It's OK Not to Be...

I'm not a graphic artist. I'm also not a video creator. However, according to people online, I can now be both of these things without taking courses or even actually doing them. I can just type word prompts into a chat box and a computer on the other end with will waste electricity to output something resembling a drawing or a video. Does that make me a graphic artist or video creator now? No, and I wouldn't want to do it this way.

I do draw and I have created album artwork for a few of my podcasts, but it's not what I would call "great art". It is mine, however, and it is original. It took me a lot of time to draw what I wanted to, and I had to look up some reference images to use as a guide. The pyramid on my ISC artwork was difficult at first because I'm not great with perspective. I managed to get it to work, though.

 

I enjoy writing and am currently working on a fiction project. I could probably enter a summary of what I want it to be into that chat box and the computer on the other end will burn down a couple acres of rainforest, pump several tons of CO2 into the air and output something resembling a novel, but it will be riddled with inconsistencies, plot holes (if it even writes a plot), and will be flat and lifeless, as if a computer spewed it out. Because it did.

 

Writing contains much more than the basic story. It contains the authors' lived experiences, their memories, their likes and dislikes, hopes and fears, and their attitude. Stories that I write may not name a specific place, but the descriptions are definitely places that I've been and I can see in my head. I hope that if I ever release these stories to the public, people will be able to see them too. I am also writing nonfiction in the form a blog dedicated to my reading of the Bible and it too contains parts of me in the writing.

If you think that you can't write, try it for yourself. Think of the story that you want to tell and start writing it down. If you hate what you've written, figure out what you hate about it and learn from it. Do it again and keep doing it. Use writing prompts. Just look around you an describe what you see. Muster up your courage and give it to someone to read and be ready to accept criticism. A good friend will be gentle and honest.

If you're not into writing or drawing, then enjoy other people's works and tell them so. Don't think that you have to use AI to "create" for yourself because you're not actually creating anything; you're outsourcing your ideas to a computer that has no appreciation for the craft and that's the way it comes out. AI "art" looks and feels like it was done by a machine that was completing a task and person that put care and time and work into the product. If you have a drawing idea that you would like to see created, ask me to do it, and I will draw it for free. I could use the practice (I will, however, treat the final drawing so that is poisons any AI models that decided to train on it).

It's OK not to be good at something. The people that are good at things aren't gatekeeping, they're just good at things. I get more criticism about my work from people who don't actually do the thing that they're criticizing. Most people who actually write and draw will give constructive criticism that is meant to help. If somebody posts and obvious AI output "drawing" or "written work" and asks for thoughts from the artists or writers, they will be honest and they will recognize that it is AI.

Microsoft Is Not My Copilot

I am a user of Microsoft 365 and I do pay for a yearly subscription. I signed up many years ago after I got my current job and I do like it. I get use of all of the Office suite programs (Excel is far superior to Google Sheets and Apple Numbers)  and 1TB of OneDrive space which is useful since I take photos for a German brass band. However, I recently got a notification that my subscription will be upgraded to the new Microsoft 365 with Copilot. That is, their AI integration that will help me with…things…I guess. Suffice it to say, I don't want it. Luckily, plenty of people have assistance on Bluesky and all I had to do was go to my account, click cancel, and Microsoft gave me the option to continue using Microsoft 365 Classic for the same price I'm paying now. So I did that, but why did I even have to?

It sucks that companies are willing to play games with their customers like this. The notification said nothing about a $30/year price increase for the upgrade, but they automatically assumed that I wanted it and so they signed me up for it. Luckily, I checked my account because lots of companies like to this shit. Back in the 1990's, that procedure was called "slamming" and it was considered by lawmakers to be illegal. Of course, back then it was done over the phone, so it's completely different now I guess. I did switch to Classic and turned off Copilot where I could, but it leaves me with another thought in the back of my mind.

While I did opt out of the AI upgrade (it should be opt-in, honestly), will Copilot still be in the Classic suite, but running silently in the background uploading my data to Microsoft servers and training their AI on it? That is something that isn't clear and I would really like an answer. I know there is concern in the medical and law fields because mixing patient/client data is big, fat no-no and could result in loss of licenses. I would like something in writing that Copilot will be completely disconnected from the Classic version of the suite.

