Assorted Cogitations

The Death of The Bear

Published at July 20, 2008 in Fiction and Science. 0 Comments

Okay. I admit it. I wrote this for school. But, though it was the last paper of the year and I didn’t really need the grade that comes with hard/good work, I applied the latter nonetheless. I don’t like wasting time. So I might as well write science fiction that passes for a term paper if given the opportunity. The assignment was to observe, analyze, or explain the death of Old Ben in The Bear, a short story by Faulkner in Go Down Moses. So I made it a science fiction story. If you know the work I speak of, check out the parallels. If not, I hope you can enjoy it as a stand-alone piece. Read on…

* * *

Beep…beep…beep…

Private Josh Kalder turned over underneath his blanket, simultaneously inhaling a lungful of crisp, faintly metallic-smelling air. Of course, he no longer sensed any variance from conventional air; the erstwhile tellurian had long ago become accustomed to the conditions of an interstellar lifestyle. It had been a good fourteen years, give or take a month or two, since his childhood departure from Planet Earth, and recollections of all but the most visceral aspects of mankind’s shared homeland had slipped away with the time.

BEEP BEEP BEEP

Kalder laboriously dragged himself from the depths of somnolence to sit up and press the small orange button on the side of his bunk which deactivated his personal alarm. 0600. Time to rise and shine. It was today that they would go after The Bear. Continue reading ‘The Death of The Bear’

What Happened? A Mystery…

Published at July 1, 2008 in Fiction and Science. 0 Comments

I was just recently browsing my old Google Documents account for anything interesting I could find, and I was pleased to find something that was interesting indeed. It was something I wrote back in sophomore year, apparently on the 9th of January, 2006. At that time, I was about half way through a terrible biology class; terrible in the easy, boring, and utterly noneducational sense. Anyway, the teacher had asked me (and a friend, one David Kwan, who served as an excellent editor) to write a narrative exemplifying the process of scientific investigation. Disgusted by yet another easy and meaningless assignment, I took it upon myself to write a blatantly tongue-in-cheek response to the prompt. As I recall, she loved it. I now provide it for your reading pleasure; please excuse all overt bull and ostensible errata found within - you can be sure they were intended.

It was a bright and sunny day in my neighborhood. I was lounging at our picnic table in the back yard, studiously completing some very boring homework for a class whose unworthy name shall not be mentioned. I felt my consciousness begin to slip, and as my head gradually grew closer and closer to the surface of the table, I began to doze. Suddenly I awoke with a start! Something had happened! But what was it?

Continue reading ‘What Happened? A Mystery…’

Primes by Python

Published at June 10, 2008 in Programming. 0 Comments

The point of the following post is not necessarily the content, but the format. I just installed the SyntaxHighlighter plugin for WordPress, and I wanted to test it out. So, the story goes, yesterday I was trying to get my Python touch back (I haven’t had time to write code in quite a while), and thought it would be cool to be able to be able to post code in an aesthetically pleasing manner, if I ever write any code worth publishing (but not quite good enough to distribute as software). Anyway, here goes.


# A quick function to determine if a given number is prime
def isprime(num):
lst=[]
for n in range(2,num/2+1):
if round(num/n)*n==num:
lst.append(n)
if len(lst)==0:
print "Yeah, it's prime"
return True
else:
print "Nope, actually it has factors", lst
return False

After publishing this and looking at the result, I realize that the highlighting works, but there is no automatic indentation! As indentation is critical with Python, I think I’ll be searching for another plugin that can handle this.

Still Busy?

Published at May 21, 2008 in Life. 0 Comments

Well, yes. I thought that after AP tests, after the conclusion of the Ultimate Frisbee season, after taking the SAT, after the bulk of the academically intense spring of junior year, I’d be free as a bird to do whatever I wished. Alas, such is not the case. I took the AP tests in United States History and Calculus BC after studying a few preceding weeks of my life away (I think I did okay, but I won’t know until July). The Ultimate season ended last weekend with Coed States (we got second!). But school goes on, and much of the time I’m not spending studying or in school is spent with my friends, or one in particular.

Why tell you all this? Well, I feel somewhat guilty for my sparse and infrequent posts of late, and I thought I’d just drop one down to explain myself. Also, I just like to complain about how much I have to do. I feel much of my studiously acquired coding skills slipping slowly away, and I haven’t even installed the new release of Ubuntu yet! My site, despite many needed updates, has not been touched in months. I made another site for a guy (http://www.poppp.org), but you’ve heard nothing of it yet. Yes, life is extraordinarily busy when I have no choice but to allow such a moratorium on my previously quotidian computing activities. But calm thine beating heart, I shall return to said endeavors come summer. I’ll have plenty of time outside of playing Ultimate, working in an internship at my local university (I don’t yet know what exactly I’ll be doing, but you’ll know about it when I do), and engaging in assorted social activities. With this time, I’ll fix up my site, work on some recreational coding projects, and more. Summer, come hither.

Over and out. I have to go write two essays.

A Conversation with God

Published at April 16, 2008 in Life. 0 Comments

-God? Are you out there?

–…

-Calling all transcendent entities, please respond if you exist.

–…

-Maybe I’m understanding this incorrectly, but when something is actually there, there is, by definition, some tangible evidence of its presence. This is a fact established by even the most primitive sciences. But I also find it hard to believe that the majority of the world’s population could be wrong. Weigh in?

–…

-Or am I just arguing semantics? When people say that God exists, maybe they mean that he is a very, very important manifestation of their imaginations. And the imaginations of many around the world. In my opinion, something can’t exist unless I can detect it. It is not enough for me to realize that I don’t know what animates life and the goings on of the universe in general, and from there extrapolate the presence of some omnipotent and omnipresent force. And to personify said force is even more anathema to my beliefs.

