log entries of timotheus

There are people who have soul and you can see it in their eyes. When I say soul here, I mean that spark of creativity and original thought. It is what makes one unique; the soul. The issue is, their soul is flaming in their eyes while their mouth stays mute; they have thoughts on life, or a topic of some sort yet they are unable to express themselves. The ideas and thoughts just smolder, never getting farther than their eyes, and in moments those ideas flicker away.

How does one get better at expressing their original or unorthodox thoughts? I used to think it came with age. That as you gained experience in life (years you have lived) you naturally develop the skill to give some voice to your thoughts in an intelligent manner. I don’t believe that to be true any longer.

If you are not careful, you will fall back to the comfortable territory of common sense, and reduce your ideas to washed out cliche and metaphor. That is why most people, as they get older, begin to agree with the notion that, “There is nothing new under the sun”. They take their ideas, those random flutters of creativity, and find the common sense saying or proverb that sort of fits it. They force their ideas into these ill-fitting molds. When they look back they just see rhetoric, and their desire for original thought fades, and the soul in their eyes dies out. They are now just husk bodies for society; that lowest common denominator of intelligence.

So if age and experience don’t bring about the ability to connect the souls ideas into an informative dialogue, then what will? The answer, I think, lies in practice. The beginning attempts to do so will be stuttering and clumsy, but take heart in those brief moments of insight, where for an instant your soul has a direct link with your audience. My thoughts on philosophy and other ideas still come out of my mouth full of uncertainty and confusion. Though I try to explain myself, I don’t always make sense, but I am working on becoming better at it. But those brief glimmers of clarity give me the motivation to keep trying.

I’ve known all about light ever since my first science text book. Everyone knows about light; what we see is the visible spectrum, colored things absorb certain wavelengths, bounces back other, etc. Pretty normal stuff that I thought was interesting, but minutely so.

That all changed last night.

I had taken a break from my Ergo Proxy watching; decided to read a little more of The Mother Tongue. I went out to the living room, flipped on the lights and plopped down on the couch. Once I got all situated, I kinda just sat there for a bit. Yes I’m a pretty exciting guy sometimes, sprawled out on the couch staring at a light.

It got me thinking about light in general. The more I thought about it, the more crazy the notion got. Before I knew it, an hour had gone by and I was feeling overwhelmed by it all. Here are some of the points I came across.

— Vision is just the ability to see echos of light. It is no more different than how bats see things by echos. Or radar. That is so stupid to me.

— Look at a lit room. Imagine these rays coming from the light source constantly, hitting all the walls and items continuously; it’s the reflection from that impact that we think of as ‘lit’ or ‘visible’.

— What if we ever ran across aliens who use light for communication? They would see our lights hung up everywhere like we’d see poles everywhere with speakers hooked up going ‘AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH’. They’d be like ‘WTF’. A computer monitor to them would be REALLY crazy.

— If the only way you could ‘see’ was by the ricochet of bullets, then a machine gun would be your flashlight.

— There is no difference between a light and dark room. Or daytime and night. Sometimes there are rays going through the area you can see the reflections of, sometimes there isn’t.

— Why is light necessary to ‘see’ your surroundings? It seems like double work, since there is already something flying around colliding off every surface in a room: lighter than air particles. I want to be able to see by the echos of air particles. Or maybe you can’t, since it happens so amazingly fast it paints all the surfaces of a room all at once, making it unintelligible ‘white noise’.

— Just as radiation waves hurt us, what if there are beings who are harmed or sickened by waves in the visible spectrum? Maybe a ‘fear of the dark’ is instilled in us from a long past battle with these spectrum-fearing monsters? Does this explain childrens fear of the dark?

Just the fact that what we take for granted as ‘vision’ is just the ability to see echos of light.. that seems crazy to me. I’ve known of the mechanics of light for a while now, but after last night I feel like I have a better awareness of the mechanics in action.

Still, it’s extensive thinking on points like these that, to me, sometimes puts into question my sanity. That and I talk to myself when I’m alone. I never ask questions though, more declarative statements, so I think that makes it ok… ?

“The simple fact is that non-violent means do not work against Evil. Gandhi’s non-violent resistance against the British occupiers had some effect because Britain was wrong, but not Evil. The same is true of the success of non-violent civil rights resistance against de jure racism. Most people, including those in power, knew that what was being done was wrong. But Evil is an entirely different beast. Gandhi would have gone to the ovens had he attempted non-violent resistance against the Nazis. When one encounters Evil, the only solution is violence, actual or threatened. That’s all Evil understands.”

