How To Create Content For Your Weblog...

Hey, look... a blog posting about how to add content to your weblog. How fucking original: 10 Ways To Create Content For Your Weblog.

At one point I bookmarked things like this in del.icio.us or spurl to give me some fodder to blog, then I realized that these people are just trying to spur themselves by blogging this redundant, useless tripe. This isn't a how-to or shove in the right direction, it is just a place-holder due to the fact they have nothing to post, and many others don't as well.

If you can't think of something to blog, don't.

Why blog out of obligation or due to thinking this is what you should do? My blog is an exercise in futility... it is read by no one and rightly so, since it has no meaning. I am fine with this. At least I have no delusions of its being or my reasoning to occasionally journal with frenetic intensity the contents of my ill mind.

If you need to spur your blog, just delete it and read other people's thoughts.

Categories: blogapathy, apathy, "how-to", "ideas", sarcastictags, blogging

No Rain...

California is a dry place. I have lived here for two months and not seen a drop of rain on the ground. I will admit that I have seen the dirty, droplet-shaped marks on my car twice that allude to at least fifty drops of rain falling in the area.

It is hard to imagine that I would miss the rain so damned much. Rain gives life; I love the clean, glistening look of the roads and the shimmering sheen on the foliage's leaves as they increase their respiration following a downpour.

Just a day of rain to cleanse the area of dust and detritus is all I ask. Why must the weather be so damned "nice?"

I hate the lack of rain almost as much as the song regarding no rain...

U-Turn Pandemonium

I have realized in my short time in California that the legality of U-Turns is not a privilege. U-Turns are a necessity due to poor city planning.


It seems as if roads and intersections are created with any thought to where people would have to turn or what would increase the throughput of the roads. Mere abundance is the goal, not people arriving at their destination easily.

Why would city planners create a division in a barrier that would more effectively allow drivers to turn directly to their destination and lessen traffic congestion when you could more easily just use an unchanged, cookie-cutter road template and have the people take their "free" U-Turn? Sure, these people slow the people that are actually turning, but why should they care? It is a law...

One-Day Weekend...

You have to love a one-day weekend. It allows you to catch-up just enough that you can't do anything for yourself.

Perhaps laundry can be done, or cleaning. It sure is nice to be able to work so much that you have no personal time whatsoever.

In related news, I have been remiss in my attempt to log my thoughts, dreams and wishes in this format. Moving and starting a new job have become all my world.

I have also installed Firefox 1.5 Beta 1, which has completely hosed the vast majority of my extensions. This takes me off of the hook for my lovely extension a day idea (of two months ago). I will more than likely re-dl them and change the version numbers in the install.rdf portion of the xpi, but I don't really want to do so as two of the three that I did manipulate their info were buggy as hell.

I guess I just get to wait for a bit.

Floor Blogging...

I am currently posting to this weblog from the ground... literally on the carpet of my apartment. My computer is one of the last things left after the movers took away my possessions.

Perhaps I will take a picture and post it as soon as I have my USB linker (that I foolishly packed).

BTW... It is tough to type on the floor, but an optical mouse works just as well on carpet as it does on a table.

FDA Approved Drug Allows 40+ Hours of Wakefulness With Minimal Side Effects.

Real Tech News - Independent Tech » Modafinil - the Scary Time-Shifting Drug
via Digg.

I am going to make a guess that this drug will soon be the new darling of the black market.

I cannot even imagine the ramifications of this drug's release for all-night cramming sessions. If kids aren't all tweaked after studying all night, having worse retention than the kids that actually read the book, how are students that don't use drugs going to compete?

I can't wait for this to hit the mainstream legal prescription drug-taking population to hear the horror stories of lives destroyed and families ruined. Or perhaps to lives regained after being able to use their newly-found wee hours.

I doubt that the come-down is as rosy as the article suggests. Messing with your body's circadian rhythm has potentially debilitating side-effects. This would more than likely shift your time so that, without the drug, the person would be unable to regain their sleep schedule.

Being the skeptic that I am, I checked-out Google News to find stories on this drug and its authenticity. This Gizmag article is much better than the previously linked article; it has information about military trials and such. An abstract from the British Journal of Psychiatry also sounds fascinating (but I am not going to hunt it down--it is sad to not have access to articles online).

Categories: drugs, sleep, fda, timeshift

Mad for Firefox Extensions: InfoLister

I will admit it; I am a Firefox extension addict. I currently have 52 extensions enabled for Firefox, and I would say that I use about 75 percent on a daily basis to search the web.

I see numerous posts on popular websites referring to the "top-ten" extensions or the "best," but mainly these articles are just showing gimmicky features that do not add to the browsing of the interweb. In an attempt to make myself post more often, I am beginning a series focusing on my favorite Firefox extensions and how they enrich the web-browsing experience. This list will be in order of preference, but I will begin with the obvious first choice for the extensophile: InfoLister.

InfoLister is an extension that lists the information about what extensions, themes and plug-ins are currently enabled in Firefox (or Thunderbird or NVU). I was going to highlight significant snippets regarding the extension, but their website has some mal-formed XML. Here is the homepage anyways. Maybe it will be functioning by the time anyone reads this article.

Thanks to the power of Google to turn anything to HTML, I was able to visit the homepage and obtain this awesome info:

Features:

• High customizability

• HTML, plain text and XML output.

• FTP upload (help page)

• Quick access: toolbar button and “about:info”” in the Location Bar.

Honestly, this extension is pretty much useless for most people. Firefox has a splendid extension manager that will allow you to obtain this information easily, and actually manipulate the settings.

The only reason that I even have this extension is so that I can easily show people what extensions I have enabled. You can also upload it to an FTP or do other wonky shit, but I just go into the extension manager, click on options then choose "show information" on the General tab. This opens a window that displays the information about extensions and such. After Highlighting the contents and using CTR-C, the pasted info looks like this:

Last updated: Sun, 10 Jul 2005 19:00:41 GMT

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Firefox/1.0.4

Extensions (enabled: 51, disabled: 1)

• Aardvark 1.0
• Adblock 0.5.2.039
• Add Bookmark Here 0.5.3
• All-in-One Gestures 0.15.2
• Allow Right-Click 0.1.1
• BetterSearch 1.8.7
• Bloglines Toolkit 1.5.6
• BlogThis 0.3
• Bookmark Backup 0.3.3
• Bookmarks Menu Button 0.2.3.2005012802
• BugMeNot 0.6.2
• Compact Menu 1.7.2
• Coralize 0.4
• CuteMenus 0.4
• del.icio.us 0.5.5
• Disable Targets For Downloads 1.0
• Download Manager Tweak 0.6.6
• EMbuttons 1.1.3
• Extended Statusbar 1.1
• Firesomething 1.7.0
• Flipper 2.9
• FLST 0.8.3
• Forecastfox 0.8
• Furl Tools 0.6
• Gmail Notifier 0.4.3
• Greasemonkey 0.3.3
• InfoLister 0.8.2
• LastTab 1.1
• Linkification 0.9.20
• LiveLines 0.4.2
• OpenBook 1.2.0
• Platypus 0.5
• Print 0.2.2
• Print Preview 0.4
• Research Buddy 1.02
• Resizeable Textarea 0.1a
• Sage 1.3.5
• ScrapBook 0.15.5
• Scribe 0.21
• Signature 0.3.1
• SmoothWheel 0.43.1.20041107
• SpellBound 0.7.3
• Spurl 0.35
• Stop/Reload 1.1
• Tabbrowser Extensions 1.13.2005030502
• TargetAlert 0.8.8
• Text Link 1.3.2005070402
• text/plain 1.1.5
• Toolbar Enhancements 0.16.2
• URL Link 1.06
• Web Developer 0.9.3 [disabled]
• “About Firefox: Soviet Edition” 2005.0606.1552

