Sup Schmeags. I’m immensely happy to say that I’m finished with school for the semester. For a variety of reasons that I will likely put in irrationally whiny upcoming post, I have declared a personal war with academia. Suffice it to say that I am oh so done with stupid classes and stupid professors.
Ok now that we’ve established I handle my problems with the maturity of a three-year-old child, let’s get on to some dank Alfredo. Sike! The internet has seen to it that this particular topic, which was at one-point dank Alfredo, is now no more than mediocre Marinara. However, seeing as I’ve essentially written myself into a corner in my last posts, I feel I must take on the mantle of a Basic Betty and address the shockingly average Marinara that’s just sitting in the corner of the metaphorical room.
What is the Marinara? Well, it is simply the fact that Grimes and Elon Musk named their child X Æ A-12.
Now this, as with most information about celebrities that makes them appear different than the cookie-cutter image thrust upon them by the media, caused quite a stir. Perhaps the funniest article I saw said that the name X Æ A-12 isn’t legal in California, so I’m just not sure what Grelon will do about that. As any of you who follow Elon’s doings know, Elon is becoming increasingly militant in his attitudes towards the state of California, so perhaps California declaring he can’t name his child X Æ A-12 will be the metaphorical straw that broke the camel’s back.
Now then, enough about important people like Grelon Musk, let’s talk about me. Why, after my explicit fawning over this pair of humans, do I regard this topic as lame Marinara? Well, I suppose one reason is that I’m bitter that I was wrong on all accounts. First of all, the child X Æ A-12 is a male, not a female. Furthermore, the child’s name is X Æ A-12, not Enza (short for Influenza). 0 for 2, Danny.
However, I also feel like at this point, by writing about this, I’m actively drinking some sauce that the internet swished around its mouth for a couple days and then spat back out. Also, it doesn’t help that literally everyone and their mother hates Elon’s guts right now.
Whatever. Actually wait a second… I feel something deep inside me stirring. Let’s take a trip down to my emotions to see what’s going on.
* Danny walks into the frightening halls of his emotions and is immediately assaulted from all sides by a militaristically passionate desire to deeply analyze the name X Æ A-12 and explore its implications. Danny wasn’t ready for such an attack and is sent reeling backward. Danny looks up, trying to make out the emotion that so violently assaulted him, only to be viciously backhanded in the face by either Rage or Fury. It happened too quickly to tell. Danny limps backward, trying to escape the halls of his emotions, when a sort of conscious smoke engulfs him and holds him back. As he struggles with the smoke, he hears the voices of his emotions behind him, speaking in chorus: “Remember our agreement: you don’t mess with us, and we’ll only occasionally launch strikes against your consciousness. Remember how little power you have against us.” At this point, Danny is expelled out the emotional halls and thrust back into the chair in front of his computer. *
Well that was entirely unpleasant. Nothing like being reminded that you have no control over your emotions at 8:42 AM on a Thursday. For the maybe two of you concerned readers, there’s no need to worry about me. I’ll regroup and launch a more complete attack against my silly emotions later today with the help of the more logical aspects of my mentality, and Thor-willing, we can get my emotions to sign a better agreement that gives me more power in our relationship.
Enough of that. Well, even if it went cataclysmically, my trip downstairs to my emotions did in fact inform me that even though by most standards, the topic of X Æ A-12 is chyme-like Marinara, I do in fact want to provide some level of discussion regarding X Æ A-12. So here I go.
The first and most pressing concern regarding X Æ A-12 is simply how to pronounce his name. From the information I have received by means a variety of shady sources, the name X Æ A-12 is pronounced “Ash.” Like, what? Either Grelon are trying to make an incredibly bold statement about the fluidity of language, or they’ve just entirely deaged themselves. Now I’m all for making up words on the fly, as anyone who has met me, or read this blog can attest. However, the entire purpose of doing so is the fact that I feel that the words I make up better describe the connotations I wish to impart that any sequence of characters in the dusty old Encyclopedia Britannica, and I’m fairly confident that people around my will be able to understand my new words based on context and word-construction.
What Grelon has done, however is much different. They’ve essentially said, “Here’s a lot of letters and this is how it’s pronounced.” It’s like me saying I named my pet Beta fish “DD-% 49 L,” which is, of course, pronounced “Bartholomew.” Wild stuff, blessed readers.
