From this article:
The National Security Agency is launching its largest recruitment drive since the Cold War, with plans to hire 7,500 workers over the next five years as it adapts to a new array of global security threats.
...
"This is clearly significant," said Steven Aftergood, an intelligence analyst with the Federation of American Scientists, a policy group in Washington. "It's part of the continuing reorientation of the intelligence community away from its Cold War roots, to the war on terrorism."
'The war on terrorism' can be seen as 'a war waged by those in power against those who are not.' when the rulers of nations are collaborative (like those of the u.s.a. And saudi arabia) in their efforts to coerce and control the masses, then wars between nation states become somewhat obsolete. In a world under a global network of interconnected hierarchy, the only conceivable avenue of conflict remaining is through 'terrorism' -- individuals rising up and taking increasingly desperate measures to undermine the governments of nations who are trying to screw them over. Increasingly, it's not the israelis, palestinians, americans, saudis or chinese who bulldoze houses, lock each other up or kill each other. It's their leaders. The source of political evil always arises out of hierarchy -- there will always be a few psychopaths with 'type a' personalities who take control of the acquiescent. These are our leaders: people like bush, sharon, hussein and bin laden. The way these complicit leaders and their theft, control and coercion have to be fought is through individual initiatives, one political goal at a time: terrorism. 'the war on terrorism' amounts to the effects of a new paradigm in the power structure of the world: those who have power because they have ripped it away, and those who are left without it.
The 'nation state versus nation state' model is becoming obsolete -- the leaders of the united states are right to be hiring more people to fight the war on terrorism, because terrorism is the way those disaffected by the power-grabs of the ruling elite will increasingly manifest their desperate attempts to reclaim their lives.
International hierarchy has become more global and collective in its power-base. For example, it's common knowledge that the united states, canada, new zealand, united kingdom and australia profusely share intelligence information, thus effectively spying on their own citizens and creating an enormous english-speaking, multi-government power structure, bolstered by corporate technology.
Terrorism is becoming the only option for the non-leader to fight the leaders. Leaders don't fight each other anymore, don't lead their 'countries' into battle against each other, because they don't need to -- it would be like two lords of medieval castles shooting arrows at each other while there are peasants storming the gates of both castles. Clearly, you focus on the peasants, and assist each other in fighting them off. The survival instinct applies to governments as much as it does to individuals, and governments are implicitly justified in their coercive and repressive tactics, simply because of course they want to survive. Of course they want to be around tomorrow. They'll do everything in their power to ensure their survival, as they should. Of course the NSA's budget is expanding -- the elite feel threatened, and rightfully so.
The illusion of competitive nation states, of identifying one's self as 'american,' 'english' or 'chinese' in a surge of jingoist tribalism is the goal of propaganda. If the events of September 11th cause us to direct our anger at the afghani people, then all the better for the global ruling elite -- their battle is already won.
It's all about those in power wanting to stay in power. They (the leaders of various nations) recognize this, and have begun to cooperate in efforts to squelch international unrest. The beginnings of unilateral world government are all around us (the UN, NATO, the IMF, the world bank, etc).
I want to make it clear (partially so no one comes for me in the night, but mainly because I think it's the right thing to do) that I'm not advocating terrorism. I don't support the killing of anyone by anyone else -- there are always other avenues of fighting back against coercive authority. It is only my goal to explain the mechanisms that lead to terrorism, and the 'war on terrorism.'
The war on terrorism amounts to the final battle -- once a confederation of cooperative international leaders working to maintain their hierarchy is established, then the only enemy that remains is the rest of the people, the non-leaders. The terrorists.
Ok, *this* is going to be the last math blog. I swear. James told me about this trick for multiplying two digit numbers.
It relies on memorization of large squares, but it's easy with certain pairs of numbers whose halfway point is something easy, like 50 (50 * 50 = 2500) or 20 (400).
Let's do 22 * 18.
22 * 18 = (20 + 2) (20 - 2) = 20^2 - 2^2 = 396
Now...say...53 * 47.
53 * 47 = 2500 - 9 = 2491
So the basic procedure is to take your two numbers:
46 * 34
Find the halfway point between them:
40
Square this:
1600
And then subtract from it the square of the numeric distance from either number to the halfway point:
1600 - 36 = 1564
This works for any two even or two odd numbers, but it breaks down for me because I don't know offhand, nor can I calculate the squares of numbers that don't have a 0 in the ones column.
If one of the numbers is even and the other odd, then take one away from one of the multiplicands, and add it back on the end:
44 * 37 becomes (43 * 37) + 37
(40 + 3) * (40 - 3) + 37
(40^2 - 3^2) + 37
(1600 - 9) + 37 = 1628
Whew.
