The activities of a "Jazz" worshipper...

2011-07-08T00:41:00.005+01:00

This is probably the first of many drafts. Please excuse the poor writing, grammar and possible misuses of scientific principles

Bernard's Watch is the most dangerous item mankind can ever exist: A physics layman's speculation

Abstract: The watch used in the television show 'Bernard's Watch' once activated will instantly destroy the user and could possible destroy every living thing that is alive when used. I will attempt to show this using my (limited) knowledge of physics

History: Me and my brother were in the car the other day and he casually asked me what ability I would rather have: the ability to stop time, or to go back in time. It was an innocent question, but it got me angry. I get the feeling this could have been inspired by the guy in Heroes, but I will always remember the show Bernard's Watch that showed me the premise. It's pretty simple: a young kid is given a watch by...someone, and this watch has the ability to stop time. A simple premise, and to be honest, it was pretty fun to watch when I was younger. And the things he did with it were amazing! But looking back, I can't help but take my pedantic anger at the idea of stopping time, and have decided to explore what would happen if such a watch existed. I'm not going to lie, it's been ages since I did A-Level physics, and I pretty much got an 'E' in my final grades, so I can't say that what I'm going to say is accurate, only what I can remember. I do hope that people will help correct me, as with experts on the topic, this could get very interesting. ANYWAY...

Setting the scene:Bernard has had enough of old man McGrumpy. He's mean, and cold, and won't chuck back Bernard's prized football in the garden. Bernard's had enough. 'What if I were to use my special watch, stop time and then punch him in the knee? That'll show him!'. Brilliant! Bernard walks over to old man McGrumpy. He waves at him. McGrumpy shakes his fist. Bernard reaches into his pickets, gets out his watch, and stops time.

And now, the shit hits the fan.

For argument's sake we are going to say that only Bernard is allowed to move. Everything else is stationary and can't be moved. After 20 seconds of Bernard's time, everything will go back to normal and time will be unfroven.

Right, the first thing that Bernard would notice is that everything would go dark. He wou;dn't be able to see anything. This is because the light that would be emitted or reflected off objects would be paused, and would therefore be unable to get to his eyes so he could see. Bernard would just be stumbling around the ground, with no idea where McGrumpy is. But that's a walk in the park compared to what happens next.

The second law of thermodynamics says that heat and pressure will try to reach an equilibrium if there is an industribution of said properties. That's why when you're in a spaceship and open the hatch, everything will be sucked out quickly, because there's hardly any air in space and the air 'wants' to have an even distribution throughout the universe, so it rushes out. Now here's the problem: Heat is the kinetic energy of particles vibrating. If you have an atom or partical that is vibrating very fast, it's going to be hot, vise-versa if it's not vibrating fast. When time is paused, the only particles that are going to be vibrating in the universe are going to be the one's of Bernard. All other atoms would be at a standstill. So what does this mean? It means, that when Bernard stops time, he will be exposed to the coldest tempreture you can get, absolute zero. All the heat in his body would be sucked from his body and he will probably freeze instantly. Think that's the worst that will happen. Think again!

There's also the law of inertia. Earth is rotating at 400 miles an hour, whilst hurtiling around the sun, and that's hurtiling around the galaxy. The galaxy, is estimated to be moving at a distance of roughly 600 kilometres a second. Now, if you're standing on a moving car, and it suddenly stops, you're going to keep moving. If the galaxy stops moving, and that was going at 600 km a second, and you're not part of the time that's stopped, you're going to keep moving. Bernard would be catapulted at 600 km a second into the atmosphere. In theory, it shouldn't matter if he's inside or not: If there are no forces in the atoms int he walls or ceiling to repel back the forces in the atom in him, he should just pass through the ceiling. He has twenty secons until the time goes back to normal, so by the time it starts again, Bernard will be 12,000 km away from everyone he loved, everything he has ever known, and old man McGrumpy. And twenty seconds is up starting... now! It's over!

Exept for one final, and probably the most dangerous consequence yet. In zero seconds, he has moved 12,000 km. There is a formuler that states that states that the acceleration of an object is related to his mass and the force subjected to him to make him go that speed. The long story short is that nothing with mass can ever accelerate to the speed of light, as it would require an infinate ammount of energy, and would create an infinate ammount of mass. But that can't happen right? Well guess what! Bernard just accelarated from standing completly still to 600 km in no time at all. It takes light 0.000003 seconds to travel one km, so Bernard has definatly accelerated fasted than light. So, Bernard would gain an infinate mass, enveloping the Earth, the sun, the solar system... If it's observable, Bernard will eventually envelop it. And he wanted to do was show old man McGrumpy a thing or too about being more repectful.

Conclusion:
Suspending belief that you can't pause time, what was considered to be just a fun gift to help someone do things he or she couldn't get away with, turns out to be the biggest threat to all things in the universe. I apologise for the shoddy writting, and hopefully someone will help make it look more pleasing, as well as correcting some of the mistakes that I have most likely made. Maybe it's possible to do more a different analyses of another show.

2011-03-20T21:49:00.005Z

Ruining A Person's Day- The Spotify Edition

What you'll need:
-A computer
-Access to Spotify
-A friend

-Find a person with a Spotify account, make sure they're logged in to their account

-Look at their account and note down the names of their playlists

-Create a new account with a name almost exactly similar to theirs. For example, if their account is 'Gamerboy1989', choose 'Gamerboy1988'.

-Create a load of playlists.

-Name the playlist word for word after their playlist.

-Fill the playlists with the most inane music you can find. My personal facorates are Mr Methane's classic retelling of Robin Hood, or how about Halloween Fart Sounds?

-Call the person in and ask why they have such bad playlists.

- Observe and enjoy the shriek and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

I haven't done this one yet, but hopefully you'll have more balls than I do.

2011-03-20T20:56:00.001Z

Blind Faith
Famous Ol Spice
White Sky
No Quarter

2011-03-16T18:27:00.004Z

The Simulation hyothesis

Right, I've been meaning to write an interesting blog post and the subject is pretty interesting, could help if you could correct me on anything if I'm wrong. It's also not going to be that great a quality, and I'm sure it will have a few spelling erros. Sorry for this.

Right, so philosophers have always been asking questions about reality and what is real and what can be known to be real. Descartes, a notable philosopher penned the idea of an evil demon who could provide an illusion to the senses, so the victim couldn't know anything beyond what was given to him. Very crude example, but the idea suddenly regained new popularity with another take on the hypothesis that we may be under the influence of an evil genious which was called by some philosophers the Brain-In-A-VAT thought experiment. Basically, out senses are provided to us with electrical signals from the eyes, ears etc. If a genious and computer which was powerful enough could isolate a brain and connect to the right parts of it, sending appropriate electrical signals, the brain could be fooled into believing that it was still in a body, in a famililar environment.

Hopefully that should explain what has taken philosophers decades and centuries to ponder over. But one recent philospher argues that perhaps it's not even philosophically possible but probable that we are in a similar situation, all of us. The name of the philosopher is Nick Bostrom, and he's a professor at Oxford University. Bostrom argues that chances are we are living in a computer simulation, based on a extrapolated data and educated guesses. These are as followed:

Three things will happen:

1. Humanity will destroy itself before it can produce ancestor simulations that can simulate thinking beings.

2.Humanity will have the technology to create simulations but wil refrain from creating them.

3.We are almost certain to be living in a simualation.

Woah! Ancestor simulations! What the hell are they? Well

Are they even possible? Well, a case could certainly be put forward that the technology's possible even if it isn't possible now. We have in a way been creating simulations for a while now. You could say that the first simulation we created was the game Pong. Look now to the Halo series or the newest Grand Theft Auto to see how much we've progressed. You can thank Moore's Law for that. Moore's law essestiantially guesses that the ammoutn of transistors in a chip that you can buty for $1000 doubles every eighteen months. So basically the average computer's power doubles every one and a half years. Some theoriests believe that computing will be so powerful that by 2030 we'll have virtual reality that's almost indistinguishable from real life in terms of the graphics of a computer.

The other thing that some theoriests have estimated is the advancement of artifical intelligence that equals human intelligence by the year 2030. So within a computer we have a mind. Perhaps it will even think like us. Well, going back to our Brain-In-A-VAT senario, what if we engineer the mind so that when subjected to the equivilant of electircal impulses to where it could experience stimulai from the external world, then perhaps we could simulate an environment for it where it couldn't tell the difference between the simulated world and real life.

So how does this imply we're in a simulation? Well the theory is that at first the technology would be costly (both in resources and with money) so only one or two simulations could be created. But as computing power cheapens and becomes more powerful, then more can be created. The supercomputers that were around thirty years ago are now as powerful as an ordinary calculater found in a home. So the supercomputers that produce a simulation at first are like the supercomputers we had thirty years ago: they will become overshadowed by its predesessors in power. Perhaps the computers will be so powerful that anyone with a personal computer can simulate a mind and an internal world for the mind. Potentially billions of simulations will be created. So here's the point: if we're outnumbered by billions of simulations, what makes us sure that we're the first simulation? What makes us so sure that we're the original. Perhaps it's turtles all the way down.

Of course, this depends on many things, like whether Moore's law will continue for the next few decades. But it's interesting definately, and it's probably one of the stonger arguments for a creator of our universe.

So what does this mean for us? Well for one, it means we can go 'Woah man' without having pot, but some people have already started theologising about what this means for us. One guy has suggested we're likely to be deleted by the year 2050. He argues that as soon as we start creating simulations, in order to stop stacking, our creates will delete us. I'm not sold on this idea, why would a creator be so ashamed or in such a hurry to witness such an interesting find in the simualtion. Anyway, the link to the website of the simulation hypothesis can be found here. There are a varity of interesting links on that site. The orginal paper describing the simulation hypothesis can be found here.

2011-03-16T18:23:00.000Z

Test post

2011-03-16T17:35:00.002Z

- What!? How embarrising, a grown man, walking around with a balloon!
-Wait, a guitar solo, followed by a synthesiser solo followed by another guitar solo followed by the Pirates of the Caribbean theme tune? Yes please.

2011-03-14T23:10:00.002Z

Oops! When I started to do the 'List of 2012 Contenders for the American election' I should have notified myself that I don't actually know much about them except for Romney or Palin. Oh well, I've got other things to write about. Hopefully going to do a post on Nick Bostrom and stuff, so stay tuned!

2011-03-06T21:55:00.001Z

Honk

2011-03-06T21:15:00.004Z

One of the downsides to not writing on a constant basis for an audience, no matter how small, is as soon as there's a shotage in writing, due to family problems, lack of time etc there's suddenly a big gap in between where a vast ammount of changes can occur. There's a big gap between one of my entries and my breakdown, which came out of no where, or in the case I'm trying to highlight, gains in interests which might not rivit the previous audience. In this case, American politics. I'm trying to start this blog up again and give it a use so maybe my new founded interest can play a role in the reforming of the blog. So here it is, the new blog, with a fun new section!

The Next President of The United States?...

