Farewell, St. Jude
July 23, 2003
It was with sadness that I read on Street Tech that Jude Milhon has passed away.
I’ll always remember her writing (usually under the pen name of St. Jude) as a hallmark of what passed for culture among the hacker / cybergeek community back in the late 80’s and 90’s. I first ran across her in Mondo 2000, talking about one of my favorite topics, smart drugs, and enjoyed reading her work across the years in Mondo, Wired, and similar venues.
St. Jude was an original, and she’ll be sorely missed.
Dinner Theater
July 23, 2003
Harry points out to me that painting is not just for the cows—in Boston, they do it with cod, while in Rhode Island, it’s all about Mr. Potato Head.
Desire as Just So
July 22, 2003
Cassandra talks about longing.
I’ve been back thinking about this myself the last few days, in the context of the canonical twin problems—desire & fear… While the problems with fear are fairly obvious, the problem with desire is a little more subtle, at least to those of us who grew up in western cultures.
I’m slowly coming around to the position that the problem with desire isn’t so much desire itself, but rather the implication of dissatisfaction at not having the object of desire.
If you can be satisfied with the state of not having the object of your desire, and find the inherent perfection in the moment of not having it, then if you should attain it, you can appreciate it for itself, and not for the fulfillment of “what was missing”.
On the other hand, if you can’t find the satisfaction in not having it, odds are that you won’t find satisfaction should you get it, either…
Since the Coffee Sutras(where I found this link) has put me in an Alan Watts mood at the moment, I think it kind of comes back to the idea of “The World As Just So…”
There’s something “Just so” about not having something, just as there is in having it…
If you can find that “just so” element of perfection in what you have at the moment, then you get to have more things that are perfect.
On the other hand, if the only thing you can see about your present situation is that it “sucks”, then it’s gonna suck again tomorrow, too, and you get to go on being a Miserable Asshole(tm).
‘The Very Essence & Character of Mind’
July 22, 2003
The Coffee Sutras has a wonderful Alan Watts quote on The Nature of Love.
Beef - Now Dinner & a Show
July 22, 2003
Somebody mentioned to me the other day that she had to shop for “cattle markers” for an art class….
I didn’t quite understand, but then I saw these.
No Accident
July 22, 2003
At a certain point along the way in starting to become actually awake, aware and discovering who and what you are, it’s typical to begin to wonder just how and why we became a nation (or planet) of Miserable Assholes(tm), and whether it could have actually all happened by accident, or if there was some grand design behind it all.
One of the easy places to grab onto a thread and start pulling on the knot is of course the public education system. Not that there aren’t a lot of other perfectly deserving targets—public education is just one of the easier ones to begin to understand.
The State of Phone Cams
July 21, 2003
It’s official—camera phones need to get better cameras.
After lugging my half-way decent (if not state-of-the-art) digital camera out of town with me, I realize that I didn’t shoot a single damn picture with it.
I did, however, take a large handful of pics with my Nokia 3650. I need to go dig my Bluetooth adapter out of my notebook bag so that I can offload them and see how bad they are.
Back
July 21, 2003
I guess I’m back—after the prep for the trip, the catchup afterwords, and the inevitable recharge of my metaphoric batteries, I’m kind of getting back into my groove (or have been in a new one long enough that I’m beginning to etch a trail).
This week is officially slated to be hardware hell, with a server back from our colo for a retread, and a new server for a client to be built, configured, and tested, then shipped out to the left coast for service. You can probably expect the occasional bitching and moaning article as a result.
I actually prefer doing hardware work in batches—if I’m going to be working on machines, I’d rather get into that headspace and do a bunch at once rather than shifting back and forth from coding to assembling and configuring. Fortunately, I have teenagers, so there’s seldom a shortage of machines that need to be burned down and rebuilt the occasional minor repair and cleaning.
Not Consuming
July 21, 2003
Okay, music’s not consuming all of my attention these days, but on the heels of my rant yesterday about the current dispicable state of the mainstream music publishing industry, I wanted to mention a couple of very interesting alternatives for a touch of new music….
First, last.fm—a streaming music station that learns your tastes and preferences. Very nice, although I’m still getting my profile housebroken (it’s hard to get preference systems whipped into place when your tastes are all over the road—I mean geeze, last month my Tivo started deciding I spoke Spanish…).
The interface comes complete with a “change” button, that you can hit when you don’t care for the current selection (picking “similar” or “different”). It takes about 8 seconds for the track to change, which rather reminds me of my old 8-track player, but it’s still a very nifty idea and service.
Next up is BBC Radio on Demand—you can listen the the current live feed, or select recent radio shows to listen to, in Real or Windows Media formats. I’m still learning my way around the different stations—you can follow this link to BBC 6 Music, or go to the BBC Home Page to find others.
A wink and a nod to the lovely Miss Anna (who is pageless, alas) for the link, complete with a 6 Music Alabama3 feature, no less.
More Better Streaming Radio
July 21, 2003
Okay, music’s not consuming all of my attention these days, but on the heels of my rant yesterday about the current dispicable state of the mainstream music publishing industry, I wanted to mention a couple of very interesting alternatives for a touch of new music….
First, last.fm — a streaming music station that learns your tastes and preferences. Very nice, although I’m still getting my profile housebroken (it’s hard to get preference systems whipped into place when your tastes are all over the road — I mean geeze, last month my Tivo started deciding I spoke Spanish…).
Read more
