❮❮prevnext❯❯

Just donated Platelets at the Red Cross. Nice excuse to Netflix and get slightly chilled (a common side effect of round trip of the rest of the blood plus saline, remedied by nice preheated blankets they are happy to provide.)

Note to future self: don't over do the "cut back on water just before" , since your bladder is pretty robust and it makes veins a bit harder to tap. Also: maybe a more cheerful, less body-horror film than "Annihilation" next time, eh? Photo from last night's JP Honk practice, Eze backlit by Stony Brook station.

---

Last Man Standing in the Floppy Disk Business -
Loved the guys attitude and knowledge. He mentioned about the complexities of Floppy Disk manufacture; I am half tempted to track down and confirm where we are wrt CRT manufacture, I'd heard rumors it's a lost art - there's a LOT of material process that went into those. Years ago, when I was in college or just out, a woman on a plane gave me a copy of Saul Bellow's "More Die of Heartbreak". I never got around to reading it until now (and even that in ebook form).

Some synchronicity there in reading it now, decades, later- like one of the themes is listening to some of the big messages from our subconscious-self, our second-self, a concept which has been much on my mind as of late.

Why did I want to live in the Midwest anyway? Such a cultural throwback, unconscious of its own philistinism. "Out there they can't even spell the name of Mammon, which is just the way Mammon likes it."

Texts are tricky that way. Because you've read about philistines you may conclude that you can't be a philistine yourself.

Anyway, Uncle took to Fyodorov, whose position was that death lies behind all human problems. The earth is a graveyard and the one and only project of humanity is to reclaim it for life.

[The symbolist poet Andrei Bely] also said towards the end of his life, speaking of the women he had known, "Not a single one of them deserved me." I can't imagine Benn saying that. Those words, in his voice, would be impossible. And yet he might have been justified in saying it. So many modern thinkers agree that "overvaluation" is the secret of love.

God is a verb.

If you're afraid of loneliness don't marry.

Lev Navrozov, who is nobody's fool, says that for irrational and purely emotional behavior, America is in the twentieth century what Russia was in the nineteenth.

We human creatures should be at play before the Lord--the higher the play, the more pleasing to God.

"Let her sleep herself out. Nobody, in the ultimate sense, short of death, really gets the rest he needs."

The secret motive of the absentminded is to be innocent while guilty. Absentmindedness is spurious innocence.

The funny part was how rich she was in physical blessings. They counted for more than the disharmony of sexuality and stature. A bug from Mecca might have made a pilgrimage and crossed all of Asia and the whole Pacific just to take a bite of her.

"There are some who can't wait to get rid of themselves. Whereas others can't bear to let anybody go."

---

Fiddling with my home office setup, getting a keyboard well-positioned, has made me think about my typing. "I want to live like I type - fast, with a lot of mistakes." typingtest.com's 1 minute test puts me at about 74 WPM... I made (but caught) many mistakes, but they consider it fast, but under "Pro"

---

speed bag drum cadence:

"Small Government" means "a government small enough to spend my money only on things that I am interested in and not tax me for the rest". It is used by political opportunists to unify a diversity of short-sighted, selfish people under a common flag, expending the gathered political capital to achieve their own agenda. It results in the three D's: deregulation (usually the first victim, can't make money if the government is limiting profits on necessary services), degradation (of the existing infrastructure and services benefitting the bottom portion of society), and deception (of the middle class, telling them everything is looking rosy while the stability of the class below them crumbles).

While it may mean a specific policy within different Libertarian camps, its abuses by the the current [Bush] administration are well documented. The "small government" promised by the president in the 2000 campaign has devoured the entire surplus and increased debt to record levels. Many of our safeguards of a civil society have been removed or gone wanting for enforcement while this "small government" parades around the globe on the cheap capital it flooded the market with between 2001 and 2005.

"Small government" is a complete red herring, uttered by those who would make the government subservient to the capital it creates and defends. This self serving attitude would have prevented the National Highway System, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Hoover Dam, and the eradication of Polio.

From this day's blog entry when my blog's daily comment section was a small community, pre-Facebook. That day had some decent followup debate and dialog.

---

BABAM closing yesterday's climate strike at the Boston Statehouse:
Super random geekery - I pick up the UK magazine "Retro Gamer" (since the ZZAP!64 days, I've always been a big fan of UK game coverage). A recent magazine covered Steve Turner's "Avalon" and "Dragontorc" for the ZX Spectrum - the cheap and cheerful minimalist 3d effect is really great.
Scenes from the Revels RiverSing:

---

The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.

