leap year is a time for gender reversals. women in breeches, men in skirts (fine, it doesn't say that). women were to chase around and catch their unsuspecting prey like butterflies in a net, sadie hawkins style, or something like that. MEN HUNGRY WOMEN! it's the best leap year article officemate has read all day, and the only one i've read all day.
i'm uncertain why i have this article open but it is interesting. it's likely due to the ownership of ideas but this one is regarding computer programs. homophones, oh homophones, why didn't you just get an editor dear mr. snapper?! i see that you got your phd from uchicago, and now my heart breaks for the torment that you too must have gone through. broken, abused, and full of anger towards the world.
my newest favoritest magazine ever with a great article on audiobooks. i myself find it hard to get into them but antoin has said they're really good. maybe i'll try that if i can figure out where the ipod is and how to get music off the ipod onto a computer (insert uptalk non-question questioning here!?). and then read an ipod (ditto!?).
i've managed to while about the day doing work and stuff, so this will be one of the briefest tales from the trenches of late.
29 February 2012
28 February 2012
DAY ONE HUNDRED AND ONE POST THREE
more longform! man, this day has been a good one for me to learn new things!
but first, abstract work what what! i like this one bc it's purty. and purty.
and big ups to major shoulder pain every day! counting down the time til i can get a new keyboard thingy to put under my desk so it doesn't hurt!
contracts are oddly interesting. weird. but my computer at work is making me really, really, really, really, really sad because it's obviously quite in need of some assisted suicide but as far as i can tell that's illegal in this office, judging by the sickly, screaming in pain nonagenarian computer in officemate's former office
officemate plus other people who were drunkenly discussing the 'benefits' of living in taiwan have basically convinced me that it would be a terrible idea in terms of my continuing frustration with the (overall) set of very messed up individuals who live abroad to choose to move from an area which i find quite frustrating (/startling and boring lack of diversity of jobs people choose to go into) to what sounds to be an even more terrible place (hello very messed up socialization!). and now i want to go to new york, d.c., london or paris. civilization and adequately adjusted intelligent individuals. it's so boring that i crave normalcy. maybe i should stop reading new york magazine and nytimes and new yorker?
but then again, american politics makes me sad.
top four employers of gaylord, michigan back in the day: the school district, glen's market, the hospital, and the plywood factor.
nytimes article: uptalk. still don't like it no matter what the article says. hi, i'm a lawyer? but totally cute: fathers of young daughters uptalk to show non-dominance. adorable!
and just like that, poof, she's gone! fav wilfred reference yesterday. as usual, show's amazing.
but first, abstract work what what! i like this one bc it's purty. and purty.
and big ups to major shoulder pain every day! counting down the time til i can get a new keyboard thingy to put under my desk so it doesn't hurt!
contracts are oddly interesting. weird. but my computer at work is making me really, really, really, really, really sad because it's obviously quite in need of some assisted suicide but as far as i can tell that's illegal in this office, judging by the sickly, screaming in pain nonagenarian computer in officemate's former office
officemate plus other people who were drunkenly discussing the 'benefits' of living in taiwan have basically convinced me that it would be a terrible idea in terms of my continuing frustration with the (overall) set of very messed up individuals who live abroad to choose to move from an area which i find quite frustrating (/startling and boring lack of diversity of jobs people choose to go into) to what sounds to be an even more terrible place (hello very messed up socialization!). and now i want to go to new york, d.c., london or paris. civilization and adequately adjusted intelligent individuals. it's so boring that i crave normalcy. maybe i should stop reading new york magazine and nytimes and new yorker?
but then again, american politics makes me sad.
top four employers of gaylord, michigan back in the day: the school district, glen's market, the hospital, and the plywood factor.
nytimes article: uptalk. still don't like it no matter what the article says. hi, i'm a lawyer? but totally cute: fathers of young daughters uptalk to show non-dominance. adorable!
and just like that, poof, she's gone! fav wilfred reference yesterday. as usual, show's amazing.
DAY ONE HUNDRED AND ONE POST TWO
i am longforming the crap out of today. and, i have quite a bit of exciting work to do, so all is good with the world.
beautiful and very much my favorite article i've read in a long, long while!!!!:
i took two tests today to see if i have add. the first said yes adhd and the second also said yes but i don't have generalized add, i have a super powerful focus scope of interests, but then liz refused to help me evaluate from a 3rd party perspective whether i did have it saying it was a 'huge waste of time' and that i was making it hard for her to concentrate on 'actual work'. but not as hard as the annoying car alarm going off! i wish that would remain going off for the whole time so she'd have to do the test. but i did show her the different characters from winnie the pooh and apparently i am a combination of tigger and the rabbit. !!!
this was brought about because of the great adderall drought which said that adderall is only legal in 2 countries in the world, which i didn't know. i think that it may be time to bite the bullet and figure out how to make it so i can work at a job where i have to do tasks all day. or, become a spy!
today, i ordered subway and it didn't suck. this is groundbreaking newsworthy stuff, really. re subway: this video, this website, and this one (which isn't very good, but yet again, our thingy has classified it as porn for whatever reason, so thought i'd link to it anyway).
i would like to take this minute to say, yet again, what i hope EVERY GRAD STUDENT EVER IN THE WORLD EVER REALIZES WHICH IS NOT TO GO TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO WHERE THEY ARE SERIOUSLY MESSED UP AND PLAY MIND GAMES WITH THE STUDENTS AND ARE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE TO EACH OTHER. AND WITH THIS I WILL BE PERSON NUMBER THREE ON THE INTERWEBS TO ANNOUNCE LOUDLY AND PROUDLY THAT I THINK THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SUCKS and if you have to go to grad school do not(!!!) go to this one which appears to try to beat its students down in an attempt to claw its way up to ivy recognition (plus? only if that's PLUS SERIOUS EFFED UPIDNESS AND STRESS AND HUMILIATION AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TORMENT/TERROR). DO NOT RISK IT!! DO NOT RISK IT!!
finally, another piece penned by my new favorite article's author mention's there are ipad games for cats. that is awesome.
beautiful and very much my favorite article i've read in a long, long while!!!!:
But I am here to convince you: to erase is to write, style is the consequence of a writer’s omissions, and the writer is always plural.The editors at longform seem to love the pieces which most challenge the notion of copyright and ownership (read through to the end: do, do read it all), and I love them for that and particularly enjoy the challenges that art issues to notions of copyright. obviously likely related to proposed changes to copyright protections and the internet/political leanings, but one great upshot is fantastic articles like those two. i'm seriously having issues with reading every single article about things like this, so i'm just going to link to a few here: of lamb, published by mcsweeneys (reviewed here in the paris review and in the approval matrix here in new yorker). tree of codes, with a write up in the guardian (with a very unfortunate reference to glands). a whole lot more are mentioned within, with my favorites being a eulogy to a woman's dead husband and dickenson.
To erase is to leave something else behind.
i took two tests today to see if i have add. the first said yes adhd and the second also said yes but i don't have generalized add, i have a super powerful focus scope of interests, but then liz refused to help me evaluate from a 3rd party perspective whether i did have it saying it was a 'huge waste of time' and that i was making it hard for her to concentrate on 'actual work'. but not as hard as the annoying car alarm going off! i wish that would remain going off for the whole time so she'd have to do the test. but i did show her the different characters from winnie the pooh and apparently i am a combination of tigger and the rabbit. !!!
this was brought about because of the great adderall drought which said that adderall is only legal in 2 countries in the world, which i didn't know. i think that it may be time to bite the bullet and figure out how to make it so i can work at a job where i have to do tasks all day. or, become a spy!
today, i ordered subway and it didn't suck. this is groundbreaking newsworthy stuff, really. re subway: this video, this website, and this one (which isn't very good, but yet again, our thingy has classified it as porn for whatever reason, so thought i'd link to it anyway).
i would like to take this minute to say, yet again, what i hope EVERY GRAD STUDENT EVER IN THE WORLD EVER REALIZES WHICH IS NOT TO GO TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO WHERE THEY ARE SERIOUSLY MESSED UP AND PLAY MIND GAMES WITH THE STUDENTS AND ARE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE TO EACH OTHER. AND WITH THIS I WILL BE PERSON NUMBER THREE ON THE INTERWEBS TO ANNOUNCE LOUDLY AND PROUDLY THAT I THINK THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SUCKS and if you have to go to grad school do not(!!!) go to this one which appears to try to beat its students down in an attempt to claw its way up to ivy recognition (plus? only if that's PLUS SERIOUS EFFED UPIDNESS AND STRESS AND HUMILIATION AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TORMENT/TERROR). DO NOT RISK IT!! DO NOT RISK IT!!
finally, another piece penned by my new favorite article's author mention's there are ipad games for cats. that is awesome.
DAY ONE HUNDRED AND ONE
turns out i'm not so good with the spelling conventions of words that are in the hundreds, but wikipedia was quite helpful there.
With a sad story mentioned within the article.
and i'm reminded why i really like new york magazine. as late as 1978, the village voice ran a front page article that gay issues shouldn't be of concern; the article recounts homophobia within the nytimes. an interesting vote count of yeas and nays for the 1996 DOMA act (the act is, in my opinion, simplified a bit in this article, ignoring the role that attempting to repeal the ban on gays in the military had on clinton's presidency and his ability to pass *any* laws). the nays are pretty standard, but it's really interesting that there's a holdout from nebraska, of all places, until kerrey's wiki page bio: he subsequently became the (hotly debated) president of the new school.
Last night I found out a good friend of mine died. It's really weird to find out information like that from facebook (or via officemate from facebook). jerrell always had the best stories about growing up as a geeky black science nerd in south dakota (continuing on in michigan) and was friend during high school when he was one of my favorite coaches/debate judges, in college as one of the people i hung out with almost every day for several summers, in law school when i'd go over to his apartment near my school whenever i got too stressed and every summer visit back to play beer pong with the debate crew in lansing. sad news about a great person who will be deeply missed.
During the first few games of Lin's run, it was mentioned early and often that he was the "first American-born player of Chinese or Taiwanese descent to play in the NBA." Once the story got knocked off its hinges, that tedious mouthful got spat out for a good, generic "underdog." National media outlets, present company included, have now strung his narrative along a more relatable, predictable path. In Act One, Jeremy faces down the doubters and all their doubts. In Act Two, he perseveres. In Act Three, perseverance pays off in the greatest city in the world. Along the way, he slays the Cyclops of Stereotypes and sails right on past the rock where the three Kardashian sirens sing their celebrity song.
This is not a bad story. But it is not the story of Jeremy Lin.
With a sad story mentioned within the article.
and i'm reminded why i really like new york magazine. as late as 1978, the village voice ran a front page article that gay issues shouldn't be of concern; the article recounts homophobia within the nytimes. an interesting vote count of yeas and nays for the 1996 DOMA act (the act is, in my opinion, simplified a bit in this article, ignoring the role that attempting to repeal the ban on gays in the military had on clinton's presidency and his ability to pass *any* laws). the nays are pretty standard, but it's really interesting that there's a holdout from nebraska, of all places, until kerrey's wiki page bio: he subsequently became the (hotly debated) president of the new school.
Last night I found out a good friend of mine died. It's really weird to find out information like that from facebook (or via officemate from facebook). jerrell always had the best stories about growing up as a geeky black science nerd in south dakota (continuing on in michigan) and was friend during high school when he was one of my favorite coaches/debate judges, in college as one of the people i hung out with almost every day for several summers, in law school when i'd go over to his apartment near my school whenever i got too stressed and every summer visit back to play beer pong with the debate crew in lansing. sad news about a great person who will be deeply missed.
27 February 2012
DAY ONE HUNDRED POST FOUR!!!!!!!!!
still excited about day one hundred.
yesterday night was the oscars, i guess. this has very little relation to my life because i see approximately one film per year in theatres and rarely care what movies i see (other than trying to finish off all the 60s/70s sci fi on my external hard drive). i don't even think i've heard of most of the winners before, but now i really want to see the one called hugo.
yesterday night was the oscars, i guess. this has very little relation to my life because i see approximately one film per year in theatres and rarely care what movies i see (other than trying to finish off all the 60s/70s sci fi on my external hard drive). i don't even think i've heard of most of the winners before, but now i really want to see the one called hugo.
DAY ONE HUNDRED POST THREE!!!!!!
also i like to think of the mish tense when i think of the word apparently. i've been distrustful of information lately and have been assigning the mish tense to a lot of it. APPARENTLY there are more problems with my comptuer. actually almost all of the suspicion has been regarding that. for someone who does well under pressure/stress, i really do not like change, and this new windows platform is really hard to get used to. APPARENTLY it was necessary.
DAY ONE HUNDRED POST TWO!!!!!
i hate when my shoulder hurts so bad i feel nauseous and it's only a monday. can't wait for the new keyboard tray. i wish that there was even a tiny conception of ergonomics in turkey.
DAY ONE HUNDRED!!!!!!!
