Personal

by

Blogs without all remedy should be without regard

Hello and good morning to everyone who is reading this.

And to everyone who is not reading this‒well, nothing, really.  It doesn’t matter what I say to the people not reading this, because, until and unless they actually read this, there will be no way for them to know what I am “saying” to them.

I suppose it’s possible that someone might read this blog post out loud to someone else, in which case the listener can know what I’ve written without literally reading it.  But, if you can consider listening to an audiobook to be “reading” the book‒and you can, though you’re not required to do so‒then that would count very much as the same thing.

It’s a bit like, for instance, the wave-front of the wave equation of a photon that was released from the last scattering surface of the early cosmos, just as the universe became cool enough for electrons and nuclei to join together and stop being plasma.

Imagine such a photon’s wave function progressing through the expanding universe, on and on, its wavelength increasing with the expansion of spacetime, red shifting and red shifting and red shifting.  What if it never interacts with anything else in the cosmos?  What if it’s never absorbed or scattered or reflected, “measured” by nothing but spacetime itself, on into the heat death of the universe, until there’s no longer even anything within its cosmic horizon with which it can interact?  Its wavelength stretches and stretches, perhaps eventually becoming light years in size*.  At some point it’s going to be completely swamped and washed out by the random quantum oscillations of the universe, even if that universe is immeasurably close to absolute zero in temperature.

Imagine such a photon given off by that last scattering surface and then traveling for a trillion years, a googol years, then for so long that a googol years seems as vanishing as a microsecond, never interacting, perhaps, until some version of a Poincare recurrence of the universe happens.  In principle, it might not interact even then***.  In what deep sense can that photon be said to be “light”?

It might even count as some manner of “virtual” photon, though certainly not the kind that is usually meant when that term is used.  It might seem lonely and depressing to be that photon, but we can console ourselves with the fact that, as far as any sensible notion of reality appears, photons have no subjective experience*****.  Even the absurd notions of panpsychism don’t literally imagine that photons are individually, actually conscious, in the sense of having internal “qualia“.

So, if I write something that no one reads, then what I have written cannot matter to those who have not read it.  Of course, in principle, all measurable remnants of even Shakespeare’s writing will someday be read and/or uttered for the very last time, but that’s different‒they will already have interacted immeasurably often before then.  The outcome will be nothingness‒or as near to it as possible‒but in the meantime, much will have happened.

Of course, according to quantum mechanics, quantum information is conserved, so everything from Hamlet to my imagined stray, lonely photon would be, in principle, recoverable.  But that’s a very rarefied “in principle”.

So, for those of you reading this, you really don’t have to worry about what people who have never read nor will ever read it will think about it.  They simply won’t have read it.  Likewise, I don’t have to worry about the reaction to my writing from people who don’t read it.

And, of course, if people “react” without ever having read a thing, which certainly does happen, those opinions are not worth considering.  I don’t need to take thought for some criticism of the Mona Lisa by a person who has never seen even any manner of reproduction or image of the painting.

Nor should I worry about being offended by the chattering of a squirrel in a nearby tree, or the noise arising from leaves stirred by the wind.  It’s merely noise, not too different from those quantum jitters that happen even in a region of the universe that’s as close to absolute zero as it can be.  There is always noise‒though it can become vanishingly close to silence (which sounds quite nice, so to speak).

Anyway, that’s enough of that.  I had a long day of walking yesterday‒about 15 miles total distance, and my joints and muscles still feel pretty good, so the shoes are all right******.  I did not walk to the train this morning‒I figure just a bit of recovery time is warranted‒but I may walk this evening.  I hope you have a good day, and that all your metaphorical photons have lots of interesting and enjoyable interactions before they dissipate.

What more could you reasonably ask?

TTFN

Keds cartoon

*That seems an interesting possibility.  What does it mean for a photon to have a wavelength measured in light years**?  If one wavelength takes a year to pass, is it really even a wave anymore?

**Okay, one can literally measure any wavelength in light years if one is so inclined, but for ordinary wavelengths such as those of more usual light, on the scale of nanometers and such, it’s a bit absurd.  One might as well measure the energy output of an LED bulb in megatons of TNT per second.

***Though, if it arrives at another “Big Bang” coming from the other direction in time, as I speculate could be possible, then it’s hard to see it approaching a state of new, lowering entropy from an impending region of inflation and another “last scattering surface” without actually scattering off the dense plasma‒and then our photon would end as it had begun, a quantum event going from the remnant of one Big Bang to another, countless years “later”****

****Though the notion of “later” might be irrelevant, since the directionality of time is determined by the direction of increasing entropy, and that would be inconsistent and reverse itself in my conjectured scenario.  It’s a bit like floating in intergalactic space and saying one is trying to go “higher”.  You can say it if you want, but it’s not really apposite‒it may even be the opposite of apposite.  Higher from one point of view becomes lower from another, even if one is traveling from planet to planet within a solar system.  Likewise for “later” and “earlier” when moving from one inflating region to another…if such a thing can happen, of course.

*****And they also don’t “experience” any passage of time internally…from the point of view of a photon, so to speak, it starts and ends instantaneously.

******That makes me wish I were wearing Keds, so I could honestly say. “The Keds are alright.”

by

“No, I mentioned the bisque…”

Blah blah blah, yada yada yada, it’s Wednesday, I walked 5 miles to the train station, the weather is decent with strong wind for the walk.  The 610 train is just arriving, and now I’m waiting for the 630 one so I can cool down and dry off a bit.

That just about summarizes current events.  Oh, also I can honestly say that walking a total of 8 miles yesterday in the New Balance shoes seems to have worked well.  My left foot is essentially fine‒though I woke up once during the night to realize that, lying on my side, I had the arch of my left foot pressed almost aggressively against the ball of my right foot.  It made me wonder if that strange posture was a regular sleep habit and if it contributed to the foot arch pain I’ve been having.

Evidently, though, based on the fact that the foot is fine now after my five miles so far this morning and eight miles yesterday and that sleepy posture, it didn’t contribute much, if at all.  So, alas, there seems no saving grace for the boots.

