The Bloj

Why are most computer/video games about killing people?

Posted on October 31st, 2007 by Chris.
Categories: Chris, Games, General/Misc..

Video game violence is a popular topic among politicians and the media. Typically, every time there’s a school shooting or a new release of Grand Theft Auto, senators and congressmen will make a fuss about it for as long as it gets attention. And when you look at some video games, it makes sense; video games seem to contain an unusual amount of violence. Why?

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What’s the maximum number of people that could live on the Earth?

Posted on October 29th, 2007 by Chris.
Categories: Chris, Food.

A recurring theme in society is that of food shortage. Thomas Malthus is now mainly known for his theory that population growth would outstrip food supply. [0]

As it turned out, human beings are good at making lots and lots of food. [1] But the question is still interesting; what’s the absolute maximum capacity of the Earth?

1. Energy

How might we calculate this number?

One possibility is this: energy consumption. If a human being needs 2000 kCal/day to survive at a normal level, that energy must come from somewhere; but where?

The sources of energy on the Earth itself can be used up; coal gets burned, oil is spent, uranium is fissed. Almost all new incoming energy must originate from the Sun, the Sun produces 1.740×10¹⁷ watts of power. [2]

Google thus identifies the maximum number of people we could ever support with only the earth: 1.79655832 × 10¹⁵ people. [3] This doesn’t take into account crowding or energy efficiency, but we can know with absolute certainty that without a change in the human species or space colonization, it is impossible to get past this number, which is incidentally about a million times the current population of Earth.

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Sure, Vista will run - just don’t use any games or apps

Posted on October 26th, 2007 by Chris.
Categories: Business/The Software Industry, Chris.

 From Dell’s site - mirrored here in case they decide to change it.

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Become better without suffering.

Posted on October 5th, 2007 by Chris.
Categories: Chris, Philosophy.

Many of us have heard this since we were kids, heard it from elders and from teachers. Why would suffering make us into better people?

I recently had a visit from a friend who was going through a difficult time, with both a career change and personal problems. Through watching him over the few weeks he was here, I observed that he became deeply involved in the teachings of Buddhism, and absorbed information from a tremendous amount of books, analyzing his condition and thinking about how to change it.

It’s a simple observation: When times are hard, we work to change them. We become more observant, we are more willing to try things to get out of our condition.

When we aren’t suffering, we forget to look around us and find ways to improve our lives, or fix things that are currently wrong.

The lesson from this:

The most important time to think about where we are in our lives is not when our lives are going badly, but when they are going well, because that is the time we are most likely to forget.

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