a short video on the progress.

Watch on youtube for best quality.

Man is objective driven.

The first objective, as most biological life, is survival. Second is replication.

These two factors create most of our behaviors and actions.

So where do we stand today?

I will attempt to answer this by asking a few questions.


1. What is better than not surviving.

• The answer is, survival. 

- Without survival our biological self ceases to exist. The only remains of the "self" is the energy that is released from our decomposing bodies. Death is not good for any individual form of biological life, besides the life that feeds on the dead.

2. What is better than survival?

• The answer is, surviving comfortably.

- If we must survive, we would obviously like to survive in happiness. Being well fed with plenty of mates to choose from, we live fine lives comfortably surviving. There is less stress in surviving comfortably than surviving with difficulty in constant competition.

3. What is better than surviving comfortably?

• The answer is, surviving in abundance.

- While surviving comfortably is a nice lifestyle for a biological life form, living in abundance is an even greater one. With more food than one can eat, more mates than one can choose, and more activity to keep oneself stimulated is living in abundance. With primal instincts stuck in the the old system, this era of evolution is filled with excess eating, excess stimulation, excess reproduction, with virtually no danger of death from competition causing excess sedation.

4. What is better than surviving abundantly?

• The answer is, surviving in abundance while maintaining moderation.

 - This new step in evolution has been attained by some today, yet battling the whole time to fight the primal instincts that the majority succumb to. This is the next step in evolution and will only come from discipline and self determination. The few who practice these qualities today are successful because they truly deserve it. They are fighting a battle with odds against them. Though it must be done for the sake of humanity. These rebels against the nature of our universe will be the ones to take us to the next level. Strive to be one of these rebels. Fight back against what will only bring you pain. You will persevere. It is survival of the fittest. Fittest no longer means strength, but intelligence. And only those who fight the these instincts which now work against us for survival, will take our species to a new level of evolution. With their intelligence as well as strict determination, we will be a stronger, more industrious people than ever before.

Of Stars And Men

It is amazing how little we know compared with what we conceive as ultimately within our reach. And how small, probably, is that reachable portion compared with what is beyond.

Superstitions and loyalty to dogmas have kept us bogged down not far above the most primitive views of the universe. Fancy how far we might now have gone if we had not been shackled by mythology and by certain social conventions and national policies.

What intellectual progress we might have made by this time if we had, for example, emphasized psyche rather than property. Eventually we may not be as poorly equipped as now to answer three basic questions:
          What is the universe?
          How does it work?
          Why is the universe?
                                                  -Harlow Shapley

File Sharing: A New Renaissance?

A thought occurred. Advanced software applications today are costly, rare, and only can be obtained by a select few who have the resources to obtain them. Even once they are obtained, it takes a certain amount of training to use them properly. You must be literate of the software you have in your possession. But with the advent of the internet, these advanced software programs are being cracked and shared around the world. And once obtained, users who are literate are posting tutorials on how to wield the power of the program. Or you can purchase training programs for nearly nothing.


This is not unlike books before the printing press. Priests held the power of literacy which meant they could decipher the Bible any which way they pleased. For political agendas, power, or to suppress the commoners. My point is, now with file sharing and the internet, we common folk are becoming literate. Our eyes and minds are opening up to see the real truth, the real light. Just as if we were stuck in Plato's cave and were released to see sunlight for the first time.





What made books so powerful was the knowledge they contained. Knowledge which gave the individual the power to make their own decisions or become independent of uneducated thought. The printing press took much power away from these tyrants. The cost of books soon reached levels where peasants could purchase and read them if desired. This in turn created a widespread literacy rate among the human species which created innovation and was the beginning of the age of enlightenment. We have taken tremendous strides since those times. And I believe filesharing has taken the power away from the tyrants of today. The common folk now have access to the most powerful software programs in the world at the click of a button. Call it illegal, call it immoral, call it whatever you desire. I call it progress. I call it brilliant. This is a new age.

K, back to reading my book.

lightbox or colorbox html

GOD I LOVE GOOGLE

This amazes me... they give a free web application development platform and ask for what? There must be something in it for google... nobody just gives stuff away.

But maybe...just maybe they actually care somewhat. But I doubt it.... at least one of their founders has taken away the pain of raping our Earth and will move into outer space to rape and pillage resources out there.

Thanks Udacity!

