Google Maps, Now Taking Pictures Through Your Windows

Google Maps recently introduced "Street View", which will give you a perspective of the street address you're looking for as if you were there. This is pretty cool. It also means you can spy on your neighbors, which is exactly what I'll be doing once they have it for Kansas City, which, sadly, they do not appear to have at the moment. There is sure to be plenty of debate surrounding this, and lists of amusing pictures.

Political Correctness, Illegal Immigration, And Sex Slaves

I came across this story about a sex ring bust in Minneapolis, where the local police apprently had little involvement in the raid. In fact, Mayor R. T. Rybak seemed to want to distance himself and the local police from the arrests being made. Why would he be actively trying to not take credit for stopping the forced prostitution of women? Because the slaves and slavers are illegal immegrants, and they passed an ordinance in 2003 barring Minneapolis police from becoming involved in immigration enforcement.

But wasn't prostitution the issue in the sex ring bust? "The line between what is prostitution and what is immigration was blurry," Rybak replied.

Hmm, yes, I too often confuse border crossing with rape.

The investigation and bust was instead handled by the federal Immigration and Customs Enforment (ICE), along with local law enforcement agencies other than the Minneapolis police. One person involved in the investigation prior to retiring from ICE viewed the issue in this way:

Minneapolis' "separation" ordinance -- and its overbroad interpretation -- have created a wedge between city police and the feds. In an operation like the sex ring investigation, he says, officers would likely be hampered if they had to make an arrest. "They are afraid they will be chastised and disciplined for doing what they are sworn to do: serve and protect," he says.

The Mayors reply?

"It's ICE that has created a wedge," Rybak retorts. The agency has not removed the word "'police" from its officers' jackets, despite his request to do so. Rybak maintains that the word "confuses" people who believe that immigration and criminal enforcement should be separate.

Apparently he doesn't want people thinking that it was the "police" who put an end to illegal activity, because the people involved were immigrants, and that would confuse people. Rybak did not offer any suggestions of what they should be called. Since it is unlikely that ICE will stop calling themselves police just because someone asks them to, and Rybak appears to be the one letting political correctness run amok, it would make more since that Rybak rename his police force instead, and come up with a new name for his law enforcement officers that don't enforce the laws when immigrants are involved. My suggestion: civilians

I Am Totally Selfish

Growing up I was under the impression that selfishness was bad, and unselfishness was good. It seemed fairly straight forward, and wasn't anything I really questioned, until a few years ago when a friend of mine made the statement that all actions are selfish. I found the statement shocking at first, but the more I thought about it, the more interesting I found it. Not only in the subject of selfishness, but in how we can judge another persons actions.

We can divide our actions into two types, voluntary, and involuntary. Voluntary actions are the ones we choose to take, they have motivations and objectives. Involuntary actions, are almost mechanical in nature, and at least consciously, are not actions that we have decided to take. Most actions are pretty easy to tell apart, generally anything we say is a voluntary action, but what about what we think? Generally any thoughts we have I would say are voluntary, but what about adab, the demanding memory? (yeah, I know, I'm a dork, I'll probably use the word grok too) I've certainly experienced what I would call adab, and dreams certainly aren't consciously chosen normally, but I think I would still call these voluntary. I'm pretty certain a subconscious decision should still be counted, even with a clearer example, such as "Why did I say that?" we still may not be able to identify a conscious motivation. Anything below the subconscious I would say no longer qualifies as a decision, but is just an involuntary action. That would seem to make the list of involuntary actions pretty short though, any reflexes we have, our senses, and a couple either/or's like breathing, and blinking.

Involuntary actions could be said to always be selfish in nature, but since they don't have any mental motivation behind them, they don't really seem to matter, so we'll forget about them. For the voluntary actions, they will always have some motivation behind them, a reason. Our motivations would seem to always come from the ego, and to always be selfish in focus. Even when the action is entirely charitable, to do something good for others, the motivation is still the personal reward we feel or experience from acting charitably. But which is more important, the action, or the motivation?

Consider a situation where two people take the same action for different reasons, say, two men each find someone's wallet The wallet has no money in it, just a drivers license and some family pictures. The first man returns the wallet because he's addicted to do-gooder endorphins. The second does it because he thinks he'll get a reward. Both are for some form of personal gain, but we would typically say that the second example is selfish, and the first isn't. What if two people have the same motivation, but take different actions? Say two women each find a ring, and both are motivated to do something nice for someone else. Woman one tracks down the original owner and gives it back. Woman two knows her daughter would like it, and gives it to her as a gift. I find that, a more difficult call to make. We would say that the first person "did the right thing", but it's hard to say that either one is more selfish than the other.

I could give more examples, but I don't think it's necessary, even when doing something good for someone other than ourselves, we still have a selfish emotional motivation. I believe that altruism, is impossible for us, we cannot truly be self-sacrificing, unless we want to be self-sacrificing, and if we want to do it, then it has a selfish motivation. Which, I think, is a good thing. True self-sacrifice, to benefit others at a cost to our selves, with no reason for doing so, I would call self-destruction. So, if altruism is the lack of selfish motivations, and every action we take has some selfish motivation, we seem to have made the word "unselfish" useless, but the word still seems to have some meaning in the examples. In order to fix this, I started thinking of selfish people as the ones who can only get enjoyment when good things happen to them, and unselfish people are the ones who can get enjoyment when good things happen to other people.

