watching the movie "Prometheus" and loving it :) am about half way thru it, and a few interesting possibilities have occurred to me, and i'm curious to see whether any of them come to pass in this movie.
- i'm wondering whether these worms are seeding these planets with its favourite foods, or material for troops, or something. and then once in a while a "harvest" reports its readiness and is then, um, harvested, as it were, or perhaps a mining operation starts up, the ore being humanoid cattle. in this case - us. i wonder if it is worms. what with some contributing company during the intro credits being named "Dune"...
the tunnels look to me like they're made by worms.
and then agendas. the crazy hick geologist - just in it for the money. then charlize therone 's character. and then David! and the boss of the company (Weyland?)! and the dissimilarity of characters of the married scientist couple.
and charlize therone's character probably IS an android, too! and she probably doesnt even know it! :o
how bladerunner! :) (or androids dreaming of electric sheep-ish :D)

some things in this story just seem too implausible. like the utter carelesness, nay - stupidity! - of the whole crew taking off their helmets. or the fact that they would just go galavanting around this planet, without dispatching some drones to explore the place a bit first. but i suppose there wouldnt be as much drama then. but what good is drama when its set-up is so not believable?
i suppose it could have been like charllize therone's character said - the old guy needed some real believers. perhaps that was true of all the choices for all the crew members - perhaps the make-up of the whole crew  was engineered according to their character profiles. the cheapest candidates that fit the profiles were chosen. the ever present economical pressure. it just seems like charlize therone's character (what the hell IS her name?!) is like layer 1 of the company boss' presence to care for his vested interests, and david is layer 2. wonder if there is a layer 3...
is there then going to be a creation destroying its creator? as in the old company owner destroying the alien race that created us? or does that just get us to level 2c of a massive tree of tests designed to let species like ours chart out all the possible ways of being of beings resultant from planetary life packet profile 238H-53/67c?

the thinker

i dont think i've ever really been a big believer in the subconscious and especially in the extent of its importance.
but a few days ago i was trying to figure out this problem, and i spent a lot of time on it and still never figured it out. but since then i've had a few thoughts about somehow using the changing states of outputs on this hardware to feed them into NAND logic gates to get a certain  outcome. and a few times i remembered how an ex-employer of mine designed this timer circuit. it wasnt until after i finally "had the idea" (from god knows where) about how to solve my problem using the NAND gate, that i realized that my buddy's circuit had also been a NAND gate.
its like my subconscious was trying to contact me, to hand me "my" new idea.
for a while now i've found it "peculiar" if nothing else the way we all of a sudden find fully-formed "ideas".

the matrix is forever struggling to make energy collection from "human farms" as efficient as possible.
in a relatively recent trend, as a means to increase the human energy yields, factors have been introduced to force higher neural activity in humans by increasing their workloads. this has led to increases in "multitasking", which was predicted. what was NOT predicted was that multitasking would translate into only minimal increases in productivity and yield, and in many cases actually proves to be a hinderance.
ironically enough, the deffinitive statement on this about the nature of "multitasking" comes from one of the human livestock:"multitasking means speanding 15% of your time on this, 10% on that, 15% on something else, and then the remaining 60% on something else, all of these"tasks" have not "moved" very much because you cant do 50% here, 50% here, and 50% there because that would make 150%

modeling ourselves

think for every process/function a model can be built. striving for perfect predictability, the refining processes would help us understand the process itself.

we should try to intentionally better ourselves, and in order to be successful at self-improvement, and to even be able to make meaningful decisions as to what ways/directions we would like to improve ourselves, we should get to know and understand ourselves better by building models of our societies, personalities, psyches, stereotypes/archetypes, organizations, races, ppl who like the same kinds of music, etc.

