older log newer log reply about archive search home words site news talking place linkwatcher Nine Times Six:	Thursday, May 2, 2002   A concerned reader writes: Is May 1st an "outdoor fucking" toggle? Your entry of May 1, 2001 says it starts "today". Do we go a year without now? Heaven forfend! If we assume that outdoor fucking season is determined mostly by the temperature (probably a good first approximation at least), we can consult the relevant datasets and determine that if the season starts May 1, it probably ends sometime in September; probably the latter part. We can arbitrarily choose, for instance, the Equinox. So, between Beltane and Harvest Home... Very appropriate, somehow. Another reader is also concerned: We are concerned, aren't we all, about the sudden appearance of non-specia tones in the margarines of this blog, the full-color images of things like, well, people (and what are we to think of that?) as icons of whatever we are talking about (and what would that be?). Anyhow, we just wanted to note that we noticed. 'Cause we did. Notice. That's very gratifyin'. I have in fact gone back and inserted a sky blue image into yesterday's entry, and we'll see if we can't whip up a little something like it today, too, just to have a whole week of Difference. Here are the top phrases searched: - 4 for "miller" - 2 for "lobsters stick to magnets" - 1 for "amplified" - 1 for "fanny" - 1 for "ferber" - 1 for "gay gallery" - 1 for "goes up" - 1 for "kundera" - 1 for "plunger" - 1 for "romer" What goes up must...: Have been pushed there, or pulled, due to, you know, gravity and all. ... curl up with the computer this evening, surf around a little, do some coding, maybe write some of the large collections of words that need to be written by the end of the month (it's still early in the month, right?). In the evening, and under the clouds ... come down ... fall down come down. Unless it reaches escape velocity. ... be hypocritical. float for a while, unless it has a parachute ... keep going, if we're ever going to get to Andromeda on time. be subject to gravity be subject to gravity stay up if it knows what's good for it. Your mention of "hypocrisy" reminds me of the surprisingly popular belief that any reader of Slashdot that shares an opinion with any other reader of Slashdot must also believe everything believed by every reader of Slashdot, including the incompassable ideas of breaking up Microsoft on anti-trust grounds and libertarian ideas of minimal government. I'm a socialist, dammit! (I really only mention it for an opportunity to use the word 'incompassable,' which really ought to be in the dictionary.) jerkoff converge. ... end up as a reader contribution in Log -- David Chess. escape the clutches of gravity. come down come down on me. I know you want to. at some later time have gone up. Given the existance of time for which, of course, there is no direct evidence. be yellow come again? broadcast be a pain in my ass!! cut it out (and off) now! reach orbit iris chacon have been subject to an upward force rofflenass And speaking of Aches and Pains, I've got the nastiest crick in the back of my neck. Had it all day. M gave me a neckrub that helped for an hour or two, but now it's back. Yowch! And speaking of "jerkoff"... Wednesday, May 1, 2002   Remember in the old days, when it was just you and the warm kitten of your mind, still just you and the warm kitten of your mind, and you would roll over the sinuosities of perception, and the sun was not yet hot or orange, and pipes were like melons, and you could sit in the chair for a whole day, and only an hour would pass?
	Time was long, long as a pendulum. Anger, you thought on an afternoon, watching marbles rolling in perfect unpredictable patterns on the dented top of a cardboard shoebox, is not a thing. People who are full of anger aren't full of a thing, you thought. It's more, you thought, that they're missing something. Anger, you thought, lying in the sun, the yellow sun, is what's left when something else is lacking. Or anger is what happens when something else fails to happen. This is a block of clay, this is a block of cheese, this is a block of flats. (This is another block of cheese.) Here is a coin I found on the beach, here is a pound of ten-penny nails, and here is a picture of my friend's sister, when she was small. This is an orchid, this is a sail, and this is the last thing in the box. I'm not sure what we do when the box is empty. But we'll think of something. (Don't forget!) Tuesday, April 30, 2002   In some random store I picked up the May 2002 isssue of "Business 2.0", because it had Andy Grove on the cover with the headline "IS THIS MAN A PIRATE? ARE YOU?", and you know what that's going to be about. While I try to stay more or less detached from Earthling politics and so on most of the time, I admit a certain fascination with this particular issue. I mean, a consortium of large corporations trying to outlaw the general purpose computer? It's just so surreal. Reading through the other bits of that sheaf of shiny paper, I found more evidence for the theory that weblogs are utterly passé: this random issue of a random techy business magazine has yet another instance of your (ooh, can I say it?) bog-standard (I love them Britishisms) "blog" article, wittily titled "Blog Nation". On the obligatory "Blog Guide" list, the section "Some lesser-known favorites of ours" includes evhead, MeFi, and Dave Winer. The main section of the list, on the other hand, is all like professional journos with blogs on the side, and some warblogs. "Lesser known" is, I suppose, in the eye of the beholder...
