Passion Project Updates & Reflections (just imagine I posted this 5 or 6 weeks ago)

Throughout the past eight passion project days, we've learned that coming up with ideas to write about is the most difficult part of the process.

I do know that I have stories to tell, I know from experience that collaboration is hard when just brainstorming, especially when I spend half my damn time trying to flirt with the partner. I think I know at this point that writing is the most important part. It doesn't matter how awful the product is, just putting all of your ideas on paper might result in one or two usable lines.

Some obstacles we faced included everything. I sucked at staying on task, my computer died, I had no ideas, my computer sucked a lot before it died, and I spent half of my writing time on YouTube.

Abhishek Shivkumar: The Bestest Outlier of them All (Kanye has nightmares about me)

First of all, I have an IQ of 370, so I'm the most smartest peoples.

I've been able to play Art Tatum's Tiger Rag run for run since I was 4 months old.

I've been able to solve a Rubik's Cube with just my eyelashes since I was conceived.

Also, I have my own website so I'm certifiably a genius.

My claim to fame is that I was one of the many people to NOT WIN A GAME SHOW.

Sidebar: Did that sink in at all? The smartest man in America's only claims to fame are hearsay and not winning a game show.

Also, while being a genius, I've never done anything remotely intelligent in public.

But I'm really smart and I writed a theory. All genii write their entire theory in footnote font because we don't believe in legibility.

I'm reading through my own theory now (for the first time, from how it's written(I'm Chris Langan in this, if you haven't guessed yet)), and I don't have the time to offer a rebuttal for everything that's wrong with it. I guess I can do just the first sentence.

"Inasmuch as science is observational or perceptual in nature..."

WRONG, BITCH HEARDA DARK MATTER IT DON'T BE INTERACTIN WITH PHOTONS IT IMPOSSIBLE TO PERCEIVE BITCH

From a cursory reading of my own theory, the thesis seems to be as follows "You gotta see it, to believe it". I managed to stretch that to 56 pages in tiny font, so good for me.

Here are some of my quotes:

"The stupid person thinks he's as smart or smarter than the smart person, and therein lies his stupidity"

Sidebar: Your intelligence is only perceived by yourself, which by your own slightly solipsistic theory cannot be trusted.

"...It's not entirely clear what's right and what's wrong in any given situation, unless you can parse the situation, deconstruct it. People just don't have the insight to be able to do that effectively"

Sidebar: Cocky douchebag.

That's pseudo-intellectual garbage, the truth eludes complexity. Seriously though, on the surface it's sort of difficult to see why this is a ridiculously dumb quote. You can't parse every situation, deconstruct it (even if you put your entire life into it). You didn't exit a birth canal, look at a Doctor and know instinctively that he was made of complex molecules made of atoms with leptons and a nucleus composed of two different kinds of particles each baryons composed of three more fundamental particles. A bit reducto ad absurdum but still.

Final Sidebar: Both of these monumentally stupid (or at least very misinterpretable) quotes were taken from the first minute of a part of an interview with him.

Underwhelming Curiosity (Or the 7th iteration of a rambly post that I started writing at 4 AM)

Honors Biology is shitting on me.

Like, seriously.

And this isn't going to be another one of my whiny complaint posts. I mean, I don't have any solution, and it will be complaining, and I'm whiny but whatever.

This is partially inspired by the new Vlogbrothers video, about how curiosity is the greatest aspect of humanity. I've always been really curious to how things work, the substructure, the cause and effect. Simple explanations have never really satisfied me.

All of this to say, I've always been really curious about the world; it's fueled my love for science.

But I'm completely overwhelmed (temporarily).

I mean, I've had challenges before in school, but nothing like this course. They throw information at you at a rate that is completely ridiculous. And this isn't really anyone's fault, the topic we have to cover in a year is huge. But the overwhelming feeling makes me feel like giving up. The sheer amount there is to learn and how insurmountable it feels to ask all of the questions I have make me feel like giving up (this is what almost everyone thinks my philosophy about life is, but it's not (I'm planning on explaining that in a later blog post)).

