Log -- David Chess

log (2003/12/05 to 2003/12/11)

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Look behind you:

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Tuesday, December 9, 2003
So of course there are Spongebob Squarepants faceplates for the Nokia 3595, and all sorts of the like, easily discoverable on the Web. Similarly, there are all sorts of sites that offer me their selection of "ring tones" (noises) and images, for various small fees (and/or for free through methods that don't quite seem to work).
Nothing so far tells me how to send my own midi files or wav files or gifs or jpgs to the phone. No "how to hack your Nokia phone in a nutshell" books at Barnes and Noble either. Heh.
I'm on page 113 of 169 in the manual. Now the phone says "Noffis!" on the screen when I power it on, and it rings differently if it's M calling, and if it goes to look for networks to attach to and finds more than one it tells me about it and asks which one to use. It displays time in 24-hour format, and dates as yyyy/mm/dd; the main screen shows the date as well as the time, in case I want to know what date it is.
Also if I bring up one of the dumb little games, it will no longer play horrible tinny theme music at the maximum volume the phone is capable of (not one of your cleverer default settings imho).
I was talking to M on the phone while in the car (using the little earpiece and dangling mic so as to be legal and all), and then I got out and I was walking around in the bookstore with the earpiece and stuff still clipped to my shirt, and I'll bet everyone was looking at me and thinking "Ooh, that man must have a cellular telephone!"
I'm so modern.

So where's the site that tells me about all the technical details, and how to send the phone specially-formatted SMS messages that will install cool new graphics and audio libraries of my own devising?
Hm, I don't have much else tonight. (M says I'm like a little boy with a new toy; can't imagine what she means.) Look at magnatunes and see if you like their music-delivery model.
I know, the Solstice Tree Cutting story was more interesting. What can I say?
Monday, December 8, 2003

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Like Katie Couric, I now have a cellular phone! I am Modern and Up To Date!
My cellular phone is a Nokia 3595. It like lights up blue when you push the buttons!
Here is a Web Page all about my new cellular phone.
My telephone has a Java Virtual Machine inside it!
"My telephone has a Java Virtual Machine inside it!" Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
My telephone has a ninety-five by sixty-five pixel display, with up to 4,096 color. Yow! That's twelve-bit color!
My telephone can be customized with Xpress-on™ covers; so far these only seem to come in boring single colors; no Spongebob Squarepants (or, the little boy points out, Finding Nemo or Fairly Oddparents). My telephone can also be customized with millions of annoyingly chirpy ring tones, and insipid low-res images. There's no obvious way of connecting it to a Real Computer to crossload arbitrary MIDI files and bitmaps. Heh!
My telephone has an enormous tree-structured command interface, and comes with a 160-page manual.
Ha ha ha ha ha!
(Sorry, just a bit of future shock here tonight. I'm sure I'll recover shortly. The phone was M's idea; if it was up to me, my entry in the phonebook would probably read "email only".)
Sunday, December 7, 2003
Sitting exhausted in the living room, with the Solstice Music playing on the music player, the little daughter pretending to skateboard on the GameCube (or PlayStation 2 or something), M at the other end of the couch with the little boy between us, talking about ornaments and admiring the Tree.
Last year I reported that we'd had fun picking out a tree in ankle-deep snow and bright sunlight; this year we had fun, but also got wet and very tired, picking out a tree in calf-keep, thigh-deep, waist-deep snow and biting wind.
Abel's is still there, still the same scenic hillside and all. They need to update their "all trees $30"; they now have a two-tiered price structure (under eight feet $32, eight feet and over $40; or was it "up to" and "over"?). This tree here measured ten and a half feet at point of sale. It was also growing way way back in the far hillside field, and dragging it down to the road through the drifts was quite an adventure. (Once we were down, I jogged up the road and got the Abel's people to bring their little motorized cart to pick it up.)
All your base are still belong to us.
It's funny; sometimes when I get tired (physically tired by like doing stuff) it's more my mind that shuts down than my body. Tonight I could probably walk a few miles, lift some heavy things, and so on (one foot in front of the other, etc), but I wouldn't be able to realize that it was called for unless someone told me. My mind is just like "bzzzzzzzzz".
Which is of course demonstrably untrue, since I'm sitting here typing these words, eh?
This leads to a vague and somewhat unsettling thought: when I think "maybe my consciousness is mostly just a passenger in my body here, watching out the windows and making up stories about how it's in charge", I identify my consciousness with the story-telling part, the verbal part, the stream of words that generally seems to be going on.
But maybe I'm not that, either! Maybe the storytelling part is, just like the walking around part and the food-eating part and the clothes wearing part, just another part of the operating body on which my consciousness is a parasite; maybe my consciousness (which, I will still maintain, is mostly just going "bzzzzz" right now) is a parasite on that also, telling itself (but what would that mean?) that it's in charge. Maybe I am a parasite on all those processes, including the verbal and "introspective" one.
It's hard to see how any of that could make sense. The part that's typing now is, by definition almost, the story-telling part. And yet it's talking (I'm talking) about "me" and "my consciousness"; so if that refers to anything (and why shouldn't it?) it refers to the story-telling part, or something that the story-telling part is part of.
Maybe I'm just a story my brain tells itself.
Favorite Authors:
barthelme barthelme barthelme (donald, as if you needed telling - though I'm sure frederick is great)
fick
David Chess, of course.
Isaac Asimov
James Clavell
Carl Sandburg
donald barthelme - but then you knew that
Yukio Mishima
Franz Kafka

