peeling back the layers

Current Mood: cooped up

Found some articles about the future that I found thought provoking. I will share them here:

5 reasons the future will be ruled by b.s.
never really considered the implications of losing so much physical media infrastructure

A radical pessimist's guide to the next 10 years
I found this oddly comforting? not despite the pessimism, but almost because of it

5 creepy ways animal societies are organizing
I've been saying this for a long time now, the orcas are getting smarter - soon it will be less safe to go in the water

avoidance

Current Mood: procrastination

Technology good: summer has barely begun, but I've got an really powerful central a/c unit all to myself. My [old] apartment has a shitty window unit that barely keeps the living room cool, much less my room. My current room for the summer...I can make it downright chilly. I am thankful for that.

Technology bad: I think I may have damaged my speakers? My nice [relatively] new ones. Yesterday I was rocking out something fierce, and some of the higher notes have a really odd twine to them (it's hard to describe). Temporary solution: turn down the volume, which I will have to do soon anyway once the building gets more occupied. Also, note to self: do not listen to offensive songs when building gets more occupied. Possible but unlikely long term solution: buy newer, more powerful speakers?

Technology good: I am borrowing Jenny's roommate's mini-fridge for the summer. I'm trying to cut down on the number of things I own, so this doesn't count against me. While it is not a necessity, it's a nice thing to have sometimes. :D I miss my full apartment kitchen, dirty dishes and all.

Technology bad: No car. 95% of the time, not a problem, 5% of the time, a really big problem.

Technology good: Future apartment has a DVR and cable TV. This means that I should never miss out on my favorite shows again.

Technology bad: I'm gonna watch so much TV...

Technology good: Maybe I'm just more web savvy, but I don't know how much longer DVRs are needed. Seriously, I remember 6 months ago trying to find old TV episodes online was basically torrenting, hoping like hell somebody was hosting it for free on some obscure site, or watching it in 8 parts on YouTube before it was removed. Maybe the writer's strike really did something, but now there's much more accessible content online for TV - sites like TVLinks or Hulu, (or even more legit sites like NBC.com) and I really don't mind the ads. I really don't. So help me god, though, if it has to buffer excessively, or keeps skipping and freezing, or something like that, I'll go right back to finding better, ad-free solutions.

face the music

Current Mood: limbo

Soooo...life. Stuff. Things. As thrilled as I am to be back in school with a schedule and a purpose and such, I can't say it's gone too smoothly. Here are some thoughts.

I'm on track 2844 of 6599 of the Great Alpha Scrobble, in the middle of the "If" songs. That's about 43% complete. The halfway track is "L.A. Woman" by The Doors, one letter short of the middle of the alphabet. Technically it's between song 3299 and 3300, but oddly they're both the same song - one is a live version. It's been a test of willpower at times to resist switching tracks to listen to what I want at the time, and to get used to Led Zeppelin to Freezepop transitions. While this is a great look at some of my rarely-played tracks, I also am getting a better idea of what music of mine I can safely get rid of.

I've got a more healthy outlook recently. I've tried to get some better foods like yogurt and such in my life, for example. I'm brushing my teeth much more, but that may be because I think I need to have my wisdom teeth taken out soon. :(

Purdue won their bowl game - barely (against a team we steamrolled earlier in the season). The Bengals had a losing season (again) and I hope they get some sweet draft picks. I won my fantasy football championship...it was much less exciting than I imagined. I was pretty good at picking playoff teams. Cowboys lost to the Giants and are out of the playoffs, which was shocking and quite frankly, disappointing. Looks like the Patriots are gonna win everything, which is also disappointing. I am rooting for the Packers all the way.

I still need to register to vote and get my absentee ballot. More thoughts on politics forthcoming.

It was nice to get home for Christmas and spend time with my family. I wasn't really comfortable at all with the two Christmas setup, but we had a plan and stuck to it. I got a tonnnn of DVDs, yay (I have restored my list of DVDs and added it to my links list).

