Things

Hello. Once again the internet in the cafe is all wonky and won't give me access, so I'll just have to post this post post-cafe. Hahahahahaa, I'm so lame.... Anywho.

The weather is stupid. It kinda is warm, but then it's not. Like, either it's warm but cloudy and gray and windy or it's sunny but cold and windy. Basically it's windy. And I keep using my winter coat. I switched from my winter boots to my sneakers a while back, but I just really don't wanna use my trench coat yet. It's stupid. I wish it'd be properly cold or properly warm, not this stupid middle ground. Ugh.

I wanted to talk to you about sex, but now I don't wanna talk about it anymore.... Maybe I'll talk about it some other day, idk. So I'll talk about Supernatural instead. Yay! It's been a while, huh. Nah, I won't talk about that either. Though it is awesome and I can't believe we have to wait like three weeks for the next episode asdfgsdfsdfg.

Hey, what about How I Met Your Mother? Though I don't have much to say about it, hmmm... I'm kinda confused though. Like, there is one more episode left, right? Right. Ted hasn't met the Mother yet. I kinda watched the last four or so episodes the day before yesterday when I realized I'd gotten behind on it, haha. So they kinda blended together. So I'm not sure what was in what episode. Not sure it matters. What was I talking about?

There's a lot of books in this cafe. You can take them and read them here, or maybe take them home?, and you can also leave some books for others to read. There's one X-Men comic book that I've been eyeing, but I haven't actually read it yet. There's also a chess history book and I think there was something from Dan Brown, but now it's gone... There's also one called The Dreyfus Affair, and I keep thinking “isn't that the name of the dragon girl from asoiaf?” But you know, whatever.

I've been here for 45 minutes and my sandwich is still not here. I should probably go ask where it is....

Uhh, what else... I got lost yesterday. Well, not lost. But kinda stuck. I was supposed to pick up Kaija, and I could not find parking space and I drove to this parking lot and I realized it was not the parking lot I wanted to be in and it was full and tiny and a dead end and I got stuck there. So yay. And then I was late and almost had a panic attack but then one man left and there was enough space to turn around and he was even so kind that he showed how much room I had behind me. So I got out. And I was late about 15 minutes. Maria was really worried because I forgot my phone at home and they phoned her from the school and she tried phoning me but couldn't obviously reach me. But it turned out OK in the end.

I don't know what to say, really. I still have no internet so I can't post this yet, but I cannot think of anything more to say, ughhh..... I just wanna go home and sleep, but I don't have time and I really wanna eat my sandwich which I still don't have. Bahhhhhh... Why am I so tired all the time?

I'm gonna go now. Bye~

Pie out.

P.S. I finally, after about 75 minutes, went to ask for my sandwich. The barista was like "dude why didn't you say something sooner?" and I was like, oops. Also, read this.

Not logic.

Hello again.

Today I was going to talk to you about predicate logic, because you want to know how to write things in mathematics. And like I already told you, when you write things in what you think is maths, what you're probably actually doing is writing things in logic. So I was going to teach you how to do it. But then, as it turns out, I couldn't figure out how to write the necessary symbols up here, and I couldn't copy them from anywhere, because pasting didn't actually give me the symbols, it gave me boxes that indicated there's supposed to be a symbol there.
So I'm not going to do that, at least not this week.

This also means, that I don't (once again) really have anything to talk about.

I don't know. I don't even know what I'm spending my time doing.

I finished Wool, the book I was reading there, and I got mom to buy me the second book of the trilogy, so now I'm working on that. And while doing that, I have the nagging feeling of a deadline for a five page essay next Monday. And the fact that for a too manyth year a row I'm trying to apply to a university, if I'd finally get rid of being a maths student, and I now have just over two months time to learn everything about high school biology. This wouldn't be a problem, if there was a correlation with the IB biology ans the national high school biology, because I think I still remember the biology I've studied pretty well. I think.
Either way, now I'm stuck in a situation where I've studied twice as much biology as most of the other people applying to biology, but most of it is completely useless for the exam that determines whether I'll get in or not, because about a quarter of the stuff for the exam is ecology, which we only covered very, very briefly on IB, and in which I'm not all that interested in.
So I could tell the structure of a neuron and on a molecular level how messages are passed through them. But no, instead of asking stuff I might know, the exam will consist of questions like "If you cut down an area in the woods, in which order will stuff start growing back?" That, only using terms I have never heard before, because we don't do that kind of stuff on IB.
So that's gonna be fun.