But again, if calculating the square hadn't have been that easy, then I'd have been screwed. I think it's just a matter of memorizing squares. Of course, as james points out, memorizing 100 squares is a lot easier than memorizing a 100,000-cell multiplication table.
Today will be the last day of arithmetic blogging. I tried out long division, and discovered that I remembered how to do that as well.
Here is my problem: 'how many times will 23 go into 6,234?':
The first step (putting that 2 up there) is an abstracted version of deciding that 23 goes into 6200 200 times (we put that '2' there to keep our answer in line, place-value-wise, with the dividend):
Then, you multiply 2 (or 200) by the divisor and get an abstracted 46, which represents 4600:
Then you subtract 46 from 62, and get 16 (really 1600). This 1600 is what's left over after you see how many times 23 will go into 6200 (which is actually 269 times with some left over), and just think about the '200' part of this number, because that's the place-value we're dealing with right now:
And then, you 'bring down' some other numbers from the dividend, in this case the 3 (or 30), and tack it on to the 1600. So, '16' becomes '163' (but really, 1600 is becoming 1630). We've already dealt with 6200, so now what's left is the '35' on the end of it:
Then, we wonder how many times 23 goes into 163 (but really we're considering how many times 23 goes into 1630), and get our answer:
And on and on till the end, where we're left with a remainder after 23 is stuffed into 6235 as many times as it can without going over:
I remember now why I stopped liking math.
More tests at HIRRS today. This time, they consisted of writing an autobiography, some incredibly trivial logic problems (three pen pals are from three different states. Iris, oleg and megan are from indiana, ohio and Maryland. No one is from a state that starts with the same letter as their first name. Iris is not from ohio. Map each person to their state), and some elementary school math.
The autobiography was sort of fun, except I worried about conveying my arrest. But then I realized that I have a written piece on my site that's been accessed 149 times since February 13th, so privacy on this issue is a rather moot point. I filled five or so handwritten pages about my life -- I talked about my head injury in canada, my academic and social downfall in 7th grade and subsequent testing and psychiatric coddling, my parents' divorce, my suicide attempt, arrest, most recent head injury, and 10-year college career culminating in an art degree. I forgot about the DWI, and probably some other stuff too. It was hard to get it all into half an hour and five or so pages.
The best was really the math -- it was kind of fun, once I got into the spirit of it. I found that all of these rules I'd learned for doing long multiplication, addition, and subtraction hadn't left me (i should try doing long division...I'm not sure that I could). Except I realized that I didn't know what to do in a subtraction problem if the digit one is attempting to borrow from is a 0.
Here's a problem where we encounter this difficulty -- the '0' in the one's column of the first number that will need to have a '2' subtracted from it:
I immediately remembered how to do the first few steps: 'borrow' '10' (or really .1) from the appropriate column, and make some notations to remind me what's going on. Now, we can take '8' from '11,' and the '2' in the tenths column becomes a '1':
This is where I ran into problems. I'm now stuck with a '1' in the tenths column, and a '7' that needs to be taken from it. Ordinarily, this wouldn't be a problem -- I could simply 'borrow' from the next column over. However, in this next column over (the ones column) was a '0.' problematic. But it occurred to me that one might be able to borrow 10 (actually 10, so no quotes surrounding the number this time) from the tens column and give it to the ones column:
Then, one borrows one from that new 10 (the 10 is crossed out and replaced with 9 -- the ones column is the only place in which representational 'borrowed' numbers match the positional value), using it in my deficient tenths column so that the '1' becomes '11' (really, .1 becomes 1.1):
I'm actually quite proud of myself for figuring this out, because I really didn't remember how to do it at all, or even that one could do it. I feel like I invented the method for visually abstracting arithmetic. Anyway, from there, it's smooth sailing -- just straight column-by-column borrowing:
You can take this idea of borrowing from one column and giving to another as far as you want to. For instance, this problem requires a lot of multi-column borrowing:
Rob 10 from the tens and give to the ones:
Now, hop four columns over and borrow 100,000, then 10,000, then 1,000, then 100 to make that 40 (represented by the '4' hovering in the upper left corner of the '5') into 140, from which 60 can be subtracted (according to our visual abstraction, '6' from '14'). Then, subtract '0' from the rest of the columns (in effect simply bringing down the three '9's and one '1'):
Voila. I swear to you, I've never thought about this before. I just sort of did it by rote in elementary school, and I never had to do calculation for integral and differential calculus in college. I've been missing out. This method for visually abstracting calculations by thinking of 60 or 600 or 6000 as just '6' is really quite brilliant. I wonder who invented it.
