The Fall of the Human Race

I am a believer in science, but that does not make me a Scientologist. I have absolutely no idea why they have piggybacked their cult religion on a word that comes from the Latin scientia, meaning 'knowledge'. But that is a rant for another day.
Science explains a lot of things to us mere mortals, including where we came from and how we got here. That's right folks, I am talking about evolution (creationalists look away now). Evolution has made us what we are today, moulded and transformed by our ancestor's lives and their interaction with nature and their surroundings. For example, hair is not as necessary as it was a few million years ago because we wear clothes and regulate our climate with good, solid shelter and climate control systems. As a result of this persistent change, we grow less hair on our bodies. So you can go ahead and blame the inventor of hats for the beauty of male pattern baldness*.

Evolving as a species over the centuries has turned us into bipedal, intelligent, efficient biological forms. Unfortunately, not everybody received the 'intelligent' upgrade (and some didn't get the bipedal one either) and so the human race has been left with halfwits and lazy fools to drag the rest of us down. This in itself should not be an issue - Darwin's theory of evolution is only managed by natural selection, which would mean that these stupid and useless entities would be wiped out by Mother Nature (or more commonly their own idiocy) and their defective genes removed from the human gene pool. Evolution of man could then continue, with only the strongest genes carrying on.
However, somewhere along the lines we decided that it was all a bit cruel, and jigged around with it ourselves. Now, as a society, we take every precaution to ensure that stupid people don't harm or kill themselves - at the cost of a diluted gene pool. But at least they live a long, oblivious happy life. Now, I have waxed lyrical on this subject before, so I will swiftly move on.
The secondary stage of destroying ourselves is in the use of technology. I am the first to admit that technology is fantastic and I am a subscriber to the many uses of technology and gadgets - from games consoles and computers to robots and inter-stellar flight*. Recently I noticed that technology was becoming an integral part of my life - something you find when your internet access is down, or your computer suffers an untimely BSoD (Windows users) or hardware failure (Windows users + all other users). We really shouldn't rely on things like computers but we do, and in just about everything, too. How many times have things slowed down because of a problem with a computer? Trying to buy something, but the shop has a computer malfunction or their internet connection suddenly goes down? Find yourself at a loss because of a power outage? Reliance on technology is a weakness that we all share.
I sometimes have a brief moment of clarity, when the small, largely inactive part of my brain that controls sanity and realism momentarily awakens and splutters a few disjointed sparks of life. It is during these fleeting moments that I realise how encumbered we are with technology, and that the computer will destroy us. I don't mean a Matrix scenario, where our digital overlords imprison us so they can let us live a seemingly normal life within a computer program - what I mean is the human race will perish as a sentient body. People will lose the ability to remember, to choose, to function. I know I used to be great with phone numbers - I could remember everyone's number and recall it in an instant. These days, my phone is so powerful it not only remembers numbers, addresses and birthdays, but it also opens several forms of instant communication, so I don't even have to see the person. This insight is so frightening, I often have to soothe myself by watching TV or browsing the internet.

*This WILL be in my life.

Looking Through My Ribcage

It might seem a little strange. That is largely because it is strange - it is not everyday you have someone peer into your chest, past all the bone, cartilage, flesh and blood. Yet here I find myself, stripped to the waist and lying on my side, waiting nervously as a nurse and her trainee prepare the ultrasound receiver with the cold, mucilaginous gel. I am in my twenties, and I am forced to consider the health of my ticker - a sobering thought at any age, but recently I have been considering my mortality more than I ought to.

We shouldn't plan to die, and although we are finite beings we shouldn't really expect to die either. I don't mean that we should expect to live forever as ageless immortals - that is reserved only for Hollywood, novels and religion (not much of a distinction between these). However, I believe we should live our lives without the constant thought of our impending doom weighing us down, like a leviathan grandfather clock strapped to our withering backs. I know that my life will end at some point, but I would rather that 'some point' was a mystery. If you knew the moment that your life was to end, would it change the way you live? Would you act with less consideration to others, to your health and your environment? Would you make sure you get as much experience as you can before your light is snuffed out? Possibly. So why should it matter? If you are to live for another hour, or another 50 years, why shouldn't you do what you want to do? That doesn't mean ignore the consequences and be as inconsiderate as you can - contrary to popular belief, it is possible to be nice to others and enjoy yourself. The point I am trying to make is that we should live the way we want to live, do what makes us happy and not wait to consider our impending doom. Saving for a rainy day is good, but can you guarantee that the rainy day won't turn into floods and cause natural disasters?

That is enough morbidity for now.

