Rockin’
I am now 40 years old. Woke up that day and suffered a little bit of crushing depression, but then I started to do some work and felt better. Steak dinner that night, and that was definitely worth the price of admission. (If you don’t count turning 40 as that price.) Friday we celebrated it, and that was pretty good. Rooftop bar, had 5 beers, was drunk. Strangely, didn’t even feel nauseous. There was some kerfuffle about the tab being settled at the end of the night, but my roommate (who was the one who arranged the whole affair) is friends with the VP of the company who owns the place, so he was not going to take guff from them drink bringers... And I guess that’s all I have to say about the whole thing, there.
I really think that this is going to work. My project. I have discovered something really novel. The plan is to finish up coding some basic functionality (basically the ability to handle simple syllogistic logic), and then from there ease down a little and casually decide what else to add to it and when. Because I think it has potential to do some AMAZING things. But if and when I get something AT ALL to work, I am going to jump up and down FOR DAYS. OK, just for 2 days. I have the names all worked out for what I’m creating, which I have continually been updating. Radiplex means now “root complex”, the whole thing is now called QuickAI instead of Mind 2.0, and Sliplogic seems to work for what it does. It’s been a long road. And it’s only the beginning.
In other news, I’m famous. Well, a little. The New York Times did a little thing about the name John Doe, and and I’m their poster boy. It was on the front page briefly (that was freaky, BTW). Don’t think that much will happen else with this, but it was a hit with my friends on Facebook. Though not quite a viral phenomenon. I think it would be weird if that ever happened, too, and not sure I would like a million people ogling me in some weird way. The reporter made a comment that it might be only the first time I’m in the ’Times, if my AI ever took off. Those are the kind of things where I wrote before, that the thought of success is almost as scary as that of failure. Almost. So that’s life, here in the fast lane. I get the feeling that this is it, this is what it’s like to live a dream.
In which I am in tune with some song I can’t quite put my finger on. 12:01am comments?
untitled
i love you like spring knows the secret of each
rose’s unfolding
intricate and simple, a dreamlike certainty
i am within you in a place you understand, where
you have forgotten
the bare metal inside my bones can feel you
i love you like a fire that escapes the breath of
time, and flies
the center of a rose whose bloom unfolds forever
and in the memory of a hand that remembers its
shape in my own 12:01am comments?
Quote
I would have the whole of my experience one continued sense — first, of my nothingness, and dependence on God; second, of my guiltiness and desert before Him; third, of my obligations to redeeming love, as utterly overwhelming me with its incomprehensible extent and grandeur.
Happens
I think I have enough to get some basic functionality up and running. And I am on my way to coding it up, as we speak. That would be a neat trick, indeed. Hopefully not much will come up as to derail these aspirations, and I can ask the thing something, and have it respond correctly. Just some basic syllogistic logic. Fingers are crossed. In other news, I don’t know if hitting 40 will hit me all at once on the day itself, or like many large things in my life, only after I’ve gotten used to it for a while. Whatever. Just let it not paralyze me to any great degree. Let’s see what happens from here. 12:01am comments?
Glow
This is how I feel right now.
Click on pic for larger version. 12:01am comments?
July 18, 2009
the train station
there is no one else at the train station
or maybe in the whole world
the fluorescent light above me is buzzing like an
invisible electric insect
i never knew destiny would have the odor of urine
or that hope could be so secret
suitcase stuffed with just anything i could grab
the panicked dash out the door with no goodbye
but my absence
things are going to be better now
because God looks after the smallest sparrow out
her nest
(the very hairs on my head are numbered)
and the train is finally here
and all of this is not a dream this time
even if i have to force myself to believe in miracles 12:01am comments?
Baby
The following statement may be the last piece of the puzzle: “Fundamentally, all things are connected.” I wrote this down at the local Barnes & Noble, on the 13th. Something about being around all that physical information helps me to think. I was thinking how exactly one would make new connections. It always came down to them being derived from connections that already exist. But how about anything really NEW? Then that idea came to me: all things already being connected in some way, anything new would HAVE to be derived from existing connections. Neat trick, huh? Things are looking so good that one can’t help but be suspicious. There are yet details to be worked out, after all. And those have killed me time and again.
In other news, the countdown is nearly to zero for the big four oh. My roommate Phillip has planned a very cool dinner party at the roof of the Dream Hotel on the Friday of the week of the actual day. Who knows, maybe the world will end before the day comes? One can only hope. At least I’m not the only one of us, if you count all the friends I have my age, who have no wife, no kids, no house, no car. At least I have a dream that I’m following, and I guess that’s no small thing, if one considers. I have come to realize that I had been remarkably far from realizing said dream, and perhaps if I’d known the kind of distance I’d have to travel, I might have been a little more hesitant to go. But then again, I’d probably have gone, anyhow. I guess you can move mountains having not even faith, but just a small, persistent hope.