So each president is limited to two four-year-terms, and as you, having not lived in a cave for half your life will no, President Barack Obama will be up for another term in two years. But he's proved to be a very controversial president. The economic stimulus package, plus the health care act have been controversial enough to spring a new movement up within a very short ammount of time. Can he be beaten? Well, yes and no. Part of the question depends on the Republican candidate and how he/she holds up int he campaign. So to give you an idea of who the next president of the United States could be, here are some notes on the most popular candidates. This will be done in installments; it's too daunting to write a really long blog article, so without further ado, I give you Mitt Romney:
Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney is the former governer of Massachusetts. Before the stint, he was CEO of Bain & Company and the president of the 2002 Winter Olympics, where he lifted both events/companies out of financial crises. When governor, he managed to turn a three billion dollar deficit into a six hundred million dollar surplus. Pretty impressive huh? With stubborn unemployment numbers, and the economy to lose two percentage points if the houses passes the Republican spending cuts, Obama may face some serious competition from the man with an MBA from Harvard, a man who calls himself 'Mr Economy'. He will have no problem getting votes from the business community. Except there's a problem:

When Mitt was governor of Massachusetts, he signed into law a health care act which required everyone to purchase health insurence (The US does not have a National Health Service or any universial health care for its citizens). The bill also subsidised costs so lower-income families could afford to buy insurence. In effect, this bill expanded coverage to nearly everyone in Massitussits. So why is this a problem?

Well, the bill looks suspicially like the bill Barack Obama passed last year, the bill which catalysed an entire movement of people (The Tea Party). The bill which Republicans are almost unanimus in condemming as an unnessary and a costly increase in government. Romney, somewhat bravely praised the bill, arguing that the difference with the state bill, called RomneyCare is different from Obamacare is due to state issues, and has called the Obamacare bill a great abuse of power. That hasn't stopped Obama from camparing the similarities to the bills and lavishing praise on the Governer. If Romney fails to get the Republican nomination, it will be this bill.

Coming soon, Mike Huckabee...

2010-04-22T20:21:00.000+01:00

Harry Reid moves forward with reform vote

2010-04-22T20:18:00.000+01:00

Tea partiers in two camps: Sarah Palin vs. Ron Paul

2010-04-20T16:11:00.005+01:00

If you want to know how Obama's doing with his promises, you can't go wrong with the Obamameter

2010-04-18T22:12:00.004+01:00

Boo!
I'll add hyperlinks later.
-------------------------------------------------

After passing health-care 'reform', the Democrats are now focusing on financial reform. This includes setting up a financial watchdog and the ability to regulate derivatives, 'the instruments such as mortgage-backed securities that contributed to the near meltdown when their value plummeted during the housing crisis.'. A fund, 50 billion was proposed to help bail out big banks deemed too big to fail, but this was met with a strong Republican opposistion, who say it would lead to more bailouts. The fund was dropped to ease opposistion.

None-the-less, republicans have united in opposistion, sending a letter to Harry Reid, the majority leader of the senate, calling for him to adopt a more BIpartisian measure. Chris Dodd, the author of the bill, calls this nonsense.

Obama then in his weekly address attacked the GOP, calling them deceptive. He targeted Mitch McConnel, the minority senate leader, saying he had met with twelve big bank owners before coming out against the reform bill. McConnel accused Obama of politicising the debate.

Lastly on this subject, a PAC (political action comittee) tied with the White House is running ads tieing Mitch McConnel to the banking industry, aimed at tea party.

In other political news, Obama has ordered a ban on discrimination for gays being denied visitation rights.

In UK news, the Dems have shot up in populatrity after the debate, in some polls tieing or beating with Labour. This would not mean equal seats though.

------------------------------------

If you want a good album to listen to, you can't go wrong for Arela Diane's first album.

Charity Shmarity

2010-01-03T16:17:00.022Z

Imagine you're walking across a park, and you see a child drowning in a pond. It's quite shallow, not bad enough for you to drown, but bad enough for the kid, and it's a bit muddy around the edge. What would you do? If you jumped in and saved the kid, you'd get your nice new suit muddy, and you might not be able to get it to that pristine white you liked so much. If you don't jump in, then surely the kid will drown. It's a reluctant no-brainer: the child is worth more than your suit. Surely the person who doesn't will face a sufficiant ammount of ostricisation. Your knowledge of the child edges you towards responsibility, and although you may ruin your suit, it's a small price to pay for the child (fair enough if you're a misanthropist though).

Why am I talking about this? Well, if you agreed with me that paying a small price is worth the life of a child, you may be in for a bit of trouble (just a bit) for your lifestyle). I now show you this*. It is estimated that 1 child dies of hunger every 6 seconds. That's 14,400 deaths a day, at least two or three 9/11s, and that's not even including other poverty related deaths. How does this relate to the child in the pond? Well, if you knew a child was dying, whether from a pond or a malnutrition related death, and in both cases you had the tools to save the child, even if it was just one, what's stopping you from intervening? You have a debit card, a source of income, even if you're a student, and a computer. Why not? The philosopher Peter Singer advocates donating between 1-30% of your income in allieviating extreme poverty. Maybe the 30% will come as a shock to you, but the 1% shouldn't. Sponsoring a child only costs three quid a week, I doubt you could defend keeping that as opposed to giving it to a greater cause.

So now you know. Research suggests that charitable giving increases the ammount of discussion around it (or vice-versa, I'm not sure)**. I'll point out that I've done my part, and I'm on benefits. I'll try to push the onus on you. £3 a week isn't that bad. So, what are you waiting for!

*Apparently the link won't show up, so here it is instead: http://www.wfp.org/1billion
**Yeah, I might grudgingly point out it might be due to less altruistic reasons, but a life saved is a life saved.

A little thought.

2010-01-03T13:09:00.003Z

Pretty much any moral absolutist is a consequentialist in disguise. If I stabbed someone, it's the consequences, such as the feeling of pain and possibly death that matters and makes it wrong, as opposed to the act of stabbing. So really all that differs from us is how many degrees of consequence makes an action wrong.

2010-01-01T21:29:00.000Z

Those italiased are to be deleted but serve as a template

Object

MyTherapy is a charity to subsidize costs for therapy for those in low-income households why are in a condition inflicted by mental health, so severe that waiting lists on public healthcare cannot wait. Those affected in mind may be those who have severe OCD, depression, bi-polar etc.

The charity will advertise mainly in Private Eye, for a period of six months encouraging readers to send £5 a month. After six months, if the monthly income for the charity is less than £1000, the charity will be discontinued unless justification can be produced which supports the continuation of the charity.

Powers
The charity will be operated through a website, mytherapy.org or mytherapy.org.uk.

•Visitors will submit an application form which’ll ask them for their name, address, income, the condition they think they have, an explanation of how it affects them and how it can’t wait to go on a waiting list.
•
•If approved, they will be sent to a psychotherapist. The first session will be 100% subsidized. If the psychotherapist decides there is a problem (and sends a letter confirming this), two more sessions will be funded at 80% of the initial cost.
•
•If significant progress has been made in these sessions, two more sessions will be funded at the same rate as before.
•
•Benefactors may be asked to respond to the effectivness opf MySociety.

Trustees
As of this point, I , J****h L***h will run the website, manage the funds etc.

•what happens if changes to the administrative provisions need to be made (amendment provision); and

Dissolution Provision

An online newsletter will be sent to those who donate informing them about the status of the charity and telling them to cease donating. The charity will cotinue to operate until it runs out of funds.

MyTherapy

2010-01-01T21:27:00.000Z

Right, so MyTherapy is a charity idea developed about a month ago. The aim of the charity is to subsidise therapy costs for those who are in low income households who have a mental condition too extreme to be on waiting lists. Not that the NHS is doing a bad job content wise, but I remember my waiting list time tyo be three months, and that was horrific while I waited. That's the aim. In terms of fundraising, I think I'll advertise exclusivly through Private Eye. Their Eye Need section is pretty good. I posted a question on AskMetafilter about starting a charity and one sober response got me pretty good. Some highlights:

Running a charity is - at the very least - like running a complicated small business. It is a legal minefield where one wrong step won't blow you up, but may have you charged with fraud, or tax evasion, or worse.

Really, unless you're very experienced (in which case, no offence, but you wouldn't be askinf this question here), I strongly recommend finding a charity with similar goals, and donating your money or time to them. If you are serious, and have serious quantities of money or time, you will be taken seriously. You will be able to accomplish your goals with the protection (legal, financial, public), experience and resources of a much larger organisation.

I could go on,but most of the things I'm talking about are "soft" problems, rather than the "hard" legal, financial or regulatory issues that could scupper you.

Yeah, I may need help, and I think the idea would be pretty good, so...Help needed!

Education Schmation

2009-12-20T16:09:00.003Z

A while ago, about two years ago, I wrote a blog entry about the inanity of the applied Applied IT. I feel like I was too brief, and I can't think of anything else to write about, so I guess I'll expand on this.

Basically I when you decide to do a course in Applied IT, what you're really doing is signing up for a Microsoft Office course. If you're in the workplace and the employer wants you to brush up on your skills, this is okay, but this is what sixth formers, people who are entering higher education are getting into. And when I mean Microsoft Office, I mean Microsoft Office 2003. All those hours teaching you how to do various spreadsheets become redundant (a little fun anecdote: when I was in the class, I think I told my teacher about my concerns about the course, or talking about doing calculations in the sheets. The teacher said "yeah, Office 2007 is gonna make that redundant.", more or less anyway). This is the problem with trying to make your courses apply/pander with industry. You equip a number of students with a couple of skills that will be lost with the next generation of software. Other things we learnt was looking sat websites to show how useful they were to the customer.

It was really disheartening actually, because I really liked the stuff like Ruby, and programming-that wasn't taught in the course- which was tough, but rewarding to learn. This is the problem with schools at the moment. Yeah, it's nice to be abole to have a few applicable skills when you leave, but when every subject gears itself towards applicability, it kind of goes stale, and motivation goes down. A quick look at the prospectus of the Applied IT A level has the following modules:

1. The Information Age
2. The Digital Economy
3. The Knowledge Worker
A2
1. Using Database Software
2. Managing ICT projects
3. Using Spreadsheet Software

Hmm.

"Never increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of words required to explain anything" - Ockham Talk about typecasting yourself.

Joe's Guide To Transhumanism In A Nutshell!

2009-12-03T19:07:00.006Z

Well, what is Humanism? It's a philosophy which tends to give privilage to human rights and dignity. Humanism often rejects superstition and seeks to base morality on rationality. There's a big emphasise on allowing people to do what they want, so it's pro civil-liberties. The British Humanist Association say "Humanism is the view that we can make sense of the world using reason, experience and shared human values and that we can live good lives without religious or superstitious beliefs. Humanists seek to make the best of the one life we have by creating meaning and purpose for ourselves." So we can now look at what transhumanism is. Transhumanism is the belief/philosophy that humans should be able to ethically enhance their bodies, mainly through technology. We're already in some stage already where people can augument their bodies significantly, but it's not at a stage where people can dramatically change

Criticism and Opposition

So we've looked at some applications of transhumanism, and it's potential benefits, but what is the opposition to this movement/philosophy? We'll take a look.
Opponants of the transhumanist network can be known as Bio-Luddites (bio being biological, duh, and luddites meaning afraid of technology). They present many arguments, here are some:

It's unatural

The thing is, natural doesn't make something good or bad. High levels of testostrome in people for example, leading to murder, rape and assult, stems from naturalness. Would we say that's a good thing? What about absolute selflessness? What about that? Well for one thing, we don't even know if that exists, so it's definatly not natural. So why condemn unnaturalness when history and a bit of common sense shows that naturalness should be seen as a neutral property?

