Family Learning Channel

ftw obama's black????

2010-04-03T07:57:00.001-07:00

I'm really bad with titles . . .

2009-09-28T01:58:00.000-07:00

A few nights ago I had an as-of-recently rare evening with no social or scholastic obligations. Whenever I find myself with several hours and nothing to do, I invariably turn to my terabyte external hard drive, which houses a modest collection of about 350 movies.

The movie I chose to watch was "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," a movie that I've seen several times, though not for at least a year. I chose this title for no particular reason, and even debated whether or not I wanted such a dramatic and tragic film to help me relax. For the most part, it is the film's ending that brought me to write this post. I'm not sure how many of you have seen this movie, or what you remember of it, but the last scene is one that I find incredibly disturbing on a level that extends well beyond the actual moment. (I'm afraid to write spoilers, but I'm sure that if you don't know what I'm talking about you're intrigued enough to seek out the movie and see it for yourself.)

To get to the point of my post, this ending has a strong effect on me every time I watch it, but my reaction now is not nearly as overwhelming as it was the first time I saw it. My initial viewing of the movie left me in tears for hours, and I was so disturbed and sickened by the fate of McMurphy that I actually vomited. (The base of my reaction was much deeper than simply seeing McMurphy, but to philosophize on that would take more time than I can give at the moment.) As I said, I no longer have such reactions to the film. I cry, of course, but only for a few well-controlled minutes, which I think is probably the normal reaction. But watching it a few nights ago made me think of that first time and also made me wonder if any other movie had elicited such an intense and consuming reaction from me.

I couldn't think of any, but I wonder if any of you have had any similar responses to anything in movies, or other media for that matter. I don't mean similar as in necessarily negative, but similar in terms of intensity. Has anything you've watched in movies, read in literature, seen in art, or heard in music struck you in such a powerful and particular way that you are forced to succumb to (what was for me) an uncontrollable emotion?

Er...what?

2009-09-15T08:20:00.000-07:00

Nancy Cartwright is the voice of Bart Simpson. Nancy Cartwright is from Kettering, Ohio. Nancy Cartwright is a Scientologist. Nancy Cartwright is coming to a local high school, Ohio to do a radio theater play with the high school's thespians to support the school district

The play they are performing is "If I Were You" by L. Ron Hubbard.

Maybe he was a great science fiction writer. Perhaps this particular text has absolutely nothing to do with Scientology.

I still have a big problem with this.

On Bodies

2009-08-29T11:47:00.000-07:00

I like watching volleyball. It's only minimally because I like the sport.

So, the AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour plasters temporary tattoos of its corporate sponsors on the athletes' bodies. Shoes, energy drinks, sports medicine, fruit juice, rum, and hotel chains. I find this disturbing. I understand that volleyball players are more scantily-clad than most other athletes, and the lack of clothing offers less ad space. Putting your company name on a jersey you made or provided money to make is one thing. Branding athletes is another. I just feel like bodies should be off-limits.

Oh, and also, I was just informed I'm watching The "2009 AVP CROCS™ CUP CHAMPIONSHIP KENTUCKY GRILLED CHICKEN™ CHICAGO OPEN."

Why I hate the internet (and the world generally)

2009-08-22T23:09:00.000-07:00

I will partially reproduce with comments this conversation below I happen to be in a similar situation currently:

1) Is is possible to run the Windows version of R across all four processors?

2) I was under the impression that R for Linux supported multi-threading by default. Am I correct in this assumption? If not, is it possible for Linux R to multi thread, and how do I go about configuring this?

It seems reasonable to be asking an R reading list questions about whether or not the R framework can work in parallel, but we get this response:

> 1) Is is possible to run the Windows version of R across all four
> processors?

No.

That's it. I'm not truncating here for the sake of proving a point. The guy just disregards the question entirely.

Continuing the response:

> 2) I was under the impression that R for Linux supported multi-threading by
> default. Am I correct in this assumption? If not, is it possible for Linux R
> to multi thread, and how do I go about configuring this?

Your impression/assumption is wrong.

Taking someone's obviously false misconception and ignoring the obviousness of the question but instead, INSTEAD, throwing it back in their face with an assault on their reasoning ability! BOOYAH!

A few emails later (after an interesting argument about how C works):

> Will snow be anyway useful for this, or multithreading must be made
> explicit (I don't know how) within the C code, or there is nothing we can
> do?

Please do your own homeork on what snow (etc) do, and how multithreaded
BLAS work (and the ones I am familiar with are C code and use pthreads --
OpenMP is another possibility).

I get it that he's British. I get that he's a stats prof. I get that he works at Oxford. But seriously, why does he insist on reading the R boards and then only respond with asinine remarks? If you're too busy to help people find information about this software package, maybe you shouldn't spend the time to get on and flame them. Seriously, that last email was basically "I'm emailing you to tell you I can't email you."

I hate trolls. Here's the closest thing I've come to understanding them:

Ridiculous

2009-08-20T14:44:00.000-07:00

THATS A NEW ONE!

Murder in my neighborhood?

2009-08-17T23:17:00.000-07:00

Now I have told one of you about the news from a few streets over. Just incase you don't get local news- THIS-is all anyone can talk about. In the news, it sounds like a guy killed his wife and hid the remains in the garbage, using bleach to clean up, and also reported his wife missing to make himself look innocent.

Here is my question, is this media bias towards sensationalism? Probably. Should friends and neighbors assume the wife is dead because she is missing, and remains ( thought not publicly proven to be hers have been found) Does suspicious evidence like bleach bottles mean that he used it to destroy evidence. As of last night, the man in question was not held on murder charges, but harming official business and the like. So should we read into what the news says and form our own opinion, or should we try to wait and see what the evidence shows. I keep thinking in my head, innocent till proven guilty. However I may try I am finding it very hard to hope this is not the way it looks. I keep hoping the wife will turn up, and everything will be fine. that area has one large cemetery near by and a smaller one. Who knows what may or may not have happened.

As if trying to hope of a good out come and believing the best in people is not enough, there is the chilling fact that this is just a few streets over, for those that know, on the other side of the park from me. My grandpa is buried in the cemetery down the street, I drive the street in question and pass that house at least once a week. Violence is common in our world. Murder rates are high in cities. And while i did not know these people personally, it is forcing me to realize just how much we can never know or guess about others and the human condition.

2009-07-30T17:14:00.000-07:00

I get a lot of songs stuck in my head*. It happens a couple of ways. One is that the lyrics and music will repeat themselves in my head, like I'm subconsciously singing it to myself. The other way is that I will actually hallucinate that I am hearing the song. It's happening right now. It doesn't happen in silence, but when there's white noise around. I'm really hearing something, but my brain molds those sounds into this particular song I was listening to a few minutes ago.

How did that song get stuck in my head? It popped into there because I saw the word "recompense." That threw me into the line "If it's time to recompense for what's done." Do you recognize it? I didn't. It's a Nick Drake song. From The Royal Tenenbaums. I don't have the song, but it's prominent in the movie and easy to hear.

Oddly enough, I don't usually notice the music in movies unless it's in the forefront or my attention is artificially drawn to it. I suppose you generally shouldn't notice the music, or at least the score, unless the filmmaker does it deliberately to add meaning. I don't know, I've never studied film.

However, in the course of my detective work in trying to figure out what song it was, I found this website which discusses the music in that film and the extra layer(s) of meaning it provides. I happen to love the film, and if you don't that's okay, but the way music is selected to provoke exactly the right emotional reaction has always fascinated me, and it's sort of about that.

* Obsessive-compulsive to the max, but at least there's always music in my life.

UM?

2009-07-15T17:38:00.000-07:00

Harry Potter and the amazing girls who saw it

2009-07-15T10:16:00.000-07:00

since at least 3 of us have seen harry potter i thought all would enjoy this article. its the wired story of the special effects used. its pretty frickin sweet.
post out.

Necissity, need and the cost of value

2009-07-13T20:44:00.001-07:00

Recently, I went shopping. I needed dress shoes for 2 weddings coming up in my family. So I decided I wanted something pretty and comfortable, as well as well built. Most of my shoes that I do own are really cheap. So I proceeded to be seduced, there really is not another word for these 4 inch leather heels by Ralph Lauren down from 90 to 60. blinded by beauty, craft and overall comfort, I purchased them with little thought.
It was only when I came home I realized i paid 70 with tax on a pair of shoes. 70, when I am desperately saving for a new( er) car before fall. ( long story but the car I'm driving now doesn't have a defroster/ working air vent)
After much panic, guilt, and almost crying; mostly at Amanda, I realized these are just a pair of shoes, and I can take them back, get a full refund and have no problem. Then, I found some spare cash that almost equaled the cost of the shoes. Now, the thought is to deposit this into the bank and use it to pay the bill for them, thus rationalizing the cost and value of the shoes.
Now, I find it terribly amusing that finding cash I didn't know I had ( I love when this happens, don't you?) can be justification to keep something I had prior decided as not worth the cost. What gives something value? Is it craftsmanship, want, desire, aesthetics, or is it something else all together?
What can we use to assign value? And where is it just impulse purchases or when is it an investment. Is Pleasure of object or ownership quantifiable?

the origin of love

2009-07-02T16:57:00.001-07:00

I haven't seen this movie in about four years, but earlier today someone who had never seen the movie was explaining this "origin of love" story to me, and I had to direct her to this video:

It's such a compelling story, and I actually saw it in this move before I really knew anything about Plato, but the fact that it's been around for at least 2300 years makes me like it more. It reminds me of why humans created mythologies in the first place. Also, I'm very, very glad the Phonecians gave the Greeks an alphabet so they could write things down.

Also, Hedwig's hott. I'd forgotten.