Themes (3)

• Firefox (default) 2.0
• Phoenity 1.5.1 [selected]
• Batman Begins 1.0

Plugins (13)

• Google VLC multimedia plugin 1.0
• QuickTime Plug-in 6.5.1
• Mozilla Default Plug-in
• Shockwave Flash
• Shockwave for Director
• RealJukebox NS Plugin
• RealPlayer(tm) G2 LiveConnect-Enabled Plug-In (32-bit)
• RealPlayer Version Plugin
• MetaStream 3 Plugin
• Java(TM) 2 Platform Standard Edition 5.0 Update 4
• Adobe Acrobat
• Microsoft® DRM
• Windows Media Player Plug-in Dynamic Link Library

After going to the Google HTML-ized version of the homepage, I realize that I could have simply put "about:info" in the URL bar. This clearly shows that, although I enjoy the added functionality of extensions en masse, I am still using only a fraction of the potential that these extensions add to Firefox.

You can download InfoLister from their website or at the Extensions Mirror (an excellent website for extensions updates and tips).

Categories: firefox, extensions, unhacks, tips&tricks, reviews

Your year is about to get just a tad longer...

Those who ask for just a bit more time are in luck... the year 2005 is about to get a little longer. Of course, the powers that be did not deem it important enough to give us an extra half-hour to sleep in--only a measly second will be added to the year of our Lord 2005.

Take Your Time: Extra Second Will be Added to 2005.
via DIGG

Makes me think of that damned song by the Steve Miller Band: Fly Like an Eagle... "time keeps on tickin' tickin' tickin'... into the future."

God I hate that song... I even had to Google it to find out who it was by just to exorcise it from my soul...

I am glad that scientists and international bodies are on top of the changes in the rotation of our planet. I often worry if my time is arbitrary (as are most things... such as months). Fortunately, time is actually based upon the rotation of the Earth.

My skepticism of internationally regulated events was shaken momentarily... but I am back to my chronic cynicism.

Categories: time, science, skepticism

Robert DeNiro is not Funny...

Whenever I see a film with Robert DeNiro in it, I think of the agonizingly painful out-takes for Meet the Parents. I enjoyed the damned film, but the outtakes showed that DeNiro has no comic timing and will laugh at anything that is a fuck-up. It is not funny if a person says "Fucker" and means "Focker" after the eightieth goddamned time. There is a reason that he is suited for dramatic roles: he has no sense of irony to foul his acting like himself time after time.

This picture is the only way that the man can be funny... if he looks the damned fool.

Hey, when I am eighty she will be 18... don't knock me!

By the way, I just wasted an hour and forty-five minutes of my life watching Hide and Seek. Dakota Fanning continues her reign as the most talented thespian still in grade school, but DeNiro is just phoning it in... as he has for the past twenty years.

The screenwriter tried to have a "tricky" film device (that the bad guy is another aspect of the main character's personality... oooh, original!), but just served to infuriate me and damn myself for investing any of my hard-earned leisure-time in this film. I thought about five minutes into the movie that no-one would be so obvious as to use this hackneyed and unoriginal plot device again... but I was wrong.

Obviously you can rehash this story over and over again as long as it has a big enough name in it. Fools (such as myself) will rent it to see Dakota Fanning get traumatized (yet again).

I am sure DeNiro was like, "hey... this is brilliant, where did you ever come up with such a creative idea...? and the script... to die for!" Either that or he said, "okay... I will do anything for twenty-million dollars."

DeNiro in the oughts = crap.

Categories: DeNiro, badmovies, obviousplottwists, lame

Conspiracy nuts... or grand satire?

Is that Bigfoot?

This is what I love about the internet. Sites such as this: Waiting for Bigfoot Live Feeds, which are completely ambiguous to their intent.

Is this a joke, a lampoon, or are they hoping that Bigfoot will just, through miraculous happenstance, walk in front of their webcam.

In the end... if I knew it would be far less fun.

via boingboing.

Categories: bigfoot, conspiracies, webcam

MIT Weblog Survey

I love statistics and data. Being a statophile, I realize that the best way for any data set to be indicative of the population as a whole is for any person that is eligible to take a survey, no matter what they consider themselves to be socially or semantically (e.g. I am not reeeeeeallllly a blogger).

I am not listed as a E-Level blogebrity, nor do many people read my blog (in fact, I am stunned when I receive comments). Even though I am not a popular blogger, I do blog on occasion and should, therefore, assist in the MIT Weblog Survey, as should anyone that has a blog. Even a person that has posted twice will help to make a dataset more robust and represent those that do not often 'blog.

I am happy to say that I have stood up and been counted (I wonder if all other people obsessed with research are as eager to take a survey or participate in a study).

Categories: weblog, survey, MIT, statistics, research

Middle-clicking does not constitute a "Life Hack"

All too frequently I come across a posting on a blog or a tech website (such as this: Easy Firefox 'open in a new tab' : Lifehacker) heralding middle-clicking on links to open new tabs as the hot new time-saving technique.

I just have to wonder, how the hell were they opening new tabs before? Did they use the tab button? Did they use the incrementally more robust "Ctr-T?" Did they not even know about tabbed browsing until they slipped while scrolling on a link?

The whole fucking reason to switch to Firefox, Opera, etc. IS THE FUCKING ABILITY TO OPEN NEW TABS IN A NEW WINDOW WITH A CLICK!!!

You can also do other fun things with the middle mouse button, such as close a tab by middle-clicking on it as well as re-open the last three closed tabs by middle-clicking on the tab-close button.

I am sure that any person that just discovered this tip would have their mind blown by the Tabbrowser Preferences extension or the awesome (if buggy) Tabbrowser Extensions extension (may sound redundant, but it is Japanese in origin). I prefer the latter, since my tabgroups (opened by middle-clicking bookmark groups) are color-coded.

A more useful tabbed-browsing hack is to map another mouse button specifically for opening/killing new tabs. I have a Intellimouse Explorer 4.0, and I use its 5th button mapped to open and kill tabs. The mouse has an awesome scroll wheel, but it is imprecise to push-down to open links (especially rapid-fire tab manipulation).

Categories: firefox, tabs, extensions, hacks, hacks?

Del.icio.us-AJAX Style

I have known that someone would eventually streamline Del.icio.us for the masses.

This is fucking awesome: del.icio.us direc.tor: Delivering A High-Performance AJAX Web Service Broker :: Johnvey. It only took me three seconds to realize that this is how del.icio.us should be ingested. If only it were as quick to post all of the time.

The edit window is still unskinned (it would be damned cool if you were able to edit in the same window Web 2.0-style, but the tech is still in its infancy), but otherwise it is an intuitive, speedy, interface.