(A work I hadn't seen before, but I dig it.)

It was quoted by Dan Dennett in "Intuition Pumps". Just this morning I decided to try switching gears away from podcasts to audiobooks. It's a challenge for me to listen as attentively as a book demands, relative to a chatty podcast or an NPR show structured to be listened to. (More and more I feel aware of how my preferred reading mode is "skim, get the gist and go back for the tough bits.) Maybe it's a good discipline for me. I am wondering if I'll be as able to extract tasty quotes as readily as I do from ebooks.

---

Making the rounds - If Bostonians Loved Other Local Institutions the Way They Love Their Local Sports Franchises "Your name is Kirk? You are a healthy fellow?"
--My Immunizations Doc Monday. Seems either charming down to earth or asking a weird coded question, or both

---

2019 Update: See Also
One woman gets through a midlife crisis by hunting down a link between Hume and Buddhism. It's a cool story, but I also get a sense of "aww, I guess a separate re-invention of the idea of self-as-illusion was too much to hope for".

An interview with Mr. Rogers' Wife. The more I hear about Mr. Rogers the more wonderful he seems. A little overly self-disciplined, maybe -- who else do you know who could keep his weight at exactly 143 all his life? But just so full of love... an ordained minister who found a message that was really universal and transcendent.

---

Some Atari 2600 cartridge art stories...when the game itself is just some blinking moving squares, sometimes you can dig deep.

---

You forget a thousand things every day, pal; make sure this is one of them.

HAHAHA Romney is a fake-baker! Way to pander, chief! Romney Puts on a Fake Tan to Speak to Mexicans

---

When I understand that the glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.

---

I just can't get over how Scott Brown continues to refer to Elizabeth Warren as "professor," with the subtext that it is a pejorative.

---

In devops is turtle all way down but at bottom is perl script.

---

Jeez, iPhone 5 putting the audio jack on bottom (and digital-only lightning plug) really screws up listening to music w/ a cradle, eh? :-/
--from Slate's "A History of Map Monsters"

---

If I time travelled and had a laser pointer, could I terrify/impress? Or would I just say "BEHOLD MY POWER! TO... distract small cats."

---

The nail that rises up gets the hammer. It also accurately indicates structural deficiencies.

---

My latest ice cream triumph: Margarita. Ice cream base plus lime juice, lime zest, tequila, triple sec, and a surprising amount of salt

---

Revenue sharing, arguably the most successful form of socialism in U.S. history. The reason the NFL is so dominant is because the NFL is basically Marxist.

I'm grateful he references Chuck Palahniuk in "Eating the Dinosaur" because now I realize they're not the same guy

---

Between #REM and #NewFacebook, make sure you hug the nearest white person you see. It's a tough day for them.

--I like how it's all Star Wars but not.

---

Found on Boylston St. Never seen a stripe-y clip like this before! Photoblog of the Moment
Yesterday I walked around Lisbon on my own after getting up at the crack of 1PM. (Those external blackout shades they have here, with the pullcord on the inside, are terrific for that, just wonderful.)

---

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/opinion/20cameron.html?_r=1 - "I want to ask if it is in your heart to forgive me. You don't have to." and other last words on Texas' Death Row. click to play

alphaboogie - source - built with processing
alphaboogie! A program meant to entertain (and tested on!) two year olds... press alphabet keys and the letters fly around the screen (they kind of orbit where you last clicked.) It might take a bit too load, the soundclips make it pretty big. (It's going when the screen turns gray... click and start pressing letters!)

Techincally an entry to the latest Glorious Trainwrecks Klik of the Month Klub, but not very representative of it, in terms of content, the tools I used (well, actually this time had a bigger diversity of platforms than usual) and then actually getting the bulk of it done during the day rather than at the two hour jam.

---

"Stick It": awesome artsy gymnastics shots (overhead floor routines to kaleidoscopes, multiple uneven bar runs juxtaposed)+good soundtrack

---

I remember feeling a little guilty about picking on the Patriots' defense last week. I take back any taking back I might've done.

---

There's a parallel in my adding small bits to my website and a bird building its nest. The latter is likely more likely to attract females.

---

Aw, crap, that was the equinox? And it's Fall already? Bleh, guess so, http://kirkjerk.com/2007/11/04/ Wow, it's still summer?

