Sky

Sky blue sky

Optimization

Yes, it's good to know how to optimize, but don't feel obliged to.

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you must.

Do what you want.

Also,

"Premature Optimization is the Root of all Evil" -- Donald Knuth

Breathe

Sucking and blowing.

Cities

Neat piles of stone and wood.

Giant sandbox

Written on Oct 20th, 2011


Life is so immensely broad, and we can do whatever we want. We have a giant sandbox at our disposal, and whatever we want to do is fine. Because we can. Simple as that.

That's why indecision can hinder your progress so much. You try to make the "correct" choice, but more often than not there is no real "correct choice". Your choice is the correct choice, and all the energy spent worrying and hesitating is wasted. It's all natural, of course. Everything is natural. But it makes one wonder what one can accomplish if one were to trust oneself fully, unconditionally, genuinely, regretlessly, and joyfully.

Learning

Learning requires mistakes.
Update:
Learning requires effort.

Invention

Invention is scarce in a prepackaged society.

Way To Be

Be Decisively. Deliberately.

Syntactic

Ignoring semantics, is "It is not true." the correct logical negation for "It is true."? I think it is not. Which is different from "I don't think it is".

Leaf virtue

By virtue of their softness, lightness, and amenability to change, leaves are gently swayed to the ground when it's their time to fall. I think we can learn from that.

Leaves

fairies of autumn

angels of fall

playful sprites

magical floating colors

gentle swayees of randomness

serene samplers of the unknown

they trust. they rise and fall

as the world tells them to

in joy

Ripple

When the wind speaks through the autumn trees, its words ripple of shine and color. Loveliness.

Sound quantization

Sounds. They're everywhere. At least everywhere I've been.

Attempt to map sounds to numbers bijectively. Given a finite sampling rate, it's possible, right? So I wonder... how to map it?

The individual, "purer" sounds would be integers. Countable, even if infinite. Clinks, steps, single instrument notes. Those sound like integers to me.

Then music pieces... sequences of integers... often cut into parts, mixed and matched, harmonized together... likened to rationals? Maybe?

But sounds in nature never stop. They go on forever. The wind through a tree's branches, a river stream. Like... irrationals. Pi and e should be out there somewhere.

Just a conceptual whim.

Fluid

Always traversing the invisible fluid.

Life Expectancy

The expectancy of Life is to rarely meet expectations.

Sohail's Presentation

Sohail's presentation was like watching a faucet let out water constantly, miserly, drop by drop, **with little change, not so interesting.**

Or like an ant building a statue, ***, focusing on only one piece at a time - now the foot, now the hand,

***UNFINISHED BECAUSE THE ORIGINAL TEXT WAS WRITTEN WITH A DULL PENCIL ON A BROWN NAPKIN THAT I LATER CRUMBLED IN MY POCKET AND I COULDN'T DECIPHER AFTERWARDS***

The Fire of Trees

The Fire of Trees, so graceful, so colorful, so lovely.

Regret

That which can fuel motivation is too often used to stir regret.

Inertia

Intention battles inertia. That is its very nature.

Choices

There is no good and bad. There are only choices.

Delicate power

I have been listening to Fabrizio Paterlini's piano compositions for over a week now, and I am infatuated with them. They are amazing. I'm listening to this one now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXyisLlJuCE

but if you like that one, you should SO do a deep search of all his music. And buy it from his site. And tell him how great it is. Because it's GREAT. I just did. I told him his music was so "delicately powerful". I liked this description. In fact, I liked it so much, that I wrote a blog post about it. Voilà.

Ephemeral

Considering our own ephemerality. Life begins, then it ends. What make us different from the housefly? From the flower? The running piece of code? The conversation? The raindrop? The sporadic gust of wind? The heartbeat?

Strings

We people, our feelings, are like strings. Outside forces pluck us one way or the other, but regardless of what direction we are plucked towards, we'll oscillate a bit and eventually find a way to reestabilize.

Good for you, Andrea :)

Intention

Intention is the key. If you rely on chance to accomplish your tasks, they might be fulfilled, but you will have learned nothing.

Generalization

You know all of those phrases on facebook that are either puns or ironic plays on meaning to make you think about something? I can think of ways of describing these:

Paradoxical tautology

Oxymoronic truth

Ironic fact

I don't know. Something like that.

