Dan Guenther

2011-12-05T22:44:00.001-08:00

I learned about fatalism today. I don't really get it. No as me not understanding the concept, rather me not understanding how it is any more relevant than the concept of Hard Determinism. Those two concepts are so similar that when I read a description of each I had no idea there was any difference. The ladder is not only a theory that I've accepted a long time ago, but it seems more logical to me.

Fatalism

“you aren't in command of your choices and neither do your actions have any effect”

Hard Determinism

“your mind is part of the machinery of the brain, and acts a distinctive way because of this machinery and not because of your decisions”

Fatalism is a little depressing isn't it?

I saw this in the condensation on the window of a bus so I jotted it down quickly

I thought about this kind of concept since I was about 8. I didn't really ponder it in my adult life until after watching “WakingLife” which had a scene that describes the concept in my head to a T. (It's pretty good movie about philosophy, very interesting visually movie, but has no plot and despite being an intelligent film I wouldn't say it's better than A Scanner Darkly) It is a strange way of looking at the world, but it isn't a concept that should actually change the way you act or think. There is physically no difference between a person who makes a decision, and another who understands all of their decisions are a result of their minds predisposition for specific choices. It's merely a way of thinking about the world, in my opinion similar to Gaia or Kharma.

perfect beauty

2011-06-27T15:31:00.000-07:00

I think she's beautiful. Every girl should look like this.

Obomo

2011-05-19T21:44:00.000-07:00

The daily wtf:

I am disturbed by his lack of face

This isn't a political statement, I just wanted to visualize people who use '>mfw' and forget to post anything.

This one time in Nanaimo

2011-02-08T17:57:00.000-08:00

This town's weird sometimes

Sorry about no update, getting back into the groove makes me realize just how time consuming 3D art actually is. Ah well, here's a bike instead!

Clocktower

2011-02-05T07:30:00.000-08:00

It's my contribution to 3D Buildings in Google Earth, at least, I plan it to be when it's done, and it's only about a day of tinkering away from that!
Here's a reference of what it should look like:

If you're ever on the west coast, you should really come visit Port Alberni, BC, this place can be stunning:

Blobs, will you look at that.

2011-02-03T23:22:00.000-08:00

Don't worry, I'll finish and post Why Marks Wrong About Everything, Part II: Electric Boogaloo some time early tomorrow. But to tide you over, here's a project I'm working on;

It's a remake of a video I made a few years ago, and I am planning on remaking the video too.

PS, anyone know a good way to make 'whoosh' sounds for the video? I may know 3D animation, but I don't know sound design.

Why Mark's Wrong About Everything, Part II: Electric Boogaloo

2011-02-03T10:00:00.001-08:00

Part II in the "Why Mark's Wrong About Everything" series:
Mark from http://marksantsrants.blogspot.com
Part I Mark's post Mark's response.

Despite the length of the last post, I only made two points:

Causation != Correlation
A part of a group doesn't reflect the group as a whole

Points Mark makes:

Jersey Shore is a stupid show
MTV is dumbing down america
kids are stupid

While he is right that Jersey Shore is a stupid show, I say it isn't a disgrace to Italian American, it a disgrace to every creature breathing oxygen, their stupidity sucks the intelligence from us all. Ok, you got me there, MTV is making people dumber. But that's assuming people watch it any more.

A friend of mine actually made a fairly convincing argument, that because of the rise of internet piracy, youtube, music video websites and so on, it took the majority of the viewership of music channels. So instead of watching hours of, less than invigorating content, one could watch the ACTUAL music video they wanted, and in whatever order. To be honest, I really don't think the new generation really watches MTV for any kind of programming. MTV never learned to be proper content providers, so they stoop lower and lower to get whatever form of viewership is willing to put up with them.

My sister watches Jersey Shore, because it's ironic to watch shows everyone hates. Maybe she's a hipster;

*not an accurate representation

I really wish Joy Berhard didn't spend every damn show talking about the evils of MTV. She should come to comprehend that MTV is about as irrelevant as it's ever been, and it doesn't look good in the future. That's what pissed me off, not just Mark, but anyone still discussing MTV, as though it's still the 90's.

Are kids getting dumber? Probably not. But a damn channel isn't going to make a difference.

This was Part II in the "Why Mark's Wrong About Everything" series:

Mark from http://marksantsrants.blogspot.com

If you haven't already, go ahead and read part one, and the post that started this all.
Mark has even written a response.