I saw this on Waxy... It looks as if Mr. Baio found this ironically through Del.icio.us/popular.

My attribution could have been through anyone due to the inbred information cycle of the blogosphere in which any link will show up on any blog eventually. The people that are reading a person's blog are interested in the same things and they filter throughout the interweb... poking into miniature communities that are slightly related.

But I digress (but some day I will expound upon this)...

Categories: del.icio.us, AJAX, Web2.0, sweet,

Folksonomy Specificity (or lack thereof)

Goddamn I love a tag.

Searching by category is an excellent way to filter the abundance of the internet, but I enjoy tagging things in a somewhat non-sensical manner in order to free myself from the thought-limiting aspects of focusing what you have read, will read, etc. into easily digestible themes.

Tagging is a double-edged sword. It allows you to easily search for a theme, but it is a selective and subjective practice that can lose important details. I often find myself mischaracterizing articles that I wish to read in the future due to my frenzied pursuit of ingesting more content.

I find that an abstract tag can help to separate content into more distinctive and descriptive mental containers. 50 things tagged "toread" and "webdev" can be more specifically tagged with other elements, but can also be tagged for theme or a distinctive passage that defines it.

Underlying theme or deep context allow different articles across domains to be able to be categorized together in ways that will connect them and, potentially, create new ideas and innovation.

Synthesis in folksonomy... perhaps I will practice what I preach and try this in a few different manners.

Categories: folksonomy, deepstructure, innovation, tagging, reflective, trainofthought

Video Mashup: Star Wars, Oprah and a Scientologist on the Edge...

Sometimes the simplest videos are the most fun (for example [via])--I would attribute waxy.org in a similarly Baio-esque manner, but the video download is on his page and would seem redundant...

Waxy.org: Video: Tom Cruise Kills Oprah

Categories: video, funny, mygodIampostingavideoIamsuchaloser

From PTO to GTD

I subscribe to RSS feeds for numerous sites that have time-saving and efficiency-enhancing tips and "hacks" (such as these). Popular amongst time-saving sites is the efficiency manifesto Getting Things Done by David Allen. Efficiency super-sites denote this process as "GTD" and tout their "hipster PDAs" (note cards and binder clips arranged in a hierarchical manner) and moleskine notebooks (which I have always pined over--yet have never purchased) as the pathway to the promised land of productivity.

GTD seems like a good idea. It seems like a pseudo-psychological memory-freeing operation in which tasks are taken from the working memory, thus freeing information processing capacity for the task at hand. Simultaneously, a person is easily able to refer to materials to remind themselves of their course of action without slowing down the action. I could very easily be mangling the intent, process or underlying mechanism of this program, but I have not conducted thorough research.

In business, I use formula similar to GTD, but, in my personal life, I prescribe to a different acronym: PTO - Putting Things Off. I have thought for a while about this acronym and finally realized that the antithesis of GTD is embodied in PTO. I am such the procrastinator, I have never put this idea into a readable form until today. My problem is that I do not have a hard time getting things done, bet to begin them in the first place.

I came across this post describing what to purchase to start in GTD and was again tempted by the prospect of doing something. Perhaps I will buy myself a moleskine (and/or the damned book) and then either become insufferably efficient or have ammunition with which to illuminate the problems with GTD's blanket solution for efficiency. I would honestly prefer the former.

Maybe I will even make a Hipster PDA... I could cannibalize the ideas from the original, the DIY Planner and the Meta-Line organizer.

Then again, I could just take a nap...

Categories: GTD, productivity, procrastination

Tsunami = Severe Weather

I use the "ForecastFox" extension for Mozilla FireFox, and was surprised to see a "severe weather alert." I was rather surprised to see a Tsunami Warning as the "severe weather" event.

I looked at CNN.com, MSNBC.com and news.google.com and found nothing... even searching for "earthquake." I was wondering if it was a snafu... but I found the geological event on the USGS website.

Never mind... just released by the AP...

Still... I got the Tsunami alert at 8:20 PM PST, and the AP picked-up on it 25 minutes after that, without the tsunami warning? How are people supposed to panic if they do not have ample time to do so?

I see that the 24-hour news cycle needs some further refinement in its speedy presentation of warnings.

Update: No Tsunamis for the U.S. this evening... I was looking forward to some good, live news too.

Categories: earthquake, newscycle, tsunami

The Death of Traditional Media

I saw this article predicting the death of the print version of the Christian Science Monitor.

I was reminded of my bold prediction, earlier in the day, that print media is going to be dead in 5 years. I will add caveats. Small press (y'know... where to see music, drink, and 50% ads will still be around) is another thing entirely... they are not there for readership, they are there to have people see their ads for free.

Larger press... will be consolidated into the major news sources for a geographic area, with regional papers (i.e. one bay area paper for all of the smaller areas).

Paper is out.... You are not able to focus your news or see only what is NEW. The model is currently marginal, but it will be further marginalized as they begin to panic in the next year. Only papers that are able to create a web model will survive.

The paper is forevermore going to be secondary. I love a good paper, but I no longer subscribe to any print publications and read 120 different sources (more than likely hundreds more) every day. You have to be more than just local... you have to be relevant and accessible with an unobtrusive and useful ad-pool.

New media doesn't mean complete desertion of the old, but it will require adaptation and focus on what people desire as readers and news-junkies.

Categories: journalism, media, newmedia, change

Rites of Passage? More Like Pass on, Right?

'Tis the season for bad postry and trite, clichéd thoughts. People love a rite of passage and everyone is obligated to attend, even those that hate them and do not desire them at all. Across this great nation, and perhaps the world, people are performing poetry that rhymes "love" with "above," equates people with gifts from God and talks about how they went "above expectations."

I hate social recognition of accomplishment... Accomplishment is its own reward.

A year ago I was forced to attend a graduation ceremony. I had never attended one before (as a recipient... I had suffered through many other people's ceremonies), but I was doing so for my family.

We all suffered that day... People quoted the same people that are always quoted, gave advice (because advice in any other context is much worse than vague, blanket statements to thousands of graduates) that was boring AND worthless, and recognized people for being better than average.

Perhaps people are passage rite junkies; they are incapable of believing that people change without recognizing it in a social context.

I believe in continuous change; I hold an implicit theory that change is incremental. I do not need a ceremony or title bestowed upon myself to know that I have grown. Why do others?

No-one enjoys a rite of passage; they are all things done out of obligation and due to social expectation. Perhaps if they made new material or served alcohol they would be more enjoyable.

Categories: rites, passage, commencement

Social Bookmarking + Backups

I, like many, have embraced social bookmarking as the future of links. They are far more flexible than old school bookmarks as they can be given contextual information, a description as well as made accessible to the public via the WWWeb.

I do have a little hesitancy to go completely resident bookmark-less, so I have decided to duplicate my social bookmarks in numerous locations.

One idea is multiple posting to more than one social bookmark client.

Another is to import your del.icio.us bookmarks into Furl (or numerous other programs... just google it motherfuckers).

I am currently posting to Spurl.net, and I am using the option to post these bookmarks to del.icio.us. I find this works just as well (or faster) than the normal post to del.icio.us bookmarklet, but I am creating them in simultenaity on two separate domains.



Perhaps the future is in the multi-hit-posting combo of twenty clients at once... but I doubt it... perhaps I should check myself first.