Can you guess what's wrong here?

2009-06-28T18:49:00.001-07:00

Alright, a little bit closer, then:

Oh, Windows. All this time I've been supporting you... and now this?

no me alcanzará la vida

2009-06-25T00:00:00.000-07:00

He terminado de leer Crónica de una muerte anunciada por Gabriel García Márquez en español. Lo recomiendo.

I've finished reading Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez in Spanish. I recommend it (in translation if you must). It's quite short--little more than 100 pages.

Reading a book in a second language is like unwrapping a present on Christmas morning. Very very slowly...bashing it open forcefully with a dictionary. Or, if you're Forrest Gump, it's like putting an unknown chocolate in one's mouth. There are surprises, and they're even more thrilling because of the work one must put in to understand what's happening. My favorite little gift of a passage so far:

Magdalena Oliver had come with him on the ship and could not get rid of the image. "He looked gay," she told me. "And it was a shame because I wanted to smear him with butter and eat him up alive." She was not the only one to think it, nor the last to realize that Bayardo San Román was not a man one could know at first sight.

Incidentally, it appears that Spanish has at least a half dozen words for "dawn," and I like it. Also for "fear."

I suspended disbelief while I was reading it, but now I don't have to anymore. I must point out that the entire plot of the book hinges on a few facts:

1. All women have hymens.
2. A woman without a hymen is not a virgin.
3. Bloody sheets or it didn't happen.

Fuck virginity. But it was still a good book.

Another True Story

2009-06-18T07:28:00.000-07:00

As some of you may or may not know, I'm taking several courses for summer school to get some requirements out of the way. All of them are at Miami Middletown, for no reason other than that the classes I wanted were not offered anywhere else. All of my three classes are introductory courses and very small with no more than 10 students in each. In all but one of these classes I am both the youngest member and the only student with Oxford for a home campus. Based on conversations I have heard and had with my classmates, I also seem to be one of the only ones who doesn't smoke two packs a day, doesn't have a family member in jail, and doesn't have at least one child. In my history class, one woman gets up every 15 minutes to light a cigarette, one woman doesn't vote because she "was brought up being taught that women shouldn't be allowed to", one 24-year-old has three children with three different men, and one man doesn't work because the money he receives from Social Security for his son's cancer is "enough to get by". We were discussing Andrew Jackson's "spoils system" today, and the instructor mentioned "aristocracy", and we proceeded to spend 15 minutes discussing the word because no one in class knew what it meant. Some didn't know what a passport is, or that Obama is a Democrat.

Am I a bad person because I judge these people? Because I see myself as a better person? I know hardly anything about them, and certainly nothing about the context of their situations, but even if I did, would it be right to judge them? My family is affluent, we speak properly, we don't have bad habits, we're intelligent and sensical, we respect each other, we take responsibility, we seek out knowledge, and we know about and participate in a world that extends beyond our backyard.

But does that make us better or worth more as people? Does anything make one human better than another? Is this perhaps a topic better suited for a face-to-face conversation?

fascinating

2009-06-17T18:44:00.000-07:00

This is interesting. It's a visual representation of job loss/gain since January 2004 in major cities all over the country.

Caution: it's the diameter of the circles, not the area. It's potentially visually misleading.

True Story

2009-06-17T11:56:00.000-07:00

Let's jump right in:

In Ancient Greece, there were no lawyers. So if you wanted to sue someone, you had to present your case yourself after taking a class on "how to argue". A student decides to enroll in such a class, even though there is no one he wants to sue, even though he is not being sued, and even though he has no money to pay the instructor. The student approaches the instructor with this offer: "I will pay you your fee when I win my first case." The instructor accepts the offer, and proceeds to provide the student with the necessary information so that he may learn how to argue.

The lessons come to a close. The instructor teaches the student all he needs to know about arguing and sends him on his way with a friendly reminder of his promise to him: "Remember, our deal was that you will pay for my services when you win your first case."

Several months go by. The student has yet reimburse the instructor, not because he has lost every case, but simply because he has not had one yet. He has not taken or been taken to court. The instructor, growing impatient and suspicious, confronts the student. "It has been months and you have yet to pay me. I need your fees right now. If you refuse to pay me, I will take you to court, and regardless of the court's ruling, you will be required to pay me."

"What's your reasoning?" asks the student.

"Well," replies the instructor, "if I take you to court and the court orders that you pay me, then by law you are required to do so. But if the court does not order that you pay me, then that means you have won the case, and based on our agreement, you have to pay me."

The student laughs. "On the contrary," he says. "If you take me to court and the court orders that I don't have to pay you, then I am free from any obligation. But if the court does order me to pay you, then you have won the case and I have lost it, and since I have lost and not won, per our agreement, I am not required to pay you."

I realize that this conflict is easily resolved, but I love paradoxes. And you should, too.

I need some help with this.

2009-06-15T17:02:00.000-07:00

I've seen this at least twice now:

If we keep the American convention of writing the time hh:mm:ss and the date mm/dd/yy, we'll have 04:05:06:07:08:09 and
05:06:07:08:09:10 and so on until
09:10:11:12:13:14
Then, we have to wait until
01:02:03:04:05:[21]06

Exactly the same sequence in the picture above will reoccur at 5 minutes and 6 seconds after 4 am on the 8th of July in 2109.

Also, why not list date/time in either ascending or descending unit size? i.e. ss:mm:hh, dd/mm/yy

Then, it's 5 minutes and 4 seconds after 6 am on August 7th, 2009. 04:05:06 07/08/09

or yy/mm/dd hh:mm:ss on 10/09/08 07:06:05

or the non-American hh:mm:ss dd/mm/yy -- 04:05:06:07:08:09 at 5 minutes and 6 seconds after 4 am on the 7th August 2009.

Not to mention it happens every hour on those dates given enough time zones.

Am I mistaken? Have I been taking crazy pills? Do people think when they read?

J-to-the-HOVAH

2009-06-08T18:50:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was at a laundromat reading My Name is Red (great book, go read it), when a man who was a bit overdressed for a laundromat walked in and said good morning to me. I said a cheerful good morning back, and then he offered me "something to read" that "might be interesting." I almost reached for it, but when I saw that it was a Watchtower, I recoiled in horror.

Another day, I might have politely accepted the proffered proselytization and then promptly thrown it away, but yesterday morning I decided I wasn't going to take it lying down, so to speak, and protested proudly, "No, Thank You."

He looked at me suddenly, surprised and slightly offended. "Well, thank you," he replied with a curious amount of emphasis on the last word. I think "thank" might have been a euphemism here. After that, he left.

Oddly enough, it was my first encounter with a Jehovah's Witness not in my family (afaik). Do you all have any interesting proselyte stories? Any opinions about the best response to these people and their gods?

EDIT: OMG I just spent about an hour tracking down a video. All I could remember is that I had seen a scene somewhere of two cops harassing Jehovah's Witnesses, and I couldn't even remember which sketch comedy show it was. Turned out to be Reno 911. I can't find an embeddable link. Season 1, Episode 2 for anyone who wants to look for it.

2009-06-05T21:20:00.001-07:00

I've been journaling, in a real hard bound journal. A lot. my fingers are stained with ink. Its refreshing writing that much by hand. I don't think I have that much since highschool. Now as it is me, its full of nonsense, non narrative prose, full of doodles flourishes with pen and ink, and not a little blood from paper cuts.
I really like blank pages to write in, even if it is just paged and paged of words. Lined paper always makes me sad. When ever I go to a book store, I check out their journals, and look for blank ones. so far in my life I have filled 5. right now it is a bright blue book hand made in nepal. the paper is bumpy and a delightful shade of sandy buff with swirls of white matter. I like it. i think it makes me think of things differently, than say if it was just a composition notebook.
Also I can write in perfectly straight lines with ink and quil on a pillow on my bed and not spill a drop.
I need to write some more plans and thoughts. Get ideas out of swirling in my head to somewhere else.
back to the book? or back to bedlam?

2009-06-04T14:51:00.000-07:00

go find this movie (wiki) and watch it immediately.

Videogames as art

2009-06-03T10:53:00.000-07:00

I've wanted to write about this for quite a while, but a few recent events have spurred this post.

Without attempting to argue specifically what constitutes the various forms of art, I think videogames are quite possibly the most modern medium. It is not uncommon for those in the graphic art field to transition to being texture artists or interface designers. Texture artists are effectively statue painters - if those have ever existed corporeally - and I have a tremendous amount of respect for these people. Being able to take a plain-grey textureless object and make it lifelike is a very difficult and time consuming process.

The question to me, then, is where is the line drawn? Who on the development team of a videogame is not an artist? Even I wouldn't be so bold as to claim that the management team or HR staff deserves this title, but surely those story writers and anyone generally making creative decisions.

I'll be the first, though, to ask - are programmers artists? Does modeling human (or other) behavior qualify as art? What about interface programmers? Is simply working on a creative team a qualification for being an artist? I am too involved to answer this question with no bias, but maybe the comments can take that on, though I can say that although my current project only deals with statistics and has almost no visual properties, I do think of myself as crafting something in a field (programming) that will in general, at some point, be considered a field of art in the same way that writing a novel is considered.

Here's one question that comes up eventually: What is an 'artistic' game? Arguably on a micro view, the individuals working on a game can be considered artists. But, what games are genuinely deserving of being called art as a whole? To illustrate this, consider Madden 2010. Madden is a series of videogames that emulates the (American) National Football League to the T. It is quite possibly the most complicated videogame in existence with hundreds of plays to call, and gameplay features I'm sure I don't even know about. One intoxicated night, we were unable to simply initiate a game - the interface leaves something to be desired (though it may be a safeguard from allowing those that are too intoxicated from actually playing). I encourage those who have not been exposed to this game to give it a look, as the visuals are pretty superb.