I'm trying to avoid TV (American Gladiators, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) and video games (Smash Brothers, Metroid) in lieu of focusing on academics this semester. My schedule is okay but MWF are pretty long. It is super important I do well this semester. That said, my current financial aid situation is FUBAR and it's maddening to try and straighten it out.

Improv is back for this year and we've got our work cut out for us. We've got about half a month to prepare for our callout and a trip to Chicago, plus the return of the AOO and other shows booked for this spring.

The Alpha Scrobble

Current Mood: solitary

As you may remember, I've been working on a complete overhaul of my music collection (closing in on 30 gigs, total). I've got 6 GB left to re-label and correct, the rest is golden. As we approach the new year, it's time to look at The Alpha Scrobble.

The main body of this post was taken almost directly from the blog of my brother and partner-in-scrobbling.

Around this time of the year, comes my [now annual] massive overhaul of music. The deleting of old material, the downloading of new new songs, and most important: the ever-important re-labeling, and correcting other torrenter's mistakes. So to celebrate the joy of having a clean media library, comes a project known as the "Alpha Scrobble". This consists of playing all the songs on your computer in a row, non-stop on the first second of the new year. Everyone with a media library (no matter how big or small) is allowed to participate, under these guidelines.

Alpha Scrobble Rules

1. All songs must be organized by song title, alphabetically.
example:
Barfly - Marcy Playground
Barfly - Tankard
Bargain - The Who
Bark At The Moon - Ozzy Osbourne
Barmherzigkeit - Die Apokalyptischen Reiter

2. All songs must be played, not matter how embarrassing.

3. Media libraries must be "locked-in" by December 31st, with no adding or subtracting of music during the alpha scrobble.

4. Participants are strongly encouraged to join Last.Fm to track their progress, and record data, if an outage occurs.

5. If play is interrupted by any case, play is to be resumed as soon as possible.

6. Music must be listened to at all possible times (sans sleeping)

7. It is optional to play music only during the day, and turn off your computer during the night, but play is to be resumed as soon as possible.

8. The playing of songs is to start on January 1st, at 12:01 AM

I *may* not be back to my computer until a day or so after the new year, but rest assured I will begin as soon as I can, and let nothing stop me until every [clean] track has been played!

For those of you who simply wish to see where I'm at, the handy little widget on the right sidebar will show you what tracks I've been listening to. Since I'm listening in alphabetical order, you can get a rough estimate of how far I've gotten. Enjoy!

substitute

Current Mood: frustrated

NFL.com is being incredibly slow today, so I'm going to hold off on writing a bunch about football until I can watch all my highlight videos (32 teams - 4 teams on bye / 2 teams per matchup = 14 videos x 3 min. avg length = 42 minutes of video action). Lucky you.

Instead, here's a quick update on NaNoWriMo. As of this morning, the participants have written a total of 170,746,440 words since the start of the month, for really no other reason than a love of writing (assuming there's nobody writing to win a bet or something). I just find it fascinating to check the word count, since nobody is forcing anybody do this. It's as if thousands of people the world over decided to start Skipping-It and logging their cumulative skips. Yours truly has contributed (again, as of this morning) 6,195 words, or 0.003%. I'm a little behind, about 3k below the pace to finish on the last day or halfway to finishing 5 days early (the 2k a day average). It's pretty tough to write so much each day, but I've finally gotten past the slow setup part of the plot, so hopefully the action part will flow much easier. Writing in third person about myself is screwing with my head.

Good thing I love my current phone, because the Samsung Juke makes a pretty convincing argument to be bought.

My hair is really starting to bother me, because it's no longer curly and fro-y. It's gotten much longer and is starting to lay out. I'm not really crazy about it, so I may cut it. It will also be a great reason to bust out my favorite hat ever. That also reminds me to backtrack a bit...

