Checksum Arcanius

Well, hopefully 13 hours of sleep makes up for twelve hours of Counterstrike. I fell asleep shortly after cancelling the movie last night, and I slept straight through for a good 11 hours. Then I rolled over and get another two hours. I am refreshed. I still haven’t put my desktop back into place yet, though. I think that yesterday pretty much was enough counterstrike for the next month.

Today, so far, I’ve had breakfast and I caught Theo (who is in Iraq) online while I am at home for the frst time in a long time. Although his internet connection isn’t the best (he drops offline periodiclly), it is good to be able to talk to a friend even when he is so far away.

After work yesterday, I returned home grabbed this laptop and my desktop, along with various peripherals, and headed to Erik’s for a LAN party. It had started at noon, and I planned on staying until midight or so, but due primarily to a large amount of Counterstrike playing I ended up staying there until 6:00am. I managed to make it back to my place around seven, when I fell fast asleep after setting ym alarm for 10:30. I got up around then, and though not totally lucid, was able to get myself (with my brother’s driving) to frisbee. Being outside, and the sun, and the activity woke me up, and managed to keep me awake, along with a nice shower afterwards, all through a very productive inagural TRC Hack Session. We had four people show up, with another four deferring their initial visits because of the aforementioned LAN party. Others may become involved as well. At the hack session, we talked about the SRS’s mini grand challenge, and about how we wanted to not only teach but also learn together during these hack sessions. Then Bobby took it away talking about microcontrollers. He began to explain binary numbers, and we went into the topic fairly in depth, and then began talking about logic gates. We then starting working out a system of logic gates to do simple addition of two binary digits. I’ve never done that before, and I found it imensely interesting. Fortunately, the others seemed to handle it pretty well. We made it to looking at circuit diagrams before we broke for dinner. During dinner, we talked about ideas for the bigger project, but by the end it was apparent that we needed a lot more work on the details before we have a good chance at looking at the big picture. While I managed to last all the way thourgh dinner, as I was droping people off afterwards, I began feeling the effects of staying up until 7:00 and then having fulls days of activities on 3 hours of rest. I even got so far as planning a movie with Dan, before deciding it was better that I cancel because I didn’t think I could survive until midnight tongiht. In fact, with this post, I think I’ll be falling asleep.