I would be more willing to play ball if AI companies were actually ethical and didn't steal intellectual property for training models. Fine, if you really want to use user data, then lower the price of the software for anyone who opts in. Those who opt out will pay the original price and no data is uploaded for training purposes. I wouldn't expect artists or authors to give up their work because the idea of AI making art or writing novels is ludicrous. If AI was introduced as a tool rather than as a substitute for artists, maybe people would have a different attitude toward it. I could see it used for generating reports or invoices, or maybe to help construct letters or resumes. The thing is, people don't trust the AI companies and don't want AI spying and siphoning data. Go away until you can learn to play nicely.

Article Response--"Soft Quitting"

I'm fortunate enough to work for a company where I am respected and my work is appreciated by my boss. It's things like that that make me want to go above and beyond and learn things outside of the scope of my job description. It hasn't always been this way as I have had a lot of shit jobs in my life, both as a full-time hire and as a contractor. I am going to reach back into my past in order to respond to an article from Forbes titled, "Why Soft Quitting At Work Could Be More Dangerous Than Quiet Quitting," which is a hell of a headline that might need some explanation.

"Quiet quitting," according to…somebody…is a supposed trend where employees are putting in the minimum amount of work for their job description and nothing more. Basically, they come in at 9:00am, do the job for which they are being paid, take a lunch break in there somewhere, and go home at 5:00pm. Gasp! How dare they. This is a symptom of a lack of respect, a lack of good leadership, and a lack of any real meaning to the work that people are doing. I've been there. I've worked for companies where I am treated as a warm body to fill a seat and do a job that, despite my resume, is a few significant steps beneath me. Then, even though I got my work done during the week, I have to come in on a Saturday and fill a seat for eight or twelve hours. Yes, I'm being paid which is nice, but it feels like more of a power move by management to say, "we own you." That doesn't make for positive workplace culture. Essentially, I was a quiet quitter before it was cool. This article is mainly about a new buzzword in corporate circles to dehumanize workers, "Soft quitting."

"Soft quitting" apparently refers to employees disengaging from the overall corporate culture. At one point being an enthusiastic team-player, but at some point pulled back and let somebody else do the brunt of the work. From the article:

The concept of "lying flat," which originated in China in 2021, might provide a broader context for understanding trends like "soft quitting." "Lying flat" refers to a rejection of the pressures of modern life, particularly the relentless demands of work and career progression. This movement, particularly embraced by younger generations, advocates for opting out of competitive work cultures and embracing a minimalist lifestyle. Gallup’s reports show that disengagement in the workforce is linked to this sentiment.

This looks to me like a problem for companies to come to terms with rather than trying to solve. Younger people don't want the yuppie-style rat race of the eighties or the hustle and grind culture of today. I think many millennials and Gen Z are being smart about their lives. It's not that they don't want to work, they want to work at a pace that makes sense. I'm a Gen Xer and grew up watching the Gordon Gekko, "Greed is good" boomer types all around me. These were people with drinking problems, drug problems, and health problems because to them work was the most important thing to them. They tried to instill that exact mindset into GenX, but we had too many new electronic goodies to keep us distracted. Unfortunately, we never took over the world, and the boomers kept power.

Again from the article:

With more individuals, particularly from younger generations, pushing back against the "always-on" work culture, it's possible that this rejection of work-related pressures could manifest as soft quitting in the workplace—where employees still technically remain in their roles, but choose to disengage emotionally, contributing only the bare minimum to their jobs. The problem is only getting worse. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the number of Americans wanting to switch jobs has hit a 10-year high.   

Uhh, good. Nobody should have to suffer through the "always-on" work culture. People are supposed to have lives outside of work. When I worked for companies with lots of employees, I didn't want to hang out with them after work. I had to see them all day and I had nothing in common with them anyway, so why would I want to spend my few free waking hours with people I didn't much like anyway? "The problem is only getting worse."? It sounds like it's getting better. It sounds like younger people are essentially saying that they're autonomous beings who have lives outside of the workplace.

The article talks about how "soft quitting" is more insidious than "quiet quitting" because the employee disengages from their work without actually doing anything less. What the author appears to be saying is that it is more important for employees to be willing to sell their souls to their workplace and make their jobs their identity. That's fucked up. The article also goes on to discuss solutions to this problem, but again, I don't see a problem at all. People are not…sorry, for those in the back…

PEOPLE ARE NOT THEIR FUCKING JOBS!

