RKNet Blog... Thing

The bathroom was a terrible place to be. All the stall doors were slightly ajar and the terrible placement of the typical office fluorescent lighting gave the shadows life that they certainly wouldn’t have possessed on their own. I kept turning back in terror from what I assumed was a malevolent face in the handicapped stall. The wall by the sink provided me something to look at to occupy my mind, but this too became a source of vile fascination. Whether the talk was all in my mind or if there was someone there I do not know. Kindly and reassuring it spoke to me of demons, and angels, and paths to power sometimes being fraught with dangerous-looking things. There was no need to worry though of course, not if you were prepared.
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It all started with a simple link to BoingBoing, which I don’t ordinarily read, in the ectomo chat (EFNet, #ectomo or through a java module on the site).

The article was a simple video, with the headline “Man electrocutes pickle to demonstrate power of Christianity“.

Within the video, a friendly older gentleman wishes to share a neat experiment and a metaphor with the audience. The experiment involves taking a regular pickle of fairly decent size, skewering either end with metal forks, hanging it from a safely grounded sling, and hooking up electrical clips to the forks. When the wire with the clips is plugged into a source of electricity (in this case a wall socket, as evidenced by the standard US plug on one end), we can see that electricity is conducted through the pickle to create a complete circuit. With the lights off, you can watch one end of the pickle glow and spark like a fourth of july sparkler as seen through frosted glass.

It is at this point which Grandpa John - that’s this older fellow’s stage name I’d assume - wishes to really make his metaphor. His goal was to demonstrate that by introducing the power of Christ in the life of any average person, that person will glow (figuratively) with the power and light of God.

Needless to say, the BoingBoing commenters had a field day with this somewhat dubious analogy.

My favorite comment: “Pickle! Pickle! burning bright,
Between the forks of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?” ~ chriss1519

Later on…

Gia-tan HA. take that expensive, wasteful floor washing kits and mops! Entire kitchen floor cleaned with one clorox wipe and my foot!
Gia-tan toes: best for getting into corners since the jesus pickle invented them

Then Mathiasx mentioned a song called Handlebars by a band called Flobots (which is absolutely amazing, by the by), which in turn reminded me of a song called Jesus Grow a Handlebar Moustache for Me by a band called Pataphysics. Bringing things somewhat full circle. Quite a reach for synchronicity, but without the original Jesus Pickle video from earlier, the odds of my remembering the Pataphysics’ song to make mention of it would have been significantly lessened.

Pataphysics - Jesus Grow a Handlebar Moustache for Me

• @bloggersblog hear hear, viva la literature! #
• Gah. I wake up to an internet fight over twitter. that’s like waking up & walking into a bar argument #
• pro baseball? overpaid children. for most people, the local bar owner is more personally important. #
• @chrisgarrett huh. we were just talking about ALICE yesterday. I heard she was a bitch. looks like it fits your theory #
• @chrisgarrett it goes back to at least the 19th http://tinyurl.com/3b2s96 #
• When I read about the internet being an instrument for social destruction I think "good, there’s a lot of cleaning up to do" #
• @chrisgarrett omg, no wonder you’re so up in arms, these strumpette people can kiss my ass. paranoids. #
• Riddle me this: how can you espouse your negative opinions about the internet on the internet, and expect any respect? #
• I’m not so sure that a luddite, pro-expert, pro-professional should be arguing on twitter. it screams hypocrite #
• @chrisgarrett you have to be published on dead trees or harass someone who’s been on tv to be pro, duh #

Editor’s note: man I was a twitter whore today. cut for length.
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And The Telegraph is hung up on the fact that he surfs. Well okay, perhaps hung up on it is going a bit far. Still, as headlines go, it’s pretty misleading.

A. Garrett Lisi seems like a really interesting person. I mean, just check out his resume! He’s got:

• a PhD in Physics
• he’s been a Hiking Guide and a Physics Lecturer
• he’s a *nix user and occasional programmer
• he was a script consultant for “Rendezvous with Rama” (!!!)
• he’s been published multiple times
• and he’s toooooootally been to Burning Man

For those interested, his “Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything” is available at the UCDavis Math department’s library of documents (maintained by Cornell).

I didn’t read yesterday’s Penny Arcade until this morning, and I was hard pressed to hold back an actual outloud chuckle. (Not that they haven’t made me laugh right out loud before, mind you.) The companion article from Tycho is also very enjoyable, as usual.

The reason it struck me is I was over at a friend’s house last night (against my better judgement as I felt like crap yesterday and still do) and what did I end up playing on his PS3? Yup. flOw! I played it back in the flash game days, although I’m not 100% sure where I heard about it. The grape vine for these things has many strong branches and tendrils, and there are a few really established ones that always seem to bear fruit for me.