[23:51:53] Clifton: Hey, Ryan! :)
[23:52:03] Ryan: how’s your orkut time?
[23:52:13] Clifton: hmm?
[23:52:17] Ryan: I read your posts on the socialism is stupid (or whatever) community
[23:52:31] Clifton: oh boy!
[23:52:39] Clifton: thanks for reading, but did you post back?
[23:52:53] Clifton: how did you find them?
[23:53:24] Ryan: I got to the community via your membership in it
[23:53:27] Ryan: and read the first post
[23:53:30] Ryan: that sounded interesting
[23:53:39] Ryan: and fell in love with what his name
[23:55:25] Clifton: who!?
[23:55:44] Clifton: that anti socialism essay that somebody posted?
[23:55:55] Clifton: I hope you didn’t fall in love with Stefan!
[23:56:04] Ryan: maybe that’s who
[23:56:14] Clifton: who?
[23:56:18] Clifton: describe.
[23:57:07] Ryan: the capitalist
[23:57:25] Clifton: they are all capitalists.
[23:57:44] Ryan: oh
[23:57:47] Clifton: the guy that shot down my post?
[23:57:51] Ryan: yeah, that guy
[23:57:59] Clifton: you fell in love with him?
[23:58:21] Ryan: well, not like boy-girl love, but like, wow love
[23:58:22] Clifton: that is Stefan.
[23:58:29] Clifton: *Shrug*
[23:58:33] Ryan: coool
[23:58:36] Ryan: then stefan
[23:58:47] Clifton: I enjoyed his posts until he responded to me.
[23:58:56] Clifton: I think his last post is way off.
[23:59:03] Clifton: but I can’t prove it until I read Marx
[23:59:07] Ryan: notice that we both describe ourselves as “very libertarian”
[23:59:08] Ryan: well
[23:59:24] Clifton: oh, I noticed!
[23:59:27] Ryan: his last post didn’t respond to you in the way you thought you’d be responded to
[23:59:48] Clifton: you could tell how I thought I’d be responded to?
[00:00:34] Ryan: you wanted someone to either try to defend violence in the name of capitalism or agree with you
[00:01:13] Clifton: and then he said ‘Capitalism is inherently peaceful’ … which is a very lofty thing to say.
[00:01:15] Ryan: instead, he pointed out a fundamental flaw in your argument, namely, that violence in the name of capitalism is not more capitalism than were, for example, the crusades Christianity
[00:01:20] Ryan: well
[00:01:22] Ryan: he is right
[00:01:24] Ryan: you see
[00:01:30] Ryan: that’s what made me go, wow
[00:01:31] Clifton: but that is exactly the same argument that the socialists make!
[00:01:38] Clifton: they say that the violent socialists weren’t true socialists.
[00:01:39] Ryan: but he provides evidence
[00:02:19] Ryan: whereas people that say your quote have no evidence as far as I know, other than how they define socialism
[00:02:35] Clifton: I have some to the contrary. take Texas for example. it was originally a joint USAmerican/mexican agricultural business venture, but then the farmers themselves decided to violently take the region by force.
[00:02:41] Clifton: similar situation in hawaii
[00:03:16] Clifton: then there’s the whole colonization of the Americas, in which capitalists toppled empires, and raped/killed by the hundreds of thousands. ;)
[00:03:32] Clifton: that wasn’t the government, you know? it was the traders.
[00:03:55] Ryan: and that force, as stephan points out, was not capitalism
[00:04:04] Clifton: then Stalin wasn’t socialism.
[00:04:13] Ryan: capitalism would have been to buy the land at a price both parties agreed to
[00:04:31] Clifton: and socialism would be to take care of all people, and eliminate poverty.
[00:05:24] Ryan: socialism would have been to forcibly take everyone’s property and distribute according to some arbitrary centrally mandated decisions
[00:05:31] Ryan: that’s the point he made
[00:05:47] Ryan: that very few people are willing to give up their property
[00:05:56] Ryan: which is why socialism is inherently violent
[00:06:28] Ryan: whereas in capitalism, all exchange of any sort is voluntary by all parties involved
[00:06:35] Ryan: so violence is completely out of the question
[00:06:39] Clifton: like during the USAmerican revolution, when we violently seized territory and political power from the king?
[00:07:14] Ryan: you are making no sense. are you saying that the revolutionary war was a capitalist endeavor?
[00:07:22] Clifton: all major structural changes to society are violent. you can’t say socialism is inherently violent because it is a revolutionary movement. Capitalism went through the same phase.
[00:08:03] Clifton: let’s see? a bunch of plantation owners were pissed about paying taxes, and figured they could make more profit if they governed themselves… nah, doesn’t sound like a capitalist venture to me. :)
[00:08:17] Ryan: I disagree. There are times when a society has become more capitalistic though violence, but you are confusing the means and the ends
[00:08:27] Ryan: its not
[00:08:40] Ryan: capitalism would have had the exchange be voluntary
[00:08:42] Clifton: come on!
[00:08:47] Ryan: don’t you see that
[00:08:48] Clifton: the colonies themselves were capitalist ventures
[00:09:39] Ryan: they were profiteering ventures
[00:09:47] Ryan: which you seem to associate with capitalism
[00:09:51] Ryan: which is not correct
[00:09:59] Ryan: is the colonies were capitalistic
[00:09:59] Clifton: common socialist mistake.
[00:10:07] Ryan: they would have purchased the land from its inhabitants
[00:10:16] Ryan: not slaughtered them to get it
[00:10:17] Clifton: but see. there was plenty of political profiteering in socialist revolutions.
[00:10:55] Clifton: it’s the same thing in socialist regimes, except political power in place of money.
[00:11:50] Ryan: no, its not the same at all, because in socialism, the exchanges are not voluntary. They are coerced by those in power. In capitalism, all exchange is voluntary, or the exchange does not happen
[00:12:23] Clifton: except for when it is forced.
[00:12:39] Ryan: when it is forced, it is not capitalism
[00:12:55] Clifton: like when the USA took half of Mexico, when bush ‘took’ Iraq, when cowboys took lands from native Americans.
[00:13:13] Ryan: you see, you are trying to attribute non-capitalistic things to capitalism and then saying capitalism is bad because of it