I gotta go take a cool shower. Bye.

Different

Things that are today may not be tomorrow. Even if they remain the same. Squeeze the potential off from your Now.

Intolerant

I just got a $45 parking ticket for leaving a rental car parked this morning in a residential area. It wasn't that long, come on. Fucking intolerant bastards.

Rebel

I am the gentle rebel.

The polite rebel.

The silent rebel.

Who jaywalks.

Who won't put on his seatbelt.
Who stares into your eyes only slightly more than you expect.

Semi-used clothing storage

Where do you store clothes that you used during the day but you still want to use tomorrow? Like those jeans you really like, or that shirt you used only for a few hours. I've been using the carpet, and sometimes the chair, but I wondered if anyone had found a neater or more standard place to store multi-day clothing. It would be especially useful for when you change your mind your next day and decide to put on clean clothes, but then you might accumulate two sets of lightly used clothes that you might want to use again. You don't want to fold them and put them back with the clean piles, and it's becoming a little pile on its own. What to do? What to do...

Property

Property motivates hoarding, which motivates selfishness, which motivates greed, which motivates a race to accumulate the most. Why? Have your stuff, but fucking share.

Conclusions

Both conclusions and decisions are essentially yours.

Current

Like a drop of water flowing down the river, a lone person yields to the massive currents around him, and flows along with them. But then, would you rather see yourself as a helpless slave of the current, or as part of the force that creates the current, at every moment?

Further Miscellany

Alcohol injects randomness into our lives. That's how it manages to get out of our routinary lives, out of our comfort zone, and makes us try out new things, because situations suddenly begin to be different from the ones we're used to. Also, our senses are not as keen as usually. So we gotta act in whatever way we can.

Sept 21, 2011 08:09 PM

I don't want to be me any more. I want to be what I want. I WANT TO CHANGE

Sept 19, 2011 05:30 PM

Impossible to escape from consciousness

Sept 28, 2011 01:02 PM

viviendo una vida llenando expectativas

cumpliendo las metas que otros me trazan

me esperan, me admiran, por ser tan capaz

y yo que les creo, escondo mis deseos

olvido mis gustos, y mi exaltación

cortando paciente a mi corazón

los pedazos que no caben en el pinche modelo

que ya solo existe en mi jodida cabeza

que no entiende que no es lo que no es, sino lo que es.

que no vale lo que falta, sino lo que hay.

fuck you you told me i was good at math

and i fucking idiot believed you in faith

kept at it and sucked at it but kept at it more

disliking, mistasting, but knowing not what else to do

Sept 21, 2011 08:12 PM

Money weakens. It allows you to not be independent, to detach from your own needs. Over-interdependency. That's what it causes.

Sept 27, 2011 07:32 PM

Clean

What do you fuck do you gain with a clean record? A clean computer desktop, an organized room, a shiny coffee table? Self satisfaction. Indulgence of vanity or of knowing that you are clean and organized. What do you fuck do you get with that? What do you learn? Nothing, it is something you've already done. You don't learn by doing what you've done. Go fucking do something else.

Miscellany on Self

Sometimes I think my ideal of the person I want to be is unattainable, given my current state. I now also understand that that is fine. What I'm missing now is the belief. Knowledge does not imply belief. And it is upon belief that our feelings and our instinct operate.

Sept 16, 00:01

I DO NOT WANT HALF BAKED LOVE

Sept 17, 16:33, on Craig St, near Lulu's and Ali Baba

rumiante de half baked ideas.

