Blogaday day 4!

Victory is mine. Sort of.

This morning's practice was intense. Remember how I was gonna make it so we only ran 8-400's instead of 12? Yeah, coach won out on that one, we ran 12.

But really now, I ran 12. I didn't just run 8, I didn't have to stop, I ran all 12, and I kicked their butts. I ran my first in 70 seconds, and kept my times for the rest of them somewhere between that and 76. I'm pretty happy with that, I ran really stable for all 12. I got it done. I did it, I survived.

I even got a cool badge.

















sweet huh?

I love paint. It's just something I like to mess around with. Yay for paint.

I really have no ideas for blogaday. So, maybe it's time to get some of my older ideas down on paper. Here goes some random crap that nobody's gonna be too interested in, but that I might have fun writing.

So, the whole net neutrality stuff got blown down. The legislation passed/didn't pass, whichever one means that the big companies can be tyrants. In all honesty, I don't think that that is going to happen, but it's still a fear that alot of people have. Yea verily, here's the worst case scenario, with a great opportunity for me to dominate.

oh gosh, I'm way too lazy to write it out. Basically, things are going to have to start becoming mesh networks. Since wireless networks are finally a valid possibility, this can finally start happening. A mesh network is a network with no identifiable center. Each computer is connected to the computers adjacent to it. Those computers are in turn connected to the ones next to them. That way, to get a message from my computer to the computer downstairs, I don't send it straight downstairs, I send it to the computer that is halfway downstairs, and then that one sends it on down to the one all the way downstairs. Get it?

It's like standing in a big circle holding hands. You can't hold hands with the guy that's 8 people away from you, but if you're holding hands with the girl next to you, and they're holding hands with the person that is holding hands with that original guy, it's pretty much the same thing.

Basically, mesh networks are the future. I want to see vehicles beginning to operate with mesh networks. Sure, we can satellite link our big SUV to some server in taiwan that's gonna feed out roadmaps for us, but what about that other car on the highway? Why can't me and him bounce messages off each other? why can't I see his position on a heads-up-display?

See, I think that's where this is really going to take off. Imagine a highway where every car had essentially a wireless network hookup. Every car can beam and recieve messages. Trouble with this is that wireless connections don't go very far. I couldn't hook up to a hotspot most of the time, so I'd be internetless. Trouble right?

Well, sure, but not really. I can't shoot a beam all the way to the nearest hotspot, but I can shoot far enough to talk to the SUV that's riding my tail. I can get his location, or send him a fun radio message if I'd like. The more cars there are around, the more cars I can talk to. I'm constantly bouncing signals off of all the cars around me, and they are sending signals right back. We're all connected, just by ourselves. We don't have to be hooked up to the giant 'series of tubes' that is the internet, we can create our own local mesh network.

Imagine I-215 in the morning. If everybody had the mesh setup, I could bounce a message from here to downtown in no time. Guaranteed there's a hotspot somewhere between here and there. I need directions from google, I don't have to get beamed up to a satellite to get them. I just need to bounce a signal from me to the car that's a quarter mile ahead of me. That car then bounces that signal further, and another car gets it and sends it. We finally reach the car with the hotspot access, he gets the info and bounces it back.

The great thing about mesh networks is that they're flexible. One car goes out, the network just keeps on chugging. There is no central node. You're connected as long as you're next to somebody. On the highways of life, that'd be a great thing to be.

You could see everybody else, find out what traffic is like by looking at all the red dots on the little screen. If for some reason you need to talk to that guy who's tailing you, go for it, send him a message.

That's just my thinking. I think stuff is going to start to become alot more mesh-oriented. I don't need to know about the kid in pakistan. I need to be able to send a message to my brothers computer, even if google is down.

That didn't make as much sense as it should have. There used to be a huge and crazy political story behind it all. Maybe one day it'll come back, who knows.

Fidel castro just had surgery and gave command of Cuba to his brother Raul for a little bit. What does this mean? It means he's an old man who runs a country. He's sorta a lamewad. Dude, give your people toilet paper.

Speaking of running a country, there's a pretty cool game a couple of us are playing online these days. It's text based, and doesn't take much time at all. It's a persistent world where you basically run a country. You don't do too much, but you're faced with an issue every day, and how you choose to react to it influences the way that your country will evolve. It's really pretty interesting business, it'd be fun to have everybody playing it to see how all our countries would be different. Anyways, it's http://nationstates.net, go check it out.

I have alot of ideas. Some good ones, some not so good ones. You should probably ask me about them some time.

So, steroids. What a joke.

Here's my theory.

Why do we compete? We compete because we want to win, we want to be better than other folks. That's the sad truth I think. We enjoy it, we love the game, the sport, the whatever. But in the end, I think it's us trying to be better than we were before, and showing that by being better than the other guys. We want to win.

But why do we want to win? We want to win because it means that we're good. It means "hey, this kid is good, he beat the other guys." We want a win to show that we worked harder, or that we're smarter or faster or better than the other guys. A win shows that you're cooler than him.

