Mental Hygiene the best thing you've done for your brain all day

okay, this one’s going to get a little weird (as if they haven’t in the past)

someone emailed me about a previous rant where i said i would be able to prove that the universe was zero-dimensional. i’m not sure this is what anyone would call a proof, even the most liberal of philosophers, but it’s a fun little exercise, nonetheless, and something i thought long and hard on at the time. i was in high school when i first had these ideas, and i think that says enough.

first of all, let’s look at the universe. more than the three dimensions we can experience, aspects of it can be expressed in any number of dimensions. that is, it is n-dimensional. defining a new dimension along which to look makes some aspects of the natural world that much easier to nail down and understand.

so, what’s this n-dimensional universe made of? it really boils down to two things. well, one thing, and one not-thing: matter and space. matter – that is, matter and energy, since we know the two can each be considered in terms of the other, and, indeed, converted between (thank Einstein) – is all the stuff that is in the universe, and space is the non-stuff that is in between. make sense so far?

let’s look at matter first – it will make space seem that much easier later. matter is quantifiable, in that every bit of it can be summed up as a collection of a certain number of elementary particles – constantly changing, incorporating, evaporating, but still quantifiable. at first, the definition of ‘atom’ was that it was the smallest indivisible piece of matter, but since we started doing things like splitting them, that definition has changed to say the smallest piece of an element that is still that element. atoms, we come to find out, are made up of smaller bits, and those bits are made up of even smaller bits, quarks and gluons and the like. eventually, we may discover that all these quarks are really just clumps of congealed energy, or collections of some other, smaller particle, but i’m rather certain that, at some point, there will be bits of matter that won’t be divisible.

in any event, no matter how large a chunk of matter is, at any moment, it consists of a quantifiable – if really, really, large – number of particles. and every chunk of matter, no matter how small, acts on every other chunk of matter in the universe, at a distance, and in some ways – and this is a really sticky point – instantaneously.*

*there has been some work recently on a theoretical link between certain particles that, in fact, is instantaneous over any distance. to readers of science fiction, it proves that communications at faster-than-light speeds are possible, something writers of science fiction have been writing about for some time, but have never really had any good proof for. so, to vindicate the science fiction writers, some experimental physicists took a particle and split it into two identical pieces (the details of which are more than i can remember at this point, it may have been a particle and its anti-particle. for this discussion, it makes no difference). they then separated the two pieces and moved one sufficiently distant from the other that there could be no doubt that they were no longer the same particle.

at this point they started to futz with the first half, changing its spin or charge or something (i think it was spin, since everything seems to have a distinctive spin) and lo and behold, when they measured the second half, it was found to be spinning in the same manner as the first. it had been effected at a distance, and seemingly instantaneously, without their intervention.

that last part poses a problem. read it again. gravity, for instance, is proportional to the size of the two bodies in question, and inversely proportional to the distance between them. some seem to think gravity is intantaneous, and others that it is limited to the speed of light, but it makes little difference at this point – you’ll find out when i tell you about time. gravity’s effects are proportional, but never zero, since the distances between things is never infinite.

or is it?

let’s look back at space again. the space we normally experience is three dimensional – nevermind time for the moment (inadvertent pun. sorry) – and those three dimensions define the position of everything, and the distance between any two things.

but is space quantifiable, as is matter? no. there is no smallest distance that cannot be divided in half. it’s not as if there is a simplest unit of distance that any other measure can be expressed in terms of. even the international standards organizations express standard distances (meters, kilometers, etc) in terms of matter, chunks of matter that are one meter in length, a kilometer one fraction of the circumference of the earth, etc). if there were a universal measure of space not dependent on matter, it would have to be infinitesimal, that is, infinitely small. let’s call them smidges. so two points in space, no matter how close (so long as they’re not the same point, that would get too complicated for now) would be an infinite number of.. smidges.. from one another.

for a particle to move from one point to another, it would have to cross infinite smidges of space. the same can be said of any force acting over a distance, that the distance must be infinite smidges.

