Moving On

Already halfway done with my intro Coursera class, trying to look into practical applications now.  Seeing if I can write something that will help me every day, or at work, etc.

In the meantime, I've typed out what I think they should do once written, but I have a bit more to work through before I am confident that it will succeed.

Signed up for classes at a local city college so I can begin working towards a piece of paper that acknowledges my course completions, as well as allowing me to have dedicated time to learn instead of be distracted by other things that need doing.

I figure, get a certificate in programming (learning ruby-on-rails, C++, and a course on linux, plus the other requirements) that requires 30 hours, use those credits to get an associate's degree, then use those to move on to finish my Bachelor's degree (which already has all core classes completed and at this point a bunch of useless ones also completed).

While working though this will take many more years than intended, but so long as it is applicable knowledge I have no trouble with that.

Irrationality, and other mind problems

Today will mark 4 measly days since my goal was established and I'm glad to say I have both a much further way to go and am a lot closer than I imagined all in one.  It's like a long road trip, when you can finally see your destination at the horizon, but then as night falls it still seems so far away, but at least its in your sights now.

I would not claim to be a smart man, but I would estimate somewhere around average, if not a little below.  I have taken classes though in debate, reasoned argument, persuasion and philosophy, and have always believed myself to be a fairly rational person.  I was wrong.  These things merely helped to cover up or justify my irrationality, and led to complacency in thought.

Lacking knowledge is one thing, that ignorance can be rectified by seeking out where you are deficient and gaining the knowledge that was missing previously.  I can deal with being ignorant because I am pursuing my goal which will alleviate some ignorance and put me on the path to eliminate as much of it as I am able to.  What I cannot deal with is my brain slacking off as much as it wants to.

I have to constantly catch myself and redirect my attention, force myself to continue reading to try and make sense the words my eyes see, while my mind lingers on other, far less important, topics.  My brain will not simply read past a problem it has with subject-verb-agreement even if the problem is rectified later on in the sentence.

I feel as if my habits have attenuated my brain to expect regular dopamine drips from reading blurbs and looking at funny pictures rather than the ways I used to behave.  I hope, with effort, it can be converted back to the way it used to function, and that this setting is only temporary.

It's only been four days, and I'm even more determined now than before.  I have a long way to go, longer than I thought originally, but the change should be very much worth it.

Goals

I've spent a lot of time under the impression that I do not have anything unique to contribute to humanity/society/art/science/etc, and that has lead me to believe that living a mediocre life, with a solid internet connection, and simply watching the world pass me by was acceptable.  The goal was to live and see the future happen around me, while maximizing fun and happiness.

This is no longer an acceptable goal to me any longer, as I refuse to be merely ambitious without an ambition.

I am no longer content to sit by and watch the world happen around me, I choose to contribute to it.  This blog is not viewed by anyone, but it is enough of a start for me to get this down in writing and have it made -technically - public.

My aim is to be less wrong about the world around me, more rational in every day thinking as well as problem-solving, and I will learn, in detail, how to affect the world around me through computing.

My specific goal is to end up working on artificial intelligence.  To achieve this I am returning to school to learn programming, how computers work in general, logic, and rationality.

Wish me luck.

ME3: Conclusion

Indoctrination theory can be discounted, Bioware has let it be known that they have no intention of changing the ending of the game, but sometime this summer will release free clarification DLC that 'should' clear up the plot holes and major problems, even though they tried to sell it as a favor to the fans who "Need more time to say goodbye to their stories."

Aside from a complete re-write of the ending this is pretty much as much as anyone could have hoped for, so I'm at least happy that they took this issue somewhat seriously, though I wish it wasn't done in such a patronizing way.

Bioware, you didn't need to do this, so I appreciate it. Don't think you're off the hook yet though.

Re: Religion and the Constitution Under Attack in America -- Fox

In an interview on CBS Sunday, Cardinal Dolan called the Obama administration’s mandate on contraceptive coverage a “radical intrusion of a government bureaucracy.”

There are several points to be made about the misinformation in this opening paragraph. First of all, the Obama administration did not produce the mandate, congress did, so it is the previous congress's mandate.

Secondly, there is no radical intrusion by the government in this one issue. How much sense would it make to craft a mandate for health insurance and then have no parameters by which to say what is and what is not health coverage? That'd be like the bailout ~$trillion dollar debacle that the government basically just gifted as there was no oversight.