I had the temptation to retry the other, slightly larger pairs that I had stopped wearing because they had caused me trouble before, just to try to rescue the boot-wearing.  This is how stupid I can sometimes be, it seems.  I really need to get rid of all of those so that I’m no longer tempted.  I wish I could give them to a good home or something, but I don’t see how I would be able to work that out.

It is good, at least‒I guess‒that I’m able to have gone so far over a couple of days without my ankle or arch or knees or hips acting up at any atypical level.  I am, on the other hand, at least a bit surprised and even slightly disappointed that there was no trace of any of my old, typical endorphin thing yesterday‒my mood wasn’t even briefly bolstered by the long walk.  And, so far, I don’t notice any sign of it today.

Maybe it’s just that the seasonality of my affective disorder and my ongoing, generally deteriorating mental health is overpowering any tendency to get a boost from exercise.  I’ve never really been one of those people for whom regular exercise effectively treats depression*.  Indeed, even when I was running six miles at a time and was in great shape, I still had the same trouble with depression.  Well, it was not “the same”, I guess.  It’s evolved over time and is worse now in some ways than it was when I was younger, though now I’m at least more familiar with it.  In fact, it’s one of the few recurring constants in my life since I was a teenager.  No wonder people don’t like to be around me too long if they can help it.

Anyway, that’s that and it is what it is, and all those other tautological bullshit phrases.  Speaking of which, a whimsical question just occurred to me:  “Is slackology the opposite of tautology?” That’s a very silly and stupid thing to say, I know, but what are you gonna do?  I’m stupid.

I must say, the 630 train is noticeably busier than the earlier ones tend to be, which makes sense, I guess, since it’s getting closer to the typical time for a workday to start.  However, the Tri-Rail people have adjusted for that, and this train has an extra car compared to the usual ones (the others all seem to have 3 passenger cars, whereas this one has 4).  Thus, though there are more people, it’s not more crowded.  Well done, Tri-Rail!

Okay…well, I think that’s that**.  Nothing interesting is going on, really.  I’m still reading Sapolsky’s book, and I listened to some LotR this morning.  It’s a good story to hear while walking, since it’s about a great journey (among other things).  God knows how many times in my life I’ve either read or listened to The Fellowship of the Ring, specifically.  I had read it more than 20 times even before I finished high school.  I almost surely must have passed 50 at some point in the more than 30 years since.

It doesn’t matter, I guess.  Nothing much does.  So I’ll call that enough for now.  I hope you all have a good day.

*Though, of course, I cannot know that I would not have been even worse had I never engaged in regular exercise in the past.

**To repeat the tautological cliché from before.

by

How can one walk in such a State?

Well, here we all are again.  I’m at the train station, having walked here this morning.  The weather’s not bad for walking; it’s warm, but not terribly humid, and there’s a good breeze.

I fear that the following conclusion is inescapable:  I will have to dispense with my boots for any serious walking, and possibly indeed for simple, day-long wear.  Though I walked a total of less than two miles yesterday, and had on knee supports and whatnot, my left foot and my right Achilles tendon, and my hip and back all were quite uncomfortable by the end of the day.  They were all still rather stiff and in pain this morning as I started out (now wearing my New Balance walking shoes) but by the time I’d gotten close to the station, that seemed to have been mostly wobbled out.

So…I feel better after 5 miles in these shoes than after just a physically idle day in the boots.  It’s very sad, and I’m probably far more disappointed than makes any sense at all.  I like those boots a lot.  But I have too much chronic pain already through which to fight to try to get anything done, so I really cannot expose myself to that extra damage.

I really ought to get rid of the boots just to eliminate the temptation to use them, lest I wear them in a fit of unjustified optimism and set myself back significantly.  It would be good to be able to donate them to someone or something, but I don’t really have the wherewithal to do so.  I have no usable vehicle, nor a driver’s license* to drive to an appropriate place for donation, nor anyone to drive me there, and I don’t want to take an Uber for such a purpose, and certainly not to renew my state ID.  If I’m not going to seek medical or psychological/psychiatric help for my much more serious concerns, then I’ll be damned if I’m going to supplicate myself to the bureaucrats of one of the most benighted states‒ironically so, given its nickname‒in the US.

I arrived at the station in plenty of time for the 610 train, but I let it go, as I did the last time I walked here, to give myself time to cool down and dry off a bit before the 630 train.  Also, of course, I’m writing this blog post.

I’m reading Robert Sapolsky’s new book, and it’s quite good and interesting, though so far it’s made no points nor discussed any facts with which I wasn’t already familiar.  I almost “flipped” ahead to the last chapter, because Sapolsky says he’s going to be discussing some esoterica about depression there, and I know he is both personally and professionally interested in that subject.  I hope‒not much‒to maybe learn something new, though I don’t expect it to help me at all.

I also listened to Sean Carroll’s latest podcast yesterday, and it was interesting, but quite short.  I took note and sent myself emails about 2 books, one that the guest recently wrote and one that he mentioned, about which I’ve heard before.  In that moment, I thought they sounded interesting, and I’m sure they would be.  But now that I’m past that first instant of intrigue, I know that I’m not going to get them.  Nothing is particularly interesting; even nothingness itself is not terribly interesting.  I’m reading Sapolsky’s book because I’ve been waiting for it for months, and I liked his earlier book, Behave, and I enjoyed his “Great Courses” course.  He’s an interesting individual.

But there’s only so much I can do to maintain engagement.  I don’t have anyone in my day to day life with whom I can talk deeply about pretty much any of this stuff, and my own company isn’t adequate to keep a conversation going.

I don’t really watch any TV shows or movies or anything‒I mainly just watch “reaction” videos on YouTube, because that’s almost vaguely like watching the movies or shows with a friend who hasn’t seen them before…but not really.  There’s no back and forth, obviously, unless one counts the comments sections, which I don’t.

Also, I have to face it, pretty much none of the people whom I enjoy watching react to various movies or shows would probably want to hang out with me.  They all would surely have better things to do with their time, and certainly better people with whom to do whatever they do.  I’m not just making a snap judgment here; this has been my consistent experience in life.  Most people get tired of being around me before too long, even if they like me (or love me), and in all fairness, I have to admit that I find being around most other people quite stressful and tense much of the time, even if I like them.  A big part of that is, of course, born of fear, and the fact that I sense and recognize how much they think I’m weird and unpleasant, but it’s not as though I can just choose not to fear and sense and recognize those things.

