We live in scary and uncertain times. The pandemic is raving on and a lot of harsh decisions has been made to at least slow down the spread of it. Despite all this I'm hopefully looking forward towards the new world that will emerge from all this. This is a good, but hard lesson we need to go through.

Just like with any tragedy, surviving through it gives assurance that we can handle such situations. It shows that we can work together and support each other in these times. There has been a lot of good things comping up when people start to help others around them.

Brain-computer interfaces are already a reality, even though still a primitive ones. They mostly rely on weak signals to interact or enhance different things. But we are still far from being able to transmit any complex information directly to our brains.

While we might understand the basic concepts of how the brain works there is still a long way to understand enough of it be able to for example "write" into it directly. And even then it would most probably be analogous to writing to a traditional hard disk drive with a magnetic needle by hand.

What we see with our own eyes is what we accept as real. But we can only see up to a limited distance. We can extend that distance with optical devices like binoculars or telescopes. With them we can see surprisingly far in other places. With a good telescope even so far that we can see things relativistically from other times as well.

It's extremely easy to share all kinds of information today. That's a good thing when sharing something important and meaningful, but there is also the downside of information becoming so abundant it's hard to filter out all the irrelevant.

It's nice to give status updates to the people who you care and who might be interested in your wellbeing. Especially in these kind of times. It's good to share your knowledge so others can also benefit from that knowledge  helping them understand and do things on their own.

I haven't written this early for a while now. Somehow I have reverted almost completely writing in the evening. Not always the last thing I do for a day, but usually pretty close.

Even though it's only 20 minutes since I woke up i manager to go through a vast list of excuses not to write yet. The most common one of course being one of them as well: not hawing anything to write. 

Just s hint that everything might not be just like normally and suddenly completely normal and rational individuals fall into primal instincts. The pandemic has caused a trigger on many people to start hoarding essential goods like there is no tomorrow. Or ay least the delivery trucks wouldn't return to restock those empty shelves every day.

The world will not be the same no matter how this pandemic will turn out. After the dust settles in we will be living in a different world. For some, the change might be bigger while others appear mostly unaffected. But the change is still there. 

Much of the change won't be anything radical. It will be something that would have happened anyway, just over s bit longer period of time. The  social distancing we are forced to go through could make a lot of things stick. Digital services can (further) replace social gatherings. Virtual presence might become more desired.

It might not be the most appropriate time to play Pandemic the boardgame now that the actual pandemic is upon us. And not only due the topic might be a bit sensitive but also because we have now almost finished the campaign. So if there is going to be any quarantines we can't entertain ourself much with it anymore. Luckily it's not like we'd run out of boardgames to play anytime soon.

Modern has it's roots in latin word modo meaning "just now". But almost everything that is named "modern" today refers to something relatively old. 

Modern is so inflated that there is actually another term in history defining more closer to current day events than what's thought of "modern history". Yet, even this contemporary history (or current history) spans back to the last century.

Ever since the advent of computers people have waited for those machines to start thinking. To become equals to us. Despite the incredible advancements made since and how much it can feel like they do, a real thinking machine is still far away. Or is it even possible in the end.

Today's state of the art machine learning models might yield impressive results. But at the core, there is no real intelligence in play. It's just layers upon layers of clever programming. The end results are mere manifestations of what we have told the machine to do.

As I told earlier our washing machine was having some issues with the bearings. After I managed tear it down to pieces I was faced almost impossible task of actually removing those bearings. They were become extremely tightly stuck up there. Unfortunately I didn't have the appropriate "fine-tuning" tools at hand at the time so I had to give up. Round one went to the machine.

It's quite common these days to have information available in audio or video form. There are countless podcasts and tutorial videos out there you could watch or listen to learn new things.

I'm sure they work for many, but they just aren't for me. Only exception maybe being tutorials to do something when actually seeing how it's done helps me to grasp it. And even then I'd usually prefer pictures.

Just an idea might not be enough to write a full post. It might feel like it, but run short after few sentences. Or it could be I don't have enough knowledge yet to write about the topic.

Following rules and best practices can be overdone. For example it's good to write shorter sentences. But making every sentence as short as possible makes the text sound like a telegram STOP

It's funny how I have been writing about writing so many times without being too excited about it. Often it has  been just because I didn't have anything else to write about at that moment. Now it has been quite a while since the last one of those. And this one actually isn't yet another of those either. This time I actually wanted to write about it.

One of my aims has been becoming better at writing. I also like learning things and promised to focus more on those learnings. So obviously it's only right to write about the one thing I'm constantly focusing on learning more.

1173 is one those few numbers that don't have anything special about it. Despite how it looks, it's not even a prime number!

Extending further from mathematics there still doesn't seem to be much of anything interesting about it. There wasn't anything meaningful happening in that year (in any common calendar systems). Even Google mainly offers results where 1173 is just a page number among others.

Our trusty washing machine started to keep weird sounds while running. After giving a few manual spins for the drum it was apparent the bearings weren't at their prime condition anymore. After thirteen years it's not a surprise.

It would have been a shame to replace otherwise perfectly functioning machine so after s quick googling I found suitable replacement parts. And assurance it should be doable by anyone who isn't all thumbs. So I placed the order and started sharpening my tools.

We humans are highly self-conscious individuals. Despite the need to work as a hive mind to accomplish greater things we like to keep ourself closed and intact. At it's core we thing we reside completely inside out heads, in our brains. Even in the broadest sense we keep ourself limited to our physical body.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could transmit our thoughts to other persons by the power of our minds. If there were some invisible force that could be used to carry our thoughts. Maybe convert those thoughts into waveform through a specialized organ or something.

For an outside observer missing an organ capable of sensing these vibrations such communication would appear supernatural. On the other hand, to everyone else having the appropriate organs it would be just normal.

If we observe an individual ant we see an insignificant insect. Not capable of much of anything on it's own. But a colony of ants are known to build vast structures. The sheer effort and coordination insects like ants can demonstrate building something that complex is a proof of hive mind. Intelligence far beyond any individual member of the collective.

Us humans think of ourself as highly individual beings. We are obviously intelligent, capable of doing complex things on our own. 

I know I could just enjoy all those shows I watch as is. They are just entertainment, a means to pass the time (or waste it). If only I'd leave it there.

I just want to know more. What is beyond that which is shown on the screen. The vast world behind the stories. Some of them is written, available out there. Most of the time it's the showrunners that had to extend the works to make it span enough episodes.