Maybe it's just semantics, but I think that perspective has changed the way I interact with people in my life. Actions may speak louder than words, but motivations seem to reveal what those actions mean. Our justice system seems to take this into account, with intent playing a large role in various degrees of murder for instance. However, going back to the two guys that returned the wallet, how can we tell what their motivation is? Does it matter? Probably not if we're getting our wallet back. But if we're trying to understand someone in our life, decide whether to trust them, what to expect from them, what they really meant by what they said, then we need to understand their motivations, we may misjudge them by their actions.

How Time Flies

My post for the night was going to be about selfishness, but it seemed to just keep going. So, tomorrows post will probably be a big one. One other thing that I did do today, was buy a lithium battery for my camera, as the double A's I have been trying to use seemed to shrivel and die before I could snap any pictures. So, here's something I would have added to my first post, if my camera had been working. I mentioned that I came up with the term Fetal Minds as the name for a band I had no expectations of ever making music, what I didn't mention, was I designed T-Shirts for said non-existent band. And I still have the original drawings I made. Here they are, in their time-yellowed, coffee-stained glory. The "person-vortex-brain" from the first image is something I'm trying to adapt into a logo for the blog, but I'm not much of a graphic designer, so it might be a while before that makes an appearance here.

Google No Longer Pretending They Don't Run My Life

According to a recent interview, Google wants to answer questions about your life. I envision questions like "What should I be when I grow up?", "Which religion should I believe in?", and "Craig said I should date Becka, but I think Maude is better looking". I welcome this whole-heartedly. In addition, having a searchable list of my failings in life can only make my procrastination that much more fulfilling.

There's A Fight In My Pocket

I often worry that my cell phone, magnetic entry key for work, and keyless entry remote for my car are all engaged in some kind of electro-magnetic combat in my pants. And at some point, one of them will be victorious, and the others will just be useless trinkets. (insert innuendo here)

Apparently, if you have a Nissan I-Key, this will happen. This will probably become more common as we continue to jam more tiny electronics into our clothes.

Old Words, Old Thoughts

I think the last two lines are from a song, but I can't remember anymore. If they aren't, they should be.

Written: ?/2002
I find that solitude is a calling, sometimes the world wishes to confine you. Sometimes it wants to use you. And sometimes it just wants to make you dizzy. No one around for the reconstruction of me. I suppose that's the way it's meant to be. The air speaks not for weeks, water frozen through, and no one listens anymore. The well is dry and all the filth can now be seen. Time comes to dispose of all these things. Yet they seem so much a part of the well now. It is better to hold bad memories than nothing at all. What use is left for such in the world? What good is a teacher without students? Where lies happiness in a world without passion? Questions Questions. There comes a point where you can only state the obvious. Is there a point to this story? All we ever wanted was everything, all we ever got was cold. Squash every week into a day.

Random News

Michael Yon's latest dispatch is in. It should be read, probably by you. He talks about perception a lot. He also quotes from General Patraeus' Ph.D. dissertation, apparently he talks about perception as well. I find myself wanting to read it.

Cyberwarfare In Estonia
Cyberwarfare isn't as effective as bombing someone, but it sure is annoying.

Protest in Spain Move Into Second Life

"They have thrown bombs, entered the building with submachine guns, lit fires, everything you could imagine," an official from Spain's ruling Socialist Party, using the Second Life moniker Zeros Kuhm, told Reuters.

Yeah, "virtual protests". Now they're even easier to ignore.

Hydrogen Fuel Production
Seems interesting. Of course, since a hydrogen-car costs about a million dollars, don't think this will get much attention.

Students in Paris Still Protesting
Parisian students seem to like to protest and/or riot, it seems to be non-stop with them. But apparently they're getting bored, and have decided to mix it up with a strike. Hmm, a student strike. You don't like the government, so you'll deprive yourselves of an education. That'll show 'em.

Reality, And Our Perception Of It

I had mentioned on one of my first posts how we tend to make assumptions based on our previous experiences when communicating. In The Optimism Contradiction I discussed the differences in the way we look at the known and the unknown. I See Tiny People was about how we might identify the differences between us. My Time Is Money was about how my perception of work changed. I could actually list out all the Random Thoughts so far, and they all developed from a fundamental point of view of mine. My random thoughts haven't been that random, they all come from thinking about differences between reality and perception.

This is a major component of the way I look at life. To me, "reality" is just another way of saying "the truth", and I think of The Truth as everything, everywhere, forever. When I was younger and more whimsical, I used to say that "Belief is reality." My reasoning at the time was that when we believed something to be true, it didn't really matter whether it was or not, that belief would still affect the way we saw the world around us, and the way we approached it. Of course, this really isn't a great way to describe things, we can often be confronted with things that do not conform to our beliefs. Those beliefs may still be clouding our judgment of what we are confronted with, but they can not be enforced upon it. Today, it would be tempting to say that "Perception is reality." When discussing happiness, and the difference between what is real and what we experience, I actually used both perception and belief to draw the line. I'll use the excuse that in that discussion, the difference didn't matter that much, but there is a pretty important difference. Though we may be able to experience something outside of our beliefs, can we experience something outside of our perception? Experience would seem to rely wholly on perception, the two words are almost interchangeable.