we should teach our kids in school about people's personalities and psyches, what makes different ppl tick. giving our kids an understanding of how they and their peers function, then giving them tools in the form of teaching them techniques/ways of handling their own selves as well as how to deal with others, they would be able to deal with all the shit that life throws at us

politics

everybody has things they agree with and disagree with. it would be good for everybody to be able to live in a world of their choosing, and not have to put up with living under a system and in conditions elected by an apparent or supposed majority.
one way something like that might be achieved would be the formation of many different mini-states, each with its own different rules, and then people could move to the one with the rules they agreed most with. maybe like city-states? and if they stopped liking it, they could just move out to one more to their liking. of course there would be problems with locations - some real estate would be more desirable than others. you'd have to set-up these states on unclaimed turf. also, as these states would grow and change, there would always be those individuals that would at some point become disenchanted with the change, and feel ripped off if they had to move after having put a lot of effort into building/developing the state. guess thats where politics and lobbying comes back into play.
also - which country would give up real estate to allow a new country to get established?
is there any unclaimed but habitable real estate left in the world? a community of like-minded enough ppl from all over the world could give it a good shot and have a chance of succeeding in such a place. you wanna be a communist? move to elbonia! wanna be a fascist? move to "das neues vaterland"! wanna be a rastafarian? move to zion! a vegetarian? soy bean republic is the place for you!
these mini states would develop economies, trade relations, maybe even arrangements with a neighbour state to the effect of: "we'll pay you this much per year in exchange for using ur healthcare, education, defense, and sewage systems".

what about some kind of "direct support" system, where you would only have access to utilities you'd pay taxes for: you can drive on roads if you pay the road tax or even just pay as you go! wait - thats capitalism - you only use what u pay for.

we're all connected :)

if we are the universe's way to learn about itself - then we, each of us is only here and as each of us is, thanks to everything that was before us. in an evolutionary sense, if it wasnt for the big bang and the evolution of every single thing, we wouldn't be here to "do our part". each sentient being is the uiverse's probe into the realm of sentience. at least as WE know it. it all expands as well as it can, and it will all fail if it cant cope with any one of the things thrown at it. any meme. any virus. any predator. any meteorite. how much can our planet's product survive? maybe life in the "doughnut" of the galaxy is the safest spot. in the galaxy. not when it comes to colisions with other galaxies. well, actually that too, probably.

wheels within wheels au naturel

 i'm thinking there's a difference in everything between any 2 ppl - including their sensitivity to (= ability to withstand the experience of) violence (within parameters acceptable to the wellbeing of the individual) - including simply viewing it. i guess individuals within the media have been able to find and probably unconsciously "push" the outer threshold of that sensitivity in a large enough "market", or simply percentage of population. for no apparent reason than profit, or some other unfortunate concept. i guess a percentage of the pop. gets some sort of guaranteed repeat gratification out of "thrill", and what more bankable sources of thrill are there than fear, revulsion, something adrenaline charged - and if we can connect some vague feeling of curiosity, as for example why would anyone do that, then u got a 2 pronged approach. how many more prongs are there? out of control memes and evolutionary processes... if a process is good enough - it will survive another day. it will be refined, join the ranks of those already there, and later be joined, and likely extinguished at a later date, by others. maybe not processes run amok, just temporary tangles and twists in energies, processes, whatever else you may have.

depending how much you zoom in or out, and/or really where in the scheme of things you fit, and how much you feel where you fit, is how much matters to you. things change all the time everywhere - some may matter to you, some to others, but i dont see how, or maybe just why, the objective - the whole picture, would matter to any ONE. maybe feeling is just a function, and maybe its only purpose is something like preservation of the group, the hive, the "school". now that it has a purpose, at any rate. it was probably another one of the immensity of possible expressions of the DNA "package". under these particular circumstances, at any rate. dormant and insignificant until enough individuals having this "pesky" set, when in a tight spot, found it to be a strength by turning out to be a way to increase the number of survivors when faced with adversity. might not help the individual, might even be a hindrance  but to the group, it meant survival in bigger numbers. and the next twist is the evolution of individuals who can "work the system", use this "feature" to better their own chances. u'd think they'd flourish after a while. but that would mean, and likely has meant - their doom. the only way these politicians and other possible "system workers" would be able to survive is as part of the organism, in the correct proportion. too many politicians, and there would be nobody left to do the actual work. adversity to a population is practically in a "politician"'s best interest, especially if he can make the populace believe that he knows the way out, and support him. i know i'm using the masculine. also, if the groups of ppl werent afraid of a situation, they wouldn't need to have someone know the way out as badly. i'm kinda stuck in a world view that at this point ppl are not that able, not that manipulative, as to actually cause these adversities, from the "danger" of the rise of a certain drug, to 9/11. i really hope i'm not just naive. how to verify that?

also, even if you have a plan, that may already be part of somebody else's plan.