Major marker today! Day one hundred! AND TO CELEBRATE THE NETWORK HAS BLOCKED THE EVIL WEBSITE THAT I REQUESTED THEY BLOCK WITH INFORMATION ABOUT GRAD SCHOOLS! STEP ONE OF GRAD SKOOL IS EVIL IS COMPLETE! With congratulations and thanks to everyone for this momentous victory, make sure to keep the pressure on foiling grad skool's attempt to brainwash our friends.
last night was one of two celebrations for the greek orthodox mardi gras. beginning with a fairly large parade (with a maypole and fire dancers!), the party continued on at a club where the maypole came out as a rembetiko band played lively music. friends of the band also gave us the mish on all of them, including that there are, in fact, clarinet groupies, some of whom hit on my future husband, a talented clarinet/sax player who also plays guitar all while lookin fine. the celebration continues tonight in ferikoy with what has been reported to me to be a more authentic experience.
rumor has it that i'll be able to help make and install a maypole in the garden of a friend's house for may day. this excites me to no end!
taksim comes from an improvisation in music which is very common to rembetiko (as well as turkish and arabic music).
A story about Zedzed, one of the first and greatest international men of mystery. Born in Anatolia, he was a bigamist, pimp, honorary knight, friend of kings (and hated by others), and international arms dealer. Plus, his adopted name is Zedzed, which I think is awesome. The story is seriously fascinating, telling of his life in numerous countries, including Turkey/Greece, Belgium, the UK, Ireland, Cyprus, America, Russia, France and Argentina. Every facet of his life is just as unusual, including that he was given 10 million GBP and traveled to Switzerland in an effort to buy Turkey (as it's called in the article, actually, the Ottoman empire) out of WW1. Apparently stopped at the border, Turkey would have done much better accepting that bribe, though the article does seem to indicate land concessions would have been part of the deal.
As interesting is that the article mentions the corruption within the Constantinople Fire Brigade, which was explored in a great fictional book about Ottoman Istanbul, the Janissary Tree, which also notes the roles the Janissaries had doing the same thing before the brigade: setting fire for intimidation and profit. Shoutout to Ryan to use this stuff for his report on the Galata tower, which was used for a long time as one of the several fire watch towers in the city.
If you want to get riled up and angry at incompetent detectivizing, read this about an autistic man who may well have been killed by his caretaker.
Another really interesting longform article is this one, about the Seattle bridge and a suicide prevention fence. It quotes this article about jumpers from the New Yorker which brings back memories of one of the sadder events I remember from college, when the US decided to invade Iraq, announced as we were going to the CEDA debate tournament. Foremost in many on the teams' minds were the impact this would have on our various positions and cases, which I thought was just a horrible reaction (the impact on a fictionalized, fake world of a real world event that would deeply affect so many lives). I actually think the New Yorker article is more interesting, containing as it does an account from a man - one of 26 total - who fell from the Golden Gate bridge (accidentally, sort of) and lived, only to commit suicide as a form of war protest.
I do have one criticism though, which is that I'm not particularly sure that the survivor who is now making money being an inspirational speaker talking about depression is really the right signal to send... Survive the bridge attempt, live, and then make money off of it? I guess there's nothing wrong, per se, with it, but something just strikes me as not cool about that. one of the awards the individual who i'm not a big fan of won is called the "flying viking" award, which i think is awesome.
[And a final caveat regarding the study cited in the New Yorker and Seattle Net: in my opinion the study cited does not prove that the 515 individuals who are prevented from jumping from the bridge wouldn't or didn't try to kill themselves elsewhere. The study just shows that the rate -- about 10% die from suicide or violent deaths -- is much lower than the mortality rate of jumping from the bridge. If people attempted to commit suicide in a different way, noted in both articles to be much less effective, it is possible that the average success rate would only be about 10%, particularly since the people who lived were ones who were able to be talked down from the bridge.]
I HAD LASER PORTRAITS TOO! AND A PERM! ah the 90s.
last night was one of two celebrations for the greek orthodox mardi gras. beginning with a fairly large parade (with a maypole and fire dancers!), the party continued on at a club where the maypole came out as a rembetiko band played lively music. friends of the band also gave us the mish on all of them, including that there are, in fact, clarinet groupies, some of whom hit on my future husband, a talented clarinet/sax player who also plays guitar all while lookin fine. the celebration continues tonight in ferikoy with what has been reported to me to be a more authentic experience.
rumor has it that i'll be able to help make and install a maypole in the garden of a friend's house for may day. this excites me to no end!
taksim comes from an improvisation in music which is very common to rembetiko (as well as turkish and arabic music).
A story about Zedzed, one of the first and greatest international men of mystery. Born in Anatolia, he was a bigamist, pimp, honorary knight, friend of kings (and hated by others), and international arms dealer. Plus, his adopted name is Zedzed, which I think is awesome. The story is seriously fascinating, telling of his life in numerous countries, including Turkey/Greece, Belgium, the UK, Ireland, Cyprus, America, Russia, France and Argentina. Every facet of his life is just as unusual, including that he was given 10 million GBP and traveled to Switzerland in an effort to buy Turkey (as it's called in the article, actually, the Ottoman empire) out of WW1. Apparently stopped at the border, Turkey would have done much better accepting that bribe, though the article does seem to indicate land concessions would have been part of the deal.
As interesting is that the article mentions the corruption within the Constantinople Fire Brigade, which was explored in a great fictional book about Ottoman Istanbul, the Janissary Tree, which also notes the roles the Janissaries had doing the same thing before the brigade: setting fire for intimidation and profit. Shoutout to Ryan to use this stuff for his report on the Galata tower, which was used for a long time as one of the several fire watch towers in the city.
If you want to get riled up and angry at incompetent detectivizing, read this about an autistic man who may well have been killed by his caretaker.
Another really interesting longform article is this one, about the Seattle bridge and a suicide prevention fence. It quotes this article about jumpers from the New Yorker which brings back memories of one of the sadder events I remember from college, when the US decided to invade Iraq, announced as we were going to the CEDA debate tournament. Foremost in many on the teams' minds were the impact this would have on our various positions and cases, which I thought was just a horrible reaction (the impact on a fictionalized, fake world of a real world event that would deeply affect so many lives). I actually think the New Yorker article is more interesting, containing as it does an account from a man - one of 26 total - who fell from the Golden Gate bridge (accidentally, sort of) and lived, only to commit suicide as a form of war protest.
I do have one criticism though, which is that I'm not particularly sure that the survivor who is now making money being an inspirational speaker talking about depression is really the right signal to send... Survive the bridge attempt, live, and then make money off of it? I guess there's nothing wrong, per se, with it, but something just strikes me as not cool about that. one of the awards the individual who i'm not a big fan of won is called the "flying viking" award, which i think is awesome.
[And a final caveat regarding the study cited in the New Yorker and Seattle Net: in my opinion the study cited does not prove that the 515 individuals who are prevented from jumping from the bridge wouldn't or didn't try to kill themselves elsewhere. The study just shows that the rate -- about 10% die from suicide or violent deaths -- is much lower than the mortality rate of jumping from the bridge. If people attempted to commit suicide in a different way, noted in both articles to be much less effective, it is possible that the average success rate would only be about 10%, particularly since the people who lived were ones who were able to be talked down from the bridge.]
I HAD LASER PORTRAITS TOO! AND A PERM! ah the 90s.
24 February 2012
DAY NINETY NINE POST EIGHT PETITION TO BAN LIZ FROM BEING IN GRAD SKOOL
before anyone else, i'd like to note that i'm pretty sure that liz is going insane. ABSOLUTELY CRAZY.
OPEN PETITION
DO NOT GO TO GRAD SKOOL LIZ NO GOOD NOT GOOD DONT. DO NOT GIVE INTO THE DARK SIDE DO YOU REMEMBER HOW BAD LAST YEAR WAS AND HOW CAREFREE YOU ARE NOW???
the ONE day you have a talk with the umich dude, you start going crazy. i heard you make those weird noises. i saw you freak out. i observed, clinically detached, as you hit your head on the desk. THIS IS NOT NORMAL YOU!!! YOU WILL HATE YOUR LIFE! Go work for a consulting agency or get an MBA. DO NOT GET A PHD THIS WILL BE BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH.
OPEN PETITION
DO NOT GO TO GRAD SKOOL LIZ NO GOOD NOT GOOD DONT. DO NOT GIVE INTO THE DARK SIDE DO YOU REMEMBER HOW BAD LAST YEAR WAS AND HOW CAREFREE YOU ARE NOW???
the ONE day you have a talk with the umich dude, you start going crazy. i heard you make those weird noises. i saw you freak out. i observed, clinically detached, as you hit your head on the desk. THIS IS NOT NORMAL YOU!!! YOU WILL HATE YOUR LIFE! Go work for a consulting agency or get an MBA. DO NOT GET A PHD THIS WILL BE BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH.
DAY NINETY NINE POST SEVEN
i want a bath i want a bath
it's possible my hat's secret location has been discovered! why would it run away!?
you know what i haven't done yet? apply to taiwan programs. OH MY GOD OMGOGM
i'm not allowed to dance in the office any more
there are 2 primary catholic countries in asia. east timor and philippines rock! i know next to nothing about papua new guinea. except now i know that it gained independence from australia in 1975.
TFLOW! TFLOW! i wanted to be a hacker when i was little!
it's possible my hat's secret location has been discovered! why would it run away!?
you know what i haven't done yet? apply to taiwan programs. OH MY GOD OMGOGM
i'm not allowed to dance in the office any more
there are 2 primary catholic countries in asia. east timor and philippines rock! i know next to nothing about papua new guinea. except now i know that it gained independence from australia in 1975.
TFLOW! TFLOW! i wanted to be a hacker when i was little!
DAY NINETY NINE POST SIX
i hit my head on my desk accidentally and hurt it even more. ow.
READ MS LIZ DELUCA'S BLOG POST OR I WILL GET MAD AT YOU. IF I TALK TO YOU AND YOU HAVE NOT READ THIS I MAYBE WILL BE UPSET!
"she's craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazyyyyyyyyyyyyyy you said before falling off a table"
READ MS LIZ DELUCA'S BLOG POST OR I WILL GET MAD AT YOU. IF I TALK TO YOU AND YOU HAVE NOT READ THIS I MAYBE WILL BE UPSET!
"she's craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazyyyyyyyyyyyyyy you said before falling off a table"
DAY NINETY NINE POST FOUR
IF YOU SEARCH INDIGO ISTANBUL PORN COMES UP so says officemate
if you tell kim harris she likes to use the same cups she'll spurt wine out her nose, and then your accent will make you want to spell 'her' hur. HUR. HUR NOSE. gah!
i am fairly certain we did not play naked twister last night.
OH YEAH CONCERTE GIDIYORUZ BU AKSAM MOTHOFOS
my job is an unhappy existence :( with many men (mmmmmmmmm and awwwwwwwwww yeeeeea) falling on world duty free v. kenya :(
if you tell kim harris she likes to use the same cups she'll spurt wine out her nose, and then your accent will make you want to spell 'her' hur. HUR. HUR NOSE. gah!
i am fairly certain we did not play naked twister last night.
OH YEAH CONCERTE GIDIYORUZ BU AKSAM MOTHOFOS
my job is an unhappy existence :( with many men (mmmmmmmmm and awwwwwwwwww yeeeeea) falling on world duty free v. kenya :(
DAY NINETY NINE
noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo why am i wearing birks? rhymes with turks.
DAY NINETY NINE POST THREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
'i'm going to update your facebook wall. just wait.' the scariest threat i have heard in this office yet. what the hell did officemate do to it?!?!?!?
DAY NINETY NINE
WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY ???????????? ah the WHY IS OFFICEMATE SENDING ME GCHAT TEXTS TO BEHAVE I AM BEHAVITNG FO SURE
23 February 2012
DAY NINETY NINE
this post is dedicated to CENSORED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and hangovers. ow. officamate is being cruel.
DAY NINETY EIGHT POST FIVE
avid readers may have noticed all the mistakes i've been making in talkin good and also the days getting mixed up. that's because i've been reading about THIS BADASS TIGER WHO KILLED LIKE A ZILLION PEOPLE!!! AND THIS LEOPARD! And GUSTAVE! AND MORE HUMAN EATING ANIMALS! crazy! Lots of leopards, a few lions, and lots of wolves in europe, like this one.
today is a day without gchat contacts, clearly :( now i've moved into looking at really sad disaster porn and i don't like it. also slow internet connections :(
BTU THANK GOD FOR TOXIC BACHELORS!
"Nice people always get fucked over." Maggie's not so happy now, is she?! Fascinating how this group of super clingy women are clearly supposed to be the identifiable characters in the book. I mean, the last 30 pages is about whether or not Charlie and Adam get to go on a week long vacation without the ladies: "And then the war began again."
MORE QUOTES!
"And half my athletes get drunk over the holidays and go out and rape someone." WOO!
"There's something about holidays and women, if you don't do it right, they fire you."