If our perception is false, does it really matter to us? It's a difficult question, and it prompts the even more difficult one of, "Can we experience reality, apart from our perception?" I've thought about that question for a long time, and the similarities between belief, perception, and reality, tend to make it a confusing subject. It's difficult not to drift into solipsism:

Philosophy. the theory that only the self exists, or can be proved to exist.

And given the second definition of solipsism given, it may already be too late for me to try and avoid it:

extreme preoccupation with and indulgence of one's feelings, desires, etc.; egoistic self-absorption.

However, I'm not really concerned with whether reality can be proven to exist, I'm assuming that it does. I'm just not sure if it matters, or only our perception does. For now, I'm still leaning towards the later. And if that's true, then changing your perception, for all intents and purposes, can change the world.

Let me know what you perceive in the comments.

When I Was Just A Young Lad

Parts of this story may not be true, but it is how I remember it.

When I was thirteen, I began using a BBS called Grantchester Meadows. I had no idea that was the name of a Pink Floyd song until today. I thought it was fascinating, being able to interact with people I had never met in person, other than the couple of friends I knew in real life that hold told me to try it out sometime. Everyone used handles and nick names, which of course made the whole thing more entertaining from my perspective. I can actually still remember the names that people went by. I chose the handle Xuthus, which up until recently, I had used for almost anything I did on the internet. The very first thing I was asked by a fellow Grantchester Meadowian was, "How do you pronounce your name?", I got asked this question a lot. There was a girl there who went by the name Rhys (real name forgotten). She wrote poetry, and got a lot of attention. I assumed she must be pretty, and developed my first and last crush on someone that I had never met. Wanting to get some attention myself, preferable hers, I also began writing poetry. I filled up multiple notebooks with it (a few of those poems I still have). When we weren't trading poems, we talked about sandwiches. I insisted that the fluffernutter was the best sandwich ever invented. She had never heard of it. I asked her out to a movie, and she accepted. My parents, bless their hearts, seemed to be totally fine with my first date being with someone I only new about because of the computer sitting in the dining room (from my perspective anyway). I don't think I even know how old she was, luckily, she was around my age, I think a couple years older. My dad drove me to her house to pick her up, and I greeted her with my arms stretched out straight before me, holding a fluffernutter like an offering. She took it, laughed lightly, and thanked me. I think I just stared at her, she was just as pretty as I thought she would be. I don't remember what movie we saw, but I do remember that I didn't say a single word to her for that entire two hours. As my dad was driving us back to her house to drop her off, I felt disappointed, and kind of mad at myself. I was pretty sure that a date should involve more talking than I had done, but still couldn't think of anything to say. When we got to her house, I morosely walked her up to her door, and told her I had had a good time. She told me I was sweet, and kissed me on the cheek. I was totally unprepared for this display of affection, blushed furiously, and again stared at her dumbly without saying anything as she went inside and shut the door. I was elated, somehow my first date had turned out to be a success, even though I had pretty much done and said nothing. When I returned to the car I began thinking about when I should ask her out again. Then I saw the fluffernutter sandwich, still in it's bag, still sitting in the back seat. The first gift I had ever given to a girl I had a crush on, and she had forgotten it. That's when I learned what "being sweet" really meant. I didn't go on another date for five years. Because of a sandwich.

Your Wish Is My Command

Someone asked for a subscription feed for the comments. There is now a link at the bottom of the "Recent Comments" section in the sidebar.

I Love Depression

From some of my recent posts, you may have gotten the impression that I would like to be happy all the time. I've discussed how I've avoided getting angry and stressed out at work, and how I wanted to be overcome with joy, but that's only a penny, and I want in for a pound. I think anger has it's purpose, and so did the painful feeling I had when I heard a song on the radio. Happy is nice and all, but I think the people that want to be happy all the time are cheating themselves. I think of my emotions as sign posts, and if I pay attention to them, they'll show me which way the paths will take me. That's not to say that I let my heart choose the path, anymore than I try to follow every road sign on the highway, it is my mind (and hopefully my logic) that chooses among them.

When I was at my previous job, and I was becoming angry, frustrated, stressed out, that was a sign that something was wrong. I think most people in this situation, don't really pay attention to the emotions, they try to ignore them and just tell themselves they need to find another job. At first, that's what I did too, as giving advice is always easier than following it. I tried to ignore them, and just get through the day until I could find something else. Some of my coworkers where real jerks, I found it quite easy to blame them for all my stress. As the months went by, I started snapping at my other coworkers, I even made a woman I work with cry one time (although, that was kind of funny). I was blaming my unhappiness on the jerks I worked with, while turning into a jerk myself, like a mean version of Pay It Forward. Now I didn't like my job, or the way I was acting. I finally came to my senses, and started paying attention to what I was feeling, which showed me a different path I could take to bring my paradigm more in-line with the reality of the situation, which is where the My Time Is Money post came from. I ended up leaving that job shortly thereafter, but every job involves some BS, and the lessons I learned have helped me keep my new job much more stress and frustration free that it would have been otherwise.

I said before that unhappiness can be defined as the distance between the reality that you believe, and the reality that is. It's not just unhappiness though, I think that can generally bring on what we consider all the "bad" emotions to be. A lot of people will probably disagree with me on this one, and I could probably stick to some tame examples that people would be more likely to agree with, but we aren't going to get to the truth that way. Plus, maybe I'm wrong. So, lets talk about anger and politics, there seems to have been quite a bit of that lately.

