STEM 7 - Eh...

Too nationalistic for my taste!

I don't lose much sleep over America losing its place as "[the] engine of scientific discovery and scientific innovation." Yes, America has been an inspired catalyst, especially in the 20th century. However, progress is progress, despite its origins. Seriously, if one cares about progress, he or she should congratulate his or her global brother or sister on a job well done; it's not like we do too often.

American inventors! American ingenuity! why not human inventors and primate ingenuity? (Shout out to my brothers in the wild and civilization!)

Confining oneself to a nationality is outright boring, outright boring! Living in America and exclaiming you're an American is redundant. Expressing one's pride of the incident, even more so.

Don't get me wrong, I know America has potential for a quality of life higher than any other country's, which is pretty cool. In fact, I probably wouldn't want to live anywhere else. It's just... chill out about it, ok? Intense "patriotic" fervor is what causes animosity on the global front. Imagine a Frenchman yelling France is the best country on Earth, thus saying America is not. (One probably has! [The English language is so fun, figure the double context interpretation of the note out!]) Does that infuriate you? Well, I place no blame if it does. (I've found indifference is happiness's contemporary; competition is pointless, dominance over other men is a slavery. I'm not much for any kind of slavery.)

Anyway, do your best America! Do your best! (Also, don't recognize me as an iconoclast, some furious inciter or an especially liberal fellow. [Apolitical usually!] This isn't a sad attempt at revolution, this isn't a brutal critique of behaviour. It's simply one guy telling a lot of guys to calm down already.)

(None of this had anything to do with the topic, sorry. Granted, the topic was probably an attempt at getting EVERYONE up and doing something innovative; I just don't like the nationalistic shroud and prefer to point that out, as I only talk about things I don't care for.)

STEM 6

Inventing something in my lifetime to better the world?

Inventions don't better the world, human consciousness betters the world. I don't care how [long] I live; I don't care when I live; I just want to know that I lived and lived with people who take life for what it is and bring me on that trip. Why take this world for anything more than it reveals? (Dispelling both the religious and scientific.) Write a book of poetry, live forever in a particular dualism; that will do one more good than living an additional ten years with a new heart valve or whatever and producing nothing. (This suggesting applies exclusively to those who want immortality; those who recognize their indifference need produce nothing.)

However, I would like to invent the C.B. Irvine Sea Turtle Refuge for future generations to admired the noble sea turtle. I think I've mentioned this is a previous blog, so I'll elaborate no further.

However, explaining why I love sea turtles, possibly more than humans, may be nice. Shell living is no picnic, and shell living is how I've lived my entire life. Nervous, afraid, self-protective, inhibited in every respect. I've chosen to break my own mold; I've chosen to live in a way befitting my indifference. Simply, I've chosen to live in a way that I'm utterly content with. I won't elaborate any further on the subject, but I do imagine this is how a sea turtle feels in refuge. Although he can never physically abandon his shell, allowing him to abandon his shell metaphorically, living without cruel predators or inhibitions, living to do whatever he wishes whenever he wishes, works well enough, in my opinion.

Inspiration!

So, how has this inspired me to pursue a real career? It really hasn't.

I've decided upon my future, though. I'm going to college of course, but choosing a career based on whether I can do the tasks required, how much time in the day it takes and how well it pays. To be the modern dandy is my goal; to never have my career be my identity or even be known to my acquaintances.

Now, when I say I want to be a dandy, I'm not referring to the boring dandies whom are recognized merely because they are dandies. I'm speaking of the interesting dandies. The great Umourist Jacques Vaché or the snobbishly witty Oscar Wilde or... well, those are the only men I can think of who are remembered both as dandies and productive individuals.

This raises another question, I'd suppose. How will I be a productive dandy if I'm workin' that day job? What separates me from those boring dandies? I'm not sure. Perhaps I'll find something similar to Vaché's popularization of pataphysics. Perhaps my brain isn't capable of true work; moreover, perhaps I'm an advertising genius of sorts. Advertisement for nothing more than my own seemingly interesting mind. (It's not interesting, by the way. There are a lot of pun images [Alluding to C. B. Irvine's infamous "Yolk Enveloped Egg Plant"], a "joyless nothingness" and, of course, elementary equations when I'm obsessed with numbers.)

In truth, what I'm trying to say is I can borrow ideas and generalize them. The chances of everyone knowing of Jarry's work in Vaché's time is more or less improbable. The chance of most people knowing... well, anything in depth in our time is even less probable. (Digression! People don't care about elaborate details anymore. For example, speaking to a girl on the subject of some hippie-type band or another, I mentioned how much the lyrics reminded me of a Marcel Duchamp quote on the subject of folded arms and read it off of a website for her. The very next day she patronized one of our mutual friends for not being aware of Duchamp! [For clarity, I barely know of Duchamp besides that quote and his infamous feather boa-wearing in a Man Ray photograph.] How snide it was! I'm considered the Patron Saint of Pretension by many (I'm just a tad flamboyant in some respects; I believe many men consider any bit of unusual behavior deliberate and a wavering alarm for desired attention.), but at least I'm very subtle, gentle, even displaying elegance with insult if I choose to at all! Basically, I refuse the modern "small-fish intellectual" cliché. ["Seriously? You don't know who ... is?"])

