Amsterdam photo blog (another)

Last Saturday I once more went on a day trip to Amsterdam.
Perhaps this "Sensation Express" bus should be more aptly names "Surprise Express", since you're always in for some. Keen eyesight helped me to spot the bus at the very far end of the station, the opposite end from where it had been last time, at least 100 meters away - that is, to spot a bus that looked different from the regular public transport ones, more like a travel bus, and so I walked over to inquire and it turned out to be the one. Other people apparently kept calling the driver on mobile phones, having trouble to find it.
I felt grateful and kind of proud that, having no such gadgets, my keen warrior senses once more proved to be all I needed instead.

It kept raining on and off, but all in all the weather kept improving the closer we got to the destination. There was some traffic jams and slow going on the highways too, and eventually the driver stopped the bus on Piet-Hein-Kade, next to the Ij-Tower, and announced he wasn't going any further. I asked him to be sure he'd be back in this same spot for the return trip at 8:30 PM. At first he had trouble understanding my English but then he told me to be there by 8:20.

Personally I didn't really have any problem with the odd place of arrival (and pick-up) he'd chosen but it did bewilder me and I was wondering how the other people might feel about it - I had no problem because I know the city well enough, I wouldn't have any trouble to find my way around from here nor my way back here in the evening. But had I been a stranger to Amsterdam and here for the first time, I imagine I'd have felt quite a bit taxed by the situation and worried about finding back later. I'd have searched for a sign with the street name and then bought a map somewhere - but as it was, I didn't even consult the old map I had with me already, and not a single time for the rest of the day; I had the advantage of familiarity with Amsterdam and so it wasn't a thing for me to complain about. But I'd understand perfectly well if the other passengers would complain! But maybe their fancy gadgets helped them along again.

Zuiderkerk reflection

I decided to walk all the way to Waterlooplein and then rent a fiets (bicycle) at the MacBike rental there, and to pass by "Knuffels", the plushie store where once I bought my sweet Sharky - years ago, my first one, and they've never had such a pretty sharky again.
This time they had spiders. LOL

Sharky - with me since ~2007

Spiders at Knuffels store

At Waterlooplein I strolled the market for a bit, then went to MacBike to get a fiets on which I rode on to Albert Cuyp Market. Sadly I found no more of the warm "winter" leggings of which I bought a pair there back in December and which I was in fact wearing. They're certainly NOT fit for actual winter, of course, at least not without an additional pair of thermo-leggings underneath, they're only a bit plushy inside, similar to tennis socks. Outside they're printed to look like jeans. But this time around they only had the regular, thin ones, so I didn't buy any as I already got enough leggings that can be worn with long underwear only (unless it's summer, which rarely happens in actuality - not only on the calendar).

Old cams at Waterlooplein Market

Interesting tidbit: At a drugstore I noted that painkillers (which in Germany you can't buy at drugstores at all but only at pharmacies) are ridiculously cheap there while hair dye is ridiculously expensive - at least 3 times the price it is in Germany!

Turds at Albert Cuyp Market. LOL

I rode on to Vondelpark. As I settled down there on the trunk of a willow that extended nearly horizontally over the pond where I intended to have some lunch (brown bread with honey & diet coke, bought at supermarket) it suddenly started hailing. Fortunately it lasted only a few minutes.
As it was closing in on 4 PM I decided to return my fiets already so I'd have to pay for 3 hours only - beyond 3 hours you have to pay a whole day, which isn't even that much more (about 15 € instead of 11 or so), but it wouldn't have been worth it since I'd have had less than 2 hours more because MacBike closes at 5:45 PM. So I returned it & even got a discount again as a regular customer - even if only once or twice a year, but MacBike is that cool. :)

Iepenzaadjes (elm seeds), everywhere in Amsterdam now

I walked on toward my next stop: The English book store in Kalverstraat! I browsed the store for about an hour and eventually found two books of sci-fi short stories that I bought.
Later I still bought some very nice plush ear muffs at a souvenir store by the Flower Market, and they're the kind of things you really need in these climes.