Democrat Thor writes the "I Don't Like Guns" bill. Republican Shiva thinks that's stupid, and calls Thor an unpatriotic nancy-boy. Shiva decides to introduce the "I Don't Like Porn" bill. Thor thinks that sucks, and calls the bill a pandering piece of fascism.

If there was less anger involved, maybe Thor and Shiva could have a rational debate about the pros and cons of those bills, instead of just calling each other names. Maybe they could even reach a sensible compromise. But that doesn't seem to happen very often, we've all seen the above exchange take place over and over again. I'm not saying they shouldn't be angry, some stuff definitely should make us angry. However, letting that anger choose our paths for us, just ends in name calling. I do think though, that everyone's anger seems to be disproportionate lately, and that part of that is coming from a false perception of reality. The Democrats and Republicans both believe that they know what is best for this country. They both appear to believe that the purpose of a Democracy, is to do what is best for the majority of the people. I contend, that the purpose of a Democracy, is to do what a majority of the people believe is best for them. Sometimes, a majority of the people will not agree with you. And the politicians belief isn't that far off the mark. The job of politicians, is to represent the majority of their constituents, but sometimes their constituents will not be part of the national majority. That can be a fine line to draw, but if we could put those perspectives more in line with reality, maybe we can be a little more reasonable about the whole thing. I'm certainly not saying that either side should just give in, but not everything they disagree with should be treated like a sacrilege against the constitution or a personal affront. And when they make public statements, I don't care how angry they are, I want to know how they think we can make things better.

I could go on about government, but I want to return the focus back to my original topic. Sometimes, we're going to get angry, or sad, or embarrassed. That's ok, there's a reason we feel those things. It's when we don't explore what those reasons are, when we feel them to no purpose, or just take it out on the people around us, that they really are bad. Sometimes it's hard to find a good answer. Sometimes, I'll feel like crap because you suck, and the only apparent solution is to remove you from my life as you serve no purpose in it. But how many people do you know who've been made unhappy by the people around them, and don't do anything about it? I've known a few, and I don't want to turn into one. I want to be challenged, I want to grow as a person. If I'm going to walk that path, then I'm going to get pissed off, I'm going to be disappointed, I'm going to get depressed, and I'm not going to avoid those feelings. I'm going to take a long, close look at them. That may be an opportunity to learn from a mistake, a chance to compare my belief to reality, and find out what doesn't match up. There's a reason the people that are always happy are creepy, they aren't seeing reality anymore.

This Train Has No Tracks, Or Paragraphs

My TV has two channels. Static, and my PS2. I could count the number of commercials I've seen in the past year on my fingers. As a consequence, I have no idea what's going on in TV land. I find myself often saying things like, "No, I haven't seen that commercial", or "I've never heard of that movie", or "What's Grey's Anatomy, is that a movie?". I'm not completely TV-less, some shows, like Heroes, can be watched online. I've watched every episode of Heroes online, and have seen two commercials. I saw them about twenty times each. People at work tend to talk about TV a lot. I find myself talking about TV sometimes even though I don't watch it. What I find myself doing more often though, is making really dreadful small talk. "How was your weekend?" "Sure is nice today." "Is it Friday yet?" Every time these phrases come out of my mouth, a part of me wants to bite my tongue off. These are the typical phrases we use to try to make connections with the near strangers around us, in the hopes that they will lead to meaningful conversation, or at least something interesting. At least that's why I do it, maybe you really do want to know if I also think it is a beautiful day. When I'm saying these things, I'm usually thinking about something much more interesting. On occasion, if the small talk doesn't turn into something else, I may even start to ignore the conversation entirely, and let my mouth make automatic responses while my mind returns to the more interesting topic it was on previously. What I used to do, was never start any conversation, especially if the people I was around were already talking to each other. Even if I knew all of them, I assumed it was private, and wouldn't say a word unless someone invited me into that conversation. This is something I have been trying to work on, which has given me small-talk-itis. I don't end up making connections with people, I have mostly meaningless conversations. What I tell myself is that I'm being polite, but suspect that's just a cover for fear or embarrassment. And that "it wouldn't be polite" feeling keeps me from striking up a conversation with "Do you think optimistic people are more prone to disappointment?" or "I see tiny people!", and I'm not sure where it came from. I never though of myself as shy growing up, just reserved. Which may have also been a cover. I really don't think there is a downside to saying what's on my mind (most of the time). Sure, some people would think I was a nut, but that just draws a distinct line between the people I can and can't form a connection with. As an added bonus, those people would probably stop engaging me in small talk. I feel like I am robbing myself of the chance to form new friendships. My politeness demons also never invite myself or other people to do anything ever. I assume they have better things to do, and the less I'm doing, the more important your time must be. Which is ridiculous, and I'm aware of it. It's even more ridiculous, as I believe events can only be made more meaningful by sharing them with others. It's a slow drain towards hermitude and meaninglessness, which I think pretty much everyone (including myself) have been aware of for awhile. There doesn't seem to be a motivator in there for my behavior. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this. In middle school, I called my best friend a couple times to see if he wanted to hang out, and he happened to be busy. I decided I would just wait till he was free and called me. After a couple weeks, I decided he must not like me anymore and stopped talking to him. Five years later when we happened to run into each other and actually did talk, we discovered that we were still friends. Three or four months ago, I ran into some good friends from high school. We were all happy to see each other, exchanged numbers, and said we should get together some time. We haven't spoken to each other since. I make excuses to not call them, "well, it's been so long, it would be like calling them out of the blue". They're probably thinking the same thing. If I called them tomorrow, I'm sure they'd be glad to hear from me, the same way I would be if I heard from them. People just seem to have a habit of drifting apart. After pondering the subject, there only seem to be a couple of reasons for it.