Also, there's the problem of I killed my thumb last night in capoeira and it hurts a little to write, so I can't really make the supercool notes from the book while studying like I was going to. So I can use that as an excuse to not to study for a while. Which means that I will be running out of time even more than I am right now.

Seriously, I've got nothing sensible to talk about right now, and I really just want to reading a good book. Which is something I shouldn't do. I'll try to figure out how to get the logic symbols up here for next week, so I can teach you that works then.

~matu

Dragons

Before I go on, I'd like to inform you that Kaija turned 2 today. Yay. I got her a pikachu-doll because every time I take out my DS she starts playing with the little pikacharm that hangs from the corner. She seems to like it, but it could just be a temporary thing because she just got it. It's funny how all the things we get are super cool when we get them and then after a few weeks or even days we just go "meh" and ditch them. I live in the hope that she'll like it in the future as well and maybe turn into a pokemon fan and then treasure her first pokemon toy or something. I can dream!!
So, dragons. I talked with Oona about the story idea, and she was quite critical and got me thinking about a lot of things. Like if there are dragons in the other countries, how can an army of ~50-70 dragon riders possibly win. Also why does the King want a war, why is it such a big secret that would the King want to get rid of Pin, just 'cause she found out? Why is she surprised at the possibility of war, when she did join the army? Why are there dragon riders?? And I have realized that I have not thought this through. So I have now thought it through. Well, I say through...

Okay, so, the dragons form a psychic link with their riders, yeah? That's their way of communicating. The dragons communicate like this amongst each other, but because of humans' lesser psychic abilities the link with a human must be initiated by the dragon. That is to say the dragon chooses the rider. A dragon may have links with several people and "talk" to them at the same time, but the humans can't hear each other's thoughts. And one human can have a link with several dragons (assuming they reached out), but it is very draining mentally, so it is usually they stick to just one unless it's something that must be told directly. The humans can also "train" their minds, like the strain that the link creates gets easier the more you do it.

Think of it like this. There is a telepathic field surrounding any given dragon. The older/powerful it is the larger the field. This field automatically connects to the dragons who are within the range of the field. For a normal connection the dragon needs to physically be in the range of the other dragon, but it is possible to kinda "spread out" and reach to the edges of the connection, where they can make the connection with someone who's own telepathic field overlaps with theirs. That however is kinda draining to the dragon, so they don't really do that often. Now, all the dragons tap into the same telepathic link, so the more there are dragons, the larger the field gets. So one dragon can speak with another dragon who is so far that the telepathic field wouldn't normally reach if there are other dragons in between. Cool huh? And the dragons can enable a human to tap into that link too, but because the human mind isn't built for telepathic communication they can only talk with the dragon that reached out to them. And with great effort with the dragons within the field of the dragon that reached out.

Now, this is what turns out to be the downfall of the dragons, because the King finds a way to hack into that telepathic field and brainwash them. Usually, in a normal link, the mentally strongest (has the strongest will) is the one that calls the shots. It can be either the human or the dragon in the dragon/rider pairs, though the army tries to teach the riders to strengthen their will to ensure the rider is the one in charge. But the when the King hacks into the field it throws everything off-balance and the King is in charge of all the links. That is why the dragons in the other countries are incapable of defending their homes.

I would like to note that the link between a dragon and a human is not permanent. It can be broken by will (though it is hard for the weaker), or it can automatically snap under pressure caused by distance or violently passing out (due to excruciating pain) or simply by the other (usually the human) no longer having the strength to keep it up properly.

