You should take part in philosophy.

Before you attempt to disagree with the above statement, think about it for a moment. In attempting to make a case that you should not take part in philosophy, you are already thinking about the value of making certain choices, deciding what you should and should not do, etcetera. Unfortunately for you, this kind of reasoning could certainly be classified as philosophical thought, thus pushing your argument into hypocrisy, the situation into hilarity and my facial expression into an enormous grin. You have fallen into a philosophy trap and your only escape is to look away right now in the knowledge that you are entirely wrong in doing so and live your life in a state of eternal ‘meh’. Otherwise, you already have or are now accepting that philosophy is on some level valuable, enjoyable, imperative or useful.

With this out of the way, welcome to philosophy. I certainly do not claim to be any kind of expert at this subject and have absolutely no formal education in it, this isn’t a formal introduction and I’m not planning to attempt one . This said, I find it to be one of the most enjoyable forms of stuff that exists on planet earth and in the surrounding area. You may debate this. This is also debatable. And so on. The difficulty of writing anything that could possibly be informative about philosophy is the slow creeping feeling that there is someone out there who would be strongly willing to debate every statement you make, and this seems to be the nature of the subject. There is an enormous range of definitions that are provided for philosophy but in my honest opinion, the most simple and most useful is to say that philosophy is to question everything at its most fundamental level and to attempt to determine what you deem as correct. Most people are introduced to this by some miserable sod telling them that something that they have always believed to be true is in fact wrong. The most common first argument is often about whether or not something exists. Sometimes it’s about whether god or gods exist but in a outstanding number of cases, it’s about everything that there is. This is how things started with me.

When I was 12, a friend of mine told me that nothing in the universe existed and that I couldn’t prove otherwise. Like most 12 year old boys, my initial response was to deliver a swift and moderately clumsy punch to the shoulder and declare it proof that I was around but as the argument escalated, I found that this proof didn’t work any longer and was forced to attempt to reason using words. This, for some reason, seems to be the favourite way for people to be inducted to philosophy. It’s fairly common to see beginner ‘philosophers’ (I am unsure what qualifies as a philosopher) challenging everyone they know and probably some people they don’t to prove that they or anything else exists. As I found out, a fellow by the name of René Descartes came up with a rather convincing answer to this problem which you can decide whether or not to look up in your own time. This stands as the first and last philosophical question that I’ve ever specifically looked up an answer for.

This picture of an apple is highly relevant.

After the initial jump of thinking about whether everything you have ever thought about before exists, a number of interesting new subjects to debate and contemplate such as ethics and morality, knowledge, truth, aesthetics, politics, and the colour of various household objects. A benefit of continuing on this path of thinking about things and then challenging other people with your ideas is that it gives a significantly stronger sense of clarity on the general sea and/or pile of stuff present (or not) in the universe around you. I, for example, have the rather absurd opinion that I have developed a functioning system of morals. Some people, on the other hand, prefer to use philosophy to justify drawing their morals from books supposedly written by people such as God and Richard Dawkins. In any case, you are entirely capable of considering and debating any number of issues and thus developing the strength of your personal philosophy or lack thereof. Only experience can have you coming out on top of the other kids in the great big box of philosophical sand wars.

If in some furious attempt to prove yourself literate, you wish to do some reading on the subject of philosophy, there are a number of places that you can do this for free. The most obvious is your local library. I am a hypocrite for saying this because I actually do not own a library card which has been declared by some people to be the most important philosophy item a person can own. Libraries are full of books, just in case you’ve never set foot in one before, and the majority of books contain knowledge that can serve to expand your world view and thus inspire philosophy whether they are actually about it or not. Books about philosophy are doubly useful because they are full of interesting new opinions to consider and challenge with the added bonus of almost always being written by people who are utterly insane. If you are like me and are fond of computers, you can also find out basic information about most branches of philosophy by having a look at Wikipedia. Wikibooks also has a modest philosophy section where you can learn about a few different topics in philosophy at various levels. Textbook Revolution also offers links to lots of sources of philosophy books, including 151 well known philosophy works at The Online Library of Liberty. I also recommend looking into Diogenes of Sinope who happens to be awesome on about the same level as Frank Zappa.