1. Fear of rejection
2. Fear of breaking the routine
3. Actually having every hour of every day taken up by important stuff that has to be done

I've met a lot of people who feel like they're in category three, I suspect they are liars. The remaining options suck, I don't want to be in either of those. They make me want to put up motivational posters to break myself out of this habit, and I hate those things. I don't care how long the kitten has been hanging from the tree limb, that cat is probably dead by now.

And now to crash this train and watch it burn
While driving to Wendy's today to get some lunch, a song came on the radio which reminded me of an unpleasant moment in my past. The feeling was so vivid, it affected me physically, I started to feel nauseous, and briefly twitched I was so overcome. Why does that only happen with traumatic moments? I've heard parents say that they'll always remember the moment of their children's births, and I'll take their word for that, but I suspect it's because that is both good and traumatic. I want that to happen with a better emotion. This is an open call, it is now your job to traumatize those around you with happy. Leave them scarred with joy.

My Ridiculousness Is Now International

Fetal Minds has received visits from London, and Australia. My foolishness knows no borders.

Random Quotes From A Book I'm Reading
"He Believes that baboons are going to come and help him. Jesus Mercy, what have I dragged him into?"

"Yes, we think these people are murdering the minds of small children. Our Evidence? This picture of a lot of tall buildings."

These quotes also occurred with one paragraph between them. Feel Free to amuse yourselves by coming up with the intervening paragraph.

My Weekend Project
I wanted to do something productive (relatively) this weekend, so I looked for a new program to compose music with. What I found was something called PureData, which allowed the creation of music by doing math, which sounded right up my alley. After spending the weekend learning how it works, I have discovered that it's really designed for live performances, something I have no interest in. I will probably continue using the program I was using previously. I have learned my procrastination lessons well. Of course, this still begs the question, how many DJs are doing math while on stage? I want to book that kind of DJ.

Tiny People Spotted By Others
One of my coworkers mentioned that her sister once mentioned something similar to my tiny people experience. I smell a book coming on. You will be able to find it in the new age section, between Fairies and UFOs. Oh wait, I guess they would be fairies. Forget it then, that horse is already being kicked.

More Random Thoughts are forthcoming. Just for the record, I will typically not be posting those on weekends, but I'll try to find something to post about. Here is one observation about myself that I just noticed though. I Like To Capitalize The Letters Of Words. For an example, see the quotes above, and the note below them. I capitalized the first two words, in multiple sentences. I find myself doing this a lot. I do not know why. I also tend to skip some words entirely while typing, you will probably see this happen on occasion. Like how I left the word "First" out of "The Letters". I am assuming these things will improve as time goes on.

Stream of Consciousness

One last note for the night. I've accumulated a lot of writing over the years, and I'll think I'll share some of it here on the weekends when I don't have anything else to say. A lot of what I've written has been done as a sort of stream of consciousness style without any editing, so it doesn't make sense sometimes, but I think it's still interesting. If I post something old, I'll put when it was originally written, like so:

Written: 10/13/2006
The days slip by us all it seems, thought still perhaps more for I than for others. Pride and motivation may be the key of it. The lack of them, the source of the blurring of my life. It was once what I felt, I no longer remember when that changed. My potential is something of course that I am still aware of, but it seems like something of a novelty, not really of any practical use. A winters storm in the corner. If it's ways cold, why check the temperature? Even beginning in small steps seems to much. Or, more precisely, starting in small steps seems pointless. It should all be done or why bother, is the thought that always seems to keep me from moving back towards something reminiscent of what was. A little dream, a little lightning, and a lot of ego. I take my power with me, wheresoever I may go.

How To Keep Up With All The Awesome

Since I have now linked to a friends blog, and a family members blog, and the people reading this are most likely other friends and family members, that means you now have may now have multiple websites to visit to keep up with what's going on. Blogs have RSS Feeds (mine can be found at the bottom of the page where it says "Subscribe to:"), and there are Feed Readers which will aggregate all the feeds you want into one location. I've mentioned before that I use Google Reader to do this, but there are a number of options available. Here is a list of some of them, or doing a search for feed readers should provide you with plenty of options. Here is an example of what mine looks like.

More Words For Your Consumption

At a family event this evening, I learned that my cousin-in-law also has a blog. I have finished perusing his January postings, and was quite amused.

While at this same event, the subject of procrastination came up. If you too would like to know how to procrastinate, you may find this video instruction illuminating.

You May Now Flame Me Annonymously

I just realized the comments required registration. That's been removed, you may now comment without creating an account.

Pretty Lights

This picture on the NASA website is pretty impressive. It looks like stars at first, but each light is an entire galaxy. And for the science geeks among you, there may be evidence of dark matter in there, which is discussed in the article. Very cool.

