31 December 2005
chill for now
I'm a student on christmas vacation. Like I don't have anything better to do than stay the hell away from the computer.
21 December 2005
Friends, Part I
There are many many many kinds of friends - certinly you could say that there are as many kinds of friends as there are actual friends. But you can also try to group pretty much anything you want in any way you want, so I am going to embark on a multi-part series describing types of friends.
The first one I will describe is one of the more traditional types. You meet someone, you have something in common, and slowly over time you get to know them. They start as an aquaintence, and then like an onion you peel pff layers and get to know them better. You also peel off layers of yourself and they get to know you better. With each layer comes greater trust and a stronger friendship and eventually you get down to the core where a bond is forged that will survive anything.
These friendships take a lot of time, but if and when they reach full maturity, they last forever. Even if one person or the other changes, or you lose touch, or you can't relate to each other any more - the friendship is still there. You still care and you would still do anything to help your friend, even if you question whether they could do the same.
The first one I will describe is one of the more traditional types. You meet someone, you have something in common, and slowly over time you get to know them. They start as an aquaintence, and then like an onion you peel pff layers and get to know them better. You also peel off layers of yourself and they get to know you better. With each layer comes greater trust and a stronger friendship and eventually you get down to the core where a bond is forged that will survive anything.
These friendships take a lot of time, but if and when they reach full maturity, they last forever. Even if one person or the other changes, or you lose touch, or you can't relate to each other any more - the friendship is still there. You still care and you would still do anything to help your friend, even if you question whether they could do the same.
19 December 2005
there's no cure for life, either
Exerpt from a Larry King Interview With Johnny Cash on CNN, Tuesday, November 26, 2002:
KING: ...All right, Johnny, first and foremost, how are you doing? How's your health?
CASH: Good. Good.... I have had some tough times. I have had pneumonia three times in the last three years -- four times in the last three years. And it debilitates you. It takes the strength away. Took the life out of my legs and I can walk, but not very well.
KING: Now, is this pneumonia related to that autonamic neuropathy (ph), which you have.
CASH: Autonomic neuropathy.
KING: Which is what?
CASH: Well it's kind of -- the way I understand it, it's a deadening of the nerve cells of the nerve endings in the lower extremities and sometimes the hands and other extremities.
And for me that's really about the only thing it's really affected a lot. I'm not sure that it's affected my lung power but I don't have the lung power I did. But of course, pneumonia will take that away too..... And I'm pretty well resolved to the fact that that's what it is. And it's a slow process of the nerve endings.
KING: No cure?
CASH: No, I don't think so. But that's all right. There's no cure for life either.
KING: ...All right, Johnny, first and foremost, how are you doing? How's your health?
CASH: Good. Good.... I have had some tough times. I have had pneumonia three times in the last three years -- four times in the last three years. And it debilitates you. It takes the strength away. Took the life out of my legs and I can walk, but not very well.
KING: Now, is this pneumonia related to that autonamic neuropathy (ph), which you have.
CASH: Autonomic neuropathy.
KING: Which is what?
CASH: Well it's kind of -- the way I understand it, it's a deadening of the nerve cells of the nerve endings in the lower extremities and sometimes the hands and other extremities.
And for me that's really about the only thing it's really affected a lot. I'm not sure that it's affected my lung power but I don't have the lung power I did. But of course, pneumonia will take that away too..... And I'm pretty well resolved to the fact that that's what it is. And it's a slow process of the nerve endings.
KING: No cure?
CASH: No, I don't think so. But that's all right. There's no cure for life either.
NYC 1
As I have already posted, I like pizza. Access to real pizza is an essential ingredient to a good life.
I spent this weekend in NYC with a good friend I hadn't seen in too long. We didn't do a whole lot - mostly just hanging out. We did go to MOMA, which was awesome.
He lives in the West Village and the only real goal of the weekend was to eat pizza. I don't know how many slices I had, but I know we went for pie 6 times to 5 different places. I had (in order of appearance) Joe's, Ben's, John's, Joe's, and some other place I can't remember the name of. They were all leagues ahead of what you can get anywhere else in the world, but Joe's was my favorite - thinner crispier crust, not as sweet with more fresh tomato flavor comming through in the sauce. John's was equally as good, but a little chewier and sweeter, which is not my style. The place I can't remember had potential, but the slice wasn't in the oven long enough.