Two weeks ago on Friday (October 26th) I had the pleasure of seeing the Dalai Lama speak here at Purdue. It was a...unique experience to say the least. Renee had procured the tickets the day they were available, and my sister drove my brother up here for the weekend since mom couldn't make it. We got there almost two hours early for security because some people aren't exactly crazy about the guy. While we waited, we spotted a local Purdue celebrity - former Purdue present Martin C. Jischke (Bradley ran over and shook his hand). The opening act (mongolian chanting) was a bit of cultural learning that made me feel sliiightly uncomfortable. The Dalai Lama was a bit hard to hear and understand, but he seemed very at ease, very informal, and at times unintentionally funny. The theme of his speech was "cultivating happiness", but for the most part I felt he spoke about rather vague concepts and rambled about being a good person. A notable topic, to be sure, but I didn't need to spend a lot of money to hear it from him (more like "Dalai Lame-a"). At the end he elected not to tackle very complex issues in the Q and A session such as the US involement in the Iraq war, instead informing us all that his favorite color was green. In retrospect, perhaps this was social commentary.

More than seeing world leaders speak, I was most excited to see my siblings. Things haven't been great between us lately, and I put a lot of that blame on my shoulders. I decided to tackle that head on and try to make sure they had an outstanding weekend here. I made them lunch Friday and breakfast the next day, and they stayed at my apartment which helped cut down on travel costs. They also joined me for our Annual Ship of Fools Halloween Extravaganza. Sis helped me with my costume (notably taming my hair). I went as an emo kid, and I it went really well. So well, in fact, that Current Roommate Alex didn't recognize me, as did others at improv. The response on Facebook has made me really happy - I wanted to shake things up and do something people didn't expect, and I think it worked quite well. There were several awesome costumes (Jenny went as Jessica Rabbit...she's not bad, she just dressed that way!).

The afterparty @ Peace's house went splendidly, even though we all left kinda early. Several former Fools made it to the party, and the fans seemed to enjoy it as well. Huzzah! The next morning, before Brad and sis left, we toured the new Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering and more of Purdue's campus. I should have classes in there in the spring, if things go as planned. Photos of the party here, photos of the party and time at Armstrong here.

As if that weekend wasn't amazing enough, Sunday was my 2 year anniversary with Jenny. We celebrated by going to see the hosts of Mythbusters (Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman) speak at Elliot Hall of Music (Purdue's College of Science celebrates 100 years). It was very informal and entertaining, funny and candid. Benji and Corrie, also staying with us for the weekend, joined us and participated in the Q&A. My favorite parts were when they spoke about buying magnets. Afterwards was a dinner with some of the Fools.

And speaking of improv, we've been very busy this fall with a number of community service shows and activities, which makes me very proud of the group. Blood donations, food drives, and now recently a benefit show [with the Crazy Monkeys] for Habitat For Humanity and the Timmy Foundation raised over $500. 00 dollars. The group is learning to incorporate change and new members, becoming a bigger part of the Purdue community, and casting away old rivalries. Quite impressive.

That's all for now. Why aren't busy I writing fiction?

psychic media

Current Mood: insomnia

You, dear reader, may be thinking:
Ryan! What is the status of your giant music overhaul where you attempt to correctly label and organize all of your music?

If you're not thinking that, well, you may have missed that post. Or you don't care. Whatever, I'm going to update you anyway. I would say the status of the project stand at:

Almost Done.

As soon as I posted about the start of the project, the next week was a flurry of activity. I got a lot done, and continued the breakneck pace for a while before rapidly dropping off. The following weeks, the amount of work on it was nothing more than a trickle, with a slight resurgence in the past few sleepless nights. So far, I have "cleaned" 23.6 GB of music, which contains 570 album folders with 5,685 tracks. This is an average of 10.29 songs per album, though most are either around 14-16 tracks or 1-3, as I have downloaded many greatest hits and compilations, as well as a handful of individual songs I like.

This leaves me with 3.27 GB of music (95 folders, 988 tracks, 10.4 avg. tracks/album) in the quarantined folder of "unclean" music, or roughly 17% left to go. This number, however, may be a bit misleading. The bulk of the albums I've got left are funky compilations, mix CDs, unlabeled tracks, tracks I know are mislabeled and I have to find the right information for, etc. Basically, I've taken care of all the easy stuff first. Greaaat. On top of all that, on my last trip home I picked up at least 10 GB of new music from Bradley from...uh, questionable sources.

