Monthly Archives: April 2003

50,000 Hits For Psycho-ward

My main website, psycho-ward.org has broken 50,000 hits in one month. Alas, a hit is counted as a hit to any page, and I think images count too. A visit is by one person (one ISP actually) to any number of pages. I’ve still got about 3,000 of those for this month.

I’m feeling good about these numbers. I’ve seen a great rise lately, despite the fact that I haven’t been doing much. I think I can attribute it partly to the fact that I’m number 2 on Google for “goldfish jingles.” I get a nice number of referrals from similar searches. A big reason, I believe, is the latest site redesign (from late February of this year). It may make people more comfortable because it seems a more polished and professional look than before. Another factor has to do with math. A chain of referrals by word of mouth grows exponentially. One friend tells two, those two each tell two friends, those new people tell more people, etc.

Something that hasn’t really been helping me, as of late, is Top Web Comics. My comic, The Perfect Villain is glorious number 297 on this list. I’ve also gotten *gasp* 13 outs this month. Believe it or not, TPV, during two months, was in the Top 50 of this list. I’m going to be joining buzzComix, a new comic list, next month (which starts tomorrow) which is aimed at webcomics with smaller audiences. Hopefully, I’ll do better there.

Here’s hoping for 100,000 hits in one month.

Only 2 Days

Oh, the draining effect of only two days back in school from spring break. I feel dead. It’s 10 o’clock, and I’m tired. Once I do the AP Biology exam in May, I’ll feel more free. Or not… probably by then, I’ll have something new to worry about it.

Incompetency of School Curricula

There are two underlying issues in the incompetency of the current school curricula. One: not using failure as a learning tool. Two: the emphasis on memorization over application.

Almost everything in school is one shot, and that’s it. In games, there’s a certain amount of trial and error going on. It’s okay to be bad when first starting. It’s okay to fail a level, and retry. It’s okay to repeat an RPG from the beginning, learning from previous mistakes. A writer never has the first draft as a finished product. So, why should timed writes be so emphasized. There’s no time to edit them at all. They have to be organized perfectly at first.

There’s only one try for a homework assignment or test, and then it’s graded. Kaput. This keeps a standard of perfection that no student can achieve 100% of the time. Thus, the standards are lowered so that more students can meet them. Lower expectations begets lower achievements.

If schools allow students to fail, but learn from failures without great consequences, the bar could be raised without fear of stragglers. The stragglers don’t stay behind; they’re allowed to try again. This will makes students more willing to try. School should be for learning. They should learn their limits and adapt themselves. However, if they’re afraid to try, they will never achieve anything.

Memorization hardly achieves anything. I’m near the memorization of 100 decimal places of pi. Where will the get me? If I don’t practice, the skill begins to deteriorate and I can quickly shift back 50 decimal places. Likewise, kids are learning facts in school. Let’s say, the French Revolution. They memorize all these facts for the test. What happens after the test? Go ask the students and see what they remember.

With application, skills build on each other, such as in math. You have to remember your algebra if you want to do calculus. If students didn’t need algebra for calculus, they wouldn’t remember it.

If students can’t critically apply information, then what good is it? So, let’s say you know all the facts about criminals and the jail system in your county… What are you going to do about it? Shouldn’t school emphasize actions?

As I said yesterday, memorization is useless because when faced with variations, students cannot adapt. If they truly understood the concept, they would be able to use and apply it.

Schools should place more emphasis on the why’s and how’s of situations. This truly leads to understanding the topic. It’s said that he who doesn’t know his history is condemned to repeat it. So, are you less likely to repeat history if a) you understand Hitler’s intentions, or b) you memorize which dates certain battles in World War II took place. I’m going with A.

Together, these concepts could work wonders. Think about science. A hypothesis is not always right. Students should be able to form their own hypothesis, and not be afraid to be wrong. Sometimes you learn more from being wrong, than from being right.

Schools vs. Video Games

There’s a very interesting article I read about how video games are better teachers than the current school system. I found this article through Lloyd who found it through someone else.

