Teleportation

Why are all of my blogs realizations or questions, in some fashion? I wonder.

While watching The Prestige, a movie with Christian Bale, Scarlett Johansson and Hugh Jackman, there comes a part where a man teleports himself across the room. A thought occurred to me, that I was rather proud of: teleportation requires all information, matter, or other material/such be transported from one location to another EXACTLY THE WAY IT WAS IN THE "PRESENT". Therefore, if humans were to be teleported from one place to another (a phenomenon which I believe to be entirely impossible, yet would be very intruigued to learn of its success), the brain would have to be exactly the way as it was once transported. BUT, , once the brain were transported, the resulting teleported person would not retain the same consciousness; in other words, you would not live through the teleportation. An exact clone of you in the same mindset and everything that you had the moment you teleported would result wherever your copy is now, but you yourself would die, and your consciousness would fail, being lost forever. Therefore, teleportation may in fact be possible, but it isn't possible for subjects with a consciousness to "live" through the process, however theoretical the field is.

Equal or Not?

I stumbled across an apparently-classic mathematical discrepancy, and decided to share the question along with my attempt at a logical solution/response.

"Is the decimal 0.999..., where there are an infinite number of 9's, equal to 1?"

Along with the question, I saw countless proofs, counterproofs, and and everything inbetween on the subject. My personal opinion is that the prior is an improperly-expressed equivalent of the latter. Given that 1/9 = 0.111..., multiplying the fraction by nine would give us 9/9, or 1. But, multiplying the decimal by 9 simply multiplies all the individual digits by 9, giving us the ambiguous 0.999... . Technically, they should yield the same value, yet the decimal is not the same as 1. 0.111... is a decimal APPROXIMATION for 1/9. Multiplying either the fraction or decimal representation of said fraction will yield 1, not 0.999... . On another point, try and find me a number between 0.999..., where there are an infinite number of 9's, and 1. There isn't one, because they're the same number: 1.

Lefties

In the middle of class today, I just decided to start writing with my left hand. This has proved remarkably difficult, even after prolonged attempts; you see, I've realized something that I never fully appreciated the lack of, and have never had to concern myself with.



When you're writing with your left hand, everything isn't just backwards. That would make things marginally easier, but it's still not the case. Writing characters with your left hand takes an entirely unique motion and action in itself for EACH ONE. As I'm used to my small, neat, quick writing, I'm not entirely comfortable with big, sloppy, efforted penmanship. The level of complexity and difficulty of said task is so unique and vast, it's definitely the base comparison for learning something entirely exotic. To TRY to equate such a sensation with anything else, I'd have to suffice with "Try driving with your left foot instead of your right on an automatic transmission", yet this is basically and identical concept, therefore not being foreign from training your left hand at all.

Winter

Whenever I think of winter, I'm always excited and fascinated. Weather this time of year is definitely my favorite; with all of the snow, the cool air, no bugs, and all that, it's great. Who doesn't love sledding down a humongous hill with a handful of people and gliding along as if nothing in the world can stop you? Well, I sure love it. Whatever it is about this time of year that gets me, I don't really care - I just sit back, relax, and enjoy. Wait until summer comes around, and I'll be whining like a four-year-old on a tantrum.

Trademarks

One of the kids in my section in Marching Band this year, Nathan, always said a few, random phrases in the middle of practice, and everybody either was really annoyed or thought it was hilarious; most of us switched sides quite often. I'd hear him yell "SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS!!" at the top of his lungs when he was excited, have never approached that amount of US currency the same way, and probably never will. Every time I think of a broken laptop screen, I just start to laugh. It costs $600.
He also tended to tell Mr. Gregory that "you look like a rockstar up there!" every time he'd see him up on the Band Tower at practice. Every time. It was great, but Mr. G eventually got fed up with it and just stopped putting up with it. "YEEE-HAAWW, ride' em COWBOY!!!" was ejected rather often, too, when everybody was excited or cheering. I hate to talk about it, because I don't want to seem like I'm making fun of him (he was autistic, limiting him to several repeated phrases of excitement), but I always think of him when I hear any of those words involved. Trademarks of Nathan Burkes.

