Today, I want to be working for the DOT

I don't really want to work for the DOT in any sort of full time fashion but I was reading about the Marshalite and I think that if it were based on a board of LEDs could cope with changing traffic patterns and work better than the more common three lights (or in the case of cross walk signals, two lights) system.

Today, I want to be an atheist chaplain

I am by no means a supporter of the military, at least its actions as of late (by which I mean most of the last fifty years). As I understand it not only does the military advocate and economically support religion (as embodied in the chaplaincy) and unbelievers are kind of buggered. I wouldn't be adverse to undertaking heavy study in philosophy (as well as psychology, sociology &c) to be qualified to speak to what the religious would call deeper questions among those who do not believe. I don't know if the position of atheist chaplain would be in addition or as an occasional replacement for the more traditional instantiation of the position but either way it would be a great asset for the military not to mention far more fair.

Today, I want to be an inventor

When I was young I was planning on inventing things when I grew up. I have since not fulfilled that dream but every now and again I get a small snatch of an idea that would be fun to follow through on. Recently they have been circling around games. Although I wouldn't call creating and marketing a game 'inventing' per se I think, given that I have no advanced training in engineering or computer science which would be necessary to create prototypes of most of my ideas, this may be my best bet. Now if I could only keep on one idea instead of jumping from one to the next to the next.

Today, I want to be owning a hotel

I'm on vacation, hence the lack of posts recently, and I hate hotel bathrooms. Not for the germaphobic reasons many people do but because the shampoo is watery, the shower heads have no pressure, the soap leaves me (at least) feeling slimy and the towels are too small to wrap around my (fairly narrow) waist.

I wish I had a hotel so I could rectify all of these shortcomings and have the best damn bathrooms in hotel history...

Today, I want to be Dennis Kucinich

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Kucinich_presents_Bush_impeachment_articles_0609.html

Finally...

Today, I want to be young and unmarried

Done! On the other hand my friends are getting married (to each other) today. His bachelor party was a couple of days ago and I didn't go, thankfully.

Can someone explain the phenomenon that to celebrate his lifelong commitment to the woman he, supposedly, loves he watches other women take their clothes off because I certainly can't.

Today, I want to be having internet

There were severe thunderstorms and a tornado watch last night which knocked out cable (and for me consequentially internet and phone too) in my complex. Luckily I still have power but I am offline until Comcast gets their act together... this could be a while.

Can't wait until we're wired for FIOS.

Today, I want to be David C.

I work at the Apple Store which I love, even if I'm stuck in training for the time being. One of the gentlemen who works in our store is quite possible the coolest person I have ever met; his name is David (for anonymity for both him and myself and to avoid butchering his last name which I have only heard it is redacted). Aside from referencing Battlestar Galactica a lot which is killer, he quoted The Princess Bride a movie which is sadly ignored recently. But seriously, anyone who uses the word 'frak' at work gets major points in my book; further he is incredibly articulate which is nice considering the literacy of the average contemporary American hangs somewhere between 'c u b4 u c me' and People magazine. Hopefully I'll get to work with him a lot.

I'm becoming afraid this store will eat my life not in a negative way but that I'll like it so much I won't (ever) leave. Mr. and Dr. is unacceptable... on the other hand they have killer benefits and really nice salaries a bit up the food chain (e.g. ASM). I have been ordered by the girlfriend that I can't drop out so I'm at the grindstone for another 11 months at the very least but I can't really see myself not seeing my Ph.D through unless I don't make it into a school (in the area, but that is a whole different kettle of fish and ultimately an open question).

Today, I want to be a sideshow

I don't mean this in the vernacular 'freak' sense of the word sideshow but in the sense of having great "stupid human tricks". I saw this video and as most (or perhaps just many) people probably do, I said 'I wish I could do that'. Similarly I wish I could juggle cigar boxes or eat fire or... other stuff. Most of the stuff sideshow folk do is crazy or bizarre or so dangerous to be stupid (imho). For example the human blockhead and sword swallowing are two things I will not try because I'm afraid for my life and intellect.