Side geek/engineering note, and I'm not sure if it will even be useful to the geek/engineers who stop by... my group at work has a strict "code review" rule. The code for each check-in should be reviewed by at least one other person. Previously, the reviewee would fire up the Eclipse "synchronize with repository" (or "stink-ronize with suppository" as one quipped-- one of those unfortunate turns of phrase that you can never, ever totally leave behind) and click through and describe the changes.

As a group, we found it goes much better if the reviewer "drives", rather than the reviewee. Otherwise it's far to easy for the reviewer to be a passive, minds-off viewer, and by setting the pace the reviewer can ensure his or her own understanding of what the changes are.

---

Crazy Eddie of the Moment
For some reason Crazy Eddie has resurfaced twice in my personal memepool... for those who weren't in the greater New York area in the 70s and 80s, he was the frenetic spokesman for "Crazy Eddie" consumer electronic stores. He'd go on and on about how crazy his prices are for 30 seconds, then end with "our prices are IN-SANE". (During that time when "Crazy" Eddie Antar fled to Israel to escape fraud charges, one of my schoolmates quipped "wow, turns out Crazy Eddie was crazy after all." I think the store chain later merged into "The Wiz", and the confusion is heightened by the slogan "Nobody Beats the Wiz" becoming the chain's name, probably when some executive thought "huh, maybe 'urine' isn't the best theme for promotional purposes.")

So the first link was a where are they now feature, along with Wendy, Mikey, Little Debbie, etc. I was tremendously disillusioned to find out that Crazy Eddie the actor was distinct from Crazy Eddie the owner. I had always assumed they were one and the same... the character didn't scream "professional actor".

Then Slate had a piece on The "Crazy Eddie" economy, saying that even the iPhone knockdown price is not just the "repeal of the nerd tax" but an unfortunate sign of a jittery economy, willing to risk long term stability for a short term gain.

By far, my favorite take on the whole "insanity in consumer retail" shtick is this old Tom the Dancing Bug comic featuring "Crazy Morty". Here's what Morty's Doctor has to say about his Crazy Prices!:

"It's true. Morty Zimmerman is clinically insane, yet somehow operates a chain of 'stores,' such as they are. If you were able to find something of use to you, and were actually able to successfully conduct a transaction, you would probably pay a price wholly unrelated to the value of the item you purchased."

Good times.

I might come back and try to talk more later... good debate going on on yesterday's comments, hope that continues. EB writes really well, especially when he gets a touch formal. Once upon a time he wrote to the Tufts' Usenet group about the fable of the White Elephant, and I could barely believe it was him.

---

Product of the Moment

(from Bizarro) Quote of the Moment

I'm the taxadermist here in town. The people 'round here have a little joke about me. They say 'Don't cross Lenare, or he'll slice you open, scoop out your innards, fill you with sawdust, and then mount you,' I guess it's more of a warning than a joke. I don't like to be crossed. I guess that's why I ended up doing what I do. It's not that I feel a sense of power when I poke out an animal's eye and replace it with a glass marble, it's that I feel domination. Animals think they are so superior to us. They pretend to act all innocent, all furry and frolicsome, but when we're not looking, they mock us. As I cut away the skin from a deer's skull, I always think, 'Who's laughing now?' Usually it's me.

---

Ramble of the Moment
On a semi-related note, I'll mention that over the past week or so I've begun to live a personal idea of severely cutting down my consumption of soda pop and mammals. I'm not planning about being completely strict about either, but so far I've been pretty good about both. (The Mammal consumption being limited to a bite of Ksenia's meatball sub, and bacon used as a accouterment to a BBQ Chicken Sandwich.)

There's a name (and website) for "Abstaining from Mammal Meat" - Mafism (a neologism from "Mammals First"). It does make a certain amount of sense, on this planet mammals are the closest on the family tree, and seem to have mental and emotional capabilities that other species lack. There might be some exceptions in the higher birds, like parrots, but as the site points out we don't eat them anyway.

From a practical standpoint, it makes good public health sense as well...some very nasty diseases can jump species, and mammal to mammal is one of the most likely jumps...including conditions like "Mad Cow".

I dunno, maybe this is just a personal fad for me that won't last very long. It seems more sustainable than a lot of eating restrictions, though...and the site is refereshing pragmatic and non-fascist about it all. It's aways a little disturbing that any gelatin-based product, including jellies, don't qualify as vegetarian. Not to mention McD's fries, that whole beef-tallow thing.

---

Bad News of the Moment
Could Gas Hit $5 A Gallon? Ummm...yow. That's more than enough to let the schadenfreude towards Hummer drivers and the like wear mighty mighty thin.

