Analog Dilemma

...and that's why...

noreply@blogger.com (Barry Belmont) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 19:54:00 +0000

Got bored. Made these. Might be a trend. Might move sites. Working out the cost/benefit. Stay tuned.

When you wish upon a star

noreply@blogger.com (Barry Belmont) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 23:44:00 +0000

Garmented in the Flesh

noreply@blogger.com (Barry Belmont) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 01:06:00 +0000

Garmented in the flesh of him that constitutes its individuality, the soul was to apply itself to an understanding of Nature, who with the coquetry of a bayadere, at first resist and then unveils her beauties to the eyes of the persistent wooer This knowledge once obtained, the soul is free. It may yet linger awhile on earth, as the wheel of the spinner turns for a moment after the impulse which put it in motion has ceased to act; but from that time the soul has fulfilled all the conditions of its deliverance, and is for ever affranchised from the successive migrations which the unransomed soul must still undergo.

The Anatomy of Negation, Or, The Rule 34 of the Universe

noreply@blogger.com (Barry Belmont) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 00:58:00 +0000

Today there is nothing, however monstrous or grotesque, that is deemed unfit for worship.

Patience.

noreply@blogger.com (Barry Belmont) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 03:44:00 +0000

Just went to the Symphony

noreply@blogger.com (Barry Belmont) — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 02:22:00 +0000

And I can't help but feel that what I'm seeing is sometimes akin to

Truth be told however, it was amazing. They played one of my favorite pieces:

My First Test as a Graduate Engineer

noreply@blogger.com (Barry Belmont) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 21:09:00 +0000

UEPoC: Torn Apart

noreply@blogger.com (Barry Belmont) — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 17:21:00 +0000

"Chemically, no person is the same at noon as at 8 o'clock in the morning since during even this short period much of the body's structure has been torn apart and replaced with newly synthesized molecules."

-Quantitative Physiology,

On the Chemical Composition of the Human Body

So, there you are again.

noreply@blogger.com (Barry Belmont) — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 19:34:00 +0000

All my life I've put it before me saying, "Barry, be reasonable. You haven't yet tried everything." And I resumed the struggle.

The Problem With Conspiracy Theories

noreply@blogger.com (Barry Belmont) — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 02:13:00 +0000

"You can have mad poker skillz but ultimately you need to be dealt the right cards."

noreply@blogger.com (Barry Belmont) — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 15:41:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (Barry Belmont) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 12:46:00 +0000

The words just need to come out.

The Most Dangerous Decision

noreply@blogger.com (Barry Belmont) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 13:37:00 +0000

The most dangerous decision a man can make is whether or not to get up in the morning.

UEPoC: Grounding

noreply@blogger.com (Barry Belmont) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 23:10:00 +0000

"Where is my ground? My ground is here. Where is your ground? Your ground is there. Our different positions practically necessitates our different potentials."

-Bioinstrumentation,

On ground loops

With and Without the Oxford Comma

noreply@blogger.com (Barry Belmont) — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 14:23:00 +0000

Pulled from the Scrapheap

noreply@blogger.com (Barry Belmont) — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 03:23:00 +0000

Lepht Anonym is a person of singular characteristics. So much so that the preceding sentence does not adequately capture that peculiarity -- a person? of singular characteristics? is?, it is as accurate to say he as it is to say she, to say tree or bee, me or we when talking about Lepht. It (as I implied, language must always fail us in describing the indescribable) -- It hasn't written in a long time, a little after the 27th Chaos Communication Congress, all its writing ceased.

This writing, its writing, has become something that gave me great pleasure. It was a special sort of blackness that enriched the dark world we wander through: its brooding, pulping meat puppet cybernetically transduced, hung over me, sheltering me from a greater void. This is as far as any sort of 'meaning' can be attributed to anything around us.