I'm told that the babyonians had a place-value system by around 1900 BC, and the indians later developed the base-10 positional system with which we're familiar; the babylonians apparently used base 6. This is interesting because I once woke up after 3 hours of sleep and spent the morning writing down a base-6 number system, including new symbols. I was 21-ish, and weirder even than I am now.
I have completed the peeps. It's funny how this project has dominated my inner landscape for the past few days. I'll have to solicit more commissions so as to keep myself occupied. Here are some digital photos of the completed watercolors. All four watercolors are 15 inches by 11.5 inches. Pencil, watercolor and marker on heavy watercolor-paper.
I'm not displeased, I guess. I'm waiting for ed to set a day to get together. With my peeps money and my cat-care money, I'll be able to visit ana, if her evil mother cooperates. It's hard, in some ways, to date someone so young, just because ana is very much her mother's daughter. When I visited back in November, we were made to sleep in separate rooms. But it's ok -- as ana points out, this kind of family behavior really isn't abnormal considering ana's age (19), school status (freshman/sophmore), and financial status (dependent).
So, it's something ana and I both have to deal with if we want to be together -- just wait out the mother-daughter-college years. I love my little ana, and don't want to give her up.
I'm starting to get a little bit tired of my five staples (pasta, beans, burritos, eggs and potatoes), but if I don't think about it and then just eat when I'm hungry, it's surprising how well it works out. That reminds me -- I should take a vitamin.
I would conservatively estimate that at this point, the peeps are nearing 75% completion. Two (resurrection peeps, space peeps) are finished, and two (field peeps, surrealist peeps) are almost entirely painted, although not inked.
I've been really angry today, for some reason, and have been thinking about how I hate people. I keep imagining scenarios of verbal aggression and becoming furious. I imagine the neighbors, if they were home and heard the screams of 'SHUT UP!' and the murmurs of 'fuck you,' would wonder what was wrong with me. Physical aggression doesn't make me mad. In fact, it almost relaxes me. I find it communicative and expressive when someone punches me, as long as there's no mental ugliness behind it. What I really can't handle is verbal aggression -- that makes me insanely angry, and I think about biting people's faces off.
I'm willing to bet that a huge number of people 'hate people.' in fact, I know I've heard this from many different PEOPLE. People. People. Just the word itself is ugly. People. Yuck.
I'm starting to think aggression is the only motivator. This is why I hate people -- I see everyone as a potential threat. As I said, verbal aggression is the worst. If I'm in the right mood, I can see any kind of communication as verbal aggression. This is why I feel so comfortable around people who aren't speaking english: they aren't pounding me with their asshole assertions about reality. I just can't fucking stand it anymore. Everywhere you go there's some orangutan loudly trumpeting about The Way Things Are.
AND YES YOU UNATTRACTIVE UGLY PIECE OF HUMAN SHIT I REALIZE THAT THIS IS WHAT I'm DOING HERE IN THIS BLOG. See? Inner voices. 1. I dont give a shit -- it's not about ideologies and conforming to behavior codes. It's about me. All about me. Fuck you. 2. No one has to read if they don't want to. I don't answer to humans. They're ugly, pathetic dumb little beasts who need to be exterminated.
But I do like people. I like some of them. Some of the time. I don't know. I'm confused. I have more sociopathic and misanthropic tendencies than most people, but I do think that everyone feels this way to some degree: that if they see one more bipedal roundhead wearing clothes and swinging it's arms, they're going to go ballistic.
I keep thinking of this one thing an old therapist of mine said to me: 'people are *it*.' in other words, relationships with others are the most important thing. I don't believe this. For one thing, to say that our particular species is so important that the only thing worth doing is figuring out how to relate to each other is rubbish. There are trees, for one thing. Relate to them.
I'm confused. This is a confused entry. I think I still don't have quite enough sleep under my belt. Oh, and tomorrow, I have an appointment at HIRRS for more masturbation and testing. Whatever. It's fun, but like anything else related to mental health, the real-world benefits of all of this theory and speculation are questionable.
Why am I so angry? I really do think I might be crazy sometimes, even though that's a terribly undescriptive word. But what most people think when they think 'crazy' -- that's me. Talking to myself, yelling at walls, intrusive thoughts, etc. It doesn't bother me, but it does make it harder to relate and conform. There was a four-part definition to mental illness that I remember from my abnormal psych class: norm-violation, endangerment of self, endangerment of others, and personal discomfort. I think that was it; I threw away my old textbook, even though I did save it for a while (there's only so much shit one can accumulate before it gets out of hand). Norm-violation. That always bothered me.