And then the UNEXPECTED PLOT TWIST, which is actually unexpected. Grey's adopted native brother, named BOY by his irresponsible parents who helped scar him for life, returns, looking 'sickly.' Danielle Steele, predicting that everyone would have forgotten the 3 very shallow references to this piece of information, again explains that boy is the Navajo baby his parents had adopted 25 years before and named Boy. And then she gives Boy AIDS? Gray's nice enough not to ask BOY how he got the GRID but if you ask me it's pretty clear, only because "It was none of his business." You tell it Dani! If Boy wants to be a freak and sell it on the weekend that's none of Gray's business! Except I mean, even in 2005, I don't think that this depiction of AIDs-positive individuals is completely accurate (description of face, skin color, etc) as well as the advancement of drug regimes by then. OHHH SNAP and Dani comes out with that Boy WAS indeed a freak and sold it on the weekends, makin it Gray's business. I would say this has been the stupidest, most offensive representation of a native american possible but I have definitely read some worse ones both ways, with both the strapping noble savage or the pure hearted noble damsel who saves whitey. THIS DRIVEL IS HORRIBLE. And poor Boy, the apple, "Everything about him was surreal and ethereal and transparent." Then, Gray realizes that he loves Boy, despite never having known his gay adopted native brother and really only seeing him once, at his parents' funeral. "It was both painful and beautiful, as only love could be."
Hmm. But then a problem appears. Apparently Gray had another sibling? How could I have forgotten about that one, and where is it? An adopted asian kid named Girl? Unclear, but it's possible that she just wrote the wrong number in and really meant two since this third one's not really talked about. "'I love you, Boy,' Gray whispered as they sat holding hands across the table. He didn't care who saw them or what they thought." That Gray! Then a very insipid four paragraphs later, Boy dies and Gray somehow still feels an emotional connection to him.
Oh and that rapscalian Adam! "'And when you get an abortion, you'll be crying and whacked-out for the next six months.' He had been through it all before, too many times. He didn't want to go through it with her, or with anyone ever again." Which begs the question, why not get a vasectomy? Such logical progressions, of course, are beyond the artistic---wait, he's a lawyer... Hmm... And then, VERY, very falsely stating second trimester abortion practices, Dani's penned Adam saying that there aren't second trimester services in NY (which is one of the most liberal states for abortion practices and timing). Then, of course, Maggie's Catholic and Adam's all worried about whether he can pressure her into the age old issue of will the fetus be aborted by and by lord by and by? Dani YET AGAIN falsely states abortion laws in NY and says Maggie's gotta pretend to be crazy to get an abortion? It gets better and better! Of course, Maggie keeps it and she and Adam end up happily ever after. Poor Mary Margaret.
Even better! Carole sends a fax to Charlie who is - yet again - convinced there's something wrong (he's happy! oh god! something must be wrong!). A FAX. This book was published in 2005. Given the appearance of Boy, that he's got AIDS, and that Carole now sends a fax, and given the really poor English that's been appearing throughout, I'm going to predict this was penned some time before the fall of the Soviet Union by someone behind the walls. Or shortly thereafter. Or maybe by Dani's housemaid or something.
OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH SNAP! And because Maggie took control of her body, Adam decided to take control of her wedding vows! "'We're getting married, that's what's happening," Adam said to her. 'I'm not asking you. I'm telling you. And if you give me any trouble, Mary Margaret O'Malley, I'm not letting you out of this room until you do." Maggie eats that up! And then decides to become a Jew! And then in the strangest first birth ever, Maggie basically jet streams that kid outta her womb and onto Adam's bed while the paramedics rush in!
We leave with all three happy couples aboard the same yacht that took up so many bland pages earlier in the book. Many more bland pages later, all three have, indeed, met remarkably clingy but still independent women who are basically perfect other than being rich, poor, and having kids.
This book sucked. So bad. I have it in case you want to test it yourself.
today is a day without gchat contacts, clearly :( now i've moved into looking at really sad disaster porn and i don't like it. also slow internet connections :(
BTU THANK GOD FOR TOXIC BACHELORS!
"Nice people always get fucked over." Maggie's not so happy now, is she?! Fascinating how this group of super clingy women are clearly supposed to be the identifiable characters in the book. I mean, the last 30 pages is about whether or not Charlie and Adam get to go on a week long vacation without the ladies: "And then the war began again."
MORE QUOTES!
"And half my athletes get drunk over the holidays and go out and rape someone." WOO!
"There's something about holidays and women, if you don't do it right, they fire you."
And then the UNEXPECTED PLOT TWIST, which is actually unexpected. Grey's adopted native brother, named BOY by his irresponsible parents who helped scar him for life, returns, looking 'sickly.' Danielle Steele, predicting that everyone would have forgotten the 3 very shallow references to this piece of information, again explains that boy is the Navajo baby his parents had adopted 25 years before and named Boy. And then she gives Boy AIDS? Gray's nice enough not to ask BOY how he got the GRID but if you ask me it's pretty clear, only because "It was none of his business." You tell it Dani! If Boy wants to be a freak and sell it on the weekend that's none of Gray's business! Except I mean, even in 2005, I don't think that this depiction of AIDs-positive individuals is completely accurate (description of face, skin color, etc) as well as the advancement of drug regimes by then. OHHH SNAP and Dani comes out with that Boy WAS indeed a freak and sold it on the weekends, makin it Gray's business. I would say this has been the stupidest, most offensive representation of a native american possible but I have definitely read some worse ones both ways, with both the strapping noble savage or the pure hearted noble damsel who saves whitey. THIS DRIVEL IS HORRIBLE. And poor Boy, the apple, "Everything about him was surreal and ethereal and transparent." Then, Gray realizes that he loves Boy, despite never having known his gay adopted native brother and really only seeing him once, at his parents' funeral. "It was both painful and beautiful, as only love could be."
Hmm. But then a problem appears. Apparently Gray had another sibling? How could I have forgotten about that one, and where is it? An adopted asian kid named Girl? Unclear, but it's possible that she just wrote the wrong number in and really meant two since this third one's not really talked about. "'I love you, Boy,' Gray whispered as they sat holding hands across the table. He didn't care who saw them or what they thought." That Gray! Then a very insipid four paragraphs later, Boy dies and Gray somehow still feels an emotional connection to him.
Oh and that rapscalian Adam! "'And when you get an abortion, you'll be crying and whacked-out for the next six months.' He had been through it all before, too many times. He didn't want to go through it with her, or with anyone ever again." Which begs the question, why not get a vasectomy? Such logical progressions, of course, are beyond the artistic---wait, he's a lawyer... Hmm... And then, VERY, very falsely stating second trimester abortion practices, Dani's penned Adam saying that there aren't second trimester services in NY (which is one of the most liberal states for abortion practices and timing). Then, of course, Maggie's Catholic and Adam's all worried about whether he can pressure her into the age old issue of will the fetus be aborted by and by lord by and by? Dani YET AGAIN falsely states abortion laws in NY and says Maggie's gotta pretend to be crazy to get an abortion? It gets better and better! Of course, Maggie keeps it and she and Adam end up happily ever after. Poor Mary Margaret.
Even better! Carole sends a fax to Charlie who is - yet again - convinced there's something wrong (he's happy! oh god! something must be wrong!). A FAX. This book was published in 2005. Given the appearance of Boy, that he's got AIDS, and that Carole now sends a fax, and given the really poor English that's been appearing throughout, I'm going to predict this was penned some time before the fall of the Soviet Union by someone behind the walls. Or shortly thereafter. Or maybe by Dani's housemaid or something.
OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH SNAP! And because Maggie took control of her body, Adam decided to take control of her wedding vows! "'We're getting married, that's what's happening," Adam said to her. 'I'm not asking you. I'm telling you. And if you give me any trouble, Mary Margaret O'Malley, I'm not letting you out of this room until you do." Maggie eats that up! And then decides to become a Jew! And then in the strangest first birth ever, Maggie basically jet streams that kid outta her womb and onto Adam's bed while the paramedics rush in!
We leave with all three happy couples aboard the same yacht that took up so many bland pages earlier in the book. Many more bland pages later, all three have, indeed, met remarkably clingy but still independent women who are basically perfect other than being rich, poor, and having kids.
This book sucked. So bad. I have it in case you want to test it yourself.
DAY NINETY SEVEN POST FOUR
why yes, i will respond to a question from the audience. what is my favorite german movie?
featuring gay detective Luigi Mackeroni and other characters likewise named after pastas, how could the killer condom not be my favorite german movie? I wish I could find my favorite quotes online, but our internet is going quite slowly and many of these websites aren't working. But, you won't need a killer condom to get castrated, though it sure can help, chopping off genitals all over the place!
featuring gay detective Luigi Mackeroni and other characters likewise named after pastas, how could the killer condom not be my favorite german movie? I wish I could find my favorite quotes online, but our internet is going quite slowly and many of these websites aren't working. But, you won't need a killer condom to get castrated, though it sure can help, chopping off genitals all over the place!
DAY NINETY SEVEN POST THREE
my parents sold my house which is sad for me but good for them. apparently really old farm houses are not the easiest to upkeep. here it is! aww, so many good times. off to the porch there used to be a tree that we could climb to break into the upstairs (kinda obvious, but less so if we went into the side window which was sort of hidden by the tree). there are actually about a billion other ways to break into it but maybe i'll save that until after my family actually moves out. porch swing, leaded windows, fireplace, laundry chute, butler's pantry and lots of tiny rooms. old old! my closet was like, a less than half closet, because farmers don't really need closet space! and here's rocky rocky our rockin rocking chair, upon which cindy the bear normally sits adorned in whatever festive clothing is most appropriate given the date. i will say that i have not in years approved of the hotel-like appearance our house took, marked first by painting my room an off white from its original lovely lilac followed by almost every room also becoming white.
AND, i found another set of albums online, just as cool as the photobucket ones. here's some of officemate and me from a mardi gras party, here's one of lauren who has read this blog at least once (and kinda stephanie and jason in there too), another of her and stephanie who i predict will read this post after i send it to her, and here are some of a bunch of housemates plus that dude from peru. and kelly. no haley, lea, kat, jason, chad, george (was he there then? the george sighting log was only at like 7 when he moved out), sarah c (if she was there?), stephanie. am i missing people?
AND, i found another set of albums online, just as cool as the photobucket ones. here's some of officemate and me from a mardi gras party, here's one of lauren who has read this blog at least once (and kinda stephanie and jason in there too), another of her and stephanie who i predict will read this post after i send it to her, and here are some of a bunch of housemates plus that dude from peru. and kelly. no haley, lea, kat, jason, chad, george (was he there then? the george sighting log was only at like 7 when he moved out), sarah c (if she was there?), stephanie. am i missing people?
DAY NINETY EIGHT POST TWO
officemate is reading about what is the most horribly, horribly boring sex scandal story ever. it's honestly one of the stupidest things i've ever had to hear about, and it's interrupting my extensive research into every single airplane crash ever. at the same time, i do recognize that one newspaper accidentally mistyping a name or something casting a character from one show who is a prostitute as having the same name as a (quite minor) politician is really newsworthy, or so the woman clearly thinks, trying to get her name out there as much as possible by dramatizing something that is honestly really, really, really, really, really boring.
INSTEAD:
hey turkish newspapers, remember when you put crap like that on the front of your really important newspapers? lets look at a news roundup:
nytimes: sadly, not really coming through. republican debates, colons, german economy and regulating baby makin organs. syria, being single, censorship and first amendment, and google sound a bit more interesting. click on world and we have some sad news about the recent spate of war reporters being killed and syria.
bbc: iraq, somolia, afghanistan, somolia, burma, putin, santorum, and time being linked to heart attacks.
cnn: iraq, syria, section on journalists, shadow wars, australia political soap opera popularity contest (more interesting than the boringest sex scandal ever in turkey), syria, syria, santorum, north korea, afghanistan, and an inquest into the death of a baby dingo.
GRAND RAPIDS PRESS which as we all know is the publications to end all publications: road rage, obama online privacy rules, cornerstone college basketball, holland city manager, crash victim, the pistons, MSU sports, santorum. even this blessed newspaper with its idyllic image of santorum and hagiographies about republicans manages to have SOME sort of actual stories about national politics that have some basis in reality and are not just there to be (non-)DRAMADRAMADRAMA.
my hope is that the MOST BORING NON SEX SCANDAL falls out of the newspapers today. today. please.
INSTEAD:
hey turkish newspapers, remember when you put crap like that on the front of your really important newspapers? lets look at a news roundup:
nytimes: sadly, not really coming through. republican debates, colons, german economy and regulating baby makin organs. syria, being single, censorship and first amendment, and google sound a bit more interesting. click on world and we have some sad news about the recent spate of war reporters being killed and syria.
bbc: iraq, somolia, afghanistan, somolia, burma, putin, santorum, and time being linked to heart attacks.
cnn: iraq, syria, section on journalists, shadow wars, australia political soap opera popularity contest (more interesting than the boringest sex scandal ever in turkey), syria, syria, santorum, north korea, afghanistan, and an inquest into the death of a baby dingo.
GRAND RAPIDS PRESS which as we all know is the publications to end all publications: road rage, obama online privacy rules, cornerstone college basketball, holland city manager, crash victim, the pistons, MSU sports, santorum. even this blessed newspaper with its idyllic image of santorum and hagiographies about republicans manages to have SOME sort of actual stories about national politics that have some basis in reality and are not just there to be (non-)DRAMADRAMADRAMA.
my hope is that the MOST BORING NON SEX SCANDAL falls out of the newspapers today. today. please.
DAY NINETY EIGHT
Dialect continuums! Really interesting - a continuum of languages so that people in close geographic proximity speak mutually intelligible languages, but the dialects change so much across the whole speaking region that the languages may be considered separate languages. A prime example, of course, is Arabic. The rise of nation states is demarcating these languages to a greater extent than ever before. Or so says Wikipedia, with absolutely no citation given. Shout out to any officemates who are experts in this subject because the article says it needs an expert's advice.