I don't think I've explained this very well. When everything is shown to you in one moment, it sort of doesn't make you want to explore every aspect of it, it makes you feel dumb. And you accept that, and live with it. Imagine if in Kindergarten, your teacher decided to tell you "Hey kids these numbers that you're putting together will start to get bigger and then there's repeated addition called multiplication and subtraction and division and soon they'll turn into letters soon and then there'll be more letters and weird squiggly lines that you'll have to interpret and then dimensions and more dimensions and sarcastically unhelpful Honors Geometry teachers so you better fucking learn that 2+5=7, Abhishek"

I would've probably given up on math at that point.

So, yeah. I imagine that many of my classmates have hit this moment earlier in their life, and it sucks that this is the way we're taught. That the information is dumped on us en masse and it discourages curiosity. I guess that's why they teach us like a third of every topic before moving on and then reteaching that topic the next year with a bit more of it. To teach creativity, not because our curriculum sucks. I don't know, do either of my readers get what I'm saying?

Joyas Voladoras

Guys, I think the heart thing might be a metaphor. Idek.

"Every creature on earth has approximately two billion heartbeats to spend in a lifetime. You can spend them slowly, like a tortoise, and live to be two hundred years old, or you can spend them fast, like a hummingbird, and live to be two years old." 

This line reminded me of being in that awful situation where you care about someone more than they do. The awful realization you have when your feelings are unrequited. This line also reminded me of those cold, unfeeling 8th Graders squatting in the bathroom with cigarettes in between their fingers, planning their grand walk-out from school the second they turned 16. This line reminded me of how treacherous it is to care. And how much more it is not to.

"You can brick up your heart as stout and tight and hard and cold and impregnable as you possibly can and down it comes in an instant, felled by a woman's second glance, a child's apple breath, the shatter of glass in the road, the words I have something to tell you, a cat with a broken spine dragging itself into the forest to die, the brush of your mother's papery ancient hand in a thicket of your hair, the memory of your father's voice early in the morning echoing from the kitchen where he is making pancakes for his children."

The last line of Joyas Voladoras puts it beyond almost any doubt that it's optimistic. The last line tells us that, no matter how much we try not to care, we can't help it. Our metaphorical "wall" is felled in an instant by the second glance of a woman, or by pancakes. Either one.

The cigarette thing is a true story, by the way. They offered me one. I declined, not having read TFIOS yet.

This piece is kind of all over the place, probably because I wrote about 3 different responses, and condensed them all into this one, from various perspectives.

Quotes

"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" - Douglas Adams

"Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true. There are a million little strings attached to every choice you make; you can destroy your life every time you choose. But maybe you won't know for twenty years. And you may never ever trace it to its source. And you only get one chance to play it out. Just try and figure out your own divorce. And they say there is no fate, but there is: it's what you create. And even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are only here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born. But while alive, you wait in vain, wasting years, for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it all right. And it never comes or it seems to but it doesn't really. And so you spend your time in vague regret or vaguer hope that something good will come along. Something to make you feel connected, something to make you feel whole, something to make you feel loved.And the truth is I feel so angry. And the truth is I feel so fucking sad.And and the truth is I've felt so fucking hurt for so fucking long and for just as long I've been pretending I'm OK, just to get along, just for--I don't know why. Maybe because no one wants to hear about my misery, because they have their own. Well...fuck everybody. Amen. " - Charlie Kaufman (Synecdoche, New York)

Should've probably posted this a month ago.

I could probably explain what these quotes mean to me, but that completely defeats the purpose of sharing them. Find your own meaning.

Value is Subjective

Good god, Neil Gaiman.

I hope schools don't teach people how to be poor. They do that on their own well enough.

But I can sympathize with his point. Breakups are always tough on me, too.