seems like i often "just dont wanna do" things when i'm feeling uneasy/apprehensive about the thing, like i feel intimidated by the task in some way - either i figure its gonna be a lot of headache, grief, its gonna take forever, is very important, or holds a lot of weight in some respect.

and if sober, i'll procrastinate until the last minute - which i seem to do a LOT, with many things. or if i get high or drunk, then i'll do it. this is probably not good. also, the drinking way doesnt seem to work as well - i need to be more intoxicated, at which levels i tend to not be very proficient.

this sucks. i need to focus on making my life enjoyable. i hate not enjoying my life. this cannot continue.

just started wondering if ppl would live happier lives if they didnt fight against their own natures. but would that work? if each of us was trying to do whatever we wanted, some of those wants would surely conflict with others' wants. out of conflict, the losing, or potentially losing party would probably come out with some kinda compromise with themselves = this is not important enough to me to get hurt over. enter the conflicting parties' friends and families. finally now the deciding factor might be how well liked each of the 2 original individuals was by whom they knew - enough to get their support in a risky situation? did one of the "originals" actually not even know nearly as many people as the other? the socio-political factor.

so back to an individual's freedom to do one's own will - i guess depending on the degree to which one's will conflicts with the wills of others in the environment, one whose natural desires dont encroach on others' should be able to expect to live a fairly happy life. or at least relatively conflict-free. would the absence of conflict actually lead to a happier life?

but how many of us have desires that would never seriously be in conflict with the desires of others? also, do we curb our desires more than strictly necessary to avoid undue danger?

i feel like we should all do what we like a little more. we just got to figure out how to free ourselves of some of these mental restraints. our self-restraint mechanisms are probably governed more by fears of social unacceptance rather than fear of physical harm. but how much acceptance do we really need? maybe if we find ourselves surrounded by ppl with values very different than our own, we should not persist in such an oppressive setup but rather leave and find others like ourselves? guess thats where the fear of the unknown might come in - leaving the relative safety of a known situation for an unknown, possibly worse reality. an individual would have to cross a threshold past which the risk is worth it. its a tangled web. still - i think one should try. even if just a little. at first. even realizing the possibility of doing something different is a start. then knowing that others have gone down that path is reassuring. having a support system, group, or even just a person to lean on during a transition would definitely help. and with the advent of the intrawebs, "finding the others" just got easier.

being "alive" :)

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3276599&op=8&o=global&view=global&subj=607637039&id=795110103

everything was going fine, until...

i show up at the office of this company through which the boss gets a big chunk of our work. i'm told the owner's assistant cant connect to the dvr anymore to check footage of who's been coming in late or whatever she uses it for once in a blue moon. i check the IP addy on the dvr, its gateway and port, go to her office - she lost the IP addy - a-ha, gotcha, easy. no - it doesnt work. i check her setup - she should be on the same network as the dvr. try to ping dvr - comes back with timeouts, but it comes back from some other IP address. wtf? i quickly check that the dvr is connected to the router under the receptionist's desk - lights are blinking - all good. go to their IT guy. he gets mildly agitated, tells the boss' assistant she should have called him, he doesnt know anything about this, but ok - we'll try to figure it out. i showed him what i did, the ping, he tries to ping some other stuff, seems to find a nearby addy that pings, tells me to change the dvr to that address, still doesnt ping. now a girl comes to his desk saying she lost her connection to the server. "a-ha!" we say, she was the address we stole - back to change the dvr back to what it was. he reassures the girl that now it all works and everything is as it should. except we still cant ping the dvr. we check the router together, he finds there's some unused cables still connected to it, and one is actually looping back into another port. he gets rid of unnecessary wiring, and as we walk back to his desk to try pinging, the girl that said she was disconnected is saying she's still disconnected. and the girl from the next desk over. we go back to his comp, he's tweaking out, the head of accounting comes down to say accounting has lost their connection to the server. ooops... the IT guy says he's only been there for like a month or something, and he's trying to learn their setup on the fly, harassing them for documentation and information, no time to spare for masturbation... he's about to open up the server room when the boss of the company comes down asking if, when he has a spare minute in say the next 5 minutes, if he could install a mobile internet stick on so'n'so's laptop, because his father is dying and he's gonna be spending a lot of time at the hospital, but would still like to have access to his files... which in itself is pretty weird, to me. i mean, i donno, but work could wait, as i see it. all these rich fuckers living in these goddamn condos can make do without holding hands with their goddam property manager for a bit in case of extenuating circumstances, cant they? but maybe i got this out of context, maybe the guy is expecting that this will potentially take weeks on end and every now and then he'll sneak off to the cafeteria and take care of the most important stuff as he has a bite to eat.
alas, IT guy tells the boss he's having a serious issue with the server and cant get to the mobile stick for the moment, but he's not liking that others beside himself have administrative access to the server, and is wondering if that might be the problem. the boss tells him that the only person other than him that has admin access is the head of accounting girl, and why dont they go ask her right now. she says no, hasnt done anything. IT guy logs in right at his server, and it's like most stuff is missing. but there is a computer somewhere at the office from where he can still login to the server and see everything as it's supposed to be. at this point i say "see ya later, when you get your server up again".
i'm at another call, and i get a call from the boss' assistant telling me they need me to come back because the thing i plugged something into is whats bringing the server down, and they're getting nowhere, and i need to undo what i did... um, i didnt do anything?
so i get back there, because i need to drop something off anyways, and the IT guy has the DVR with the router completely disconnected from his network, and he's till having the same issues. he's starting to suspect the head of accounting girl might be messing with him, or just messing with the server. he doesnt know if he's being paranoid or is she actually guilty. he wonders if maybe it's somebody back east..? and he still has this login that allows him to see what appears to be an unpopulated version of the server. it appears to him that while he was trying to figure out the DVR problem, someone has created another user, and bla bla bla... i say "see you when you get your server back up."
paranoia seems to be the flavour of the year.