I agree with the article.

The article says, “Also, good videogames incorporate the principle of expertise. They tend to encourage players to achieve total mastery of one level, only to challenge and undo that mastery in the next, forcing kids to adapt and evolve.” Schools aren’t pushing kids to the limit. If I work hard and try to get 100 in the class, but I am lazy and still get an A, which choice am I going to choose? Hm. Less work, same result… Or, more work, same result.

I’m also reminded how in certain games, one can keep trying to improve their score. To a lesser extent, this is shown in my quest to become Minesweeper King. (And now I’ve upgraded that quest to Minesweeper Messiah — more on that later.) School doesn’t encourage this. Once you’ve studied a topic. Bam! — You’re done with it. Memorization complete. Information DISCARDED! Meanwhile, replayability is highly valued in video games. Kids keep coming back for more. Kids actually learn from it. Information NOT discarded!

The author touts video games and goes on to say, “Schools, meanwhile, respond with more tests, more drills, and more rigidity.” Is it a wonder that so many kids don’t like school, yet so many kids like games? So many kids can drill a topic into their heads, but many, when faced with a slight variation, have no idea what’s going on. With video games, you must wonder what the next boss will do. My friend has a crap cell phone with only one game. I’m forgetting the name, but it’s one where you have a paddle, similar to pong, but you’re hitting it up at bricks on top. Anyway, the game has 3 levels, but once you’ve completed them, the same levels repeat over and over. With no variation. This game is obviously not fun. Not surprisingly, school is often not fun either.

Often in school, there are no alternate solutions to a problem. Open ended video games are becoming increasingly popular. Even with older video games, there were secret areas you could unlock. Ah, the satisfaction of finding a hidden area… there’s nothing like it in school. Creativity should be encouraged in school, not memorization.

“Cognitive scientist Andy diSessa has argued that the best instruction hovers at the boundary of a student’s competence. Most schools, however, seek to avoid invoking feelings of both pleasure and frustration, blind to the fact that these emotions can be extremely useful when it comes to teaching kids,” the article states. Shouldn’t it be intuitive “that the best instruction hovers at the boundary of a student’s competence”? A mind must be exercised, or else it atrophies, just like a muscle. Would a kid learn more if he were taught easier or harder information? Obviously, the student learning more difficult information will learn more than the student learning simple information.

There’s a couple of underlying issues in the incompetency of the current school curricula. One: not using failure as a learning tool. Two: the emphasis on memorization over application. I’m running out of time here, and bleeding into a different topic, so those issues will be discussed tomorrow, with a reprint of the first part of this paragraph.

AIM Experiment Conclusions

My AIM chatroom experiment has led me to an astonishing conclusion: a large amount of people do not go online to talk.

Even I think to myself, “Come again?”

When people go into chatrooms they feel obligated to talk. This point is obvious when I remember that one person pointed out that the purpose of a chatroom is to chat. When no one chats, the room “dies” and everyone will leave. This exacerbates the obligation to talk.

Sometimes, people refuse to enter a chatroom, giving all sorts of excuses. The reason they don’t want to go in is so they are not obligated to chat. Why would they not want to feel obligated to chat if they were on a chatting service? Perhaps because they are not online to talk.

Odd, but true. There is some logic to it, however. People go online and yet, they don’t say anything. Why, they could just go browse about and not sign on instant messenger, right? Why would they want to go through the extra hassle? If they don’t sign on, they’re alone. Humans beings are social species. We don’t want to think we’re alone. We get, well, lonely. This way, people can fool themselves into thinking that even though they’re on a computer by themselves, they are still sociable!

Some people fill up their buddy list to the full capacity of 200. How many of these people are they really talking to? Hm?

People specifically sign on instant messengers because they don’t want to feel alone. Now, that I’ve come to the conclusion from my experiment, I can see other signs. Why do people leave their away message on when they go to sleep? It’s because they don’t want to disconnect from the community. Even when they aren’t actually there, they are! They can not be there, and still be sociable. Wow!