It’s a conundrum indeed, to want to have friends but to have such a peculiar character and  such specialized and rarefied interests that like minded people are hard to find and that in any case one has difficulty maintaining relationships with other people even in the best of circumstances.

Oh, well.  Life is shit, but the world never promised that it would be kind or fulfilling or just or fair or pleasant.  It promises only one thing.

On that note, I’ll bring this post to a close.  It’s already overlong.  I hope you all have a good day.

*Also, my state ID expired Friday, and the stupid website for renewing it has been dysfunctional for as long as I’ve been trying to request a renewal.  I will probably try once or twice more, but I have no desire to try to make an appointment to go to the offices‒none of them are anywhere near where I live or work, and I obviously cannot drive to them.  There’s not really any point to getting the thing renewed, anyway.  It’s not as though my identity itself was granted to me by the state of Florida (AKA America’s syphilitic penis).  The whole state can drown for all I care…and before too very long, much more of it will indeed be underwater than already is.  I’d rather see it burn, but you can’t always get what you want.

by

What are the odds that this is worth reading?

It’s Monday, October 23rd in the year 2023 (A.D. or C.E., depending on your preferred terminology) and I’m writing this blog post on my laptop computer.  I took the computer with me when I left the office on Wednesday, expecting not to bring it back, but here I am.

It’s really quite stupid.  But it is more pleasant to write these posts on the laptop computer—quite a lot more pleasant—than it is to write them on the smartphone.  Though more compact and portable, the latter is just awkward and irritating, and it still causes the bases of my thumbs to get sore sometimes.  Well, really, the soreness is at the carpo-metacarpal joints more than it is at the metacarpophalangeal joint, but basically it just feels like my thumbs are sore, and it becomes more difficult to grip things as it continues.

That’s probably about all the news I have for today.  At least, it’s probably the only news I have that’s even arguably worth sharing on this blog, though the arguability of the shareworthiness of even that news would probably involve a lot of distracting rhetoric and sophistry, neither of which is a form of “argument” for which I have much respect.  They’re about as good as taking the word of someone you’ve just met about some matter involving significant (but not life-changing) amounts of money because they “promise” you can trust them.

“Give me 1% of your trust, and I’ll earn the other 99%” is an expression sometimes used in sales.  I guess it works on some people, but I can’t see it ever working on me.  First of all, it’s not really a sensible way to put something.  What is 1% of someone’s trust?  How does one quantify such a thing as if it were a substance or population?

I could see asking for 1% of someone’s trust fund.  That might be worth a bit, depending (obviously) on the size of the trust fund.  But 1% of my trust, however one might reasonably measure trust, is some number so vanishingly close to zero that it might as well be used to calculate derivatives and integrals.  This is largely because I don’t actually believe in or endorse “trust” as a generally good idea, though that certainly depends on one’s definitions.  I think trust is a mostly vacuous concept.

I used to say that I trusted my mother and my father, and with everyone else I took calculated risks.  But of course, that was really just me trying to be clever.  In reality, it’s all calculated risks*.  It’s just a Bayesian prior estimate of the credence we give that, for instance, this person in question will behave as they say they will behave.  Then we will update our future estimate depending on how things turn out this time, using a sort of loosey-goosey, intuitive version of Bayes’s Theorem.

If we started off without a particular preference for “trust or not trust” for someone, our prior would be something like 50%.  If we thought someone was a metaphorical weasel by nature, it might be much lower, though if we’re being good Bayesians, it can never be truly zero.  I trusted my parents—by the time I was fully an adult, anyway—at a level close enough to 100% that it was rarely worth thinking about much.

I honestly don’t know how I get onto these subjects.  I know it’s probably boring as Hell**.  I’ll just close that topic by noting that my Bayesian prior for trusting myself is way lower than my prior was for my parents.  It’s not that I don’t think I’m reliable or anything; I’m probably reasonably reliable as a general tendency.  I just don’t like myself, and I’m almost always disappointed in myself, so it’s reasonable to predict that I’ll probably let myself down in any given circumstance.

For instance, I’ve let myself down already by even doing this blog post, because I’m on my way to work, because I didn’t use this last weekend as a good starting point for the process of my dreamed-of trial by fire and ice (to be ludicrously melodramatic).  That “trial” is basically a notion of a means by which to put oneself at a not-insignificant risk of death—knowingly—without it being anything that could lead one to be forcibly locked up.  There are things that a person can do that will lead to a significant chance of mortality*** if carried on long enough, but which are otherwise entirely unremarkable.  Even water can kill you if you just keep on drinking and drinking and drinking.  In fact, it takes less water than you might think.

That’s not my specific thought, however.  I wouldn’t want to do that because I think I would spend just too much time in the effing bathroom, and it would be a terribly annoying way to pass**** one’s final hours.  But there are things that I could stand doing that, if things go right or wrong (depending on one’s mood or viewpoint) could kill me.  That’s the general idea.

Anyway, that’s enough blather about nothing (and potential nothingness) for today.  I don’t know what’s going to happen from here, but I’ll try to keep you posted if it’s not too much trouble.

*So to speak.  We rarely actually calculate the risk, but rather do a  quick estimate.

**That’s a weird thing to say, isn’t it?  It’s hard to imagine that Hell, as described in most religions, could be considered boring.  Demons and fire and brimstone and torture are things that at the very least don’t seem dull—though I suppose one might be tortured with a dull knife.  But as anyone who has suffered from depression probably would soon realize, “boredom” of a sort (i.e., anhedonia) is a major form of torture.  That’s one of the reasons I always found the apparently more modern notion (reputedly in Catholicism) of Hell as “being removed from God’s presence” a more interesting and subtle and less cartoonish notion of Hell than one gets in many evangelical forms of Christianity.

***If you were an immortal being, and you liked being immortal, taking any chance of mortality—i.e. of becoming mortal—would be something akin to Pascal’s wager, where the potential loss (of an infinite lifespan) would be so vast as to make the most miniscule possibility thereof essentially an intolerable risk.

