Alan’s Blog of Monkey Bloginess

I like to have fun here at my Blog of Monkey Bloginess, but I want to put the cardigan sweater on and have a serious chat with you for a moment. It’s that important time in every young person’s life when the uncomfortable topic of protection needs to be discussed. I know, I know, nothing bad is going to happen to you. We all say that until one day it does happen to us, and some things can’t be undone. That’s why we need to have this talk now about how well your data is protected.

Recently I had the unfortunate circumstance of having a hard drive physically fail on me. And by hard drive, I mean, well, a hard drive. It’d be 10 years since last that happened, and I was feeling pretty confident in my ability to retrieve lost data from pooched hard drives. I had too much data to back-up on CD or DVD and banked on a delicate balance of luck and geek knowledge to see me through data mishaps and issues. But there’s only so much one can do when a hard drive physically starts to shit the bed and here’s my solution that has me resting easy once again.

Redundant Storage
The key to data protection is simple, it’s not an easy easy answer, but it’s a simple one: Redundancy Redundancy Redundancy. If the data is in three places, then you would need three simultaneous catastrophes (or one really big one) to cause you total loss. The first step is in storage, where if your storage solution uses redundancy inherently, then a single hard drive failure can be easily recovered from.

I’ve chosen to purchase a Drobo 800, which uses EnhancedRAID technology to combine the powers of multiple hard drives into one super drive that can recover if one of the drives should happen to fall. The Drobo also pools all the hard drive space together so multiple 1.5TB drives act as one 4TB drive. The Drobo isn’t the end solution, there are scenarios where it wouldn’t be enough: two simultaneous hard drive failures or destruction of the Drobo unit would spell disaster for the data on it. But at 4TB worth of data, there aren’t many other back-up options available; I know what’s first on my list to grab in case of fire. I can build a new computer, but that Drobo is coming with me.

Beyond the Drobo, or if you can’t afford $350 for peace-of-mind, I also have two 1TB drives (one installed inside of my PC and one in an external USB HD enclosure) where I use Microsoft SyncToy to back-up the contents of the internal drive to the external drive on a nightly basis. This puts all of my music, pictures, and personal files onto an easy to remove & run device. Unlike the Drobo where between four hard drives the space of one is lost, the direct back-up method results in a 1:1 usage of space, so two hard drives only give the space of one.

Off-Site
As previously touched upon, a fire is still my worst nightmare. If I’m not home and my PC, Drobo, and external HD all melt and cinder, then having multiple levels of redundancy doesn’t amount to much when everything is in the same physical location. To protect against this problem, my most important files, my pictures, get uploaded to an on-line back-up service: Mozy. At $5/month for unlimited back-up storage, I put all of my photos on Mozy so in case all hell breaks loose, my most irreplaceable files are protected somewhere else entirely that I can then download onto a new computer.

Don’t Interrupt
Lastly, I added one more piece to my data protection puzzle: an Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS). We had a couple of 30 second black outs recently that were enough to shut my PC down. Shortly thereafter I started getting hard drive issues. I had my hardware on a surge protector, but when the lights go out, there’s nothing to protect against. I believe improperly shutting down may have contributed to my problems, so I picked up an APC UPS system that hooks up to my PC via USB to provide one more level of protected for my hard drives and data: in the event of a power outage, the UPS system will send a shutdown command to my PC so it will properly power down instead of instantly die.

That’s my three pronged attack to prevent any more painful data loss at home. Redundant file storage, online back-up, and a UPS device. Depending on your storage needs, you can bypass the local redundant storage entirely (such as you don’t need 4TB of storage space for video files and have less than 160GB of music) or use burnable optical media, and then only pay $5/month for unlimited on-line back-up space. More important than copying my set-up which fits my needs is that you follow the first point: Redundancy Redundancy Redundancy. Just get your important files into multiple places, ideally in multiple physical locations.