My goal is to have everything finished by the end of the year for the Great Alphabetical Scrobble-Fest. Basically, last year when Bradley signed up for Last.fm, I challenged him to play all - and I do mean all - of his music, from A-Z by title of song starting at midnight on New Year's Eve. Every. Last. Track. He's going to do it again this year, and so am I. (When this comes, you can watch on my little Last.fm widget on the right column to see where I am in my alphabet, and what embarrassing tracks I have that I never listen to).


Along with this, I've been working on generally de-cluttering my computer. The standard tasks, like defragging, virus and ad-aware scan are a given, but I'm talking more about organizing all my photos, pruning all of my links (I can already hear Bradley and Erica commenting on this post, telling me to join del.icio.us). I'm also working on re-organizing my Firefox toolbar into a more useful format - mainly having folders organized by function, such as Daily and Weekly Comics, News, Sports, etc.. Sort of like a digital newspaper at the top of my screen. I have a naive hope that this will cut back on how much time I spend combing through my daily sites. Heck, while I'm at it, I should set up online banking for my Purdue bank. And while I'm at that, close out my old Cincy bank account.


Coming soon: post about my giant happy weekend, the week's football recap, my new job

powdered fruit

Current Mood: groggy

Hey everybody. I don't solicit reader action often, and there's probably some overlap between blogs anyway, but if you could take a moment to click over here and help out Current Roommate Alex, we'd both be grateful. Popular Science magazine came to Purdue the other day and asked students to make videos about why they should get 5,000 dollars (as part of their "Pimp My Dorm" contest). CRA has been dying to go to Japan since...since I've known him, and he's actually got a shot at winning this.

Speaking of winning, Purdue beat Notre Dame 33 to 19 and we are now 5-0! Next weekend's match up vs. unbeaten OSU should be amazing - I am fired up!!

age difference

Current Mood: monetarily conflicted

Financially, I've been trying super hard to save money and budget really well this semester. I've quit my job and haven't had as much student loan funds, plus it's always good to work on saving money. One of my key...reforms, if you will, is not eating out in lieu of buying better groceries and eating almost entirely in house, cooking more, and saving my rare dining experiences outside the apartment for special occasions like date nights with Jenny and gatherings with the Ship of Fools. Eating in this manner has an added benefit of being (somewhat) healthier.

This, of course, means now I see a ton of things I want to buy. Two of my biggest contenders:

1. Tickets to the Purdue vs. Ohio State game (October 6th)

This is a matchup of two favorite Big Ten Conference teams, both of which I root for. I of course go to Purdue, but I have many close friends at OSU, it's an Ohio team, and there's a lot of history and that sort of thing there. Last time they played here, I was a wee freshman, and we won (something I made sure to mention to Eric). I still have the program, and remember the halftime show that featured music by Queen. How can we top that? This year, both of our teams *should* be undefeated (especially if we stop first-time-in-school-history-starting-0 and 4 Notre Dame this weekend). I've not been to a Purdue football game since Freshman year because - here comes some irony - I worked on weekends to try to make more time for homework. Perhaps best of all, this time our halftime show will be a presentation of some NASA gifts, and the music is selections from The Right Stuff and Apollo 13, two of my favorite films. October is shaping up to be a sweet ass month.

Still, I don't have student tickets. All the other tickets are sold out, so I'm going to have to eBay or StubHub or Facebook marketplace these tickets, which is gonna cost a lot (like, half the cost of season tickets). 1 game? I will probably bite the bullet and get tickets- this is going to be an incredible game.

Edit: people on Facebook are pitting people against each other, and I'm not going to play that game. I heard today Purdue may be releasing some reserve tickets at the last minute, and John suggested I get some scalped tickets before the game. The plot thickens...

[Tangentially related via football: I am so pissed at Donovan McNabb for doing so well this week. I did not play him on my fantasy team, but I still won without him.]

