Monthly Archives: October 2009

“Permaplat”

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di091008

The crystal above my sim’s head is called a “plumbbob”.  Its color shows the mood of the sim, from the deep red of absolute despair through bright green satisfaction to the pure radiant white of sheer ecstatic happiness.  A happiness that can be hard to understand even for those close to you, at least when it comes from inside and just keeps flowing.

Today was not “my day”. Actually yesterday took a nosedive too, after I wrote my entry for that day.  I have had problems with the electricity to the home office for a while, as described on Tuesday. I have moved my main computer (the quad-core) into the living room, where I am typing this now.  I kept the 3-core in the home office, but it was not entirely stable.  Yesterday evening it turned itself off again, and the lights flickered.  But then the lights continued to flicker, and got even worse.  A few minutes later, the lights sputtered and dimmed and went out. They did not come back.  Today I have replaced the fuses, and they seem unharmed, but there is still no power in the home office.  Or in my bedroom either.  But my mobile phone managed to wake me up this morning, hopefully it will continue to do so for the weeks I may have left here.

About that, I called the company that had the house to let at Møll. It was not rented out yet, but they had a lot of  people who were interested.  Well, so much for that.  Since the price is fixed, I have no chance to compete with the families.  People will always rent out to a family over a single man, if the alternative exists.  This is just common sense.  Even if most single men above the age of 25 were not insane (which most probably are), they could still die at any time for any random reason. But to wipe out a whole family at once, you need a front-page-worthy car crash or something like that.  So family it is.

Not that I had much time today to chase a new place to live.  I had to get to work quickly as I had to take phone calls instead of someone who was absent for some good reason.  I don’t have a problem with people being absent. In fact, I may start being so myself.  After this, the guy who should take phone calls together with my neighbor suddenly fell off the loop, leaving said neighbor alone to fend a storm of phones (there was some small disturbance in the Net). So I had to step in repeatedly.

Now it so happens that I don’t normally talk.  I mean that literally.  I can talk for about five minutes a day (more if I can speak softly) before my throat gets sore.  Something is up with my larynx, vocal cords or whatever it is called.  It has been gradually worsening for years.  I thought for a while that my lack of talking was the reason for this rather than just the effect, but I have thought about it.  I have Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10, the awesome speech recognition program from Nuance.  It is now so good that speaking to your computer is a good alternative to typing.  I have used it for NaNoWriMo for several years. And each time since it became good enough to keep using, my throat got sore and I had to cut down on it.  So this has lasted for many years, it is just that normally I don’t speak so normally I don’t notice.

Anyway, after this workday my throat was sore, verging on raw.  Experience shows that in this state it is also highly vulnerable to infections, which is another reason why I try to avoid it when possible.  Unfortunately today it wasn’t possible.  I have told my boss about the problem and have been exempt from the twice-a-week half-day phone duty.  But as permanent backup at a time where there is always someone absent, I still have to be sneaky to not destroy my throat. And some days, like today, you just can’t be sneaky, because there are people out there who need help and someone’s got to do it.

Then I came home and found that it is not just the home office and bedroom that are without power. The electric stove is also off the grid.  It should in theory be on a different course. At least this explains why the sparky sounds came both from my computer and the ventilator over the stove even though they are in different parts of the house.  So, no more hot meals for the remainder of my stay here.  Oh, wait!  There is the double hotplate / standalone cooktop that I have lugged along for 25 years where I had no use for it, just because, well, someday I might need it.  Today I needed it. MUAHAHAHA!  Then I kinda burned the bottom of the grilled cheese on the unfamiliar equipment.  But still, it was grilled cheese.

And on that note, we approach today’s topic.  You see, grilled cheese is a recurring in-joke in the Sims games, particularly Sims 2.  The game has a few major life aspirations that determine your goals and what makes you happy:  Family sims are happy when spending time with their family, marrying and having lots of babies, and staying with the same spouse all their life.  Romance sims want to kiss and make out and more with every adult they meet.  Fortune sims want to earn lots of money and get ahead in their career.  Knowledge sims want to maximize skills and perhaps become scientists or criminal masterminds.  Popularity sims want lots of friends and frequent parties.  Grilled Cheese sims want grilled cheese.

Grilled Cheese aspiration is ridiculously easy to keep happy:  Serving grilled cheese makes them happy, eating grilled cheese makes them happy, talking about grilled cheese makes them happy, and convincing someone else to make grilled cheese makes them deliriously happy for a long time.

When sims are happy enough, they enter “platinum mood”.  This has a number of small benefits and is easily seen from the bright white glow of the plumbbob, the soul gem over their head. Normally they need to keep fulfilling new wants to stay in this happy mood though.

But there is something called “permaplat” (permanent platinum mood).  It can be achieved by fulfilling a “lifetime want”,  like reaching the top of their destined career, or marrying off six children, or having eaten 200 grilled cheese sandwiches.  With the more lifelike FreeTime expansion, you can also gain permaplat from sufficient life experience, and with Apartment Life there are books you can read that will help you accumulate this experience faster after you have studied them.  Once you have reached this pinnacle of life, you will be happy forever. Well, not exactly:  Disappointments can still drag you down, especially if they are big or follow close on each other. But within an hour, the permaplat sim bounces back to full happiness again!

