JRRZZ Blog

No, you don’t want a cookie. If mommy says you can have a cookie, you will consume the aforementioned cookie. Have a bullet for now.

Apparently Fontys, the university I’m currently involved in, has been naughty again. Go figure.

Here in the Netherlands, companies can get educational grants from the government in order to further school their employees, and eventually become more innovative. It’s a great idea for stimulating Dutch innovation. I’m all for it. So Fontys thought they could supply these companies with the knowledge needed to be more innovative than they were before. The university made friends with some kind of obscure company and worked out an educational program for seasoned professionals.

Fontys, as I’ve ranted before, doesn’t really have that much knowhow about anything. There are a few people who seem to have had their fair share of education, but most of them are just dropouts who got fired from an average tech firm for being nitwits. So the unavoidable happened. A large amount of companies who had paid hard cash for their employees found out their people didn’t actually learn anything. And it’s not fully covered by the government grant either. Apparently the 7500 euros granted by the government weren’t enough for Fontys to teach people absolutely nothing. There are records of an additional 3500 euros demanded by Fontys. Argh the greed!

So my friends at the Dutch socialist party kindly asked[nl] for this lunacy to stop. Fontys eventually couldn’t deny their stupidity any longer and agreed to give all the money made by collecting educational grants back to the Dutch government. Whether the companies get their money back is still unknown.

But what about the students? We learn practically nothing at Fontys. We have to pay 1500 euros a year for the right to do absolutely nothing. Oh, that, plus an additional thousands of euros worth of government subsidizing. I bet all the knowledge we get taught at Fontys can be gathered by watching some MIT freshman lectures, reading a couple of books and working at an average IT firm for a year or so. The degree is absolutely fucking useless. I feel so sorry for all of those international exchange students who came all the way to Eindhoven, the Netherlands to study there. That’s one way of fucking up your youth.

Fuck!

jorrizza@box:~$ echo meow > sound
jorrizza@box:~$ cat sound
meow
jorrizza@box:~$ which cat
/bin/cat
jorrizza@box:~$ cat sound
bash: cat: command not found

Chances are I’m going to die soon. So I thought it might be a good idea to put a will together, just in case. For those of you who don’t know yet, I’ve got the misfortune to be part of the twenty seven club. Two separate fortune tellers have said so. Not that I believe them for one bit, but the math is just scary. After exactly ten thousand days of life I’ll be twenty seven. That day, the twenty seventh of January 2015, my heart should stop beating. The weird thing is, I’m not the only one. People like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain have all died after approximately ten thousand days of life. The weirdest thing of all – I had never heard of the twenty seven club until recently. Just imagine how scary that must have been.

Not that I’m making this into some self fulfilling prophecy. I hereby solemnly swear that if I live on January the twenty eighth, I’ll throw the most über party possible. Including booze, drugs, zeks, schnapps and music. The whole shebang. Yes, you are invited.

But, if I die, there are some things that I’d like to happen:

• The entire Lateralus album by Tool shall be played instead of a religious service. It’s simply more powerful than what any religion can offer.
• Festivities. Crying people must be crying out of laughter.
• No Christian symbolism! All Christian imagery shall be burned. Every theistic notion shall be countered with the burning wrath of Lucifer.
• After the useful bits have been stripped out, my corpse shall be burned publicly on a big pyre.
• No monument shall be erected, not even a tombstone. If people can’t remember me without, I don’t deserve to be remembered.
• All my possessions shall be auctioned. My resulting net worth will entirely be donated to Software in the Public Interest. That’s fair, because those guys have been a huge help in gaining all of that money.

So, I’ll see you all at the party then. Or in Hell, if those pesky Christians were right.

I’ve had it. Really. I’m a Dutch and European citizen. I’m not American. I’ve never been American and I’ll never be American. Keep your abomination you call democracy to yourselves. Go home, iron your stars and stripes, polish your chevy, hit your wife, read your bible, fire your rifle and above all – stay there!

During the election period, and well before that even, Dutch media have been reporting daily updates about the American elections. Yeah, sure, the U.S. president is an important figure internationally, but I can’t vote for the guy. Why the hell should I know that the republicans have trouble keeping their party together, or that Sarah Palin has a pregnant teenage daughter? I can, however, vote for the European parliament this year. There has been nearly zero news coverage about the subject. It’s only six months until the elections are being held. Six months prior to the American elections we had already met several presidential candidates, seen background information and so on. There was at least a weekly coverage of the U.S. election related events. Hell, most Europeans don’t even know there’s going to be elections held six months from now. They don’t even know how the parliament is constructed. I’ve done some quick calculations based on RSS feed archives I’ve got. The American elections have had 350% more media coverage by the Dutch media than our own national elections. The European elections haven’t even been mentioned as a headline yet. Some people aren’t doing their jobs properly.

