Future Funerals

As I sweat and breath heavily on the exercise machine the future funerals of my precious loved ones flood through my mind in a series of horrible imaginings. I do not cry immediately but I feel a twinge of my future and imagine my emotional surrender. It is only an idea, only an attempt to predict and prepare for this inevitable reality. I can pretend that these things won't happen or that I might die before I have to deal with it but I know that is useless. I imagine my mom, sister, brother, best friend and imagine the news I will get one day and for each I experience just the smallest bit of what the real thing will be like. I slow down and close my eyes and remind myself that this morbid contemplation is just a thought. I clear my mind of these thoughts and try my best to forget myself and my fears. I hit the next button on the IPOD to something upbeat and positive.

You know your a Capitolist...

You know you’re a capitalist society when you lock up prostitutes but someone makes a fuck film and it’s a legitimate job. Making money is the only thing that matters in America. Even the most spiritually minded people seek riches, fame and power. America doesn’t have Buddhists, monks or meditators. You have to leave the US to find anyone whose dream life doesn’t involve wealth, fame or power or all these things at once. In America we are all taught the value of working hard to make money and maybe if you work hard enough and do what you can to support that consumer culture you can be rich and famous and powerful.  

You know you’re a capitalist society when weed is illegal because if it were legal there would only be one major market for it instead the two when it is legal and illegal at the same time. Cops make money off the stolen drugs and by taking the people with it to jail.  

You know you’re a capitalist society when cigarettes and cars are legal but weed and prostitution are illegal. How many people die from weed and prostitution every year? I think prostitutes get raped because it is illegal.  If it were legal then prostitutes could call the police or defend themselves or create communities and systems for safety and society could discuss behaviors that reduce the risks.

http://www.webmd.com/smoking-cessation/news/20030918/marijuana-smoking-doesnt-kill

http://www.car-accidents.com/pages/fatal-accident-statistics.html

http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/tables/health/attrdeaths/index.htm

http://www.saferchoice.org/content/view/24/53/

Youtube has changed the internet.

Users will document their lives, hobbies, experiences and lively hoods.

Youtube has changed the internet. Really it is just utilizing the internet the way it is supposed to be, but Youtube has changed marketing and advertising and the culture of watching pictures. Before, with a simple cable service you picked a package of like 50 channels and you could watch whatever you wanted and commercials would play in between shows and there were way to many and it got really annoying so you flip between a few channels to avoid the ads. And most of the channels you will never watch, they are just there to get in the way. Your experience is diminished because you can’t focus on the show or movie or whatever. Then the internet came and now you can watch all sorts of shows with varying amounts of time allotted to advertising and more freedom to control your viewing experience.

Youtube is a website that keeps track of and posts “views” of each video. This creates a fair representation of how many people have watched or at least started to watch the video.  So you can gather for each video exactly how much it is worth based on views. You would have to subtract for certain variables such as partial views and views made by the owner. Actually I am not sure who the actual owner of the content is on Youtube but someone probably owns that stuff. Hopefully it is the up-loader and not the up-loadee. Then Youtube sells ad space to individuals with “channels.” Just like on cable, except that it’s the entire world worth of videos made by millions of people. Youtube is creating the biggest and best database for human culture and technology. Education, self-help, entertainment, diaries, drama, comedy, food, and anything else you can think of is documented by Youtube and people can make money on their own bullshit videos. J

This is horrible news to big companies that give you package channel deals. It is an old model. They say here’s what you get for this content with no bargaining except if you want more and other channels, and then you can pay more. And all the content provided is controlled by other huge corporations who are related somehow to the local cable provider. So they all get fed off of your need for content. But with this blanketed model they can’t measure very accurately what shows are being watched. They can do surveys and censuses but those are not direct measurements of the data they want. (Stupid model)  

Youtube captures data on everything that happens on the site. Individual up-loaders can view graphs of view histories, advertisers can see who clicks on which ads and Youtube can track what up-loaders are getting the most views. This business model says something different than the old model. This model says here is all the content in the world, ‘now what do you like?’ Now the ads are focused and streamline. Most videos are short and so ads are often very short and the majority of content is rubbish and therefore has no ads. Videos can also be rated and commented on by the audience allowing for a feedback loop between content providers and viewers. This would ideally lead to better content, more efficient processes, more focused marketing, and evolve around the people instead of around large corporations. Add in social media and applications and it cannot fail. Individual websites can fail but digital content will be distributed.

Now onto the hybrid model: EXAMPLES are Hulu and Netflix. These companies provide you with mostly professional grade entertainment. They charge a set monthly price for a variety of services depending on the kind of content the user wants. Hulu also has a free service which I find perfectly adequate although lately I am thinking about upgrading to Hulu Plus because it would allow me more access to more interesting entertainment. The advertisements on Hulu are still short but there are usually too many of them during a show. One good option on some Hulu shows is the option to watch one very long advertisement at the beginning and then you can watch the rest of your show without any comm breaks. Netflix on the other hand does not have any advertisements at all. Not during shows or movies and not on its website. Netflix allows you to stream content through almost all major media devices. From phones to movie theaters and every size, make and model in between the internet content providers are here.