See larger image Data Robotics Drobo 4-Bay USB 2.0/FireWire 800 SATA Storage Array DR04DD10 (Electronics) List Price: $449.99 USD New From: $339.99 In Stock Used From: $316.99 In Stock

According to The Onion, meat is America’s no. 2 condiment. What people want topped on their food is meat. Particularly, this is what it had to say about bacon:

Johanns cited the rise of bacon as a condiment as the most universal example of this trend. “By 2015, our researchers predict bacon alone will supplant condiments as diverse as mustard and Worcestershire sauce,” Johanns said. “Crumbled ‘bacon bits’ are a classic addition to salads, and in recent years, slabs of bacon are increasingly used to wrap vegetables, fruits, and seafood. Adding bacon as a topping to cheeseburgers is old news, but now we are seeing bacon-topped meatloaf, bacon-covered chicken wings, and deep-fried, bacon-wrapped bacon sprinkled on pork chops.”

To prove this point, let’s take a look at the top 5 Bacon Food Stuffs that take bacony-goodness to the next level.

Gummy Bacon

This is not really made out of bacon as it’s gummy candy made to resemble bacon. The idea of visually putting uncooked bacon in your mouth and then experiencing the taste & texture of gummy strawberry is disturbing to say the least. I’ve been given a package of Gummy Bacon, and I am not ashamed to say that I was too scared to eat it. I did not want to taint the idea of bacon in my head with this monstrosity of culinary science. A braver soul than I may be able to stomach the beast.

order Gummy Bacon

Baconnaise

I don’t like mayonnaise, but the idea of adding bacon to it makes a bit more palatable. The taste of bacon makes everything better, so I don’t see how this would be an exception. If it’s good enough to put mayonnaise on, it’s good enough to put bacon on! Though I wouldn’t necessarily hold the inverse to be true.

baconnaise.com

Bacon Salt

Add the flavor of bacon to any meal with a simple flick of the wrist. Bacon flavored salt is the easiest way to improve the flavor of your foods. Bacon-flavored french fries. Bacon-flavored popcorn! BACON-FLAVORED BACON! The culinary possibilities abound with bacon salt. If you can add a little bit of salt, then you can add a hint of bacon. Getting your sodium for the day never tasted so good.

baconsalt.com

Bacon Jam

Spreadable bacon. Did you ever think you’d see such an amazing food product. The first thing that comes to my mind: peanut butter & bacon sandwiches. Can you imagine a lunch-time offering that would make a child more popular in the schoolyard? You’ll probably need to pack your munchkin two: one for him or her, and one for the school bully who’ll undoubtedly want to jack such a succulent sounding meal. At $17 for an 8oz. jar, the stuff ain’t cheap, so you may want to make your own.

order bacon jam
make your own bacon jam

Bacon Candy Bar

Chocolate & bacon. Sweet & salty. Flavor combinations that may not sound too keen at first, but really play off of the palate. The packaging contains a lovely story about the creator’s love of bacon and chocolate and the story of how the two came to meet. If it were an eHarmony commercial, bacon and chocolate would match on 27 of their 29 dimensions of compatibility. Perhaps bacon & eggs are the only worthier couple in the bacoverse.

order Mo’s Milk Chocolate Bacon Bar

If you’ve been paying attention to the claims of the various media lobbying groups, you eventually come to realize that they are liars, have politicians in their back pockets, and are pretty much suing and greasing legislation that is trying to grab money from everybody from soccer moms to cell phone ringtone users. They’ve been twisting and warping interpretations of copyright laws to the point where copyright no longer serves the function for which is was created.

In this process, I’ve come to realize: I’ve never paid for music. I used to have an impressive CD & cassette tape collection thanks to memberships in BMG and Columbia House (10 CDs for a penny!). For all my life, when I’ve given money to music companies, I’ve been buying CDs and tapes, not the music on them. To prove the point, if I were to damage my CD, if I had bought the music then I should get a new CD; but I bought the physical CD, not the music on it, so damaged CD means I lose access to the music on it. Music has been free for consumers, we’ve only ever been purchasing the physical delivery mechanism. And music should be free for consumers.

In a digital world with infinite copying and marginal cost delivery methods, why should the dynamics of paying for music change? If I didn’t pay for music before the Internet, why should I start paying now? Music belongs to The People, and copyright is only supposed to grant a temporary monopoly while the artist creates their next artwork; copyright is not intended to construct concepts of ownership around the non-physical aspects of artwork.

Dungeons & Dragons Online has done something that every other MMORPG should have done years ago: gone free! As a casual gamer, I will never pay a blanket monthly fee to play a game. In particular, I would never, ever pay $50 for a game and then pay $15/month access fees on top of that. D&D Online has actually gotten me to play a MMORPG for the first time by making the game free.

