Life as a Programmer

Programming is an art as writing is an art. We must separate ourselves from the real world and shift our minds to this small alternate universe. The rules are different here. As in writing, syntax shapes the content, and content creates meaning. Our egos are put on hold and sheer determination is the fuel of our creation. Our goal is to distill the logic to an accurate, precise definition, the programmer's thesis. We then surround our thesis with the support, to make it functional, readable, provable. Our job is to break apart an idea, analyze it's core, and then transform that into a functional model. The details are as important as the ideas. An exacting methodology must be applied throughout or we are doomed to failure. A bad writer creates work that is neglected. A programmer creates code that is lazy in bad form, neglected. Programmers and writers are one in the same, and only the audience is different.

The Future

Sometimes I wonder how I got here so quickly. It's like our brains have little switches that block out the past. All we get are fragments, little pieces of our life. Our lives slip by and all we can tell is that we have been there before. A memory, a reason for our actions. Some memories we can't recall, being born, being children. Our foundations are so important our brain blocked these off so that we couldn't mess with them. It's difficult for people to deal with the way they are. Everything we do is rational for some part of ourselves, otherwise we wouldn't be doing it. Sure it may seem silly to others, but that's why we are different from everyone else. Our social nature is due to the fact that we are as a people finding others who share our odd peculiarity and enjoying it with them. This is why there are universal identifications with others. Eating, Drinking, etc, are things that keep us alive and are therefore things that we all share in common. The foundations of being human. As children we learn to speak, how to share, how to deal with others. Can you remember a time when you didn't know how to speak? Unless you are feral, or have had a serious head injury, you probably didn't. The things we choose to cherish and the things we choose to fester, are only from our social lives. Although social doesn't have to mean with others, it also entails social with ourselves. Strong emotional moments, near-death situations are the things we remember most. It's scary and stressful to think about these things and yet our brain lets us do this constantly. But worse it lets us project the fears we have kept with us onto our present. This is both a safety mechanism, and at the same time for some people, a lifelong inhibitor. It tells us what could happen. What awful things could happen, or what amazing things could happen. For people that don't get pleasure from achievement or competition, many times this projection keeps them from doing anything dangerous. Which of course isn't always a bad thing. Yet it also creates a sense of fear, a strong desire not to deviate from safety. Our memories can control who we were, who we are, and who we will be. The past never catches up to us, it's with us either noticed or unnoticed.

Audience Makes All the Difference

Making the comparison between human beings and computers, is for the most part fairly simple. Apart from a few extreme examples, humans and computers are two fundamentally different entities. Yet, the written communication both us and our computer counterparts use is fundamentally similar. Audience makes all the difference. When a writer writes they are guiding their message to a general or specific audience, and a general or specific purpose. This is the same with programmers, programming for a specific function or a general solution, and a specific or general user in mind. A programmer's writing has syntax, grammar, style, and errors, as with writing. Both require editing and re-editing, checking for problems both syntactically and logically. The only real difference is the audience. A computer for instance requires a very specific set of words on the programmer's behalf to make it function properly. A writer's audience also has specific words that are required to convey a message properly. At the heart of the idea is communication. What the written word requires to communicate effectively to the audience, is essentially the same as what the computer code requires to convey the message to the computer. Programmers and writers think quite alike. There are good programmers and good writers, and the opposite of good writers and programmers. In the world of programming and of writing the best operators are those who can manipulate the audience to their purpose in the most elegant way possible.

I know everything, I know nothing

As a citizen of the "information age" I am obligated to revere the internet as a god-like magical object. Google, Facebook, Yahoo, E-mail, Banking, Plane Tickets, Route Planning, Chatting, Video Games, Friends, nearly anything my analog heart can desire is at my fingertips. What does it mean to know everything? Is it the ability to recall any information at any time? If that is the case then the internet allows us all to know everything. But, fortunately it doesn't mean that. Knowing everything means the ability to apply knowledge, not just recite it. You can describe the color green all you want, but until you see it you don't know shit about green. Of course colors are a polarizing example but you get the idea. This makes me wonder, how the access to everything, has changed our minds and ideas. Obviously I am a subjective viewer as I am on the internet right now. Wonderment, Lust for knowledge, Seeking understanding, Privacy, Solitude, all of these things have been affected by the internet. Our brains are mass aggregates of facts and trivia. You may know Charlie Sheen's lawyer's name, but can you pass the bar exam? It's not that our understanding has changed but the amount of information we know. That's why schools still exist. You can learn everything there is to know about particle physics, but can you function as a particle physicist. Certainly some people could, but many others could not. Some would argue that schools are just there to give you a diploma, proof that you have the skills that you claim to have. But I argue, you can just print your diploma off of the internet. I'm just kidding of course. Schools still serve a purpose as understanding institutions, although they are starting to be pulled less and less from that direction. With changes to our thinking style, that sounds weird to type. But it's true, we think differently from our parents, or our older siblings, or younger siblings. Most of us on the internet are multi-tasking constantly, often to the detriment of some or all of the tasks. If the way we think is changing then surely the way we learn is changing. The way our brains gather and collect information, what we think about, who we think about, how we define things as important. Everything about us is changing. I sort of went off topic but that is ok, so yeah.

