Kaboom!

I was downtown early this morning, but unfortunately I was too busy with my new job and I could not see this personally. I was so deep in the Hilton's corridors at the time, I didn't even hear the implosion. I'm sure I could have heard the building implode had I been standing out on the Hilton's balcony. So I'll just have to make due with the News 8 Austin footage.

Congratulations! Your life has shipped. You should recieve it in 35-37 weeks.

 So I was going to make a post to respond to this post on Kris' blog. Sort of a list of advice for thier little baby as it grows up. But it turned out it was sort of generic. It was a pretty good list of advice. But, you can learn stuff like 'eat your vegetables, know how to do math in your head, excercise' from anyone. But during the list, I came upon a realization. Now it's no secret that kids growing up now are going to have a completely different existence than the generation before them. But the next generation is going to have it very different, about as different as my working on the internet is from my great grandfather working on the railroads.

 What I'm trying to say is that if you're being born now, any discussion about your future life is going to be tinted by the way life is going to change for everyone in the 21st century. The technological singularity is on it's way! And this is the way I understand it: bascially because of our advanced technology, the progress of technology is increasing at an ever-increasing rate. No one is sure whether this will be a good thing or a bad thing. Doomsayers believe that right after scientists invent a viable artificial intelligence, it will be able to invent new ways to make itself smarter almost immediately. They think that this effect may spiral out of control and cause the A.I. to turn on it's creators and exterminate the lot of us. I'm a little more pragmatic, I think even a superintelligent A.I. should be able to reason that it doesn't have the right to deprive anyone of thier existance, no matter how much they fuck up the planet or disrespect each other's existance. But that doesn't make for particularly compelling doom-saying or science fiction movies. Regardless, little Maxwell child, your value in the future will be primarily be determined by how smart you are, so know how to do math in your head. Some think that the singularity means that we're all going to merge with our machines or upload our brains into computers or get matrixed. However I think those predictions are a little out there, and all rely on the assumption that advanced technology will continue to get cheaper and propigate itself around the world in an egalitarian fashion. Which we know is simply against human nature. If major corporations invent a cure for cancer or self-replicating nanomachines or an advanced artificial intelligence, they are going to make us pay to use them. That sucks for people who are going to get cancer, but it might reduce the risk of the solar system being consumed by grey goo. Regardless, the next century will probably mean the start of some kind of new existance using computers or biotechnology or somesuch. Possibly the beginning of some kind of technological immortality. Lucky for you, little Maxwell child! When it arrives, you will be in your mid-thirties, the perfect age to be stopped at for all eternity. So make sure you eat your vegetables and excercise. Also, you need to be rich enough to afford this fabulous made-up technology I am imagining. So be rich. That's the first and most important piece of advice I can give.

 Next time: Less doomsaying and more pithy observations about Star Wars.

First Post

Let me preface this by saying I don't think this first post is going to be any good.

I say that for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, I don't think anyone should consider the first version of anything to be any good. Whether it's a movie or a book or a play or whatever. First cuts, first drafts, first prints all by an large suck. It's no one in particular's fault. It just that making genius moves on the first try is by it's very nature is nearly impossible, it would only happen purely by chance. However, because it happens on extremely rare occasions makes one think that it may happen to them and people who expect to strike gold on a first try set themselves up for failure every time.

The second reason I think this first post is going to suck is that I am up late at night once again. I've given myself insomnia worring about my future and what fate has in store for me. Even though I have a job that will provide me with some much needed audio/visual skills and a modest amount of money, I don't see any significant future in it beyond a few years of steady employment. This means in order to make a better future for myself I am going to have to pursue other opportunities. This means producing short films, helping other people work on thier projects, entering contests, and most importantly: writing.

That brings me to why I'm doing this blog. I not blogging for people to read, or to foist my opinions on others, although I do enjoy the latter. I'm doing it for the practice. I didn't major in English in college, I should have taken more writing courses. So unless I go back to school, the only way I have of improving my craft is writing in, on or around anything I can. Practice is the only sure fire way to get good at anything. It's like the old joke: "How do you get to Carnagie Hall? -- Practice." Not quite as old as "What's the difference between a rowing boat and Joan of Arc? -- One is made of wood and the other is Maid of Orleans." but the first is more apropos to my situation, the latter is not.

So what I plan to do is try and do at least two blog entries a week. Yeah, it was hard to type that with a straight face. But I need to do it. It's just like any other skill that's remotely worthwhile, whether it's excercise or drawing or math. It's either use it or loose it. I've already lost math a long time ago, I'm not going to give up on this damnit!