Geek News of the Moment
There's a buzz that Google is working on its own browser. If anyone has the juice to take on IE's dominance, it's those guys. Maybe I'd even switch! This has got to be making Microsoft sweat...even though browsers are given away free, it's still an important source of control...in fact, some people think Microsoft worked hard to achieve browser dominance to eventually stop innovation in that area, because then the web might be more able to move in functionality Microsoft would like to see stay on the desktop OS.

---

Quote of the Moment

Racism is wrong. Judge people one at a time and realize most of them are a**holes.

---

Ramble of the Moment
You know, sometimes it's the details that really make something, or the action around the action. Like when I watch football, for some reason I'm really interested in how players help other players back to their feet after a play. Or how people on the sideline react when a player from the other team almost runs into them...are they friendly, or mean? I find that kind of interaction about as engrossing as the action of the game itself.

The other thing I like is when my UU-church ends with a kind of benediction with everyone holding hands, and at the end, you give the hands you're holding a reasurring little squeeze, a small message of mutual friendship. For some reason I dig that.

Just the little details I find interesting...

Another little detail: isn't it strange how almost all car hoods out there have the same design, something like this:

 /------\
 |______|
| \    / |
|__\__/__|
|OO ## OO|
#========#
##      ##

It's that V-shape that interests me....if you greatly expanded it, you'd see something like those old-timey cars, with a big space in the middle for the engine, and then fenders on either side, where the headlights go. Check it out...almost all the cars you see around have that trifold pattern, though there are some vans than are just a single crease in the middle. I don't know if this pattern is so predeminant for engineering reason, or if it's now just ingrained that that's how cars should look...UPDATE: the PT Cruiser is a good modern take on what I meant by "old-timey" car, and I still think it's interesting how most cars seem influenced by that.

Those are just some things that have been going through my head the last few days, though taken together they don't make up the most coherent blog entry I'm afraid...

Image of the Moment

--Peterman hurtling towards true love with Lelsee on a Cape Cod beach at the post-reception gathering for their wedding, 2003-9-20.

---

Link of the Moment
Sorry for the kind of bare weekend, update-wise. It doesn't get much better unless you're interested in video games, in which case you might find Game Spy's 25 Most Overrated Games of All Time list a good read. Images of a Previous Moment

		--Selfportraits taken with my Kodak DC-20 and manipulated with Kai's Power Goo, 1996 or there abouts. Fullsize versions here. Slightly reassuring to see I had about the same amount of hair then as I do now. Mo previously expressed amazement that I had these online at all, nevermind on this blog...
Normal	Skeleton
Ape	Alien

---

Link of the Moment
Dang, looks like Television Without Pity is having financial trouble...their Show Episode Guides are amazingly detailed.

Huh. They're having troubles with bandwidth costs...glad I found some flatrate webhosts, I wonder what they'd do if I got as popular as one of those sites...

---

News Quote of the Moment

I don't think it dignifies their deaths. It's not art. It is very disrupting when you see it.

Now, I'm not absolutely arguing that this art was appropriate for that public space at this time, but the whole implication of "if it's disrupting it's not art" is just terrible. Funny of the Moment

INTERVIEWER I think most people are interested in living a long and fruitful life, as you have.
2,000 YEAR OLD MAN Yes. Fruit is good, too, you mentioned fruit. Yeah. Fruit kept me going for a hundred and forty years once when I was on a very strict diet. Mainly nectarines. I love that fruit. It's half a peach, half a plum, it's a hell of a fruit. I love it! Not too cold, not too hot, you know, just nice. Even a rotten one is good. That's how much I love them. I'd rather eat a rotten nectarine than a fine plum. What do you think of that? That's how much I love them.

I had some nectarines yesterday. He's right, they're great! Plus, my diet right now is very fruit-centric anyway, so this quote really works for me.

---

Link of the Moment
If you really want to exercise your news addiction, with speed more important than confirmation/guranteed accuracy, Drudge Report (same guy who helped break MonicaGate) is it.

---

Quote of the Moment

We really are a challenge. And also because the modern technological world is interpreted through an American prism. We've always represented the future. And our popular culture has the ability to suck up their new emerging middle classes -- in Egypt and other Islamic and developing countries -- because it's informal, it's not aristocratic -- it's jeans, computers, music. Because it's an informal culture, anyone can join it, and it becomes very enticing. And that's the threat. They hate us, but it's a type of respect.