I Am Not The Only Fetal Mind

I did a search for Fetalminds on Google today, to see if my site had been indexed yet. To my surprise I found that I was not the only person using the term. There is another. An 18 year old poetry-writing girl in all black goes by that name on a website called vampirefreaks.com. Some of you will find that hilarious. It was tempting to put "Goth" instead of "in all black", but I wore all black at that age and never considered myself goth, so I won't make that assumption.

My Time Is Money

My previous job became rather unpleasant towards the end. The company had acquired a new branch, and some of the new coworkers were just outright mean, and it became kind of stressful to work there. During that period, I spent some time thinking about jobs, what that job meant to me, and what a job should mean. I once heard unhappiness described as the measure of distance between they way things are, and they way you think things should be. I've found that to be true, and I think it bears on why people become unhappy and stressed out with their work environments.

Part of what I thought about, was what stresses people out at work. The main influences seem to be coworkers, job duties, the affect of the job on your personal life, or the lack of a sense of accomplishment. The main conclusion I came to really changed the way I looked at each aspect of my work life. At it's most basic level, a job is just a form of bartering, an exchange of goods. I give 8 hours of my life to company X, and they give me Y dollars. It would be great if the purpose for going to work in the morning was to make the world a better place, or to do something that you love doing, and to an extent there's no reason not to keep those things in mind, but the reality is that the primary reason for going in to work everyday is to put some cash in the bank account. That's really what it comes down to, I'm selling my time, hopefully to the highest bidder, and each of these things that causes stress can't be looked at from that perspective.

The lack of accomplishment used to bother me a lot. It was annoying, being asked to work on something on Monday, asked to totally change it on Tuesday, and then to forget about it on Wednesday. I felt like I had "wasted my time", and feeling that way can be unpleasant. I don't feel that way anymore though, because I still achieved my primary goal for those three days, I worked for 24 hours, and I got paid for 24 hours. It was really the company that wasted their money, if I had done something useful for those three days, I still would have gotten paid the same, but the company would have gotten more out of their purchase of time from me. It was their poor decision, not my poor work, and why should I be unhappy about that? Being able to take pride in something I made is great, but that's just something extra I can get from work on top of my salary. It's a bonus, and I don't expect to get a bonus every day. Job duties can be very similar, I used think "this isn't part of my job description" when asked to work on something that I thought was a waste of my talent, but I'm still selling the same amount of time for the same amount of money. Now when I'm asked to push carts of boxes from one room to another for a day, I actually kind of feel smug about it. I'm an expensive cart-pusher, and I'm getting the better part of that deal.

The affect of work on my personal life is something that has also changed. I've mentioned before that I don't like to talk about work when I get home, on top of it being boring, I'm off the clock. During "me time", there's not much reason to spend thinking about a project at work while I'm not getting paid for it, unless I want to think about it, because it happens to be something I find interesting. My brain is available for purchase for 40 hours a week, outside that, it's all mine. Sometimes work can affect my personal life in others ways though, like working a lot of overtime. But that still comes down to selling X more hours, for Y more dollars. It's either a fair trade, or it isn't.

I could go on with other examples, and maybe I'll return to the topic again sometime, but I think I've gotten my point across. There is one important thing I haven't covered though, and that's when the trade stops being a good one. What happens when Y dollars isn't worth those X hours? The easy answer, is find another bidder. Unfortunately, that isn't always an immediate option. In those situations, it can feel like being trapped in a bad situation. I don't know a good solution for that. Looking at it as a bad sale of time, isn't much comfort, I know. I'm afraid that's all I can offer though. If you have a better suggestion, leave it in the comments, I'd love to hear it.

I See Tiny People

When I was young, I would lie in bed at night, stare into the darkness, and watch hundreds of tiny people slowly floating downward through my field of vision. The men were usually wearing suits with coat tails, had monocles and canes. The women wore frilly dresses with wooden buttons, and usually carried parasols. I assumed this was completely normal. After all, I was only 5 or 6, how could I understand how other people viewed the world? I just assumed everyone saw things the same way, the way that I saw them, egocentricity (something I'll probably return to in another topic).

This makes me wonder, how many strange things do we do or think which we assume is normal? Assuming we're alone in something when we aren't can be common, but I think that's usually associated with things we feel ashamed of, or things that are embarrassing. The things that our culture tells us are taboo. What about the things that are outside of culture, the things that just don't come up in conversation? Do we still assume that we are alone in those things, or do we assume that they are taken for granted? I think it must occur at least some of the time, but how often, and how would you identify those things? I've come to believe that some of my behaviors aren't completely normal, but what about the ones I still think are? I'm not sure there's a way to tell without another person to compare myself to.

Over recent years I've mentioned to people that I'd have OCD if I wasn't so lazy. Most people assume that is just a joke, and it is one, but there's some truth in it. I've never had any of the germ phobias or cleaning compulsions, which is probably why most people think it's just a joke. I feel compulsions not to step on the cracks on tiled floors, I like to step an even number of times between cracks in sidewalks, I picture lines projecting off all sharp corners in the rooms I'm in and try not to step on those lines. If I don't do those things, it's no big deal, but I still want to do them. I guess my compulsions only have to do with my motion through space, but I have no idea what that means. Before I knew what OCD was, I assumed these things were also normal. It wasn't until I had a reference to compare to that I realized most people probably don't do these kinds of things.

