So I don't have a Tumblr (yet), but I thought I'd show you guys a neat gadget that I found someone posted from that site. Here's the blog it originally came from

And if you're curious, here's the real original source. I actually found it when I was I was using Firefox's "Inspect Element" feature to find the flash object code to paste into my blog. I saw the url linking to this guy's site, so I thought I'd actually link to their page.

Toying With HTML and CSS

So you might have noticed a change in the way my blog looks. I've actually been toying with blog customization. A good friend of mine wants help customizing her blog. I've never really toyed with customization before. However, I know that you can do customization with HTML and CSS. That's actually what's going on with my blog. I'm using HTML tags and css to customize my blog.

I'm having a lot of fun messing with this, and I'll probably talk about it more and offer some suggestions on customization.

The Internet, Social Media, and Society

So I've kinda noticed something about the Internet, particularly Facebook. Maybe I'm just imagining things, but it seems like people on Facebook and the Internet have been a lot more honest in voicing controversial opinions. So I have to ask if the Internet is making people braver.

One thing I've thought of with cultural revolutions in that they rely on strength in numbers. The more people there are voicing an opinion, the less likely it is to get silenced or ignored.

As I was thinking about this earlier today, I wondered something. Does Facebook attract a braver and more bawdy audience, or does the influence of Facebook make people braver and more honest? The answer's probably somewhere in between. That is, you have brave people start the trend, but one it starts it spreads like wildfire.

So what does this mean for the future of humanity? I don't know, but I'll be watching with anticipation.

Online Friends Are Valuable To Me

So I've heard that having friends online becomes less of an issue of having real conversations and more an issue of showcasing your life. I dunno about that. Can online relationships replace face-to-face interaction? No. Does that mean that the relationships you form are any less meaningful? I don't think so. I think I've formed many valuable friendships online. Let's review them, shall we?
I have friends from all over the country that I play Castle Age with. I'm part of a guild with them. We have a guild chat. I consider them family. Even after I was away for months, they never kicked me out of the Guild. They even seemed pretty happy to see me again. Yes, they remembered me.
Another valuable set of friendships I've earned has been on the FSTDT Forums. The forum is well moderated and the members are really smart and funny. We even have an IRC channel where we all hang out. I highly enjoy our friendships, and maybe I'll even meet some of them one day.
Of course, one of the most realistic chances I'll have for meeting online friends is through my Nebraska Bronies group. I'll only have to go across the state to meet most of them. One of these days I'll have to attend a meetup. Better yet, I may be able to attend a con[vention] one of these days. The people of the group are really awesome, IMO.
I think there's a reason they call it "social" media. You're supposed to use it to be social. I personally find the friendships I have forged to be very special, and I wouldn't give them away for anything.
I think what I said in the statewide brony group a few weeks ago sums up my feelings about online friends:

This group has got me thinking about a good episode idea.
I live in <location redacted>, so I can't really "attend" meetups. However, just talking to you guys through the group page has been a wonderful thing. I almost want them to do some kind of "pen pal" episode where the moral is "True friends aren't defined by distance." or something similar.

Granted, I'm dealing with DIGITAL pen pals instead of pen-and-paper pen pals, but I think the concept still remains.

Littlest Pet Shop

This post is going to be fairly short. I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed watching Littlest Pet Shop this morning. It's quite amusing, and I found myself belting out a hardy laugh several times while watching it.

Oh yeah, by the way: Animaniacs is back on The Hub. Huzzah!

Internship

So I'm getting a bit of real world experience, guys! Yep. I'm interning for my hospital as a programmer. I've already learned a lot from one 40 hour week. Heck I've gotten so used to the idea of working that I actually woke up several times this morning. Each time I had to remind myself that it was Saturday.

My coworkers are very nice people and very smart. I enjoy my interactions with them and very much so feel like they've enriched me. I've also developed several good work habits that keep my mind sharp and my code nice. Speaking of code, I'd just like to say that I'm fairly certain my code is more whitespace and documentation than it is actual lines of code. After all, what good is code if it's not readable and understandable? Honestly I especially like commenting. You can review and clean up your code and reinforce your understanding of the code as you step through it again.

Anyway, this has been sitting in my draft folder for hours now. I'll just post it for now.

Friedrich Nietzsche Is Awesome!

Okay, so as you can see from my title, I'm about to talk about someone who's very controversial. Well, I think he is anyway. My judgment might just be clouded by those who are so dogmatic that they love to bash Nietzsche for being a dirty nihilist or whatever. I guess nonreligious people worship him or some crap like that. However, I'm not focusing on his beliefs right now. Well, I am in a sense. I'm just going to try to do it in a relatively thoughtful manner.

Okay, so why do I love this man so? It started with a quote that I have for the longest time loved.

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

Now, I never knew that the quote was by Nietzche. I just loved it because of how it addressed the hypocrisy of man in dealing with their enemies. Whether through war or just...Internet behavior, really. I can think of countless times in which people who are fighting against a real or perceived injustice have stooped to the level of the people they're supposed to be countering. In a single elegance of two sentences - though to be fair I was a bit more familiar with the first one - Nietzsche perfectly reminds us that we must watch ourselves to not become like those we are fighting against when we perceive the other sides actions as "wrong" or "evil."

Now, I thought "So what else has Nietzsche said, if this quote I adore so was apparently by him?" Well, he has a lot of wonderful quotes, or so it seems. Yes, I realize I'm linking to "The Quotations Page" again and that technically without digging up outside quotes I'm only going off of what they say (I just learned that apparently a censorship quote by Mark Twain is but mere urban legend). However, I'm willing to bet that most of the quotes are accurate (and I could do more research later to check this).

Do I agree with all the quotes? Not necessarily. Can I confidently say that none of the quotes are quote mines that change meaning in a bigger context? Nope. Not unless I find the original work, that is. That's just the thing though. Now that I am aware of the fact that he's said some neat things, I'm willing to find some kind of literature that focuses on him more to learn more about him and his philosophy. After all, he is was a German philosopher. His insights on some issues has piqued my interest.

Now about the controversy bit. Nietzche did say God is dead. I think it's one of his most quoted (or quote mined) - and most attacked - quotes. That's it. Three words with zero context. Now maybe someone could argue that there is no context, but that contradicts the cite note on the page I linked to. If you click, you see that it's from "Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, section 108." Hell, I'm not even sure what he means about "The Gay Science!" Gay in his time did not have homosexual connotations, so I can't be sure what he meant without getting the source and seeing context. Rather than harp on the quote or trot it out as evidence that "religion is stupid" or whatever, I'd rather learn what he meant. At the very least, I'd like to try to understand what he meant to the best of my mental capacity!

So yeah. He may be controversial. I can accept that. You've heard of the phrase "One man's trash is another man's treasure." though, right? Well for me it's more like "One man's controversial is another man's fascinating."