However, I bring up this specific game because of its *ahem* un-artistic qualities. The Madden series is released on an annual basis to reflect the changes in the NFL - player swaps, new stadiums etc. - much in the same way that a magazine is released. Additionally, for reasons that I won't support here because of their anti-capitalist didactic nature, EA is probably the least artistically free videogame company around. They release Madden probably more for the fact that each year they have a guaranteed seller - selling upwards of 4 million copies in recent editions.

Speaking specifically about the Madden series, does the financial premise for producing it, its rigid simulation of an existing system, and its repeated release disqualify it from being considered artistic?

I think it's interesting that society generally disregards games as being childish and uncreative. It's an unfortunate trait that most are manufactured to be sold to individuals who are incapable of understanding the artistic capabilities of the systems they enjoy. This of course results in a widespread objectification of women (I won't argue that, alm) and generally a dumbing down of culturally relevant material. You're more likely to encounter an explosion in a videogame than an accurate portrayal of modern life. Pointedly, even The Sims enables irreverently unrealistic possibilities such as becoming President, or an astronaut.

You've probably realized that I've formulated opinions of most of these questions already. So, in support of what I believe is an artistic videogame, I provide a truncated list of my favorite artistic videogames, all of which I recommend you survey them if only to get an idea of what they (and I) are trying to convey:

•The Myst series of games (Myst, Riven, Exile, Revelation, and End of Ages)
•Passage
•Portal
•Fable
•WarioWare: Smooth Moves (I think we have all had the glorious opportunity to play this fine example of artistic videogames)
•Pretty much anything by Introversion

Ultimately, I think society will come around to considering this as a legitimate medium for creative works. As usual, here are some (more relevant than last time) videos for those that made it all the way down here (stop cheating rubenssw).

•The Beatles: Rock Band Cinematic - Honestly I want to write so much about this but I simply cannot. Perhaps one of you can get smkndy to comment on this and shed a little more light. This is one of the catalysts to this post as it was released recently at E3. I realize the HD is large, but wait for it, it's totally worth it.

•Though this is not yet released, and this is a technical demo, here is what I believe will take the "Most complicated videogame" once it's out.

MultiScape + Planars = teh secks

2009-06-01T12:49:00.001-07:00

yeah, that's right. its like im in chicago. all the time.

some days i hate the world more than i love it

2009-05-31T18:24:00.000-07:00

This has me in a bit of despair. Sometimes it's truly difficult not to give in to nihilism. A news story like this solidifies my conviction, but I don't want to make this man a martyr. I don't know anything about him other than his profession, and probably neither did whoever killed him.

I don't watch television, including the news anymore, but nearly every blog post in my google reader today was about that. So I'll assume you've already heard about it. I simply don't have anyone else to rant about it to. :-/

Something else was in my google reader today, too, and it's important.

Abortion is universally illegal in Chile, with no exceptions. We should learn from others' mistakes. from here.

"So what do women in Chile do in these circumstances? If they have money, they go to private clinics or doctors who practice abortions in safe, sanitized conditions. Or they may even pay for an air fare to the United States or a country where abortion is legal. Most, however, resort to unsafe clandestine abortions performed by people claiming to be midwives or doctors, paying anywhere between $500 and $1,000. And then there are those who concoct homemade solutions, using celery sticks, clothes hangers or knitting needles to provoke the loss of the fetus.
Of course, many of the women end up in the hospital. And that’s when doctors are faced with a dilemma: Should they preserve their patient’s confidentiality and privacy, or turn them over to the police as they are legally bound? Few call the police. Nonetheless, about 200 women have been arrested for having abortions in the past few years and are now on parole. A dozen are imprisoned."

Do these people have any idea what they are advocating for? Have I been taking crazy pills?

I believe the children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way. Sexual Chocolate. SEXUAL CHOCOLATE.

2009-05-27T18:56:00.000-07:00

I got my first ever marriage proposal today: "Amanda, I want to marry you!"

"Maybe when you're older, George."

George is an adorable 4-year old boy. The son of a student. He's probably my favorite young kid. I guess my usual blanket statement "I hate kids" isn't strictly true. I get really annoyed when people say, "I love kids," as if they're dogs or a food or something. What a gross generalization! I'm starting to realize that kids are people, and every person is different, and some are great and some are average and some are assholes.

A few months ago, the same boy asked me, "Amanda, are we married?"

I said, "No, George, why do you ask that?"

He said, "Because we're happy and being married means being happy."

I'm a cynic, but god. How fucking cute.

p.s. name the movie the title of this post comes from and I'll give you a brownie.

Schrodinger's Dog

2009-05-22T11:11:00.000-07:00

It's a bit hokey, but its awesome:

in which I leave facebook or, I am not stuck anywhere and do not need your money.

2009-05-22T10:26:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: Problem solved. The original security email was, in fact, from facebook. They changed my password and everything is right with the world....sigh.

So, my facebook account was disabled. Today, I think. Earlier today I received this email:

And now when I try to log in to facebook, I see this:

Clicking the "faq" tells me that my facebook was deactivated because I violated the terms of use. Maybe my profile picture was a copyrighted image. I did change the spelling of my name to a phonetic mis-spelling. Does that mean I was impersonating another person? Was that huffington post article about celebrity breast implants considered "pornographic"? Or is that what happens when your account gets "compromised"?

I didn't reply to the email asking me for my first teacher's name. Facebook was acting strangely yesterday. Like fb chat would suddenly be open, when I'm always offline because I hate that feature. And the status message I posted last night mysteriously and suddenly disappeared. I thought I had mis-clicked.

What do you think? Should I reply to the "facebook team" email? Should I fight to get my stupid social networking profile back? Should I bask in a simpler life uncorrupted by silly online stalking?

on movies

2009-05-20T14:13:00.000-07:00

After a bout of probable depression in which I predictably lost interest in my usual activities, I am back to watching movies again. And there are a couple I wish to tell you about.

1. Synecdoche, New York. It's a Charlie Kaufman movie, so obviously it's fucking weird. It stars Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Catherine Keener (both of whom I love) and a few other recognizable faces. Synecdoche means referring to the whole of something by referring to a part of it or vice-versa. Like "mouths to feed" to mean "hungry humans" or "ivories" for "piano keys" etc. It's fucking weird, but I recommend it. I can't even begin to tell you what it's about. It's about living, and what that means, and it's about a guy who makes a real-time play about real-life people in an actual-size model of New York in a warehouse in New York. It's about a play starring hundreds or thousands of people, none of whom are extras. You should watch it.

2. Bedrooms and Hallways. Less cerebral, more gay. Okay, so gay movies are, more often than not, terrible. For several reasons, I'm sure, but the one I can readily make up on the spot is that sexuality is still an unfortunately controversial issue that large studios don't want to cough up lots of money to make movies about. So the production values usually suck and all that. That's Hollywood, at least. I think some of the best gay movies I've seen have tended to be foreign. Which brings me to this movie I watched today. Let me tell you who's in it. I'll point out that nearly everyone in this list is a) attractive and b) a great character.

Lord Cutler Beckett from POTC:AWE and Mr. Collins in the Universal Studios (bad) Pride&Prejudice (Tom Hollander)
Dr. Owen Hunt from Grey's (Kevin McKidd)
Edward, Black Prince of Wales from A Knight's Tale (James Purefoy)
Gareth from Four Weddings and a Funeral (Simon Callow)
Fanny Farrars Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility (Harriet Walter)
Elizabeth from the BBC (good) Pride and Prejudice (Jennifer Ehle), and
Elrond/Agent Smith/V (Hugo Weaving) [playing a seemingly straight-laced, smugly high-maintenance, surprisingly sexy, sexually aggressive gay man (who has sex with Cutler Beckett).]

I love watching movies in which all/most of the cast is recognizable, not because I know everyone's name, but because I have seen everyone in some other movie I like.

ADDENDUM: JESUS H CHRIST the fucker goes hetero in the end. I hate those movies. The rest of the movie is excellent, though.

WWM

2009-05-20T09:27:00.001-07:00

check it

this is EXACTLY what we need

2009-05-18T20:54:00.000-07:00

* enter tina turner's " we don't need another hero"*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da1ADqPplQ4

once again, someone better than myself seems to have said it better than i could

2009-05-18T19:35:00.000-07:00

go read this and then let's all go out and live our goddamn lives.

"Of course I am playing tricks with the idea of luck, putting the cart before the horse. It is no accident that our kind of life finds itself on a planet whose temperature, rainfall and everything else are exactly right. If the planet were suitable for another kind of life, it is that other kind of life that would have evolved here. But we as individuals are still hugely blessed. Privileged, and not just privileged to enjoy our planet. More, we are granted the opportunity to understand why our eyes are open, and why they see what they do, in the short time before they close for ever."

p.s. I am weirdly attracted to Richard Dawkins.

A Brief and Hilarious Interlude

2009-05-18T09:59:00.001-07:00

That is all. Please continue your normal activities.

Would you demolish this building?

2009-05-17T13:57:00.000-07:00

What if I told you it was by one of the defining architects of the 20th century?

Read the main article.

Personally, I think this amounts to needing to needing to scrape off a van-gough early (ie not famous) painting in order to use the canvas for another painting. Can't this be moved or something? It needs to be demolished for the subway? What?

Warning: Addictive Clicking May Ensue

2009-05-16T15:05:00.000-07:00

This is one of the coolest sites I've seen, at least in a long while. I didn't watch every video, but came damn close to it. They're all really clever and most of them are pretty funny. I feel like some of the videos are familiar, though, so it's possible this is old news to you all and some of the videos have been posted here already . . . I know I've seen Fireworks before, and you will recognize the Coinstar commercial, I'm sure.

