Lines for Sitcoms that will never get aired

"I like being Jewish. You get all the benefits of being white, plus the added street cred of killing God's only begotten son."

Aliens, Project Mogul, and Christmas Tape

I still believe in UFOs. By which I mean, I believe that we have been visited by extra terrestrial life forms. I remember being ridiculed for this belief many times, but my rationale for extra terrestrial life seemed good enough: if one of 9 (now 8) planets in this remarkably average solar system could create intelligent life, those odds, applied to the millions or billions of other star systems would surely result in a similar outcome. Likewise, I believed that a worldwide conspiracy of average joes who saw lights and aircraft unknown in the world was pretty unbelievable. Same for my belief in ghosts. However, I did draw the line that aliens were here to promote the works of Jesus or that they wanted to create human/ alien hybrid embryos (after all, what could they need our pathetic genes for? Dumb homo sapiens have already mapped their own genome and if they can travel past c, they could probably whip up any base pairs they want.)

But I still obsessively read a lot of UFO books, magazines, and sucked down paranormal .5 hour TV documentaries. I know what Project Bluebook is, what a close encounter of the 1st, second, and 4th kind are, who the first inter-racial couple to be abducted were, and how many fingers greys are supposed to have. So I was surprised to see on National Geographic channel a UFO documentary that actually taught me something new.


Of course, everyone who knows what's up knows what Roswell is. Basically: a UFO crashed, a rancher found pieces of debris, newspaper snaps pictures of pieces, alien corpses get sent to area 51, and weather balloon is set up as a cover story. But I finally learned how it could all be explained rationally.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:RoswellDailyRecordJuly8%2C1947.jpg

First of all, it always bothered me that a huge, advanced spaceship only left the debris of foil like metal and rubbery components. Secondly, there was no crater or scarring anywhere around the debris. Thirdly, there was never a good consensus with witnesses anywhere. But there were hieroglyphic writings on some of the debris, which didn't sound like something a weather balloon would have. Why not some serial numbers like all good military projects? An innocuous weather balloon would certainly have something like that somewhere.

As it turns out, the perfectly rational explanation is as follows: it was a secret balloon project. Project Mogul was a top secret program which sent weather balloons with advanced detecting equipment to spy on USSR nuclear activity. It was a rush job and since many balloons were needed it was put together by a toy manufacturer in New York. This manufacturer used tape with Christmas decorations on it. This dried on the wood in the Nevada sun to make the purple hieroglyphs. Other details and hype about the story came about 30 years later after 50's sci-fi made the UFO invaders a standard trope. Because the project was top secret, the government did put out a cover story later and tacitly encouraged the UFO story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Force_Reports_on_Roswell_UFO_Incident

This came out in 1997, while I soaked up my alien lore a year or two earlier. A victory for Occam's razor, a strange retrospective for my childhood obsession. I could say something cheesy, like the alien fixation was just a reflection of a personal and global desire that we aren't alone, that there is more than just a space ship earth. But for a part of me, it's like learning Santa never existed.

That being said, who wants to fund my X-Prize bid?

In other news, while planting a tree in the backyard, I cut my right wrist slightly. It still hurts. Made me definitely consider a bullet to the head as planned suicide method. Have not taken medication in nearly three weeks. However, I finally tested my vacuum former.

And nobody heard me, not even the chair.

Sorry about not posting in a while. Not that anyone reads this. But I'm sorry nonetheless. I thought that I would actually keep a record of my life so far, but it's really hard to document all the nothing that goes on. I am surrounded by all my High school awards and such, and it makes me realize what a slacker I've become. I have less than a month until my LSAT and it just drains me. As much as I don't want to go to Law School, I REALLY don't want to go to a crappy law school. So, damned if I do, damned more if I don't. I realized that I hated who I was in high school, I just threw myself into my studies until I could escape to college. At college I did (mostly) what interested me, I didn't feel obligated to do anything, and I could comfortably mock those who clamored for useless student group leadership. I know grad school won't make up for my undergrad experience, and I don't even know what I'd study if I went to engineering grad school. The GRE is my next task after the LSAT. Maybe I could just hole up in some school in the west and study superconducting metals. And then I'll get a girlfriend. And a pony. And a leprechaun. Who already has life insurance.

I was so drained from my Saturday LSAT test that I went to sleep at 2 PM and missed a fetish ball, which would have been the only semi-exciting thing to do in florida other than Fatasy Fest in the Keys. Then, I had another class on Halloween itself that ran from 6-9:30. Exactly one trick or treater came by and my mother didn't know I put the candy in the fridge. So he didn't get anything. I was boring this halloween. I hate this place.