Categories: bookmarks, del.icio.us, spurl, social

Tagging "Toread" does not always work...

Goddamned RSS feeds.

They allow me to quickly peruse a wide array of new information and see the flow of ideas, but they are cutting into my actual reading time. Case in point, I post articles that are interesting in my del.icio.us page as "toread," but I rarely get back to them, as I am reading more damned articles and posting them as interesting and "toread." Damned endless cycle of putting-shit-off.

Part of the problem may have been that I have not been in the mood to go back to d.elic.ous to check out my tagged articles due to its recent sluggishness. Fortunately, this weekend there was a server replacement/upgrade for the folks with too many damned periods in their name. I must say I can see a considerable speed increase... or perhaps it is just the effect of expectations upon my perception.

I will hope it is the former.

Categories: del.icio.us, toread, un-productivity

Sarcasm is a higher order brain function... really

The above article from the BBC shows a lovely infographic depicting the cognitive interaction that goes into understanding sarcasm:

So... difficult to understand...

From this awesome graphic and article, it clearly delineates that people that don't understand sarcasm are complete idiots who cannot use their brain in a holistic or interconnected manner.

Personally, I think that the areas of the brain are far less important than the actual processes (literal interpretation, physical reality and context as well as the discrepancy between the semantics and context), but the article quickly shows that multiple processes are occuring through complex social-cognitive interplay...

Categories: cognitive, sarcasm,

Breast Milk Saves Wheelchair-bound Veteran from Conflagration.

Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction...

He was going to the store on the bus explicitly to purchase The Exorcist on DVD?

MPAA Suing TV Sharers

Just to make sure I have not missed anything... I can buy a VHS tape from the grocery store, Best Buy, even Wal-Mart, then I could tape a TV show and show that tape to my friends and copy it as many times as I would like... but if I download that TV show off Bittorrent I am infringing upon a copyright?

What?!? Am I missing something?

I have been turned on to numerous shows that I have missed by downloading episodes from bittorrent (24, Lost, Penn & Teller Bullshit). I have never waited for a show on bittorent that I could watch as it is fed to my home initially. So, why is the MPAA shutting down bittorrent websites? Do they want people to not have an easy and free introductory medium to their shows? Do they think that TV that is encoded in XVID or DIVX is comparable to a full-featured DVD release?

Bittorrent allows people the ability to begin watching a show at any time in the season, not just the beginning. This increases the TV Network's viewership... then increasing profits.

I must say that the MPAA is out of line. I will admit that copyright infringers of DVD releases do lessen the profit margins of MPAA properties (I will admit I have never downloaded a movie), but TV sharing is something that is over the airwaves (and realistically just a copy of something they can get in their home for free) and allows the casual viewer the ability to catch-up and become an everyday viewer of their TV program.

I imagine that a statistical analysis of this data would show that TV filesharing does nothing but increase the viewership of programs. Idiots...

Read about this here... or here... either way, you will be sickened by the MPAA. Why not throw in the unwashed's Slashdot talkback as well to see how the trolls and unthinking view this issue...

Categories: tv, censorship, mpaa, p2p

DC Comics' New Logo for New Times...

DC Comics has recently unveiled A new logotype. It is the first new logo for the company in 29 years. Here is the obligatory press release on the DC Comics webpage, and by the NYTimes.

I think that the new logo fits the editorial shift of the current DC Comics... their comics are shifting towards a new central focus, and they will be doing a relaunch, similar to 1995's Crisis on Infinite Earths, later this year (appropriately entitled, yet another Crisis... okay, not really... but it should be). This is DC Comics' 70th Anniversary... they deserve a fresh visage as a septuagenarian.

Every time I saw the flashy Marvel logo before a godawful Marvel Comics film, I wondered why DC had not created a similar animated symbol to thrust in the public's eye when it contained DC properties. Even more surprising was that it has taken so long, seeing as DC comics is owned by the multi-media conglomerate/hydra formerly known as AOL/Time-Warner.

I have seen the same 4-starred, diagonally-skewed bullet emblazoned upon my funnies of choice since I began reading comics... Coincidentally, the previous logo was created the year of my birth.

I found this lovely picture showing the progress of DC logos over the years in a very interesting (yet boring) article/forum posting on Newsarama.

I am a little sad that the visual history of DC logos does not show any of the one-shot, experimental DC logos DC has run. Realistically, the DC logo has stayed very much the same throughout the existence of the company. It was bigger, smaller and multi-colored, but it has stayed the same. It has been a static circle with the letters "DC" contained within the circle.

Perhaps the elimination of three stars and the squishing of the circle will make DC not release any more movies like Catwoman...

Categories: comics, DC, logos, marketing

A brief (visual) history of DC logos.

The New Digital Divide

As I read this posting, I thought of the social divisions of people broader than the simple digital divide.

The "digerati" is an artificial division based on knowledge, and , for the most part, these people are willing to spread their knowledge to others. It is a division that is potentially inclusive. The internet is supposed to be a place where people are able to be together for once, yet there are divisions of knowledge into the haves and have nots...

I see people homeless all the time in this city... in sleeping bags under trees, lying on benches. The information revolution helps the educated and the people with the data, but these people have no real access to the tools or information of the digerati, nor would this information help them.

I went to Whole Foods yesterday to buy some good beer... a person ahead of me bought three half-filled bags of groceries for $450. Outside... as I was leaving, I did not give my one dollar to the guy who was trying to help himself without spare changing. He was selling "Real Change" Magazine, a publication intended to support the homeless by means other than asking for money. I have never bought this magazine; I have been fascinated by its contents and want to help, but I am hesitant. I do not offer my fiscal support, but neither do the liberals, nor anyone else.... and I am sure that the person that spent $450 on their bullshit vegetables and fine meats did not as well.

We fail to make a sustainable model for those that are not the "haves." There is a divide in support for those that have nothing. It is a divide that has no model towards reintegration in society.

We should all support the vulnerable in society, but how does pro-social behavior fit into a Capitalist society? There is no reward for pro-social behavior in the US.

My support is sub-par, and all of our support doesn't help. I wish it would. Digerati or not; the internet is not the real world and this divide doesn't really matter except in the face of profit margins.

Categories: digerati, homeless, support, internet

Home Arcade

Peter Hirschberg - My Arcade - Arcade Pics

My God... I want one of those. Just a nice place to hang out and sip some beers with friends... I bet it is damned relaxing to sit in the room during attract mode x 15...

Today in history... LSD was introduced to the world

Apr 16 1943

Chemist Albert Hofmann inadvertently experiences the world's first acid trip when a miniscule quantity of lysergic acid diethylamide accidently seeps through the skin of his finger. After leaving work early, he went home and settled into "a not unpleasant intoxicated condition." Then he had solid two hours of visual hallucinations: "I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors." It will be another three days before Hofmann gets up the courage to swallow 250 micrograms and ride his bicycle home.

(via dailyrotten)

I love the story of Albert Hofmann taking the first acid trip... taking a small quantity of LSD to replicate his first odd experience. He had intended to journal the experience, but had a very strong reaction: "I thought I had died. My 'Ego' was suspended somewhere in space and I saw my body lying dead on the sofa. I observed and registered clearly that my 'alter ego" was moving around the room, moaning" (Psychedelics Encyclopedia 3rd Ed.).