	Also in the main section of that list is Virginia Postrel's blog, which I didn't know she had one of. It's not bad; fun to see the stream of consciousness of a Famous Person. On the other hand, she's only now discovering the Hero Machine, and she doesn't understand about permalinks. Ah well, we can't all be A-list.   *8) Postrel's current front page is very concerned with the potential Bushy ban on "human cloning", and the Franklin Society petition against the ban. A worthy cause, I think. (Our theme today seems to be "attempts to hold back the tide".) From VMyths, Security Training Won't Take Effect Until Microsoft Restarts. From NTK: an amusing and/or sad ad placement, a very cool article about folk songs about sex (extra points to any reader who can find us an MP3 of Bogan's "Shave 'Em Dry, Part II"), and a neat artistic personal site that's worth a look (Flash heavy) Monday, April 29, 2002   Nobody knows, Nobody sees. Nobody knows, But me. A wonderfully understated explanation of how she came to be walking these hills in that getup; "I guess I didn't want to upset him". (Found while googling for the amusing story of the sella stercoraria while talking to M about Pope Joan, which she'd just finished reading. She reads such good books, such substantial award-winning books.)
	So on Friday night we took the train into the City, had dinner at Mustang Harry's (which for an Irish Pub has really really good tiramisu), and saw (heard, experienced, took part in the audience of) the McCartney concert at the Garden. It was really great; M's the big McCartney fan, not me, but I was really impressed by his energy and general competence on stage. He really knows what he's doing, both musically and performance-wise. And fortunately the two very talkative stoned guys in the seats behind us vanished after just a couple of numbers (my theory is that they got lost while looking for the men's room, and will never be heard from again; the Dangers of Weed). Don't'cha hate it when someone else does something that you've been meaning to get around to doing for like ten years? Although mine would be more a musicscape than a soundscape. Sort of a long and slow and background version of pattan. Someday. Bill said it, I believe it, and that settles it: W.J. "Jerry" Sanders, chairman of Advanced Micro Devices Inc., testified that because Microsoft's Windows operating system is so widely used, it allows software and hardware makers to innovate freely. Imposing the penalties recommended by the states would set back the computer industry 20 years, he said. Sanders said he received a call from Gates on the last day Microsoft could name its witnesses. Gates and an outside Microsoft lawyer said the state proposals would fragment the personal computer industry. But Sanders admitted that he has never read the state penalties himself, nor the federal settlement agreed to last year. After the concert, we took the "white numeral one in a red circle" subway line to Times Square, and then the "white letter S in a grey circle" line to Grand Central, and caught the midnight train home. It was great; we realy need to get into the City more. We'd been a little afraid that the subway might be scary late at night, but it was just as populous, just as well lit, just as bustling and too active to be scary as I imagine it is during the day. So that worked out. The whole experience was really cool, and in some ways overwhelming. I've never been (he shyly admitted) to a rock concert before. There's still too much flying around in my head to write about. I will content myself to note how odd it is that Madison Square Garden, which must do this constantly, holds back the crowd in the lobby from entering the corridors of the arena too early by putting up your typical crowd-control tape-ropes, and on these tape-ropes, affixed with those black metal clamps that you use on really thick sheafs of paper that are too thick for paperclips, are fuzzily photocopied pieces of paper saying "Authorized Personnel Only, Do Not Enter". You'd think they'd have something a little less ad-hoc.
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