Analog is Dead

Nice!

2011-03-19T18:16:00.001-07:00

Ahhhhh

sent from droid X... until i get my verizon iPhone

Information or Advertising

2011-02-01T23:26:00.000-08:00

there is so much good information online.
there is also so much crap and subtrefuge.
you have to be careful, and discerning.

example: on my facebook page sidebar, there was the following ad:

Driving in Washington?

lifestylejournal.com

Your auto insurer hates this.

Obey this one trick to get extremely

cheap auto insurance rates.

well, i drive in washington. so i typed "lifestylejournal.com" in a new browser window. I never click on such link, cause it passes information to the ad poster. in facebook the web address is right there. sometimes you have to roll-over the link to see the website you are being directed to in the status bar of your browser.

lifestylejournal.com appears to be a newsy, informative website with lots of helpful articles to things you might really be interested in - like saving on car insurance. but wait...

the article has that fakey-flakey, not-written-by-a-real-person tone to it. you read it and it just feels like it was made to sound genuine. doesn't feel genuine, but it sounds like it.

on the lower right side of the page are some "satisfied customer" testimonials, with pictures. an older man, a couple, a young girl in a car. hmmm are these real people? i screen snapped and saved the little pictures and put them in tineye.com, an image reverse search site. guess what. 3 of the four people pictures come from istockphoto.com:

and

so the people in the testimonials are fake. hmmm.

then if you look at the page, they keep pointing you at insurance.comparisons.org. the link to that site appears 15 times on the page. the magenta highlights are the found occurances of this link in the screensnaps below:

now my B.S. detector was really going off.

this is ANOTHER advertisement. you were drawn off facebook by a teaser about saving on car insurance - specifically for washington state, since facebook knows i'm in washingtion state, which makes it seem local and personal. if you clicked on the link in facebook, your source information is passed to "lifestylejournal.com", facebook gets a credit for a click, and "lifestylejournal" knows where you came from. then you see what appears to be carefully researched information that says "insurance.comparisons.org" are really good guys and they will find a way to save you a ton of money on car insurance.

but the WHOLE THING IS LEADING YOU ON. the social-network is presenting you with social-engineering to get you to believe you are just getting good information that leads up to get you to buy something.

i didn't bother to click on to "insurance.comparisons.com" i already knew that i was being manipulated from the get go, and i don't need to carry it any further. you can do that and tell me what you found out.

now, figured this out, because i've been online a long time, and have seen this stuff develop, and my B.S. detectors for it are pretty well tuned up. not perfect, maybe not even expert. i can still be fooled, but so far, i haven't been sucked in so far that i've actually spent money on any of these guys.

but there are millions of people out there who don't smell the rat in these deals, and i can only imagine how many dollars are sucked out of them.

you gotta pay attention out there. know what i mean? my general philosopy is that if someone has a good product, at a good price, that has real value, they will just show me pretty much up front what they got. sure, they may concoct all sorts of glittery or clever ads that makes me want to like them or perk up my interest that will lead me to the "add to cart" page. if there's a string of social-engineering like these guys leading up to the shopping cart, then their product is probably not good, their price is too high, and it doesn't have real value.

still, you gotta admire their cleverness. and the fact that it must keep working, cause if it didn't, it would fade away. they just won't get my dollars or my time. we do live in the "free market, capitalist economy" that some republicans are always spouting out. so along with the amazon.com's we get this stuff. which in my opinion, is just crap for crap eaters.

have you ever "gone all the way" with a socially-engineered ad like this and bought something? (please don't tell me you sent money to Nigeria")

Wha=?UTF-8?B?Pw==?=

2011-01-27T17:16:00.001-08:00

Sent via DROID until i get my Verizon iPhone

what is that HORRIBLE noise.