and since a smidge is infinitely small, even an infinite number of them is still no distance at all. which is my point, really, that there is no such thing as distance. which makes things like gravity, and other forces that act over a distance, very simple indeed.

and how can something move from here to there? it would have to move an infinite distance, thus at an infinite speed. or else, no distance, and thus, no speed. and yet, we know that things do move from place to place, and that bits of matter are effected at a distance by other bits of matter. but, since the distances involved – since space cannot be quantified – are really zero, everything must be adjacent, and really be sitting still.

so there’s no such a thing as distance. or space, for that matter, in the three dimensions we normally think of. if there’s no space, and no distance between things, then every particle of the universe is adjacent* – which makes all the stickiness of gravity, magnetism, and the like, very simple indeed. if every particle is adjacent, and there’s no distance between them, it’s a simple matter of seeing how they can effect one another instantaneously.

that is not to say that every particle inhabits the same point in space. remember, in zero dimensions, there are no terms to define a point in space. suffice it to say that, when nothing has a size or distance, or space between, everything is simply adjacent to everything else.

by the same token, time, as it can’t be quantified – there is an infinite number of instants between any moment and the next – doesn’t exist either. any measure of time ends up being an infinity of instances (and all infinities, big or small, end up being the same size, relatively, and just as troublesome) and, as before, an infinity of infinitesimal measures is still zero, and so every point in time is the same as every other.

and as time collapses in the same way space did, any number of dimensions will collapse.

and thinking of the universe as zero dimensional, rather than n-dimensional, really makes things simpler to understand. to me anyway. and am i right? probably not. there are holes in this that even i could drive a truck through, but it makes some things easier to understand, in much the same way that thinking in terms of an n-dimensional universe makes some things easier to understand.

sometimes i am lucky enough to stumble into pure happiness, moments that seem to last forever, that are, for lack of a better word, perfect.

alcoholics call them moments of clarity. i’d like to call them moments of zen, if comedy central hadn’t appropriated the term for the daily show. the buddhist in me might see these as glimpses of nirvana – the reward for pure living and meditation.

whatever term i decide upon, it seems that sometimes i find myself in a world exactly like the one i see when i close my eyes and imagine the world being a better place. there’s nothing i need to do, nowhere i need to go to. i’m not hungry or thirsty, and nothing is urgent.

the proper state of mind is essential. without realizing it, i have slipped into a place where i can look at the world around me and say “well, that’s alright then.” these are the moments when people decide to sell all their belongings, move to the nearest coast, and enjoy the slower pace of life along the boundary

the temperature is just right, that perfect amount of warmth without being too hot, maybe there’s a breeze. maybe the sun is shining, but not so brightly that it hurts my eyes.

the sounds of the rest of humanity have faded away, and the constant hum of traffic or people only occasionally drifts by in a haze of white noise.

very often these moments involve being outdoors, moreso in the spring.

most importantly, i’m wearing comfortable shoes.

met an artist

at a bar

cocky bastard. goatee.

spouting his own drug-induced visions as philosophy – as if i haven’t gotten enough of that from high school

yes, humanity, and life itself, is a cancer. yes, an infection in the organism of the universe. stars and galaxies, the cells in the body of God. bla bla woof woof. you think that’s an original one? you think the great minds of history, let alone one of my hash-crazed comrades sophomore year, haven’t bothered to come up with that one before?

so me, devil’s advocate (in case you haven’t been reading, hi.) i tell him that the real evil in the universe is perspective.

if you ever were to try and imagine infinity (go ahead. really try it. it’ll make your brain hurt) or think on more than three dimensions (four isn’t hard, if you take the easy way out and imagine time as number 4. try 5 some time) then you’ll see what i’m getting at.

realize once and for all just how tiny and insignificant you are in the grand scope of the universe, or, to take a religious slant on things, in all of God’s Creation – it’s a truly world-shaking experience. in some small way, similar to surviving a plane crash, it makes you think.

like the bouncing goatee attached to the artist’s face was saying, you are like a muscle cell, one of millions upon millions, wiling away your life in your own seemingly important pursuits, but really just a tiny, insignificant cell in a tremendous organism that wouldn’t even notice the difference if you had never existed.