[00:13:28] Ryan: none of those were capitalistic exchanges
[00:13:49] Ryan: they were all coercive with the use of force
[00:13:51] Clifton: ok, this argument hinges on one point. Did Marx himself advocate violence in order to instill socialism. If so, then Stefan is right. if not, then he is taking the same arguments that the socialists take.
[00:15:03] Clifton: capitalists that claimed to be capitalists have a long history of using coercive methods. Socialists that claim to be socialists do too. both sides refuse to recognize these people as true (capitalists or socialists)
[00:15:21] Ryan: I’m not well enough versed with Marx to answer authoritatively. However, I believe Marx advocated a revolution by the proletariat (sp) to forcibly take over the means of production from the capitalists
[00:15:40] Clifton: Well, if that is so, then I yield.
[00:15:46] Clifton: but I can’t be sure until I read Marx.
[00:16:02] Ryan: people that claimed to be Christians have long histories of murdering, torturing, and hating other people
[00:16:11] Ryan: that doesn’t make Christianity bad
[00:16:14] Ryan: or Christ wrong
[00:16:34] Clifton: no, but it does nullify the Christian argument that Arabs are inherently violent.
[00:16:42] Clifton: if one should be made.
[00:17:15] Clifton: I’m not arguing that capitalism is bad. just that it is hypocritical and short sighted to condemn socialism on violence alone.
[00:17:19] Ryan: well, it is true that socialism can be achieved among willing participants
[00:17:32] Clifton: it’s proven.
[00:17:33] Ryan: and in that case, socialism and capitalism coincide
[00:17:42] Ryan: because no exchanges were involuntary
[00:17:43] Clifton: often, and it is beautiful.
[00:17:49] Clifton: sure. :)
[00:18:08] Ryan: where capitalism and socialism go apart is where socialism turns to force and violence to spread itself
[00:18:28] Clifton: capitalism does that too!
[00:18:38] Ryan: so, so borrow a term from differential equations, there is a bifurcation there
[00:18:42] Ryan: there is overlap
[00:18:42] Clifton: they go apart when the other uses force.
[00:18:56] Clifton: thank you!
[00:19:03] Clifton: that is half of the point I’m trying to make.
[00:19:11] Ryan: but the capitalism never calls for violence to expand, except, as stephan pointed out, in cases of self-defense
[00:19:31] Ryan: we should post this conversation to the community
[00:19:34] Clifton: and also when it is more profitable to use violence than to abide by laws.
[00:19:41] Clifton: it is way too long,
[00:19:47] Clifton: but maybe a sum up.
[00:19:51] Ryan: wait, what do you mean by “and also when it is more profitable to use violence than to abide by laws.”
[00:19:51] Clifton: when we come to consensus
[00:19:59] Ryan: I won’t let you sneak that one in
[00:20:21] Ryan: you are once again confusing profiteering with capitalism
[00:20:27] Ryan: they are not at all the same creature
[00:20:32] Ryan: *creature
[00:20:37] Clifton: you are once again confusing political profiteering with socialism.
[00:20:49] Clifton: unless Marx did condone violence.
[00:20:58] Ryan: which I believe he did
[00:21:02] Ryan: but that’s not the point
[00:21:04] Clifton: but can’t prove.
[00:21:13] Clifton: my entire argument can be destroyed if he did.
[00:21:20] Ryan: the point is that capitalism and socialism coincide as long as force is out of the equation
[00:21:30] Clifton: well, that is a point.
[00:21:32] Clifton: and a nice one.
[00:21:53] Ryan: because, when there is no force involved, socialism is a form of capitalism
[00:21:58] Ryan: you see, that’s the key here
[00:22:24] Clifton: it is just a structure that could exist within capitalism. not a form of it, in any way I can see… or did I miss something?
[00:22:43] Ryan: when socialism moves away from capitalism, then it becomes violent
[00:23:58] Ryan: and since socialism decries capitalism so much, I think it is very easy to conclude that socialism is inherently violent, especially since (I believe) Marx advocated forceful takeover of means of production, even if people like you see that capitalism and socialism can coexist
[00:24:19] Clifton: and by stefan’s argument, when capitalism becomes violent it also moves away from capitalism.
[00:24:31] Ryan: capitalism can not be violent
[00:24:41] Ryan: by its definition
[00:24:58] Ryan: it is the VOLUNTARY exchange and nothing else, no coercion allowed
[00:25:11] Ryan: as soon as violence enters the arena, capitalism is no longer
[00:25:20] Ryan: they are mutually exclusive
[00:25:56] Ryan: so, when a society claiming to be capitalist moves to violence, then it is no longer capitalist, that is true
[00:26:01] Ryan: which may be what you were trying to say
[00:26:47] Ryan: what I want to hear from you is, if it exists, an explanation of how socialism, when it is outside of the subset of capitalism, is possibly non-violent
[00:28:24] Clifton: brb
[00:28:29] Ryan: kk
[00:31:37] Ryan: I need to be sleeping soon
[00:33:09] Clifton: we can resume later, I guess. :(
[00:33:26] Ryan: no, I want an answer to my question
[00:33:59] Ryan: also, I read the part above that I missed earlier where you said you were not condemning capitalism, simply saying that it was shortsighted to condemn socialism on violence alone
[00:33:59] Clifton: it’ll be a minute or two – ten
[00:34:03] Ryan: and you may be right
[00:34:39] Ryan: because socialism is bad in many more ways than just its tendency to violence
[00:35:29] Ryan: and as you tried to point out, even if capitalism is non-violent, capitalist societies have committed their fair share of violent atrocities
[00:35:33] Clifton: oh!
[00:35:37] Clifton: that was my whole argument!
[00:35:53] Ryan: but then that’s the breakdown of capitalism
[00:36:00] Ryan: not a condemnation of capitalism
[00:36:18] Ryan: but a plea for its more universal application
[00:36:21] Clifton: can you post that explanation in my defense?
[00:36:26] Ryan: yes
[00:36:27] Ryan: I can
[00:36:31] Clifton: thank you.
[00:36:39] Clifton: I’ll read your question now.

