Category Archives: Uncategorized

Various miscellaneous musings

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Fun stuff

I just ordered this (warning: link not work-safe!) for Shelly. I can’t wait to see it on her; I hope it arrives tin time for our trip to San Francisco (and Power Exchange) in early January.

I am falling, I am fading, I have lost it all…

Last Sunday, Shelly hosted a Lain marathon. Lain is a six-hour Japanese animated movie about…

Well actually, it’s kind of hard to describe what it’s about. It’s about a character named Lain, who’s an eighth-grade schoolgirl who seems perpetually baffled by her life. The thing is, see, she’s not actually a person at all; she’s a physical embodiment of the collective consciousness of a computer network. Problem is, she doesn’t know it. She’s perpetually losing the things that are important to her, because she wants what anyone else wants–family, home, a sense of connection to the people around her–and by her very nature, those are exactly the things she can’t have.

It’s an interesting, if flawed, story, and it asks a lot of questions about the nature of existance, the Void, the meaning and purpose in life, the way we define ourselves…

It’s also got a theme song called “Duvet,” which has been stuck in my head since Sunday. You can download it (legally!) in MP3 format from the band’s Web site here. It’s a beautiful song, though quite sad, and the lead singer has an amazing voice.

You need to download it. Seriously. Yes, I mean you.

Dangerous thoughts

I’m bringing The World’s Most Obnoxious Pencil to game night tonight. lightgatherer has warned me that she’s going to do “things that will frighten me” with it. I’m frightened already, actually.

Now off to head home. It’s been something of a wasted day; I’ve been headachy and vaguely lightheaded all day, so it’s interfered with my ability to get anything done.

Things that Suck, part 103

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It sucks when…

…it’s 10:47 PM, you desperately need a 7555 low-power CMOS oscillator/timer IC, and there ain’t no such thing as a Radio Shack that’s open 24 hours.

Fending off the sharp stick

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The sharp stick has been there for my entire adult life. It’s a particularly direct and acute manifestation of the Void; I am constantly aware, every day of my life, that just as I had a beginning, I will have an end, and that the things which I create are the only things which will reflect who I am as a person in the future.

I’ve been fortunate enough in my life to be surrounded by people who have the same sharp stick, the same compulsion to create. The creative urge is not a comfortable one; a person creates not because he chooses to create, but because he must, or the sharp stick will torture him and eventually destroy him.

Shelly and Kelly and I have begun working on a manifestation of that compulsion to create.

It’s a book on polyamory–a unique book, in my experience. It’s intended as a no-nonsense, practical, hand-on introduction of ethical, loving non-monogamy for a mainstream audience, not an audience that’s already polyamorous. And unlike all the books on the subject I’ve seen so far, it attempts to explain not just the hows of an ethical non-monogamous relationship, but also why someone would want to in the first place.

So far, we’ve got a very detailed chapter outline and about four thousand words of text. Wish us luck!

Holy shit, batman!

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On the drive to the office today, I ran into a bit of a traffic jam on the interstate. A trailer carrying a bunch of Porta-Potties had run into some kind of problem, see, and the Porta-Potties had fallen off the trailer and ended up in the center lane of Interstate 275, and…

…well, I wish I’d had my digital camera handy. You would not believe the mess. There’s something you don’t see every day, thank God.

Suppose you were a spammer, and suppose you were a lying, corrupt criminal. But I repeat myself…

Spammers have a hard life. Fewer and fewer ISPs are allowing them to barrage millions of people with unwanted crap, and it’s getting tougher and tougher to keep the crap flowing. Most of the big spammers have already moved to servers in places like China, Brazil, and Russia, and even those ISPs are beginning to shut them down. What to do?

Well, one group of industrious spammers has a solution:
Spam promoting anti-spam software

True, true…

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morally deficient
Threat rating: Medium. Your total lack of decent
family values makes you dangerous, but we can
count on some right wing nutter blowing you up
if you become too high profile.

What threat to the Bush administration are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

What is the Matrix?

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I’ve talked to a lot of people who have been disappointed by Revolutions. I think I can understand why; many people seem to feel that the movie is about a war between men and machines set in a dystopian science-fiction future.

It’s not. It’s about the Void.

Everything that has a beginning, has an end

I was about ten years old when the Void first visited me. It was about three o’clock in the morning, and it suddenly hit me that there would come a time when everything that I am and everything I have done would cease to exist.

There has not been a day in my life since that moment when I have not been aware of the Void. A person once visited by the Void can never escape it.

It’s more than the fear of death. Death is a part of the Void, but it goes far beyond that; there will come a time when you die, when everything you have accomplished turns to dust, when the memory that you ever existed fades away, when the entire human race is no more, when even the planet you live on ceases to be. There is no escaping it; it is inevitable.

