[

mood

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thoughtful

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It's been brought to my attention that someone died recently. And no, i'm not talking about number 2, or 'The Pig', from Slipknot. Or any number of deaths in the metal community recently. As nice as music is.

- - - -

Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914 – May 22, 2010)

"Gardner's life was not only long but extraordinarily productive. He was a polymath and a gifted writer, publishing more than 70 books in his long career as well as innumerable magazine and newspaper articles. His wide range of interests included recreational mathematics, pseudoscience, scepticism, magic, religion, philosophy and literature. He will be mourned by many hundreds of thousands around the world." - The Guardian.

I know of him through his work 'The New Ambidextrous Universe: Symmetry and Asymmetry from Mirror Reflections to Superstrings.' This book really was a delight to read both because of it's fascinating content and ease with which he explained the concepts, but also because of how mind expanding it felt - my imagination literally ran wild with it's implications. I will endeavour to explore his works more thoroughly in the future.

He is now gone, but not forgotten.

[

mood

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calm

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I have codes for http://www.dreamwidth.org if anyone would like one?

I'm going to be slowly moving there over the next few years... it's basically how livejournal used to be before it 'sold out'... with everything that that has taught us.

Basically, it's the height of awesome and you should get on board before it goes nuclear!

[

mood

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aggravated

]

In some ways, i can thank the irrational, the indignant and the hypocritical... because when they think they've found weakness, push your buttons, wind you up, get in your face and rouse you to retaliate... they unwittingly (or perhaps psychotically, wilfully, beggingly) unleash the reins...

...and a curious thing always happens to the stoic. Unaccustomed to the heights of feeling they are about to reach, they struggle to control the darkness within - and then their outer shakes, as if to burn off unused fuel. But by then it is too late... the aggressor thinks their target's bottom has fallen out, that perhaps their knees are giving way, or perhaps those tears of rage are tears of fright.

Tactfully the situation can be led and misled to avoid direct conflict. The Art of War ensues on a spasmic scale. The chaotic dance seems to play each as a puppet to their own beat, a blessing in disguise for the meta-conscious, the rhythmn betrays the attackers weakness - to satiate the aims of their exertions. But keep that rug moving - keep them up and knock them down, keep them guessing and, mainly, keep everyone on their toes.

Post-trauma self-debriefing throws up questions of should'a, could'a, would'as and investigations into the root basis to these claims - the adrenaline is of course, uselessly perhaps, still raging through the system. And then one has a coffee break and all becomes clear. The caffiene... the shaking... the energy influx to do that mornings work of hand-balling 40ft containers... it all makes sense.

And then the questions ensue...

Why do i not let myself be enraged by the daily injustices committed on Earth every second?
How long could i stand being fueled by adrenaline?
What are the consequences of harnessing adrenaline as a motivator on a daily basis?
Can the release of adrenaline be controlled in separation from negative emotions?

And, of course, will it be as potent when it matters most?

- - - -

Guilt, fear and misbelief.

Brain noticeably atrophying.

Zombie on?

[

mood

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aggravated

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I'd thought of an awesome subject title while withering away my time in a Hong Kong 'apartroom', i'll call it. But due to one evil of the mind i should combat, the arrogance of inspiration, i wondered how i could ever forget such genius. And lo - it is forgotten. The title, which is sure to appear above at some point, i shall invent during, or after, writing this entry.

All i wanted from moving to Hong Kong was to work less and have more time online... like the good old days. Now i'm not saying University was worth the ~£14,000 of debt... but boy was the connection to the world good! The time to take my time, to read and research and connect. But even then i didn't feel the motivation to engage all of the time, noticeably coming in a near pattern of waves. Now i want to learn computing languages and implement the ideas i've had along the way, which in retrospect makes all of the previous time i've had feel like a waste of time. Dramatic irony of sorts.

I've tried relying on 'the system' and was chewed up and spat out the other end, having served my intended purpose of granting every'body' along the way the grants they were due for processing me. Now i must rely on myself. And for that i need the laughably called 'free'-time. Annoyingly, in the pursuit of an apparent opportunity in Hong Kong, i've lost potential earnings right here and must now reclaim a steady income and life security. I hope i've taken these steps back in order to take many more steps forward. I'll take some life lessons with me.

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( Checking your sources makes them resources.Collapse )

- - - -

The Abstract Thought community has been very slow for a while now. I'm wondering if LiveJournal, and blogging itself, is on the decline? Is the dawn of Facebook and Google Wave et al signaling a change in social media? I fucking hope so! The limitations to LiveJournal are numerous and vastly handicapping. May the conversation evolve along with it's carrier.

I'm stumped for much more to say. This took hours in the making, and nearly a year in the coming. I said 2009 would suck donkey balls...

[

mood

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cynical

]

Can't do it. Slept for 2 of the 5 hours i've been staring at the screen. And 'Sunshine' didn't download properly so i'm trying it again. Love that movie!

Hmmm... work is already tiring enough... should i start labouring for a 3 x increase in pay? It'll kill me.

Started a Masters in Sustainable Enterprise too. Applied Research Centre in Human Security (ARCHS) at Coventry University. Should be good!

