This is a personal question for my own interest. Obviously feel free not to answer it. I ask this question in relation to a theory I have: What is your religion. I am not talking culture or traditions. DO you believe in god etc? Please elaborate.

I do not believe in god. I could write books about why - and more importantly why some people do, but it would be super boring, so I'll try summarize.

a) the definition of "god" is really ambiguous and everyone (even each individual person within a belief system) has their own opinion about what "god" is. so the very question of whether I believe in god is impossible to answer due to the fact that it hasn't yet been defined in any language or specified in the question above. I'll have to answer in the religious context and a broad western definition..

b) the concept of some kind of intelligent creator being (and one that is a man) exists not because all signs point to yes, but because all signs point to "I don't know yet, but I'm scared of the unknown, so I'll make up a story about someone like me who created everything"

c) many of the religions are completely contradictory, because there's no evidence at all to show any one is more right, and they can't be all right, they're all wrong. fyi: the fact that there's no evidence should be enough.

d) every rabbi / priest that I've asked directly whether they believe in god - after a bit of nudging admits "It's more a set of morals to live your life by than anything else," and that they really don't believe there's an invisible man in the sky.

e) despite having no validity, is used to oppress women, disenters, inventors, and anyone who wants to overthrow an unjust authority or advance human culture. ie: smart people.

f) 99.999% of people who promote god (religious leaders, nuns, priests, rabbis, etc. etc.) benefit from it financially, and do so in a way that often directly conflicts with the scriptures they tote as infallible fact. go to a church that doesn't pass around a collection plate, or a shul that doesn't have a plaque on the wall of people that donated. they use social pressure to manipulate people into buying something they don't need, like a late night infomercial for that ab cruncher thing. they sell the fear of not believing as much as they do the belief.

g) most people who claim to believe in god, are only saying so out of fear(of dying, of myth, of superstition, of being excluded socially). plenty of people that go to shul or church do so for social reasons.

if you haven't already you should check out:

http://www.venganza.org/
The church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HKHaClUCw4
Bill Maher's a comedian, he made a documentary about religion and god, 10 parts - they should all be on youtube.

This is probably the most comprehensive answer I have yet received. I too am an atheist, and these are some very good points. My simplisitic argument for the nonexistence of god is: ' The bible, torah, koran or whatever you want to call it, sounds like someone got high and decided to try their hand at some bad science fiction writing. I mean really ladies and gentleman, an all powerful man in the sky, who listens to your prayers but sometimes doesn't give what you ask for, and allows (or causes) pain and destruction on a daily basis, even though he can prevent it and is meant to be merciful'. Of course I have have other arguments, and have already become a pastafarian. I like your first point especially. I have also used arguments b and e respectively already against an angry mob of religious people. The rest I had not even begun to think about. You, to coin a phrase, are one smart cookie. Thank you.

P.S My theory is that alot, if not most, intelligent people are atheist or agnostic. Thank you for further confirming that. And you should consider writing that book.

I have the same disease where I keep asking why until something makes sense... ha most things don't.

already working on a quantum physics book / essay / thing, besides what I've found is that if you dig into a person's psyche and corner them no matter how religious or devout they are they'll admit the idea of a god is a bit far fetched. but as soon as the conversation's over it's like layered towers of bologna that just collapses around the hole you dug and the rational person you were talking to just disappears beneath the rubble.

...unless you fill that hole with your own agenda, in which case you just became a shepherd and that's not the goal at all. ideally what you'd want is to help that person fill the hole with some kind of stability and their own rationality and free thought but that takes years of therapy. people who follow are followers for a reason. some are, but most are not oblivious, they've asked these questions before and they don't want to live in a world with unknowns. they don't want to feel alone, they want to feel like there's a father figure in the sky watching everything they do, and they want to feel like they're the centre of the universe. They have filters that distort the world around them to protect their fantastic delusion. it's called being spoiled.

basically a person who believes in god, is not going to stop because they read a book, they just wouldn't read the book, if you got in their face enough they'd call you crazy and if you're in a country where it's still legal they'll stone you or burn you or hang you or feed you to the lions.

writing a book about the fictitiousness of god/religion is masturbatory. but I'm glad all those people I interrogated to find this stuff out benefitted someone, or at least, saved you trouble..

you've gotta check out http://www.academicearth.org/
you can sit in on lectures at different universities

and if you're into history and ever wanted to actually go watch WW2 happening subscribe to this in ituneshttp://www.dancarlin.com/disp.php/hh
and download the "Ghosts of the Ostfront" episodes. it's mind bending and unlike anything you'll ever learn in school. unless you can convince your history teacher to play them in class.

on second thought do you mind if I post this conversation on my blog? and if you're cool with that do you want me to blur out your name.

no pressure.

Ahhh yes, I have seen it too many times. Corner a person, and they will admit that religion is irrational. One of my friends, actually my only religious friend, admitted that religion was, to quote him 'A load of bullshit, and I actually don't know why I believe it. To be honest, I never really thought to question it before. I was brought up that way I guess.' Well, maybe he won’t be religious for so much longer. I used to talk to him and ask him why he believed in it, but due to his upbringing he instantly became defensive, and refused to talk about it. Only when he was, to put it in your words, cornered, did he agree to talk about religion and god, and he found that maybe it’s not such a rational idea after a few points I made. Could this be perceived as brainwashing? When a person performs a routine and believes in something mindlessly, and when they actually stop to think about, decide it’s not such a cool idea after all? I think so. Children are brought up being told by adult figures, such as parents and priests (and/or rabbis), that they must believe in an invisible man in the sky, even though there is no evidence to support it, and the invisible man will cause you an eternity of suffering if you do not do his bidding. Children look up to their parents, and indeed, to any adult figure, and are naturally geared to believing what that authoritarian figure tells them. So when their parents tell them of this invisible man, coupled with the fact that if you pray to him he will supposedly make your life a better place (see footnote), they will begin to adore this god figure and pray and do all the other things that are coupled with religion. And since children are taught to be happy with the answer ‘Do it because I told you to’ from the adults in their life, their will to question the existence of god or why they pray is extinguished.

When attempting to full the hole with your own agenda (no sexual innuendo intended), sometimes you need not. My friend was intelligent enough to see for himself that it was time to start viewing things rationally. As for the less intelligent people, they may not take too kindly to having something they have believed in their entire life challenged, and as they say, old habits die hard. So maybe a more subtle approach is required for them, one I cannot think of.
People often need to believe there is something larger than them, someone (or something) that runs the world and will take responsibility, and make it all come right in the end. These peoples though trains usually go along the lines of, ‘global warming? Not a problem, when the messiah comes, all will be put right.’ This is exactly the kind of thinking we can’t have right now, if we, as humans, wish to survive. People look to god to take care of their larger problems as well as the smaller ones, but since he doesn’t exist, maybe we need to start taking care of things for ourselves, as humans. And when the messiah comes, maybe roaming the earth as zombies won’t be so much fun.

And on the last topic, getting religious people to read your book. If you can create something controversial enough, so that it gets TV time, or even just radio time (and I personally believe you could do it), then people will almost be forced to read it. People shun Charlie Sheen, and say how much they think he’s going to burn in hell, but they still watch him and listen to him. The slightly less religious people will maybe read you book and think to themselves, maybe its time to start looking at things differently.

Footnote: and even so, I have seen devout, pious people of all religions, who do very little wrong and pray daily, or however many times a day y their religion stipulates, live pitiful unhappy lives. Why? Because god works in mysterious ways? He could make everybody happy on this earth, kill the devil and create a paradise for all here on earth.

Of course, he’s testing us for the afterlife, the rabbis and priests will say. If he’s so omnipotent he could test us in less than a split second. But he gave us free will they say, and we again say he’s omnipotent, so he could override that free will. Did he maybe say ‘right, I will not override people’s free will? But again we will say he’s omnipotent so he could override anything he said in the past. Immovable object comes into contact with irresistible force. Infinite loop for you right there. In religion, something just doesn’t add up.

Finnaly, feel free to post this on your blog, but definitely DO NOT blur out my name.