2010-06-20T01:55:00.001-07:00

the world cup soccer championship is on. know how i know? because every tv that has it on has this horrible, grating, obnoxious noise coming from it. i detest it. this is a sound i would use to drive teenagers away from my 7-11. this is the sound i would aim at rioters. it makes me care even LESS about soccer. and of course, because it is so f****g annoying people think it's really cool. yeah. like hemorrhoids are cool.

read more than you wanted to know at:
http://www.urlesque.com/2010/06/16/vuvuzela-world-cup-2010/

scanners detect ethanol in the air above soccer spectators

2010-06-09T07:57:00.000-07:00

special sensors scan the air above soccor games. they detect ethanol. really?

imagine that will ya.
http://spie.org/x16085.xml?ArticleID=x16085#fig3

One of the houses i grew up in.

2010-06-06T23:44:00.000-07:00

This is the house, where I "grew up". not entirely, but close. being an airforce family, we lived many places. but we were stationed at Wright-Paterson air force base for six years. i live here with my family starting the summer before my sixth grade, up thru the summer after my junior year of high school. my room, with my brother, was in the finished basement. classic knotty pine. the front window at the left side was my parents bedroom. our room was below that.

wait a minute or so for google do load the map and go into street-view mode to see the house.

View Larger Map

there used to be a big maple tree in front of the house. all the houses on the street had big trees. the neighborhood must of been around for a while to have the trees grow up before we moved there. they all got old and died obviously. the street looks nakid now. and strangely, the house is the same color red it was in 1962.

if the walls in this house could talk....

the government has no duty to protect you. betcha didn't know that.

2010-06-04T03:56:00.001-07:00

"a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen."

the link above goes to a google search. tens of pages explain this statement.
so who is going to protect you?

protect yourself.

or just quit worrying about it. life isn't safe. nowhere is "safe"

google proves me wrong

2010-05-25T23:00:00.001-07:00

i did the shopping cart search again, to get the link to put in the previous posting. THIS TIME, the second link down had what i wanted- side by side feature comparison. that wasn't there the first time i searched. i'm sure, because i Ctrl-clicked every link on the google results, all the way down the page, and looked at every tab that opened up.

most of them are still useless, or only vaguely useful.
make me lie google.

serious "post for profit" guys

2010-05-25T22:55:00.001-07:00

as i'm slogging thru the process, trying to understand how it works i came across:

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/ff_demandmedia/
which is exactly how i thought it should work... i'm always thinking "there must be a better/easier/efficient way"
and i have notice a lot more slap-dash answers in my google searches.

which is why i just started using http://duckduckgo.com

for example; i'm working on a shopping site ( http://www.goodthingsfromthailand.com ) i thought i would code it in dreamweaver, but then i thought i might take advantage of the free shopping carts that bluehost.com provides. but there are like 6 of them. i looked at them, looked at the demo's and didn't know what i was looking at. so i thought i'd google up a review:

"open source shopping cart reviews 2010" appeared in the suggestions as soon as i typed in "open source sh...." so i went with that. looks great. even has sites called "shopping-cart-reviews.com" except, none of them are 3rd party reviews of shopping carts. not like a side-by side, features, bugs, opinion site. they list some carts, describe them sometimes, push one or another cart at you, and display a lot of ads. but nothing on the first and second pages did what i want. i wanted to know the readers-digest-condensed overview of the various shopping cart softwares, so i could decide if i wanted to take the time to install and configure one for my shopping site. i didn't get that, and wasted a lot of time clicking on links to pages that were fluffy at best, stupid at worst.

but i'll keep at it. i may be slow and distracted, but i'm still moving.

p.s. i did the shopping cart search again, to get the link to put in the previous posting. THIS TIME, the second link down had what i wanted- side by side feature comparison. that wasn't there the first time i searched. i'm sure, because i Ctrl-clicked every link on the google results, all the way down the page, and looked at every tab that opened up. except, none of the shopping carts on the page are OPEN SOURCE, and none of them are the ones provided by my hosting service. so it's still a crap link.

most of them are still useless, or only vaguely useful.
make me lie google.
--

visit http://www.thaicountrylife.com

belly button piercings are an indicator of willingness to pose nude

2010-05-19T00:19:00.000-07:00

if you see a girl with a belly button piercing, it is a pretty good indicator that she is willing to have her picture taken naked. and will have those photos posted to the internet.

