A Million Useless Thoughts

It is flu season. Time to go out and hunt the flu before the flu gets you!

Religion is a touchy subject, but I'd finally put to rest the answer to my religious views. First my parents are Catholic, my Brother is Taoist, and my wife is Jewish. This has made me not all that concerned about people's religion just that everyone is nice to each other. I.e. the golden rule: "Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you". Well, I finally came to the best way to express my viewpoint on religion, through mathematics. Suppose that all religions can be broken down into a set of individual beliefs or truths, i.e. Catholicism would be the set { 10 commandments, 1 god, Jesus rose on the third day, ... }, Wicca the set { Multiple gods, ... }, ... Then as most things that require faith we can conclude that the things that are true are the things are in the intersection of all sets. This leaves us with roughly two relatively simple facts: 1.) Things were created. 2.) We should be nice to each other. With the following while not included in ever...

It has been some time since the last post. End Thought.

I recently saw an argument that went recycling/trash trucks use too much fuel to really be a "green" technology. So, why not create a trash/recycling truck that runs on trash/recyclable materials? This eliminates the need to for people to worry about land fills while reducing the costs of the city to run trash vehicles. However, I do realize that burning the trash would require very thorough filtering, as who knows what people throw out. Perhaps adding a pseudo filtering to the trash system would help. Have the citizens separate out things that are combustible, like cardboard and food waste, versus thing that are not so combustible or too toxic, like aluminum cans and old clean containers. Perhaps, I am not the first to think of this, but it makes me wonder what technological or financial barrier exists to prevent garbage powered garbage trucks from existing.

It seems people are confused when you say things like "I'll just walk", or "It's not that far", or "I can just ride my bike there". This appears to be rather universal, where using ones own bipedal locomotion is a lost art left to the those who relive History like Ren-Fare artisans. I live 7-10 miles from work and frequently ride the bicycle, coworker have come to accept this, though we still need a shower. The real problem I have is those that think that I have performed some sort of monumental feat. Like people having been driving everywhere since the dawn of time. It really does not take much to plan out where you live to be within walking/riding distance and to be close enough local stores to be able to walk and procure anything you need. And many of us have been riding since an early age as it has been a tradition to "learn to ride a bike". It just seems as we get older we lose that drive to ride and just drive. Now for the fu...

Just got back from a wedding in Jersey, and have determined that New Jersey has a lot going for it, and a lot of peculiarities to it as well. First the good: Mandatory recycling. Recycling is curb side and everything goes, this is a great benefit, as there are no third parties involved or hippies to worry about, everyone just recycles. Recycling also requires little effort on the user, plastic, glass, and metals all go in the same container, then paper products in another. Now the strange: Everyone drives everywhere, but there are lots of trees. Like a giant suburbia, where the trees have not yet been killed off by the logging industry. Now, having ridden my bike for most of my life, and having walked the dogs in the morning, I have become more aware of my sense of smell. And oddly New Jersey smells like conflict, the conflict between the cars trying to pollute the world and the trees absorbing that pollution and releasing oxygen. Quite and odd balance when the brain is in a toss...

Is a motorcycle a fuel efficient mode of transportation or merely a weekend warriors way to escape the bounds of reality on an endless ride? Since having procured a motorcycle recently it occurred to me an odd an peculiar observation, that many people consider a motorcycle in the realm of the classic bikers from "Easy Rider" or that bikers go on long rides just to ride their steel horses. However, this ideal is in conflict with concept of a fuel efficient mode of transportation. Instead of a motorcycle a scooter or moped appear in the minds of people wanting an efficient mode of transportation. Ok, I think I need to take a micro break out to add some history about myself. I have been riding my bicycle to places as a way to get errands done since I was 6, been riding said bicycle as a method of transport since Jr. High. And after a car accident left me without a vehicle, went for 3 years with little need for car, riding the bicycle in 100 degree blistering heat, and freez...

I have been reading "The Brothers Grimm" lately. Whilst reading it, I noticed that many tales are compilations of other tales or borrow things from another tale. This can of course be attributed to oral tradition of passing a story down from generation to generation, remembering parts, forgetting others, adding in new parts, mistranslation, etc. It is almost as if the stories themselves are/were living beings that evolved into elaborate tales, pollinating from tales that survived the last generation. Either being adventurous enough, or full of the right lesson to be learned. Eventually the tales are written down and preserved like a specimen in a museum. Yet, they have continued to evolve even within a modern society where the oral tradition is no longer a method of propagation for the stories. Instead of a retelling of a story, it is called an adaptation, retelling, revisioning, or even an edit. Take for example "Snow White" as the common motifs of princes...

Warning: Do NOT read this if you are offended by animal experiments. What started out as an conversation about probability and statistics, lead to gambling, then to whether you can study gambling addiction in a controlled lab. This conversation then got a bit out of hand. What follows is how this might be accomplished, and a history of the conversation. First you train a rat to press a lever that dispenses food or a treat or some other reward. Once this is established, you then introduce a penalty for "losing" on a gamble. This could take the form of a mild shock. Randomly either give the animal a reward or punishment with about a 50/50 ratio. Then slowly change the percentage over to increasingly more punishments than rewards until the rat no longer presses the button, it has learned that gambling is not a good idea. Well that seemed like a decent start, but then we discovered that we were missing the element of a jackpot. This lead to either wiring up the rat's...

Now that I have a motorcycle, I realize the potential future possibilities of the helmet. Wherein the helmet can become more than just mere protection, but a useful interface and aid to the rider. The concept stems from three currently available, but edgy technologies: transparent displays, blue tooth, and EEG recording. Technology 1: Transparent Displays Transparent displays are just now being put into high end cars and modern aircraft to create a dashboard on the windshield allows the driver or pilot to view the instruments, like speedometer, radar, engine problems, etc. This is typically done with a projected display onto a special film on the window. It can also be performed by simply building the LCD into the screen. The built in is not done because it is more costly in terms of construction of the display and a crack or chip in the display becomes an LCD ink blot. The projector could potentially be built into the visor of a motor cycle helmet, especial now that mini projec...

In order to blog about thoughts, one must have both thoughts and a blog, there the first thought must be the thought to blog, and thus follows the creation of a blog with thoughts. Now, the thought is completed and the first blog is posted.