And thanks for all the links, they were really great! Awesome stuff.

I wouldn't go so far as to call it brainwashing. It's more a kin to being addicted to cigarrettes. I'll grant you that the line is very narrow though.

People like watching Charlie Sheen for the same reason they watch any other celebrity. People enjoy building a person up and then watching them collapse. yes he has attention, but that attention lacks quality. He hasn't written a book so it's hard to compare, but think Sarah Palin or Snooki. Parlaying poor quality attention into a genuine podium is tricky and not directly in your control. overcoming the stigma and bias you generated to get the attention in the first place is just not worth the effort in my opinion. hopefully organic and altruistic pragmatism is the way to go, or I'm screwed.

Tell me if this sounds familiar:

I have 30 trains in my head right now and they're each solving a problem or thinking about something and just going deeper and deeper into that subject and my consciousness is essentially just a series of events where those trains fade in and out of focus of which I am mostly in control of. Sometimes a subject/topic/question/issue takes up 10 or 50 trains, sometimes I'm focusing on 200 trains all doing different things - and it's like I can stop focusing on something, randomly come back to it a few days later and my understanding of it has advanced, and the state of the question is more complex, as though I'd been thinking about it the whole time. Like I'm shining a spotlight on toy trains of thought.

Sometimes I'll procrastinate and the lack of trains will turn my brain to mush and I can't think, like there's a huge amount of inertia trying to get everything flowing again and the distance between me blaahhh and me being in flow grows wider until it eventually snaps and I just start going full speed again.

Other times there'll be some intractable problem that I want to solve for purely emotional reasons and it'll take up so much of my focus I can't focus on anything else and I get caught up in it until someone I'm close to snaps me out of it.

When I'm in the state of flow though, I have tons of energy, I stay up for like 30 hours, sleep for 4, no alarm clock just bust out of bed fully awake and already mid thought and I'm just objectively productive for another 40 hours. it's easy to forget about stuff like showering, eating, hanging out cause those trains are just so out of focus and I'm just so deeply immersed in what I'm doing(coding/learning/writing/etc.)

I've only ever read about other people that live like that. Edison, Jefferson, Napoleon, and others.. history tends to be full of shit though, so I dunno how accurate those accounts are.

When I was your age I was trying to fit in - to an extent, and I kind of ignored this (ability?)... I'd try force myself to sleep normal hours, "be awake for school" was somehow really important, and do normal things. looking back so much time was wasted trying to fix things that didn't need fixing.

more links, your mom's gonna kill me I hope you have lots of bandwidth:
http://www.keithandthegirl.com/
The best show on earth, I'd be a wreck without it. if you get bored check out their forums, lots of super smart people with diverse opinions about complex issues who'll tell you what's what.

http://www.amazon.com/Cryptonomicon-Neal-Stephenson/dp/0380788624
It's fiction but so close to reality it's hard to tell sometimes, slides in between ww2 and tech hippie computer science, fully engaging - you'll have to have it pried out of your hands.

http://www.stephenking.com/darktower/the_books.html
One of the best literary geniuses stepping out of his comfort zone, a personal work written over his career. it's _just_ thoroughly twisted, like having a tour of the creative part of his mind. grab the audiobooks there are 7.. I think it's being worked into a movie right now, but might be a few years.

oh and
http://live.twit.tv/
tech/science online tv network, you can also download the episodes as podcasts, Security Now http://www.twit.tv/sn297and others.

I can definitely relate to the train metaphor. I never thought about it that way, but that sort of sums it up. I can also procrastinate (for example) on a school project, and then the night before I’ll sit down and just type, or research, and about 2 hours later the project will be done like that. I can never just do half a project, I have to finish the thing in one go, just like a train gaining momentum, it becomes harder and harder to stop myself. I have recently been interested in writing a few short stories, especially now that it’s my holiday, but I can’t seem to force myself down and just start typing. Partly due to lack of ideas, but mostly due to procrastinisation. I am good at writing them, apparently, and my writing style is something akin to that of Douglas Adams, but I can’t seem to sit myself down and just do it. I procrastinate a lot, which obviously not a good thing, and has many negative impacts on my life. Often I will be thinking about something, and then an idea from a few days ago will pop into my head with sudden ferocity, and solve itself in seconds. Also after having a conversation with someone, I will suddenly think, ‘oh that’s what they meant, it was a hint’. Like when a chick bites her tongue in a sexually suggestive manner, I don’t get that she wants to do sexual things until she actually leaps at me, to use an example. Some facial expressions and subtle wording just seem to bypass me completely.

As for the state of flow thing, I unfortunately don’t have the liberty of being able to stay up for long periods of time. I have an... illness called Epstein bar virus, which means I need about 11 to 12 hours of sleep per night, and there’s still no guarantee that I will be well rested the next day. I also have very strange and vivid dreams, which can impact my mood for the following day. In addition to that my moods change every couple of hours. My social temperament i.e. sometimes I will be confident and laugh easily and the next day, even if nothing happens in my life to change my mood, I may be serious and boring, as well as my thoughts and logic i.e. usually I manage to be intelligent and grasp facts and concepts quickly, and sometimes I am as normal in my thoughts as any other person. Even the way I write letters, such as this one, will change. You may notice a change in style and phrasing in this letter in comparison with the other letters.

I definitely don’t fit in, but I have my three best friends, who are like brothers to me, and other people that I talk to and see occasionally out of school. I seem to get on better with older people, like 20 to 22 year olds, than the people in my school. Luckily people nowadays are more open to... abnormal (and how can one even define normal? What the majority of society conforms to?) people such as myself. But I must say, I never try and change my behaviour for any person, if they enjoy my company, cool, if they don’t, I’m not going to change my behaviour so that they do.

I haven’t had a chance to look at the most recent links yet, but I will write another face-mail when I’ve had a look. Luckily we’ve got uncapped bandwidth, but its slow (512kbps, 59KBps), so I have to wait about 5 mins for a 10 min movie. Loving the science ones especially.

P.S are you good at racing games? Have you even tried them? And in addition to that, what sort of music do you like/ listen to?
(artists, not genres)

a few good friends and often oblivious in the moment to social cues. I hear that... lol. I wouldn't count on developing an intuitive sense for it, personally I just had to figure it out and sometimes just stop and ask the person to explain what they were thinking so I could like, get it in terms I understand.

well the good news is "flow" isn't a _result_ of long hours being awake, it's the cause. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology) ]

remembering your dreams is a symptom of not getting deep enough sleep, so that makes sense. As for the other stuff it's just the soup in the bowl. When I was younger I had these really intense panic attacks pretty much constantly for seemingly no reason. That's where you get a huge dose of adrenaline pumped through your body as a result of the fight or flight response except there's nothing to fight or flight from. pretty debilitating stuff and just got worse in high school. no doctors I went to for years had any clue what was wrong and they kept jumping to different diagnoses every few weeks when the latest meds and therapies they prescribed ended up doing absolutely nothing. I had it since I was like 4.. as early as I can remember so they figured it was some kind of chemical imbalance.

turned out to be nothing more than a really complex mess of trying to please everyone... which once I was in that near constant adrenaline roller coaster, because it's too traumatic, you become detached and I just didn't really want anything, so pleasing other people was the only motive to do anything and it just ended up being a cycle that took a few years to really crack and break free of. long process starting with dropping out of high school(on a path to becoming a vet) and teaching myself to code instead.

I'm sure you're on top of your mood stuff, and I'm no doctor, but I gotta say I don't know many people who have "rational" moods, or are "on" all the time. I'm not saying this is one of them, but sometimes it's possible to over analyze something that's a bit different in you, or even rare, as being a thing. variations on a spectrum.

the relatability thing is exponential. by the time you're 22 you'll get on better with professors than with other people your age... and likely only the legit, smart ones. there are a surprising amount of people in "smart" professions who are just really intensely stupid and irrational.

up here everything is capped, but the mid speed tier is around 1.5MB/s. hard to say if that's worth 9 month long
-40 degree Celsius winters, and 40 degree summers.