Right now, I’m headed to Utah, using the internet at the incredible rate of 9.6 kbps! Its good enough for this, at least, as well as IM and text-based email, so I’m heppy. Its still pretty amazing one can get internet at all hurtling down the road like this…

I’m headed to Utah because my brother is graduating from BYU tomorrow. But it gets more excting than that, becaus Friday night I’m flying to Anaheim for Steel conflict. Sunday I return home and my life returns to some semblance of reality, except that I’m on my own in a huge house for three weeks, which will be kinda wierd in and of itself.

I seem to have left my glasses in Atlanta, I’m going to have to call the hotel to find out for sure and hopefully have them shipped to me.

Recently, I have created a stir on the Chief Delphi forums, the de-facto meeting place online for FIRST teams. If you want to see me being inflamatory, head on over there and search for threads that include the number 492. I also have some legitimate posts, which have had the unintended consequence of making my reputation (which was at one point the second lowest on the board) positive instead of negative. Oh well, I can’t win all the battles.

A week ago, my ping in Counterstrike started sucking like a well-paid whore. It came to a head (pun not unintended) around wednesday, when the cable modem would reset about every five minutes, and pings were between 80 and 3000 milliseconds, when the pakcet made it at all (over 25% packet loss). So I called Comcast and made an appointment. The next few days were smooth sailing. Including earlier today. And since there is a possibility the technician would have charged us money if he found nothing wrong, I cancelled the appointment. Not one minute later, my ping went back through the roof. I am holding my breath in anticipation of the packet loss (which is now starting I notice, taking a look at HLSW), the 2.1k/s downloads, and the complete loss of all internet for a couple of days, just like last time. The scary thing is, it started happening immediately after I cancelled the appointment. I’m serious. I was playing counterstirke before, and no problems. Pings of 30-50, with the occasional spike that everyone experienced. Then I found a phone and cancelled the appointment. Then I played CS again, and my ping was never better than 100 and it averaged 200-300. CS is unplayable like that at the level I play, at least. The timing makes me think conspiratorial thoughts… One has to wonder….

