Stupid Cure

Is there a cure for stupidity? If there is, I want it! Of course the actual daily post question is how would you spend $1 million to reduce stupidity in your area. 

That may take some time. One million is not nearly enough. As is my wont, I would go for the pragmatic solution. First, we need to invest the million in a diversity of projects that will yield dividends to live off of, and some high returns to build up the fund. This allows me to devote my full-time efforts to the cause. Next, we apply for non-profit status as a group devoted to improving education, test scores, blah, blah. Some of the initial outlay would have to go for a nationwide campaign to raise awareness. Donations are tax deductible, so it’s the smart thing to do. Donations could be rolled into the portfolio and further, global advertising, as well as invested into local real estate. Ostensibly this gives the organization a home base to work from, and property that can be leveraged as collateral (only if necessary). By this time my job at the organization is filled with work and travel (in order to promote the cause), therefore I really should get a raise. Not too much, just enough to look responsible but not greedy. As my own investment portfolios increase my net worth, I buy off the groups investment property, thus benefiting the group make making their assets more liquid. These properties can be rented out only to those who don’t rank too high on the stupidity scale. As my strangle-hold…I mean investments in the community continue, the renters would be pushed out to the properties furthest from the center. This would be for them an upgrade. This process continues until I can reasonably ask for and get a pension I can live off comfortably indefinitely and there is no one else living in a 1-mile radius of my home, thus reducing the stupidity of my area quite a bit.

OK, so even if I am the only one there, the stupidity rate is pretty high. And then this post will surface and the populace will turn against me and arrive on night en masse with pitchforks and torches. And it is a lot of work I would be making for myself, anxiety over investments, &c. Scrap the whole thing. I’ll go for the more spiritual approach. Pocket the whole sum and work on improving my stupidity via world travel, stress reduction (I hear the Caribbean is particularly good for this), and education. We got to start right where we are, with ourselves right?

Live Forever!

With a few provisions. First and foremost is of course that the contract option of eternal afterlife remains in force, subject to the usual conditions. In addition, the choice does not preclude the ability at some future point to learn or discover how to read minds either directly or indirectly, or to profit from either choice. The assumption is that the two options are mutually exclusive only at the time the offer is made and accepted. Re-licensing issues would need to be agreed upon as well.

However, before taking that leap, and signing on, we must pause, ever so briefly, to contemplate the conditions and consequences of each choice in the light of history. Having watched just about every episode of the Twilight Zone (and that includes the hour long ones) growing up, I am instinctively, almost neurotically paranoid when it comes to accepting offers of supernatural powers. Sure, I would like to assume the best of others, but in these cases, the odds are stacked significantly against it. Look at literature throughout the ages as well. In almost every case, you know, just know, who is backing the deal and even if by some miracle the person thus granted such abilities does not lose his or her eternal soul, involved in that process of repentance is a heavy dose of contrition and pain. No thanks! Most of the time, though, the signee loses big. Remember that episode of the Twilight Zone where the guy signed over his soul so that he couldn’t be killed. How long was it until he wound up in jail for murder? And guess what, he got a life sentence (this was back in the day when it really was more of a life sentence than what is meant by the term as used today). Not Good. Game Over. Dr. Faustus, though refusing to drag his love down with him, did not make it himself, but was only to be consoled that she, in her death had gained heaven.

Now, in the past few decades, there has been a trend toward adapting this deal with the devil in order to downplay the impending doom. It is a dead cert in these modern stories that the main character is going to have a change of heart and be given an out at the last gasp so that everything works out OK, and everyone gets to remain alive and in improved circumstances! In Bedazzled, for example, at the end God and the devil are sitting down  together and discussing how things worked out with the implication that they were both on the same side just helping this guy grow into a more successful and well-adjusted person. Theological implications aside, I am getting tired of the ‘nothing bad ever really happens, and everything can be made just like it was’ genre. That isn’t to say that we don’t grow through adversity, or that God can’t use the poor and/or evil choices of others for good–far from it. But these “negative” consequences don’t just go away.

