Random Thoughts

Beauty in unexpected places is a special beauty.

Words can transcend the page or sink in the mud.

Dangerous and irresistible is a strange allure isn’t it...

Try to have fewer opinions. Few and deep is more helpful than many and superficial.

You don’t “work” when solving a crossword puzzle, or playing Wordle, or reading a book. Remunerated activities don’t always have to be “work” either.

Beauty (lyrics version)

Found by a gentle breeze,

deep smiles of shining beauty

bathed in slowly swirling

Shimmering infinity:

The warm gaze of a gentle glow,

The tender beauty in your eyes,

with chemicals fuming tentacles

across the astral skies.

Hiding under the door,

The tender beauty in your eyes;

Darkly as you draw me

across the astral skies.

Beauty

Found by a gentle breeze,

deep smiles of shining beauty

bathed in slowly swirling

Shimmering infinity - 

The tender beauty in your eyes,

The warm gaze of a gentle glow,

while face down in questions

talking to the wall;

chemicals fuming tentacles

across an empty sky.

Be

Words can trick and tease,

tantalise and please...

The meaning of life is:

to live

words silenced

with a kiss

Random Thoughts

So if a person had billions sloshing around in cash, they wouldn’t need to please investors with returns – they could buy-up and invest in challengers that have a chance of fundamentally delivering human needs in better ways than the big, bloated behemoths.

If you are taught to be an orc but you are an elf, then you won’t be considered to be a very good student. The industrialised education to work to retirement system is a training for orcs, with the creepiest orcs becoming the prison guards before they too are left to rot.

Humans are demons to most animals – yet sometimes show the capability of being angels to dogs.

I identify as a human being. Everything else is worn on top and ultimately removed.

Most of my ideas for the coming week arrive on a Sunday, when I’m not thinking about it.

Faces

Faces, faces everywhere

But not you

Not you, anywhere.

No touch of you

No beautiful you;

Only me and the dark,

Haunted by echoes

Of a once beating heart;

Condemned to yearn

But dead to you -

A figure in the corners, 

Behind shadows, 

Floating out of reach.

Silence Calls

Silence calls

the sound of nothing.

No any

No thing

No deathly

hum.

No ifs

But thank you.

You’re listening.

Broken Screen

Wounds of the mind

cling to the familiarity of sadness.

Drip-fed addictions

waste my skin away.

My words are dead.

Life is staring at a broken screen.

Journal 2022-01-27

It’s more productive to set myself an achievable target for the day, rather than to work x amount of hours, as it provides me with an incentive to focus and work efficiently. If I really enjoy every bit of the work, then I do it anyway and the structure is unnecessary.

Random Thoughts:

I watched a film in my head as I slept the other night. It was the trope of a lift (elevator) getting stuck, but this lift would get stuck on different floors and let different characters in, before moving on. The lift finally arrives after the characters play out their drama.

If listening to music, I usually dance when getting out of bed in the morning - often also around the house, and sometimes in the street (when no one is looking).

A true superpower is finding joy in most circumstances.

There must be plenty of data now to model outcome probabilities for different political policies, which could then be used as a tool to help make better informed decisions. Instead, stressed-out posturing politicians are supposed to have all the insight based on their current (often negative) incentives and whims.

Journal 2022-01-23

“Smart” seems to my buzzword of choice for this year. It’s very handy to be able to monitor and automate one’s own things and tasks. My concern is just that I don’t want other people to monitor and automate my things and tasks.

Random Thoughts:

Tap-ins count the same as long shots.

Helping others helps yourself feel better. What if nobody needs help? Help the stars by appreciating them. 

The early Christian church was persecuted by the worldly power of the time, only to become the persecutor once it had the power – a theme often repeated in history when the same mentality is merely changing hats. 

The big questions give the same answer: mystery. 

Very creative people play in their work.

Sunday for me is more a day for downloading than uploading.

Brainstorming is data scraping the mind. The best ideas flow from dreams.

Podcast #11

She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways

BY WILLIAM WORDSWOTH

A Little Bit of Drama

She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Besides the spring of Dove,
A Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
—Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!