Maybe I will be a sideshow just of the intellectual variety. 'And on your right you'll see J.C., the new Kurzweil.'

Today, I want to be writing my thesis

I think I have a good thesis topic picked out but I need to get it approved, I just hope it will be. *crosses fingers*

Thesis proposal (draft) follows:
Orson Scott Card’s Hierarchy of Foreignness and Xenotransplantation

Orson Scott Card, in his Ender’s Saga (primarily Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide and Children of the Mind), delineates four degrees of foreignness which can and should be invoked in analyzing xenotransplantation, most notably the use of baboon hearts.1 ‘ Utlannings are strangers from our own world. Framlings are strangers of our own species, but from another world. Ramen are strangers of another species, but capable of communication with us, capable of co-existence with humanity. Last are varelse: [strangers of another species with whom communication is impossible].’2 For a complete analysis I would add odjurs: those who are not rational in any meaningful way. One, simple, example of this is a slime mold; we cannot communicate with but not because something is lacking in the relationship (such as an inability to understand the language, social custom or inherent biological reality of the other species) but because the slime mold lacks any neurological capacity and therefore an inability for any thought let alone rational thought.3
Baboons are clearly neither untlannings nor framlings4. The question, then, becomes whether they are ramen5, varselse or odjurs. If they are odjurs then, barring those such as Peter Singer, no one would say that they should live if their death could save a person’s life. On the other hand, if they are ramen then not only is using their hearts to prolong human lives barbaric but killing them is murderous. Finally, if they are varselse then the waters become quite muddied and whether or not to use xenotransplant from baboons seems equiprobable.

1 Because, although pigs—for example—are quite intelligent animals, baboons share nintey-five percent of human DNA and are, at least arguably, rational.
2 Orson Scott Card. Xenocide. (New York: Tor Books, 1991).
3 To an extent this is not fair if conceptualizing in a multi-stellar and therefore a much wider evolutionary range than just Terra’s systems but we’re not so if a slime mold has no brain cells then we can be certain, knowing what we do about life on this planet, that because it doesn’t have brain cells then it can’t think.
4 I’m ignoring the however improbable possibility that they are indeed from another world but I believe no one will argue this point.
5 As, I would argue, some of the higher primates—such as Koko the silverback gorilla—are clearly ramen and can communicate with humans as much as their physiology allows.

Today, I want to be honest

I am an honest person, I am but I am good at both distorting the truth either by omission or by intentionally giving the spin I want and when I do lie, I am frightfully good at it (or at least so I think). I recently read A.J. Jacobs' The Year of Living Biblically and he discusses the radical honest movement which is exactly it sounds like: telling the bald truth. (For a good profile from Jacobs himself, see his article in Esquire).

I can see the benefits of being fully or truly or completely honest but I can also see the obvious shortcomings, most immediatly evidently in my relationship with my girlfriend. If I told her, bluntly but truthfully, 'I think you are acting like a child' she'd probably kick my butt. Perhaps what we need for real (or honest...) honesty is not just people willing to tell the truth but people willing to hear it. (And to be honest that last bit was not just a 'honey, don't kill me' but a real, or as real as I'm getting today, insight).

Update: I just finished the Jacobs Esquire article (it was late last night when I was writing my post so I stopped after a couple of pages) and I changed my mind. Radical honesty is not the way to go, honesty is good but radical honesty means saying things like 'it's dead' to a small child whose bug friend is 'napping' according to her. I actually agree with this one, 'dead' is not a dirty word. However, saying to your 27 year-old nanny "if my wife left me, I would ask you out on a date, because I think you are stunning." Aside from being odd and probably making your nanny (or if you told your wife, her too) uncomfortable or worse. So, in brief, I'm all for honesty but not for radical honesty. Perhaps I'll get my act together and propose a full alternative.