So that answers the question of how, but not the why. I was thinking that maybe, in addition to there being several kingdoms, there are actually also several realms. Like in Thor (I know you've seen it) there is Asgard (the place the gods live), Midgard (which is earth etc), Jotunheim (with the frost giants) and six other realms all linked to each other. So the Kingom Without a Name As Of Yet is in one of the realms, and there are other kingdoms in other ones. One of them can be our world, the earth and all that, and one can be White Island. I was thinking that White Island could be at the center of it, because the Queen being so chill with the Stars and the Queen of Moons and the Queen of S...uns? Stars? I can't remember. Point is, I assume she's like a big deal if she's besties with the two most powerful creatures of the world. So the point of the invasion isn't to invade the other countries, it's to find something (I'm working on that) that gains him access to White Island and the power there or something. Cause he's a greedy bastard. This part is still under development a bit.

Why no one expects a war is probably because they've been in peace for so long and the countries are in good terms together and no one can think of any reason why anyone would want to start a war. But the King knows something, it's like a "do it now or wait 500 years" type of deal and he's been waiting so long and then he makes his move and shit goes down. I still need to come up with a reason the army is behind him in this, but it's still a rough draft so I'll get there. One day. I'm running out of time here, uhhh..... Idk, I'll talk more about this later, probably. Byee~

Pie out.

Bias

I'm tired, so we'll see what comes out of this. Probably a lot of typos, if nothing else.

In this month's Tiede, there is an article (you don't have access to it unless you're ordering the magazine, but I figured I could link it here anyway) about this new search engine called SciNet. It has been developed in Finland, as a project between university of Helsinki and Aalto university, and right now it isn't actually in use outside scientific research.
Anyway, the article talk a lot about how Google (the bit of it that does the searching) works, because SciNet works differently. When you insert a search word into it (SciNet, not Google), it gives you a sort of a circle, with what it assumes from the word you put in is the thing that you're looking for. Around it gathers a bunch of other links, that are also related, but kind of less what it thinks you're looking for. Then, if the thing in the middle isn't exactly what you're looking for, you can just grab one of the other links from the sides and pull it to the middle, and the thing adjusts again, with the new thing in the middle, and things related to that exact topic around it. So you can find the place where the field looks like it has the things you're looking for, and then you have the useful links all there. But like I said, this has been created at a university to use in research, and isn't in public use yet, but they're going to make it an open software and just put the code (or what ever, I'm not good at computer terms) out there, if some company wants to start to develop it into something the public could actually use.

Anyway, back to Google.

So, what Google does, is simpler, but also a little dumb. The order of the links it gives you when you search for a certain things is a combination of a few things. First, being the obvious, Google is a company. If someone pays them, their page is in the beginning. Though it tells you which ones are paid ads. I suppose. At least it tells a few that are paid ads.
But there are more interesting ways Google decides the order of the results it gives you. For example, it checks where pages that contain the word or phrase you searched for are referencing to. If there is a page (for example Wikipedia), that there is a link to on a lot of the pages that it finds with the search word, then that page is higher up the list. So basically, the more popular the page has been in the past, the higher up in the list it is shown.
Also, being an intelligent system, it learns about you. It collects data about when you use it, and then shows you results that you would probably be interested in, based on what you've looked for before, and what you've done before.
(I'm starting to feel like I'm telling you something, but really, so far I've only been summarizing the article, so if Google actually doesn't stalk all of us all the time, it's their mistake, not mine.)
So Google learns about you. Now, the problem with that is this: the more it shows you content it thinks you might be interested in, the more it shows you content that you already agree with, that fits your world view, and basically feeds you things that you are already interested in. The problem with that is, that by doing this, it reinforces the way you already think about things, while not letting you know about everything else there is out there, about other points of views, or the other knowledge that is out there that you might be very interested about, but don't even know there is anything to know about it. So basically, it makes you more bias.

And that is what I think is interesting.