I used to be awesome at racing games, although I haven't had time for years. last one I played was Project Gotham Racing for the original xbox. I was always really sick at video games though.. except legend of zelda: ocarina something something, I couldn't wrap my head around it, had to have a friend beat it for me.

Being a musician (guitar, alto/tenor saxophone, piano, drums) I tend to hear music differently to other people. I usually go for more gritty pure soul stuff. sometimes I'll get hooked on something that sounds awful just cause the vocalist or drummer or whatever has a unique style that i'm subconsciously analyzing and it just fills my brain and feels good. That's another thing, I kind of - but not in a way I can really put into words - see music/sound. it's not like a kaleidoscope it's just like a feeling that it's being processed visually, it's like a spacial textured experience.. and in between every beat i physically feel tension building as the next one approaches. a really good song for me - coming out of a big speakers, or headphones at full volume is like heroin... I'd imagine. just without all the vomiting lol

I've had several catastrophic hard drive failures where I lose like 30,000 songs and can never remember them all.. still recovering from the last one in December, but skimming my itunes right now here are some names that stick out:
AC/DC
Aloe Blacc
B.B. King
Beastie Boys
The Beatles
Beck
The Black Keys
Bob Marley
Coldplay
The Crystal Method
Cypress Hill
Diana Krall
Dr. Dre
Eminem
Eric Clapton
Eva Cassidy
Fatboy Slim
Fiona Apple
Grace Potter
Jack Johnson
James Brown
Janis Joplin
Jimi Hendrix
Johnny Cash
Jolie Holland
K-OS
Led Zeppelin
Louis Armstrong
Aimee Mann
Metallica
Mos Def
N.W.A.
Nina Simone
Nirvana
No Doubt
Pink Floyd
The Raconteurs
Radiohead
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Regina Spektor
The Rolling Stones
The Roots
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
Steve Miller Band
System of a Down
Tool
A Tribe Called Quest
Tupac
The White Stripes
Wu-Tang Clan

AC/DC is one of my favourite bands.
Beastie Boys I just finished downloading, I started before this conversation actually. I'll give it a listen.
Eminem I listen to occasionally.
Metallica also one of my favorites.
Tool, yip, liek that one. 

I'll try a few of the bands out of yours.
You may also like a band called Clutch, give it listen and tell me what you think. Maybe you should consider getting a portable HDD, a slow cheap one, sort of USB 2.0 and 5400RPM, to back everything up. I am also great a racing games (modest much?), I only know one person who is slightly better than me. I also play shooters and that against my friends (on PC) but if I go to any league past veteran, then I get murdered (pun). You know the whole thing where you have a sniper rifle and guy who is a speck in the distance, even through the scope, whips out his pistol and headshots you.

When you say you taught yourself to code, it reminded me of my IT teacher, who cant teach for shit. I have been teaching myself too. You seem to know computers, I was thinking of getting a new one, mines the best there is... from three years ago.

I wanted to get the i7 2600k, but theres apparently a problem with the motherboards of the 2nd gen Intel i range, something to do with SATA3 compatibility? could you maybe clear that up for me, thanks.

And 3 more things: What sort of PC component prices do you get in Canada, and I thought you guys had colder summers? and are you by any chance interested in military tech?

clutch looks good, it's like a black keys with more people and some metallica/system of a down fused in.

my music lives on an external HDD for performance reasons, I have a "Best" playlist in iTunes that just has 5 star rated songs.. basically whatever I'm listening to now plus older stuff that sticks around, which is always backed up on my phone, so losing the rest is annoying but not end of the world. a bunch of times in the past though I'd backed up my music (and everything else) in several places and somehow through a series of coincidental accidents(read: stupidity) I still lost everything.

I only ever got into perfect dark, goldeneye, and halo first persons.. I was the guy running around with a pistol/sniper rifle and the little red dot aiming thing turned off... the other half the time I sucked royally.

You should pick up some Photoshop/Illustrator skills while you're at it. writing/designing software is just -in my opinion, the deepest well there is. There are so many different levels of abstraction, languages, concepts, and basically a million different ways to do the same thing, and a million different things you can do... for the most part, all you need is time and a brain to invent anything floating around your head, solve real world problems, and work in any field you want. You could grab a copy of Flash Builder with a 60 day trial and make a desktop app for dogs that let's them choose what kind of treat they want that day, and then use those same languages to build a website for analyzing the stock market, and you don't explicitly "need" a super advanced computer to learn or do it, just a text editor and a web browser.

I'm not much of a hardware guy, especially since I need a mac for work I tend to just research the stuff they use and try get a feel of the industry to make sure I'm not getting something that'll be obsolete in a month. Right now I'm on the 15" macbook pro, anti-glare, ssd. I got it in December just before the performance bump so it's a dual core i7 with hyper threading instead of the quads they have now. I knew the bump was coming but my old laptop was a total wreck and what's another two cores when heavy processing is shifting to the gpu on an OS level.

You might want to listen to / write in to these guyshttp://twit.tv/twich , you can also just hit up the hosts on twitter they're usually pretty helpfulhttp://twitter.com/ryanshrout

Just Googling around though in my ignorance it sounds like there was a recall due to defective chipsets, might be a different issue http://www.anandtech.com/show/4143/the-source-of-intels-cougar-point-sata-bug

I've never custom built so I have no idea on prices. Just a hunch that after currency conversion, customs, and shipping it'd be moot.

We have about 3 or 4 weeks a year where the weather is decent. The rest of the year it's horrendous.. and I live in the 'mildest' part of the country. this week was supposed to be good - finally above 10 degrees, but out of nowhere we had 100km/h winds, and power failures for 2 days.. my neighbours shingles are all over the street.

I wouldn't say I'm into technology so much as I am the thought process and market influence that goes into creating it, and how stuff works. I don't specifically follow military tech though. last thing I saw was that railgun boeing designed, and those exoskeletons by lockheed martin.

Going on a tangent for a second; seems like when everyone has internet access (ie: access to knowledge), and oil supplies run out (both events expected well within our lifetimes), that military conquest will largely cease to matter.

Oh snap! a mac user... gotta, uh, go now. Please don't try and contact me again : ).

I didn't actually know that you could have 100km/h winds without having you houses blown away. I got quite frustrated with Photoshop, so I asked one of my older friends who already learnt it to teach me.

I personally believe that there will always be a need for military technology, thats what I'm going to do when I am older (design weapons), much to the dismay of many people I know. It could possibly be just a phase I'm going through, due to my age and aggressive hormones, but I'll see. Like, if somebody asked me if I wanted a hot chick to have sex with me (not a prostitute) or to fire a .50 M2 HMG Browning and learn about how to strip it down and its manufacturing process... I'd still pick the babe, but it would be a close call. Very close. Or maybe I would pick the former option, who knows?

P.S whats the link to your blog?

I need to test software on every OS without using ten machines, I need my hard drive to remain unfragmented, I need to not have to run anti-virus, anti-adware, anti-everything software constantly or be paranoid about every website I visit or file on my computer, I need to not have to reinstall the OS to maintain performance, I need to not have to restart my machine ever, I need to use the terminal, ssh, and 20 other mac/unix only design tools, I need to not have to worry about windows update, I need to not have to worry about a thousand unpatched security holes or that my machine is most likely part of a bot network just because of a favicon exploit that went known and unpatched for months and affected every version of windows since 95, i need to encrypt my drive - legally due to NDAs, without having to pay for ultimate super mega version of windows, I need a screen that reproduces colours accurately, I need a trackpad that responds to 4 finger gestures and a power adapter that attaches magnetically so when I trip over it - happens frequently and comically, my laptop doesn't come crashing down. I need an operating system that let's apps use my GPU for general processing seamlessly instead of slowing it down with tons of services I don't need to be running. I need to get work done like a grown up and not spend hours leafing through a million unnecessary complicated and redundant menus and settings, I need long battery life and I need expose and spaces. yeah... I'm a mac user.

Some houses did get blown away, but mostly old people live here so it's not a big loss.

I wasn't suggestion there wouldn't be a need, just a greatly reduced need. You'd probably end up going with the Browning since the chick would still want to fuck you 10 minutes later. I think the bigger question here is why isn't that a game show yet?