Fick who?
I was in this story discussion list once (an age and an age ago) and we all read a Yukio Mishima story (it was very good; I forget the title and all but the vaguest impression of the plot, but I'm pretty sure it was Mishima), and we were all saying good things about it on the list and trying to figure out just what made it work so well, when one guy chimed in saying that it was "promising", but that it was missing certain critical elements "that editors are looking for these days"; he closed with some faux-encouraging words, ending "I hope to see more from this author."
Words failed then (we eventually broke it to him gently that this was one of the greatest authors of the 20th century, and that words of encouragement would unfortunately not be able to reach him, at least not in this life), and apparently they fail again now. But at least I told the story.
My favourite author, Sir, and the only one worth lending any admiration to, is of course Our Lord, author of all things. And instead of mooching around the house of a Sunday, vaguely wondering about storm windows or playing one of your darn fool electronic "games", I think you know where you *should* be.

I am in the sacred place of the author of all things, reading the sacred writings, as always. (It's not like there's anywhere else one could be, after all.)
With perhaps one exception, that's all we get on favorite authors:
In a vain attempt to stop my mind going wild, I give you [link] - whilst it's not at all related, it's always fun to throw silly URLs your way to see if they get a comment, and even if not in the hope that they make you chuckle.
Let's see a picture of that new haircut!!!
Grrr...sorry, hit a wrong key there. I was trying to say that this is not a favorite author, but I thought you'd appreciate this link.
taste taste taste--tasty plaCENta!
I think the one for star tempature is "Oh Be A Fine Gal, Kiss Me!" you can replace "gal" with "guy" or "gorilla" but I wouldn't recomend it.
You're so smart! Late in Autumn Trolls Explode= Logarithmic, Inverse circular, Algebraic, Trigonometric and Exponential.

Chuckle! *8) No pictures of the haircut right now, I'm afraid (it was mostly just a trim this time, so my bangs would stop tormenting me). And I'm gonna hold out for some evidence on that "Inverse circular" one.
And finally we have what I think is a first for the log; someone has sent us an entire weblog entry (I'm even somewhat puzzled as to how they did it; I didn't think normal clients would let you type this much into a one-line input box). I'm posting the whole thing here because, well, what the heck.
Straight from the paracingulate cortex, yo, it's a question of semiotics: words from one mind to meaning in another... but what's the Higgs field through which thoughts in transit ripple? Vibration, ink, bits on the wire... we daily try to read the mind of dead people and Markov text generators. The tools which extract meaning from this morass bear the imprints of a million minds: Google says "look on your works, ye mighty," and we despair. Favourite authors? Brownian motion, static on the phosphors, shaky pen lines, typos - chance poetry. State-smartness is evil and can be exorcised, but for now, State Library, dream deep.

(One of the links above was completed by input from the Spy Satellites, and may be incomplete or nonfunctional.)
A marvelous set of favourite authors. If we could figure out exactly who this was writing, it might turn out to be a favorite author of ours as well...