Hey thanks udacity for teaching me how to use Google App Engine and Python. Its an amazing course so far and much will be owed to you in the future when I'm stinking filthy rich.

Oh yea

Going to a meetup tonight. On SEO and tings of dat sort.

Training Day 1. Get Ready for Revolution

Three practices for blogging on your companies website.

This webinar so far has given me some good info and im 15 minutes in. Sidebars with dropdowns. keeps it clean and options open, but not clustered. that last sentence was just a reminder of what i was listening to as i type. Tryin to make some notes but good info keeps streaming.


Anyway,

                 1st strategy.

Always remember people want to avoid discomfort. If choosing your product causes more discomfort than the status quo, you will be left behind. You MUST make them feel uncomfortable with the status quo.

for example..... Cd's vs mp3 players.

the status quo was cd's. everyone had a cd collection. and spend hundreds of dollars on products that can be scratched and ruined. most songs on albums suck, so they paid for music they did not like. mp3's can be downloaded and purchased online, instantly, wont degrade blah blah blah. you must make that cd collected feel uncomfortable with all these cd's to make him buy the mp3 player.

                 2nd Strategy.

Blog about wide subjects. NOT YOUR PRODUCT. hotels blog about travel locations and traveling in general to widen the audience coming into their website. blog about a wide subject. for the coffee machine, blog about espresso and different kinds of coffee. where coffee comes from and the lifestyle of the coffee growers. what nation does all this coffee come from? fun facts on coffee growing countries. lifestyle of coffee drinkers. office jokes.

                 3rd Strategy.

A blog is something that does not really show results. and it never ends. if you are going to start, you cant stop. respond in a timely manner.

                  4th Strat.

You can pick a few of your biggest fans and have them do your blogging for you. Evangelists and die hard fans can be your best workers for next to nothing. Reminds me of the VIP status and Moderators on forums.

Hey I just checked my blog traffic. It seems 24 people have seen this blog. Although it was probably me viewing it 23 times..... And in that case, you, who are the only person reading this besides me.... hello. How do you do? Whats your family like? Can you answer the question to life? No? Either can I.

What are we supposed to do with our time here? Do we just float away when were gone? Why ask these questions? To try and find out. To explore the human psyche. To assemble a rational reason of what were doing on this water logged ball of rock hurtling through outer space. All the cliche stuff..........like...... why are we here? How far along are we in our evolution? Is there a God? you know all the stuff from the movies.

Will someone......someday..... be looking at my blog posts as we look at a cave drawing? The history of mankind goes far back, with many different people who all inhabited the Earth. Whom have all died off. Think of the memories of their families; brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers. Cousins, aunts, uncles and daughters. All coexisting. Born of each other, and grown by the sun. Our beacon in the cosmos.





Basking us in its wondrous glory. It's really a strange thing to think about. When you really take a look at what were taught in school and what we have learned so far in our very short lives......you really must look at it and say.... DAYUM! This place is F***ed up!

Got myself a new enemy. Dang..... I try to limit them....... why must people be so irrational? I guess some personalities just do not click with each other. Strange to think about.

This Is How I Feel

 

 

But on a good note, I have finished my first Gamma-ray pulsar search. My computer has searched a collection of data studied by a group from our very home town of Milwaukee over at UWM.

 

 This group is searching for Einsteins pulsars in outer space to get a greater understanding of the laws of gravity. They utilize cloud computing to calculate collected data. My machine is connected through this cloud which allots part of my processor, memory, and hd space to the calculations. It hasn't found a pulsar yet, but this was its first completed search. So its only a matter of time before my computer discovers one. I leave it running 24/7 in the name of science!

Over My Head

This was the first WordPress meetup I was able to attend.... and it was.... good? I was pretty much lost the entire time I was there. They kept tossing jokes around about PHP, other languages and technical jargon. Everyone laughed, I was watching some people and it looked like they were laughing just because everyone else was so I don't feel i was the only one who was not getting these nerd jokes. I was pretty upset because nerd jokes are the best kind of jokes. 

But otherwise there was free pizza and beer. Mmmmm pizza and beer, this place wasn't messing around let me tell you. The company was good and the information was even better. I learned about certain security measures to protect your clients, as well as your website in case of attack. Scanner services, proactive protection, and detection. It was all good info. I look forward to the next one. And I found out there is a WordPress Camp that will be held this summer that is sponsored by WP Engine. Sweet. Tickets are $20, your damn right I'm showing up.