To some degree, this is ok because they are both influential/powerful people and have jurisdiction over the name of their child. On the other hand, they’ve entirely deaged their child because based on standard conventions, “X Æ A-12” is not pronounced “Ash,” as I think you may agree.
I think the only trap door out of this madness is for the child to simply go by “Ash.” Just as the Queen of England is the figurehead, and Parliament is the collection of bois that actually gets stuff done, so X Æ A-12 will be Ash’s name only legally, and he will otherwise be known as Ash.
Or, I mean, X Æ A-12 could start a new trend in baby-naming, and he could be the hipster-like entity in this particular field. I suppose we’ll just have to see. However, I will say that it would be pretty sick if the first Space Commander’s name is X Æ A-12. I would be ok with that.
Good heavens, it’s almost 9. I actually have a little call set up at 9 AM this morning, so I’ll have to take my leave. Also, now that it’s summer, I believe I’ll have significantly more time to devote to blog-writing. We’ll see. Sayonara!
[ Insert Greeting Here ] Yesterday, a certain fiery-haired force of nature sent some information my way that was altogether Earth-shattering. Not necessarily for me, but more so for XFA, which has latched on to a part of my brain and gained consciousness. What information could possibly be so important? Well, after a true whirlwind of emotion, it appears that Grimes and Elon Musk are in fact dating, and that Elon is in fact that father of Grimes’s child.
There are several housekeeping matters to which this information forces me immediately attend. Firstly, several posts ago, I made a heart-felt apology for wildly spreading misinformation regarding the nature of Elon’s and Grimes’s relationship. I would like to formally and forcefully revoke that apology, and may I add simply in spite that I was never sorry in the first place. Secondly, I believe I blamed one Lizzy Dube as being the source of this misinformation. Lizzy, while I have absolutely no reason to believe you have ever heard of an ex fizz assist, I feel inclined to formally apologize for casting such blame.
For then, let’s get to the juice. In this particular instance, the “juice” refers to me wildly speculating about this child that is about to enter the world.
A decent place to start regarding the child is its name. I don’t believe Grimes has said anything about the gender of her child, so I’m just going to say she’s going to be a girl for reasons that will become clear in a second. The internet has fallen into a mad fuss regarding the child’s name, and intriguingly enough, it appears that Grimes and Elon are rumored to name their child Influenza.
Now the truly unfortunate fact of the matter is that I know neither Elon nor Grimes personally, so I have no way to determine if these rumors are in any way true. For those of you down-to-earth readers who may be wondering why I’m choosing to believe the internet that Grimes is about to name her child after a virus, I have two responses. 1) If you have even barely watched Grimes talk about her life, you will know that naming her first child “Influenza” is exactly the sort of thing she would do. 2) It happens that I’m actually remarkably gullible in such matters, and as this particular matter doesn’t directly affect my day-to-day life, I’ll choose to believe what I want to believe.
Now then, there are naturally some logistical issues that arise when your child’s name is Influenza. Perhaps the most prominent is the awe-inspiring number of syllables in the word “Influenza.” Needing to pronounce a four-syllable word whenever you need to call your child is simply bad business, there’s no way around it. There is also the practical concern of your child being confused with the world-famous virus. This could lead to some messy misunderstandings when the child becomes old enough to want to hang out with other children her age.
What I’m getting at is that the child Influenza will need a darn good nickname. And from my perspective, there are only two logistically feasible options. The first is, of course, “Flu.” Yet while we’ve reduced the syllable count, we haven’t escaped the child-virus concern. This leads me to the second viable option: “Enza.” Now we’re cooking. “Enza” is a wildly compelling two-syllables long, and it has a dangerously cool vibe to it. If nothing else, it sounds like the female version of the Ferrari Enzo, which is one of the more majestic vehicles ever to grace asphalt. The formal nickname “Enza” will take this child from being confused with a virus to simply being the coolest kid in school. That is my humble prediction.
Now that the matter of name has been visited, it is now time to begin speculating about what this child may become.