You could apply the same physics, mechanics, etc. that you're picking up from your path to military technology designer to other fields as well. Eg. that exoskeleton has a variant called eLegs that helps paraplegics walk. I have no preconceived notions relating to the morality of designing weapons, but you should be able to answer certain Questions:

1) What's the difference - to you, between firing a browning and designing a browning? (this is an in-depth question)

2) Have you ever gone to visit a vet hospital, how did or do you think it would affect your comfort level designing the tools that take 18 year old's legs away in the name of defending someone else's ideology. or that takes someone's children or loved ones away in the name of defending their own?

3) Would you ever design weapons for "the enemy"? why or why not?

4) Would you ever design weapons that you knew where going to be used solely on civilians? why or why not?

5) Would you ever design weapons that you knew where going to be used by your government against your neighbours, family, or friends? why or why not?

6) Do you have a sub genre within military technology that you're especially interested in?

7) What degrees does it require, and what's the day to day work experience like?

my blog is at http://yoavgivati.com/, I haven't posted this yet cause I was still seeing where it goes. If I end up including content beyond what you originally OKed I'll confirm first.

I see your point about the mac, though a couple of things bother me: The HDD remains unfragmented with windows anyway, I'v run windows for 4 years and never had to reinstall the OS, nor have I had a virus, windows update isn't a worry, its something that does its own thing silently in the background, the screen has nothing to do with the OS, the fact that you trip over your own laptop says something about mac users, and in addition to that you cant mange your processes. Battery life is not as good on macs as some normal laptops, and I can play games : ). Oh, I also don't have to pay around R24000 (not sure what that is in dollars) for a decent computer.

Shame for the old people, but they weren't contributing to society anyway.

I won't be able to answer those questions right now, not due to lack of answer, but I am going back to school tomorrow and I am very busy preparing, and being generally depressed. I also want to provide clear, precise answers, and make sure my arguments are airtight, as they will have to be if you are going to analyse them. I will answer at some point in the future, probably this weekend.

Yay, I get to waste 4 hours a week, sorry scratch that, 7 hours a week doing 2 exceptionally difficult languages that I don't want to do anyway. And an additional 2 and a half hours 'praying'. Somebody should really completely redesign the way we learn.

P.S and as for the game show, maybe when I'm a bit older, I'll create something like that. Oh the images that brings to mind!

Cheers for now.

Fragmentation occurs when you create, edit, and delete lots of files on the drive. How do you know you've never had a virus?? a keylogger for example could be injected into a required windows service and only transmit compressed logs maybe a few KB every month. Microsoft leaves so many zero day exploits unpatched there's a whole industry of anti-malware products that have to update their definitions daily and struggle to keep up with the thousands of new malicious software being created. it's not difficult to obfuscate malicious code. who said the screen had to do with the OS? I was talking about the quality of hardware vs. price. When I got my laptop in December, getting a comparable pc system was actually more expensive.. about $500 more, if you include cost of shipping - which apple provides for free, and all the other software that comes with a mac it was closer to $1000 difference. another thing is drivers, I just plug stuff in and it works. so.. naner naner naa naa.

take your time with the answers, I think you'll find yourself revisiting them in a few years from a different perspective. There's a lot to be said for life experience that just can't be seen from a strictly theoretical viewpoint.

They already did, it's called montessori. I left KDVP in grade 6, but me and my buddy Jared would just goof around during the praying. If you wanted to make the most of it you could just lip sync/stay silent and think about how the latest military tech works, or how you'd redesign it to make it better.. if a teacher gives you a hard time a) so what, a furious israeli woman shrieking at you about nothing.. what could be funnier, you could have a betting pool before class on whether she explodes or how long before she notices.. or even better during assembly which teacher weaves between the rows to tell you to shutup, and b) you can just be like "I'm shy" or "I'm thinking deeply about god". 7 hours a week is a lot of time, solve poverty.

I use a reliable internet security suite, and I am about 98.6% sure I have never had a virus. Even if I have had a keylogger installed without my consent or knowledge, what are they going to find of interest? absolutely crap all, thats what. I know thats not the point, but still. And don't keyloggers get picked up by antivirus software? with heuristic analysis?. I have a screen much better than anything mac offers, and its not built into the computer, so if I get a new computer, I can keep my absolutely orgasmic screen. This brings me to another point: macs aren't upgradeable. You want some new components? hey, buy another mac. In South Africa, a nice core i7 2600K rig with some good graphics, 2200MHz DDR3 RAM (6GB), and about 1.5TB of storage space with a 8400RPM HDD, you will pay about R10000. But go for a mac of the same specs, and expect to pay around R28000, and to top it all off, you cant even play games. While you may think that playing games is not an essential part of owning a computer, to me it most definitely is. And while you may find that juvenile, I see it as a sophisticated outlet for many feelings, as well as a brilliant way of recreation and having fun. Gaming is my answer to going out and getting drunk (though that is still a viable option). While I may never purchase a mac, I am mature enough, as well as willing, to admit that for some things they are better.

Jokes:
The only reason you guys don't get viruses, is because virus makers don't bother to make viruses for the mac, they figure mac users are suffering enough.
The hardest part of buying a mac is telling your parents you're gay.
The hardest part about being gay is telling people you own a mac.

How do you make a Mac run faster?
Smoke some marijuana just before using it, to alter your perception of time. There will be a noticeable speed increase, not only of the Mac but any clocks in the room as well. Now that's performance!

And now please direct you attention to the following links:
http://www.funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/224313/macs+suck/

http://www.google.co.za/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jeremyperson.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2008%2F06%2Fmacpc.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jeremyperson.com%2Fmac-vs-pc%2F&usg=__oQKWufNBJMuG3oTGruljG2YEEfk%3D&h=768&w=1024&sz=419&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=5O_Ve5vaKIuDxM%3A&tbnh=156&tbnw=208&ei=BQjATYzROYqMswaMv-zCBQ&prev=%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dmacs%2Bvs%2Bpc%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DX%26biw%3D1600%26bih%3D785%26tbm%3Disch0%2C300&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=508&vpy=130&dur=175&hovh=194&hovw=259&tx=154&ty=95&page=1&ndsp=29&ved=1t%3A429%2Cr%3A17%2Cs%3A0&biw=1600&bih=785

http://www.google.co.za/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hiphophater.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2010%2F08%2FBuy-a-mac-or-a-pc.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hiphophater.com%2Fbuy-mac-pc%2F&usg=__jY4eu5olYs9JUEIKPzw9wvlQIpc%3D&h=509&w=480&sz=65&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=OwaqPdMb7VGucM%3A&tbnh=166&tbnw=157&ei=dgjATbK6J8zMswboj63DBQ&prev=%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dbuy%2Ba%2Bmac%2Bor%2Bpc%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26biw%3D1600%26bih%3D785%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=316&vpy=75&dur=365&hovh=231&hovw=218&tx=124&ty=113&page=1&ndsp=29&ved=1t%3A429%2Cr%3A1%2Cs%3A0

http://www.funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/224313/macs+suck/

I am sure theres no need to tell you that all these are all in good humor, and I cant stand people who start getting pissed off at other people for owning and liking what they don't. I sent these to you because I find them comical, and in the case of the last one, downright hysterical.

They've upgraded from Israeli women (even though they still do still exist, and, with alarming regularity, take to having spittle flinging rages), to fat angry old men with a high pitched voices, and a perverted bi-sexual rabbi, that gets a bit too touchy feely for most normal people. Mostly I just talk to my friends, and manage to avoid the ever roaming hands of the rabbi. But I still feel its a waste of time, as I can communicate with my friends during the afternoons, and would have more time to do so, if we did not have to pretend to pray.

I bid you adieu *bows*

and I am desperately looking for sound effects of the AH-64 and UH-60 alarms. So far I've only managed to find the master caution for the Apache and a low rpm warning for a Huey.

keyloggers were just an example, you also have viruses, worms, etc. most of which remain inactive(read: hibernate) until they get a signal to start spreading or watching or whatever. and can easily hide in 100 different undetectable places. Your antivirus software is only as good as it's virus definitions which are literally constantly out of date. read up on stuxnet which we only know about due to the high profile players involved, but there are tons of others.