I won’t say I have reached this, exactly.  Life is not a video game, although video games may try to reflect life in various ways.  Perhaps if I had been Enlightened (in the Eastern sense of the word) I would have permaplat.  But as it is, there is something similar, just not as extreme. I seem to spend most of my life in an undeserved state of great happiness, not quite ecstatic for the most part but very upbeat.  Of course, this does not make for great journal entries, so it is sorely under-represented in writing.  Then something happens, like parts of the house losing power or my job doing unspeakable things to my throat, and this makes for easy writing.  But the truth is, after an hour or two I am back in platinum again, and only the pain in my throat makes me stop singing with joy.

Oh, there is a lot more to be done. A LOT more.  When my life is over I will probably wonder if I have even begun.  But there you have it.

Drawn like a flame to the Moth

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di091007

This beautiful scenery is from the small farming village of Møll, near Mandal, Norway. The name literally means “moth”, as in the insect. Also, the house is currently to let.

It’s house hunting time again! What?  Don’t I usually write “apartment hunt”?  Well, yes, but today I saw advertised a whole house within my price range.  It is a bit into the countryside, as can be expected, but not really far from the neighboring city of Mandal.  Close enough that there are regular commute buses passing more or less right by the small farm on which the house lies, from what I can see.

It is not a farm house, though, it just happens to lie on a farm.  Those are definitely fields, not lawns, in the aerial photo I am studying.  Also, the river is only about 10 meters / yards away. I don’t mind this either way, but with some luck it may discourage families with toddlers, meaning less competitors for me.  And competitors there must surely be.  While the house is small, it is still large enough for a couple or a small family.  (There are supposedly 3 bedrooms.) It will be rented out for five years – again, ideal for me but not for people who may change jobs  or even lose their job.

I am not going to get my hopes up too much.  It seems just a little too good.  But it is certainly worth inquiring, I think.  I would much rather rent a small house in the countryside than a basement in the suburbs, not to say an apartment in a block. Ew.

Frrzzt!

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It started last night, I think. At least that’s when I became aware of it. My main computer was occasionally making small sounds of the “frrzzt!” type. You know, not unlike the sound of insects being fried to a crisp in the electric insect killer. Now, you occasionally hear about the being bugs in the computer, but it seemed unlikely to be literal. At least since the sound repeated from time to time. Usually this computer is running night and day, since this is where I run “folding at home”, a program that contributes to the science of protein folding. But this night I turned the computer off. I really didn’t want it to catch fire during the night!

This afternoon, after work, it was much worse.  I also noticed another disturbance in the electric force, which I had also noticed a few times yesterday afternoon:  The kitchen ventilator made FRRZZT sounds randomly when off.  Yes, they were louder than the ones made by the computer. Also, the light blinked.  Today, the computer also rebooted.  But only the big black quad-core computer.  The slightly smaller and a good deal cheaper tri-core computer that stood beside it was fine.  As the afternoon went on, the computer rebooted more and more often.  Cutting off the power to the kitchen equipment did not stop it.  Eventually I took the computer into the living room (which is uncomfortably cold at this time of the year, by the way) and booted it there, with an older screen.  It purred happily.  No suspicious sounds, no reboots.

Back in the home office, I connected the tri-core to the big widescreen monitor.  It may be slightly slower than the other, but not slow for ordinary use.  A bit slow when playing Sims 2, but that is pretty much it.  Well, after a short while it rebooted.  Actually, it just turned off, but the effect was much the same, since I turned it back on.  And a while later, it rebooted again. Not nearly as often as the other had, and there were no strange sounds, but occasionally the lights would flicker, and sometimes when they did, the computer would reboot.

Well, it must be the monitor then, logically.  But just to be sure, I carried the widescreen monitor into the living room and connected it to the big PC.  Since then they have been running happily for hours.  No symptoms of any kind.

The tri-core mostly works fine too.  But once every few minutes there is a small flicker in the light, and once every couple hours there is a major flicker and the computer turns itself off. So clearly there is still something in the room that sets it off.  But what?  I don’t know. Perhaps a rodent has been gnawing on the power cables in the wall somewhere.  Or perhaps there is a defect in some minor electrical equipment in there, some small gadget I have not suspected. I have a lot of gadgets each drawing a tiny amount of power.  Also, I have the Linux laptop up and running again in that room.  It had been off for a few weeks. Hmm… but it does not blink or act strange in any way.  Still, perhaps I should turn it off before going to bed.  And the tri-core too.

Genius and genius

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di091005

( Screenshot from the computer game City of Heroes.)

Being very smart is like being able to run very fast. But true genius is like being able to fly. You see everything from a different angle.