what to do?

85 year old lady, single (widowed, i think), seems in pretty good health for her age, has lived in this house for a long time, has been doing gardening there all that time, apparently at some point won 1st prize for that town's gardening contest. not too long ago had to have her german shepherd put down. got another one, 8 or 10 year old, from the shelter, because she doesnt think she has that much more to go...
has probably 14 cameras around the house, hooked up to 3 DVRs, figures somebody wants her house, and is trying to get her out of there, messing with her garden, trimming her hedge 6 inches lower than it used to be, taking chunks out of her trees, taking her garden stones - which she got for a fair bit of change (apparently stones are good in garden b/c they help retain moisture). she's had 2 security companies install the cameras and DVRs for her, but at least one of them seems to have been gouging her, and she doesnt wanna be involved with them anymore. she wants to get good footage of her neighbours coming into her backyard to steal her stones and damage her trees. she pretty sure the neighbours whose backyard is kitty-corner to hers have 3 cameras pointed at her house. either they are the police or they got some kinda deal with someone who's in the police, so she doesnt feel she can go to the police with this anymore. she's suspecting someone's been inside her house because she's heard ppl speaking upstairs where her DVRs are, and she suspects they took one of her harddrives out of one of her DVRs, and so now she's lost some valuable footage that would prove... i forget what.
she really wants me to help her out.
on the one hand, she's a customer, she wants a better view of a certain area, i suggested a different camera, she's all for it. with the missing footage, i told her likely one of the harddrives failed and thats why the footage is missing. i saw her receipt for the purchase of this DVR, it says 1 terabyte, the dvr says its got 500 gigs, it should still be under warranty from the company she bought it from, they should fix it for free - which i told her. there's probably some more work she'd have me do there.
on the other hand, as much as i am willing to entertain the idea that someone could be messing with her, damaging her garden, taking garden stones - more likely unrelated things than a concerted effort, i have a strong feeling that this lady is suffering from some senile dementia or something, suspecting that people are out to get her, to get her out of this house, because they want it, and they want it cheap, and she doesnt want to be pressured out of there just because she's an old, lone lady.
i dont want to feed her probable dementia, though i dont know whether anything i'd do would change things either way. i feel like doing this work she wants done is taking advantage of her, because its probably all in her head, and so she doesnt need to spend this money, and all the money she'd already spent getting ripped off by one of the previous security companies she dealt with. she seems aware that these things she says may sound crazy, but she doesnt think she is. she asked me something like "you dont think i'm crazy, do you?" to which i answered "no, not really". i've never really had to deal with this kind of thing. now i think i should have said how it all sounds, somehow try to tell her gently. hope that big friggin dog wouldnt freak out on me for upsetting his owner. but she's not crazy enough to be dangerous, so nobody can really step in and lock her up. nor should they - she's not doing any harm. just to herself. spending all this money and worrying that ppl are trying to screw her out of the house.
i dont want her to spend more money and persist in her paranoia. but if i walk away someone else will come in and gauge her again. and she really wants my help with the security setup. what to do?