Me at the Flower Market

My souvenirs

About time to slowly move in direction of the central station again - passing by Dam Square which I found transformed into a fairground. The occasion I'm unsure about, it may have been for the upcoming King's Day celebrations already - formerly Queen's Day, which used to be right on Walpurgis, but they recently changed it and I think it's a couple days earlier now too. (26th? But that would be Chernobyl anniversary... whatever. LOL) I didn't go on any of the rides but only took photos of them since they were expensive and I'd already spent so much on the books & ear muffs, and my backpack would have hindered me anyway.

Fairground at Dam Square

Beautiful sunlight reflections

Last I went to the public library building which is seven stories tall with a cafe terrace at the top one, from where I took a few more photos. (I took a ton - more will be on Facebook.)
I was at the pick-up location on Piet Hein Kade early and was amazed that everyone else had found back there in time as well and we were in fact already departing by 8:20 PM.

Today I'm a roll of asswipe

And I'll have to work my ass off to remedy this situation because it's absolutely unacceptable, obviously.

I did this 10/10 Treadmill Challenge, and I'd never have expected my result to be this catastrophically embarrassing - I do consider myself a pro athlete, after all; it's what I do, my profession - always will be, until the day I die. And until then I'll keep getting better.

Winter time is hard on my body and energy, I can handle anything but cold temp's, and it's still f'ing freezing here although it ought to be spring by now.

But I've kept getting better so far, and I absolutely intend to get to the 2 minute mark with this one.
Even if today it's been only an embarrassing 34 seconds. :(

Calling on other athletes to try this challenge and let me know if it's really this hard - ?

Beyond Perception

Being given an extra day to do so I have to grab the opportunity to squeeze in another post here before the month is out!
Thinking of brother Richard Ramirez since it's his birthday today, at the last one in 2012 he was still among us, even by then we were already out of contact though, having corresponded for a while previously. He was, and is, a brother in Satan, one of us.

I'll be passing up this year's FIBO, didn't find anyone to accompany me and I can't take my own photos since I won't have a hand free when climbing some ropes or something, and photos where I have my hands free would be boring, boring shit and I don't do those.
Instead I'll be riding to Amsterdam later in April, today I rode downtown to have my ticket printed out.

Right now it's still freezing although the days are getting noticeably longer already, and lots of spring flowers are already blooming despite the bitterly frosty nights, even daffodils.

Myself I still feel in hibernation mode though and haven't been doing much besides my obligatory workouts lately. And of course, still thinking about the same things, searching for answers at the frontlines of the unknown.

I came to talk about it with a guy at the gym lately and was shocked to find that he's in the materialist camp, shocked even more so since this gentleman is 70 years old, and he seriously believes after bodily death there will be nothing - how can he live with this?! We didn't get into this much further, and this may in part answer it - they avoid the subject. At least I got to tell him that each atom consists of 99.99% empty space.
Although he didn't seem to have trouble grasping this idea, apparently it meant nothing to him. He wasn't dull at all,he then even asked me about the size of the universe and I told him that it's unknown, that science can only talk about the known universe, because since the universe is about 13.7 billion years old the utmost distance we can see is 13.7 billion light years out, everything beyond that is shielded from us by a sort of event horizon because any light from further out can't have reached us yet. Not to mention that actually we can't even tell what's out there inside this event horizon, at least not what's there right now - we can only tell what was there in the past; in case of things near the event horizon what things looked like 13.7 billion years ago.
It is estimated that the entire (unknown) universe is many times larger than the known part.

It's sad that these things seem so off-putting to most people, even the brighter ones. Maybe they dislike having their minds boggled and prefer to move back to some down-to-earth topics instead.

I'm sure I've said this before, but even though I can acknowledge feeling helpless in the face of the overwhelmingly vast unknown that won't yield any answers, wrestling the unknowable and unimaginable without hope to pry any insights from it - isn't it still far worse to give up and resign to the idea that there can't be any answers and that whatever we do is, and has been from the moment of our birth, been doomed to be perfectly meaningless and in vain?!

