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-- Jorge Luis Borges, "The Library of Babel" |
sábado, enero 27, 2001
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linkydink I got you all beat: dictator quiz says I'm Terrance from "Terrance and Phillip." jrandom: I think that the notion of choice is inherent in all of the text at my links. Yea, verily, the Breszny one especially offers you a choice to interact with what he and Jung choose to call the shadow. It seems to me that the implied message is that we have already chosen to repress much of ourselves in search of perfection, and that we must choose expression more often. None of these posts are declaring an all or nothing id riot, and of course to do so would be ludicrous. I think what I get from them is that perfection is balance, and for the majority of this country, the scales are tipped too far into the realm of repression. word.
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linkydink this post all in lowercase due to crappy keyboard. i was supposed to dj at trinity college tonight but didnt because it sucked. future; tue 1/30, buttonwood tree in middletown, ct sleep stops pain. sleep now.
viernes, enero 26, 2001
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linkydink Perhaps you're having a hard time understanding Gay Republicans because, in fact, it is impossible to understand how any minority could agree with the tenets of Republicanism. State's Rights says it all: if you are not in the voting majority for your state, you can practically guarentee discrimination. 'nuff said.
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linkydink i have a hard time understanding gay republicans. "I get all kinds of e-mails telling me I'm working with the Nazis," said Kevin Ivers, a member of another gay group, Log Cabin Republicans, who attended the inauguration breakfast. "But we're optimistic that President Bush will keep a dialogue going with the community." i understand how a gay person could agree with the tenets of republicanism, but how can someone support a group of people who, as a general political mass, are constantly trying to take away your rights? isn't that like being in an abusive relationship? "i know he hits me, but usually he's so nice... i'm sure someday he'll change his ways." maybe that's a little harsh, but as a woman and a fairly vocal queer rights supporter i can't imagine supporting the Republican party. while i may occasionally agree with their principles and i see the merit in working with them for political compromise, i could never wholeheartedly support them because they are about limiting my freedoms.
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linkydink Perfection, like Love, is one of those words that is nine times out of ten impossible to statically define for one's self, much less to statically define for anyone else. That said, Jason, your links seem to be saying that the way to perfection isn't repression but expression. What any of them fail to mention (or even hint at!) is the importance of choice in what the individual or group represses and expresses, because all or nothing is a sure recipe for disaster.
jueves, enero 25, 2001
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linkydink I don't know if it was RAW or Jeff Noon who introduced me to the concept... maybe neither. Somewhere along the line I picked up the notion that maybe perfection is a function of time. Wasn't it Denis Leary that said happiness comes in small doses? A twinkie or a five-second orgasm?
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linkydink Perfection is an interesting thing. What is it, how do we define it etc.? This was my horoscope from the delightful Rob Breszny for the week. This little tidbit appeared in "Ain't It Cool News" today. My friend Joanna posted this little thing on her website today. All of these things point to me really pondering this idea. Any notions or responses to the articles?
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linkydink using the "guess-a-dictator" game as a personal questionnaire, i discovered that i am ellie mae clampet from beverly hillbillies! can't say i didn't learn something today.
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linkydink The most disturbing thing to me in the whole energy mess of California is that those inefficiencies are being duplicated all over the globe, from the first world on down, because of the nasty America-driven global capitalism. For instance, in Zimbabwe all soda bottles were glass and reused until just recently when RCA Cola introduced a plastic bottle. Of course, those plastic bottles could technically also be recycled if the facillities for doing so existed in Zimbabwe, but they don't. Furthermore, the only reason why bottles did get reused is because people were charged a $3 bottle deposit on an $8 Coke, and so, the way most Zimbabweans look at it, that bottle, which they bring to the store when they want to buy another Coke and give to the merchant for that $3 credit, is worth $3 that they wouldn't otherwise have. Street kids would go around collecting those bottles that were discarded and sell them or give them back to the merchants for cash. To put this in perspective a little bit, $2 buys a good-sized banana in Zimbabwe. The RCA Cola plastic bottles, however, are bigger than the glass Coke bottles, and they do not include a bottle deposit. The roads in Zimbabwe are consequently becoming increasingly littered with squished RCA Cola bottles. It's awful.
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linkydink That Guess-the-Evil-Dictator/Sit-Com-Character game is pretty interesting if you answer it as a personal questionaire. Myself, I bear a striking resemblance to Dr. Smith from Lost In Space. I'll try to not let this keep me up at night.
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linkydink pick a dictator (or sitcom character. but dictators are more fun). answer the questions. see if you can fool the computer.
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linkydink "going on a hot date tonight? is it going to be hot loin action all the way, or will your lucky pants let you down?"
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linkydink interesting: there is a Sustainability Institute in Vermont. this is something i'd like to do. "The transition to a sustainable world is above all a transition in world view and paradigm. The focus of the Institute's education and communication efforts is to provide information and experiences to help shift mindsets. The content of our educational programs unites the studies of science and systems with the experience of intuition and connection." very hippie, very interesting.