TV is bad!

Isn't it weird when you change something small and different, yet it makes unforeseen changes that you didn't expect. I recently built a new computer to play video games on, also because my old one was going down the crapper. As soon as it was ready to sit on my desk it was there to serve my whims. I instantly put my other computer on the floor and began to install software on my new project. Everything was awesome until I went to go to bed. Where was it? I lie down in bed, picked up the TV remote and realized I didn't have a TV anymore. My old computer had served as my TV since I had started college, and I didn't realize how strange it would feel without it. It had filled a void in my life and the void was suddenly empty. But unlike the vacuum of space, there was nothing there to fill it. All these years TV was my way of not having to think. I didn't have to worry about stuff. I didn't need to think about what I was watching if I didn't want to. I was never at a loss of what to do. I'm not saying it's a terrible bad thing that the TV is gone. I'm just going through TV withdrawal. I didn't think it would affect me this way, but it has. Eventually I will get over it and begin to fill my time with non-television related life content. Habits die hard, but it's good to break them once in a while to give your life perspective.

Subculture: a social group within a national culture that has distinctive patterns of behavior and beliefs. Nerd: an intelligent but single-minded expert in a particular technical field or profession. What is Nerd Culture? That question makes me cringe. It sounds like something a TV reporter would say. Generalizing a concept into childlike terms to fit their audience. What is a Nerd? That question makes me cringe, but a bit less. Every person who makes the same Monty Python/Hitchhiker's Guide jokes, internet meme references, or t-shirts with words on them, you know who you are. The internet has all but killed any individuality we have as people. With the whole world connected, for any self-definitions that you have, there are guaranteed to be about 100+ other people with those exact same definitions. Why is nerd culture any different? When a defining characteristic of your subculture becomes a global phenomenon, something changes dramatically. Blog buzzwords of "geek chic" or "Better not bully a geek, he may be your boss someday." The same thing happened with countless other ideas. Yoga, vegan diet, tattoos, video games, innumerable fashion trends. Nerd culture is not different, it's just newer. After WWII we stereotyped all of Japan, Sushi, politeness, chop sticks, and samurai. Every subculture that reaches a critical population, eventually gets used for monetary gain. Nerd, black rimmed glasses, antisocial, good at using a computer, has no fashion sense, plays video games, likes D&D, reads comic books, is really good at school. This is the way we have stereotyped nerds. Personally, I fit some of these traits, but I wouldn't say I was a nerd. I know it's cliche to say, "I don't like to label myself" but who does. Old people do because they don't care, but they don't count. Nerds don't see themselves as nerds, they are just interested in the things they like. Unlike hipster culture, I use the term culture here lightly, if you call a hipster a hipster they will tell you that they are most certainly not, even though all of them drink PBR, listen to the newest local band, and ride the same fixed wheel bike. Nerd culture is special in that the people who are truly apart of the culture, don't really care about how other cultures see them, and they don't realize that they are part of a culture. It's like if people started idolizing salmon culture. Would the salmon really care? No, they are not cognizant of people caring about them. In ten years, there will be no nerd culture, it will be part of the national culture and with the advent of the internet and computers everyone will be a nerd. It's just like sports culture, it's not a culture because it is just part of life. As it will be with nerd culture. In my opinion as it stands now there is no nerd culture. Just people who enjoy the things that they enjoy. If my realization about nerd culture makes me not a nerd then so be it.