AI Is Here...Whee

Artificial Intelligence is the wave of the future and it's here now. Just don't expect it to be actually useful. The creators of AI want to take the burden of creativity off of our shoulders so that we can spend our time helping to make corporations richer. As a result, we will be treated to generated pictures of vaguely familiar animals and people with extra digits with that Vaseline sheen that is difficult to describe in words, but you know it when you see it. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we will no longer have to worry about writers' block or what color will make those flowers pop off the canvas. We can now just type a prompt in shArt-AI-5 and the algorithm will do the work and produce for us a sonnet about yaks, or a painting of a seven-legged chickadee with a full mouth of teeth. That way, we can spend the rest of our lives slaving for the capitalist dream for somebody who already owns three smart yachts. We also have the up-and-comers who are throwing AI at the wall and appliances to see what will stick.

This week, CES kicks off in Las Vegas, and every upstart company will be there looking to make bank by integrating AI into whatever they can, much like their predecessor who to make "smart" toilet seats. Yes, the AI powered generation is going to be a reality and will burn down a forest to tell you that you're out of butter. The forests don't matter, though, because you can ask you ChatBS-7.3 integrated smart oven to describe a forest in vivid detail while it bakes your frozen to perfection according to it learning data collected (stolen) from all over the world.

Has it occurred to anyone that this is not what we need or even want? AI would be cute if wasn't such a drain on resources. The only people it will truly be useful to are the large, rich corporations who can afford to run it, and who don't give a shit about the environment. They feed it with the works of all of the business magnates of generations past as well as all of Ayn Rand's novels and have it spit out the most effective roadmap to crush the working class while they scream and yell about Wi-Fi Antennas.

Avatar: The Last Mug Maker

"Man, why does my stomach hurt and I suddenly feel tired!" I said, sitting down and holding my midsection. This feeling has happened more and more lately, mut it only started a few months ago, before Christmas. The feeling will last a couple hours and go away like it never happened I asked my doctor about it, but she didn't have an explanation handy. She told me to keep data and maybe a pattern would emerge. So, I've been keeping a spreadsheet. It's happened almost every morning since the day after Christmas.

A few days later, I was out with my girlfriend when she started talking about her mornings, "I feel like I'm getting lazier in the mornings. I wonder if there's something wrong with me." 

"Maybe it's something we both ate because I feel really tired and my stomach hurts a lot of mornings," I replied.

"Have you talked to your doctor?" she asked. 

"Yes, I'm keeping track, " I replied.

We arrived back at her house and I followed her in. "Oh, look what Callie gave me for Christmas." She held up a coffee mug with my face on it.

"Why the hell would she give you that ?"

"I think it's funny, and cute, "she replied. 

I chuckled at the mug, "Where did she get that?" 

"She made it herself," she said. "That the type of stuff she does." My girlfriend paused, looked at the mug and then looked back at me. "Holy shit, she also dabbles in witchcraft. I think she made you an avatar on this mug." 

"Uh, what ? " I was hearing words, but I wasn't really following.

"I explains why, in the morning, I just want to sit and drink my coffee and do the crossword. That's what you do. I'm stealing your power." She looked excited 

"Uh, what? " I was following what she was saying, but I wasn't buying it. "You're talking about magic and that's just the stuff of fantasy. It isn't real." I was trying to remain cool. "Anyway, It doesn't explain why I feel sick in the morning. I'm certainly not pregnant. 

"Sure it does. When I take your power, you lose it and it makes you feel sick." 

"OK, I'll play along, how do we stop this from happening? " I asked. 

"If I don't use the mug, I won't steal your power But I like the mug even more now that I know it's haunted." Her cat jumped up on the kitchen counter and knocked the mug to the floor and I lived happily ever after.

Prompt: You are an avatar on a haunted object. You do not know it. How do you find out and what is the object?

A Trebuchet On My Front Lawn

Prompt: You wake up and find a trebuchet on your lawn. There is no note. Who gave it to you, how, why, and what do you do with it?

The phone rang dragging me out of wonderful dream in which the blood of my enemies filled my bathtub. "Damn, I said, answering the phone, "Hello?"

"You're gonna want to see this. There's a catapult in your front, yard." It was my neighbor.

"What ? A catapult ? Why?" I asked rhetorically, "Hold on," I got up, put on my sweatpants and T-shirt an walked to the front door. I looked out the window through my still bleary eyes, "That's a trebuchet, not a catapult, "I said and hung up the phone.

I shuffled to the kitchen to make coffee still thinking about how silly it is that people can't tell the difference between a catapult and trebuchet. I chuckled to myself as I sat on the couch sipping my coffee and working on the morning crossword.

I picked up my coffee cup, but a sudden and jarring thought occurred to me, "Why is there a trebuchet on my front lawn?" I jumped up from the couch and ran to the front door, looking out, "Yep. It's a trebuchet."