– Robert Bruce Thompson
(HT: Overcoming Bias)

I thought this was interesting. At first glance, I agreed with it. However, the big danger I see to viewing violence as the only solution to Evil, is it simplifies complex situations into a simple formula. If a thing or person is Evil, actual or threatened violence is the solution, and that is that. The thinking stops once you put it in that context. Also, this makes it an Us vs. Them mentality, and the ‘Them’ in question will only respond to violence. I could see ‘Us’ forgiving some heinous actions towards ‘Them’, since they ARE Evil, and we ALL know they only respond to violence.

I could see that operating off of this philosophy might eventually just reduce to a “Are they/it evil? If so, violence.” thought process, and once we catalogue something/someone as Evil, there is no other option but violence.

It seems too simple a thesis to operate from for such a big concept as Evil.

In case anyone is curious, assuming we had a device like the portal gun in Portal, and set up one portal on top of another to allow an object to free fall indefinitely, starting from zero velocity, it would take the object:

30,591,067 sec == 509,851 min == 8,497 hr == 354.06 days == t

to reach the speed of light (2.998 X 10^8 meters). (Assuming no wind resistance, etc) During that period of free fall, it would travel:

4,585,485,605,800,090 meters == 2.84 trillion miles

I found it interesting that it takes 97% of a year to reach that speed. I thought it wouldn’t take nearly that long.

Memories that I haven’t thought of in a really long time have been coming at me from all angles this week. I think it has to do with pondering Baltimore, about when I used to live there (up until I was ten).

Memory is a funny thing. It is interesting how all these memories are intertwined, how when I think of one, I think of the other. I’m even remembering some of my childhood play scenarios I used to do.

It’s like thinking in a certain framework will give you access to other thoughts that have been previously thought of in that framework. My mind tried to make sense of it, and ended up with a virtual college campus in my mind. Why a college campus? Well, because it makes sense. The different buildings represent different stages in my life. Have you ever been in college, and you have a class in a building you haven’t been in for quite a while? Memories of the times you were in their before come right back, even to what you were feeling, thinking during your time in there.

When I think back to when I lived in Baltimore, it’s like I’m entering an old class building I haven’t been into in a while. There are all sorts of people around me in the hallway, but they are shadowy; I can’t make them out. Then, you see one you recognize, a memory from back then, shining like a beacon in this darkened hall. You go to follow it, and as you do, your constantly brushing up against other memories, and these too flash gold and you remember them. It can be a little overwhelming.

Another weird coincidence is that I ran across this image on flickr last night:

A spring rider at Double Rock Park

This park was really close to my house, and I used to ride that thing when I was little. I haven’t seen it since I was 8 at least. I had some serious flashback when I saw it. (The whale was my favorite, BTW)

Would it be weird to write about my childhood? There are some interesting short stories in there.

I’ve been working on trying to merge my old wordpress blog (2004-2006) with this new one. The problem I’m having is since it’s WordPress 1.2, the database structure is totally different. I might be able to use some PERL to parse the things, but that will be a little tricky.

In the meantime, I was looking through my old entries, and I found this one from July 2005. I had just moved into my first apartment. Check it out:

I’m sitting in my old room at my parents house. I needed to come here one last time because my metal media rack and dresser are still here. My Dad and I will go to work tomorrow, then get the company truck and use it to haul my stuff tomorrow night.

I’m sitting in my old room at my parents house. All my clothes, books, and computers are gone, with the exception of my laptop. In this absence of distractions, I find my imagination filling in lapse moments with random images. I think my imagination works better with nothing to distract it.

I’m sitting in my old room at my parents house. Last night I slept at my new apartment, on the living room floor. I needed to be there early for the comcast guy. Anyway, it was around 9pm, and I had nothing else to do, so I laid on my back, and listened to the ‘World of Warcraft’ soundtrack on my MuVo. I looked at the textured ceiling, and noted that if I wanted any image to be formed from them, all I needed to do was concentrate of what I wanted to see. Nothing specific, but something to give my brain a rough idea. An example would be, “an angry face”. In a moments time, the light and dark patterns of the ceiling have a pattern, and I can piece together a face of a man, howling in rage. The phrase ‘howling in rage’ occurs in many books, but this was the first time I had seen it. Rage looks to me like someone allowing hatred to fill the essence of their soul, even pushing out all the good things to make room for the hatred, then focusing all that raw hate towards a single person. I can feel what this image feels. Just staring at the person you hate isn’t enough, but words can’t describe the feeling you have. The hatred must have an outlet, so it taps into your vocal processor, and emits a sound. The two cannot interface properly, it’s like describing the color ‘blue’ to a blind person, but what erupts from the mans mouth gets the point across. If hatred could be personified as a sound, that is what comes from within this man. His howl of rage. It appears hatred is a powerful and destructive ally.