Now, 100% of the game is not free, but to play, have fun, and experience the game is free. As you get to higher levels, some character races and classes require in-game points to access. There will also be in-game accessory packs and level packs available for purchase through a store, but those are all optional. The points can be purchased with real world money, or you can earn them in-game for free. So, it is possible to play the game 100% free and get the additional content. But personally, if the game is able to hold my attention that long, I’d likely be willing to shell out a couple bucks for the content. Show me that I want to pay money, and I’ll happily give it.

This is the direction media consumption is heading. Music, movies, TV, games; pretty soon basic content will be free, money will be made on add-ons that bring more value to the basic product that people will want to pay for. Of course, music has always been free, it’s been physical delivery methods that people have actually paid for.

Turbine is beginning to recognize this, and they recognize that by giving their basic game away, they’re really investing in marketing. More people play the game because the price of entry is $0, and then they tell their friends about the game, and their friends try it out because the price of entry is $0. Eventually, they’re hoping to make add-on content compelling enough to get enough people willing to pay. It’s a marketing plan that has worked for decades in the illicit drugs black market with great success.

The game itself seems pretty interesting. My major complaints come from not enough mouse interaction. I feel like I shouldn’t need to use the keyboard except in extreme cases. Such as, movement is done with the W A S D keys, where as I would prefer to right-click a place on the screen and have my character walk to it. Quick weapon switching would be nice, as would the ability to mouse click from weapon to spells instead of having use the interface to select options from icon menus, which takes precious time and concentration away from the game. In the heat of battle, this can be more than obnoxious. Perhaps with more practice transitioning between weapons and spells will become second nature, but as a beginner the interface leaves much to be desired for efficiencies.

Character customization seems impressive with enough options to create the visual type of player you want to be. Classes are fairly standard for D&D, as well. Though in both cases, not all classes and races are available to free players. Some require those points that can be earned or purchased. For me, I was able to create an elf necromancer, which is slick, though Drow elf will require money if I wish to ever go that route and recreate my last table-top character.

Adventures can be played solo or in a group, and common areas exist to interact with other players. Still in the beginning areas of the game, I haven’t seen if there’s an expansive free-roaming area. I used to play text-based RPGs in the ’90s, and I hardly ever went for any missions instead preferring to venture into the wilds and kill whatever was unfortunate enough to stumble in my way. I have yet to see that level of experience recreated here, but maybe I haven’t found it yet.

All in all for the steep price of FREE, I cannot recommend at least trying this game enough. If it’s not your cup of tea, then toss it out and move on. No loss.

In 1987 “The Tracey Ullman Show” aired on a fledgling network called FOX. As bumpers to ease the show in and out of commercials, a short cartoon was produced. Conceived of by Matt Groening, “The Simpsons” quickly won over my 7 year old heart. I would stay up late Sunday nights to watch “The Tracey Ullman Show” with the hopes of catching “The Simpsons” bumpers. It’s not that I didn’t like the rest of the show, ’cause I did, just that “The Simpsons” were the highlight for me. The antics of the Simpsons family resonated with me, along with FOX’s other original program, “Married with Children”. FOX’s dysfunctional family trend was a great balance to NBC & the wholesome “The Cosby Show” (which I also watched and enjoyed).

Then in December of 1989, as if ol’ St. Nick wanted to reward me for having been the best little 9 year old boy in the world (I hadn’t), “The Simpsons” received their own half-hour show for Christmas with “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire”. I anxiously awaiting the premiere, counting down the days more anxiously than Christmas morning itself. The day finally arrived and then more, even better news: what I thought was just a Christmas Special was actually the start of a regular series to begin in January 1990. Happy 10th Birthday to me! (”Bart the Genius” aired just 6 days before my birthday)

And thus it began. Here we are, over 22 years later and “The Simpsons” are in their 20th season having already been renewed to 22, and I am still a fan. To the right is a picture of me wearing my favorite t-shirt in 1990. That shirt disappeared one day, I never found out where it went. Presumably my mom threw it away as it was nothing more than technically a shirt after a couple years in that a halo of fabric kinda of wrapped itself around me. I had a plethora of Simpsons related merchandising from Bart Simpson dolls to stickers and posters. As I’ve gotten older, my Simpsons merchandising has simply matured. Instead of a simple t-shirt, I have a Pin-Pals bowling shirt and a Kwik-E-Mart shirt that button up to a Homer Simpson full-head rubber mask. Through gifts I’ve been given puzzles, card & board games, dolls & action figures, post cards, key chains, hula dancers, coasters, Magic 8 Balls … just about a little bit of everything. The one item I’ve always wanted and have never gotten: Simpsons Chess.