I find it fascinating that this research chemist came back to ergot synthesoids on a whim... having had "a peculiar presentiment" regarding properties of the substance not seen in animal tests.

The legitimate clinical uses of d-lysergic acid diethylamide have always been fascinating. It is a shame that this drug was illegalized and made unavailable for psychological research.

Yahoo Offers Business Homepages to every small business in the US

Yahoo! Search blog: Got 5 Minutes? We'll Give You The Web...

Fucking beautiful marketing idea... suck them in with the allure of free business lisitngs... make some money off of them with focused ads and then entice them with additional features and services for a fee (since they are obviously lacking the skills or knowledge to do this on their own).

Perhaps they will even become Yahoo!philes... making My Yahoo! their own and integration with their upcoming 360 degree business page... Damn, I can see the potential... Just like the dealer offering a freebie, just to get them addicted.

Here is the sign-up page. I would sign-up for one... but that would be abusing the generosity of Yahoo! I doubt that they are doing this just as a way to make a quick buck

I wonder if the business pages will have focused ads that promote competitors?

yahoo search marketing

DAMN YOU KATAMARI DAMACY!!!!

Well... I bought myself a copy of Katamari Damacy online last week... saved myself a few bucks for tax... well... after spending about 8 hours playing it this weekend, I am doomed.

I lay awake in bed last night thinking of the motions to move my ball to pick up more damned things... more buildings and skyscrapers and such.

This morning at work, the music played over and over in my head from the "make the moon" stage... I just kept on whistling it over and over in my sad little cubicle.

I am going to keep away for a couple of days so that it does not drive me mad.

How can a game have such beautiful and fun music coupled with awesome controls and fantastic, creative design?

It reminds me of games that created a story with little backstory... things like the Legend of Zelda, Actraiser, Crash Bandicoot II, or Castlevania: Symphony of the Night... Games that you want to play because of the immersive experience that they create... a simple mythology that is intuitive, yet built upon in subtle layers unbeknownst to you as you are playing... sucking in the fun. An eloquent narrative of visions and the design nuances that make a new world.

A good game is kick-ass... but it haunts you after playing it.

Pick up the cows!!!

View from the Heavens

Today Google Maps unveiled a new feature to their beta mapping service--the satellite information from their Keyhole acquisition... I have always wanted to see a satellite view of my home...

I am still waiting for Government spy cam access showing people running around, but this is still damned cool.

I especially like being able to see the route mapped out on the "real world" -- it made my 24 mile commute look extra-long.


google maps satellite



Birds'-eye view of home...

Cognitive Therapy as good as drugs?

Reuters news snippet

According to many sources, University of Pennsylvania research suggests that cognitive therapy may work as well as drugs in treating moderate to severe depression. This story is just a snippet, but news organizations are citing bits of it out of context.

This WebMD article has a bit more information.

I will endeavor to read the journal article to see what it is actually saying and if it compares the success rates of cognitive behavioral therapy to Freudian psychotherapy. I will just need to find a way to get access to journal articles online dammit. Cognitive Behavioral therapy (CBT) employs mental exercises along with behavior modification to change the manner in which a person views the world (extra simple explanation).

Previous research indicated that antidepressants are superior to therapy, and that the individual therapist makes more of a difference on a person's mental state than the particular school of therapy that they practice. Realistically, antidepressants are much better for most people, as they cost less and require less of a time commitment (plus more research supports the efficacy of antidepressants). CBT is an excellent technique though... I can't knock it like other forms of therapy.

Diagrammed into a Corner...

Charts and graphs are wonderful... but people forget that data is representative of something in and of itself... a relationship. Sometimes a tool, such as a Venn diagram, is completely useless out of context and words work better (but not in this case). What does something mean? Interpretation is often better than mere visual representation.

[picture swiped from here]

Hmmm... where is the overlap?

Word for the day kiddos: Abreaction!

Main Entry: ab·re·ac·tion
Pronunciation: "ab-rE-'ak-sh&n
Function: noun
: the expression and emotional discharge of unconscious material (as a repressed idea or emotion) by verbalization especially in the presence of a therapist

Just try to slip that word into an everyday sentence.

I was going to use the definition of the word "Catharsis" to try to spur my writing for this day, but I became enamoured with the word "abreaction" when I saw it in the definition. I realized I wrote it down while reading recently, and I had never gone back to research its deeper meaning.

Emotional purge.

I am realizing that writing about catharsis or abreaction is pointless... The expression is the cathartic device by which one purges their tension.

Jesus, I should not have used this word as a cue... this just goes nowhere.

Gmail Strikes back (but is still in beta)

"G" is for growth

I saw I had a Gmail message this morning, and it actually wasn't spam. One of my friends had his first child. I never know how to respond to having a child. But this is not the point of my post.

I looked at my inbox and saw that it said using "8MB of 1356 MB." I checked the new features, and I found this statement:

Storage is an important part of email, but that doesn't mean you should have to worry about it. To celebrate our one-year birthday, we're giving everyone one more gigabyte. But why stop the party there? Our plan is to continue growing your storage beyond 2GBs by giving you more space as we are able. We know that email will only become more important in people's lives, and we want Gmail to keep up with our users and their needs. From Gmail, you can expect more.

As I refreshed my browser following sending my mail, I saw that the number had increased to 1360MB. This is obviously Google's response to Yahoo recently increased e-mail allowance. I had expected the service to leave Beta-land today, but, perhaps, their intent is to just keep it in beta to keep promoting the subconscious idea to the users that they are special (thus increasing people's loyalty to the product).

With the recent fluctuations in the popularity of Google and Yahoo popularity and the recent upward surge in Yahoo usage (as well as newer, more refined search technologies emerging--such as the NEW! MSN Search and the reemergence of clustering and metasearches)... I can say that the search engine wars are on again. This is excellent for the frequent user of search, since competition spurs technological advancement, which, in turn, allows humans greater access to more ideas.

BTW... love the fool's day:

Yahoo Slacker Search

Google Gulp

BTW... now it says I have 1369MB...

google search innovation gmail

Update:

I was looking at the Google Gulp F.A.Q., and I think this is rather indicative of Google's stance on GMail

9. I mean, isn't this whole invite-only thing kind of bogus?

Dude, it's like you've never even heard of viral marketing.

11. When will you take Google Gulp out of beta?

Man, if you pressure us, you just drive us away. We'll commit when we're ready, okay? Besides, what's so great about taking things out of beta? It ruins all the romance, the challenge, the possibilities, the right to explore. Carpe diem, ya know? Maybe we're jaded, but we've seen all these other companies leap headlong into 1.0, thinking their product is exactly what they've been dreaming of all their lives, that everything is perfect and hunky-dory – and the next thing you know some vanilla copycat release from Redmond is kicking their butt, the Board is holding emergency meetings and the CEO is on CNBC blathering sweatily about "a new direction" and "getting back to basics." No thanks, man. We like our freedom.

Virtual Apple 2 - Oregon Trail

Ahh... Oregon Trail... what memories I have of this goddamned game. Not surprisingly, it only takes about 20 minutes to play all the way through. It is so nice that all I need to relive my youth is MSIE6 and my keyboard.

Click the title to be transported back to a simpler time... and watch out for thieves stealing your oxen!