What else? There are times, like when I go out one of the other exits of the local Barnes and Noble, looking down Broadway, where I get one of those “pinch me” moments, that I half can’t believe I’m really here. New York City. Greatest city in the world. I suppose I could make more use of the city, as it were, having only gone to Central Park, even, only a few times now, and this while living less than a block away from it. I dunno, I guess I’m not the lone wanderer type anymore, if I ever was. This is not the place really to get lost in it, if that is even possible given the gridwork arrangement of all the streets. Also very expensive to do anything but walk around and look at the exterior of buildings. Which I guess has its upsides, too. But anyway, I really like it here. If I can make it here, I can make it anywhere; you’d know that that was true if you lived here, too.
In which success is almost as frightening as failure. Almost. 12:01am comments?
Quote
Christ's call is ... to save the lost, not the stiff-necked; He came not to call scoffers but sinners to repentance; not to build and furnish comfortable chapels, churches, and cathedrals at home in which to rock Christian professors to sleep by means of clever essays, stereotyped prayers and artistic musical performances, but to capture men from the devil's clutches and snatch them from the very jaws of Hell. But this can be accomplished only by a red-hot, unconventional, unfettered Holy Ghost religion, where neither man nor traditions are worshipped or preached, but only Christ and Him crucified.
Cracked Me Up
Shamelessly pilfered from Worth1000.
Click on pic for larger version. 12:01am comments?
July 9, 2009
disturb
a song of night and wind and fire
a torch into the forest dark to blaze a trail
we go in search of monsters
where the trees of hell take root
and mirrors reveal the twitching demons
dawn fears to rise in these lands
these tracks of blood deepen into black
winding through the crooked vines
until we reach the heart of the horror
and we kill, and we kill, and we kill
so few of us left, and the dark yet deepens
and we kill, and we kill, and we kill
until only one of us remains, who stares
as the darkness drains away
lost inside the window, alone 12:01am comments?
Amazed
I am amazed. Buckminster Fuller said, “When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.” And for me, it is as if I am unfolding an intricate rose, whose symmetry is revealed with every single new petal that I uncover. The solution is beautiful. I have not discovered it all, not yet, but all that I have seen so far screams to me that I am truly on the right path, to discover the essence of a dream. At times, it seems that there is no higher place than this. But I come back to earth when I tell myself that it’s not done yet. We’ll see what comes of all this. 12:01am comments?
Simple
We now draw into the dreaded month, the time of reckoning approaching. Egad, but I’m not handling this very well. When I turned 30, I remember thinking, I can no longer think of myself as a “kid”. That ended with the last day of age 29. I was going to have to be an adult, whatever that meant. And now, I recall what Chris Rock once said of being over 40: the only way they’ll call me “young” again is if I die. (“Oh, he was so young! What a tragedy...”) But seriously, I never thought I’d live this long. So I guess I don’t really know what I thought I should have accomplished by now. Perhaps it is this nebulousness that prompts my attitude, this sort of void within me: I was supposed to have gotten something done by now, something inside tells me. But I suppose that I’m not dead yet. There might still be hope. This is what I must hold onto.
As far as the project goes, I am back checking in code again, after a gap of about 7 months since the last time I uploaded anything. Well, if you don’t count that I checked in the code for my Facebook application. I am very cautious in my anticipation that this will be it, that I will have something working soon. But who knows? I think I have a very firm foundation theory-wise. The Theoretica, and the new paradigm for qualitative reasoning, which I call Sliplogic. At any given time, you can check on the project’s progress at SourceForge. Also, other news here is that last Saturday night got the Java server portion of it working in my friend Boris’s environment, Linux in Boston. That was a pretty interesting way to spend a Saturday night, I tell ya. Let’s see if I can do this thing up proper.
What else? I’m still reading an hour’s worth of Bible every day. And a book on modern vs. ancient scholarship of the Old Testament. And I am still addicted to KFC popcorn chicken, though I did forgo it this last weekend to have some Roy Roger’s variety fried chicken. Definitely my #2 food, fried chicken, right after #1 steak! I might put pizza as #3. And in other news, as you may see below, I’m still trying to sell a 1 ounce gold American Eagle coin. No biggie if it doesn’t move, as I do have cash to spare right now. Buying various coins on eBay to give away. It’s always fun to give away money, I have found. Trying to get around to giving something to most if not all my acquaintances who are also turning 40 this year. Sort of a consolation prize, I suppose. I do what I can.
In which I have found that simple thing, or at least a piece of it — and it’s wonderful. 12:01am comments?