Between Friday night and this morning, the only thing I ate that wasn't pizza was 1/2 a plate of leftover cashew chicken for early breakfast on Sunday and a bagel, lox & egg brunch later that day.
I don't go to the city too often, but I have been more times than I can count. This was the first time that I wasn't ready to leave. This is the first time that I can't wait to get back.
I spent this weekend in NYC with a good friend I hadn't seen in too long. We didn't do a whole lot - mostly just hanging out. We did go to MOMA, which was awesome.
He lives in the West Village and the only real goal of the weekend was to eat pizza. I don't know how many slices I had, but I know we went for pie 6 times to 5 different places. I had (in order of appearance) Joe's, Ben's, John's, Joe's, and some other place I can't remember the name of. They were all leagues ahead of what you can get anywhere else in the world, but Joe's was my favorite - thinner crispier crust, not as sweet with more fresh tomato flavor comming through in the sauce. John's was equally as good, but a little chewier and sweeter, which is not my style. The place I can't remember had potential, but the slice wasn't in the oven long enough.
Between Friday night and this morning, the only thing I ate that wasn't pizza was 1/2 a plate of leftover cashew chicken for early breakfast on Sunday and a bagel, lox & egg brunch later that day.
I don't go to the city too often, but I have been more times than I can count. This was the first time that I wasn't ready to leave. This is the first time that I can't wait to get back.
15 December 2005
choking toilets & the sub-optimal flush
This e-mail came from my school's administration - it is funny to me:
To: school community
From: ___, Associate Dean
We are working with the university to troubleshoot the flushing problems
with the toilets in the bathrooms. I need your help with
two matters. First, when you flush the toilets, make sure that you
press the flush handle all the way down (or pull it all the way up).
Pressing the handle only part of the way will result in a sub-optimal
flush. Second, we need to collect more detailed information about which
toilets aren't flushing properly and where those toilets are located.
Please report problems with the toilets to the Director of
Administrative Services and provide her with
specific information about which toilets in which bathrooms aren't
flushing properly.
To: school community
From: ___, Associate Dean
We are working with the university to troubleshoot the flushing problems
with the toilets in the bathrooms. I need your help with
two matters. First, when you flush the toilets, make sure that you
press the flush handle all the way down (or pull it all the way up).
Pressing the handle only part of the way will result in a sub-optimal
flush. Second, we need to collect more detailed information about which
toilets aren't flushing properly and where those toilets are located.
Please report problems with the toilets to the Director of
Administrative Services and provide her with
specific information about which toilets in which bathrooms aren't
flushing properly.
little things, part 3
Sometimes I like putting just a bit too much strawberry jelly on my toast. Along those lines, I often like putting way too much fresh shredded parmesan cheese on my pasta.
14 December 2005
Intergalactic
A friend of mine joined the military shortly after September 11th, 2001. We weren't real close, but we were in the same core group of friends who would go to bat for one another at the droop of a hat. I haven't seen him since. In highschool he was probably one of the first people I learned to respect in a real way - respect that you see someone and admire their good soul and kind heart and sense of what is right. Aside from the obvious shock that he was enlisting, I was not surprised that he is the kind of person that makes sacrifices and does what he thinks is right.
Our paths will finally cross back in our home town this holiday season and I am excited almost to tears. A mutual friend of ours who he is close with has promised an "intergalactic kegger."
Our paths will finally cross back in our home town this holiday season and I am excited almost to tears. A mutual friend of ours who he is close with has promised an "intergalactic kegger."
12 December 2005
typical cd collection
I was looking for a CD the other day and flipped through an old booklet that I must not have touched in years (I switched back to jewel cases a while ago). This is what was in it, inter alia:
Primus, Sailing the Sea of Cheese
Nirvana, Unplugged
Tool, Undertow
Rage Against the Machine, 1st record
Guns & Roses, Lies
Smashing Pumpkins, Siamise Dream and Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness
Soul Asylum, Gravedancer's Union
...and Drew's Famous Luau Dance Party Favorites, which my roommate & I secured for the famous Beach Party when we put over half a ton of sand in our living room my junior year of college.