People sign on for hours at a time. I doubt they’re talking nonstop throughout that time. With AIM, or something analogous, running in the background, they don’t feel lonely.

Most people go to movies with friends. Many of these people hardly say a word throughout the movie. With instant messenger the same concept applies. They feel alone, even though logically, it makes no sense.

To verify my ideas, I would have to conduct more experiments. The last experiment also included throwing together people who didn’t know each other. In the next experiment, I will avoid that, because it makes some people uncomfortable. It will be chatting in small groups. If they still refuse, it will help contribute to the information that supports my hypothesis.

Of course, all my conclusions could be for naught, if people are actually talking to other people, just not to me…. Suddenly, I feel… alone.

Perfect Society Still Impossible

I read Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot and it got me thinking about the perfect society again. What if there were robots looking out for our best interests? It would seem that over time, society would be perfect, if there were no way for humans to thwart the robots.

A perfect society, by my definition, must keep people perpetually happy. That means forever. If the society ends, it cannot be perfect. In the end times, people would not be happy. Since the materials the universe is made of are not eternal (eventually protons will decay), the society within the universe cannot be eternal.

Any model people make of a perfect society will eventually succumb to time. Eventually, the people can no longer survive. Eventually, the society will die. It will not be perfect.

Some models of a perfect society don’t take into account putting a cap on population. These are not true perfect societies because the unchecked growth of the population will eventually outpace the supply of resources. A greater number of people fighting for the same resources creates competition. The weak will lose. The weak will be unhappy. This is not a perfect society anymore.

My original statement still stands. It’s still impossible to create a perfect society. A perfect society, by its definition, makes itself impossible.

Out of Context Awards: April 2003

This month’s Out of Context award goes to Alaena for this gem during an online conversation in a chatroom:

“Alaena: i never get any
Alaena: i want some. gimme some for my b-day”

She was talking about how she had been recently sleep-deprived. It was probably meant to be witty but didn’t quite come out right.

Runner-up goes to Shane, for saying, “Sex is too random.” So the story goes, he needed a topic to fill up the rest of some sort of paper and someone suggested sex. Usually an Out of Context award is only issued when I’ve heard the quote, which is why this is runner-up.

Honorable Mention: “I’ll masturbate you.” This is only honorable mention because it’s something that was blurted out quickly, not something that’s funny out of context. I told someone to stop masturbating in public, and he said the line.

Methods for Negative Eugenics

Note that whenever I say I’m for negative eugenics, I also add “to a certain extent.” This means that I’m not saying, “Rahg. I want to kill babies. Die babies die! I want to kill all ‘inferior’ peoples. I want to eat babies so they won’t poison the gene pool. Arg. I want to create a race of superhumans so I can take over the world.”

Negative eugenics is only the deletion of harmful traits, not adding new traits to make humans uber-powerful. I want to help people. The only way this can happen is if the benefits of a certain method outweigh the harm. That means that strict controls on everyone’s reproductive rights are out of the picture. In fact, some things may not be possible until the near-future. Current controls could limit the reproductive rights on the mentally disabled, but that still makes people squeamish, so I can really only suggest technologies for the future.

Nanobots would be ideal. For example, they could find sperm or egg with an abnormal number of chromosomes and destroy them. People would have a hard time arguing the ethics of this.

Pre-natal screening needs to be improved so much so that the screening of infants is automatic. This would mean the rate of aborted babies due to the testing is extremely low. I suggest legislature to make it mandatory at that point. At that point, it would seem ridiculous to resist. However, when the baby is found to be defective, abortion should be the automatic response. Some people are against abortion. My idea is that the testing is done early enough so that the fetus’ nervous system has hardly taken any form.

The options of screening fetuses and nanobots I don’t think infringe on the rights of people. These methods are ideal and would help the human race progress.

