As I loomed over my novel written by such an exquisitely pathetic author that I have never heard of, my mind began to drift towards those topics that would normally not be discussed in the memoirs of that author. It was not a wave of realization of my existence or any reflection upon my current state of being, but instead an utter repulsion towards the incredibly debilitating scripture that Mrs. Nafisi provides in her work. But yet, as my thoughts progress, I peer deeper into her writing in hopes that her experiences might provide me with some insight into the inner turmoil of my own mentality. But alas, it had only devoured whatever scrap of light that still glimmered in the dark recess of my consciousness. Such as it was, stories of Iranian women secretly reading novels did not appeal to me; neither were their attempts to stand out and rebel against their government in subtle and private ways. But wait, perhaps I may be prejudiced against her since the start, which may provide a reason for my failure to realize her messages. But, that can't be it. I actually believed that there was something worth reading in the bland, cream colored text plastered with two women huddled around a book. One glance at their intense interest in whatever the bullshit they were reading made me realize that such useless matters are of no importance to me. Frankly, I did not care for their escape from reality. It was my own reality that was at stake here, and I did not want any Iranian women reading Lolita in Tehran having to do with any of it. If I wanted to "rebel" in the same way they did, I might as well have rendered myself helpless in a narcotic bliss. Alas, I could do no such thing, as my conscience would not allow me to perform such a blatantly pathetic and unhealthy act. Much like ingesting wholesome morsels, I would prefer to stick with my regimen of junk food and SoBe to provide me with my natural high, instead of some scraps of paper containing words written about someone reading other books. What a paradox. A book about other people reading other books. I mean, normally such an idea would be a monument towards the ingenuity of the human mind, but in this case, Mrs. Nafisi fails miserably. Not only does she take the recipe for success and defiles the sanctity of such an idea, but she also throws into the cauldron her own snakes, scorpions and whatnot to create her demonic stew of insipid blight. Such are the ways of those who force others to suffer under their politically incorrect method of brainwashing. But I believe I have spoken long enough. In terms of the idiot, I would usually say "don't believe everything you read," but the idiot who would really listen to that would just not believe what I just wrote. What a Catch-22. So, there's not much I can do except exposing those who have not suffered a glimpse into the evils of reflectional memoirs, which Mrs. Nafisi has demonstrated most brilliantly. Please take caution of such texts, for sometimes the reason that the reader fails to comprehend the author's text is simply due to the cause of the author not understanding her own thoughts. To this I will add the notoriously and world renowned idiot Huan Huan's own words as explanation: "How can Mark know what I'm doing if I don't know what I'm doing?" Ah...such pathetic behavior is so feasibly simple to discover these days, as Sailorman Jeff can also demonstrate for us in his purchase of a Playstation 2 for the sole purpose of playing DDR. If you don't know him, then you wouldn't understand. But then again, you still might. Much like Leon Shram's infamous Exposure Equation, the endless cycle of purposeless composition can never be completed. It's existence falls outside of time, and is yet timeless in itself.

           So he's like "A dumb blonde, a smart blonde, and the Easter Bunny are in a race. Who wins?"

           And I say, "The Easter Bunny? (thinking the rabbit's naturally the fastest of the bunch)."

          Chris replies, "No. The dumb blonde wins. The Easter Bunny and the smart blonde don't exist."

         Me, " ??? (hahahahahahaha)."

      You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the
best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss
hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany
doesn't want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are
named 'Bush', 'Dick', and 'Colon.'

Marketer: Hi.

Me: Hi.

ASHLEIGH: since the shedding of blood was necessary for the forgiveness of sins, God did the best thing.  He send His son.  Jesus lived a whole life as a man, and it was completely perfect.  He was perfect, and He was the perfect sacrifice.  And when He died on that cross, it was to cover all the sins of everyone in the world.  And it was entirely perfect, so nothing else was necessary.  THe laws weren't necessary, although it's good for us to follow them.  THe lamb-killing wasn't necessary. The sacrifice of Jesus' life was so perfect and powerful that it was all that was ever needed.  It's this incredible gift that God gave us.  And all we have to do in order to reap the benefits and be made perfect in His eyes so we can go to heaven is accept it.  that's it.  we just repent for our sins and accept the gift that He's giving us.  And that, my friend, is the basis of all Christianity. [wow eh?] --10/20/02