Today I was awoken by the cleaning lady, which set the day off on the right foot: avoidance, hiding and shamefacedness. Perfect for a work environment. Hatece seems to have chilled out quite a bit, though, so rock. She was kind enough to point out that shortbus was repeatedly dangerously attempting to trip her due to lack of mama (food), which I chose to pretend to think was her telling me how cute the cat is. And, a word of encouragement! Yesterday, for the first time ever, I saw shortbus play! It was a strange and wonderful thing, that challenged cat chasing after a string. Then she sat and purred for a long time, lookin good, as she's wont to do.
I watched a few episodes of Wilfred again, a show so good that I was willing to re-watch the first two shows within a few days of one another. The production value is amazing - they straight up just have a dude walk around in a dog suit. Very funny and highly recommended, though I have still only seen the first two shows. Entertainment Weekly gives it two thumbs up, calling it one of the worst shows of 2011.
I learned how to call the movie Fatih 1453 fascist with a sort of sign of the horns wolf thing last night. Then was explained a very confusing story about the original Turk coming from a wolf and this being a return to it? Apparently, stories of the WOLF TURK have been used in anti-turkism for ages. The earliest anti-Turkism appeared the same year as Fatih! Coincidence?!?! And don't we really think that Fatih the conquerer should redirect people to mehmed ii's wiki page, rather than having to go to the fatih (municipality), fatih (name) and then mehmed ii's page?
And a fun map of Constantinople, as some of my greek-american friends still refer to it. Where's the river? Well, the Bosphorus (google search river istanbul hit number one) article didn't help, citing to the University of Leeds which, when searched, had no hits for river Istanbul. Digging deeper, it appears that this river isn't the fabled one on land, but is instead a river in water, which is kind of a lot lamer for me but apparently very exciting for oil companies. Is the river completely underground? That's what I think, but I'm not sure. Anyone who figures it out gets to guest post on my blog and gets major respect.
Self hatin up in heeeeeeeere where Turk was used during the Ottoman period to denote a back-woods, uncultured individual, an ignoramus, if you will. And I'm going to quote one particularly fantastic passage from within the article:
"He is no Turk, no savage, he will assure you, but an Ottoman subject of the Sultan, by no means to be confounded with certain barbarians styled Turcomans, and from whom indeed, on the male side, he may possibly be descended."(Davey 1907: 209)
Ah yes, a descendant only upon the male side. Rape and pillage, barbarian turks, rape and pillage, for as Davey rightly points out, your race was created solely of males and can yield no lady folks no matter how much you try to pretend to be acculturated now.
CITE CHECKS FOR TURK AS AN INSULT! 1. dear self-referential wiki article: not so sure you can cite to the Dutch version of the article (generally) to show that Turk is used as an insult. No, wait, I'm sure that you can't.
2. Way back machine to use an old/outdated entry from Merriam Webster's to show that Turk was archaically used to describe a cruel person? Wouldn't one assume -- well, I would at least -- that if something's marked as archaic it won't change, and therefore, if it's been taken out of the dictionary, that may not be a correct usage? Although I must say I do appreciate the "rhymes with Turk" section of the entry.
3. Ohh snap, the Swedish Institute for European Policy Studies webpage brings up a 404 not found.
Suman Fernando keeping things real with the only article, but again, just using a dictionary - didn't work out too well for the cite to Merriam Websters - and just a few words on the subject. But I'm still interested to read about how THE MYTH OF THE TERRIBLE TURK LIVES ON.
And finally, for minik:
A. Gliding is not where people begin, it's a specialized sort of aviation. Most pilots taking gliding lessons are, in fact, commercial pilots. It's super specialized and not like all pilots start off in gliding. Note that this happened before with one of my favorite airline crashes, Canada flight 143 THE GIMLI GLIDER WHAT WHAT, where they actually landed on a go-cart track that was IN USE AT THE TIME. That being said apparently a lot of flights have required gliding.
Today I was awoken by the cleaning lady, which set the day off on the right foot: avoidance, hiding and shamefacedness. Perfect for a work environment. Hatece seems to have chilled out quite a bit, though, so rock. She was kind enough to point out that shortbus was repeatedly dangerously attempting to trip her due to lack of mama (food), which I chose to pretend to think was her telling me how cute the cat is. And, a word of encouragement! Yesterday, for the first time ever, I saw shortbus play! It was a strange and wonderful thing, that challenged cat chasing after a string. Then she sat and purred for a long time, lookin good, as she's wont to do.
I watched a few episodes of Wilfred again, a show so good that I was willing to re-watch the first two shows within a few days of one another. The production value is amazing - they straight up just have a dude walk around in a dog suit. Very funny and highly recommended, though I have still only seen the first two shows. Entertainment Weekly gives it two thumbs up, calling it one of the worst shows of 2011.
I learned how to call the movie Fatih 1453 fascist with a sort of sign of the horns wolf thing last night. Then was explained a very confusing story about the original Turk coming from a wolf and this being a return to it? Apparently, stories of the WOLF TURK have been used in anti-turkism for ages. The earliest anti-Turkism appeared the same year as Fatih! Coincidence?!?! And don't we really think that Fatih the conquerer should redirect people to mehmed ii's wiki page, rather than having to go to the fatih (municipality), fatih (name) and then mehmed ii's page?
And a fun map of Constantinople, as some of my greek-american friends still refer to it. Where's the river? Well, the Bosphorus (google search river istanbul hit number one) article didn't help, citing to the University of Leeds which, when searched, had no hits for river Istanbul. Digging deeper, it appears that this river isn't the fabled one on land, but is instead a river in water, which is kind of a lot lamer for me but apparently very exciting for oil companies. Is the river completely underground? That's what I think, but I'm not sure. Anyone who figures it out gets to guest post on my blog and gets major respect.
Self hatin up in heeeeeeeere where Turk was used during the Ottoman period to denote a back-woods, uncultured individual, an ignoramus, if you will. And I'm going to quote one particularly fantastic passage from within the article:
"He is no Turk, no savage, he will assure you, but an Ottoman subject of the Sultan, by no means to be confounded with certain barbarians styled Turcomans, and from whom indeed, on the male side, he may possibly be descended."(Davey 1907: 209)
Ah yes, a descendant only upon the male side. Rape and pillage, barbarian turks, rape and pillage, for as Davey rightly points out, your race was created solely of males and can yield no lady folks no matter how much you try to pretend to be acculturated now.
CITE CHECKS FOR TURK AS AN INSULT! 1. dear self-referential wiki article: not so sure you can cite to the Dutch version of the article (generally) to show that Turk is used as an insult. No, wait, I'm sure that you can't.
2. Way back machine to use an old/outdated entry from Merriam Webster's to show that Turk was archaically used to describe a cruel person? Wouldn't one assume -- well, I would at least -- that if something's marked as archaic it won't change, and therefore, if it's been taken out of the dictionary, that may not be a correct usage? Although I must say I do appreciate the "rhymes with Turk" section of the entry.
3. Ohh snap, the Swedish Institute for European Policy Studies webpage brings up a 404 not found.
Suman Fernando keeping things real with the only article, but again, just using a dictionary - didn't work out too well for the cite to Merriam Websters - and just a few words on the subject. But I'm still interested to read about how THE MYTH OF THE TERRIBLE TURK LIVES ON.
And finally, for minik:
A. Gliding is not where people begin, it's a specialized sort of aviation. Most pilots taking gliding lessons are, in fact, commercial pilots. It's super specialized and not like all pilots start off in gliding. Note that this happened before with one of my favorite airline crashes, Canada flight 143 THE GIMLI GLIDER WHAT WHAT, where they actually landed on a go-cart track that was IN USE AT THE TIME. That being said apparently a lot of flights have required gliding.
22 February 2012
DAY NINETY SEVEN POST TWO
as i'm sure my dedicated readers have figured out, it's actually day ninety seven. i'd post awesome pictures, but unfortunately, looking up "awesome pictures" on google actually results in what i would call 'not-awesome' pictures. a few misogynist ones tho!
on the plus side, a world famous photographer who graced the front page of radikal last sunday is in our office today and i may be lucky enough to get to eat some pizza with her. or her eat a salad and me a pizza. and no salad station for her because i'm morally opposed to their idiot slimy delivery guy who keeps ripping me off for a few lira every time he delivers. hatehatehate.
interesting fact about the term idiot:
on the plus side, a world famous photographer who graced the front page of radikal last sunday is in our office today and i may be lucky enough to get to eat some pizza with her. or her eat a salad and me a pizza. and no salad station for her because i'm morally opposed to their idiot slimy delivery guy who keeps ripping me off for a few lira every time he delivers. hatehatehate.
interesting fact about the term idiot:
A dunce is an idiot who is specifically incapable of learning. An idiot differs from a fool (who is unwise) and an ignoramus (who is uneducated/an ignorant), neither of which refers to someone with low intelligence.so the word idiot actually comes from the same word for an individual. really interesting etymology - being concerned with oneself rather than the community, which was the 'state of nature' human, changed only through education. but wouldn't that make the idiot really an ignoramus?
DAY NINETY SOMETHING
like so many uplifting stories, this one starts with cruelty and heartbreak! but ends with a crow adopting a kitten, so it's awesome.
i'll update the date once i find it out - new browser means no saved dates yet.
it's reached a piles of kittens and puddles of puppies day already, and not even 11!
i saw an amazing show last night, and am very sad for those who wanted to see it but didn't get to. st. vincent was probably the best show i've seen in this city. this shoutout is for the chick with the very large, triangular purse, who got into an argument with me about whether or not her abnormally large purse was the reason that i kept bumping into her.
i was trying to look up why kaufors in turkey are mainly men, while in the US people who cut women's hair are mostly women, but instead found a very poorly cited article on wikipedia. xkcd to the rescue!
i learned on QI that the purple heart was used for seventh day adventists in concentration camps. i had no idea. instead, a poem by sylvia plath: you do not do, you do not do... and a much cuter one by ee cummings about a beautiful day:
who are you,little i
(five or six years old)
peering from some high
window;at the gold
of November sunset
(and feeling:that if day
has to become night
this is a beautiful way)
and a revelation! unlike what the jacket cover says, thick as a brick was actually NOT written by a little boy and was instead written by ian anderson, rock flautist extraordinare.
i'll update the date once i find it out - new browser means no saved dates yet.
it's reached a piles of kittens and puddles of puppies day already, and not even 11!
i saw an amazing show last night, and am very sad for those who wanted to see it but didn't get to. st. vincent was probably the best show i've seen in this city. this shoutout is for the chick with the very large, triangular purse, who got into an argument with me about whether or not her abnormally large purse was the reason that i kept bumping into her.
i was trying to look up why kaufors in turkey are mainly men, while in the US people who cut women's hair are mostly women, but instead found a very poorly cited article on wikipedia. xkcd to the rescue!
i learned on QI that the purple heart was used for seventh day adventists in concentration camps. i had no idea. instead, a poem by sylvia plath: you do not do, you do not do... and a much cuter one by ee cummings about a beautiful day:
who are you,little i
(five or six years old)
peering from some high
window;at the gold
of November sunset
(and feeling:that if day
has to become night
this is a beautiful way)
and a revelation! unlike what the jacket cover says, thick as a brick was actually NOT written by a little boy and was instead written by ian anderson, rock flautist extraordinare.
20 February 2012
DAY NINETY SIX
LONGFORM MONDAY!
A tale of 60 kidneys. Really cool and touching.
This is a guest post from my officemate's computer as mine's currently being upgraded. I can't decide which seat is better, but think mine is because it has a way nicer view and way more sun. Hers, however, has the screen hidden so that people walking by can't see what she's working or not working on.
The forgetting pill erases painful memories forever:
Yesterday there was a pinterest of one of my favorite poems by Brian Andreas, who runs the website storypeople.com. I know I've put some of them up here before, but this one's absolutely wonderful. Other favs:
The tattoo is weird, but the poems are nice.
God, which brings me to another point: would you get a bright eyes song tattooed on your wrist? With odd capitalization? I mean, don't get me wrong - I have one of the trashiest tattoos possible and I do love myself that song, but seriously?
Wait for further reviews of TOXIC BACHELORS as the day progresses.
A tale of 60 kidneys. Really cool and touching.
This is a guest post from my officemate's computer as mine's currently being upgraded. I can't decide which seat is better, but think mine is because it has a way nicer view and way more sun. Hers, however, has the screen hidden so that people walking by can't see what she's working or not working on.
The forgetting pill erases painful memories forever:
The memory is less like a movie, a permanent emulsion of chemicals on celluloid, and more like a play—subtly different each time it’s performed. In my brain, a network of cells is constantly being reconsolidated, rewritten, remade.This is so fascinating - series of chemicals create what we call memories, which are not actually created to focus on the past, but instead use those chemical tags in the future.
Yesterday there was a pinterest of one of my favorite poems by Brian Andreas, who runs the website storypeople.com. I know I've put some of them up here before, but this one's absolutely wonderful. Other favs:
“Don't you hear it? She asked & I shook my head no & then she started to dance & suddenly there was music everywhere & it went on for a very long time & when I finally found words all I could say was thank you.”And more on goodreads (though I like reading through the storypeople site to see the artwork too).