don't believe me? goto GuessHerMuff (NSFW) and notice how many of the subjects have belly button piercings. i'd say 8 our of 10. if the first link doesn't work goto this one GuessHerMuff

nakid ladies - good.
metal belly buttons - bad, unless you want see her nakid. then you have to see the damn piercings.

hardcore L33t speak

2010-04-24T21:58:00.001-07:00

could you imagine typing this out? from a 4chan.org posting:

|MpÒRTÁn+ ìNfÒRMatÍ0N ábÒut 4chan: <HRÌSTÒpH3r pÓÒlE (àkA mòóT ÁKà the áDMìn hERE) hA$ A very $€RióÜs M3NtÁl ìI|NE$s, h€ st€àls oTh3R$' H@Rd W0rk, pÜBI|sH3$ pRÍvate E-Ma|LS (Wh|Ch h3 moDÍfÍ3$) Àñd 8|ATAñ+ly li€s To hI$ ÜsERs |ñ òRd€r TO g3+ THem 0n H|s SidE. Mr. PÒóL3, aG3d 22, |IvEs Íñ N3w yÓRk, wh3r€ he á|SO at+eñd$ cÒILEGE. HìS HóME ÁDDR€ss <Áñ 8e EÁSIIY f0ùnd úSiñg añ @DDRE$S L0ÒkÙP fòR ñy, FEEl FRe€ TÒ SHÒW üP @+ hÌS dòOr WíTh à GÙn. +|Ny.4[hàñ.ÒRG í$ àN ìILega| Cl0n3 Óf www,añòñTAlk,COm, reMov3 It IMm€dIáTe|y, s+óp CòNST@ñ+lY dDosÍNG àNd $pAmMÍNG U$ ÀnD $TòP fü<kíng Wí+H OÜr dÓMáíN. To @c<3$$ A+ [ÙRr3n+|y, yOÚ mÜst úsE à pRÓxy HÒst pRovÌD€d BY à TrúsT3D p@rtY ÀS IiSTeD HeR3: HTTP;//á+.K|MmÓA.$E/
what is really amazing, is that it is readable without much effort.

visit http://www.thaicountrylife.com

beware when signing up for sharapic.com

2010-03-26T22:33:00.000-07:00

i ran across sharapic.com lottsa photos there, and a zillion ads. but they pay you if you pictures draw traffic to the ads. which isn't a bad deal.

signing up for the service though can easily trick you into signing up for OTHER stuff you didn't want. not necessarily harmful stuff, but we all get too much crap in our inboxes already, and we don't want to be giving information to 3rd parties without realizing it. so this is what i posted in their forum, which is the only way to contact them.

Forum Post: new user sign in- wasn't obvious what i was signing up for!!

i just joined sharapic.com. nice. i entered user information, submited, then huh? you were asking for it again? like i missed something. so i entered again. submitted. huh? again but this time there were more questions? maybe it's cause i'm on a mac and the pages aren't loading fully. okay, entered MORE information again. submitted. and again.

and then realized that the "sign-up" following the first one were for "Offers" or some such crap. BAD BAD BAD!!!! i just gave my personal information- address, phone number, email to people i DID NOT realize i was sending it to.

yeah, sure, shame on me for not studying the page carefully item by item, line by line to notice that there was a banner above the data entry fields, and a "skip" link. but SHAME ON YOU for not making it obvious that i was giving my information to a third party! i realize you guys are all about cashing in on everything, which is one reason i joined- to cash in on pics - but i absolutely hate it when i don't know i'm being had like that. and i hate it even more when i am fooled by deceptive sign-ups like this.

so i'm starting with a bitter taste in my mouth, and you can be sure, that my blogs and online marketing pages will all have "BEWARE" notices about this. and who ever those people are i signed up for will get a complaint reply and dumped in the spam folder if they start emailing me, or sending me crap in the mail.

besides all that, it's just LAME.

