Psuke Bariah

That was my whole day...

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 02:32:18 GMT

10 hours to take a 3.5 hour test. Good gods, the public transport sucks ass on the weekend.

On the plus side, I bought a decent pair of pants to replace one of the many pairs getting holes. I think I can survive the summer with only one more pair...I just hate shopping so much.

Well, I did want to wash the floor...

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:36:55 GMT

but that wasn't quite how I wanted to do it.

It started when I started filling the sink. I turn around, and the critter has come in with a trophy. It's a bird. It's a live bird.

"Oh, no," I tell him. "You can bring me dead birds, but you are not killing a bird in my house."

I manage to grab the poor thing before the critter can snatch it and mangle it, and take it downstairs, while kitty makes pissy noises from the landing. People fuss and we wonder whether or not the little thing (it's a tiny bird) is going to make it. Finally I come upstairs to get a shoebox for the bird to rest and recuperate in. There's a funny noise in the kitchen...

Holy fuck, I left the water on in the sink! It's overflowing like mad! There's a lake on my kitchen floor! And it's hot!

I manage to turn the water off, and unstop the sink, which, of course, does nothing for the lake on the floor. Thank heavens for neighbors - one of my apartment neighbors had a shop vac. Otherwise I'd sill be trying to mop that shit up with a towel. I mean, it still took ten minutes to get up all that water even with the shop vac.

Never a dull moment, I tell ya.

Where do you go when the moon disappears?

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 02:36:03 GMT

This is a very simplistic version of a painting I want to do, if I ever...you know, get talent or skill. It's based on a comment made in someone's journal. Like the comment itself, the image would simply not let me go until I did something with it.

It's not all that close to what I want to do with the painting, but there's only so much I can do with the box of colored pencils.

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:03:37 GMT

The lastest Bound Up with Books is up. This time I review Child of a Rainless Year.

Oops!

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 01:28:02 GMT

So as of 2:30 this afternoon (about 3/4 through my workday) I was standing in the bathroom at work and noticed something didn't look right. I stared a little harder at my reflection and realied that the top I was wearing is translucent.

It isn't immediately apparent - I didn't see it when I put the shirt on, nor did I see it when I look down - but once I noticed it became totally obvious. Especially in the glare of the bathroom lights.

Luckily it was chilly this morning, so I'd brought a jacket with me. Still, how embarrassing!

?

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:34:44 GMT

There is a part of me that wonders if this is a show - proof that the copyright system is broken, broken, broken:

Author sues bookstores selling his book.

Yet another reason not to fly

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:00:48 GMT

TSA bans ID-less flying. Gods how I hate irrelevant 'security' measures. It's crap like this that makes me want to get a private pilot license.

Read a book, read a book...

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 18:16:20 GMT

Read a motherfucking book!

(via agent_139)

An interesting video...

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:41:55 GMT

on the evolution of the web and teaching/becoming the machine

Sometimes I really love P.J. O'Rourke

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:10:36 GMT

America wasn't founded so that we could all be better. America was founded so we could all be anything we damned well pleased.

and this one:

There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.

(found here)

This had to be shared

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:02:41 GMT

(image via Technocult.com)

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 03:06:44 GMT

Anti-sex and genderism, all in one (ugly) pant, from K-Mart. Sometimes I really loathe my species.

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 05:42:17 GMT

Thinking more on the Susan Blackmore TED Talk I posted - I wonder what it is about consciousness that scares some scientists to such an extent that they continually attempt to 'kill' it. They try to prove that consciousness isn't reallyconsciousness, it's something else that just looks like consciousness to the untrained eye.

How do you get a trained eye without consciousness, is my question.

And did you (if you watched it) get where she said that meme replication is what seperates the human from the animal? However, if meme replication is merely the repitition of observed behavior (and what else could it be if my mind is just a breeding ground for information blindly replicating itself?) - then that's sheer unadulterated bullocks. As any naturalist, or person who's worked with chimps or training animals will tell you. Parrots mimic speech. Racoons can figure out how to work doorknobs 'n' shit. What is that if not observing and repeating behavior? How is that different from how we do it? Oh, yeah - they don't really understand what they're doing.

Then again, neither do you, if you follow this model to its natural conclusion. Smart people can be awfully blind sometimes, it seems to me.

Missed...

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 21:55:32 GMT

This is a very funny page on the Fight Club/Calvin and Hobbes Connection. It's quite clever.

It misses one thing, though (possibly on purpose) - the reason for the non-naming of the narrator of Fight Club. Well, what I see as the reason...the (deliberate?) blurring of which one of them is "real". Tyler Durden, the psychopathic macho man? Or Tyler Durden, the man who infiltrates support groups for human contact? Which one was there first? Remember - Marla (Helena Bonham Carter's character) knows the narrator as Tyler Durden - meaning he'd been using that name for longer than he'd known the 'other' Tyler.

It's always amused me to think the 'rational/even-tempered' Tyler was the alternate personality...