****No pun intended, but nevertheless, not edited out.

by

And damn’d be him that first blogs, ‘Hold, enough!’

Hello and good morning yet again.

It’s Thursday, of course, and‒being a bit compulsive, as I am‒I could not fail to start this blog post with some form of “Hello and good morning”.  For those of you who like that consistency, you’re most welcome.

I did not walk to the train this morning, though I am wearing my New Balance walking shoes, because when I awakened for the first time during the night‒sometime between 1230 and 1 am‒I already noticed that, despite a modicum of rest, my right Achilles tendon was sore and burning when I moved it.  It is still a bit sore this morning.  So, apparently, my interventions yesterday, such as they are, were not adequate to stop the boots from causing my weak spot trouble*.  I will at least say that the arch of my left foot seems reasonably okay, but even it has a bit of a twinge.

So, with regret, I fear I need to retire my boots for any serious long walking, which seems ironic, but such is life.  Anyway, the NBs are lighter and easier to carry along in any case.

As for other things, well…I don’t know.  I really don’t have much to report.  The weather is slightly warmer today than it was yesterday‒I’m not wearing a hoodie at the train station right now, but I’m comfortable‒but it’s nowhere near the oppressive heat and humidity we’ve had until recently.  It would’ve been a decent morning for walking, but there’s not much to be done about that.  I don’t want to exacerbate my heel.  “He’ll let the heel heal for a bit,” one might say of me.

I’m not sure if I’ll write a post tomorrow.  I’m not sure if I’ll go to the office tomorrow.  I almost decided not to go today, but I want to bring my laptop computer back from the office, and I forgot to do that yesterday.  But tomorrow, if I still feel like I do this morning‒or worse‒I may not go in.  You’ll know, if there’s no blog post tomorrow, that I haven’t gone to the office.  And, of course, as I have said, I don’t work this weekend.

After that, who knows?  I don’t have any vision of next week, frankly.  I have some vague notions and ideas, but I don’t know what will happen.

I also don’t know what else to write about today.  There’s nothing going on.  I’m still not writing fiction or singing or playing guitar or “piano”.  I haven’t done any drawing in a very long time.

I also haven’t been reading this week, really.  I haven’t made any more progress in Robert Sapolsky’s new book, though I was looking forward to it.  I’m certainly not looking forward to any other books, nonfiction or fiction.  There are no movies or shows of interest to me.  Not even the upcoming Doctor Who specials are of interest, nor the new season.  And though Loki season 2 has been okay so far, I could miss the rest without much regret.  I certainly don’t see anything coming down the movie pike that’s worth anticipating.

I think I’m just about down to the dregs.  I don’t have much to offer but muck and sediment and sand.  There might be people out there who are into that kind of thing, but I’m not sure who they are.  I appreciate all of you reading even when I’m writing absolutely nothing of value.  I wish more people could have read my books; I think there are some decent stories there, and it would be nice to share them with more people.  Oh, well.  I guess most authors feel that way, at some point.

Anyway, that’s enough for today, I think.  It’s a short post, but surely that’s a relief if anything to dedicated and loyal readers.  Have a good day and, in case I don’t write a post tomorrow, have a good weekend.  Please.

TT(FN?)

Welcome Home Medium in prog (2)

*It is, of course, an appropriate location for a weak point.

by

[Put some quote from a Pink Floyd song here]

I’m writing this on my smartphone after having walked to the train station this morning.  It’s cool enough weather that I even wore a hoodie for the walk (though if the sun had been up but the temperature the same I probably would not have done so), and I certainly don’t feel dehydrated.  I didn’t walk back from the train last night, but that was only because we got out of the office late, and then the later train I caught was a further 20 minutes behind schedule.  That was really irritating.

The 610 train is just arriving now, but I will catch the next one (and I only feel a little bit of anxiety over that decision).  I made good time, and I also got up a bit earlier than scheduled, because that seems to be the general trend of my life.  If this continues long enough, I might end up getting up in the morning before I go to bed.  I need to do something about this before I arrive at a contradiction and make the World Program™ crash and shut down.

I wore my boots this morning, and as I had intended yesterday, I did not overtighten the laces.  This has helped a little, at least, but I fear it’s not enough.  My right Achilles tendon is burning, and the arch of my left foot, just a bit behind the 1st metatarsophalangeal joint, is already feeling tight and achy.  That’s not too terrible after five miles of walking at a pretty brisk pace, but it didn’t seem to happen with the New Balance walking shoes at all.

I’m very disappointed, but I may need just to nix the boots.  It’s very sad to me, though I know it’s not truly a big deal.  I think I’ve just gotten to the point of having so little of value or meaning in my life that the loss of even the option to use the shoes that most aesthetically appeal to me feels like the death of an old friend.

It’s all rather pathetic, and not in a good way.  Still, I must do what I must, tautologically speaking.  So, I’ll try to do the walk again tomorrow morning, wearing the walking shoes, and see if it really is easier on the joints of my feet.

By the way:  of course, I have not started writing any kind of short story, or any other story.  What’s more, I haven’t practiced my guitar at all, nor have I listened to any more of the Spanish version of Harry Potter.  I also didn’t translate beyond the first sentence of the Japanese version of Harry Potter.  Nor did I read more than a few paragraphs past the preface or opening note or whatever he called it of Robert Sapolsky’s new book.

I didn’t even finish listening to the podcast with Sean Carroll and David Deutsch.  I tried to listen to a playlist of my favorite songs yesterday while waiting for the train in the evening, but after skipping about a dozen or so of my favorite songs because I just wasn’t interested in listening to them, I concluded (correctly) that I just didn’t want to listen to anything.  Nothing is interesting.

Of course, a famous (and fatuous) saying is that only boring people are bored, but in my case it’s not completely inaccurate.  I am dreadfully boring, even to myself.  Having to listen to me talk, or even just to be around me, for any length of time would probably count as cruel and unusual punishment.  I know it’s punishment to me.