If you have none of those, I would say that the Nirvana record is the most essential and probably the best. The best cover art, in my mind, is a tie between the Rage album & Soul Asylum:
Primus, Sailing the Sea of Cheese
Nirvana, Unplugged
Tool, Undertow
Rage Against the Machine, 1st record
Guns & Roses, Lies
Smashing Pumpkins, Siamise Dream and Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness
Soul Asylum, Gravedancer's Union
...and Drew's Famous Luau Dance Party Favorites, which my roommate & I secured for the famous Beach Party when we put over half a ton of sand in our living room my junior year of college.
If you have none of those, I would say that the Nirvana record is the most essential and probably the best. The best cover art, in my mind, is a tie between the Rage album & Soul Asylum:
09 December 2005
Buy, Play, Trade, Repeat
I generally do not support burning CDs en masse. If people want to trade mixes etc, that to me is different than just stealing an entire album. Of course, we are all hypocrites and I am no perfect soul.
One of the keys for me is that I still like to have the physical disc, with liner notes etc. And if you like the record, you should buy it. Maybe I'll use my law degree to help stop the record companies from sticking it to the little guy musician's.
I have friends in a band who said they wished people were trading their stuff on Napster (back when Napster was Napster). They weren't alone.
Here's another musician's take:
Buy, Play, Trade, Repeat
By DAMIAN KULASH Jr.
Published: December 6, 2005
Los Angeles
THE record company Sony BMG recently got in trouble after attempting to stem piracy by encoding its CD's with software meant to limit how many copies can be made of the discs. It turned out that the copy-protection software exposed consumers' computers to Internet viruses, forcing Sony BMG to recall the CD's.
This technological disaster aside, though, Sony BMG and the other major labels need to face reality: copy-protection software is bad for everyone, consumers, musicians and labels alike. It's much better to have copies of albums on lots of iPods, even if only half of them have been paid for, than to have a few CD's sitting on a shelf and not being played.
The Sony BMG debacle revealed the privacy issues and security risks tied to the spyware that many copy-protection programs install on users' computers. But even if these problems are solved, copy protection is guaranteed to fail because it's a house of cards. No matter how sophisticated the software, it takes only one person to break it, once, and the music is free to roam and multiply on the peer-to-peer file-trading networks.
Meanwhile, music lovers get pushed away. Tech-savvy fans won't go to the trouble of buying a strings-attached record when they can get a better version free. Less Net-knowledgeable fans (those who don't know the simple tricks to get around the copy-protection software or don't use peer-to-peer networks) are punished by discs that often won't load onto their MP3 players (the copy-protection programs are incompatible with Apple's iPods, for example) and sometimes won't even play in their computers.
Conscientious fans, who buy music legally because it's the right thing to do, just get insulted. They've made the choice not to steal their music, and the labels thank them by giving them an inferior product hampered by software that's at best a nuisance, and at worst a security threat.
As for musicians, we are left to wonder how many more people could be listening to our music if it weren't such a hassle, and how many more iPods might have our albums on them if our labels hadn't sabotaged our releases with cumbersome software.
The truth is that the more a record gets listened to, the more successful it is. This is not just our megalomania, it's Marketing 101: the more times a song gets played, the more of a chance it has to catch the ear of someone new. It doesn't do us much good if people buy our records and promptly shelve them; we need them to fall in love with our songs and listen to them over and over. A record that you can't transfer to your iPod is a record you're less likely to listen to, less likely to get obsessed with and less likely to tell your friends about.
Luckily, my band's recently released album, "Oh No," escaped copy control, but only narrowly. When our album came out, our label's parent company, EMI, was testing protective software and thought we were a good candidate for it. Record company executives reasoned that because we appeal to college students who have the high-bandwidth connections necessary for getting access to peer-to-peer networks, we're the kind of band that gets traded instead of bought.
That may be true, but we are also the sort of band that hasn't yet gotten the full attention of MTV and major commercial radio stations, so those college students are our only window onto the world. They are our best chance for success, and we desperately need them to be listening to us, talking about us, coming to our shows and yes, trading us.
To be clear, I certainly don't encourage people to pirate our music. I have poured my life into my band, and after two major label records, our accountants can tell you that we're not real rock stars yet. But before a million people can buy our record, a million people have to hear our music and like it enough to go looking for it. That won't happen without a lot of people playing us for their friends, which, in turn, won't happen without a fair amount of file sharing.