2. Computer upgrades

When I say "upgrades", I think what I really mean is a new computer. Current Roommate Alex has gone completely gay for BioShock and I can't say I blame him. This was made possible by his new computer purchase, which upstaged my recent monitor/mouse/mp3 player upgrade, and even Other Roommate John's new computer purchase (mainly because Alex paid for it himself - John did not). I should stress that I'm content with my current computer - I don't really game on it much anymore, at least not anything current, and my new upgrades make things more comfortable. And I would hate to think that I only want to "keep up with the Joneses", so to speak.

Nay, this burning desire for new computer parts came from my inquiry into the requirements to run BioShock on my own machine. Last time I was seriously playing computer games (read: WoW), I had to turn all the graphics down to the bare bones minimum, and even then I crashed regularly in the larger zones/cities. Alex informed me playing BioShock on my current computer (the guts are "ancient", dating back to 2004 when I got my then state of the art Dell for my first year of Purdue) would roughly equate to playing...um...Halo 3 on a single line graphing calculator. I've got half a gig of RAM (his has 2), my video card is the slowest of the 5 in the house (yes, we have 5 - that includes John's old and new computer, and Alex's old and new one), and my processor is outdated in that it's not dual core or even quad core. My printer has long since died, and I've still got a floppy drive on the tower. The power source rattles and only stays quiet with a high-tech sound dampening device that carefully manages adequate tension between the case and the frame (read: a balled up sock).

I hate to feel like such a materialist. I already have a personal PC in my bedroom that works perfectly fine, does what I *need* it to (internet, school papers and projects, ancient games that are still amazing, jukebox duties, and movies). I don't *need* any upgrades. I already have a computer some people would kill to have.

But...but...BioShock! WoW! Spore! Starcraft II and other games!!

Alex told me that financially, it'd be more cost effective to buy a new computer rather than upgrade the guts. Seeing other computers in the house blow mine out of the water makes me feel inadequate, but I think the financial reality is that I just have to suck it up. New computer isn't gonna happen anytime soon, SC II or not. Realistically, I think a new computer would make a great "you're finally done with school" gift to myself for (hopefully) landing a real job.


I guess that means I need to play a little less video games, and study a little more.

tasteless

Current Mood: annoyed

I'm roughly halfway through my big music clean, having been stuck on "The" bands for the greater portion of the evening.


I think the practice of holding your cell phones aloft and waving them during a concert is pretty fucking lame. Back in the days of rock, people used to hold lighters aloft and it was a thing of beauty. Now we've got a sea of LCDs to illuminate Panic! at the Disco or Fall Out Boy.

That said, if I ever see one of these *, I'm gonna hit somebody.






*In their defense, the website I found that on (Geekologie) usually has some pretty cool stuff.

much improved

Current Mood: pessimistic

I've done away with the "Current Music" line on my posts for now because I'm trying to get into Last.fm as part of my big music project. To the right you should see a new widget that displays some info about what I'm rocking out to day and night.

Also, I've added back most of my links from the last big template overhaul, including pruning some dead sites.

Let me know what you think!

don't try this at home

Current Mood: irritable
Current Music: Nothing. No music can be played until it is checked.

It's 3:00 in the morning, I can't sleep, and it's time for me to begin my next big project:

Completely fixing, organizing, editing, and properly labeling my entire music collection.

Welcome to the life of a crazy person. I've got over 30GB of music and it's always nagged at me that because of the various...colorful sources I've utilized to acquire such a large collection, some have corrupted tags, mislabeled track numbers or artists, repeat songs, etc. I think Bradley is probably the only person I know who will understand this (and has probably done the same for his music, poor bastard with probably 60+ GB).

It is time to fix that, now. I'm going to completely check every single file in my music collection for any errors, and then clean up Winamp (reset all my play counts), and install Last.fm, which Bradley has been hounding me to join for month(s) now.

I'll be providing a truncated list of thoughts to give you some insight.

Edit- 3:08am
I've decided to scrap the artist folder system in place because it fucks up compilations and soundtracks, and instead switch to a purer single album per folder system. More folders, less confusion.