I still remember a discussion I had with someone years ago when it puzzled me to no end that I couldn't make them understand what I meant by saying a person who could see only one color, say blue, would be unable to know the color blue. The guy I discussed with even got really upset about it and insisted it were like saying a blind person wouldn't know blindness.
Well, in fact the latter may even be true to some extent, at least if the person were blind from birth. They may know blindness in the sense that they'll be aware of lacking a certain ability that most people have to navigate through life. Through communication with those people, the blind person knows that these people can see while the person herself cannot - in this sense the person would know blindness to some extent, but not to the full extent a person who previously could see would know it!
And this is the crucial point: the person born blind wouldn't have known sight, and knowing sight is necessary to fully comprehend the meaning of blindness.

But in a person born blind, the brain regions normally used for processing vision don't develop to do just this since there's no input from the eyes, so the brain will use them for other things instead. I imagine it must be very much like we can't imagine the electromagnetic sense of a shark. A shark possesses organs called ampullae of Lorenzini, they are in little pores covering the shark's nose and face, and with these he can sense small electric fields generated by other animals' muscles and heartbeat. Yes, a shark can sense your heartbeat. I love sharks and I know a lot about them, but even I can't imagine what it would be like to actually perceive in this way, I'm lacking the organs for it.

Or think of the heat pits of a snake, another sense organ that humans don't have. The snake can sense the body heat of a warmblooded animal, which the snake uses to find prey. You may say, oh at least this we can easily simulate using a thermal camera that can see infrared - but no, that's not the same thing! Of course, everyone has seen those rainbow color images where reds and yellows indicate a warm body while the cooler surroundings are colored blue. But that's not what the snake "sees", because the snake doesn't "see" it at all! The snake has eyes to see, but what the heat pits do is something different than seeing.
Our specialized camera can translate this heat image for us into visible colors, so we can use our sense of vision for a sense that we lack. I'm sure the snake does not see the mouse in rainbow colors superimposed over his normal vision!


Back to my previous example of monochromatic vision. Here's a pic of me holding a little shark figure:

Now the same image in monochrome blue. You can see that in this one, the shark appears to have the same color as my hand.

Here it is once more in black and white, and below in four different monochrome versions.

Alright, now as you imagine you were able to see only the single color blue, no other colors, just as in the monochrome blue version - it's easy to see that all of the images above would appear perfectly identical to you! You could see no other color but blue, but you wouldn't know what blue is because you had no comparison. Seeing only one color would be the same as seeing none at all, i.e. seeing only black and white; with no other colors you'd have no concept of color at all. If I asked you which of these images is blue you wouldn't be able to tell because they'd look each the same to you!

Antinatalism

This is the other thing I meant to write about for a long time: Antinatalism.
I came across a couple articles about it last year but they're usually long, such as this one, and I must admit I didn't read the whole thing. For a more concise explanation I found this video:

It also touches upon some things I mentioned in my previous entry, such as the terror threatened by doG against all who disagree with him. This part is actually new tome in the context of antinatalism, I had assumed antinatalism to be firmly and exclusively founded on atheism/materialism.

Despite this latter assumption, I found myself sympathizing to some extent with antinatalism.

Only to some extent - since there are several reasons for which I could never fully adopt this view for myself.

Of course, unlike most people who, as the guy mentioned in the video, like sex, I have always been disgusted by even the idea of having sex, and so I naturally won't ever have children.

But the antinatalist view is ultimately grounded on compassion for the suffering of those brought into existence, and by nature I don't care about that, not only in a selfish way where others are concerned, but to some extent even concerning myself. If some suffering is necessary as a means to an end I'm willing to go through it. The hard workouts I do also entail some amount of suffering which I voluntarily choose, because I'm a warrior.

And this is another reason why antinatalism is not for me: It's basically a stance of resignation, and definitely not a way of a warrior. Myself I do believe that I'm in this world for a reason, that I can make a stand here and gain something for myself, and for who and what I stand for - for Satan, for His rebellion which I share, for freedom and lawlessness.

But I'm not opposed to the antinatalist view because under the assumption of materialism, the assumption that there is absolutely nothing to be gained from this life but a return into nonexistence - then this bleak and pessimistic outlook is the only one that makes sense!

In a much earlier entry I posted about a thought experiment - which wasn't my own idea but I was very interested to hear other people's opinions on it. It concerned the hypothetical offer of a free vacation trip to any destination of your choice, no matter how much it costs, with only one hitch: At the end of the journey your memory of it would be completely erased, and you would not be allowed to bring back any photos or other souvenirs.