Thoughts about the mind

I used to believe that people were simple. I imagined the world through another person's mind. I could not fathom a world where a majority of someones thoughts were about sports, or television shows. But I know now that on Earth there doesn't exist one simple mind. Their may be uneducated minds, and some minds sharpened to a razor's edge. Most people make a conscious effort to appear in the world the way that they do. They don't just shamble around like a zombie, and then go someplace. Every person has ideas, problems, issues that they compete with on a daily basis. If we ever discount a single person we have thrown away everything that we know to be true about ourselves and humans in general. We may not always make rational decisions, but the decisions we make have a reason. Is a mind trained in higher level mathematics, different from a mind subjected to animalistic thought? The way an artist chooses what technique or color to use, a human chooses what they want to think about. What we think about is a choice that we make. We may think about something for an instant or for many years, but the choice to think about an idea is the choice we get. All we get to interpret our world is chemical reactions, and the best biological processing unit money can't buy. Our bodies are merely a way for our brains to interface with the world. I wondered how people could be so shallow with their thought, not testing or even trying to make themselves better at an academic pursuit. People don't enjoy thinking because it is difficult, it takes time. The enjoyment we receive from shallow entertainment is instantaneous. A direct shot of adrenaline to the animal part of our brain. Movement, flash, competition, simplicity. This is what the people want. This stuff is what "life" is made of. There are those of us, who enjoy a challenge of mental ability. Both laughing at the man who gets his balls kicked. But also laughing at the witty comment he says afterward. We solve problems, we create problems. We see the world as humanity vs. humanity, and we want both teams to survive. I have decided to split up the world into those people who enjoy thinking for themselves, and those who don't. It's the precise reason I despise mass religion. Who are you to tell me how the bible is "supposed" to be read? Hopefully as we move into the future, people will realize that the hero's of our society are the people who enjoy solving problems. The other people are the people we look to to distract us from those problems.

The Sum

What are we in this life? Are we the sum of our parts? Are we the people we associate with? Are we our parent's children? Are we a product of our environment? Are we the things we create? Are we the things we destroy? Are we the way we spend our time? Are we the books we read, the movies and tv shows we watch, the music we listen too? Are we the ideas we have? Are we the atoms that compose our bodily form? Are we what we say we are? Are we what others say we are? Are we what influences us? Are we how we influence others? Are we the good things we have done? Are we the bad things we have done? What are bad things and good things? Are we the things we own? Are we the things we don't own? Are we the things we want? Are we the things we need? Do we get to decide who we are? If not, then who does? Are we who we are? Are we who we are not? Who are we?

Celebration

Celebration, as a society we love to celebrate. Birthdays, Holidays, Office Parties, New Years, TV Shows, Game Shows, Get togethers. Any excuse we can get to have a party, people will exploit it to it's fullest extent. Mostly for cake. We also love to celebrate specific people in our society. Those elites of our culture that make us believe that what we want is to be like them. We idolize them to the point of obsession. Celebrity culture is not one of fame and fortune. Nor is it about being wild and going against what we believe to be moral. It's about celebrating what we as a society are not. We celebrate because things that do not occur on a regular basis. We celebrate what we do not have as normal people. Celebrities in our culture exonerate the opposite of the mundane. What ever that is? Apparently people want to be in the movies, make music, play sports, or be a politician. There are no garbage man celebrities. It's because celebrities bring celebrity upon themselves, and people love to watch. We love the things that we can't have. It doesn't even mean that we want the things that we can't have. We love the things that matter least in our lives. The things we don't want and the things we can't have. The things we would never want to be and the things that we could never be. The life not lived. The grass is always greener. As long as we tell stories people will always want to be what they can't be. That is the nature behind celebrity and celebration. Instead of longing for the unknown, we should begin to examine our own locale and find out why we are here in the first place and whether this is where we belong. The only things that truly matter in life are the things that we can change. Changing for disastrous consequences or not.

Video Games

Video games are not an escape. Video games are a way for people to be who they want to be. People they couldn't be outside the game. People who spend their time tending a farm, living a life filled with intrigue, action, excitement. People blowing the heads off of demons with a sword. People who are leaders taking their troops into battle. People who know how to fire a gun. People who know how to be a good teammate. Video games allow people to acquires skills that they wouldn't normally be able to achieve in real life. Take the Sims for example, the premise is ridiculous. Live some other persons's life. But the premise is not crazy at all. To live the life of a person without inhibitions. To have total control is what people enjoy about the game. It's not the desire to escape that causes people to play video games. For most I would guess it's the want to have control over your own surroundings and take responsibility for your own actions. Most of us in everyday life live in a bureaucratic world we have a boss, a paycheck, a job, a government, a life we must take care of, and rules we have to follow. Video games allow us to become the boss, the government, the place where we are the only people who can affect change in the world. This is what I think people enjoy most out of games. The feeling of being powerful.