I think my favorite is Roof Sex. :D

font fight

2009-05-16T10:38:00.000-07:00

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

With Apologies to Milton Friedman

2009-05-13T21:57:00.000-07:00

This is ridiculous. Here's the transcript (I don't think context is too necessary).

I received this to start:

On May 10, 2009, at 4:36 PM, Dustin wrote:
I ran across these recent articles about the bailouts One, Two. Although I am not all that familiar with the author, I feel that his paper relates the general consensus of the alternative viewpoint quite well. These articles just barely scratch the surface and should be used as a jumping off point for further research.

I believe in freedom of thought, but seriously, send that to anyone who's remotely knowledgeable in economics and you are just going to get a laugh. I was composing my response to his email while reading the article and at some point I threw up my hands and said fuck it, this is going to take forever. The saner among you won't need the econ knowledge to appreciate the mile-wide breadth of the article and inch-deep explanations given.

So instead, I wrote this:

On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 12:45 AM, David wrote:
I would love to pick the articles apart piece by piece, but the fact is that whoever wrote this doesn't have the slightest actual knowledge of economic history or why certain events took place.

Seriously. Some of these conclusions are totally backwards. The articles mention actual events, but use them as backwards causality or false inference.

His response:

On May 11, 2009, at 12:56 AM, Dustin wrote:
If you do not want to explain yourself, could you point me to some sources that you trust that outline the paradigm that you support. Thanks!

Sure! okay, he wants to know more about economics during the great depression. I can supply sources!

On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 1:00 AM, David wrote:
A lot of the current system came out of the Great Depression, including the general consensus of how the Fed should act. A good place to start is a book by John Galbraith called The Great Crash. obviously a lot of his book is oriented around black tuesday, but it gives a lot of back story as to how the Fed got to be the way it did. From there, it might be worthwhile to look into the fundamentals of international economics (bretton woods, smoot-hawley etc) though I don't have a particular recommendation as to a secondary or compiled source.

honestly a lot of the stuff in the article could be refuted by just looking at data.

Instead:

On May 11, 2009, at 1:41 AM, Dustin wrote:
I'll buy you lunch if you can refute just a handful of the quotes, financial numbers or other facts, I'm sure there must be a couple easy straw men you could knock down in there somewhere!

Opinions are one thing, we're all entitled to our own, but to simply say you could refute something with ease, without actually doing so is intellectually lazy at best. I already know you don't know about the real system, the secretive elite round table groups and think tanks, i.e. the bilderbergers, club of rome, The council on foreign relations, etc... If you didn't even recognize most of their names, how would you know of their membership, their agenda, and the power they wield over the market place?

Anyway, in the meantime I will attempt to prove many of the points the author made and expand upon them by simply using offical government or think tank documents and speeches etc...

Oh, here's one, let's start with Ben Bernake's speech at Milton Friedman's 90th birthday party(which I watched live on C-Span when it happened btw) where Bernake essentially apologized for the great depression on behalf of the federal reserve by wrapping up his speech with the following line:

Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again.

(Note the irony) The speech itself covers all the details of course, and if you want to debate Bernake's redition of events, by all means, have at it.

Anyway, it's getting late, I'll shoot you a few more goverment docs in the coming days.

Night!

Wow. Lazy huh? Yeah, I'm lazy for spending four years studying a subject and then not wanting to waste my time refuting THE INTERNET. Especially when GenReg is burning up.

So I chose to ignore the insult and respond to what I think is a pretty reasonable and short explanation:

On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 10:26 AM, David wrote:
Bernanke was right to apologize for the Fed's actions during the great depression. a lot of their actions were counter to what should have been done. however, to infer that that somehow meant anything but a lack of knowledge on how to act (macro econ is still a mostly gray area) is silly.

I'm not talking about refuting the stuff about the illuminati. of course i cant refute that if i dont know about it. I was talking about the causal inference as in the above. You heard bernanke say something like that and adapted it to your knowledge of the situation.

Friedman was a pioneer in macro (along with names like Galbraith, Keynes etc) and it seems appropriate to thank someone for their work in such an important field. Im not sure its rational to instantly infer that he's talking about some secret society.

NEGADOG!

On May 11, 2009, at 12:41 PM, Dustin wrote:
I wish it was easy to understand and explain the Illuminati, but its not. There is nothing I can really say to help you see it more clearly, but I can point you to books that are considered to be excellent primers amongst the alternative research crowd, many of which are written by members/servants of the Illuminati.

What do you know about Edward Bernays? I've attached his well known book on propaganda.

How about Zbigniew Brzezinski? I must admit I wasn't very familiar with the guy until I saw this clip during my research of the events of 9/11 several years ago.

At that point I just laughed it all off and decided to not respond.

So there you have it. People really do think like that.

Why would anyone do such a thing?

2009-05-13T05:24:00.000-07:00

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1231277/

I guess I'm a little curious. Maybe.

fuck da police.

2009-05-08T18:34:00.000-07:00

via

This isn't even about censorship. It's about a man who personally possesses way more power than he knows how to responsibly use.

"I'm not going to serve you because something about you offends me" doesn't fucking work. Especially not if you're a 911 dispatch. But equally well if you're, oh, I don't know, a Catholic pharmacist. Or a homophobic gynecologist, or what the fuck ever.

Do your fucking job.

Godzilla.

2009-05-06T18:55:00.000-07:00

Beat this Nigerian Princes, this single dad promises me a SMILE!

2009-05-04T18:52:00.001-07:00

now, ive never gotten a really good scam or phishing email. i get the russian penis or watches emails, or at least i used to.

but this really takes the cake. hes right, i did smile. his awful attempt at scamming me my money did amuse me, and i did not have to give him my phone number or place of employment.

Quite Possibly the Best Book Evar Written

2009-05-03T17:50:00.000-07:00

This manages to sum up every facetious joke I've ever made to Amanda.

Awesome/depressing that it exists.

Infographics, The Electrical Grid and Internet Backbones, and Napoleon's Failed Invasion into Russia

2009-05-02T00:33:00.000-07:00

Yes. these things are all related.

Of recent, I've been fascinated by the oddly developing state of the nation's power grid. The interest started some time ago as I'm sure you'll all remember this event once reminded: Nor'easter Blizzcon '03. Apparently all you need to take down the entire Ohio-Maine power network is get a plant to go offline, and get the operator to fail to restart the machine after introducing new data.

"Would you like to restart now or later?"

When one plant shut down, power was diverted to the affected (or is it effected?) area by bringing online hydro and nuke plants, certain high-voltage lines (the kinds that are so high they have to go to a transformer station that can take up a city block of space OR MORE!!!11!ONE!1) got destroyed by some trees. Since these lines were offline, they had to divert around them, eventually tripping automatic controls in place. Eventually, large areas were dropped from the grid, instantly reducing demand and causing the voltage to overload nearby systems, which, as they failed, only continued the problem.

One sec, I think I need to hear the explanation for why the Modest Mouse song Lives has those lyrics "It's hard to remember..."

ANYWAYS...

My HeroThe interest in the electrical system was added to when Leigh Tesfatsion came to talk about her paper regarding the way power is traded in the U.S. Can't hurt that it was agent-modeling that helped investigate the issue.

It's all very interesting stuff, I assure you.

A little while ago, Maria was almost affected (or is it effected?) by the huge internet outage orchestrated (probably) by some lame-ass phone workers who had been laid off.

So flash forward to today, and this (via) is sitting in my Reader inbox.

Your new best friend!I'll let you play with that for a little bit. If you click on the "Power Plants" tab you can see the "East Lake" generator near Cleveland that was one of the factors causing Static Shock to visit the northeast.

But check out the "The Grid" page and you'll get where I'm going. Compare that map to some on this website of internet backbones. Pretty similar, huh?

So I think all of this interests me because I have interests in a lot of the background elements of these networks. I love map making as anyone who remembers my prototype webpage that essentially geo-located where I took certain photos. It was all in static html, but what more do you want from an essentially proof-of-concept idea?

Add in a model which can be easily implemented in an agent-based paradigm.

Give it a human-like network quality capable of cascading failure (geeze it just feels like that should have a movie about it), and you have a winner.

Most importantly though, make the graphs fucking awesome. I mean even the bad ones on the backbone page are pretty cool. I'd love to have been able to design ANY OF THESE.

Saving the best for last, I'm always drawn back to this image. An econ prof showed it once in class as a demonstration of excellent data representation.

Awesome.

So, for those of you that made it all the way down here, here's some crazy delicious videos I've been jonesin' on lately:

<<<<<<<>SORRY THIS ONE HAS EMBEDDING OFF.<>>>>>>>>>
Jeremy Clarkson Road Test Ford Fiesta 1/2

I don't know if this is a joke or if he's genuine. The Fagina Is Full of AIDS.

And the reprise:

The (angry gorilla) setup:

More BarelyPolitical:

TTFN, have a good weekend.

Skeptic's Dictionary

2009-05-01T20:25:00.000-07:00

It wouldn't surprise me if I were the last person here to find this, but I just came across it a few days ago. I didn't even know some of these ideas even existed. People were/are/will forever continue to be cuckoo.

Sorry I post here so often...er...sorry you all DON'T post here so often?

2009-05-01T15:54:00.000-07:00

So, today I took a poll (via pharyngula, of course) about whether homeopathy can cure the swine flu. My answer ("no") was greeted with possibly the most passive-aggressive "thanks-for-voting-in-our-poll" message I've ever seen:

alhamdulillah

2009-04-28T10:36:00.000-07:00

thank allah i wasn't born in afghanistan.

i can haz nitemare

2009-04-21T18:24:00.001-07:00

I see a strange similarity here...minus one incubus.