So what is to be done? I mean, if we are going to choose the live forever option, we certainly do not wish to be subjected to an infinitude of sappy movies and books, right? Just look what happened to those poor crew members in “Mystery Science Theatre 3000.” No! We shall not have it! Go back and read the old stories, find the new movies or remakes that pull no punches. As one wit recalled, in Shakespeare it is easy to differentiate his comedies and tragedies–in the comedies, not as many people die. And what kind of blogger would I be, were I not to offer some starting points upon this grand adventure? N.B. the mind reading option, though usually not in the eternally-damned category of Bad Things that Happen, still turn out pretty bad.

Sucker Punch. Live Action. Not for the young, nor the faint of heart, those easily confused by the blurring of realities or the squeamish. Lots of action, great choreography, some great lines and loads of symbolism–most of which I am sure sped by me. There is a lot of humor for those acquainted with a large genre of movies and literature. It is not, not, not, a comedy. But it is well done. A more in-depth review is in the works, but I will need to watch it again. There is also a Kindle version for significantly less, and a blu-ray extended edition.

The Three Musketeers. Dumas trans. Pevear. Excellent book, but you must get Pevear’s translation. I have an in-depth review of the Three Musketeers elsewhere with reasons for preferring this translation. This is no sappy-movie remake with airships, this is the original. And while events fall on the for-the-better side of things by the end of the story, it is certainly not of the happily ever after variety.

The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. Marlowe. Christopher Marlowe was a contemporary of Shakespeare. No punches pulled in this play. Suffering, bad choices and the corruption of morals abound. It is all the more poignant and ironic, in that Faustus was truly more aware of the enormity of the consequences, but thought he could handle it on his own, make the deal, get the power and remain unaffected by it.  Excellent play and not very long, and Marlowe isn’t much given to judging the characters for his audience and injecting “here’s the moral of the story”–he has a much higher opinion of his audience. The edition I read it from was an excellent, older paperback borrowed from the university library. The book pictured is I believe the same, but looks like a decent edition in any event (check out the book images), has several other plays as well, and the necessary end notes to render the plays comprehensible. There is also a free edition of the play for Kindle owners and another print version, too.

Enjoy, and share in the comments any other movies or books that pull no punches, and why you think they are great.

Machiavelli’s Means to and End

Today’s daily writing challenge concerns the end and the means and the possibility of justification for said means before, during or after the fact. The Stick of Justification swings both ways, depending upon who is in charge, and it can look pretty mean at times.

Whenever I hear this phrase, “the ends justify the means,” there always since very young has been the idea of Machiavelli along with that. And with Machiavelli comes the pallor of evil. Where did I get these impressions? They came from just about everybody’s reaction to his name. There was a certain grimace of discomfort, and I always had the distinct feeling, that though one might mention his name in hushed tones, saying it out loud, or asking as I was wont, what the big deal was (I was quite young, and no one would ever tell me), was Frowned Upon and a Bad Deal all round.

It was not until college, and my junior year, that I sat down and read the beast. All the years of mystery surrounding this man and his work “The Prince” came to an end. Actually it was quite a good read, and interesting. Now, I’m not saying these impressions that had been inlaid into my psyche were baseless. There are a number of, shall we say, dicey moral decisions he is advocating. But there are two points that stood out in stark contrast to all that I had heard about “The Prince.”

The first is its hypotheticality. The second is the specificity of the situation discussed and the generally overlooked good council as regards the subjects of a prince and his interactions with the military. Plus, Machiavelli’s recommendations are backed by illustrations from classical battles as well as internal fights of the organized gang leaders. Organized crime in 15th Century Europe! Great stuff and written, unlike much history, not to bore but to involve. More specific points are in order, but it is late. Till then.

First Strike

Is it OK to strike first? The vagaries of English have struck first. They like to do that. And anything English does, is A-OK by me.

My hope is that I will strike it rich. In that case, I really don’t care who went first. If it is the first grocery store to strike, well then it depends how hungry I am. Hungry = Don’t strike first. But then my stomach has kind of struck first already, so technically they wouldn’t be striking first.

In bowling, it is tantamount to strike first and often in order to rack up the highest score. If you know that you can pull off the first strike successfully, then you may also be able to parlay that into a liquid commodity procured via the wallet(s) of your defeated foe(s), from the bar.

