Order is for wimps

Conversation with Meg :D

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 23:55:16 GMT

heheh
are you disenchanted with^W^H^Hing new york?
waves her hands in circular motions and makes whooshing noises
*ting*
Loot: 3 Scum Shards

Tethering

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:58:28 GMT

So, last night I got my Macbook to connect to the OpenVPN at home, using my G1 as the internet connection. Next step is to make the OpenVPN server actually do NAT as well... Woo! Soon, I will be capable of working from the beach (if it has 3G cell service...)

For clarity re my last post

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 02:12:41 GMT

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/4/23/

"Poop is coming out."

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 14:09:40 GMT

So now, I too can post messages to all my friends from the toilet. <3 portable tech.

Got my google voice account activated yesterday - need to play with it more, to try to understand how it interacts with SIP. It would be awesome to have a completely virtual number to give people!

Got a $400 electric bill today. Apparently, A/C is expensiver than I thoughts!

Got an info kit on Lasik, which is almost entirely useless. Can't people package up useful information instead of just shoveling brochures at people?

LJ from my phone

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 17:17:16 GMT

Using SKs LJ client, I am writing this from my G1 phone. It's a pretty cute client! In the airport right now - about to fly back to NYC.

Star, sorry I missed you! I will be back again soon and hopefully run into you then!

The sun that streamed through the windows has gone down

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:16:36 GMT

So it's evening, and I'm alone with my mind. One of my friends is texting me because he needs support in doing a hard thing; another is e-mailing me because he wants to reflect on his desire to go traveling even though the economy is poop-ish. I'm avoiding facebook even more strenuously than usual because the people I used to live among as a child have found me.

I'm standing in the middle of a road that stretches to the horizon. There are no forks, no turns, no dirt tracks leading away. Nothing. Is this really all there is? The inevitable, interminable now?

I hate it when people that I've crushed on get ahold of me. (Traveler above is one such person. Another, an intern that I used to work with, got ahold of me yesterday.) I want, I crave, I _need_ their attention; but everything about it is shameful to me. Being needy shames me. I am ashamed with my comportment around them. I am too ashamed to disconnect.

One of my favorite games as a child was hide-n-go-seek. Who doesn't like it? But I remember endlessly pestering my brothers and sister to play. I remember being told to learn to entertain myself. When we did play, I didn't win very often. On the other hand, I think I'm hidden to this very day.

[Edit: Desolation is such a great word. It's like desperation and isolation all wrapped up together!]

ASSumptions

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 20:35:13 GMT

I read fark.com waaaay too much. Recently, I was reading the thread of comments from the article about how AWESOME THE 60s WERE. One thing I noted was a conversation about "people joining the middle class" and education.

An assumption that caught my eye was the conflation of a white collar job with being a member of the middle class. Has this ever been true? Does it make sense to assert that everyone who does phone support is immediately a member of the middle class? What does it say about my status in our class system if I turn my nose down at that as an opportunity? (I seriously would rather be an electrician or a plumber or such.)

I think that's one false assumption people make; white collar jobs do not a middle class make. Conversely, blue collar jobs do not imply lower class persons. A corollary to this is that there are other blue collar jobs than manufacturing, people. (An electrician is, generally speaking, considered a 'blue-collar' worker, but in the modern US they are contracted with as service providers just like your freaking lawyer, except with less of the professional cultural stupidity.)

There are all sorts of assumptions that people make about the broad models that we use to describe the current state of things, and these assumptions are often _very_ wrong. As a result, people tend to make decisions that are perfectly consistent with their ideas but almost entirely misguided.

Yes, I do this too; however, I've also cultivated mechanisms for detecting false assumptions and correcting them. So now the question is - why are people so reluctant to test their assumptions? It really doesn't hurt to let them go when they've missed the mark. Maybe I'm just too comfortable with uncertainty.

Some places to visit

Sat, 03 Jan 2009 23:34:45 GMT

Domestic:
Boston and then rural Maine
Portland and Seattle
Hawaii
Alaska
Puerto Rico
New Mexico
Nevada
Miami area in Florida (I know, I know)

International:
Vancouver area
Caribbean destination of choice
Resort Mexico (Cancun or Cozumel perhaps)
Costa Rica
Mali and/or Ghana
Bali
Ethiopia
Israel
S. Korea
Japan

I do wish I had the cash to take a few months off and tour. That would be fun :D

Welcome to 2009

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 04:36:57 GMT

Happy New Year, peeps!

I have no resolutions that I need to declare; I've never been a big fan of tradition in general and that tradition in particular. I do have some musings that I intend to share.

