Endgame thoughts

Endgame

At the recommendation of my best friend, I've started watching Endgame. I say "started" because there is so much to digest and it's getting late and already I'm having reactions to the material (it's also over two hours long).


Genetic engineering, Eugenics

I've always been able to relate to the ideas of "perfecting" humanity. I don't mean that I endorse it, but, on a personal level, yes, it makes sense to me. I might not want to have children with someone who had a history of some disease, for example. Do I think people ought to have the choice? I'm not sure. I think so.

But people are so often stupid. I'm not sure if it would be better to have them educated, or to simply limit their choices. Ideally, education; but that seems immensely difficult. I am thinking on it, though.


As a soldier, I'll need that "ideal" body. I want it for myself, yes. I want to train hard for it, I want to eat properly and discipline my body (yes, and I'm staying awake so late).

I think the military--at least, for the jobs that are almost entirely physical--should consist of the best bodies. Statistically, this would include fewer women, I'm sure; but I don't think that should be a deciding factor; there are sure to be women (if only a few) who can meet high physical standards, at least, when given the opportunity.

But, again as a soldier, I would be a tool of the government (I'll use this word very loosely for now). Morally, I can justify being a Reservist, because my focus is more local than international. At the same time, however, I may be used against my own people--Canadians, I mean. For now, I am still comfortable enough.


Brave New World

The beautiful and frightening thing about the "brave new world" is the way everyone can be happy. It's been a while since reading, but I remember the Alphas saying, "Even Epsilons can be useful," or something similar; and Epsilons saying, "I would hate to be an Alpha, they have so much responsibility". They're quite happy with being engineered and given the same expectations as machinery.

It's so efficient. It even works--in theory, at least.

It's frightening how much sense it all makes.

How do you fight that?

The world powers want to make the populations into efficient, expendable property. They have set the battle ground; we cannot choose our terrain, but must meet them on theirs, as I see it. I mean: an inefficient and emotional person will not make a very strong argument, because we have already learned to gauge efficiency and treat it as worth.

How does a slave fight slavery? By being a good slave and acquiring promotions and power? By rebelling and being slain--possibly catching the attention of those with power? I have no answer.


I'm realizing how much I want to be that efficient soldier. I used to be morally opposed to taking painkillers for headaches or illness or anything like that. The only times I've consented to painkillers have been for work or waking (extra) early for school or something else.

For a while, I was off caffeine when I realized I'd fallen into a habit of adding one spoon of instant coffee and one spoon of Ovaltine into my milk every morning, because it made me alert enough to make it to school. It felt entirely too mechanical, and I feared growing dependent.


Is it worse to be dependent or incapable?

For example: Drugs can increase ability (for example, alertness); but dependence is an easily-exploited weakness. Which holds the greater risk/loss?

Eugenics can create beautiful and efficient people, but it could be called a form of dependence--a more diverse population could better withstand certain viruses, for example. However, without the use of eugenics, population may have a higher portion of handicapped persons.

Does it come down to "Efficiency vs. Humanity"?


This is all I can write now. I need sleep. I want Kevin--I want to know his thoughts and motivations, especially on these issues. There's something....deeper or darker that seems to understand or at least acknowledge or struggle with morals or something--I can't tell yet.

Sleep time.
--Charlie

Boobfest IV

Boobfest IV is up on my deviantArt now.

I'm not terribly happy with this one, but I needed to draw again. The colours are off, the skin didn't turn out as I'd wanted, the background is unintelligible and it's generally sloppy and less detailed.

A few things I did differently this time:

• No reference picture used for the pose
  
• The figure is not based on my appearance
  
• This one has a background
  
• This one has long hair (not me)
  
• The body fades out instead of being cut off...

I keep the most recent Boobfest pieces together on my wall. I think IV looks much better when placed with the rest, than by itself.

I kind of want to put up a large sign that says, "WALL OF BOOBS" above them, but if I just fill the wall with boobs, that would be just as obvious.

And, speaking of boobs...


And, speaking of gratuitous...

I watched 300 with Kevin and Mark on Friday.

What is up with that movie?!

If you just watch the end credits, you've seen every fight scene. And if those 300 Spartans are all professional soldiers, why does their drill suck so bad?! And what kind of soldier THROWS his spear so early in ANY battle; and how fierce of a battle could it possibly be if you can actually RECLAIM the spear before it's over?!

Granted, Mark and I came in part-way through the movie, so if there was anything else to the storyline, we missed it.