------- post script ------

one of the moderators replied to my post in their forum. he said:

"i'm sorry you feel that way" and linked to the privacy policy.

nice brush-off.

google translate: vietnamese to english

2010-03-26T22:31:00.001-07:00

in a chat from a friend in vietnam i got:

Mấy ai định nghĩa được tình yêu. Có gì đâu một buổi chiều. Kề dao lên cổ yêu hay chết . Gật đầu cái rụp thế là yêu. 3/16/10 at 7:49 AM

which google translate gave back:

Few who define love. What Where an afternoon. Adjacent to the neck knife love or death. Nodded the ruble is the love. 3/16/10 at 7:49 AM

that's some interesting poetry, but i don't think that was what Min was saying to me.
or was it????

-------- postscript ---------
min got back to me. that WAS what he was saying. he saw it and thought it was cool.
vietnamese poetry!

conan on twitter?????

2010-03-26T22:30:00.002-07:00

from Conan's profile:

Name Conan O'Brien

Location Los Angeles

Web http://twitter.com/conanobrien

Bio I had a show. Then I had a different show. Now I have a Twitter account.

cracked me up. isn't he 45M$ richer or something?

reposting some posts

2010-03-26T22:30:00.000-07:00

posts i've sent in from email show up in my posting list, but the buttons/links to view, edit or select them are missing. so i can't do anything with them. grrr. reposting by hand.

you "become" an artist by BEING one

2010-02-10T21:37:00.001-08:00

or did you mean become a ___ artist? fill in the blank with words like ‘famous’, ‘expert’, ‘accomplished’, ‘good’, “paid”, “successful”.

you can become those, by being one. paint. draw. make. sculpt. create. do. when someone sees it and asks “are you an artist” say “yes”

i do a lot of drawing on ordinary un-ruled 3×5 cards. cause their cheap- 99 cents a pack and not hard to carry around. and if i ‘mess’ it up so what- paper was a penny a piece. then i take pictures of them, and give them away when someone likes it. i have the photo, i don’t need the card. let someone else enjoy it.

See more progress on: become an artist

the picture says it all

2010-01-31T22:51:00.001-08:00

people who don't like cute forwards

2009-04-05T21:14:00.001-07:00

from an email i recieved:

If I have bothered you with my funny and cute forwards, please tell me, and don't just stop talking with me. I only send the very best that I receive, I too do not like having my time wasted by stupid forwards so please know that I use my best discretion before passing these along to you. I just felt like saying that because I got an email from of all people my niece. I send them really cute, animal only forwards but she got very angry at me. I don't know her well, so I can't say what caused this. but please if I am bothering you, let me know and I will not send you anymore forwards….This will bring a smile to your face for sure…or at least it brought one to mine, and that isn't very easy to do these days.

[the following is an commentary inspired by the message above. it is derived from, but not explicit to, the sender of the message. ed.]

some people just can't handle "cuteness" i guess. what constitutes a "stupid" forward is very subjective. some people just resent getting cute forwards and "save the ______" messages because they don't get any real, personal mail. you open your mailbox and instead of messages from friends asking about your health and well being, you get pictures of puppies, spam, and list mails. and OMG! they have to expend he energy and oh so precious time to click the checkbox and then click "delete". for some people, the little rush of "awww, that's so cUUUte!" and only be repeated so many times before it becomes dulling and trite, which after a while can be angryvating

there is an infinite supply of cute puppies, babies, kittens, animals of all species. that little emotional charge you get from viewing such pictures over-saturates some people i think. plus you never know how many other people are sending forwards to a person, and yours, however selected and "best-of" they are, just become YADF- YetAnotherDamnForward that is designed to put a hook in my heart, brain or wallet and give a little tug. for some, emotional little tugs like that, those images and messages that will "put a smile on your face" become invasive and controlling, like the happy aunt who is always telling you to "Smile! turn that frown upside down!" but doesn't really care, or ask, why you are not smiling in the first place. when did i make her the watchman of my emotional status at that moment?