This last year has taught me a lot about myself. One of the things it has taught me is that living my life through trial-and-error is not the right way to go about doing things. I feel this weight, this pressure, to stop *trying* and just *be.* And as a consequence, I need to stop making major changes to my life without more security to back them up. When I moved to New York, I told myself a lot of things about how it was going to be. Some of them have come true, but as is always the case, most of them have nothing to do with reality.

Reality is:

I've backslid. Progress that I had made in my life has just vanished as I find myself living-to-work. Thankfully, I've not backslid so far that work is all-consuming; it's just that there's not much to fill the void outside of those hours.

I have some great friends here. Kirsti and Mike and Cody are awesome, and I'm glad I get to hang with them fairly often.

I'm not making any new friends here. I've got people who I could cultivate as friends, but this city makes it _terribly_ inconvenient to do so. It is _amazing_ how inconvenient this city can be. And honestly, I don't know that I want to commit to building friendships in this place when I think about the places that I've been before, and how much more comfortable I've been in them. (Austin, Seattle, Boston)

I've let a lot of friendships slide, and I'm having some regrets. I remember getting drunk on Asti Spumante with my friend Jo and giggling for hours. I remember _just being_ with some of my friends in Austin, and how good that was. I remember hanging out with my friend Jamie and reading poetry. I remember muttering "Precious Stereo" and laughing for hours with my friend Chelsea. Even though I talk with my friend Megan all the time online, I want to _give her a hug._ I can't do these things, and I'm not even in touch with some of these people, because the commitment required is enormous. Truth be told, all of the people I mention have moved on in various ways - they are getting a lot of their needs met by people who are very close to them, who are committed to them. That's something I've locked myself out of, and it exacerbates the problem.

So I'm entering 2009 with this tension; I have to pursue a fulfilling life for myself, but how to proceed now is not clear. I could dedicate my time and energy to getting what I need locally, but that commits me more deeply to NYC, which has a lot of drawbacks and only a few benefits. I could reach out more to the people I miss, but that leads to the aches that distance evokes. I wish that I could pick my life in Boston back up, but that's a fool's dream at this point.

Maybe the answer is to just spend all of my time at the gym. :P

Mi havas neniom picxon, bitches

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 20:35:02 GMT

Vocxa discucxo:

NfNitLoop> Kiom da picho vi havas?
Mi> Ne suficxe!
NfNitLoop>Ne, vere! Kiom da picho havas vi?
Me> Uh... Neniom?

For those of you esperanto deprived, a colloquial translation:

"How much pussy you got?" "NOT ENOUGH!" "No, really, how much pussy do you have?" "Uh... none?"

Correction: Mi havas neniom da picxo, bitches.

Found on fark

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 03:13:34 GMT

"Any time that a liberal points out that the wealthy are disproportionately benefiting from Bush's tax policies, Republicans shout, "class warfare!"

In her book A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century, Barbara Tuchman writes about a peasant revolt in 1358 that began in the village of St. Leu and spread throughout the Oise Valley. At one estate, the serfs sacked the manor house, killed the knight, and roasted him on a spit in front of his wife and kids. Then, after ten or twelve peasants violated the lady, with the children still watching, they forced her to eat the roasted flesh of her dead husband and then killed her.

That is class warfare.

Arguing over the optimum marginal tax rate for the top one percent is not."

Yes, my friends, that's right - if you piss off all the little people, eventually they kill and eat you.

Supreme Court Case Meme

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 15:59:58 GMT

The Meme: As evidenced by Katie Couric, Sarah Palin is unable to name any Supreme Court Case other than Roe v. Wade.

The Rules: Post info about ONE Supreme Court decision, modern or historic, to your LJ. (Any decision, as long as it's not Roe v. Wade.) For those who see this on your f-list, take the meme to your OWN LiveJournal to spread the fun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern_Pacific_Railroad

Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad established the personhood of corporations when it comes to the application of the law. (I have no idea how correct the wikipedia article is, but this is the court case that gets pointed to.)

I should really start "The Second Amendment, LLC" - I wonder if selling guns in my spare time is a good racket.

Ultimately, I see this particular court case as advancing the likelihood of a fascist American state. Not a big fan of it, as you can imagine. ;)

Meme post

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 00:38:56 GMT

Hexapod and intrepidredhead inspired me.

Rules:

* take a picture of yourself right now.
* don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair... just take a picture.
* post that picture with NO editing.
* post these instructions with your picture.

Enjoy! And unlike hexapod, I need a haircut at the moment.

Everything on its head

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 04:03:56 GMT

So. So so so. I haven't posted in forever.

First! I am looking to take a position with the NYTimes and move to New York. I have some very good friends there and the last Boston-specific thing holding me here has weakened dramatically.

Second! I am confused. People talk to me. Lady on the bus, guy on the bus, guy on the subway, other guy on the subway - I don't get it. This used to happen a lot, it stopped for a long time, and now it's happening again. WTF?

