Genetic engineering from a programmer’s standpoint (Part 1 of X)

The idea of modifying or completely altering genes in search for cures for diseases and physical/mental improvement is certainly compelling. There’s a whole movement in support of this idea when it comes to humans. Let’s sit back and explore the idea of genetic engineering. I will show why I think genetic engineering is dangerous and virtually impossible to master.

Why do I believe in God? (Part 3 of X)

It is remarkable how much I screwed up my life, missed all trains and was sleeping on the subway bench like a hopeless bum. Well not literally but you get the metaphor, right? And I was still able to stand up and fight my way through memories that dragged me down, lost chances, lack of hope, devastating pessimism and all other lollipops my life stuck in my cheek. Like a bad movie line, darkness hits people once in a while unless one is incredibly lucky. Some are swallowed in, others feel like at home. But me — total hibernation. That went on for years. Actually 4 years… Total de-socialization, life-o-phobia, unrepairable cynicism. Yes, that was part of my recent history. I am now experiencing a major lag which I can probably even blame on celestial misalignment, but it all breaks down to me. “Me” is the fellow I should ask about what happened.

Sunday, a day when even God decided to rest

Do you ever have a Sunday when you want to do so many things you can’t do on other days? Today’s one of my countless Sundays which I look forward to all week and yet when they come I just don’t have energy and will to make anything out of it. I would like to do this and that and hate to see hours going away as Monday comes in. Tomorrow’s going to be the same old beginning of the working week. I frankly hate it. But it becomes sort of a tastless routine that you just have to live.

As weird as it sounds I wanted to spend this day preparing for the next working week. I have quite complex project to work on this week, involving too many pre-reqs which I wanted to cover today. Yet, I felt too down to work on it. It would be great if I could make myself do something more interesting and reenergize. I couldn’t do that either. I pretty much spent the day skyping my cousins. They do seem to have an interesting life. At least that’s what they say, but would they really spend the day skyping if they had?

I will probably end a day watching some Korean movie. I watched so many and all I am left with is mediocrity. It’s a “gimme what you got” situation. I have nothing better to do anyway.

If anybody here uses Skype or anything and have nothing better to do, let me know.

I apologize for this pointless post today but it reflects my boredom and mood anyway. Feel free to leave comments. That is if this post will even provoke any kind of response.

Why do I believe in God? (Part 2 of X)

Having talked in Part 1 about my views on implications of quantity on simplicity and complexity, I will now concentrate on the concept of existence in general. Normally, people can’t imagine God as just another tangible entity. We all do have our own representations of Him based on widely accepted social perceptions, religious interpretations, personal imaginings etc. With doubt in His existence come agnosticism and atheism. But how can one be sure that He exists? Should one base beliefs on sacred texts? Or legends? Science maybe?

Haven’t posted in a while

Even though I’ve got no visits to my blog, I will continue adding my thoughts here. Who knows, someday this blog may be in the news for X reason. The truth is that lately I am so busy with work and everything that I am getting fed up with it. I have virtually no life and all I think about is how to secure my future. So many trains I missed in my life, I stopped for a moment and thought if it really is too late for anything. But the truth is that it is never too late as long as we are alive. Even though I am not a truly religious person (I seldom go to church), God has helped me in every way to fix what I messed up earlier. As I’ll never convert this blog to whining over my personal life, I will stop here with that, for my and everybody’s sake.

Electronic scene sterile in this decade

Who would say that this decade, with all software advances in music creation, an excellent start and the overall adoption of electronic music as a mean of artistic expression, would get into a slump screaming for some fresh air and chocking in convulsion.

I mean, think about it. When is the last time you heard something at least evolutionary be it techno, trance, house or any other sub-genre for that matter? You’ll have trouble remembering, I guess. My most recent memories date back to 2005 and Benassi. But he is currently in sort of hibernation, and frankly with all respect to his work, the whole feel was overdone simply by the number of tracks that sounded almost the same. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing but it did spread out artistic value of few core tracks to many soul-less spin-offs. And there’s this audience-factor where an artist tries to mingle with all age groups and can’t get away from cheesy tracks that just ruin their reputation. And it’s not just Benassi. It’s the whole scene I am talking about. Nobody got away from being labeled only because they try so hard to please the infantile club scene. And frankly I don’t blame them. Bread is becoming a commodity lately.

A new Desktop era with KDE 4.1

While the release of KDE 4.0 earlier this year is still kind of a Technology Preview rather than a full-blown release (considering lack of native applications, bugs, glitches and performance issues), it seems that KDE 4.1 will finally be not only a Desktop but an exciting all-in-one platform. A full-scale development environment will mean more than just the API. It will ensure consistency and stability of the system. What more, KDE expansion plans which include Windows may once for all sync the two worlds. Gnome had a similar attempt with GTK but it never went beyond porting GIMP and X-Chat to Windows.

Why do I believe in God? (Part 1 of X)

Frankly, this question is what made me to start this blog up in the first place. A simple question like this is doomed to no simple answer. On the other hand, it really depends on your understanding of the difference between simplicity and complexity you probably carry from your kindergarten days. I won’t try to shake your world on that one. But, in my humble(st) opinion, simplicity is a main building block of what this world is all about. What more, complexity is but a superset of simplicity and subject to interactions as such. To make it more clear, we constitute nuclei of what we know as a “society”. Therefore we are simple, but the system we form with other humans and interactions we make is what makes it complex. If we apply the same scale to ourselves we open up another level of both physical and mental complexity. Ultimately, we can break it down to protons, electrons and neutrons – the indivisible unique entities we are made of. It is safe to assume that quantity is, in part, responsible for the existence of complexity as a concept. But, isn’t this derivation just another interaction, now at the conceptual level, employing a concept on concepts? How is this even possible? An equivalent in engineering would be using a tool as a building block of a machine rather than using a tool to build a building block of a machine.

I’ll end this post here. It will all fit nicely when I get to Part X.

Stay tuned!

Hello world!

Hello everybody.

As just another human but with mild ADD, I have all the thoughts of this world wander in my head and waiting to be stored somewhere. Instead of hoping to enlighten a wider audience with my mental ramblings, I merely want to get rid of them as they are now using too much space in a functional portion of my brain (~5%).  I promise I will stay away from writing about soap operas, politics and show business. My interests are rather philosophical, and by philosophy I mean all other things but those I named previously.

And as a final act of false modesty, I am more than sure you will like what you read. Feel free to post comments even if you can’t stand me.

I think I exist!