What screen do you have? also you can plug another computer into the current imacs and just use it's 27" screen as a dual monitor for the other computer so even when it's obsolete it's still a bitchin screen. they also just bumped up the specs today and added two thunderbolt ports.. 10mbps and can daisy chain like 6 devices plus a huge screen on each.

you can play games on a mac, since you can run windows natively you can run any windows software.

haha hahahaaha... rabbis lol

try finding a game that has those choppers and is realistic and rifle through the sound folder it installs on your system and/or on the dvd.

or

join the army and bring a tape recorder. omg i'm so old, I don't think tape recorders still exist... fuck. I meant bring the rfid chip imbedded in your arm, the one with 64 cores a terabyte of ram that monitors your health by communicating with nanobots deployed years ago into your blood stream.. bring that, and record the sounds yourself.

I have started writing the answers, but I got a lot of homework, and coupled with mothers day...

1) What's the difference - to you, between firing a browning and designing a browning? (this is an in-depth question)

2) Have you ever gone to visit a vet hospital, how did or do you think it would affect your comfort level designing the tools that take 18 year old's legs away in the name of defending someone else's ideology. or that takes someone's children or loved ones away in the name of defending their own?

3) Would you ever design weapons for "the enemy"? why or why not?

4) Would you ever design weapons that you knew where going to be used solely on civilians? why or why not?

5) Would you ever design weapons that you knew where going to be used by your government against your neighbours, family, or friends? why or why not?

6) Do you have a sub genre within military technology that you're especially interested in?

7) What degrees does it require, and what's the day to day work experience like?

1) The soldier firing the browning has chosen to physically pull the trigger, and kill or injure the person on the receiving end of the gun. I have merely provided the means for the soldier to kill, and I am not the actual person taking the lives. There is a certain separation and indirectness involved.

2) I have not visited a vet hospital as of yet. As weapons evolve they become more precise, and as the soldier’s kit becomes more advanced, the fewer soldiers are needed in battle. Soldiers also become more expensive, and so therefore the countries they are fighting for will have to look after them better, and they are no longer indispensible in the way they were before. With the preciseness in mind, bombs can be designed to kill only the person they are meant to kill, as an example.

3) Designing weapons (if done well) give the weaponologist a sense of power. He can mainly choose who his weapons are marketed to (unless he works for a firm). So it all depends on his definition of ‘the enemy’. A jihadi weaponologist might sell to the arabs, but I see the Arabs as my enemies, so I would sell my weapons to ‘the good guys’, as I see them. This allows me to further my political views, and I can almost guarantee you, that most people, if given this sort of power, would use it to further their beliefs and views. But I would never sell my weapons to the enemy. Of course they may accidently fall into the wrong hands, but there’s not much I can do about that. I wouldn’t feel right selling weapons to people who commit human rights abuses, or are fighting to keep a dictator in power for example.

4) I am assuming by the term weapons you mean one that causes death? In that case no, I would not build weapons to be used solely on civilians. I would, however, have no qualms about designing non lethal weapons to be used on civilians, such as a device that causes extreme discomfort (read:pain) to the person, but does not harm them in any way whatsoever, and as soon as they leave the area the pain stops. This can be useful in dispersing crowds, as an area denial system, or to discourage civilians form assisting the enemy.

5) Read no 4. And it depends on if the neighbours are annoying or not. I may design pistols and guns for the police, and then there is no way I can guarantee that they will not be.

6) Vehicles, possibly aerospace or aeronautics.

7) It all depends on if you work for yourself or not. Degrees wise I am not actually sure, but I’ve taken the right subjects for it at school. Science, Biology, IT and accounting.

Please feel free to point out weak arguments, inaccuracies etc. Got a first aid course for the next few days (in school). Yay (sarcasm), so I'll be quite busy.

1) This shows your immaturity. A soldier is not any more responsible for firing the browning than the designer. neither is the commanding officer who gave the order, or his, or his. Who's fault is it? When they dropped an A. bomb on Hiroshima, who's fault was it? the blood, suffering, and disfigurement of 140,000+ people from a single bomb being dropped. the most advanced of it's kind at the time. the bomb's creators vocally against the use of the weapon.

3-5) Are you familiar with the human rights abuses perpetrated by America in the Iraq war?

The point being that even if you don't sell - or work for a company that sells, arms to "the enemy" that "your team" often sells arms to "the enemy", and that every side will use tools you design to harm innocents. Every team is "the enemy" the only difference between a family on your side, or "the enemy's" side is, nothing. there is no difference.

War is rarely about human rights. War is about resources and tends to be driven by corporate and political greed.

I suggest, that you thoroughly research what drives, and what is, armed conflict, oppression, and war, before you design the tools to manifest those horrors. There's no ethical difference between donating money to the Taliban and designing a bomb or unmanned drone for the US.

You mentioned earlier (to paraphrase) "religion is bad and is in many respects and extremes designed to oppress women" but then you talk about designing the tools of war. war is just as responsible for the oppression of women as religion. rape is a huge part of war. and who's fault is that? when you take an 18 year old in a shit economy and tell him you'll pay for his education and give him a salary on top of it and make him a hero, then you put a gun in his hands and tell him to kill "the enemy" - often men, women, and children. and throw him into a warzone where his friends are being blown to bits by IEDs all over the place, and one day he snaps and rapes a mother in front of her family and then slaughters the family. who's fault is that?

Your point on precision is ridiculous. In the Congo they use machetes. they are very precise. The Iraq war was supposed to last 5 days because the bombs were so precise. precision is irrelevant. Aside from those "precise" bombs killing many innocents. I remember one landing on a school or hospital or something by accident. more than 7,000 innocent people were murdered in the first 40 days with their precise weapons compared to over 9000 "intended targets". what's the ratio on that?? what happens when you take the "intended targets" and actually consider them people and realize that many where only "the enemy" to protect their family from an oppressive regime, and/or a foreign invasion who was murdering thousands of civilians.

your point about fewer troops needed is ridiculous. the more precise weapons are the more troops you need. a bomb uses a pilot and a co-pilot. sniper rifle requires hundreds of thousands of troops deployed across a region.

your point about detachment is ridiculous. if you buy your meat from a factory farm, you are perpetuating that practice you're funding it, you are voting for it. There is already a massive gap in the precision and technology of today's weapons. The difference between who the good guys are and who the bad guys are is as simple as who's making the decisions. the difference is ideology. more accurately, the difference is how much you know about the motives of a given side. you replace one set of ideology in any country and 2 days later it's a dictatorship. you research any given war driven country and realize it already is a dictatorship.

7) This is very important. your general demeanor re: school is very similar to what mine was. it moves too slow and it's frustrating being tested constantly to prove you know what you learned. half the stuff you don't need and is just a waste of time. if a barrier exists where you HAVE to spend the next 10 years doing that then it's an issue.

The day to day is also important. You could end up spending another decade in school and finally get a job where you sit at a computer all day designing wire frames for a wing tip while a separate department of 500 nameless people build prototypes in wind tunnels from your design and another 2000 nameless people design software for the chip that goes on the thing. life in a cubicle.

Right, take disregard any of my previous arguments and replace it with this one: Somebodies got to do it, and I am one of the people who will enjoy doing it. There will almost certainly always be war, and war requires weapons. I like to see the things I design in action, not just writing something that is theoretical, or designing something that will never be used.

And sniper rifles do not require hundreds of troops deployed across a region. I checked out the day to day thing and if you play your cards right, you get recognition and a major part in designing the weapon.

I was writing those arguments for your sake. I have looked over what happens in war, and have seen and read about many of the atrocities committed, and strangely enough I don't mind designing weapons anyhow. I understand that the points are ridiculous, but thats what debating is about: get the mediator to believe your bullshit rather than the other persons.