Thank you for reading!

WTF is up with these kids now a days?!?!?!?!

2011-02-03T09:59:00.000-08:00

Part I in the "Why Mark's Wrong About Everything" series:

Mark from http://marksantsrants.blogspot.com

Part two is here, and read the post that started this all here.

So, WTF is up with these kids now a days? It's not what I'm thinking, it's what Mark says, on his blog. Now, his blog post makes an interesting point he's saying society, popular culture, and youth are devolving into idiocracy.While interesting concepts, he's making two MAJOR logical faux pas.

fire colours for extra effect

and point 2 actually derives from point 1, he generalizes.

How do those two points connect?

African American communities have had problems with crime and poverty for decades. You could definitely make the argument that they're genetically inferior people..........................if you're stupid! How could you make an argument like that, while neglecting problems with education, drugs, and racism?, all problems that compound over time.You could make the argument that genetics are linked to social problems, but now you're dancing around with statistics.

99% of rapes involve men.

Did I say they're perpetuated by men? No. Just involved. THAT's what I mean with dancing around with statistics.

Sugar drinks are linked to obesity.

Do they cause obesity? I doubt it. Do fat people also drink sugary drinks? probably. Even if you ban all soft drinks, it doesn't solve the problem. It'll just mean fat people will have to drink water or juice with their greasy fatty meals.

This was Part I in the "Why Mark's Wrong About Everything" series:

Mark from http://marksantsrants.blogspot.com

Read the post that started this all here.

Continue to Part II: Electric Boogaloo!

Carrie Prejean, the forgotten superstar

2011-02-02T03:14:00.000-08:00

Remember Carrie Prejean?, she's the pageant girl who publicly said (in front of Perez Hilton) that gay marriage is not okay with her. I for one forgot, until I stumbled onto her old twitter account. Turns out I was still subscribed to her. hmmm... Then why haven't I heard from her in almost a year? because her account has been abandoned since last July!

I've always been interested the concept of fleeting stardom, people that get the public's attention, and that's what people with folksy wisdom always say "one day people will forget that person". Like the creator of "Chocolate Rain", he was going to just go away too! Youtube has been good actually in the realm of keeping web 'celebrities', the subscriber system has been dampening the blow, and Tay Zonday, the creator of the video is still around. With a much reduced fanbase, but still around.

So what does it mean that Carrie Prejean isn't around? To be really honest, I didn't really look, she just abandoned her twitter account. And I always felt uncomfortable with a girl who's job it is to walk around in underwear, telling others about morality. So I'm kinda happy she's not around, she was getting on my nerves anyways.

I guess it's self fulfilling destiny, maybe she got tired of it and just decided to do, well, whatever she did earlier. It was interesting how I saw the whole thing played out, and people who say there's always too much stuff going on, hardly appreciate the complexities of the world.

2011-02-01T20:33:00.000-08:00

My path of the last few weeks. As many people should know, I speak German. So when I browsed Wikibooks' German learning resource I learned it is only halfway done. So just with a bit of discussion, and after finding out most people involved abandoned the project, I was basically put into control. Just in time for me to abandon the project (LOL).

As I was reading up on wiki code, I realized just how little I know about javascript, something they used in their templates. I started to read up on it, one thing led to another and for the last week I was reading up on html, javascript, xml, php, dtd, apache, mysql and a couple of other web interfaces. Not only for the wiki, but there was a job available in Vancouver. I'm probably not gonna get it, but I might as might as well know the skills required.

Maybe sometime this month I can actually get my hands dirty with the wiki, and I would appreciate any help if there is any available. (And check out my user account while you're there!)

cool vectorized portrait

2010-03-25T01:53:00.000-07:00

Check out this vectorized portrait. I'm totally going to use it around the web. The work process was something like this: jpg►svg►jpg, but all's well, and a little bit neat. What's happened in the maintime? Well, I learned python. Now I plan to use it on this open game project. tallyhoo!

Kate Moss skinny feeling

2009-11-30T05:50:00.001-08:00

"Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels" - Kate Moss

Absurd fat chicken

2009-06-12T20:24:00.001-07:00

wait...wat?