I just got on the train.  It’s mildly interesting to note that there was enough breeze blowing up the tracks as I waited that, given my underlying sweatiness, I actually felt a bit chilly, and had to put my hood up.  That worked well, though.  And once I get to the office, I have other clothes into which to change.

This week has already seemed very long, and it’s just now Wednesday.  It’s kind of a weird inversion or subjective tension when one compares this to the lyrics of the song Time.  Whereas those lyrics note that “every year is getting shorter”, to me it feels‒though the year thing still seems true‒that every day is getting longer.  If the two tendencies continue, I could run into another paradox, in which a day eventually feels longer than a year, and then, again, the world might come to an end because of a logic error.

Actually, I guess it’s not always a contradiction for a day to be longer than a year.  If memory serves, for instance, Mercury is almost tidally locked with the sun, so its days and years are nearly the same length.  And if I recall correctly, I think that a day on Venus‒meaning a complete planetary revolution‒is longer than a year*.

On Earth, though, days are much, much shorter than years.  That’s even truer on Jupiter, where the days are about ten hours long, but the years are nearly a dozen times as long as Earth’s, because of its greater distance from the sun**.

Anyway, all this trivia is beside the point.  I am almost entirely without any sustained joy or happiness, nor do I see any reasonable prospect of that changing.  What would change about it?  I don’t really even care about the upcoming 60th anniversary Doctor Who special!  There are no books or movies or shows or whatever that seem interesting.

And I’m very tired.

*I did recall correctly; that is in fact true.

**This follows from Kepler’s 3rd law of planetary motion, which states, if memory serves, that the period of a planet’s orbit is proportional to the 3/2 power of the length of its orbit’s semimajor axis.  This would mean Jupiter orbits at just under 12^(2/3), or 5.24, times the distance of Earth…and indeed, according to Wikipedia, Jupiter’s semimajor axis is indeed 5.2038 astronomical units.  See, all that math we learned in school is useful for something.

by

Sprechen sie David Deutsch? How about Japanese?

I’m writing this blog post on the laptop computer, which I brought back to the house yesterday with just that intent.  I did not walk to the train this morning, though I feel that I could have done so, had I chosen.  The weather is even more pleasant and cool than it was yesterday—62 degrees (F) out, which is even better for walking than 69 degrees.  I’m even wearing my hoodie to sit at the train station!

I’m also wearing my boots.  I thought that I might be lacing them too tightly—I might have mentioned that yesterday—particularly on the left foot, but also potentially on the right, which might explain the increased torque that’s caused strain on my right Achilles tendon.  If everything is reasonably well during the day today, and I’m able to resist the temptation to tighten the boots up too much, I mean to try to walk back from the train station to the house this evening.

I’m at the station very early, right now.  I woke up early, of course, and I had too much nervous energy even just to loll around, so I got up, did my things, took out some garbage, put out food for the stray cats, and then got to the train station well in time for the first train of the day, which should arrive in 3 minutes.  It’s all very exciting.

I’ve been packing some coats and a raincoat that I have in bottom of a large, hiking-style backpack, with a somewhat crazy idea in mind.  It’s relatively heavy, so far, but certainly not too heavy.  I’m going to need to get myself a new belt, though.  I had to punch a new hole in the one I’m wearing, since it’s tightened up a bit, but the next size (supposedly) of the same make and model belt—the one that I like—doesn’t quite reach to the first hole.

This doesn’t quite make sense to me, since there’s not supposed to be that much difference in their maximum length.  Something’s gone awry.  When I ordered that belt, maybe they sent me one that had been mislabeled.  But I don’t want to order another one of that kind to find out, because if it’s not an error, then I’ll have two belts that both don’t quite work yet.

So, I mean to get a fully adjustable belt, like the ones I wore in the Boy Scouts and then in the Navy.  To be honest, they were always a good style of belt, and if I make sure to pick one with good Amazon ratings (or similar) it should work well.

It looks like the first train is running approximately six minutes behind schedule.  I’m not sure quite how that happens as often as it does; the schedule is the same every day except Sundays and holidays.

I thought of an idea for a very short, rather gruesome story yesterday, when I was approaching the last bus stop (on foot) right before the train station.  Someone was sitting at the stop, wearing bright sneakers but otherwise dark clothes.  There are a fair few trees shading that bus stop, and it looked almost as though there was only the lower half of a person sitting there, until I got quite close.  That triggered an idea for what would be a very short story—especially for me—but might be fun.

We’ll see whether I write it or not, I guess*.  Well, you guys all might not see, even if I do write it, but I guess if I do, and if I find the time and the inclination to edit it, I may post it here, or I may just publish it direct to Kindle.

When I was first working on Mark Red and even The Chasm and the Collision, I intended just to publish them as serials via Kindle.  I think that’s not entirely unheard-of, and it’s almost the way Japanese “light novels” get published.  Each volume of such things—the truly “light” ones, anyway—are too brief to be full novels, and the story, like that of a manga, is expected to continue through a number of volumes.  Sometimes each novel is really a separate “adventure”, as in the Haruhi Suzumiya series, and sometimes they are truly ongoing, single overall stories chopped into sub-events, like Toradora.

I wish I could find the full, English translation of the Shakugan no Shana series.  I loved that anime, and have read what there is of the manga; it’s one of the most original fantasy stories (set in the modern world) that I have encountered.  But they only ever seemed to have released the first two volumes in English.  If it had come out after the advent of the light novel availability on Amazon (Kindle and otherwise) and the readily available purchase form thereof, I think it would have done well.  But I got mine at good ol’ Borders, back in the day, and of course, my copies are long gone.  I can reorder them from used book sellers via Amazon, but it won’t get me the later volumes.

Had I but world enough and time, I would seriously consider just getting the whole series in Japanese and honing my skills with the language by slogging through them, “translating” as I go, and trying to get the most out of them.  It wouldn’t make as much sense as, for instance, getting the Harry Potter books in Japanese, since I know those practically by heart, but it might still be useful.  Maybe I could get the English translations of the first two novels, just so I could get going.