There is a moral difference (ethical and morals difference? see end) between selling bombs to the Taliban and to the US. The Taliban actively and openly target civilians. And the US, while they do kill civilians quite often and torture the wrong people, at least do not actively try to massacre civilians. The Taliban would happily kill off entire demographics of people. Also, the US would be less likely to use the weapon, due to international pressure. And we must also look at the difference between killing civilians as opposed to soldiers. We are all human in the end. OF course the soldier may have chosen to fight, but still...

To design a counter to IED's would mitigate the problem of his friends getting blown up, and save lives, whcih is what I might, for example, work on in the future. And it definitely isn't my fault. Precise bombs aren't precise if they accidently kill people. They are designing a rocket powered bullet. Adapt that to kill only the person you are aiming for and hey presto, you have yourself a truly accurate bomb. Whether or not its right to kill the person they are aiming for is irrelevant.
I'm not sure if I wrote this already in an earlier message, but I have a theory that my interest in weapons could be due to the natural aggressiveness that teenage boys suffer from, due to hormonal changes etc. I may lose interest and end up doing something else instead.
I learnt from my dads mistakes about life in a cubicle.

P.S What I find strange, is that I could not actually kill someone with the browning, but I know if I were to design the weapon it would be used for killing. Something in my mind believes that only designing the weapon makes it okay. I believe my self to be relatively mature, I don't think my answer has much to do with maturity.
Ethics is possibly something that a person has to obey e.g If a criminal tells his lawyer that he actually did deal the drugs, ethically the lawyer should not say anything to the jury, but morally the lawyer should lock up the criminal. Morals is a more inbuilt thing, like its morally wrong to designing weapons, but ethics dictates its okay?
P.P.S please find a synonym for ridiculous.

Now we're getting somewhere. Your first response was catered and lacked depth. You were holding back because you're used to going at pace to a degree. You need to set the bar higher for yourself regardless of audience. most people won't really understand what you're saying anyway. most people don't understand each other.

al-Qaeda killed 3000 civilians on 9/11, they justified it with religious extremism, and US military presence in Saudi Arabia.

The US killed 7000 civilians in Iraq during the first two months of the war, and have been at war for a decade with over 100,000 "violent civilian deaths", they did not justify it. They had allies who did not justify it. The former US administration warned against it. over 36 million people around the world protested against it. The UN considers it illegal. It was a unilateral decision by President Bush, who was only able to make that decision because he changed US Law to say he could, he justified that because they were "at war with terrorism" - Iraq had nothing to do with terrorism, aside from the fact that after the start of the war it became a major reason for people to join and support al-Qaeda.

members of al-Qaeda are hunted down and killed.

the Bush administration has not even been tried for war crimes.

maturity in terms of depth as a measure of time spent considering the answers. I was expecting something like your second answer the first time. I feel like had you answered right away you would have, but your regular routine as a buffer took your answers down to everyone else's level. don't let your mind vegetate like that.

ridiculous: ridonkulous, reconkulous, consequonculous.

I'm tired now, and will reply later. But I have to ask, you know ridonkulous??? Stemming from the infamous LO teacher Mr Radomsky?
I'm so tired My eyes can hardly focus on the screen, and I can hardly lift my fingers to type.

never heard of him, or LO.
I know it from Mad TV 

when I'm tired and have to code i use the hunt and peck method. you just go close enough to the keyboard to see the letters and use your face to type. it also works when there's a lot of glare, if you're typing something at the park or library or somewhere.

Right. Mr Radomsky is a teacher for the most useless departments at our school, the Life Orientation one. He frequently bursts into racking sobs, and manages to teach the same thing, in only mildly varying ways for a term, at the very least. He makes thousands of hollow threats, and is currently gaining weight due to trouble at home (ironic, LO teacher not handling stress). The thing is, he has neglected to purchase new clothing for himself, and is quite literally fit to pop a button. He pretends to be a big shot, and makes his subject out to be more important than maths or science, even though nobody has any respect for him. He knows less about what teenagers get up to than most of the other teachers (again, ironic). So the term has sprung up: Ridonkulous, for something completely and utterly ridiculous or unfair. e.g
Student 1: The teacher failed me on that test for not ruling the markers margin
Person 2: Dude, thats ridonkulous. 

While I most certainly do not condone what the US has done in the middle east, one must ask look at the amount of resources available to them, as compared to Al Qaeda. If Al Qaeda had a massive army, with troops as well trained as the US one, with the equipment available to the aforementioned troops, as well as state of the art attack and support aircraft, what would they have done with it? I think they would have had some fun re-enacting the holocaust and had a spot of light ethnic cleansing, before going of for a cup of ALLAH JIHAD!!.... um *clears throat* sorry, I meant a cup of tea. Bush was a retard, it's as simple as that. I doubt the intellectual capabilities of many Americans to be quite honest with you.
But Al Qaeda have made it quite clear that their main aim is to wipe out many of those that they find do not believe in what they believe in, to put it frankly. Women who do not cover themselves fully form head to toe, jews, women who desert their husbands get stoned, people who want to read, watch tv, entertain themselves etc.

I am not actually entirely sure what happened with he US invading (and I don't deny my ignorance towards the entire situation) as it was before my time. But to my knowledge they invaded under the pretense of the 'war on terror', but in all actual fact wanted some control over the precious oil. Please do not shun my ignorance, rather help me understand in the most objective way you can explain it, and I would appreciate it if you would insert your opinions afterwards, as I value them greatly.

P.S You may want to read Ben Eltons book, Blind Faith. It shows what might happen if religion were to be misinterpreted and forced upon a western populace. Have you by any chance played Portal 2?

Then again, I'm actually only saying bush was stupid because of what I'v heard. He could have been politically clever, I don't know enough to make a conclusion. Ahhhhhh, I just realized how much I don't know about the world.

my grammar will be shit, i've been up for 21 hours after only sleeping 3, and i've been driving all day through storms..

When I read the words "Life Orientation" I made a sound that was somewhere in between a laugh and confused shock. I startled myself.

Bush's father was head of the CIA, vice president, president, and some other stuff.

The companies that brought down the economy the last few years? their former CEOs were and are the people that drafted and continue to ensure laws and hold some of the highest positions of power that allow them to fuck with the economy. still.

yes oil. corporations that sell oil like oil.

if the people Al Qaeda recruits from, had money and resources and civil liberties, no one would join Al Qaeda.

there is no right side. it's not about money per say. it's about exploitation. Europeans colonized the world and royally screwed it over, slavery land resources they just took it. no different today. those that have will continue to, and those that don't are fucked.

something like 2% of the US defence budget could cut world poverty and hunger in half.

all of this however is a tangent. You want to design weapons because you're passionate about doing so. whether that passion remains or transforms in the future is anyone's guess. You can do anything you want, and you can do it in a way that fits with your values. the next few years those values will solidify. When I was younger I was gonna be a veterinarian. the specifics don't matter. all that matters is that you follow passion. because it leads somewhere. there are no boundaries. there are no boxes or categories or labels. the world is not complex, it's simple - it's just repetitive and expansive, but it's simple.

will check out Blind Faith. you check out idiocracy. movie, comedy, kind of true already. i might have already told you to watch it. my brain is melted.

I have not played portal, but I hear it's amazing. something about cake being a lie.

everyone is ignorant.

Bush certainly acted like an idiot, but his intelligence was irrelevant. "control" and "free choice" are things that are very complex and exaggerated, especially in politics and positions of power.

also since we're on the oddness of the world in which we live bush didn't even win the election. the US voting system uses an electoral college. so citizens vote for people to vote for them, but those people who actually vote for the president can just vote however the fuck they want. anyway they had a bunch of recounts, Al Gore(main opposition party nominee / mensa global warming guy) sued him, supreme court decided Bush won. lol "democracy" 9 people decided who became president.

wow, i just rambled all over the place...

Dude, get some sleep for shits sake! Your sleep is more important that churning out a reply. Portal is amazing, but you have to play the first one first, to get the full experience. I only just managed to make out your message. REST!

ich bin ein insomniac

Have a shot at these. Short, almost poetic little snippets (that in no way interlink or interlead with each other), that I may put in a book.

