Recently I have added some Magnetic Bubbles of Distraction to my blog, for those who don’t like to read stuff. (Which appears to be most of the people I talk to, I am not sure why)

These used to be on by default, but now they are no longer. They are implemented in canvas and Javascript (and based on the work done by hakim ).

They are seperate to the drag and drop components of the blog theme, which allow people to move sections of the blog around the page at there lesiure, they are also seperate to the click to read links on each of the posts.

In Opera the pointer-events CSS isn’t implemented which means the canvas steals all the mouse clicks. For this reason control of the magnetic bubbles of distraction is done with keys on your keyboard.

Press b to start the bubbles,  press c twice quickly to create new bubble, place your mouse near the blue core of the bubble you want select and press d to start dragging it with your mouse and press d again to stop dragging it.

Pressing s with the same conditions as pressing d, will select the bubble and it will sprodically jump around your mouse, until it is deselected using s. Press x to hide the bubbles and press x appear to make them reappear. To turn bubbles off just press F5.

Best wishes and have fun,

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

How are we all ? Just finished lodging my tax. It was interesting, much more interesting than I first expected. I feel like I was playing Lemmings again, through a maze of legalize and taxation policy. Currently in a new place , in a new space, with a new list of things to get. Lots of nice restaurants around here, but I also relish in the return to ethereal methods of cooking, so much better than convective / conductive electricity based cooking. On that note has anyone ever cooked using Lightning ? I also have a microwave for the first time ever, but with the 福島県 nuclear incident fresh in my memory, I am reluctant to use it, and am surprised at how long it wants to take for simple defrosting of things.

I also need to estabilish my spice collection and find some modular bookshelves so I can unpack my 5 boxes of books. Technology wise I have been playing with ILSpy and Rec for multiple language decompilation fun. I really need to buy some ice-cream. Random interrupts regarding web discussion are obligied not because I care or desire to but because I am too kind for my own good. Is the Internet a hivemind ? No it isn’t. Because things made possibile by the Internet aren’t the Internet themselves. Collective consciousness first requires people to isomorphically share pherenomological experiences in order to streamline cognitive reference points.

Why exactly do I end up walking the drunk to the traffic lights, or obliging the random stranger ? I have a visual novel to be working on along with countable errands and miscellanea. Baby dolphins are quintessentially cute.

Web 2.0 is overated , bring back text, until we are shrouded in the Wired, where we can all love Lain.

Have fun, stay safe, will write more later, apologies for the interruption,

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

Just a quick post, with something that is totally both very important and not at all important simultaneously, that is correct it has Schrödinger importance of the highest level.

Was on a bus today, meet random strangers on said bus, came up with movie idea, make a movie / series called  ZOMBULANCE, the protagonist is a  ZOMBULANCE driver and is the reincarnation of the Bruce Willis (the actor, not the character), (so he is an  EMT / professional driver that wants to be an actor / action hero).

Brief plot is as follows, immediate unexplained apocalypse involving zombies that gradually gets more convolved and convoluted in attempts to explain itself throughout the series. Protagonist is a recently fired EMT (day of apocalypse).

As apocalypse happens , he is driving in his Ambulance which he thinks is empty, but it isn’t, instead there is the introduction of the secondary characters / supporting characters, one of which gives him directions to drive to a research facility.

Arrives to said facility, surprised  by the security and lack of zombies, ends up picking up some more support characters and some medical equipment / formula that slows / stops / alters the zombification process. Of course this method is highly untested…..

Rest of the plot goes here

Hopefully the people on the bus find this post, but I doubt it. I will probably embellish on this concept and the associated worldbuilding / screenplay on seperate page or on the skits page.

Anyways , best wishes everyone

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

Deus ex somnia, ens causa sui , esse est percipi, hic et nunc, in absentia dementia extant vivendi. Sola omnia, Hinc illae lacrimae, Major e longinquo reverentia, Omnia mea mecum porto, Omnia sufficit, Semper cogitans.

I will remember the promises, those hidden will grow, time will pass and the future remain.

Best wishes,

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

The question of how one is , is in itself self an interesting question. Does it or any question have an answer ? Is an answer the answer ? And what of truth ? is it the true answer ? Unicorns are unicorn despite their colour.

Time appears to be progressing, like rain that never stops dripping and dripping, until everything around it is either eroded into nothingness or becomes one with the flow of the rain ebbing, flowing and pooling admist the obstacles of circumstance.