I've developed a habit in the way I brush my teeth. I brush the chewing surface first, top-left to top-right, bottom-right to bottom-left, outer surface from left to right, inner surface top-left to top-right then bottom-left to bottom-right, and then the outer surface again from right to left. That's a pretty boring topic, doesn't come up in small talk much. How can I tell if it's unusual, or if it's something most people end up falling into a habit with the order they brush their teeth in? To me, it's seems reasonable that most people would fall into a routine with it like I do, but maybe it's just another example of my spacial-movement habits.

Why does it matter? I believe it's these kinds of topics that give us knowledge about each other. If we have something in common, it's too easy for me to assume that what is common is in fact identical, even though that's unlikely. Those connections are great for building a personal connection, but I'll just see part of myself in you. It's the things that make you different from me, the things I have to work to understand at first because they are unfamiliar, that will truly bring me closer to you, and to understanding who you truly are. At the same time, recognizing the things in myself that make me different, give me a greater understanding of who I am. My discovery of myself can not be complete, without being able to see myself as you do.

Acquaintances, and strangers are just dirty water, fun house mirrors. But my friends and family, they're mirrors to my soul, and that is part of what they mean to me.

Is that normal?

Buy Our Software, or We'll Sue Your Ass

I came across this story recently, which made me cringe. The "creative people" at Media Rights Technology have decided to sue Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, ... well, pretty much anyone that makes software. I guess the reason they are suing them (the reason they give, anyway), is because those companies make software that some people are able to circumvent the copyright protection, and make illegal copies of copyrighted works. Now, MRT isn't claiming that their copyrights are being violated, no, apparently just copyrights in general. They say they make software that will prevent copyright violations from taking place (good luck with that), but no one is using it, thus making a new lawyer-driven business model look appealing. If the big companies won't license MRTs software, maybe they can get the courts to force them to buy it.

I'm not even sure what to call this. Corporatism? I tried to find out what a government run by lawyers is called, but I don't think anyone has dared to give that a name yet. There are obviously some problems with copyright violations, and copyright law itself, but I can't imagine any train of thought that would bring someone to the conclusion that this kind of lawsuit is reasonable. Maybe they think they can win it anyway, it wouldn't be the first time. Maybe they just want the publicity, it wouldn't be the first time for that either. These kinds of lawsuits always make me wonder what could be done about them. It's tempting to say that your right to file a lawsuit should be taken away if you have three suits thrown out, but that simply wouldn't work. It would be nice to see a way for the defendants & the courts to recoup all expenses from people who bring frivolous lawsuits. Good luck making that an effective marketing strategy, after paying the salaries of everyone who works in the courthouse, for every hour you wasted their time.

For the Web 1.0s

I'm pretty sure most of the people who know me (who might actually read this) don't use RSS subscriptions, so I've added an option to subscribe by email. Enjoy.

You Can't Read Just One

My co-worker has begun a blog as well. I can't think of anything clever to follow up my title with, so, go read it.

Pandora

I love Pandora. If you love music, you'll love it to. I've added a section on the sidebar with a list of my stations and bookmarked songs in it.

The Optimism Contradiction

I've been thinking lately about envy, and how for many people the grass always does seem to appear to be greener next door. The simple answer of course, is that the things we already have in our lives (our jobs, relationships, homes, cars) we are intimately familiar with. We understand their virtues, and their limitations. Our expectations for the familiar are realistic. At the same time, the negatives we know may tend to be magnified the closer we get to them. It's easy to focus on the annoying, that which leaves us content does not draw attention. It is natural to look at the new and the unknown with thoughts of it's potential, which can appear to be unrestrained.

That's what we do, we dream, we hope, we want the world and the little piece of it we occupy to be a better place. Making something better, means changing it, and changing from one situation of known limitation, to one of unknown limitations may seem quite tempting. Which makes me wonder, does that mean that the optimist is more prone to feeling unsatisfied with the current situation then the pessimist? It's counter intuitive, but it may that the temptation of "moving on" may be the yin to the yang of dreaming. Of course it is probably not that black and white. It may be that the optimistic outlook fades with familiarity, but is always fresh for the unfamiliar. The pessimist, surely, is only pessimistic about the untried, and not for the routine. I have seen that some people tend to be drawn towards new situations, but as the mystery unravels they lose interest and draw away from them again. The dream is over and it is time to wake.

Still, we need that ability. To see the beauty in people that they may not have realized for themselves. To see the greatness which may be created where none now stands. It is our minds potential to see what does not exist that has brought into being so many wonders, and at the same time seems to be responsible for every disappointment. I think that's why some people stop dreaming of what might be, so they may find joy in what is. Can the two be reconciled? Can we dream of the monumental, but still find satisfaction with the actual sized?

One Brave Man

I don't want to talk much about Iraq, but I did think I would take a moment to mention Michael Yon. He is an independant reporter who has been imbeded with troops in Iraq for over two years now, he goes out on combat mission with them and relates his experiences. I think it is some of the best reporting coming out of Iraq, and it's first-hand experiences. His latest report is from a mission he went on with some UK soldiers, which you can read about here.

