Wow!

Sometimes you know when your time has passed. I used to be the guy you called to fix your computer. I could format a harddisk with the best of them. Even knew how the data was stored on the disk. Now, I've fallen to user status.
I just went through the final process to place ads on this fair blogspace, and let me tell you, web pages are complicated! There are a thousand different decisions to make and every one of them has its own set of help pages, which of course, also have help pages. And to top it all off, I have no idea what any of them mean. Thank the eternal programming god who came up with the idea of a functional default setting.
When did the internet and computers become so damned complicated? I miss the days of DOS. For those of you too young to remember (yes its been that long), DOS is short for Disk Operating System. It was Microsoft's answer to how one was to interface with one's harddisk and other playthings P.C. internal. No windows, no click and drag, no user-friendly gui. Just me and my non-Windows keyboard. Granted there was no world wide web, but I can do without internet porn ads popping up wantonly thank you. You actually had to type a long string of cryptic commands in order to get the computer to do what you wanted. 'copy c:\mydocs\*.* c:\trash' would copy all files in the mydocs folder to the trash folder. Just to move some files! It was work, but it kept you in touch with what the machine was doing and how to make it do it. No longer. Now we have 32 'services' running in the background that I don't think anyone knows what they do (certainly not Goober the tech support guy). Which, when you are trying to figure out what the !@#!@#$@#$ keeps placing a partypoker icon on your desktop, is quite annoying.
But I digress. Needless to say, I'm in the dark these days. I can't write HTML, I don't know what a channel is, I have no idea why a program called alg.exe is running on my machine (its not in the run line in the registry) and I give up. Just call me user.

ps in case you didn't notice, I actually broke this post into paragraphs rather than my usual full on rambling style. This is mostly in response to my philosophy professor's complaints that a 10 page paragraph was worse than a page full of comma splices (which I still have no idea what are), so lemme know what you think. Does it add readability? Does it help you comprehend my ramblings more easily?

The Ivory Tower Has Fallen....

Alas, my dear brethren, for it has finally happened. Yours truly has finally succumbed to the ploys of capitalism and prostituted himself out for the almighty dollar. No more can I be counted on the artistic roll call. What is he talking about, you may ask. AdSense. AdSense from Google is what I am talking about. Our fearless blogger has made preliminary preparations to begin placing advertisement on this blogspace. It truly is a sad sad day. But life in this imperialist, capitalist, dog eat dog first world nation is expensive! Thus the starving artist caves to herculean pressure to join in and make a buck. Its not that I advocate working for nothing, just that it seems that content increasingly makes way for marketing these days. For example, did you know that the average 30 min local news program actually contains only 7 mins of news? The rest is advertising. We've seen this happen to print, TV, and now, the internet. So much for the free flow of information. In America, we're not happy unless we can make a buck.

Quantum Consciousness?

I cannot prove the existence of God, but I can experience the awe and mystery and beauty of love and sense the presence of something beyond my materially based thinking. I hope that you can do the same regardless of what you believe. Just don't go on automatic pilot like so many brain-dead scientists who knee-jerk to the tune of "God is dead" and all is mechanical meat. Be an agnostic. Believe as little as you can in anything but try and experience as much as you can of everything.

The above words are from the website of Fred Alan Wolf, Phd. Dr. Wolf is a theoretical physicist who has spent his entire career searching for the origins of consciousness and its place in the cosmos. As a key figure in the film What the Bleep Do We Really Know? he explains to us that matter and mind are inseparable, that mind actually forms matter. This is a view widely espoused by mystics, new agers, and hippie types, but to hear it from an honest to God physicist is refreshing. This guy got his Phd from UCLA and has taught at prestigious universities worldwide. He is not just some crackpot who makes wild claims without support, but an ever curious and enquiring scientist who regularly publishes his work in peer reviewed journals. Perhaps you materialists (those who believe mind is somehow explained via physicality) out there should give him a read.....

http://www.fredalanwolf.com