Sometimes one has to wonder whether or not a good friend is really one who will be there for you no matter what you choose, letting you go on your way. It seems that the default response is that, yes, the good friend accepts you for who you are. It sounds nice, but it poses a bit of a problem.
I can't help but wonder if the friend who truly accepts you unconditionally is really a friend at all.
Take for example someone who's decided to become a whore, and talks about how great it is that her friends are there to support her when she's down. It sounds like she has nice friends, but what the hell were they doing before she became a whore? "Oh, it's what she wants to do, so we'll support her no matter what?" It seems that the sort of person who will unconditionally be okay with whatever it is you want to do doesn't care about you at all. So you want to throw your life away? Fine! It's so simple to say "do as you like" when you don't care about someone.
At the same time, it seems that people don't really like it when their friends will get on their case, complaining that their friends are trying to tell them what to do, or are always trying to change them, so on so forth. In this case, it seems like there's no reason for the person to be your friend if all they want to do is to change you (or, possibly, they're trying to live vicariously through you by applying their rules and values to you).
So what it all comes down to are differences in systems of values and beliefs. For example, I'm sure there are some people who might find whoring to be a perfectly valid and acceptable form of existence. And why not? Surely if one doesn't hold any sort of spiritual significance towards the body, and sees it just as a tool, how is whoring any different from doing, say, construction work? In either case it's the same basic idea: selling the body's uses for money. Or how about selling the mind? That's essentially what a good amoutn of "decent" work in modern society consists of. Funny how the intelligentsia will say the mind is more important than the body, yet will be more okay with selling their minds than with selling their body. But I digress.
I remember this character I knew once got involved in an argument with this other guy about values and whatnot. One happened to be the operator of an IRC channel they were chatting on, and after a while he seemed to have gotten offended by the other's comment that whoring and whatnot could not be systematically labeled evil, simply because it's dependent upon systems of values and belief for it to be evil. He was then kicked out of the room by the operator. On a side note, given further exposure to the operator-person, I can't say I'm surprised he did that. Seems like a bit of a conservative reactionist to me, but maybe that's just because I don't know him all that well. But back to systems of values...one can't really say whether or not something is good or evil without having a basis for what defines good and evil. The Bible's convenient enough for some folks, likewise with other religious beliefs, cultural norms, social mores, etc. etc. But all these seem to be highly dependent upon the particular culture (though I've been told that there has never been a society that has formed that has given incest between brother/sister/father/mother the okay). It begs the question, then, whether or not there are some values which transcend sociocultural boundaries, and can be seen as fundamental values among humanity (or at least, something along those lines).
I'm inclined to think that something similar to Kant's argument on ethics (for what is ethics but a disguised study of values and beliefs?) can be found, but that'll be left for another day, as I have to take my brothers to school in the morning bright and early at 7:40am, and it's already closer to 3am.
...for anyone who wants to join me. In no particular order (with all dates TBA depending on who wants to come with), and with estimated number of days in parentheses (though again malleable depending on who wants to go and how long they want to stay):
1. Trip to Catalina Island to hang around in Avalon, on the beach, whatever. (2 or 3 days)
2. Trip to San Diego to hang around, go to the beach, whatever (2 to 7 days)
3. Hiking trip, location TBA (1 to 2 days)
4. Camping trip, location TBA (might not be possible if I can't get a permit)
Lesser, more daily things:
1. Martial arts training (any ol' style, spotting for each other is nice)
2. Japanese study (same as above)
3. Coding (languages include C, C++, Java, MIPS <-- god please no, Python, Perl, Scheme, Lisp, maybe something else if it's interesting)
4. Music (writing/playing)
I imagine there are some other things, but they escape memory now. Come join the fun :D
...a webcomic inspired by Erica, possibly drawn by Joyce, and curiously titled "Big Goth Randy"
On a side note, it's nice to be back in LA.
Hello everyone,
I'm going to be taking off for LA today/tomorrow, so all my stuff will be packed up and I will far and away from computers for a while (the horror). If you need anything, give me a ring!
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0151007039/qid%3D1053548816/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/002-9156982-3804053
I'm strangely compelled to go read it
...to say a few hellos.
I would like to say hello to everyone who's ever said to me before "I would be a fool if I ever let myself lose a friend like you, I'll keep in touch with you" and has since faded out of my life.
I would like to say hello to everyone who's ever said to me before "Don't worry I'll be there when you need me" and has since been nowhere to be seen when I've fallen.
I would like to say hello to everyone who's ever said to me before "Time may change and other people may change but we'll always be friends" and has since gone on in a different direction.
And so I suppose this is the part where I'm supposed to say hello to myself too, for having done all these things and more. I will make no claim to leading a blame-free life, and will only hope that those I have wronged will find some way for me to make amends; I do not seek a free forgiveness.
...but it doesn't seem like I quite know what to say.
So in the usual style of things, I believe I'll just ramble for a bit and see where this goes.
Random news flashes:
- Word on Japan should be arriving in a few days. If they say "sorry, your app was turned down" now I'm going to shed massive amounts of (other people's) blood.