     You know how these days people insist on going to college to study and study...and ultimately become a millionaire. A good dream, till you consider the realities of it. For example, if you make it all the way to college and drop out, hasn't most of your life been a waste? What if you killed right after you graduate? Doesn't that in turn make your entire pursuit of knowledge completely worthless? And what about those people who drop out or have no education at all, and eventually end up being richer than all of us? Even though these people are exceptions, can't we be exceptions too? Look at Sam Walton and his Wal- Mart, and the Wendy's guy. Both have a convenient lack of education, and yet they're rich. When our first paycheck comes in after we aquire some form of a "job," we'll be saying," Wow...my first deposit..." However, if you compare it to the people who have had no education at all and are still rich, you think,"Even if I get a raise, promoted, and so on...I'll still never be able to make that much money...Meanwhile, those people have it easy...they never had to study like I did, didn't have to pay a fortune in college, and yet that's exactly what they're making. Speaking of which, four years in a decent college will cost you nearly 100 grand. I could buy two luxury cars with that. By not going to collegel, wouldn't I be saving more than I would eventually earn anyway, compared to those people?" Much of that is true, until you consider the spiritual side of it. In having and education, you're basically buying yourself some pride. For the people who got lucky and made a fortune, they will always feel an emptiness; like they cheated life somehow. Meanwhile, you will have pride in knowing you deserved what you earned, while those other idiots are sitting on their fat asses just watching the money roll in. Although that idea sounds like a promising dream, there's more to life than that. The point of existence is not to exist in the present, but to exist in the future. A life is worthless if it does not alter society in some way or leave a mark upon the earth. In that sense, you are granted immortality through knowledge. A century from now, who cares about Mc Donald's or Wendy's or Wal- Mart for that matter. They'll honor the inventor of cold fusion, the scientific achievements of an educated man...not some idiot who happened to playing with things they shouldn't and came across gold. So in reality, you can either live in the present, or you can live forever. What will you choose? As for me, I'll see what I can do to get both ;) -- 10/5/02

     A friend recently told me about how the f-word originated. He said that it began with the Puritans who landed in America. He stated that the Puritans believed that a man in the process of "begatting" gains "carnal knowledge" of the person he is in the process of "begatting." However, when a man gains too much "carnal knowledge," it becomes a crime (ex. when he is unfaithful). So what the Puritans would do is that they would usually state the crime of the accused in writing above the accused's head on the stocks (those wooden things they used to use that you bend over and stick your head and hands into). Originally, they Puritans would put "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" for those who have comitted the crime of gaining too much "carnal knowledge." So, to shorten it so that either the Puritans were too lazy or that the words didn't fit, they made it into an acronym, which is how the f-word originated(sounds a little confusing, but that's because this individual does not wish to be in any more trouble than he already is so that any adult individual cannot hold this individual responsible for any wrongdoing on the part of this individual).

--8/12/02

"There is an art, ...or, rather a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss [hence falling with style]. Pick a nice day,...and try it. The first part is easy. All it requires is simply the ability to throw yourself forward with all your weight, and the willingness not to mind that it's going to hurt. That is, it's going to hurt if you fail to miss the ground. Most people fail to miss the ground, and if they are really trying properly, the likelihood is that they will fail to miss it fairly hard. Clearly, it is this second part, the missing, which presents the difficulties. One problem is that you have to miss the ground accidentally. It's no good deliberately intending to miss the ground because you won't. You have to have your attention suddenly distracted by something else when you're halfway there, so that you are no longer thinking about falling, or about the ground, or about how much it's going to hurt if you fail to miss it [ignore the pain I suppose...easier said than done]."--Life, the Universe and Everything-- 7/30/02