I walked out the door to get a closer look. It was pretty solidly built, but there was no note, no packing list, and not even a shipping label. Who sent it? Did I order it by mistake? I did just order a new replacement belt for a whirlpool clothes dryer, maybe there was a mix-up.

As I stood there admiring the construction, the head of the homeowners association stomped towards me carrying a thick binder, "What the hell is this catapult doing here?! You are in violation of our bylaws!"  

"Listen, I ca- "I stopped and looked at the binder and then said, "Wait, you actually have a rule, in print, outlawing catapults?

"Every HOA does, it prevents land wars."

"Huh," I said, "well this is trebuchet. Are there any rules against those?"

The head of HOA just stared a hole through me for ten seconds, looked down at the binder and shouted, "Damn it!"  

I watched as he stormed off and then looked back at my trebuchet. "Now, where did you come from?
Just then my phone pinged, my girlfriend sent me a
message… 

GF: "Did you get my present ?"
ME: "You mean the trebuchet?"
GF: "yes"
ME: "Yes, but why?"
GF: "Because I thought it would come in handy"
ME: "For what?"
GF: "Taking down the HOA and their bylaws."
ME: "I love you."

Driving To The Voices In My Head

Prompt: Imagine that when you yell at other drivers, they can hear you and communicate back. How would that change now you drive and what you say?

I heard the voice say, "Move it pokey," as drove to work onemorning. I have no idea where it came from since I was alone in the car and  I don't recall ever hearing that phrase uttered on Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here. Was I cracking up ?

As I continued on, a pick up truck blasted by me, obviously wanting to be in front of me and veering wildly from one lane to the next with the precision of an Abrams Tank. "Nice driving, Jerkass!" I said to the now-distant tail lights.

"You should have stepped on the gas a little bit harder," another disembodied voice said.
 

"Ok, I'm going crazy," I said to the empty passenger seat.

"Nah," a different voice said, "new highway technology. Now you can hear people and respond when they insult you."

"I didn't insult you; I just asked a question," I said, suddenly realizing I was talking to no one and also driving seventy miles per hour on the freeway.

"Oh, I'm information. I let you know that this is happening. "
 

"Is there a way to opt-out?" I asked, obviously wanting no part of this lunacy.
 

"Oh sure, it's simple, "the voice said in an either jovial or sarcastic tone, "just shut-up. and drive."
 

"Gee thanks"
 

"Anytime."
 

From that moment on, I looked straight ahead and said nothing. I still near voices every so often and do what they say or move over.

Happy New Year 2024

 I know, I'm a week late wishing you all a Happy New Year. I've been busy. Anyway, as a sorta kinda New Year's resolution, I've decided to start writing more. I'm not talking about just posting, I mean actually hand writing my posts before I put them on the interwebs. I have a notebook that can handle this task and it just takes a little bit of editing after it's uploaded. Prior to this, my day-to-day writing has been relegated to short phrases and part numbers on repair forms. I want to write more.

I have enlisted the help of my lovely and talented girlfriend to provide my writing prompts which I will use to...well...write. The next post will be the first writing prompt and my results. That, along with my other blog, should get my handwriting skills back up to speed in no time.

I hope you enjoy, and if you feel like it, use the prompts on your own site of choosing.

Cleaning Out The Cobwebs

With the unfortunate decline of Twitter/X and the chaos of plenty of contenders vying to take its place, I've decided to grab a broom and a mop and come back to the old blog and clean out the dust and cobwebs. I know, blogging is so 2004, but at least I have some modicum of control over responses and don't have to subject people to hateful comments. Anyway, with these new social networks popping up like orange barrels during Ohio construction season, I've joined a few of them...or more. So, I'm going to give my impressions of each service as I use them and experience them.

Twitter/X (@AlienCG, @illuminatipod, @AlienBiblical)
OK, first off, that last sentence of that last paragraph is important for context, I am talking about this network from my own experience. Now that that's out of the way, I have no real problem with X when it comes to my primary account, @AlienCG. I follow the people I want to follow and have good interactions with folks. Also, this is where almost everyone I interact with online still is, so there's that. However, when it comes to @Illuminatipod, it's a dumpster fire of misinformation, disinformation, and absolute bullshit from the deepest sewers on the internet. Finally, when I'm bopping around @AlienBiblical it's an absolute garbage dump, but that's what I'm looking for because it gives me inspiration for posts over on my Bible Study Blog. The functionality and the fact that idiot-in-chief of that site wants everyone to pay for it makes it a steaming pile when it comes to responses.
Grade: AlienCG: B+/Illuminatipod: D-/BiblicalAlien: C