Third! I don't think there's enough time in the day to do all the shit I need to do. That is all.

Refactoring anxiety

Wed, 07 May 2008 09:18:11 GMT

I dreamed about work. At my current company.

I had written this little web app that was used to render a static view of stuff we were simulating (and now that I think about it, that's a great idea!) and presented it to some of my coworkers. One of my coworkers took it upon himself to refactor the UI code so that it was prettier.

We had some 'style' differences.

It had moved from something entirely markup-driven to a mishmash of javascript and html. This, in and of itself, not too bad. But it was done in such a way that most of the javascript was calls to Document.write(), which makes Baby Jesus QQ. And there were no functions - all the javascript was inline, and it used references to the position of things in the DOM to get primitive UI elements. So... modify it and BEWM. Correction: there was ONE "function" named "main" - which appeared to do nothing but call Document.write() with whatever you passed it - and it was called multiple times.

So after viewing all of this, and being appalled, the real kicker hit; I noticed that it was now rendering everything upside down.

Also, my dad gave Patrick Swayze a ride in an old Plymouth Triumph convertible. That I kind of want now.

THERE. ARE. FIVE. QUESTIONS.

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 23:36:19 GMT

From hexapod :)

1) What's your worst sin against the planet?

I think my worst sin against the planet is a thoughtcrime - I believe deeply that we should do our best to live lightly, to make as little impact as is reasonable. BUT. I also am too cynical to believe that much effort at all is reasonable. Basically, in economic terms, I can conserve all I want, but it's just letting other people waste for longer before the consequences become apparent to them.

If you want a specific behavior, though, I'm really bad about eating imported foods with high transportation costs. MOAR AVOCADOS PLZ

2) Highway traffic is 75 on a 65-mph freeway (ie lots of drivers, and everyone's going at least 75). Do you speed?

Yep. Better to keep the system flowing smoothly than to just blindly follow the rules.

3) Would you make a good dad?

Wow, this one's below the belt ;) Yes, I would. But, having grown up in East Texas, I pretty much eschew any interaction with kids outside of my nieces and nephews, and I won't be having any kids myself. I have too much insight into things that suck about growing up to want to put people through it, even if I think I can help them do it well.

4) What's the coolest technological development that happened between 1800 and 1850?

Telegraph?
Steam Locomotive?
Anaesthesia.

I sat and cried for ten minutes when I came across this inscription on this monument in the Boston Public Garden.

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/images/ma/MABOSethermonument1.jpg

My city has a monument dedicated "To commemorate that the inhaling of ether causes insensibility to pain." That is stunningly beautiful to me.

5) You've been kicked out of the US and you can't come back. Where do you go to live?

Ooo, fun. Depends. If I had all the choices in the world, I'd head for the British Virgin Islands or New Zealand. If I needed to make a living, I'd hit up Australia, Switzerland, and Germany for opportunities. Not being able to return to the U.S. makes Canada a not-so-wonderful option, but otherwise, I'd probably just head for Vancouver. Now, if I _really_ had my way... I'd travel among all of the above, and wherever else the urge takes me. :)

Memed: Five Questions

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 18:11:15 GMT

via infinitevoid and p3rlm0nk

The rules:
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you five questions of a very intimate and creepily personal nature. Or not so creepy/personal.
3. You will update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

From infinitevoid

1) You've talked to me about the urge to live "off the grid", or at least
be completely self-sustainable. In an ideal situation, what would that
involve?

Ideally? There are a lot of motivations for it, so it would involve a lot. If we're willing to speak outside of the realm of the currently practical for a moment, I'd like to be able to teleport from any location to any other (mobility), send anything I can think directly to others in its fullness (communication), never need to sleep or eat (nutrition and maintenance)... But I think for now, I'd just like to have someplace that I could sustain without importing water or electricity. I'd like to maintain my current standard of living without making an impact on things other than my immediate surroundings. So I'd need a magical internet that didn't involve the cable company ;)

2) And once you attained self-sustainability... then what?

Travel! I'd like to be able to maintain my standard of living independent of place. I'd also like to share the lessons I'd learn in the process with other people.
3) What is your biggest pet-peeve about other people?

Oh jeez. Biggest? I think my biggest pet-peeve is when people choose to close their minds to evidence about something. How can anything be learned, if you're not willing to examine the facts?

4) ... and yourself?

I think my biggest pet peeve (at this point )is that I don't defend myself enough in social situations.

5) If you could be someone else for a day, who would it be? Why? What
would you do?

Hrm. Hard one. But I think I'd be Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi-Rumi (otherwise known as "Rumi.") I want his poesis. I would spend the day writing poetry. And decomposing, since he's dead. But seriously. There is no other artist of any form who has inspired me more at this point.