How I spend my time sometimes

2009-04-20T18:30:00.000-07:00

This was our "skit" about Dayton for our Literacy*AmeriCorps conference. I'm soo enthusiastic. All the awesome video effects were Alyssa's doing. Enjoy.

Capitalism meets... short term memory loss?

2009-04-15T15:38:00.001-07:00

The first publicly traded Marijuana mfg

Gay Marriage and Religion

2009-04-15T13:00:00.000-07:00

This is a great little discussion of the legal issues involved with the intersection of religion and gay marriage. I'm fascinated by this sort of thing, but I understand if you're not.

It brings up a couple of really good points, though. The institution of marriage is both religious and secular. The religious folk are free to put whatever restrictions upon marriage they would like--there is no guarantee of equal opportunity in religion, and there never has been. And probably never will be. They are allowed specific first-amendment protection against being forced to do things they don't want to do. Catholicism is free to keep women and married men out of the priesthood, for example.

I personally have never heard the argument that if GLBT folks are afforded the right to marry then churches will be forced to marry them against their beliefs. I agree with the response that it would never happen. But it's a great argument if you want to get even socially moderate religious people to vote against allowing that to happen.

Secular institutions (like the courts and the law) have an obligation to serve all people equally. When it comes to the law, people should be equal. And I think someday they will.

Its all in the Titles

2009-04-15T10:42:00.001-07:00

So i was looking at the tv today,on the second channel of abc, ( the weather / news update thing). its cold and rainy looking outside, but the radar showed nothing. This did not grab my attention. Two "breaking" stories on the bottom of the screen did however.
Arrest made in Rage against the Vending Machine. Pretty weak joke if you ask me, and also
Tree grows in Man's Lung
something tells me that this is more important than vandalism at a vending machine, hmm wait, its Russia.
Also, little fish was found dead this morning. I never got a chance to get him some medicine, nor a name.

on a brighter note

2009-04-11T19:32:00.000-07:00

this made me giggle, i thought y'all would appreciate it.

Stephanie:oh i moved almost everything in my room around
Stephanie:sooo its very different
Sara:kinky
Sara:I like switching it up
Sara:keeps things from getting dull
Sara: :P
Stephanie:wait are we talking interior decoration or bottoms and tops?
Stephanie::P
Sara:both?
Stephanie:well when does one not include the other, i mean really?

Miami Lost

2009-04-11T19:17:00.001-07:00

Fuck this sport

you, too, might be turned into pillars of who-knows-what-spice

2009-04-10T17:54:00.000-07:00

Has anyone else noticed that gay marriage legislation seems to be snowballing lately? New Hampshire, Vermont, Iowa, D.C., and Colorado have all recently passed positive legislation either legalizing same-sex marriage or protecting the rights of same-sex couples who are unmarried or married in other states. Well done.

Of course, this has all the religious nutjobs waving their desexing sticks most unsexily. What are the crazies going to do when it doesn't rain fire and brimstone?

p.s. there are crickets chirping around here. What's up with that?

Openmindedness

2009-04-05T21:13:00.000-07:00

I'm beating amanda to the punch on this one.

Fuckin' Aaron Burr's not on money. Know who is? Alexander Hamilton. He's on the ten.

2009-03-27T19:07:00.000-07:00

Listen, history is awesome. Watch this video.

um

2009-03-25T14:36:00.001-07:00

Okay, this is officially the most a-fucking-dorable thing I have ever seen.

Apparently, children + French is like Kryptonite. I would consider childbirth if you could guarantee I'd have a little girl who speaks French. This is how serious I am.

Ethical question:

2009-03-23T13:59:00.001-07:00

Imagine: You are planning to attend a event of some sort, that coincides with three hours of work. You have obtained permission to miss those hours of work to attend this (non-work related) event.

At the last minute (say, 8 hours ahead of time) This event is canceled. You could go to work; it is no longer necessary to miss it.

Question: Are you ethically obligated to go to work for those three hours?

Kate Beaton does Overcompensating

2009-03-20T07:52:00.001-07:00

I know some of you like Kate Beaton, so head on over to Overcompensating today to see her guest comic strip.

redecorate

2009-03-13T20:13:00.001-07:00

This is really interesting. It's like paint swatches, but with dress codes of social groups.

my favorite webcomic ever - sorry xkcd

2009-03-12T22:01:00.000-07:00

soooo most of you know of my "little "love of history.
it just got a lot more funny
1. go visit http://harkavagrant.com
2.press random
3. look up people on wikipedia
4.enjoy!

whois

2009-03-10T17:22:00.001-07:00

Who is "Living Below"?

Beware: Rambling

2009-03-02T18:06:00.001-08:00

The other day, Ashley and I were talking, and we had a dialogue something like this:

Me: I thought to myself--
Ashley: "Self"?
[we laugh]

Because how many times have you seen, in movies, tv, comics, etc., a character say: "And I thought to myself: 'Self, blah blah blah.'"

Nobody actually speaks to him- or herself as a third-person direct address using the word "self." Nobody. But somewhere along the line, someone made it into a punchline. And it's a funny one because it resonates with everyone. Everyone does "think to themselves." However, now that punchline has become something that I (and apparently Ashley) can't help "thinking to ourselves" sometimes. Ironically, yes, but we think it.

Today, it also occurred to me (via dinosaurcomics, my muse) that we might have lots of cultural things like this. For example, the dream that you're at school or somewhere public without your pants. Or naked. Or whatever. It's probably been done on at least 40% of television shows (statistic completely made up on the spot, right now, by me). It's a cultural meme, right? It came from somewhere and then got imitated and reiterated until it's just a part of us. A stupid, hackneyed part, but it's there. Have any of you ever actually had that dream? I certainly have not.

It's life imitating art, I suppose. "Art" is used loosely, and really might just mean "media." But I'm sure there are more examples of things which are part of the lexicon, or pop culture, or whatever, and which, instead of actually representing what real life is like, have become so popular and widely used that they cause themselves to be lived out in real life, even if only as an ironic reference to a banal cliché. They've etched themselves into us to some extent.

/ramble

One more for the cabin

2009-02-27T08:21:00.000-08:00

Hi all
I want to use this post as a middle ground to get the trip organized. the occupants for the weekend I believe will be (in no particular order):
-ash
-amanda
-steph
-sara
-scott
-dave

for my part, im bringing my own clothes and furnishing the occupancy. I've informed scott of the sleeping situation, so he's bringing stuff for that for himself. a list of the stuff that is included is here:
http://www.huestonwoodsresort.com/two-bedroom-family-cottage-supply-list-914.html

We need to figure out who is bringing what. I'm not opposed to going to K-roger after K-ona, but for things like lawn chairs for around the fire, or firewood that might be less than practical.

So please discuss what we need to bring for the weekend in the comments and if you can't bring it down, maybe someone will else take it.

ONE WEEK AWAY FROM TOTAL SANITY.

Ready for this?

2009-02-26T15:14:00.000-08:00

THIS is the kind of shit I have to deal with in my intro-to-poetry class.

So is THIS.

And THIS.

And let's not forget THIS.

(And there's more where that came from.)

In Which A Young Man Tries To Pick Me Up At A Library.

2009-02-23T14:46:00.000-08:00

Today, a young man tried [failed] to "pick me up," as they say, at a library. For reals.

1. That never happens.

2. It's a library.

3. I will forever associate this memory with Love in the Time of Cholera. [the book I was trying very hard to read]

It begs the question [sidebar: I recently found a web page entirely devoted to preserve the original meaning of "beg the question" which is not at all how I used it just now. see http://begthequestion.info/] : Any bad pickup stories? Ladies? Or gentleman? Out with it!

sorry sorry sorry

2009-02-21T22:47:00.001-08:00

but this is soo fucking cool!

same principle as 3-d glasses, but without the hardware. sort of like those magic-eye books from when we were kids. neat!

Liberty

2009-02-21T21:41:00.000-08:00

This is nice.

Hueston Woods

2009-02-20T08:41:00.000-08:00

Just booked a cabin big enough for us (maybe 5-6 people) for March 6-9. If you can't make it, I think we'll try to get to Oxf for Kona that evening if it works out with my flight.

I hope you guys can make it.
Dave

In a lame effort to curb neglect of the FLC . . .

2009-02-18T13:33:00.000-08:00

How is everyone? And if you don't read Gawker and their branch sites, you probably should.

The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences

2009-02-10T12:32:00.000-08:00

This is seriously cool.

Some Favorites:
The prime numbers
Fibonnacci Sequence

And how's this for cool: You can go to their main welcome page and type a series of integers to see what sequence it belongs to!
CRAZY DELICIOUS

SIMULATED IMAGERY. RESULTS NOT TYPICAL.

2009-02-09T14:30:00.001-08:00

I want to tell you that the above imagery has been simulated. The results are not typical. Your results may vary.

progress- ive?