The European media seem eager to report news exactly like their American colleagues do. Like newly unhatched birds they squeak and yell with their mouths wide open until some corporate news source vomits new material into their gullets for them to gobble and swallow without asking a single question. Isn’t that what journalism is all about, asking questions? Wasn’t free press once the safeguard for a proper democracy? Don’t the journalists have the single duty to inform the people about important subjects and related events? Apparently not. Why do you think corruption in western governments thrives these days? The media have been dysfunctional for decades and continue to deteriorate each year. Sensation is winning from integrity. Today I had the questionable honor of watching the entire Obama concert composed of the very worst MTV could throw at you. On state sponsored television. Instead of cultural programming the channel was originally created for, we get to endure an overhyped media spectacle directly aiming for the other U.S. states across the ocean, in a region called Europe.

While I was checking my RSS archive, something occurred to me. The Dutch media are copying verbatim from large media corporations. It’s frightening to see the parallels between Associated Press, Reuters and NOS (the Dutch national news broadcasting organization). It gets even worse. The Dutch coverage usually is a direct translation of an AP or Reuters article. There’s no verification what so ever. Do your own damn research, you asshats! I’ve written a small Ruby script, just for fun, which fetches the AP and Reuters feeds, translates them to Dutch and prints the articles like an autoqueue. This little gem can predict fairly well what the news anchor will say in the next news broadcast.

Damn. The Netherlands have one of the best legislative constructions to ensure the freedom of speech. Why don’t you people use it, before it’s too late and that right is taken away from you?

A year ago I wrote a .plan for 2008. Here’s a post about what I’ve actually managed doing in 2008 and what I’d like to do next year. Woosh. This year must have been the fastest year yet. It seems time’s speed grows equally with the number of BogoMIPS at my disposal. Let’s see what I had in store for this year.

Right, the IT company. It turned out setting up a company isn’t that lucrative as it initially seems. While (government sponsored) people promise a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, you’ll end up in the worst bureaucratic hailstorm you can imagine. Damn, I hate those bureaucrats. I’ve ended up doing what I’m good at. Hacking for cash.

Speaking of which, the two F/LOSS projects I wrote about are still alive. PhotonCRM has gained some new members, a few lines of code and too many SCMs. My current role in the project has been reduced to an IRC fixture, since my employer’s new CRM system has been outsourced after discarding my concept CRM. That has been one of the worst professional moments of last year. Luckily I’m the owner of the subversion box, so the code is still there. The other project, JBISC, is still on the road. I’ve underestimated the complexity of creating a programming language, but I’m doing quite well at learning the techniques necessary for creating such a work of art. The direction of the project has changed though, more or less thanks to very useful input from fellow students, software engineers and professors.

The part about photography has unfolded exactly according to plan. I’m the proud owner of some really nifty toys which I’ve, with some success, used to make photographs. I’m still learning new things every time I go out to make new material. Too bad I haven’t had that much free time to do so, but it has been fun nonetheless.

And oh yes, I’ve been to New Zealand this year. It’s the Mecca for adrenaline junkies, photographers and weird people. Strangely I can identify myself with all three of those. Some rushes were so intense I can still get a high by just remembering them. All the impressions, the people, the landscape. It has been the best thing I’ve done yet, during my relatively short period on this puny planet of ours.

This brings me to the actual plans for 2009. Of course I’m going to visit New Zealand again. This time it’s going to be longer, more intense and hopefully better than last year. I’ve also found the love of my life in New Zealand, who I’m going to ride again. Something I won’t do anywhere else. Who? Miss Gravity of couse. Heh, I had you fooled back there, didn’t I?

I’m planning on graduating for my bachelor’s degree. Whether the asshats at Fontys agree with this plan is the only problem I’m facing at the moment. If I happen to graduate, I’ll get my driver’s license too. It may come in handy some time, you know. Not that I care about that so much, but people keep offering me cheap deals to buy cars. And I’d really like to have one. Imagine the modding possibilities with that! My Lian Li case can sod off, it’s the car that’ll get new parts. My car. Linux powered.

I’ve also learned a few new programming languages this year. I’ve learned Python’s basics, written some Scheme, lots of AWK and above all Ruby. Ruby will be my primary high level language until JBISC is finished. Ruby. I just can’t stop saying it. Ruby Ruby Ruby. Ruby is the programmer’s epitome of coolness. Ruby is what beer is made of on a hot summer day. Ruby is the Jessica Alba in the sea of female sumo wrestlers. Okay, one more. If your mom was made out of Ruby, I’d do her.