People were talking about jetpacks and hovercars in the fifties, why do you think it'l be any more accurate than what they say?

Well for starters, technological progress is accelerating

Brain Uploading... Is It Possible?

2009-12-01T18:19:00.009Z

(I apologise for the shabby layout, it's been a while)

You're on a great rockclimbing expadition, you're climbing one of the tallest mountains in Britain, let's say Scotland, Ben Nevis. You don't need rope, rope needs you, you're great at climbing, and you experience climbing withhout safty gear as a thrill, part of a challange. Suddenly, your palms get slippery. "Oh no!", you think, as you slide off. Ouch, a hundred foot drop, you're not going to make this. You close your eyes and your life flashes before you. ANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNDDDDD..........................

You wake up, you're in a lab. Was it a dream? You look down and to your shock, you see that your arms have now been replaced by robotic objects! You look in a mirror to find yourself staring at a bulky robot. "WHAT!?" you say to yourself. "How could this be? I'm a robot, yet I can still remember all my memories, I have all my mannorisms, I am [insert name here], how can this possibly be?"*

The good news, is that you're a mind upload, a copy of your cognitive functions, a map of all your neurons mapped onto a piece of software. As insurance in case something bad happening with your rock climbing, you decided to get your mind mapped, so you could live on if something bad happened.

"Surly this is science fiction?" you might say. Not as much as you'd think. Mind-mapping is becomeing very talked about, and it's just the sci-fi fans who are talking about this marvel Nick Bostrom of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford (sounds kinda flashy, doesn't it?) has taken serious consideration with this. But Joe, I hear you say, surly the brain is a unique thing that cannot be translated into a mere computer program... I'm gonna take an attempt to show how it may be possible to have a concious emulation of a brain on a chip. Here goes:

Joe's wonderful argument for mind-mapping/emulation

Right, here's a nice little picture of a brain:

Hey brain! Anyway, on the left we have a closeup of the brain, durr. The nodes there are the neurons, and the links between them are the synapses. Information is transferered through communication of the neurons and synapses. Now, can we do something similar on a chip? Well, in topology, provinding the links are in the right place, nodes can be structured in any way you want, so on the picture of the right, we have our little silicon brain. It may look different, but if the BUS (the equivilant of synappses in computing, they allow power, and information to be transfered) structure of the system links all the silicon nodes (representing the neurons) in the exact same way as the brain, and the information and power is transfered at the same rate as the synapses in the brain, then we should have a system, that computes, and therefore behaves like a brain. It should even display conciousness. Cool huh? Well, I'm a uni dropout so this is an amateur attempt to explain mind mapping, but I'll be looking at the papers to see if my theory has any resembelance.

Here is a paper on Mind-Uploading http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/3853/brain-emulation-roadmap-report.pdfnot

*I doubt given the circumstances you'd be as articulate as this, but oh well.

Comeback!

2009-11-06T23:11:00.002Z

Hello! It's been a while since I last posted here, kinda like a time capsule when you look at it. I hope to make many more posts in the future, and now, and I hope you enjoy.
Tah Dah!

___________________________________________________________________

Right, well the first thing I want to talk about is something that's been interesting me for a while. It's both philosophical and technological, so it can appeal to many sides.

The Simulation Hypothesis

There have been many jokes about the rate of progression of technology. The law known as Moore's Law indicates that the ammount of RAM, or the capacity for storage (and so on) doubles every 18 months. This doesn't sound impressive, but the rate of expansion is exponential, so the power of a PC (set at a fixed price) looks like this:

So after doubling several times, you get a computer that's over 100 times more powerful than the original. If I keep up with the technology, then my equivalent of a 4 gig of RAM computer will be equiped with half a terabyte of memory. And this is a home computer!

So yeah, the rate of expansion is pretty amazing. The web's only 5000 days old as well

Music and other stuff...

2007-03-27T22:47:00.000+01:00

I really can't think of anything decent to write about, and I can't be bothered to do that creationism post yet, so I'll just write a list of bands and songs I've been listening to recently:

Tool- Sober
Tool- Schism
Tool- Ticks and Leaches
Tool- Lateralus
Tool- Parabol
Tool- Parabola
Tool- AEnima
4Hero- Les Fleurs
Metallica- Orion
Rasputina- Gingerbread Coffin
Portishead- All Mine
Overseer- Supermoves

Um, what else, I've been learning Ruby, been doing coursework, and that's it really. Just need something interesting to happen. Gah...

Update coming soon...

2007-03-17T15:07:00.000Z

I will post at some point, but there is a lot of work I have to complete first....

I Love Applied IT...

2007-02-18T17:15:00.000Z

Wow, half a year has gone by and I've just relised that it may be the worst subject I have ever taken. Most of what we've been doing is "learning" how to use a moderatly old version of Microsoft Office. Wow, I can't wait till Vista comes out to make my qualification obsolete, the look on my face's going to be priceless!

Here's a few things that I could do instead:

Finish The God Delusion
Learn Scratch
Learn a programming language
Read Wikipedia
Edit Wikipedia
Read about the science wars
Read this
Learn about how I can become better at chess
Play chess
Rant

By the way, I'm not ranting about my teachers who each the subject. They're really nice people, and very funny, but what I'm saying is that I'm pretty much screwed when Vista comes out.....

By the way, I will do another post on creationism, Eworkhard, but I need to do more work at the moment...

Response to "eworkhard", part four...

2007-01-13T00:19:00.000Z

I will eventually reply. However, I am again busy and it may take a few weeks. In addition, you say many things, but you are not backing up your arguments. 5 minute thoughts with a couple of googled links? You are not debating science with science. I assumed that is what you wanted. BTW when you say you no longer want to talk about Dawkins, does that mean you no longer care about him? Remember that was your first point that I criticized.

I'm not backing up my arguments? Fuck you. Have you even visited the links I've put up? I'm not the one who's not backing up my arguments.

Here. I suggest you take a good look at that. Should answer many of your questions. Of course, I'm guessing it doesn't fit in with your thinking, so you'll ignore it.

I stopped arguing about Dawkins because of your damn rambilings on him.

Find some proper arguments.

Happy new year!

2007-01-01T22:14:00.000Z

Hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did.

Response to "eworkhard", part three...

2006-12-28T00:14:00.001Z

Another response to eworkhard's comment last post...

"I might remind you that evolution seems to make good use of ‘ad hoc hypothesis’ if that is your definition. At first it was proposed that the big bang had occurred just millions of years ago. Now it is billions. At first dating supported millions, now it supports billions. Sound to good to be true? Is this an example of data changing a theory, or theory changing data?

Gah! I know you disagree with many parts of comtempory science, such as the Big-Bang, geology and most of all evolution. Okay, that's fine, it's good to critisise science, but don't do it because it disagrees with your religion, and that's waht you're pretty much doing.

Anyway I have a huge problem with dating methods that are used as you can see on my blog http://www.creation-evolution.blogspot.com . The problem with evolution is that the theory needs billions of years to explain how things could have evolved. As this time increases, dating also began to show an increase in time."

What, this? Or how about this?

"No, although all you state is true, that is not what I was talking about.(although you can add Einstein) Data is data. Scientists take it and try to INTERPRET it. Sometimes they are wrong. Sometimes they simply do not know enough to properly interpret it. I am especially thinking about science around the atom. Many times the theory changes, sometimes quite dramatically."

Funny you should mention that, creation science does this all the time.

The MO theory is like evolution. Always changing. Yet never true. If you left civilization and came back 10 or 20 years later you would be surprised at the changes to the theory. Yet Dawkins tries to quite critics and say evolution has all of the evidence. It does not.

Yeah, I have kind of stopped arguing about Dawkins....

"First off, I have pointed out that much data is INTERPRETED to support evolution. Yet most, if not all data, that fits evolution also fits creation."

Like what?

"I do not want to come out and debate societal decline or anything (note: we were talking about whether or not Harry Potter is immoral etc). Yet I feel that I must state that I believe that all this magic and even murder gets to people. They feel that they can also do it. That is why that I think that many movies are also wrong. By portraying something, you are condoning it."

You're not giving me any evidence that it gets to people. Even so, you cannot say that your book is moral, not by a long shot.

"Well, I do not necessarily agree with that, and that is the first time that I have heard that. However, I find that they are not saying the evolution caused racism as you originally stated. Rather the articles are stating that evolution antagonized the situation. I am not an expert in this, but I imagine both creationists and evolutionists somewhere would both agree that ‘non white’ races are inferior."

There's still too many straw-man arguments going around at the moment...

"I would say do not worry. You wanted to debate me, and I will do that. It may be sporadic due to my schedule, but I will try to reply. As long as things do not get anyone upset…. I take your reply to mean that you absolutely do not agree. Therefore the debate…. ;)"

Yep. I'm actually enjoying this mini-debate, so, I'll be waiting for your next response...

Response to "eworkhard", part two...

2006-12-20T23:10:00.000Z

Responce to eworkhard's comment on my last post:

I think you are confused in what I meant by the ad-hoc hypothesis. What I meant was you could add an add-hoc hypothesis to save your theory from being falsified.

Of course, you could happily say that scientists have been doing this for years, and you would be right. For example, when the scientists back in the "good old days" were observing Uranus, they noticed tiny wobbles in it's orbit which would have disproved a lot of the theory of gravity. However, they came up with an ad-hoc hypothesis which suggested that there may have been another planet, which would have be why Uranus was moving badly (without the annoying innuendos).

Sure enough, they found a planet, Neptune, and the theory of gravity was saved from being falsified.

So how is this different from creationism? Well, I would happily argue that this hypothesis was inderpendently testable, and, could actually be tested. But when a creationist says that the reason that there aren't any human fossils amonst dinosaurs is because God destroyed all the evidence, well, that's taking the biscuit.

Secondly, I wouldn't be too sure about that Dawkins comment. Yes, he would be pretty hostile to say creationism, but then again, it is a theory which is based upon a fairly old book/text, as opposed to observation. And it's not as if it would only be creationism under attack. Lets not forget Lamarkism, eh?

I don't see how Harry Potter is any more dangerous than the Bible. Can you offer me evidence, that it is having a bad effect on us?

As for your last comment (summmed up: "who actually believes teaching evolution causes racism?"), I can present to you, this. One of the main sources for creationist teaching says that evolution is racist. Henry Morris said some crazy things about that...

This is a very basic post, I'll add to it later, but the other comments have got my blood moderatly boiling....

Response to "eworkhard".

2006-12-18T16:42:00.000Z

I am replying to a comment left by a creationist on one of my entries.

I have often heard of Dawkins as being arrogant. After reading his piece in (I believe TIME) on Science vs. Creation, I came to believe that myself. What is the guys mission? Motivation? He is not simply an evolutionist. It is almost as if he has a hate against God/Bible.

When you say he is not simpily an evolutionist. It is almost as if he has a hate against God/Bible, I got the idea that you meant this as a critisism. I got the idea that you thought it was bad that Dawkins wasn't just talking about Biology. However, it would be fucking stupid for you to ignore the fact that many theologins and Christians have tried to explain things outside their field (an example being, oh let me think, science?). I don't see them suffer as much critisism as when Dawkins moves into philosophy...