The thing about the rain is when you stand in it you get wet. Maybe it is the same with time, when you stand in it or obstruct its flow, you just get older (possibly more stresser, more tired, more experienced).

Congruently aligned with time seems to be change, both with respect to fates, destinies , attributes and circumstance, everything is in a constant state of flux. This recursively includes the change or flux itself.

My studies are progressing slowly, as I attempt to learn as much I can without succumbing to the abundant distractions. Integrity seems to be as fickle as change and time. Beliefs are precious to most, as are choices and reasons along with values.

Values that are often just trusted or abstracted to the point of boolean certainity irrespective of surrounding spectrum as it begins to boggle , beguile and dazzle the conscious dance which is inadvertently effortlessly performed with such grace , beauty and perfection that we feel like pawns on a chessboard or toy soldiers with matchsticks.

The guide ropes seem to have been misplaced along with sand from the beach, now it is just a deep blue mystical wonderland that Nemo alone ventures to delve deeper and deeper into. Further and further till the eyes can’t see anything more than the navy hue and the heart and mind care too much but not enough as to why the we have come so far.

Like waves on the shore that no longer is, everything repeats, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, but at different intervals and with changing flux as the patterns can’t be found.

What does yesterday bring ? What does tomorrow bring ? Why is time the way it is ? Patience to what end ? Patience to what beginning ? If Boolean choices are two sides of the same coin, would it matter if the coin was worthless ?

Have fun, ask questions…

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

Through the eye to the tiger, time flies

Black leaf of red tree leads to minimal satisfaction

The intertextuality replaced by misfortunate circumstances

Rapture still remains with Euphoria broken and crying

She wants to go home, but nobodies home, so there she lies broken inside

Tooth for a tooth, wrestling fairies endure suffering but don’t find Buddha’s wisdom

Still hassled by the askers and the silent placing their judgement as they blink , they fail to think , relying on good taste and instinct.

Misheard words echoing through a room till the resonance takes over, the symbolism lost like a isohedric clover

Mistrust, contempt along with licquorice over powers the bitterness that rests in my fingertips and pulses through the air currents as they float by me.

Psyche and Cupid’s wasn’t told, the lovers tryst, the gods rage, the plots to thick to fell and be processed into Disney gold.

Aghast and elated the chance so fickle quickly metamorphosizes   into hope, which like the Babelfish makes it so obvious, and the smokers of logic choke on their pipes, calling for plumbers

The boxer and Galileo suffer in silent penitentiary one ensnared by ideas, the other set free.

Words not said, packets dropped, lost in overhead, echos of silence, threats of violence  , as the zombies recur throughout the echelons

Wisdom comes and then goes, as pathetic minds have buffer overflows because their thought rate can’t accelerate and their actions only serve to exacerbate their clouded judgment.

The music and bird song that is supposed to soothe and calm, instead incites the brewing storm , disregard left the window open late last week. The monsoon comes , the rains begin, even after the floods are gone,  there remains the wind.

Today I saw the sunrise, and it made me realise, just how much I was missing living in the city, though they are gone, these words still remain, reiterating and proliferating through the thought palace.

As they say we are moving ahead, but to where and for what ? Points outside of a Cartesian space, clothes spun from invisble lace, black marks on a speckled face, the dynasty’s silent embrace.

May your checks not bounce and you resolve not falter, and may you always have a crying shoulder.

Best wishes,

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

How are you all ? I know I promised video blogs and things but currently I haven’t had lighting on my side, despite having the technology for a feasible implementation. Something about the darkness I find more comfortable then any light anyways.

My music is old, slowly growing and changing like most things, but it gives me inspiration to reflect, and support to deal with the emotions and illogic I encounter in the jumping , hopping and bouncing of everyday life or life everyday.

I have read all but one of the books great Aunt Jackie gave me for birthday / Christmas. Interesting what see classifies as regular / normal reading, given she is unaware of my reading habits.

Is it weird that tragedy seems normal ? Disasters seem to all ways make more news than happy things, and crisisses (I think it should be crisisi but dictionary disagrees with me, it must reserve the -i plural for -us suffix, so us becomes i) seem  to force people to action , instigating the choice of survival or death.

This choice of survival or death is just as easy of the choice of a cake or death, maybe that is because it a Boolean choice, with only two options (yes I am aware I am repeating myself / being superfluous, but an amazing number of people don’t seem to know what a Boolean / binary choice is) or maybe because one of the choices is death, and mortal beings as a rule generally like self preservation.