perspective. get some.

so, devil’s advocate (hi) i tell him my personal slant. can’t help it.

the universe is only the things i experience. my own senses tell me what is. all else simply.. isn’t.

and thus, i solve the problem of perspective. here i am, the center of my universe. whatever i decide to believe in, it’s up to me.

big or small, i am at the center of my universe.

then i go to the bathroom, and when i come back, he suddenly throws this thing at me about my being insecure.

next time i see him, i’ll tell him reality is truly zero-dimensional. and prove it.

silly artist

Recently, a friend sent this my way, and i thought i might share it with my regular readers – namely that one guy in New Zealand. You know who you are.

While I currently reside in Raleigh, NC, i come originally from the suburbs of Atlanta, GA, a peculiar town with a blend of southern tradition and metropolitan sensibilities.

And so here is “A Guide to Atlanta, Georgia“

Atlanta is composed almost entirely of one-way streets, all of which are named “Peachtree (something),” and change names at least once before reaching their terminus or the city limits. The only reliable way to find one’s way out of downtown Atlanta is to turn around and start over once you reach Greenville, South Carolina.

All directions start with, “Go down Peachtree….” and include the phrase, “When you see the Waffle House….” (except in Cobb County, where all directions begin with, “Go to the Big Chicken…”)

Atlantans only know their way to work and their way home. If you ask anyone for directions, they will always send you down “Peachtree”.

The City Planners of Atlanta have intentionally made it physically impossible to drive around one block and wind up on the street you started on. The Chamber of Commerce calls this concept a “scenic drive” and has posted signs to that effect so that out-of-towners don’t feel lost… they’re just on a “scenic drive”.

Outside of the Perimeter, “Sir” and “Ma’am” become common use in casual conversation if there’s a remote possibility that the person being addressed is 30 minutes older than the person speaking.

Ponce de Leon Avenue can only be pronouned by a native, so do not attempt the traditional Spanish pronunciation. Natives will simply tilt their heads to the right and stare at you. (The Atlanta pronounciation is “pahnss duh LEE-on” or simply “Ponce“.)

If you notice that all the drivers on the road with you seem to immediately forget all traffic rules, this is likely the result of a single drop of rain falling. Similar effects have been known to occur with daylight savings time, a girl applying eye shadow in the next car, or a flat tire three lanes over.

If a single snowflake falls, the city is paralyzed for three days and it becomes the lead news story on all the channels, and as a news flash every 15 minutes for a month. All the grocery stores will be sold out of milk, bread, bottled water, toilet paper, and beer if there is a remote chance of snow, and in the rare case of actual snowfall, people will be on the corner selling “I survived the blizzard” T-shirts.

It is always a Smog Alert Day.

Construction on Peachtree Street is a way of life, and a permanent form of entertainment, especially when a water line is tapped and Atlanta’s version of Old Faithful erupts.

Construction crews aren’t doing their job properly, and likely don’t get paid for the day unless they close down all lanes except one during rush hour.

The typical 8am rush hour is from 6:30am – 10:30am. The 5pm rush hour extends from 3:30pm to 7:30pm. Friday’s rush hour begins on Thursday morning and lasts through 2:00am Saturday.

So-called “reversible lanes” are a concept seemingly not understood by anyone in the state, especially those who live in the city limits of Atlanta. Stay out of them unless you’re looking for a head-on collision.

Atlantans are very proud of their race track, known as Road Atlanta. It winds throughout the city and on the Interstates, and, weekend or weekday, it’s always race day.

Interstate 285, the loop that encircles Atlanta and has a posted speed limit of 55 MPH (but you have to maintain the mandatory 80 MPH just to keep from getting run over), is known to truckers as “The Watermelon 500.” Georgia 400 is the southern U.S. equivalent of the Autobahn. You will rarely see an 18-wheeler on GA400, because even the truck drivers are intimidated by the oversized-SUV-wielding housewives racing from home after a grueling day at the salon or ALTA match to meet their children at the school bus coming home from their college-prep preschool.

