Mailbag - July 2008

From: Mahars
Date: Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 8:55 PM
Subject: All hail!

I have just read the Farewell to Graduating Class of 2008 at Kobra's Corner, and I must say, there was a hint of superiority in the tone of it that rivaled a god. Are you perhaps Odin's second or third cousin?

From: Andrew Douglass
Date: Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 8:46 PM
Subject: Not hate mail.

just read your article called "A Proposal to End All Religious
Arguments," and found the atheist section kind of funny. The State of
Texas has both passed laws requiring students to recite the pledge,
AND recently ADDED "under God" to the state of Texas pledge. I was
disciplined for not reciting the pledge.

I don't mean to pick on this guy, but a lot of the emails I've received lately were along the same lines as this. I followed up on this in a section of this article.

From: Tenna Deinra
Date: Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 2:52 AM
Subject: Hate mail. Hate hate hate hate hate. Sekai no hate. Hate hate hate. Hate.

Hello dear Sir,

                     I write to you to voice my ire
About a rant you've written on your angry site.
On April twenty-ninth this year, you wrote a piece
Condemning satire which I fight with much desire
Because perhaps your troubled mind is oh-so-tight
That, stubborn, you are still unwilling to release
Those ancient values now completely obsolete.
So first, you blindly brand those satirists elite
(Like Twain and Swift, both clever masters of their craft)
As heretics. But honestly, you're just so daft.
I bet you didn't even know that Twain's real name
Was Samuel Langhorne Clemens, mister know-it-all.
How dare you question these old greats of ancient fame?
You've never written any classics I recall.

You then go on to "prove" that satire is a sin
By showing that the word begins with S-A-T,
Three monstrous letters which the devilish Satan shares.
But really, really, how I ought to kick you in the shin
For using such improper words to disagree.
In fact, for anyone (including you) who cares,
The devil's name is taken from a Hebrew word
That means "to plot against," while satire's name incurred
Its meaning from the term the ancient Romans used
For "satire" when their scrolls for meaning they perused.
Your next few sentences purport that nothing good
Has ever come from satire. Truly, you're a dolt.
Just think of all the social change that was, but would
Have not occurred if no one'd started the revolt!

A little later in your cute attempt at life,
You say that children shouldn't learn to question things.
Oh my, oh my. You poor misguided imbecile.
Please tell what awful, wretched, twisted world that's rife
With such delusions you reside in, for it sings
A sad, pathetic song. I'm sure you'll find a will
To plain ignore my words. But please don't throw it out!
Instead, go look for what your life is all about.
Your rant was plain untruth (Admit it!). You are wrong!
Admit that sometimes you're no righter than the throng.
I can't believe so fiercely satire you've defamed.
Perhaps one shining, glorious day you'll see the light,
And say I am correct.

Sincerely yours, "Unnamed"

P.S. You know you can't divide by zero, right?

This next part is an amalgamation of series of emails I received from the same person, who had a lot of questions for me. (Either natural curiosity, or a concerned psychiatrist.) Since it doesn't take a genius to figure out where each email begins and ends, I won't bother to separate them.

From: Patrick Miller
Date: Fri, Jun 6, 2008 at 4:43 AM
Subject: Feedback and questions.

1. When you recieve hate mail from an address for the first time, do you block the address?
2. Do you play chess?
3. Any interest in anime?
4. What is most valuable to you?
5. What are the areas of science that interest you from most to least?
6. What sort of impact do you wish to have on the future or the world in general?
7. Taking into account your view of science, what is your view on life? For example, is there any deeper purpose?(Just to clarify, I hold no stock in any religion, I am simply curious as to your views)
8. Are you looking forward to any upcoming game titles?
9. Would you ever like to be physically sucked into a video game? If so, which one and why?
10. What will you do when The Zombie Apocolypse occurs?
11. Do you have any interest in cooking or diet?
12. How much web traffic does Kobra's Corner usually see?
13. When you attended high school, were any of your sites known to much of the student body?
14. Do you have any long term plans for Kobra's Corner or is it an idle amusement?
15. Oh, and have you ever played an old SNES RPG called Lufia and The Fortress of Doom?
16. Are you interested in string theory mathmatics?