Now people may chime in with their idea on when the Simpsons have “jumped the shark”. As in the point in the shows history where it reached its apex of quality and signals that we are now on the slow decline of the show. While the show really experienced its heyday in the mid-to-late ’90s, it’s still managed to hold strong throughout the ’00s. And I’ve always contested anyways: even a bad episode of “The Simpsons” is still better the best episode of most other TV shows. As with a hometown sports team, I stick with the show through good episodes and the bad episodes, ride the low seasons along with the high seasons. In the end, the show still makes me laugh.

This is just about one of the most moving songs I’ve ever heard. It takes speeches given by Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, John F Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Barry Goldwater and puts them to a techno beat to create one of the best liberty-minded songs ever created. Please check out the video and really listen to the chosen words.

This is the first design I’ve added to Urban Gibbon in a year and a half. It’s a simple but powerful design that states “wake ‘n’ bacon”. I’m hoping to get a bunch of new designs up. Very many of them bacon themed.

The best part of waking up is bacon in your gut. Let your intentions be known as you stumble into the kitchen. First things first: bacon. View Products

Purchasing products through Urban Gibbon is a great way to help support this weblog. But more to the point, increasing bacon appreciation and awareness is of great social and political importance.

See larger image Wii Sports Resort (Video Game) List Price: $49.99 USD New From: $45.98 In Stock Used From: $41.99 In Stock Released July 26, 2009.

I can’t do a review of Wii Sports Resort without doing a review for Wii Motion Plus, the Wiimote add-on that comes with and is required by Wii Resort. First, this is add-on adds sensitivity to the Wiimote, allowing for true 1:1 motion tracking. Previously, the motion sensing capabilities were limited which most developers used to simply replace button presses with a specific motion. So instead of pressing the “A button”, you move the Wiimote down.

With the example of a sword fighting game, you would move the Wiimote left, which would register as a “Move Sword Left” command, and then the sword on screen would move left. But, the sword would not move as you moved the Wiimote. Instead, it would activate a pre-programmed “Move Sword Left” game action. With the Wii Motion Plus add-on, the on-screen sword can mimic exactly the position of the Wiimote, and this is demonstrated with a sword fighting game in Wii Sports Resort that acts as both a Zombie Hunter Training Simulator when you get to the third level, as well as a teaser for a Lightsaber game.

Wii Motion Plus finally delivers the Wii’s promise of immersion gameplay with its increased sensitivity.

There are several areas of games that either group several stages of an activity or several associated events together. For example, as you play through Swordplay, more sword fighting events get unlocked ultimately leading to the Zombie Hunter Training Simulator where you take on hordes of Mii’s; whereas Air Sports includes Sky Diving as well as the plane flying simulators. Let’s take a look at what great sports are included in this set:

Swordplay
One can’t help but play through this game once and imagine in the back of your mind the gentle hum of a Lightsaber. If anything has made the allure of a Star Wars Lightsaber-based Wii game, it’s the Wii Motion Plus add-on. It’s extremely satisfying to have a true 1:1 motion translation between Wiimote and on-screen character.

Wakeboarding
Surprisingly strenuous, wakeboarding works your arms and builds endurance by the simple fact you keep your arms raised. Gravity is forcing you to work your arm muscles and after a round or two of Wakeboarding, I personally need a break.

Frisbee
Much like real frisbee, I can’t manage to throw a perfectly straight disc consistently. I’m prone to wild curves and just bad throws. I’m not sure if I should consider that a testament to the accuracy of Wii Motion Plus and Wii Sports Resorts reading my throw and translating it in-game or that not even Wii Sports Resorts is going to every make Frisbee Golf fun for me.

Archery
The first time I’ve needed to put the Wiimote in my left hand, and it feels weird. I don’t like how it forces you to have the A-button facing yourself, because when holding it up-right, all of my fingers are on the backside, requiring me to use unnatural hand positions to operate the Wiimote both as a bow and as a game controller. The nunchuck attachment is used brilliantly to pull back and launch the arrow. Consider this game the second half of Zombie Headhunter Training. I like to picture zombie heads in the bulls-eye.