its been bugging me. i keep trying to think it out, and what i got in my mind at the moment is to try to find some kind of volunteer senile/demented service to keep an eye on her, possibly take care of her somehow, if she's not far enough gone yet then when she does. this was phx' idea, which i like. but does such a service even exist? i also want to call her and tell her what i think of her situation, but ultimately say that if she wants, i can do some work for her, but i'm hoping she takes what i say into consideration, talks to her doctor about it, i dont know. is there even meds for this kind of thing? it seems obvious that her judgement is impaired, so how can i trust her judgement when i tell her what i think? but i dont think she's messed up enough for "the government" to step in. what to do?

a good new year's eve from my point of view involves being optimally smashed at a nice bash. probably the best one of these that comes to mind was at some friends' dad's warehouse they'd just bought and havent put machines in yet - some of the friends were sorta forming a band at the time, so they played some tunes, there was a 2nd floor overlooking the ground floor, so thats always nice, there was a ping-pong table on the 2nd floor, a keg on the ground floor, one of the guys kinda officially came out of the closet and brought his BF, so that was in interesting detail. unfortunately the BF was a total chachi. and we have some nice pics of us from there :)

how i think of it is that the mind sometimes gets overzealous trying to spot patterns and assigns all kinds of significance to coincidence. however i have heard some interesting talk of "attractors" - end scenarios that might seem to coax themselves into existence by "pulling" their "causes" towards themselves through time and space - a funny way to model fate from our perception of time.
regarding things seeming to be given to you while you were creating, i too find it interesting that we are given credit for our "creations" when we are actually handed them from our subconscious. i visualize it as a brick wall with some small holes in it, and i - the conscious spectator am handed little scrolls of paper with ideas written on them through these little holes from the other side of the wall. i get to marvel at them, or reject them, or try and group some of them together and hand them back thru the wall for further processing - so it seems like i'm the editor or conductor, but not the actual idea generator. then again - why only define myself as that which is conscious - unconscious can be beautiful too :) its all me. especially if i'm a solipsist... :D

what if humanity evolved enough over time, to the point that each of us would be as a lord unto himself - owning whole galaxies populated by beings who would "farm" other, "lesser" beings themselves, which in turn would have parasites, which would in turn have smaller parasites living on them - all an absurdly gigantic pyramid scheme to produce or distill some sort of energy or even diversity or novelty, whether useful, or as a form of art or even a collectible. or a battery. what if we were not just the beings at the tops of our pyramids, but only small parts of some other ultimate being's mega pyramid or polyhedron or what have you. how many individual "gods" would tell their farm animals what they're actually a part of, were the animals able to comprehend the situation to any meaningful degree? how many might concoct a story to tell their livestock, if they found such a story gave better yield, like a mental steroid, or vaccine or just a supplement? a story or even an idea that would polarize a species, or at least a sub-section of it, in just the desired manner, like the concept of good and evil, a struggle between them, god and satan, good cop vs. bad cop, the carrot and the stick?

or love.

my dad almost killed my mom

he was backing up the trailer towards a loading dock at night, and she was back there, trying to help guide him. at some point he realized he is not seeing her in either of the mirrors, and he was not sure how close he was to the concrete dock - he didnt want to hit it and damage it and the trailer. he put on the hand brake (or whatever its called in these trucks) and went to the back. his trailer was maybe 2 feet from the dock. between the two was my mom, crumpled up on the ground, crying. she told us later that when she realized she was probably gonna be crushed between the trailer and the dock, she instinctively braced her back against the dock and  made as if to stop the trailer with her hands. lucky for all of us, that was when my dad decided to put on the e-brake and check how far away from the wall he was. i think trucking is not for my mom. she means well but takes risks she shouldnt. hasnt cost her her life or limb yet, though. but i wouldnt call it a very successful go.