Ensuring that health care companies are required to provide certain things is just common sense. Birth control is an extremely widely used prescription that helps in many more ways than simply preventing pregnancy and it makes sense to make sure people have access to it as it is a medical prescription that has to go through a doctor.

Why would your health insurance, that you're mandated to have now, not cover your medical prescriptions?

He continued, saying, “Our problem is the government is intruding into the life of faith and in the church that they shouldn’t be doing.”

This does not make sense to me. The government mandating that insurance companies (and the companies that provide these insurance packages to their employees) provide medical coverage regardless of preexisting conditions seems to be a larger affront to this idea than birth control.

Jehova's Witnesses don't believe in getting transfusions, does that mean that they should be able to inflict this belief onto their non-JW staff? No. So why is it different for birth control?

The Ending of Mass Effect 3

Ok, so the ending made no sense... and there are a bunch of theories, but this one makes the most sense to me and actually brings a lot of hope for the future:

The reapers have an ability to indoctrinate, basically slow-rate mind control where you don't realize it but you start to see things their way and work for them even if you think you are fighting them. This was shows numerous times with important characters in the first game, and in the last one it looks like Shepherd and The Illusive Man are being put under the influence of indoctrination.

In the final mission you rush this portal that beams you up to the citadel where you can make your choice (destroy the reapers, merge all synthetics and organic life, or attempt to turn the reapers under your control). On your way to the beam you get blasted by a giant laser and almost die. You spend the next sequences limping around and visually impaired.

These three choices represent what various characters tried to do throughout the game while being indoctrinated. Saren (the bad guy in the first game) wanted to merge the reapers with us to make us all stronger. It turned out he was indoctrinated, meaning this idea might have been put in his head rather than it be his idea to begin with.

The Illusive Man was always out to control the reapers and put them under his thumb to make humanity stronger. The reapers used this to their advantage and indoctrinated him as well, making him think he could accomplish this. We were told numerous time though in previous games that this would be impossible, meaning either T.I.M. had something super-special or he was just indoctrinated to think this way and the reapers were still pulling the strings for him. Then there is Shepherd's only real choice, but it's a bad one. Kill all Synthetic life, including the Geth (who he just helped raise into full-sentience and sapience) EDI (who is now a friend AI) and the Reapers.

If you pick Synthesis (which is supposedly the 'good' ending) you effectively choose to be exactly like Saren from the first game. This means that it cannot really be the good ending as you fought against it previously and must only seem like the good ending when compared to the rest. This is something the reapers are already doing as well, so choosing this basically agrees with your enemies.

If you pick control you are effectively choosing to be exactly like The Illusive Man, who failed and was also indoctrinated. The cannot be a good ending either and is an option they wanted T.I.M. to choose under indoctrination.

If you pick destroy you are actually freeing the galaxy and all future generations of species from the reapers, but it's made to be tragic because you're agreeing with the reaper child who just spoke to you in saying that organics and synthetics cannot co-exist and will always end up with Synthetics rebelling against their creators. This simply goes against everything you fought for in all 3 games because you finally get the Geth and Quarians to share the planet and you develop EDI by sharing her growing experience. By choosing this option the reaper makes you think you are destroying all synthetic life. Their purpose was to basically regulate this conflict eternally by storing advanced organic life in reaper form (Sythesis of organic and synthetic life through reaper control).

If you pick either Synthesis or Control, you die in the cut scene. If you have enough points, and completed most of the game and pick Destroy though, you wake up on Earth, barely conscious laying on concrete. Now, this is impossible, and is either a huge gaff in the story (I'll explain) or is a clear indication of something else (which I'll also explain).

The beam portal took us to the citadel, which was orbiting the Earth in space. There is no way you would survive the crash back to earth in a monolithic space station and just wake up on concrete without any wreckage of the many miles-long spacecraft. Again, this is either a terrible oversight or something deliberate.

I think it is a clear indication of something else, namely that after the laser blast you entered an indoctrination-induced hallucination where the reapers attempted to finally control you and convince you not to destroy them (and perhaps work for them). This means that if you pick the good option (Synthesis) you give in to the reapers and they control you. If you pick Control, they have turned you into another Illusive Man and you are also under their control. If you pick Destroy, you would be the first person to ever overcome indoctrination and reject their control and carry on to continue your mission even though it has other bad results.