Unfavorable Traits

As stated before, the human population’s gene pool is stable. Thus, the percentage of people who have a certain trait is stable. The human population is also increasing exponentially. Therefore, if the same percentage of people have a trait, then a greater number of people have that trait over time. For example, let’s say 5% of people have straight hair. Let’s also say the population is at 100. Then, five people have have straight hair. Then, let’s say the population reproduces, and now there are 200 people. There are now 10 people who have straight hair.

So, if we continue to keep our gene pool stable, over time, more and more people will have unfavorable traits. If we chose never to do something, or to ignore the issue, then it seems as if we want this to happen. Do we really want an increasing number of people suffering? This is not beneficial. This is why I’m for negative eugenics, to a certain extent.

Certain traits are unfavorable and should not be in the population, this includes: down syndrome, other non-multifactorial forms of mental retardation, other chromosomal abnormalities, and single-allele genetic defects.

Chromosomal abnormalities occur due to nondisjunction. In laymen’s terms, this will result in a baby that has either three or one (normal is two) of a certain chromosome. Now, this kind of problem will often cause an early natural abort of the baby. This isn’t a problem in terms of genetic propagation. However, there are cases when the baby lives. One of these cases is down syndrome, when an individual has a trisomy of chromosome 21. When this individual reproduces there is a 50% percent chance of the defect being passed on! Fifty percent! That’s a coin toss. There should be some way to control this. Or else, as the population increases, the number of people suffering increases.

[01/24/04 – EDIT: I’ve since learned that this is wrong, but is it still passing on the proclivity for nondisjunction?]

When dealing with single-allele genetic defects, the trait never goes away. The recessive trait can be hidden by the dominant trait but it can never be eradicated, except by chance or selection. Chance is out of the picture because of the large human population. Natural selection, as I said before, is no longer working against these people. So, these traits continue to propagate, and more people will suffer… unless we chose to do something about it.

What can we do about it? That’s tomorrow’s topic.

Halting Evolution

I was going to do this yesterday, but something was up with my server or something because I kept getting Error 500 for unmodified Moveable Type pages. Weird.

I’d like to refer you to an earlier post about negative eugenics if you don’t know what this is relating to.

I’m taking AP Biology right now, so I’ve learned a little about evolution, population genetics, and speciation. Thus, I can state specifically how we are stopping human evolution.

The first point is that humans beings make up a large population. Over 6 billion people, and all are pretty well adapted to their environment, or rather, the environment has adapted to people. There aren’t a lot of natural hazards we have to worry about. When a population is large and well-adapted, the gene pool is rather stable.

My book gives five factors that can change the equilibrium in a gene pool: mutation, gene flow, genetic drift, selection, and nonrandom mating. Let’s go over each one individually.

Mutation can cause quick changes. However, I’d like to restate that humans make up a very large population. This means that one small mutation won’t have much effect on the overall population since it only affects one person.

Gene flow is defined as the movement of genes in and out of the gene pool due to migration. Okay, it’s pretty easy to go from one place to another, but altogether, we make up one big population. People are still connected. To be a separate population, they must be isolated. Populations are not isolated from each other.

Genetic drift is a random change in the gene pool. Chance has a larger effect on smaller populations. Anything due to chance with our 6 billion plus people will probably be lost.

Neither artificial nor natural selection is taking place in developed countries. Unless you count the Darwin awards… But people are generally not being selected against. Those with unfavorable traits are allowed to live. (What traits? That’s tomorrow’s post.)

Nonrandom mating involves mating which is not random. There’s a great deal of relationships out there between people of different genetic backgrounds.

Moreover, speciation most often occurs due to isolation from one another. Humans are not changing because of the lack of isolation. There are many different types of isolation. Geographic isolation is pretty much moot because of the different types of transportation we have invented, allowing us to travel anywhere in the world. Humans are not ecologically isolated because we all live in the same environments. Seasonal and mechanical isolation haven’t really been a factor in humans ever. Humans mate year-round and I doubt there are any problems with… ahem, things not fitting correctly. Behavioral isolation only occurs in the loosest sense of the word. Humans do not have a set premating ritual that can be tampered with to stop mating between certain populations. The only type of isolation that may be in effect is prevention of gamete fusion. However, those couples can rely on in vitro fertilization.