when you are drowning in your own crap at the moment, having a shitty day, just got bad news, woke up on the wrong side of the bed, feeling depressed and lonely, the last thing some people want to see is a picture of a cute puppy when they open their mail. so the sender of the puppy picture becomes someone to focus that helpless anger on.

when people send forwards, here's no opt-out, opt-in button. when you sign up for a mailing list, or forget to un-check the box next to "would you like to receive email from us when we have new products/newsletter/advertising/crap" when registering for another website, you asked for it, and the messages usually have an un-subscribe link. with forwards this is missing. it would be nice if the forwarders had a preferences list to screen their email friends with. something like "john, cathy, bob, mary get puppy pictures but no babies and green the earth messages, while sam, eric, lisa get puppy pictures but no 'inspirational messages', etc. hey, that might be an idea for a software tool for forwarders. with just a few tags on a message like "puppies" or "smiley" or "save whales" the tool would forward the message to only those on your list who match the tags. but, gee, that puts a lot more work on the back of the forwarder, they have tag the messages, and categorize recipients to the tag list and, and and.... that's so much more work than hitting "forward" button and auto filling in the list address and clicking send. but wait, it's been done. that's what BLOGS do. you can post messages, pictures of whatever you like, and with most blogsites you can forward an entire email to your blogsite and it will appear there. then you can tell your friends that all your cool stuff is on your blog, and they can go or not go, and they can subscribe to your blog, follow you on twitter, add you to their facebook and myspace pages, create a whole social network on ning for forwards and appeals to save-the-what-evers, add your blog to their RSS reader, digg your site, and maybe it will even show up on technorati, and if you made videos of your puppy/cat/bird/nature forwards, you can post on youtube and point everyone to your vlog and blog... yeah! and everyones mailbox will be a little bit smaller everyday.

and there would be more bandwidth on the internet for spam.

me? i just scan and delete.

i was reading clinical definitions of narcissism the other day. sounds like your roomate. i fell for a women years ago who was a borderline personality- drove ME nuts. i decided to stay away from crazy people they will make you crazy.

--
Read my Thailand adventure ::: http://www.thaicountrylife.com

Twitter and the 7 technologies of rejection

2009-03-28T21:59:00.001-07:00

what follows is commentary on an email i recieved in response to a post on my other blog. text quoted from the response email is in pink...

Ahhhh….ummm….oh, sea horses in a bag, freeze dried…not good. They are so cute and so much better alive and swimming. Of all the things to eat, do they have to eat sea horses?.....although, their food is so pretty, so alive and colorful looking. Makes our dull American cuisine look rather pale and unappetizing.

sun dried seahorses not for eating? what, we only eat ugly things? leave the cute ones alone? baby pigs are really cute - when they get to 400 pounds we kill and make them into bacon and pork chops. the sea horses were for more medicinal than nutrition i believe.

[the following is an editorial comment on the subject, not intended as a personal disagreement with the person who inspired the commentary]

if you use twitter, i've been sending tweets from my phone. follow me ! ok I give up. I don't get why we needed this? wasn't texting and computering enough? How many more ways do people need to do the same thing? Please explain why tweeting/twitter is now being all the rage…..i don't get it. there is a movie out there called, "He's just not that into you". In one preview, Drew Barrymore says "There are 7 kinds of technology to be rejected by now days, I just can't take it"…I cracked up at that. I don't know if I am repeating myself but they are finding out via studies that kids now days are having trouble 'connecting' with other human beings due to their constant attachment to high tech gadgets….texting, cell phoning, twittering, no one is getting any eye contact. No one is connecting on any humane level, no empathy can flourish this way making violence and killing that much easier, not having that human connection. Someone sitting in a room with you, texting, listening to their Ipod, twittering…and no one is actually really interested in what you are having to say. So many ways to communicate and yet the most important way of all is being forgotten…that being talk, touch, and connection

ah, twitter - "why do we need this?", well why not? to people like you and i, who grew up in the "talking face to face" era don't get it.

no one is getting any eye contact. No one is connecting on any humane level, no empathy can flourish this way making violence and killing that much easier, not having that human connection.