The pollen count is off the national scale for unhealthy, which starts at 120 – Atlanta is usually in the 2,000 to 4,000 range. All roads, vehicles, houses, etc. are yellow from March 28th to July 15th. If you have any allergies at all, you will die.

Atlantans, moreso than the residents of most other metropolitan areas, do not believe in turn signals. You will never see a native signal a turn at a stop light, to change lanes, or to merge. Never. Ever.

Atlanta is home of the international Coca-Cola Bottling Company. That’s all we drink here, so don’t even bother to ask for any other brand of soft drink, unless it’s made by Coca-Cola. And even then, it’s still called “Coke”.

Gate 1 at the Atlanta airport is roughly 32 miles from the Main Concourse, so wear sneakers and pack a lunch if you plan to fly into or out of Hartsfield. Also of note is the fact that the doors on the trains in the airport, unlike those of an elevator, do _not_ reopen if you stick your hand or other body part between them as they close. And they hurt.

this time, fair readers, we are featuring a rant from David K. Every, founder and main contributor of MacKiDo as well as a regular contributor to several popular mac-based websites.

today, though, as he is known to do, David takes a stab at a few political issues. ‘reprinted’ below with his permission is “Gays and the Law”

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Gads, there’s nothing I hate more than a hate law. To me a hate law is any law that specifically tries to persecute or exclude one group from being treated equally to others. Usually the group being persecuted is a minority (of some sort) — and our founding fathers realized this flaw of Democracy, that is why we aren’t one. People think we are a democracy because we vote and are democratic — but we are really a Democratic Constitutional Republic — we vote to elect representatives (republic), and neither our laws nor the representatives are supposed to be allowed to violate the constitution. And the Constitution is supposed to protect against hate laws and “the tyranny of the masses” — which is where one group makes selective persecution laws to attack another group — like in pre-WWII Germany where the masses basically voted to strip the Jews of their rights and eventually property and lives. Of course a “Constitutional Republic” doesn’t always work perfectly — as many Native Americans, Blacks and other persecuted minorities will attest — but it should if the Supreme Court, Legislators and public are paying attention, are educated, and care.

Well, we in California have another one of those special persecution laws being passed under the guise of something else. This Proposition is known as Prop. 22. Here is the entire text:

Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

Amazing how much hate can be built into words that are not said, and just implied. The whole point of the text is to persecute gays and exclude them from being given the same rights under the laws as heterosexuals.

I certainly understand if churches or individuals say that they will not recognize gay marriages — that is their right, and some think their responsibility. Churches are about morality and beliefs, and they have the right not to believe in the sanctity of homosexuality. But the law is about law — not religious inspired morals and beliefs. Justice is supposed to be blind — not stupid. It is supposed to be objective (applied equally to all) not subjective (applied selectively to some). The point is that if two people have the right to make a marriage contract under the law, then we should not selectively persecute some groups with such clauses.

I understand that no issue is completely black or white — and we do have some restrictions (and should) for marriage. I obviously don’t think marriage should allow two people aged 12 and 34 — but there are other laws to exclude that, and this isn’t about the age of consent. Nor is it about mental impairment or other things with which we might put some restrictions on legal marriage. Gender preference is about personal choice, or moral beliefs — not about violation of someone’s rights (the only reason we should be able to restrict marriage under the law).

I am not a liberal

Now I know some people like to get their panties in a bunch when you disagree with them. And people love to label — so I’m sure they are ready to call me a bleeding heart liberal (or something less polite). I’m not. I just want objective laws that are applied equally to all. But just to help clarify where I come from, and in case it isn’t obvious — I’m not gay, and do not support many gay issues. Not because there aren’t valid causes (some are, some aren’t’) — but I’m usually against such laws because the way many are tried to be passed is wrong, or because they are subjective laws of their own.