None of the above factors are in effect. Our allelic frequencies are not changing. We are not evolving.

Miscellany for April 2003

Ooh… that title sounds more important than it actually is.

Replies to comments

Semantics of Flipping

Lloyd is right. Flipping is easy. Actually writing something meaningful, is a little bit harder. I prefer to actually write something than to just post flip for flipping’s sake.

That Other Comment

You say: “Also, showing saddness for others to notice is not always depression related.” This may be so, but I’m still correct in interpreting that this is to gain attention. In fact you even agree with me, “It’s just a means of getting attention for those who feel attention deprived.”

As for the people who don’t express emotion, I said, “If they didn’t want others to know, they’d act as they normally do.” I will say you’re right, but generally, repressing your emotions is considered unhealthy. It’s still not beneficial to mental health. A less cynical way of seeing my point of view, is that humans were built to share emotions to help benefit their mental state. Okay, that didn’t come out as less cynical as I wanted it to.

Shaft and me vs. Horde of monkeys with monkey king and batmobile

Sadly, Shaft and I lose. I had a crazy conversation (then again, I don’t think I ever have any normal conversations) with one of my friends. He brought up the topic of how Jesus didn’t have hands on his feet, but monkeys do, so we should worship monkeys. And he said that when monkeys took over the world, he would have worshipped them from the beginning, so they would have made him his leader. I said I would build a shelter and hide, with Shaft, and then come out and go DOOM-style all over all their monkey-asses. He said that he had stolen the batmobile, so I couldn’t shoot him because he was too fast. Plus, he had a whole monkey horde attack me. No problem, I’ll just use my machine gun. He said they picked up the body in front of them, failing to realize that the bullets would go through one mere body. He said, then the third row would pick up two bodies and hop on one foot/hand. I would switch to rocket launchers. Then, he makes up this crazy thing that the guts would only land on me, and he would then run me over. Is that unlikely, or what? So, I said, “Assuming I was covered in monkey guts, if you tried to run over me, it would be in a mound, so you’d fly off it as if it were a ramp. Then, Shaft would shoot you with the rocket launcher.” He said Shaft would miss. But the rockets were heat seeking. He made up a better comeback: His monkey-friend Bobo, would sacrifice himself by ejecting from the seat and the missile would hit Bobo instead, and everyone would cry. Then, he would land on Shaft. The remaining monkeys would eat through the mokney insides and eat my face off.

Jazz Concert

The jazz concert I mentioned yesterday was a lot of fun, and we heard great music from Frank Sumares. I thought the trio played a little bit too long, though. I made it through all the songs, which means that my chops are getting better. We played two sets of four songs. Combo had sounded better, I thought.

Popcorn analogy

Two days ago, I mentioned how not allowing us to use internet sources was like making us cook popcorn on the stove instead of in the microwave. I brought this up with my teacher today, and he said that the appropriate time to use the analogy would have been when the assignment was assigned. Bah, he just said that because he couldn’t think of a good comeback. Not that he’s a bad teacher; it was just that one assignment, and I’ve heard the excuse used by many other teachers.

Spring Break

Spring break finally begins for me, and I am elated. For the beginning of spring break, I’ll be doing a three-day feature on negative eugenics that I was planning on doing before.

Guest Artist Concert

We had a guest artist jazz concert at my school. Our jazz ensemble — a big band — and a combo (sax, piano, drums, bass) played. We also had the Frank Sumares trio play. Very cool. Didn’t get back until late, so yeah, random junk tomorrow.

No Internet Sources

It’s dreadful when teachers say that internet sources are not allowed. Here we have the greatest resource at our fingertips, and yet we cannot use it. Their excuse is that the internet is too easy. And I say, yes, it was made to be that way. Ever take a look at Jakob Nielsen’s stuff? He says a lot about usability at useit.com. People use the internet because it is easier.