Do not say that he is simply showing that the Bible is wrong. If that was the case he would also be raving against such books as Harry potter.

What? The difference between Harry Potter and the Bible is that Harry Potter isn't followed (in terms of morality and pratice). However, the Bible still influences and controls billions of people. Stop using fucking straw-man arguments against Harry Potter. It does not "entice" people into praticing witchcraft, it does not "corrupt the minds" of people, and it most certainly does not damn their souls forever. It's a straw-man argument, pure and simple...

Also he is not trying to show that the Creation view is wrong. The only way to do that is to actually PROVE the THEORY of evolution. To do that he must make something of nothing. There every theory runs into a roadblock.

What is he trying to do then? Contempory science (and empirical evidence) leans heavily towards the theory of the big bang, evolution, and the wacky idea that the Grand Canyon was not designed by Noah's flood, as creationists would like you to believe. Creationism is not science, because if it was, the creationist theory would have been discarded many years ago. Instead we have creation scientists constantly adding ad-hoc hypothesises to prevent the data being falsified. These ad-hocs often conatin theories which are not inderpendently testable, so they can never be disproved. The only reason that creationism is constantly bought back is that Christians (who believe in a literal Bible) believe that it has to be taught in schools and whatnot. Also, thay believe some wacky things, such as the teaching of evolution as being the cause of racism, rape etc.

You use the word "theory" in a way that would suggest that scientists are still unsure of whether or not evolution actually happened. But then again, I suppose evolution is a theory, in the same way gravity is. When you say "something of nothing", I assume you're saying that the non-creationist theories can be falsified because the "flaw" with the theories is that we haven't (yet) discovered how the universe coming around to be, with you suggesting it spontaniously came out of nothing. Of course, I could ask you how your God came into extistence. I'm assuming that if you believe in creationism, you believe in a diety from a Judaistic religion, which pretty much says that God is the alpha and the omega. But that doesn't really answer my question, so what created God, and how?

I would genuinly like to take this discussion further, as it is very interesting. Please continue to comment...

Something for Willifer...

2006-12-14T22:09:00.000Z

Please note that this post has a lot of links in it. This is because I'm trying to back up my points here, and so that Willifer relises that I wasn't joking around when I was talking about creationism.

I've been trying to tell one of my friends that there is a group of people called "Young Earth Creationists", the group of people who believe in a literal Genesis, basically implying that the Earth is around 6000-12,000 years old (depending on how you add up the ages on all the people in the Bible). One of their most popular websites is Answers In Genesis, which has many experts in different fields of science write about why evolution (and other areas in physics, biology, geology etc) is wrong. Here are some of the claims AiG and other creationist sites like to bring up:

Of course, these guys are cherry-picking from the Bible. For example, if you are to believe in a literal Bible, you have to believe that bats are a type of bird, grasshoppers only have four legs, and disobedient children should be stoned to death. Of course, the creationists don't really believe this, so they are being hypocritical. I also got the idea that he didn't believe that creationism was going to be taken seriously. Wrong!

This is just a taster of what they believe really, but there are some other crazy beliefs worth looking out for.

Willifer, I wasn't bullshitting...

Richard Dawkins Foundation

2006-11-24T20:53:00.000Z

A certain friend of mine informed me that Richard Dawkins was trying to register RDF (the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science) as a charity. Despite very negative opinions of this from that certain someone, I found out what the RDF would do if it became a charity (a transcript of the video below can be found there). If you can't go on the link, then click on the video below:

I'll be watching this eagerly...

"Conceptual nationalism and objectivism"...

2006-11-23T22:12:00.000Z

Found a Postmodernism Generator online. It's been creating lads of essays for me, all of them meaningless and jargon. One of my essays, titled "Conceptual nationalism and objectivism" opens like this:

“Society is dead,” says Foucault; however, according to la Fournier[1] , it is not so much society that is dead, but rather the dialectic, and some would say the futility, of society. In a sense, Lyotard promotes the use of cultural theory to read and attack sexual identity.

The premise of predeconstructivist capitalism implies that the significance of the writer is deconstruction. However, the subject is contextualised into a cultural theory that includes reality as a whole.

Drucker[2] states that we have to choose between Lacanist obscurity and postcapitalist desublimation. But a number of discourses concerning objectivism exist.

If cultural theory holds, the works of Rushdie are empowering. In a sense, the subject is interpolated into a cultural theory that includes culture as a reality.

I don't really have much to say at the moment. Hopefully at some point I'll be writing a longer post this week, but until then, I might just go back to Classic FM...

Wacky Joe...

2006-11-09T22:49:00.000Z

Decided it was time for another stab at the people who use social networking sites. This time, I'll be "looking" at the so called wacky people you get lurking around. Everyone has one in their group- they're the self confessed "crazy" ones who try to stand out from their peers by acting in an unusual way. This all ammounts to posing and writing in fairly confusing ways. Despite the positive attention one usually gets from being "wacky", you're supposidly more likely to suffer a nervous breakdown than if you were say, non-wacky. This is because the wacky person doesn't like to show their sensitive side when down, so it builds up over a long time. Anyway, without further ado, here is Wacky Joe, my newest addition to "teh" gang:

Yet more bitter remarks from "teh' Christians

2006-11-04T00:56:00.000Z

Once again, I've looked through the reviews of The God Delusion on Amazon, once again, Christians are flooding the page with angry reviews and once again, my blood is starting to boil. Same thing happens again and again: Religious people (and anyone else who has any belief in a higher being) hear about the book, they decide they don't like his opinions, as it makes their God sound irrelevant. They then decide to leave a review on Amazon. The review often has:

A title often expressing disgust at Richard Dawkins. Often has something such as "more athiest propoganda".
The reviewer's own opinion on Dawkins ("Once again Richard Dawkins is letting his emotions run loose").
A bit saying that he is obviously ignoring all the points for God, and that he is being ignorent.
A bit claiming that the reason he is against religion is that he has a closed mind.
A final lash out at the author ("He doesn't believe in God - ok your choice Richard, but don't try and belittle those who do - and that goes for the rest of you reviewers. And as for the person that said that this book should be set in schools.....it's a good thing your not in a position to enforce that idea eh? It's a shame that there isn't a 0 stars option - or even minus numbers....because that is what this book deserves ").

The other thing I noticed about many the negative reviews is that Dawkins is considered as arrogant. This also applies to one of my Christian chums, who claims that he is arrogant and argues for the sake of it. I don't really have the rhetoric (I think I've used that word correctly) to argue back. Luckily, Dawkins has had a little help from Tom Morris, who wrote:

Dawkins criticisms are based, as any good philosophy is, on humble suppositions and, if followed, provide a devestating critique. The other thinker who does this well is none other than the Australian moral philosopher Peter Singer whose has a simple credo:

"I approach each issue by seeking the solution that has the best consequences for all affected. By 'best consequences', I understand that which satisfies the most preferences, weighted in accordance with the strength of the preferences. Thus my ethical position is a form of preference-utilitarianism"

From this, Singer argues for animal rights and wealth redistribution. What annoys his opponents the most is that they believe his positions to be based on emotion not logic, and react in kind. Dawkins' positions are held to be "arrogant", emotional and scientistic. But this shows absolute ignorance of Dawkins' positions, a reaction to his more quoted media statements and not the more delicate and philosophical questions.

If anyone disagrees with that, I'd like to know why.

Anyway, it's good that I've got my rage back. Just don't feel the same without it...

Damn hypocrites...

2006-11-03T22:15:00.000Z

Hahahahahahaha!

Lots of these cases springing around. I'm assuming that once you've done a certain ammount of years preaching hate against same sex marriages, you decided to take a walk on the brown side yourself. I honestly do not understand why there are so many cases of this happening.
It is kind of sad in a way. When I saw The Root Off All Evil and the scene with Dawkins and Haggard, I thought there was going to be some kind of slagging match between the two in the papers and such (or like James Randi and Sylvia Browne). It was a bit anti-climatic really.
Shame.

_______________________________________________

Once again I've been amazed by The Planets. This time it's Uranus (yes yes, the names hilarious...). Great song, makes me think a lot about the solar system. In fact, the only song from The Planets that I don't like is Venus. It's a pretty boring track, but aside from that, I pretty much love Holst's "album".

_______________________________________________

The Borat movie was pretty hilarious. Me and some of my "cru" went to go see it. It kind of makes you ill when you get this naked obease man sitting on Borat's face, his anal hairs poking into his mouth. There is no God. If there was, then it'd probably be a bitter and malicious God, judging from what we saw.

_______________________________________________

Jesus, still haven't thought of anything to rant about. In a way, it could be seen as a good thing, as you could have thought of me as being bitter, sad and lonely when I was ranting. Of course, this is bad to me, as it means the blog could get awful quiet for a while.

Doesn't matter anyway, I'm sure something will come along that'll make my blood boil...

Another generic entry...

2006-11-01T20:06:00.000Z

What can I say? It has been a pretty slow week really. I've been playing a lot of GRAW, thats good, and hopefully I'll be getting tickets to see the Borat movie. Nice...

Another big thing thats happened to me recently is that I've got my love of classical music back. All thanks due to Holst's The Planets. Seriously, once you hear Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury, you cant really turn back. Mars is pretty good as well, and the each "planet" has it's own highlight. Love it.

I'm also trying to get someone to buy me The God Delusion as well, looks like a pretty good book, although despite the huge sales at the moment, I still get the idea that the book is only preaching to the converted.

I cant really think of anything to write about. I suppose I could rant about something, but I dont know what to write about...

Later.

General blogging...

2006-10-30T12:42:00.000Z

It's quite sad really with this whole Christmas thing. If we were to reject religion and become a properly secular nation, it would mean that there would be no more Christmas. Although the thought is deeply saddening, I dont think it'll happen anyway, and what with the Christmas hype building around now, I think it'd be a great time to list what I want. So alas, being a spoilt bastard, I would like :

A subscription to The Economist
A subscription to The Guardian
A subscription to Private Eye
Membership to The National Secular Society
This little fellow
Dawkin's "The God Delusion"
A print of this
A t-shirt from The Perry Bible Fellowship

And finally, if anyone can get me a hoodie, that'd be great...

_______________________________________

God damn it's been slow today. Luckily. I've got my 360 back so I'll be kicking ass again. I've also been doing well on the Holah website ("teh" tests), and hopefully I'll be getting some sort of book to dismantle creationism.

Ho ho ho, and a merry Christmas to all!

"Teh" creationists....

2006-10-22T12:40:00.000+01:00

By the way, I am aware of the number of spelling mistakes here. Will correct later.

Right, seems that I recieved a comment from a quite rare type of person: A creationist.

He made a comment on my Answers In Genesis entry, along with the link for his blog, which tries to put down evolution. It was filled with the usual arguements that a creationist would use, so I decided to leave a comment on one of his entries. Of course, being as creationists get really stubborn online, I had to be in their "team" to comment (I assume this was because they do not like it when people leave comments that disagree with their theories).

Because of this, I'm going to post up the comment here, for all to see. It isn't the most professional of comments, but none-the-less, hopefully it'll kickstart a debate.