Basically, if you pick destroy, you wake back up on earth and the whole choice had been the reaper's attempt to control you. This leaves room for Bioware to release a REAL ending in Downloadable content and a far better epilogue, etc. Either that or when Shepherd gasps for breath after rejecting indoctrination, he dies there on Earth and the Reapers win, perpetuating the cycle again and meaning that it is the true end.

Empirically: Mac VS PC

LOS ANGELES - There have been far too many cases of 'debating on the intarwobz' about this subject, when there needn't be so much nerd rage. It's true, people like different things, and what is valuable to one person is not valuable to other people, etc. How, then, can we actually decide which is better when deciding between a Macintosh computer or any number of Windows/Linux-based PCs?

First off, lets talk about brand loyalty. I'm under the distinct impression that there is far too much stereotyping going on about both groups. I do not think that every PC owner is a giant nerd or gamer, nor do I think that every Mac owner is a trendy, hipster who buys because they don't want viruses. Anecdotal evidence alone has confirmed these absolutes to be untrue, and I never really understood the stark line drawn in the sand between these two camps.

Defining what's important to the user is going to determine what they're really going to want, so lets round up what you're actually getting for your purchase. It's a computer, and it is meant to run the programs you want to run. Now, if you're even marginally affluent with computers, the OS won't be able to hold you back no matter which you choose. Bootcamp is available for Macs so they can run Windows and Linux OS's, and running OSX and beyond on a dual-boot PC really isn't very tough either. So, the conclusion here is that if you decide to take up some extra effort, you can negate this as a factor entirely... which should be interesting since I just stated that this could determine everything.

If you're not into that sort of thing, and you're going to need to rely on tech support more often than not, you need to take a look at the software you want to run, what applications you want to use, and how you're going to live with your decision for a while. When you're stuck to your OS there's definitely some things to think about here, so I won't even begin to speculate what could be most important for you.

Now, once you've made your decision on software and OS compatibility, you'll need to make your choice accordingly. If you want mac-only programs (I think these are few and far between now-a-days) then you're obviously limited to the Macs, and if you want to run PC-only programs then you're obviously limited to the PCs, and in either case you should be regimenting out how much you want to spend on your computer, and pricing only those that at LEAST match the minimum system requirements for what you want to run. Buying better hardware can have a future-proofing affect that will allow you to continue running new programs in the future, and so the more you learn about the components, you can make your investment last longer.

If you're able to go between OS's, or you have no problem doing so if need be, then you have to look at what you're actually buying; Hardware.

Obviously, if you have low system requirements for the programs you want to run, then you can get a seriously cheap computer and not have to worry about it. Netbooks are available for those that don't need much more than web browsing capability, and they can be bought new for under $200.

Hardware comes in a few different classes now-a-days. We have Desktops, notebooks, tablets, netbooks, full-tower desktops, etc. Decide if you need to be mobile, semi-mobile, or stationary when computing. There are benefits to both, and a compromise-ish situation with desktop-replacing laptops. Fairly, you can always get the best equipment at the cheapest prices when you're getting a desktop. With more room comes more air space to cool the non-condensed, non-energy-efficient parts that simply produce far more power than laptops can, due to heat and energy restrictions.

With Laptops, the choice between the two is a bit iffy on hardware.

A standard Macbook is $999

For that you get the following:

• 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 2GB DDR3 memory
• 250GB hard drive¹
• 8x double-layer SuperDrive
• NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics
• 1280 by 800 (native resolution)
• N-wireless

A A standard Toshiba Laptop for $879

gets you the following:

Core i3 processor

GB DDR3 memory

250GB hard drive

Integrated Intel Graphics

1366x768 native resolution

N wireless

These computers seem to basically be a wash. The i3 is better than the Core 2 Duo, and 3 GB of ram is more than the mac, but the mac's screen is nicer and the dedicated mobile graphics card is better than the integrated one on the toshiba. The price is pretty negligible as well, and the styling is definitely in the mac's favor.

All in all, for these low-end laptops, I'd probably get the mac. They're not that great at anything, but they're not terrible. You can easily find cheaper computers at Tiger Direct or New Egg, with roughly the same components for under $500, and for 1/2 the price of the macbook I'd rather have last year's model that's just as powerful.