As it happened, for a variety of reasons, our label didn't put copy-protection software on our album. What a shame, though, that so many bands aren't as fortunate.
Damian Kulash Jr. is the lead singer for OK Go.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/06/opinion/06kulash.html
One of the keys for me is that I still like to have the physical disc, with liner notes etc. And if you like the record, you should buy it. Maybe I'll use my law degree to help stop the record companies from sticking it to the little guy musician's.
I have friends in a band who said they wished people were trading their stuff on Napster (back when Napster was Napster). They weren't alone.
Here's another musician's take:
Buy, Play, Trade, Repeat
By DAMIAN KULASH Jr.
Published: December 6, 2005
Los Angeles
THE record company Sony BMG recently got in trouble after attempting to stem piracy by encoding its CD's with software meant to limit how many copies can be made of the discs. It turned out that the copy-protection software exposed consumers' computers to Internet viruses, forcing Sony BMG to recall the CD's.
This technological disaster aside, though, Sony BMG and the other major labels need to face reality: copy-protection software is bad for everyone, consumers, musicians and labels alike. It's much better to have copies of albums on lots of iPods, even if only half of them have been paid for, than to have a few CD's sitting on a shelf and not being played.
The Sony BMG debacle revealed the privacy issues and security risks tied to the spyware that many copy-protection programs install on users' computers. But even if these problems are solved, copy protection is guaranteed to fail because it's a house of cards. No matter how sophisticated the software, it takes only one person to break it, once, and the music is free to roam and multiply on the peer-to-peer file-trading networks.
Meanwhile, music lovers get pushed away. Tech-savvy fans won't go to the trouble of buying a strings-attached record when they can get a better version free. Less Net-knowledgeable fans (those who don't know the simple tricks to get around the copy-protection software or don't use peer-to-peer networks) are punished by discs that often won't load onto their MP3 players (the copy-protection programs are incompatible with Apple's iPods, for example) and sometimes won't even play in their computers.
Conscientious fans, who buy music legally because it's the right thing to do, just get insulted. They've made the choice not to steal their music, and the labels thank them by giving them an inferior product hampered by software that's at best a nuisance, and at worst a security threat.
As for musicians, we are left to wonder how many more people could be listening to our music if it weren't such a hassle, and how many more iPods might have our albums on them if our labels hadn't sabotaged our releases with cumbersome software.
The truth is that the more a record gets listened to, the more successful it is. This is not just our megalomania, it's Marketing 101: the more times a song gets played, the more of a chance it has to catch the ear of someone new. It doesn't do us much good if people buy our records and promptly shelve them; we need them to fall in love with our songs and listen to them over and over. A record that you can't transfer to your iPod is a record you're less likely to listen to, less likely to get obsessed with and less likely to tell your friends about.
Luckily, my band's recently released album, "Oh No," escaped copy control, but only narrowly. When our album came out, our label's parent company, EMI, was testing protective software and thought we were a good candidate for it. Record company executives reasoned that because we appeal to college students who have the high-bandwidth connections necessary for getting access to peer-to-peer networks, we're the kind of band that gets traded instead of bought.
That may be true, but we are also the sort of band that hasn't yet gotten the full attention of MTV and major commercial radio stations, so those college students are our only window onto the world. They are our best chance for success, and we desperately need them to be listening to us, talking about us, coming to our shows and yes, trading us.
To be clear, I certainly don't encourage people to pirate our music. I have poured my life into my band, and after two major label records, our accountants can tell you that we're not real rock stars yet. But before a million people can buy our record, a million people have to hear our music and like it enough to go looking for it. That won't happen without a lot of people playing us for their friends, which, in turn, won't happen without a fair amount of file sharing.
As it happened, for a variety of reasons, our label didn't put copy-protection software on our album. What a shame, though, that so many bands aren't as fortunate.
Damian Kulash Jr. is the lead singer for OK Go.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/06/opinion/06kulash.html
07 December 2005
fishing for something
Jane's Addiction is not what I would consider under appreciated or underrated - I think most people know what they are and how influential they were to pop music. If you have seen them live, there is no deying it. My favorite album is Nothing Shocking - and not because of Jane Says, and not because of Mountain Song. Because of the first 2 tracks, which I do think are often overlooked. Up the Beach > Ocean Size. I tend to buy into the idea that there are summer people & winter people.
