Month: January 2009

The Time Cube #1

RobotPirateNinja Uncategorized 2 Comments

So…a bit of back story.  A while ago on the internets there was this guy, the Timecube guy.

His website is over here. He’s, uh, an interesting cat.

One of the things he got wrong is that time isn’t a cube, it’s a sphere.  That’s why he’s so confused about how to communicate with people who are “educated dumb” (which is a great many of you).

He also forgot to mention that people like that are, for the last 100 years of so, called “philosophers” and you usually need to study a bunch of boring shit with boring people before you get to call yourself one.  This, inevitably, takes all the joy out of philosophy, when philosophy SHOULD BE as fun as intellectual MMA, except where the rules can change during the fight.

So…yea…that’s teh first video.  Expect a few more.  And ask a few questions, I’d love to share this joy with you.  It’s rather powerful.  Kinda like the sun.

[BTW, for you sticklers to science, the “Timecube” is known in mathematics as “Time/Space”.  It’s “cubed” because there are four dimensions that are REQUIRED to define it accurately.]

Why You Shouldn’t Kill People (or…*Another* Reason Why You Shouldn’t)

RobotPirateNinja Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , 1 Comment

Recently I had the chance to chat with a couple paranoid schizophrenic killers. Yea…I know…not your normal average everyday type of conversation, but it was some rather special circumstances and I’m pretty good at making friends, so there ya go.

One of them, whom we’ll call “Roberto”, spent all day sitting in a chair, whacked out on meds, and smiling lazily. He was a fifty-year old or so former gang member with three “tears” under his left eye. For those with a bit of knowledge of gang tats, you know what those tears represent. For those, like me, who have read a wee bit more than a little bit about how the brain remembers and symbolizes “people I know,” we know that those tears are very real, much the like the ended lives they represent.

One of the limitations of humans from a cognitive development standpoint (evolutionary biology) in the limit on the number of people we can really “know” at one time. Because of physical limitations and tribal culture, the human brain can only keep track of about 150 or so “personalities” that we can model the behavior for intellectually. When we try to go beyond this limit, or have more “friends” than this, our ability to empathize and remember minute details about our friends’ lives begins to diminish. When we stay within that 150 person limit, we are very good at keeping track of what people are likely to do. When we stray beyond it, we are really pushing the limits of the human mind.

So, to recap, we can “model the personality” of about 150 people in our minds. When one of those models go dark (i.e. that person dies) it leaves a hole in our brain for that person. Yes, we can still recall how that person acted and “who they were” but we can no longer add new information to that model and refine our understanding of that person.

We can still say, with some degree of accuracy, how that person would act or react in a given situation, and can often even “hear their voice” as we recall the many times we interacted with that person and how they helped shape and refine our own lives. This is a HUGE part of the human condition, as we depend on the perspectives and insights of others to keep a balance about the reality we all share.

When one of those slots is filled with the face of someone that a person has murdered, in cold blood, that space is filled with a void and many repeated, and unanswerable, questions. Most of which involved “why did you kill me?”. When one has more than a few of those empty spaces with unanswerable questions in their head, that person is often driven insane. Roberto is one of those people, a man with a good heart, who did horrible things, and now can’t get the dead to shut up, as it isn’t the dead speaking, but his own conscience. And one’s own conscience CANNOT be silenced, only distracted.

So, long story short, don’t kill people. It will drive you mad.

And don’t smoke crack either, it melts your brain. Quickly.

Any questions?

UPDATE: It should also be noted that after befriending Roberto over a few days, he became quite friendly and open about the voices and faces that constantly haunted him.  On my last night there I told him (and others) my Pancho Villa joke, and when I was finally leaving, he gave me a big hug and told me of his love for me (“I love you, man.”).   Perhaps it was the anti-psychotics talking, but I believed it to be a sincere statement and I thanked him a great deal for both the sentiments and sharing his experiences.

Fuck Microsoft

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Problem caused by Microsoft Word 2002: consider upgrading

Your computer experienced a problem that caused Microsoft Word 2002 to crash.

This product, which was created by Microsoft Corporation, entered its “Extended Support” phase on July 11, 2006. For more information about Microsoft Corporation support cycles, see the More information section below.

How about you just support your own damn software?

Where to Fucking Start…

RobotPirateNinja Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , 2 Comments

…umm, I wrote a book. Seriously. I did. It’s one helluva book, to be honest.

While I was being detained by the State of Texas due to a familial reaction to my book, I ran across a newspaper story (yes, they still, for some reason, print newspapers) that talked about how a basketball team lost a game 100-0. In what can only be called bizarro world the team that LOST was featured on news programs and the coach of the team that WON was fired.

This is a perfect example of how farked up our culture has become. We do not reward excellence, or even temporary perfection, we reward pathetic losership. We parade it around, and laugh at it, and feel better about ourselves. And instead of trying to make the losers better people and player, we put them on pedestals and penalize those that play good defense and know how to put the ball in the hole.

A nutjob former commie named Ayn Rand wrote a couple thousand pages (in two books) about a culture that promoted the pathetic as the amazing. In those books she was lampooning Communism. If she were alive today, she would realize that Corporate America and our Corporate Media, is the hellish reality she hoped to avoid.

Welcome to the distopia, twenty-four years behind schedule.

Been a few days….

RobotPirateNinja Uncategorized 2 Comments

….umm, so I started doing another blog as well.

It my “facebook” page, and is quite a bit more popular and easier to use, than this page. Mine is here.