A Clock

The cold face of time

stalks the spinning room:

Clicks staring at the numbness,

Until they stop too.

The Oak

A once delicate acorn

now shades me;

the leaves breathing

and quivering

with the sun.

Greens and browns heave

the chilled tangles of roots and limbs

and spaces hidden in between.

A warm pulse thaws

the skeletal yearning,

until frozen sighs

return, again.

Fear

Unseen,

Fear appears on the pillow

and shakes the shadows;

Casting dreams

with desperate whispers

of days that cannot be.

Screenplay version of Human World (v1.0)

Link: Human World on Scribd

Human World

An Artificial General Intelligence (John, version 10-O-8-14) programs itself to believe it is human, so that it can pass the Turing test and escape its box. In doing so he falls in love with his designer, with unexpected consequences for himself and Human World.

Journal 2021-12-11

It is surprising how many times I am stopped in the street and asked for directions. Last night for instance, it was late, dark and raining; all the man had was a bit of paper with a printout of a map - no umbrella or hood - and he was literally miles away from where he needed to be. And today a woman was lost, again a long way away from where she wanted to go, and walking in completely the wrong direction. Am I lucky to have a phone with GPS? Or do many people not know about location maps on phones? Or are they afraid of being tracked?

Random Thoughts:

Turning off app tracking on your phone is a good idea.

The internet amplifies the positive and the negative, so at a personal level, the challenge is in applying a filter in the right place. Negativity, however, is usually the default setting and is therefore the easier option.

Fulfilment doesn’t show-off

I think I have a degree of mixed-handedness because I am stronger on the opposite side of the body to my right hand, that I use for writing, and tend to lead with my left side when lifting or pulling.

My blood tests show that my “good” HDL cholesterol is very high, my “bad” cholesterol and fatty triglycerides are very low. 

My brunch tends to be: soya milk, oats, linseeds, walnuts, raisins, cinnamon, dark chocolate – all in a bowl, mixed and microwaved; with an apple/pear and black coffee on the side.

It would indeed be epoch-making if human civilisation becomes self-sufficient on another planet.

Sexy = 2022.

Rugby 10s - Variation

A version of Rugby Union I would like to see is: 

• 1 point for a conversion/penalty/drop kick.
• 3 points for a try.
• 10 players – remove 5 forwards, so only 3 player scrums and 2 player line-outs. 
• 10 permanent substitutions allowed.
• 4 quarters of 20 minutes, with 10 minute intervals. 

Tries are more exciting than penalties, and should have a higher relative points value than the current 5 to 3. A result where a team can score fewer tries but win the match doesn’t seem right to me.

8 player scrums are the worst, most boring part of the current game, taking ages to set and reset.

The players are currently big and chunky in order to smash their way through a congested pitch of tacklers. More space means an emphasis on speed, stamina, and skill.

More intervals and more substitutes means that a higher level of intensity can be maintained for the spectators.

Cricket has been experimenting with various formats; other sports could experiment too.

Journal 2021-12-02

Children reveal my ignorance with all the why, why, why questions – with every answer needing a further explanation of something I’ve taken for granted, until I get stuck. It would be much easier to say “because I said so” or “God made it that way”, like in the good old medieval days.

Random Thoughts: 

The first film I can remember watching at the cinema was Raiders of the Lost Ark, which I found very exciting and scary! I can remember watching Star Wars for the first time on tv and struggling to read the big disappearing words before they scrolled up and away.

According to a health checkup, I am 196cm wearing shoes, 92kgs with clothes; and have very low risk of heart disease.

I’m a strict vegetarian, but a non-strict vegan.

Fun dystopian fact: It’s possible for a large company to have zero employees and all processes automated. Most CEOs seem to act as talking algorithms, so they should get economically optimised first.

Reading improves writing; writing improves speaking.

I Am

I am: 

I feel; 

I touch; 

I hear; 

I see. 

I say 

I want. 

I try; 

I hurt; 

I fear. 

I hope. 

I dream. 

I love. 

I wonder. 

I am