coding=ruby/java? And H.P. Lovecraft went missing

coding=ruby/java? And H.P. Lovecraft went missing

The day is almost over and now I am sitting at home after doing away another crazy workload which might have solicited a scream out of any lesser man or woman.
It's time for me to run my fingers across the keyboard and practice dumping the drudges sunk deep within the bottom of my mind to the white planes of the digital space, in preparation for another long night of typing reports and working towards my magnum opus that might someday win me the official mantle as a certifiable mad scientist. It's great to be able to keep a web page for just such a purpose, since there's something about being able to write in a nearly ubiquitous and publicly accessible space that simply jotting down notes and pictures on private notebook or notepad (I use the darkroom program, btw, it's a marvelous piece of software you should try if you haven't already) doesn't have. Writing down some details of personal life in public space like this has its downsides, of course, like the weird look I get time to time after posting particularly strange posts about things that may or may not exist, but it's a facet of life that I've come to accept as normal and usual, and possibly something that most of humanity participates in some form. Yes. I do believe that beneath the prim and proper appearance of the polite society lies the crazy impulses irrational fears and obsessive pursuits that would have frightened H.P. Lovecraft out of his hide. I think it's called the human nature.
Writing like this helps me to get in the mood for some more serious writing that I actually have to think about what I'm going to say, the kind of writing that important people read and decide how much money they'll give me to let me do what I've been dreaming of doing for years. I think it's the same case with most creative writers out there. The best and most often given advice from an experienced writer to younger people just starting out tend to be along the lines of "shut up and write." Too many people talk and think and plan about writing, some of them their whole lives, without committing much if anything to actual paper. The best writings are usually products of the freewriting exercise, they say. Writing without restrictions or even goals. Just writing about anything and anything that goes through you mind at the moment.

As I've written before I'm trying my hand at studying android os, and picking up some java skills on the side. It's a venture that cannot go bad, that will have to serve me well at some point in the future provided that I stick with it long enough (and I usually do stick with things long enough, a positive trait that pulled me through some rough situations in my life so far). The process is going well. I've done the requisite hello world equivalent programming on the android platform already (mine was actually close the world open the nExt), and I've already finished coding a simple notepad application for the os, one of the more advanced tutorial subjects present on the google's android website. All the steps are already outlined on the pages so the process itself wasn't all that difficult, so I'm trying out a few things on my own after practicing going through the whole project without instruction. After-all, the best way to understand relatively foreign concepts is to have a strong grasp of the fundamentals and hands-on applications of those ideas in practices of free-form expression. I'm just a tiny bit proud of myself fro going through so much so fast to be honest. I think I can consider implementing some of the more complex physics algorithms I have in my notes sooner than I thought.
While the going's good, I'm suddenly deluged with all sorts of programming tutorials and materials, not all of them java. For some very strange reason people around me are beginning to suggest me all sorts of program languages and tutorials for me to learn, which are really distracting me from my current focus of learning java/android. There are some real gems among those recommendations though (I must say, some of those 'recommendations' are beginning to sound like evangelism...), like the one on learning the ruby language. I've had a brief encounter with ruby a while back when I was looking for some decent (read:easy) solution to getting started with bioinformatics, and ruby got mentioned a few times, along with some of the bio-centric libraries and chemistry libraries which were reputed to be quite good considering the young age of the language. Yet the reason why I'm thinking ruby would be a good idea for any programmer looking for a new tool is not because it's well integrated with such academic library sets (it isn't compared to the competition). One of the reasons is that ruby is one of the easiest and cleanest computer languages I've ever seen, but that applies to python a well, a language I have some minor experience with. The reason why ruby appeals to me is because of some of the most amazing computer language tutorial ever written, and possibly one of the most comprehensive development suite (of sorts) ever made targeted toward beginning computer programmers, like children and entry level students. Take a look at this guy's blog for example. (http://whytheluckystiff.net/articles/theLittleCodersPredicament.html) It's an article written by someone who calls himself 'why the lucky stiff' who wrote the most surreal and well-written computer language tutorial ever written by human hand for ruby(http://poignantguide.net/ruby/). This is a high praise, and I mean it. The aforementioned blog article goes on about the need for accessible computer programming language like it was in the days of basic and logo, so that kids who don't know what IDE stands for can still have fun with computers on their spare time, without being dedicated enough to be a shut-in like it is with popular imagination these days (most programmers I know are really athletic. Maybe it's because I live in nyc?). I definitely agree with his opinion whole heartedly. The computers have become so alienated from the public space these last decade or two, possibly because how unfriendly windows operating system is to beginning developers (I remember the days when all the compiler solutions for the windows platform cost crazy amount of money, with practically no free alternative available unless you were willing to drudge to neon colored panels on dark screens that was the GNU compiler of the day... And it was a real possibility to seriously screw up your computer by coding wrong things, unlike with python and ruby). Programming had become so arcane and difficult to access that more and more people are under increasing illusion that programming=mathematics, which is technically true. It's only that realistically you only need to worry about the mathematical side of programming only if you're thinking of programming for the CERN or code the latest groundbreaking 3D or physics engine, both of which should be the case for people just thinking about entering into the field of programming. Programming itself isn't very hard. You just learn syntaxes and some minor technical detail of linking libraries and such, and then type away, fix stuff if something goes wrong, etc. Plenty of people code in HTML and make their own CSS sheets, many of them middle and high school children, and they do it because the tools are accessible (notepad and browser, and you're set. Otherwise there are plenty of WSIWYG editors out there if you're into that sort of thing) and the results are instantly gratifying=fun. No weird talk about optimizing databases there, just a good webpage layout that you can see immediately and practically touch with your hands.

