The Art of Cooking and it's Benefits on Your Life

Nope, not a book review. Simply a fact, two pictures and a sentiment.

Life is about the multitudes of possible experiences, use your senses wisely. 

Cooking is a Human tradition.

To my future self.

I am the present, I have dominion over now. Using my vision of the past, I walk blindly into your present. My previous controls my speed, I control my direction, you are my destination.

I am your past, my past's future, and the present now, and the present now, and the present now, and the present now.

Just as each present me falls through time to my past, each you falls to me, and I wear his body, I know his mind, I learn his knowledge, I think his thoughts. Hello. I am the future, I am the present, I am the past.
Goodbye.

The Reasons I Play (Video Games) [Thought]

The average American under the age of forty has played at least one video game in their lives. I made this statistic up, but I feel it’s not wrong. The truth is probably even more impressive, but for the purposes of this post, mine will do.

The catalyst for this thought post is the podcast "StarTalk Radio: With Neil Degrasse Tyson." They recently (on July 29th 2012) released an episode called "Advancing to the Next Level: The Science of Video Games (Part 1)"
They talked about the impact that video games have on the people who play them, the appearance they have to the people that don't, and the benefits that they can have on the player. This is all good and I agree with it all, I was nodding my head along with all of this.

My issue appears when the reasons appear.

Disclaimer: I have not heard the second part of the podcast yet. And I LOVE this podcast and all of its hosts and guests.

Here's my issue: This podcast said that the reason gamers game is to escape. This was not their actual topic, but they do talk about it and the idea bugged me.
I don't play to escape– I play for entertainment. I play for control.

Adults, (as you may know,) have the stresses and tensions of responsibility, from which to escape, but I, as a teenager, do not. This is a very classic argument, the things that adults don’t want, give them the things that teens want without regard for the parts that adults so complain about.
I have no very little power, but I have a ton in video games.

I am using the definition of power as this:
Power: Control over one's environment.
Environment: Every thing, person or animal that has any effect on you or the things that have an effect on you.
Just to clarify.

Well defined objectives, purpose and meaning imbued actions are the real pull for most gamers, I think, all of which give us power over our in-game environments. If a game made you play without a HUD, without knowledge of how much health an enemy had, without clearly defined enemies, you would have much less of a sense of power and control, and it wouldn't be as fun.

There is much more I could say, but honestly, I feel that I have written too much already, so, I will just learn from my mistake and be more succinct next time.

Bye.

The concept of a "Kickstarter.gov"

The Mars Rover, Curiosity, landed last night, it's a huge achievement for mankind, even though it isn't the first Mars Rover. It's mechanical grandeur and scientific poise are yet to come, though, the real excitement will be in the next few days as the MSL (Mars Science Laboratory) starts working.

A blog I was reading, which had an article about the MSL said that the 2.something billion dollar mars mission only came to $7 per taxpayer. And I was like "WTF! I would pay more than THAT!"
Which gave me this idea.

What if Governments gave the informed and socially responsible citizens the choice– 

–not only of who to lead our country and our states, cities and towns– 

–but also of where the taxes we pay go. 

Like the website Kickstarter, people would pledge money toward government projects and facilities. Unlike Kickstarter, where the users are rewarded at different levels of spending, every taxpayer would simply get the thing they pledged toward, be it the library or the moon landing, this time on Io or Europa. Taxpayers would become funders, the very thing we are, but our money is taken and applied to whatever the government thinks is important, not what we want to use. 

Maybe the government would say "Each taxpayer is required to spend X money on Y number of city projects, Z amount on state projects and W amount on national projects. 

 

That sounds good right. It's not a constitution, but I think it has promise.

Feel free to comment with suggestions or even something like a complete overhaul of this form of democracy.
Also, what would you put your money into if your government had this policy?

Fictional diferances

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." 

Arthur C. Clarke, "Profiles of The Future", 1961 (Clarke's third law)  

Another person, whose name is beyond me, said: 

"Any sufficiently throughly explained magic is indistinguishable from technology."

Anonymous

By this reasoning, Sci-fi and fantasy are the same, or at least, can be, if they are sufficiently explained. This, I think, is awesome.

  

Political View Point in the 21st. cent.

The comedian Greg Proops, (that is his name) makes a podcast. 

You may have noticed a slight disparity between the title and the subject of the first sentence,  this is due to the nature of the podcast and the masterful style of the comedian's wit. For among baseball, old movies, French stuff, men's fashion, and weed, Greg Proops, discusses politics.

Because I am only sixteen, and I haven't ever needed to think that I might like to vote. Neither have I  been able to had I thought that I needed to think that I did want to, despite being capable and willing to understand and judge the proceedings of a political debate, in order to make an informed decision on the best candidate. Due to this setback in my political thinking, I was glad to be awakened and informed so wonderfully by Mr. Proops. He doesn't just lean to the left, he took a running jump at it.

Greg's real views are unimportant, just as are mine and your's, the point of partisan politics is to make an enemy against which to rally. Painting the states red and blue is really to know when you stand in enemy territory, and know to be a defensive ****head about your views. 

So go download his podcast. Rethink your politics and don't just play halo on election day.

Podcast

Bye!

Your OS is like your religion.

Here is the explanation for this position:

Mac is like Buddhism because of the way it constantly moves from one form to another, constantly trying to reach perfection, never straying from the path to nirvana. Mac is all about how it works, you don't need anything to go with it, the box has in it your keyboard and mouse, it has built-in iSight, and mic. The tower is itself, and all your programs come pre-installed. Buddhism is all about perfecting the self, achieving peace through non-violence and self-reliance.

PC is like Christianity, because it's all about fixing problems, "oh, I see you've sinned, confess and pay the church and you will have your sin wiped away." And if someone doesn't like the current quick fix, they are offered a different denomination, they go from Baptist to dell. It takes very little self-sacrifice to join the club, there is lots of customization options, and it only feels good if your friends join too.

 ~

My limited knowledge of religions limits me to the most popular ones, and so out of those, I thought that a rough parallel can be drawn from Mac to Buddhism and from PC to Christianity. Being atheist, I don't believe in either, but I prefer Buddhism because it didn't cause so much war.

 ~

 I know I've been gone a while, you probably didn't notice, but neither did anyone else. There was no you before you.

~

In my absence, I contemplated the format of my writings, a review style blog, I realized, was unsustainable. To combat the stale feeling that I had before I stopped, I will now be making some changes, and experimenting with my medium.