07.30.06
Posted in Deep Thoughts at 6:06 am by Nick
This weeks question: Can money buy happiness?
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I’ve heard this one debated quite a bit. I personally believe money cannot buy happiness, but it does have its place.
Lets examine the role money plays in peoples lives. Money allows people to move around, eat, communicate over long distances, provide a place to live (and supply it with heat and water). Money is essential for life.
However, there are many ways in which money can take away from life. First, obviously, not having enough of it. Those who are truly poor are probably not happy about it. Can anyone be happy without food, clothes, or shelter? Second, having too much of it. You wouldn’t think thats a problem, but life changes a lot if you have a lot of money. Material possessions either dominate your life or mean nothing to you (and, thus, lose any emotional connection they may have had). People would also treat your differently (just look at all of the famous people in Hollywood).
Money adds stress to life. Money also means time. You must spend time at a job or other endeavour to gain money. Most people hate their jobs, and chances are they don’t want to be where they are making that money. The pressure to make more to get that new TV, car, or even just to make payments on time adds more stress and commitment. If you have a family then you are sacrificing time away from them to make money (even if it is needed).
Now, what is happiness? This varies from person to person. A few people in this world would be satisfied with a life of money and material possessions. The vast majority want more out of life. We want experiences, people, friends, family, moments, thoughts, feelings. Money cannot in itself provide these things. It can, however, set up the right situations for them.
Happiness is far more than being satisfied physically, and money can only provide you with physical stimulation. You could potentially (perhaps illegally even) use that money to gain you something metaphysical in nature, but it would be a false happiness. There is a difference between paying someone to be you friend and actually having a friend.
Money has its place in this world. However, having endless amounts of it doesnt mean you will be happy. Sure buying a new car might make you happy in a sense, but could you trade that kind of happiness for the kind you get after having an amazing time with your friends and/or family?
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07.28.06
Posted in General at 3:06 pm by Nick
I don’t really have much to post about (I did beat Half-Life finally, btw), so I figured I post this (thanks Chris). If you don’t get it, go look up the Beatles on google and smash your face on your keyboard.
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* Yesterday for IT People *
Yesterday,
All those backups seemed a waste of pay.
Now my database has gone away.
Oh I believe in yesterday.
Suddenly,
There’s not half the files there used to be,
And there’s a milestone hanging over me
The system crashed so suddenly.
I pushed something wrong
What it was I could not say.
Now all my data’s gone
and I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay.
Yesterday,
The need for back-ups seemed so far away.
I knew my data was all here to stay,
Now I believe in yesterday.
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07.23.06
Posted in Deep Thoughts at 11:40 pm by Nick
A few weeks ago I posted something someone told me was “deep” and “thought provoking”. I’m not sure which post that Xanga user was referring to, but I figured if something I wrote meant something to someone then that was plenty good.
A while later I decided to write something I found interesting or thought provoking every week. These are now being categorized into Deep Thoughts, the newest category on this blog. Anyone can propose a question for the week and I will post my thoughts, and commenting on such posting is highly encouraged. All of this is probably going to be cross posted to my Xanga for maximum exposure.
Keep in mind these deep thoughts are just normal questions, and my conjectures are just my thoughts and opinions on such a matter. You’ll probably find I ask a lot of questions myself, as I try to get people to comment.
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Posted in Deep Thoughts at 11:36 pm by Nick
I found this on the web and decided to use it as this weeks question (question by Steven Gillman):
Since a moral rule like, “don’t steal,” can lead to immorality, as in not stealing to feed your child when that’s the only option, is it possible we need a new way to define morality? Can morality be permanently codified in words, or should we use words only to point at what is beyond the definitions, and alter the definitions as often as we come to understand new things about the world and our role in it?
First, lets see how dictionary.com defines morality:
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mo·ral·i·ty
n. pl. mo·ral·i·ties
- The quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct.
- A system of ideas of right and wrong conduct: religious morality; Christian morality.
- Virtuous conduct.
- A rule or lesson in moral conduct.
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Seems simple enough. However, as the question states, we may need to redefine it. The definition could vary depending on circumstance. Is stealing to -live- “wrong”? As human beings we are driven for self-preservation, and often times humans must resort to desperate measures.
There are many things at work here. For instance, I believe everyone has the opportunity to succeed in life. However, that is largely circumstantial as well. People in the United States obviously have a better chance to make an “honest” living than many of the poor people in Africa. So what about the people who can’t make an “honest” living. Does their begging, stealing, and starving not pass the lines of the defined morality?