Tyoes usully strike fist and may go unoticed. Thankfilly I find and eradictate them all! I laugh at there feebil attempts! Bwahaha! Note: Apparently typos have feelings, too. As I was typing this last sentence, three words flashed on the screen. YULE BEE SARI, –THE TYPOS Not sure what they meen, but their only tpos aftr all.

Jackie Chan’s First Strike was a fun movie. Lot’s of action and not too much plot to get in the way. And he got to wear a marine land shark character suit.

If you are a pitcher, you job depends on striking first. If you are the batter, though, you ought not ever strike, first or otherwise.

Other than those times listed above, I’d have to say it really depends. Thankfully I am rarely in situations where I will have to attack. Sometimes, too, it is better to wait and let the other strike first. This is becoming more apparent to me playing chess. It goes against my natural instinct to wait. I like to capture pieces. Unfortunately, I find myself at a distinct material disadvantage in the middle game, without a clear recollection of exactly how that came to be the case. If I wait, I am more likely to keep even or even be ahead a point or two. It makes the difference.

BTW–since I wrote that section about typos, I have hit way more wrong keys than usual. Funny. But just in case, I hereby offer formal apologies to THE TYPOS.

Return of the Native (Coder)

After much tramping around, virtually of course, I have come to the conclusion that in order to develop programs for the web, I will have to learn everything. Yes, I mean everything. Should’ve only taken a couple weeks, but here we are and sadly I am no where near to knowing it all. (I will be retaining the title of Know-it-all, in case you were curious).

In the mean time and to help keep me sane, I chose two tracks. The first is php, and the web frameworks that go with it. Drupal and Symfony2 have both caught my eye. My desire would be to continue to track my progress on this blog. I am not holding my breath, so neither should you, but I will try. I have also missed a few daily post challenges that would have been fun to write about. Anyway, if I can find a decent way to keep track of my workflow that I will actually use, this desire might become a reality. Any suggestions are welcome.

The second track, and where a lot of my time has been spent the last two weeks is in setting up another website. Every Thursday, or sooner, there will be a new review of something. That something as of now is most likely going to be books or programming. It is still in the hatching stages. It is also a place for me to test out affiliate marketing, so that I can offer coherent thoughts and opinions of how it works, what works, things to avoid and so on. Again, any thoughts on affiliate marketing, what you like or what could be done better is appreciated. Personally I don’t like the rotating, moving, flash ads with products only tangentially related to the article topic or my interests. We’ll see how it goes.

Later, I would like to follow in the venerable tradition of bloggers, and have some guest reviews and content. If there is anything you think would make a for a good review, or information piece, let me know in the comments here or on my new site. It is still a work in progress while I learn to get everything the way I want it, and not the way WordPress thinks I want it, so you will have to bear with me.

If you do decide at some point that you would like your own hosting plan, hostgator seems to be good. I used them once before, and host my new site with them now. It’s not that difficult to set up, and they are cheap. I will put my affiliate link on this site as well, if you are interested. It doesn’t cost you any more to use my link, and in fact it will cost you less. I added a 25% off coupon code. You have to enter the coupon discount to get it. The savings come out of any commission I might make. (25% was the most I was allowed to make it). After I have hosted with them for a while, I’ll put up a review of their service. I thought I might also do some webcasts on setting things up and using cpanel.

Cheers!

300 of/f

300 more posts.
300 less of terrible movies “adapted” from really good books or stories.
300 virtual spam-attack dogs.
300 more keyboards with accompanying fingers to catch up on my what is becoming a majorly-epic-nanowrimo fail. (1667 words a day didn’t seem like a lot until I tried to actually write them. My inner editor is a tough little so-and-so, but he’s going down).
And lots of other stuff.
Most of all–300 less hectic days, and 300 more consistent posts.

What will the kids say?