The tattoo is weird, but the poems are nice.
God, which brings me to another point: would you get a bright eyes song tattooed on your wrist? With odd capitalization? I mean, don't get me wrong - I have one of the trashiest tattoos possible and I do love myself that song, but seriously?
Wait for further reviews of TOXIC BACHELORS as the day progresses.
17 February 2012
DAY NINETY FIVE POST SEVEN
She stoled my idea for a blog post about runiform. As we all know from the back of a 5 manat bill (Azerbaijan, not Turkmenistan, which would be an easy mistake), runiform's the shit.
BUT WAIT! Fun fact. I think that Denwood told me that French uses anticipatory counting for certain numbers. HA! Take that actually well researched blog that steals my idea! Finnish! Danish! Other references only my officemate will understand unless you too google the search term! God, remember those people who think in North-South-East-West rather than left or right? How confusing!
NOTE: i forgot to spell turkmenistan correctly. IT ALMOST MADE MY BLOG LOOK LESS CREDIBLE. thank god for my ever eagle eyed editing!
BUT WAIT! Fun fact. I think that Denwood told me that French uses anticipatory counting for certain numbers. HA! Take that actually well researched blog that steals my idea! Finnish! Danish! Other references only my officemate will understand unless you too google the search term! God, remember those people who think in North-South-East-West rather than left or right? How confusing!
NOTE: i forgot to spell turkmenistan correctly. IT ALMOST MADE MY BLOG LOOK LESS CREDIBLE. thank god for my ever eagle eyed editing!
DAY NINETY FIVE POST SIX
TIME KEEPS ON SLIPPING SLIPPING SLIPPING INTO THE FUTURE
we all remember when i had to do the research about time being linear for debate? yea? nay? i was so mad at that. so mad. circular time grr. almost as annoyed as when i had to do research on the stupid salmon case and found a narrative written from the perspective of a goldfish from PETA about how horrible its life was and happily included the NARRATIVE OF A FISH into the file. god, i was an annoying vegan (as if there are any other kinds) back then, wasn't i? RUNEFORM! RUNIFORM!
this whole post is going to be about numbers and time. and numbers.
i'd like to throw out there that my officemate keeps reading articles but she won't tell me what they're about and she says I need to wait until I read the blog. Thus, my ONLY source of entertainment for the day won't talk to me :(
AND XKCD COMES IN WITH A TOPICAL COMIC! remember the rollover text!!
you know what word i *really* don't like? cisgender. WHY? cissexual?
we all remember when i had to do the research about time being linear for debate? yea? nay? i was so mad at that. so mad. circular time grr. almost as annoyed as when i had to do research on the stupid salmon case and found a narrative written from the perspective of a goldfish from PETA about how horrible its life was and happily included the NARRATIVE OF A FISH into the file. god, i was an annoying vegan (as if there are any other kinds) back then, wasn't i? RUNEFORM! RUNIFORM!
this whole post is going to be about numbers and time. and numbers.
i'd like to throw out there that my officemate keeps reading articles but she won't tell me what they're about and she says I need to wait until I read the blog. Thus, my ONLY source of entertainment for the day won't talk to me :(
AND XKCD COMES IN WITH A TOPICAL COMIC! remember the rollover text!!
you know what word i *really* don't like? cisgender. WHY? cissexual?
DAY NINETY FIVE POST FIVE
"The kind of women he went out with had rarely had easy lives, most of them had been molested by male relatives..."
DAY NINETY FIVE POST FOUR
THIS IS A BLOG ABOUT UYGUR AND ITS ANTICIPATORY COUNTING SYSTEM USING RUNE FORM
DAY NINETY FIVE POST THREE
"He hadn't knocked anyone unconscious and raped them yet."
The book continues to incoherently ramble from assorted characters' viewpoints - never clear which one is thinking what's on the page. much like my blog, the book is verbal vomit of unclear statements and flitting ideas, but with a way, way, way more horrible message.
The book continues to incoherently ramble from assorted characters' viewpoints - never clear which one is thinking what's on the page. much like my blog, the book is verbal vomit of unclear statements and flitting ideas, but with a way, way, way more horrible message.
DAY NINETY FIVE POST TWO
"She was a very pretty woman after all, no matter how many degrees she had." Danielle Steel tearing up the pages with yet another winning passage!
DAY NINETY FIVE
rocking out to some old school tori amos is a great way to begin the day (cornflake girl, playboy mommy) and relevant for liz's internet searches yesterday, jackie's strength. her concerts have been some of my favorite of my life, especially with ben folds and rufus wainwright. SO MUCH TORI.
My least favorite website of all time is this one, if only because it's resulted in my officemate rolling around on the ground several times over the past few days. i'd highly recommend putting fake grad program results on there, as i'm planning on doing. why yes, i did get full funding and a very nice package from stanford, thankyouverymuch. also, here's for umich and not california! a squared what what! so much cooler! and with a caitybeth and arie too, and a justin to boot!
I really like the new theme that i've got for the blog: totally hideous stuff found on etsy.
Like this, a sweater targetted towards a very specific person. and here's the song you'd have to listen to while wearing it.
Not completely related, but what is barbie wearing here? well, i guess it becomes clearer upon looking at this person's other products.
ew. this is a freaky thing. i do not think the bunny is cute.
My least favorite website of all time is this one, if only because it's resulted in my officemate rolling around on the ground several times over the past few days. i'd highly recommend putting fake grad program results on there, as i'm planning on doing. why yes, i did get full funding and a very nice package from stanford, thankyouverymuch. also, here's for umich and not california! a squared what what! so much cooler! and with a caitybeth and arie too, and a justin to boot!
I really like the new theme that i've got for the blog: totally hideous stuff found on etsy.
Like this, a sweater targetted towards a very specific person. and here's the song you'd have to listen to while wearing it.
Not completely related, but what is barbie wearing here? well, i guess it becomes clearer upon looking at this person's other products.
ew. this is a freaky thing. i do not think the bunny is cute.
16 February 2012
DAY NINETY FOUR POST THREE
Apparently, this is called hypercorrection (though i think that it's just poor editing and conjugation problems):
"She was one of those women who were interesting."
Hypercorrection is interesting because it relates to one of my favorite tales, told by a famous doctor.
INSPIRED BY Homemade hilarity, and continually underwhelmed by what must be the worst Danielle Steel novel of all time, I present for you today:
HOMEMADE CRAP!
A donkey wearing sunglasses.
Some sticks poorly woven into a 'wreath' along with something that approximates - sort of - a heart.
I honestly have no idea what the hell this is supposed to be, but it frightens me. To the core. It does say that it'd make a great housewarming gift. I am just putting this out for all to read: please, please, never get me this as a housewarming gift. Please read the discription here (excerpts below) regarding some of her other goods, most as good as the... whatever... above.
"She was one of those women who were interesting."
Hypercorrection is interesting because it relates to one of my favorite tales, told by a famous doctor.
INSPIRED BY Homemade hilarity, and continually underwhelmed by what must be the worst Danielle Steel novel of all time, I present for you today:
HOMEMADE CRAP!
A donkey wearing sunglasses.
Some sticks poorly woven into a 'wreath' along with something that approximates - sort of - a heart.
I honestly have no idea what the hell this is supposed to be, but it frightens me. To the core. It does say that it'd make a great housewarming gift. I am just putting this out for all to read: please, please, never get me this as a housewarming gift. Please read the discription here (excerpts below) regarding some of her other goods, most as good as the... whatever... above.
can put anything on top of a cup cake..
Any color icing or cup cake liner..check,stripes,flowers polka dots,etc.
Flags..no flags..names on flags anything on the flags.. wedding dates..birth dates
Solid flags no stripes..fruit on top
Handmade sprinkles ..glitter
DAY NINETY FOUR POST TWO
Charlie's going to meet the woman who will help change him from a TOXIC BACHELOR into a whipped yet happy husband. How do I know this? Let the excerpt give it away:
"From what he'd read of her, she was an impressive young woman, and the only other thing he knew about her was that she was thirty-four years old. He had no idea what she looked like, and had only spoken to her on teh phone. She had been professional and businesslike, but had sounded kind and warm... She was young, but allegedly capable... No matter how well trained and capable she was, she also had some powerful connections... He noticed a sign inviting neighborhood women to come to a group twice a week, to talk about preventing child abuse."
Note that Charlie's the one who wants a high society woman to stay at home -- BUT DOES HE????? I suspect this spitfire of an obviously well-heeled woman will change his mind! And this is coming off of Gray FINALLY falling for a woman who's not clinically insane (my question is why Gray pays for all the womens' therapy, while apparently not recognizing the he himself had some sort of mental illness where he was attracted to completely insane women).
Please also notice the unnecessary comma in the excerpt, along with the rather improper use of the word 'but' in the description of the youthful community center leader. Oh god, and it gets worse, particularly in the punctuation department (and becomes clear he's gotta get with her):
"She looked as though she should have been a model not a social worker."
"From what he'd read of her, she was an impressive young woman, and the only other thing he knew about her was that she was thirty-four years old. He had no idea what she looked like, and had only spoken to her on teh phone. She had been professional and businesslike, but had sounded kind and warm... She was young, but allegedly capable... No matter how well trained and capable she was, she also had some powerful connections... He noticed a sign inviting neighborhood women to come to a group twice a week, to talk about preventing child abuse."
Note that Charlie's the one who wants a high society woman to stay at home -- BUT DOES HE????? I suspect this spitfire of an obviously well-heeled woman will change his mind! And this is coming off of Gray FINALLY falling for a woman who's not clinically insane (my question is why Gray pays for all the womens' therapy, while apparently not recognizing the he himself had some sort of mental illness where he was attracted to completely insane women).
Please also notice the unnecessary comma in the excerpt, along with the rather improper use of the word 'but' in the description of the youthful community center leader. Oh god, and it gets worse, particularly in the punctuation department (and becomes clear he's gotta get with her):
"She looked as though she should have been a model not a social worker."
DAY NINETY FOUR
last night movie win!
nosferatu is "a classic 1922 German Expressionist horror film, directed by F. W. Murnau, starring Max Schreck as the vampire Count Orlok." I thought I was goign to dislike it, but it was really engrossing and I'd highly recommend it to everyone! This is particularly relevant because it was hotly contested as a violation of Dracula's copyright, and was being shown as an artistic protest to oppressive online and off line ownership regimes that work to stifle art. Very in line with the article I posted yesterday (Read through to the end) which is a fascinating look at the use and re-use of cultural products.
really, play sweatshop. it's kinda addicting.
google maps is the best. tru that double true. liz and i have been looking at google maps all day. i've seen more of the alpine themed gaylord than one would ever think possible, though i've seen it all in real life as well. and hold up! EGR's not part of GR charter township!
upon looking at the formerly veggie cooperative house bower, i now realize why all of our neighbors in the very nice whitehills neighborhood complained about us.
nosferatu is "a classic 1922 German Expressionist horror film, directed by F. W. Murnau, starring Max Schreck as the vampire Count Orlok." I thought I was goign to dislike it, but it was really engrossing and I'd highly recommend it to everyone! This is particularly relevant because it was hotly contested as a violation of Dracula's copyright, and was being shown as an artistic protest to oppressive online and off line ownership regimes that work to stifle art. Very in line with the article I posted yesterday (Read through to the end) which is a fascinating look at the use and re-use of cultural products.
really, play sweatshop. it's kinda addicting.
google maps is the best. tru that double true. liz and i have been looking at google maps all day. i've seen more of the alpine themed gaylord than one would ever think possible, though i've seen it all in real life as well. and hold up! EGR's not part of GR charter township!
upon looking at the formerly veggie cooperative house bower, i now realize why all of our neighbors in the very nice whitehills neighborhood complained about us.
15 February 2012
DAY NINETY THREE POST FOUR
wow, it appears that after a really, really great night's sleep, i'm a bundle of hard-wired energy.
ONTO THE GAMING REVIEWS!
I first heard of sweatshop through some sort of tv show I watched on a swivel TV in Zaid's combined living room/bed room. The game is quite entertaining and a lot less sweatshop-owner identified than i thought it would be. i get bonuses for not killing people!
ONTO THE GAMING REVIEWS!
I first heard of sweatshop through some sort of tv show I watched on a swivel TV in Zaid's combined living room/bed room. The game is quite entertaining and a lot less sweatshop-owner identified than i thought it would be. i get bonuses for not killing people!
DAY NINETY THREE POST THREE
an open letter to sonicWALL content filtering service software protection
Dear SonicWALL,
I know you first from your intrusion into the most well-researched blog ever, a two thousand page treatise being written by Liz DeLuca into the history of everything relating, directly or indirectly, to transportation. Called (Trans)portation: A Theory of Place to S/pace, it will be heralded by academics for years to come. Unfortunately, SonicWALL has other ideas, and chose to block "End Transit Racism" (Bus Riders Union) as pornography. I'd link to it, but we receive the following warning:
SonicWALL Network Security Appliance
Alert
This site has been blocked by the network administrator.
URL: http://users.resist.ca/bru.resist.ca/end_transit_r...
Block reason: Forbidden Category "Pornography"
If you believe the below web site is rated incorrectly click here.