I think it is actually broken in two ways. Conventionally, stealing is morally wrong. This is obvious. Stealing to feed yourself and your family is still stealing. However, allowing someone to starve is also morally wrong. You can keep the definition alive if they don’t need to steal to eat, and you help them by providing for them. There can be side effects of such things (first and foremost would be their dependency on you providing for them), but such obstacles could be overcome.
To me, morality is actually defined by each person. People who donate to charity have a much more broad and developed sense of morality, while people who choose to ignore the people in extreme poverty have an underdeveloped sense. There is no right or wrong here, since it is based on personal beliefs. This leads me to believe that morality cannot (and probably should not) be strictly defined by words. The definition of morality is much more. The true definition for morality is a combination of personal beliefs and experience, along with a heavy flux of understanding.
As I’ve said before, things change. Chances are your definition of morality will over the course of your life. Perhaps someday people will realize that a person’s health and well being is far more important than their financial status.
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Originally posted at: http://www.xanga.com/syncarn/511514544/deep-thought-4—the-definition-of-morality.html/
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Posted in Deep Thoughts at 11:33 pm by Nick
“All that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream.” - E.A. Poe
How plausible are our dreams? I know someday I would love to own a company (and eventually sell it), or be a CIO, or something interesting such as that. But will I get there? Doesnt everyone my age have a dream similar? It seems like most people (should) dream to be something great, amazing, and have an impact in the world more so than their small community. But what happens?
Well, life gets in the way. This happens in various ways, but after some thought I think perhaps the biggest obstacle is a family. When two people marry, who gets to go after their dreams? And who is one person to be the glory hog? How could someone possibly ask anyone to give up their dreams for them? Granted one person may be willing to do so, but what happens to their life? Sure they may be content (which is admirable), but what -if- they could have achieved something greater and more impacting? It seems to me that the average marriage prevents one person from reaching for their true desires.
And what if it wasn’t that way? What if both people reach for their dreams? This is a problem as well. A large goal requires 100% (perhaps more) of your time, energy, and mental devotion (apart from occasional breaks). Thus, if the couple in question compromised neither could be as great as they could be individually. This may actually promote a far greater happiness than any other solution, but would it provide the impact of a truly large goal?
This begs another question. How do the accomplishments stand? Does the reach of several small goals compare to the impact of one big one? Do the thousands of dollars donated to small charities compare to the ONE Organization? It is hard to say since the impacts differ.
Now, as closure, I am wondering: is living life itself not something “great”? Is that not an amazing goal with a large impact? It may be, but thats even harder to compare. This relates to my entry last weekend since it is about change. Dreams change. Brad Pitt mentioned recently (how do I know this? must be the channel flipping) that despite all of his success, nothing is quite as good as being a father. That is a large change in goals. Him being a father may not impact the world itself so directly, but it certainly impacts his world.
Thus, perhaps our dreams should not be to impact and modify the world itself, but modify the world as it appears to us and impact the world for ourselves. On the other hand, perhaps dreams are just that — dreams. Simple desires that may or may not be within our grasp.
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Originally posted at: http://www.xanga.com/syncarn/509781132/ill-take-my-leave.html
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Posted in Deep Thoughts at 11:28 pm by Nick
The other day, on the way home to CF, I saw a father teaching his (really) young son to fish. Granted the kid would probably not catch anything, and he (like me back then) had a Mickey Mouse fishing pole that probably could support catching a fish anyway. It made me smile.
This triggered a lengthy thought analysis (it was a road trip, what was I to do?) about who I was. I’ve always figured I’d find a family or something after I tried my hand at life, not wanting to be settled down too much before I accomplish something great. I think the definition of “something great” has changed a lot in recent times. I’m not really saying I want to go rush to get married. In fact, I’m not saying anything beyond the fact that I have changed. And for that, I am happy.
As Eugene Wallingford (the head of the CS departent at UNI) reached his blog anniversary, I decided to go back and look at the things I posted many months ago (a year or more ago in fact). Who was I then? Who am I now? The change has been incredible. Even the stuff I post is different. You can literally track how you have changed by what you have written.
My point is this: look at yourself. Who are you? How have you changed? How do you plan to change? What are your goals now, and how to do they compare to the ones you had in the recent past?
If you answer these questions, you will have a good idea about yourself and where you are heading in life. You can see your personal growth. And growth, my friends, is beautiful.
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Originally posted at: http://www.xanga.com/syncarn/507209051/rain-my-clouds-rain.html
Note: This post was more Xanga oriented than most.
