October 29, 2002

OK, before I go into angst-ridden soul searching mode <g>, let me just say that I’ve uploaded the new build of Blog with the PlusMemo nag dialog removed. As I mentioned earlier, there is no change in version number and so you simply have to download the same old file. Now on to the soul-searching :p

I have always believed in doing what I think is right but what do you do when you have a conflict between two things which are both right in their own way? I believe implicitly in keeping my promises – not just to the extent of the letter of the promise but the spirit of the promise as well. I also believe in doing what my heart tells me is right. Then on the other hand, I also believe in not hurting anybody either through my actions or through inaction. What the heck do you do when all of these different principles collide against each other? I really don’t know in this instance and perhaps the one person who can help me sort it all out will not talk to me. I sometimes think it’s rather prissy of me to worry about every little action but then again, I can’t help feeling responsible for everything I do – maybe it’s from too much reading but I am always aware that each and every one of my actions can have far reaching effects like ripples on a pond due to a stone being thrown in. Terry Pratchett is very fond of a saying which goes something along the lines of a butterfly’s wings causing a storm somewhere else and I believe explicitly in that – everything we do can have very far reaching effects and I always try to consider everything when I do something. Of course, you can’t refuse to act because your actions might have far reaching effects either because that’s cowardice … at least, that’s what I think :p

Something else that occurred to me while coming back from work today was that in this day and age of the Internet where every one of us has so many friends that we’ve never met, that we need a dead-man’s switch of some sorts :p Why did I think this? Well, I was doing seventy on the road on the motorbike and in Sri Lanka, that’s courting death :p But it felt good to ride fast with the wind in my face but while riding, I had this though that if I were to die right then due to an accident, nobody on the Net would even know that I’d died (OK, fine .. I was specifically thinking of Jen there but I later thought of others I know of on the Net too :p) My parents know nothing of my Net friends and they’d not even consider letting anybody from the Net know if I were to die. But how would you reliably construct such a program that would let others know if you were to die? I was going through several alternatives but nothing is really foolproof but this entry is getting really morbid by this point and so I will stop :p

I’ve been considering a few additions to Blog as well as a completely new program which will merge Blog and a few of my other apps – though I would probably not do it since I hate bloated apps which have a lot of functionality that most of your users don’t need. So I’d rather stick with several different program than one huge app but I’d still like to discuss this idea here. Plus, Duane wanted to know about Postman … guess all of that will appear in tomorrow’s entry 🙂

Tags: General
Posted by Fahim at 5:44 pm   Comments (5)

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#1
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Tyran 29 October 2002 at 3:23 am

The butterfly effect is an example of chaos theory. You can see more at http://www.cmp.caltech.edu/~mcc/chaos_new/Lorenz.html. Anyway, remember that the only thing the butterfly can control is the flap of its wings and that if the butterfly never flaps its wings, it will fall to the ground and die. We must each act as we best see fit, realizing that we can only control our actions and not how others react to them.

#2
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Tyran 29 October 2002 at 6:31 am

That should be http://www.cmp.caltech.edu/~mcc/chaos_new/Lorenz.html it appears that the comments script doesn’t discriminate between the end of my URL and the period ending that sentence.

#3
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TrialAndError 29 October 2002 at 7:17 am

The anticipation of death is worth than death itself. Often, I think I have a crystal ball that can foretell the future, allow me to read minds and know the actual intentions of others. Yet what I have discovered is actions speak louder then words. This helps me live in the moment. And at any given moment I am the only one that can control my own actions. Because I believe that I have all the required information to make a decision. It has been proven over and over again that “we” make decisions based on a limited amount of information and fill-in the gaps with a thing called creative dissonance. That is we make up things to allay our fears and/or connect seemingly unrelated events. Maybe sitting on top of Maslow’s hierarchy(sp?) is not a good thing.

#4
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Edward McCain 29 October 2002 at 9:46 am

1)

A small program on the computer that would set a deadman flag on a cron job.

You could set the flag for vacations and such, and it would auto update every X minutes you are online. When 0 is reached, the job would execute by sending email to a list you specify.

2)

Sometimes a friend or a loved one will take action ‘in your best interest’.

Like breaking up because someone is doing something stupid on your behalf – refusing a scholarship in order to remain with you, for example.

Sometimes you make those decisions for others and it isn’t fair to them – but you have crystallized the doubts that you have about the relationship. You have decided that they were better off without you, because keeping them would be selfish.

Because the pain of being without them is less than the pleasure of watching them grow.

Sometimes you make decisions in your best interest, like breaking it off with a friend that is running down a road of self destruction.

It’s just as hard to turn your back on someone that desperately needs help, but refuses to admit they have a problem and they are dragging you down with them.

Surgery is always painful, for both the doctor and the patient.

#5
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Jenni 31 October 2002 at 8:02 pm

damn, tyran’s last post was beautiful.

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