2009-02-08T23:42:00.000-08:00

So I'm sure ive told some of you at one point or another that I am beginning to write a story, whether it is a novel or a short story has yet to be seen by lenght, but I am aiming for novel. Names of the characters are subject to change, these in the below section are inspired by conversations with my Sara(h)'s.
this is just one of a few scenes i have thought out with dialogue and a tiny bit of plot. all you need to know is it takes place in a faux maimi, where things are not nearly as boring as ox.

so feel free to rip apart or say, hey that sounds not awful:P much luvs

“What were you thinking? Did you not put your head on before your balls this morning?” Martín growled at Maximilian.
Max looked at Martín with earnest eyes, “I had to, and you did too, did you not see her, she’s like a wisp of air; she’d never survive. I’m amazed she survived the predators at the party. Did you see the way they were looking at her, like she was something to be pillaged or conquered?” his eyes getting desperate at this point. “She’s not an easy lay or fresh meat.” he added firmly.
Then thinking for a quick moment he hinted “And, I saw you looking at her friend,” he finished with sly look. Martín scoffed.
“They’re freshman, we are supposed to look at them like that.” He bit back a laugh.
Max glowered at him, much liking the idea of giving him a few more good cuts to join the bleeding trickles in Martín’s shoulder. After a few seconds Martín sighed “Yes, I saw her at the party, I saw you staring at her like there was no tomorrow. And her friend wasn’t that hot.”
“Wasn’t she? Did you or did you not offer her twice to get a fresh beer?” Now Max was incredulous, almost having to hold back a giggle, the first since he saw the black haired girl in the crowded room of the party.
Martín was flustered for a second, “That’s not the point, you should not have interfered with them, we should not have gotten in the way, and I …” he said with a sort of malice, “should definitely not be fucking bleeding! You owe me a new shirt.”
“Oh shut up, think of it as battle scars, and think of all the ass you’ll get if you tell chicks it’s from a rock slide or something else wicked.”
“They won’t believe that, even if I told them the truth.” Martín dusted off his jeans, then considering the street lamp for a moment and then said “They might have seen us, really seen us, you might not be able to protect her every move, she might not want you nearby.” he finished coolly. He looked at Max. His hazel eyes seemed to already drooping in the knowledge of this fact.

i followed sara's example and posted small, so you might actually read some.

Sproing Breaks

2009-02-07T10:29:00.000-08:00

I'm going be in ohio from March 6th at 3:20 PM until March 15th at 6:55 PM.

Im going to be in the mood for some serious decompression. Anyone want to get a cottage for a few days at Hueston? they have a 3-days-for-the-price-of-2 special going on...

How I love PBS: Let Me Count the Ways

2009-02-04T12:58:00.001-08:00

Today I decided to come home for lunch, because I actually had some food in my refrigerator. I turned on the TV for some background noise, and since I don't have cable, my options were rather limited. Unless I wanted to watch soap operas or children's shows, the natural choice was pbs.

I adore pbs. It has sponsors, of course, but it is the only kind of (free) television that isn't completely overwhelmed by capitalist corporate greed. Gone are the days when a television show would simply politely pause for a moment, "for this word from our sponsor." The sponsors are in the fabric of the program now, their logos are pasted all over the screen, their products are props. I didn't watch Superbowl XLIII Presented by Cadillac, but I did catch the last few minutes (waiting for the Office to come on afterward). I noticed that at one point an announcer said something like, "These post-game aerial shots are brought to you by Budweiser." I imagine Budweiser was an overall sponsor of the event, but somehow it warranted mentioning that something as specific as the post-game aerial shots were being shown to us thanks to Budweiser. I can't help noticing that sports games these days are, more often than not, played in places called "The Nabisco-Budweiser-Axe Stadium" or something similar. I'm surprised sports teams haven't started to be called "The Nike-ExxonMobil Pittsburgh Steelers" or the like. We're living in a bit of an Idiocracy.

Have you ever watched a commercial for pbs? They're intense, and frequently heart-wrenching. Robert Redford encourages you to support pbs because somewhere, there is a child with great ideas whose voice should be heard, and pbs is a place for that voice. Pbs seems unspoilt. It feels comforting, like your grandparents' house. You're going to watch your grandmother knit, your grandfather might show you how to build a cabinet, and then you're all going to bake a nice pie. The voice of Bob Ross washes over you like a warm breeze, comforting and reassuring you that you can put that happy, fluffy little cloud anywhere you like because your life is your painting. There's no need to worry so much. You can paint a new day tomorrow.

And then there are the documentaries. I love documentaries. Which brings us back to today at lunch. There was a documentary on called "The Truth According to Wikipedia." (That's youtube. It doesn't have a wikipedia page, which just feels wrong.) I didn't get to see very much of it, but what I saw was fascinating. Lunch time today is at the heart of why I love pbs: I watched less than a half hour of television, but what I saw there was a discussion of what truth is. What is knowledge? Who creates knowledge? Who should be the gatekeeper of truth, assuring accuracy and quality? Can truth be created democratically? Are there individual truths? Is the sum of these individual truths as meaningful as validated, reliable expert opinion? Stuff that you can really sink your mind's fingers into. Meaty, important, thoughtful questions.

It was so cool. I love pbs.

how smart are you?

2009-02-03T20:05:00.001-08:00

Im smart enough to realize that something is not right here.....

Lives Column

2009-02-03T17:06:00.000-08:00

For my non-fiction workshop this semester, our assignment was to write a short piece in the style of the "Lives Columns" in New York Magazine. The guidelines dictated that the work be centered around a single event that changed you as a person, written in less than 1400 words. I was hard pressed to remember a life changing event that could be properly recounted in such a small word limit, but I managed to find one. I've pasted it here, in really small print so it looks like you have to read less . . . Aren't I tricksy?

Anyway, I like sharing this stuff, so here goes. (This is a pretty rough draft, so any cold-hearted bashing and/or lovable praising would be appreciated.)

One of the biggest mistakes I ever made was getting a perm. Like most teenage girls surrounded by media where image is everything, there were more than a few things I was self conscious about. This included my hair, which was so straight and thin that even an industrial sized can of hairspray couldn’t help it hold a curl, and no amount of mousse or teasing could give it any volume. For as long as I could remember my hair had been the bane of my existence, unremarkable and unchangeable. It was the summer of my sophomore year in high school that I decided to take a stand.

I did extensive Internet research, browsing sites that asked “Is A Perm For You?” and listed steps to “Getting a Good Perm” that armored me with some knowledge of the process. I saw photos of women with beautiful, thick, and bouncy ringlets framing their faces, piling and curling into the endless volume that I so craved. Their permed curls bounced off the page, reached out to me and told me that a perm could solve all my problems.

I convinced my mother to come with me on that fateful day, and we drove a short distance to the Paul Mitchell Academy, a cosmetology school where beauticians and hairdressers learned the tools of the trade. A perm there cost $15, which was a much more appealing price than those upwards of $75 at salons where the employees were already established and skilled. We were told that the student performing on my hair would be accompanied by a professional, so there was nothing to be afraid of.

My mother and I entered the building and signed in for my appointment at the desk where a heavily made-up receptionist told us that Tracy would be over shortly. A few minutes later a young woman greeted me and led me to my seat, draping a billowy cape around my shoulders.

“Is this your first perm?” she asked with a nasally sweet voice. I nodded with an affirmative smile. “Well then this will be new for both of us!” she said happily. “I’ve never done real hair before.”

After a short consultation where I should have realized that this girl (who was hardly older than myself) had no idea what she was doing, and where she should have told me that my hair was too thin and long to hold a proper perm, we began the two-hour process.

With the help of a professional instructor named Jan who looked like she couldn’t have cared less (and who, my mother said later, she wouldn’t have let near her own hair), Tracy began the arduous task of wrapping small sections of my long hair around tiny rods and pinning them to my scalp. “Your hair will conform to these rods when I put the chemical on,” she said.

Then came the perm solution, which Tracy violently dabbed around my head, drenching each rod with the smelly, acidy formula. There was so much of this mixture on my scalp that I started dripping and could feel the little liquid beads slide along my neck and the sides of my face into my t-shirt collar. Two rods dangling by my ears sent the chemical dribbling into the tiny fissures. The ammonia seemed to singe my nose hairs. In the harsh light of the salon mirror, with all those rods poking up off my head, I looked terrifying.

“Okay,” said Tracy, her nostrils flaring at the smell, “now we let this sit for about 25 minutes, I think. 25 minutes, right Jan?” she shouted across the salon to confirm her estimate.

“Yeah, I think that’ll do it,” came the hoarse reply.

Tracy placed a shower cap over my head, mumbling something about the trapped heat making the chemicals move faster, she thought. I sat for 25 minutes under that shower cap, feeling like my head was being microwaved under the poofy dome of heat and moisture that was collecting. My despairingly incompetent hairdresser came to check on me every few minutes, always reinforcing the cap around my head and turning with a quick, “It’s looking good sweetie!” Once she came over with Jan, who circled me and grunted in approval before waddling off. The last of these visits finally led to the removal of the cap, which caused the built up steam to explode off my head and right into Tracy’s face in a cloud of acidic moisture. I couldn’t help but chuckle as she stood blinking out the sting of ammonia.

We rinsed out the perm solution, and I relished the relief of the cool water running across my burning scalp. We then returned to the chair where Tracy proceeded to douse me in neutralizer, once again reassuring me with her usual knowledgeable comment.

“I’m not sure what this does exactly, but it’s the next step.”

After five minutes, we returned to the sink for a final rinse, then back to the chair for the unrolling of the rods that had been biting at my head for the past 45 minutes. I must have counted over 50 red flags from the moment I walked in the door to the moment Tracy removed those rods, but said nothing while my poor follicles fried. At that point, my excitement and anticipation outweighed any reservations I had about the disaster happening on my head. I just wanted those curls!

Tracy slowly began to unroll my hair, each little rod unwinding and dangling sadly at the ends. I wanted to close my eyes so I could see the final result all at once, but the anticipation was too tempting. After the first rod, I kept watching as my hair fell to my shoulders in limp, crinkled sections. Predictably, the perm was not what I expected, and certainly not what I wanted.

“How long did you say it would last?” I asked nervously as I looked at my once straight, perfectly fine hair that now resembled thin, twisted roots sprouting from my head. I could feel tears welling in my eyes and quickly told myself to calm down to keep from bawling at the irreversible damage, which I did promptly upon returning home.