I find I'm really confused today, and can't write. I find it hard to make coherent statements. I think what bothers me a lot is that I picture everyone reading what I write and saying 'that's not true' or 'i disagree,' and then I become furious and start writing about how I hate people and want to eat their flesh in a blood-orgy. The problem is that people get inside my head -- they won't leave me alone. I maintain cognitive ghosts of interaction that yell at me. I just can't stop thinking about people. Their faces are everywhere. And no, little voice, I'm not hallucinating. These are purely figments. I get worried from time to time that someone is going to find out exactly how 'crazy' I really am, and is going to lock me up. Mental health and hygiene as a tool for social control is a very real phenomenon.
But there's a freedom to madness. If I don't answer to anyone, if I don't or can't relate to any person or set of rules, then isn't that the ultimate creativity? Maybe schizophrenia is what happens when creativity is allowed to completely dominate the mind and crowd out every thing else, including the rules for behavior, thought and language. Like 'crazy,' 'schizophrenia' isn't all that valuable a term. Exactly what schizophrenia 'is' has so far remained a mystery, as it probably will for a long time.
Diagnosis amounts to categorization and naming -- an attempt to exert power by calling into existence things unto themselves. But the result is the same, regardless of contrived categories and names like 'schizophrenia,' 'autism,' 'depression,' etc: lock people in institutions, or give them drugs. Human thought is small. It's pathetic and small, and there's much more out there. The schizophrenic knows this; that's why s/he doesn't make sense. Translating thought into language doesn't work anymore when your thought process is complex enough.
Algorithms versus creativity. They say that there's no such things as an original thought, and this is true. Every creative impulse has a source, or sources. Creativity is thought of as creating something from nothing, of following no plan, whereas algorithmic thinking is following a schematic, or a few schematics. But this is the point where it becomes clear that creativity and algorithms are the same thing. For example, let's say that I draw a cow with three horns, a jet engine and a long braided mane, flying over a cactus. This had sources -- conceiving of it was a matter of putting together a few different algorithms. Every creative work has a source, or several sources, and these amount to algorithms, even if they're not as obvious as a paint-by-number book.
Peeps almost done.
Well, I finally did it: I took a break from blogging. Actually, I'm exhausted, and want to crawl into bed soon so I can guarantee a good night's sleep. I went to a buckethead and particle concert with nick last night, and didn't get to sleep until 4:30am. Of course I was awake at 7, 2.5 hours later. The concert was good -- I especially enjoyed buckethead, not as much for his music as for his unabashed guitar geekery. Guitar is one of those things that readily lends itself to geekdom: a definitive subculture centered around a particular hobby or interest, along with all of the associated obsessive language, dress, and behavioral codes. Buckethead struck me as being refreshingly unconcerned with the trite affectations of youth and music culture, of hippies, emo and punk, of furrowing the brow and believing in causes while maintaining your irony, bumming cigarettes while hating the tobacco industry, yelling 'no blood for oil' out the window of your el camino or 1975 BMW. Buckethead was just a musician, a fucking guitarist, and nothing more. His music wasn't infused with distasteful sociopolitics, reminiscent of humans and their ugly rules of interaction. Fucking cunts. Particle, on the other hand, were affected, annoying hippies. I'm really tired, and I've been irritable all day.
In other news: the peeps I'm painting for ed are well on their way to completion, and are turning out better than I expected. I'll post photos of them here when I'm done.
Seeing buckethead made me want to change the strings on my telecaster, and set the intonation. It's starting to develop some minor problems in that area. But I'm nowhere near as good as buckethead, and I never will be, no matter how much I practice. I guess you could argue that I can do some things that buckethead can't -- that I know some things he doesn't, and that he knows some things that I don't. But this is a slippery slope argument that applies to an orangutan playing the guitar and andreas segovia -- the orangutan will make some unique noise that andreas can't reproduce exactly to the nearest mHz, just as the chimp can't duplicate andreas's rendition of the chaconne. So who is 'better'? How can one sound be characterized as inherently superior to another? Getting back to our discussion, how can one say buckethead is a better guitarist than me? I think everyone would almost universally agree that he is. But how do we know this? Where is this judgment coming from?
I don't know. I'm too tired. But I'll give you a theory anyway: there are certain standards, patterns and algorithms for music that are agreed upon culturally, and buckethead is more closely able to replicate and generate recombinant patterns of those standards than I am. Hey, that was pretty easy. I'm talking on AIM, too, as I write this. I'm not even going to check spelling. Unprecedented.