The Hello Game

One thing that I am extremely irritated about everytime I come into the office (oh, I now work in a shiny office) is the hello game. Everyone, everyday, has to say good morning to everyone. It's a real must. It's like a simulated nuclear reaction, as soon as one person meets someone, the hellos ripple through the office until there's nothing left.

Now, I know this may sound like a strange thing to be moaning about, niceness - but for some strange reason I have just found it to be particularily irritating over the las couple of weeks. It's like - why does everyone need to do that? I'm sure it would be better to be pleasant everytime you went and talked to them. Or if it just happened to be spontaeous niceness.

Maybe that's it. It's forced niceness. Once you're in the reaction, you're powerless to stop. You wouldn't want to be the person who doesn't say hello. That would be incredibly insincere!

Post scripts:

• Interestingly, there is a special category of "Morning Greetings" on Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Morning_greetings. That's actually quite sweet.
  
• Pic comes from http://www.flickr.com/photos/sibertekt/357691235/

Got the sucker!

S 41°17.186'
E174°46.750'

Success!

You may all rejoice, I found that geocache.

Tags: success geocaching happy

Geocaching, baby!

S 41°17.186'
E174°46.750'

I had my first experience at geocaching today. It was quite exciting really. Unfortunately, I didn't get out into the bush and look for a box hidden somewhere interesting. Instead I looked for a few "micro caches" in my home town. One of them led me to this sculpture, Len Lye's Water Whirler.

So anyway, I went and purchased some pencils, put on my walking shoes and headed off from where I live. It was quite an adventure really. I've walked through the city many times, but now I was going treasure hunting!

Anyway, I couldn't find the damn thing! I got to the location and started looking into cracks etc. I ended upspent about 20 minutes looking around for the little container/log type thing that you're supposed to find. I looked all over the rocks, under the pier, all over the sculpture. Nowhere! I was really quite annoyed.

Most of all is the fact that it's a really public place and I looked like an utter dodo.

In all honesty, as soon I realised that it was that sculpture on the waterfront - I pretty much knew that there was no hope of finding it. I've been to it a number of times without finding something to write on.

Still, I did like the challenge. It is kind of made me more determined. I want me some cache.

Tags: geocaching gps wellington explore

Pretty eyes

I encountered this picture a couple of days ago. I am quite impressed. That's because I really like attractive eyes. And her eyes are amazing.

Wonderful really.

Image: http://static.flickr.com/23/32005093_10117e281c.jpg?v=0

Tags: beauty eyes photography

A new take on a new thought experiment

There's an interesting thought experiment that I encountered towards the end of my degree, the swamp man. It runs along the lines of, if a swirling mass of molecules just happened to come together in the shape of a person (Anna), is Anna a person? If we forget the negligible possibility of this occuring, e.g. a fully developed, rational, Anna sprouting from the depths of a swamp, it raises some rather peculiar outcomes. Sidenote: we can add as much complexity to Anna as we like, for example it's very easy to insert thoughts, beliefs, undying love for Brad, etc. Not convinced? Well consider that it is much smaller step to move from having a developed person without beliefs to one with some, compared to moving from having a swirling mass of molecules to a fully developed person with no beliefs.

As I understand it, and I may not, the idea was to have thinkers say "Of course that's a person!". The problem with that is then that some complications arise. Some rather significant complications. For example, it may mean that personal identity has little to do with the way you were, and is all about the way you are now. This matters because thinkers have often identified our mental history as very significant to our personal identity. More than this, it may mean that personal identity doesn't exist in a significant sense at all. It also raises some other oddities. I mean, is a person without any beliefs really a person? Can someone actually know nothing?

One interesting consequence that I thought of in the shower this morning was the possibility that Catholics would be sinful if they were to disturb the creation potential swamp things. E.g. use of condoms is only required to have the potential prevent life in order to be sinful. Sometimes, it's sinful to use condoms for infection control even when there is an impossibility that life will be created. (One of the partners could be unknowingly infertile).

My real revelation was that the swamp thing must exist. At some stage in the development of the universe, molecular structures must have just swirled into place. Single celled organisms started! I mean, admittedly it seems inconceiveable to me that things must have just swirled into DNA - that's a pretty big molecule - but the fact that it exists now and that bacterial division cannot have gone on since the beginning of time, means that at some stage there was simply a few bits of stuff floating around. Hmm. Odd.