And just like last year, I’ve written this post while listening to The Prodigy’s Fat of the Land album. Almost twelve years old, and it won’t get old.

Fellow ACP contributor Waldheri has left a comment on this blog asking me to participate in one of the blogosphere’s more social activities, a meme. It’s basically a number of questions that need to be answered with the more-or-less obligation to spread the meme to other blogs in the blogosphere.

I accept. Not an unexpected reaction from the keeper of one of the most unvisited parts of the interwebs. Anyway, let’s go and answer the questions, shall we?

Can You Remember The Day That You Officially Became An Atheist?

Why is this the only question Entirely Written In Camel Case? It Just Doesn’t Make Any Sense. Ah, I haven’t even started yet and I’m already off topic.

I’ve never considered myself an official Atheist. The best way to explain this rather vague statement is to tell the whole story.

My mother used to be a Catholic nun. My upbringing has been rather Catholic because of that. I went through all of the rites that were expected of God fearing Catholic school boys. Baptism, Eucharist, Confirmation and even some church choir stuff. The rite of Confirmation is usually held at a person’s entry into adulthood. As an afterthought, I was eleven, twelve years old or so, which might explain the “other” activities at that age within certain Catholic churches. Anyway, the teachers at primary school and the church volunteers tried to explain this wasn’t just the age of adulthood, but even more the age of reason. We twelve year olds should be enlightened (read: indoctrinated) enough to accept God into our hearts and take the pledge of loyalty to the church. Luckily I interpreted “reason” and “enlightenment” as a motivation to start learning more about my newly pledged faith. I started reading the Bible. This is where things started falling apart.

As I progressed through the linguistical hardships that came with reading the Bible, a horrific and staggering amount of bloodshed and cruelty became apparent. This wasn’t the loving God everyone was talking about. This God had all the characteristics of a vile dictator. He broke his promises, massacred entire civilizations in fear of losing power and didn’t care about a few thousand lives more or less. This discovery enraged me greatly. I went to the pastor for answers, but he essentially waved my arguments away as a futile attempt to undermine his own faith. This unfriendly encounter with my personal church representative left me determined to find out what was really going on.

After a few mislead and futile attempts to salvage what was left of my, once unquestionable, faith I turned my back on Catholicism. So where does an enraged ex-Catholic kid with a huge Death Metal collection go to? Exactly, Satan. Gradually this anger-lead misconception made way for real reason. During the years in college I discovered the scientific method, philosophy and logic. I’ve never completely left Satan. I still had my pentagram and deep down the rage still existed. From my newly found love for philosophy I set out to find the meaning behind this Satan figure, which didn’t mean anything but anti-Catholicism to me. The Satanic Bible by LaVey introduced a whole new chapter in my life.

The last four or five years I went back and forth between LaVeyan Satanism and modern Luciferianism. Right now I consider myself a LaVeyan Satanist. I’m still no real Atheist, since I still believe in “a” god. This god of mine is created by me in my own image. Just like the Catholic one, but they don’t want to admit it. My god is a representation of me and there’s nothing supernatural about it. I worship my god by, essentially, having fun. As long as I’m happy, my god’s happy. See, this god is merely a way to describe the epitome of my life. It’s no entity on it’s own. You may call me an Atheist if you wish, I won’t be offended. Satan still is the representation of my hatred toward the Catholic upbringing I had to endure. I don’t see Satan as a god, more as an iconic symbol. Next to my disbelief of a supreme being Satanism encompasses a whole bunch of other interesting concepts. Since this isn’t part of the question I won’t bother you with the nifty little details.

Do you remember the day you officially became an agnostic?

I only discovered there was such a thing as agnosticism when I was already convinced God didn’t exist. When I look back on the events that lead to the disbelief, there’s no gradual path through agnosticism. My disbelief came quite abrupt in the form of protest against the wrongdoings of my Catholic scholars.

How about the last time you spoke or prayed to God with actual thought that someone was listening?

That must have been during the salvage attempts. There’s a little chapel I used to frequent not far from where I live. I think I’ve made my final attempt to communicate with God there.

Did anger towards God or religion help cause you to be an atheist or agnostic?

Oh yes. Yes it did. And it still does. With a nice Morbid Angel tune playing on the background I can’t wait to set some churches on fire.

Here is a good one: Were you agnostic towards ghosts, even after you became an atheist?

I’ve never believed in ghosts. The ghost folklore was part of my upbringing though. I guess I’ve always been convinced ghosts were part of the very same category as vampires and werewolves. I’m quite comfortable in a graveyard at night. I grew up next to a graveyard dating from the 15th century. Hell, I used to play there as a kid. If there was such a thing as ghosts I’m sure one of the graveyard’s inhabitants would have tried to communicate. Until now they’ve played dead.

