Stony Brook Furniture

About a year and a half ago, my suite couch 2 seater broke (in every Kelly Quad Suite you get a three seater couch and a two seater couch) after a friend of one of my suitemate had accidentally broke it after he sat down on it, and no he wasn't that fat, he just sat down very VERY hard. At the time we thought it was no big deal, and that the couch would eventually get fixed and we'd have 2 couches again. So we put in the work order to get it fixed and waited. Weeks passed, and then eventually months pass, and still nothing, just a broken couch piled up in the corner of the room collecting dust. Eventually the fall semester ends and we still have no new couch. Ignorantly I assumed that when we got back the couch would either be fixed or we'd have a new one, and we could finally have more than 3 people sit outside in the suite without having to bring chairs in, but I was very wrong.

I move back in and the broken couch is still there. At this point I got very annoyed and me and my suitemates began repeatedly calling the RHD and repair services to get this couch fixed, even though they told us that if we kept calling to place the order that it was broken, the work order would be delayed. That wasn't the case because later that week we finally got a new couch, the only problem was, it wasn't that new. It was the couches they used before they got new furniture however long ago, so this beast of a seat has essentially no padding what so ever, and feels as if you are just sitting on a pile of wood. We eventually tried to get it swapped with another two seated couch from another suite, but this was when we realized that the other couches don't fit through the door (how they got them in in the first place is beyond me because I don't think they built every couch in every suite.) So yeah, it's now a year later and we still has this wooden monstrosity and to be honest, I believe that couch will be hear until it breaks.

Polluting the Blogosphere

For my first blog entry, I’d like to take the opportunity to share my oppinion of blogging in general. In short, I am not a fan. In order for a writer to create good works, he must keep his target audience in mind. For my part, I have no clue who will be reading this blog. Who in their right mind would be interested in my random thoughts and complaints? Am I writing a blog for my self, as a personal record of my ideas? If so, why post it on the internet? Am I writing for the amusement of some random web surfers who might happen to stumble upon it? If so, prepare to be unamused. I don’t know that I have anything I would like to share with the nameless, faceless conglomerate of users that is the internet. Another complaint that I have about blogging is the faux-personal relationship it creates between the author and the reader. As if reading ones blog will really help you get to know someone. I know there are some bloggers out there that share every detail of their personal lives with the entire internet. That doesn’t create a personal relationship with the readers of such a blog, all it does it devalue the “personal” aspect of the writers personal life. If its personal enough to really tell you something about me, it doesn’t belong bouncing through cyberspace. If you really want to know what I’m about, don’t read a blog post, just talk to me like a human being. In my opinion, looking to a blog as a means to get to know what someone is all about is rather insulting. It’s like saying “You seem really ineresting, and I’d like to get to know you better, but not enough to actually, you know, like TALK to you.” That said, even if no one out there cares to read what I have to say, and I don’t care who’s reading it, this might prove to be an interesting exercise. I’ve never done well with keeping a journal, and it might be helpful to get some of the thoughts in my head out in some form. Perhaps my ideas will clarify a little in the process of posting them. If not, prepare for a blog that’s as vague and confusing as what’s in my head, as I exchange the echo chamber of my mind for a larger echo chamber of the internet.

“what if you knew the most intelligent answer? are you capable or ever justified to decide against it?”

-a friend of mine posted on his facebook status. i read this and immediately began to funnel through thoughts. To begin simple, i thought about a current predicament i had been placed in.

I am set to graduate this May, with a mere 11 credits keeping me from walking the stage. Enrolled in three 3-credit classes and an internship, I anticipated a relaxed semester. On the contrary, within the first week of classes I found myself overwhelmed with time management difficulties. After much thought, the decision to drop a class and prepare myself for a CLEP exam became conclusive. In this scenario I felt that I made the “most intelligent” decision.

