Saturday, September 27, 2003

Jesus Beavers!

leaving bloomington has been like a bad break-up for me. everything i do reminds me of something and makes me feel like shit. i can't even take a piss in the neighbors bushes without reminding me of the time i got shook down by the bpd for pubic urination. i'm in a state bro's and monica.
I was looking forward to kicking him out.
I'm on a roll, folks. Somebody butter me.

I'm telling your mom you pushed me in a pile of leaves, Mike. You're gonna be in trouble.

Eric can't get on our blog to post. He is having "technical difficulties" with logging in. It's sad because I was looking forward to his contribution to the Wily Beaver.
The five colors blind the eye.
The five tones deafen the ear.
The five flavors dull the taste.
Racing and hunting madden the mind.
Precious things lead one astray.

Therefore the sage is guided by what he feels and not by what he sees.
He lets go of that and chooses this.

Tao Te Ching, Chapter 12

Mcluhan would take this verse, including the lines "The five colors blind the eye. The five tones deafen the ear," and relate it to television medium. He might say that, after the television was invented, after it was "turned on," and now that it can not be "turned off," we have been mesmorized by its visual and audio sensory output. We have become "blind" to actual reality in favor of the "five colors" and "five tones." Case in point, the California Recall. Arnold could be governor because he comes across well on TV. Politics is so much a "reality" show, except we don't get to see the producer telling the participants what to say and do.
My masters project revolves around the automation of the scholarship application process, and part of my literature review will discuss the activities and jobs such automation eliminates.

I'm going to include a section on the "paperless office" in my paper, examining the effect technology is having on the flow of information in businesses.

The term "paperless office" is misleading, because paper is not going to disappear, but rather be supplemented by the computer monitor. Ink printers are just as necessary as pixelated screens and the Times New Roman font.

I plan to include information about the transition to and increasing use of Information Technology (IT) in governement and businesses.

Take a look at the E-Government Act of 2002 and the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. Their purpose is to "encourage agencies to find ways to make government more responsive to citizens in the reduction of burden through the collection of information." In other words, to make use of the efficiencies that technologies such as the Internet, web sites, email, and databases have to offer.

Related Notes:
"networks and the Internet have been the key in this regard--with e-mail as the single most important development." (Larry Seltzer , What ever happened to the paperless office?)

'It is no longer about paper or browsers on desktops, it is about making visually rich, reliable information available anywhere, any time, on any device.'
Bruce Chizen, president and chief executive of publishing software firm Adobe
(Moving towards a paperless office
By Martin Banks, ITWeek
26 April 2001)
God damn you Marshall, I love you.

"A Passage to India (the phrase is from Whitman, who saw America headed Eastward) is a parable of Western man in the electric age, and is only incidentally related to Europe or the Orient. The ultimate conflict between sight and sound, between written and oral kinds of perception and organization of existence is upon us. Since understanding stops action, as Nietzsche observed, we can moderate the fierceness of this conflict by understanding the media that extend us and raise these wars within and without us. "

The Medium Is the Message
Marshall McLuhan

Friday, September 26, 2003

WWWWD

What would Walt Whitman do?


Logarithmic Spirals Isabel and M51
Credit: Comparison and M51 image copyright Brian Lula; Hurricane Isabel, courtesy GHCC, NASA

Explanation: Uncomfortably close hurricane Isabel (left) and 30 million light-year distant galaxy M51 actually don't have much in common. For starters, Isabel was hundreds of miles across, while M51 (the Whirlpool Galaxy) spans about 50,000 light-years making them vastly dissimilar in scale, not to mention the extremely different physical interactions which control their formation and evolution. But they do look amazingly alike, both exhibiting the shape of a simple and beautiful mathematical curve known as a logarithmic spiral, a spiral whose separation grows in a geometric way with increasing distance from the center. Also known as the equiangular spiral, growth spiral, and Bernoulli's spiral or spira mirabilis, this curve's rich properties have fascinated mathematicians since its discovery by 17th century philosopher Descartes. Intriguingly, this abstract shape is much more abundant in nature than suggested by the striking visual comparison above. Logarithmic spirals also describe, for example, the arrangement of sunflower seeds, the shapes of nautilus shells, and ... cauliflower.

Thursday, September 25, 2003

Just call me Dr. October. I'll be back in that bee-yatch starting nexx month.

I am not the same person I was when I left. I am now closer to 8 years old. So don't be alarmed when you see me kicking a rock down the middle of the street, blowing bubbles with my spit, humming some made up song about a giant bird.

favorite fall activity: pushing little girls in piles of leaves, or pushing Matt Komanecky in a pile of leaves. Basically, anything to disrupt a pile of leaves is ok in my book.

Have you guys read my book? It's titled, "Can Walt Whitman Do This?" Anyway. Thanks for listening Beavers. gotta go!
Sooooo, josh got to meet mr. and mrs. n5 yesterday. he got to spend several hours with them.
Mrs. N5 told Josh that she and Mr. N5 were like second parents to me so he had to be nice to them. lol!!

Mattie you ready for a test?
You're right Matt, the morning is plain fucking awful. I've been up since five and don't know what the hell is going on.

Some people call the mind a prison, I call it an anchovie. But I've been having irregular sleep patterns, and am not thinking rugularly.
What is a radio psychic? Do they have to live in a 360 degree revolving dome house?

The chilly weather reminds me of snuggling up in my loving home and doing quiet activities like reading, watching movies, drawing, or playing video games. That feeling of nostalgia washed over me this morning like a dream.

The prison that you create in your mind is the cruelest place.

Wednesday, September 24, 2003

i'm gonna go jump in some leaves. and put on a sweater. and feel up some chick wearing corduroys.
I have to change my email password. Damn.

I love this computer jargon dictionary. It has tons of computer programmer terms and hacker lingo that is as amusing as it is informative. For example:

featurectomy /fee`ch*r-ek't*-mee/ n.

The act of removing a feature from a program. Featurectomies come in two flavors, the `righteous' and the `reluctant'. Righteous featurectomies are performed because the remover believes the program would be more elegant without the feature, or there is already an equivalent and better way to achieve the same end. (Doing so is not quite the same thing as removing a misfeature.) Reluctant featurectomies are performed to satisfy some external constraint such as code size or execution speed.
Bloggo!

Tuesday, September 23, 2003

Ah, sweet menthols. Yes, fall is a inspiring and reflective time, especially when Tom Petty is on the radio.
I just talked to Monica on her way out of her class. She stayed up untill 3 talking with Josh. I wonder what they talked about. Maybe they discussed the indescribable feeling of nostalgia created by the oncoming fall all night.

Monday, September 22, 2003

Sunday, September 21, 2003

You're one in a million dick.
Some people just don't know how to do research on the Internet.
It's not like I remember the name of the movie. What am I - some kind of computer? Just look up "ricci" and "sweet panties" on google.

Castoreum

Animal scent markings are notorious for smelling terrible. But castoreum is different. It has a musky smell that some people describe as van...