So the 'why the lucky stiff' wrote the whole bog post on the need to bring the programming to the masses. He also wrote an awesome tutorial for the ruby language that reads like a contemporary fiction of the surreal kind. It turns out that he didn't just write about those things. He actually wrote a cool piece of software himself to help people (most likely children of slightly older disposition) code like it was back in the day, except that the products of the six-twelve line codes will not be squiggly lines and dots, but blogs and mp3 players. Here's the website for his program (which is actually a sort of IDE for ruby language) (http://hacketyhack.net/). Note that you need to download the ruby language from the official ruby website first (ruby-lang.org). For windows users the whole ruby comes in easy to use installer package. For mac users the ruby is already on the system as part of the operating system as is the case with python (why can't microsoft bring themselves to do this? It's not like it costs them real money), so you can simply go ahead and download the hacketyhack IDE without any hassel. I've spent about half an hour checking out the program/IDE and running the built-in tutorials, and it's good at what it's set out to do, and does it in clean and simple interface that's easy to understand. This may definitely be the kind of program that can get your average twelve years old hooked on using computer for something more than playing premade games and watching youtube videos. Of course, the environment isn't just for children, I'd say it's suitable for people of all ages, and older population can probably move on after finishing the built-in tutorials to reading and following through the 'why's poignant guide to ruby' available for free on the author's website.

Anyway, I'm in middle of something of a predicament here. Compared to the grammar-ridden Java, ruby is just so much simpler and quite possibly just as capable. Java certainly has the upper hand in terms of available applications and libraries for development, and I'm not yet aware of any extensive open physics simulation library for ruby (it's available for Java, and there might be more than one of them). It take Java about ten minutes and multiple projects page to do something I can do in ruby with about dozen or so lines of code, and this is with me being a rather horrible programmer. Ruby doesn't quite run on as many devices as the Java, and the android os doesn't support ruby development, and won't for quite possibly a long time since python has larger marketshare in the western hemisphere of the world while being just as easy and light.

I guess it's foolish thinking about another programming language when I'm on my way to learning Java, but the elegance of the ruby language and some of its tools themselves are enough to make me take a second look at the alternatives. I guess I'm stuck with Java at the moment though, just hoping that someday ruby will be used widely enough to have a good physics library and be integrated into mobile platforms like the android os.


I also discovered an interesting little webcomic today, named lovecraft is missing (http://lovecraftismissing.com/). The story's too early to figure out, I'm thinking Lovecraft goes missing, and adventure ensues with the two protagonists one of them a fledgling writer from the west/mid-west and the other a librarian specializing occult books at the Brown University (a school both I and H.P. Lovecraft flunked). The comic is rather fledgling at the moment, and I'm afraid that it might someday just stop updating for some reason just like so many other webcomics that had the potential to be. So if you're itching for something interesting to read, you might as well give a few minutes to the website. 

I've always had a bit of fondness for Lovecraft things. The strange thing about Lovecraft is that most people don't really like his writing. They tend to be overwrought and literally not very appealing at all. Though in his later years he matures as a writer and ends up producing better written works, but he can hardly be called the Noble laureate material. However, the lack in the quality of writing doesn't deter most people from being fascinated with Lovecraftian writings, not necessarily his infamous mythos, I find the concept of scale-ridden monsters and aliens to be baffling and off-putting, but with his predilection for the innate fear of things of the world. It's the same case with fairytales. People don't delve into fariytales for its beautiful prose or literary structure (well, some do, but most don't), they listen to/read fairytales because there's something about those stories, no matter how ill put together, that never ceases to rattle something deep within out hearts when we encounter them. I wouldn't exactly call it a fear. I believe the origin of such sensations are like fear, but at some fundamental level on an entirely different dimension from the rather clear cut notion of fear. 