Summer people can generally be divided into lake people, mountain people, and beach people. I am a beach person. I long for the feel of sand between my toes; for salt water wind in my hair; for the violent calm that is swimming underwater in the surf. I am never ever ever as at ease as I am at the ocean.
I wish I was ocean size.
"Ocean Size"
Wish I was ocean size
They cannot move you
No one tries
No one pulls you
Out from your hole
Like a tooth aching a jawbone...
I was made with a heart of stone
To be broken
With one hard blow
I've seen the ocean
Break on the shore
Come together with no harm done...
It ain't easy living...
I want to be
As deep
As the ocean
Mother ocean
Some people tell me
Home is in the sky
In the sky lives a spy
I want to be more like the ocean
No talking
All action...
No talking
All action...
Summer people can generally be divided into lake people, mountain people, and beach people. I am a beach person. I long for the feel of sand between my toes; for salt water wind in my hair; for the violent calm that is swimming underwater in the surf. I am never ever ever as at ease as I am at the ocean.
I wish I was ocean size.
"Ocean Size"
Wish I was ocean size
They cannot move you
No one tries
No one pulls you
Out from your hole
Like a tooth aching a jawbone...
I was made with a heart of stone
To be broken
With one hard blow
I've seen the ocean
Break on the shore
Come together with no harm done...
It ain't easy living...
I want to be
As deep
As the ocean
Mother ocean
Some people tell me
Home is in the sky
In the sky lives a spy
I want to be more like the ocean
No talking
All action...
No talking
All action...
tonight, tonight
tonight I say we must move forward, not backward! Upward, not forward! And always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom!!!"
Jimmy V
It's the start of basketball season, and that means the Men's and Women's Jimmy V Classic. I love it.
You should know who Jim Valvano is. If you don't, look it up yourself because I couldn't do him justice. The short is that he coached NC State to a National Title in basketball, perhaps winning the biggest upset in the history of the final four - bigger than Duke over UNLV.
He died of cancer, but before he did he left us with the greatest speech of at least the last 20 years, perhaps the most memorable since Martin Luther King Jr.'s on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. His words "Don't give up, don't ever give up" water my eyes just typing them.
Check out The Jimmy V Foundation.
You can listen to his entire ESPY speech here.
Here are some highlights, but you really should read & listen to the whole thing here:
"I can't tell you what an honor it is, to even be mentioned in the same breath with Arthur Ashe. This is something I certainly will treasure forever. But, as it was said on the tape, and I also don't have one of those things going with the cue cards, so I'm going to speak longer than anybody else has spoken tonight. That's the way it goes. Time is very precious to me. I don't know how much I have left, and I have some things that I would like to say. Hopefully, at the end, I'll have something that will be important to other people too....
It's so important to know where you are. And I know where I am right now. How do you go from where you are to where you wanna be? And I think you have to have an enthusiasm for life. You have to have a dream, a goal. And you have to be willing to work for it.
...And...that screen is flashing up there thirty seconds like I care about that screen right now, huh? I got tumors all over my body. I'm worried about some guy in the back going thirty seconds, huh? You got a lot, hey va fa napoli, buddy. You got a lot.
I just got one last thing, I urge all of you, all of you, to enjoy your life, the precious moments you have. To spend each day with some laughter and some thought, to get you're emotions going. To be enthusiastic every day and [as] Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Nothing great could be accomplished without enthusiasm" -- to keep your dreams alive in spite of problems whatever you have. The ability to be able to work hard for your dreams to come true, to become a reality.
...I know, I gotta go, I gotta go, and I got one last thing and I said it before, and I'm gonna say it again: Cancer can take away all my physical ability. It cannot touch my mind; it cannot touch my heart; and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever.
You should know who Jim Valvano is. If you don't, look it up yourself because I couldn't do him justice. The short is that he coached NC State to a National Title in basketball, perhaps winning the biggest upset in the history of the final four - bigger than Duke over UNLV.