“A few months,” Tracy said, her brow knitted in concern, avoiding eye contact. Clearly the outcome had surprised her as well. An uneasy smile spread across her lips and she whipped the cape off me and walked me to the lobby where shelves and shelves of hair products stood in perfectly lined, color-coordinated rows. She picked up a bottle and tried to tell me that this would make my hair look better. “Give it a few days,” she said, as if I had a choice.

Well, I did give it a few days, I gave it months, in fact, and my perm never developed into what the pictures and hairdressers had promised me. For months my hair was nothing but a mess of uncontrollable frizz. It still wouldn’t curl, and attempting to straighten it proved just as impossible. I had no choice but to wear it tied back everyday, and I eventually cut most of it off in a desperate attempt to eradicate the permed hair as soon as possible, which ended up taking a couple years to grow out. It became routine for me to check the mirror everyday for signs of my straight hair growing through, straight hair that I missed greatly.

In spite of all this, I managed to make it through those years with my head held high, finding some sort of confidence in my awful decision, being brave enough to face my peers and the public without being overcome by my locks of chemical devastation. And today, whenever I curse my hair or any other part of me that isn’t exactly what I want, I always remember that botched perm and its aftermath: results of the decision that taught me to recognize the difference between the things that I have the power to change and those that are probably best left alone.

3 Things

2009-02-03T06:59:00.000-08:00

1. Christopher Guest movies are awesome.

2. Pandas are awesome.

3. 20 credit hours of course work is NOT awesome.

That is all.

2009-01-28T10:48:00.001-08:00

Is "conservative movement" an oxymoron?

I am spreading good cheer?

2009-01-27T15:32:00.000-08:00

I had to watch this video as a "training." I mean, I was supposed to watch the "preview" video online and record in my service log the time it took me to watch it. I think I got about seven minutes into it before I wanted to punch that guy in the face and curse at my boss for sending me the link. Am I that much of a cynic? Why does this video make me so angry? Is it the sweeping emotional language, or the footage that looks like a christian inspirational CD commercial? (Experiment: if you watch any of it, replace "National Geographic" with "Jesus" or "The Good Book" and see what happens.) Is it the bursting-at-the-seams, restrained passion with which this man tells me, in far too many words, to alwayslookonthebrightsideoflife, accentuatethepositiveeliminatethenegative, or the hushed awe he wants me to feel for the glass-is-half-full world in which he is privileged to live?

His message isn't that bad. Look for the possibility in life, keep an open mind. I like National Geographic. I like the photography.

Then it hit me: This guy is peddling his clichéd outlook on life for $800.00. Eight Hundred Dollars. Celebrate what's right with the world, indeed! Maybe he's completely in earnest, and he found an outlook on life that works for him. Congratulations, you've found the meaning of your life, but is step 2 to package it and "slap in on a plastic lunchbox" and charge $800 for a dvd and a powerpoint presentation and a reminder card to keep in your goddamn wallet? What the hell is the matter with these people? I guess if you're too busy looking for all the goodly, positive possibilities, you notice it less when a snake oil salesman tries to sell you happiness and robs you blind.

"Underneath every cynic is a disappointed idealist."

LastGraph

2009-01-27T11:47:00.001-08:00

Go here, enter your last.fm username, and travel through time with your listening habits!

My last.fm username is 'iv4iv4' if you were curious.

The Government and Public goods

2009-01-26T14:15:00.000-08:00

Read this first:
http://divisionoflabour.com/archives/005506.php

So the question is, should the government be in control of the airport as an owner. I say yes, mostly because of the importance of the public good itself. Airports are vital to the nation, though one might not ascertain that from the airline industry itself. The enormous overhead that airports take to build - the fact that the Minn-Minn airport is valued at $6bn should clue you in - represents a giant sunk cost that I'm not sure that the industry could accept. In 2006, via stock market bid valuation, Delta was worth at most $16bn. Suppose the airline industry then had to enable themselves to purchase even just a share of the airport - say a terminal - instead of essentially renting it as they currently do, and you have quite a sticky situation on your hands, as margins fall in the existing climate.

So it's probably unlikely that the industry would be capable of stomaching such a shift. But what if an investor (or group of investors as the case may be) took over the airport? Well, this is again an argument for the state controlled management. My guess is that MinnMinn doesn't have a whole lot more commercial airports in the area. Sacramento has two airports, but only one of them is commercial - the other only takes smaller-sized planes. So we understand that this would essentially constitute a monopoly. It's reasonable to continue in this frame: it would be easy for the controlling group to increase the fees for the use of the airport - either as a fee to the airline or directly to the consumer; either way would result in an increase price of flying from that particular airport.

What could also happen with a monopolistic situation? Who is contracting the air traffic controllers? As it is, the FAA does all this, but if the airport was handled by an exterior entity from the state, it opens the door for the existing people to leave or at the very least for lesser-qualified individuals in the future. The state does already have issues with air traffic controllers leaving and the new generation is stagnating in terms of population.

I strongly believe that the private sector/competition is capable of bearing out the most efficient solution for almost every market and situation. Transportation is not one of those situations. There's a reason we did not have a national highway system until the government decided to fund one. The airport network is the same. Further, monopolies and pseudo-monopolies would be catastrophic to an already suffering industry, and would introduce externalities that would be difficult for anyone to control.

This is what saturday nights were made for

2009-01-25T11:56:00.000-08:00

The server now supports automatic pickup of torrent files for those of you who are unfortunate enough to live in areas where torrents cannot be downloaded. Simply place the torrent file into the drop folder, ensure that it subsequently disappears, and your torrent should have automatically been started.

Once it appears in the Complete folder in the Torrents directory, it's ready for pickup. Archives of all torrents (yours and mine) are in the Torrent Files folder, and if you would like to monitor the progress of your torrent, you can check the Incomplete folder. If this isn't satisfactory for some of you, I can work on a web interface for Vuze.

Cheers!

2009-01-22T21:03:00.001-08:00

Fucking cool!

2009-01-20T17:39:00.001-08:00

A couple of you know about my recent obsession with the TV drama The West Wing. For those of you who don't know, I have recently become obsessed with the TV drama The West Wing.

And I think you should check it out.

Please don't call me names before my morning coffee.

2009-01-20T10:50:00.000-08:00

Story Time:

I'm at work about 15 minutes early, before we open and when I get there first, (one of) my boss(es) usually says something benign like "Good Morning" before sitting down across from me. This is how today went...

him: "Important day, huh?"
me: "Oh, because of inauguration?"
him: *hmphf* "Yeah, my wallet feels lighter already."

note: this is where I should have stopped talking, obviously

me: "You're a republican then, I take it?"
him: "Yeah. And I can feel my wallet tightening already. This is a terrible day."
me: "Oh, well I can feel my liberties slowly returning, so I'm okay."
him: *stunned/angry look* "Well you people should know this socialism thing isn't going to work."
me: erm. "Yes, I know socialism won't work in this country the way it is?"

So is the moral of the story that I'm a socialist because I'm excited about the 'decrowning' of Bush? I'm a socialist because I'm looking forward to the reversing/revising of decisions that have been made in the last 8 years in efforts to overthrow Roe v. Wade, reallocate monies earmarked for inner city schools because they refuse to teach absidence only or the "theory of creationism," or to repeatedly to remove endangered animals from the endangered species list like the gray wolf (4 times!)? Not to mention the war, the environment, the economy, immigration, and countless other 'unimportant' things.

I guess as long as you're rich and can stay rich those things don't matter?

I only ask so I am up-to-date on what to label myself as these days. Socialism here I come.

End rant.

2009-01-18T15:53:00.000-08:00

This is a lovely argument against god. Not just against the existence of god. Against the justness of god, if god as he's written in the bible were to exist. Even if the bible were literally true, every word, the supposed morality it represents is something I would want no part of. For example, I want no part of a world where people are damned to eternal torture for anything. There is no crime for which that is a proportionate response. The author's argument about "original sin" is very eloquent.

I argue

2009-01-17T18:28:00.000-08:00

i think that you should see Run Fatboy Run if you have not
staring Simon Pegg, written by Michael Ian Black
and no zombies or swans, but its very enjoyable

A Poem!

2009-01-17T07:01:00.001-08:00

Our first assignment for my poetry class (which is godawful, by the way) was to write a poem. I have several already up my sleeve, of course, but I decided that the hour I had between classes would be enough time to compose something new. Not wanting to be dramatic or emo, I stayed away from any sort of expressive, emotional poem. Below is the result, and while it might not be that great, I was able to give myself a chuckle and it was fun to write, so I thought I'd share.

The Haunted House

There is a great big house

Upon a great big hill.

Every time I go by that place,

I get a strange little chill.

The windows are stained and shattered,

The wood is warped and cracked,

The fence is bent and broken,

The weeds are ten feet tall out back!

When it’s windy, the door swings and creaks.

When it rains, water leaks through the roof.

Every time I pass by I hear voices –

Honest! Come with me! I’ll show you the proof!

Whenever I see it I want to run.

Even the sign outside says BEWARE!

But I can’t run or hide from this haunted house

For I am the ghost who lives there.

SWEET ODIN'S RAVEN!

2009-01-14T18:30:00.000-08:00

moments like this make me feel like the universe might be winking at me.

Is it a jellyfish that dreamt it was a sock or a sock that dreamt it was a jellyfish? oooooooooo

2009-01-12T21:07:00.001-08:00

I post here a lot. I acknowledge it, but I can't seem to get around it. Awesome stuff just keeps happening to me?