Deciding to take them up on their offer, but on a website I'm personally a bit more invested in, I decided to click on facebook.com, which is blocked because SonicWALL alleges it is 'social networking'. This allegation - which I will not concede true - has led me to the page allowing me to view their various categories for blocking webpages.
Number One: Violence/Hate
SonicWALL, I'm disappointed in you. You've failed to block any of the websites I've looked up on "how to kill a person without getting caught" or "i hate jews" and even "kill all muslims."
Number Two: Intimate apparel/swimsuit
Seriously? Seriously? You're going to block UNDERWEAR pages? But I *want* to look at swimsuits and underwear, and possibly even buy them. You're not blocking boring guy pages (insert essentialist guy-activity like sports).
Number Three: Nudism
Okay, you've blocked one of the top hits for "nudism" on google. But don't you think this category is a bit broad? There's nudity in a lot of works of art, and it seems that merely having a naked figure alone would be enough to block most of the women's magazines in Turkey and Europe, and many art galleries globally.
Number Four: Pornography
Fair enough, but I'm still hesitant to call End Transit Racism a porn site, unless it's got some really oddball marketing strategies.
Number Five: Weapons
Weapons Universe isn't blocked, nor is the Gun Source. Other than possibly workplace violence, what justification do you have for prohibiting employees from buying weapons online??
Number Six: Adult/Mature Content
In a world with pornography, do you really need a separate category?
Number Seven: Cult/Occult
I'm not entirely sure you actually mean "occult." I'm interested in who gets to make the determination of what a 'cult' is. Is it a particular government? Is it YOU, SonicWALL? Is it your users? Christian Science isn't considered to be a cult, nor is Falun Gong, nor is the Church of Satan, and why the hell does Wikipedia have the Quakers (<3) as a cult?! And Bahai? SonicWALL, given the lack of respect I already have for you, I don't really think that I'll agree with your designations of what is a 'cult' or not. Number Eight: Drugs/Illegal Drugs Illegal changes by country, but fine. You've still failed to block Erwoids and ecstacydata.org Number Nine: Illegal Skills/Questionable Skills What are questionable skills? Does that include the ability to write a treatise on (Trans)portation? The ability to identify different drugs (addressed in number eight)? Also, knowing how to do illegal things may help you avoid having them happen to you! Number Ten: Sex Education This is taught in grade school, middle school and high school, but is considered to be too risque to be accessed on a work computer?? Isn't this the kind of thing that if an adult thinks or needs to learn about, they should be allowed, nay, encouraged to, so they don't think that the urethra and vagina are the same thing?
Number 11: Gambling
Fair enough
Number 12: Alcohol/Tobacco
Why? I don't understand the justification for this.
Number 13: Chat/IM
Jerks. Plus, I need this for my work sometimes.
Number 14: Arts/Entertainment
What. The. Fuck. Seriously? You block pages associated with art or entertainment? What. The. Fuck. Thank god it looks like not enough people have tried to go to these pages, so most of them are not blocked... or people are not such narcs that they rat out those HORRIBLE ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT pages destroying the very fabric of our society.
Number 15: Business and Economy
Business and fucking economy pages are blocked for a law firm? BUSINESS AND FUCKING ECONOMY ARE IMPORTANT THINGS TO KNOW. For instance, I regularly have to use 'business and economy' (and central banking) information to determine the value of currencies for various cases and projects we are working on. I have to research past or present economic conditions. Regardless, who's going to eschew work to learn about businesses or economies and NOT come out a better person?!? This is by far the most ridiculous category thus far.
Number 16: Abortion/Advocacy Groups
SonicWALL, I'm not sure if you mean Abortion Advocacy groups, or just abortion groups AND advocacy groups, but if it's the latter, lil broad, don't you think? And the former: I don't see you banning other sorts of advocacy groups that others agree with but I don't. That being said, if you really wanted to block abortion groups, you've failed to block NARAL Pro-Choice America. Nor does it block "prochoice.com", a website that contains such helpful information as: "Abortion... How much does it cost? The ultimate price, your baby's life, your self esteem and maybe your life." (though, of course, i've now used your helpful referral service to request an unfair unilateral screening of such objectionable content).
Number 17: Education
Education. Is. A. Blocked. Category?
Number 18: There is no 18. IS THIS A JEWISH CONSPIRACY?? The Hebrew word for "life" is ×—×™ (chai), which has a numerical value of 18. Consequently, the custom has arisen in Jewish circles to give donations and monetary gifts in multiples of 18 as an expression of blessing for long life.
I'm just going to list the rest here, only noting the ones that are particularly stupid, since from here on out, they're all incredibly idiotic:
Cultural institutions, online banking, online brokerage, games, governmetn, military, political groups, health, computing, hacking/proxies, search engines, email, web communications, job search, news, personals/dating (damn you! and just when I was stricking up quite amusing conversations with several seriously deranged men), usenet news groups (gag me with a spoon, is it 1989 or what?!), reference, religion, shopping, internet auctions, real estate, society and lifestyle, gay and lesbian 'issues', RESTAURANTS AND DINING, sports, travel, vehicles, humor, mp3s, freeware, pay to surf, KID FRIENDLY, advertisement, web hosting, and last, and most sad:
Social Networking :(
on the bright side -- as should be anticipated by SonicWALLs inclusion of USENET GROUPS -- SERIOUSLY -- USENET??? -- the ban doesn't apply to youtube or many of the proxy servers.
SCREW YOU SONICWALL!
UPDATE:
1. a) I found the category markings for SonicWALL's categories. Cult/Occult:
Sites that promote or offer methods, means of instruction, or other resources to affect or influence real events through the use of spells, curses, magic powers or supernatural beings.
www.phlums.com / www.terrificator.com
(do they seriously need to ban this?)
b) death:
Sites that depict extreme physical harm to people or property, or that advocate or provide instructions on how to cause such harm. Also includes sites that advocate, depict hostility or aggression toward, or denigrate an individual or group on the basis of race, religion, gender, nationality, ethnic origin, or other involuntary characteristics.
note that the website they give as an example doesn't seem to be that kind of site.
2. It looks like our network admin gets to choose categories to block. I know this because the drugs category includes such websites as hightimes, which we can still access (and hey, that hookah bong festerizer SHOULD have been on the cover, eh?)
3. I would like to congratulate SonicWALL for calling www.cdhh.org a "sex-education" website. The website is actually the Center for Communication, Hearing & Deafness. I'm a little confused how they think this is sex ed....
In conclusion, I hate you and your paternalistic bent. I hate you so much, and I'd like you to know that no matter how much you try, we at the office will still be able to get around you, if only to set up that meeting with the guy who's into Cosplay and said he'll come meet me with a real parrot.
UDPATE
and they blocked couchsurfing. hatred.
Dear SonicWALL,
I know you first from your intrusion into the most well-researched blog ever, a two thousand page treatise being written by Liz DeLuca into the history of everything relating, directly or indirectly, to transportation. Called (Trans)portation: A Theory of Place to S/pace, it will be heralded by academics for years to come. Unfortunately, SonicWALL has other ideas, and chose to block "End Transit Racism" (Bus Riders Union) as pornography. I'd link to it, but we receive the following warning:
SonicWALL Network Security Appliance
Alert
This site has been blocked by the network administrator.
URL: http://users.resist.ca/bru.resist.ca/end_transit_r...
Block reason: Forbidden Category "Pornography"
If you believe the below web site is rated incorrectly click here.
Deciding to take them up on their offer, but on a website I'm personally a bit more invested in, I decided to click on facebook.com, which is blocked because SonicWALL alleges it is 'social networking'. This allegation - which I will not concede true - has led me to the page allowing me to view their various categories for blocking webpages.
Number One: Violence/Hate
SonicWALL, I'm disappointed in you. You've failed to block any of the websites I've looked up on "how to kill a person without getting caught" or "i hate jews" and even "kill all muslims."
Number Two: Intimate apparel/swimsuit
Seriously? Seriously? You're going to block UNDERWEAR pages? But I *want* to look at swimsuits and underwear, and possibly even buy them. You're not blocking boring guy pages (insert essentialist guy-activity like sports).
Number Three: Nudism
Okay, you've blocked one of the top hits for "nudism" on google. But don't you think this category is a bit broad? There's nudity in a lot of works of art, and it seems that merely having a naked figure alone would be enough to block most of the women's magazines in Turkey and Europe, and many art galleries globally.
Number Four: Pornography
Fair enough, but I'm still hesitant to call End Transit Racism a porn site, unless it's got some really oddball marketing strategies.
Number Five: Weapons
Weapons Universe isn't blocked, nor is the Gun Source. Other than possibly workplace violence, what justification do you have for prohibiting employees from buying weapons online??
Number Six: Adult/Mature Content
In a world with pornography, do you really need a separate category?
Number Seven: Cult/Occult
I'm not entirely sure you actually mean "occult." I'm interested in who gets to make the determination of what a 'cult' is. Is it a particular government? Is it YOU, SonicWALL? Is it your users? Christian Science isn't considered to be a cult, nor is Falun Gong, nor is the Church of Satan, and why the hell does Wikipedia have the Quakers (<3) as a cult?! And Bahai? SonicWALL, given the lack of respect I already have for you, I don't really think that I'll agree with your designations of what is a 'cult' or not. Number Eight: Drugs/Illegal Drugs Illegal changes by country, but fine. You've still failed to block Erwoids and ecstacydata.org Number Nine: Illegal Skills/Questionable Skills What are questionable skills? Does that include the ability to write a treatise on (Trans)portation? The ability to identify different drugs (addressed in number eight)? Also, knowing how to do illegal things may help you avoid having them happen to you! Number Ten: Sex Education This is taught in grade school, middle school and high school, but is considered to be too risque to be accessed on a work computer?? Isn't this the kind of thing that if an adult thinks or needs to learn about, they should be allowed, nay, encouraged to, so they don't think that the urethra and vagina are the same thing?
Number 11: Gambling
Fair enough
Number 12: Alcohol/Tobacco
Why? I don't understand the justification for this.
Number 13: Chat/IM
Jerks. Plus, I need this for my work sometimes.
Number 14: Arts/Entertainment
What. The. Fuck. Seriously? You block pages associated with art or entertainment? What. The. Fuck. Thank god it looks like not enough people have tried to go to these pages, so most of them are not blocked... or people are not such narcs that they rat out those HORRIBLE ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT pages destroying the very fabric of our society.
Number 15: Business and Economy
Business and fucking economy pages are blocked for a law firm? BUSINESS AND FUCKING ECONOMY ARE IMPORTANT THINGS TO KNOW. For instance, I regularly have to use 'business and economy' (and central banking) information to determine the value of currencies for various cases and projects we are working on. I have to research past or present economic conditions. Regardless, who's going to eschew work to learn about businesses or economies and NOT come out a better person?!? This is by far the most ridiculous category thus far.
Number 16: Abortion/Advocacy Groups
SonicWALL, I'm not sure if you mean Abortion Advocacy groups, or just abortion groups AND advocacy groups, but if it's the latter, lil broad, don't you think? And the former: I don't see you banning other sorts of advocacy groups that others agree with but I don't. That being said, if you really wanted to block abortion groups, you've failed to block NARAL Pro-Choice America. Nor does it block "prochoice.com", a website that contains such helpful information as: "Abortion... How much does it cost? The ultimate price, your baby's life, your self esteem and maybe your life." (though, of course, i've now used your helpful referral service to request an unfair unilateral screening of such objectionable content).
Number 17: Education
Education. Is. A. Blocked. Category?
Number 18: There is no 18. IS THIS A JEWISH CONSPIRACY?? The Hebrew word for "life" is ×—×™ (chai), which has a numerical value of 18. Consequently, the custom has arisen in Jewish circles to give donations and monetary gifts in multiples of 18 as an expression of blessing for long life.
I'm just going to list the rest here, only noting the ones that are particularly stupid, since from here on out, they're all incredibly idiotic:
Cultural institutions, online banking, online brokerage, games, governmetn, military, political groups, health, computing, hacking/proxies, search engines, email, web communications, job search, news, personals/dating (damn you! and just when I was stricking up quite amusing conversations with several seriously deranged men), usenet news groups (gag me with a spoon, is it 1989 or what?!), reference, religion, shopping, internet auctions, real estate, society and lifestyle, gay and lesbian 'issues', RESTAURANTS AND DINING, sports, travel, vehicles, humor, mp3s, freeware, pay to surf, KID FRIENDLY, advertisement, web hosting, and last, and most sad:
Social Networking :(
on the bright side -- as should be anticipated by SonicWALLs inclusion of USENET GROUPS -- SERIOUSLY -- USENET??? -- the ban doesn't apply to youtube or many of the proxy servers.
SCREW YOU SONICWALL!
UPDATE:
1. a) I found the category markings for SonicWALL's categories. Cult/Occult:
Sites that promote or offer methods, means of instruction, or other resources to affect or influence real events through the use of spells, curses, magic powers or supernatural beings.
www.phlums.com / www.terrificator.com
(do they seriously need to ban this?)
b) death:
Sites that depict extreme physical harm to people or property, or that advocate or provide instructions on how to cause such harm. Also includes sites that advocate, depict hostility or aggression toward, or denigrate an individual or group on the basis of race, religion, gender, nationality, ethnic origin, or other involuntary characteristics.
note that the website they give as an example doesn't seem to be that kind of site.