An office clerk sat at his desk. He glanced with great concern at the papers upon his desk. His mind was almost paralysed by the all the rules and regulations. He decided it was best if he let the case take its natural course. A man was hanged. A girl lost her father. The war raged on.

I sincerely regret to inform you that your son has fallen in battle, but am grateful I can write to you that he died fighting bravely for Adolf Hitler and a Greater Germany. He died honouring his oath to the Third Reich. Heil Hitler! The fuehrer sends you his greeting, and thanks you dearly for your sacrifice. God will reward you greatly.
Five million, five hundred and thirty thousand times that message was sent out, to the mothers of those men.

Army training is designed to crush all that is human. It is to teach the soldiers that the only method of retaliation, is with the cold, murderous weapon that is forced into their hands. Tells them what they are doing is right, and for the good of their country. Makes them throw down their lives, with verve and passion, for a President they will never meet, for ideals with which they do not agree or do not fully understand. They watch their brothers die in battle, for a few drops of precious oil. The endure things that no human should ever have to endure; killing and destruction are all they know now. That is war.

The infantryman in war, is much like a humble grain of sand. The waves wash over it, suck it far out to sea, away from all forms of humanity, and then hurl back upon the beach, only to suck it back out again. The grain of sand disappears without anyone ever knowing or caring about it.

It started with something as boring as biscuits and coffee- It ended with death, destruction, pain and marching orders. War is hell, morals are forgotten and love is short and unsure. Judge us only if you dare! It is only old men and women who have never experienced and known the beauty of love who fail to understand those who seek it, find it, and absolutely have to experience it.

P.S Best put into word and read in italic, and for your convenience.

though I realise that you will only read the PS after the snippets.

I like it.

Some typos/suggested improvements

"An office clerk sat at his desk. He glanced with great concern at the papers upon his desk. His mind almost paralyzed by rule and regulation. He decides it is best if he lets the case take its natural course. A man was hanged. A girl lost her father. The war raged on.

I sincerely regret to inform you that your son has fallen in battle, but am grateful I can write to you that he died fighting bravely for Adolf Hitler and a Greater Germany. He died honouring his oath to the Third Reich. Heil Hitler! The Führer sends you his greetings, and thanks you dearly for your sacrifice. God will reward you greatly.
Five million, five hundred and thirty thousand times that message was sent out, to the mothers of those men.

Army training is designed to crush all that is human. It is to teach the soldiers that the only method of retaliation, is with the cold, murderous weapon that is forced into their hands. Tells them what they are doing is right, and for the good of their country. Makes them throw down their lives, with verve and passion, for a President they will never meet, for ideals with which they do not agree or do not fully understand. They watch their brothers die in battle, for a few drops of precious oil. They endure things no human should ever have to; killing and destruction are all they know now. This is war.

The infantryman —in war, is much like a grain of sand. Waves wash over it, suck it far out to sea, away from all forms of humanity, and then hurled back upon the beach, only to be sucked back out again. They disappear without a mention.

It started with something as boring as biscuits and coffee- It ended with death, destruction, pain, and marching orders. War is hell, morals are forgotten and love is short and unsure. Judge us only if you dare! It is only old men and women who have never experienced and known the beauty of love; who fail to understand those who seek it, find it, and have to experience it absolutely."

Reminds me of some stuff I wrote way back when

He sits on the 80th floor with his Starbucks Mocha-chino and a firm grip, around the corner from the generic corporate hangout, the glistening water cooler. He sits in his comfy leather seat in front of his polished oak desk that threatens to engulf anyone who dares to enter. He ponders about whether or not to take the company Benz to the car wash for the 3rd time this week. Deep down inside he has locked away the truth and thrown away the key. The truth that he despises who he has become, surrounded by fakes and phonies, labels he’s much too familiar with for his liking; his deep down liking. His lavish apartment simply a façade desperately trying to cover up his deeply concealed unhappiness. His secretary opens the door as he vainly ruffles some papers with one hand to appear “busy”. She stares long into his slick green eyes and informs him his mom is on line one. Before he can respond she detects his aggravated posture and quickly says, “I ran out of excuses.” It would seem she had to apologize for allowing such an interruption as she backs out of the room’s intimidating atmosphere. He lifts the receiver and holds it up to his ear, and with a conceited smirk spread across his face he answers with an “I’m in the middle of an important meeting,” followed by an, “I’ll send the nurse over right away..” as he disconnects her. He finishes his mocha-chino as the promise he just made is dissolved out of memory. Leaning back he thinks of the Hansford account and the profit he’s soon to make off it.

and this one

In case I had not actually been eaten twice, I quickly rolled over and said it was a four. His golf game, it was horrible, and I – Told – Everyone. Waddling around the green like a duck on the green stuff, or maybe more like lsd, it was a calm madness, a blissful dream as he systematically missed his target. Showing a great talent in failure, he shot about 543 last time; par was 80, it was mini-putt, he was practicing. How sad; a duck on the day after his birthday, robbing a child of a putt-putt game with his friends and forcing him to go blow is fucking candles out some other place, a place that didn’t respond to bribes and didn’t get a kick out of watching my ex-husband quack feathers flapping around on the “highly involving” green of the Put Martin... FFFFFUUUCCCKK he would announce as he walked in the doorway, and that’s how I could tell. It was a subtle gesture that I’m sure only I and the neighbors could read after knowing him so long. He was after all an enigma wrapped in a candy bar, at least his appeal lasted as long. “How could I waste my life with a man like that,” they said. How could I get through each day without skewering my myself with the only thing that ever satisfied me living in my top dresser drawer, how could I tolerate the mediocrity and mundainity of living with that duck quack quack. Just to manifest: my parents are assholes too. Always talking about me, trying to sabotage everything in my life with visible resentment. They still haven’t gotten over how I shoveled 500 pounds of dog shit I collected from the neighbor dogs over about a month-those shit filled, loud... for 2 years every time dad went to a business meeting and mom went to the market they would emerge from the car smelling like the shits they are. Perhaps tonight they’d at least respect me a little. I made a fabulous meal; 3 courses, the whole nine. Ha, not for him though, no, before dinner I’m getting a divorce. Oh yes, I found his special little nine-caliber friend he keeps in the tool chest, what a tool, he’s such a tool. As soon as he walks in the door tonight I’m gonna blow his brains to smitherines, I’m gonna redecorate the kitchen and if I’m a good enough shot I’ll redecorate the inside of his skull too. I’ve never been much of a cleaner--well not for this, maybe I’ll just leave him there in a puddle of his insides and see what the bridge girls say when they come over on Wednesday. Those stagnant bricks could use some excitement in their lives. I can see it now, running around like a flock of chickens, feathers flying everywhere to match the ex-husband lying on the floor, clucking madly to comprehend what I’ve done. I’ll calmly drink my coffee while they decide what to do with me. Then I’ll walk over to Sherry and kiss her right on the mouth, that’ll drive her crazy that prude. How can anyone actually believe her garbage about god and hell and jesus or something. What nonsense, I suppose she does it cause old woman McGinty bakes cookies. COOKIES for those fuckin’ self predicated rejects from society. I know for a stone fact that she never witnessed nothin’. Acting all high and mighty, if she was married to a duck quack quack she would do the same thing, although it would probably have happened much sooner, I’m sure of it. Under her cold prudish exterior is a vengeful tact bridge-player that could only be the spawn of some unholy soul. I’m sure she’s capable of anything and only restrains herself due to court order for her long string of crimes. Then again maybe not.

lol and this was gonna be the intro to a ridiculously insane book that I guess I forgot about like 6 years ago

i have a growing suspicion that all the members of the human populous will systematically and uniformly sequentially begin to fall apart--in the literal sense.
All of a sudden the person waiting behind me in line at the post office will lose their arms, both left and right, or only left or right if they only have one or the other, will gravitate to the floor with immediate force as though filled with twice the lead their apparent volume could sustain in this climate and a loud repulsive thud as they instantaneously compact on the floor in their respective spaces like marsh-mellows from the sheer force molding instantly into their respective new putty like states.