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linkydink California's power situation is pretty f*cked up. why? um... "n the old electric system, it cost utilities less to subsidize our more efficient bulbs than to build another dinosaur power plant. In the deregulated system, they have only one incentive: to sell us as much power as possible at the lowest apparent price. So much for efficiency."
miércoles, enero 24, 2001
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linkydink Education is an extremely tough nut to crack, and I don't feel I can elucidate my opinion on this blog alone when most people devote entire books to it, and deservedly so. I will say this, though: that if The System (and I'm really not being sarcastic) were interested in equal education for all, instead of excellent education for some and poor education for most, then that is the way it would be. This is also assuming that The System is, in fact, interested in education and not just programming. Myself, were I ever to have a child, I would insist on home-schooling.
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linkydink salon has an article about a controversial magnet high school in Illinois. the question is, is it right to hand-pick the top students and lavish the most money and attention and the best teachers on them at the expense of the less-gifted kids? while the gifted may be our nation's hope for keeping up in this global technological age (to paraphrase the article), the remaining masses can't be ignored. to me, the real question isn't "can the gifted excel if showered with resources?", since obviously they can. the real question is, as the article puts it, "Is it only our "gifted" children who deserve an IMSA-quality education? If tomorrow's nuclear physicists are worth $20,000 a year to us, how much should we spend on tomorrow's dancers, or teachers, or bus drivers?" of course, in many ways IMSA reminds me of smith: a bunch of smart kids in a "tight-knit" community, many of whom are put on meds for depression; "an educational Oz of abundant resources, high-performing students and top-notch teachers and administrators"; a place where "absent, too, is the threat of theft or violence on campus." perhaps i'm more comfortable with smith having those qualities because it's a private institution; i can feel all right about my education because i'm not depriving some "less gifted" student of school funds. in response to my previous post, here's a quote:
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linkydink anyone who hasn't read (or better yet seen performed) the Vagina Monologues should do so. it's performed here at smith every year on valentine's day. you're all invited.
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linkydink Yes, cmoore, I think you have earned the Captain Blog pirate hat. Although we must forgive jimmytones for his weak performance of late as he has gone atravelin' without his wireless internet hook up (perhaps he is hooking up to other things instead). As for me I have gotten trapped in radio land. Today I reported on a presentation by four mayors and a first selctman of an analysis of state funding programs. Did you know that there is a $600 milllion surplus in the state of Connecticut right now while many local municipalities in the state are struggling to fund their education and maintenance programs? So much for the wonders of income tax reductions. Oh, did Dubyah mention something about wanting to cut taxes? Did he pull back recent moves to build more low-income housing, safegaurd the environment against the WTO, support for certain pro-choice organizations? From this angle Clinton's looking pretty good.
martes, enero 23, 2001
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linkydink "Why should one physical parameter be a mathematical function of some others? This is the philosophical problem that Nobel physicist Eugene Wigner called 'the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural science' in his 1960 paper of that name in Communications of Pure and Applied Mathematics. Albert Einstein put the problem this way in his Sidelights on Relativity, 'How is it possible that mathematics, a product of human thought that is independent of experience, fits so excellently the objects of physical reality?'"
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linkydink Apparently you're not the only one with ill-will towards Dubya, cmoore. If your admin has blocked napster.com, just use another server. Or, try Gnutella, a distributed system. I'm not about to say with any authority that there isn't a gender-based salary gap, but I'm highly suspect of techies.com's methodology. Namely, I wouldn't trust humans to accurately report on their own job. In stead of what they are being paid, they might report what they think they should be paid (either higher or lower), and instead of their actual position, they might report what position they think they should have (again, either higher or lower). Hell, what's to stop them from lying about their sex! The question, I guess, is whether it was prevalent enough to effect the conclusions. Tactile interfaces are so passe! Does Blogger have statistics functions such that it could tell us who the most frequent poster in any given time range is? That'd be keen.
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linkydink how come there's a gender/salary gap in the IT workforce? "Overall, female techies earn an average 92 cents for every dollar their male counterparts earn, averaging $5,071 less in yearly pay than men. For full-time professionals in all U.S. industries, women earn less than 75 percent of what men earn, according to the U.S. Census Bureau"
lunes, enero 22, 2001
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linkydink smith has blocked our access to napster and scour is no more, but at last angelie has found a viable alternative!
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linkydink in case anyone was wondering, here are the last meals of everyone executed in texas since 1982.
domingo, enero 21, 2001
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linkydink Does anybody know why all the PNG-format graphics I try to use come out unusably dark when I save them? It's like they're overdeveloped or something. Witness: GIF vs. PNG. This is all with Adobe Photoshop. Unfortunately, the PNG website seems to be down. Any ideas?
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