Sunday, January 2, 2011

I'm a ninja even when I don't plan to be

So I had this dream that I was infiltrating/visiting (more likely) some place...don't remember what for...but I was definitely a civilian with civilian intentions. When I was inside, I see a gangster looking guy in the kitchen who doesn't notice me. I pass by the kitchen and make eye contact with a maid and I get a bad intuitive feeling that I should not be there.

I run into the closest room and lock the door. Whatever purpose I had for visiting that "some place" is now gone and is replaced with the purpose of staying alive and getting out of that place. First thing I do is look around the room and assess the situation. It appears that the room I am in belongs to some kid...possibly the kid of the gangsters whose place it is. There are various toys laying around the room. I look for something to fight with...a stick or weapon of some sort. I do not find out immediately...so I move planning an escape route. There is a huge sliding window in this room, which I open wide in case I need to make a break for it. At this point, I am still hopeful that this is not necessarily a gangsters house and that I'm just being paranoid and letting my imagination go wild.

With the window now open and the escape route planned, I continue looking around the room for a weapon. This time I look a lot more carefully, and find two guns taken apart...I'm unsure whether they are toy guns or real guns. Then immediately afterwards, I find a revolver with 5 bullets (Hindsight 1: do not take a revolver with missing bullets without gloves). I took the revolver as I was now sure that this was a gangster establishment and I was an unwelcome guest. All of this happens in less than 20 seconds.

About that moment, I heard voice pounding on the locked door. I jump out the window with the revolver, run 10-20 meters and begin to act casual with the revolver under my shirt and me trying to wipe down my finger prints with the shirt. I look back at the window and see some guy closing it...we don't even make eye contact.

Next step for me is to get back to my car...so I proceed in the right direction. My car is only parked at the end of the block on the cross street and I head a towards it with the gangsters place behind and to the left of me. To the right is a street with cars and to the left, after a river/ditch in front of the gangsters place, is a row of residential houses along the street.

I feel like I've made a clean getaway, since nobody really saw me and I didn't even do anything. However, as I'm walking up to the first house, some asian lady comes up to me with a big present. I hesitate taking it for a while and say "no thanks". Then I think about it for a moment and decide that if it is a bribe from the gangster to keep quiet, that it could be a lot of money or some other pay off. I decide to take it.

I'm no longer carrying a big present, but instead it is a thick red envelope. I don't look inside as my goal is to get rid of the gun. I now decide to turn away from going directly to my car as I've clearly been made. Although, I'm sure that they don't know which car is mine. I would need a disguise as well before I could get back to my car. So I turn away and walk across the street. I still need to dispose of the gun. Once I cross the street, someone comes up to me with a second envelope and says something to me along the lines of, "take is a get out of here, unless you want the biggest gangster to deal with you personally." I take the envelope and decide that I was right about the present being a payoff.

Now even more urgently, I searched for a place to dispose of the revolver, and I find a dumpster to dump it in. Now the goal is to find a hiding for the bribes. The dumpsters are across the street from the gangsters establishment, inside a little apartment complex. So I walk in the direction of heading away from my car, parallel to the street on which the gangsters live, and in the next block, after crossing the intersecting street I come to a college campus. Right after leaving the dumpsters, I decide to check the envelopes. In one I find a print out of my car history for my corolla. I specifically check if there is an address for me on there and I relax. Basically it's just a one page printout of info about the car. I don't check the second envelope (the original bug present), but I can tell that it is a fat stack of money. I'm somewhat excited for getting the payoff, but I know the getaway is not complete yet.

Inside of the campus, I find a bush and drop the bribes in there. I feel like I am almost in the clear. I start heading out of the campus, and I hear a police sounding guy talking through what seems is an ear piece and I even see him out of the corner of my eye. So I turn the corner of the closest building and stop to listen. I can barely make out what he is saying, but it sounded something along the lines of him tailing me. I go back around the corner to hear better, and immediately run into this undercover cop. We look at each other and he says "you're under arrest for accepting a bribe from a gangster" (the wording of that was way more elegant in the dream). Anyway, I know I'm screwed. I was so close...just needed to change my clothing and I would have been in the clear. I figure that it's a good a time as any to end the dream. For a moment there, I felt like my dream was real though...and getting arrested was completely horrifying. However, I felt like deserved for not being smart enough to not get caught.

