| 31 mar 2001 I AM THE MAN. my stuff worked in the lab. the first thing i did was storm into the VP of engineering's office and tell him that things were good. the second i did was rush out of building 2 and let out a great big whoop of joy. the third thing i did was come back to my cube and call my mom. IT FUCKING WORKS. of course, there's more stuff to do. and the fact that i can't explain why things are working means that i'm not really the man. i'm just a lucky guy. lucky because an hour ago, it wasn't working. it was just as dead as it has been all week. i came back, changed something that didn't even fundamentally alter the way the code works, and downloaded it into the chip again. and then i read out that both datalinks were in a good state, and i was like "FUCK ME." i didn't believe it. slowly, it sunk in that i wasn't in a dream (because if i am, then it's a really cruel, cruel world) and i just started slowly to smile really big. i still don't believe it. but i'm not going back to the lab again today. i don't want my bubble burst. i am... the man. ----- i think the word "biscuit" is really cute. ----- have you ever wondered about determinism? i mean, suppose you see a feather floating in the air. if you knew everything about the feather, the air currents, etc., then you could conceivably predict exactly where this feather would float, however random its motion seemed. now extend that to the human brain. let's say you were walking down a sidewalk, and suddenly decide to break into a dance. is that really spontaneous? maybe. but if you knew everything single thing about the state of the atoms in your brain, and what you were seeing, and what you were thinking, couldn't you argue that you could have predicted that spontaneous action? i wonder about that a lot. because i notice that when i'm watching tv or something, when i come across a commercial or scene that i've seen before, i often catch myself thinking the exact same thing. example: mtv's awesome series _jackass_. i've seen all the episodes multiple times, and there's one where johnny knoxville is dressed up as santa claus, and he's kneeling down hugging a kid. i always think about his shoes during a particular shot of him. without fail. why is that? does my sensory perception automatically determine my thoughts? or is it simply my memory being triggered that i was thinking of his shoes the first time? on one hand, i don't want to believe that we humans are not capable of spontaneous actions. that means that all art is predetermined. every painting and song is simply the result of the laws of the physical world running amok in a seemingly original pattern, yet a completely predictable one. on the other hand, i find comfort in the fact that everything is deterministic. because that means there really is nothing that can't be explained, given an omniscient perspective. i hate it when i can't explain something. this lab experience has given a great big monster dose of that reality. i want to say that i can tell someone exactly why the chip didn't work. or why people commit horrendous crimes. or anything that seems out of whack with the world. i want explanations! yes, yes, yes, the "omniscient perspective" is just a thought. it's one thing to theorize about it; it's quite another to actually implement or test the theory. it's just an epistemological argument. ok. i'm off. go arizona wildcats! |