There's a fundamental point of his that I disagree with, though. The knowledge, that he so desperately seems to yearn for, is subjective. You can teach arithmetic, because those problems have one answer. They can't teach you how to love (even though Lil Wayne tries too) because there is no simple answer. You can surprise someone with flowers and chocolate, or you can bring them Chinese food at work. Or you can do nothing (the popular choice( outside of romantic comedy films( which I have never seen( except for one time I watched No Strings Attached because there was nothing better on TV)))

His longing for simple directions for either poverty or wealth, at the first glance, seems naïve. But I think he's really asking how to live with money. How to be a homeless man who returns wedding rings, to be a billionaire humanitarian who donates billions every year.

We can't know what everyone is always thinking. And I'm glad. That could make life very awkward.

I think that school doesn't serve it's own purpose, but it tries to. If the purpose of school is to prepare us for life, it shouldn't be entirely in our career prospects; we need to learn how to love, how to break up, how to reassure someone on their way into the ultimate mystery. But these things can't be taught. You can't even stick a bunch of 8th Graders into a room and teach sex ed without giggling. So. What to say to dying people 101 probably wouldn't work very well.

No one can teach the things that Neil wants to learn. They come through experience, and the things that he wants to know how to do (mostly) aren't things that you should want to experience.

I think that everything Neil wants to learn are the most important things in life. But they come with time. You can't get absolute advice about what to say to a dying person. That advice, I'm sure, would not equally apply to your mother and Voldemort. What a natural stopping point for my rambling.

Prompt can be found here.

Possibility (please say with British accent to make it sound cultured)

If you work hard, you'll get places

No one ever said that they would be good places.

Example A: The Trash Heaps in Brazil, which were serviced by the most amazingly relatable people that I've ever seen.

Thinking of their lifestyle, one imagines them as a third-world people whose biggest concern is avoiding Cholera, but they prove to be surprisingly human throughout, and far more likable than one would expect. The people who relatively have nothing are some of the happiest people I've ever seen (until they get used to a different lifestyle), which was my favorite aspect of the movie.

I think it would've felt incredible for people have their humble job escalated into an intensely personal peice of art.

I would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever be the subject of that. I hate cameras.
There isn't an aspect of my life, at least yet, at least that I know about, at least that is interesting, that could be conceivably turned into art like that. Unless it would be modern art. Then anything in my life could be art.

You followed me on Instagram, but can you follow me on Twitter?

But in all seriousness.

Please? I have literally 8 followers.

Anyway...

What was I talking about?

Oh yeah. I have long hair, my birthday is March 1st, and I have a fan club comprised entirely of 15 year old girls.

Guess who I am? (Hint: Not Justin Bieber)

What I'm really failing at saying here is, thank you.

I'm not really too good at emotions, and stuff.

But Trinity is making an actual reaction video, so I'll ask her to put my name at the end of that.

You guys, like my TFIOS reference (apparently), made my day-life.

(I'm probably going to keep updating this post until I find something adequate to represent how awesome you guys are)

DFTBA

I cried in Spanish today

And it wasn't even because someone had defecated in the hallway and made everything smell like crap.

Oh, wait. It was.

(Credits to Trinity Chapa)

Sandy Relief System

As part of an effort to help the recovery from Superstorm Sandy, Morgan Enterprises has started exporting trash and rubble from homes destroyed by the storm. They have groups moving through and picking up garbage, packaging it, and sending it directly to Kindergarten classes throughout the country. The children then use safety scissors and glue sticks to assemble the pieces together, which are then sent to art enthusiasts worldwide.

"I feel Lot 349 is evocative of early da Vinci, if da Vinci was a drug-addicted high school dropout" said one critic.

The proceeds from the art is sent directly to the American Red Cross, who then distribute the money equally between their first response employees, their budget for new vehicles, their campaigning for blood, and if no one wants the left over change, they split it between a fund for a new coffee maker, and charitable purposes.

Another critic stated: "349 is clearly a representation of how today's society is made of pieces of wood randomly glued together; the metaphorical resonance of that is infinite."

The success of this piece is an excellent reminder to society that everything is art, and going to art school will typically get you a well paying job.