I think I threw away my Kodansha Kanji Leaner’s Dictionary in a fit of pique a while back, but with the advances in Google Translate, one can draw (sort of) the Kanji one is trying to translate.  Also, Japanese books geared toward younger readers tend to have hiragana characters next to the kanji, so that readers can pronounce the words and recognize the meaning (since they probably know the words by sound), and can learn their Kanji in the meantime.

This is all pipe dream stuff, anyway.  I mean, I could do it, and I’m sure it would be interesting, but I don’t know that I could sustain my interest.  I can barely sustain interest in anything.  Robert Sapolsky’s new book, Determined, should have come out overnight**—I preordered it months ago—and I don’t have much desire to read it yet, though he’s a very interesting and wonderful writer and scientist (a behavioral biologist and neuroendocrinology professor, who himself has struggled with depression, apparently, and for which reason he too has been leery of things like psychedelics and so on).

Maybe he’ll be on Sam Harris’s podcast again now that he’s coming out with the new book, though with recent horrible “political” events, Sam may be distracted a lot in coming weeks.  Well, “distracted” is probably not the right word; but his attention will likely be elsewhere.

I have been listening to Sean Carroll talking to David Deutsch on the former’s podcast, and that’s good, though it’s lamentably under two hours long.  Still, one of my favorite physicist/writers is talking with another that I like even more in some ways—what’s not to like?

I wish Deutsch would write another “popular” science book, but he doesn’t crank them out quite like Carroll does (the latter’s books do not disappoint, at least).

Maybe I should start looking for some of Deutsch’s academic stuff.  Some of it may still be on arXiv or similar, and there may be public domain editions of the non-preprint material.  He is a terrifically original and deep and quick thinker, one of the first pioneers of quantum computing, an advocate of Everettian quantum mechanics, founder of what he calls Constructor theory (an approach to how knowledge and explanation work in intelligent life forms), and a guarded optimist.

He thinks, following Turing’s mathematical demonstrations about the universality of computation (which he fleshed out himself regarding quantum computation) that there is, ultimately, only one “form” of intelligent computation.  He sees, therefore, intelligent extraterrestrials, human beings, and potential AGIs all as “people” or “persons” in the same right.  The only real differences would be due to specific “software” and memory and processing speed.

Trust me, he makes very convincing cases for these things.  He is a rigorous thinker.

Again, though, I don’t expect really to make any progress in exploring more of any of this.  But it’s interesting to think about for them moment.

And now, my stop is coming up, so I’ll draw this post to a close.  Please have a good day.

deutsch Deutsch

nihon deutsch

*I doubt it.

**It did.

by

Blogging…blogging and rolling. Down to the train I’m strolling

This is all getting a bit boring, isn’t it?  I mostly write the same old, same old stuff from day to day‒even after I have had a day off, like yesterday.

Although today, at least, I have a modicum of good news to convey:  the temperature went down significantly overnight, so that when I left the house this morning to walk to the train station (which I did) it was only 69 degrees (F) out, and there was a slight, pleasant breeze.  69 degrees might not seem that cool to those up north, but compared to 83 degrees with nearly maximal humidity, it is quite pleasant.

I wore one of my “athletic” shirts, but almost had to wear a different, warmer, cotton shirt.  The athletic one loses its moisture quickly, by design, and with the breeze, I was worried it would be unpleasantly cool.  However, I walk at a pretty good pace on my not-very-long shanks, and so I was in little danger of hypothermia.

Weirdly enough, yesterday afternoon when I walked to 7-11 and back (about 3 and a half miles total) I felt cooler than I usually do in the morning, though it was in the eighties and rather sunny, and I always wear all black.  Somehow, I was still less sweaty than I usually get in the morning, perhaps partly because the sun heated and evaporated the sweat, and partly because there was a nice breeze blowing.  In any case, I did feel cooler, even by the time I got back, though perhaps I was also more dehydrated than usual.  That was easily remedied, however, since I’d bought three seltzers and an unsweetened tea at 7-11.

I am sorry to say, though, that after wearing my newer boots yesterday, I think I may need to dispense with them for longer walks (this morning I’m wearing my New Balance walking shoes).  They seemed to cause some stress on the arch of my left foot that bothered me for the rest of the day and the night, though not too severely.  Also, while I walked, the boots’ increased sturdiness relative to other footwear seemed particularly to irritate my right Achilles tendon, which has some chronic strain and irritability that the NBs don’t seem to exacerbate.  Maybe I lace the boots too tightly.

It’s frustrating.  Those boots are quite good otherwise, and I felt nicely armored walking in them, even through some fairly extensive unpaved areas between the house and the 7-11.  In fact, I had two “wild” encounters when in that region, in one of which my boots made me feel quite secure (there was no real worry, anyway).

I first literally almost stumbled upon a large iguana nestled in some tallish grass next to a fence.  It was easily five feet long from snout to tip of tail‒the latter of which it whipped a few times in my general direction, defensively.  It was more surprised than I was, I think‒it clearly had been rather oblivious to my approach.  Tall grass, it seems, is a double-edged sword.

Anyway‒as I said to it while stopping for a moment to pass pleasantries‒its tail-whipping, though an excellent display, was no threat to me, because I had on boots and long pants.  Still, I meant it no harm, of course, and I chided it for its lack of alertness; other creatures might not be as benign as I.  I doubt that it understood me even vaguely, but it was nevertheless long gone by the time I returned.

The other encounter‒not nearly as “close” as the first‒ was with a rooster that was wandering in some apparently undeveloped, wooded land behind a fence right near the road.  There are plenty of people who keep chickens around these parts‒one occasionally hears the roosters crowing in the morning‒but this one wasn’t near anyone’s front or back yard as far as I could tell.  It was quite a fine and healthy looking specimen, though, with lovely brownish plumage and a vivid comb.  It was clearly somewhat unnerved by my presence, and it quickly made its way deeper into the trees.  It didn’t move too fast; roosters don’t like to show weakness, I think.  But it seemed almost as startled as the iguana had been.

I guess I must be pretty quiet when I walk along, certainly relative to somewhat nearby traffic.  That’s nice to know, since I’m not a fan of unnecessary noise at the best of times.  Still, I’d have to change that habit if I were hiking through grizzly bear country, or else court much more dangerous surprises.

