Archive for December, 2006

A Message to Our Descendants in 50,000 Years

by Jason on December 27, 2006 in Environment, Global, Philosophy, Religion with No comments

I came across this website, which asks you to preserve what you consider humanity’s most important knowledge in one sentence. Examples include – F=Ma, No Such Thing as a Free Lunch, and the 3 Laws of Thermodynamics.

The postings lead me to the KEO website, where messages are accepted to be loaded on to a satellite that will crash back into the Earth in 50,000 years.

In their words:

The faraway children, of your children … of their great-grand children … who you would never know … would love to know you. What would you like to tell them?

I’d like to tell them this:

It is hard to put in to words the reflections and revelations I have had in my twenty (20) short years of life on this planet. I hardly remember half of them anyways. But I will try.
Continue reading →

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Motivation

by Jason on December 25, 2006 in Relationships with 2 Comments

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Choking - Bad motivation

How do you motivate other people? How do you motivate yourself? To me it seems like the best way to do it through an emotional appeal. Its very very difficult to do something because “you ought to” or because “its whats logical (or rational)”. Nothing is truly rational anyway, but that is another story.

There are two kinds of emotional motivations: positive ones, and negative ones.

  • Negative motivations: do something or you will be sorry. You will be in pain. You will be mad. You will have missed out on a good opportunity. You will have failed. You will FEEL BAD.
  • Positive motivators: do something and you will be proud. You will feel happy. You will have won. You will laugh. You will have suceeded. You will FEEL GOOD.

Now, I like to use a little bit of both when it comes to motivating myself. ie – Study hard now Jason or else you will regret it when you’re totally lost in lecture next week. Also, if you study now, you won’t have to this weekend and you can party harder.

But when it comes to motivating others, I normally would stick with the positive one only. Because it’s ok when I make myself feel bad, but not when someone else does.

Yet people do this all the time. It’s called unsolicted warnings. “Take that job or you’ll be sorry”. Nobody wants to hear that.

If you want to motivate someone else, figure out what they really want in life, and show them how doing something will get to that. The rest should be simple. And if it doesn’t get them to what they really want in life, why are you trying to get them to do it in the first place?

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Brutally Honest Personality Test – I'm a Prick

by Jason on December 10, 2006 in Neuro with No comments

 This hits me on the head in a big way. Without any of the nice stuff.

In case you thought I was really nice and everything, here’s the truth:

Prick- ENTP

73% Extraversion, 90% Intuition, 60% Thinking, 29% Judging

People love to hate you, because you love to argue. The strange thing is you probably took that as a compliment. Why, I bet you’ve already got a witty comeback all lined up ready to throw right back at me.

What you don’t realise is that your inane obsession with debating pisses everyone off. Whatever happened to us all trying to get alone? I mean, you’re so annoying people disagree with you for the damn sake of it! NOBODY cares about your abundant opinions. Trust me.

Believe it or not, but there’s more to life than your expansive knowledge and sharp repertoire. When was the last time you showered? Brushed your teeth?

While you’re up in Nevernever land, getting excited over future possibilities and your crazy theories, WE have to put up with your awful stench. I can smell you from here.

Your personality is ideal for that of a future lawyer and because everyone already hates you, you have nothing to lose.
If you want to learn more about your personality type in a slightly less negative way, check out this.

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An Update

by Jason on December 7, 2006 in General Science, Neuro, Relationships with 1 Comment

I haven’t had a chance to blog lately because I attempted to do NaNoWriMo, otherwise known as National Novel Writing Month. So I didn’t quite make it. On Dec 1st, my novel stood at 25,000 words, half of the 50,000 designated as part of the challenge. It’s the first time I’ve really done any kind of fiction other than for a class or a 500 word short story. So while I can’t say I’m not dissappointed, I think it still was a good experience.

I’ll post the book in a week or two, as soon as I finish one or two more scenes that wrap up the book. The synopsis: A biotech employee and a journalist discover their mutual friend is dead, and work to unravel the sinister mysteries behind his death. They realize a wildly evil plot to unleash a bioterror weapon and must fight to save the lives of millions.

It’s called Interference.

In other news, I’ve been doing a lot of comtemplating and philosophizing. It’s turned really nilihistic and depressing. Among my insights:

We do not have free will

The universe is pre-determined

We’re all nothing but bags of chemical reactions.

As you might imagine, it’s hard to get motivated to do things when you think nothing matters. I’ve been giving it my best shot. The book actually helped a lot with that. The act of creativity seems to help keep me alive and going. Something about how books have touched me in a deep and meaningful way, and how I hope this book (or others I might write) may someday touch others in that way.

Thanks for all the people who commented on my blog with positive words and encouragement.

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