Edit- 3:09am
I just noticed that the album folders are all different. Must decide on a convention. Full Caps Album Title (Year)

Edit- 3:25am
I just noticed that a few of the albums I've checked may have incorrect genre tags. Must decide on a convention between rock/hard rock/metal/heavy metal/classic rock/classic metal...

Edit- 4:16am
I just noticed that some of the songs have different title nomenclature and almost had a panic attack. Must decide on a convention and recheck. Track Number (with the zero for numbers less than 10)_-_Full Caps Title

Note- 5:30am
Unanticipated resistance to provide uniform album titles for streamlined formatting from certain bands, namely Rush.

Thought- 6:00am
Not looking forward to Queen, Black Sabbath or Weird Al, all of whom has over 14 albums...
(Not going in alphabetical order because it's easier with compilations)

Thought- 6:43am
New speakers should be here today! Another reason to get goin' on this.

I finally crashed around 10 am, overwhelmed by how much friggin' music I have.

breakdown

Current Mood: awake
Current Music: "In The Flesh" by Pink Floyd

For those following along at home, I finally got fed up with my janky subwoofer. I also did some thinking:

*I don't have a huge budget to spend on speakers (having just recently uprated my monitor, mp3 player, headphones, and mouse 'round my birthday), but I didn't want to just replace them with some bare-bones tin can set. I decided to use my tax return to boost the budget.

*I'm not an audiophile, but I usually sing a few hours a day listening to music, and I want to get rid of my TV and use my computer instead (eventually).

*I'm still not a point in my life where I can listen to whatever I want, whenever I want, however loud I want. I have roommates and I live under another apartment, so even speakers so loud they blow women's clothes off would have to be limited, especially later at night.

*Wireless speakers are probably not worth it. I rarely move my computer as is, and the satellite speakers will need batteries (and probably aren't as good). I also don't want interference problems or anything of the sort.

*5.1 speakers are probably overkill. For one, the majority of my speaker output is music. This means unless I have very special concert footage, 5.1 sounds basically the same as 2.1. Some movies sound cool in surround, but then I have to deal with short cords or finding optimal places for the other satellite speakers.

*2.1 really isn't that bad.

*I love newegg, and recommend it highly.


Those sorts of things in mind, I settled for these bad boys, here hopefully by Wednesday at the latest. Any thoughts for the song/sound effect/noise/movie to break them in?

a Valhalla sendoff

Current Mood: angry
Current Music: "Big Bottom" by Spinal Tap, "Another One Bites The Dust" by Queen, "Fury Of The Storm" by Dragonforce...

Well, fuck it. If my speakers are dying anyway, might as well blow them out completely with something badass and bass-heavy...

leisure

Current Mood: bummed
Current Music: "Desecrate Through Reverence" by Avenged Sevenfold

So...my sub woofer is on the fritz. My computer speakers (that came with my computer when I purchased it back in 2004) have long served me well and I have never complained about the quality or volume output before. A few days ago, however, my sub woofer suddenly quadrupled the bass during a Judas Priest marathon and scared the crap out of me. It just happened all of the sudden. I normally just have a little bit of bass in to keep the speakers from sounding flat - I never crank the bass past even the halfway point. Suddenly the bass was so loud I couldn't hear the music, just a thumping pulse that threatened to knock things over in my room.

I tried everything I could think of, and nothing would turn it off. The only thing I could do was turn down the master volume, and that made the bass go from really loud to just powerful, but then I couldn't hear much music. So as a temporary fix I went to headphones. A restart fixed the problem for a bit, and then it happened again. I turned everything up to maximum and it stopped, then started again. I think the bass pulses themselves were interfering? I dunno. At any rate, I hate it. I can't unplug the sub woofer because the speakers themselves are routed through it, which I feel is a dumb setup for a 2.1 system, in case something like this happens.

