Connections

     Recently I've been bothered by and noted a certain company's commercial. I don't normally watch much TV, so I suppose that I saw the commercials at all was mostly luck, but every time I see one it scares me more than anything. Maybe it's because I like my freedom of speech, and my freedom of thought (which is, arguably, speech some would say). Watch this and I can go on: Scary Orwellian Commercial.

     Now, normally I don't let commercial's phase me, I mean, they're only made to get a product sold, and any casualties along the way will be ignored, but their slogan, "UNTHINK" is what gets me. I've read Orwell's fabulous book, 1984, and from the first time I saw that commercial to when I looked it up on YouTube to show all of you, that's always been my train of thought. Now, I talked to some of my friends about this, as I tend to bring random matters like this to the table for public discussion, and although many, if not all, of my friends agreed that it was creepy when viewed in that light (The Big Brother-y one), all of them said that they never thought of it that way, as it was just a commercial. That's part of what really scared me, the fact that most people just ignore it and allow "UNTHINK" to be a large company's slogan without a second thought. It sounds almost exactly like NewSpeak from 1984, which I think is Double Plus UnGood!

     But that's not all I'm going to talk about. However much I enjoy talking about KFC (It's a hit or miss activity to be honest), there is another matter at hand here, or at least that's how I see it. The other factor is the government, or rather the alarming rate at which our (The US's) government is gaining power over the individual citizenry. Many people are talking about how the Government is going to, in about to year to my understanding, force adults to buy health insurance policies if they don't already have one. When I first heard that, I felt like it wasn't the best course of action by the Government, but if it works I won't complain, but then I thought back to the commercial, and if we'll blindly accept UNTHINK and not have a care in the world about what that says about the average consumer in America, then maybe, just maybe the Government really will make that (admittedly large) leap from making us all get health care plans to making us do whatever they want us to.

     Now, do I really think that the people in our Government, in our bureaucracy, would actually do that to us? No, at least not anytime too soon, but still, the idea of it all, and more-so how close it seems. If we need to buy those policies in a year, what will we have to do two years from now? If the Government continues its arrogance like it has been over the past decade, then Americans (in America at least) will be in a world of hurt when they need to do certain things the Government tells them to do everyday or else they'll be sent away, or displaced, or something involving an agency not unlike the Gestapo. Again, I don't think any of this will actually happen, but it's the possibility, and really the plausibility of it all that scares, and of course it isn't really casual conversation, but it's important.

     But maybe I am onto something, maybe I am looking in a grim, but lighted and plausible, direction. About a week ago, the Obama administration tried to censor FOX News, and even if I don't like them as a News Station, if they can be called that, it's still restricting Freedom of Speech, and while it may not be anyone's speech I agree with, Freedom of Speech is granted to all Americans and there should be NO exceptions to that rule. I've also been reading up on the dubiously named "Free Speech Zones" or FSZs. These areas are designated by groups and organizations, like the Secret Service, to essentially keep the crowd positively charged, and to keep out protesters. People have been arrested for protesting, which is a guaranteed right to all Americans if I remember correctly, in FSZs.

     The idea that We, the people of these United States, will put up with illegal surveillance, torture, kidnapping suspected terrorists without warrant, right to a fair trial, and right to speak with their accuser, is ridiculous for a country ruled by "The People."  I mean, I love America, but when we blatantly label any and all people with different views than us as evil (The Tea Party comes to mind, a party which both FOX and CNN agree on) scares me almost as much as the fact that We, the People of these United States might just put up with a totalitarian government because We, the People, don't care that much and just want to get on with living.

Am I the only one seeing this, or am I just being paranoid? Again, I don't think this will happen (anytime soon anyways), but the possibility of it all is what scares me, the plausibility.

-DrawnonwarD
AblE was I, ere I saw ElbA

The Stages of an Apple Fanboy/Girl's Emotional Response to the iPad

Stage 1 - Denial
This stage was marked on January 27th with the announcement of the iPad. While everyone was intrigued by it, filling the gap between smartphone and laptop, many said it was unnecessary and pointless. Apple fanboys will first make remarks like, "I don't need to fill that gap, my iPhone does all of that just as well." or "Why bother buying an iPad when my MBP can do all of that and more?" While these are valid arguments, they don't hold up in the psyche of an Apple lover for very long. The appeal of an Apple tablet starts to eat at them, and then they give into the next stage. This lasts a month or two at maximum, and a few days is generally considered the minimum.

Stage 2 - Anger
This stage is marked with the fan's inability to accept the iPad for various reasons. It doesn't have flash, it isn't as powerful as my MBP, or even the idea that it's an oversized iTouch are all seen examples of reasons why any given fanatic wouldn't want it. This stage may last from anywhere between one week to one month. Testing groups made specifically for this stage have yeilded many results, and shown that reasons for not wanting one may vary wildly between fanboy to fangirl, but of course they are almost never gender-related.

Stage 3 - Bargaining
After Anger comes Bargaining; looking for a way out of buying an iPad. The consumer looks for iPad alternatives, like the ThinkTech Crunch Pad, the Notion Ink Adam Android Tablet, or the Dell Mini 5. All plausible, viable solutions to your tablet-fix you never knew you needed, but, as the Apple fan will eventually realize, none of them have such clean ID, or none of them have such a large number of apps already, and none of them have....  This list, the list of why any given Apple fanatic wouldn't pick up the competition's tablet, while filled with long excuses and incomplete logic and reasoning, comes down to exclusivity. The iPad is exclusively what Apple is supporting, and that's what s/he's come to love.