–…

-I think the belief in God stems from the fear of the unknown. If one is unable to determine the origin of or the impetus behind something, like, say, the universe and our existence within it, it’s vastly comforting to have an explanation. God is a tool of the unsure and frightened, used to reassure them that there is something looking on, something protecting. That there is a purpose and design to this otherwise ostensibly meaningless and chaotic existence.

–…

-I don’t intend to preach the superiority of the confident. If you need a manufactured explanation to allow you to live comfortably, I support the fulfillment of that need. God is like medicine: it will cure the fundamental ailment of fear. If one is born with asthma, would I look upon him with disdain solely because he needs medication to maintain his comfortable existence? Certainly not. In the same way, if one is brought up to need his belief in God to deal with his fear and live happily, let him have it.

–…

-The only way a believer or group of believers can engender my contempt is if they tries to push their belief upon me or others who do not natively share it. I find this contrary to the whole nature of religion, as it is an individual pursuit to remedy an individual ailment. I do not take issue with churches or organized religion in general if it is only providing a template for one cure to fear. But when a church begins to proselytize it’s doctrine, claiming its superiority and attempting to “convert”, it has surpassed its purpose and rightful domain, and deserves no respect from me or anyone.

–…

-And yes, I believe belief in God is a matter of nurture, not nature. As I have already established, I believe God is merely a construction of the mind, and thus belief in “Him” is neither genetic nor inherent to the human character. The fear of the generally unknown could be the latter, but a belief in God is only one way to cope with that. One obtains his belief in God by the vector of those who have brought him up, either providing him with the traditional means of dealing with the aforementioned fear, namely religion, or by leaving him to come up with his own means. I am exceedingly grateful that my parents have left me to be one of the latter, allowing me to start out with and maintain an open mind.

–…

-But how do I personally deal with the fear of the unknown, that which seems native to the human? Certainly not by any god. I label myself as an atheist, and thereby claim to not utilize any personified idealogical construct to extirpate the fear inherent in my species. Instead, I personally follow a path of scientific optimism. True I do not know why I am here and whence I have come, but I have a conviction that it will become apparent with time. This belief that the unknown is temporary quite lessens my fear of it, and leaves me mobilized to seek truth in life, rather than merely adhere to supernatural explanations. I believe that science, the field I wish to pursue, shall eventually uncover the foundations of our existence, physical and otherwise. Until then, I believe that we must pay attention to the fact that we know a lot about the origins of ourselves and the universe already, and are well on our way to understanding everything there is to be understood.

–…

New Avatar

Published at January 31, 2008 in Internet and Software. 1 Comment

Playing with The GIMP a few days ago in a moment of relative idleness, I created this cool looking image which I might use as an avatar, or at least a “signature” on the forums I am known to frequent.

The evolution of the design is somewhat intriguing. I usually sign my emails “-Matt”, but screwed up once, and typed “_matt”. I thought this looks pretty cool (though I couldn’t tell you why), so I started using it. But then I thought of an abbreviation: “_m@”. Voilà. Idea + GIMP = avatar.

The Beginning

Published at January 6, 2008 in Fiction. 0 Comments

It was a vaguely warm late summer’s day, and the tree residing above the park bench undulated in a gentle breeze. The air was crisp and smelled of dry grass and rain, conditions which, in these parts, usually anticipated the advent of an electrical storm. The pigeons of the park, oblivious to the meteorological conditions, were happily occupied with their usual pastime of questing for scraps of food and bothering the park’s visitors. One visitor in particular.

The man on the bench wore a rumpled gray suit, and was snoring softly. Above his thin, supine face was a shock of silvering black hair, which appeared to wish it was somewhere else. His feet, spread far apart on the concrete below the bench, were encased in bowling shoes of an antique variety, though their spotless condition denoted good care and infrequent use. The pigeons were especially fascinated with the shoes.

The man’s name was Bernard Inglemore Higgs, though people called him Big. He was by no means big in the spacial sense of the word: five feet, six inches generously measured his full vertical extent. He was, however, rather large of mind, as some people would say, not referring to the physical size of the brain in question, but to its ample capabilities. As his mouth fell open in sleep and a thin line of saliva began to exit the orifice, he looked nothing like a man of this description. But he was.

A mottled gray and white pigeon, daring even for its high-spirited and valorous species, decided to investigate the subtly gaping mouth for signs of lingering victuals, and alighted on Big’s shoulder for a closer look. It realized its mistake shortly afterwards, as the mouth closed and its owner began to stir. Startled, the pigeon quickly forewent its current roost for a safer one in the tree above, from which it ruffled its feathers indignantly.

Big blinked and stretched, straightened his suit jacket and noticed the absent tie, and looked around in puzzlement. The park looked familiar, a small patch of green providing refuge from the bustling busyness of the city surrounding it. He did not, however, recognize his attire, or even vaguely recall his last few weeks of activity. His most recent memory lay in the act of taking tea with an exceedingly tall stranger whom he had chanced the acquaintance of in a cafe nearly 16 days before as told by his trusty watch. He remembered paying the bill, remembered wishing the stranger good day, and remembered walking off in the general direction of his apartment. At this point, his generally superb memory stopped in its tracks and refused to progress any further.

Big sighed. This seemed to be a matter upon which thought had no effect. He glanced at his timepiece once again, which ticked back at him sullenly. With a sudden burst of inspiration, Big decided that something must be done. Peeling himself off the bench, he stood, brushed off the particulate detritus that had settled upon him, and then started to stride purposefully in the direction of the nearest residential area. The pigeons watched him exit the park, unamused.