It’s fundamentally wrong

2008-06-03T03:10:00.001-07:00

Premillennial Dispensational Reconstructionist Diminunist Fundamentalist Evangelical Christianity

I am fully aware of messages that spread to try and tap onto people's stresses, many of whom are fundamentalist groups using common "washboard" terminology in collaboration of preconceived notions or symbolism and build a connection in people's minds an understanding that requires very little comprehension of the situation at hand. An example of this would be saying the entire name "Barrack Hussein Obama" and showing a picture of Saddam Hussein, no context, no meaning, nothing other than a similarity of spelling. Any Bill Hicks enthusiast should not be surprised, people are going to use areas of grave concern to, in a sense, indoctrinate and remove oppositionists up onto a point when all rights have either been forfeited or lost. Perhaps I've been asleep while this was happening, but it is as if there is a whole new brand of church spreading, one that rewrites Jesus' sermon on the mound which told us to be a peacemakers, and goes after the military, goes after the politics and says that we have to be responsible for the creation of Christian and Christian only society. I know precisely that a society like that is just a Catholicism of the early medieval era. Once politics enter the Christian realm, actual spiritual understanding will be compromised for political agenda, and the faith as we know it will become altered for the different people entering the political realm, it will be the deterioration of rights and freedoms, such as the right to read a bible, since it gives the individuals power that the government will eventually want. I can actually promise you this even if the church and state will instinctually separate, due to the inevitable evolution of people in different positions of the government, if individuals are capable of reaching such a level of government, then they must have fought to come up so high, and therefore once power is reached more power is sought, it is the nature of man.

Returning to fundamentalism, perhaps this will be one of the most intolerant things that I will ever write, but Carl Rove and George W. owe everything to these people. Some of them believe that Bush has been anointed with the holy task of spreading the word of God through his country and even the world. I usually will try and see it from their perspective, and in a sense they are right, Bush does say the word God quite a bit. The difference in my mind is that using the word God does NOT excuse using the word of God to justify atrocities, and this is where religion goes wrong. Be it an extremist mujahedeen, the pope during the crusades, or a president sitting on a pile of nuclear arms, using what is a faith, designed to glue a society together and make it moral, any faith of peace and using it as a catalyst for a personal agenda.

Then there is the Christian Military Fellowship or "Jesus Army" which tries to "raise up a godly army" and not allow the "opposition spearheaded by the devil" to take over the army. I hope that you will forgive my emphasis on the States, but it's just interesting to me that Iraqi children are being bombed by the F16 "crusaders" squadron. I wonder what it looks like to them, what it appears to them when people take pictures of bibles in one hand and AK's in the other, or when the Koran is used for target practice. Does Islamic fanaticism really have to be responded to with erratic Christianity?

For all of the Christians out there, if there is anything you take from this, is that if you're incapable of compassion, of seeing things from the eyes of others, even your worst enemies, you have become what Jesus spent his entire life fighting. And this is what would fascinate even an atheist that despite the racism of the period, the beliefs of the people, that he would never let preconceived notions blind his understanding of a person's heart. People may very well be different than their groupings.

Jihad is upon us

2008-06-03T02:17:00.001-07:00

Very recently I've come into a disagreement with a group of people on the internet with regards to my opinions. Don't fret, this is fairly common, every so often I will find people that are tightly set onto a radical or dangerous belief, that I believe are misinformed, and/or have the beginnings of a sentiment, a cancerous hatred that has the ability to spread and infect people. Many times this occurs in the political realm, as this example had. I found myself on a video that promoted the JTF (Jewish task force), a group that supported the radical militant right wing groups of Israel, and more recently is trying to "out" Obama as a Muslim. I find this interesting considering that he actually isn't, but I thought I would pursue it further, from having heard my share of anti-Islamic sentiment.

Messages are going around all of the time trying to tap into people's inability to analytically study a situation at hand, and will use the population's prior understanding to build cerebral connections with a situation which doesn't have an actual purpose with its unconscious symbolism. In the web are myriads of examples of this, such as the Oprah videos, the numerous of pleas that everyone is trying to destroy America, or the messages that try and smear Obama as a Muslim. Please, anyone who is reading this, I ask you don't consider taking any kind of serious consideration from any of them; they aren't worth your attention. At the very least, google them, and look for third party information, I would advise looking for contrary sources and weigh the reliability of each. I have even received a message from someone that states that Muslims are going to come to these the developed countries, have as many children as possible then harbour for a number of decades and one day they will outnumber us as a plan to take us over. I haven't heard a better cover for racism anywhere else.