If you would like to have a philosophical debate about the quality of this post or submit to my will, the comments section is below. Sapare aude.

Being a pretentious git is not the key to good coffee..?

I recently had the chance to do something I never thought I’d get around to learning. Whilst away on holiday with the family, we ended up staying in the house of some rather wealthy people (“oh, this house is a downgrade from the last one we had!”) who we have never met while they were away on some kind of family business of their own. They had clearly made a big effort to pack away the vast majority of things in the house including the staple symbol of wealth, the ride-on mower, into a locked room. Two rather interesting objects had been left out for us to play with, however. These were a Sony Bravia television (which they appeared to have been using to watch SD digital TV by tuning it into a channel on the aerial port) and a (fairly standard) home espresso machine. Considering that watching television is something that most people are pretty fantastic at these days and the fact that my battle with the DVD player is not so interesting, I’m going to be focusing on my exploration of the espresso machine.

I had the convenience of having a machine already there for my use. Clearly, if you don’t then you will have to go out and purchase one or use one belonging to a friend or colleague. I am sure that the uninspired masses have plenty of unused espresso machines sitting around if you’re willing to give them a prod to sent one your way. I can’t really give advice on the purchase of machines as I obviously haven’t had to pick one up yet.

It’s always been a bit of a fantasy of mine to be able to make proper coffee with one of these devices. It’s all very mystified and a certain amount of respect is handed out to those who can make a cup of coffee that can’t be compared to dirt with caffeine mixed in. I’m not sure if I achieved this rank whilst messing around with the machine, but I certainly tried. I didn’t dare touch the mysterious machine without doing some research first. I was lucky that we had reserve holiday mobile internet to find useful information, even if the reception did blink on and off like a lightbulb.

So, first port of call in learning how to operate a coffee machine is getting the basics down and becoming familiar with the device you’re using. I didn’t have the luxury of an operations manual, so I mostly learned the specifics of the machine I was using by messing around with it after a bit of reading. This guide is not useful at all as it doesn’t explain terminology and actually missed a few important points. It’s also a tad disturbing, am I crazy for thinking that the water looks yellow? Howstuffworks , on the other hand, actually explain the various parts of the coffee machine before launching into making a shot etc. It’s probably worth reading this if, like me, you like to understand how things work before you use them. Once familiar with the basics of pouring a shot of coffee, you may want to just go ahead and make one to calm your nerves and gain the satisfaction of having made something, even if it is the worst coffee you’ve ever had the displeasure of sticking in your mouth.

Your next step is to do a bit of research into how to identify decent coffee, and this is where possibly the best resource I have come across so far comes in – The Espresso Pages. Within this rather interesting resource, a barrista named ‘Tom’ covers the ins and outs of pouring a good shot in specifics to crema levels, tamping, etc. It also has a fairly nice section on making frothed/steamed milk which is one of my favourite parts of the way coffee tastes.

Once you’ve followed through and done the required reading and familiarisation, espresso coffee should theoretically become a matter of practise and honing your ability to make coffee that you and others enjoy based on accurate feedback. Shockingly, nothing that I discovered about making coffee had to do with good fashion sense, having a metro-beard or making fancy designs in latte. Best luck in becoming able to make coffee better than the lukewarm dirt available at service stations and sub-par cafes everywhere.

The Beginning to Begin All Beginnings

Good day madams, sirs, others. I am known as Biggles and for a long time, I have been making a business of never finishing anything I start. I imagine that this is the same for a lot of people since the best of things don’t really have ends, just enormous drawn-out middles like those jelly snakes that you can just keep on stretching. Man I miss those jelly snakes. I wonder if they still make them.

Recently, I realised that I’m actually getting fairly efficient at picking up new things to research, learn, develop, rant about, ruin for everyone and so on. I intend to document reasonable methods of picking up new things to do so that other people may benefit. Words of warning are that much of the subject matter will be decidedly nerdy as that’s in my nature. My theory is that somewhere out there, someone with a much greater intellect, motivation, interest or luck than myself will come across one of the introductions to various activities and hopefully become proficient at it.

I would condemn this monologue here and now by declaring myself about to yet again fail to finish something, but currently I’m more interested to see how far I can get this jelly snake to stretch. Happy beginnings and delicious middles to all.