Somewhere In The Caribbean... Tremors

I hate how the Haiti earthquake is so overhyped right now. In school, everyone talks about it and teachers somehow make opportunities to mention it every three minutes. On Facebook, an app and about a million groups have spontaneously appeared, promising to make dubious donations of varying amounts of varying currencies to the Haiti relief effort. In real life, the aftermath of the disaster dominates the newspapers, the televised news, and pretty much any media you can think of. I wouldn't be surprised if an upcoming documentary movie was announced titled "Haiti: Eye of the Storm" and its tie-in video game and toys.

We all know Haiti happened. People died. Those who didn't, lost everything in their lives. Horrific photos have been circulated around the world. But do we, the relative upper class, really feel sympathy for these people? When we read the newspaper and see the death tolls, we don't wonder about the personal hell each of the disaster-struck people must be going through. We have not experienced the doomed feeling you have when you are trapped under meters of rubble, slowly losing blood, asphyxiating to death in the darkness. We comprehend these matters with a detached fascination. We cannot emotionally connect, because we don't know those who are really affected by the earthquake. Such is one of the many intrinsic flaws of humanity.

So stop pretending you do. Those Facebook groups claiming to donate to the relief effort for every member who joins are bullshit. They are scams to get more members, preying on the tendency to 'donate' to ease your guilt for being the lucky elite that have never experienced the harsh life that the Haitians are now going through. Stop mentioning the Haiti earthquake in daily conversation, because it won't change anything. The masquerade of public concern is just that - a masquerade.

If you really care about Haiti, take a plane there and work in the relief effort yourself. But know that if you have the money to buy a computer to read this post, you probably don't. I know that's true for me, and I am not afraid to admit it.

Dev Titlo

Some background on the new song available for download in my sidebar, "Untitled-1". It was done in collaboration with a fine fellow called Isaac for a digital music course (although it's true I did all the work). He provided the voice that says "YYEEEESSSSS" at the end of the song. Originally, when we intended to make some rock music mixed with electronics, we didn't see how dark the melody would be. Eventually, we just said "Screw this," and piled as many layers of evil-sounding sound onto the composition as we could. When it came time to name it, we just kind of copped out. That's how Untitled-1 came to be.

Which Can Eternal Lie

The acclaimed writer and impossibly cool person H.P. Lovecraft once wrote:

That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons, even death may die.

It looks like he was right, because I am once again forced to revive this blog from its fallen grave. Once again, my school considers writing acres and acres of drivel and posting it online for everyone to see to be a highly academic endeavor. Hence this.

I'll kick things off with a list of things that have changed. Because of intervention from my teacher, the template of this site has been completely overhauled. I've edited what once used to be the "Welcome, traveller" introductory box slightly, and added another composition of mine to the Downloads box. Finally, the name of the blog has been changed to nTwilight, because of that darned horrible movie appearing out of nowhere in the middle of last year and dashing whatever readership I had to the four winds. Also, it sounds cooler.

I suppose I'll have to welcome you to my new and completely refreshed blog for 2010. So... welcome. More awesomeness will come soon.

Asimachia

Where have I been?

Here.

Proper and Correct Way of Preparing and Eating a PB&J Sandwich

I found this on the Internet somewhere. I don't know where it originates from, but it is pretty hilarious.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich

First, you must spread a thick layer of peanut butter onto the white part of a slice of bread. You can only spread the peanut butter on the white part, and the white part only. You may only spread peanut butter on one side. Spreading peanut butter on both sides will provide an inferior sandwich.
Next, you must spread a thick layer of jelly onto the white part of a slice of bread. You can only spread the jelly on the white part, and the white part only. You may only spread jelly on one side. Spreading jelly on both sides will provide an inferior sandwich.
You cannot spread jelly onto the same slice of bread onto which you have spread peanut butter. Also, you cannot spread peanut butter or jelly onto more than one slice of bread, as this will provide an undesired excess of either ingredient. Additionally, only peanut butter and jelly can be spread onto these slices of bread; no other ingredient will suffice, and no substitute can be used in a sandwich that is to be legitimately recognized as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Likewise, only bread may be the substance upon which the peanut butter and jelly are spread, as anything else does not fit the standards of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich; if the peanut butter and jelly are spread onto a culinary medium that isn't bread, the meal at hand simply is not a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Once you have accomplished spreading a thin layer of peanut butter onto the white of one side of one slice of bread, and likewise has been accomplished using grape jelly on a separate slice of bread, you must match the slices of bread up to each other, forming a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. In this scenario, the peanut butter-covered face of bread must be facing the jelly-covered face of the second slice of bread so that the peanut butter surface touched the surface of the jelly. The surface of the peanut butter is not allowed to touch a jelly-less substance of bread, resulting in the jelly facing outwards, and likewise applies to the jelly. If a substance is found facing on the outside of the sandwich, the product will not be accepted as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
The side with peanut butter and the side with jelly on it must match up and stick together to form one solid sandwich. When the eater picks up the sandwich, he or she must hold both pieces of bread at the same time, or else one slice will fall off, and eating only one slice of bread will not be recognized as the same or even similar to eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Next, you must take a bite of the sandwich. This action will consist of moving the sandwich within such a close proximity of your face that a small "bite" of the sandwich will enter your mouth for you to mash up with your teeth. This bite must be a bite that includes both slices of bread, peanut butter and jelly. Make sure that all obstructions are clear from the mouth and esophagus, not including peanut butter, jelly or bread or any combination of said ingredients. If you have followed all previous steps, this goal will be easily accomplished. Not doing so will create an incorrect and inferior dining experience and thus will not be a peanut and butter sandwich that is being eaten. However, if one successfully gets both peanut butter and jelly in one bite that fits in the mouth and does not result in choking, the dining experience is thus far acceptable.
For your complete experience with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to be considered complete and unobjectable, you must perform the previously mentioned series of taking bites of the sandwich, chewing them, and swallowing them repeatedly until the entire sandwich has been removed visible existence.
These circumstances may only be reached by eating the entire sandwich, and no parts of the sandwich may be thrown away or given to somebody else. This is your sandwich, and your responsibility. For the Dining experience to be completed, the sandwich must be completely digested.
In the context of completing the process of consuming a legitimate peanut butter and jelly sandwich, there are no extenuating circumstances. Actions such as vomiting, surgical removal of the sandwich from the body, or placement of the sandwich inside the lungs opposed to the esophagus will not be taken into account, as they do not result in the complete digestion of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The process must come to a close via rectal excrement of feces that have been provided by the digestion of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Once the peanut butter and jelly sandwich-fueled feces have exited the rectum, they must remain free from the rectum to be considered conclusive in the process of physically processing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. If the feces re-enters the rectum, the process will be rendered a failure, and must be started again.

Helvetia's Child

Helvetica. It's a widely used sans-serif typeface created in 1957, little known by many people. Which is sad, because it's possibly the most beautiful and influential font family in modern history.

When it was created, it took the world by storm. Before Helvetica, advertising and writing was entirely composed of fancy, grotesque, cursive fonts (just google advertising in the 1940s). Helvetica was so neutral, it completely redefined the world of text and created a whole new genre of fonts.

Now, it's been overtaken by copycats and lookalikes, such as Arial, which has skyrocketed to popularity since Microsoft has adopted it, leaving Helvetica in the dust and unknown to the modern world.

Helvetica made history. Let's fight back.

Alas, poor Yorick...

The April Fools tomfoolery has ended. I reverted the site colors and restored the sidebar. Here's to a fresher and funnier joke next year!

April Fools' Day!

Jazz is funny. Take it this way: chicken chops are actually sentient resistors! Transcending photorealism is the way to go, and I like garbage.

Remember the bulldozers.

Anthropological Confusion

Here's the thing: if one day, you met a robot who could think, speak, feel and love... is it a man?

Should it have human rights? Or should it be treated like a super-advanced toaster?

Some would say, yes, it has human rights. Under the surface, it may just be a collection of electronics, but it behaves exactly the same way as a real human would in that situation. In fact, we're no different from highly advanced, biological robots.

Some would argue, no, it's just a machine. We organics have something special inside, a soul, that makes us different from anything we could possibly fabricate. Any machine, even a supercomputer or artificial intelligence, is lower than the tiniest bacterium because it doesn't have a heart.

What do you think?

Association

I was just doing some literature review on a text. The basic summary of the story is that the narrator was gifted a valuable figurine of a horse by her dad, but gave it to her friend, and her parents were (understandably) royally pissed.

I've clearly been on the internet for an unhealthy amount of time, because when I read it I immediately thought "Creative Commons".