Questions and Lessons:
1) Would I take a bribe like that in real life?
2) I would make a pretty good spy, considering what I did in my dream and how well I handled the situation without any training.
3) I really really really do not want to go to jail.
4) My subconscious clearly thinks that our police system is fucked. They were wasting time sending cops to follow me, rather than creating a legit operation to catch the gangsters.
5) I really like a challenge. As I was starting to see a successful escape, my dream kept throwing more obstacles in my way and making it harder for me to win. In the end, I made it impossible to win, by throwing a tailing cop into the mix. The cop was out of no where and had no logical explanation for tailing me.
6) Why in my dream did the asian gangsters have such a tight an effective network within that one city block? Clearly, the maid explained to the underling gangster what I looked like. And within 30 seconds he had the word out to the people on the block. And within 30 seconds there was a "big present" wrapped and waiting for me. And within a minute...there was a printout of my car history.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Dreams of you and me. It seems, It seems. That I can't shake those memories

I firmly believe that the only Truth, Fact, Justified Belief, Knowledge that I have is that "I" exist.

We've all had dreams that were indistinguishable in all of their characteristics from our waking reality. How do we know that we are not just dreaming at any given moment? The human batteries in the Matrix didn't not know that they were living in simulated reality. How do we know that at any given moments are brains are not being stimulated by robots or aliens or mad scientists to give us all of our waking experiences?

All of this is very simple...the simplicity of it is that we don't know shit and cannot be justified in believing anything. Leave it at that...live your life to maximize your happiness level...that's all you can do. EVERYTHING else is just made up bullshit. Solipsism.

Anyway, I woke up today from a strange dream that centered around me peeing a lot (yeah, weird I know). The way I see it...the experience of needing to pee in my physical body, located in the waking reality, had an influence on the content of my dream. This could mean three things:

1) My waking reality is the one True reality, and the dreaming realities can be affected by the one True reality
2) The robots, aliens, mad scientists are actually giving me the experience that my dreams within the waking reality (actually a fake simulated experience) are being affected by my waking reality.
3) The waking reality is as real and significant as the dreams we have. Our waking realities are constantly and simultaneously being affected by the other equally significant dream states. Needing to pee effects the content of my dreams. The content of my dreams affect my waking reality (ex: while being awake, the very real life i'm living in one of my dream realities causes me to be hungry or want to hang out with a certain person, or anything else).

I'm curious to know what experiences in my dream realities are affecting the content of the world I create around myself at this given moment.

Friday, December 3, 2010

Ninja Missions: Door Acquisition

I like throwing knives/bo shurikens...a lot. One day I will be able to throw a knife exactly where I aim. Be careful antagonists.

I figured since I'm living in an apartment that I'm paying a ton of money for that I should be able to do whatever I want as long as I leave it the way it was given to me. That is why I decided to throw my knives at a target on my bedroom door. It feels much better to be able to just go into my room any time and throw some knives, rather than having to go outside and figuring out a place to put the target. In the beginning, I was not very accurate with my throwing. Just see the picture below to see my ninja skillz.



I'm planning on going to England for 6 months, and hopefully my friend B will take over my lease. As a result, I have to take care of this door problem a bit earlier than I was planning to otherwise. My original plan when fixing the door was to buy a new door. It seemed like the door was made of cheap materials, so I assumed a new door wouldn't cost too much.

My friend B had also broken his door, so we had the same issue. One day he suggested that we go into the apartment building that had burned down, and take a door from there. The building was being rebuilt and we assumed that they'd have doors for us. A few nights later, I decided to go on my first ninja mission.

I dressed up in my ninja outfit:



I decided to go on the mission alone because ninjas do not work as teams. I run across my neighborhood with a hammer and door bolt. I feel really goofy running around my lit up neighborhood in a ninja outfit, but it was amusing. I get to the fence surrounding the building and realize that it is just a temporary fence and is not sturdy enough climb, so I have think of a way to get in. Of course I'm a ninja and have to resourceful. I figure out a way to detach the fence from the posts and I bend it over and walk over it. Inside the fence is another fence, but this one is sturdy. I climb it easily. This is where I realize why ninjas have their big toes separated from the rest of their toes. It makes it a lot easier to climb things when you can hook your big toe on ledges.