Now on to the next topic, girls. So, last week, on tuesday, I’m sitting in the L-lounge after my tennis class and before my DiffEq class, reading my book because there was a quiz. In comes a girl from my photography class last quarter. I didn’t get to know her very well during the quarter, but we were friendly, so we wave. She comes and sits near me, and we talk until our 10:30 classes. On thursday (the next day of my tennis class) I head into the L-lounge again (since thats what I do) and she’s sitting there. I pull up a chair and the scene repeats itself. Everyone is happy.
So, over the weekend I get to thinking, this girl and I get along, she seems interested (she did, after all, come up to me in the first place, wehn we didn’t even have a class together any more) , and she’s friggen hot. That same weekend, my mom comes and tells me about how good the showing of “Man of La Mancha” is at the Village Theater in Issaquah. So I put 2 and 2 together, and decide that I’ll be a gentleman and give the girl almost a full week’s notice instead of springing the idea on her on the weekend. Sure enough, the next tuesday, she’s there, and we talk. Right before class, I pop the question. We’ve been talking about work through in the rest of the conversation, and she’s working a lot that weekend, so I’m not put off when she tells me she has to check her schedule and will let me know on Thursday. I’m cool with that, I’m pretty flexible, and I figure she’ll probally say yes, since we’re getting along so well. Well, clearly, that is not what happened. I could have handled a No. I wouldn’t have minded. I would have backed off, gone back to friendly conversation, just enjoyed her company if she wasn’t interested in anything more. No. Its a one syllable word. Its easy to say. She probally said it a lot when she was 2. That was 18 years ago. She shouldn’t have forgetten.
But… appreantly she did. On thursday, I was a little nervous, but I figured, a no wouldn’t be so bad. I was ready for it. But instead, she wasn’t there. Poof. Gone. She changed her entire everyday routine just to avoid me. I can handle rejection, but I’m not sure what I should make of this. I don’t think I’m that revolting. Maybe I’m wrong, but I could handle even being told that. But what the hell is this avoidance routine? I think my good friends at Nada Surf said it well in their song “Popular”:

“Three important rules for breaking up
Don’t put off breaking up when you know you want to
Prolonging the situation only makes it worse
Tell him honestly, simply, kindly, but firmly
Don’t make a big production
Don’t make up an elaborate story
This will help you avoid a big tear jerking scene
If you wanna date other people say so
Be prepared for the boy to feel hurt and rejected
Even if you’ve gone together for only a short time,
And haven’t been too serious,
There’s still a feeling of rejection
When someone says she preferres the company of others
To your exclusive company,
But if you’re honest, and direct,
And avoid making a flowery emotional speech when you brake the news,
The boy will respect you for your frankness,
And honestly he’ll apeciate the kind of straight foward manner
In which you told him your decision
Unless he’s a real jerk or a cry baby you will remain friends”

Sure, we weren’t breaking up, but the same rules apply. I don’t know about other guys, but for me this is scripture, the absolue truth. I may feel hurt and rejected, but I’ll get over that. Well, I’ll get over this too, but its harder. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Combine this anecdote with evidence that Dris will soon post in a comment (don’t let me down) and I think we will have proven that women are evil. Hah!

I’ve neglected you all for a few days, sorry! (although, I never know who you are because you never leave comments… lurkers!)

Today, I learned about differential coffee, painted a cookie can black, and scanned many barcodes at work (can you believe they pay me to do that!?). That was all before I got home. Then I got home, ate, and played CS. I was on tonight. In fact, for the first time, I maintained, long term, a 4:1 kill:death ratio. And
I did it on Seattle T3 CS 1.5 #2 to boot.

Then I looked at pictures of the UW’s Trash Can Robot. Then I wondered how it is that KIRO will come to interview a trah can, but they don’t even mention that a local team won the entire Pacific Northwest Region in a national robotics competition. Sigh.

Speaking of the dumbness of the media, toight on the news there was a segment on how this movie called “10.5” showed the Space Needle falling over. How dumb is that. Seriously, that is the least important thing ever. Well, not quite ever, but tis so unimportant its ridiculous, and here’s this 5 minute news item on it. The media is so dumb.

Next up, I talked with Bobby abut Color Spaces, and then I thought that maybe I should do some homework. Then I ate graham crackers and decided to write this post instead. Well, the order is a little mixed up there, but thats the general idea.

Rich signed my fmaily up to clean the building tomorrow, and since its conference week, we get to do it at 7:45. Hurray for friends.

Obviously I didn’t write this one in Word.

Today was my last shift at Blockbuster. I had a pretty good time talking to the customers, coercing them to buy popcorn as the active seller, and flirting with hot girls. It was fun. The girls is what I’ll miss the most about Blockbuster, actually. Microvision is rather dominated with men. Afterwards, I went to see “Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind,” an interesting film with lots of space for interpretation. If you are well grounded and want to think, go see it.

I’m still wroking on this early schedule thing. Maybe dinner tomorrow with Scott, Dan, & Family. I don’t share quite everything here either.