Mitch Hedberg Dead of a Heart Attack at 37

mtv.com - News - Comedian Mitch Hedberg Found Dead In New Jersey Hotel Room



Mitch Hedberg was a funny man.

His jokes had a simple eloquence; the joke was often the implication of the one-liner, or what was not said. His jokes went far beyond the explicit--they pulled from the listener's childlike innocence and their dreams of the fantastic.

Simply put, they were funny because they resonated with something internal on a basic level.

I saw Mitch twice: once opening for Dave Attell and Lewis Black (where he outshone both by an order of several magnitude) and once as the headliner at a brand-spankin' new comedy club.

I can't even remember the name of the club I saw him at... it was near the monorail tracks and the downtown Bon. It was the skinniest, longest little club I have ever seen. It may have had the worst seats imaginable in comparison to the small size, since the club was nothing more than a glorified hallway. I spent $45 bucks to see him, with two free drink tickets, and my seats were just a few feet away from the front.

Mitch came out and started right in to his repertoire; he bashed the venue and another venue in Seattle that "ripped off" his fans. Eventually, after telling some jokes, it came out how much the tickets cost at the show, and he was livid with anger... well, if you have ever seen Mitch, you would realize that he couldn't be livid, but he was fuming in a very downtrodden, beaten-cat sort of way. He went on and on about how upset he was and threatened to walk...

He walked away from the stage and had a public talk with the management right next to where I was sitting... There was much discussed, and eventually he returned to the stage... but he wasn't really into it. He kept on derailing and was genuinely upset.

The set was okay... I felt a little let down, but I realized that he really cared about the audience; not just lip-service; he wanted people to have a good experience and get their money's worth. As I left, I said something to him, it seems like something either to say "it was okay and thanks," or perhaps a slur on the shitty management--hell, probably both. He just kinda smiled and nodded and I walked out of the club. I left disappointed, but I knew I would go and see him again...

But now I never can.

As I was remembering this incident, I checked Mitch's webpage (actually a cached version), and he had actually written an explanation and apology. The man did care.

37 is too fucking young.

hedberg comedy eulogy

The Long Tail of Google News Sources...

I saw this a few days ago on Waxy.org's link page. I took the information from the url linked to the title of this post and created an Excel spreadsheet to look at the frequency distribution for these data.

Just since I threw it into a spreadsheet, I realized I would love to share a simple frequency histogram and throw out some descriptive stats (arbitrarily chosen by the author):

These numbers are as of 8PM on 3/28/2005... they are constantly changing (bastards):

1172 total sources cited
7770 total stories

Mode of 1
Median of 2
Mean of 6.629692833
Standard Deviation of 17.8597173

The top thirty sources have a minimum of 50 stories cited from their pages and make up 2.56% of the total sources cited, yet have 35.44% of the stories (2,754) cited on Google News by volume.

The top 164 sources have a minimum of 10 stories cited, making up 13.99% of the total number of sources, yet have 69.14% of the stories (5,372) cited by volume.

The bottom 506 sources have one story cited by Google News, making up 43.17% of the total number of sources, but only having 6.51% of the total stories cited by volume.

Here is a snazzy graph showing the long tail and the distribution skewed to the left with a long tail to the right...



Fun With Scraped Data... 

google news sources citations

Welcome to Pez.com Bitches!

Pez might be the greatest candy ever...

They may not be low calorie but they are negligible in calories due to the fact that it takes the same amount of energy to open a packet of candy, insert them into the damned machine and then use it to laboriously eat them one by one...

It is a zero-sum.

I love the machines... but the candy is best eaten outside of the machine, in the packet. Just open the damned candy packet, eat it and get it over with... The reason you bought the machine was so that you can place it next to the others anyways, then quickly forget it altogether.

If you did want to know the best way to insert them in the machine (in case you are a glutton for punishment dealt at the hand of the Pez sadists):

1) open candy on the long, skinny side... just split the paper down the center.

2) open the foil wrapper down the side, exposing half of the length of each PEZ candy piece from its aluminum covering.

3) open your Nermal, Vader, Garfield, Skeleton, Clown, Santa, etc. and pull it until the candy-holding mechanism is fully extended.

4) push the partially opened Pez packet into the opening that will hold the candy, starting with the opened side (exposed candy goes in first)...

5) Push the candy into the machine, sliding off the foil wrapper as it is inserted fully.

6) Snap closed the infernal machine and pretend that you are performing CPR on the cartoon character and gasp as a single, tiny piece of PEZ candy slides out of your cartoon characters neck.

7)Eat the damned candy you fool!

8) repeat about 30 times

An alternative step that can be performed at any time in this sequence is to just open the packet and eat them all at once!!!

Perhaps I will post pictures to accompany this guide if I can find a packet...

PEZ candy FAQ

Sleep... good...

Worked for a bit today... long enough that I cannot post anything of any value today.

Looking forward to sleep.

Shark Bunnies and the Failure of the "NEW" MSN Search...

Hey look, its webtoons showing 30 second reenactments of movies featuring bunnies: Angry Alien Productions, Sase and Topsie

You may ask how I found out about such a thing... well, I went to a movie and I saw an ad for "the NEW! MSN Search featuring an everyday person describing the hilarity of JAWS being reenacted by bunnies. The end of the ad tells the movie viewer to go and search for "shark bunnies" on MSN. I thought nothing of this, until I walked out of the theater following my movie (Million Dollar Baby - pretty good flick... a couple of weeks later I even like it more than while I was watching it). There were movie posters as I approached the exit of the theater showing "shark bunnies" @ MSN Search...

This made me want to boycott MSN search for using such a despicable "viral" type of advertising campaign... rather disingenuous I thought (and continue to think). It was rather obvious to anyone that pays attention to trends and advertising. I knew that MSN was going to try to promote their NEW! search engine (which looks like Google and Yahoo mixed... on the rocks), but I was surprised that their big campaign was so obvious. I make a concerted effort to not use a product for which I remember the ad (unless it is a good product--advertisement should never factor into a purchase or use by a cognizant consumer--but I know it still does).

A couple of days later, I found a link to the actual site that had these bunnies reenactments (the link is above... they are actually pretty funny). I can't remember where I saw it, probably on DIGG (actually, it was... I searched and attributed it as such under the word "Digg"). They were on a mildly commercial site, and not linked to MSN whatsoever.

This was the last I thought about this, but I did not use MSN search (like most everyone else that searches... MSN is a joke).

I went and saw a movie with my wife yesterday, and I saw the same ads (I went and saw Robots - pretty animation, lame character design and one of those scripts that relies solely on shallow pop-culture references, cliches and scatological humor as its base for narrative advancement). I thought again about how stupid this advertising campaign was... it was focused on people like me, that enjoy satire and creativity, but simultaneously hate ads. They should have been making shit-jokes for the 4-17 year olds and middle-aged cretins that enjoy Britney Spears jokes and Robin Williams rehashing outtakes for Aladdin (y' know... the audience for Robots) instead of focusing on a demographic that hates to be manipulated and knows why to use a search engine (the reason is not advertising... BTW).

I think this campaign misses the mark... it is too thin to hit the web-savvy (who use google, clusty, yahoo or some other meta-engine) and too far out from the mainstream audience, who are the people that would potentially use the bastard search engine.