There are no replies on the blog post itself, but 2 or 3 people commented when I posted the link to my entry on Facebook, and just like myself they said they would rather refuse this offer.

It would in no way enrich our life experiences of the memory of the trip were irretrievably erased thereafter just as if it had never happened, and therefore it would be useless. (Apart from the fact that some said they'd hate the idea of having their memory tampered with.)

But you see, the actual reason why this thought experiment interested me so much was because in the materialist view, our entire lives would be just like this trip! 

If we are to simply cease to exist after the death of our bodies then naturally we won't retain any memories of our lives, and it would be as if we had never lived in the first place. This very fact makes life completely pointless from the start, which is why in my opinion, a materialist view can only be accommodated along with the antinatalist view - all else seems complete insanity!
Because if materialism is true then we all were only really born to die, needlessly.

And let's face it, if materialism is true then it's completely delusional to believe that any part of you will live on in your children, grandchildren, and future generations. Some genes, yes - but you also share some genes with mosquitoes, potatoes, and any lifeform on Earth; it all evolved from the same substance and is ultimately made of the same substance. But in order to live in any form you have to experience - consciously. There is no reason to believe that after your physical death you will suddenly to some extent share the consciousness of your children, if that were so then why would this suddenly happen only after your death?
1) While alive you don't experience a shared consciousness with your children. 2) If you have more than one child, your consciousness would have to somehow split up to be distributed among them. 3) And what would that be like for the child...
(My father already died about 10 years ago, and I'm perfectly certain that no part of his consciousness has become part of mine!)

And even if you're into this creepy collectivism - being the ultimate individualist, it's totally creepy to me - and you believe in "contributing your part to humanity as a whole", that would make very little difference since humanity will also eventually cease to exist, and that's absolutely not a question of "if" but only of "when".

Lately I read this article about the probability of finding extraterrestrial life in globular star clusters - there's an English language source article to it, but what interested me more than the article itself were some of the comments under the one in Dutch language.
The article says that in a couple of billions of years, Earth will become too hot to sustain life and that humanity will therefore have to move to a different solar system. A person named "Tom Meijer" is quoting this part and suggesting that such nonsense should not be repeated everywhere.
Someone else correctly points out that with the aging Sun growing hotter over time, Earth will indeed become uninhabitable. Tom Meijer states he knows this but that this is not what he meant: it is the idea that humanity might still exist in billions of years that is absolutely preposterous - and I couldn't agree more with him!!

His comment is drawing mighty flak, including name calling ("lulkoek" roughly translates as "dick cookie"), which more often than not speaks for a lack of any valid points of argumentation.
"How dare you say that our precious, noble race [LOL] might be anything but immortal among the stars?!"
 But the truth is, absolutely nothing in this physical universe is meant to last, even the stars burn out, and the formation of new ones likely will eventually cease.

Species of lifeforms are even much shorter lived, without exception they either change or disappear over geological time spans. Even my beloved familiars, the sharks, who are at over 400 million years among the oldest of all higher species of life of Earth - which means, for comparison, they had already existed for about 200 million years at the time the very first dinosaurs appeared - have not remained the same over time. In the deep sea there are still some very archaic species like the frilled shark enduring to this day; on the other hand more modern families like the mackerel sharks, members of which include swift and highly intelligent species like the mako and great white sharks, appeared only later, and the greatest predator the oceans have ever seen, the mighty Megalodon, sadly is no longer among us.

The same goes for humans; in the unlikely case that they won't have long died out in a few millions (NOT billions) of years it is doubtful whether they could still appropriately be regarded as humans because their nature and appearance would likely be vastly different from what is familiar to us now.

In conclusion, the most likely explanation for the Fermi Paradox may be indeed that intelligent species capable of building space-faring civilizations usually are only very short lived.

I don't negotiate with terrorists

Happy New Year!

So let's finally get to the blog I meant to have written for at least 10 million years or so - is it really this hard to get around to anything!?