I'm Messing This Up

Well this experiment is failing miserably. Every time I plan to go to these meetups my schedule either changes or I decide something else is better to do. Darn my busy life. It wasn't always like this. I actually used to be pretty lazy, well.. I'm still lazy, I just figure I better do something or I'll be an old 40 year old stoner with no job, haven't seen a part of the world larger than..... well alot smaller than Earth. At least I'm not living in my parents basement anymore!

 Getting yelled at for not doing the dishes and still eating her homemade cookies long into the night playing video games. Yea that doesn't sound very appealing to me so that is why I now choose not to stay stagnant.

Got called into work at Uhaul today so I couldnt make it to the meetup. Dang, thats two in a row now that I've missed. This blog is really boring for you now hey? And I just noticed it's due tomorrow. Which really sucks. I must have started a week late.

Well I actually did not show up for the Socrates Cafe meetup, for the reason that I COULD NOT FIND IT. 

The group says it meets up in the UWM Union building..... great, so I emailed the organizer and asked where in the building this meeting took place. No answer....

I went to the Union at the right time, and walked around looking for these philosophers I was supposed to meet with. I saw no signs or directions so I just got a soft shell taco and crunch wrap supreme from Taco Bell. 

As I ate my taco I began to think, maybe this is a test. If you can find the group, then you are allowed in. Finding the group takes seeking out those who "look" like philosophers. The ability to spot like minded people is the test, or initiation into the group. Or maybe it is like the Matrix where they watch you enter, already knowing who you are, and based upon your persona, the way you walk, the way you carry yourself, is what they base their decisions off of.

So in order to find this group I must become Neo and take the red pill. Although none of this makes sense, and it was a completely ridiculous thought, it was entertaining to say the least.

I finished my tacos and exited the Union wondering where these people met. Oh well, its a weekly thing so I may be back next week. But lets move forward.......

My next meetup is on Tuesday. I have to work today and Monday so there is no chance of a meetup that I can find that concurs with my schedule. But on Tuesday, I will be meeting with the PHP Group. 

The PHP Users are a group who discuss PHP language..... actually here just read their group description.

The Milwaukee PHP Users group has two goals.

1) cultivate personal relationships between our great city's web developers

2) share best practices amongst programmers

Whether just getting into PHP, or hard core dreaming of PHP and sheep, this is the place to start.

Meetings occur every 2nd Tuesday of the month.

So that's where I'll be on Tuesday. I'll let you know how it goes.
Milwaukee PHP

First meetup was a success. I met with 5 other people of very different backgrounds at a ski lodge in Franklin WI. Chuck Choate was holding the meetup. It was a bit unorganized but we spoke of strategies for social media and basic launching points for web based ideas.

Chuck showed us multiple online tools for marketing and finding our target audiences. It was more of a conversation than a presentation. Which I liked and disliked at the same time. I liked it because it gave us a chance to get more one on one with a leader in the profession, but then again it gave far too much time to the people who crave attention. The talkers who like to talk about themselves and waste the groups time would continue to talk, and talk..... and talk....... and talk. Nothing annoys me more than someone who lacks awareness in groups. It shows they are not considering anyone in the nearby area besides themselves. But anyway, it was a success and I look forward to the next meetup I have scheduled.

The next one is called the Socrates Cafe group.It's a philosophical group that discusses topics brought up by the members themselves. I don't really have a strong background in philosophy but hey, lets give it a try. I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow.

Socrates Cafe

Recently, I have been shown a social media website called meetup.com.  I am going to join multiple  groups and go to meetings of my interest, uninteresting interests, and a couple randoms. I am hoping to learn something new about the world, myself, or just find another way to waste time. 

 I watch my so many of my peers play video games or television for extended periods of the day and waste their lives. I refuse to live that way. Hopefully this quest for something other than the 'norm' is actually worth seeking. Maybe I will learn that watching T.V. and playing video games is everything life can offer or it might be the other way around.

Tomorrow is the first scheduled meetup for me and I will let you know how it goes. It is being held by an author of a web publishing book. He is giving a seminar on planning, developing, and launching a web based business in under 24 hours. He will also be giving a free copy of his book which has very high ratings on Amazon.com.

I will approach these meetups with an open mind and try to enter without expectations. Which should lower my chances of disappointment. See you tomorrow.

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