05.09.08
Posted in Essay Week, Rants
at 9:05 am
Essay Week Spring 2008 runs from May 5th to May 9th, 2008. Each day Iíll present a short essay on a topic of concern to me; I have the option of including a pre-essay post giving updates on ongoing life events if necessary. All the essays this week will be here; the LiveJournal is on hiatus while I concentrate here. Some of the elements in these essays may be controversial; I hope, however, that most will be well-regarded and at least read with an open mind. If you have anything to say about them, please feel free to leave a comment; I read them all, even if I may not respond due to time or other concerns. We wrap up this long, strange trip with a recounting of the equally lengthy and far stranger journey John’s undertaken to get where he is today, and helpful tips for avoiding that fate.
Eight parts carbon. Ten parts hydrogen. Four parts nitrogen. Two parts oxygen. Arrange them in a figure-eight pattern with two three hydrocarbon outcroppings and two oxygen spines. Ingest, and allow it to block your adenosine receptors. Feel the increased levels of epinephrine and serotonin coursing through your brain. Do this every day for four years, staring at a computer screen for eight hours each of those days and typing at the keyboard for the majority of that.
That’s nowhere near what it’s really like to be a programmer, but at least you’ll be chemically equivalent to one after that much caffeine.
( Continue Reading… » )
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05.08.08
Posted in Essay Week, Rants
at 9:04 am
Essay Week Spring 2008 runs from May 5th to May 9th, 2008. Each day Iíll present a short essay on a topic of concern to me; I have the option of including a pre-essay post giving updates on ongoing life events if necessary. All the essays this week will be here; the LiveJournal is on hiatus while I concentrate here. Some of the elements in these essays may be controversial; I hope, however, that most will be well-regarded and at least read with an open mind. If you have anything to say about them, please feel free to leave a comment; I read them all, even if I may not respond due to time or other concerns. We continue our look at the world with a bit more introspection on the process of personal revolutions, their causes, and most importantly, the end results.
It’s one of the most obvious and banal remarks one could ever make to a friend you haven’t seen in a very long time. “Oh my, you’ve changed so much!” I personally try not to say it, but it still comes out. Change is, in our world, inevitable– and there we go, another insipid and useless platitude. The fact that it’s been told many times before, however, does not make it any less true– just painfully obvious. People change, and there’s nothing that can be done about it. But, the reasons for change are varied, wide, and in my opinion, often quite interesting.
( Continue Reading… » )
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05.07.08
Posted in Essay Week, Rants
at 9:03 am
Essay Week Spring 2008 runs from May 5th to May 9th, 2008. Each day Iíll present a short essay on a topic of concern to me; I have the option of including a pre-essay post giving updates on ongoing life events if necessary. All the essays this week will be here; the LiveJournal is on hiatus while I concentrate here. Some of the elements in these essays may be controversial; I hope, however, that most will be well-regarded and at least read with an open mind. If you have anything to say about them, please feel free to leave a comment; I read them all, even if I may not respond due to time or other concerns. Today we’re taking a step back from the grave matters of the past couple days and talking about being a scatterbrained slob, and why it’s not as bad as one might suspect.
Longtime readers of this site will probably note that, around the end of 2006 and the beginning of 2007, I started going on a little bit of a productivity and organization kick. For a few months there, I was almost overzealously devoted to David Allen’s book Getting Things Done, and for a while there I felt more productive. Then I kinda fell off the wagon and started chasing it, heedless of my own path. The metaphorical crash into the lamppost came when my good friend Mike said on the topic, “I read it, and then I realized– I already do all that stuff.”
( Continue Reading… » )
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Posted in Gaming, Rants
at 4:56 am
The Wii Shop was updated this morning with the Nintendo Channel, the long-promised news and DS demo station service for the Wii. Upon startup the service asks permission to opt-in or opt-out of the receipt of commercial messages to the Wii Message Board and the sending of anonymous usage data to Nintendo. A short intro video plays after that. Forty-one videos, including the introductory “digest” video, are available detailing current and upcoming releases for the Wii and DS. Videos play smoothly with minimal startup time and no hiccups in streaming. Currently eight DS demos are available on the service, including some third-party demos. (They are not placed intuitively in the menu– you have to select “Find Titles For You” first.) More information is forthcoming.