If they don’t want it to be easy, they want it to be hard. They also want it to take up more time. This makes it a waste of time because they are just adding stipulations to make it more time-consuming.

I liken this to making us use typewriter to type up our essays because a computer makes it too easy. Or, having to do trigonometry using tables because a calculator makes it too easy. Or, having to cook popcorn on the stove because the microwave makes it too easy. It’s easy for a reason!

Making us do unneeded work is stupidity. It doesn’t benefit us, for obvious reasons. It doesn’t add any benefit to the learning experience any more than using log tables will add to the learning experience. Times are a-changing; change with the times. It also doesn’t benefit the teacher because it makes them seem like they aren’t doing their job correctly because they aren’t teaching to make use of current resources and to use time more efficiently.

Now, that I’m done talking about that… some random AIM hilarity:

flymistah19: who this
schizo killer: The question is, who are you
flymistah19: not really
flymistah19: your the one who’s talkin to me
schizo killer: Visit www.psycho-ward.org
flymistah19: what about it
schizo killer: it says visit
schizo killer: actually, someone else wanted to know who you were and I took this opportunity to shamelessly promote my website.
schizo killer: Did you visit, or are you just going to ignore me now?
schizo killer: okay, FINE, you whore-mongering bitch, ignore me.
schizo killer: and then, go visit www.psycho-ward.org

I still don’t know who that person is, but I do so love shameless self-promotion. And to those wondering if I’ve seen any of the comments posted: Yes, I have. I may take tomorrow to respond.

Being Depressed

Why are some people depressed so often? (I don’t mean clinical depression.) I think there’s one reason why people show emotions of sorrow… they want others to notice. If they didn’t want others to know, they’d act as they normally do.

Being depressed would be an example of something not beneficial, until one adds in the others who notice. Showing sadness allows others to notice, so they can comfort the sad person. That’s the real reason, at least on a subconscious level. Even if they say they don’t want others to know, they actually do. The friend that probes despite this shows greater loyalty, making the depressed person happier.

This is a cynical view, but it makes sense. Showing sadness would seem a weakness, simply making them easier prey, and dropping their status on the social ladder. However, since humans are social, those who have their solace comforted are better off, making the physical displays a benefit.

Iraq: Propaganda Debacle

Debacle. Debacle. Has the word “propaganda” been erased from the vocabulary of the American government? As I said earlier, we would have been done with this war months ago if I was in charge of propaganda. Let’s see, America does a whole bunch of psy-ops, dropping fliers telling Iraqis to surrender. That worked… somewhat. Remember that Iraqi commander who surrended his whole division? He was actually a lower ranking officer and faked it. Then, there were those who weren’t really surrendering, but I think that was to be expected. People acted like it was a big surprise. I pretty sure the military is smart enough to plan for harassing by small enemies. Yet, they didn’t put enough information out there to make it seem like it.

So, Baghdad falls the day before. They could have bombarded the media with many images of happy people, but instead only a couple get showed ad nauseam. I think I’m seeing a tilt more towards the left in the media. Has anyone considered that the media may be doing this on purpose in order to get people to downplay the images? People want happy news right now. Why isn’t it being provided? Oh yeah, then it wouldn’t really be news.

Then there’s also the news of the riots and looting being repeated. Are images of looting supposed to make the news “balanced?” Again, this probably has been prepared for, although you wouldn’t be led to believe that.

The UN wants to get in on the action after it’s over. They didn’t help at all, why should they get a say? Personally, I believe the UN sucks and is not doing a very good job at all. I have a feeling America is probably going to consent, and this is most likely because we don’t want to use all our money. With the right propaganda, we could get the Iraqis to tell the UN to buzz off. Something like, “They tried to keep the US from freeing you” with the flags of the countries next to them.