After months between any sort of communication with it, Lepht wrote today to explain its absence and its presence in this, our world. It is absolutely incredible and deserves to be shone through every set of eyes possible. To that effect, I contribute my part by reproducing it below.

i have been trying for a considerably long time and find myself unable to explain what precisely i have been doing since February, when you last saw me. physically, the answer is simple: sleeping; cooperating with medication regimes one after another as they are proposed, adjusted and readjusted; eating convenience food; staring lifelessly at whatever useless shit was in front of me, uselessly trying to pick up my work and my life. i lost myself.
i also spent a considerable portion of the time acquiring the means to build an Exit bag. this device is the quickest, most painless way to terminate one's own life. it induces anoxia in seconds via a maskful of nitrogen. there is no pain, only a deep breath in and a gentle sleep. you can't be revived. i had the components prepared and to be honest, my plan for much of that missing time was to kill myself, as it has been before. this time i was far better informed and equipped. i had all the necessary equipment to give my emptied mind a final, irrevocable state of peace.
i desperately wanted that peace. Suboxone does not give the kind of solace morphine does, and it had long since stopped doing fuck all for either kind of pain in my system. my University work was circling the drain, depression and procrastination hovering over it like vultures ready to finish the job. my financial situation was as dire as always, and this summer i could find no research jobs, not to mention the fact that i was still meant to be working on Thistledown full time. that led to Muad-Dib working 8-6 at a shitty phone unlocking shop, for employers who "borrowed" most of his salary, just to pay my rent and get me food to eat. he is living with me unofficially, but he has another place to go to, and he sacrificed his entire summer and all of its earnings for me. you can imagine this did not help the guilt.
i feel like i should explain that more: i carry a lot of guilt around. you saw what i did to my parents, as carelessly as i do everything else; i might be good at H+ but i am also pretty damn good at fucking people over without thinking. i've done it before, i don't even know i'm doing it half the time. coupled with the worst depressive episode i've ever experienced, i had set a date and my life was tabled to end on the third of July, 2011. from around April i'd been experiencing what they call an "intrusive thought" - it's time it's time it's time, strings and strings of the same little fucking messages everywhere. in dreams and in daydreams, scribbled in doodles on my planner, i'd even notice it spelling itself out in paraeidolic patterns on my ceiling or in the patterns of clouds and leaves. it's time it's time it's time it's time it's time. it would insert itself into the little "subtitles" i see in my mind's eye when people talk to me, into lines of my novel when i tried to reread it. i knew the messages were right, was the worst thing.
i realise i am making myself sound even more insane. my consultant psychiatrist says i am sane, but damaged; potayto, potahto. the third of July came around and my mum called, planning a visit for me to go down to England on my birthday. i realised they would fly her up here tomorrow when someone had to identify my body, or they would make Muad-Dib do it. i put the phone down and cried for hours until he got home. he told me in detail how he thought he would react to my suicide. that made me bawl more. we talked and talked until i promised him i would not do it.
the intrusive thoughts are common in extreme depressive episodes, according to Dr. D. they're almost gone. but i'm trying really hard not to sound like an emo kid while still telling the truth: my mind broke. i had the instrument of a calm quiet death up in my attic, i had my will and cadaver donation there, i had instructions to sell all my things to cover my bank overdraft. my roommate was gone for the summer and would never see my corpse. i convinced myself i was going to a blissful oblivious abyss of nothing where i couldn't hurt or disappoint or betray anyone ever again. i wasn't capable of anything for a fuck of a long time after i realised i couldn't give myself even that.
to boot, mental illnesses bring on physical ones. in one way or another i haven't been well for a very long time. that impacted everything to an irritating degree, but luckily is documented by enough doctors and psychiatrists that the University Registry will be satisfied of what happened.
so, consider me that shell pulled barely living from the cybernetic junkyard, half a torso, no limbs and a lolling bald head. my real name is fitting for that picture, after all. the core of me is alive, but the rest is damaged, and it has taken me so long just to be able to communicate with anyone without lying about how fine i am or just shitting bricks for no reason.
i am on the bench, fixing myself bit by bit with gomi. i'll need help before i am a working person again. but i will get there, and i will keep talking about it for a while as i do; should you not want to read this, as i would expect (recovery stories are not often very exciting save for the author) - check back in a few months. i will heal. it might not be fast. you have likely outstripped me tenfold.
thankyou all for your supportive comments, in the meantime. i saw them but was too fucked up to respond. i hope you understand, but equally, i'll get it if you don't. i will try to answer some emails tomorrow.
carpe corporem.
L

Too accurately are my thoughts mimicked by complete strangers.

UEPoC: "To give it a name"

noreply@blogger.com (Barry Belmont) — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 21:30:00 +0000

"To give it a name is to give it a reality that its existence alone did not afford it. It's another layer over what it is that we are talking about, and it's the only layer we ever see."