Tags: philosphy personal identity thought experiment swamp thing

Image: By Chan, http://flickr.com/photos/chal/81023774/.

Blog love

I've often found myself reading through people's lives and have become quite moved by who they are - dispute the fact that I have no real knowledge about who they are etc etc. Interesting terms those, real and knowledge. Argh, philosophy coming back to haunt me! Still, I find it quite intriguing that you can feel quite a strong pull towards people, even though you've actually never really entered into a conversation with them.

In many respects, I feel as if his leads me to the suggestion that love isn't really about the other person. It's all about the way you perceive your other. Like, it seems as if we are attracted towards people, at times despite our own rational feelings. For example, if love was about the other person's feelings, then I don't see how unrequited love would occur. That conclusion also makes me doubt whether the Christian tradition of an exclusive pair is really that tenable.

I'm not really a cynic about love, but I also don't really know how the romatic myth got started. To me, it really does seem quite a difficult prospect to achieve. Especially the concept of 'the one and only someone'. I mean, it's such a wonderful thing to believe when you're in love. I recognise that, but it doesn't really seem to have too much foundation.

All in all, it seems as if I have completely detracted from the intention of talking about mysterious women that seem to hide from me in real life but seem ever present in the net. Grrr. Why can't interesting people just pop out of the woodwork and tell me their intimate details face to face. Sure would stop a whole bunch or wasted time!

Image: Mezoen http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=171474378&size=o

sex love lust anguish

Took a while

Hey y'all..

I would be quite interested if anyone if still interested in this piece of internet heaven. Lol. That would be quite extraordinary really, especially as I have promised the world that I would populate it with ever more quirky comments.

Here I am

Have you missed me? Here I am! Ready to fill your brain full with mind nummingly good posts. Sweet. What I must admit to however is suprise. I am so surprised by the dedication some of my readers have shown - dispite the fact that I have been Mr. Useless when it comes to posting.

Never fear, T is here.

If any of my regular readers feel like getting in touch, my email's available through my profile.

Bush Bashing

Although I'm a keen Bush basher myself, I must say that I am a bit sick of it. It seems like whereever I look, someone is either laughing at him or frowning at him. At some point however, I think the issue needs to be seen slightly wider than the man himself.

For example, he was elected twice by a large number of people. This means that either the soceity needs to look at itself, or it needs to look at it's presidental electoral system. Probably both. At some point, all the Bush bashers should stop to think about things apart from Bushisms and accusations of a hick Texan. Those insults are funny, but they're also intellectually lacking and (should be) politically neut.

For example, any country that 1) holds that it is a citizen's right to possess military grade weapon systems and 2) is so terribly stuck in individualistic consumerism that others' needs seem irrelevant when they're not a nusance should take a breather. God doesn't like guns. God doesn't like greed. Yet, God is big in America. To me, that does not compute.

Image:Distributed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Licence. Original image available here.

Terrorism

I wonder what airport security officals can do about bone, stone or glass weapons. I mean, the thought that hijackers could use bone tools is pretty absurd, but it's resonably feasible. I mean, bone is a pretty strong substance; I sure wouldn't like being knocked over the head with a club. Then again, they need to get through reinforced doors into the cockpit.

Dispite the difficulties with getting through the door, I can imagine a low tech terrorist operation being carried out. They could use blowpipes and poison darts to take out the crew - and their carved weapons to deal with anything else that they need to take care of. What you would need is lots of electronic devices which will screw with the areoplane's navigation and communication systems. Perhaps the terrorists could create a handheld transmitter at the frequency the plane is using and use it as a jammer.

Then you just gotta get through that door. I'll let the terrorists figure that one out.. Don't wanna get arrested!

Walk

Being obsessively environmentally conscious makes me a difficult person to be around sometimes. I have chosen not to get my driver's licence, just so that I wont be tempted to use private transport. I always use recyable shopping bags, and hate getting over-packaged (ie packaged) things from the supermarket. I know it's lame, but once you start a crusade, there's really no point in being wussy about it.