It seems unlikely, though, that I will ever be in grizzly bear country.  The most dangerous creatures I encounter, by far, are humans.  They, at least, are a comparatively known quantity.

Sorry.  As I said, this has all been rather boring, and I apologize for that.  I’m considering taking a significant hiatus from this blog for a while soon, one which may turn from a hiatus to a terminus, depending on how things work out.  I really need to do something, and I want to do it soon.  It’s going to start to get colder before long‒indeed, it already is starting to get colder up north, I’m sure.  Also, the leaves have probably already begun to turn, farther north, and it would be lovely to see them, even if only for one last time.

Still, wishes are just thoughts.  I don’t know what I’m going to do.  But I’ve been preparing things at least a little, just in case.  And depending on what I’m able to make myself decide to do, I may take a hiatus from this blog or give it up entirely.  But that doesn’t mean I won’t (necessarily) keep in communication, if I’m able.

In the meantime, though*, I’ll expect to be writing at least the rest of this week (through Friday, since I am not scheduled to work on Saturday).  Maybe I’ll have further updates about my plans, or about my boots and/or shoes.  It should be vaguely interesting, I suppose.

Watch this space for further bulletins.

*And time can be very mean, can it not?

by

Trivial nonsense on a pseudo-ominous day

I’d intended to walk to the train this morning, so of course I didn’t bring my portable, foldable computer designed to be suitable for use resting upon one’s lap with me yesterday.  Therefore, I am writing this blog post on my smartphone*.  However, I did not walk to the train.

I just felt really wiped out still this morning; my sleep wasn’t quite as bad as it had been the night before, but it still was rotten, and I feel rotten.  Also, this morning it’s three degrees (Fahrenheit…so one and two thirds degrees Celsius) hotter than it was two days ago.  I’m sweating even more than usual even though I’m just sitting at the train station right now.  There’s also, again, no breeze of which to speak, so everything is stagnant, and sweat doesn’t really do any work toward cooling one down.

I hope that, by this evening, it’s either cooler or at least breezier, and that I’ll have a bit more energy, so I might feel up to walking back from the train.  At least then I wouldn’t have to worry about sweating on train seats.

My coworker did come to the office yesterday, bearing pictures and stories of his brief family trip, mainly focused on his very young daughter.  It was quite charming.  Another person I know is currently on a trip as well‒two of them together, really‒and all these reports got me nostalgic about trips I had taken to (or times I had lived in) their various destinations.  I fear to talk too much about my own experiences in such circumstances, though I feel the urge‒I suspect that I’m just being horribly obnoxious when I catch myself doing it, and internally rebuke myself with things like, “No one gives a shit about all your stupid stories” and so on.

To be fair, no one has complained to me about it, so I evidently haven’t overstepped the bounds of good taste too much.  I probably do so overstep here, on my blog, but if anyone here doesn’t want to “hear” my stupid stories, they have only themselves to blame for reading them.

Today is Friday the 13th, isn’t it?  Back in the old days, some local network station would probably have used today‒and the fact that we are in the month of October, to boot‒as an excuse to show some highly edited versions of the slasher films named after the day.  For all I know, some of them still do.  Anyway, I tend to like Friday the 13th, largely because 13 is a prime number, and it’s one for which I feel a special affection precisely because it is so reviled by so many other people, for silly, superstitious reasons.  I myself am not superstitious.  I’m just a little bit stitious.  Ba-dump-bump.

I will be working tomorrow, so maybe I’ll walk to the train in the morning.  Timing things like that can be a bit awkward on the weekend, because the trains only run every hour, and none of the departure times is roughly comparable to the place in the hour that I usually catch them.  So if I get up at the same time as usual, whether walking or otherwise, I’m either “too early” or “too late” compared to my preference.  Of course “too early” is VASTLY preferable to the alternative, so I will err in that direction.  It’s not as though I can choose just to sleep in‒not without the use of pharmaceuticals‒so I might as well just get going.

I had a rather abrupt surge in my lower back pain this morning, above the usual baseline (to which I’ve almost become accustomed).  It may be because I didn’t put on my spandex knee and ankle support thingies**, since I had chosen not to walk.  It seems a bit much to think, though, that just the very small amount of walking I’ve done without them, wearing boots that give decent ankle support, would trigger an exacerbation.  It’s possible, I guess, but it seems unlikely.  It’s also possible that I slept in an unusual position, or just that fatigue and relative dehydration and whatnot are taking a bit of a toll.

Ah, well.  I brought my knee and ankle specialty spandex bits of supplemental clothing with me, in case I walk this evening, so I can always slip them on during the day.

I already gave away my folding massage chair.  It wasn’t doing me any good anymore, and it’s one less thing to have around or to leave behind.  I’m trying to farm off or just eliminate as much useless junk as I can.  The less clutter, the better.

That last sentence makes me wish I could legitimately say “and the less butter, the cletter”, but that last word, alas, has no meaning of which I am aware.  I suppose I could make up a meaning for it, but if you have to invent a word to make a pseudo-spoonerism work, then you’re really reaching.

One of the security guys on the train just walked by, and as he did, he muttered, “Damn, it’s hot.”  He’s far from overstating the situation.  The A/C on the train appears to be running***, based on the noise, but it doesn’t seem to be cooling the car much if at all.  I guess that at least means that my glasses (and my phone) won’t fog up when I exit the train, and that’s worth avoiding, so it’s a good thing.  See?  Who says I can’t find the positive in seemingly negative situations?

Some do say that cynics are really just frustrated idealists.  I don’t know that I am or ever have been an idealist, but I certainly am frustrated.

With that, I’ll draw (or write) this post to a close.  I hope you all have a good and lucky Friday the 13th, and that you have a good weekend to follow.  I expect to be writing a post for tomorrow morning, so if you like that sort of thing, come to this space then‒figuratively speaking‒at about the usual time.

*I don’t have any urge to clarify the word “smartphone” because it really doesn’t refer to any other entity in the universe of which I know, and‒certainly compared to any phones I used prior to the last ten years‒it is a very smart phone indeed.