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05.06.08
Posted in Essay Week, Rants
at 9:02 am
Essay Week Spring 2008 runs from May 5th to May 9th, 2008. Each day Iíll present a short essay on a topic of concern to me; I have the option of including a pre-essay post giving updates on ongoing life events if necessary. All the essays this week will be here; the LiveJournal is on hiatus while I concentrate here. Some of the elements in these essays may be controversial; I hope, however, that most will be well-regarded and at least read with an open mind. If you have anything to say about them, please feel free to leave a comment; I read them all, even if I may not respond due to time or other concerns. Today, we take a page from Green Day and explore just why someone would want to be in a minority, given that doing so isn’t always beneficial.
“Hi, I’m a Mac.” Justin Long starts off each installment Apple’s long-running and wildly popular television advertising campaign with those words, and in response John Hodgman typically responds with, “And I’m a PC.” My old friend the false dichotomy rears his ugly head in those commercials, but despite the many, many logical errors and flawed arguments they make– come on, they’re commercials– I still love them, and try to catch them on YouTube when the new ones come out. My enjoyment of them comes mostly from the fact that I think Hodgman and Long are good actors, and the spots are cleverly written. But at the same time, well, I’d be remiss if I said that I wasn’t rooting for Long’s “Mac” character each and every time I see him on the screen of my MacBook.
( Continue Reading… » )
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05.05.08
Posted in Essay Week, Rants
at 9:01 am
Essay Week Spring 2008 runs from May 5th to May 9th, 2008. Each day Iíll present a short essay on a topic of concern to me; I have the option of including a pre-essay post giving updates on ongoing life events if necessary. All the essays this week will be here; the LiveJournal is on hiatus while I concentrate here. Some of the elements in these essays may be controversial; I hope, however, that most will be well-regarded and at least read with an open mind. If you have anything to say about them, please feel free to leave a comment; I read them all, even if I may not respond due to time or other concerns. To kick off this year’s first festival of words, I’ll discuss the impact of the so-called Web 2.0 and the associated lifestyle.
Just about a year ago, former Vice President of the United States Al Gore released The Assault On Reason, a lengthy discussion of the metamorphosis of American politics from a two-way participatory discussion to a “read-only” medium being distributed to the populace for recourseless consumption. Near the end of his book– most of which is a thinly-veiled j’accuse to the Bush Administration– Mr. Gore presents what he feels is the optimal solution to the malaise of discourse: the internet. Mr. Gore raises some interesting, and on the surface, valid points about the way American politics is increasingly ruled by statistics, strategic virtual gerrymandering, and the proper application of subtle or overt demagoguery. But, in its current state, I have to respectfully disagree that the internet is the panacea to America’s sickly cyclical political biosphere.
( Continue Reading… » )
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05.01.08
Posted in Rants, Site News
at 5:05 am
(Incidentally, since the upgrade of WordPress last week I’d noticed that the cut mechanism I used had kinda disappeared. What’s worse is that I couldn’t find the plugin I’d used before– its site still existed but the link gave a 404. So, I found a different one, hacked it to my purposes, and there we go, good as new. If you see any other weirdness, please let me know.)
I’ve made mention over the past week or so about a phenomenon known as Shutdown Day, which this year falls on this coming Saturday, May 3rd. According to the site, the project’s goal is to see how people’s lives are deeply intertwined with the technology they rely on on a daily basis, and to see if individuals can thrive without the high-tech tools we’ve come to take more or less for granted. While I think it’s an admirable goal, and I am participating, ( their reasons are not my own… » )
So, Saturday, I’ll probably have an automated post up saying I’m offline, and I likely won’t be answering e-mails or messages. I’ll take phone calls but only if they’re absolute, complete and total end-of-the-world emergencies. No net, no television, no movies, no music. Nothing going on beyond some reading and writing. As scary as it sounds to me– because, despite my protests, I’m very much aware of how much I lean on my tech gear– I’m really looking forward to it, mostly for the peace involved in it.
When I was in school, and this is something I just recently realized, I liked sitting in my back yard and reading. The sound of the wind in the trees was something I didn’t notice back then, but I remember now. Every time I get back to my parents’ house in the summer, I listen for that sound. When I’m at my house, over the summer, I sometimes hear it. Hopefully if the weather cooperates on Saturday– it’s set for a possible rainstorm– I’ll be able to hear that sound that brings me such calmness. Even if it does rain, that will be fine too– I love the sound of rain, too.
Besides. Computers aren’t the only things that need rebooting once in a while.