Basketball
I’m not too impressed with Basketball on Wii Sports Resort. Basketball games in general on game consoles have been lackluster, and Wii Sports Resort makes it a lot more fun than usual. But with the quality of several other games included in this compilation, my Wii Sports Resort time gets filled in other areas of the set.

Table Tennis
Table Tennis, or Ping Pong as I prefer to call it, is really hard in real life if you’re playing against someone who plays regularly. It’s fast paced, the ball is small, and so are the paddles. Fortunately in Wii Sports Resorts, aiming the paddle is taken care of for you, and you focus on timing and angle of the swing; much like Tennis from the first Wii Sports. Pretty much immediately I was able to get top spin and power hit the ball.

Golf
This is an updated version of Golf from Wii Sports that utilizes the increased sensitivity from the add-on. I’m not big into golf, but in Wii Sports Resort it’s pretty darn fun. The physics and controls are responsive and feel accurate. When the ball gets sliced off the green, I know it’s because my grip was off or my swing was pulled at the end.

Bowling
This is the other repeat offering from the first version of Wii Sports and a prime example of what the Wii Motion Plus add-on offers. Bowling feels more responsive and accurate than before, leaving bad throws to fall flatly on my own shoulders. No more blaming the Wiimote for not recognizing my throw properly. At least no more accurately blaming the Wiimote; there’s still plenty of blame to go around!

Power Cruising
Having ridden an actual JetSki, Wii Sports Resort is definitely a different beast. On an actual JetSki, you work your legs clutching the craft with thighs and hold on tightly with your arms. In Power Cruising on Wii Sports Resort, it works more like arm endurance in keep your arms up, much like wake boarding. The interesting part comes in actually twisting the Wiimote for throttle, though using the nunchuck & Wiimote in separate hands makes it hard to keep them level and it ruins the feeling a bit.

Canoeing
The true joys of canoeing come from being out on the water, slowly rowing through a peaceful natural scene. This is not recreated in Wii Sports Resort, and the canoeing exercise suffers for it. While the rowing action is a great use of the Wiimote, the mini-game is just missing something that makes true canoeing a zen experience of bonding with a natural environment.

Cycling
It’s weird using the Wiimote to cycle, because it’s an action associated with the legs. I’m not particularly fond of this one. It’s great for arm endurance and exercise, but I’d rather be out on a bike. On a chilly day when cycling is uncomfortable, Cycling on Wii Sports Resort is no substitute.

Air Sports
Air Sports involves skydiving and plane flying. The plane flying tasks are a lot of fun, particularly just cruising around the island exploring. You fly the plane as if it were a paper airplane, sorta. Don’t throw the Wiimote, but guide the pitch, roll, and yaw of the plane. Eventually you can kill the engine, shoot at balloons, and get into dog fights. The Sky Diving isn’t as much fun, but that could be because I’ve actually been sky diving and nothing beats the adrenaline rush after falling from an airplane … it just doesn’t translate to a game … at all.

If you have enjoyed the pick-up-and-play aspects of Wii Sports, then Wii Sports Resort is the perfect extension for you. The Wii Motion Plus add-on attachment adds increased sensitivity that ultimately delivers on promises of true immersion by allowing a 1:1 action between the Wiimote in hand and the character’s actions on-screen. If you wait a bit longer, you can purchase a copy of Wii Sports Resort that includes 2 Wii Motion Plus add-on attachments so you don’t need to purchase a copy of the game and then an additional add-on to play against someone else, as the attachment is required for all the games (the nunchuk is only required for a couple).

Returning to that vintage year of 2004 for me and blog writing, I’m pulling another look into the nature of my spirituality with the post “Pop Culture Theology” from August 10, 2004

So, Seth lent me volumes 3 & 4 of the Sandman comics. I’ve gotten hooked on them. They are so good. The fourth volume deals with Hell, and Lucifer getting sick of running Hell and quitting. God needs Hell to give meaning to Heaven and in the end appoints two more angels to run the place of eternal suffering. This reminded me a lot of another story that shaped my ideas of good and bad.