Applied Functional Analysis,

On the role of models for imperceptible phenomenon (like electrons)

The Unintentional Existential Philosophy of Class

noreply@blogger.com (Barry Belmont) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 19:39:00 +0000

"The breathing cycle starts at the end of inspiration."

-Mathematical Modeling of Biology,

On A Discrete Model of Breathing

The Questions of One's Life

noreply@blogger.com (Barry Belmont) — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 23:57:00 +0000

At the beginning of every new stage in one's life an effort should be made to pose a question that could not have formulated (much less solved) during any other previous period of one's life. When I was younger and I first developed this notion in my mind, I set about tackling the large issues of my newly discovered large world -- science, religion, politics, etc -- not realizing that such issues are generally not worth the bother. After all, the long-standing debates still stand for a reason (it seems usually from either the question being ill-posed or at least one side of the argument being willfully misinformed about the situation), and were not merely waiting for me as their harbinger of finality.

With this newest stage in my life arriving somewhat officially tomorrow (that is, the beginning of my graduate school education), I have begun to develop a few questions that are not as grandiose as the others before them, not nearly as boisterous in their expectations. What they lack in "bigness" they hopefully make up for in cleverness. David's do seem to always beat their Goliath's. This is not say they are not important or their ramifications are negligible, only to say that they are posed more precisely (why be loquacious when you can simply be witty?). They get around the muck and mire the eons slop on important questions, getting right at the heart of the issue.

At the very least, I hope they do this. As they become more fully formed, they will be more explicitly shared with you. Until, you'll just have to slog through the daily toil of this blog -- quasi-philosophical musing, random anatomical imagery, periodic coding binges, and a passing fancy or two of writingmerelyforthesakeofwriting.

Hours of my life

noreply@blogger.com (Barry Belmont) — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 20:29:00 +0000

Hours of my life are spent like this.

The Prodigal Son Returns

noreply@blogger.com (Barry Belmont) — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 21:55:00 +0000

After a rather drawn out moving-in process, I have made the full transition to living in Ann Arbor complete by acquiring access to the sweet and glorious internet. May the rambling continue ever onward.

Google's Jorge Luis Borges Doodle

noreply@blogger.com (Barry Belmont) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 04:33:00 +0000

Yes, yes, yes. I would try to approve of this more, but I don't think I'm capable of doing so.

To be immortal is commonplace; except for man, all creatures are immortal, for they are ignorant of death; what is divine, terrible, incomprehensible, is to know that one is immortal.

YouTube to Save the Day with Revolver

noreply@blogger.com (Barry Belmont) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 00:50:00 +0000

Today has been less than a perfect day (the stress of moving, the frustration of accumulating work, and some plagiarism of my writing [which I have discovered is not merely the superficial bit I took it to be] have all smashed into one another to see to that).

Checking up on the ol' YouTube mail (because I've got an awesome channel full of fairly hard to find science, skeptic, Beckett, and fluid mechanics videos) I decided to peruse the website a bit to take my mind off things, when lo and behold their fledgling movie service decides to save the day:

I don't care what anyone says about Revolver (that it's turgid, full of itself, too clever for its own good...), I know how I'm spending my evening... And I happen to think it's a great film whose experimental/postmodern nature is not fully appreciated. It's not your average film, especially not your average crime film (it jumps to another plain with its take on what it means to con), but that's what makes it great. Unfortunately this isn't your average metaphysicalexistentialpostmodern film de jure (noir would be more appropriate) and sits uneasily between classic heist and experimental indie film, managing to piss off the lovers of both by not being enough of either.

I, for one, think it is enough of both.

And watching it (legally) for free after a day in which I've simply had enough is exactly what I need.

Oh and what a cutesy title I get to give this!

The Most Beautiful Sentence

noreply@blogger.com (Barry Belmont) — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 19:14:00 +0000

I wrote the most beautiful sentence today on a sheet of paper. Nouns in their proper place, verbs moving those nouns about as if they were skilled dancers in some well executed ballet, adjectives used sparingly, adding special emphasis. The punctuation was perfect and gave the sentence a balance and an ease of flow. But when I was done placing the period (it was declarative, must beauty declare itself? I wondered) I crumpled it up and threw it away. I can't help but feel there is no redeeming quality in what I have done.

This originally stood for adolescent depression. Let it now stand for plagiarism.*

*More to follow.

Reservoir Crayons

noreply@blogger.com (Barry Belmont) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 06:23:00 +0000