**I’m not sure what the best term for these is.  “Brace” feels most typical, but that, to me, somehow implies hard, hinged, moving parts, which are lacking in the products I use.  “Support” seems reasonable, but it feels a bit vague.  Perhaps “compression sleeve” would work, but that feels a bit confusing.

***I would guess that it’s probably powered by alternating current created by an alternator (duh!) attached to the engine, but it could be run from batteries that receive their charge via rectified current initially generated in the engine.  If that is the case, then we have the rather pleasing situation of an A/C running on DC.  That’s better than butter and cletter than clutter.

by

…sore labour’s bath, blog of hurt minds, great nature’s second course…

Hello and good morning.

It’s Thursday again, and as I warned you would happen, I am writing this blog post on my laptop computer.  You have no one to blame but yourself if you’re reading it in spite of that fact.

I had a terrible night’s sleep last night, and I feel absolutely wiped out this morning.  It’s not that I couldn’t fall asleep.  Indeed, I fell asleep several times throughout the night.  But, of course, one is really only supposed to fall asleep the one time at night, and then wake up the one time in the morning, at least under ideal circumstances.

I know that many, perhaps most, people often have some interruptions to their sleep; it’s not unusual for bathroom trips to be required at some point.  But this was a deeply fragmented night, even by my standards, and I’m utterly exhausted.  I’m sure I’ve said that before, possibly more often than not.

At least this morning there is a slight breeze, with occasional accelerations to being a noticeable wind, and that’s pleasant while I’m sitting at the train station.  I did not walk to the train this morning, because, again, I’m trying not to overdo things in the short term.  It would have been a comparatively pleasant morning on which to walk, though.

Still, yesterday I did just over eight miles total, so it’s not too bad for there to be a brief respite.

One of the issues with my sleep last night was that one of my house-sharers’ dogs started barking incessantly at around midnight or so.  I had succumbed to the blandishments of Amazon Day or whatever the special thing was yesterday, and had ordered several items that I was considering ordering anyway.  Most were due to arrive Friday or so, but there were a few things—allergy meds and the like—that were due to arrive “same day”, yesterday, in the evening, which was handy but not essential.

They were to have arrived by 10, but as that time approached and they had not been delivered (according to Amazon’s site) I decided it wasn’t worth it to wait up for them.  I had taken half a Benadryl to try at least to help me get to sleep, which it seemed to do.

So, when I woke up, maybe two hours later, I thought perhaps the package had just been delivered, and the dog was barking at the delivery person.  Alas, it was not so.  In fact, the Amazon site indicated that this delivery was running late, and would now be arriving sometime today before 10pm, even though it had been listed as “out for delivery” since 4pm yesterday.  I don’t know how it went from “out for delivery” to “now arriving today by 10pm”, but it’s terribly irritating, since they are the ones who offered the fast delivery.  It’s not as though I cajoled or pressured them into saying they would do it.

Anyway, I decided to go out and make sure the Amazon report was correct; sometimes they are not.  Also, there was the bare possibility that some human or other kind of animal was puttering around in front of the house.  I almost hoped that was the case.  I grabbed my stainless steel baseball bat from among the four or so weapons I keep by my side when I sleep, donned the slip-on shoes that I use for going outside on short notice, and headed out.

I inadvertently scared a tiny and cute opossum away from the cat food I put out for the two remaining cats (who were just milling about, unconcerned about the interloper, so I wasn’t worried either), and I walked around to the front of the house.  There was no sign of the Amazon package, nor was there anyone on whom to practice my swing with the baseball bat, so it was a mostly fruitless trip.  At least it seemed that the dog was able to see me, and it started barking harder as I turned and walked back toward the rear of the house.

As I went, I heard, inside, the neighbor getting up and yelling at the dog to shut up, so there’s at least some compensation.  They need to train their dogs, if they’re going to keep them.  The dogs are nice, but they have almost no discipline.  So, it’s right that the dogs’ owner(s) should be awakened at night by the fruits of their lack of labor.

Anyway, I got back to my room and was generally very irritated.  If Amazon had said from the start that the few items in my now-late order were to arrive today, I would have been fine with it.  But they offered, without me asking, to deliver them the same day—if one ordered $25 or more worth, anyway—so I did order that much, and now it’s late.  Out of frustration, I cancelled all the other, unshipped things in my upcoming order.  It was not a small order.  I almost just canceled my Amazon Prime membership, but I’m not quite at that stage, yet.  For now, it’s still useful.  But it won’t be useful, to me or to anyone else, much longer—at least I hope not.

Of course, that wasn’t the only interruption in my sleep, but it was a big one, and it put me in a grumpier mood than I would have been in otherwise—if you can believe such a thing is possible!  So now, in the morning, at the station, I feel as if my very mind and soul are tattered shreds of cobweb, riddled with dust, flecked with tiny flakes of old, decaying paint and gnats that were never eaten by any spider but had simply become trapped and slowly died there.

Something like that.

I also have a bit of a belly ache, and I’m not just speaking figuratively.  I wish I didn’t have to go in and work today, but I’m not sure that my coworker will be back, though he’s supposed to be.  People are unreliable, so obviously, I cannot rely upon his return.

I almost wish I could believe that my abdomen would develop some kind of deadly process that would kill me or at least hospitalize me today, but given how unpleasant abdominal pain tends to be, I suppose I don’t really want that.  Still, it would be nice to have something happen that would take this all away from me, since I’m too strongly conditioned to be able just to quit everything on my own, for my own sake…at least, so far.

Eventually, I’ll reach my limit, no doubt.  I hope to do so very soon.  I was on the verge of it two or so weeks ago, when my coworker’s vacation plans came to light and then changed, and I had to postpone things or else make the occurrence of my quietus something that caused more disruption than I was willing to tolerate at the time.

Perhaps I’m making excuses.

Anyway, I’m tired beyond easy belief, and I’m tired of dealing with and doing all this bullshit.  I need to go.  At the very least, I need to go to sleep, and just be able not to keep waking up over and over and over all the time.  I need to escape.

I don’t like my chances.

Anyway, I hope you all had a better night than I had.  That would at least be some consolation for me.  And I hope you all have a very good day.

TTFN

sleep-no-more-altered