I sort of really like jellyfish. A group of jellyfish is called a "bloom"--what's not to like? I also enjoy making things. One classic Freudian defense mechanism is sublimation: take those negative and uncomfortable emotions and channel them into something else. Clean your apartment, for example. Or make handicrafts. It's like Woody Allen plus Martha Stewart. Knitting is good for anxiety and sewing is good for a guilty conscience (you occasionally stab yourself in the fingers, and it's like self-flagellation on a teeny, tiny scale. It's like balance is being restored to the universe). Perhaps my calling in life is some sort of synchronization of Therapy, Feminism, and Handicrafts. I would be okay with that.

I made a prototype of a sock-jellyfish. I am a little bit sad that there isn't an awesome punny name like socktopus (TM) for this one, but I think it'll be okay.

I'm joking about the Freudian bullshit, but there is something cathartic about taking dumb stuff that's laying around and transforming them into a thing that you made. It's a Franken-Jelly-Fish. I'm still working on the name.

I have a functioning XBox

2009-01-11T11:58:00.000-08:00

Hello all,
I've been pretty impressed with the xbox online game features playing with darren, so if there are any people out there with an xbox which happens to be online, friend me. my gamertag is 'zwerd'. Right now I have Halo and Fable II. Any additional titles you might suggest?

(this post is almost entirely directed at ash, I know.)

absolutely sublime or, What I Learned Today

2009-01-10T20:01:00.000-08:00

I just had an 50-minute-long intellectual orgasm in the form of the single greatest television program I have ever seen. I fucking TOOK NOTES. It was a PBS "Independent Lens" documentary about typeface, and specifically about Helvetica. I just learned from the internets that it was actually titled, "Helvetica"! (clips) Some of those notes are summarized below. I'm sure this is not quite so revolutionary to anyone who is at all familiar with graphic design.

First of all, people design typefaces. Purposefully, artistically, and imaginatively. One guy in the movie said if he's going to design a typeface, he starts with a lowercase "h" because it gives him horizontal lines and a curve. It tells him how heavy or light and whether there's going to be serifs. Next, he'd put a curvy letter like "o" beside it, and look at the height versus the width of the "o". He'd do p and q because they descend, and b because it ascends. In just a few letters, you have the DNA of the typeface. He would type a few words in the typeface just to see what they "said". Checking out "the experience of reading something".

Apparently, Helvetica was a serious step in typography. I never knew this: It revolutionized the field. One designer: Helvetica is neutral. It got rid of manual differences in hand-carved typefaces. It's really its horizonal terminals that make the difference. Helvetica doesn't have serifs, and every end terminal's (like the tops of I's and h's and the bottoms of p's)'s corners are at horizontal and vertical right angles. Something about the lowercase a's curves, too. Also, and I'm closely paraphrasing a man in the documentary, the interrelationship between positive and negative spaces are such that the negative spaces appear to hold the letters. The letters exist in a "powerful matrix" of white space.

Once it was invented (innovated?) [1957] there was a giant boom of Helvetica advertising. Helvetica "felt" accessible, transparent, and accountable, and many government offices and large corporations used it. Typefaces can elicit a particular emotional response, and the one Helvetica elicits is a balance of push and pull. Someone in the documentary described it as the "typeface of socialism" because it ws available to everybody. If you wrote "Buy jeans." in Helvetica, it says the jeans are clean, you're not going to fit in or stand out. He said those jeans are sold at the GAP.

In the 1970s, there was a reaction against Helvetica. One designer spoke of feeling that, in rejecting the neatness of helvetica, she was overthrowing her mother's "always being clean" motherly oppressions. She associated helvetica with corporations responsible for the Vietnam war, and rebelled against all of that. Other designers wanted freedom from helvetica's "horrible slickness"--they wanted to express their subjective, perhaps irrational selves into their type designs.

A guy said that the qualititative nature of typeface is such that there's no way to describe it except to use things entirely outside it, like describing a typeface as "espresso" or "Debussey".

The '80s was a period of postmodernism: the concern was being reactionary: they wanted to be "not modern"...they were against Helvetica but not necessarily for anything in particular, or in a particular positive direction. There was something called the "grunge period" where type was disorganized and expressive and rallied against Helvetica.

"Just because something is legible doesn't mean it communicates," said one designer. He pointed to the word "caffeinated" in Helvetica and said, "That doesn't say 'caffeinated'!" There's nothing about that that says "caffeinated." A guy said that all something written in Helvetica says is, "Do not read me because I will bore the shit out of you!"

Others believe that Helvetica inherently communicates certain things, and in fact said, "You will do what the typeface wants you to do," meaning Helvetica itself contains a design program. The font ITSELF is a design that resonates only at certain frequencies.

One man said he wished some undiscovered science could prove that there exists in Helvetica some "inherent rightness" about the way it expresses and communicates. You can't improve upon it, he says. It's un-improvable, un-fixable.

Myspace, etc. (and I would add things like blogger), allow people to customize the typefaces of their personal web pages, making it a way to subtlely express yourself. Someone in the documentary said it's something people care about now, like their clothing. This reminds me of handwriting analysis.

Before, I had only had weak inklings of the idea that typeface might be expressive, had to be designed by someone, and conveys things other than the words it comprises. Thanks to this documentary, I feel like I'll be constantly noticing the Helvetica around me. (it's the font of firefox, meijer, target, microsoft, 3M and countless others.) It's a nuance of written language I'd never considered before. AND it's completely relevant to psychology. And art. And Language.

Mostly, I watched the entire documentary with my jaw dropped because I couldn't believe the people in it were serious. They were speaking with such incredible passion about the expressivity of serifs, or the importance of negative space, which are things that I think most people don't ever notice. Ever. Or maybe just I didn't, and that's why it was so mindboggling. Consider my mind blown.

This Is A Weird Thing That Happens To Me Sometimes.

2009-01-08T13:31:00.000-08:00

Let me know if it happens to you too, or if I am crazy, or both?

Things like this have happened to me several times, but here is the latest example, just to illustrate what the hell I am talking about. Stay with me. So: several days ago (maybe on Monday?) I was at work doing English vocabulary on freerice.com (during work time, yes. Academic enough that an ESOL teacher can pass it off as a legitimate work activity? Perhaps.) and I encountered the word "salvo." It was a word I had never encountered before except in Italian names (my teacher Mrs. DiSalvo and Mamma DiSalvo's Italian Restaurant), and, in fact, did not even know was an English word. So I looked it up.

That's step one. Here's step two: TODAY I was reading my Google Reader, and I got to Pharyngula, which I usually just skim. And the title of a post is "The geologists fire a salvo".

To recap: on Monday, I had no idea this word was even a part of my language. On Thursday, I see it in print, used in context. It's a coincidence, of course, but the two things happened so close together as to give me pause. Close enough together that I noticed it. It's happened to me a few times.

I can think of a few explanations: 1) total coincidence. 2) Some sort of cognitive bias that makes this newly-learned word more salient in my mind and therefore I simply was more apt to notice it. It's a relatively rare word; maybe before I learned what it meant, I really had seen it in various places, but didn't look it up and skipped over it. 3) I am drawing a connection where there really isn't one. Freerice.com and Pharyngula are, I think, entirely unrelated...the only actual connection is that I read them both, and they both happened to contain the same word. I'm sure they contain lots of the same words, and this one only stands out because it happened to be a word I took the time to learn.

What I'm really wondering: Has this ever happened to you? I'm just curious. Maybe it's common like deja vu. Or I'm a nutjob who likes to find patterns and make connections, and my brain does it on autopilot.

And now a brief note

2009-01-07T12:03:00.000-08:00

I just want to comment on something here. I know it's an end in/and/of itself but it still gets me really pissed sometimes.

I hate it when women blame their mood on their periods.

There. I said it. That felt good to get off my chest. At any rate, I'm not really sure I can offer a decent explanation for this one. I knew a few girls in high school who would blame shit on their hair color. Kirsten was awesome at math, for example. But whenever she got a below average thing going in any other class, she became the 'stupid blonde.' Stuff like that.

This new one's different though. I feel kinda, well, bad about feeling this way. Periods do change hormones, which - if i remember correctly - can impact pretty much anything in the body, so is it really far to exclude this as a valid reason? Placebo. Not this whole period thing, but maybe we've just been brought up expecting this sort of phenomenon to the point that it allows women - for whatever reason - to vent once a month. And anytime after 45yoa.

Anyways, I'm asking for more of a discussion between the people who actually have vaginas than my own stupid ramblings.

hunter s. thompson motivational posters

2009-01-06T16:25:00.000-08:00

There's more where that came from.

Savage Chickens January 1 comic

2009-01-02T07:54:00.000-08:00

I know I post a lot of simple links to other sites here, but...

click here.

NEWSFLASH: MAGIC NOT REAL, HILARITY ENSUES

2008-12-31T08:33:00.001-08:00

read this.

hilarious.

2008-12-28T16:50:00.001-08:00

I already "shared" a link to ForgottenBooks.org, which I recommend you check out. More specifically, though, I'm currently reading On Liberty by John Stuart Mill (full text), whose works express some of the most important ideas in human history. He also happens to have been a feminist. I wish every person in the world would read this essay. But I think it's especially relevant to the discussion a few posts prior, about Christianity, the ethical code contained within the New Testament, and whether the believers of Christianity take this ethical code to heart as something which motivates their actions. It also addresses the incompleteness of the ethical code found within NT and the necessity of examining minority or heretical opinions for missing pieces of truth.

It is an amazing essay, and if you haven't already read it, you should.

Don't talk to the police.

2008-12-26T16:01:00.001-08:00

Evar.

2008-12-24T23:18:00.000-08:00

I can't sleep, but I'm in a remarkably good mood. I've discovered these things that are overshadowed by Christmas. Notably, the births of Sir Isaac Newton and Rod Serling, the death of Charlie Chaplin, and Washington crossing the Delaware. Also, a test run of the internets?