Higher class laptops widen the divide a bit.

The Macbook Pro - 15" starts at $1,999.00

For that you get the following:

Core i5 processor

4GB DDR3 ram

500 GB hard drive

GeForce GT 330M with 265mb graphics memory

The ASUS G73 - 17" starts at $1,799.00 (discount to $1,599 linked)

For that you get the following:

Core i7 processor

8GB DDR3 ram

1TB HD (2 x 500GB)

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M graphics with 1.5GB DDR5 VRAM

In every single category, the Asus is triumphant. It has a far more powerful processor, twice as much ram, twice as much hard drive space, and one of the absolute best mobile graphics cards in existence... all for less than the Mac. Unless you're set on a mac, this should at least make you think twice.

Desktops are really where the magic comes down to what you need the computer to do.

Mac Pros starts at a rough $2499.00

and for that you get the following:

One 2.8 GHz Xeon processor

3GB DDR3 memory

1TB hard drive

ATI Radeon 5770 grahpics card 1GB DDR5

A stock HP Pavilion 580 for $899

gets you the following:

• Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-950 quad-core [3.06GHz, 1MB L2 + 8MB shared L3 cache]
• 8GB DDR3-1066MHz SDRAM [4 DIMMs]
• FREE UPGRADE! 1.5TB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive from 750GB
• 1GB DDR3 AMD Radeon HD 6450 [DVI, HDMI. VGA adapter]

HP recommends upgrading it to a $1500 configuration with even more goodies, but really this one is perfect for a comparison. The i7 and the Xeon are roughly the same processor. The 950 is better at some things while the Xeon is more for rendering, etc. 8GB > 3GB of DDR3, there's no excuse for this in the Mac. You can pick up more ram at a store for $50-100 depending on how much you want. Try upgrading it in the mac page though and it'll cost you a ton more. You get an extra 500GB of storage on the HP, and a vastly superior graphics card. The 5770 is still a good card, but it is one of the oldest DDR5 cards still being sold. You can pick one up for around $115 if you look. The 6000 series Radeon though is just better.

The redeeming feature of the Mac Pro is the ability to add more processors though. You can have the equivalent of a 12-core i7 in a machine because you add in more. I don't know of a PC company that is doing that, and I wouldn't expect it to be a reasonably priced thing, so I'll go ahead and say that if you need a computer dedicated to raw, server-esque, processing power for rendering, and you have 4-5 thousand dollars to spend, you might want to look into the 12-core Mac Pro (but be sure to get it more ram). Otherwise, if you're a normal person who just wants a computer to use for everything from browsing, running programs, to the most intense gaming, don't get the Mac Pro.

Mac also has the iMac which you might think would be more comparable to the HP above, and you'd partially be right, except that here's what you'd get for your comparable Mac:

It's $1,999.00 for a decent one,

Core i5

Super High resolution screen (2560-by-1440 resolution)

4GB DDR3 ram

1TB hard drive

Radeon 5750, 1 GB GDDR5

Aside from the extra-nice screen, you can pick this exact set of hardware up in a PC for under $600 easily. That means you could buy 4 PCs of the same caliber as this one iMac. You'll have to pick out the graphics card you want, and you'll be able to pick any monitor you like, which combined will probably add up to another $200, but that's still substantially cheaper than the mac, and you're still getting tons more Ram and you're saving so much money.

Basically, it really does come down to what you're physically buying because the software can all be used on any platform you buy. With this in mind, there are beneficial and detrimental aspects of both, and you need to take into account everything when considering what to put your money into.

Personally, I'm looking to buy a used macbook regular for portability and web-browsing, but my desktop is a construction of my own running Win 7 and Ubuntu 9.04 which I will lay out below:

Core i7 860

8GB of 1600MHz DDR3

1 TB hard drive (looking to supplement with a SSD)

Asus Nvidia 460 GTX 1GB DDR5

23" LED Asus monitor 1080P

7.1 speakers

running both Win7 and Ubuntu

I built this all for under $1000 last year. You could do better, I'm sure. Whether you think that a Mac would serve you better, or a PC, hopefully this has at least shown that it entirely depends on what you're going to be doing.

-B