The only other thing that happened is that they opened an IKEA near Sawgrass mills. This is a BIG thing. I have seen Disney World exhibits less crowded. But instead, families are just milling about, noting how cheap and chic Swedish designed plywood is. It was so packed
I occasionally had trouble breathing. But it did make me start thinking about designing my apartment. And then I started to think about how I would move to the apartment, would I sleep on the floor when waiting for the furniture to come in, what is a lease agreement, are there any paints that don't have added chemicals. I don't need the Sims, I do this in my head well enough.

Have not been taking my medication lately. Largely because between the $1,200 kaplan prep class and the $200 iPod I bought my mom for her birthday, I am very low on cash and my new insurance doesn't cover medication. Thinking about donating some bodily fluid or another. Also, read recently that as illegal drugs in the 80's subsided, prescription drugs with the same effect grew phenomenally and had the same effect. THe happiest I've ever been as an adult was when I was on anti-depressants.

Thinking a lot about God too. No particular reason.

Goodnight. I have to do logic games tomorrow.

Nerds Wear Costumes. True Nerds Build Costumes

So, Halloween is just around the corner. And therefore, it's no surprise that I'm spending more cognitive energy on costume design than say, getting a job. I'm thinking this year of a plague doctor. It's more subtle than a skeleton and is way more classy than anything else, since it's a classic Venetian Masquerade get up. It also ensures that NO ONE will know what I am, keeping my obscure yet obsessive track record up. It's really sad that I have no parties to go to or people to spend the holiday with. But it's tradition damnnit! I built my own incomprehensible costumes for my entire life. Here is a quick year by year rundown as memory serves:

Senior Year: Republican for Voldemort (Basically a evil politically active supervillian- which everyone thought was Magneto, but I had a skull and a sign!)

Junior Year: Anubis (Which everyone thought was some Egyptian donkey)

Sophmore Year: Memory fails - Was I sane then? Nah.

Freshman Year: Milk jug post apocalyptic nightmare from a comic book I tried to write (which no one understood)

High School Purims
Cafeteria worker (with Gas mask and spoon), Spock, Napoleon, Osama in hiding, Grouch Marx, Demonic jester,

Elementary School: Teacher from the Black Lagoon, A Dragon (with a long tail sewed by my grandmother filled with Styrofoam peanuts), Robin hood, Haman, King Achashverosh,
Mario, Darth Vader, and some others.

So I don't know. Am I finally too adult to do this? Or will studying for the LSAT force me into maturity?

And is anyone having a Halloween party I can crash?

Anybody out there in design?

Hey all,

Is there any way to properly organize a portfolio for a design firm? I have lots of product ideas from consumer innovations to mechanical components to sustainable technology for developing regions. Is there a set way of organizing them? Any particular format? Should I use drawings, CAD diagrams, or photos of mock-ups? And is there any other information I should use for applying for a design job?

Doors of perception

If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as
it is, infinite. -William Blake

Of course, though no one knows what the heck that means, everyone seem to repeat it. No one seems to know the guy that well. William Blake himself is primarily known for being an engraver, poet, and prophet, he is also a zany anti-Semite denier of the Old Testament. Even his other platitude " The road of excess leads to the palace of reason" is taken from a number of "Proverbs of Hell." And what's the deal with the burning tigers?

The phrase 'the doors of perception', was later used by Aldous Huxley to title his book on his experiences taking mescaline. Whereas Hunter S. Thompson went on an explosive Las Vegas bender with the same drug, Huxley delivered the following lovely gems:

"To be shaken out of the ruts of ordinary perception, to be shown for a few timeless hours the outer and inner world, not as they appear to an animal obsessed with survival or to a human being obsessed with words and notions, but as they are apprehended, directly and unconditionally, by Mind at Large— this is an experience of inestimable value to everyone and especially to the intellectual."


"Most island universes are sufficiently like one another to Permit of inferential understanding or even of mutual empathy or "feeling into." Thus, remembering our own bereavements and humiliations, we can condole with others in analogous circumstances, can put ourselves (always, of course, in a slightly Pickwickian sense) in their places. But in certain cases communication between universes is incomplete or even nonexistent. The mind is its own place, and the Places inhabited by the insane and the exceptionally gifted are so different from the places where ordinary men and women live, that there is little or no common ground of memory to serve as a basis for understanding or fellow feeling. Words are uttered, but fail to enlighten. The things and events to which the symbols refer belong to mutually exclusive realms of experience. "

Other than to demonstrate the fact that stoner prose has gotten progressively worse, my point in all this is as follows. We tend to look at the 'infinite' rather than the 'cleansing of the doors of perception' As much as we try to perceive, we will always be up against things beyond our grasp of reasoning. This has a lot to do with conspiracy theories.