However, when I questioning a wider debate, my decision became hesitant. What constitutes the “most intelligent”? Let’s say a company was constructed to develop green technologies, such as solar panels and wind turbines. The company plans to reduce use of nonrenewable resources and promote a “greener” environment. However, to accomplish this, the company must destroy much on the environment that will be irreplaceable. The development of the company will damage the very Earth it plans on saving. So what then? What is the “most intelligent” decision? To allow the company to destroy the environment to save it?

Machiavelli’s idea of does “the end justify the means” comes into play here. If in the end the outcome is positive, does doing “wrong” initially justify the outcome? The whole idea of “most intelligent” decision baffles me to no end. We have morals and opinions that change our decisions. And so we have debates and arguments, which eventually escalate into fights and wars. But this is because we are human, with individualized thoughts.

So what about AI? Suppose artificial intelligence gets to a point in which androids are capable of making their own decisions. As a robotic mechanism, it’s decisions are made solely through its computations. A series of algorithms are in input into the computer system. Given the situation, the artificial intelligence acts accordingly to the scientifically “most intelligent” decision. Therefore, does a computer’s intelligence truly constitute what is really the best and most intelligent decision?

When it comes down to it, it is the human that programs the artificial intelligence. So the ultimate decision the computer decides upon is an extension of the programmer’s decisions. Does that make it the right decision? Furthermore, is there ever a “right” or “best” decision? We must consider who the decision affects when making the decision. If the decision only affects the decision maker, then sure, he/she can make the “best” decision. When the decision affects a wide target or the environment we must reevaluate the outcomes.

Departure and Arrival

I like traveling. I like the feeling of departure. My body and my mind just escape from the place where my identity is shaped by certain social norms. I become a different person in a different place. Travel is a good way to face different me. I am studying abroad now. I am living in a whole different country where culture is completely different from my own culture.

It's a fourteen hours flight from Seoul to New York. This flight changes my life completely different. When I land at JFK airport, I dispose my identity as a Korean and get a new identity as a foreign student in the U.S. This transition occurs in no time. As soon as the plane lands, I start to speak a different language, meet different people, and eat different foods.

I love this transition. I feel like this transition gives me a chance to live with different identities. I can be a different person depending on where I live. To me, departure and arrival are means of having different identities.

How did we manage?

Thinking back as elementary school kids, I feel that anything seems to amuse us. I remember when I was 8 I wake up earlier to watch Saturday morning cartoons than to get to school. Now we have more advanced game consoles, new shows, more media on the web, etc. Even with all these luxuries we didn't have back in the past we still tend to feel bored. This leaves me to question how did we possibly survive as kids? We can spend hours browsing through youtube or downloading movies but none of this was possible in the past. I mean we use to use America Online for god sake. The thought of going out to rent these movies or borrow them from the library makes me chuckle when we can easily find access to them now. I use to make this retarded look on my face as I stare at the cover of my favorite movie and now I just walk pass the covers of blu-ray discs. I guess it justs goes to show no matter how much you cherish something now, as time past the affection you placed onto it is nothing more than a kid appreciating his parents for forcing brussel sprouts down his mouth because it is good for him? o.0

A New Team

Basketball has been something that I have enjoyed playing ever since I was a little kid, as far back as I can remember. This continues to this day. I have also enjoyed watching basketball just as much. My dad used to take me to Knicks basketball games when I was growing up, which is part of the reason why I am such a huge Knicks fan. It's something that I grew up with, and was part of society. Even in the school I went to, kids and even teachers wore Knicks apparel to school when they won. They were the hot topic, and anybody who was anybody followed them.

The Knicks used to be a great team in the 1990s. They used to have epic battles with the Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat. But with the turn of the millennium, the Knicks became a really bad team. In fact, over the past decade, the Knicks were known as the worst sports franchise over the entire decade. As a huge basketball fan in New York, it was really discouraging to see this happen to the home town team. But this year, the Knicks are turning around their team. They are actually doing well relative to the past 10 years. Basketball is back in New York, and its something that every New York basketball fan has waited so long for.

People always ask me why I take sports so seriously; why I get so angry when my team loses or so happy when they win. It's something that I just cant explain.