February 2010
5 posts
Random Thought
I think the main problem I have with C++ is when people learn it as their first/only language: It is really something that you need to have taste and discipline to use without it become a stinking morass.
On Swordmaking and Metallurgy
You know how a sword is made?
Sure. You take some metal, heat it up real hot, then smash it with a big ol’
hammer until it’s the shape you want it.
Pretty much. But if you really want to make a weapon that will make the man
that weilds it a king amoung men? You have to keep doing that. Heating and
hammering and folding over and over and over again, hundreds and thousands...
The New Future and Bending Spoons
It’s interesting to look at the changes in the last few decades of our perception of the future. If you look at older (i.e. 50s—70s era) science fiction, artists’ impressions of what “The World of Tomorrow” would look like, you see a Utopian ideal of humanity spreading across the stars. We see people zipping around in their flying cars from their houses on the moon,...
Before You Throw Your Heart Away
No Gods
For most of my life I’ve been an atheist. I had a period of agnosticism in my youth, but eventually decided that there indeed was no god or gods. But sometimes I wish I did have the capacity for faith.
There will be times, when things are…not even necessarily bad or unhappy, but merely…at a loss for meaning. Those times when my life feels empty, and I find myself...
The Rationality of Self-Deception
Oftentimes, I find the best way of accomplishing something is convincing “myself” to believe something that isn’t true. For example, I eat better by convincing my brain that junk food makes me feel sick and I exercise more by convincing my brain that it enjoys pain.
In both of these cases, I’m subverting my brain’s natural instinct for self preservation, and I have...