I can tell you right now, that there is no master Muslim plan. To recall the accusations that Obama is a Muslim, the only way that these accusations hold up is when the complexities of the region are omitted, such as the difference between Hamas, Hezbollah, Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and the Islamic states. What we in the western world often do is we "paint it black" and call it "axis", dissociate ourselves from slightly less than a third of the world, and believe 1.4 billion people aren't worth the thought. No consideration that perhaps one of them might agree with us. Though Obama does have a connection with Islam, it's peripheral at most.

Asialopolis

2008-03-26T01:18:00.001-07:00

Recently I received an e-mail as part of my collection of crazy mail (please don't feel deterred in sending me these). It was a forward about foreigners, an accumulation that I've been getting recently more of in wake of deterring US security (I wonder what has happened in the meantime that did this, perhaps a lying administration) and economy in shambles. The message included a set of pictures and said "China has no food control, people just do as they wish. They as in the example, pick dead chickens, let them lie on the floor, and die them to ensure they don't look as disgustingly uncared for as they were." In continuation of the fair and balanced source of information, it said "don't ever buy food from Asia, who steal jobs from hard earning Americans and will give bad material." Usually I don't make my voice a broadcast of somebody else's statements, but this was so weird it had to be mentioned. I like the fact they make their only source some sneaky pictures (which in my humble opinion didn't look very realistic), and project this as, "don't ever buy Chinese materials" which then becomes "don't ever buy Asian stuff". Now, I perhaps don't know everything, but I do know that the people of Mongolia are perhaps slightly different in some ways from the people of China, who are different from Indians, Russians, Kazakhstani, Japanese or Philippine. Perhaps in response to this, the Japanese will write angry letters demanding no crappy computers are bought from America or Canadians to stop buying any of the horrid US beer or softwood. Each of the Asian nations provide a different aspect to life with a different culture and set of laws, making the region a large, vibrant chunk of the earth that has more than 1/3rd of the world's population. Perhaps I will get angry letters or comments from saying this, but it will take a little more incentive to convince me to shun a third of the planet, call me crazy.

Internet provides democratized media

2008-01-07T17:41:00.000-08:00

Does anybody remember when the internet first initialized? They made all of these promises where it would democratize us, and we would have the power to access information at anytime. In a sense it did pay off. We are capable of searching the definition of any word or looking up encyclopedias of free information. The web always had a way of serving the flow of the many, but despite all of the great advances the new technologies gave flow of people that undertake them, we still seem to get dumber and dumber. Computers have turned into four figure wank machines, we don't go to wikipedia and look at paramecium, but prefer to youtube's 2girls1cup reactions. Perhaps it's better than MTV's the real world in the sense, instead of taking crap from the media Mongols as it comes along, we now have access to instant crap. And anyone willing to take perhaps half a day to figure out html seems to gain in the profit. So, I could say it's democratized sources of crap, and perhaps webcams can replace springer if it's controversial enough. Of course the most instantaneous popular people on the net are seen by members of the internet that have met with some of their own success and observe that someone can double the successes they've had, by the simple act of supporting the Spears woman. Some people just want a lot of people that were probably moving into a pointless direction to begin with, onto their site or user, watch their shows and read their blogs, with little or no connotation of their actions and don't seem to understand the short length of their success. Similar to Pokemon straight through Tila Tequila, they can't keep throwing ideas at us they have already been done, since we will only listen for a certain length of time to a new and exciting concept.
I just hope that more people take advantage of the opportunities the internet has to offer, and make their voice heard! It is necessary that the input of people needs to be done before the internet becomes another way for the third party, for the elite to indoctrinate to us by removing the stupid majority from this new version of mass media as they say they must. People have the capabilities to say whatever they wish, perhaps they are able to say the wrong things, against the government, or even against western capitalism. I hope that at least for my generation that clauses are set up to ensure my voice isn't infringed.

