Tao Te Ching Reflections, 1 through 13

Before I was atheist, I was an agnostic Taoist. I still retain some Taoist principles, but lately I've noticed myself forgetting them when I need them most. I've read the Tao Te Ching several times, and I am going to read it again now. I will be reflecting on each of the chapters as I go along. This will encompass a series of posts, and I will put the chapter numbers in the title.

I will be posting the translations of the chapters one by one in quotes, along with my thoughts or interpretations or disagreements. (Skip over them if you don't want to hear what I think; my thoughts are underneath the chapters and not in quotes.) If I say nothing, it can be assumed that I consider the message clear and agree with it.

So, let's begin. The copy of the Tao Te Ching I have is apparently translated by Stephen Mitchell.

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Brief Intro to Memory Mapping Into Structs

Learning how to memory map was a frustrating topic to hunt down, despite how easy it really is. First I'll share my main source, then get to what I was doing. For a great intro to memory mapping, follow that link. It will explain the code below while I'm just going to show it and tell what it does on a high level.

#include <unistd.h>

#include <sys/types.h>

#include <sys/mman.h>

#include <sys/stat.h>

#include <errno.h>

#include <fcntl.h>

#include <stdio.h>

#include <stdlib.h>

#include <string.h>

#include <malloc.h>



struct GamColor

{

	unsigned char d_red;

	unsigned char d_green;

	unsigned char d_blue;

	unsigned char x_pad;

};




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Get rid of copyright

"Imitation is the highest form of flattery."
~Proverb?

"Bad artists copy. Good artists steal."
~Picasso

Invention is made by standing upon the shoulders of giants. The last couple hundred of years has seen immense benefit toward humanity: why? Science. Science has allowed everyone willing to understand the universe, and to manipulate it all the better. Science has for the longest time resisted the traditional forms of control, for what is true is true, and what is false is false, regardless of what politicians say. And when you know enough true statements, you can use that knowledge to create something amazing.

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Get rid of trademarks

Let's get what trademarks are for out of the way right now. They're for protecting businesses who can't out-innovate (and would normally just out-advertise) their competition. They're also in part for helping the public against fraud, but that's more of a side-effect.

Consider I made an Operating System, and called it Windows. (Remember, "Windows" is just an every day word that people use for at least several concepts.) Regardless of the quality of my OS or the effectiveness of my advertising, I'm in trouble for violating trademarks.

What is the danger to customers? They may buy my OS thinking they're getting Microsoft's. That's all. "Customer confusion." But frankly, this happens regardless. People sent back laptops to Dell, when they sold Ubuntu-loaded machines, because they didn't realize they weren't getting Windows. "Ubuntu" looks nothing like "Windows", yet people still made mistakes. And how was that handled? They sent the product back, and all was well.

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Get rid of patents

Software patents have been under heavy heat recently and have never been favored to begin with; I'll talk about them a bit. But really, the problem is with all patents, not just software ones.

Software has very little manufacturing time. What amounts to an "invention" is a mere algorithm or data structure at best, and a vague "look and feel" at worst. In one corner we have a patent for a Linked List, one of the simplest data structures ever, and in the other corner we have Amazon's One-Click patent and Apple's multi-touch implementation.

Perhaps the biggest offense to those two patents is their obviousness. Linked lists are obvious data structures, if you tell any web programmer worth his salt "Make me a button people can click to instantly check out and ship", he'll just say "Okay." Patents are supposed to be for innovative (and new) ideas. In other words, these patents should never have been granted in the first place due to their obviousness alone. In the case of Linked Lists, those have been around probably since before computers.

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Laughing Powers

I've wondered how much it amuses those in power, the small acts the rest of us do. People preach non-violence, or violence as a last resort, and the powers snort and continue their wars. People preach full-blown unrestricted capitalism expecting money-makers to be virtuous, and the powers snort and continue to exploit and cheat. People preach against government regulation, and the powers appear to be on their side, but really they want regulation that they propose to raise the barrier to entry in the markets they control. All throughout history, people have used the government to maintain their positions of power. Then those of us who preach against the existence of government at all are branded crazies.

Without intelligence enhancement, I can't readily see a way out of this mess humanity has itself in. I don't trust us with nanotechnology one bit; we've already shown ourselves irresponsible with much lesser technology. I'm not all that keen on having humans that just think faster, either. No, a new intelligence is needed, one without the human errors built into it, to help us all see flaws even the best of us have overlooked.

Though perhaps some of these issues are simply in Gandhi Stage Two. "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." Though for some I know it's not even past stage one. People continue ignoring anti-aging, anti-death information. Humans are disgusting sometimes.

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Chaos is good?

Americans have no idea what it's like to be "terrorized". It'd be interesting if attacks actually escalated. I realize that the "terrorist" plan has so far worked; that is, getting the US and world economy to suffer, as well as lowering our image and letting our government enslave us. It'd be interesting if more violent attacks toward civilians were around, and even more so if those attackers were white or at least "non-Muslim", since that's what "terrorist" is equated to now...

What would be the common attitude if a heavy Christian conservative assassinated Obama?

In France, the government is fairly afraid of its people, since its people are no strangers to rioting, revolution, and other violent acts. Perhaps were humans less capable of being civilized, I would renounce non-violence as impractical and a waste of time and advocate constant terror on the government: fortunately we're not that horrible. "There have been tyrants and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Always."

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