I was against gays in the military (as military law). I can defend why (and there is no hypocrisy in views) — but the summary is basically that the military is not the place to experiment with social policy — pass laws supporting same sex marriages in the public first, get society to adapt, then let the military follow (years or a generation later) — not the other way around. There is nothing constructive that allowing gays in the military would do (as gays have already been there, and have been since forever) — so the only thing a change would do is cause resentment and negative backlash — which it has succeeded at doing spectacularly. Don’t ask, don’t tell is basically what was going before the morons politicized the mess — and as usual made things worse. Of course one thing all laws foisted on the military should pass is “does the law improve the effectiveness of the fighting force?” — this one didn’t. Lastly, there are a few valid privacy concerns — I don’t personally care if some gay guy sees me in the gym shower naked, and I don’t like using open stalls with hetero’s or gays — but until society can accept co-ed showers and restrooms, I think we should respect people’s modesty (misplaced or not). So it just wasn’t the right time, and not the right place to start policy — and so I couldn’t support it, and was in fact against it. It was a way to attack a symptom at the wrong place, and ignore the real problem (societal intolerance).

I am also not for many of the laws or policies that allow “life partners” to get benefits, when those are subjectively applied. In other words in some companies you can get benefits if your partner is a “gay life partner”, but not if they are a hetero-live-in lover. Laws must be objective and fair and that is not fair. Either both should be able to get their “partners” those benefits, or no one should (and require both to be married) — allowing some to, and other not to, is wrong. I think gays should have to get married (or a legal partnership contract) in order to get the same benefits (and penalties) as everyone else — no special privileges.

Which is my biggest concern about this law. Being denied the right to legally marry (under Prop 22) what does that mean for gay “spouses” or partners? Basically it means that the law is a tool to deny civil rights to gays, lesbians and their families. When they have a sick or injured companion then they may be denied the right to visit them in the hospital, to make medical decisions about the treatment of that person. It will deny them adoption or paternity rights. It will deny them inheritance and property rights. It can (and likely will) be used to deny them all the basic rights and responsibilities that a person should have with their mate. That is just wrong.

Conclusion

I don’t run around preaching my views on every bad proposition or bad law that is being attempted to be pass — if I did I wouldn’t have any time left — but I hold a special place for persecution and exclusionary laws meant to attack one group. Why doesn’t the law just be honest and read, “they must use separate bathrooms and drinking fountains”, or other “separate but equal” crap that was such a perversion of everything America was supposed to stand for in the past? Are we going to allow signs on shops asking for employees that say “no Irish or Gays need apply”? Society should learn tolerance. Tolerance is easy when everyone behaves as you wish — freedom in that case is truly free (no sweat and no pressure to you). Freedom really only matters when someone lives a lifestyle or have beliefs that you disagree with and you still believe in freedom more than you believe in persecution and force!

So for all those reasons I have to support same sex marriages as societal law (or at least legal partnership contracts, if the word marriage offends). As long as one person is not harming another, then I don’t think society should be involved in their lives. Live and let live should be the letter of law (as well as the spirit) — and this bill fails both litmus tests. You don’t have to agree with gay people’s choices — you can bitch personally, you can go to a church that disagrees with their choices, you can be vocal about your disagreement, you can tell them to their face, but you should not pass laws to selectively persecute them. If you believe in freedom, then you also have to fight against bad laws — even when they only persecute people that you may disagree with. Justice must be blind and objective for America to be “the land of the free”, or at least not be the land of persecution oriented subjective fascist micro-managers trying to dictate how everyone else will behave!

All IMHO of course…

and Happy Valentines Day to all…

i have a kitten whose name is karma.

being a kitten, she is much like the universal law for which she is named.

for instance, if you are kind to her, don’t make too many demands, and don’t make any sudden movements or loud noises, she will curl up in your lap and start to purr.

karma‘s cool like that.

lately, we have been snowed in, and confined to the apartment. for the last several days, raleigh has been digging out from a record snowfall of between 12 and 18 inches of fine, white powder. my parking lot is treacherous, and has been un-navigable for the last three days.