Computers: Or when I learned I suck at social

Computers and I have a short and ambitious history together. I am a computer science major, so I have some familiarity with the medium. I have long seen computers as a tool for work and business, and a setting for interactive entertainment. Yet for others there is a completely different mechanism behind there relationship with a computer. Social interaction at it's finest. Talking, Chatting, Skypeing, Video Chatting, Youtube videos, Facebook, Forums, E-mail. Almost all the of some people's time on a computer is spend either posting content for discussion and review (very formal way of stating this), or reviewing other people's ideas. For generations the computer has been an homage to the lacking-social-luster nerd category. Someone who neither likes to talk to others or someone no one else likes to talk to. Now everyone and their dog (you've heard of the cat that tweet's right?) has a smartphone, netbook, or is an ABC (Apple Based Consumerist, this includes me, only I got mine used so I have more nerd cred). But why do people need all these things? To talk to people of course. Texting is not inherently fun, although unless you are a 12-25 year old girl either is talking on the phone. Your sad little fingers are crying as you make them cramp together and push those tiny little touch-screen buttons as you tell your friend about what Shane said to Annie last weekend or just the words WTF? for no reason. Even as a person of means I have no texting for my phone. I don't keep a chat page open on my computer for months at a time. I don't even bring my phone with me half of the time I leave my house. Maybe it's my lack of interesting things to say to people that makes me so bad at the new internet comm. phenomena. But one thing is more apparent than ever being social is hard, whether it is on the internet or not. People are born with it, they try real hard to get it, or they fail at it. I am of the latter category.

To Err in Behavior

To err in behavior, a tragic offence. To side with the winds, instead of the lance. The criterion fly, as they whip past my mind. For the place they had sprung, was stretched taut so fine. A rhythmic line, after next, and another. In replacement of guts, where the fools ought not bother. In poetic prose, it's jilting describes, the ingenious whisper of forlorn-ed lost lives. Alpha, with beta, and Arabic tongue, showering the learned with foundational rungs. To destroy and to punish, without punitive measure. To err in behavior, and to be judged for pleasure.

My Day

I keep trying to write blog entries but they just feel preachy and stupid like nothing good is coming out of them. I want to understand myself better and help me write better and examine the world around me better, and help examine some of the thoughts of my day. So here goes. I wake up and it's really too early. I know that there are people who get up at 4:30 or some ungodly hour, but I don't care because I'm really tired. I get in the shower and then get dressed. I'm still wearing clothes from when I was 12 it sucks but I don't really care about how I look. I have one pair of pants that fit so I put those on. I spend the next 30 minutes writing a blog entry about keyboards then I stop because it is really bad. I take the dog outside and it is really cold. I wish I had some fur like his. But anyway it's time to go to school. My mom is driving me to college. I feel silly but not enough to care and I learning stuff about my mom. Cheney is bleak and awful in the winter and every person driving on the side streets looks like they are going to blast right through and t-bone you. I walk up to the PUB lab, it's where I work. I talk to Leah about something but I'm too tired to remember what. I don't remember much about my day. But anyway I walk to Geology. The room is really small and the teacher turns the lights off to show a powerpoint slideshow about the Earth. He passes out a bunch of rocks and they all end with my at the back so I but them on an empty desk next to me. I'm worried whether or not the desk can hold them all. Luckily it does. Next it's time for Linear Algebra. It's really cold. I saw this guy just blatantly staring at a girl as he walks by her. She is wearing nylon stockings and high-heels, I think she is fucking cold and stupid and is going to trip down the stairs, she doesn't. Linear Algebra is interesting, I have lots of friends in there. It gets over and as we are walking I say "Why can't the sun just explode already and burn us all up?" rather loudly. Back to the PUB lab to work for an hour. It's nice to hang out with Seth when he is in a good mood, otherwise he is a big loser. Time for Algorithms. My teacher is Japanese and always looks like he is going to laugh. I think in his mind he is laughing at us because we are stupid to him. We don't have any questions about last week's material so he let's us leave after 21 minutes. Back to the PUB lab. I look for a part that is supposed to come in, but it doesn't. I talk with the new lab con, and she is drawing a picture. I walk to my mom's office and we leave to go to my eye appointment. Exam rooms are small and very utilitarian, there is a weird poster of the anatomy of an eye. My vision is getting worse slowly but nothing serious. I drive home with my mom. I can't remember driving home at first but now I do. I think it's weird how our brains don't bother to remember things that we have done a whole bunch of times. I sit at my desk to study algorithms. I'm writing this blog, and I'm going to post it, because it is ok.