Here goes:

Hello, saw your link.

Intolarence against religion?
Far from it. I assume you're living in America right? Athiests are the most distrusted group in the US, more than gays/lesbians, blacks, Muslims, Mormons etc.

The problem with creationsim is that bases it's entire theory on a book that is thousands of years old. We do not even know who wrote it. Science doesn't base theories and hypothesises on a biased source. Scientists didn't hope that the results would be like this.

Creationists take the belief that the Earth is between six-twelve thousand years old. This is a huge contrast between the billions of years that science has dug up. Along with the fact that the creationist theory is biased upona dated book, and it becomes pretty clear which theory I'd prefere.

Also, I'd like to point out that many scientists are not out of disprove God, but they try to find out what is true, if I have put that correctly. I got the feeling from your blog that if a person rejests creationism, then they also reject God as well. A good friend of mine is a devout Christian, yet he rejects creationism...

I'm not trying to start a flame war, but I'd like it if you were open to people's ideas and beliefs. I was a Christian for roughly two years perhaps, so it isn't like I'm a biased athiest trying to a picka fight with you for the sake of it (probably). Anyway, hope to debate with you in the future...

Jazzdog

Please visit his blog and try to start a discussion with him. Should be interesting, no doubt about that...

George, the lovable Satanist.

2006-10-21T23:36:00.000+01:00

I've decided to lash out at another group in the whole social networking scene. It actually surprised me that the group is such a small sub-culture. This is the Satanist subculture of course.

The Satanists on social networking sites differ from the emo and goth subcultures as they are more likey to use capitalisation and grammar for their profiles (well, the ones I've seen). You also notice rather quickly that they try to pass themselfs as the essence of evil, despite the fact that they probably have quite a nice middle-class lifestyle, getting spoiled off their ass by their liberal parents.

However, every now and then, the Satanist slips up, perhaps by adding a few unnecessary smilies or listing a really mainstream pop band under the music section. If the social networking site is Bebo, the Satanist's friends will often put pictures of penises, smilie faces or rainbows on the whiteboard, much to the Satanist's dismay. It must be hard to give the impression that you're the incarnate of evil when you have such cheery and optimistic friends.

Anyway, introducing George, the lovable Satanist:

Happy birthday!

2006-10-21T22:18:00.000+01:00

This is for Katie's birthday. It involves me being really cool, so you know it's going to be good. Even better, I found out how to put it on here, so without further ado, happy birthday Katie!

By the way, I know how annoying it is when you go onto someone's blog and they mention people that you've never heard of before, and probably wont ever hear about them again. Because of this, if this is the first time you've visited my blog, here is a list of people you could pretend I'm talking about:

Katie Melua
Katie Holmes
Katie Price
Katie Griffin

New stat counter on here.

2006-10-13T16:55:00.000+01:00

I've just added a stat counter from SiteMeter out of curiosity. Looks pretty good.

My guide to fantasy worlds (Part three)

2006-10-08T00:54:00.000+01:00

I can’t actually remember the story to the first parts of the trilogy, so I’m going to have a load of plot holes in this final chapter. So please bear with me…

_____________________________________

What happens to me (Part three)

Right, me, Steve, Will, Albert and our female sidekicks have defeated a massive 250,000 goblin army within a couple of hours, due to Bad-Ruler’s crazy antics. Sophie was decapitated, which upsets me a bit. We decide to cremate her, but due to the fact that I need cheering up, the body explodes the moment the flame touches the body, and the last goblin warrior is littered with shrapnel. Albert makes another wise-crack, and we all laugh merrily, forgetting about my former lover’s death. We then carry on into the night.

Bad-Ruler is becoming more and more crazy by the minute, so he decides to confront us personally. He jumps onto his giant duck-horse hybrid and heads off towards our final destination, which is called Hat. Hat is supposedly the place where “the ancients” used to live, so it seems like a good place to finish the story.

Its now almost full moon, and we’ve decided to set up camp. I was going to invite this one girl into my sleeping bag, but it turned out to my surprise that she had very crooked teeth, a very moody personality and bad hair. She also has three heads. Luckily, Albert has been using her third head as a punch bag for quite a while now. It’s quite funny, and now that I think about it, the third head hasn’t been moving recently. I think its dead. Still, even with that to smirk about, I’m still worried about what will happen to me and my friends. The fortune teller (who fought with us in the battle) told us that someone close to me will die, and I wont know who it is until it happens. Life sucks sometimes, but at least Bad-Ruler will die.

Anyway, Bad-Ruler has now got a four million man army to destroy us all. He sees this as a victory, even though you know he is going to die. He arrives at Hat to prepare for the greatest battle of all time…If he thinks he has a good enough army, it is going to be a laugh for him reading the next paragraph….

…As at this point I would like to point out that my story is better than other fantasy epics as my story has a battle with one billion creatures in the end. One Billion! That means his four million man army is going to have to face 996,000,000 soldiers from my team! Trust me, he is in for a very pleasant surprise…

In case you were wondering, we met the 996,000,000 people in an isolated settlement somewhere in the north. I’m so clever, I don’t know how I didn’t think of it until now. Also, if you think that we just casually asked them to join our side and fight to the death, and they just happily agreed, that’s exactly what happened. Sad really.

Anyway, we see Bad-Ruler and his troops on some big field. We all high five, and quickly reminisce about how we all met up and all the good times we have had. We know we may die, so we are very nervous, and even though nine hundred and ninety six million people are ready to fight to the death on our side, they’re still very small (about two feet tall) and haven’t had any food for a couple of days. Still, we decide to fight them, and we rain down arrows on them. Bad-Ruler’s army charges at us, and we brace for impact, knowing full well that the forces of good will prevail over his evil army.

Eight minutes later and pretty much everyone is dead, with the exception of say the LAN crew and Bad-Ruler. The goofy girl with three heads has been cut in half, and although the situation is tense, I think we were all a bit relieved when the axe sliced through her like a knife through butter. Bad-Ruler smiles, he knows he has won. After all, if his could defeat 99.06% more people than him, then surely he could take out four young adults, right?

Wrong! All of us run at him, ready for blood. He never knew what hit him, and sure enough, he dies. After realising how easy we survived in this story, we are suddenly teleported back into our school, in the middle of the dinner hall in the school. Of course, four people suddenly teleporting into a room doesn’t go unnoticed. Rather than running away screaming or what ever, everyone crowds around us in exited chatter. My confised brother, who is staring up at us with wide eyes whilst eating a sandwich looks up at us happily and says:

“ …What happened to you guys?”

“You don’t want to know, and that’s the truth (I smile and wink at the camera).”

Just when you think that the movie ends with that happy remark, "brother" starts getting really annoyed with my reply, and keeps yapping at me about why I gave such a shoddy reply, and keeps questioning me about why I'm not talking. In the end, I tell him to shut up, causing him to have a tantrum. He then punches me in the mouth, causing me to drop to the floor. I get up, blood everywhere, and trip up on a slippery floor. Relising my credibility has now gone, I crawl out the dinner hall and catch the bus home.

The end

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Yeah, I really was hoping that the story was going to be better than that, but really I cant be bothered to give it depth. Oh well, gave it a shot, and I've seen worse stories, so three cheers to me!

Anyway, back to ranting...

Fucking idiots...

2006-10-04T22:31:00.000+01:00

Go to Amazon, look at Dawkin's new book "The God Delusion" and look at the reviews...

Suspicious isn't it? At time of writing, the book has two and a half stars, but to look closer at the reviews, or the reviewers, you tend to notice that the ones who gave the book a very poor verdict are coincidentely alligned to a faith... You also notice that most of them dont give a justification for why its such an awful book, other than "One billion people heart Jesus for a reason". The bit which pisses me off the most, and I quote:

"Seeing as he's such a champion of science in the face of the supernatural, and states that religion is the cause of so many wars, why is it that the largely 'secular' and 'pro-scientific' west predominantly has all the weapons of mass destruction? (Built by scientists, might I add)."

And....

"In the valley of the blind, the one eyed man is either a king or a freak.

Dawkin's is neither, but suffers from the classic problematic symptom of man, either secular or religious, namely: 'Thinking they know'."

What a fucking cunt. I'm guessing this person didn't even read the book. What a twat. Makes me want to beat some small animal. If anyone could buy a copy of the book, give it the proper (good) score, and then say why the negative viewers are so shit, that'd be great...

...Still waiting....

Me? Bitter? Nah...

2006-09-22T23:09:00.000+01:00

Oh social networking sites, how I despise ye...

Seriously, you go onto Bebo (For general snooping around), you look at the profiles of the people in your year, and how can you not be embarrassed for them? I would like to point out that most of the people in my year (who continued with sixth form) are more academically bright than me, and most of them will have had much better results from the exams. This is the part which pisses me off. Do they really have to conform and dumb down the entire fucking English language?

It’s like a slap in the face. I'm not really academically able, but I read broadsheets, have a good knowledge of current affairs and spend around an average of an hour a day on Wikipedia. I read philosophy, I have read many works of Richard Dawkins, I read about science, I read about technology, have my own opinions on many subjects such as GM farming and organic foods and I try my damn hardest to learn about the world. I decide to see what the fuss is about on Bebo, so I go onto it, look at the people from my year and shudder. These are supposed to be my intelligent peers! It really does make my blood boil.

So I decided to do my own little Mebo account (Yes, that was a deliberate change...). I don’t know if it’s going too over the top, but then again, looking at the other profiles, it does start to fit in (Its looks better when viewed in Firefox).
Enjoy:

Like it? I do, even if that picture of "Jo" looks quite scary.

I love being bitter.

By the way...

2006-09-09T15:03:00.000+01:00

Its a random post this one, but if by any chance, I go into a quite nasty vegative state, then I'm probably going to ask right here right now if I could be "axed off" from my life support machine/feeding tube etc. I'm just worried that some random church or pro-life group will try to speak up my my behalf, and so on, so if I ever do screw myself up somehow, you know what to do...

My guide to fantasy worlds (Part Two)

2006-08-10T02:44:00.000+01:00

The story continues

I've been threatened by David that if I dont update my blog, he'll take his anger out on my jack russel... Sexually...

I also promised that I would continue with my little fantasy guide/story, and I will. However, I've been looking at the names I have given out to the people and places in the last entry, and theres no way that I'm going to bother memorising the them, so I'm going to give them better names to make it easier for me:

"Harazenth" (Where it's all set in): "The kingdom"
"Krost" (Horrid bad guy): "Bad ruler"
"Hopelen" (That village we first land in): "Settlement"
"Dagger of Sheron" (Obscure knife I randomly got) : "Flickknife"

Right, now on with the story (By the way, I've decided to place some of my friends in this story for sheer randomness)

______________________________

What happens to me (Part two)

Right... Me and my friends have been traveling on our own for about two weeks since excaping the prison. We're not doing amazingly well, and we're running out on food, as well as water. Our friendship shows minor strain, although it isn't that obvious, and we're a good team, so we can't fall out. At some point, we come to the conclusion we are being followed (This is where we relise that the story may be being influenced, although I'll try and stop that). However, just when we are about to ambush the followers, its turns out that its a party of four hot local girls (As I said before, the same age as us), fancy that!. Turns out that they hate Bad Ruler quite a bit, and how he/she has spread hate and misery to The Kingdom and their little settlement (Bless them). Me and my friends play along and say how much we hate this "Bad Ruler" character as well. This draws admiration from the girls, and they fall right into our charismatic trap, and they decide to come with us on our quest.