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04.29.08
Posted in Rants, Shameless Self-Promotion, Site News, Writing
at 4:40 am
I’ve spoken at some length about Essay Week, without actually giving the skinny on what it is or what its goal is for the May session. I figure now’s a pretty good time to get it taken care of. Those of you who were around for the last EW, back in August, might consider yourselves excused, but I’d appreciate it if you’d stick around; the explanation’s a little different this time.
Well, first, to address the question on everyone’s mind: “What right does this jerk have to write these long, ridiculous diatribes and expect us to care?” Funny thing is, I’ve been thinking the same thing. I’m not particularly notable and I don’t really aspire to be; if I do become famous, I’d rather be known as a storyteller than as a commentator or discussion-master. Still, every once in a while I get these urges to try to speak my mind in what’s been called “the new marketplace of ideas”. (I’ll get into this more on Monday, when I talk about Web 2.0 and social networking.)
So, put short, Essay Week is five straight days on the blog about a handful of topics I feel the need to speak to. I come close sometimes outside of the designated Week, but usually scrap those because the topic on my mind at the moment is (nine times out of ten) fanboyism, and I’ve kinda done that one to death. The purpose of the week, when I first did it last year, was to give me some time to work through a game without having to worry about writing for the blog (recall I was working on the nonstop-posting challenge). This time it’s a little bit of an inversion– I’m writing so that I can, in essence, focus on my writing; the draft, specifically, needs some solid attention without interruption, and this coming week is an excellent way to do it. So, by prepping five long posts ahead of time, I can ensure that content stays flowing while at the same time giving myself a break.
Now, if that’s the purpose, why not simply take the week off from the blog? After all, Shutdown Day is coming– why not just stay offline and out of relative contact for the entire week? That’s more than a little impractical in this case. First off, I’m flirting with inertia enough as it stands. Recall my rules of writing– if you stop doing something long enough, eventually you stop doing it altogether. The second reason is that I do pride myself on having “something” up when I say I will. Even the excuses I’ve habitually posted, in my mind, count– it’s not that I don’t want to write for the main page. Sometimes things just come up, or sometimes there’s nothing really I want to say (or what I did say isn’t just bad, it’s whiny and annoying and you really don’t want me to post it, trust me). Finally, I did make a resolution to try to keep up a consistent set of updates, and I intend to keep that promise. (Maybe next year I’ll try daily updates on both sites…. hrm.)
So, now you know what it is, and why I’m doing it. Just to give you all a little taste, the five topics I have in mind– I’ll be writing the essays tonight and tomorrow– are as follows: “On Social Networking”, “On The Tantalizing Fringe”, “On A Lack of Organization”, “On Reinventing Oneself”, and “On Being A Programmer”. I do hope that you enjoy these topics.
One of the things I’d like, really, is to see people start discussing the topics a bit more. I always feel a little self-conscious posting all this crap up, as if I were some sort of twenty-first century Walter Cronkite telling you all The Way It Is. As much as I style myself a Forum Tyrant, I think there’s room to challenge me on a few things.
One way or another, I hope you’ll all join me in at least exploring some of the things I’ve had in the back of my mind for a while.
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04.25.08
Posted in Gaming, Rants, Site News, Writing
at 5:15 pm
Yeah, so I’ve not exactly had much to say this week. It’s been busy at work and I’ve had other concerns. This weekend I’m hoping to get enough gaming and anime watching done to be more loquacious in the week to come… I will say that I did finish watching Please Teacher! over this past week, and I’m saving some thoughts on that for the April anime report, but overall this has been a slow month, as expected. I needed this month to slow down and “recharge”, I suppose.
Anyway, thinking about both running the Game and Anime reports next week (since otherwise they’d be delayed until the 12th and 14th), and setting up for an early Essay Week. I’m also curious: would it be too over the top to do two Essay Weeks in 2008? Maybe one in late October? Of course it’s really up to me, but I’m wondering if maybe it would be considered a little too, I don’t know, overbearing.
Off to enjoy the wonderful weather, folks… that’s why there’re portables, you know.
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04.21.08
Posted in Gaming, Rants
at 4:14 pm
You can dress up a video game review in as many ten-cent words as you want. You can get all hoity-toity with the analysis of game as art. You can even pull out the big guns and examine, with a fine-toothed comb no less, the social implications of the Friend code system and the quantitatively better or worse aspect of the various elements of play. You’re welcome to do all of that, and more power to you if you do so.
But this picture tells me far more about Mario Kart Wii than all of that other baloney. There’s something to be said for a universally-accessible game.
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