I’m sitting in my old room at my parents house. I had a dream last night, that I was in a society of people who wore masks. I never saw a face, I just saw the persons mask that best defined their personality. Some people were smiling, some were frowning, some angry, and some sad. Masks can be so very descriptive of emotion; even the eye slots were different for each one. I walked around this marketplace, and talked to several of the masked people there. Then there was a commotion on the far end of the square. A lone man entered, and people gave him a wide berth. He walked slowly, almost gliding; his hands not moving in motion with his body. He had a mask I hadn’t seen until that moment. It had thin rectangles for eyes, and a bigger rectangle for his mouth. No emotion at all. People started going back to their jobs, but the nearest one to him got too close, and the emotionless one jumped on her. He buried his face in the victims neck, his mask getting pushed up a bit in the process. A horrible sound came from the victim, then she was quiet. The emotionless one stood up, his back to me, and repositioned his mask. He then helped the victim up. They both turned to me. Both their masks were emotionless now. They both turned to two emotional masked people next to them. They jumped in tandem at their victims. Tandem screams from their prey. In a matter of minutes, all the people in the square were similarly attacked and turned emotionless. People stood at their carts, or at the tables, not moving. Only staring at me. All their masks wore the same emotionless blank. All sounds stopped. That strange noise that is heard when there is dead silence filled my ears. Slowly they all took a step towards me. I was frightened.

I’m sitting in my old room at my parents house. I can’t help but notice the other conscience in my head. It has always been there, this other-side-of-the-coin Tim, but I’ve always never listened to him, in fear of what he’d do with me. It’s not another personality or anything, it’s more like the same song in a minor chord. Happy things become mournful. Good endings become futile. I need this side of me for my writing to improve. He knows he has something I need. I’m scared to ponder what it will cost me.

I came across the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. That is a great resource.

Doing some simple reading on the site has motivated me to go home and do some deep reading.

Actually, thinking some more, I’ve realized that lately, I’ve strayed from my earlier philosophic goals. The past couple of months or so I’ve been just drifting along, not accomplishing much. I mean, I accomplish things at work, but my personal projects have fallen to the wayside, for the most part.

I did a tremendous amount of reading last month, but it was mostly fiction. I need to delve into some literature that stimulates the mind, and acquaint myself with some previously unknown information.

Also, my plan for pruning down my material possessions hasn’t done much lately. I haven’t accrued anything new, but haven’t lightened the load either.

This weekend I’m going to get rid of several boxes from my closet. How will I do this, you may ask. Well, it’s simple. They’re boxes filled with computer games, and music. I’m going to buy several CD binders, and start filling them up. I figure I can replace my four boxes with 3-4 binders.

Then I need to pick up my room. It’s gotten cluttered with mostly papers and random giblets, and those need to go. Also, I should get rid of my Pentium III computer, since I never use it, and it just sits in the middle of my room.

This post sort of went all over the place, but that’s ok. To my readers, I call upon you to not let this weekend go to waste. Get something done off your list.

Picking companies to invest in is a tricky thing. Assuming you don’t just pick stocks randomly, choosing a company that will take your money and turn it into more is hard. Back in my folly-filled youth, I thought it was easy. This was because it was the dot com era, and basically everything went up. It was the way people thought about real estate now. (or now() – 180 days) Unfortunately, that is not the case when things go bad.

But I digress. I’ve been saving up my hard earned moola for a while now, and I decided to invest some of it. Now, investing your money is something that holds a special place in my heart. I’ve always been fascinated by it. When I took a finance course at CSUS, I changed my major to finance, to better understand this magical ideal. I mean, it’s earning money for doing nothing. Who wouldn’t like that??

I graduated with my B.S. in Business Administration, with a Finance concentration. I say this not to make you all bow in submission to my investment powers, but to let you know I at least was PRESENT in lectures on investments. (Minus the four classes I could miss without losing points.)

I can reduce my cornucopia of investment knowledge into several bullet points.