Crisp Mornings are Good

It was crisp this morning. I suppose crisp is a good thing; refreshing, gives you a good sense of life and makes you alert. It certainly doesn’t induce laziness, for which I am famous in the mornings. The still and silent air hung around me like a heavy coat, only without the warmth and protection, and I made my way through the morning routine. Crisp mornings are designed to really bring you to full consciousness: cold air to shiver you out of your slumber, icy water to pull on your nerves like a horse’s reins when you wash, clothes that appear to have been marinated in sub-zero wake-up juice that cling to your body and shock you into meerkat alertness. If you think that you have had all the jolts of the morning, think again. The final step in the day’s greeting to you will come, perhaps not immediately, but it will get you. There will be the bright lance of sunshine that creeps out of the shadows, pulls back your eyelids, and stabs through your pupils to set fire to your retinas. Yes, crisp mornings are great.

Anger from the Archive

I wrote the below belligerence quite a long time ago, before I ascended the ranks of professional geek. I stumbled upon it again today, and thought I best share...

Whenever I have some time to really throw away, I browse t'interweb. There really is nothing quite like crawling across the net, filling your mind with useless trite while purging the good stuff - like that business idea that will make you a millionaire, or where you left your car keys.
As fun as the internet is (and it is fun), it is also a place for complete fools to vomit their insignificance and anger. I know this; I am one of these fools. However, where my moronic rants could easily be described as self indulgent, narcissistic speechs that only serve to boost my ego, at least I do it using the right words.
I have a few pet hates, and at the top of the list is stupidity. If you look at the rest of my list, it is largely populated with specific acts of stupidity, none of which I can stomach. I am very fortunate to have landed a job where on a daily basis I am blessed with phonecalls from some of the stupidest people alive today. Really, it's what gets me up in the morning.
The stupid thing I want to wax lyrical about right now is the word loose. In itself, it is not a stupid word. It is the opposite of tight, or a description of someone that gives away carnal knowledge without the need for dinner and flowers. The stupid part only comes into play when someone uses this word as a verb - 'You are so going to loose, and I will, like, win.' There should probably be far more txt spk in there, and maybe less punctuation, but you get the general idea.
'Did you loose your passport?'
'No, it wasn't tight. And it would be loosen, you cretin.' 
The thing is, it happens all of the time. I can sort of see why, the ooze sound obviously tricks people into adding an extra o. The problem I have is that it is wrong, and webheads are littering forums and web pages with it so much that the internet is becoming a digital landfill. There are plenty of other similar incidents, but this is one of the more popular blunders and it seriously makes me want to scream.
That is all for today.

Time Marches On

It has been a very long time since I wrote here, and I feel like I have let myself down. I have neglected my right to post useless rubbish on the internet, and join the millions of other users who are filling 'The Cloud' with all the nonsense we have to wade through when we are searching for something interesting and factual. With that in mind, here is a personal account of my life so far...

I have had some major changes this year. The most exciting news I have is that my girlfriend and I are expecting our first (and only, if I am to believe what she says - perhaps we will call it Tanith) to be born in February next year. We had planned everything, then found that we had taken nothing into account - but why should that matter?! We are both looking forward to having a son or daughter - either is fine - and as yet we do not know whether we will find out at the next scan. We keep changing our minds, but it isn't for another 3 weeks so there is plenty of time to swap the choice around a few more times.
I have started a new job, too. That was quite handy, seeing as my pregnant girlfriend had been made redundant- nothing like welcoming new life into the world when you haven't got a pot to piss in. The job itself is something I have been trying to achieve for many years - application developer. My official title is programmer analyst, which sounds only slightly better than my previous job title of customer support analyst. It is a promotion, of sorts, in that I get paid more. I suppose it does require more knowledge and ability, but so far I haven't had insurmountable challenges - it is early days though.
Early in the year, I suffered a shoulder injury while playing rugby. As a result of my own impatience, I returned to the pitch only to suffer the same injury, albeit on the opposite shoulder. Restraint ignored, I returned to play again, and made the injury worse. I ended the season with both shoulders in pieces.
When pre-season training started, I argued with myself that I should be fit after having a couple of months without the brutal impact that rugby offers, so I dived straight back in. I tore my shoulder again. Let it not be said that I do not learn from my mistakes; as long as I make the mistake 3 or 4 times, it will penetrate my thick skull. I am siding with sensibility, and refraining from joining my barbarian brothers on the battlefield. I have been to watch once so far, but it was frustrating that I could not help. I may have to become the photographer, at least then I will still feel like part of the team.

That is the main impacting events of the year. I have grown so fond of my twenties that it will be emotional to part ways at the end of the month, and as the days meander by I feel more concern at my distinct lack of achievements. I really must write more.