Like Jay is Games, for example. If you enjoy flash games, that’s definitely a good site to hit. The favorites option is great there, also. You can quick bookmark 18 flash games from everything they ever covered. I myself have great games bookmarked like flOw, Nanaca Crash, Poom!, and Samarost 2. But as LeVar Burton used to always say: “You don’t hafta take my word for it!”

All fandom of JiG aside, flOw on the PS3 really is mind-blowing. As a fan of the original flash offering I really have to say that I found the PS3 version even more immersive and addicting. The controller took a minute or two to figure out, the up-down axis didn’t work the way I expected it to so I had to keep correcting myself on that. Still it didn’t detract from the game play at all. I took over for my friend who had already turned into this crazy swirling triangular thing, and I manged to turn it into a fish shaped thing. The music is just as ambiently lovely in the console version as it is in the original flash. I really can’t say enough good things about flOw as an experience and as a game. Edit: Check out my totally bitchin screenshot from the flash edition!

The other game I got to see last night was a demo version of a racer called GripShift. I tried to play for a couple minutes but the steering is so delicate that I fell off the sides too easily. I found it was a lot easier with the D-pad rather than the analog stick. It’s got elements of Marble Madness, Super Monkey Ball, and any number of high-speed fantasy racing games. The game play per area was short and goal-oriented like Marble Madness, the sound effects were adorably cartoony like Super Monkey Ball. Some of the physics behaved in a Monkey Ball-esque way also, since if you played your cards right you could launch yourself off an edge and fly over large distances with super human (sapien?) speeds and angles. The soundtrack was upbeat and highly entertaining, and I personally think it’s just dying to be OCremixed. (It would certainly add a few more unique tracks to even out the glut of Final Fantasy[192] and Chrono Trigger/Cross[93] mixes!)

I just got done reading one of today’s Table of Malcontents blog entries in regards to a YouTube-related challenge in which people can obtain a free copy of the DVD called The God Who Wasn’t There, which is naturally about atheism. The goal of the challenge is to submit a recording of you “damning yourself to Hell”, primarily by including somewhere in your recording a distinct denial of the Holy Spirit.

This meatspace trolling crusade reminded me that I was recently asked as to whether or not I believed in the supernatural. A quick Wiki search pulled up a brief definition of “supernatural” as:

The supernatural (Latin: super- “above” + nature) refers to forces and phenomena which are not observable in nature, and therefore beyond verifiable measurement. Though supernatural refers chiefly to the cause of phenomena (an interpretation), if a phenomenon can be demonstrated, it is typically no longer considered to be supernatural.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernatural
I was told that there was only a binary way in which I could answer this: yes or no. The lack of admitting to a grey area has gotten me in trouble on a lot of subjects, and I dislike dealing with subjects as important as belief lightly. However, in binary I must answer no. If it cannot be proven then how can I really “believe” that such a thing exists? There isn’t enough time in the day to invest too much thought in something like that.

I suppose my more general answer is: I believe that things which are considered “supernatural”, which have not yet to date been verified, are subject to two possibilities:

• 1 - further investigation resulting in a way to move supernatural, unverified ideas into the realm of the natural

[or]

• 2 - further investigation resulting in a better understanding as to why this force or phenomena is a part of human culture.

Realistically there are many things which up until recent history fall into the realm of the supernatural which at this point are scientifically verifiable. Also, using the definition above, what becomes of theory? Especially in the areas of things like Quantum Physics and Mathematics. (Am I applying the definition incorrectly here?)

Best as I can figure, germs were supernatural until we figured out what they really were. We knew people got sick. There were any number of theoretical reasons why. For a long time we had no way to observe the actual force at work, the way it really works, just the body’s reaction. Eventually we got to the bottom of that particular mystery. It is now understood and is officially natural instead of supernatural. (And people definitely gave any number of highly superstitious reasons why people got sick, and still do.) Note the article on The Germ Theory of Disease. It took quite a lot of testing and hanging onto what were at the time unverifiable beliefs to get this idea to finally take hold until anything could be proven.

There are a number of things that are classified as supernatural in this day and age, and I do especially like the quote from that same Wiki page: “Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so.” –Galileo

There is always a way to justify what we encounter in this world. Sometimes it is only on a purely psychological level. Speaking of psychology, I’m pretty sure we still don’t understand emotions all that well. That would make feelings an unmeasurable, unverifiable force or phenomena. Does that mean happiness is also supernatural?

I am definitely not one to counter the power of human belief, faith, and/or conviction in general. It is the source of our greatest power and our greatest weakness. While there are many things I do not believe because I cannot justify expending my faith on such things, I will never doubt the power a particular belief holds over another person, or how that belief ultimately effects me and my life. And while a thing may not actually exist in a measurable fashion, man is very attached to his symbols, and I think understanding humankind’s memes is a great way to help one’s self understand humankind itself.

There is no reason to scoff or discount what is not understood, there is only understanding or the lack there of and nothing more.