He died of cancer, but before he did he left us with the greatest speech of at least the last 20 years, perhaps the most memorable since Martin Luther King Jr.'s on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. His words "Don't give up, don't ever give up" water my eyes just typing them.
Check out The Jimmy V Foundation.
You can listen to his entire ESPY speech here.
Here are some highlights, but you really should read & listen to the whole thing here:
"I can't tell you what an honor it is, to even be mentioned in the same breath with Arthur Ashe. This is something I certainly will treasure forever. But, as it was said on the tape, and I also don't have one of those things going with the cue cards, so I'm going to speak longer than anybody else has spoken tonight. That's the way it goes. Time is very precious to me. I don't know how much I have left, and I have some things that I would like to say. Hopefully, at the end, I'll have something that will be important to other people too....
It's so important to know where you are. And I know where I am right now. How do you go from where you are to where you wanna be? And I think you have to have an enthusiasm for life. You have to have a dream, a goal. And you have to be willing to work for it.
...And...that screen is flashing up there thirty seconds like I care about that screen right now, huh? I got tumors all over my body. I'm worried about some guy in the back going thirty seconds, huh? You got a lot, hey va fa napoli, buddy. You got a lot.
I just got one last thing, I urge all of you, all of you, to enjoy your life, the precious moments you have. To spend each day with some laughter and some thought, to get you're emotions going. To be enthusiastic every day and [as] Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Nothing great could be accomplished without enthusiasm" -- to keep your dreams alive in spite of problems whatever you have. The ability to be able to work hard for your dreams to come true, to become a reality.
...I know, I gotta go, I gotta go, and I got one last thing and I said it before, and I'm gonna say it again: Cancer can take away all my physical ability. It cannot touch my mind; it cannot touch my heart; and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever.
05 December 2005
Homewrecker
There is a great new show on MTv called Homewrecker where they renovate peoples rooms to get them back for pranks they played in the past.
One time when I was a teenager we were riding in my friend's volvo (affectionately named 'the vulva') and he was in the gas station paying for gas or something & his brother & I decided it would be funny to put a huge glob of sunblock all across the back of his steering wheel. We put it across the bottom part so he wouldn't grab it right at first, so when we turned out onto the street he slid his hand around the wheel and into the greasy white glob of warm nastiness.
There is nothing worse than a greasy steering wheel. He was about pissedoffeder than a toothless elephant at in a game of dominoes, but I claimed "you can't get mad at me, he did it" and his brother claimed "you can't get mad at me, he did it."
Fortunately for me, we are still great friends - and Mello, I hope you look back on those days fondly b/c we did it all out of love.
One time when I was a teenager we were riding in my friend's volvo (affectionately named 'the vulva') and he was in the gas station paying for gas or something & his brother & I decided it would be funny to put a huge glob of sunblock all across the back of his steering wheel. We put it across the bottom part so he wouldn't grab it right at first, so when we turned out onto the street he slid his hand around the wheel and into the greasy white glob of warm nastiness.
There is nothing worse than a greasy steering wheel. He was about pissedoffeder than a toothless elephant at in a game of dominoes, but I claimed "you can't get mad at me, he did it" and his brother claimed "you can't get mad at me, he did it."
Fortunately for me, we are still great friends - and Mello, I hope you look back on those days fondly b/c we did it all out of love.
04 December 2005
red staplers
The NYT had an article yesterday about the impending Blackberry shutdown because of a patent dispute. As a preliminary matter, I think absolute hilarity would ensue if the X number of people who have come to rely on the things all of a suddenly got shut down (disclaimer: you should know that I just got my first cell phone this week). There are 3.65 million BlackBerry users worldwide, but only the ones in the U.S. are in danger of losing service
But more importantly, or at least the thing that bugged me the most after reading the article was the comment that "many corporations prefer BlackBerry because its software offers a high level of security and its devices cannot be used by employees for non-work-related tasks like listening to downloaded music."
Who cares? Many corporations need to suck it. Are CEOs really spending their time worrying about whether Johnny in cubicle 38 is humming along to the latest Beonce record while he puts the cover sheet on his TPX report? The same thing goes for internet blocking software and rules about checking your e-mail etc. If the worker bee is making honey, then who cares what else he is doing? The emphasis should be on productivity, not on how time is actually spent.
No wonder Milton is going to burn the building down.