The War

This picture depicts a family carrying their dead children to the streets after they were killed by an Isareli bomb. This picture shows that the sorrow caused by one bomb is immeasurable, the people destroying lives think nothing of it because they see only the immediate effect it has, as opposed to the long term effect.

Looking In

A look inside a strange and complex world is found in anything, given that everything in our universe is "Irreducibly Complex". Praise God.

But anyway, a simple stroke of the ivory keys releases levers, and hammers (a name that does no justice to their delicacy), and finally strikes the taught wire, almost instantaneously, the result being that we don't get to understand the process through what we heard just happened.

The keys of a piano offer a look into the inner workings of the piano, and your heart, or something. IDK

Sidebar: Out of the 4 photos, two have been of pianos, and one taken in a piano teacher's class. I sense a recurring theme. 

Nothing is colorless

Black and white allows us to explore the infinite variation in a smaller set of options. The differences in shade are more subtle, and show us how many different things a small amount of color can give us. There is completely infinite choices, even with just shades of gray. Full color has more options. I guess some infinities are bigger than others.

Texture

Under

Breezeblocks

Caption credits to Trinity Chapa. When I thought of under, I took it to mean the slums, places like Queens or Harlem.
This picture is gritty, the bricks are stained and old looking, despite the modern looking arrangement of bricks, depicting a 21st century poor area, rather than a place like Swaziland, which has no links to civilization whatsoever.

A week of food

Photoshopping is unfairly hard. Shut up.

On average each week, my parents spend around $200 to $250. Most of it on curry. We typically eat a lot of rice curry, bread curry, and fruits and vegetables curry, since we are vegetarians. And no, I haven't had bacon. Look up "vegetarian". We also eat a lot of Spanish food, since its spice palette is similar to Indian food. We put either stolen Taco Bell Fire Sauce on it, or curry. We eat curry. This probably isn't a weeks supply of food, but really just some stuff I put together that we eat on a regular basis. Forgot the spicy mangos. Sorry, Mansfield kids.

20% Project

For my 20% project, I plan on being a part of two. The first will be a collaboration with Trinity.

My own 20% project, I don't know. Not knowing what it is could probably be a roadblock.

So the first one.

Materials: Camera, computer, actors, access to either a strip club or a bar (don't ask), and a lot of consultants.

Roadblocks: I have to write a script and work on a separate project at the same time.

Consultants: Ms. Mystrena, Video Editing teacher in the HS, any actors in the school, producers, directors, and screenwriters.

(Insert joke that I can't think of at the moment)

Gay Marriage, it's like Marriage, but it's Gay

          The most commonly cited argument against marriage equality is a phrase from Leviticus (a book in the Bible) saying that two men cannot share the same relationship a man and a woman can. The problem of applying religion to the laws of a nation is too big to face in just one article. I’m sorry (not really) but your religion isn’t a reason for political ideology. Religion in politics is very clearly an invalid argument, given a separation of church and state. The fact that just 9 states allow marriage equality is inexcusable on our part. I’m not even going to consider the religious aspect in this article, because an argument against that would take an article on its own.

Argument #1: Allowing gays to marry in itself is a suicide pact for the planet.

            Um, what?

            The argument here is that, given the rising percentage of open homosexuals in our society, each generation will start to lose its ability to renew itself, an argument completely at odds with the rising population of homosexuals and the rising birth rate.

            You do realize that we reproduce sexually, right? That means, one man, one woman. Homosexuals are physically incapable of reproducing. You can’t breed homosexuals, because homosexuals can’t breed. Don’t see how anyone could not see that.

In fact, one study linked that women who had more children, in other words, liked men more, had more homosexual descendants. Stop homosexuality, stop being a slut.

Argument #2: If Gay marriage is legalized, polygamy and bestiality will follow

            If gay marriage will lead to polygamy, the logical step is to ban marriage, which obviously spawned gay marriage. Or just get rid of one sex altogether.

            The fact that we can ban one kind of marriage to prevent another kind of marriage is like saying we should ban sex because it leads to rape.