- I've been having (or at least had) a curious dream about someone from the past which in all likeliness probably shouldn't have happened. Whatever that means.
- I randomly recognized a guy who was at the Matrix showing I was at tonight. He was at Bondage a Go Go last Wednesday. He has these nifty dreds that don't look too dirty, with a few of them dyed blue.
- Finally got off my lazy ass and dyed my hair tonight. Again. Red. Again.
There's something curiously fun about going clubbing until 3am the night before a final (which was at 9am). Alex, his lady friend Eva and I decided to go to Death Guild on Monday and see what it was like there. I rather liked the music they played, it struck me as better than what was played at BAGG, though at times they played some tracks which were utter crap. Poor Eva got smashed and passed out feeling rather sick, which left Alex having to take care of her, which left me dancing around inside by myself (which is fine, it's how it's supposed to be anyways). Watching goth folks dance here is interesting. Some of them have this really frilly prancing about thing that makes me think about what fairies in leotards would look like if the leotards were black. But then maybe it's just not my thing to see a guy do this dance that resembles a classical dance style in the midst of something like Das Ich's Destillat. It just doesn't fit. (see http://hal.rescomp.berkeley.edu/~randyc/music/ for the song to see what I mean). On the other hand, there was this one particular fellow there who had this rather angry energied style that reminded me of when I went to Perversion with Joyce (though it was one of those shy days where I didn't dance much...or actually, at all). I think I like that a bit more, it's more fun to just go a bit nuts and throw limbs around. On the other hand, there were a few girls who looked good and knew how to move welenough at Death Guild to be rather seductive and enticing. Then again, there was this other girl at BAGG who was doing her dance in a cage that was pretty nice too.
More clubbing when I get back to LA.
For anyone who's ever wondered what brand my genius is:
*An episode at Safeway*
::enter Randy, in his usual trench. Picks up a basket and proceeds to procure a bottle of Midori and some Mike's Hard Cranberry Lemonade::
Randy: "Mmm too bad there's no six packs of Smirnoff. Oooh daquiri. And cosmos! ...I'm not gay, I'm not gay, I'm not gay..."
::Randy continues to the check out stand, handing the cashier CS partner James Yen's ID while fishing for his Safeway card::
Cashier: "that'll be $31.64 sir."
::Randy swipes his Safeway card, handing over $35. Cashier rings it up, gets the receipt and hands back James' ID and change::
Cashier: "thank you Mr. Chung"
Randy: ".... x_x"
Since I was a wee lad of about 5 years old, I'd figured I'd one day go into the computing industry writing software. Granted it wasn't quite in those same words, but the spirit of it was there.
In the past few months, the past few weeks, I've begun to look at that and rethink whether or not that's the right path to take.
I'm not thinking about doing a complete 180 and deviating from all things computer based. Rather, I've been thinking that maybe stumbling forth and blindly coding applications without too much of a concrete idea isn't the right way to go. Certainly, coding a piece of database software is useful insofar as databases are useful, but that's something general that needs someone else to find an application for.
The first thing that comes to mind is teaching. I rather like teaching, though only to people who actually care about what it is I'm talking about. High school is probably not the way to go for that. I think becoming a college professor would be rather fun; work on research, work on making education in the CS field interesting instead of an excercise in pain, and I really like the environment of academia. The other thing that's come to mind is a bit more recent, and has more to do with cybernetics (or so it seems).
A bit of background:
A few days ago I was hanging around in the lovely intersection of Bancroft and Telegraph at Berkeley, waiting for my bus to take me home. As I was standing there, there were two people who happened to pass my way. One was an old lady, staring into space, waddling along with a button saying "I'm deaf and blind," who was being guided by another man, about as old. At one point they stopped, while the man went to check the bus schedules. I was standing there, watching the old lady standing still at her spot in the road, staring forth with unseeing eyes. I wondered what it must be like to be her, to not be able to see what is before you, or hear what is happening around you; wondering how it must feel to not know if that person who's so kindly guiding you is really going to come back or not. What if he had been hit by a car while he was away? Would she stand idly there forever? What if someone else came along and tugged on her arm before he had a chance to come back?
Eventually the guy finished reading the bus schedule and came back to her, signaling some sign language in her hand so she could feel what he was saying before they walked off again. I thought to myself:
"What good is it to write software that will run huge massively parallel servers to develop bigger and better pieces of software that will never help a blind person see, and will only line the pockets of those who are already overflowing with money?"
I've come to think that maybe it's time I change the direction a little bit, and try to do something that will actually help someone. Of course, this means more work for me (infinitely more learning), but it seems to me that it'd be more worth it if, at the end of the day, I can look at my work and think to myself "This is going to help make someone's life better. This is going to give someone who's never had a fair chance to live their lives fully a fair chance. I will guide the blind."
I want to give my life a purpose beyond simply following the capitalist machine.
...to Mike for getting himself into both Berkeley and LA.
He's done one better than me; I got rejected from LA.