But more importantly, or at least the thing that bugged me the most after reading the article was the comment that "many corporations prefer BlackBerry because its software offers a high level of security and its devices cannot be used by employees for non-work-related tasks like listening to downloaded music."
Who cares? Many corporations need to suck it. Are CEOs really spending their time worrying about whether Johnny in cubicle 38 is humming along to the latest Beonce record while he puts the cover sheet on his TPX report? The same thing goes for internet blocking software and rules about checking your e-mail etc. If the worker bee is making honey, then who cares what else he is doing? The emphasis should be on productivity, not on how time is actually spent.
No wonder Milton is going to burn the building down.
03 December 2005
typical
I don't think anyone on the entire planet is surprised to learn that the U.S. military bought positive 'news' coverage in Iraqi papers. Rather than just moan and groan about the corrupt administration, I have a different question - does it work?
In today's age, these things invarriably get found out and people act liek it does more harm than good - but does it really? I mean, no one believes or trusts the U.S. anymore anyway - does this really undermine our credibility more than having Whitehouse officials indited for outing a CIA agent as retribution for uncovering their lies about Iraqi intelligence?
Aside from the moral issue, maybe this kind of approach is worth it. Maybe the short term advantage gained by planting the story is more significant than the longer term harm done when we eventually get caught. I'm not saying it IS worth it, I'm wondering if there have been studies etc.
In today's age, these things invarriably get found out and people act liek it does more harm than good - but does it really? I mean, no one believes or trusts the U.S. anymore anyway - does this really undermine our credibility more than having Whitehouse officials indited for outing a CIA agent as retribution for uncovering their lies about Iraqi intelligence?
Aside from the moral issue, maybe this kind of approach is worth it. Maybe the short term advantage gained by planting the story is more significant than the longer term harm done when we eventually get caught. I'm not saying it IS worth it, I'm wondering if there have been studies etc.
Military Says It Paid Iraq Papers for News
Possible 'Improprieties' to Be Investigated
By Josh White and Bradley GrahamWashington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, December 3, 2005; Page A01
02 December 2005
chalkdust torture
I love exams.
"But who can unlearn all the facts that I've learned
As I sat in their chairs and my synapses burned
And the torture of chalk dust collects on my tongue
Thoughts follow my vision and dance in the sun
All my vasoconstrictors they come slowly undone
Can't this wait till I'm old? Can't I live while I'm young?
-Phish
"But who can unlearn all the facts that I've learned
As I sat in their chairs and my synapses burned
And the torture of chalk dust collects on my tongue
Thoughts follow my vision and dance in the sun
All my vasoconstrictors they come slowly undone
Can't this wait till I'm old? Can't I live while I'm young?
-Phish
qualifications
Andrew Natsios, the (now) former head of the United States Agency for International Development, resigned today. Some people liked him, some didn't - the same old story. But this is what I find most interesting:
"Before joining the Bush administration, Natsios was chairman and chief executive officer of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, where he managed the Central Artery/Tunnel Project, or 'Big Dig.'"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/02/AR2005120200557.html
The Big Dig is widely know to have been the biggest example of corruption and ineptitude in local government in the history of the world. It cost at least twice as much as it was supposed to and took at least twice as long as it was supposed to. The Big Dig was completed last year and already leaks and has problems.
So how exactly does overseeing the biggest disaster of public spending in history qualify you to oversee other projects?
"Before joining the Bush administration, Natsios was chairman and chief executive officer of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, where he managed the Central Artery/Tunnel Project, or 'Big Dig.'"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/02/AR2005120200557.html
The Big Dig is widely know to have been the biggest example of corruption and ineptitude in local government in the history of the world. It cost at least twice as much as it was supposed to and took at least twice as long as it was supposed to. The Big Dig was completed last year and already leaks and has problems.
So how exactly does overseeing the biggest disaster of public spending in history qualify you to oversee other projects?
01 December 2005
a good start
I was sitting at a stop light today with my music cranked trying to shake off the morning funk when I looked up in my rearview mirror to see the woman behind me totally rocking out to whatever she had cranked, presumably also trying to shake off the morning funk.
That's when you know there is hope in the world, and your day will be a good one.
That's when you know there is hope in the world, and your day will be a good one.
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