When you start adding other options into the question, it becomes more difficult for people to answer. For example Cake, Comfort, Liberty, Improvement, Death ? I recently watched a TED talk video on different the mathematics of the decision making and the speaker pointed out several interesting things.

The first being that when given a difficult Boolean decision with a default specified, because of the difficulty most people go with the default. (The example case was organ donation in different countries, the difference was largely because of the form for driver’s licenses being inclusive or exclusive)

The second was that given a Boolean / Binary decision, and then given a Ternary decision with the third option being similar but less than than one of the other two options, having the weaker option in the decision, made the stronger option more likely to be chosen then its alternative in the binary decision / choice.

For example, given the choice of a free trip to London, a free trip to Paris , and a free trip to Paris except you have to pay for your breakfast, the free trip to Paris would become more popular when the second option was included in the decision choices.

This leads me to think what result a survey that had the default option as death, would have in terms of its responses to the decision making process, would everyone be through in their filling out of the survey if they realised that their ignorance could cost them their lives.

Imagine for a second that every decision could that you make could cost you your life, would your choices be influenced by this addition ? Why ? Why not ? Suddenly the question of the what topping to have on your toast in the morning isn’t so trivial ? And what about the decision of whether to say Hello to someone or to not say Hello ?

We train ourselves to make decisions from an early age, but the basis and reasoning for our decisions isn’t always a rigorous as we believe or perceive it to be.

I am volunteering at the Lifeline Book Festival until next Sunday, and today I had the opportunity to work at the Helium tanks inflating the balloons, it was very interesting to contemplate and listen to the answers to the following questions

1. Would you like a balloon ?

2. If you would like a balloon, What colour would you like ?

Listening to the answers and asking the question soon lead me to the mental line of inquiry ?

1. Would you like to keep living ?

2. If you would like to keep living, What type of life would you like to lead ?

I would love to have the opportunity to ask various people these 4 questions and contemplate their answers and the motivation behind why they gave the answers they do / did.

I return to University for one more semester (hopefully)  in late February. Additionally I have various other side projects which I want to gradually chip away at.

This blog entry has already asked enough questions, and I don’t even know if my reader base still exceeds 1 (me), but you are welcome to comment / answer the questions asked if you wish.

Thanks for your time,

Best wishes,

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

All my assessment for this semester is completed and now I just await my results. Now my eyes / mind / various other squishy appendages turn to all the objectives and things that piled up on my floor or been pushed aside. (Actually my floor is clean, suprise I actually managed to clean my room whilst studying). Meanwhile I have been organising what needs to be achevied during both this gap from study and in the following semester.

Spent a large amount of time looking at networking equipment (switchs, routers, smart switchs,etc), (hacking NG GS608s via eeprom to enable the BCM5398 smart managed switch features, if NG has them turned off), as I have several LANs coming up and various purchasing decisions to contempt and iron out. Ironing makes me feel like eating waffles. I also have to organise some visual / video stuff inorder to work out a movie night I am having with a grandparent.

Was part of an interesting discussion the other day regarding the value of life ,whether the creation of life was just as immoral as the destruction of life and whether creating life, just lead to the newly born experiencing pointless suffering. ##philsophy on freenode isn’t what it used to be, in fact I don’t think it ever was what it used to be. As the semester ends, I have recently been answering various questions about my future and the possibilities. The more I think about it, the more I realise that the answer isn’t something static that is easier to vocalise into comprehensible means.

The steps we have control over are the steps we take, and we can only take one or two or three or possibly seven steps without falling over in an heap / queue / stack / <insert data structure here>. Incandescent featureless footprints taken in the fabric of time, make me wonder whether such blemishs have an impact in the grand scheme of things.

Best wishes and have fun

Benjamin Southall

I was going to write another joke post similar to my QUT IRC sketch, but then I realised that I wasn’t feeling as satirical at all today. So instead I have a few things to update people on and a few more things to mention and poke a sharp pointy non stick like object at for all to ignore. Firstly I am not blogging to you all live from Hamilton Island, and I am not from the UK. To my parents, my siblings, my grandfather, my godfather and anyone else that reckons I should attempt to masquerade as the Best Job in the World winner, I say thanks for the suggestion but no thanks.

