Thursday, September 04, 2014

Carried Into The Wind

Today I chose laziness, but it will be the last time I do that for a while.  I should be getting back into the swing of things but my life is just disappearing before my very eyes.  It's almost insidious in a way!  I would like to play some more guitar, but at least I read a bit last night.  Books are the best!  I love the physical stuff, I don't think I could ever function with an e-reader.  I need the tactile response of turning pages and having a book to place on the shelf for future reference, or as a badge of honour amongst the pseudo-intellectuals of the world!  That's where I don't understand things like digital rights management.  You can publish a book and then distribute it anywhere in the world.  You'd think once it becomes digital it becomes much easier, but no.  You can attempt to download some things online and it won't be available in your country!  What the hell?  Why does digital rights management have to extend that far?  It's stifling on creativity and education.  And yet we still let the tech bigwigs decide our fate like that.  Am I not thinking about all strategy as I live?  Do I not consider the end product?  The zero sum nature of it?

What really bugs me about human existence is that your mind and memory generally get corrupted by useless information.  If only we had some sort of process like on a computer to clear the cache of the stuff you don't need, and just devote what's there to the important stuff.  Imagine how productive and happier we would be!  Cause I've (and I'm sure all of you have) devoted too much mind power to irrelevant, unimportant things.

Dear Hollywood, can we all agree that Hollywood can't remake/reimagine a movie within 15 years of the last film of the series being released?  The best example is Spiderman.  They remade that film way too soon!  And the first trilogy was good!  It makes no sense, or actually it does if you're a greedy Hollywood studio producer.  They also put out sequels way too soon.  It degrades the whole movie experience.  There's way too many recycled ideas out there.  That's why box office levels are tanking, it has nothing to do with piracy.  It's just a lack of original ideas and concepts out there.  Well they exist, but they're all in independent cinema and they're not being promoted well enough to a wider audience.  Then your Michael Bays of the world are free to put out their filth and make us hate films.  But as the other used to always remind me, there are really only 5-6 original ideas in Hollywood, and every other story is just a variation of that.  So right, too right.

You know what's an interesting thought?  That all things being equal, you will experience the death of your parents.  They're older than you obviously, so it makes sense that nature and time get to them before you (barring an accident or illness).  It's something most people will go through.  In fact, everyone you know will die.  We will be resigned to nothing in the hindsight of history.  It happened to everyone in the past.  I'm talking about hundreds, and thousands of years back.  They all became nothing.  Unless they were responsible for something major (Jesus, Alexander the Great, Caesar etc.) then you technically no longer existed.  Take that for a thought!  Think to the past, think to now.  It's all that we are, because all that we could ever hope to be is right now.

I read an interesting article today that apparently they discovered 17 fake communications towers in the US.  They were funnelling traffic through them to other towers, but were intercepting all the calls and data.  The question is who would do that?  It's not the intelligence agencies, because they can just go to the provider without the expense or the hassle or time delays of building the infrastructure.  It's crazy, isn't it?  And a bit of a stroke of genius.  You just build something like that and nobody will question it, because it's just out there in plain sight.  It's an interesting insight into city psychology and group dynamics. 

You know, I remember a time when I didn't have a smartphone, and I was quite late to the party on that.  And also a time when I didn't have a mobile at all!  Haha I know, crazy right?  I didn't get a mobile phone until I was 18, and it was an old prepaid Nokia and I was fine with that because I hardly used it.  I had a separate mp3 player, and before that, I had a discman!  I remember when I didn't have a computer at home or the internet.  I was much happier, I was more productive.  Now it's just too much time playing phone games or on social media.  There's no living in that.  There's no fun or enjoyment.  I gotta figure out how to change my life, but yes, before you mention it, I'm aware of the irony of mentioning this on the internet, so don't bother pointing that out!

On that particular note, I really hate it when they introduce ads into applications that were previously free.  And they sneak it in with their updates on the app store for iOS, they will usually say in the production notes that there are bug fixes and other improvements to fool you into getting the new app.  The ads won't start straight away, they will gradually sneak it in, but it's in the build that you downloaded.  I think that's disgusting and Apple needs to do more to police that sort of behaviour.  If the ads are in there, then tell the public in the update notes.

I think as I've gotten older I've come to realise that the big stuff doesn't matter.  The stuff you spend all your time stressing and fussing about is not relevant.  Because it's the small stuff that ends up becoming all consuming.  So you need to prioritise and figure out what's really important, because most of the time, you don't even realise it.

What I will never understand is climate change deniers.  How can you possibly think that nothing is changing?  They belong absolutely in the place of other conservative thinkers who have not ventured out of their ivory towers and thus have no concept at all of anything that resembles reality for the rest of us.  I have visited places that are low and tropical (mainly islands and small coastal places) that will be under water in no time.  But people don't care, why?  Because again, it harks back to that old concept of conservative thinking - if the people don't look like you, why should you care?  These people will either disappear into nothing, or hopefully choke up Western society when they all need new places to live. 

Goddamn, this has been one hell of a post!  One of the best yet, if I do say so myself!  But the best is also yet to come.  Who says after 10 years that this is getting old??  It's been grand, haha!  But I better leave it there.

Joaquin out.
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