Thank yous and apologies

Well it's Thanksgiving.  But, I don't plan on talking just about what I'm thankful for.
Of course, it's not that I'm not thankful for a lot of things, because I did have a lot of things to be thankful for.  Being fortunate, being lucky, having a lot of opportunities, all of that.  But I was well aware of that every day.  I just... wasn't the kind of person to say it all the time.

Running

The Turkey Trot (a 5K race on Thanksgiving) is tomorrow and I'm excited for it.

Although... I haven't run in a long time, so I can't expect to do that well.  But I'm still going to give it everything I've got!

But you know, running, man, now that's a tough sport.  Basically, you can't say you ran a race well unless you really pushed your limits.  And when you push your limits, it hurts.  And if you're not a pro runner, you're going to really struggle during the race (although I'd guess that even pro runners struggle too).  And you're not going to be winning gold, setting course records and all that, so often you have nothing other than yourself to motivate you.  I mean, there might be the occasional crowd that cheers for you or a friend running next to you, but other than that, it's an empty track, or spectators that don't care about you, or other runners who probably aren't going to be encouraging you on.  And then you finish and collapse to the ground exhausted, feeling on the verge of passing out or throwing up, going through the rest of the day tired and with a headache and so on...

Why am I even looking forward to it anyway??  I don't actually know; in fact I'm starting to reconsider...  No! I have to commit myself to the idea that I like being in pain running!

Yeah, I have my experiences in the sport of running.  I remember my cross country days in high school...
But that's another story.

Proof

Although I received a degree in applied mathematics, I might have preferred the theoretical side.  I mean, I always wanted to see things proven mathematically, and I was pretty good at proving things myself.

I guess that's one cool thing about math.  If you want to make a statement, you prove that it's true.  From the basic definitions of addition, multiplication, and so on, you can go on to prove entire branches of mathematics.  It wasn't something like, say, world views or ways of life, where it was basically impossible to prove anything right or wrong.

You would think that math majors would be pretty good at proofs, but still, you can find math majors that aren't that good at proving things.  Maybe a lot of people in general aren't good at understanding the things that are required for proving statements.  (Of course, I can't prove that, so, maybe it's true.  Maybe it isn't.)  If you want to see if you understand some about proofs, here's a simple example I read from a book (I might add that whether or not you get the answer right or wrong, I don't think it proves anything about your ability to prove things):

There are cards that have a letter on one side and a number on the other side.  Someone makes the statement, "Every card with a vowel has an odd number on the other side."  You want to test if this statement is true.  Say you have 4 cards on the table, and what you see face up on the table is: A, D, 2, and 5.  Which cards are necessary to turn over to see if the statement is true for those 4 cards?

"Every card with a vowel has an odd number on the other side."
Which cards do you have to turn over to test this statement?
(It is guaranteed that there is a letter on one side of each card and a number on the other.)

I can't accept that. I can do anything!!!

I don't know why I keep on reading stuff that I know I'll find annoying, not do anything about, and get annoyed by because I never did anything about it, but I do.  Anyway, while I was reading stuff that annoyed me, I came across a particular comment that annoyed me, one part of it being:

Many people realize that unless they change their life around fighting games they will always be a pot monster [one who pays to enter tournaments and loses].  Even then you may just not be talented enough.  This is the reality of the world.  The idea that anyone could be anything is bullshit.  So its easier to sit back, have fun, and spam Floe faces in stream chat.

I can't accept that.  I can't accept that!  I essentially live my life devoted to the belief that that is not true, and personally, I believe that
you should too.

There are wrong opinions

Take being gay for example.  It's so bad that it's an insult.  "You're gay!" or "That object is gay!" or even "That thing that happened just now was 'gay'!"  Oh man, who wants to be gay.  To me, it seems like that would be something you wouldn't want to tell other people, considering that many people will probably see it as a bad thing.
Or, maybe you're a grown adult and you like, say, the Power Rangers.  Most people would say, "Ugh, that's weird," or something.  Or if you're in high school and you like studying.  Who likes studying?  See, those were bad things to like; they were bad preferences.  Or maybe you're a gamer who doesn't like... The Legend of Zelda.  It's only one of the best games of all time, how can you not like it?

But then there were always exceptions and special cases and the like.  Imagine if you're hanging out with people who don't like video games.  Then it's more like, "You like the Legend of Zelda?  Who wastes their time on things like that?"  And then there're the people who are like, "Oh I don't like the Power Rangers now, but when I was 12 I loved them, I mean, who didn't love them when they were 12?"  You see, in some situations it can be a bad opinion to like the Legend of Zelda or to not like Power Rangers.

They say your true friends won't leave you because of your opinions.  But I don't know, can they accept you being gay?  Or, maybe they would never have been "true" friends, but you could have gotten along with them just fine if you didn't say that you liked the Power Rangers.  Sure, they weren't my true friends, but I can't say that I think that that means it's fine for me to alienate them by expressing a wrong opinion.

Imagine this: you're with a group of people you hang out with and you say you like broccoli.  But, these people not only hate broccoli, they hate people who like broccoli.  Man you're screwed.

See, you always have to be aware of what the wrong opinions are in any situation.  The problem is, these wrong opinions can vary constantly with time and place, and even contradict themselves often.  How can you deal with that?  Well, being the genius that I am, I naturally have an answer.

Breaking the themes

If you've read a string of consecutive posts, you've most likely noticed that there were a lot of progressions.  Topics that were somewhat connected that all moved towards a larger point.  And, it had been my intention to continue on in this manner, with slight variations (smaller subsections that seem to be focused on a single point but are actually connected with other sections that tie together to make an even larger point, etc, etc), but I found out something.

I didn't want to do it.  No matter what, it always seemed to be the case that whatever I wanted to write about would be the next series, the next topic, but I couldn't let myself do it because it would break the sequence.  And then, when I got to that next topic, I found out that I didn't really want to write about that, what I actually wanted to write about was the thing I was planning on writing about after that.  As such, I had everything I wanted to say planned out... for the next topic.  And then I would reach it, lose interest in it, and go on to think about the next topic.

So, I figured, why not just write the next series now?  And if I got bored with that, why not go with the next next one?  Or go back to the first one?  Or just jump around randomly?  It would probably be better than half-hearted attempts at following an ordered sequence.

With that in mind, what follows from now, instead of a perhaps seemingly unrelated set that ties together, will probably be seemingly unrelated sets that are randomly thrown together in an actually unrelated way.  Look forward to it!

Designing Optimal Strategies

With the amount of competition that many games can produce (competitions can arise even out of games without a real built in way to compete), surely it's worthwhile to carefully consider which strategies you want to be the best.  In many cases, there will be no wrong choice, but sometimes, if you don't plan it out correctly, you can make something that many people will see as unfair.

My pad didn't register the last note and you beat me by 700,000!
I totally should've won!

A summary of what I hate

Oh man, where do I begin?  I hate the people who are rude and disrespectful (who doesn't?)...  And the people who put themselves and their desires before everything else...  And people who are closed-minded.  People who think that their methods, their opinions, their way of living, are the only right answers, and that everything else is somehow wrong.  People who are so certain in things that they try and force others to think the same, even when those things aren't certain, and maybe aren't even true.  Yeah I hate people like that.

I also don't like the cold much either.  I mean, I kind of like snow, but not when it's freezing cold and blowing in your face as you walk through it.

Which is what it will probably be like tomorrow.