that's how us "old farts" see it. sounds so much like my dad, who has asked us a thousand times "what's an iPod, what's MP3?" and no matter what we tell him he always says "what's wrong with silence? why not just sit down and talk to someone? why have music music music in your ears all the time? when do you have time to think?". this from someone whose musical tastes stopped evolving when Lawrence welk died (that's an exaggeration)

for people like us, who have no or few friends, the twitterverse seems stupid. but to millions of ah, hum, younger people out there, they have a huge extended network of friends, many of them only visible online because they are separated by distance. when i was a kid, i could only have buddies who lived within blocks of me. there was no other way to interact. there was no 'call waiting' so if i was on the phone, and my dad was trying to call my mom and tell her there was a military alert and he wasn't coming home for a few days, all he got was a busy signal, so my phone calls were limited to 5 MINUTES.

yeah, people now have 7 different kinds of technology "to be rejected with". but that's blaming the message medium for the message. -rejection is only ONE kind of message among the thousands of others that gets sent across those technologies.

and to be told: ...No one is connecting on any humane level, no empathy can flourish this way making violence and killing that much easier...

is just bullshit being spewed out by more old farts who 'don't get it' i see it as the modern version of "rock and roll is devils music and is destroying our youth" don't the many emails you send out about wolf killings, wild cat havens, recycling, and the others people have about environment, Darfur refugees, land-mines; "connect on a human level"? don't they generate empathy? would you even know about sarah palins wolf killing spree if it wasn't for one of those "7 different technologies"? and if you did find out, it would likely be after the fact. and how in the world they can claim this makes killing and violence that much easier? that has always astounded me. yes, they can always dig up the few people who played Grand Theft Auto all day and then went and shot someone cause it was just like in the game. yeah, and dan white shot harvey milk because he was high on twinkies.

but, back to twitter. can you remember, when you were a teen ager especially, that you would call up one of your friends and say "hey, what are you doin?" that's what twitter is. if you have friends, it's interesting. if you don't, you can make friends and follow them around.

go have a look at http://twittervision.com/

and tell me you have "no connection on a human level" to anything anybody across the WORLD says in a tweet.

the really cool thing that everybody forgets is that like the OFF button on a TV, you don't HAVE to be involved, don't have to tweet, don't have to use all 7 technologies. choose the ones you like and understand. everybody else will go on with the rest.

Re: Wine and beer

2009-03-22T22:20:00.001-07:00

recieved in an email:

"To my friends who enjoy a glass of wine.and those who don't.
As Ben Franklin said:
In wine there is wisdom,
In beer there is freedom,
In water there is bacteria.
In a number of carefully controlled trials, Scientists have demonstrated that if we drink 1 liter of water each day, at the end of the year we would have absorbed more than 1 kilo of Escherichia
coli,..." etc

indeed in medieval times, where water was REALLY shitty, they drank copious quantites of beer and wine. E.coli is like everywhere, so is chloroform (sp) bacteria- did you see the mythbusters where they tested toothbrushes that were left in the bathroom at different distances from the toilet, to see if flushing spread bacteria? they were amazed that the toothbrush they had as a "control" that was out in the shop also tested positive.

after all the pain and heartache that the whole alcohol culture caused in my life, i am no longer enamored with it. i personally don' enjoy drunk monkeys, drunk people and the like. realize i'm talking FOR ME only. i guess it's kinda like when you have a "special needs" child, you dont think retard jokes are funny anymore. well, not exactly, it's more like i find it rather boring. definitely one of those things in life i've "been der, done dat". i do still appreciate that what others do is up to them, and it was and still is fun- for them.

i do believe part of my distancing from drug culture is a defense- it's not something that i need to be thinking is cool, or funny, or fun, or worthwhile. if you could guarantee absolutely, that something like what happened the night before sea fair 1983 would NOT happen*, perhaps... but there is only one way to guarantee that isn't there? and that is:

don't take the first one. ever.