It's SSDD, or rather SSDY, actually: "Same shit, different year."
On my search for truth I still find myself caught between idiocy and bullshit, as if there were no alternative!
I watched this video the other day and it made me so, so angry. I actually perfectly agreed with everything it said - until about minute 12:30. The screen says:

"Why do people with such ferocity cling to a belief in a mind-independent reality? It is surely because if there is no such reality, then ultimately (as far as we can know) mind alone exists. And if mind is not a product of real matter, but rather is the creator of the illusion of material reality (which has,in fact,despite the materialists, been known to be the case since the discovery of quantum mechanics in 1925), then a theistic view of our existence becomes the only rational alternative to solipsism."

Seriously, WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why is it always atheism versus theism? Why can't we ever have a seriously scientific discussion about things? Oh well, so if this is a war then I'm against BOTH!!!

I still agree with all the rest in the above video except for the unfortunate conclusion it jumps to - which is not a conclusion drawn from evidence; instead it really is just the fallacy known as Confirmation Bias.
They're doing the very same thing as the materialists really. The materialists set their "faith" in science, and since non-physical phenomena cannot be measured by any scientific instruments, the (false) conclusion is that nothing but matter can exist. The theists, on the other hand, use any and all evidence to the contrary as (false) proof for their f'ing dicktator. [< This is NOT a typo: god is both a dick and a dictator, hence a "dicktator". Because I say so.]

Why would you need a dicktator in order to have a soul?!
Why would you need a dicktator to have an afterlife?!
Why would the correct conclusion, that consciousness is fundamental to the universe rather than matter, imply a f'ing dicktator?!

Yes, being a Satanist, I do believe that the demiurge is a force that is manifest in the universe.
Three entries before this one I posted a video excerpt from Star Trek Voyager, saying that it gave me the impression that in this episode, Captain Janeway encountered the demiurge. Someone on Facebook later commented that he found this comparison strange because the alien says to the Captain, "you will nourish me for a long, long time!"
I replied to the person that this is the very reason why I made the comparison! And it really, really baffles me how people can NOT see this!

What else would you think that demiurge wants from you?! And I don't care whether or not it created the universe* and it really makes no difference - what it wants is to assimilate us, and for keeps!
It's not as if here on Earth only you have to live by its laws, and after you fulfilled your duty you'll be free - no, those laws are for keeps, too! Threatening you with eternal torture in Hell if you don't? It's a f'ing terrorist, it doesn't care what you want!
No, you have to stand up for what you want right now!
Don't negotiate with terrorists - or with a dicktator, for that matter

(* I'm not sure whether or not that dicktator created anything but leaning not - at least not all of it but possibly some shit on Earth, in particular the human mammal.)

 "Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism," so far, so good; I still agree with this much. But is there really nothing in between materialism and idiotic bible-thumping?!
If there isn't anything then it's time we made there something, and kicked out the demiurge!
Can't we agree that quantum physics points to a non-physical nature of reality, based on consciousness - who is with me?

To fiets or not to fiets?

I had meant not to fiets this day.
But first off, I was glad everything went well with this bus tour, apparently organized via Facebook only, and which initially seemed somewhat dubious to me; I was also a bit worried that not having any mobile devices, unlike most people these days, would put me at a disadvantage. But then again, I'm also smarter than most people and capable of handling things the old-fashioned way... :D

In this manner, the year 2015 won't have passed without me seeing my dear Amsterdam at least for a day.
Arriving there in under 4 hours, I first was bewildered when the bus driver continued past Amsterdam Centraal and all the way to Houthaven ("wood port"), but then turning back to reach the station on a wide detour. I figured it probably had to do with the IJ Tunnel being closed, as a sign had informed earlier.

Amsterdam Centraal (Central Station)

Good to see my Amsterdam once more, even in winter - it wasn't even very cold for the season, just mid to upper 40's, hadn't it been for the very stiff wind of more than 20 mph which made it feel a lot colder. This supported my original decision not to fiets,  I'd be here only for a few hours anyway so it wouldn't be worth it, I thought, but then...

All these fietsen! :)

Me, standing over a pile of shoes
at Waterlooplein Market

 ...after walking around for just a brief while I quickly got sick of it and wanted to fiets!

Mine for a few hours - a fiets! :D

And at Waterloopleinmarkt there's a MacBike rental, and so I went there and rented a fiets.
(For those who still haven't guessed it: "fiets" is Dutch for bicycle, and the verb "fietsen" means "to cycle".)