despite the dangers, several of my neighbors have attempted, for better or worse, to leave the frozen wastes in search of food or employment. yesterday, my brother, resourceful, intrepid explorer that he is, trundled over the tundra in his newly acquired four-wheel drive (low ratio), and lent me a hand in digging out my car, as well as those of my neighbors. we even went so far as to chip out a pair of trenches for traction to the main road.

we pushed cars out of the lot, loaned out our boots, backs, and shovel to those in need, not because we were looking for money or praise, but, more than anything else, we were bored out of our everloving skulls.

and so, this morning, karma (the universal kind, not the kitten) was smiling upon me as i left for work for the first time in what seemed like weeks.

as a sidenote, the only reason i truly had to go into work was to put through a rush job for a client who was also snowed in, otherwise, i would have kept inside and avoided the fates, who, as you will see, had it out for me today.

immediately, i became stuck pulling out of my parking space. you see, all the places we had cleared the day before were no longer bare pavement, but, in fact, black ice. black ice, as you may know, is that most wonderous of winter phenomena, in which pavement that looks wet is in fact a sheet of ice so smooth and regular that one could hold olympic skating competitions on it.

wheels spinning, i tried a few times to locate a bare patch of pavement upon which to gain purchase, to no avail.

when, lo and behold, one of my neighbors, whom i had pushed not once but twice out of the snowy lot, came out of his apartment and offered me a push.

with a little muscle behind me, and the plucky little saturn spinning its tires with every bit of power it has, we managed to get into the clear and off down the road.

yes, karma can indeed be a good thing. without the help of my fellow man, i would have likely left my car where it was, gone inside, and called my client to tell him to kiss my lily white ass.

but no, off i went, all aglow in a feeling of invincibility.

then, you see, i realized the true nature of karma.

yes, karma can be very lovely and sweet when you have been good, but, much like my kitten, she will sometimes jump up and bite you on the ass.

you see, as i crested the one hill in the parking lot, looking down upon a cul-de-sac near the entrance, i saw not one, but at least a half dozen cars, parked around its perimeter. unable to mount the hill the night before, many of my neighbors had decided to stay put at the bottom of the hill and walk the rest of the way home.

dead center in the cul-de-sac was a truck, idling, presumably stuck, whilst its owner spread salt or sand onto the ice for traction.

at a dead stop at the top of the hill, gravity took hold of the plucky little saturn and we began to slide down the hill, picking up speed despite my efforts to control our descent. frantically trying to steer into a nearby snowbank on the side of the road, i was too panicked to even honk the horn to warn those in the target zone at the bottom of the hill. a surreally silent, slow slide resulted in my car plowing sideways (thankfully it wasn’t head-on) into the parked truck.

the resulting damage was minimal, considering what could have happened. i lost my passenger-side mirror – which, admittedly, i can do without – and the truck has a dent in the rear passenger-side quarter panel. in all, my deductible will probably cover it, and i should be able to pay the man cash for the repair, rather than incurring the wrath of my insurance company.

after exchanging numbers and apologies, i was on my way to work.

Postscript:

of course, the client needed the ad i worked most of today on ASAP, but it turns out the magazine it is to go into doesn’t need the films until tuesday, so my trip to work was mostly wasted – i could have made due by starting in on it first thing monday. go figure.

deciding not to brave the slippery hill, i parked my car at a nearby grocery store after work and walked about a half mile home (all uphill in the deep snow.. i swear!)

but, what do my eyes behold upon trudging into the apartment lot, blowing steam like a locomotive, but a freshly plowed cul-de-sac and aforementioned hill! clean as if it were freshly paved, the hill is now no more dangerous than after rain.

however, the hill has hardly claimed its last victim. the cul-de-sac remains a parking lot, and tomorrow night, the forecast calls for not snow, but freezing rain, which is ever more treacherous.

so you go back to somewhere you haven't been in many years...
you just wanna say hi to a few people...
and yer talkin' to someone...
and something sets off a mental trigger,
you don't know what it was,
but you start to shake violently,
and feel on edge,
dizzy,
unfocused,
and you can't even tell exactly why.
so you sit there trying to control the tremmors,
trying to save face,
fending it off untill you can get up and leave.
and there was no more threat there,
no reason for an anxiety attack,
but it still happened...