The first and most obvious option is that Enza is destined to lead the Earth’s space fleet to Mars. I know, I know. This option is so painfully obvious that I sound like a Bleating Bethany for even suggesting it, but it had to be put in ink. In this particular reality, Enza will have absolutely trounced her peers in school from an early age and will have progressed to Collegiate levels by the age of 14. By the age of 15, Enza will have determined that college is a wild waste of time and start pursuing her own endeavors. Naturally, at least one of these endeavors will be in the realm of aerospace engineering. After showing her plans for the first fuel-less rocket to her father Elon, Elon will deem her to not only be in the top 1% of humanity but the top 0.1% intellectually and place her in a position of authority within SpaceX by age 20. Naturally Enza will outperforms even Elon’s high expectations for his workers, and it will become painfully clear that the only reasonable option for Enza would be to place her in command of the Space Fleet that SpaceX will have built by that time, and naturally Enza will be the one to lead said fleet to Mars.
Alternatively.
While I imagine having Elon Musk as a father leads to interest in sustainability and aerospace simply by osmosis, the simple fact of the matter is that Grimes will be this child’s mother. This will likely mean that Enza will be exposed to a diverse collection of art forms at a very young age and will likely also gain a much greater experience with different cultures than children her age.
This could obviously lead to Enza being a hugely successful artist in some capacity, but we must remember that Elon is her father and that technology is in her very veins. The natural speculation is therefore that by the time Enza is a teenager, she will have gathered a very good impression of the principal forms of sadness and suffering throughout the globe and will make it her passion to address these issues. Basically, imagine Bill and Melinda Gates, but much younger and more in touch with pop culture, and more relatable to the younger generation. Or, alternatively, Enza could become a Greta Thunberg-esk figure, but perhaps with greater technological experience.
I’m at a very modest three-and-a-half pages, put I’m hungry and I want breakfast, so Imma wrap this bad boy up. Basically, keep an eye on Enza. She may be your first world chancellor.
A most cordial Sunday morning greeting to each and every one of you! It’s wonderfully quiet up here at the top of Berkeley. Goodness, perhaps I’ll even take a walk today! Oh, the little blessings of life.
Well of enough of me sounding like a sixty-year-old woman. As the title suggests, I have entered into a thikk (“k” is making a comeback) code haze. My life hasn’t seen a code haze of this magnitude since I first worked on this very site.
Wait, hold on. There’s something far more important than my code hazes that I need to quickly address. I have been unknowingly lying to you, treasured reader, to myself, to the heavenly heights, and the depths below. Grimes and Elon Musk are not dating. Nor apparently, have they been since 2018. When I learned that this week, I wasn’t entirely sure what to think. I tend to pride myself on my ability to thoroughly stalk my celebrity crushes, so this revelation was a sickening blow to me in more ways than just one. To keep this post under 12 pages, I won’t attempt to properly convey the full extent of my disappointment about this information, but I would like to briefly explore how it is that I was so egregiously misinformed.
I’m going to blame this on Lizzy Dube. At one point this summer she mentioned Grimes and Musk being a thing, and I think that seed was so firmly planted in my mind that I was unable to fully accept any other version of reality. Lizzy, I have no reason to believe you read this blog, but if you do, I have no hard feelings toward you, and I hope you are having a lovely first year of college, but just know that you have sent my on a truly magnificent spiral of emotion with regards to Grimes and Musk’s love life.
*Deep breath in, deep breath out.* Ok then, back to the code haze. Now I know many of you readers may not understand precisely what I mean by “code haze,” so I will attempt to give you some idea by sharing my experience.
In working on the Super-Secret App project, many of you consistent readers may remember that I am actively having a love affair with React Native. Just to give a quick description, React Native is a coding framework that Facebook released a couple years back that allows you to write one codebase that deploys to both IOS and Android. It really is just lovely sauce.
Except for the fact that it is absolute anarchy in the form of JavaScript. What do I mean by this? Well, usually when I write code (in Java or Python of C++), I expect that each line I write will be executed one after the other. This is generally how programing languages work, if you’re not going crazy with multi-threading or multi-processing. With React Native, I have no fracking clue when the heck of my code is actually being executed. There are so many event handlers and lifecycle commands, I literally have no idea when anything is actually happening. If I want a button to take me back to the home screen, I just shove a bunch of logic into the button and hope and pray that it will all execute properly when I actually press the button. Anarchy, my friends, anarchy.
It also doesn’t help that I’m cripplingly perfectionistic about the User Interfaces (UI) I design. If a button isn’t rendering properly, or a View is in the wrong place, you best believe that I’m not going to move along blindly until that bad boy is fixed. The process of designing the front end is therefore: 1. Wrestle with the chaotic leprechaun that is your JavaScript codebase. Hopefully you were able to make a change. 2. Re-render your app using expo’s saucy, saucy development platform. 3. Take note that your struggles from step 1 actually had no effect on anything and start madly googling every word that you’ve ever learned. 4. Repeat steps 1-3 until magically, for no good reason at all, the UI renders how you want it to.