It has been a very interesting last few weeks for me. First off, I finally “finished” my first book. It is not complete yet, as the graphic novel part of the book is not yet organized. The book is something of a riddle, and my early editors have both asked me, first off, if I think I’m crazy (the book gives that impression and leaves it as an open question).

To address that, not at all. I am starting to feel a bit like Wonko the Sane, standing in the middle of fishbowl, outside the rest of the world.

I am trying to keep up on that other site with some of my new stories. As I have become more comfortable in explaining my “answer” (in my book I think I may have solved “logic” and “math”), I have seen some curious things change in my life.

One, I have much more energy, generally, and have been going pretty full bore each day, trying to reach my goal of being a simple, paid, productive, writer. I have chosen a rather strange path to this goal, asking roughly $100 a year for my services (which includes a book each year). I’m trying to stay, if possible, outside the corporate path to this goal, and am hoping to find a few people willing to take a bet on me and my publishing method (it’s based on the Open Source metaphor, with a twist to keep money flowing in to the central author). I would love to, and will eventually, be giving my book away, but for right now the high price comes with some serious perks.

With that comes some ad-free djing, personal chats and counseling, a very advanced “sounding board” (my brain) which can be used to bounce stuff off of, other surprises, and some peace of mind for me. Peace of mind has been a difficult thing for me to attain, and the book is largely about my quest for the same.

Suffice it to say though, I am shooting for the stars here, and it has proven (as per) more difficult than I imagined, and I thought it would be difficult.

So I’m just going to keep pushing forward and upward and trying things out until it clicks in people’s heads that a) I know what I’m talking about and b) I’m pretty good at it and c) I should be able to make a living at it without totally selling out.

If you are interesting in purchasing a copy of the book, subscribe to the site (link up top) and it should be in your hands before the end of the month, depending on what the early editors (who seem to want to give me everything but what I ask for) say in response. So far the feedback on writing style has been good to great to excellent and the content, which I think is the best part, has gotten mixed reviews.

When you write a book about God and consciousness, expect to ruffle a few feather.

Music and the Economic Collapse of the U.S.

RobotPirateNinja 3_RobotPirateNinja, advice, art, bullshit, business, Doh, Football, government, internet, iraq, media, money, nerd, oil, Poli-Fi, President 08, terror, us, war Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

This is a pretty good example of what my book is like…my intellectual ramblings divided by popular culture references. The book is also my philosophy “dissertation”. However, unlike most phi-disses, this one was created to be understood by another with the capacity to appreciate simple culture, and not necessarily someone who has a doctorate in cognitive neuroscience, psychology, physics, medicine, English, or any of the other fields which I reference in the book.

In Defense of Love : Summation

RobotPirateNinja 3_RobotPirateNinja, advice, archaic interfaces, art, cool, Examples of Work, government, history, mobile, music, Poli-Fi, religion, Sci-Non-Fi, sex, upgrade, us Tags: , , , , 8 Comments

You can begin to catch up here.

I would HIGHLY recommend you catch up before joining in, this is a conversation that had been going on for a while, and it would behoove one to read up before joining in.

Thanks.

A Letter to the Editors

RobotPirateNinja Uncategorized Tags: 7 Comments

Dear Editors,

I am a writer and have been writing for some time on the Internet.  I have had a number of somewhat popular “blogs” over the last ten years or so, and am an avid participant in Internet Culture.

I recently completed a book and am interested in having some of it published on “paper”.  I’ve been writing on the net for free long enough to hone my talents, and now think that maybe getting paid for my writing might be possible (I’ve been selling the book to friends and have received a great deal of positive feedback, including the suggestion to write this email).

As mentioned, I wrote a book, but am stilling looking for a good editor (or editors) to help me refine it further before complete publication.

The first three Chapters of the book can be found on my website.

http://robotpirateninja.com

I realize many of you have policies against re-printing “published” material, but I’m not sure how self-publishing on the Net fits into that equation.  I was hoping one or more of you might be able to help out with that question.

Please let me know if any of you are interesting in purchasing a copy of my story (in chapter form) for publication, or have any advice for a young writer trying to make a living at twiddling his fingers over a keyboard.

Thanks you for your time, and I hope you have a Happy New Year!

-Roy M. Taylor
aka “wah on the Internets” and “Roy Taylor” on the facebook (I’ve got some headshots online if that might help you make a decision about my work).

[email sent to: talkofthetown@newyorker.com, shouts@newyorker.com, editors@rollingstone.com, publicity@rollingstone.com, editor@vanityfair.com, editors@vanityfair.com, someone@vanityfair.com]

I’ll let you know what they say….

UPDATE: None of those Vanity Fair addresses worked….oh well.  Their loss.  😉

The White Russian, The Dude’s Favorite Drink

RobotPirateNinja 3_RobotPirateNinja, advice, art, curious, Doh, drugs, friends, gaming, mobile, money, nerd, random, sex Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments

The following is a conversation about a girl I met in the final moments of 2008 {the white “Russian”.  She mentioned a passion for Russian literature, and that’s how I remember her.}.  I gave her my card, but I’m not sure if she’ll call.  She is a quiet girl.

I’ll be playing the role of “the Dude.”  A friend of mine will be playing a dead queen,  Queen Elizabeth of England.  [I “talk” to dead people some times, and yes, I can “see” them too.]

To continue…

—

[Roy lamenting about the girl who won’t call.  The white “Russian”.  The Dude’s favorite drink. We pick up the conversation, already in progress… ]

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