...and you realize how little control you have over you life,
   and how far from mental hygiene you really are...

i just got back from an exciting day at the shooting range with my brother, the gun enthusiast. where i collect computers and hoard software, he collects guns and stockpiles ammunition. actually, he only owns a few guns, and hasn’t got much more than a weekend’s supply of ammo at any one time, but still – i know which uncle my kids are not allowed to visit.

certainly he’s no militia nut, living in a shack in the black hills writing a manifesto, but his recent acquisisitions worried me.

that is, until i had a chance to shoot some clays. damn, that’s fun.

the smell of sulphur on my hands and clothes, as well as the blossoming bruise in my shoulder are just the lingering reminders of what began as research, but ended up being an enjoyable, if long, afternoon.

you see, shotguns aren’t so bad. and neither are the people that shoot them. we met and chatted with several folks at the range, including families, and they were very friendly, even giving me, the novice shooter, pointers on how to better disintegrate the little orange clay pigeons.

safety rules were well enforced – “check your breach” and “is your safety on” and “goddamnit, point that thing downrange!” were uttered more than once. hell, even the sound of the barrage of shells wasn’t too loud, even when i took out my earplugs.

on the other hand, though, we walked by the pistol range on the way to and from the skeet ranges, and damn, those things are loud. sure, there was the pitter-patter of .22 and 9mm shots, rifles and such. but there must have been one guy with a .45 or larger, wailing away – the shots could be heard over the din of a family of four taking turns at trap shooting.

the guys on the pistol range, in the brief glimpse i saw of them, looked a good bit more solitary and singular in their concentration on putting holes in pieces of cardboard from as little as 5 yards away, it seemed.

also while we were walking around, i noticed a good number – too many, if you ask me – of random holes in various structures. i suppose it’s a good sign i didn’t see more, considering the gun club has been operating for at least 40 years. with so many guns around, there’s bound to be misfires, but, keeping in mind the stringent safety regulation, i don’t think i could have felt much safer, given the number of bullets and shells in the immediate area.

come to think of it, perhaps that was why everyone was so nice and polite to one another. they knew, without a doubt, that everyone else there was packing.

so, y2k has come and gone, and without so much as a single death or injury attributed to the date rollover. as i expected.

big whoop.

so, what was with the downtime the last couple of days? well, the kind and generous folks that host this machine and its bandwidth transitioned to a new upstream provider, and hence to a new set of IP numbers. there were some glitches in the transition, but all’s well now. the downtime and new year’s day were coincidental at best.

no, the power did not go out. no, the water did not stop running. no, the police were not crippled by a blackout of 911 service. and no, the ASPCA did not release packs of wild dogs onto the streets at midnight last friday.

and what of the billions of dollars spent here and elsewhere to combat the aging computer and electronic infrastructure, and ready the world for the coming of the dreaded why too kay?

if nothing else, it can be said that the billions well spent (and poured into industry and new, if temporary, jobs) prevented disasters that would surely have caused wasted billions in damage. more than anything, it is heartening to know that the systems of the U.S. government, as well as the infrastructures of the industrialized world, are now as up to date as can be (or as up to date as throwing a few hundred billion dollars at them can make them).

there were a few small glitches, to be sure. the biggest of these is the one i am most surprised nobody noticed beforehand: javascript! the date handling in javascript – not related by any stretch of the imagination to the java programming language – is causing all kinds of chuckalicious fun at websites all over. it’s either 1900, 2900, 19100, or, best of all, 39100 at sites all over the place.

and the lasting legacy of the not-quite-the-millenium but-we’ll-call-it-that-for-kicks bug? marauding hordes of newly unemployed programmers, debuggers, testers, and geeks of all nature. their pockets full of pensions and severence checks, on top of heavily inflated salaries, they will flood the investment market working toward retirement as soon as they can. what will become of these suddenly poor, geeky souls on february 29 when the financial markets finally do crash and leave them penniless?