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Posted in Deep Thoughts at 11:24 pm by Nick
Sometime ago I was watching the Girl Next Door on HBO. Now, this wasn’t really a movie I was expecting morals from, and I’m not really sure why I felt like saying anything about it now (I’ve seen the movie before, and all of you should go see it 
). However, I found that it had two very good ideas within it.
- Don’t be a slave to your academics. They are important, but so is your hapiness.
I can speak from experience on this one. There is a lot more to life than school. Your education is very important, so don’t shirk it. However, sometimes you just need to screw the school work and hang out with your friends or do something for -you-. Something you absolutely adore, something that makes you feel alive, something that makes you happy.
In the movie, the main character (Matthew), is attempting to get into Georgetown. He is working hard on making a speech to get the scholarship he needs. Suddenly this girl shows up (next door) and changes him, pushes him, and, of course (like normal movies) it all works out ok.
Also, there is a character named Klits (or is it with a z?) who is incredibly reserved. He worrys about his school work (he gets accepted to MIT) constantly. Later in the movie he wises up after the legs of “a fucking tripod” analogy is presented.
- A “perfect” person may not exist by definition of the word — this is obvious. However, every person out there has someone for them. Someone who complements their strengths, and protects their weaknesses. There is someone out there to keep a person in line, to make them laugh, and to push them to do things they may never do otherwise. And (often it would seem) that person may be right in front of your face.
Ok, so, thats the general idea mixed with my feelings on such a matter. It may not be obvious sometimes, but we need influences in our lives to help us change. Be the changes obvious (the girl Danielle’s changes to Matthew) or subtle (Matthew’s changes to Danielle), as long as they exist thats all that really matters.
In the movie Danielle seems relatively perfect (aka girl next door ). She pushes Matthew to do some crazy unreserved things (swim in someone elses pool in the middle of the night, run down the street naked, etc), and Matthew shows her she can be who she wants to be, not a slave to her profession.
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Originally posted at: http://www.xanga.com/syncarn/507209051/rain-my-clouds-rain.html
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07.20.06
Posted in Programming at 2:16 pm by Nick
So here it is finally. I must say that looking at this code makes me want to weep. I didn’t really make use of any of C++’s good functionality, and when all is said and done it could have just as easily been a full C program. The processing for arguments is not very pretty, but it works.
Anyways, here are some links:
Code -> http://ew.xidus.net/download/linecount/line_count.html
Zip (README, Code, and Win32 Binary) -> http://ew.xidus.net/download/linecount/line_count.zip
Refer to the other post for more information.
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Posted in Programming at 2:06 pm by Nick
Since I’ve been playing around with Ruby I decided to go ahead and convert the C version of Sanity to Ruby. It was a fairly simple conversion. I must say I wasn’t paying too much attention, however, because I had a bunch of ‘else if’ statements, and in Ruby its ‘elsif’.
I am impressed with Ruby. It is a very simple language, and since SWIG (more on that later) supports generating an interface for it between C/C++ I think I will use it as my scripting language for Kaladea. Granted I could go ahead and make my own Kaladea-specific language using Yacc/Bision/Lex and a few tutorials, but why bother?
As noted in one of my comments on the previous Sanity post, this program does not show very good programming practices. At least it avoided making the ‘nick’ variable global. I havent played with pointers or their equivalent in Ruby, so I opted for using actual returns in this version. All of the defined constants could be avoided if you were to add user or file input.
In any event, you can find all 119 lines of the Ruby version at http://ew.xidus.net/download/sanity/sanity-ruby.html
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07.17.06
Posted in General at 4:33 pm by Nick
A little general update. Summer is comming quickly to a close, and life will resume as “normal” (as if my life has ever been “normal”). I’m excited for school, but only for two reasons. One, because I love collge classes, and two, becuase I have missed a lot of my friends.
Strangely enough, I don’t think I’ve ever been so social during a summer before. Normally its a time for me to retreat to my house and spend some alone time reflecting, writing, and often times programming. I suppose being gone so much last year had a decent sized impact on that.
This year of school will be my senior year of high school. There is a lot I want to do, but I know I’ll never get too much of it done. I’m very anxious to see where this year will lead me. There are three current paths available, and I am unsure which to pursue. Over the next few months I’m sure it will become clear, and I think any way I’ll be content. I find it amazing how two or three little things will influence my life so heavily based on my decisions about them.
Unfortunately there is always the lingering “What if”? What if I make the wrong choice? Right and wrong may be relative, but as a human I will always wonder what would be or could have been. I’ll follow life where it takes me, and I hope I like where I end up.
I think when I go back to Iowa City I will go see my mom for the first time. I have a lot of things to tell her.
Oh, and I’ve updated the About Me page a little bit, but not too much.
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