The Inevitability of Violence

This particular blog post will be a little more specific and deal with only one subject unlike many of my other posts.  Something has been on my mind recently and I really want to spend some time thinking about it and getting my thoughts down.

In recent months I have found that I have been thinking about violence a lot.  I am not sure why but with recent events like the horrible tragedy at Fort Hood it is hard to not consider the subject of violence.  For me it all started to pop in my mind when I was sitting here in my room thinking about science.  What do scientists think about their inventions and how does that change as they see how we use their technology?  For some reason Robert Oppenheimer came to mind.  How did he feel about helping develop the Atomic Bomb?  If you design these systems what kind of responsibility do you bear for technology?  Should you be responsible at all?  I am not sure.  Certainly some technologies are designed for benign reasons and we twist these inventions to new uses.  Other more deadly technology can be reworked to be used in some beneficial way.

I have come to the conclusion that I really dislike violence.  I don't understand the need for it and I don't like the idea that we should ever have to resort to this sort of thing.  When I think about events like those at Fort Hood, school violence, and just general run of the mill violence it is hard to think of a justification.  Now I have to admit that maybe this makes me weird and I haven't really talked about this before.  When my daughter was stabbed a few years ago and I saw her laying on that hospital bed bleeding I didn't wish violence on the man that stabbed her.  In fact I rarely thought about him at all while she was in the hospital.  My thoughts were all wrapped up in how I could make her life better, what could I do to make her life just a little easier and better.  All I could think about and wish for at that moment was that she would make it through ok.  During that time period many people spoke to me about wanting to hurt or kill the man that did this to my daughter.  I agreed because I really wasn't interested in talking about it and the easiest way to end a conversation you don't want to have is to agree.  But if I am honest about it I didn't care what happened to him, how could I?  How could I spare one ounce of thought for someone else when my daughter's life hung in the balance?

As I have thought about this over the last couple of years, I searched for a reason to want to wish death upon him.  In my mind and in my heart though I couldn't do it, who am I to judge whether a person should live or die?  Certainly I hate and despise him but I would not take his life given the chance to do so.  I would never choose to take another person's life as it is not in my power to understand whether they truly deserve to live or die.  I sometimes worry that this makes me . . . strange or even bad.  I feel like it would be more socially acceptable to wish he was dead.

I am not a religious person by nature, in fact I can count the number of times I can remember being in a church on one hand, but I do believe that there is some higher power out there.  And if there is some higher power, what right do I have to judge another human regardless of what they have done?  If there is a higher power than humans, there must be a reason that this happened and that the person who did it will eventually have to face his deeds in a way that will be just and correct.

Perhaps this past has colored my aversion to violence and tools of violence.  I have come to have a very firm dislike of guns, knives, and other weapons.  I would never own such a weapon as I do not see the reason or meaning behind it.  I know that many feel security with having a weapon but I can't see that.  Weapons represent a source of danger for many, all it takes is one bad day to cause a tragedy.

~Syffin

Life Simulator

I am taking a class this semester at IUSB called C335 - Computer Structures.  In the class we are learning about assembly language and taking an in-depth look at how the CPU and other pieces of hardware work.  Now before I took the class I was really looking forward to taking the class because I was really wanting to mess around with assemby.  Now we are using Linux assembly and it is interesting.  The class has an overarching project that we are supposed to be complete.  We are using Kephra robots to help us learn assembly.  To that end we have been writing a simulated CPU in assembly to use with the Kephra robot simulation software.  Writing a cpu as software sounds difficult but really it is pretty straight forward.  All you do is define some memory for the simulated registers, define some memory for simulated memory, and then define a reasonable set of instructions.  Defining the instructions is certainly the bulk of the work here but again much isn't really that difficult.  Given this you would think I would have no problem getting this assignment done.  Unfortuneatly this hasn't been the case.  I have had an almost incapacitating aversion to working on this for some reason.  I couldn't seem to get any resolve to sit down and work on it at all.  Finally I just sat down and did a reasonable draft of the code and I think it is good.  At least it assembles and loads without error.  And it even executes into a seg fault.  I suppose the seg fault is a problem but at least it didn't error before I could run it.

In other nontechnical details, my daughter's birthday is coming up in a couple of days.  I got her a Nintendo DSi with three games.  I think I might go back and get a fourth game but I haven't decided.  I think she will like it.  Her mom and I are split up again, not suprising really.  We haven't really been "together" for a long time.  Perhaps too much has happened for that to ever work out.  Honestly I am too busy and too broke to deal with having a relationship right now.  School needs to be my priority and then probably my health.  I really need to lose some weight.  I am getting to a size where I feel pretty uncomfortable and I think I need to make a change to get back on track.  I use my busy life as an excuse but that really is just an out.  I have no good reason to be this way.