Mastodon (@AlienCG@mstdn.social)
Mastodon has been around for a while, but it wasn't until Twitter got bought that it would hit popularity. It took me a while to get into using this network, and due to the technical barrier for many, it's still slow growth. It's not as simple as signing up for an account and posting. There are several networks and I have another login out there somewhere, but I can't remember the server. I don't think Mastodon is going to be the Twitter killer for that reason, but it will stick around.
Grade: B-

Bluesky (@AlienCG.bsky.social, @illuminatipod.bsky.social)
The Twitter killer? Probably not, actually. First of all, Bluesky is still invite only which means you have to know someone in order to sign up. The quality of the journalism is up there as opposed to X since most of the journalists left the bird app behind. It's another slow-growing network due to the invite thing, but when it finally does open up, provided it's moderated properly, could be the replacement for Twitter when it comes to breaking news.
Grade: B+

Threads (aliencg)
Meta threw its hat into the short form social media game earlier this year when they introduced Threads. It showed great early growth thanks to the ease of entry for Instagram users. The app allows for a chronological timeline of only people you follow, but the default is still the "For You" feed which is algorithmically generated to show you influencers and other Instacelebs. It's not ideal for me because it's tied directly to Facebook and I've always kept that and Twitter separate. It seems to have died down now, but Threads also had the "Isn't Threads great!" problem when it comes to new social networks, which is why I was done with it after two days.
Grade: C-

Spoutible (@aliencg)
I really want to like Spoutible, but it came around later than the rest, and currently I only know two people on there. This is the new social media problem, fragmentation. The app is great and offers control over what you see and how you see it. It's a little busy which can be distracting. I don't have a lot of experience with it yet, so that is factored into the grade.
Grade: B+

Pebble (formerly T2) (@AlienCG)
Pebble was actually started by former Twitter employees and it shows. They use the 280 character limit, the interface is clean and uncluttered, and all in all it should be able to give X a run for its money. Like Bluesky, Pebble is invite only so its user base is smaller at the moment. They also don't have an app, so you have to use a web app which isn't the end of the world. They were originally called T2, which was a placeholder, and it was difficult to search for and find using Google. Unfortunately, they chose another name that may prove to be a misstep in Pebble.is ("Pebble Is..."). You see, Pebble is a defunct tech company, so anytime you want to find out information about the social network, you usually have to wade through a few pages of stories about a former watch maker.
Grade: B-

Smokey And The Bandit (1977)

As a  way to get back into writing for this blog, I will be reviewing movies that I have either not seen in ages, or have never seen.

I saw Smokey And The Bandit when I was about 10 years old and, naturally, having the mind of a 10 year-old, I thought it was fun and hilarious. Now, being forty-something, I still think the movie downright funny and, with the exception of a few lines here and there, still holds up.

When rich people want illegal beer from across the Mississippi, they call on The Bandit and the Snowman to go get it. This movie is less about the plot and more about the one-liners, thanks to Sheriff Buford T. Justice (Jackie Gleason), and slapstick car chases. It is truly representative of the 1970s with fast cars, truck drivers, and CB radio. It's a fun road trip movie that I thought was more bawdy than it actually is.

Sally Field plays Carrie, a runaway bride that we find out was supposed to marry Junior, the son of Sheriff Buford T. Justice, which is why the pair are chasing The Bandit. It is unclear if she ever actually revealed this to him or not. At the end of the movie, as they drive away, she yells, "Tell Junior, no hard feelings." Besides that, there is really nothing else to say about the "plot" of this movie. 

While reading up for this post, I found out that yes, Coors beer was in fact illegal to transport east of the Mississippi because it was not pasteurized and contained no preservatives. Also, the reason that CB radio was all the rage in the 1970s was because it was accessible to all thanks to solid state technology and the 55 mph speed limit. 

Smokey And The Bandit is the only movie that there was by this name. There were absolutely never any crappy sequels made that Burt Reynolds refused to take part in. Nope, they never happened. Just like there was never a sequel to Caddyshack. That never happened either.

Repost: New Product Announcement

SGMR Industries. Inc. has always been committed to selling products for money to people who probably don’t need them in the first place. Since we first introduced our first product, people have been throwing money at us and clamoring for more. Well, we gave them more. We added more adjectives, and more shiny bits and sold it for more money than the previous version. That’s what we do and people love us for it.