This is horrible for us. We want to slay Bad Ruler, not hang around with the hottest girls we've ever laid eyes on, and whats worse, they're wearing barly nothing, only some carefully placed rags! I don't want to get distracted, and they'll be all "Look-at-me", and we'll be forced to take a peek . Me and my friends act moody, and we tell them to carry our equipment. They do, and we head up the mountain trail, towards where Bad Ruler resides.

Now, Bad Ruler has consulted a witch to look into the future, you know, to make sure he will still be ruler in a week, and lo-and behold, the witch says that in the future (A week), Bad Ruler is dead! Now, Bad Ruler, relising how deterministic that prophesy was, freaks out and kills the witch in anger. For no reason, he sends 5000 of his finest warriors out to "Kill anyone who looks like they could slay me". And the troops march off into the land.

Meanwhile, we've decided to set up camp in a small forest at the end of the day. We only have two sleeping bags in our rucksack, so we tell them they'll have to sleep on the floor. They suggest they share the sleeping bags with us. I relise how useful this could be, so five minutes later, me and the (naked) girls are in one sleeping bag, and my (naked) friends are in the other.
I close my eyes, to make way for an entirly uneventful night...

I wake up the next morning and continue with my friends and the ladies. I can't help but notice how one of the girls keeps looking at me in the "we could get married" look. I play hard to get, and ask whether we should look for supplies, or if theres any nearby towns we could get some random information from. One of the girls suggests we go to fantasy village two, and get some bread. Just as we're walking to the bakery, we hear horses runing around and arrows being fired. We hide behind a rock, and as we do so, a villager runs out with arrows in his/her back, and drops dead. Sophie (The one who fancies me) tells me that Bad Ruler has seen the prophesy, and will try to kill the "Chosen ones", sent from another universe to rid The Kingdom of evil.

Naturally, I'm confused at that point (In the story anyway), but before I ask what she meant, I run out of ideas, and move to the next part of the guide (Part three will come at some point kids!)...

______________________

Friends to take with me...

I promised last entry to do a brief guide on who would be ideal to take with me on my journey, so here are (a few) candidates:

Max: Good nerd, and because of the stereotypes in these worlds, he'll pick up fast on the plots, as well as learning several potion recipes and spells. Although this would be really cool, I get the idea that he will be easily killed off fairly early in the story. Another problem is that he would make a sedating potion for the girls, and I'm not going to add that in, so...

Stephen: Ah, now Steve is an ideal choice, because as well as being smart and fairly strong, he can be the loyal one who'll probably sacrifice himself for me at the end. On the other hand, a stereotypical rivalry could tear us apart halfway, only for him to join Bad Ruler's forces in revenge.

Will: Will is also a loyal friend, and as well as knowing many martial arts, will probably be the one who keeps me sane. However, theres also going to be a power struggle between me and him, and he'll probably get bitter over Sophie fancying me. Hmm.

David: Ah, at the moment, David is growing some form of beard substence at the moment, and he does look like a credible sidekick, and I'm sure he can produce quite a few witty wisecracks along the way. However, I do not want to risk the idea of him taking my beloved Sophie (You get the idea she'll run off with him). However, if by any chance I decide to turn this story into a "comedy", then I can make it so that in order to stop our universes from collapsing in on each other, he has to make out with the ugliest fucking monster the world has ever seen. He then has to make love to it/him/her all night, while me and my other brothers-in-arms run away to saftey. On the other hand... No.

Albert: Albert can be quircky, and if we need comedy relief, I'm sure he can do some good old fashioned wisecracken' for our amusement. None-the-less, there is the problem him hogging all the girls (That seems to be the number one flaw for quite a few friends at the moment). He is a lyal friend though, so I'm sure I can spare half a girl (The right hand side).

Owen: Unfortunatly, Owen decided that he wasn't satisfield with being a student, so hes headed off to Somalia to become a hard-ass mercenary. Shame really, but on the other hand, he would of stolen the girls ...

After much thinking, the three friends that I have decided to take with me are (Roll of drums)... Albert... Steve... And Will! I have chosen these guys not because of me taking into account the advantages/disadvantages but because they're the main people in our Lans! Huzzar!

Stay tuned for next episode!

My guide to fantasy worlds (Part One)

2006-08-07T02:15:00.000+01:00

I've always had a particular hatred towards the types of backgrounds and characters you would find in a fantasy film. The hatreds always been there with me, but I've only started getting creeped out by it ever since I watched "Dark Crystal". If you've never seen this film, the good for you. Jim Henson played a pretty major role in this film, which takes away a lot of kudos. Everything is done with puppets, which sounds (slightly) interesting, but is actually gloomy, depressing, and will scare the jeebies out of me.

And so I've been creeped out by a lot of different fantasy films, probably because of the fact of how different the characters look. "Dark Crystal", "Labyrinth", "Neverending Story" and "Legend" screw me up in particular. Just thinking about those creatures (Skeksis, Gmork and Tim Curry) makes my blood curl, and I would probably break down in a world like that. Unfortunatly, I found out that often in these types of movies, the main character is a person from our world who will accidentally get sucked into theirs, often through some artefact. This scares me, and I've constructed mini ways of coping, if I was to have this sort of thing happen to me.

What happens to me (Part one)

Most fantasy films/worlds seem to operate around a PG rated culture. This means that although I will be in a horrible situation, with many hideous creatures, it means that I have a less than likely chance of dying. Even better, it also means that theres a good chance that there should be a small human settlement around the place in which I "appear". The humans will most likely be under rule from some comically terrifying creature which represents evil, or is an agent for the main evil force. The creature should look like nothing we could identify with, perhaps one which picks off villages once in a while.

After helping to defend the settlement, maybe scaring off or even killing the creatures, I will have (Obviously) bought a lot of attention to myself. The people will look at my "Funny clothes", and make cautious comments about how I dress. At this point, one of my electronic devices will go off. The villagers/elders/llocals will refere to this as "Witchcraft", and through me in a prison.

At this point, in order for me to not lose my sanity, I will relise that I wasnt the only person to travel to this world. I'll probably have a friend(s) which is already locked in the prison. We'll exchange our stories (How we got here, what happened to us etc). It turns out, we are in the Kingdom of Harazenth, under the wicked rule of Krost, leader of the Chorpens. We relise what we have to do: The only way we can get back to our world is by defeating Krost, therefore restoring light to Hazazenth. The human settlement, which I shall call "Hopelen", turns out to be fairly far away from Krost's castle, so its going to be a fairly far, and epic journey. At night, we break out of the prison, get a map, equip ourselves with the "Dagger of Sheron", and head out on a mythical journey which will be a test of courage, hope, faith and friendship (At least one of us will be axed off though).
Just as we're heading of, two of the girls from Hopelen (Conveniently around our age) will see us excaping, and without alerting the elders, will follow us.

Thats the end of the first part, but I'll expand on what will happen to me in my next blog post.
However, I need to expand on other things...

Songs I will need to keep my sanity in a fantasy world

One of the best ways of not developing mild schizophrenia and paranoia on my journeys is to carry around a device which can play you music. I have managed to highlight the songs that would keep me going (Highlighted in green), songs that would get me upset or homesick (Highlighted in orange), and songs that would make me snap (Highlighted in red). Here they are:

"Leper Messiah" by Metallia
"Welcome Home" by Metallica
"And Justice For All" by Metallica
"Fight Fire With Fire" by Metallica
"Gold Digger" by Kayne West
"Spitfire" by The Prodigy
"Orion" by Metallica
"Ziggy Stardust" by David Bowie
"Dream On" by Aerosmith
"Breath" by The Prodigy
"Little Fluffy Clouds" by The Orb

Just because a song is marked red or orange, doesn't mean I hate it. It just means It'd make me a little more homesick, and a little more awful. "Little Fluffy Clouds" however, is one depressing tune.

I would also like to point out that some of my friends would be useful in these fantasy worlds, and others would snap easily in the situation. In "My guide to fantasy worlds (Part Two)", I shall expand on this, as well as what will happen to me and my friend, but for now, I'm going to bed.

Toodles...

Good old Bebo...

2006-07-30T00:05:00.000+01:00

I've always been a bit "skeptical" of Bebo. Like a very poor man's version of Myspace, and thats saying something. Still, I've got too much time on my hands, so I have registered an account there. Needless to say, it was a bit of a rofl, and I cant help but notice how many people shunned syntax , capitalisation and symantics. I've rummaged through a few profiles to give you the idea:

"hey gorgeous, u sur its al ok 2 stay at urs on fri? n also, wt u doin sat eve? its ma m8s bday meal, n as ur ma luva, ur welcome 2 come! so let me no wot ur doin hun, hope uve had a gd day! oxoxoxo"

"rite thn u can have ur litle 22 i will have my m82a1 barret 50 cal"

"easy boi what u been up to not seen u in a while found ur page on some buff birds one what goin on there. seen phillip lately or not haha. write bk u wanker."

Shakespeare this aint, and its been pretty hilarious looking at the profiles, and what I've quoted above pretty much applies itself to every person. Even the people I would consider of high academic ability seem to have theirs in a non-standard English way. Its not that I hate these people, and in fact a lot of them I really like, but this whole kind of "Me too" language really is pissing me off.

Maybe its just me being bitter, but really, it doesn't take more than a second to hit "Comma", and even though its a small difference, at least it makes it readible for everybody else.

_______________________________________________________________

On a much brighter note, I've just got my Xbox 360 back. Fairly good, exept I need to get myself a new power cable as well as a new Live account, although I'm pretty sure I can get these in time.

I'm fairly looking forward to playing as The core four once again. I should have BF2 and Advanced Warfighter as well, and its going to interesting to try an recreate the Summer of '05 again. The upcoming Lan should be a blast as well; We're only going to be playing Halo 2 there.

I will also be changing my gamertag from FlynchLynch to Jazzfish, in case any of the Lan group should be reading this.

Bye all

Please, for fucks sake...

2006-07-16T13:45:00.000+01:00

Not that I actually want to do thissort of post, but please, for fuck's sake, can somebody please speak to me? I'm so fucking bored, and no-one seems to be around. All the events I was meant to do this weekend were canceled, and I really need to talk to someone. Could be about anything, but pleasel, can we talk?

By the way, I'm only putting that image up there so I can use it in the future easily.

Kickstarting a serious chat...

2006-07-09T22:55:00.000+01:00

Please read lads and gals...

I've decided to post some topics up. If its ok, I'd like to have people write their own opinions on the topics below.

The opinions are on:

Humanity
Religion
Meaning of life
Looking back on your life (at time of writing), do you think you have lead a good enough life?
Describe a subject you are passionate about.

The last topic/subject can be about anything that you have an interest in, be it music, philosophy or literature, to name a few things, but you should have a deep interest in it...

I am doing this for two reasons; The first being that I want to know more about my friends and what they believe in, as I wouldn't know how to bring the topics up in real life. The second, is I want to see if this idea spreads, to see how many people would do the same thing as this. I would like the first reason done, you know, to get to know other people more, but its up to you.