• Pick a company that isn’t wallowing in debt. Makes sense right? It’s a personal thing; I don’t want the company being too agressive and risky in trying to make the company grow. The quick way to check it to look at the Debt-to-Equity ratio. The Debt-to-Equity ratio gives you the total debt of the company divided by the shareholders equity (what all the shares are worth). For example, Bobs Bean World owes $500 in loans, but all the shares in Bobs Bean World are worth $1000, then the ratio is 0.5. I don’t like the Debt-to-Equity ratio to be much more than 1.0 in a company I look to invest in.
• Pick a company that makes money with the money it has. I want to know that the managers of a company are making good use of the money they already have. For that, I look at the Return On Equity ratio. The ROE (as we savvy investors call it, hah) is the net income of the company, divided by the shareholders equity. I like to see over a 15% ROE every year for the last 10 years at least.
• See that it’s doing better than other companies in the same industry. So if there’s two clay making companies you are interested in, which one consistently makes more profit? Initial scan says to pick that one.
• Day-trading is stressful. I’m picking stocks I will hold onto for a long, long time. They are companies I believe in, and who I think will continue to be profitable and make the world a better place. I’m not looking for a quick 10% growth then sell. I don’t have the time for it, plus I already have grey hair.
• Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, AKA diversify. Putting all your money in different companies that are all in the computer hardware industry can be a bad thing. Putting all your money in just one company is a risky move. I like to have at least nine stocks in my portfolio, touching at least four different industries.

How do I start looking for companies to invest in? I start by using a stock screener. It lets me make some simple guidelines to start out with, like “find me stocks that are in the medical equipment industry, that have an average ROE of 15% or greater, Debt/Equity ratio of 1.0 or less, etc”. It returns all the stocks that fit the criteria. Here is an image of the settings I use in my stock screener of choice. (Which is MSN Deluxe Stock Screener. It only runs in IE, which is evil I know, but it’s the best one I’ve found.)

It is a handy way to quickly find companies that fit your criteria.

Once I have a company that I like the look of, I get financial reports on them, to look at their ROE and other items in detail. These are not free. I do my trading on scottrade.com, which gives access to reports to their users. 90% of my info I can find on different investment sites, but I haven’t found any place that shows you ROE’s broken down by year, except for financial reports.

Anyway, here are the different companies I chose to invest in. All of them meet my criteria, for the most part.

• STX – Seagate Technology
  • Seagate has been making Hard Drives and Storage options for forever. They’re darn good at it.
• GRMN – Garmin Ltd.
  • Garmin deals in GPS technology. All the ‘good’ GPS goodies is made by Garmin
• FLIR – FLIR Systems Inc.
  • FLIR Systems is “engaged in the design, manufacture and marketing of thermal imaging and infrared camera systems.” It’s my guilty pleasure. Yes, they do some military application, but honestly being able to see in the dark is just too cool.
• DNEX – Dionex Corp.
  • Dionex “designs, manufactures, markets and services range of liquid chromatography systems, sample preparation devices and related products that are used by chemists to separate and quantify the individual components of complex chemical mixtures in many major industrial, research and laboratory markets.” They’re one of my Biotech/Science helper companies I picked.
• SIAL – Sigma-Aldrich Corp.
  • “Sigma-Aldrich Corporation develops, manufactures, purchases and distributes a range of biochemicals and organic chemicals. These chemical products and kits are used in scientific and genomic research, biotechnology, pharmaceutical development, the diagnosis of disease and as key components in pharmaceutical and other high-technology manufacturing.”
• CSCO – Cisco Systems Inc.
  • Cisco is the King of Routers, and other Internet related hardware.
• SYK – Stryker Corp.
  • “Stryker Corporation (Stryker) is a medical technology company with a range of products in orthopedics and a presence in other medical specialties. The Company’s products include implants used in joint replacement, trauma, craniomaxillofacial and spinal surgeries; biologics; surgical, neurologic, ear, nose and throat (ENT) and interventional pain equipment; endoscopic, surgical navigation, communications and digital imaging systems, as well as patient handling and emergency medical equipment.” People are always going to be breaking bones.. Plus the name sounds so impressive.
• DCI – Donaldson Company, Inc.
  • Donaldson Company makes air filtration systems and filters, on an industrial scale. As emissions gets more and more regulated, these guys will just have more business.
• SOPW – Solar Power Inc.
  • Solar Power Inc is a local solar panel company. They’re putting up retail stores, which is a really good thing, and will be putting them all over the world. This is a little bit of a gamble, the stock just came on the market in September. It has the potential to be massive though.
• NALFX – New Alternatives Fund
  • New Alternatives “invests most of assets in companies that provide a contribution to a clean and sustainable environment. It usually invests at least 25% of assets in common shares of companies which have an interest in alternative energy. The fund invests in U.S. companies as well as foreign ones without limitation on the assets allocation. It is a social responsible fund.” This is my only fund in my portfolio, but I think it’s a fairly stable, responsible fund to own.

Invest at your own risk, I am just giving you this info to maybe introduce some people to the exciting and dangerous world of investments..