Not feeling too crisp
Some days are better than others. Today had a strange flavor to it, and I wonder if I was the only one who noticed. Has the world started to dissolve?
Issues like my iPod losing its data fill me with despair. What is the point of creating order in the midst of disorder? But of course, everything falls apart. That's the struggle of life. We as humans like to believe everything is simply order, but we build massive tools and structures, only to have them eventually collapse.
Collapse is the natural quality of existence after order.
It fills one with futility to contemplate it, but that's the feeling. How can one do work in this state?
It takes effort to keep the universe moving. Every piece of art that's created begins to decay, and will continue to decay. It is the mark of man against the disruptions of nature.
We have many toys, but the simplest ones celebrate the uncertainty. A bouncing ball. It moves surprisingly. We are amazed.
The elaborate ones: an iPod, a Palm. Rigid functioning, easy to break down. A million ways to collapse.
A digital camera.
We shuffle our important ideas through collapsing bridges of technology, racing to get to a distant and ever-receding finish line. Marathon of stupidity.
If you read this blog, email me at jetscott@mac.com and tell me you do.
Thursday, May 06, 2004
Jeb wants brain-dead women kept alive, BY ALL MEANS NECESSARY!
Thank you, Bush! I like keeping brain-dead people alive, too. It makes me feel good.
Thank you, Bush! I like keeping brain-dead people alive, too. It makes me feel good.
News Flash: Massive Friends Spoilers!
I have a friend who's a head writer on NBC's Friends, and he has leaked the following info about tonight's final episode. It's a doozy!
***
***
MASSIVE SPOILERS
WARNING
MASSIVE SPOILERS
***
***
***
Ross is an alien. And he eats every last one of them.
***
***
END SPOILERS
***
OK, you heard it here first!
I have a friend who's a head writer on NBC's Friends, and he has leaked the following info about tonight's final episode. It's a doozy!
***
***
MASSIVE SPOILERS
WARNING
MASSIVE SPOILERS
***
***
***
Ross is an alien. And he eats every last one of them.
***
***
END SPOILERS
***
OK, you heard it here first!
iPod Emergencies, and the Future of Tech
I updated the songs on my newly-updated-for-iTunes 4.5 iPod this morning, and received a rude surprise: all 4000 of my song ratings were wiped out. Play count data was also screwed up, with some songs now registering upwards of 16,000 plays.
I was initially devastated to see several months' work of song-rating go away in the blink of an invisible eye, but it afterwards set my mind to thinking. We rely very heavily in this age on "instant creativity" encouraged by companies like Apple - make your own playlists, rate your songs, make your blogs, create your web documents. These alternative forms of creativity that we take some element of personal stock in are tied to the capitalism-driven missions of individual companies. (See any blog site, for instance.)
The problem is that, as we place our creative abilities in the hands of a company and its tech, we also succumb to the whims of its buggy quirks. Which can involve being instantly erased.
Backups, I hear you say. But backup to what? Hard drives are inconsistent, paper is messy and it decays - especially with the cheap ink made by most printers.
Many science fiction visionaries see a "reputation economy" driven by places such as eBay and Amazon, where rated posts drive up your social currency. Some say that currency will become as great as real currency. But what happens when that currency is jeopardized by future failings of the network?
Two chief inventions must happen in the next 10 years:
-massive improvement on energy sources (batteries, and also less electricity-taxing networks)
-a permanent (meaning, cuneiform-on-stone-tablets) method of encoding large amounts of data (terabytes) for posterity
The latter can happen with nanotech and the potential to write data into hard crystal lattices. The former is slightly less important for data futures, but certainly points out our vulnerability.
It may seem strange that such a small glitch as losing my song ratings can drive a thesis of this magnitude, but a form of information senility could easily be descending upon us if we're not careful. It's already here - photos leaking beyond the government's grasp, worms that no one can stop, security flaws undiscovered, beta software being sold as finished product. I see big storms coming, and it only takes a few reads of the supposedly outdated cyberpunk authors to start dreaming bad dreams.
As personal and global networks become intertwined, we are making ourselves one bio-mechanical being, prone to infection as a whole.
There is a reason for isolationism, and we may discover that soon, I fear.