Peace and Prosperity?

2009 will suck donkey balls.

Oh, and i'm getting real tired of the pressure to conform to my parents, friends, strangers, peers, authorities and any other jerk off that thinks i should be their version of 'normal'. If i have one message for 2009 it's... fuck off.

Now, where was i? Fireworks keeping me awake... bloody movie downloading slowly from china... what to do?

What to do?

[

mood

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pensive

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So i'm moved once again to type... to do what i should be doing. But by the strangest of things. It started with one person, kitschkat and seems to be exponentially gaining momentum... that is... the number of Russian LJ users who are adding my otherwise mostly lifeless journal to their friends list. I'm interested... if any of you are listening... as to why that may be? What draws you to this blog?

The fulcrum for my now engaging with you all comes from a different source entirely... almost. yobubba added me a while ago and i thoroughly enjoy his photography of the Belize environ. I had noticed he spoke fluent russian with some of his audience... or so i thought... until a recent post revealed to me something i hadn't realized had been released yet. That is... the google translator! Now i should translate your journals and see if i would like to add you in return! ^_^

Not to understate my find... the google translator is by far the best i've ever come across. To demonstrate i'll translate the following phrase using the widely known Babelfish and then Google:

Мне нравится, как в Интернете позволяет всем нам быть так близко, и доля.

Babelfish - It pleases me, as in the Internet makes possible for all for us to be so closely, and the portion.

Google - I like how the Internet allows us all to be so close, and share.

Holy fucking shit that's a big difference... no more herculean feats of poetic interpretation!

- - - -

Obviously all of this is not to mention the tragic events beset upon the people of Ossetia. And the fact that livejournal is now russian owned. Big confluence of events all around really... thrusting a realm of the world into my conscience more so than it had ever been.

- - - -

In other news, i've moved around the country a bit and am finally settling down in one place. Secured a reasonably paying night shift doing pretty easy work that i'm familiar with. So it won't be long before i get back into my usual swing of things around these parts!

- - - -

Oh yeah, and the U.S. election is looking fucking tragic. Not to mention the economy, both in the States and elsewhere, which is looking like a fire-sale in reverse. Or something like that. It amazes me that people are seriously considering bailing out these piss-ant banks with hundreds of billions of dollars. Why can't they just secure the lives of those affected by sharing the sum out amongst them? That's sure to stimulate the economy a whole shit load more than keeping banks afloat that are already dead in the water.

- - - -

Incompetence pisses me off.

- - - -

And lastly... the best remedy for someone who doesn't write at all... is to just start writing... it'll come out eventually. A nod to the one who already writes, but finds it hard to write. I've no idea about such a situation... although you seem almost moved to start yourself.

[

mood

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groggy

]

I'm thinking of perhaps making such announcements a regular occurrence... death, and those we lose to it, holds some-what of a fascination for me.

Never-the-less, i'm late on this one, yet again. I did hear about it on the day... discussed it with a few who were around at the time, but none who were particularly interested nor knew who the hell i was on about. Shame.

George Denis Patrick Carlin - (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008)

"I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is and to cross it deliberately..."

Although the Guardian surprisingly failed at writing an obituary, here's one from the Independent.

I hope Georges fascination with death has delivered in spades. Sorry for the terrible pun there man. I actually personally wished i had of wrote you that letter. I really wanted to know... how did you do it? To keep coming back with such cutting material, a new man, as it were, completely in tune with the modern world. The lows you must have gone through... the internal structural renovation of your mind. May i pay tribute to you in a time honoured fashion... mimicry. (!)

[

mood

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recumbent

]

"If you were any more laid back, you'd be horizontal." - Ma

- - - -

Reading back over my last post, four and half months ago, adds a little bite to my flowering retrospect. "The fast track to the New Deal" and even the business plan itself quickly transpired to become huge sticking points to my momentum. "Where do i begin?" seems to be the resounding question time and again... and so i thought i'd take this rare moment of restfulness, as opposed to lethargy, to keep you all up to date before, perhaps prematurely, i announce that things are kicking off once more.

- - - -

Thought i'd adopt the old style of my journal that evolved so long ago.
Conjoined consanant & vocalic alliteration? Almost.

- - - -

Shedding my nievety like a nativity.

- - - -

So... the plan itself. The planet self. Upon attempting to finish it by that Friday so long ago it became clearer to me how little i knew and how grand the prospect was that lay before me. I had more and more questions that needed answered before i felt sure i could take on the task. At the time i knew i had a month to get it straight in my head let alone on paper.

The trip to my brothers was a nice restbite and i reckon we had a good time! He has an accepting generosity about him that comes from the heart... and although he also helped me out monetarily, for which i am thankful, i think i'm pushing the boundaries of trust with my family members. Afterall... i still have very little to show for their efforts.

- - - -

( Pidgeon holed.Collapse )

[

mood

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contemplative

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I've only recently found out that a favorite philosopher of mine has passed away.