my parents' friends' 24 y.o. son died. i thought i remembered hearing he was into coke, but it didnt sound like he OD'd, plus i dont think he had that kind of money. when i asked what he died of, my parents said something like "he did drugs!"
is naivete = harmless stupidity?
there was talk his organs got beat to shit by all these drugs he did. it seems unjust and even hard to believe that a 24 y.o. guy would wreck his body enough to die when all these bums downtown seem to live on and on forever. i've met people who have apparently done a lot of drugs and you couldnt tell just looking at them. i havent met any meth heads, that i know, but i hear it really ages you fast. i just saw some pics of this guy that just died and he looked healthy. my parents have met him and apparently he looked fine. his parents are obviously devastated. but they put on a prayer evening for his soul, and a mass at church on sunday... i said i wouldnt have done anything - just bury him and try to forget, because he did it himself, and he did it to his family, and since it was basically an extended suicide, i'm kinda surprised they had a mass for him at church. but someone said, they are his parents after all, so it shouldnt be surprising that they would do this for their son. makes me feel really sorry for them. so they cant help their nature and do what they feel they must for their son. and he apparently couldnt help his nature either, saw it coming, landed in the hospital a few times, there was some rehab effort, but in the end he died. ridiculous. fucked up. the flesh is weak. in some more than others. it's just sad. what a waste. seems like he just couldnt be helped. natural selection seems cruel, but i guess thats how it is. his nature just worked against him in his environment, which had apparently an abundance of things lethal to him. is this selection process leading to a humanity that is "smarter", with stronger will power, and a more robust physiology? i'm sure the race will survive, but the cost of this evolution to all the individuals around the "failing" subsets...

some people scoff at being immersed in stories and say ppl should go out more and experience life for themselves.
some people say reading is where it's at, and surely watching the tube does not lead to anything good. does anybody complain saying others should sit in front of the TV and not go on the computer/intraweb so much? will they complain in the future against more immersive media?
its just a medium. but i suppose each medium is its own message too. marshall mcluhan was cool. cool like fonzi. man i'm brainwashed.
maybe not everything you see on a screen should be measured on the same scale? educational programs versus commercials? but even the edu programs - whose points of view are they representing? who prepped content for you to perceive it in just that specific way? what was their idea of what's right and wrong? did they care if they misrepresented something to some degree if they made some money off it? are they just proliferating some false ideas that they bought at an age when they didnt have the logic faculties to process these ideas as they would now? are they reinforcing ideas that were handed down to them from authoritative sources, without actually experiencing or investigating these themselves? i figure the best lies are the ones closest to the truth.
truth - an ideal. maybe truth should be viewed more relatively - an IF-THEN relationship. under some circumstances, something may be so. under other circumstances, things might be otherwise.
we need better tools to understand the world around us. and inside us. we need to be taught these in school. we need tool-making tools - for new situations. i suppose this might be taking place somewhere already. just want to show support and help spread the meme, if it's out there. it probably is.
drugs - substances that affect our bodies to effect "abnormal" functioning. heroin, pot, alcohol, coffee, tylenol... spicy food? most people probably mean illegal drugs. legality is fickle. throughout times and cultures, things have been both legal and illegal like pot, alcohol in general, gin, opium, coffee... i suppose everything used to be legal when there was no one imposing their will on others as to what they can and cant ingest. gasoline is legal and obviously necessary in our world, but there's some communities where it's also the main intoxicant. what about fasting? Sun Dancing?
people need to be truthfully informed about the risks and benefits of things. people need to be informed about social pressures. people could use help learning about their own psychology - what makes them tick. people need to re-learn to experience and judge for themselves. but also people need to be allowed to make their own decisions, learn through their own mistakes. sometimes people need to be helped, not directed and punished. well, i'm sure some people love being directed and punished, too.

depression season has apparently started

one step forward, two steps back

my little girl's very first compound curse :)

i forget what i was doing, but i was at the dining table, phx was at the laptop, and LB was in the hallway - from where we heard her say "I can't get off my fucking shit sock!"
we're like "whaat?" to which LB repeated the aforementioned obscenity. it was shocking, and we wanted to laugh, kinda, but i dont think we did. phx helped LB get her sock off, and we figured we really gotta curb my, er, our cursing again.
which brings me to asking again - what's wrong with cursing? what happened, somewhere along the line, that has made some words "Bad"? this seems to have occurred in most human cultures - but why? like - what the fuck?