What would I hope my kids would say, had I any, when grown up? Obviously it means when they grow up, which will be before I do. If I am going to have imaginary kids, they might as well be extraordinarily precocious. I would hope they would say what a weenie I was for not posting an answer. Having posted that answer, the consequent paradox would rip the time-space continuum a big one. I would be able to step back through time and warn myself, so that I don’t write the post. This closes up the paradox. But now there are two of me. Masquerading as myself, I log onto WordPress, and go ahead and write the post, causing another paradox, another me, &c. until I a) get tired or b) take over the universe.

Why such a short, and straightforward post today? Well, it’s November 1st, and NaNoWriMo has officially begun. I’m saving up my really weird writing for that.

∃n: n is Shakespeare

Did Shakespeare write the plays that bear his name as author? That is the question. And given the recent hoo-haw about this perennial question rummaging about the minds of folk due to the release of the film Anonymous, a fine question well played.

Thankfully I remembered my helpful acronym: WWRSCD. That is “What would the Reduced Shakespeare Company Do?”

They did a really funny podcast about it. Now, I had seen their Reduced Shakespeare video some years ago. I bought and enjoyed their Reduced Shakespeare book. I should have tumbled to the fact long before this, that they would have a website.

So now I have one more compelling reason to procrastinate upon my postaday writing, but as the Bard has so aptly put in the mouth of Polonius, “Brevity is the soul of wit.”

Oh, I almost forgot to actually answer the question posed for today’s topic. Yes, I think Shakespeare existed. Yes, he wrote most, if not all of the works attributed to him. No, it is not too much for one person to write (cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, et al.). Yes, he took ideas from other sources (except perhaps Cymbeline). Yes, every writer does that (it is tautologically unavoidable). No, he was not just some illiterate buffoon, not that there would be anything wrong with that either.

Time to Go

Knowing the time to gois a more deeply philosophical topic than it might seem at first sight. And that sneaky postaday poster person has tried once again to lead us astray by throwing in a couple of semi-red herrings. At a party? Meeting for coffee? Oh, no, my dear friends. To plumb the depths of this topic would be to strain, indeed were it even possible, to breach the limits of blogdomhood!

But not wishing to push that ephemeral envelope so nigh upon the witching hour, and being in part a brass tacks kind of guy, I will limit myself to a few of the more practical and obvious observations.

At a party depends upon whether or not one is the host. If one is the host and it becomes to tedious, one just leaves (perhaps to meet someone for coffee–see next). Assuming that the party-goers can be expected to refrain from an unreasonable trashing of the place. If this is not the case, merely release the attack dogs. Which leads to the alternate case. If one is not the host, it is most definitely time to go, and I cannot stress this point too strongly, as soon as the attack dogs have been released. At least this has been my own experience.

Meeting for coffee assumes that the individuals are congregating in neutral territory. Depending upon circumstances this can be quite exhilarating. Proper etiquette demands that one remain at the coffee shop no more than 2 hours after closing. If it is cold outside, one might even be inclined to play a little game of chicken to see who wimps out and leaves first. (Among those who study game theory, this is known as a losing game.) At indoor locations that operate on a 24-hour basis, e.g. Norms, the results are quite unpredictable and many positions turn out to be non-winnable.

Speaking of games, when an ancient master from Japan wields his board of 361 points and mystic bowls filled with black and white, it is most definitely time to Go.

Lastly, in this brief tour, when a toddler of un-self-assured training says it’s time to go, well then dear reader, it’s time to panic.

O cruel fate!

Well, at least it is healing up finally. One would think, or let me say I used to think, that typing involved only the tips of one’s fingers. Not so, not so. I also used to think that my double-edged Safe-T razor, that big metal one that has the blade edges tucked inside and out of harm’s way, could slice so deep, so cleanly, close to and below the nail. ‘Twas a quick prick and sharp. One also has rather, shall we say, exuberant blood vessels there so near the finger tips. I tried typing, but even my feather-light touch would continually push apart those two pieces and expose the brilliant, angry, red crescent-moon. *Sigh*

I guess that I am surprised that I am still surprised by how much I don’t realize how much this hitherto unknown and unfelt parts of me are used in everyday activities until they are somehow damaged, given my life-long yet unwilled propensity for self-inflicted collateral damage.

I think that last sentence made sense, but it is late and I am trying to make up for lost time. Maybe I should re-read tomorrow 😉