From p3rlm0nk

1) If you could construct your own religion ab initio, what would those
first principles be?

There Is More To It Than This. A sense of wonder is the most precious thing we have. It doesn't matter what we wonder about; keep wondering. (Awe)

Don't Be A Dick. Causing people to be unhappy is sometimes unavoidable - but if it can be avoided, it should be. (Compassion)

Make Things Better. Things fall apart naturally; it's up to us to build them up when they need to be. (Motivation)

2) Is there a particular linguistic structure that
you enjoy (i.e. some thing that when you were introduced to it made you
think "wow! that's a really neat way to encode that meaning!" or similar)?

Hrm. Off the top of my head, I couldn't think of any particular one... but then thinking about it, the idea of Subject-Object-Verb (Japanese) or Verb-(SO or OS) sentences came to mind. Why? Because if you look at them, they're little functions. They can recurse. SVO (and OVS languages, ewww) look procedural. So they're not neat, per se, but the fact that these forms compare closely with forms seen in math and computing makes me wonder about the more fundamental underpinnings of all of the above.

3) You're on the stage at the International Air Guitar
Competition. What song do you \m/ RAWK OUT \m/ with?

I think this is a Bohemian Rhapsody moment. I mean, it's a classic. It just SCREAMS air guitar.

4) What is the most
inappropriate thing you've ever composed a haiku about?

That's gotta be pleasuring oneself with the bodies of dead children. (Fucking dead babies.) Hands down.

5) If you could pick three ingredients, what would be the filling for your platonic ideal
of the crepe? (Too lazy for accent marks. ;))

Cottage Cheese, Slivered Almonds, and Basil. :D Shit. There's a whole foods right down the street...

Assorted thoughts

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 03:54:22 GMT

I purchased my first sweater evar. I will purchase more.

For those of you who don't know, I have broken my caffeine habit. I'm actually doing aerobic exercise again and sometimes actually cook food at home now. I think the thing I still need to take care of most of all is getting my room cleaned up. :P

I have a lot of travelling I can potentially do this year: I'd like to take a west coast trip (Seattle and Portland,) go visit family in Montana over the fourth of July, not to mention NY lulz, visits to family and friends in Texas, and I'd like to do something tropical sometime - maybe not this year, though.

I miss thunderstorms a lot. That's one thing that's sad about these northern coastal cities; thunder is rare. (At least, in comparison to East Texas... ;)

Ramble over for now :D

One for the legal hour

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 20:49:17 GMT

Tilos, opinions?

14:44 < intrepidr> well, if you have a time machine
14:44 < x^_> IGNORE THE PARADOX IN THE BASEMENT
14:44 < intrepidr> and go get someone from, say, 18th c Poland
14:44 < intrepidr> they're dead in the 21st c
14:45 < intrepidr> so is it murder if you kill them "again"?

Rambling thoughts

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 03:45:36 GMT

I need to buy something to put some shelves up in the bathroom and kitchen cabinets. Looking at these: http://www.containerstore.com/browse/Product.jhtml?CATID=71234&PRODID=59831

I've held off because, with shipping, I'd be spending about $45 to get what I'm looking for and I'm not sure whether they would really meet my needs or not.

Turns out that a reusable spray bottle is a reasonable alternative to a solar shower for camping. Now I need a better battery-powered fan (thinking http://www.preparedness.com/mindesflexcl.html or something like it) and I might actually be able to overnight outdoors without angst.

(Sleeping on the ground with no cover while it's snowing and I haven't eaten today? No problem. Not having a fan to help regulate temperature while trying to get to sleep? instant insomnia.)

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 09:35:38 GMT

The view from my new bedroom window at too-early o'clock...

That's right kids! That's sunrise over Cambridge, MA!

Google was whacked

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 03:18:41 GMT

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 04:13:08 GMT

Of all the things that are true, the memory of them lies - no, embellishes -
because we cannot bear the awful silence that perturbs when we face these things fully.

Of all the things that are true, this is the most kind:
that the memory of them lies - no, embellishes -
because we cannot bear the awful silence that perturbs when we face these things fully.

OMFG.

Thu, 06 Apr 2006 02:49:09 GMT

So I was talking online about the fact that I've not been feeling up to snuff lately and someone was trying to get across the idea of an endorphin rush to me. I was informed that a lot of people get that warm, relaxed feeling from eating chocolate. I've only ever experienced that twice - and trust me, I would remember other times, clear as a fucking bell. I hate and envy you all so VERY MUCH right now.

If you're confused...

Tue, 04 Apr 2006 02:23:30 GMT

You see, if you open me up, you'll find all the people bits, but I'm secretly a collection of programmed pieces of meat hardware. You're just not looking hard enough. ^_^

And I have a plan.