So...after spending nearly 300 dollars for my birthday upgrading my computer, and looking to the future (where I want to get rid of my large TV and use my computer instead [after purchasing a TV tuner card and the appropriate cables]), I'm wondering if I should scrape up some money and buy a new speaker system? Should I wait it out and see if the sub woofer was just funked up for a day or two? I don't want to spend a lot of money, but something like this looks reeeeeeally nice. If I'm gonna replace them, I might as well do it right, right?

football nomenclature

Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: "Love Of My Life" by Scorpions (Queen cover)

Don't mind me. Just tinkerin' with some template stuff.

I'm excited to be trying fantasy football for the first time, set up by Bradley. Our draft is in 21 days.

unobtrusive

Current Mood: excited
Current Music: "Midnight/Tornado" by Skid Row

Has anybody else heard of Bank of America's Keep the Change program? I've only seen a TV spot for it, but basically it rounds up every purchase from your credit/debit card to the nearest dollar, and places the excess change in a savings account! I think that this is really cool. I for one am a big believer in saving change - I keep mine in a water bottle that I got from BGR, and keep it on my desk. Last time I cashed in, there was over sixty dollars in there. This would be like that, but paperless/coinless. Can I get my bank to do this?

strawberries and cream

Current Mood: confused
Current Music: "Limelight" by Rush

There is a special deep frustration inherent with webcomics. When you start a new one, you're never quite sure how you'll like it, or when you'll stop reading, or how the story line will work out. A good webcomic, however, will keep you hooked and eventually you get so absorbed, so comfortable with clicking "forward" or "next comic" in the archives that it comes as quite a shock when you reach the most current update. Frantically, you continue clicking hoping for a mistake, you double check that yes, the "next comic" button takes you to the same page as "go to the end". I love webcomics. I hate running out of them.

I suppose you could make the point that it's quite a compliment when you get so absorbed in a story that you don't notice the fact that you're reading it, like a good book. Still, books have finite ends. Webcomics are supposed to be updated regularly!

So far my comic list (opened daily in a folder, like reading the comics in the newspaper, except it's digital, and personalized, and free, and doesn't ink my hands, and much much funnier):

Schlock Mercenary, Penny Arcade, Ctrl+Alt+Del, Qwantz (Dinosaur Comics), Alien Loves Predator, Diesel Sweeties, Striptease, Sore Thumbs, Questionable Content, Perry Bible Fellowship, xkcd, Irregular Webcomic, Animals Have Problems Too, The Order of the Stick, Dr. McNinja, Married to the Sea, Least I Could Do, and now my newest one (that inspired this post): Erfworld

an earful of elitism

Current Mood: uneasy
Current Music: "Die Hard The Hunter" by Def Leppard

As an engineer, I'm generally concerned with tradeoffs and compromises. For example, yes, we (engineers, builders, people) could build a building that could withstand a dozen airplanes flown into them. However, at what cost? Literally, it would cost much, much more than a normal building, and there's also other aspects that are perhaps not as easily quantified. Would people want to live and work in a fortress? Could those resources be spent better elsewhere?

For another example, we could redesign theme parks. Each year (I'm estimating) an average of about a dozen people are killed or seriously hurt at the world's major theme parks. Why not fix them all so that never happens? More overdesigned structures, slower speeds, gentler curves...that'd be safer. Economically viable? Possibly. Would it ruin the inherent element, the danger, the essence of thrill rides? Almost certainly. It is a matter of compromise.

Each design, be it an automobile, a building, or even something such as a social structure or law has elements that can be manipulated, and the key is to find the right combination that works best and satisfies the most, or in many cases, sucks the least and pisses off the fewest people. There are some things, no matter how tempting, that cannot be altered without ruining the concept itself.


Which is why I have a problem with this: The World's Quietest Rock Concert, as presented by rock drummer Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac. Now, I respect the Mac and recognize them as an influential (if not patchwork) best-selling band, as well as the importance of taking care of your ears. But the concept of a quiet rock concert is, well, it's not an oxymoron, but it's something close.

