Conformity of the Cormformists.

Why in the hell do people conform to societal demands? Is it because they are unable to think freely, to do something different, to be themselves? Conforming to society is the downfall of a free thinking society. If we didn't have the intellectuals of the past that dared to not conform, we wouldn't have our basic foundations of what makes a society.

In an individual's life, there are several influences that can create societal conformity. These influences being vast, however the major ones are from: family upbringing, religion, education, and societal adaptation (influences based on ones society including politics and other things). Of these four major influences for societal conformity, family upbringing and religion are considered as the two most major influences; while education and societal adaptation are minor influences since they can be changed. Why are family upbringing and religion major, its mainly due to how they are connected?

Since the age of man, the religion of the family has been pushed onto the children through their upbringing. Family upbringing and religion are two different aspects, but are heavily tied. When Christianity first was developed, this flow of religion could be seen throughout a family. Then when Christianity started to falter and break into different denominations, these trends continued to follow. The thought was that if the religious beliefs where pushed onto the children, that they would add to the belief system, thus expanding the conformity of individuals to that one belief. The expansion of Christianity has left a majority of the world 'blind and deaf', however, there are those that stand apart.

H.P. Lovecraft, renowned and influential author of horror fiction said it best about religion.

If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences.

The educations and societal adaptation influences of societal conformity are ever changing as an individual goes through life. Depending on where the individual lives can greatly influence how he conforms, likewise with the education.

Take for example, a youth that attends elementary and high school education systems in the southern states and then attend college at Yale. The societal conformity and the education influences are extremely different. At first, the individual can be considered an outcast to some. In time, the individual will find ways to conform to what he is given. Whether it is a change in appearance, thought, attitude, or personality the individual will change.

It is one thing to conform to a society, but at what cost. Is conforming really worth losing the self identity of your individualism? Is it worth it to become a mindless sheep and follow the path of many? Hell no. Freedom to be an individual is worth more than anything. The ability to freely speak and think is something that no person should be without. Voice yourself, voice your thoughts, stand against those that offer nothing more then a singular path.

Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of 'crackpot' than the stigma of conformity. And on issues that seem important to you, stand up and be counted at any cost. -- Chauncey Depew

Updates are worthless, unless someone reads them.

Hey... not sure on how many people out there actually look at this blog, but whatever. Its my rants on the world... societal issues... and anything else that really pisses me off. Its not like you don't already know this... but life sucks. I mean, look at it this way. You are born, then once you turn five you are sent off to some institution of conformity. You continue your conforming to the society that these institutional abstracts want you to believe actually exists. What they fail to tell you early on is that you will ultimately fail at something in life. No where in our institutes of conformity are you taught about failure. Not only do you fail early on... but you don't learn from it. Only to start another part of this conformity at about the age of ten.

That's right... those nice pre high school years. Now... I am not going to say that those years were easier with then the first five or so. Hell... no information gained from those years really aided in the progression of that part of your life. If you think that it did, I guarantee that you are wrong. The only thing that would have benefited an individual is the standard education shit that could have been developed on your own. Who in the hell really needs to know who was which president or what war was fought when. Our history is just that... history. It sucks. Same with the science, math, and english courses prescribed.

The pre high school years were only a repeat of the prescribed education garbage to aid in the conformity to this picture perfect society that our instructors placed in our heads. There was no mention of failure... no mention of anything of the real life. If you wanted real life... you should have lived on the streets. Within these years, you were given the core education to get you through the next two or three years and prepare (yeah... using that lightly) you for the high school travesties. I am using prepare lightly since the only thing you were prepared for was on a prescribed educational basis... nothing more.

In high school there was some lax in the prescribed educational studies, if you were lucky. However, there were still the same issues that were present in the elementary and pre high school years. Most of the real life was learned through our societal cliques in this last stage of conformity before our desired post high school education.

This trend seems to stop as you enter your post high school institutions - or does it. We are still required to take a prescribed general education requirements to form us as individuals into perfect people in the work force. In all honesty... how in the fuck is history going to help in the work place if you are not interested or studying history for a damned career. The only benefit to the core general education required courses is to aid in the conformity process. They are there to slow down the efforts of obtaining a degree in a program that an individual wants to achieve. There is no substance to what to them.

You choose to go to some institution of higher learning, you should be able to determine what you want to do and what courses you want to take. There should be no forced requirements that only benefit the people that are getting the money for the courses. How many of you college graduates have used your general education requirements in the work force? Now I am not considering maths or sciences; however to some people they might be worthless, but for me they had something useful in them... mainly a thought process (depending on course... heh).