2. It looks like our network admin gets to choose categories to block. I know this because the drugs category includes such websites as hightimes, which we can still access (and hey, that hookah bong festerizer SHOULD have been on the cover, eh?)
3. I would like to congratulate SonicWALL for calling www.cdhh.org a "sex-education" website. The website is actually the Center for Communication, Hearing & Deafness. I'm a little confused how they think this is sex ed....
In conclusion, I hate you and your paternalistic bent. I hate you so much, and I'd like you to know that no matter how much you try, we at the office will still be able to get around you, if only to set up that meeting with the guy who's into Cosplay and said he'll come meet me with a real parrot.
UDPATE
and they blocked couchsurfing. hatred.
DAY NINETY THREE POST TWO
on the heels of my previous posts about metaphysics and the ownership of ideas, i'd like to include a critically important book review.
BOOK REVIEW TIME!!
TOXIC BACHELORS BY DANIELLE STEEL
Random House Publishers (Transworld Publishers) 2005
This is one of the worst books I have ever read. It actually recycles sentences over and over in subsequent paragraphs. We all get it: Gray is a famous, but poor artist who goes for crazy chicks his own age probably from his own crazy childhood, Charlie wants the ultimate affluent stay at home wife after the traumatic death of every single family member he has but which gifted him his ENORMOUS wealth (he has a huge yacht!!), and Adam is still really pissed that Rachel dumped him 10 years before, though he really loves his two kids, and goes after dumb girls who are 20 years old - easy since he's a SUPER POWERFUL ENTERTAINMENT LAWYER!!!
Please cut and remix the sentence above there and get pages 1-50 of TOXIC BACHELORS. Add in some generic descriptive terms of hot chicks at restaurants (often topless!) and St. Tropez/other vacay islands and you have TOXIC BACHELORS.
Though I have not yet read through to the end, I'm going to predict the following:
Each man will meet a woman who turns what he thought he wanted on its head, and he'll find nearly instant love and happiness!! But it will be hard because oh my god was it what he really wanted because he is a (starving artist afraid of committments/woman hater because no woman is perfect enough and god damn a lot of them want to work outside the home/woman hater because his evil bitch wife left him over a decade ago)! Don't fear, in the end, the nearly perfect and much-better-than-the-man heroines will come along to change our TOXIC BACHELORS. All of this with some very bland and incredibly unreaslistic relationship-development-arches.
I highly recommend avoiding TOXIC BACHELORS today. And would like to remind Danielle Steel that although I understand there's some artistic license in the English language, she's gotta stop, using commas, for the hell, of it. And stop with the run on sentences, God didn't your editor say something like "Hey Dani, I think maybe instead of putting commas here, thus creating a run on sentence, you should put a semi-colon?" Given how terrible this 'work' is, I'd wager that a semi-colon would be offputting for the people who actually make it to page 100, where I am now.
ONE STAR OUT OF TEN
BOOK REVIEW TIME!!
TOXIC BACHELORS BY DANIELLE STEEL
Random House Publishers (Transworld Publishers) 2005
This is one of the worst books I have ever read. It actually recycles sentences over and over in subsequent paragraphs. We all get it: Gray is a famous, but poor artist who goes for crazy chicks his own age probably from his own crazy childhood, Charlie wants the ultimate affluent stay at home wife after the traumatic death of every single family member he has but which gifted him his ENORMOUS wealth (he has a huge yacht!!), and Adam is still really pissed that Rachel dumped him 10 years before, though he really loves his two kids, and goes after dumb girls who are 20 years old - easy since he's a SUPER POWERFUL ENTERTAINMENT LAWYER!!!
Please cut and remix the sentence above there and get pages 1-50 of TOXIC BACHELORS. Add in some generic descriptive terms of hot chicks at restaurants (often topless!) and St. Tropez/other vacay islands and you have TOXIC BACHELORS.
Though I have not yet read through to the end, I'm going to predict the following:
Each man will meet a woman who turns what he thought he wanted on its head, and he'll find nearly instant love and happiness!! But it will be hard because oh my god was it what he really wanted because he is a (starving artist afraid of committments/woman hater because no woman is perfect enough and god damn a lot of them want to work outside the home/woman hater because his evil bitch wife left him over a decade ago)! Don't fear, in the end, the nearly perfect and much-better-than-the-man heroines will come along to change our TOXIC BACHELORS. All of this with some very bland and incredibly unreaslistic relationship-development-arches.
I highly recommend avoiding TOXIC BACHELORS today. And would like to remind Danielle Steel that although I understand there's some artistic license in the English language, she's gotta stop, using commas, for the hell, of it. And stop with the run on sentences, God didn't your editor say something like "Hey Dani, I think maybe instead of putting commas here, thus creating a run on sentence, you should put a semi-colon?" Given how terrible this 'work' is, I'd wager that a semi-colon would be offputting for the people who actually make it to page 100, where I am now.
ONE STAR OUT OF TEN
DAY NINETY THREE
Today is a longform day!
The search for a metaphysicist. My favorite annual meeting name ever? Mighty Midwestern Meta physical Mayhem. The article reminds me of my purple hair days but with more cool sleuthing and less Nietzsche and Heidegger.
Read through to the end:
The search for a metaphysicist. My favorite annual meeting name ever? Mighty Midwestern Meta physical Mayhem. The article reminds me of my purple hair days but with more cool sleuthing and less Nietzsche and Heidegger.
Read through to the end:
Any text is woven entirely with citations, references, echoes, cultural languages, which cut across it through and through in a vast stereophony. The citations that go to make up a text are anonymous, untraceable, and yet already read; they are quotations without inverted commas. The kernel, the soul—let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances—is plagiarism. For substantially all ideas are secondhand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily used by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral caliber and his temperament, and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing. Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands. By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. Neurological study has lately shown that memory, imagination, and consciousness itself is stitched, quilted, pastiched. If we cut-and-paste our selves, might we not forgive it of our artworks?With a quote from my 1L torts prof and an author whose books I am sad to have lost while in Istanbul, de Certeau.
14 February 2012
DAY NINETY TWO
i'm not okay with chris brown performing at the grammys and am not sure why you are. Tried to link to this yesterday but the post was way overloaded.
“We’re glad to have him back,” said executive producer Ken Ehrlich. “I think people deserve a second chance, you know. If you’ll note, he has not been on the Grammys for the past few years and it may have taken us a while to kind of get over the fact that we were the victim of what happened.”Forbes.com chimes in as well, with a strategy that didn't work so well for Feministe blogger Hugo Schwyzer. Schwyzer's tale is obviously much more tough because he's critically, and publicly, examining his past... Unlike Brown, who's just a dick.
13 February 2012
DAY NINETY ONE
Why is Adelle so popular? Dopamine! Same with someone i used to know!
Science proves that women no longer need to play dumb to earn their M.R.S.! such a weird article given the educational achievements of the women i've known throughout my life.
CSM provides comprehensive health insurance to its employees. It's an awesome newspaper, so good on them. Sad that Catholic employers are up in arms about providing comprehensive health insurance covering contraceptions for their employees.
liz's mom is adorable.
which reminds me: my dad needs to update his blog more regularly. But if you have a second, read the politics page, which is a bit out of date (updates! updates!):
The Atlantic covers an issue which had been previously explored by RadioLab. Super interesting: the parasites that are within cat feces (the reason that pregnant women aren't supposed to change cat litter) could possibly affect human brains. The reason? They affect rat brains, making rats no longer afraid of the smell of cats - and actually attracted to cat urine - the parasites can only reproduce in cat guts. It may go a bit crazy in people, affecting our brains unintentionally, given that it really just wants to make rats like cats. It's associated with higher rates of schizophrenia, slower reaction times in humans (particularly car accidents), and other reactions - maybe even an attraction to cats, which would be a bit more intentional. Listen and read.
Science proves that women no longer need to play dumb to earn their M.R.S.! such a weird article given the educational achievements of the women i've known throughout my life.
CSM provides comprehensive health insurance to its employees. It's an awesome newspaper, so good on them. Sad that Catholic employers are up in arms about providing comprehensive health insurance covering contraceptions for their employees.
liz's mom is adorable.
which reminds me: my dad needs to update his blog more regularly. But if you have a second, read the politics page, which is a bit out of date (updates! updates!):
Everyone knocks W. I have to say that he must have something going for him, since he has been elected at least once.
The Atlantic covers an issue which had been previously explored by RadioLab. Super interesting: the parasites that are within cat feces (the reason that pregnant women aren't supposed to change cat litter) could possibly affect human brains. The reason? They affect rat brains, making rats no longer afraid of the smell of cats - and actually attracted to cat urine - the parasites can only reproduce in cat guts. It may go a bit crazy in people, affecting our brains unintentionally, given that it really just wants to make rats like cats. It's associated with higher rates of schizophrenia, slower reaction times in humans (particularly car accidents), and other reactions - maybe even an attraction to cats, which would be a bit more intentional. Listen and read.
10 February 2012
DAY NINETY
OH MY GOD IT'S BEEN NINETY DAYS!!
did you know that cats have way better vision than humans in the dark, pretty sure? I bet a lot of you knew that. What you didn't know was that this trait apparently also carries over to humans that carry the Cat name - like Cat Power, who I saw last night. Seeing better in the dark than normal humans, she stayed *only* in the shadows and as soon as light hit her, she moved back into the shadows. Until in an interesting twist, she played the drums (poorly) while being fully lit up.
Have you breaded your cat lately?
As all the loyal readers here know, today is Istanbul Prom. i welcome your entry into the dance off, limbo off, or prom royalty competition!
well i just had a fun excursion to the Turkish social security offices as part of an effort to get me Turkish national healthcare. Fun facts: the walls at the SGK office in Gumussuyu/Cihangir are shoaled up with sandbags and the bottom half of the building is deserted. The walls at the SGK office in Tunel are horrrrrrrrribly peeling and painted willy nilly different colors in a terribly impoverished way that's difficult to describe. Not surprisingly, both said different things about my required documents and steps to get health insurance. Also not surprisingly is that the outcome of it all is that I'm supposed to forge some documents and then repeat the process on monday. awesome!
did you know that cats have way better vision than humans in the dark, pretty sure? I bet a lot of you knew that. What you didn't know was that this trait apparently also carries over to humans that carry the Cat name - like Cat Power, who I saw last night. Seeing better in the dark than normal humans, she stayed *only* in the shadows and as soon as light hit her, she moved back into the shadows. Until in an interesting twist, she played the drums (poorly) while being fully lit up.
Have you breaded your cat lately?
As all the loyal readers here know, today is Istanbul Prom. i welcome your entry into the dance off, limbo off, or prom royalty competition!
well i just had a fun excursion to the Turkish social security offices as part of an effort to get me Turkish national healthcare. Fun facts: the walls at the SGK office in Gumussuyu/Cihangir are shoaled up with sandbags and the bottom half of the building is deserted. The walls at the SGK office in Tunel are horrrrrrrrribly peeling and painted willy nilly different colors in a terribly impoverished way that's difficult to describe. Not surprisingly, both said different things about my required documents and steps to get health insurance. Also not surprisingly is that the outcome of it all is that I'm supposed to forge some documents and then repeat the process on monday. awesome!
09 February 2012
DAY EIGHTY NINE
the days have grown so long that i've started transcribing stuff FOR FUN. at least, that's what i'm going to call it given that i can't believe people would work for so little.
clicks in english: serving a useful function. anyway!
i did a transcription today out of boredom. i did not agree with the politics espoused within. it was horrible. horrible!
clicks in english: serving a useful function. anyway!
i did a transcription today out of boredom. i did not agree with the politics espoused within. it was horrible. horrible!
08 February 2012
DAY EIGHTY EIGHT POST THREE
Rise and Shine Detroit! And with a shoutout to Go to Slows Bar BQ! Makes me miss the house in Corktown just two blocks away from the train station. And Habib! And the pronunciation of Livernois and Gratiot Ave. And I didn't know the Ste. Anne de Détroit was the second longest continually running Catholic church in the US! This article's way more chipper than yesterday's NYTimes!
DAY EIGHTY EIGHT POST TWO
also, can i say how sad it is that it's a company that's doing this cool stuff instead of like... NASA? :(
DAY EIGHTY EIGHT
those of you who are loyal readers - and i know there's a ton, word up to the odd latvian follower! - will realize that i messed up the numbering of my days. whoops. SO CLOSE TO NINETY!!!!!!
a vacuum sealed pack of love!
let's just pretend that i blogged about aeronautics engineers. i read about them so you don't have to. if you've got questions, i'll field them, but otherwise, way too boring to write about.
Using sorta-slave/severely underpaid labor to digitalize documents.
i never use reader any more after they stopped the sharing option. do others agree?
people say life's a journey, but i'm tired of wasting mine in transit.
hey! wait! there's actually one of the people i'm interested in in the news! back to aeronautics engineers:
the boards of canada video dayvan cowboy features three very cool videos: a free fall from 19 miles up, a big wave surfer, and a clip from the film Chrystal Voyager. Each thing is as cool as the last - very, very cool. Joseph Kittinger's the dude who got me interested in all these back in the day scientists. He rode up 20 miles into the atmosphere and, wearing a specially designed suit and parachute and made to be in a sitting position, jumped out. As Wiki so helpfully summarizes:
And, he's training Felix Baumgartner, who's also done some REALLY cool stuff and - like in Human Target - is a specialist in small space targetted landings. Unlike the show, though, he's a real person, and also holds a bunch of records for BASE jumping and parachuting and all sorts of cool things. Felix is going to break the sound barrier without being encased by any sort of vehicle! the last and only thing to say is that the article doesn't mention that the reason for the delay is not for the years of preparation but instead because of some Red Bull lawsuit.
a vacuum sealed pack of love!
let's just pretend that i blogged about aeronautics engineers. i read about them so you don't have to. if you've got questions, i'll field them, but otherwise, way too boring to write about.