The one thing that I do do which is pretty bad is spend shitloads of time on the computer. 300 watts an hour! That's a whole buch! In my defence however, I derive a lot of pleasure from mindless persuits. Besides, I've had postgrad to do. Now that I've stopped studying, I've acutally begun to garden. Amazing. Fresh tomatoes will be yum.

2 Hard, 2 Furious

I really like a computer game that you need to die a few times in order to win. Difficulty makes success sweet. Yet, there are some games that make this impossible. There are some games that are so difficult, that one is left infuriated and shitty. Feel like a challenge? Here's two:

• Star Goose
• N

Done

It's done. It's taken me a day and a bit to be able to repost. I have had some sleep and have come down from the emotional shock. Now finally, will I be able to rest?

It's been such a surreal struggle. Hours and hours of reading, hours and hours of writing, hours and hours of talking and thinking. It's all going to be summed up in 4 grades I will recieve in three weeks' time. Actually, 1 grade. Something that will probably look something like, "Bachelor of Arts with Second Class Honours: First Division in Philosophy".

There's no way I will get a first class - I never got to properly polish off my proofreading etc. In fact, I completely rewrote two of them in two days. One of them I basically rewrote from scratch. Plus, there's the fact that postgraduate study is pretty hard. I will actually be pretty happy with a 2/1. Jelous, but happy.

At least it wont matter on my business card.

The whole situation has been kind of confusing in regards to my respect for the university system. I have much more respect for those people who engage in postgraduate study. Undergrad really is just highschool with letters at the end. The other side of the coin is that I have far less respect for the university as an institution. I don't know why, but I don't like the way that the importance of academic diciplines are self-furfilling. You can't criticise the dicipline from within the dicipline, and any criticism from outside is labelled as misguided. I guess I am just jaded because I didn't immediately get the perfect marks I was expecting.

I guess I need to finally find out what I want to do with my life... Maybe that scares me more than the prospect of failing.

Holy Fuck

Spider on Caffeine

Jesus, extreme caffeine kick feels insane. I have never in my life been so wired. It's like, my eyes are sore, I want to vomit and my muscles keep twiching but I am completely alive. My whole body feels like it wants to dance, and I am filled with excitement. I can't seem to remember what it was like to feel tired.

I'm actually quite lucky, because for the last two weeks I have been on sleeping pills. I think I might be addicted to them. This was my third prescription in 3 months. Normally, not being able to sleep is a bad thing, but right now, 15 hours before my deadline - it's totally sweet!

Lol.. Something really funny has happened to my writing. You see, I need to hand in 12 essays. Each has a word limit of 3000 words. Guess what I'm up to on one of them? 6083! Lol. I'm totally fucked. Worst thing is, I'm not finished. It's like, I want to get everything completely right. Argh. Caffeine panic. Body shaking. Giggles. Is this what is meant to happen? I should take caffeine pills more often...

Geeze I am excited about finishing. I just want to get everything done and hand it in. It'll be completely intense. If I get everything finished, I will be over the moon. (About another hour or two writing, then I only need to perfect footnotes and typos).

Why no philosophy?

Sorry I haven't been getting that deep lately. Basically, I've been so involved with philosophy with my essays over the last few weeks that I haven't had time for anything else. Panic setting in again, bad sign. I've either been ignoring this blog (hence the 2/3 weeks of no posts) or using it to relax and rant. Two more days until my Honours work is due!

As you can see, stressed like a monkey being chased by a lion.

I've found the Torah scrolls? No, but I did recieve a humbling comment from Charlotte Wyatt's father last night. Don't know who Charlotte Wyatt is? Read this post to find out.. It's quite an interesting story actually.

My trucker practical identity

Check out my trucker self. Sexy huh? Cost me $9.98. I dig it. I esp like my 8 o'clock shadow. I've decided I will only shave when I get my writing done. 2 1/2 days left. Very tense. Not so depressed now, which is a bonus. Got an extension, which eased the pressue off a bit. Perhaps that will make up for the approximate 2 weeks I have lost from insomnia this year.

ipods

I wish I could relieve myself from fashion. Why are ipods so damn cool? There are better mp3 players that are cheaper, with more fuctions and better headphones. Yet, I want an ipod. They're just so damn sexy. Argh. Damn marketing gurus. Damn personal psychology. Damn sexy ipod.

Someone make me rich!