Facebook does it too, really. You probably haven't noticed this, since you use facebook so little, but lately (or maybe not so lately, but I've only started noticing it a few months ago) it has started to filter the feed it automatically shows you to show you the things it thinks you are interested in. It doesn't show you everything all your friends post: it shows you the ones that friends you are most in contact with (via facebook), or have the most friends, or seem to otherwise have most in common have posted. It shows you what it thinks you want to see the most.
This is when we get to something that has actually been discussed in one of my communication classes - just can't remember, which. And I'm not actually a hundred percent sure that that is where I know this. The knowledge has started to just form a lump of knowledge, from where I can find stuff but of which origin I am not entirely sure anymore.
The problem with facebook only showing you things that you probably like and about friends you are in most contact with is the same as with Google showing you stuff it thinks you want to see; the information you receive that way is pretty homogeneous. Obviously the you hang out and communicate with probably share a pretty much same kind views, and ideas, and opinions. Which means you hardly ever receive information or opinions outside your own comfort zone, or your latitude of acceptance.
The latitude of acceptance is actually a term I can place, and it is from a book I had to read for a communication class, a term having to do with social judgement theory (since I am sure you care what the name of the theory is). Basically it refers to the range of statements about a certain subject that you agree with. There are also latitudes of rejection (statements or points of views you don't agree with having to do with the subject) and of noncommitment (statements you don't really have an opinion about). The more important the issue is for you, the smaller the latitudes of acceptance and noncommitment are, and the wider the latitude of rejection is. Basically, you have a clear, strict opinion about that thing.

Now think about something you feel very strongly about.

Now think about how you'd feel if someone came along and said "Hey, you have some really good points." and offered you a piece of information about the matter that you didn't know yet, but that makes sense to you.
Probably not much like much, right? Someone just came and agreed with you, sure, it's nice, but probably isn't something that would bring emotions to the surface. It's just nice to know something more.

Now think about what you would feel, if someone came and tried to convince you of just the opposite thing, about something that is clearly in your latitude of rejection with this topic.
You'd be annoyed, right? You'd think they are trying to brainwash you, that they are wrong, and they are stupid.

Well, that may be an exaggeration.
But the point is, that people are bias towards information that back up what they already know, and what they already think and how they see the world. They are bias against information that contradicts that. (Also, people are bias towards themselves, in for example thinking that their own behaviour is perfectly acceptable, where as someone else behaving the same way is being a jerk, but let's not get into that.) We easily ignore information that doesn't fit into the way we already think. Or course if we're talking about a matter that you don't really have a strong a opinion about, then any information has a better chance to be ok. Then, once we make up our mind, that level of openness is gone.

This turned out to be a pretty long post, but I think this is an important thing. I think the world would be a little better, if we acknowledged, that the information we get off the internet has a good chance of being filtered so that it is information we already agree with, and even if it isn't, we, as human beings, are quick to dismiss things that we don't agree with as nonsense, or manipulation, or brainwashing. The point is, that people should pay more attention to the information and opinions that they find easy to dismiss, and avoid letting the information that they are fed get them stuck with an opinion; the internet might might very well just be telling them what they want to hear, and strengthening their bias. They should notice when they ignore something simply because it doesn't fit the way they think at the moment.

One more tiny thing, to lighten up this heavy post. As to our conversation (not quite a debate, I think?) about whether The Hunger Games is scifi or not, let me represent you Wikipedia:
"The Hunger Games is a 2008 science fiction novel by the American writer Suzanne Collins."
The first sentence of the page. I say that if fantasy and scifi authors and Wikipedia say The Hunger Games is scifi, it's scifi.
I win.

~matu

PS. Please, disagree with me. Not about The Hunger Games.

Musings and a short story

Ok, so I can't connect to the internet. That's a problem... There's been something wrong with the internet connection here at Bartlett Square Café, but I don't know what it is. It's annoying. So while I am writing this at half past nine at the cafe, I won't be able to publish it until I get back home a little after eleven. Sorry 'bout that.

By the way, I have become a regular! The barista with the awesome beard remembers my name and order! It's so awesome! I've always wanted to visit some place often enough that someone remembers me. So I guess about half a year of visiting the same cafe once a week at the same time and ordering the same sandwich does the trick.

Anyway. I'm home alone for the weekend. The others are going up to Canada, but I didn't really feel like it. I need a little time to recharge, it's been an eventful few weeks. Probably gonna screw up my sleep pattern, but whatever. I had this idea that I could go by the Finnish time for the weekend, as in go to sleep at six tonight and then wake up at three or four tomorrow morning. After getting barely six hours of sleep per night for the whole week it might actually work. Then I'd go to bed again around eight and wake up by six and then on Sunday I'd maybe manage to fall asleep by eleven and get a full nine hours before next Monday morning. Totally works.