I tried searching for "web bunnies" in google... I get nothing fro the first few links. The first google reference to these cartoons is the ninth reference... a person's blog devoted to bunnies(probably not actually devoted to bunnies... but they had a bunny avatar and had a link to "shark bunnies..."), and using MSN Spaces (fucking tool). Here is this person's site. He/She references the MSN site that hosts a WMP encoded version of the flash toon (in lower resolution) and says, "under that big tittle [sic] in white, it says: MSN Search: Shark Bunnies.......ok so now i went there and u guyz have to go there to! ok, ready?" So, obviously I am wrong... some fool has discovered the power of the NEW! MSN Search through the ad and gone to the site, but this person is already using MSN Spaces, and he/she probably is just a person that already used the engine. Google found the toon, but it was not the first response.

So, I decided to try the NEW! MSN Search to see how it can find "shark bunnies" better than google... aren't they searching the same internet? I typed in the key words and watched the responses come up slowly... and then displayed in an unappealing and difficult to read page (I am sure that it looks better in IE). As they said, the first response is "shark bunnies..." but it is an ad for MSNFOUND. It was "found" by "Tad," who just happens to be the everydayish, hipster that is featured in the movie ad. I searched for "Tad" as MSN search prompted me... and he was the first response (with an image next to it that was blocked as being an advertisement... one of those damned ads that look like search results and people click on thinking that they are what they searched for). The link from the original ad has an "email a friend" link. I e-mailed myself (I am my own best friend) and soon received an MSN Search box and info about MSNFOUND in my inbox (ironically, it was delivered to my hotmail spam box...). There is an ad that links to the WMP version (low quality, streaming) of the flash toon, not even attributed to the people who made the webtoon...

I decided that wasn't using the search engine though... lets see how well MSN fares against google in a search for "shark bunnies"... I didn't find it on page one... nor on page 2... MSN stopped giving me results on page 25. I just went through 250 searches and found nothing that linked to these toons... not even the February 27th posting by a person on the MSN blogging software that had the words "shark bunnies" right next to each other!!! It actually stopped giving me results at page 25... even though it said there were 82,000 references for "shark bunnies!" I was willing to look at all of the goddamned pages just to prove a point!

So... the thing I learned from this ad is that MSN sucks at finding anything... even what it is advertising itself as being able to find.

MSN... I am going into my firefox profile and deleting your search engine from the search bar. Piece of shit, lying, useless software...

HOW CAN GOOGLE EVEN FIND IT ON ONE OF YOUR OWN PAGES WHEN YOU CAN'T!!??!??!

Oh yeah... because google rocks (and searches based upon word proximity).

Technorati tags: MSN, lies, google, shark bunnies

Perhaps I will be linked on MSN search eventually for "shark bunnies"... fucking someone has to with all of those people searching MSN for "shark bunnies."

Death on the highway...

I wish I could type in the car... the boredom induced by the same stretch of I-5 must cause my brain to generate ideas to combat the (new) sensory deprivation. Instead, I am left with the remnants of an idea, which I will now have to recreate from the central theme.

If I could type in the car, I bet I would still be a safer driver than half of the people on the road--Occasionally it strikes me that people have become rather detached from the reality that they are steering a giant metal projectile down the road... that they are literally feet away from death at any time (I am referring to being on the freeway, of course. Not city streets--that is just unsafe for pedestrians). The only thing dividing the vehicles are the lines... a tenuous barrier that relies upon the assumption that both yourself and the person next to you agree that you will not cross it when you are occupying the space adjacent.

I wonder how these people mentally represent their driving... I assume that they have placed it into the category or functional definition of "driving" and have forgotten the physical reality of it. It is similar to the idea that as something becomes proceduralized, they lose conscious awareness of the components that comprise the whole. In this case, a part of "driving" that is lost in the simplification is the reality of their situation.

A side note... although I would describe lines on the street as an abstract and artificial notion that delineates division... I have seen crows on the road not fly away when a car approaches them and they are near the line. Instead, the crow will just make a couple of hops to the safety of the space on the opposite side of the line from the vehicle. It surprises me in two ways: 1) crows have a capacity to understand that the line is a barrier that the vehicle will not travel outside, and 2) even a crow will trust that a person will follow the social contract, adhering to the vehicular laws, and not make them one with the ground.

I would postulate, following these two observations, that this behavior by crows is perpetuated by the belief that the division is tangible--that the line is a physical barrier that vehicles will not cross. I am basing this upon the limited cognitive capacity of the obsidian avians. The crows have made observations of vehicles traveling on roads within the lines with enough frequency to make a rule that the vehicles must travel in the lines (which is true most of the time). What a surprise it must be if a person were to drive off the road, through the lines, in order to flatten it.

I cannot see into other people's minds, but I would venture that people eventually believe the lines to be a barrier, in a similar manner to the birds. Without counterfactual evidence to refute this idea, people apply this heuristic (that cars drive in the lines) and feel safe.

Of course I am not saying to be scared while driving... I am just stating that people seem to be mentally divorced from the physical reality of driving. This is more than likely a fantastic thing, since it allows people to focus on staying in the lines (which, of course, is the only place that a car travels... caw).

I never did get to my idea I gained while driving... it was on citizen journalism as news. What is the division? My great idea that the division is money... but I won't say more lest I take away the impact.

Overwhelmed by information...

I must admit it; I am an information junkie. I love the profusion and amalgamation of ideas on the internet.

Ideas make me hot... like excited and shaky if I get the right one. There is something beautiful about a new idea with potential... like it has gained physical momentum in your head and the thoughts are gathered and carried by their movement... towards the future. A new idea that I have not thought is instantly assaulted and merged and torn asunder by competing ideas... compared to others and incorporated into the tools with which I perceive the sensory stimuli that surround me.

RSS feeds may be the death of me... I just read a several page article about the creation of XML here [via]. Metainformation, contextual tagging and the resemblance of the semantic web to human thought may consume me in the end... I could see how the interplay could propel both into unexpected change.

I drive in the morning and I think of so much to write... I just want to spew the wortds from my fingers and have them land on a page, but I am just left with ideas after the commute... perhaps I should just record them in audio... but who would want to listen to that... my broken staccato ramblings... full of emotive voice and non-cued data.

Maybe I will keep a pad with me again to record my thoughts.

To sleep... perchance to dream.

Sleeping has always seemed like a waste of time to me. I have had the opportunity to be up at all hours... and an additional 5-8 hours in a day can alleviate stress and allow you to do the things you always desired.

Perhaps I should spend more of my waking hours actively participating in life and not battling the plague of sleep. Perhaps I would sleep better as well.

I find that I lie in bed, when awakened from my slumber, thinking about how I cannot think too much or I will never fall asleep. Perhaps I should just get up and give-up after being awakened... how bad is being sleepy if you do not focus on trying to get back to sleep?

To dream... sometimes the images in my dreams irritate me. They are obviously remnants of the subconscious playing with each other... toying in the confines of my skull. I wish that they would be less abstract at times... I try to control them, but that just becomes boring (or the little mind me trying to just stay asleep and stop realizing that I am sleeping and not interfere with the creatures that live in the land of dreams).