Of course I have been playing DnD a lot lately.  I feel like sometimes our group is backwards.  I always thought as you grew up and matured there would be less drama.  Unfortuneatly I feel like there is only more.  Constantly I feel at odds with my friend Beau because his friend wants to play but can only play every three weeks.  I personally think we have too many people playing DnD as it is but I feel like I am obligated to allow more players.  The same thing with my friend Jarad's girlfriend.  It appears she is going to play as well but again we will have too many players.  The more people that we try to add to our group the harder it is to run and also keep things straight.  Meh I just paused and sent out an email stating I don't want any additional players.  Probably people will complain but I just don't want to deal with it.  Sometimes it pays to be able to be coldly removed.

Defineatly excited about next semester, I get to take two different Politcal Science classes.  One is on War, Terroism, and Reconcilliation and the other is on West European Countries.  I really enjoyed my Intro to Comparative Politics so I am looking forward to these classes.  It's getting late but now that I have my room to myself I think I will be posting more.  I guess I better link a couple people to here as well in case anybody wants to actually read this stuff.

~Syffin

The Places Where I Study

Well currently I am sitting at Barnes and Noble using there lovely free wireless.  I find myself here about three times per week, sometimes more.  Something about bookstores really gets me in a good mood.  I love the smell of books (and also the smell of the Starbucks!) because it just feels right to me.  I always imagined that someday I would own a house that would have a library.  Just a room where I could keep all of my books on shelves and that would smell like a bookstore.  I find it very relaxing and it allows me to focus on what I need to do.

Today I have classes until 4:00 PM and then I have to head back to Ivy Tech to work.  I really enjoy my job at Ivy Tech and I am always glad to be there.  I am not sure if most people feel that way about there job.  I feel very lucky to have a job that I never really dread going to and in most casses I actually look forward to being there.  I have never really had a good idea of what I wanted to do, this job sort of fell into my lap and I have been very grateful for that particular piece of luck ever since.

I suppose one huge difference between my life now and my life before is that overall I am happy.  I think I have finally achieved some degree of balance and stability in my life which has made things much easier for me.

Today I have a test in my M260 class which is a math class that covers probability.  I am not sure how I feel about this class so far but it hasn't been too bad.  Some of it seems pretty inexact as I have a hard time determining what the question is asking.  I have been doing ok on the homework but the second quiz was kind of hard.  I really hope the first test goes better than the quiz did.

Perhaps I should get back to studying.

~Syffin

The Second Flight

Hey there!

Welcome to my blog, I hope you aren't totally bored reading my rather uninteresting thoughts and ramblings. I used to blog over at Livejournal (http://syffin.livejournal.com/) but after that died out I lost my blogging spirit. I feel like being a little introspective and also sharing some of what I am currently doing, reading, or just playing around with so I decided to dip back into the wonderful world of blogging!

I suppose it would be natural to give a little introduction in case you aren't someone who knows me in real life. My name is Matthew and I prefer to be called Matthew not Matt. I don't make a huge stink about it but I suppose as I have gotten older I just prefer it. Speaking of age I am 26 years old at this point and also I attend college. I have an Associate's Degree from Ivy Tech Community College in Computer Information Systems and I am working on my Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science with a minor in Political Science. I have a lovely 5 year old daughter who has given me so much inspiration and really helped drive me back to a productive path in life. I feel very blessed for having all of the advantages I do, and I work very hard to deserve them.

One major goal for this blog is to talk about the books I am currently reading or have recently read. I am an avid reader and I feel my tastes in books are rather diverse though I suppose I lean towards fantasy and science fiction over other genres but I do read other types as well. I tend to reread books a lot as well. I just finished a series and am going to jump right back in to that series from the first book and read it again just because I liked it so much and I hope to pick up on things I missed before. That is one thing about reading that I just love. You can reread most books and pick things out that you didn't see the first time.

In addition to this little blog I also seem to have accounts through a few other place like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and maybe a few others. I might get around to linking to those at some point in case anybody wants to read that though I really don't keep them updated very much. I intend to write in this blog at least once a week.

Well, that seems decent for an opening post so I will say good bye for now!

~Syffin

PS - Syffin is the name of a character I played in an online game called Everquest. It has become my online persona so while I don't actively play online games much anymore it just seems natural to use that name rather than make up a different one or use my full real name. For those of you who know about Everquest, Syffin was a halfling druid in the guild Tuatha de Danann on the Tribunal server.