One huge philosophical qualm that comes with time travel is the tracking of self. Before we dive deeper into the matrix, I am going to assume that a) you believe in time travel and b) you believe that time travel produces a replicate version of yourself. If you do not prescribe, this would be a good time to go make a sandwich.
So you get bored one day, make a branch of yourself and send it back six months in time (or however long, time is not the issue here, even though it totally is). You are now concurrently living two lives but which one is your life? The short answer is both, the long answer is neither.
In order to regain your once singular self, you must to rebase your secondary life back into your master life, essentially just synchronizing or gluing your two pieces together. Of course, if you did anything differently in your new branch that you want to take into your master life, there will be conflicts.
Your job is to now individually choose the changes you wish to introduce into your master life. The issue here is that you are blindly and selfishly rewriting history…
So you get bored one day, make a branch of yourself and send it back six months in time (or however long, time is not the issue here, even though it totally is). You are now concurrently living two lives but which one is your life? The short answer is both, the long answer is neither.
In order to regain your once singular self, you must to rebase your secondary life back into your master life, essentially just synchronizing or gluing your two pieces together. Of course, if you did anything differently in your new branch that you want to take into your master life, there will be conflicts.
Your job is to now individually choose the changes you wish to introduce into your master life. The issue here is that you are blindly and selfishly rewriting history…
That was the beginning of an entry that I started to write while sitting in Cosmos last time I was in San Diego… never really got too far. I feel completely removed from everything that has happened in San Diego since that point. And I suppose before that point too.
So you guys don’t feel (respectively) the same, I thought I would update you on some small things in my life.
I have recently fallen in love with the drumbeat in Grizzly Bear’s Two Weeks. It totally makes up for the clipping piano and over exaggerated vocals. I think this admiration may be due to its similarities to Sigur Ros’ drumbeat for Untitled 2, though I haven’t really taken the time to map them out side by side. Maybe Sigur Ros and Grizzly Bear are two bands that I should have never compared.
People seem to draw strange relationships between musical artists. And when I say people, I mean iTunes. Because I “liked” Ok Bear (Jeremy Enigk’s newest humdrum solo CD), Steve’s jukebox recommends that I purchase OX by Coalesce, a metalcore outfit that sounds like a C- Norma Jean. I have only come to one conclusion about how iTunes could have related these two acts.
Coalesce are from Lawrence, Kansas – the same hometown as fellow emo-rockers The Appleseed Cast (who oft got criticized for their earlier work which sounded too much like Sunny Day Real Estate)1. Interestingly, The Appleseed Cast’s first band, December’s Tragic Drive, got their namesake from a Sunny Day Real Estate lyric, which Jeremy Enigk of course composed.
So the glue that holds these two bands together happens to be one of my favorite bands. Maybe this robot is smarter than I had originally thought?
No, I don’t think so. Even if the algorithm did play Six Degrees of Separation with Midwest rockers, it just isn’t helpful at all. I would much prefer if they gave me cliche comparisons like Lupe Fiasco and B.O.B, Cursive and Modest Mouse, Animal Collective and Atlas Sound or even – gasp- The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. You know, one really first-class group and its not-all-together talented replica.
I actually participated in one of these arguments last Friday when someone playing Rock Band chose to further mutilate Modest Mouse’s Float On. I made a comment saying that whenever I listen to Modest Mouse I realize that I should be listening to Cursive instead. It is these kinds of arguments that break up relationships, build two party political systems and, eventually, start wars.
But let’s be honest, Cursive could do dissonant harmonics way better than Modest Mouse. Hell, Mark Kozelek could do Modest Mouse better than Modest Mouse.
John Cage vs. Pre-Discovery Daft Punk, who is better!?
Speaking of The Appleseed Cast, I picked up Two Conversations on vinyl yesterday. I am not a huge fan of the new album art but it is such a great album that I could not pass it up. Also on my receipt was Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place by Explosions, Field Studies by This Will Destroy you, Hospice by The Antlers and Holy Ground by Mono, which is an absolutely beautiful 3,000 press run of a four disk box set + a DVD of their live performance with an orchestra. Score! I also picked up Remain in Light by the Talking Heads for Annie, it is by far their best effort. Oh and Chris, when I walked into the record store, this was playing.In a completely unrelated to topic (unless you are iTunes), I have no idea how Urban Outfitters got their dirty hands on the Radiohead In Rainbows t_o u/r sh ir\t_s, but they fit very well with the pre-packaged Beer Pong kits and mugs that read “Guido.” ANYWAYS, while browsing the general hipster ephemera with Peter, I spotted a beautiful jacket and an even prettier chair. If I ever get it, I will post pictures of how it looks in my apartment.
It just struck me; no one knows what my apartment looks like! Are there ICP posters adorning the walls? Do my over-priced knick-knacks worth? Is my furniture covered in peepee stains? Yes to all of the above.
Onto more minor details, after making bomb baked pasta (not to be confused with bong baked pasta) last night with Annie, she cut my hair FOR FREE. I figured if Raya could do it, Annie could do it. After all, Annie doesn’t have a Hitler tattoo2. This may not sound like a big deal to you guys but my last haircut in SF cost 70 bones. So staring at Annie’s chest while I sit on the toilet for an hour was a pretty good deal. Hmm, maybe I should buy her another record… SHE MIGHT LIKE COALESCE.
Oh Chris, let me tell you about my experience being an Electric Engineer. Every Friday we have a “Learning Group” at work, which is when one employee talks to all the others for an hour about any topic. The week before last was how to home-brew your own beer and this past week was about Microcontrollers.
A bunch of people bought Arduino kits and patched together an LED light that was then programmed with C and Python. It was entertaining to watch all these CS majors get frazzled by putting the basic circuitry together; a lot of them mentioned that they took ECE and EE classes in college but it was still difficult. Eh, circuitry still blows my mind.
This blog is getting ridiculous and I know that if it gets any longer, no one will read it so I should just stop now. So now it is your turn. Joe, I want to see your pictures of Shep. Mark, I want to know how your full-time job is going. Chris, I want to know if you sold my G.I. Jeep. I miss you guys so I want to hear what you have been up to. Pictures to share?
1) Also note that these two bands have both had members from Reggie and the Full Effect, which is (as we all know) The Get Up Kids’ post-break up act.
2) Although she has had her eye on Mussolini recently...