Well, it seems my digression is a bit longer than my entire entry and even digressed within itself to a separate digression on detestable social behavior. I won't change it; one should consider it a summary of that type of person. Contrary to what I'd like to believe, there may be more to that type of person than a shroud of common slightly-above-average intellect. (Acceptance is the first step to being a tolerable individual. Accepting oneself as a fool or genius is key. There should be no gray area. [Oh my clarity! I accept my foolishness. A genius cannot entertain! A genius is an Edison! No one enjoys the company of an Edison. Moreover, what use does an aspiring dandy have for genius?])

To conclude, what have I said? Nothing really, I explained my hopeful future; I fought pretension with what is believed to be pretension by many, and most importantly, I found a way to mention a Man Ray photo of Duchamp in a feather boa in a blog. (S'pretty alarming, isn't it?)

How are the Other Classes Going? (STEM four, I think)

How has this class helped me in my other classes is the question being asked, I suppose.

I'm not sure exactly. I think this program can be embedded in another subject to make that subject a bit more fun, but we're not really associated with any STEM concept; unless one would consider social problems being brought to attention falling under that category. (This may be a STEM concept, I don't know. Not something I've gone over in classes often. Except those little cliche questions in English classes on changing a school rule. And as far as I can tell, those don't matter; I'm still not allowed to wear my bear hat to class. I'd categorize it as a stuffed animal, so I should probably be able to wear it.)

Anyway, as I've said, I don't see any real STEM concepts in this. Maybe playing with variables will improve my math skills? Maybe writing blogs will improve my writing skills? Don't know, not a person who really notices when he's getting better at something; just happens and I destroy anything I did before I was amazing at it. It's the best way to live, to be honest. (Exclude these blogs from that statement. I'm still pretty bad at blogging; I can't destroy bad work that's in progress.)

How Does it all Relate?

Another prompt, how does this class... rather, the work we're doing in this class, relate to my career goals? The work relates to all of my interests, but in rather vague ways. For example, I like art. I was able to draw scenes for the game. (Rather poorly, may I add. I'm not a fan of the computer mouse as an artist's utensil.) My work in classical mediums is much better, in my opinion. Also, I like literature. Of course, I haven't done any sort of literary work in this class, but I have had to write particular thoughts and such down; I suppose that helps.

Really, this boils down to me not being completely sure what I want to do. I'd like to find a way to be able to write or create art in a career; just because I'm not very good at either doesn't mean I haven't been born to do it! Look at Andy Warhol and his complete lack of any technical talent or that Twilight-writin' lady. Also, every modern career seems so limiting. Classical interests are dead for the most part. There's no room for experimentation, it's all efficiency for the well-being of your fellow man. I sometimes wonder if my fellow man is really doing so well. I wonder if he yearns for a more classical lifestyle or if he's content knowing he is doing productive work and living a prosperous life.

Exceptional Inventions

Being inquired on the three most important inventions, I can't help but refer to my interest in fundamental things. Rather than expected things; the Internet, the automobile or something pertaining to modern medicine, more fundamental items that have allowed these to be invented seem more important to me. For example, the printing press, precursor to the Internet, would be my third on my list of important technology.

Oh! how many papers I've done on the printing press throughout primary school, as I'm sure others have. We take the importance of this gadget for granted and view the research of it as a chore. Well, it may be a chore. However, it has in every way increased the flow of information and allowed an industry of information to develop in a way attainable to the common man. An educated common man is quite important, yes? On to the item that would appear second on my list, though.

Once again, fundamentals! Clothes, am I right? Those are pretty important, keepin' people warm and all. I wear clothes all the time and have acquired an entire wardrobe of them over the years, making them substantially more attainable and, in turn, more common man-friendly than the printing press or its products. I especially like the inventions of the pleated trouser and t-shirt, despite my love of fundamentals suggesting I may enjoy the loin cloth or some even cruder dress. Anyway, on to my choice of the most important invention of man.

The proper treatment and preparation of food, pertaining mostly to meat. Pretty fundamental and important, huh? It's inarguable that this increases the life expectancy of humans exponentially. Honestly, what could be more important than living longer without being poisoned every time you consume a carnivore's feast? True enough, many of our relatively less fundamental inventors were vegetarians and whatnot (I'm talkin' about you, Da Vinci!), but I'd assume most weren't. In short, death prevents progress.

To conclude this, I'd like to offer a glimpse of a world without these inventions/invented processes: we'd be naked, utterly uneducated people and (probably) dead. That doesn't sound like a pleasant world. The modern medicine and health or diet reminders of the day may increase life expectancy by a few years; the Internet may allow information to travel more frequently and efficiently, and clothes... well, clothes are still clothes... Never the less, the point at hand is fundamentals are more important than anything modern man is doing. Rather, modern man's efforts are mere elaboration on his ancestors' original ideas, making original ideas more important, in my opinion.

What Makes Our Game Difficult?

What makes Klangfarbenmelodie's game difficult?

I don't think our game is difficult in any sense, but it is still based around what I would assume to be an approved STEM concept. The questions are fairly straight-forward, in no sense esoteric. The first mini-game may require a bit of time to experiment, but I'm sure any student could pass it. The fun is in the second mini-game. And, well, there's fun in the third mini-game too. I don't think the aim of our game is to be difficult, but to be informative or reinforcing of knowledge that has already been acquired.