Anyway, I'll probably do mine at some point in the week. If anyone else would like to do theirs, and I would appreciate it, then fill the above topics in, put it in your blog, DevArt account, Myspace bullitin or whatever you use to talk, and mail me the URL. I'd really like to get some opinions here...

Look forward to hearing from y'all...

Standard blog post (Can't think of a better title)...

2006-06-26T00:32:00.000+01:00

Damn,

With every passing day I feel an even greater urge to quit Biology. Seriously, we're doing coursework for A2 now. Fuck me, I'm lagging behind. Only main problem is that I dont want to upset the teachers by quitting (And I know I will), as they have done so much for me. I also need to either find my old textbook, or buy a new one. I cant win, I can picture their faces now...
___________________________________________________________________

I also need to find some "Justification" for my existance, if I'm putting that right. I dont actually like the idea of an absence of a God, believe me, and I'm pretty sure that I'll remain athiest, or agnostic at the most thiest, for the rest of my life. Because of this, I feel a bit bummed that its all over when you die. However, Bill Hicks kind of helped me with a quote:

"...all matter is mearly energy condensed through a slow vibration, we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively..."

Hopefully that is true. The idea that energy cannot be created or destroyed is a nice thought as well. Then again, Will told me a theory that in the end, the universe will be full of black holes, so no "Big crunch" or new big bang. I hope thats not true.

___________________________________________________________________

I may also take up a new interest in subject, or at least become a layman in it. I may post a picture of Hubble's "Deep Space" photo, beautiful.

___________________________________________________________________

Lastly, I've noticed I've gained weight. Put bluntly, this sucks.

--------

Anyway, toodles...

My birthday aftermath...

2006-06-22T01:02:00.000+01:00

Oh, and I donated blood as well. Ouch...

Damn, I love my birthdays (Believe the hype)...

2006-06-20T22:29:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow, on the 21st of June, I shall be 17. I'm fairly young compared to everyone else in my year, but still, there is a reason as to why I'm posting this thread before my birthday, and thats because I need to inform everyone that my birthdays kick the crap out of everyone else's birthday.

Seriously, Barham's birthday consisted of him telling us once that it was his birthda7y, and how he (Correct me if I'm wrong) got money to waste on driving lessons.

Leo got an Ipod.

Will refused a cake on his birthday, which me and Albert slaughtered.

Me, well, this is what I expect to happen tomorrow:

I wake up to a mountain of "Pop Tarts" and a nice coffee. I rip open the cards, take the money and laugh.
My family/friends phone me up telling me about how I've turned into a man. Joe is pleased.
I open some presents. A small hamster is offered to me. I accept and eat the hamster.
I make sure I'm not gaining weight.
I get into a limo and go into my form room...
Where I see Dan M wearing a bandana and reflective sunglasses carrying speakers. There is a large cake in the middle of the room. Everyone yells "SURPRISE!". Suddenly, "Ace of Spades" booms from the speakers. Strippers burst out the cake, everyone cheers. We party hard for the next couple of minutes, swigging whiskey, taking recreational drugs, trash the place and pass out.
We walk out the classroom, people cheering me on. I come across my friends, who give me many presents. Joe is pleased.
I guilt the poor ones who cant afford presents to buy me lunch. Once again, this pleases Joe.
I walk home, some homeless man gives me his money for the day. I walk on.
Once I arrive home, I see a massive banquit and party. Theres a vomitarian in the other room, and Steve and Albert seem to be playing Russian roulet. I open my presents, Sparky gets pregnent, we all cheer, and I go to bed...

And thats how I got my groove back.
The end...

Why I'm angry and upset at the following:

2006-06-09T03:05:00.000+01:00

Hello all,

The main reason I’m posting this article is mainly to explain probable reasons for my behaviour, and to issue an apology to certain people. I know that some of my views would probably be considered offensive, to quite a few people, some of whom are my friends. They are only my views, and I do not wish harm upon the average Christian/Jew/Muslim etc.

So here it is:

I’m sorry if I have caused offence. I would like to explain myself:

By the way, this is a really long post. The blue text is the main reason. Skip past it if you want to, I have one or two new things further down as well…

_____________________________________________________________

Perhaps I should explain my background with religion…

I was bought up in a fairly atheist household. I was not baptised, as my parents decided it was up to me whether or not I became religious. From a young age, I was fairly critical of religion. Despite the fact it was seen as a joke between me and my few friends at school, I still hated the Catholic church’s views on homosexuality. I had also heard of the actions taken by the Pope and religious extremists, and liked to think of organised religion as “For silly and mean people”.

However, I still believed in the Christian God, mainly because of all the churches in Croydon, and how if so many people believe in this bloke in the sky, it had to be true. I lived a Godless lifestyle, although when asked, I would confirm his existence.
This would continue up to around late year 10 to early year 11.

After that, I started to become more “Jesus” orientated. I started to pray, every day every night before bed. I was determined to pray at least once every day, and I felt very uncomfortable when I didn’t (Although the cause of this was unknown at the time, I believe this could have been due to obsessive compulsive disorder). I still had a very liberal view of Christianity though, especially my views on gay rights and other religion. The first time I spoke properly of it was in a P.E lesson in year 11.
I asked David if he believed in God. Barham responded with a no, and that if a God did exist, he would hate “The Bastard”. I got offended by this, and wondered why he would act in such a “Spiritually ignorant” way…

Around this point, I started getting into the ideas of near death experiences. I went onto many NDE sites, and soon developed a small obsession with the (Fraud) Reiki healer, Tiffany Snow. I loved the idea though. Who wouldn’t? The idea of dying, and then seeing a light made out of love, made me feel amazing, special etc.

In February 2005, I joined a forum called “TheUndertaking”. It was a forum with a lot of (nerdy) people from my school. I first made my “Theist debut” (Comfirming myself as a theist) on a thread about the 2004 Tsunami. I saw David’s comments on there as “Unloving”, “Blasphemous” and “Ignorant”, and so I posted a fairly obnoxious post saying how he was “wrong” and such. I was high on the idea that this is what God wanted me to do, so I was pretty smug.
Dave responded with a fairly harsh (At the time), but well explained post telling me why I was wrong. Looking back on his “Cretin” remark, it made me slightly upset that this is what people thought of me, and how awful an impression I had made to everyone.

I was still high on new age Christianity right up to around October. At this point, I had got full blown OCD, and it was dominating my life. It want that bad, because I had Jesus to turn to, if you know what I mean, and I guessed I would just have to wait and let it go away. I was wrong.

During the holidays in October 2005, a series of events would happen that would make my life take a turn to the worse. A member of our family started preaching to me, my Dad and Jenny, about the return of Jesus, the tribulation, Revelations and such. This was in the bible, so it had to be true, but I just couldn’t believe it. There went my religious beliefs. At my Grandparents house, I searched for more information on “The rapture”, and “The tribulation”. I couldn’t believe my fucking eyes…

I got the basics of the Tribulation, and learnt a bit more about this Antichrist fellow, but I didn’t know how it was supposed to end. I thought it would be a happy ending for all of us, that love would triumph, and evil will be destroyed. I heard a bit from my family, but they hadn’t told me bluntly. I didn’t know what I was in for. On the 30th of October 2005, on my own, in my bedroom, I read Revelations for the first time…

The moment I finished Revelations, I stood up, calmly placed the Bible on my shelf, rested my head against the pillow, looked up at the ceiling, and for about half an hour, went into a vegetative state. I felt sick. Thinking about this, this was one of the worst events of my life, and I can recall almost every detail of it. I suddenly felt really heavy, and slowly got up to go for a drink of water. When you’re extremely stressed, you basically go blank, feel very tired, and yes, become very sick.

I basically realised that I had to get about three quarters of my friends and family to “Submit to Christ”, or they would face eternal hellfire for being “The unbelievers”. This was a horrific and very hard task to do, as most of my loved ones were strong atheists, or new age. I remember on the 31st of October, Halloween, running up to my church, opening the doors, turning the lights on the right side of the building, and I just dropped to my knees, and screamed/prayed. I remember tears running down my face, I was sobbing like mad, and I just kept asking God to forgive them for being atheists. I begged God that if I could make my Dad or other parent a believer, I would evangelise for the rest of my life. I ran home, and calling my Dad, asked for them to pick me up.

I decided that if I could get my Dad and Step-Mum (Or second Mum, the preferred name) to become Christian, it could get Mum to become a believer as well, creating a triple whammy. From then on, I would try to convert siblings and friends. I remember crying half the time at my Dad’s home. I just didn’t have the courage to tell my family that I had to convert them to Christianity or they would be “Cast in the Lake of Fire”.

I also had the need to pray and “Praise” God every 30-60 minutes. This was bought over by OCD. I also started undergoing some new changes.
I started becoming more right wing, and I had become unbearably homophobic. Around this time, I developed a huge avoidance to gays, and if I did have to be with them, I felt the need to talk to them about how great Christianity was. I was scared of the idea of having to preach to friends, as I was still very conscious about my reputation, and I would be scared about what would happen if David, Steve, Will, Albert, Jess (David’s girlfriend and a regular poster/mod on TheUndertaking), so, you know, huge amounts of stress.

Over a couple of months, I had shed some OCD, but it was still fairly bad, and I was still worried about the status of my loved ones. Eventually, I spoke to a Judaistic follower, who showed me the contradictions in the New Testament and Revelations. This was around March, and I quickly developed my new senses as a follower of Judaism. I called myself a “Son of Noah”, and started to become a bit more liberal, although not much.

This was short lived however, and in the craziest moment of my experiences as a theist, I became a follower of Islam for a weekend. This was one crazy motherfucker of a weekend, and one of the lowest points in this period. It gave me a Calvinistic viewpoint, the idea that we’ll be worshipping God for the rest of eternity (Providing we’re not in Hell for doing something that’ll piss Allah off, such as not worshipping him 5 times a day). At this point, I received a speech by my Dad and “Second-Mum” on why I shouldn’t be religious. It worked kind of, and when I got back to Ticehurst, I got rid of Islam, and adopted the new age practices.

It was quite relaxing at first, and I had gone back to my old views on homosexuality and such. I also developed my whole beliefs around Edgar Cayce, the supposed psychic. This was very short lived though.

And then out of the blue, one night, I was on Wikipedia, looking up techniques used by false psychics to get money of unsuspecting people, and there it was, “Edgar Cayce was often accused of Shotgunning and cold reading”. The moment I read that, the moment I turned an atheist.

So, you can see, I have a huge dislike of religion. When I mean that, I hate Christianity/Judaism/Islam a lot. This doesn’t mean, that I hate Christians, Jews and, Muslims. Far from it, I have many friends and family who believe in God, and we’re still getting along.

I am sorry if I do offend anyone on here, but these are just my opinions and views.

Anyway, to the next piece of this blog…

____________________________________________________
Right, I know there is a very small chance of her actually seeing this, but if you are looking at this blog, Ania Jack, then fuck you, piss off, and stop acting like such a fucking bitch.

With the very rare exception, every time I have ever spoken to you online, you should respond with “Fuck off” or “Go away Lynch”. Every time I tried speaking to you, I got a hostile response, no matter how friendly I was trying to be. I was just trying to be a nice person, and as soon as I said hi, I would be told to go away, or at least be spoken to in a uncaring manner so. You hurt my feelings really badly.