Using sorta-slave/severely underpaid labor to digitalize documents.
i never use reader any more after they stopped the sharing option. do others agree?
people say life's a journey, but i'm tired of wasting mine in transit.
hey! wait! there's actually one of the people i'm interested in in the news! back to aeronautics engineers:
the boards of canada video dayvan cowboy features three very cool videos: a free fall from 19 miles up, a big wave surfer, and a clip from the film Chrystal Voyager. Each thing is as cool as the last - very, very cool. Joseph Kittinger's the dude who got me interested in all these back in the day scientists. He rode up 20 miles into the atmosphere and, wearing a specially designed suit and parachute and made to be in a sitting position, jumped out. As Wiki so helpfully summarizes:
He set historical numbers for highest balloon ascent, highest parachute jump, longest drogue-fall (four minutes), and fastest speed by a human being through the atmosphere.How cool is that?! He fell over four minutes straight and if you watch the video you'll see how incredibly far up he is - over four times higher than planes go. He reached speeds of over 600 mph!! Something malfunctioned in his suit and he passed out and his hand swelled to twice the normal size! Crazy!
And, he's training Felix Baumgartner, who's also done some REALLY cool stuff and - like in Human Target - is a specialist in small space targetted landings. Unlike the show, though, he's a real person, and also holds a bunch of records for BASE jumping and parachuting and all sorts of cool things. Felix is going to break the sound barrier without being encased by any sort of vehicle! the last and only thing to say is that the article doesn't mention that the reason for the delay is not for the years of preparation but instead because of some Red Bull lawsuit.
07 February 2012
DAY EIGHTY SIX
Controversy surrounding Chrysler's new commercial, "It's Halftime, America." Myself, I like last year's imported from Detroit more (some of the same images are featured in both). Watching videos about detroit is more fun! Like this one, a gospel rendition of Eminem's One Shot. And, for my favorite street in the world, ever, see this video and read this and this discussing a bit of the history of the Heidelberg project (and watch this video). The last one's particularly good at showing Detroit through the last 50 or so years, a woman who really likes to say 'literally', some cool poi, and a man who thinks Greenwich is 'literally' pronounced "green-wich". Encouraged viewing for all, and i'm sad i haven't seen it in at least four years.
And, for a much more depressing view, watch this one about dismantling Detroit. "Why's it going to China? So they can make shit, send it back here and sell it for more."
And, for a much more depressing view, watch this one about dismantling Detroit. "Why's it going to China? So they can make shit, send it back here and sell it for more."
DAY EIGHTY SIX
For those of you, who like me, love Turkish Airlines, you'll find some humor in this blog post. But make sure to read this post too, where you'll learn about how THY sometimes misses the right airport. Whoopsies!
How to fight the man! Turns out, the NYTimes thinks you need a grand world vision - rejecting the status quo isn't enough.
SO! onto aerospace engineers. Dr. John Stapp, also known as 'the fastest man alive' (differentiating him from comic book characters and also differentiating him from Kittinger, whose review is forthcoming), was a US air force officer and surgeon.
One of his most important works was where Murphy's law really got its name. Conventional wisdom was that pilots could only survive 18Gs of force. Stapp believed that people could withstand more than that - a lot more, particularly since Chuck Yeager (forthcoming) had just broken the sound barrier without dying.
To test how many Gs a person could survive, the scientists used a rocket sled track - a track used to test objects being hurtled at fast rates without actually flying them. This sort of track had previously been used by the Germans to launch rockets from underground during WW II. Such a rocket sled was set up in California. Equipped with a crash test dummy named Oscar the Eightball on a rocket named Gee Whiz, Stapp decided he wanted to do it himself. Before he could, the scientists needed to adequately test the tracks to make sure Stapp wouldn't fly off into the desert or fly out of the harnesses. Enter Murphy, who messed up the harness readings. Stapp pronounced such at a press conference (or did he?) and the name slowly took over human consciousness.
OTHER fun facts about Stapp include that he helped create modern crash test dummies. He also was one of the main reasons that cars now have seatbelts - his work on how many Gs humans could survive demonstrated that when adequately strapped in, the forces survivable were much higher (after the rocket experiments, the standard was raised from 18Gs to 32Gs). The military was all like "oh no Dr. Stapp, you can't research automobiles when you're supposed to care about pilots", but Stapp pointed out, rightly so, that more pilots were killed in automobile accidents than plane crashes.
Finally: remember how Ralph Nader's all known for being green and liking the environment and helping Gore lose the election? He first became famous for his work about Corvair. The tagline? UNSAFE AT ANY SPEED. The cool car my sister got many years back? The Corvair. (Hidden in my dad's blog is a picture of a car. Looks like we don't have a picture of the Corvair?) Stapp and Nader worked together to pass a series of regulations into law to improve safety of cars - roll bars and seat belts - while capitalism helped to change the composition of crunch zones from nice crunchy metal to cheap plastic.
And this concludes the most boring blog post ever. I may stop with the scientific blog posts and go back to pirates soon.
How to fight the man! Turns out, the NYTimes thinks you need a grand world vision - rejecting the status quo isn't enough.
SO! onto aerospace engineers. Dr. John Stapp, also known as 'the fastest man alive' (differentiating him from comic book characters and also differentiating him from Kittinger, whose review is forthcoming), was a US air force officer and surgeon.
One of his most important works was where Murphy's law really got its name. Conventional wisdom was that pilots could only survive 18Gs of force. Stapp believed that people could withstand more than that - a lot more, particularly since Chuck Yeager (forthcoming) had just broken the sound barrier without dying.
To test how many Gs a person could survive, the scientists used a rocket sled track - a track used to test objects being hurtled at fast rates without actually flying them. This sort of track had previously been used by the Germans to launch rockets from underground during WW II. Such a rocket sled was set up in California. Equipped with a crash test dummy named Oscar the Eightball on a rocket named Gee Whiz, Stapp decided he wanted to do it himself. Before he could, the scientists needed to adequately test the tracks to make sure Stapp wouldn't fly off into the desert or fly out of the harnesses. Enter Murphy, who messed up the harness readings. Stapp pronounced such at a press conference (or did he?) and the name slowly took over human consciousness.
OTHER fun facts about Stapp include that he helped create modern crash test dummies. He also was one of the main reasons that cars now have seatbelts - his work on how many Gs humans could survive demonstrated that when adequately strapped in, the forces survivable were much higher (after the rocket experiments, the standard was raised from 18Gs to 32Gs). The military was all like "oh no Dr. Stapp, you can't research automobiles when you're supposed to care about pilots", but Stapp pointed out, rightly so, that more pilots were killed in automobile accidents than plane crashes.
Finally: remember how Ralph Nader's all known for being green and liking the environment and helping Gore lose the election? He first became famous for his work about Corvair. The tagline? UNSAFE AT ANY SPEED. The cool car my sister got many years back? The Corvair. (Hidden in my dad's blog is a picture of a car. Looks like we don't have a picture of the Corvair?) Stapp and Nader worked together to pass a series of regulations into law to improve safety of cars - roll bars and seat belts - while capitalism helped to change the composition of crunch zones from nice crunchy metal to cheap plastic.
And this concludes the most boring blog post ever. I may stop with the scientific blog posts and go back to pirates soon.
06 February 2012
DAY EIGHTY SIX
well dubb ETHNIC (not dubb, as we found out on friday) is fantastic. excellent service and when it's 50% off, a great deal.
My recent interest in 1970s science fiction appears to have abated and has been replaced by an interest in 1940s-current aerospace engineers and various rocket tecnologies. This will be the WEEK OF THE ROCKETS AND SPACE AND PLANES oh my!
k a bit more history on murphy's law, which I think i posted about last week with almost no explanation. Read more about it here.
Murphy's law was not originally called such, but the concept has been there for over 140 years. There's reports of it in an 1877 journal, and it may have existed before that:
Identified variously as an engineering, magic, and mountaineering adage, it was still not known as Murphy's law. In fact, the first instance of it being called Murphy's law was in 1949, when the name still vied with Reilly and Strauss for a figurehead. While the folks involved with Murphy's work at the time didn't really like him, his name ultimately won out as the winner for whom the law was named after - a fact which he may not have known:
Turns out, Murphy was not too happy with the depiction of the reason that the law arose with his name associated with it (a long story regarding a test run on a series of tracks used to test rockets).
The most interesting part of the story is why one name won out over another, and why, historically, one series of ideas or thoughts wins out over others over time. Why did Murphy's name win? And for that, I have no answer, other than that perhaps it was because there was a story associated with it that people could tell on, rather than Reilly's and Strauss' laws, where they just associated it with the already well-known adage?
AND! in other news:
make yourself a rug!
way to go NYPD. fantastic showing regarding sensitivity towards this trans woman. belitting her, mocking her, asking about her genitals - very poor taste. but really - chaining her to a fence for 28 hours?
My recent interest in 1970s science fiction appears to have abated and has been replaced by an interest in 1940s-current aerospace engineers and various rocket tecnologies. This will be the WEEK OF THE ROCKETS AND SPACE AND PLANES oh my!
k a bit more history on murphy's law, which I think i posted about last week with almost no explanation. Read more about it here.
Murphy's law was not originally called such, but the concept has been there for over 140 years. There's reports of it in an 1877 journal, and it may have existed before that:
It is found that anything that can go wrong at sea generally does go wrong sooner or later.- Wikipedia article's quote
Identified variously as an engineering, magic, and mountaineering adage, it was still not known as Murphy's law. In fact, the first instance of it being called Murphy's law was in 1949, when the name still vied with Reilly and Strauss for a figurehead. While the folks involved with Murphy's work at the time didn't really like him, his name ultimately won out as the winner for whom the law was named after - a fact which he may not have known:
Up until that moment, he’d [Nichols] always assumed Ed Murphy knew that he was the Murphy. Now he became convinced that Ed hadn’t a clue about it, and was completely ignorant of his legacy. “He didn’t even know about Murphy’s Law until Bloch published his book,” Nichols says firmly. “And until I told him he was mentioned in it, he didn’t even get a copy.”
Turns out, Murphy was not too happy with the depiction of the reason that the law arose with his name associated with it (a long story regarding a test run on a series of tracks used to test rockets).
The most interesting part of the story is why one name won out over another, and why, historically, one series of ideas or thoughts wins out over others over time. Why did Murphy's name win? And for that, I have no answer, other than that perhaps it was because there was a story associated with it that people could tell on, rather than Reilly's and Strauss' laws, where they just associated it with the already well-known adage?
AND! in other news:
make yourself a rug!
way to go NYPD. fantastic showing regarding sensitivity towards this trans woman. belitting her, mocking her, asking about her genitals - very poor taste. but really - chaining her to a fence for 28 hours?
03 February 2012
DAY EIGHTY FIVE
Sadness is a blessing - what a wonderful song and video.
I am listening to every single remix of Gotye's songs I can find and fawning over him, my future husband and baby daddy. Every single one on soundcloud DONE!
Murphy's law is really interesting.
so tired. so very tired. tonight: first time i'll go to dubb, which is supposed to be one of the best indian food places in istanbul. given that there are only like, 5, it's not that hard, but whatever!
This is one of the most amazing covers to the Jurassic Park theme I've ever heard, and not just because it's the only one. Clocking in at like 15 seconds, listen up!
I am listening to every single remix of Gotye's songs I can find and fawning over him, my future husband and baby daddy. Every single one on soundcloud DONE!
Murphy's law is really interesting.
so tired. so very tired. tonight: first time i'll go to dubb, which is supposed to be one of the best indian food places in istanbul. given that there are only like, 5, it's not that hard, but whatever!
This is one of the most amazing covers to the Jurassic Park theme I've ever heard, and not just because it's the only one. Clocking in at like 15 seconds, listen up!
02 February 2012
DAY EIGHTY ONE TWO THREE AND FOUR
haven't been able to post because of quiz - don't want you to know what it's about.
rapist freed because victim didn't scream.
gist of the article: rapist freed from jail after a forensic report shows that the partially retarded (30+% mental impairment) woman who he had been coercing to have sex with threats of killing her for over two years didn't yell out, so it wasn't rape. those who can read turkish can clarify if i got that wrong.
Moving from Korea to America, he thought his Americanized name choice was a really good idea. Sadly, John Doe was wrong.
rapist freed because victim didn't scream.
gist of the article: rapist freed from jail after a forensic report shows that the partially retarded (30+% mental impairment) woman who he had been coercing to have sex with threats of killing her for over two years didn't yell out, so it wasn't rape. those who can read turkish can clarify if i got that wrong.
Moving from Korea to America, he thought his Americanized name choice was a really good idea. Sadly, John Doe was wrong.
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