I think Susan Blackmore is a little crazy

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 20:56:31 GMT

One of the things I like best (for a given definition of 'like') is the concept - an old concept that comes in many guises - that we are neither responsible for, nor in control of, our actions. It's all down to 'genes' and 'memes', contaminants, pollutants and hormones.

Mind you - I ain't saying it's not true. WTF do I know? What I find amusing about that stance is that it renders itself irrelevant. Blackmore's talk about 'temes' possibly destroying us...how is it useful or relevant? If we are merely a battleground of parasites and viruses?

The other thing I find interesting about this talk, is that it is a perfect example of someone taking an interesting model and hypostatizing it. I think folks do the same with the Singularity, and apparently Warren Ellis agrees with me.

It's an art day, appparently

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:36:50 GMT

This is some fucking amazingly gorgeous art.

WWANTWANTWANT

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:46:11 GMT

Are you a big ol' fan of notebooks? I love notebooks, and particularly with illustrated covers. Which makes this link from Boing Boing particularly dangerous.

This is some high grade crazy

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:42:52 GMT

Why finding fossils on Mars would be bad for humanity. Short version? If there's proof of life on Mars, then it could evolve all over the place. If it evolved all over the place, then our search for ET intelligence should have turned up something by now...That it hasn't can only be down to two things (according to this out there opinion): 1) The rise of intelligence is rare so even if we're not exactly alone, intelligent life could be so scattered as to amount to the same thing; 2) There's some other thing that always crops up that keeps intelligent life from exploring space. Whatever it may be, it's stopped everyone else from exploring, and it'll stop us, too. If there's life on Mars we'll just never leave our solar system, y'all.

It's called "The Great Filter Theory", but personally I think it's got too many holes to filter effectively.

link via disinfo.com

I am so proud

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 05:38:33 GMT

My DPL (dedicated proof listener) for Carnacki said my reading was: "...great reading, really suited the story...". Consiering how much time I put to it, that was nice to hear.

Go, me!

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:16:56 GMT

A meme from pure_doxyk: go here to get random quotes...and post those that suit you.

Here's mine:

There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening.
Marshall McLuhan
Canadian author, educator, & philosopher (1911 - 1980)

Television news is like a lightning flash. It makes a loud noise, lights up everything around it, leaves everything else in darkness and then is suddenly gone.
Hodding Carter

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken
US editor (1880 - 1956)

The mind's first step to self-awareness must be through the body.
George Sheehan

AND

All I can say about life is, Oh God, enjoy it!
Bob Newhart
US comedian & television actor (1929 - )

More seriously amazing animation

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 01:48:40 GMT

Also, guerilla gardening is an incredibly cool idea.

Something different

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 00:51:28 GMT

Because I am something of a glutton for punishment (and it's fun) I signed up to do a 2nd book for Librivox. It's Carnacki, the Ghost Finder (although just the first 6 chapters, the others aren't PD yet). If you're a fan of Warren Ellis' Gravel character, the name is probably familiar to you. Carnacki is the one who uses the famous Sigsand MS in his cases.

The stories are fun - Lovercraftian, although I think it's more proper to say Lovecraft is Hodgsonian as I believe Hodgson published first (the Carnacki stories were published in the 1910's, Lovecraft's first published work was 1923), and Lovecraft was something of a fan of his work (see an excerpt of an essay wherein Lovecrat gives his views).

Anyway - if you'd like to hear the first story here it is. It's rather longer than the chapters of Psmith, since each chapter of Carnacki is actually a complete short story. This one is 44 minutes long. I think it turned out pretty decent. Not perfect, mind - 44 minutes of finished recording turned to be about 6+ hours of work (although, granted part of that was because I accidentally deleted the wrong file and had to re-record 2/3 of the damn thing, but still) just for 'decent'. Perfection is a level of commitment I need to get paid to do.

If you do listen, let me know what you think.

I know you've been waiting for this

Sat, 31 May 2008 06:32:56 GMT

Due to circumstances partially beyond my control, I missed dance class this evening. However, I did put the time to good use. Here's the next two chapters of Psmith, Journalist: The Honeyed Word and < ahref="http://upload.librivox.org/share/uploads/kr/psmith_journalist_09_wodehouse.mp3">Full Steam Ahead</a>.

Critiquing welcomed, as always.

Interesting Interview

Fri, 30 May 2008 17:15:14 GMT

Dr. Gary Marcus says the brain is a kluge. And I agree. Mostly.

What I find interesting about this is the idea that our brains (in this instance our access to our memories) aren't optimally designed. Optimally designed for what? is my question...Well, one question. The other is: Isn't the memory like any other faculty? Use it or lose it? It's certainly capable of improvement, but most people don't bother. Why should they? That's what notebooks, cameras and various other recording devices are for.

We do have some definite kluge aspects, of course. Evolution didn't hand us a set of perfect tools to fit every situation...great gods what a list that would be...more like it handed us the most general purpose set and it's up to us to fine tune it the rest of the way. Assuming we ever get off our lazy butts.

Sit down, shut up and breathe

Fri, 30 May 2008 13:04:22 GMT

This op-ed piece on meditation (hint: it's pro) very nearly made me snort coffee out my nose.