Argument #3 Gay Marriage is Immoral

            That depends very heavily on your definition of “moral”. Morality considers your impact, positive or negative, on the rest of the population. Since a homosexual relationship is clearly not harming anyone; that argument doesn’t make sense, unless of course your values and morals are based on a book written at the time we thought the Earth was flat.

Argument #4 Homosexuals cannot reproduce; therefore they are contributing nothing to the next generation and are a burden

            This point is probably the best one I’ve read so far, in that it is eloquently written and based entirely on objective numbers.

            But the article doesn’t address the fact that 65,000 adopted children are raised by LGB parents, and 4% of all adopted children are raised by homosexual parents. On average, it costs $100,000 it typically takes to raise a child until they’re 18, so they are actually saving the state that they live in a lot of money.

            In conclusion, homosexual marriage being outlawed in 41 states, has the same amount of logic as banning interracial marriage, which is of course, none.

We’re all homos. Homo sapiens. –Michael Scott

Works Cited: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3lsfEE8W5O4SDR3YVZOQmtYLXc/edit

2013 is here! Let's go to the Gym for a week!

If you can't tell from my post title, I'm kinda anti-resolution.

Mostly because it makes no sense. All of America binge drinks and then immediately resolve to get in shape.

If you want to make a resolution, don't base it on an arbitrary point in space that our planet crosses every 365.254 days?

But I'm a cynic. Who am I to stop you from buying an annual gym membership and using it for 7 days?

2012 was a normal year. You shouldn't try and remember all the tragedies that happened this year, you should remember all the good that happened. I know people who mope at the end of the year every year because of all the people who died.

BREAKING NEWS: 150,000 people die every day. Many people will die while you read this post, which for some reason you're reading.

In 2012, we landed a rover on a different planet.

In 2012, a man jumped from space to break the speed of sound. He hit the ground and heard himself flying.

In 2012, 54,750,000 people died.

In 2012, 130,000,000 people were born.

The fact is, on every horrible event in your life, thousands will remember it as the happiest day of their life, due to marriage, engagement, children being born.

I'm not that good at math, but I asked my dad, and 130,000,000 is bigger than 54,750,000. 

I'm not good at logic, but that seems to mean we have more cause to be happy than to be sad.

In 2012, I learned a lot about the world, that the developed world is a collection of pessimistic collection of creatures that would rather grieve the dead than celebrate the living.

Even if 2012 was a horrible year for me, I should be happy for the millions of people for which it was a great year.

What I'm trying to say is stop being sad about every tragedy that befalls us. Instead celebrate miracles (natural, scientific miracles; calm down Ross) and enjoy what you have in life. Yeah, get new stuff, that's always cool, but just remember, nothing you do matters.

Happy 2013!

End of the World

Just saying, if the world ends tonight, Republicans will find a way to blame it on Obama.

But at least Justin Bieber will die.

And Nicki Minaj.

But so will everyone else, but given my record of being left out of things, I'll be the only one alive.

Not sure how I feel about that...

Trinity is Hilarious.

I hate how stupid people are. Seriously? Mayans predicted something that we, with all of our science, couldn't.

But the magic wall says so, so...
#ChristianScienceLogic

My last rage of the year. Probably. I'll probably have something to say to the replacement to Dick Clark on New Years Eve.

Does a teapot in between Earth and Mars count as a God?

I have many, many questions about the First Amendment, but most of them are highly offensive.

My biggest question is about the Freedom of Religion. How much does it extend?

For example, in Arkansas, it is illegal for an atheist to testify in a court, and they can't hold any "civil departments of this state."

Article 36 of Maryland's Declaration of Rights offers "protection in religious liberty" only to people who believe in God.

I think my brother needs to drop out of UMD, fast.

Tennessee, South  and North Carolina, and Texas also have bans similar to Arkansas, which are far outdated given the increasingly rapid rate of growth of atheists and agnostics.

Maybe Tennessee, South  and North Carolina and  Arkansas should secede along with Texas. Make my life a lot less frustrating.

And about the extent of the law, where does it stop interfering with other laws?