Hence, the code haze. This same exact thing happened to me when I was working of the XFA site. I think what happens is I notice some minor detail that’s wrong in the UI, and without even realizing it, I enter the madness of the above 4 step process before I can even say, “Linus Torvalds, be with me.”
I call this effect a code haze, because pretty soon, hours have passed, and I have no frikin clue if I have either a) accomplished anything or b) learned anything. My experience with XFA showed me that in the process of designing front ends, you basically just have to let yourself become one with the code haze, and eventually after maybe two weeks, everything will be exactly how you like it.
Shoot, that’s all I really have to say about that. After the skeleton of the front end is in place, I’m going to have to start playing shady games with Django and Apache Kafka to get the backend in place.
Oh wait, I just realized I have stumbled upon an opportunity to teach you non-coders some coding lingo! Yayyy! Just two terms. “Frontend” refers to the part of an application or piece of software that the user interacts with. This is the part of the app that you see and interact with. React Native is the framework I’m using to design the frontend of the app I’m working on. “Back end” refers to everything behind the scenes that is in place to send your phone the information that the app is going to render. So when you pull up a Snapchat story about Kylie Jenner, a request is sent from your phone to Snapchat’s servers (a server is a big, powerful computer) and the server has to look into its database and find the data that corresponds to the Snap story, and then the server streams that data back to your phone, where the front end renders it onto your screen. The incredible thing is that all of that happens in a fraction of a second. So the app you see is the frontend, and the server, the database, and streaming software is all part of the backend.
I’m not entirely sure why I thought that was necessary. Well, it has been written, and therefore can never be unwritten. One last thing: I ate proper Korean BBQ in Oakland two nights ago, and man alive, that meat is the sauce. If you haven’t partooketh in kbbq, you gotta.
Ok, I’m done. Bye.
Sup, pup. I neglected to write an XFA entry last night which was quite irritating because the whole point of this blasted site is for me to write an entry every night. Well no matter. I’ve already punished myself Dobby-style for my error, so hopefully it won’t happen again.
Now then, I really think the title says it all here. However, because I want to write more, I feel it would be prudent (and at the very least fair to you, my treasure reader) to give some context for my claim regarding the nature of music.
For the past few days, I have been alternating between working on the XFA site and learning QFT by means of Srednicki’s book. I feel a deep existential compulsion to do both activities because I am a fallen human, but today I thought it might be nice to take a wee lil break from my regular activities to try to write some music. I have been listening a copious amount Grimes’s works lately (which should come as no surprise to those of you who read my post about my tragic, unrequited, animal-like love for Grimes), and I have been feeling inspired to convert some of my emotions and experiences into audible sauce, namely music.
As a quick side note, I learned today that Grimes is pregnant with Elon Musk’s baby. I have of course joked with my friends that Elon Musk’s children will likely rule us all one day, but come on. Grimes and Elon? I’m not sure the world is ready for their child. I’m honestly not convinced we’ll be able to classify the child as a human being.
I could probably write several more posts (or novels) about the supernatural powers Grelon’s (couple name) child will have, but I know you’re just itching to hear more about my musical endeavors. Fear not, patient reader, I will oblige.
I began my music-making sesh (short, of course, for session) today by listening attentively to a metronome pulsing at 84 bpm. After I had deeply internalized the beat, I began searching for compelling chord progression using a built-in synth in Ableton. After a couple minutes I found an intriguing combination of chords involving a very tempting Eaug chord and deliciously moving E7 chord. At this point, I was bit lost as to how I ought proceed. I eventually decided to write a rhythmic line for the chord progression, and then do my best to find a sick, sick beat over which I would lay the chords. It took a bit to finally get all this in place, but I eventually slide the chords into place over a hip-hop-like beat.
And let me tell you, it was awful. Perhaps someone else may have enjoyed it, but to my ears it sounded like a lifeless pile of oatmeal sludge.
The interesting thing is that I have in fact written several songs in my day. In my experience writing music, either the music you have written is either dead, passionless, and nauseating, or it’s the emotional equivalent of injecting ecstasy directly into your veins. Either it is everything, the only true reality, or it is absolutely worthless garbage.