All in all, Lovecraft is a relatively modern iteration of mechanics of the things that gave us fairytales of old... The compulsion to keep on writing while being devoured alive, a syndrome very common in many of Lovecraft's works, is one of the archetypes of modern fairytales I guess. I can think of about a dozen examples from contemporary Asian urban legends where the protagonists suffer from the same syndrome and relates to us the gory details of being devoured or killed or crushed i.e. whatever that happens to strike the fancy of the writer at the moment, or happens to be around the poor protagonist at the moment the almighty decides to be rid of him or her once and for all. They usually trail off at the end without finishing a decent sentence, for that little bit of realism, for even for protagonists capable of writing down their experiences while being subject to their gruesome fates being able to actually finish their writing in acceptable literary forms would be highly unusual and subject to scrutiny by their loyal readers. 

Something unknown is a common trait shared between classic fairytales and Lovecraftian works. I wonder what that unknon is? What would be its shape? It's definition? Some people go crazy about the working of the subconscious and the social mechanics of the era and etc. but is that what all that is? Talking about fairytales, how about alchemy? Many of the alchemic texts from the old times (like the Renaissance) are really quite intricate in their willing discharge into the unknown and mysterious, creating and using all sorts of archetypes and symbols within the writings and figures to compose some of the most labyrinthine literary works ever written. 

The more I think about the nature of the mysterious so frequently glimpsed in such works the more I think that mysterious, terrible something in those works refer to the creative faculty of the humanity itself. It's only relatively recently that people conceived of creativity as being innate to the individual human being. Most if not all ancient cultures (and yes, most if not all ancient culture did try to offer their own explanations on the nature of creativity in human beings) rather explained away creativity as something brought on by mystical influences like certain types of spirits or even gods (even today we frequently use the term 'waiting for the muse' as a sort of aphorism) not necessarily dependent on the physical and mental characterstics of the human being in act of creation. Those who excel in act of creating were said to be favored with creativity-giving spirit or god of superior talent compared to the rest. Even in those days the impulse and the act to create things anew was so alien and fascinating to people that they could not help but to suspect that creativity was something foreign brought from worlds unknown by agents that were beyond human power, much like how people think of possession in modern times. 

Such motif is also clearly present in many of Lovecraftian works, where individuals would frequently experience states of consciousness or pull feats of superhuman achievements only to be later revealed that the individual wasn't in control of themselves, instead possessed or somehow controlled by various foreign or otherwise supernatural entities who they themselves frequently had no corporeal presence, appearing from practically 'beyond the veil', from realities that are far beyond our own to the extent that they must be described as being from dimensions that were vastly different from the world we normally see and live in. I've also come to note that the attitudes of the writers or protagonists in Lovecraftian writings toward being controlled or possessed by such foreign entities are sometimes rather ambivalent, an odd trait considering the fate that usually awaited the possessed. Maybe it's along the same line of myth that usually hangs around the most remarkable creative geniuses of human history, how they usually have some fatal flaw that leads them to their untimely destruction?

In all things built and explored by the human mind, none are as baffling as the impulse that made the humanity build and explore all those things in the first place, since most of such ventures were not necessary to the immediate survival of the individual or the species, perhaps, some would argue, even detrimental to the continued survival of the human beings as animals with physical needs. Lot of people try to replicate the human mind in mechanical or digital medium by coping the superficial mechanisms of the already established mind onto the tertiary medium, but instead we should pursue to create an engine of creation, and try to create a mind-a conscious faculty-on top of that physical engine to shape into the likeness of human being. I believe that the very essence of what drives human beings to create might be far beyond the matter of conscious, and we should instead look toward something more fundamental and primeval in the origin of life itself as a continuous engine of creation. Which brings another interesting consideration into mind. If life in some form contribute to the existence of what we call the creative desire, how come the human beings are the only species that we know of who actively participate in the acts of creation? What about pigeons, cats, and the dogs? How about dolphins? Perhaps being able to figure out if any of our dogs ever wished to fly like a bird, or if any of our cats lost itself in the twilight, might provide the next catalysis toward the new era of the study of mind and life.