who knows. but i’ll tell you for certain, the wild dogs will have plenty to chew on come march.

anyhow, i’ll go back to my bunker now – as i’ve got three months of canned food and bottled water to work on. pass the bullets.

well, here it is, the late 1970s, going on y2k, and i’m beginning to wonder what ever became of the dreams of the future we used to have.

the first decade i remember rolling in was the ’80s. it was explained to me that it was a new year, a new decade – so i had to learn how to write what day it was all over again. i was but a wee child, so it made no difference to me that it was no longer the ’70s. i was too young to remember or miss disco, presidents ford and carter, the oil crisis, or the first few, funny seasons of saturday night live. i wouldn’t find out about and appreciate all that that decade had to offer until much later.

it wasn’t until i started into reading science fiction novels and stories – in middle school – that i did the math, to see how old i would be in the far-off future of the year 2000, the designated date of all future happenings, it would seem. it’ll never happen, i though, i’ll never be that old. and when i am, i’ll be jetting around in a personal jetpack with a robotic companion.

then, all of a sudden, it was 1990. i was an awkward youth, having terrible trouble in school and every other aspect of my life. (i look back now and realize, hell, everybody i knew was going through nine layers of crap every day. i’m actually lucky to have survived in as good a shape as i did.) so i liked to escape into futurist stories and perilous daydreaming with friends of how the world should have ended up – alternately utopian democracies where all humans spoke with one voice and dystopian visions of society ruled by the hyperintelligent elite (namely, us). all, of course, being facilitated by genetic alterations and medical technology far in advance of what we knew of at the time.

an english teacher once asked us all to write a short story about what the world would be like in the future – five, ten, or fifteen years ahead. i wrote about coming home from work and taking off my lead-lined overcoat and cowl, scanning the contents of my dinner with a geiger counter and relaying the days progress at work with my wife in russian. she didn’t like it.

and here it is, almost 2000 – only a year from when arthur c clarke said we would be sending manned missions to jupiter and discovering intelligent extraterrestrial life – and what have we got in the way of whiz-bang technology? where is the self-driving car that turns into a helicopter to avoid downtown traffic? where are the floating cities, the interstellar visitors, the phasers set on stun?

maybe it’s because part of me is still the middle school boy fascinated with aliens and ufos, bigfoot and the loch ness monster, but i get the feeling the future has let me down somehow.

sure, we have household robots, like the aibo and r100 – but rosie jetson they are not. certainly medical advancements can cure most any disease and the average human life expectancy has increased drastically, even since i was born, but there are yet to be cancer-curing pills or injections that will make me smarter. and if i get killed, there’s still no way to resurrect me or download the collected thoughts and memories from my brain into some kind of storage device. dammit, i don’t care if i don’t have a body, i want to live forever!

we haven’t been to the moon in more than two decades, and have yet to establish any kind of permanent settlement anywhere above the earth or even underwater. as a species, we owe it to ourselves and our grandchildren to expand beyond the 15 or so percent of the one planet we currently inhabit. all sorts of nasty things can happen in the universe, and given enough time, they all will.

but the biggest disappointment above all is that we have yet to contact or be contacted by intelligent life from another planet. heck, we can’t even all agree whether there was ever life on mars – something we should know conclusively by now, since we should alredy be living there.

but i must say, there are some things we have now that the best ’50s kitsch visions of the future could never have foretold. personal computers so small and powerful that i can carry an entire library of information in my hands. the Internet, where that library is dwarfed by the immediately accessible information of the entire planet. children now live to grow up and lead full, healthy lives that, had they been born twenty or even ten years earlier, would never have lived to see their first birthday. sure, we still haven’t got personal jetpacks, and we haven’t been contacted by a race of generous, hyperintelligent aliens, but we’re not doing too badly for ourselves.

and so, it is my new goal to live to be 200 years old, in order to see all my childhood dreams of the future come true, as well as see current trends, bleak as some of them may be, come to fruition. based on a best-fit curve of human life expectancy, i’m only allotted about 85-90 years, but i think i can finagle another 100 or so from the system.