In short, the idea of the concert sponsored as part of Energizer's "It's Hip to Hear" program is that the band ("the Screaming Eagles of Death Metal") plays without amplifiers or speakers. That right there should be a red flag. Instead, the sound is transmitted via FM to the audience, who are all wearing protective earphones that receive the sound and gently coddle the ears of the audience. First, how does a band with a kickass name like that agree to something like that? Answer: they probably suck. Secondly,

“Instead of rocking out to standard 110-130 decibel levels, this concert will be so quiet, the applause will be the loudest part of what you’re hearing,” Fleetwood said.

What happened to explosions? Pyrotechnics? Outrageous stacks of amps taller than the stage itself? Taking it to 11? Later, The article encourages us to "turn up the volume on responsible listening".

...

What happened to the good 'ol days of stickin' it to the man? Fuck "responsible" listening. It's better to burn out than to fade away, right?. Rock music is rock music, practically synonymous with volume. Rock bands fight over who has the title of the loudest band in the world (one contender plays loud enough to make the audience members vomit). I say it comes with the territory. If the music's too loud, you're too old.




I think rock should include a generous helping of decibels, but in case anybody thinks I promote volume over talent, they should keep this in mind:
"Anyone can plug into a stack of amps and be loud, it takes a real man to rock it hard." - Spook Strickland

Brain Legbum

Current Mood: hooky
Current Music: "All Over Now" by Great White

Have you ever seen a commercial for a GPS navigator called TomTom? The mainly car-based device gives audible directions to direct you around and shows a digital real time map to help. Okay, so they're not the greatest commercials, but it's kinda catchy. It kinda gives an otherwise bland device a bit of friendliness, dare I say character?

At any rate, I had the pleasure of recently hitting the road to attend a graduation dinner for a dear friend of mine, Alex Semchuck (member of the Ship of Fools).

I was joined by other Fools Benji, Renee, Andrew, and Eric.

While on the road from Benji's house in Valparaiso to our destination in Illinois (making it the furthest West I have ever traveled), I had the unique pleasure of seeing a TomTom in action. It was actually kind of boring in retrospect, but I suppose the bulk of the driving was on highway. We could not find the volume, so the commands kinda snuck up on us...and while I could say that I would have liked the directions to come a bit sooner to the turn, overall I have no big problems with it. When we missed an exit, it automatically re-plotted our course. The visuals were pretty clear and colorful, though sunlight made a bit of a problem occasionally. Once the route was set (before the car was started), we didn't have to push a button the entire trip. Nobody even looked at the backup map. (Yes, we had a backup map. Benji was driving and I was the copilot).

The best part, though, was being in the car with the Fools and talking to TomTom like it was much more intelligent.

First, general car things, like:
* TomTom, can you vaporize the cars ahead of us?
* TomTom, is it gametime?
* TomTom, steer us away from that field of wrenches (one of the icons on the screen).

There were the submarine commands:
* TomTom! Ramming speed!
* TomTom! Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead!

Then the space ship commands:
* TomTom! Open the pod doors. (to which somebody thankfully replied in a robot voice "I'm sorry, Ryan. I can't do that.")
* TomTom! Engage the deflector shields and deploy the fighters!

Which of course led to endless Star Wars quotes:
* TomTom, that stabilizer's broken loose again, see if you can't lock it down!
* His TomTom is off. Luke, you've switched off your TomTom, what's wrong? Nothing! I'm allright.
* TomTom! Intensify the forward batteries, I don't want anything to get through! (reply: "Too late!")

The best quote, however, went to Andrew. TomTom got too interested in his personal life:

TomTom: So, how are the wife and kids?
Andrew: I don't have a wife.
TomTom: Maybe you should brush your teeth and bathe more often.
Andrew: Okay, MomMom.


If nothing else, I want a TomTom (even a broken one) in my non-existent car to bark orders at. So much fun!

Nintendo Fanboys

Current Mood: awesome
Current Music: "We All Die Young" by Steel Dragon

We (Current Roommate Alex, John, and I) now have an apartment Wii that we bought from a porn star. Seriously.

Wii buddies, anyone?