an easy increasing creaking noise like an old un-oiled screen door in the hot south slowly opening while approaching the prime creaking point as their head begins to tilt backward and at the sound of a pop instantly with great force roll down the their back off their heels and with such speed and force generated by the fall roll right passed the doors that remains open from the handicap aid button and into the street remarkably passed all but 1 moving vehicle that determines the end to the bumpy spherical shape in a wide circular splat on queen street.

next to go, after what remained had drenched the captivated observers in 9 pints of squirting blood, the still standing, now not spraying, structure before us would begin to collapse backward marked by a folding at the hips causing an unnatural triangle shape similar to a greater than symbol although due to it's unfortunate position is inherently incorrect as inside is not greater than outside, another snap or was it a crunch this time as bones break in multiple places and the torso finally becomes free from the rest floating in mid-air for a moment as the 'rest' falls quickly it proceeds to perform a half-torso flip followed by a sharp spray at the only unsoaked patron to this spectacle and landing on the once clean boring floor before it finally tips over in a pathetic final impact.

it began to concern me later that day when this same exact string of events took to the entire line behind me at value mart, and once complete to every cashier and patron in the place as though they where synchronized team of collapsors. This i tell you, is when i began to become suspicious that something was awry. little did i know i had only just witnessed the beginning of what was to be, an extremely boring story. i wouldn't recommend reading on as per the introduction to the book, nothing more than vaguely suspicious events occur and being completely non-fiction very little, some would argue absolutely no imagination was utilized in writing this completely malaise factual nonsense.

Cool stuff. I find that I can write alot better when there are no constraints or rules. Like, I have this essay to do for tomorrow, and it's an awesome topic (we have to argue if we think the character from the book The Kite Runner Amir is completely powerless), but we have to adhere to a strict word structure and count. You know, quote from the novel, and start of with this. Basically they give us a word structure and we fill in the blanks with quotes and analysis's. What makes it worse is that I already did it once, and I did it on the wrong topic the first time. School really does suck terribly.
Lucky todays provincial voting day (day off), basically we get to see if the DA manages to win any of the provinces from the ANC. 

I like the writing, for me it looks like it should be in a book somewhere?

I would really recommend Portal 1 and 2 to you, as they are amazing games. Even if you are a retired gamer, I would hope you break out the old you and get playing. They few characters are amazingly funny, but dark at the same time. Basically you have to play through very hard puzzles, and there is no difficulty level. I managed to complete the game (the second one) in 7 hours, and the average time to completion is about 8 to 10 hours. I am of course assuming you can torrent in Canada. If so, download the first one and play it first. You have to play it first to get the full experience of number 2. I don't know how they managed to do it, they have made the game so that the majority of the population can play it, but intelligent people still get quite a challenge out of it. It get ten out of ten from me.

Have fun with it, while I trudge on with the tediousness that is school. I personally believe school is hindering my progress through life...

P.S I especially liked the intro to the forgotten book. Maybe write a book in the future.

when I was in grade 10 I just said fuck it and started writing essays the way I wanted to. the class would do 2-3 pages with lots of filler, I'd do 10 pages where my 3 "paragraphs" where really 3 essays within the main essay each with 3 main points.

I was lucky enough to have supportive english teachers in high school, and there was a guy who sat in front of me one year who also essayed it up.

one of the points I was trying to make in my exhausted ramble the other day was that the rules are only there for people who need them. If you write a short essay that's airtight and ten grades above your level, or you write a long comprehensive essay filled with revelation and humour, then you're doing fine.

those word counts are really just so the teacher can get some sleep, if you write a good essay they won't have a problem putting in the time to read it and appreciate between the lines. worst case scenario you lost a few marks and that'll just be a tension in your academic career where you're organically pushed out of formal structured academics.

by grade 11 I literally just wouldn't do assignments that I felt weren't challenging or were unstimulating. my marks suffered a lot, I was barely passing even science classes. I loved the subjects I'd just rather go home and read about physics than make a big posterboard with two tiny paragraphs on global warming for 3 weeks. ugh.

look into taking a class online - if they offer that in SA. it's far more suitable because you can usually do the course in whatever order you want, and be elaborate and articulate as you please.

normal school: read Macbeth, with the class, over a week, follow guides, this is how you analyze it, i'm holding your hand, marked according to following orders.

online/homeschool: read Macbeth, love shakespeare, read a couple other plays and some poetry, research online, make a greater point about shakespeare's style in general and how macbeth exposes specific aspects of it, as well as how shakespeare's actual life influenced his dramatic choices. or whatever other direction you feel like going in.

You do you. you don't have to worry about the system making space for you. the fact that it doesn't means you're changing the way it works and it'll adapt in a trail behind you as you impact society. the system was not made for you.

society is a maze designed to keep you doing busy work so that no one causes a disruption - leading everyone through predefined paths to predefined goals. You should learn to see that maze as an erasable sketch on the tiles of your kitchen. for the purposes of this paragraph your kitchen is tiled.

portal coming in at 1.68MB/s - ETA 3 minutes. if it's really as good as you and everyone else says it is I'll have to buy it.

You lucky bastard! The fastest we get here is about 500KBps. I get 64KBps maximum. Remember to play the first one first.

LOL supportive english teachers. Not at KDVP. Too many rich Jews who think that they are better than each other, and want exactly the same thing, and they will only take my comment as laziness. I was thinking of maybe doing the Cambridge A and O levels. Basically the last 3 years of school done in 2 years in a much better way. The only thing is then I can't really meet new people through school (obviously), and would have to find alternative means. Theres also something about school, that you manage to talk to some people, but you wont actually see them outside of the school environment. I would miss that sort of random socialization, talking to random people about a common interest.

P.S I absolutely despise Shakespeare. And poetry. Especially poetry. Excuse me while I read some poetry to induce vomiting, to get rid of the poisonous thoughts about Shakespeare. This may be due to the way they taught it, but hey.
And the candy thing my mom's tuning you about: I had to give one of my snakes away, and just as the guy was leaving he asked me my name, and I thought he was asking me the snakes name, so I told him Candy, and he took a visible step back and said 'what?' and so I repeated 'Candy' so he paused for what must of been about a full minute, and then asked the snakes name, so I had to explain to him. My mom found this incredibly amusing, to say the very least.

Oh, and my kitchen is tiled. But unfortunately society has managed to scratch those lines into the floor. I think its time for a whole new re-tiling, of the metaphorical kitchen floor.

Just remember it's your call.

Good poetry is good.

That thing you sent me about the guy writing letters in the third reich was a form of poetry. btw.

with shakespeare if you get a chance to really sink your teeth into it and have a translator reference thing to understand the context and meaning of it, every sentence is like a multi-level joke and statement about the nature of life that ties into the greater thing and goes back and interweaves. it takes a few reads of one of his plays to get a feel for the different levels he was operating on.. people spend their whole lives just exploring shakespeare academically.

his plays can easily be ruined though because plays in general suck, people overplay the accents and bad acting takes away from it's genius.

that's hilarious. who names a snake Candy? no no I think you just wanted someone to call you Candy and were waiting months for an opportunity.

you have to start with sandpaper to get the scratches out, I shouldn't tell you this but one day you'll think you're about to finally sand it smooth and your arm will suddenly break right through and you'll realize it's just a veneer without substance that you could have just peeled off and rearranged any old time. I dunno, maybe the right to vote and consent and financial independence play a role in seeing that there is no institution. just a shadow projection of our parents' generation's parents' generation's ideals and was meant to be re-tiled as we see fit as they did and was done before them.

Yes, I can put it on my CV. My greatest ambition is to be locked in an MGG box and be called Candy by random strangers. What makes it funnier is that I had established myself as a guy, by talking to this man for about 8 minutes. He must have thought I was some transvestite prostitute or something. I wish I should have screen shotted his face. And you know you spend too much time on the computer when you describe it as screenshotting.

Well, Until next time,
Adious

it might also mean you have a depth perception problem.

k I want to post the whole thing on my blog. confirm.

Copy that TACCOM. Authorization code delta papa new guinea bravo three oh niner. You have clearance. Solid copy, over and out.