Today, we introduce yet another, new, revolutionary, shiny, big, fabulous, and highly improved product. It will do something more impressive than the previous version and we will introduce something else that people didn’t think they needed. However, people will make a reason to need this product and they won’t care how much they have to pay for it, because it’s from us. We are excited to see how much more money we’re going to make off of this product and how many people will buy it before we obsolete it in six months when we tease our next product that will contain one more thing that people don’t need. 

We will begin preorders at retail outlets on Friday morning which means that we will control the entire news cycle that day. This is our mission, and when the product is released, we will only distribute at those same retailers so that we can build hype for the next iteration. People like to stand in line for exclusive products that they spend a lot of money on to look more impressive in front of their friends. Our commitment to our customers is to make them feel more important than everybody else.

Introducing A New Blog

I know, I know, I haven't written anything new on this blog in a while. Well, it will still be a little longer, but I am going to start writing on the ISC Blog. The first post is going to be an article from a website that for some reason sends me newsletters called Prophecy News Watch. It's exactly what it sounds like, a "news" website that looks at the world and tries to shoehorn events to fit "biblical prophecy".

The first post is based on an article talking about 9 signs of the apocalypse. It's not very good and it is quite underwhelming. I can't see how anybody would read that article and think that the world is ending. Things happen. We're seeing things happen and they don't need a reason to happen. So I wrote again, but not here unless you count this post tell you that I wrote somewhere else.

I hope you like the new blog, and I will try to get back to writing real stuff here as well. I need an outlet for all of the stuff running through my brain. 

Repost: Boba Fett Ain't No Badass

Original Post Date: July 11, 2013

I grew up thinking that Boba Fett, galactic bounty hunter from the Star Wars Saga, was one of the biggest badasses of them all. He was the strong, silent type. He captured Han Solo. And he was the coolest dresser.

But wait.

Look at that second item again. Did he really capture Han Solo? No. He followed him. He narced on him to the government. Then he took credit for his capture when he collected his money from Jabba the Hutt. However, it was Darth Vader that would ultimately capture Han Solo and hand him over to the bounty hunter. He fired his weapon once and missed. He couldn't even be bothered to chase after the person at whom he was shooting. What if it was another bounty hunter trying to take credit for his…er, Darth Vader's, hard work. So, he was lazy as well as a lousy shot. He couldn't even load his own cargo into his ship, the damn thing floated and it didn't look like those Bespin guards were struggling. Hell, his downfall was even worse.

The next time we catch up with Boba Fett, he's hanging out in what amounts to a good ol' boys club in the backwoods of the galaxy. Hell, Princess Leia was more badass than him when bargaining over Chewbacca. She pulled out a grenade and threatened to kill everyone and die in the process. Oh, but Boba Fett pulled his gun. What are you gonna do, Fett, shoot that little monkey thing? Were you even around when Luke Skywalker entered or were you still sleeping? On a side note: Jabba's palace was a sausage party. There were two females in the whole joint and neither were much to look at.

Things happen

Oh look, Boba Fett reveals that he can fly. He also reveals that he has a bunch of other toys in his arsenal. He ties up the only guy with the light saber with a piece of string that can easily be cut. Luke only acts like he's detained to get Fett to let his guard down. While he's distracted, Han Solo hits his backpack with a long rod and launches him into the Sar'laac Pit. While he's down there, he can listen to stories of everyone else got there. Thrown in by the Jedi Knight, an explosion caused another to fall, another was thrown in by the only black guy in the trilogy. Finally Boba Fett can tell his story, "I was knocked in my defective backpack by a blind guy with a stick who had been in a coma for a few years." When the laughter subsides, he can get on with being digested for a thousand years. Frankly, if it came down to choosing someone to have my back in a fight, I'll take an Ewok or two.

15 Years? Seriously?

So yesterday (December 1) I decided to transfer this domain name over to Google Domains since the ISC domain is already there, my blogs are all on Blogger (a Google company), and I am an admin on three other domains. It was a minor formality, but something hit me. In March 2019, I would have owned the aliencg.com domain for 15 years. That means that the AlienCG name that I use online is already more than 15 years old. That name came about in June 2003 when a few friends and me decided to start a video game forum called The Game Board.

I was looking for a new online alias because in 2004, you didn't reveal your personal details online. I was always obsessed with aliens and UFOs, so I was looking for an alien-related alias. I had already used Alien Underground and Alien Overground, so I wanted something new. My friend, Mitch (aka Golden Boy/Amorphous Blob on The Game Board), said, "Why not Alien Coffeeground," at which I laughed, and soon decided that it was perfect. Due to a slight over-saturation of video game related forums out there, I decided to shutter the account and sold the domain name (big mistake since over the past couple years, I could have sold it for a lot more than $50).