Much of human existance is about the Void. Religion seeks to offer an escape from the Void. This is why people commit atrocities in the name of God; this is what drives men to fly passenger liners into buildings. That which challenges one’s religious belief challenges one’s escape from the Void.

Art is about the Void. The creative impulse is fundamentally an act of defiance against it. That which we create reflects us; every time we create something novel, something that would never have existed save for our will, we create something independent from us that says “I was here; I have done something; this will exist even after I am gone.”

Even the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence is about the Void. As human understanding of the physical universe has improved, we have come to realize that we are a very tiny part of a very large universe. We as a species feel alone and fragile and desperately lonely; we need to know that there is someone, anyone, that shares this existance with us.

Love is about the Void. Science is about the Void. Philosophy is about the Void. And The Matrix is about the Void.

You see that? It’s Latin. It means ‘know thyself.’

Many people live out their lives, oblivious to the Void. They may see it out of the corner of their eye from time to time, but they construct edifices to protect themselves from it. Religion in this regard is the Great Comforter; “once I die, I will go to Heaven and live forever.”

If you stare the Void directly in the face, it changes you. It leaves a mark on you that can’t be erased. Once you’ve seen it, it is with you for the rest of your life; there is never a moment that goes by that you are not aware of it.

And when this happens, you can see it in other people. Anyone who has been marked by the Void is immediately obvious to you.

The Wachowski brothers have seen the Void, and it shows. The Void is what compels them to create. An artist does not create art because he chooses to; an artist creates art because he must. The Void screams through every frame of all three movies.

Most of the characters in The Matrix have seen the void. Morpheus has seen it; he takes refuge from it in his belief in fate, in the guiding hand of providence that brings purpose and certainty to his life. Neo has seen it; the movie is about his quest to make his peace with it. The Merovingian has seen the Void; his escape is to try to understand the ‘why’ of things. The Oracle has seen it; her escape is to try to understand the ‘why’ of herself.

It is purpose that drives us, purpose that connects us

In a sense, the machines have an advantage over humans. Machines know their purpose. They are specifically created for a specific purpose, and they understand that purpose implicitly.

The quest for purpose and meaning is writ throughout human history. The idea of fate offers a promise of purpose, but at a very high cost; if we are ordained by fate to do the things we do, then where is room for free will?

Why? Why do you do it?

The key moment in the entire Matrix trilogy comes near the end of the third movie, as Neo and Agent Smith battle. After Agent Smith has beaten Neo, he speaks to Neo, and in that conversation, he speaks with the voice of the Void.

He’s right, of course. Throughout the movie, the machines never lie. Agent Smith is no exception. It is, as he says, inevitable. The Void always wins; there is no escape from it, for any of us.

Neo’s answer is the only answer we have.

Earlier, in the second movie, the Architect tells Neo, “She is going to die, and there is nothing you can do about it.” He, too, is right, though not in the way he thinks; the Architect does not understand the Void, not really.

But the truth is, there is nothing Neo can do about it. All triumph is temporary. The Void always wins in the end.

Neo’s answer to Agent Smith is really the only answer that anyone can give. In the face of the inevitability of the Void, it is the only answer that makes sense; it’s the only thing we have. To anyone who has ever stared the Void in the face, there is no other answer.

The movie does not answer all the questions it raises, which is as it should be; many of the questions it raises have no answer. This is as it should be. Agent Smith is the Void; he will win in the end, and there is no denying it. The only thing that has meaning is the choices we make before then.

Countdown to The Matrix!

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feorlen is in town; she flew in this evening. We’re going to watch The Matrix: Revolutions tomorrow[1].

And since the LiveJournal Trick or Treat meme claimed that she tricked me and gave me a pencil, she thought that she should, in fact, give me a pencil.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The World’s Most Obnoxious Pencil:

I think the real trick was finding a pencil this obnoxious.

[1] Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy!

Lucky day…or something like that

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My car’s odometer turned over 77,777 miles on my way to work today. I seem to recall somewhere that that’s supposed to bring good luck for the day.

Hm.

The weekend was a study in partying, deflowering, and talking animals. The partying was a blast; some of our friends had just closed on their new house, so they hosted a combination housewarming/halloween party. I started teaching lightgatherer and one of our hosts how to florentine, which is, I think, a worthwhile way to spend an evening in good company. It’s the gift that keeps on giving, in a manner of speaking.

Saturday, we had a Matrix double-feature at the home of a different set of friends. They had never seen any of the movies before, so we got to deflower them. 🙂

Sunday, Shelly brought Kelly and I to Eptot and MGM. I haven’t been to Eptot in eight years, and haven’t been to MGM ever; we had a good time, even though the corporate juggernaut that is Disney really isn’t spending enough money to maintain their parks these days. (I don’t know if I’m just getting more jaded, but the parks do seem to be getting a bit shabby these days.)

There’s more going on, but it properly belongs in a different post.