LTMD – It is Friday, February 26th. The weather is warm and the sky is overcast. We’re still waiting for more rain but February is turning out to be very dry.
It has been a while since I’ve done an LTMD but I have a rare few hours all to myself, didn’t feel like biking, reading or cleaning so thought I’d get a post to you written.
Recently I’ve been doing a lot of “internetting,” which is to say exploration, learning and discovering on the internet. I’ve broken free of the usual mainstream sites and am surfing the web such as I did back in 1999. So far I’ve found the deep web to not be all that interesting. Instead most of the interesting sites I end up at are on the clear web. There are a number of YouTube videos on deep web exploration looking for the strange and weird, some sort of dark, hidden secret etc but I’ve found these videos to simply be sensationalist, only entertainment. Yes, there are bad things on the deep web where you do not want to click and I think it is these sites that give the deep web its reputation. The majority of it seems to just be an unfathomable amount of information, nothing particularly exciting.
What is exciting however is Virtual Reality. The experience is absolutely incredible and I’m excited for the day it becomes mainstream and thus can be used for really useful things! Right now it is a bit of a novelty and the phone doesn’t last more than 20 minutes or so in VR mode before needing to cool down so one cannot get lost in VR for long. My favorites at the moment are AltVR which is a social space where you have your own avatar, can port around and talk with people. However, there are never many participants in there and they’ll have to figure out a way to make it more interesting. The second thing I like is the exploration of the planets. It seems you’re floating in space looking directly at a planet and its enormity is astounding. This is a much better way to learn something than in a classroom with printed words and maybe a few pictures. VR has just begun so there is a lot of room for improvement. I often mention that you’ll be able to load up these very words into a hologram that looks just like me and I think VR has given me just a little taste of the absolute mind-blowing technological experiences which are to come.
I’ve also been spending more time on YouTube and found a fantastic channel called vsauce hosted by Michael. He explores how amazing our world actually is through a scientific lens. I love it when he touches on a subject that I can really relate to such as “messages for the future” which was about us sending messages into space to let whoever discovers them know that we existed. Well, this post and all LTMD are messages for the future, they are directed at you, my descendants, who may be reading, or listening, to these very words 50, 100, or 1000 years from now, the year 2016. It lets me know that I’m not crazy, or alone in this idea. The messages to space were for aliens or whatever humanity resembles in 25,000 years to let them know humans existed. This post is to let you know that I existed, had feelings, thoughts and that I daydream about you.
I am now 38 years old and for those far in the future reading this post I wonder what you look like and I wonder what you think of me. Perhaps I’ve been dead 100 years, or 200 years and you want to ask me a question. Go ahead and ask it, perhaps thought can transcend space and time and perhaps this question will come to me as I write this post, or perhaps it will appear in my mind during the early morning hours before the day clutters my head with all the tasks I must complete. I am trying to imagine you, and keep this deep thought experiment going but unfortunately the highly annoying dog next door keeps barking and is ruining my concentration. Not only that but work pulled me away for a moment here at the end of the day with an annoying question by someone who doesn’t know what they are doing.
Ok, I’ve resolved the problem at work and the dog has shut up. One great thing about the vsauce videos is that they are very effective in reminding me how much I do not know, how glorious, wonderful and mysterious this existence of ours actually is! One video is how do we know if any of this existence is actually “real.” I’ve been contemplating this question more deeply these past couple of years and I tell you it is down right exciting when combined with the discoveries in space and the internet where all human knowledge is available at my fingertips. I guess that is one of the reasons the deep web excites me so much is that it is just so full of knowledge and I’m constantly searching for answers. My search has only grown and the more I learn the more questions arise.
I really wish I could have a conversation with you but the further into the future this post reaches I’m sure you’ll look at me as rather primitive. Well, perhaps; I just saw a stone carving from the second millennium BC in my Lapham’s Quarterly (Eros) which depicted a couple having sex while a woman drinks beer. This happened over three thousand years ago from 2016 and it is something I’ve certainly done and enjoyed so perhaps some things stay the same, even after three thousand years. Perhaps you will read this post three thousand years from now, but I imagine the way technology is going you’ll have a drink that gives you a great buzz but without the hangover. Or perhaps you’ll look at us as absolute animals for in-toxicating ourselves. After all, why would we deliberately poison ourselves for a brief high when we know we’ll have to pay the price the next day?
Anyway, I really enjoy writing to you. When I write I’m in my own universe and can speak about subjects that really wouldn’t interest many of my acquaintances. I imagine that being my direct descendent you’ll be interested in who I was. This is another issue that vsauce brought up actually! Apathy and he used the example to ask someone to name 10 people from the 15th century. There were thousands and thousands of interesting people in the 15th century but most people cannot even name 10. This is another reason I’m only interested in writing these posts for my direct descendants; since we’re related perhaps you’ll be interested to know more about me?
In any case, these posts are a way for me to let everyone in the future know I existed and want to leave my mark.
I’ve got a streaming video to catch from an old friend so bye for now.
