This blog is now owned by naptastic@gmail.com and not naptastic@comcast.net. Thank you, Scott.

It’s gotten really, really easy. Just one shell script with root privileges. Details here.

So, now, both of my main computers are running 64-bit Ubuntu 10.04 with all the bells and whistles–custom kernel with the latest realtime patchset, kernel modesetting, nouveau, jackd and ardour from svn, and my favorite part, llvmpipe. My idle CPU usage has dropped by half.

Another victory: I try to keep two servers around all the time in case one decides to biff it, but my “hot spare” started acting weird a few months ago when I dusted it off to update its packages. I was about ready to write it off but decided I should give it another go. Replacing the suspicious video card and running memtest86, I discovered that one of the RAM chips was bad. I replaced it, and the system is like new again. (Well, as new as a 1600mhz single-core 32-bit-only Athlon can be.)

Since Todd’s death last week, I have been very… inhibited about writing. And there is still much to write about. Some teasers:

– The Location of Meaning / Why Integrity is necessary / When Integrity is not necessary / a universe without language (that’s going to be a very heady post)
– Responsibility, or, what you can do to help
– Measuring the things that matter
– Joy and Fulfillment versus Fun and Diversions
– Addiction (which I might never get around to writing)
– Building Zion (which, as an Atheist, is a really interesting topic)
– The rest of what The Matrix is (I don’t know how many posts that will take.)

As all of these topics bounce around in my head, one question still haunts me: is there hope? Part of what it means for a human being to be a human being right now is that we tend to get sucked into what I called earlier a “black hole of the mind”–where we get programmed to think a certain way, and to protect that certain way of thinking, no matter what. Probably most of these certain ways of thinking actually operate counter to our personal desires–love, happiness, fulfillment, fun, satisfaction, meeting our basic needs for survival, comfort–but the certain ways of thinking are entrenched and guarded with the most advanced systems of defense, so they stay in place even when we would be best served by disassembling them. (These certain ways of thinking are central to what The Matrix really is.)

Is it possible for humans to transform this part of our existence? If so, how? And when? And how can I help? And if not, what does that mean about the existence of humanity? Are we doomed to defeat ourselves for eternity? Will we, at some point in the future, exterminate ourselves? And what about me?

One thing that might be really helpful is if someone would be willing to have some of these conversations with me, in person, and record and transcribe the conversation. It’s an unreasonable request (and I’m an unreasonable person) but if you’d like to sacrifice some of your time for something that will make a difference to me and maybe a handful of others, let’s talk about it.

I foolishly created this blog, super naptastic, using my Comcast email address, not realizing (a) how blogger is now a Google thing, and (b) I already created a blog under blogger / blogspot / google using my Gmail email address. (“Dire Bends, or the definition of impossible,” a great concept I never did anything with.)

Here’s what I’m wondering: Can I somehow transfer “ownership” of Super Naptastic to my Gmail and Blogger account without losing all my great content? Or do I need to keep logging out and logging back in with a different account every time I want to post?

I met Todd at a party on Stansbury Island in the fall of 2008, if memory serves. We talked some, exchanged phone numbers. Some months later, we got together and walked to Liberty Park and he took some pictures of me to post on my various online profiles. Sunday, while I was stuck in a hotel room in Denver, I posted one of those pictures as my main profile picture on Facebook. And then today, he killed himself.

Angry? You bet I am. This does not need to happen. This is stupid. Pointless. A complete fucking waste. A WASTE!

This is a consequence of people taking their fucking stories and making them the fucking truth. Fuck your truth, and fuck you. And fuck the god who spoke to Spencer Kimball and Boyd Packer, and fuck both of them too.

And this is gossip because it’s only going to be read by people who can’t do anything about it.

And even if they did, they’d just find a way to justify their position, make me wrong, make themselves right, blame Todd for the things that they did to him.

This could just as easily have been me. I have every reason in the world to join Todd in discarding the physical. You know why I don’t? Me either. That’s choice for you. Being alive is a really unreasonable thing to do. I am an unreasonable person.

And I will be re-arranging my life in the immediate future so as to ensure that I don’t have undue amounts of time to myself. So don’t worry. Or do worry, but do something constructive with it.

The possibility that I am inventing for myself and my life is the possibility of being generous–someone who has made a difference, is making a difference, and whose future is filled with contribution to everyone around me and to the future of humanity itself.

There is no scarcity; in fact, there is an abundance of the difference I make.