My title is not very fitting. I am still looking at my fingers (perhaps through them would be a more apt description...). Looking at the keys instead of my words will not keep me from committing typographical errors. Not that I really care (intent is much more important than silly errors), but I would like to become a more prficient typist. Perhaps I should get a keyboard that is meant for speed... learn something that is the antithesis of the QWERTY style... I should eschew tradition and go for something completely different.

Or perhaps I will continue to hammer away on these keys... The keyboard is rather attractive...

To sleep... the chance to regenerate; for my neurons to fix in place the thoughts and events that have occured in the course of my day... I will be sure to remember that nap (then again, probably not).

North Korean Sexual Equality

North Korean Sexual Equality

Obviously this is primarily intended for humor, but the statements about sexual freedom, or the lack thereof, in a capitalist society are fascinating [via].

I was wary during these, the Ides, of March

I have no idea why, but I saw the date and instantly realized it was the time of the year in which Caesar was killed (according to the Daily Rotten, this was in the year 44 A.D. on this day).

Prescient visions of the future are far and between in this age of skepticism and religion (opposing forces that both preclude the existence of knowledge of the future that is not predictive or deity-derived/linked). Although I am not a follower of prophesy, or a seer of future events per se, there is something hopeful and vibrant about the idea of a vision of things to come.

I think of Martin Luther King's re-telling of a dream that he had. His vision was a device used to promote a political and social agenda, not a true vision of the future. yet by framing it as such he hoped that he could instill this possibility and give others the ability to envision the future in this manner.

There is the idea of a person imbued with vision. These individuals are seen only as such after their vision has manifested. Without the predictive ability, these goals would not have been achieved. A vision has an aspect of bi-directionality to it; the projection of oneself and others into this conceptualization leads to its manifestation.

Opening others minds to the possibility can allow it to happen, since the possibility now exists.

A new vision...

If I ever am able to clarify, refine and put into place my vision, perhaps I will delete these first few posts.

Ideas of content; most will more than likely be included (looks like a quote... but it is actually just set off):

Reviews - movie and especially book reviews. What I personally gained from them following their ingestion... then how to go beyond upon further thought following posting.

Ideas - flow of ideas between blogs and across the internet and into society. Perhaps classification and follow-up on ideas in society and the bi-directional influence of the news and the colloquial-societal definition of words and ideas as they become conglomerated to become something more than the original idea.

Words - The tools that humans employ to describe their world and the perceptions thereof to others--how these functional definitions describe and exert influence over the defined entity.

Links - What bog lacks links and commentary on things the blogger finds interesting?

F.A.Q.s - mini-guides on things in which I have some expertise - probably in other blog (such as p2p progs, online grammar and etiquette - capsule explanations that embody the whole without summarization - the idea)

Weekly feature - either created from the prior week... or leading into a theme for the following week.

Politics - ? perhaps not, but the problems I have with the status quo... attempting to coalesce various ideas about social issues looking for a direction for change.

critical evaluation and engagement with the world that surrounds a person - main theme

Girl Scout Cookie Drive...

I don't know what my problem with the Girl Scout Cookie Drive is, but it drives me mad. Doe-eyed, innocent, affluent children allowed to go anywhere to raise money for their exclusionary group... They are everywhere--any store has them in front, waiting until you leave to make their teary plea for your money. You can say they are offering something in return, but those are just overpriced cookies; you are serving to support their group.

Why should people have to see these children? Why is this exclusionary club allowed to bother people so? Homeless people (who need the money) are turned away from stores, even arrested, for doing something similar. I find that the public subsidization of this group is senseless.

These girls are getting money to do things so that their parents do not have to pay for them. They masquerade this as:

The Girl Scout Cookie Program is not just about cookies. These annual activities offer many opportunities for hands-on entrepreneurial program activities. We find that most girls in Girl Scouting thoroughly enjoy this activity and look forward to it each year. Participation in this activity is voluntary and requires written permission by a parent or guardian.
- from the girl scout website faq

I find it duplicitous that children are forced to cover the costs of their club membership, not to mention their indoctrination into female roles ascribed by the group.

I am sure that the Girl Scouts have dues and requirements in order to become a member. Actually... it is a quite reasonable $10.00, with an option for assistance.

As I am reading and trying to make my points about this practice, I realize that the Girl Scouts aren't all that bad:

--They allow you to substitute the word "God" with whatever you would like in their promise... describing the usage as:, "...'God' can be interpreted in a number of ways, depending on one's spiritual beliefs. When reciting the Girl Scout Promise, it is okay to replace the word 'God' with whatever word your spiritual beliefs dictate."

--They are not sex-discriminatory or intolerant of race or sexual orientation

Perhaps I am too hard on them... they are unwitting participants in a group that is probably okay, but is using little girls to support their corporate power structure. They only receive 12-17% of the proceeds from their toil.

This still does not mean I will buy cookies from the girls... Perhaps if I was writing about the Boy Scouts selling cookies i could have made valid pointsa against them. I still think it is difficult to constantly tell small children that I am not going to buy their cookies... they look so heartbroken. I find myself telling the kids that "I don't have anything," just like I tell the panhandlers...

Finding a voice...

With the recent ubiquity of blogs, perhaps most evident by the fact that I am writing one for no reason, the question of voice is raised.

A blog is, in the end, a public forum for the things that interest the blogger. It is to be read by others in order to pique their interest in the ideas that consume the blogger. Perhaps it is anonymity + exhibitionism that allows hidden personas to be viewed for the first time and accepted.

With this opening of the closed parts of your secret thoughts, where does the idea of voice lay? Should a blog have the sordid details of your ife occasionally floated into the commentary? A blog is, after all, just a repository of thoughts that have the link of coming from your mind. Where is the line to be drawn--and should it be placed?

Are my first posts too personal? Is this one even too full of voice?

The best blogs on the web have no salient feeling of having a voice, yet the reason that these sites are read by people and popular is the fact that people enjoy the voice, even if it is not immediately evident.

Sunday morning...

day of rest. I woke up early today, as i usually do on my days off... a little time to be alone and search the web for meaning of some sort. Looking for something unfiltered... something real. With the amount of content on the web, much is just rehashing; following a similar template to what has come before.

This morning I received a phone call... I said the socially-required greeting to the anonymous caller, known only as "Unavailable."

me: "hello?"
unknown person: "Hello, is this XXXXX?"
me: "yes.. who are you?"
UP: "This is [person's name inconsequential--and unremembered], I am calling from Lakeside"
me: "Who? from where?"
UP: "I am calling from Lakeside, about XXXX"
me: "Where are you calling from? What about my brother?"
UP: "I am calling from Lakeside--you did know your brother was here, didn't you?"

At this point, this unnamed person told me that my brother had left a rehabilitation center and could return by midnight without repercussions. Somehow, I had become his primary point of contact. Recently I have thought of the line from the bible (as well as innumerable action movies), "am i my brother's keeper." I realized that somehow I had become this, unbeknownst to me.

My brother has always created dual emotions of love and contempt. I feel deeply at his fate, yet I have no trust in his ability to do anything about it or to truthfully represent the world, so i cannot become emotionally vested in his life. I have always hated the idea of biological relations to people--I do not take that this random, simultaneous rearing and similar genes makes him a part of my life without my consent... but this phone call puts this connection into a form that i can touch.

"Am i my brother's keeper?" perhaps I am.