"It is notoriously difficult to prize your attention away from these three things during the split second you have at your disposal. Hence most people's failure, and their eventual disillusionment with this exhilarating and spectacular sport [I've done it before...for about 10 seconds before i realized it...then down I went]. If, however, you are lucky enough to have your attention momentarily distracted at the crucial moment by, say, a gorgeous pair of legs (tentacles, pseudopodia, according to phyllum and/ or personal inclination) [don't even have to be legs if you know what I mean] or a bomb going off in your vicinity, or by suddenly spotting an extremely rare species of beetle crawling along a nearby twig, then in your astonishment you will miss the ground completely and remain bobbing just a few inches above it in what might seem to be a slightly foolish manner."--Life, the Universe and Everything-- 7/31/02

"This is a moment for superb and delicate concentration. Bob and float, float and bob. Ignore all considerations of your own weight and simply let yourself waft higher. Do not listen to what anybody says to you at this point because they are unlikely to say anything helpful. They are most likely to say something along the lines of 'Good God, you can't possibly be flying!' It is vitally important not to believe them or they will suddenly be right. Waft higher and higher. Try a few swoops, gentle ones at first, then drift above the treetops breathing regularly. DO NOT WAVE AT ANYBODY [because then you will realize you're flying and gravity will notice what you're doing and say "get down here" and well...down you go]. When you have done this a few times you will find the moment of distraction rapidly becomes easier and easier to achieve. You will then learn all sorts of things about how to control your flight, your speed, your maneuverability, and the trick usually lies in not thinking too hard about whatever you want to do, but just allowing it to happen as if it were going to anyway [basically, just take a nap and dream that you're flying]. You will also learn about how to land properly, which is something you will almost certainly screw up, and screw up badly, on your first attempt [such as breaking your next on your fall]."--Life, the Universe and Everything-- 7/31/02

"Area-Infinite

Population-None

It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination [if that's true then I must have a pretty wild imagination]."-- The Restaurant at the End of the Universe-- 7/29/02

 

So while I've been around trying to figure out how the hell this makes sense when our teacher started us on chaos, apparently "students of chaos are looking inside randomness for subtle indications of pattern that will lead to deeper understanding of the order in the world around us...If we can understand how complexity arises out of simplicity, we may learn how to see simplicity hidden underneath complexity." Somehow, this ties into fractals which for some strange reason can have non-integer dimensions, such as a fractal having a dimension greater than 1 but less than 2. If you've played Zelda before, you know what I'm about to say next. If you've seen the Zeldan triangle, the one that stands for the triforce, then you might understand how this works...cuz i still don't that much. Apparently, if you keep iterating the Zeldan triangle, you end up with Sierpinski's triangle, a fractal that looks like Zeldan triangles within Zeldan triangles...with a dimension of 1.585. Now what the hell is up with that. The notes say that it's more than a line, but not quite 2D and doesn't fill up an area. I say bullshit. But then again, I just started with this stuff.

They say that the equation to determine the Dimension of a Fractal= ln(replacement number)/ln(reduction factor). The area of a fractal can be determined by the sum of a geometric series. S= a1/(1-r) where a1 is the first number in the sequence and r is the number that a1 is multiplied by to get the second number and so on. Play around with this stuff and give me feedback on whether or not stage 0 or 1 should be used and if it works or not.

 

The Butterfly Effect is what I heard is a good example of chaos. For some reason, all these butterflies come from Brazil...but anyways...They say that a butterfly in Brazil flaps its wings. This lets out a barely perceptible wind that spirals into the atmosphere where it combines with other air currents and causes a storm in Florida. It's kind of confusing cuz i've been trying to picture these scenarios in my head...but apparently the butterfly effect is supposed to show the sensitivity of chaos in nature. Pffft...

I've been wondering recently how 0 factorial can be 1. Everyone I've asked all say that it's defined to be 1. After some thought, I've realized how this doesn't quite make sense. I mean, factorial means n*(n-1)*(n-2)...I know you can't have a factorial of a negative number, but 0 isn't negative. Say you plug 0 into n. That gives you 0*-1*-2 and so on till negative infinity. How can I get an answer for an expression that goes on to infinity? Well, first of all, anything multiplied by 0 defaults to 0. So even thought the expression might not exist, the answer to the nonexisting expression does exist because 0 times any amount of numbers will always equal 0. Whoever can provide a clear explanation of how 0!=1, please contact me.