Discrimination isn’t great. That much is obvious to most people.
Isn’t it strange, then, that it seems like most people will indeed discriminate against others if they are in the majority? That is, people that might be discriminated against for whatever reason in one location will discriminate others when they’re somewhere else.
What is within man that we do such things? Is it egocentricity? Original sin?
Have you ever realized that there are so many things that you do not know? I mean, even besides the things that humanity doesn’t know (e.g. the cure to any of a whole slew of diseases, the details of all of the other planets and galaxies, where Amelia Earhart is), there are things that you just don’t know like how to program a complex program, how DNA works, how to create a bookcase from a tree, how to cook a perfect turkey for Thanksgiving, and the list goes on endlessly.
So in life, we’re always learning. You’ve probably heard that it’s pretty good for you to learn something new everyday. And I concur, that’s a great thing. Having an open mind, being amazed, willing to be taught. It’s all swell!
I’m interested, though, in how there are differences to learning. There is the kind that we learn because someone has taught us (i.e. in the classroom setting at school), but there is also the learning that comes out of a totally different intelligence/mind set. While the former is good, I’m apt to think that the latter is even better.
Newton, Socrates, Einstein among a few all had to come up with things on their own. They used logic, research, and intuition to arrive at the results that we now know all about today. And while there are many things that have been figured out already, it’s still pretty good for someone to separately arrive at the correct solution without having been taught it explicitly. At least I think so.
So do you know anyone that solved the Rubik’s cube without looking at the answer? Yeah me neither. Give the people that figure it out on their own their due.
While many of my readers are totally uninterested in the fact that I program computers, the fact remains that I do what I do. And thankfully I enjoy it (well at least most of the time). Geeky as it sounds, I’ve also found that I kind of like to occasionally participate in programming contests.
I participated in the last Google Code Jam in 2006, but I didn’t fare all that well. Of course, that might also be because I decided to open up the problem and then go eat lunch after reading through it. And did I mention that I only got an hour to work on it once I opened it? I could have at least solved that problem! I only needed 5 more minutes! Although, I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t have solved another so I still wouldn’t have done very well.
Anyways, to make a long story short, I enjoy programming. And programming contests like this can be fun! I’m currently trying out some of their practice problems, and I’m going to go with Python as my language of choice (last time I went with C++).
I don’t particularly have high hopes for how well I can do, but it’s still fun to try! It’s free, and fun (for some people).
Update: I suck! I solved one problem’s (Train Schedule) small input, but I couldn’t quite get another problem (Saving the Universe) to work correctly. However since they don’t test the large input until the end, I found out that my large didn’t pass! And that means that I do not move out of the qualification. Boo to me.
In a world that advances in technology, conveniences, and all sorts of other benefits, it is comforting to know that some things do not change. No matter where we go, no matter how high we fly, awkwardness will never leave us! Oh hooray!
More than that, it seems like things are getting worse. What with the age of the computer upon us, our social interactions are changing rather dramatically pretty quickly. Children, instead of playing with the other neighborhood kids, will play games online with strangers they’ve never actually met. And while I am not opposed to playing games (I’ve played a game or two myself), you must admit that it is changing things up. Instead of being active, we’re watching more television. The list goes on and on.
Even beyond childhood, we are maintaining our relationships through this newfangled phenomenon called the Internet. On websites for all sorts of topics and aims, we are interacting with people in a whole new way. We consider people that we’ve never met in real life our friends. We spend countless hours writing on blogs (kind of like this one!). You get the point. I don’t think that these things are bad in and of themselves, they are bringing our society to a place where social skills are declining.
On a related but slightly different note, is it just me or has the word awkward encroached everyday conversation over the past few years? And somehow, I don’t think that helps fight against the awkwardness. While it does seem amusing at times, I’ve grown to dislike it quite wholeheartedly. Perhaps it’s because any amusement is always coming at someone’s expense. Someone who usually cannot afford to be laughed at. Or maybe it’s because I’d much prefer if everyone were comfortable instead. Whatever the reason, awkwardness is no good.
Or am I the only one?
I, for one, am very amused by children. Of course, I’m also amused by a lot of other things. So I guess simply because I’m amused by something doesn’t make it noteworthy. And yet here I go writing about what I’m amused by.
Courtesy of Flickr user Kristi-san
With children, I think that I can break down my amusement to the fact that they are new to the world. They haven’t lived in society for the years and years that adults have. (Of course, that relates to this comment on a previous post.) So for lack of all of those years of social influence, they are new to the world. They aren’t jaded because everything is fresh. The ocean is huge, the mountains so tall, and everything is worthy of a question. And in addition to that, they are much more free about doing and saying things. That is, they aren’t inhibited because they don’t even know that they should be inhibited. So they’ll run and have fun, pick their nose when they feel a booger, and say what they think about people. Even when it’s inappropriate.
While I’m amused by all of this, it’s also likely because I don’t have to deal with my own children. Because…I don’t have any. Yet. Haha but really I’m positive that it can get old to parents when their kid(s) are acting up endlessly. Oh boy I can’t even imagine!
Courtesy of Flickr user blondie478
And while I enjoy this child-like charm, (as the title suggests) I don’t actually like it when people are acting childish. What’s the difference? Well in my terms, childish usually applies to those traits of children that are very undesirable. I think of things like throwing temper tantrums, being self-centered, not knowing when to be serious, and other such pleasant attributes. And while children obviously do this, I think that I’m even more turned off when I see it in people that should know better: adults.
In them, I find it to be such a turn-off. And I’m not just talking about in girls. When I meet a guy that acts childish, I’m almost immediately turned off to ever wanting to be friends with him. Childishness just shows (to me) a lack of maturity that is more and more exaggerated the more I’d expect them to be mature. They say that with age comes wisdom, but that, unfortunately, isn’t true for everyone.
So it all comes down to this: I want to continually be child-like and grow to never be childish!