I get inside, but all there is the frame for the building; no walls, pipes, windows, and especially no doors. So I think the mission has been a failure. Although, it was pretty cool being inside an unfinished building. Upset, I climb back over the fence and run home. When I get home, I figure that I have to get a door and decide that the apartment downstairs from mine has to be where I get the door from.

Obviously, I can't just stroll in a grab a door from downstairs. My next step was to figure out whether I could go in the front door or the back door (on the deck). Going in the front door was the worse idea because someone might see me, so I decided to climb down the deck and go through the back door. I live on the 3rd floor and the apartment was on the second floor.

Climbing down would be easy. Getting into the apartment and getting the door to the third floor is another story. I needed to learn how to pick a lock. Went on youtube...learned how to use a uniball pen and a hairpin to pick a lock. Luckily I had a uniball pen and a hairpin laying on my floor...for whatever reason. I practiced on my door for around 10 minutes, couldn't get it, and decided to proceed with the mission anyway. Packed my camelpack with the tools I need and climbed down. I managed to pick the lock in less than one minute. Got in, got the door, dragged it up to the third floor using a martial arts belt. Came back the next day, got another door for my friend B.

All in all, it was a great mission. I learned how to pick a lock and got replacement doors for myself and a friend.

Oh, and writing is really hard for me. It took me way to long to write this post and it's not even eloquent or fun to read. I hope I improve over time.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Battlestar Galactic, Caprica, and the future of robots

Today I've finished watching the Caprica series, and I must say that the Apotheosis episode was completely amazing. I felt as good watching as I did the series finale for Battlestar Galactica.

http://en.battlestarwiki.org

Anyway, the point of the post is for me to help myself keep track of what the frak the battlestar universe was about. Here is the timeline: http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Timeline_(RDM)

The story goes like this...

1) humans invent robots
2) robots become increasingly more complex
3) robots become self-aware and rebel against humans
4) robots leave human planet, settle on a different planet, and develop technology that gives them human bodies
5) humanoid robots evolve and begin to be able to reproduce through intercourse, rather than by building new humanoid robots
6) eventually, these new humanoid robots (indistinguishable from original humans) forget that their ancestors were robots
7) these humanoid robots begin developing robots of their own
8) once again these robots rebel against their humanoid robot masters
9) however, by some divine intervention, 5 of the humanoid robots get visions of the impending rebellion by their slave robots
10) the 5 humanoid robots manage to escape the total destruction of their planet, which kills everyone, including all the humanoid robots and their own robots
11) the 5 humanoid robots go to the original human planet where their ancestors first rebelled in order to warn the humans of the never-ending cycle
12) however, because of slower than light travel the 5 humanoid robots get to the planet to late, finding that the humans have long left and separated into 12 colony planets
13) these 12 colony planets had already begun developing robots again and the robots have rebelled
14) after lots and lots of drama, humans and humanoid robots eventually travel to a planet where they leave all technology behind and live simple lives with the primitive humans of this planet
15) there are visions of the evolution of primitive humans of this planet and once again the creation of robots...we are back to step 1 (if this is one endless cycle...then the humans in step 1 might have already been a mix of humanoid robot and human, on and on until the very first humans developed the very first robots)

More simply...
1) human make robots
2) robots rebel
3) humans and robots become indistinguishable
4) peace is found by abandoning technology
5) human/robots evolve over time and once again make robots
6) repeat on and on until the end of time...or until humans become smarter


My thoughts on all of this...all self-aware life forms need to be treated with respect...so when we create robots and they become self-aware, we better treat them like another equal race (or maybe even superior to us). In the end, every species has the ultimate goal of reproducing and growing...self-aware robots are no different, expect they are stronger and smarter than humans.

Friday, January 9, 2009

Quantum Physics & Other Coolies

Here are some of my favorite quantum physics experiments/theories

What if we were to experience another dimension? This is what it would kind of be like. I feel like I get a taste of it every time I take some "candy"



The double-slit experiment. It amazing to think that observing something changes the way it behaves. Imagine everything that you do not see in front of you right now behaving in a completely unpredictable way. 



Quantum Entanglement:



Qigong Master:


"What the bleep do we know - quantum edition" <-- check out the full movie



Einstein's Theory of Relativity Explained:

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

The Animatrix

One of my favorite sword fighting scenes