I Welcome My New Google Overlords

Google offers a lot of different products, and lately it seems that I start using a new one every month or so, ever increasing the number of eggs I keep in the Google basket. First it was the Google tool bar, then the calendar, then my email, iGoogle became my homepage, then Google Chat, Reader, Docs, Notebook, and now a site on Blogger (owned by Google). When I create a profile on Orkut, you'll know that I am beyond recovery. The reason I've really gotten into the Google products, I think, is because of the way they're approaching the whole "Web 2.0" concept. I'm no expert on it, but here's my uninformed opinion on it anyway.

Web applications are moving into a collaboration and sharing focus. The wikis, of course, are a good example of this, but the idea of utilities that allow sharing is what I really find interesting. I like the idea of being able to share my calendar with my friends and family, or creating a document online for work and being able to give my colleagues access to modify it. The odd thing is, even though I use these tools because I have the option of sharing them, I really don't share any of it. I carefully hoard it all closely, and let my slitted gaze dart around the room to make sure no one is looking. Well, ok, that's not exactly it. I really just feel like there's no reason to share them. Usually there's already some method in place to share needed information. In addition, I have no reason to think that you would use it if I did share it, in order for you to really take advantage of it, you'd have to become a Google servant as well. Which makes me wonder, will this collaboration craze really ever be mainstream, or will it stay in the domain of the techies and the geeks? I really don't see it taking off until there's an open standard, where I can share my Google doc, and you can view and edit it in Yahoo! Docs, or MSN Office, or whatever the competing products end up being. XML may be the answer, and perhaps that will develop. But until then, you probably won't be getting an invite to view my calendar unless you ask for it. Which I'm sure will not disappoint anyone who knows me, and knows just how often something would actually get put on my calendar.

What's the point?

I thought I would go ahead and lay out my thoughts on what it is I want to do with this blog. As I mentioned previously, it was a project at work that gave me an excuse to start it, but I don't plan to make it just about work. I don't like talking about my day at work. I don't like listening to how your day at work was. It's a boring topic, and unless we both happen to be in the same profession, chances are good that we really won't understand what the other is talking about anyway. For instance, today I found a way to create a mind map of product guidelines. I can't imagine who would want to have a conversation about that. That's not to say I won't mention work, if something interesting does happen, but that will probably be rare. So what is the point of Fetal Minds? Generally, it will be about me, and random thoughts I have. Living alone, there's no one around to hear my brilliant stray thoughts, which is a shame. So, I'll put them on the internet, where they still pretty much go unheard, but I can feel smug about them.

Which brings me to my first topic, why I named the site Fetal Minds. To be honest, the name was something I came up with quite a while ago, for what I thought would be an awesome band name. I really liked the name, but seeing as I was never in a band, it seemed a shame just to let it go to waste, so instead it turned into a philosophy, which conveniently doesn't require knowing how to play an instrument. The idea was pretty simple, or so I thought at the time, which would be a logical structure for determining truth without making any assumptions. Of course, that turned out to be much harder than I thought it would. So far, after a number of years of deep thought, I have come up with two universal truths.

1. A thing is equal to itself.
2. A thing is not equal to that which is not itself.

Which of course, sounds like the beginning axioms for mathematics, although that wasn't my intention. So, I ended up thinking about assumptions instead, and why it was so hard to get rid of them. I believe the reason is that our brains basically work on assumptions. The brain uses symbols and archetypes, and tries to use those to fill in the gaps. For instance, if I said to you "Dog", you immediately form an assumption about what that dog is based on your previous experiences. Four legs, a tail, two eyes, etc. Generally those types of assumptions would be correct, but not always, I may be talking about a dog that only has three legs, or one with no tail. You'll also make some assumption about size, shape, coloration, and if I say it is a "St. Bernard", your mental picture of what I'm talking about will change to a new set of assumptions based on your experiences with St. Bernards. Those assumptions, and preconceived thoughts that we have, are how we're able to communicate with each other. Assumptions, actually, have a bad rep, and they shouldn't. Without those assumption, we wouldn't have the ability to communicate ideas to each other. For instance, when people say that you shouldn't make general assumptions about a group of people, like women or men, I say that you absolutely should make general assumptions about them. If you didn't, the words would either be meaningless, or you would picture them as the same thing, and I'm pretty sure those words do mean something and that there are at least a couple of differences between them. The key, of course, is to make reasonable assumptions. Now if I could only come up with a logical structure for determining if an assumption is reasonable or not....

Movie Recommendations

I subscribed to blockbuster online for a short time, and one thing I really liked about it was their movie recommendations. Looking around for something similar, I found MovieLens. So far, I'm pretty happy with it.

What do you do here?

The company I work for hired some consultants at the beginning of this year to come in and help change the way the organization is run. I'm not sure they totally understand what it is that I or the department I am in actually does. Generally I spend my time doing programming and application support, but they have asked us to change focus and begin working on Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), and come up with new and creative ways we can market our company both on and off the Web. This, I think, is strange, but not neccessarily bad. We have no marketing experience, no SEO experience, and no SEM experience. We are creative though, and that is what they are looking for. It should be interesting to see where this goes and what comes out of it.

Which, finally, brings me to my point. One of the things we've been looking at for the redesign of the company website is, of course, a blog. Since I am going to be promoting this idea, I decided I should at least give it a try myself to get a better feel for the whole concept. I have had the occasional thought of starting my own blog anyway so it gives me a great excuse. I suppose it will be interesting to see what, if anything, I do with this as well.