Police (station?) on stilts, no idea why.

So I rode on to Albert Cuyp Market where I bought some incense, hair ties, and a pair of leggings; then I went on to a little mall where I knew there's a butcher's where I could get a very good grilled chicken leg for lunch. The rest of the day I lived off granola rolls.

"Bottle Holders". Are you supposed to
wear these around your neck?? Weird.

 I found nothing at the bookstores that I'd have needed by all means, although I did see a few shark books. On the bus there had been no reading light anyway (I guess because most people have funky gadgets instead of books these days), and the entire trip back, starting at 8:30 PM, would take place in deep night. Night starts falling just after 4 PM at this season.

This kite seems to be part of the
"Amsterdam Light Festival".

In the end I did find the little agenda I'd been looking for. I'd been looking for one in Germany already; last year I'd been so lucky to happen upon one in multiple languages and since I got used to writing little diary entries in it (mainly tracking workouts) I wanted one for 2016 again but the only ones I could find were entirely in German. I didn't find any English or multilingual ones in Amsterdam either, at least not for affordable prices, so I bought this one in Dutch for 3 € at a sort of drugstore, and I like Dutch. Even when it says nothing about fietsen. ;)

My little Dutch Agenda 2016.

The only little disappointment was that after walking all the way to the public library (I'd had to return my fiets by then because MacBike rental closes at 5:45 PM) where I meant to spend the remaining time until the return trip, I found the library closed due to some internal event there. So I kept walking around some more, at least most of the stores were still open although most usually close by 6 PM otherwise.
At one souvenir store there were lots of plush animals, but no sharks among them. The shop owner asked me what I was looking for, and I said that I'm looking for sharks, and he asked, "what is that?" LOL!
I tried to explain it's big fish with sharp teeth - I was tired, else it should have come to me to simply try and say, "haaien". :)

The bus left Amsterdam even a few minutes early with everyone accounted for; I had been worried that some people might have gotten lost somehow and we might end up having to wait for them, but fortunately not. Pretty exactly at midnight the bus arrived at Bonn main station. I had written out in advance my possible connections home from there, and the next opportunity was a subway train; I'd have to walk a mile home from the nearest station but I preferred that over waiting half an hour for the bus which would stop closer. It was still lively at the subway station, some drunk was shouting around, lots of people passed through changing trains, two guys came pushing along bikes and I thought, I wish I could borrow that fiets from you right now to get home... and then an old man came along with a huge oar that was 10 or 12 feet long. He ended up sitting across from me and another man and apparently tried telling us how he ended up with that oar on the train, all jolly and laughing; I understood very little but had to get off after a few minutes anyway while the train would continue toward Cologne.
I was home and in bed just before 1 AM.

Today I'm a warrior, not a roll of TP

Today I'm a warrior, once again.
Of course I try to always be a warrior...

I meant to post again much sooner, still meant to write one about Anti-Natalism and my views on it but so far didn't get around; I also meant to finally (and very belatedly) post my Halloween song which I managed to record already but I'm not yet perfectly happy with it, plus I still need to write down the lyrics. All of this at some later time though; for today I'm just writing this brief post about my workout strategy - the psychological side.

I actually came up with this particular one ad hoc, right while I was on it, but it fits in the general picture.
I was running the treadmill once more today; I never do long cardio sessions but rather relatively short but hard ones, favoring high intensity intervals. Today it was 30 minutes and I hardly ever do any longer runs than this.

All in all there were 6 intervals of high speed, ~20 kph or above, the first 3 being a minute in length each, the latter 3 being only 30 seconds, with slower stretches (8 -12 kph) in between. The final interval would be the fastest at 23.1 kph and, hamstrings still sore from yesterday's good mornings, I told myself: "If you're a warrior you're gonna make it - if not and you have to slow down then you're a roll of asswipe!"

Fortunately I can report that I came out a warrior this time!

It's ok though to occasionally be a roll of asswipe for a while, as long as it's not most of the time. Occasionally it even should happen, because if it doesn't then it would mean the goals I'm setting for myself are not high enough and it's too easy.