Do you want to be wrong?

Of course I want to be wrong. That’s the only way to learn anything. But I guess the question is about being wrong about the almighty slayer of unbelievers. Yeah, I’d like to be wrong. I can take him. Easily. Apparently he has lost all of his power during the renaissance, so I must be able to kick him out of heaven and claim it as my own. It’s the perfect place to shoot angels from. If I’m wrong it’ll be raining dead angels after I die. I promise.

The final part to make this meme continue: the invitations. Since my blogroll doesn’t contain a large number of Atheist bloggers I have to use ACP’s blogroll. I’ll invite two people.

• Chimera
• Blue Linchpin

With this year’s Loebner prize awarded to Elbot, artificial intelligence is one step closer to mimicking human behavior. While this achievement is quite astonishing on it’s own, it also makes certain people worry about our future. It’s not only the Terminator enthusiasts who are out shopping for shotguns and canned food. A large, and still growing, number of highly renowned scientists and philosophers agree that it’s very, very likely for us to be a mere manifestation of supreme artificial intelligence. In other words, that we’re all part of a humongous simulation.

Since Nick Bostrom’s publishing of the simulation argument in Philosophical Quarterly I’ve supported the theory. It’s an intriguing way of looking at reality, albeit a bit on the nihilistic side. The most important proof reality could give me was the astonishing resemblance between sub-atomic physics and 3D render engines. Just think about it for a second. A well written render engine will only render the 2D result of your current view port. All the other environmental data won’t even be processed. In the Copenhagen model of quantum mechanics the state of a particle is completely unknown until measured. Basically Schrödinger’s zombie cat paradox. Bostrom provided the mathematical evidence to support the possibility to simulate the human brain. With enough of these simulated brains in parallel you’ve got yourself a simulated society. He also pointed out, using basic probability calculations, that the probability of us being the unsimulated society is alarmingly low.

As a low-level software engineer I’m not comfortable with this idea. There’s a huge problem Bostrom has overlooked.

We’re moving towards a technological level on which we can successfully start to simulate the human brain. We’re also breeding like rabbits, adding more brains to the system. So in essence we’ve got two processes adding brains to the overall system; the natural process and the synthetic process. The natural process is rather slow. It’s a low exponential increase with certain environmental limitations, further diminishing the growth. The synthetic growth is truly exponential and will rise rapidly.

When I look at the simulation argument from a low-level hacker’s point of view, a capacity problem arises. And it’s a big one. The natural growth will behave like a parallel recursive function. It’ll slowly, but at an increasing rate, consume all available resources. The simulation program will have to spawn new brain simulation processes in order to keep up with the growth. From the moment these simulated brains start producing their own simulation of themselves the recursion turns into recursive parallel recursion. The exponent of the natural exponential growth will grow exponentially. These programming errors will bring any finite system to it’s knees within moments. I usually refer to this event as the critical state of a recursive system. Logic suggests that the critical state of our universe has to be lower than that of the host on which we are simulated. The critical state isn’t so much a computational boundary, as it’s an effect of the finite amount of storage for the state itself.

Either of two things will happen if we successfully start to simulate our own brains. The first possibility is that nothing happens, we are simply not simulated. The second possibility is a little more complicated. Since the capacity of the machine is not limited by the capacity of it’s creator’s brain, the machine is likely to have a higher capacity than it’s creator. It will be able to simulate a better brain which will reach the point of building a simulation of an even better brain sooner. This recursive evolution is only limited by the critical state of the original machine. The simulation, on any level of the recursion, may hit it’s critical state at any point in time. The inhabitant of that level can not be aware of the critical state of his level, or any of the recursive levels prior to him. See, with our exponential growth of capacity, both natural and synthetic, we will hit our critical state. If we are simulated, that is.

So in short we’re pretty much doomed as a simulation. Let’s just hope we’re not.

Until a few months ago the ACP has been collecting confessions. I’ve posted the last ones, including mine, on the site. If you’ve got a few minutes I recommend reading them, you’ll enjoy them. I promise.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’m going to start my final year at Fontys, which will probably end up in six months overtime. But hey, when I’m done I’m going home with a Bachelors degree. Not that it matters that much. It only proves I can withstand enormous amounts of stupidity, not that I know anything about a certain subject. Maybe I’m going to pursue a Masters degree, but not at Fontys. Anywhere but Fontys. Fucking amateurs.

Oh well, let’s see what nonsense and outdated stupidity Fontys will try to throw at me this time. I’ve read something about embedded Windows and C#. Or what about some distributed system using, you guessed it, .NET? This is going to be fun.

Fuck you, Fontys.