las palabras lentas en la mente

se estancan, seguras de no llegar

acostumbradas a siempre llegar tarde

Sept 18, 22:38

fleeting arrows of words and image

that vanish before i understand them

Sept 19, 16:17

El mundo no es lo que pensamos

y si lo fuera, que jodido el mundo

que otorga su esencia a los confundidos

El futuro no sera lo que pensamos

y si lo fuera, que jodido el mundo

sin sorpresas que ofrecer

Sept 20, 13:11

he vivido lo cotidiano hasta lo harto

quiero ahora saber mas

sin temer lo desconocido

solo por ser diferente

cansado de lo comun

busco con ansia buscar mas alla

de lo que mis ojos han visto

mi piel ha sentido

mis labios han besado

busco querer encontrar

con toda mi esencia

alejarme de la apropiacion

matar su perpetuidad

Sept 20, 13:46

quiero expropiarme de mi mismo

todo lo que me he puesto encima

colores y deseos que no han sido mios

y que asfixian constantes la luz

atrapada

un canvas que otros han pintado

es obra de otros, el canvas es nada

solo un muñeco que lleva a cabo

el programa que otros te han dejado

desde la eternidad

y ya han olvidado

un mono se entrena, aprende los trucos

quiere ser bueno, quiere mostrarlos

y no encuentra a nadie que le importe

quien quiera saber de sus estupidos trucos

pues el truco era distraccion

que se ha convertido en vida

y el resto, en sueño olvidado

Sept 20, 14:04

la gente

se retrae de hacer y de hablar

por el miedo de contrariar

pero uno no esta hecho para complacer

y para temer ofender.

Sino que para ser, expresas, y cuando

se sienta, a respetar.

Pero se confunde el respeto con temor

Sept 20, 12:11

want to do what i haven't done

feel what i haven't felt

taste what i haven't tasted

love tempestuously

be what i don't know i am

but feel.....

Sept 21, 22:19

others' words were my criteria

my spirit hidden behind a curtain of

"the right"

Sept 22, 23:46

xq fucks la gente solo hace lo que le han

dicho que es su especializacion?

ingeniero, pintor, albañil, y no se

intenta lo demas??? solo se HACE

porque se hace

Sept 23, 01:15

Barriers built by us

for us

so many

we end up living a life

skirting them

living by their limitations

and not by our drive

Sept 23, 12:35

I've been a leaf floating in the wind

ambivalent to direction

now I want to be the wind

with my own drive, purpose, and life.

Sept 24, 17:44

i used to see life as a function to

optimize measures on: efficiency,

wealth, frugality, glory, food, with

mathematics as my lawyer, my

middleman. i now leave that ground

Sept 24, 18:20

have your own course of action. A

tempting, softer alternative is to

choose from options provided, available

at the moment. Do not let yourself

yield to the latter. It causes your

volition to languish and decay.

Sept 25, 14:09

Bottled up experience is not the experience at all.

Sept 25, 19:11, Flagstaff

Lo efímero es lo bello. Lo real, lo presente, lo único.

Sept 25, 19:23, Flagstaff

A lack of problems causes a lack of

need. And it is need which fuels

motivation. No wonder why people feel

unmotivated so often. Or why they

create needs, often frivolous, to stay

energized. I took the former approach.

Sept 27, 20:52

Orange moon

Orange moon, you came up soon,
they say you're made of cheese.
Only now do I see why,
brighter than Betelguese.

Projection

A large part of a person's growth consists in extending one's own representational space to understand more varied and more complex objects, concepts, and people. For what is observed is no more than what the senses can perceive, and no more than what the mind can represent...
What we understand is the world's projection onto the senses and mind.

Written Sept 12, 00:42, Fifth & Craig, SW corner.

Money

Money weakens. It allows you to not be independent, to detach from your own needs. In excess, it causes over-interdependency. It is a drug.

Marriage

marriage

a vile approximation

to a grandiose encounter

of fate and of canter

of two concurrent souls

in this ever changing world

Alcohol

Alcohol injects randomness into our lives. That's how it manages to get out of our routinely lives, out of our comfort zone, and makes us try out new things, because situations suddenly begin to be different from the ones we're used to. Also, our senses are not as keen as usually. So we gotta act in whatever way we can.

NORMAL

The world is toooooo fucking NORMAL sometimes. Predictable, routinely, comfortable, stable. That's why unusual people are NEEDED. And that's why they sometimes work HARD to inject fucking randomness into this stagnant pool of human sludge. Optimizers know what I'm talking about... too stable a search leads to local fucking optimums.

Aún nos quedan cosas por hacer.

Unconfidence intervals

This happens much more often than I would expect it to. I hypothesize the current measurement and the interval predictions are obtained from different weather services. If it is not so, shame on your predictions' accuracies.

Pep Verse

But my friend, despair not

Hope you haven't forgot

that solutions are not always obvious.