I consider myself (rather naively) as an applied epistemologist. Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with the question of knowledge. In other words, how do we know the things that we know? To this end, I diligently question statistics, compare encyclopedia articles, read back issues of newspapers, and basically try to gear my mind from being a trivia lord towards being an information junkie. A trivia lord tries to take in everything that is accepted as fact, but no one else cares to know. An info junkie accepts nothing as fact, only as leads and claims that should be investigated further. In either case, it is supreme hubris of the intellect that any one person can know it all. And I know I'm not photogenic enough to go on jeopardy, so knowing things is just a pastime of nerd ego.

The cause for all this factoid metaphysics is an essay I read that had a profound effect on me. It is Losing the War by Lee Sandlin. Here is the link.

www.leesandlin.com

Basically, he writes about WWII and how it not only fails to have meaning for the generations that came after, but also how it was incomprehensible for those going through it. From Journalists to soldiers and Hitler's therapeutic opera, there were a myriad of ways to deal with the shock of war. And that shock of war made the human scale incomprehensible. Meanwhile, the sheer size of the war made it impossible for the world to make sense of it afterwards. He does a great analysis of the battle of Midway that, though speculative, seems to demonstrate the point that all perceptions of the war, even the perceptions of those actually experiencing it, are wrong!

I defended Gonzo journalism by saying that certain types of reality are done a disservice if reported accurately. Therefore, it is well advised to be use the tools of fiction to describe realities that are beyond reason. But Lee Sandlin's piece offers the alternative that there is NO WAY to describe, or experience the portions of reality that are truly transcendent. It is beyond the scope of the mind, and we can only look towards the bromide of oblivion.

This applies to conspiracy theories as such. Traditionally the Hegelian look at conspiracies was as follows:

Thesis: Most historians and witnesses say X.
Antithesis: A few witnesses and several mavericks say Y.
Synthesis: Most people believe X on paper while holding Y in the back of their mind.

This applies for everything from JFK assassination attempts (where Y is fairly strong) to '9/11 as an inside job' theories (where Y is either too crazy or there isn't enough distance yet).

But actually I think it's like this:

Thesis: Most historians and witnesses say X.
Antithesis: A few witnesses and several mavericks say Y.
Anti-Synthesis: Though X and Y are valid and believable, what really happened is Z, which is beyond your reach or perception.

I was taught that whatever God is, God is totally unlike anything you could quantify with thought. Even the perception of God's oneness (which is pretty important to a little jewish boy) is beyond any concept of oneness humans could come up with. No matter how much data, facts, proof or statistics we amass, what really goes on will forever elude us. And as an atheist, I think that's a notion of faith I can live with.


The eye with which I see God is the same with which God sees me. My eye and God's eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love. - Meister Eckhardt

I hate my life and this is why:

I'm broke, lonely, ugly, unemployed, and spend my time trying to answer questions like these:

21. Newspaper editor: Law enforcement officials have recognized that legal prohibitions against gambling are flawed. No matter how diligent the effort, the laws are impossible to enforce. When a law fails to be effective, it should not be a law. That is why there should be no prohibition against gambling.

Which of the following if assumed allows the argument to be properly drawn?

A. No effective law is unenforceable.
B. All enforceable laws are effective.

My answer B, real answer A.

25. Most people feel that they are being confused by the information from broadcast news. This could be the effect of the information being delivered too quickly or of it being poorly organized. Analysis of the information content of a typical broadcast news story shows that news stories are far lower in information density than the maximum information density with which most people can cope at any one time. So the information in typical broadcast news stories is poorly organized.

Which one of the following is an assumption that the argument requires in order for its conclusion to be properly drawn?

A. It is not the number of broadcast news stories to which a person is exposed that is the source of the feeling of confusion.

B. Poor organization of information in a news story makes it impossible to understand the information

C. Being exposed to more broadcast news stories within a given day would help a person better understand the news.

D. Most people can cope with a very high information density

E. Some people are being overwhelmed by too much information.

My answer is B. Real answer is A because .... There is a subtle shift in the scope since the author didn't account for the sheer number of stories. Even though that is (to me) the same argument as wrong answer E or very similar to C.

And all that runs through my mind is "Suicide is painless, it brings on many changes...."