(no subject)
Here's a list of some of the stuff I've been thinking about since I got back from Japan. They're not well written, mostly just random thoughts, so read at your own discretion.
Driving back from the airport, I was thinking about something George Carlin said: that we've turned this entire country into a shopping mall. Every suburb looks the same. Every house looks the same, and has the same big green lawn, when you look over and notice that the natural grasses are yellow (for good reason). Every few intersections theres a shopping center. The same one. Looks alright in the front, discounting a few cracks in the concrete and darkened by oil drip from cars. The back is just an unloading area for trucks and a place for the trash.
The trash goes to the DUMP. A place we disregard like it doesn't exist. But it's gonna be there longer than us.
I'm also getting rather sick of seeing crappy comments on YouTube. I often see well thought out videos or interesting material, then look down to see flame wars and just completely disrespectful things. Not so much offensive (not to me anyways), but just disrespectful. It's just so old to me now.
I'm also sick of special interest groups. I understand that in a Democracy if everyone votes for what they want, the biggest group wins - the process is designed so serve as many people as it can because you can't serve everyone when people have conflicting interests. The problem is, people don't respect the process. As soon as someone becomes the minority and looses - they get all pissed off instead of recognizing that according to the process, what they want is not what's best for all. The process isn't perfect but we can thank it our high quality of life.
I miss Japan. I don't mean to sound like a crazy Otaku, but I It's a different environment. There's a different attitude in the air. I can't explain it. I just miss it. Though if I went back, I wouldn't wnat to stay at Nagi's for too long. It's a bit further from Tokyo than I like, and I can't help but be constantly nervous around her mom and step-dad, even though I really like them both. Apparently, even after taking nearly every consideration that I felt was within reason, I was not nearly as respectful as I should have been. One thing Sam blogged about was logic or being understanding is always second to tradition and manners. To most Japanese, there is no such concept as "winging it".
I've been thinking about what classes I want to take next semester. I've been debating Chinese, since I'm very interested, I've just been worrying that I don't have as much of a head start as I did on Japanese, and what if the language just doesn't click with me like Japanese does? I want to learn it regardless but perhaps I should wait till I'm more prepared for the sake of my GPA. But it being the type of class where you can't just jump levels (languages take time and that's that), I wanna get started with it as soon as I can. Also, today I realized I could probably enroll in Classic Japanese, which is often taken by grad students (including my sensei last year). Now I don't particularly care about knowing it but I am curious and I hear that it's half taught in Japanese anyways - and I look for any chance to practice Japanese.
So since I'm taking at least several languages, I figure, why not just go all out and take 18 credits of languages. Japanese 2nd year, Spanish 2nd year, Chinese 1st year, and Classical Japanese. It's nuts but that kind of attracts me to the concept.
I had a little hiatus from working on Phobic Engine, but it will end soon and I will continue posting update logs sometime soon. Having working on a Cocoa only application has reformed some of my ideas about how a GUI toolkit should be. Cocoa is a great API, and while I haven't gotten deep into the new Microsoft API's like .NET, Cocoa is far above what I've used before.
Driving back from the airport, I was thinking about something George Carlin said: that we've turned this entire country into a shopping mall. Every suburb looks the same. Every house looks the same, and has the same big green lawn, when you look over and notice that the natural grasses are yellow (for good reason). Every few intersections theres a shopping center. The same one. Looks alright in the front, discounting a few cracks in the concrete and darkened by oil drip from cars. The back is just an unloading area for trucks and a place for the trash.
The trash goes to the DUMP. A place we disregard like it doesn't exist. But it's gonna be there longer than us.
I'm also getting rather sick of seeing crappy comments on YouTube. I often see well thought out videos or interesting material, then look down to see flame wars and just completely disrespectful things. Not so much offensive (not to me anyways), but just disrespectful. It's just so old to me now.
I'm also sick of special interest groups. I understand that in a Democracy if everyone votes for what they want, the biggest group wins - the process is designed so serve as many people as it can because you can't serve everyone when people have conflicting interests. The problem is, people don't respect the process. As soon as someone becomes the minority and looses - they get all pissed off instead of recognizing that according to the process, what they want is not what's best for all. The process isn't perfect but we can thank it our high quality of life.
I miss Japan. I don't mean to sound like a crazy Otaku, but I It's a different environment. There's a different attitude in the air. I can't explain it. I just miss it. Though if I went back, I wouldn't wnat to stay at Nagi's for too long. It's a bit further from Tokyo than I like, and I can't help but be constantly nervous around her mom and step-dad, even though I really like them both. Apparently, even after taking nearly every consideration that I felt was within reason, I was not nearly as respectful as I should have been. One thing Sam blogged about was logic or being understanding is always second to tradition and manners. To most Japanese, there is no such concept as "winging it".
I've been thinking about what classes I want to take next semester. I've been debating Chinese, since I'm very interested, I've just been worrying that I don't have as much of a head start as I did on Japanese, and what if the language just doesn't click with me like Japanese does? I want to learn it regardless but perhaps I should wait till I'm more prepared for the sake of my GPA. But it being the type of class where you can't just jump levels (languages take time and that's that), I wanna get started with it as soon as I can. Also, today I realized I could probably enroll in Classic Japanese, which is often taken by grad students (including my sensei last year). Now I don't particularly care about knowing it but I am curious and I hear that it's half taught in Japanese anyways - and I look for any chance to practice Japanese.
So since I'm taking at least several languages, I figure, why not just go all out and take 18 credits of languages. Japanese 2nd year, Spanish 2nd year, Chinese 1st year, and Classical Japanese. It's nuts but that kind of attracts me to the concept.
I had a little hiatus from working on Phobic Engine, but it will end soon and I will continue posting update logs sometime soon. Having working on a Cocoa only application has reformed some of my ideas about how a GUI toolkit should be. Cocoa is a great API, and while I haven't gotten deep into the new Microsoft API's like .NET, Cocoa is far above what I've used before.