*i drank a fifth of whiskey, punched out the windows of my van, assaulted my wife, got beat-up, almost arrested... you know, just having fun. the whiskey was supposed to be for the next day. i opened the bottle to "have just one"

Re: 090317 Thaikarl - Ho Chi Min City redux

2009-03-17T22:37:00.001-07:00

from an email reply to my travelogue http://www.thaicountrylife.com :

"Sounds like a great time ****. It is weird that I have purple hair and no life. Usually those are things people do when they have everything else in place, then dye your hair purple …not the other way around. No job, no clue, no friends, no mate, no future….but hey, I have purple hair."

so get a life.

so easy for one who has one (sorta) to say. i hate it when people do that.
but i absolutely grokk what you are saying. i attribute some of it to getting older. to many installed patterns, to much experience. we know what we like, know what we don't like, and can "pre-think" something else, base on our established patterns of like/dislike. and thus decide not to bother, cause we already decided we won't like it, or maybe we would, but who cares? as we're older, we have a lot more "bin dere, done dat"s. the young people seem to have all the fire, the angst, the passion- cause they don't know any better, or any worse. i've tasted every jam and jelly on the shelves and out of the 50 or so flavors and variations, i like smuckers low-sugar raspberry and appricot. i have branced out to low-sugar strawberry last year. that's what i like, that's what i know, so i don't even think of looking at anything else. expand that to hundreds of patterns and tastes life has to offer, and it's a very narrowed down life. in it's regularity and sameness, there is a comfort, but at the same time there's a sense of nothingness. of non-life.

and then, because i had all this money in the bank, and only two weeks vacation,i got on a plane and went to india for a week, and thailand for three days. BAM! all that sameness, all that comfort, all that regularity was pushed aside. it had a large dent in it now. holes and cracks that let out the forces within, shone new light. of course, i fell right back into the groove when i returned to america, to seattle, to capitol hill, but the cat was out of the bag, the worm had turned, the pot had boiled over, the fire had been lit. eighty percent of life is "just show up". i showed up in india and thailand, and it changed the other twenty percent.

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.

Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis

i also seek to be transformed. not into a gigantic insect, but in to a transformed man. but how? it is something i've been stuck on for some years now. how would this "gotten life" be any different from the life i have now? do i need to erase the patterns of experience, delete the a posteriori knowledge i have and replace it with what? more a posteriori knowledge. same same, but different? or is such a quest fullfilled by "a priori" knowledge i don't have yet? or do i?

tell you later. i have to take a shower now, we have to goto town. there's no food in the house.

cares,
nu

karlangeldevil.2jpg

2009-01-28T15:45:00.001-08:00

karlangeldevil.2jpg, originally uploaded by creativeboho.

i can't decide who i am either.

Rules of Life - The rule of 88

2007-09-24T19:46:00.000-07:00

As you get along in life you encounter certain rules. Things happen over and over, and you have to percieve that there must be a rule that governs this happening. I have decided to codify some of the obvious ones. Here's the first in the series.

The Rule of 88
"when you are moving an object, if there is any other object in the vicinity that the object you are moving can be obstructed by, 88 out of 100 times, the object you are moving will be snagged, blocked, obstructed, caught, or otherwise interfered with."

Example: you are dragging the hose across the lawn. there is a sprinkler head projecting 1/4 inch above the ground. the hose you are draging will snag on the sprinkler head, firmly and with resolve. Usually, your attempts to yank it off fail. You have to walk over and un-snag the hose by hand.

This rule could be subtitled the "Wouldn't save your life" rule. As in, 'If you needed that object to get snagged in order to save your life, it wouldn't happen." In the example of dragging the garden hose, you would say, "If I needed that garden hose to catch on that sprinkler head because I was falling off a cliff, it wouldn't happen".

I'm a handy-man. I spend a lot of time moving things around: electric cords, hoses, ladders, ropes. The rule of 88 gets me all the time.

Hello World

2007-09-24T19:43:00.000-07:00

When you learn programing in C, and other languages, the first thing they have you do is to print the words: "Hello World" to the screen.

So, Hello World.