Stage 4 - Depression
At this point, usually a week or two before the iPad launch, the fan realizes that they want a tablet, and adding on that want an Apple tablet, so the iPad is the only solution for him or her. Why is this Depression then? Well, the fan has doubts, and is worried about various things that the iPad has to offer, or can't offer. But, at this point the consumer has already made up his or her mind and has realized the inevitable: S/He needs to get an iPad. Whether or not the user works out the worry-some thoughts may change how they view their iPad. It has been proven that if an iPad buyer sorts out these feelings before hand, then they can buy an iPad guilt-free, with no worry about certain aspects of it and whether or not it'll be useful at certain times/for certain tasks. It is not only healthier for a given fan, but suggested that they wait until their uncertainties are vanquished before they buy one, sadly this is almost never the case because people with such worries usually cave in and buy one anyways.

Stage 5 - Acceptance
After a lengthy process, most Apple fans have decided by April 3rd that the iPad is right for them. After finally coming to terms with their new love, they can be happy with what is the iPad. This stage is the final one, and as such, is the culmination of a few months of hard deliberation between many sides; one's family, friends, significant others, brand loyalties, and other such sources of usually mixed positive and negative viewpoints on what is the iPad. In the line may not be the most fun, but the time spent after with their iPad is generally considered well spent.

While this is not what always happens, as anomalies will always take place in a society as large as ours, and especially internationally, this is the norm for an Apple fanboy. I hope you enjoy your iPad(assuming you have one), and also hope you enjoy writing comments to this on your iPad.
 

I would like to note that these are my observations from my friends who love Apple, and are written for comical purposes. In a word: Relax.

-Palindromatic
Name no one maN

-Sent from my iPad

(Göd)el

      So, while I was reading various articles here and there, I read one on Gödel's incompleteness theorems. Before I continue with this, I first need to explain the theorem's basic meaning.

Let's say that there's a printer.

The printer is a closed system.

No matter what happens, the printer needs outside input in order to function.
Gödel's theorems state that no matter how large a system you're looking at is, there is always a larger one and that you cannot prove the first system without knowing what's in the next system, and even then, arguably infinite other systems.

     Okay, I think that's a decent explanation of the whole ordeal. Well the first page I'd read about Gödel's theorems on was this one, which has, to say the least, a religious bias thrown in at the end, or at the least the author's own opinion on what the theorems means. He ends the article by basically saying that Gödel's theorems mean that, logically, God exists. For some reason, the author assumes, " There has to be something outside that circle" with the circles being the systems, and continues on with how that basically "proves" that God, or the belief in some all-powerful creator, is the next logical step. Well that's great and all, and however much I can understand wanting to validate your own ideas and beliefs, it's really just taking Gödel's theorems and butchering them for his own needs (which may not be surprising if you realize I found this on some GoogleAd site, just as a funky article).
       The primary problem I have with that article is that it tells you what Gödel's theorems are all about, and then goes on a tangent about God, all while the proof it's relying on is ignored the moment God comes into the picture, because for the to be no outside system of a previously known system, that would disprove Gödel's theorems.
       So say there is a God. Okay, but outside of that system there's something larger, and outside that system something even larger, and that continues into infinity. So even if God exists, there is something larger than s/he is. So while Gödel's theorems don't quite prove God, it does prove that God is devalued because there is infinitely larger systems beyond God that cannot ever be fully explained. Assuming there is a God at all. The "logical" leap the author makes is hilariously based on most any but logic, and that is why it fails (and why there are so many comments in the comment section).

Hope that all made sense, and that you all enjoyed it.

-Palindromatic
Devil liveD

Rant: Time Eater

One thing that has been coming up more and more recently in my life is how time, or our lack thereof, can really change how we view someone, and what we do if we're in that situation as well.

If you make plans to have lunch with a friend, and they come 20 minutes late, while you may have left (after feeling mad), or stayed, the most you can hope for is that your friend had a legitimate reason for being late, and wasn't just being a flake. If you do walk away, it's far easier to just forget the whole ordeal than worry about your friend, or your life sans that friend if it really was the breaking point.

Whether or not you walked away, it seems what truly matters is if you try to make contact with your friend, find out if s/he's on their way, and if s/he's alright. If you find out s/he's still at home, or forgot, that'll make a pretty negative impression on you about said friend (unless you expected it and stayed home/made other plans, in which case that would be a dick-move). But if, say, you called and found out s/he was stuck in traffic, and even left early; you'd probably feel bad for thinking poorly of your friend for being a third of an hour late to your appointment. And that's understandable. S/he wasted your time, and even if you're the most useless, boring person on Earth with free-time all the time, it was still wasted and you'd probably still be at least a little peeved.

Well think about it like this: There are 6 billion people on Earth. If you're reading this, then this Wikipedia article estimates (at the bottom of the spreadsheet) that there are ~9,015,000 English speakers on Earth. That's larger than an standing army on Earth, with the largest being China between 2-1.6 million. With that in perspective, I would hope that one would be able to just let it go, because we only have so many years in our lives, and it's what we do that counts. Not even our intentions (even if they sometimes get published, and give people a whole new perspective on why someone did horrible crimes against humanity, like Hitler's new book, 6 Million: I Did It For The Lulz), can fully redeem us, and I will note that I do believe intent is far more important than most people give it credit for.

Hopefully this rant was helpful in some way.

-Palindromatic
(RacecaR)

Trying...

Okay, I'm going to try and be serious here. Maybe write some self-motivated essays. I was thinking on scanning some of my ideas or just describing them (ex. ideas for inventions). but I'm far too paranoid for that to work out well, especially given such high-risk competition we have. Now saying it's new, just being wary and noting its existence.

If I do actually start writing here, be wary of when I write about religion. I can get kinda long-winded, at least while speaking. Text is a different medium so it may vary.