During the years that you spend in higher education institutes, you do develop some aspects of the real world. However, its not enough... there is only what you learn from the people you are around. That might be all that is needed... but to some, more is needed. Some people have trouble dealing with things like failure. I can say that a vast majority of the world will have a problem with failure. Whether this being failure in finding a career - or - failure in find and keeping a relationship. We don't know how to handle some of the real life issues.

Some people take into a different society... a digital society to find an answer to their ideal real life. Its not real... its fictitious. We seek out something that is easier to build the ideal in the the real world itself. Since our society is growing more technological, this will become ever more the case. As I see it... there is no current educational reform to take into count the digital society.

If you are one of those people that think that the digital society will never affect me... you might want to think about your stance again. The digital society as we know it, is so complex and misleading that there is no direct understanding on how it operates - or who operates it. You never know who you are talking to, who you are buying from... nothing is known except what is given to you in the form of text or pictures. However... the digital society still has the same issues as the real world.

Every person is vulnerable to the digital societal issues. You can get so caught up in a relationship that you start to merge real world with digital. It becomes something that affects those around you - more then you know. Inherently, there are more issues in a digital society then in the real world... mainly by how it is defined.

So... what have I stated in this rant. This long ass ranting about maybe nothing important at all? First off, I gave my position on educational reform as a must for anything. It has to be done, however its not the foresight of anything. These politicians that we elect are more interested in money then they are about our future in education. They are so caught up in the third parties - or in other fucking countries that it makes us as a nation look bad.

Secondly, I seeded your mind with the relation that our society as we see it, is actually two different societies. We have the real world (you get shot, you die - most likely), and the digital world (you could be talking to a guy, but he is posing as a woman!).

Have I accomplished anything? Probably not, but at least I wasted my time and your time now for reading this. Watch Foamy!

Technology strikes again...

A couple of weeks ago my old PC decided that it didn't like to boot into windows after turning it off for the first time in over four months. Windows had failed me once again and needed to be reinstalled... or so I thought. Attempting to reinstall windows became futile since the CD kept craping out trying to read certain files. This situation called for drastic measures...

Determining that maybe purchasing just WindowsXP would just be stupid since I had 1700$ set aside for a new PC in the future. I decided to finally put the old PC to rest and upgrade massively.

So... what did 1700$ purchase.

ASUS Crosshair Mother Board
AMD Athlon 64 x2 5600+
Crucial 2GB DDR2 800MHz
XFX GeForce 8600
Creative Sound Blaster Fatality
500GB Seagate Barracuda SATA HDD
LiteOn SATA DVD Burner
LiteOn EIDE CD Burner
Antec Nine Hundred Case
Antec 650watt True Power PS
and Windows XP.

Woman: A Controls Engineering Approach Part One

Each day, we preform a routine. Within this routine, there are several different stages. Each routine being different for each person, however each routine has the same underlying structure of a process that requires an input, an output, some disturbances, and some sort of a feed back and/or feed forward influences. The need to have some sort of control over a process in order to obtain a desired output is what makes control engineering one of the most interesting areas of study for both mechanical and electrical engineers. Myself, being an electrical engineering graduate that has special interest in controls engineering, I have proposed myself a challenge of some sort. This challenge involving the break down of the woman and look at the control and understanding of women based on a engineering approach.

We have all seen something along the lines of the following(1):

1) To find a woman, you need time and money, therefor

woman = time x money

2) "Time is money" so

time = money, therefor
woman = money x money

3) "Money is the root of all problems"

money = rt(problems), therefor
woman = problems

The above being the stereotypically definition of a woman, however there is no control.

The overall process of a woman can be broken down into five major systems (SPERM systems), sexual, physical, emotional, rational, and maternal. Of these five major systems, the first three are the most desired for the man to wish he could control, while the last two systems are rather an interest of some men. However, in order to attempt to control these systems we are required to look at them in a defined (maybe stereotypical definition) each (2).

* Sexual: This is typically referred to as the business system of the woman. Its either got a week's time when you can "buy one, get one free" and they're always up for sex, or its the usual nothing sale or "Not in the mood".

* Physical: The physical system of the woman is typically associated with an exotic sports car. Visually appealing to the man, with sleek curves and uniqueness just begs you to get in and go for a rid. This system is directly connected to the sexual and emotional systems. The connection is either made by the man or by the woman.

* Emotional: An marginally stable electrical or mechanical system is the analogy usually sought here. Most of the time you can input data into the system, the system will accept it, us it throughout the rest of the system until it runs out or needs more data. If the desired result isn't produced, the input data is corrected. However, there are those rare occasions that when the simplest data is inputed into the system, it blows up in the users face.

* Rational: A system that can collapse upon itself if not controlled correctly. There times when some inputs will trigger an unexpected output resulting in possible undesired results. The Rational system is more of an unstable system and without knowing what is inside, the desired input and outputs can be obtained using a fuzzy logic or neural network approach.