1. No, I email them back and challenge them to debate with me about why they think their opinion is right to the degree that it merits them telling me I shouldn't express mine. They never follow-up, though.
2. No, but my dad does.
3. Not so much anime as manga. I've been reading Bleach, Berserk, and a new one called Psyren as they come out; in addition to complete series like Death Note. Almost invariably, the anime version is butchered and watered down (esp. with Berserk's 25 episode waste of effort).
4. That's a tough, loaded, and very open-ended question. There are so many things that I would probably find very important (vital, even) that I wouldn't think of listing, and there are probably just as many things that matter to me that are of little-to-no consequence.

   If I had to prioritize just the things that come to my mind immediately when asked this question (partly for the sake of time), it would go something like this:

   1. The members of my family I care about.
   2. My closest friends.
   3. My intelligence, thoughts, etc.
   4. The future (and any impact I can have on it).
   5. Everything else.
   6. Religion.
5. I think it would go something like this:
   Space & Time > Particle physics > Computer Science > Mathematics > Chemistry > Macroscopic Physics > Astronomy > Biology > Psychology > Sociology > Geology > Health
6. I won't go into the details (partly because I don't want to give any of my ideas away), but I've come up with a few creative solutions for the global energy crisis. (One that does not depend on fossil fuels in any sense.)
7. I've long held the view that there is no "default" meaning of life; that life only has what ever meaning you apply to it. Nihilists look at this in despair, but I look at it as a treasure hunter looks at a Spanish galleon. Because no meaning is imposed onto our life (other than perhaps by our parents if we are weak-minded), we are free to give it whatever meaning we desire. In my opinion, that is a more beautiful purpose than any other: To find our own purpose.
8. Fable 2, Gears of War 2, God of War 3, Half Life 2: Episode 3, Halo Wars, the Kingdom Hearts games (provided they don't include any more borderline-yaoi in it this time), Ragnarok Online 2, Spore, Star Ocean 4, Starcraft 2, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning and White Knight Chronicles. I may have missed a few, but I guess they're not that important.
9. Do you mean like an alternate universe or like .hack//sign? I would probably say "yes" to the former, provided it was something epic like the universe of Star Ocean 3. Though I really haven't given it that much thought.
10. Machettes are your friend; as are aluminum bats filled with sand (to reduce denting). Eventually I'm going to build a fortress in Greenland that runs on geothermal energy and is only accessible through a path I can turn off (I plan on building this thing in the middle of glacier and using a network of electric-powered heaters to melt the path to the fortress, and letting the glacier reform after I've moved everyone and everything into it).
11. I'm not really interested in cooking or diet. I understand what's healthy and what isn't and I know how to make an affordable meal that doesn't taste like crap, but I never read recipes or anything.
12. The traffic Kobra's Corner receives is widely inconsistent. For example, this past Tuesday I had 1,015 visitors, but last Saturday I only had 397. I usually average around 400 to 500 visits per day (more when I post something new, less when I go away for a week). According to Google Analytics, I get about 100 to 250 "repeat" visits (my homebrew traffic analysis script only looks at cookie data and the IP address in the past 10 minutes (and displays the number of people active in the past 10 minutes as "online") while Google Analytics bases this on unique daily visitors).
13. When I was at high school, I think the majority of students wouldn't know I existed if it wasn't for some morons who spread rumors about me my sophomore year. (A bit of background information here: My brother was like the King Shit of the school because he was the high school drug dealer's best friend. I, on the other hand, am and always have been antisocial.) Everyone I considered intelligent enough to actually converse with knew about my website; as did a small number of faculty members. I don't think most of the students would have liked it as they were the target of much of my criticism.
14. I don't really have a long-term plan for Kobra's Corner. I do, however, have a general idea of what my goals are:
    • Improve my writing ability.
    • Broadcast my opinions in an environment where nobody can stop me from speaking my mind.
    • Keep a lasting archive running throughout my life so I can look back and see how my ideas evolved over time.
    • Eventually, I hope to have over 1,000 pages published on my website.
    • Challenge other like-minded young people to speak their mind without fear of being reprimanded for having a goddamn opinion.
15. Yes, I've played Lufia and Lufia 2 via emulation, but not thoroughly.
16. String theory-- while it doesn't really provide for any innovation, isn't entirely unsound; but "Cosmic string" theory sounds like straight-up bullshit.