Bhutan is probably the best place I've heard of

2008-01-06T23:59:00.000-08:00

Well, perhaps there are some other places that are amazing as well (Lisbon is a beautiful city, despite the endless castles my mother tried showing me), but is a place i have heard of recently. His majesty the king of Bhutan personally started the movement of Maui where the government's job is to ensure the happiness of the nation (or national happiness). When I first heard that, I thought what is the point of happiness if not much gets done (a bit cynical, I know), but after some consideration, happiness is perhaps one of the most sought after characteristic of life, and it may be a bit of surprise, in particular to them, that not more national governments seek as a bottom line the happiness of the people they were appointed to serve. Perhaps it is the very bottom line that inhibits us from seeing perhaps the most basic and elemental part of life in a nation, which in a capitalist system is, well, capital. I mean, do the stockholders really care if the CEO of the company that they invested in is a nice person. We worry about wealth, which people have even before the appearance of money, a representation of wealth. It has become quite elemental to our society, so much we lose sight of the important things. The Christmas rush means that the happiest time of the year adds stress, since despite our promise to Santa, we all almost simultaneously lose sight of the Christmas spirit and think about the presents, an imminent part of Christmas, and go on a spending splurge, competing against other shoppers who want to spend more money on things almost sold out. I personally don`t like going shopping anyways, but Christmas is bad in particular, because is snowy, slushy, wet and Wal-Mart sells crap anyways. Perhaps our society needs to be stripped down to it`s bare minimum (similar to firefox) and revamped to try and make it people friendly (or idiot proof). Perhaps I`m sounding a little too Marxist for my own good, but for some odd reasons, it`s the simplest things ever that people need to pursue, yet they fail to do this because of all of the great things they can buy, or people they have care for or buy stuff for. Of course happiness comes with a price. The government has to consider all changes for the nation not only with gross domestic product, but also gross domestic happiness (gdh). The government outlawed many commercial advertisement including all ads by Coke and Pepsi, Bhutan recently in 1999 introduced television, but made MTV and world wrestling channel illegal because they do little to increase happiness. I absolutely agree (not only cynical of the dumb shows of MTV) since channels such as those try to reach people's attention with flashy gimmicks, and collect the money from advertiser that try to reach as many people as they can. But in empathy to what they situation of nation that makes those plans, I become a little rebellious, since I don't feel the government should take liberty over the choices I may make, bad decisions they may be. Perhaps it's a movement we should get in on, I mean the western society needs revamping anyways. Change is imminent, let's just make sure we move the right way.

let's help africa, by giving them shit!

2008-01-02T01:14:00.001-08:00

Ok, this is probably not about africa, but more in a general sense all of the nations or areas of the world we try to help by giving money to charities. (Also for those among you who don't know, Africa isn't a nation, so I'm not going to help save the starving children in Morocco). I do have faith in some charities, seeing that my dad just retired from the salvation army.
Nearly every sunday morning I watch the long, perhaps even 30min+ discussing all of the many ways you can help and how many babies are dying and how you`re a murderer if you don`t give money, or if you`re giving money, ways to contribute to them, monetarily, and give them more money while you`re giving them money. This situation makes me think back to grade 8, when my english teacher (the best english teacher I`ve every had) told me for the first time the statement, "give a man a fish, you he eats for the day, teach a man to fish, you feed him for life". Even though some of you will tell me off, I think that statement hasn`t rung more true than now, when these kids are starving and we get the option to give them some sidekick meals, where it costs more to deliver them from Johannesburg than what they actually cost. Considering a child survives into it's 20's through the food that was made in Nebraska, what is he/she going to do now? I mean without schooling there is little knowledge that the child has to survive and there are little or now jobs available because of the near bankrupt economy. Ok ok ok, there are funds that help out schools or orphanages, which will be considered a good investment in the future, but more focus needs to be put into the loans that are being given to independent businesses in the third world to help business. I think instead of helping the children in the ways that we have, I think helping the economies of these nations should be the first priority, and focus on the tariffs that are put by western nations against skilled materials is just a modern way of taking the resources from former colonies. We think we did a great job by leaving them to create independent nations, but the progress that would be necessary for these nations to exist as long and prosperous societies never happened, and in ways it was suppressed as it is now. This chapter of human existence is considered to be the most important than any, but different forms of suppression where we give the third world nations food and clothing, which is destroying their economies by undermining their food and clothing businesses. This proves that even though we all in the western nations like to pat ourselves as we look at all of the ways that we are becoming better and more socially aware, but I don't believe that the progress of the world in this era is not gonna follow suit in the progress that the world has been doing in the history of man and the centuries prior, unlike historians and politicians wish to believe.