The piece of sludge I had written therefore neatly fell into the category of worthless garbage. This was, of course, discouraging, and I generally lost all motivation to continue birthing audible sauce.
But then I found the chord.
As a last-ditch effort to try to feel something, I grabbed a virtual violin section and played around with the chord pattern I had found earlier. And then I stumbled upon the Fmaj7. And that is when my dying emotions found salvation. Pure ecstasy, my friends, pure ecstasy.
Finishing the original chord progression with an Fmaj7 generated an emotion of intensive sorrow mixed perfectly with intense hope. How do I better describe the emotion? Let me give an analogy.
Imagine a military commander of a small nation is under attack from the Roman Empire. This particular commander is an absolute genius, but he knows that eventually his nation will be defeated by the greater empire and be forced into servitude. Nothing does this commander desire more than for the freedom of his nation, and so he orders a small portion of the population to flee into the wilderness away from the Romans. He knows, however, that if unimpeded, the Romans will overtake the refugees, and so this commander begins a series of strategically masterful attacks against the Romans to divert their attention from the refugees. After months of strategic genius, the Romans eventually break through the commander’s defenses. During the final battle of this war, the commander is stabbed through stomach, and slowly bleeds out on the battle ground while the Romans meticulously deconstruct the last of the small nation’s defenses. In his last moments, all the commander can see is destruction and chaos. Men lie slaughtered on the battle field next to burning defenses. It is a scene of utter desolation.
Yet the commander knows that because of his masterful campaigns, the refugees from his small nation have a chance at survival.
It is precisely the emotion of this commander in his last moments of life that is captured in chords I found.
I had been planning on going into a large-scale discussion of the analogous nature of writing music and organic life forms, but I am immensely tired, and I need to sleep. Perhaps some other time, potentially faithful reader. For now, I will end by remarking that music is indeed fundamentally powerful. It is truly remarkable that music “sounds” like emotion. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that music evokes emotion.
Because of perception of reality can generally be broken up into logic and emotion (I realize that’s an overgeneralization, but it’ll do for now), in order to fully communicate our perception of reality to another individual, you must convey both the logic and the emotion. Conveying the logic is easy. We have oral language and the written word. Conveying emotion is much more difficult, because emotion cannot easily be quantified. Thus it is truly remarkable that we are able to communicate emotions with one another by means of music. In that sense, music perhaps is as fundamental a tool to humans as the written word.
I guess that’s why I have so much respect for Grimes.
Grimes, or Clare, or c, or whatever the heck she wants to be called is really just the coolest kid in school. For simplicity, I shall heretofore refer to her by her common artist name, Grimes. If for some god-forsaken reason you are not incredibly familiar with the life and masterful works of Grimes, then I can assure you that your time would be much better spent listening to even a single song Grimes has produced than continuing to read this post. In fact, if you don’t know Grimes, I urge you to spend the next 30 minutes doing the following:
If you followed my patent-pending quick-and-easy four step process for falling in love with Grimes, and you have not yourself fallen in love with Grimes, I can only recommend that you take a moment by yourself in a dark room to genuinely ask yourself if you’ve entirely lost touch with your sense of humanity. Perhaps you have. If you find yourself to be one such emotionally-challenged specimen, please send me an email. I am deeply interested in what may have happened in your life that has so robbed you of feeling that you are unable to innocently fall into a deep passionate love for a random Canadian Artist you’ve never heard of.
I suppose that if you are actively married or in what my junior high teachers would refer to as a “dating relationship,” you are probably a bit apprehensive about purposefully trying to fall in love with a different person than your significant other. I understand your concern, but let me humbly submit that your situation actually gives rise to an interesting opportunity. Have your significant other go through my patent-pending quick-and-easy four step process for falling in love with Grimes. Now then, it is likely that you both are trying to hide your deep, romantic, passionate love for Grimes from one another to prevent each other from becoming jealous (or whatever feeling someone develops upon learning their significant other has romantic feelings for someone else). While it may be difficult, let me urge you both to share your feelings towards Grimes with one another. This conversation, while potentially difficult, will actually bring you both closer by uniting you both together under a common, powerful, mutual emotion for a girl you both will likely never meet.
Now then, since I have solved the “significant other” issue, you, dear reader, should have at this point allowed yourself to embrace a love for Grimes that you should hopefully recognize as entirely inevitable. Given that is the case, I believe my work here is done. Hasta la vista, mis amigos.