There are, actually, two bodies of work that I can pinpoint that have had a profound influence in my ideas of good and evil and balance. The first being Anne Rice’s Memnoch the Devil, the fifth book in the Vampire Chronicles; and the second being Se7en. I find it mildly embarrassing that these two works of entertainment have had a profound spiritual influence on my views … but then I also realize one can pull influence from anything, it’s all a matter of your perspective.

I remember reading Memnoch the Devil, most noticeably the scene where the devil and God are talking and God telling Memnoch that he needs him to run Hell. The story is remarkably similar to the Sandman story, where Memnoch was tired of being evil incarnate and wanted out. But in doing so would diminish the power of Heaven. And Memnoch was cast from Heaven not because he was evil … but simply because he did not agree with God.

This opened my eyes to the relatively of good and evil. One cannot exist without the other. They are two sides of the same coin. In being such, evil is not evil, but only so because of one’s perception of what is evil. One person’s evil is another person’s good. It’s a matter of perspective.

Hell exists because if it didn’t exist … if the Yin to Heaven’s Yang was absent … then Heaven would also not exist. Good cannot exist without evil. Because it is relative. If there was no evil, then the not as good would be evil. It’s simply a matter of degree, based on a person’s perceptions, a person’s judgment.

Next, comes Se7en, which spoke of the seven deadly sins. They represent excesses of humanity’s traits. Indulgences. From this I pulled my ideas of noble living. I’m not a religious person … I don’t think if I sit around, get fat, watch TV, and screw like a rabbit, that I’m going to Hell. I don’t view those as negative traits at all. I can see a societal function to getting people to believe that doing that would be bad, because our natural tendency is to do just that … why work when we can lounge, why not indulge in excess. But, how would one view their life when it is time for it to end? Would one look back and feel good about their time on Earth?

I’ve developed my sense of living a life that I would feel good about. This was helped by a previous revelation in my life several years previous where I thought about how I was living and how it wasn’t making me happy. When I was 14, I realized that lying, cheating, and stealing weren’t making me happy. I felt bad doing those things. And it could hurt people. So, I renounced those things and worked hard to no longer do them. I vowed to no longer lie, cheat, or steal. Though I’m not always 100% successful and occasionally give in to temptation, I try my best to be honest and to not hurt people.

This was fueled by Se7en when I thought of temptation and decided I would try hard to live nobly, to do my best to live my life to cause the least amount of pain in other people’s lives. I found that being aware of my actions and feelings, and how they related to these sins, helped me realize how my actions effected those around me. Now, I am by no means perfect and falter on these regularly, but I try to live as nobly as I can.

After seeing Se7en a couple times, I became sort of obsessed with the seven deadly sins, writing them in various notebooks and working them into an early version of my website I worked on in high school.

So, that’s how two examples of popular culture have shaped some of my spiritual views. There have been many other influences from people that I have crossed paths with at various times in my life, to other books and movies. I pull influence from everything around me.

Since writing this post, a couple other movies have shaped my ideas of spirituality beyond the Christian ideas of Memnoch or Se7en. Most notably Interstate 60, Bug and to a lesser degree I ♥ Huckabees.

It seems 2004 was a good year for me and blog writing as I’m pulling another post from that year. This one takes a look at how a being such as “god” would procreate, and I postulate that perhaps we’re part of that process. Here’s my old post Alternate View of “God” and Meaning of Life from July 12, 2004

Last night, Dougie and I played around with warping reality. We talked about VH1’s Best Week Ever, and he mentioned how in 2140, it will probably be used by some college student doing his doctorate on early 21st Century Pop Culture. I sided with it probably never seeing the light of day because of the amount of stuff that we pump out, it will likely be overshadowed by other stuff that would remain in the collective unconscious, and it would fade away.

He said then, that fine, he would live to be a 160 and convince some college student to use Best Week Ever in a paper just to prove me wrong. I told him, excellent, e-mail me the results so I can be proven wrong. I would be found in a computer farm in the Midwest with my consciousness, along with many others, in an advanced computer system.

So, I am now expecting an e-mail in 2140 from Dougie with a college student’s paper using Best Week Ever as a source.

We also talked about the future of existence. I had blabbed on about it to Jim earlier in the night, but when Doug brought up Stargate SG-1 where the Asgard’s bodies are pretty frail, it brought up ideas I had talked about earlier. Essentially, the theory is the Asgard are so advanced mentally that their bodies are suffering from atrophy because their use their minds and technology for so much. Now, further down in evolution, there might come to a point where they no longer even need their bodies, and they would become pure consciousness. I think this could happen in human evolution, as well.