Ugly Words

I honestly don't find many words too ugly. I do, however, find many words to be terribly misspelled, just looking at them, or thinking about them. For example, the word "goes" strikes me as an oddly spelled word. This is kind of a bad blog, because I don't have a list of these words at hand, but all I'm saying is that it's really really frustrating wasting a full hour trying to figure out if you spelled the word "mahogany" correctly. Couldn't even begin to tell you how much time I've wasted during timed essays trying to figure out if I spelled "goes" right.

Bad Ideas

Well, we definitely hit one one bad idea, if we didn't hit any others - not reading (all of) the assigned reading in English class. That's probably number one.

Honestly, the book is challenging for me. Whether it's merely me and being ADD, or whether it's Dickens' writing style, but I find myself reading portions, or the entirety, of several passages more than three times. My train of thought is literally gone, and I have no idea where to pick up, so I have to go back to where I found it - a couple of paragraphs back. With said malfunction to the reading, I'm taking about four times as long to read the required material as most of the other students, and it's obviously reflecting in my grade (which, if I did VERY well, will be a 40% right around now). Anyways, it's time to make some changes, focus on what's important, and never forget why I'm an Honors student in the first place.

Some more experience-driven bad ideas would be to microwave anything and everything you lay your eyes on that's food, and is in your kitchen. Trust me, it's a messy and disappointing experience.

More bad ideas include pulling Emergency Showers in the science labs (they don't really... shut off...), staying up late every night to get homework done, um... watching a chick flick with somebody "because, honestly, how bad can it be?", lying to your parents about homework (or even at all, sheesh), and naming the whale in Pinocchio "Monstro" as opposed to "Jonathan Paff." The last one is, by far, the most despised bad idea in the known universe, and still today has had controversial repercussions.

Ignorant Contradiction

One of my friends was telling me about how he wanted to go eat something new, like at a Chinese restaurant. Once we finally got to the restaurant, though, he got really, really irritated with the fact that there weren't entirely Chinese, or Caucasian, workers at the establishment. When he saw that there were some Latino workers, he became oddly distraught, and unappreciative of the services there.

That led me to asking him the following: If you were so obsessed with going out looking for diversity in what you eat and where you go, why are you upset when you see diversity when you go to that very place? I understand you wanted Chinese this evening, but whenever you look for diverse cultures, be careful what you wish for.

It got me stuck on this loophole in the logic of modern business and culture. We don't really ever look for diversity as much as we look for a specific desire to be met, or a specific type of something to be explored. We're much more selfish in our desires than we ever could claim to be.

Reflection

Out of all the stuff, I want to remember... pretty much everything about 2009. I really haven't been alive long, relatively speaking, so I enjoy being able to treasure it all. I've already lost most of my single-digits to memory, except for school memories.

I want to remember all the Band trips we went on, all the inside jokes, water gun fights, games of tag, NINJA!!, and good times that went along with it. Along with the fun, I want to remember (at least, not forget) all of the hard work and determination and yelling and fighting, blood, sweat and tears that came with it. We were the closest we've ever been to State Semi-Finals in almost a decade, and that doesn't go without reason. I want to always remember what counted when it comes down to it.

I doubt I'll ever be able to forget when I couldn't read for a solid... two months, I think? Somewhere around there, anyway. It was terrifying, really setting back, but it brought out the best in me, and even my family and friends. I want to remember that no matter what happens to me, I'll always have them behind me, ready to catch me, and cheering me on every last step of the way. That's something not a lot of people get to know like I do, or be able to sit back and cherish. I want to always remember that.

I want to remember, for now and for always, that after the day's over, all the books are put away, PS3's turned off, the world's asleep, that the only thing that really matters in this world is salvation to pass into the next. Growing up, whether it was my attitude, mentality, or just plain ignorance, I always saw a little bit more in the world than the rest of my family, and tended to indulge myself every now and then. But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if I rank up fifteen levels in Call of Duty, or if I finally beat that last boss on God of War 2. What really, truly matters is my love for and faith in Jesus Christ, the Father and his will, and my relationships with the people I know. Those are all that will pass with me when I die, for all else is left behind. I won't be using it when I get where I'm going, so what's the sense in wasting my life mindlessly chasing such a fleeting whisp of satisfaction? God is eternal; his love is eternal. I want to always be reminded of that as I go on in life.

Not to get all serious, or anything, and I'm obviously leaving things out, but I know I'll keep them in my heart.