Random Thought of the Day

We all laugh at ourselves at all ages, but past 60 there no longer is any doubt that the number of times you say "what an idiot I am!" increases exponentially.



Wow, a really dumb one today, dropped off a vehicle to the mechanic and woke up this morning realizing I need it today. Yep, wide awake at 4:00 AM again.

The Packers retired Favre's number, "4," yesterday.

Question: Will Favre's number play for the jets this year and the Vikings next year?

Quote: odiousgambit

Wow, a really dumb one today, dropped off a vehicle to the mechanic and woke up this morning realizing I need it today. Yep, wide awake at 4:00 AM again.

You are lucky, I have a mechanic who keeps the car three days even if its for an instant oil change.

Is it wrong to label the folder where I file all communiques from Corporate and HR "Minitrue"?

Questions that come up in the course of my writing:

Why would a high-order, advanced civilization create a very sophisticated AI but make it incapable of communicating with living beings?

Should it be considered murder if the person killed was already dying? Does it matter whether they had minutes or months to live?

Do I want to kick this character in the teeth or just despise him?

Is this soccer-bad or just terrible?

How do I explain that modern centuries are longer than ancient centuries?

Is 1,000 years a long time or a short time when dealing with this idea?

How long does it take for customs to become so entrenched they seem like natural law?

Will this exist ten years from now?

Quote: Nareed

Do I want to kick this character in the teeth or just despise him?

I've heard authors talk of characters taking on a life of their own. If you create a character with unlikeable traits it will logically disappoint or make you upset I guess, else it would go against character to do otherwise.

Quote: rxwine

I've heard authors talk of characters taking on a life of their own.

This does happen, but it doesn't always happen.

I should add unlikeable characters are an old propaganda trick. You give a trait you want to fight against to such characters. At one time this was crudely done. Today's audiences tend to be more sophisticated. In fiction you don't usually want to resort to propaganda methods. So your bad guy can be unpleasant, but not provoke your readers to be so mad at him they'll want to see him dead, dead, dead.

One trick to temper this is to make the bad guy normal, but then surround them with ugly descriptions of their office, home, car, etc. This is hard to do well, and more so when your descriptive style, like mine, tends to be minimally minimalist. Thus far my sole description of the heroine in "Ours" is "Her lively green eyes peeking from under auburn-red bangs cut a touch too long." To me this translates into "drop-dead gorgeous red-head." But maybe not to my readers.

I wonder if I should put this out as a Facebook meme:

War is peace
Ignorance is strength
Freedom is slavery
Jesus loves you.

Any good meme-making utilities or websites out there? I've others to try.

The BIG problem with western religion is that the actions undertaken by Jehovah are assumed to be good and/or moral because Jehovah made them.

If we were to judge the actions of the god by modern standards, that is to say if we quit giving them an a-priori value of "moral" arbitrarily, we'd conclude at best the Bible god is as mixed up and messed up as any human leader. At worst, we'd conclude Jehovah is an evil deity (Job, the plagues in Egypt, the favoring of one tiny subset of humanity over others, the flood, the tower of Babble, the slaughter at Mt. Sinai, the tacit approval of slavery and rules for it, among others).

I think Socrates first stated the problem: are the gods' actions good because the gods make them, or do the gods choose good actions? In other words, do deities define what is good, or is there a standard of goodness above even the gods?

I'm not sure if the problem is exceedingly simple, the answer being the latter alternative, or whether it's misstated.

The Conservative argument: If you change even one tiny, little thing, civilization will collapse! I know this hasn't happened the previous one trillion, six hundred and ninety seven billion four hundred and ninety nine million nine hundred and forty two thousand seven hundred and seventy six times when we said it would, but this time it's different!

The Liberal argument: If we don't let the government control everything, the 1% will be eating your babies for breakfast! I know this hasn't happened the previous one trillion, six hundred and ninety seven billion four hundred and ninety nine million nine hundred and forty two thousand seven hundred and seventy six times when we said it would, but this time it's different!