I enjoyed having a website and I had learned a lot about PHP/SQL development, so I looked for and bought aliencg.com in March of 2004 as a personal website and blog that I called Alien's Planet. I still have the original code and some slightly broken iterations can be found on The Wayback Machine at archive.org. After many frustrations with shared hosting sites, I moved to the free WordPress service and renamed the blog Swamp Gas & Moonlit Reflections after having a renaming contest, and starting fresh (I did save the XML files from the old site). Eventually I moved to Squarespace where I had also started the SGMR Podcast (a personal podcast) and then to Blogger to save money. I shortened the name to SGMR and now host the podcast at archive.org.

A Problem So Simple...?

I love math. Anyone who knows me will know that is a fact, plain and simple. There is a problem that intrigues me and it is so simple to state, but seems impossible to prove. It's called The Collatz Conjecture. The premise is simple:

• Pick any positive integer
• If it is even, divide by 2
• If it is odd, multiply by 3 and add 1
• repeat these steps until the cycle repeats

Put into math notation:
If n is even, n/2
If n is odd, 3n+1

Here's the conjecture: Every number (n) will eventually go to 1 using these rules. So far, every number up to 2^60 has gone to 1. 1 is the only number that repeats itself, going from 1, 3*1+1=4, 4/2=2, 2/2=1, and so on forever. It seems like a simple problem to solve, but it isn't. What seems to make this problem so difficult to prove is that there is no application for it and there is no pattern. It falls under a category of "recreational math". Prime numbers and the hunt for them are also considered recreational, but primes are used in encryption these days (although, a 10^64-digit prime is kind of unwieldy for encrypting your passwords).

Because there is no current application for this problem, there is no cash prize for solving it like there is for the Riemann Hypothesis or the P Versus NP problem. The Collatz Conjecture is a curiosity in math and I love the problem, but I know I'll never see a solution for it in my lifetime. For now, all I know is that any power of 2 goes to 1 and doubling any number that goes to one will simply also go to one. Here's a video about this problem:

Play around with yourself if you are mathematically inclined. and if you're really inclined, try to solve the Millennium Prize Problems. Those should be easy </sarcasm>.

NaNo Prepping

What? Mygirlfriend wrote a blog post? Holy crap, I better I write one now because I don't want to look like a slacker.

NaNoWriMo is almost upon us once again, and soon I will be starting off strong, writing a few thousand words right out of the gate only to hit a roadblock and figure out where I want to go from there. That's okay though because I have an outline this year and there is no way my story could ever deviate from that…crap, it already did and I haven't started writing yet. Oh well, I'll write another post of absolute gibberish (I'll repost that one day).

In all seriousness, though, I am undertaking the task again. I lost last year due to lack of steam at the end and also the loss of a couple thousand words when I opened Scrivener on another computer before it had properly saved. This year, I'm using OneNote because it is perfectly suited to this task. I am also not going to be a slave to my wordcount (he says…) and I'm just going to get this story out. As I said above, I have an outline (which actually has plenty of flexibility) and I plan on sticking to it. That means that if I get stuck on one part, I can move to another without worrying much about continuity (What do you mean my character was three years older six months ago? Oh, it must have been a time machine accident between chapters. Wait, I'm not writing about a time machine.)

Anyway, if you'd like to participate in NaNoWriMo and write 50,000 words in 30 days and be like the other sadistic fools who take on this venture, visit https://nanowrimo.org for information. It's a lot of fun and you can meet new people.

SGMR Ind. New Product Announcement

SGMR Industries. Inc. has always been committed to selling products for money to people who probably don’t need them in the first place. Since we first introduced our first product, people have been throwing money at us and clamoring for more. Well, we gave them more. We added more adjectives, and more shiny bits and sold it for more money than the previous version. That’s what we do and people love us for it.

Today, we introduce yet another, new, revolutionary, shiny, big, fabulous, and highly improved product. It will do something more impressive than the previous version and we will introduce something else that people didn’t think they needed. However, people will make a reason to need this product and they won’t care how much they have to pay for it, because it’s from us. We are excited to see how much more money we’re going to make off of this product and how many people will buy it before we obsolete it in six months when we tease our next product that will contain one more thing that people don’t need.

We will begin preorders at retail outlets on Friday morning which means that we will control the entire news cycle that day. This is our mission, and when the product is released, we will only distribute at those same retailers so that we can build hype for the next iteration. People like to stand in line for exclusive products that they spend a lot of money on to look more impressive in front of their friends. Our commitment to our customers is to make them feel more important than everybody else.