So pack up your might,

and remember, the fight

helps success become all the more glorious

Seven

The moon glows in full circle
looks down on traffic down below
A bird platoon sweeps the horizon
gifting me a morning show

Meanwhile I stare at the street
in anxious contemplation
the bus ain't here and my mind is clear
so I fake some inspiration

The bus is come, so now I wait
inside the warmer bus
My therapy thing begins in seven
so getting fast there would be a plus

And now I'm here, and it's quite clear
that the front door is locked
So much for being here on time
I hope Chris han't forgot

So it turned out that Chris was in,
and I just had to buzz him.
He pushed and squeezed muscles and skin,
so no knots would be blocking.

And now I'm almost back at home,
and I kinda need to pee.
Good thing I've still a lot of time
cause my classes start at three.

Culinaristic

Wow. Am I really doing this?? My mom would be so proud.

UPDATE: No, the Oreos were not part of the meal. Plus, steamed onions are deliciously tender and tenderly delicious.

Small fall

The small ones also partake in the Fall.

Pretty color bars

Patience

Waiting for patience

Mapping Wills

Those who seek to live find themselves honored, or recognized.

Those who seek to be forgotten find themselves living.

Those who seek honor and recognition find themselves forgotten.

And it doesn't work to change what one "wants" to obtain one's true desires, for the will is not an independent variable, as much as we might define it so in a mathematical construct.

Sex

Sex should be a verb.
I sex. You sex. Good sexing there. Where you've been? I've been sexing all weekend. It's not that hard, right?

Burn

Fire burns. Wood burns.
But homonymously differently.

Conformist disease

People are scared to be amazed these days. They're afraid to show amazement at something, let the people around notice, and realize that what to him is a wonder, is to another a bore, not worth noticing, or that he could explain the wonder so obviously, or so condescendingly as to imply one's wonder as tedious, irksome, and to be considered ignorant or naive. A common fear today. A disease.

Wonder is looked down upon, while knowledge is revered. But they need not be mutually exclusive. The former stimulates the latter, and it is only too common for people to acquire some knowledge and then to stop wondering, satisfied that what they know is enough for their lives, and everything else is, as far as they are concerned, superfluous. They close their minds to wonder to be like others, to avoid the risk of condescension by others. To conform. Ugh.

Dances with Wolves

In a place where names have no meaning. We people are standard entities with a silly identifier, no better than a plain integer, that means nothing except what you tie to it yourself. There is no express name that allows us to identify or describe ourselves. Dances with Wolves feels so much better.

Lamentation

The lamentation of ultra-specialized society is meaninglessness. That of one that mandates its individuals is disinterest. And though individuals are able to find meaning in the lamest of causes, the frivolity of these allows knowing and selfish people to mold these sources of interest in order to sway the masses.

Highland Park

is pretty darn awesome.

Fireflies

fireflies glow because that's what they are. they can, so they do. instant spark of mystic green light, the brightest green.

Clown Frown

A term for an exaggerated frown, like clowns do.

Letter removal

I just remembered that when I was a kid, I realized that removing the "i" in my diminutive nickname, "Tonito", resulted in "Tonto". I think I told my cousin and he made nothing out of it, and I was too ashamed to tell anyone else.

Stowaway fly

A fly flew into my flight airplane today, going from Chicago to Pittsburgh. Such a smart fly - it got a free trip, and it might get a chance to spread its genes much further.

Tattoos in Chicago

are abundant.

Earrings

A mae sold me a pretty, though very small, pair of earrings for 2000 C this morning. I paid 2100 C for a 4-hour bus ride from San Jose to La Fortuna. I feel kinda swindled.

Costa Rica

Often I want to persist a small thought or observation, and I can't figure out a central place to write it. Used paper sheets, the back of useless bills, and napkins help out, but it becomes harder to take care of them as the amount grows larger and larger. I've tried notebooks, but the tiny thoughts intersperse with the longer thoughts, drawings, charts, and useful annotations like telephone numbers, and then are also harder to find. Thus, I made this blog just for tiny thoughts.

First thought right here:

I'm going to Costa Rica today. (YAY YAY WHOOPIE YAY!!!! :D :D) Going through Facebook to post a greeting on my Tican host's profile, I notice I have 441=21^2 friends. Soon after, I notice that Khris has 484=22^2. Huh.

Chocolate

"El chocolate calienta el corazón."

(Laura, 16 de febrero, 2011)

Inaction

The inaction caused by computer interaction.

Looks

Girls seem to just lose reason when subjected to choice about their looks.