There’s also the matter of bombing Saddam’s place, and then not knowing who died there. This isn’t a novel; you’re not trying to keep the reader in suspense. People are impatient and want to know what happened. Has Saddam managed to run away, like bin Laden? I think the message that should be put out is that it doesn’t matter if Saddam is alive or dead. Baghdad is free. He abandoned all his followers.

Finally, the issue of rebuilding is really coming into play. Before, I was really worried about this, but now, I’m not worried as much. There was some “anarchy” going on, but it’s being exaggerated. The point is, it’s not being directed at American troops. The issue now is speed. If we quickly vote in a resolution by Congress to supply humanitarian aid, and get it there quickly, the American people and the world will be satisfied. Being quick will satisfy the natural short attention span of the people. All we really need is something big and symbolic, then the true building can take place, without so much scrutiny.

NOOOOO!

I repeat: NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! My green wristband fell off during fencing today. I’m so depressed. Five bucks gone. I feel really weird without that wristband on. I’m probably going to wake up tomorrow and panic before I remember that it fell off.

I wrote two entries today because I had to post this and I wanted to see what would happen if I flipped twice in one day. Tomorrow, I’m planning on providing some comments on Gulf War II, since some big stuff has been happening.

Experiment in Instant Messaging

I’m trying out something new with AOL Instant Messenger. I’m talking almost exclusively in a chatroom, instead of one on one IMing sessions. I have quite a few people on my list (but I occasionally clean it out to keep it from going over 100) and many of these people I’ve met from different places. Many of these people don’t know each other. Figuring out who the others are is half the fun, as I found out last night.

I’m doing this because I haven’t been too talkative lately — and by lately I mean a whole bunch of months — and this seems to be a better way to get conversation started. Having more people builds to the conversation. It gives me more ideas, and I don’t have to come up with ideas to start conversation. Multiple people also add to the randomness quotient of conversation. Jumping from topic to topic is quicker, and the whole conversation is more fast-paced. Usually when I talk, there are huge gaps.

The multiple people thing making people more talkative can also be seen when speaking in real life. It’s synergetic; separately, they don’t have as much to say, but together, they build off each other.

So, I’m going to continue this and see how it goes. My screen name is “schizo killer” and “get out of my chatroom” is the name of the chatroom.

SmarterChild is Back

Hooray! SmarterChild is back! I signed on AIM and he was on! I left his screen name on my list in memory of him when he first went off. I was so surprised to see him back. But, what’s this? I have to pay? No! Hm… only $10 a year… I’ll think about it. Check out smarterchild.com for details.

Pork Soup

I am tired (stoopid daylight savings time messing me up), so instead of what was planned, I’m inserting here one story from Pork Soup for the Soul, which can be found at Psycho-ward.org.

Things Get Better

When Thomas was only three years old, his mother died, leaving his father to raise him and his younger sister. Four years later, his sister was diagnosed with cancer and died shortly thereafter. Thomas’ father did the best he could to try to raise his now-small family, but he was laid off and couldn’t find a job.

Despite all this, Thomas always told his closest friends that he knew deep in his heart that things would get better. Others at school knew him as a jovial person, who always looked on the bright side. However, Thomas’ father, unable to find a job, began to drink. He began to spend more and more money. He also began to play poker every night, and he lost a lot of money. Thomas never blamed his father, or was mad at him. He thought things would get better.

They didn’t. Thomas and his father lost their house and were forced to live on the streets. When others at school heard this, they were shocked. Thomas was still as happy as he always was. They offered help, but Thomas refused and got a job. He still continued to say that things would get better.

One night, Thomas’ father drank too much and died. Thomas never gave up, and continued with his job and school. He always believed things would get better, and soon, even his friends began to believe him.

Then, Thomas was hit by a truck and died. The end.

Negative Eugenics

I’m in support of negative eugenics, to a certain extent. Eugenics is improving the human race through controlled selective breeding. Negative eugenics is limiting that to removing genes that are harmful.