Attempting to masquerade as this person, would probably involving me changing my appearance and gaining an English accent and hiding the person I would be impostering in some sort of underwater pressurised cell in my secret underwater lair in the Great Barrier Reef, and fun and awesome as this all is, If I actually attempted to do it, their would be several consequences which include

• One of my secret lairs would being no longer secret
• I would have to blog to world why the Great Barrier Reef is awesome and spend a lot of time snorkeling, which isn’t that hard to do but takes away time that I need to work on my university assessment.
• Eventually I would get busted as my English accent would be not good enough or I would get knighted by the Queen for services against the Global Recession and services in support of conservation for my English accent being too good

A second thing I should mention is my pagerank still seems to be intact despite families assurances that I had been bumped to the 8th page of Google when they used Macca’s Wireless to check emails and stuff (This is why you shouldn’t let your siblings get addicted to WoW and other online games, as then the shared internet connection goes away and the other family members have to resort to Macca’s wireless).

The amount of media hype regarding this job, got me thinking about it, particularly as the person who won it has a similar firstname and the same surname as me. He gets to housesit a luxury house in Hamilton Island for 6 months, to basically have a six month vacation and gets paid $150k for it.� Evidently it is a publicility stunt, apparently $100 million of publicity from the media hype on media hype has already been generated. And this very good for QLD’s tourism industry, to quote Ruth Apelt’s song “Tourist-led Recovery”, “yeah we’re banking on a tourist-led recovery, that’s what I know, that’s what I know, and in QLD we say, yo way to go!!”.

But is a paid vacation really the best job in the world ? I mean 150K for 6 months is approximately $834 dollars a day or $105 dollars an hour for an 8 hour work day. In terms of rate of earning there are plenty of other jobs that can earn people $105 dollars per hour for an 8 hour work day, so it doesn’t win there, but I do suppose it is rather cushy. However once that job is finished, the money stops, like all employment, however the personal publicity he will obtain, would probably help him find future work.

But is the rate of money earnt per hours worked the most important thing in making a job the best in the world ? From an altrustic perspective it certainly isn’t, from that perspective the best jobs in the world would involve the saving, supporting and development of other people’s lives. This would have people with Doctor’s without Borders and councillors and social workers as having the best job in the world. From a hedonistic perspective the Hamilton Island job isn’t the best in the world, because in terms of hedonism, there are other jobs that cause more pleasure for less sacrifice or pain. From an egoist perspective the job isn’t the best in the world , because it isn’t ultimately in the individual’s upmost best interest’s as if he was offered a better offer, he would be then obliged by belief system to take it.

Jobs are perceived by most people as a means to an end in earning an abstracted concept which humanity assigns value to. The best job in the world is when your occupation isn’t a chore or a job, but is a passion, so you don’t even perceive as being a job or a means to end, you do it because you love it, despite the consequences negative or positive.

What do you think is the best job in the world and why do you think that ?

I would love to write down some more on this question but I have to get back to work on my university assessment.

Best wishes

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234

From Fools and deception, to new life, remdemption and the Spring Equinox in the Northern hemisphere anyways, considering that most know this time for its church services and chocolate egg, I guess we haven’t moved that far at all.

Holidays are symbolic and holiday spirit and passion for holiday traditions is a state of mind. I don’t think Maple or wxMaxima (CASes) would be able to solve or derive the meaning of them anymore than most humans do.

It is so easy to get caught up in the hype and FUD (fear, uncertaintity and doubt) and lose sight of our heritage s human beings and the rituals that were so important long ago, that have since been misplaced. It isn’t hard to become engulfed into mass indoctrinism whether its purpose is economic in the supposed crisus or religious in times when a lack of belief ,faith ,hope and trust in ourselves is so common.

I have been almost as busy as the bees that helter skelter from spring flower to spring flower in search of pollen. My tasks however to be a less leisurely pace and are accompanied more with clattering of keystrokes and whirring of� computer fans.

Buses are fun to miss by two minutes. Puzzles are fun to solve, especially if your short on time. All the life and death carefully modelled with non linear ordinary differential equations and then steady states found and typed up into Latex via Lyx.

Balance is important in more ways than one, considering how much I was sneezing on Tuesday. I have rediscovered and given new life to some things that have been dormant a while including the LainOS revival project, several changes to how well rebecca(eeepc) is runnig from a kernel update, the acquisition of an 18plus card and various other things. (UXA causes Blender menus not work render properly, EXA causes title bars of windows to be slightly glitched)

After this LAN I am at ends today,I will probably catch up on sleep and then proceed to working a precarious pace towards the goals I need to reach. For the moment for� the buses missed, I will just have to catch the next ones.

Meanwhile I will just keep swimming, rembering, bideing my time, hoping that everything falls elegantly into place.

What does spring mean to you ? What puts a spring in your step ? Does your life feel redeemed by your existence ?

Best wishes,

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234