I updated the songs on my newly-updated-for-iTunes 4.5 iPod this morning, and received a rude surprise: all 4000 of my song ratings were wiped out. Play count data was also screwed up, with some songs now registering upwards of 16,000 plays.
I was initially devastated to see several months' work of song-rating go away in the blink of an invisible eye, but it afterwards set my mind to thinking. We rely very heavily in this age on "instant creativity" encouraged by companies like Apple - make your own playlists, rate your songs, make your blogs, create your web documents. These alternative forms of creativity that we take some element of personal stock in are tied to the capitalism-driven missions of individual companies. (See any blog site, for instance.)
The problem is that, as we place our creative abilities in the hands of a company and its tech, we also succumb to the whims of its buggy quirks. Which can involve being instantly erased.
Backups, I hear you say. But backup to what? Hard drives are inconsistent, paper is messy and it decays - especially with the cheap ink made by most printers.
Many science fiction visionaries see a "reputation economy" driven by places such as eBay and Amazon, where rated posts drive up your social currency. Some say that currency will become as great as real currency. But what happens when that currency is jeopardized by future failings of the network?
Two chief inventions must happen in the next 10 years:
-massive improvement on energy sources (batteries, and also less electricity-taxing networks)
-a permanent (meaning, cuneiform-on-stone-tablets) method of encoding large amounts of data (terabytes) for posterity
The latter can happen with nanotech and the potential to write data into hard crystal lattices. The former is slightly less important for data futures, but certainly points out our vulnerability.
It may seem strange that such a small glitch as losing my song ratings can drive a thesis of this magnitude, but a form of information senility could easily be descending upon us if we're not careful. It's already here - photos leaking beyond the government's grasp, worms that no one can stop, security flaws undiscovered, beta software being sold as finished product. I see big storms coming, and it only takes a few reads of the supposedly outdated cyberpunk authors to start dreaming bad dreams.
As personal and global networks become intertwined, we are making ourselves one bio-mechanical being, prone to infection as a whole.
There is a reason for isolationism, and we may discover that soon, I fear.
Monday, May 03, 2004
A creationist dinosaur theme park!
"Mr. Hovind, a former public school science teacher with his own ministry, Creation Science Evangelism, and a hectic lecture schedule, said he had opened Dinosaur Adventure Land to counter all the science centers and natural history museums that explain the evolution of life with Darwinian theory. There are dinosaur bone replicas, with accompanying explanations that God made dinosaurs on Day 6 of the creation as described in Genesis, 6,000 years ago. Among the products the park gift shop peddles are T-shirts with a small fish labeled "Darwin" getting gobbled by a bigger fish labeled "Truth.""
The whole article in the New York Times. And, PS - if you aren't subscribed for free to the New York Times online, you're a silly idiot. Sign up now, in five minutes, and you get free Times news. It's nice.
"Mr. Hovind, a former public school science teacher with his own ministry, Creation Science Evangelism, and a hectic lecture schedule, said he had opened Dinosaur Adventure Land to counter all the science centers and natural history museums that explain the evolution of life with Darwinian theory. There are dinosaur bone replicas, with accompanying explanations that God made dinosaurs on Day 6 of the creation as described in Genesis, 6,000 years ago. Among the products the park gift shop peddles are T-shirts with a small fish labeled "Darwin" getting gobbled by a bigger fish labeled "Truth.""
The whole article in the New York Times. And, PS - if you aren't subscribed for free to the New York Times online, you're a silly idiot. Sign up now, in five minutes, and you get free Times news. It's nice.
My 2004 Jets Draft Review. linked once again for your viewing pleasure.
Staff Writer for a sports website is another one of my latest freelance endeavors. Hope these keep snowballing.
Staff Writer for a sports website is another one of my latest freelance endeavors. Hope these keep snowballing.
Sunday, May 02, 2004
I'm a sports writer now:
Check out my first article, a review of the New York Jets' 2004 draft.
http://www.footballhuddles.com/modules.php?s=&name=Sections&sop=viewarticle&artid=190
I'm a Staff Writer for FootbullHuddles.com.
Check out my first article, a review of the New York Jets' 2004 draft.
http://www.footballhuddles.com/modules.php?s=&name=Sections&sop=viewarticle&artid=190
I'm a Staff Writer for FootbullHuddles.com.