May 2008
11AM Thu
Cause everything it must belong somewhere
Oh a train off in the distance, bicycle chained to the stairs
Everything it must belong somewhere
I know that now, that’s why I’m staying here— Bright Eyes, “Everything Must Belong Somewhere”
The Cavern: 9. A Brisk Morning Swim
Jay plunged into the pool and found himself in a strange blue twilight. He ducked his head down and his feet up, and started swimming in the direction of the most light. He had gone perhaps fifty meters when he saw ripples above him. He popped up above the surface, and banged his head on a low rock ceiling. He was in an air pocket, he realised, still within the cave. Still, a good chance for some more oxygen. He breathed for a few moments, then ducked back down and continued swimming.
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11AM Mon When Obama Wins. Obama must be the object of more man- and lady-crushes than any other living human being, at the moment. 2 Comments
11AM Mon Anime, I have decided is pretty much Emo in cartoon form. YMMV. 3 Comments
9AM Sun I don’t think I’ve ever linked to Jody’s positive thoughts blog. I should have. Oversight: corrected. 1 Comment
How to be a Man
Steve Pavlina tells us ‘how to be a man’. There’s some pretty big calls:
A man who claims his #1 commitment in life is his relationship partner (or his family) is either too dishonest or too weak to be trusted. His loyalties are misplaced. A man who values individuals above his own integrity is a wretch, not a free thinker.
And some clichés:
A man is an active giver of love, not a passive receiver. A man is the first to initiate a conversation, the first to ask for what’s needed, and the first to say “I love you.” Waiting for someone else to make the first move is unbecoming of him.
(could be some truth, maybe, I guess.)
I don’t think it’s perfect, but it helps me begin to shape a few answers to some of my questions.
5AM Fri This is the first in my new series, “blogging at 5:40 in the morning.” Pffff. Man I wish I was asleep. 5 Comments
The Cavern: 8. Village of the Apes
As they drew near the huts Jay began to see other gorillas moving around; working in a garden behind the village, stoking the fire, weaving and carving in the open central area. Jay stuck close to his guide, a little nervous.
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1PM Tue
Hamilton represents the high-tide mark of Western Industrial Civilization.
— Nandor Tanczos at Canterbury Uni today.
1PM Tue
A vegan driving an SUV has a smaller carbon footprint than a meat-eater on a bicycle.
— Nandor Tanczos at Canterbury Uni today.
11AM Tue These photos of Hiroshima are really horrific. This is what war is. Make yourself look. 0 Comments
11AM Tue “The discovery of extrasensory abilities in more and more children means the Indigo phenomenon is spreading.” 9 Comments
5PM Mon I always enjoy about the first four days of winter. Then I’m over it. Can we get summer back? Come back summer, I didn’t mean any of those things I said, I’ll treat you better this time, honest, just come back, please. 2 Comments
The Cavern: 7. He Should Have Gone Left
He was a few meters up the corridor when he remembered just how very, very sore he was. His muscles all cramped up at once, and he whimpered and subsided into a pile at the base of the wall of the corridor. He worked his arms until he could feel them again, then rubbed his face with his hands for a few moments, wincing and whimpering as he brushed the beautifully elliptical welt that ran right around the outside of his face.
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The Cavern: 6. Interrogation
The man’s face went deadly serious, and he stepped forward and dealt Jay a ringing slap to the face that rocked the chair back on its legs and left Jay stunned. Jay gasped, as much for the pain as for the shock.
“And you were doing so well, too,” the man sighed. “Why do you always have to have smart mouths?” He turned away. “Karl, why do they always have to have smart mouths?”
“I think they watch too many movies,” Karl ventured. “Should I start the paperwork?”
(The author really enjoyed this chapter.)
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April 2008
The Cavern: 5. Down the Rabbit Hole
Jay was woken by the clang of the truck’s tailgate dropping open. He started upright, realised that was a stupid thing to do, then decided that (a) at least he was behind a crate and (b) lying down again would probably be even worse. He tried to stay as still as possible. He heard someone climb up in the truck and start dragging crates around.
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12PM Sun Spam subject line: “Mighty morphing power wieners.” Brilliant. 0 Comments
11AM Sun
So how big is that surplus? So if you take Wikipedia as a kind of unit, all of Wikipedia, the whole project—every page, every edit, every talk page, every line of code, in every language that Wikipedia exists in—that represents something like the cumulation of 100 million hours of human thought. I worked this out with Martin Wattenberg at IBM; it’s a back-of-the-envelope calculation, but it’s the right order of magnitude, about 100 million hours of thought.
And television watching? Two hundred billion hours, in the U.S. alone, every year. Put another way, now that we have a unit, that’s 2,000 Wikipedia projects a year spent watching television. Or put still another way, in the U.S., we spend 100 million hours every weekend, just watching the ads. This is a pretty big surplus. People asking, “Where do they find the time?” when they’re looking at things like Wikipedia don’t understand how tiny that entire project is, as a carve-out of this asset that’s finally being dragged into what Tim calls an architecture of participation.
Impulse for Men
Slavery (and its reason, empire) is an evil thing. But slavery has been the engine behind some of the most inspiring architecture in the world. The pyramids, the Forbidden City—both were built by slave labour, but, once built, both were completely out-of-bounds to those who worked on them, and both are, still, inspiring.
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