I've been watching Doctor Who again. You probably don't care, but whatever. Just finished season five and I just asdfgsdfg. Yeah. I still prefer Ten, but oh god Matt Smith is adorkable. Also I do prefer RTD's writing. Moffat is pretty good at keeping you on the edge of your seat during the ep, in my opinion anyway, but after you've finished you just kinda sit there like “what even happened?? how?? what????” It just feels kinda impossible, even by Doctor Who's standards. And that's a lot said. Also he has a problem with sexism, and it's bad. Granted, he has some good female characters, but most are just caricatures, they're 2d people to fill the space and to have their lives revolve around the men's. And it's stupid and horrible and so, so sad. But you probably don't still care.

I should probably have something more to say, but I don't know what. Uhhhhh.... I haven't really done anything for a really long time, sorry.

I was thinking about ordering pizza some day during the weekend. Over the internet, because phonecalls *shudders* There's often this field where you can add special requests to the order, so that you can have it sliced in a specific way or at a specific time I guess or something I don't know, and I've seen people write in stuff like “draw your favorite pokémon” and “write a poem” (on the box, obviously, not the pizza) and even “send your cutest delivery guy” and I kinda wanna try that. So if you have ideas what I could ask them to do, please tell me.

That's all I guess, ta ta!

Pie out.

~x~

Have some dialogue 'cause I need to get these people out of my head.

*cafe door opens, bell dings*

“Oh, hello.”

“Hi, I'll have a large coffee, black, with a shot of espresso, please. Oh, and a piece of pie.”

“Apple, cherry or pecan?”

“Surprise me.”

“5.75, thanks. … You missed last week.”

“I'm sorry?”

“Last week. You come here every Monday, at the same time and order coffee and pie and then sit at that table for an hour and a half before leaving. But you missed last week.”

“Haha, you've noticed then?”

“Of course. I have a very good facial memory, and yours isn't one to forget easily.”

“Oh stop it, you're making me blush. Yeah, my brother was in town last week so I showed him around a bit. Didn't have time to stop by. ... So did you miss me?”

“Perhaps. … I was kind of worried to be honest. I guess it was stupid.”

“Eh, I think it was sweet of you. … Well, I should probably move. I've been hogging you enough, there's other customers as well.”

“Right. Here's your coffee and pie.”

“Thanks. Hey, why did you put it in a to-go cup- oh. Oh. Is that your-”

“Yes. In case you wanna show someone else around town as well.”

“I think I'd like that. … Anyway. I'll call you, I guess.”

“Please do. Enjoy your pie.”

“I will.”

Whaaaaaaat is even going ooooooooooon I doooooon't knoooooooooooooow.

I got home.

Good morning.

I don't really have anything to talk about today, since I've spent the last week with you guys. And since we left your place, nothing much has happened.
I got home at about five last night, after travelling for almost fifteen hours. I waited for a few hours to get rid of the rope, and meanwhile went to the store to get milk and cheese and made a pancake so that I'd have something at all to eat.
Then I slept for fourteen hours.
After waking up I figured it's too late to go to school today anyway, so I can just as well take it easy today since I'm still tired, and just hang out alone at home and catch up with some series we didn't watch while we were there. So nothing has happened and given me anything to write about.
I did have a dream about getting sucked into a rebellion against something and almost got killed with a couple of my friends, and I remember thinking in the dream about how I should write a blog post about something along the lines of how fighting is stupid, but I can't remember it quite well enough to remember what the actual idea was. I think it had something to do with me wondering why Ukraine doesn't just let Krim be a part of Russia if the people there want to be a part of Russia instead of trying to fight to keep people who don't want to be in their country. Or the dream somehow originated there. I don't know, it was a dream and I don't remember it too well now that I'm awake. I had a bunch of other weird too, but can't remember them at all.
But even though I don't have anything to say, I can give you a few pictures from last week. Here:

 (It still doesn't look slow to me...)

So there. I'll send you some more via e-mail. Or how do those cloud -things work online? I've never used one, but I can only send like ten pictures in one e-mail, so that might work better.

~matu

It is so late

But I don't care. Welcome to USA, it's still winter!!! I'm sorry I have no funny gif for you. Good night!

Pie out.