Too bad you still have to pay for internet access. When that is free I will be happy about that.

Entertainment will keep changing but it will only get more mobile and more interesting. It will evolve around viewers instead of around large corporations. Well at least it could or it might just seem like it’s controlled by we the people but really some group is manipulating the system and controlling it from the inside and it’s all based on a lie. In any case it is evolving and creating its own economy and we are all a part of that system. We vote with our wallets and our mices.

Come What May

What may come to pass will last until the past comes back to me.
In my dreams I see strange things but what do they mean?
It seems to be nothing.

But if I'm wrong am I strong enough for the long haul to come?
Understanding the demanding pressure that comes from just standing.

Sitting, sleeping or just quietly listening.
The glistening gleam in the seam of my pupil.
A scoopful of death upon life's lonely scream.

Lean on me constantly and I'll fall from the weight of this great thing you call fate.

With Jealousy, Greed, An abundance of weed. Without seed, stem or need.
That need to be free.
That need to be me.
Unless it's not meant to be.
In my rearview mirror I see a backwards eye whose red matches the red from the cruiser's lights.
Police at my back but they just want to pass to I laugh.

Think about this: Written 2-24-10

Think about this: If we could look at a proton and we found that written on it was a very small logo and that logo said something like, "IBM: Simulation Particle1," or "Made in China," or "Kay-If you’re reading this call 1800..." What would that do to our idea of reality, God, and "purpose?"

Also, let’s suspend disbelief for a moment and accept the intelligent design idea. Ok, so something super intelligent, maybe future humans who created a perfect simulation that we live in, so what? What's next and where do we go from there? It solves nothing to invoke an intelligence of the universe creating kind.

If the universe was designed by an intelligent thing then humans are not what it cares about. It would seem that stars, gas and emptiness are what are important to that intelligent creator.---If there were no people would there be a need to invoke the idea of an intelligent creator?--- Does intelligence exist and if people are individually intelligent it seems that we are collectively stupid?

If not P then Q… Written 1-19-07

This is a poem I wrote when I was feeling lost in the world of college and I was not sure of what I should do or where I wanted to go.

If not P then Q...

Jumping through hoops and losing interest,

So much of nothing and not enough of something,

Maybe I'm apathetic, or just afraid of commitment,

But I can't decide if I'm here or leaving.

Wasting time with prereques and overlaps,

Wasting money on books and supplies,

Paper or plastic, Ink or machine?

These are a few of my favorite things.

"Whatever," is the cry of MY generation,

Weeping I cry, "Whatever!"                            

Time will tell the tale of my fate,

And I will see what whatever brings.

"The Mark of the Beast" Written 11-26-06

“Mark of the beast”

            This quote comes from Christian doctrine and refers to the number 666, and in the myth of the antichrist refers to a physical marking used to differentiate followers of the antichrist and the followers of god. The actual form of the mark is the subject of debate among those who wish to ignorantly look into a theoretical future.  All of this background interests me minimally at best, but the phrase “mark of the beast” can have a very simple translation and I choose to look at it in a nontraditional way.

            The only beast that has periodically destroyed ‘anything’ and ‘everything’ at whim and for little natural benefit is mankind. Now by anything I mean, for example, that a man in his deepest despair is capable of horrendously irrational decisions manifested by destructive actions: rape and murder come to mind most readily. Anything refers to anything that will satisfy a need or desire. Drugs, money, and food are all motivations that can take over positive social constructions like dignity, decency, or morals. The beast lies within us and like animals we are interested in survival.

            Now by everything I mean that history has shown that warring peoples destroy life on a scale that not even the most explosive volcano, most destructive earthquake, terrible tornado, or any other natural disaster could overwhelm. Today’s weapons technologies have put the world in a state of paranoia and for good reason. If more than one country were to successfully detonate a large nuclear bomb then all human races would, by my prediction, be doomed.  

            The mark, as I choose to loosely translate it, refers to any physical mark that distinguishes one person from another in a unique way, whether it’s a birth mark, a face, a fingerprint etc. Today’s science knowledge has made advances in this area. To be specific, fingerprints have been used to solve crimes. Fingerprints are left behind anywhere a human has been unless they use some strategy to hide these traces, whether it is for sinister means or not.

            Nevertheless, fingerprints mark people and people are beasts to themselves, each other, and everything else. Take a fingerprint analysis and if you can determine that it comes from a human than you have found the mark of the beast. The same goes for anything that identifies humans such as DNA, artifacts, and ancient structures. These are marks on the world and we are the beasts that make them. Whether or not the bible successfully predicts a mark related to the devil we have already shown ourselves to be capable of the worst things.