The entire time, to the annoyance of everyone else, Mark and I were making snarky comments. Like, when Xerxes and Leonidas chat, and afterward Leonidas comes back to his men and is asked how the meeting went, Kevin said, "Oh, y'know, we talked, had coffee--" and I said, "--He put his hands on me and asked me to kneel..."

And--seriously, what is up with Gorgo? "It makes me more of a woman to crave your kingship! The only way for a woman to have power is to have sex with powerful men! I can manage to steal Theron's sword--in public--and run him through with it--in public! Because I'm a woman! Nobody will stop me!"

Before a battle, I'd say, "THE PERSIANS ARE COMING, THE PERSIANS ARE COMING!!" or "Don't you just love how this movie came out in, what, 2006?"

Well, it was fun, at least. And some of the fight choreography wasn't too bad, just... repetitive.


Then we brought out the game Catchphrase, where you try to get someone to say a word/phrase. It's like Taboo (without taboo words), and hot potato, because you don't want to get stuck with the word-wheel-thing when the timer goes. Great fun, especially when drunk!

Last time we played, we'd gotten into the booze. Eventually, Kevin started guessing every other word was Penis.

It was Mark's turn, and he said, "Kay, it's like, methane, and octopus," and Kevin shouted, "METHAPUS! ... PENIS!"

For the word "chopsticks", Mark said, "All Asians use them," and Kevin said, "GLASSES!"

And it was great fun.

--Charissa

Numerals and Teachery Things

I took out the book The Abacus: a pocket computer from the library (because my brother had gotten me an abacus for my 18th birthday, or Christmas, I forget). In the chapter "The Ancients", it discusses ancient number systems, most of which I'd already heard about in "Mathematical Sorcery".


There was an explanation of Babylonian numerals and Egyptian numerals, as well as others; but what I didn't know was the meaning behind the Egyptian numerals, and this book explained some.

After some quick Googling, I've found three slightly different interpretations of the symbols:

1. http://members.tripod.com/kangwei1a14/egyptian.htm
2. http://www.recoveredscience.com/const102egynumerals1.htm
3. this book.

Picture	Explanation 1	Explanation 2	Explanation 3
	A rod.	Upright.	"just a vertical stroke, not much different from [our 'one']."
	Cattle hobble.	Vault.	Heel bone.
	Coiled Rope.	Rope coil.	Scroll.
	Lotus flower.	Lotus.	Lotus flower, "a plant the Egyptians loved."
	Finger.	Finger.	(None)
	Tadpole.	Tadpole.	(None)
	God with raised arms.	Heh-god.	"a man holding up his arms in amazement. To the Egyptians, one million was a tremendous sum."

Awkward sidenote

My good friend Mark told me about this assignment he had (a long time ago), to convert Babylonian numerals into Greek or Roman or something. When converted, the numbers spelled out the words "clitoris", "penis" and "airplane", which confused the heck out of him!

Aren't numerals fun?



I watched the movie Proof last night.

It sucked. It was almost good, and maybe if it hadn't been so "Hollywood", it would have been better; but it truly, truly sucked. Also, movies in which getting it on is part of the actual plot tend to suck.

Plot summary:

• Girl thinks she's crazy, because her dad was a crazy mathematician, now deceased.
  
• Boy is going through the deceased dad's work.
  
• Boy and girl have sex.
  
• Girl has a proof she wrote, but nobody believes she wrote it, not even the boy.
  
• Drama!
  
• Turns out, she wrote it; and maybe she's not crazy after all!
  
• Reconciliation with boy!

Did I mention the movie sucked?



Teaching

As usual, Saturday was another day of TA-ing for the Maths school. We've started on Trigonometric Identities, and I don't think the teacher adequately taught what an identity is; nor what a proof is. He later asked if this was too easy or too hard, and nobody responded.

Sometimes, I want to just jump in front of the class and tell him to shut up, and start teaching. But, the principal must have hired him as a teacher (instead of me) for a reason... At least, I hope there was a reason other than "he's older, so he'll be the teacher."

I think we should walk the kids through what an identity is; walk them through a few proofs. I'm marking their papers, and I can tell that a few just have no idea what's going on. Someone wrote "1 / 0.5" as a final answer, which is wrong on so many levels!


The format I'd like my students' work to follow

Question number. Question

Work Work Work

/ Side computations / Side computations

Answer

That would be just amazing and so much easier to mark. Maybe I'll have to make photocopies from now on, just so it's easier to explain this to them. Yeah, I'll do that--I'm going to do that RIGHT NOW!

--Charissa!