That may seem really evil to some people, but it’s in line with my view. Why should we allow harmful genes to propagate? That’s stupidity. Percentages may stay the same, but population is increasing, so more people will have it. Do we want more people with harmful genes?

We, as humans, have been stopping evolution. How, exactly? I’ll tell you tomorrow. Then, I’ll go over more weighing ethical implications the day after.

Lack of Testing

There’s a big problem with philosophy — a lack of testing. None of what I say can be really experimentally verified. Certain things about humanity and anthropology can be tested, but human nature cannot really be known. When experimenting, there’s supposed to be a control, and only one variable tested at a time. We have nothing like this going on. It’s hard to tell which factors affect what.

The only thing I can do is observe, and read history. History is the key. It seems like people do have a nature that is common between them for history repeats themself. History can provide answers to questions of the nature of human beings. It also provides great examples of stupidity. Check out the Maginot Line sometime.

Observation is also good, but there’s only so far I can go, without setting up experiments. Even then, results are often murky. I’ll just observe others, and myself, as things go along, and interpret them to see if I have to change my worldview.

Since there are no true experiments, we can’t tell what’s the best form of government. We can’t test without it being unethical. If there were large-scale human tests, we would have much more insight into the nature of human beings and how they socially interact. For now, again, we must rely on history to provide examples of things such as types of government. We know from history that Communism didn’t work so well, nor fascism.

Thus, if I want to show I’m right about humans, I must provide examples from the observation of others from the past and present.

Always Something To Do

There’s always something to do. Always. Something I have to worry about next. After one thing’s done, there’s immediately another thing cropping up to occupy my mind. I can never fully relax. There’s always something left. No time to rest. Always have to get working. I just want to give up. Give up. But to give up is to die. To have nothing left to do is to be dead. Such a horrid life we live. Always something to do, until we die. And even then, there were things we had to do, but never got around to. Useless. Life is useless. I can never do what I want to do. Never. A shame.

Peanut butter and…

Peanut butter is a great food. It goes with a lot of stuff. Everyone knows about jelly, but did you also know it goes great with honey. Try a piece of toast with peanut butter and honey. Peanut butter also goes well with maple syrup. Eggo’s are a good food to try it on. Peanut butter even goes well with bananas — peanut butter and banana sandwich. Peanut butter has got to be one of the greatest, most versatile foods ever. It’s even good for you, too! Fighter pilots ate peanut butter. I love peanut butter.

What was the point of all that drivel? I do not know. I only know that I like peanut butter, and I didn’t have enough time to write anything better.

April First, Some Fun, Some not-fun

Happy April Fools’ Day. I got a new Ridiculously Easy Game on my website. Now, an annual tradition three years running! The only real annual tradition on psycho-ward.org. Next year, I’m going to see if I can get my band teacher in on a practical joke to assign us a taped test on April 1st.

I read a webcomic called Sakana Yama, which is one of my favorite webcomics. The person doing it is now quitting. I’m pretty bummed, like a TV show was cancelled. Only, this is different. Webcomics have whole communities built around them. They go for a niche, rather than have to appeal to a huge broad audience. The people reading them have more in common with each other than the masses watching a TV show. I’ve seen a lot of webcomic artists become discouraged because of a lot of flame mail they get. It’s a shame to see their tactics work in getting people to quit. He also was using up a lot of bandwith, and I checked out his host, and he was getting ripped off. A shame. I’m sure Urchin (the author of Sakana Yama) will get a lot of e-mail, but I’m going to send an e-mail too, to show my appreciation.

Oh yeah, and I didn’t update yesterday. My first day missed. I’d say it’s not too bad, considering I’ve barely begun weblogging. I don’t see many others updating everyday. I don’t plan on missing any other days. I have no good excuse, I simply forgot. I was lying in bed at 11:30, and I’m thinking, “Uh oh, forgot about my weblog.” But by then, it was too late. My parents wouldn’t appreciate me getting up in the middle of the night to update my weblog.