But, what if using technology to implant ourselves into a computer system would speed up this process, because we’d be removing ourselves from our bodies and that could allow our minds, our consciousness to develop without the limits imposed by existing inside a physical form. Doug mentioned we’d just be replacing one physicality with another, the computer system, but what I countered with that’s not necessarily true. Because in the computer system, our consciousness would exist without limits because our existence would purely abstract.

Then, I thought what if the purpose of Life, The Universe, and Everything is to create a consciousness that transcends the physical plane. A being of pure thought. What if this has happened many times before, and that God, a being of pure thought and power, actually did create the Universe. But, created an existence with a set of rules that would eventually lead by a series of evolutionary steps that would result in a species, or even a single entity that would transcend and become like him.

What if existence is God’s way of reproduction.

How else is a being of pure thought going to procreate? It wouldn’t be sexually, or with another being. It’d have to be through pure creation. To create a Universe, a set of rules, that would result in another. Kind of like a mother chicken with her egg. She creates it and then watches over it as inside the chick grows. God created the rules, and is ever present as his creation slowly evolves, eventually, in a very long time, to a point where the result will be another God.

He did create man in his image. Just not directly.

So, we’re not even the final stage of evolution. We’re kinda in the middle somewhere. Much like how early land-walkers had underdeveloped legs to walk on … but they had them and used them. Maybe our consciousness are still evolving and it’s underdeveloped. It has much further to go before it’s finished. So there’s so much more for the human race to learn and do … we just aren’t there yet.

And if this is true, and God does exist as pure thought, then he would also exist outside of time, since we’re traveling through time in only one direction, so our perception is completely skewed with time moving linearly with what’s happening next completely unknown. It would be nearly impossible for us to comprehend fully time moving non-linearly simply because we have not experienced it. There’s nothing relatable for us to pull understanding from. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible. It was inconceivable that the Earth could be round or that it wasn’t the center of all existence.

What if God was a being that existed outside of time, then that would make him all-knowing. So, his creation in the Universe would be infallible. So, nothing that happens would be wrong. Everything is happening precisely as it is supposed to happen. That doesn’t mean sit back and don’t do anything, because you’re supposed to do something. Everything that happens is to advance the human race and evolve consciousness. But, we can rest assured that everything we’re doing is right … both the “good” and the “bad”. But we should be striving for the advancement of our race … at least from my perspective.

But then again, what if we’re a stepping stone in evolution, and we’re not even the the branch that is going to be the final product. Or, maybe this really is all like an egg, and at the end only one consciousness will break free and destroy the Universe and everything that we recognize as existence and reality in order to transcend. Kind of like a chick breaking open its egg.

Or maybe it’s a collective thing, where our consciousness doesn’t disappear or go to “Heaven” … but collects. The idea of the collective unconscious could be the result of consciousness building on itself. It already transcends the physical and time planes. It could explain the leaps in human inventions where ideas seemingly come out of thing air. It’s from an absence of time, or freedom from it.

It destroys the entire existence it knows up until that point to start new in a bigger one. Though, an astute critic will point out that I’m drawing lines of comparison between things I know and understand with something I’m making up, so it’s flawed. But, if the greater scope of things is something completely different than everything we know and understand, the best we can do is try to figure it out with past experiences and hope eventually the truth will come out.

Then maybe there are many other Gods, beings of pure thought and consciousness, existing outside of our perceptions of time, and they each have created their Universes for the same purpose. And then all these other Universes also result in new consciousness.

And I find it particularly interesting that this idea would essentially prove everyone fundamentally right. Except for the atheists, but screw them anyway (personally, I’m agnostic).

Just some more of the ideas floating around in my head.

I don’t necessarily believe that this is how things are. That there is a “god” and we’re its children on an evolutionary path to become its equals. Though, I do believe there is an evolutionary path that could take consciousness beyond physical form and create god-like beings, but I don’t believe that our Universe was created by one of these beings.

And after I made this posting, Stargate SG-1 delved more into the themes that were talked about with the Ancients and Ascension. They also explained why the Asguard weren’t looking to Ascension as a solution to their genetic problems. So, Dougie & I weren’t too far off from a future envisioned by the Stargate writing staff.