* Maternal: The maternal system is the woman system with the most amounts of checks and balances. Within this system, there are countless checks on what would happen if this were to happen. It is the emotional link with rationality. Generally judging the outcomes of the inputs on the decisions made. This system is more dominate upon conception. The maternal system also triggers the largest defensive stance on issues that threaten them.

Over the duration of this collaboration of random rants, each of the systems will be looked at closer as a control system is designed that would be used to control a woman. Looking to the inputs, outputs, disturbances, and feed back/forward connections.

(1) Some random poster I saw along time ago.
(2) These come from collaborating with Jon Patten.

Beyond the grasps of sanity

I have been told that I am amongst the strange and unusual. I perceive things differently then a 'normal' person would. Then again, how does one define the normality of an individual. If you define the normal by what the average 20-30 year old college graduates would be doing, one would find that employment is the top priority. However, if an individual is not sure on what he wants in life, how can he find the right employment.

There are three options for the individuals that have no ambitions or idea on what they want to do with their life. Out of these three options, the number one thing that they do is conform. Conformity is worthless. It bends the mind of the individual to a predescribed mind-set that allows for nothing much of mind rotting, repetitive dribble. Nothing useful ever comes from conformity...

The second option for those with no defined plans in life is consumption. This can be a very interesting choice and really makes life seem to float away. Some say that consumption is bad... I disagree and say that a little consumption never hurt anyone. Give someone a drink, and soon enough they will loosen up their conformed ways and start to become something completely different. If you really want to get to know someone, the best way is over a select choice of beverage so that the conformity around clears and understanding can begin. Or you could just sink deep into a bottle by yourself until your ambitions have dried up and the life dream becomes nothing more then a void. Then there is the third and ever popular choice. The continuation of knowledge.

Knowledge sought for, is knowledge gained. What better way to solve life's misdirection then continuing to build a platform for which you can sell yourself on. That's right ladies and gents.... the pursuit of knowledge is a market for conformity. Once an individual finds that sweet dream of employment, the conform to that and to that society. Thus ending their gain of knowledge - or - maybe their ambitions to pursue knowledge will continue. It is true, that this choice does have two possible outcomes depending on the mindset of the individual.

If the individual is eager enough to continue gaining knowledge, then maybe his abilities to conform to the shit stain of the society of which he chooses will be slowed. In today's society, the working individual does not seek much knowledge beyond his prescribed routine of mindless ranter. It seems that once employed, they take it upon themselves to become more of a machine and do the bare minimum. This sociological degrading path will continue until those that desire not to conform and have the ambition to pursue knowledge take a stand and become more then just a blimp.

As for the choices I have made... its obvious to those that know me and that have known me that I do occasionally take the consumption path. However I also pursue the knowledge that will allow me to find the right decision in life.

Paulo Freire said it best with: "Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world."

Bored

Got bored today so played around with artpad.com.

http://artpad.art.com/?jds2zl1e1lvc

Want To Buy...

Sleep.

I don't know what it is, but over the past few months I have been having nights with very limited hours of sleep (3-4 on average). Most of the time, I end up just trying to turn off my mind. However, it doesn't turn of and I can't get any sleep. Its hard to explain really...

I have found that alcohol is one of the ways that I can turn my mind off and that I can actually get some sleep. However, I don't want to be drinking every night before I go to bed. Sleep aids are a possibility, but something that you can get addicted to.

Not really sure on what to think here... its 2:40AM here and I am still wide awake.

Computers Are the Devil...

Its true.

Since the first of the year, I have been working on fixing the latest issue with my computer, reinstalling Windows 2000. This may seem easy, however when you have limited resources at your hands and are unable to hook up to a LAN system to download the windows updates due to virus that affect systems without specific service packs; one is forced to seek out other means to make it work.

It started with my 80GB HDD crashing fatally on me. This forced me to reinstall Windows 2000. Completely forgetting that service pack 2 was introduced to fix a known virus that affected new installs of Windows 2000 service pack 1; I proceeded to interface with the LAN. This turned out to be a huge mistake as I got the virus.

After reformatting and installing 2000 again and obtaining service pack 2 from another computer, I started to update windows once again. Lo and behold, another damn virus. Doing some research, it came known to me that service pack 3 was introduced for the same reason service pack 2 was.

Forced to reformat yet again. I install 2000 and service packs 2 and 3. With everything perfected, I begin to update windows with little issues. This hassle has forced me into a realization that I will be buying an OS next time I completely redo my PC.

To recap on HDDs:
120GB Maxtor -- DEAD
200GB Maxtor -- DEAD
80GB Maxtor -- DEAD
250GB Maxtor -- Alive (for the time being)

Since Seagate purchased Maxtor and reintroduced the 3 and 5 year warranties, I think I will be buying new HDDs in the near future.