So, taking 'roids so as to win just throws the whole thing out of the window. Because then the win doesn't mean that you worked harder, it doesn't mean that you're better. It means you used the syringe. So, the whole basis for wanting to win, to prove that you're better, is now bunk because it's not you that's won. You didn't work for it, you shot up and got pumped.

So, really, steroids are a joke, because by using them to win you get rid of the reason to win. Go get a life you fruitcakes.

But then there's that crazy ethical question that someone posed us once. What about rescue workers? Firefighters, our armed forces, people like that. Should it be legal for them to be on the top of their game by using performance enhancing drugs?

You say no, but when your burning house is falling down on top of you, wouldn't you want a gorilla of a man to be barreling in to save you instead of dateless-Jim who can't bench more than 40 kg? The guy who's driving you in the ambulance to the hospital, shouldn't he be wide awake and alert? shouldn't his reflexes be like lightning?

And the men out there, fighting for our freedoms. Let's say that all the sudden we're invaded, ground style. While this is pretty much impossible, let's say we are. And we get to ground combat, soldiers vs. soldiers in southern california. Do we pump up the soldiers to win? Wouldn't we have an advantage if our soldiers ran faster, breath'ed easier, and shot just a little straighter? So that's the question. Sure, sports are fruity. But that's what I ask you, do you pump up the guy that's going to save your life?

I say no, but I'm interested to hear what you guys think.

Now, for some fiction.

It was dark. The night had fallen, and the trees were motionless. No wind tonight, it had been stifled by the blazing inferno that was my mailbox. The evening had started out calmly enough, but when the ninjas came... well, I'll let the piles of severed ninja appendages speak for themselves. My mailbox had caught on fire in the lamest way possible, not even cool. You'd think with a raging ninja battle going on in my front bushes that it'd be some awesome exciting story about a bomb or dragon or something cool. Nah, not even food poison, this is lamer than undercooked hamburger. Some dumb kids playing with fireworks.

Yeah, that's my life. The ninja's were dissappointing, and that's the trouble with all of this. Life just isn't fair anymore.

I wear a cape, it's part of the job. I'm better than you, and my mailbox is still on fire. Why a flaming mailbox actually stopped the wind from blowing is a mystery to me, but it made for a great opening line didn't it? Back to the cape. So here I am, and I'm one of those 'super heroes' you used to dream about. Yeah, most of the rumors are true. I can fly, but only for a little bit. I punch harder than you could imagine, and my boots make me 3 inches taller than I really am. I wasn't trained by any old guys with shadowed and conflicted pasts. I showed up and got the job on the spot. No rigorous interviews, no background checks. Heck, I don't even know who gave me the job. But here I am, with the job, and with the cape. I hate capes.

Not that I'm ungrateful or whatever, c'mon, I've got raging super powers. I wear shorts that look like they're made out of snakeskin. I can dunk a basketball from half court, I can take down an elite squad of ninjas while clipping my toenails. I'm freakin' awesome, and it's making me a little upset.

You've got to be a little jealous, it's alright. It is a dang good looking cape, even if it does cut off the airway a bit.

Hmm... I really ought to turn the garden hose on that mailbox. The postal service guy is gonna go postal on this one. Sigh. This whole bit is tiring. I wish there was a breeze, I love breezes. It makes my hair look really cool when it gets tossed around. Yeah, my hair is unnaturally good looking too. That's another one of those super powers I didn't apply for. Another one that I got.

I hate my job. Why? Because I win; every single time. I've never ever had to go to the gym. I never watch what I eat, I've never worked on my moves. I'm the greatest DDR player this side of the mississippi, and there's not a drop of asian blood in me. I've never gone running, but I know I'd beat you all in any race you wanted. I could be the boxing champion on the world right now; in any weight division. Sigh, I'm unstoppable.

What I do doesn't mean anything. Oooooh, I just took down 25 ninjas with cool black costumes... great. Did I work for that one? Nah, I just stepped outside and sorta let loose. It doesn't mean anything. Nobody sees the ninja appendages strewn throughout the rose bushes and thinks: "Gosh, he must have worked really hard to be able to beat so many ninjas!" No, they say "Good job captain dazzle pants, I'm an honest hard working guy. I went to school, I got a degree. I work hard every single day to feed my family. It takes me hours to do my taxes. My car is old and beat up, I fix it myself. I go to the gym every day so I won't die of heart disease. I'm a real person, I have to work for what I get. What do you get, cape boy?"

The truth is, I'm raging, and I didn't earn it. I've never had to work for this cape, somebody just sorta gave it to me. I win at everything, but it doesn't mean anything. It's not me that wins, it's the super powers. Just once, I'd like to have to work for it.

Dang. More ninjas.

Hahaha. This is why I don't write fiction. Anyways, maybe some art to go with that tomorrow or something. Anyways, I'm out. c'yalls, I hope you had a good blogaday day 4.