When I was young, I thought that genius was just a matter of IQ.  You had an IQ over 140 or some such, and you were in.  And it is true that the word is used that way (although some say it should be 180 and some say 120.  An IQ of 140 is the requirement for Mensa membership though, a fairly well established institution.)

It is true that the word “genius” is used this way, but I know today that this is misleading.  I have lived and learned.  There is another meaning of “genius”, an older one (albeit not the oldest). I am pleased to see that Wikipedia has, at least at the moment, chosen this as their main definition:  “Genius refers to a person, a body of work, or a singular achievement of surpassing excellence. More than just originality, creativity, or intelligence, genius is associated with achievement of insight which has transformational power. A work of genius fundamentally alters the expectations of its audience.”

This is a bit strict again, I think.  But genius certainly goes beyond the ordinary. My favorite metaphor is that having a very high IQ is like being able to run very fast.  Amazingly fast, for the differences between people’s minds far exceed the differences between their muscles. But no matter how good a runner you are, you arrive at the same places as anyone else, just faster. True genius, however, is like flying.  You go places other people just can’t go, and see things from whole new angles that others can’t see unless you somehow manage to show them.

This “uplift” is what I would call inspiration. Genius and inspiration go together.  Oh, you have the Edison quote that genius was 1% inspiration and 99% transpiration.   But the sad thing is that most people just don’t have the 1% inspiration. Anyway, “inspiration” clearly come from the word “spirit”, and “genius” originally was the name of a spirit associated with a person, a place or perhaps most common, a bloodline.  We don’t take it quite that literally now, but a true work of genius still makes us sense that we are seeing something that comes from a higher world, a different and more deeply “real” world.

Now, if you have the wings of inspiration, you may be able to ascend to somewhere a bit above the mundane world.  But if you want to share that view with others, the transpiration sets in. For you cannot just call on them to join you, and even if you try to tell them what you see, chances are that they will imagine something different, since they have never seen anything from above. You have to somehow create a pinnacle and the stairs for them to get there, to see what you have seen and to be where you have been.  You can just give up on that, and you will never be anything more than a dreamer.  Only those who can share their uplift with the world will be remembered as a genius, and will be of use to the world.  What good would Bach have been if he had just whistled to himself, hearing his music in his own mind?  What good if Einstein had just had the flash of insight that E=MC^2 and never bothered to work out the mathematical foundations to prove it to the world?

But as for me, I’m just a dreamer.

A glimpse of the scythe

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di091004

I hope you will see the irony of using this screenshot from Sims 3 to illustrate this entry. On the other hand, I am highly unlikely to send you any photographs when it eventually is my turn.

I was sitting peacefully in front of my computer when suddenly my vocal cords locked up, or that’s how it felt. For a few seconds, I could neither breathe nor make a sound. Finally I managed to clear my throat enough to breathe again.  My voice is still strange and kind of thick, and I feel like I need to clear my throat, but there is nothing there, just my throat getting more sore the more I attempt to clear it. So I try to just let it be, as much as I can.

When something like this happens, it reminds me that each day literally could be the last. I generally don’t think or act  like that, literally I mean.  If I thought like that, I would not buy extra groceries on Friday or Saturday, because I would not expect to live on Sunday.  I would never sign up for any kind of subscription, since I would be dead before I could use it.

On the other hand, I wonder if I am not still taking it too far in the other direction. In theory, I am opposed to killing time – time is my life, after all. But in practice I do a lot of stuff for fun, like playing computer games. Well, mostly that, but some other things too.  I just don’t take life all that seriously while there seems to be a lot of it.  That’s a human trait, but there are still some humans who manage to break out of it.

Anyway, I guess it is not certain that I will even have the chance to say goodbye.  Of course, that holds for others too.  Perhaps I should try to live a little more as if this was THEIR last day too.  If I’m around to do that, I mean.

I’m still nervous about the whole dying bit.  A part of me still fears that I will have to pay in the afterlife for the fun I have had as an ego in this life.  Actually the theology of that is somewhat uncertain, but it is a widespread belief that there must be justice in the world, and if justice is not brought in this life, it will come in the next.  I hope not, in a manner of speaking. Because I have had a lot of awesome years, and I would really be in trouble if I had to spend my afterlife contemplating what I could have done to help others instead.  Even without fire and pitchforks, it would hardly be pleasant.  As it is, all I can hope is that whoever and whatever God is, I will be forgiven because God knew from the get go that I wasn’t better than this, and did not expect me to be in practice. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!”

Anyway, once the Reaper’s scythe is out of sight, the pull of my ordinary fun life is back. And I guess it does not actively hurt anyone. But should that really be my highest aspiration?  I don’t honestly think so.  But it may be the only one I have fulfilled reasonably well so far. When I think about the murderous rage that used to be in my life, I guess doing no harm is something, if it lasts.  Still, I would like to set my sights higher, if I have the time.  If not, well, at least you know I don’t hate you, no matter who you are.  I suppose some who knew me long ago may have been in doubt about that…