And with that in mind, there is no reason why I should keep you as a contact and/or talk to you…

_____________________________________________________________

Also, yes I know I’ve changed my official picture, but you know, I love googly eyes at the moment, they look so great…

_______________________________________________________________

Barham, if you’re reading this, perhaps we should discuss the whole “Team Atheist” comics more, get the idea circulating around. Hopefully the A+ coursework will go down well…

_______________________________________________________________

Me and David have also got some funny responses from the love of Tiffany Snow and “Billy Clark”. Ask us if you want to know what they say, but the fact they “Come in love”, have degrees in psychology (Controlling of masses “:-p”) and charge people for money for claiming that they can heal you… Billy Clark looks funny.

______________________________________________
Anyway, toodles guys, I shall return tomorrow to see how many comments I’ve got ( Its like a new Myspace for me).

Toodles…

Answers in Genesis, Team Athiest, and the FMA...

2006-06-07T13:44:00.000+01:00

Answers in Genisis

I've actually been very interested in creationism and science. I've always liked how they can make it seem as if dinosaurs never existed, and tried to explain how Genesis can be explained with these little pseudo-answers.

I went on a site called "Answers in Genesis", a website which tries to use science to support the young Earth argument. Its a bit of a rofl, and some of the things sounded a little made up.

Apparently, this incidents happened in real life:

"A young man approached me at a seminar and stated, ‘Well, I still believe in the big bang, and that we arrived here by chance random processes. I don’t believe in God.’ I answered him, ‘Well, then obviously your brain, and your thought processes, are also the product of randomness. So you don’t know whether it evolved the right way, or even what right would mean in that context. Young man, you don’t know if you’re making correct statements or even whether you’re asking me the right questions.’

The young man looked at me and blurted out, ‘What was that book you recommended?’"

Now why would a man go up to someone and without saying anything, just blurt that out?
Seriously, how does that story not look made up?

Ok, now, heres the other story:

"On another occasion, a man came to me after a seminar and said, ‘Actually, I’m an atheist. Because I don’t believe in God, I don’t believe in absolutes, so I recognize that I can’t even be sure of reality.’ I responded, ‘Then how do you know you’re really here making this statement?’ ‘Good point,’ he replied. ‘What point?’ I asked. The man looked at me, smiled, and said, ‘Maybe I should go home.’ I stated, ‘Maybe it won’t be there.’ ‘Good point,’ the man said. ‘What point?’ I replied."

Again, why would someone just blurt that out to a religious person? Never once during my times as a religious person did David or Olix come up to me and say:
"I am an athiest. I do not believe in God as God cannot do everything (See Omnipotence paradox). Because of this, I am unsure of what to make of life"

They also seem to dig the whole "Family values" thing, which is pretty awful.
I noticed a very hilarious article on "The root of all evil" by Richard Dawkins. You can guess what happens. It is worth a look though
www.answersingenesis.org/docs2006/0123root_dawkins.asp.

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Team Athiest

I'm actually going to start a comic/flash cartoon (Not sure how it'll be presented) about a team of athiests going round like a special forces team defeating these religious fundamentalists and such.
If you would like to know more, then send me an email at josephhq@msn.com, or contact me on IM.

I could do with a writer/artist mind...

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Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA)

Yeah, I know I'm getting a bit too involved with this religion and America thing, but I would like to point out a little gem of a quote from Wikipedia concerning the activities of the White House and the proposed ban on gay marrige in the Federal marriage amendment:

"Early in January of 2005, Bush told the Washington Post that although he still supported the amendment, he would not lobby heavily for the passage because he believed that until a federal court overturned the Defense of Marriage Act, there would not be enough votes for passage.

On January 25, 2005, according to the New York Times, Bush told a privately invited group of African-American community and religious leaders that he remained committed to amending the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. [4] Over the course of the next two days, it was revealed by the Washington Post and USA Today that the Bush Administration had paid columnists to promote its views on marriage. The Department of Health and Human Services paid Maggie Gallagher $21,500, and Mike McManus $49,000, to write syndicated news columns endorsing the FMA. [5] [6] Additionally, Gallagher also received $20,000 in 2002 and 2003 to write a report on government initiatives to strengthen marriage. McManus leads a group called Marriage Savers that works with other organizations to promote marriage as defined between a man and a woman.

Vice President Dick Cheney (whose daughter Mary Cheney is lesbian) has declined to endorse or condemn the FMA, maintaining that constitutional amendments are an issue for the states."

Wow, thats depressing...

Anyway, toodles for now. Sorry if I'm laying into religion, it can be irritating, but I still have a lot of anger still...

But yeah, toodles...

Photo comparing...

2006-06-05T20:17:00.000+01:00

Anyway...

Doing a little experiment to see how awesome I look when I have my photo taken.
Just to get rid of any bias that could occur from these photos, I will not edit them.

I will have three photos uploaded:

1. A random photo of myself
2. One of those teenage "joke photos"
3. The Myspace photo

Yeah, I do know this is extremily dodgy, and you know, nothing says "I'm worried about my appearance" than posting loads of pictures up on your blog and waiting for the comments to roll on in ("Aw, you're not that ugly Joe" and such).

Anyway, here we go...
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A random photo of myself

Fuck, when did I beat Barham in terms of sexyness? Whos betting that could scar a child with that photo? This is the type of photo which makes you drop to your knees and thank God you're a woman... Or gay.

Style: 10/10
Sexyness: 10/10
Scaryness: 10/10
Coolness:10/10
Anti Myspaceness: 10/10

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One of those teenage "joke photos"

Reminds me of how those teenagers try to make themselves funnier (Like me) by doing these sorts of expressions. You can still see that I'm the one holding the camera, which is something that really irritates at the moment. If your camera can do a timed shot, then please use it. It gives you one more hand to mess around with...

Style: 7/10
Sexyness: 10/10 (It is me after all)
Scaryness: 4/10
Coolness: 6/10
Anti Myspaceness: 5/10

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The Myspace photo

Shit! I've just merged in with those 50,000,000 Myspace users. He needs a cheeky smile on his face, brighten the place up for one fucking day. Any suggestions? Maybe if parents held the camera for the people taking their photo, it would give them a little more "style".

Style: 0/10
Sexyness: 10/10 (It is me, I can't be hard on myself)
Scaryness: 7/10
Coolness: 0/10
Anti Myspaceness: 0/10

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Just so you know, I didn't want people to call me emo because of my hair. I've usually tried keeping it fairly long pretty much since the beginning of my secondary school years. Anyway, back to work, I may need to limit how many entries I do per day/week.

Anyway, toodles...

Albert and Sir Peter Vardy...

2006-06-04T11:51:00.002+01:00

By the way, this is a little comic I used to work on.. I called it "The wonderful (Mis)adventures of Albert Morvay".

It would always revolve around my good friend Albert meeting his horrific end in each comic, often in front of scarred school children. It makes it funnier, eh?

Anyway, I noticed a little more activity about the Sir Peter Vardy's Emmanuel Schools Foundation going around than usual. For those who dont know about this, the Sir Peter Vardy's Emmanuel Schools Foundation consists of three different schools set up in Doncaster, Gateshead and Middlesbrough, started up by the millionaire car dealer Sir Peter Vardy, a devote evangellical Christian.

It has been in the media quite a few times, often for negative reasons. Parents who have had children go to the schools had noticed that the school had an exclusion rate ten times the national average. Theres also been rumours of the schools doing this mainly to get rid of the "slower" students. If you look at the school's GCSE results, and the fact that Emmanuel College has had 97% of pupils gain five GCSEs at A*-C, it does seem a little fishy.

Children at these schools often get in trouble for minor things, say, not having a Bible in their bag (I've heard at one point it was two), smoking (One boy was expelled for smoking), getting a kiss from your "other half", walking down the wrong corridor (You cant make this stuff up, oh wait, suppose you can) and, well, Rampaging red hot homosexual love.

I've visited the schoo'ls website, seems pretty obnoxious. They've launched a minor assault on a Channel 4 documentry involving them, saying that the presenter was twisting facts to come to his own conclusions... Actually, if you watched it, you would have seen two hundred parents complaining why their children are getting so screwed at school.

I could go on more, but I need to get back to work. The links at the bottom should give you more information, but for now, toodle oooo...

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/publicservices/story/0,,1785743,00.html- The full story.

http://www.emmanuel-schools.org.uk/index.htm- The school (Man, those girls look hot).

Oh, and a very suspiciously similar school/story:
http://www.secularism.org.uk/studentsrevoltassixthformcollege.html

Is there any way I can get this blog noticed? Maybe by doing something shocking, I dont know...

Anyway, toodles...

Additional stuff to note (Oh, and my official picture)...

2006-06-04T01:25:00.000+01:00

Pretty sweet picture, no?

Additional notes:

Oh, and being as I would like to give the impression that I am a Pseudo-Intellectual, I need to start posting current events as shown:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5044428

Finally, I need to do an "About me" section, here goes:

Key words that mean a lot to me (Excluding human family members) in no real order:

* Metallica
* Jazz (The coolest dog on Earth)
* Sparky
* Internet
* Bill Hicks
* Bill Bailly
* Richard Dawkins
* NSS
* "Click to donate sites"
* Steve
* Will
* Albert
* Dave B (Not that anyone cares about who "Dave B" and "Will" are)
* Leo
* "Love all the people"
* "The Misadventures of Albert"
* Taunting + Phil
* Schnoof
* Jazzfish
* Jazzwick
* Vikings
* Keeping healthy
* "Customisation"
* Psychology
* Sci-fi
* Iain M Banks,

Take care all...

Oh, and if it would be ok, please comment, I dont like the idea of just talking to myself...

So this is blogging....

2006-06-03T23:58:00.000+01:00

Hmm,

I used to have a blog before, but it kind of failed because I didn't have the effort to keep it updated.
I also "mumbeled" too much, and I didn't really have a point to make. I'll try and make an effort...

For those who actually care about what I have to say, I would like you to help me make my blog better, no idea how, but it would be quite nice if you helped me out.

Anyway, my name is Joseph Lynch. I currently reside in a pretty shabby village lurking around England. I attend Sixth form, and at time of writing, am doing Psychology, Biology, A+, English retake and Citizenship, although I doubt I will be able to make it into the next year of sixth form, especially the way I'm going.

I have two wonderful families, which consist of my Mum's family and my Dad's family.

I have five siblings, two cats (Named Mustard and Muesli) and two dogs, Jazz and Sparky (The former is pretty much worshiped)

I would consider myself of low academic intelligence and creative IQ, although thats never stopped me taking a shot before.

At the time of writing, I would consider myself secular. I am currently planning on joining the National Secular Society, and have a mild feeling of admeration toward Richard Dawkins.
I believe that humans screw up, its only natural. We're not evil, just a little bit stupid.

I believe that athiesm is a good path to follow. Quite a few actions by believers of a religion would be doing it to please a God or Diety, whilst athiests do it because they believe it is morally right (That, or for personal gain, I dont know).

Lastly, I believe the world would be a better place if we followed Bill Hicks. He might seem a little shocking at first, but as he said, "Listen to the message, not the words".

Anyway, hope to be posting here many times.