Trying To Blog Again

I have a lot of things rattling around my head that I need to get out. Primarily because NaNoWriMo is nearly upon us and I need to get writing again. I have an idea for a project this year and it could be really good, but that's not for me to decide. I do have one thing to take care of…the comments.

You, dear reader, do not see all the comments that I get. I have a ton of spam that has nothing to do with the content. They are so general that the bot that posts them posts them everywhere. Here's an example…

 

This comment was left on an SGMR Industries, Inc. post which are sarcastic, humorous, and not to be taken seriously. There are plenty more like that.

Some of the comments left are spam for Adwords or SEO.

All of the poster names are Anonymous and many are just nonsense that don't fit the context of some of my posts.

I have decided that instead of dealing with these comments, I am disabling comments. If you want to comment, please do so on Facebook or Twitter. I will keep past legitimate comments, but from here on out, comments are closed.

Press Release: Career Day Apology

We at SGMR Industries, Inc. take our commitment to the community, and court-ordered community service, very seriously. We would like to issue an apology to the parents of students at the local elementary school if they were offended by remarks made by our President and CEO, Chadwick Fitzgerald Vanderhaven III. It is not unreasonable to perceive his comments as unsuitable for anyone under the age of 25, but it should be pointed out that nothing he said was a lie. Also, most kids in the second grade don't know what the phrase, "hookers and blow" even means.

It is obvious, when put in the correct context, that his comments made toward Ms. Johnson were meant to be complimentary. However, in his intoxicated state it is not difficult how such comments can be misconstrued. We're sorry that Ms. Johnson was unable to recognize the complimentary nature of the President & CEO's comments.

The President & CEO would like to express his thanks to the students and staff of "<school name>=?" and would like it known that he appreciates being able to use such a simple task toward his 800 hours of community service (related to last year's "neighborhood yard sale" incident). We are still amazed that the court has allowed the President & CEO to be allowed to enter an elementary school.

8. The Quest For Cool

I have to admit, painful as it is, that I have done things that I am not proud of (involving music purchases. Get your minds out of the gutter). The biggest and most egregious that I can think of is giving into peer pressure and attempting to be “cool”. I have learned since that it is not worth it, and that no matter what I do or how hard I try, I will never be “cool”. But, I was in the seventh grade and at a point when I was trying so hard to fit in. Two of the biggest albums in 1986 were Whitesnake’s self-titled seventh album (I hate when bands release a self-titled album after they have a back catalog). The other was Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet. It appeared to me at that time, in order to be cool, one must actually own these albums. So, I asked for them for Christmas (yes, in hindsight, I wasted two perfectly good gift slots on these two albums).

I had already gotten albums from Columbia House records, which was that mail-order company that sold eight, twelve, or seventy albums for a penny. These two albums were not on the “for a penny” list (most of the records on that list were falling in popularity and they had to clear them out to make room for Bon Jovi and Whitesnake). When the Columbia House catalog came in, the prices for these albums were just north of outrageous (usually $12.95 plus shipping and handling) and I was not using my allowance to pay for one album. I could go to Disc Connection and get lots of good albums for cheap. Unfortunately for me, the two albums that I was seeking to make me cool were too new to be in the used section.

Finally, Christmas vacation came, and then Christmas Day, and I got my albums. I was finally, for that short time, “cool”. I listened to them and, frankly, I only remember the hits. There was nothing else on either of these albums that stuck out to me. They were pretty bland. “Here I Go Again” was an okay song at the time, but the half-assed guitar solo ruined the whole song (there’s this choppy progression in the middle of the solo that just takes me out of it…I could go on for hours about that ham-fisted, amateurish thing that was supposed to be a guitar solo, but I won’t…makes Paul Stanley look like a virtuoso…sorry, I’ll stop).

Christmas vacation ended and I was back to school and ready to unleash my new “cool”. “I got Whitesnake and Slippery When Wet,” I said.

“Oh, sorry, Bon Jovi is no longer cool,” I was told. Luckily, I was unable to remember what anybody thought the new cool band was. I decided from that point on, I was the only person allowed to dictate my musical tastes. If I liked a song, I liked it, and if I didn’t, well, it didn’t make it into to my record crate.

The moral of the story is: Bon Jovi sucks and so does Whitesnake. Neither of those albums ever made it to a mixtape or into my CD collection and I also have not listened to them on Google Play because they are not worth my time. Life’s too short for shitty guitar solos.