Can you guess what's wrong here?

Alright, a little bit closer, then:




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

no me alcanzará la vida

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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?

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

Videogames as art

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

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