Richard McKay Rorty - (October 4, 1931 – June 8, 2007)

"Rorty's long and diverse career saw him working in Philosophy, Humanities, and Literature departments. His complex intellectual background gave him a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the analytical tradition he would later famously reject."

A rather good Obituary!

He could very well be remembered as an important contributer to the ongoing dialogue between sentience and the environ it continually finds itself in.

[

mood

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pensive

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So... this journal has lain practically dormant for many months, if not years. It began as a school year mode of communication between friends, who are now silent, and became more of a sporadic archive of my mostly political development. My writing gradually grew an obsession with ellipses that i hope to kick... although the lower case 'i' stays for philosophical reasons. However, now this journal seems to be entering a new era. I welcome those of you who have joined with me recently and others who have befriended me for their own reasons. I also give welcome to those who have been with me all along and others who i have made friends with over the years. I ask all of you to consider this entry a notification of purpose.

( What purpose exactly? Who the hell am i and what am i going on about?Collapse )

[

mood

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alone (dissonant)

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"Fix my new memory with a cold naked stare, chew up the words but with floods beware

Fondness can escalate beyond my repair, chance is the fiction will orchestrate despair
Again, these hands blow dry but I can handle it again, these words collide but I can handle

Happiness is coated in a mindless kicking, let's fall apart, get up high and leave
Again, these hands blow dry but I can handle it again, these words collide but I can handle

Kill your bizarre mindset, fuckhead, soldered to a three-layered concrete brainwave castration

Walking backwards home with you" - Biffy Clyro, "with aplomb".

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mood

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pensive

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...there's no exposure.

But still... i feel like writing just one thing, just right now, while i think of it...

( ...Collapse )

[

mood

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anxious

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CNET News

- - - -
Senate approves electronic ID card bill

"Last-minute attempts by online activists to halt an electronic ID card failed Tuesday when the U.S. Senate unanimously voted to impose a sweeping set of identification requirements on Americans.

The so-called Real ID Act now heads to President Bush, who is expected to sign the bill into law this month. Its backers, including the Bush administration, say it's needed to stop illegal immigrants from obtaining drivers' licenses.

When the act's mandates take effect in May 2008, Americans will be required to obtain federally approved ID cards with "machine readable technology" that abides by Department of Homeland Security specifications. Anyone without such an ID card will be effectively prohibited from traveling by air or Amtrak, opening a bank account, or entering federal buildings.

After the Real ID Act's sponsors glued it to an Iraq military spending bill, final passage was all but guaranteed. Yet that didn't stop a dedicated cadre of privacy activists from trying to raise the alarm in the last few days.

UnRealID.com, which calls the legislation a "National ID card," reports that more than 10,800 people filled out its online petition to senators.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation hastily created a "Stop The Real ID Act!" campaign last week, and the ACLU denounced the bill as creating "a system ripe for identity theft." Security guru Bruce Schneier offered his own negative critique.

If the Real ID Act had been a stand-alone piece of legislation--instead of being embedded in an unrelated military spending bill--its passage in the Senate might have been less certain.

The House approved it in February by a relatively narrow vote of 261-161, and some senators had condemned it. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., warned last month that the Real ID Act creates "de facto national ID cards" and the National Immigration Law Center said it will make it harder even for legal immigrants and citizens to get driver's licenses.

Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican and Real ID Act sponsor, applauded the Senate vote on Tuesday. "The Real ID is vital to preventing foreign terrorists from hiding in plain sight while conducting their operations and planning attacks," Sensenbrenner said. "By targeting terrorist travel, the Real ID will assist in our War on Terror efforts to disrupt terrorist operations and help secure our borders." "

- - - -

“In Germany they came first for the Communists and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me--and by that time no one was left to speak up.”

- Martin Niemöller 1892-1984.


Except... we don't get one chance, or two chances, or three chances.
We're being told we have 'one' enemy...
...its a very 'post-modern' enemy, because anyone can be one.
Terrorists... Freedom Fighters... Terrorists?.?.?... Freedom Fighters?.?.?...
Who the hell knows?
Where the hell are they?

We have ONE chance to stop our government implementing a similar scheme!

If Britain passes our version of the 'National ID' plans...
...we're fuckin screwed!

- - - -
Its fake... but I like it!



- - - -
Here are the two goons in control of the U.S., by virtue of the REAL ID Act...
...passed on the 10th of May 2005 by a vote of 100-0...
...due to it being appended to an Act requesting funding for the troops in Iraq.


Whitehouse News

The one on the left is the Secretary for Homeland Security,
and according to Act itself,
Section 102 ammends an earlier Act passed in 1996, as follows:
`(1) IN GENERAL- Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall have the authority to waive, and shall waive, all laws such Secretary, in such Secretary's sole discretion, determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads under this section.
`(2) NO JUDICIAL REVIEW- Notwithstanding any other provision of law (statutory or nonstatutory), no court, administrative agency, or other entity shall have jurisdiction--

No Judicial review? No checks and balances for power?

So not only does this bill lay the ground work for a Police State,
it also lays the ground work for the Secretary of Homeland Security to do as he pleases regardless of the law!

Screw you guys!... I'm leaving home!