For example, I think The Don't Kill People Act is a little more important than preservation of every minute, illogical detail of your religion (Commonwealth vs Twitchell).

But this is turning more into my raging than actual questions, so I'll start over. Where does the boundary between The First Amendment and other laws stop?

If we go by Commonwealth vs Twitchell, then we can clearly see that we as Americans are very afraid of the First Amendment and the power that religious people have over our country.

We've already granted Tax Exemption to religious institutions in order to maintain "the values that this country was founded on."

Well, guess what people? Most of the people who founded this country owned slaves, got married before 18, and sold their daughters for dowry.

Sounds fun.

I think the real problem is how much of the country is religious, not religious in the normal peaceful sense, but crazed over-religious sense. Mostly in the more southern states, which is where the more religiously unfair laws are actually in place. When the majority of the population believes something, it's not easy for a Government to be entirely fair, the Government too is created by people.

But this is the internet, in the Northeast of America.

So I probably won't get attacked.

Probably.


Links:
http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/StateConstitutions.htm

Rodney King and Stolen TV's

In 1992 Rodney King was stopped for speeding after a high speed chase with the police. He was on the ground after being tased, and sort of half dived at a cop, so... he got beaten. Very hard. With batons.

No one actually payed attention to the fact that he'd been in jail before, or that he dived at a cop, he was black and got beaten. Clearly, the cops were racist.

On April 29, 1992, the jury deadlocked 8-4 in favor of acquittal of the four cops accused with use of excessive force, and the city of Los Angeles went, well, insane.

There were 6 days of riots, in which 53 people were killed, over 2,000 were injured, and many, many TV's were stolen.

Don't see the connection? Well, that's because you're a person. The riots in total caused 1 billion dollars in damage, mostly in South Central Los Angeles. It was pointless, like 99% of riots in the developed world.

So, let's go steal TV's!

Info

Guns don't kill People. Poisonous Gas kills people. Too soon?

Today we're talking about free speech in Germany. And apparently, from what I've seen in movies, they have free speech as long as they sound angry as hell.

It doesn't matter what their saying.

ICH LIEBEN JULIA ROBERTS!!!!

A war cry to Julia Roberts? No. In German that means I love Julia Roberts. Said no one ever.
But I digress.

Censorship in Germany is the strictest in the European Union, and the Government can censor anything from video games to the internet. Also, membership to the Nazi Party in Germany is illegal, but there's a little history there.

According to the laws of Germany, free speech is allowed, but there are limitations when concerned with defamation, and endangerment of young people. The Government also has control of motion pictures, slander and libel are illegal, and publications violating law can be censored or the author(s) can be penalized.

Most of these laws are rarely used though, and the biggest censorship of free speech in Germany is pertaining to Nazi Party and holocaust-denial. (How do you deny 11 million people dead?)

USA has limitations in freedom of speech: slander, libel, plagiarism, and making an individual feel his life is in immediate danger. You can, however, be a Nazi in the US.

U.S.A! U.S.A!

Information is found here.

Grades suck

There's no way that we could grade ourselves that wouldn't have problems. The most common complaint of underachievers in school is "Dude, the teacher hates me. Lol, YOLO." Yeah, well, I hate you too. Unless tomorrow someone invents a grading system that somehow makes everyone want to try their hardest, no new system is really going to help. The percentage solution is fine, because with standards, we have a bigger target to aim for, and the overachievers will start to accept advanced proficient 85% instead of always going for the A. The problem is with the student, not the teacher. Now we get made fun of for trying too hard. Laugh now, just remember, I like extra pickles on my Big Mac. The percentages work fine to tell me how I'm doing. We can't blame the grading systems or the teachers for our failures as students. After year after year of students, each year caring less about their grades, it's no wonder that they have no interest in engaging every single one of us.

I think the environment at home and school affect the grades the most in our society. We are hostile towards people with higher intelligence, and most parents simply don't care that their son or daughter got a C. Because C is average, right? Caverage?

I personally think that the percentage grading is fine. It gives the most accurate measure of grading, and there's no need to change it.