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older log newer log reply about archive search home words site news talking place linkwatcher XML (RSS) Look behind you:	Tuesday, December 9, 2003 So of course there are Spongebob Squarepants faceplates for the Nokia 3595, and all sorts of the like, easily discoverable on the Web. Similarly, there are all sorts of sites that offer me their selection of "ring tones" (noises) and images, for various small fees (and/or for free through methods that don't quite seem to work). Nothing so far tells me how to send my own midi files or wav files or gifs or jpgs to the phone. No "how to hack your Nokia phone in a nutshell" books at Barnes and Noble either. Heh. I'm on page 113 of 169 in the manual. Now the phone says "Noffis!" on the screen when I power it on, and it rings differently if it's M calling, and if it goes to look for networks to attach to and finds more than one it tells me about it and asks which one to use. It displays time in 24-hour format, and dates as yyyy/mm/dd; the main screen shows the date as well as the time, in case I want to know what date it is. Also if I bring up one of the dumb little games, it will no longer play horrible tinny theme music at the maximum volume the phone is capable of (not one of your cleverer default settings imho). I was talking to M on the phone while in the car (using the little earpiece and dangling mic so as to be legal and all), and then I got out and I was walking around in the bookstore with the earpiece and stuff still clipped to my shirt, and I'll bet everyone was looking at me and thinking "Ooh, that man must have a cellular telephone!" I'm so modern. So where's the site that tells me about all the technical details, and how to send the phone specially-formatted SMS messages that will install cool new graphics and audio libraries of my own devising? Hm, I don't have much else tonight. (M says I'm like a little boy with a new toy; can't imagine what she means.) Look at magnatunes and see if you like their music-delivery model. I know, the Solstice Tree Cutting story was more interesting. What can I say? Monday, December 8, 2003
	Like Katie Couric, I now have a cellular phone! I am Modern and Up To Date! My cellular phone is a Nokia 3595. It like lights up blue when you push the buttons! Here is a Web Page all about my new cellular phone. My telephone has a Java Virtual Machine inside it! "My telephone has a Java Virtual Machine inside it!" Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! My telephone has a ninety-five by sixty-five pixel display, with up to 4,096 color. Yow! That's twelve-bit color! My telephone can be customized with Xpress-on™ covers; so far these only seem to come in boring single colors; no Spongebob Squarepants (or, the little boy points out, Finding Nemo or Fairly Oddparents). My telephone can also be customized with millions of annoyingly chirpy ring tones, and insipid low-res images. There's no obvious way of connecting it to a Real Computer to crossload arbitrary MIDI files and bitmaps. Heh! My telephone has an enormous tree-structured command interface, and comes with a 160-page manual. Ha ha ha ha ha! (Sorry, just a bit of future shock here tonight. I'm sure I'll recover shortly. The phone was M's idea; if it was up to me, my entry in the phonebook would probably read "email only".) Sunday, December 7, 2003 Sitting exhausted in the living room, with the Solstice Music playing on the music player, the little daughter pretending to skateboard on the GameCube (or PlayStation 2 or something), M at the other end of the couch with the little boy between us, talking about ornaments and admiring the Tree. Last year I reported that we'd had fun picking out a tree in ankle-deep snow and bright sunlight; this year we had fun, but also got wet and very tired, picking out a tree in calf-keep, thigh-deep, waist-deep snow and biting wind. Abel's is still there, still the same scenic hillside and all. They need to update their "all trees $30"; they now have a two-tiered price structure (under eight feet $32, eight feet and over $40; or was it "up to" and "over"?). This tree here measured ten and a half feet at point of sale. It was also growing way way back in the far hillside field, and dragging it down to the road through the drifts was quite an adventure. (Once we were down, I jogged up the road and got the Abel's people to bring their little motorized cart to pick it up.) All your base are still belong to us. It's funny; sometimes when I get tired (physically tired by like doing stuff) it's more my mind that shuts down than my body. Tonight I could probably walk a few miles, lift some heavy things, and so on (one foot in front of the other, etc), but I wouldn't be able to realize that it was called for unless someone told me. My mind is just like "bzzzzzzzzz". Which is of course demonstrably untrue, since I'm sitting here typing these words, eh? This leads to a vague and somewhat unsettling thought: when I think "maybe my consciousness is mostly just a passenger in my body here, watching out the windows and making up stories about how it's in charge", I identify my consciousness with the story-telling part, the verbal part, the stream of words that generally seems to be going on. But maybe I'm not that, either! Maybe the storytelling part is, just like the walking around part and the food-eating part and the clothes wearing part, just another part of the operating body on which my consciousness is a parasite; maybe my consciousness (which, I will still maintain, is mostly just going "bzzzzz" right now) is a parasite on that also, telling itself (but what would that mean?) that it's in charge. Maybe I am a parasite on all those processes, including the verbal and "introspective" one. It's hard to see how any of that could make sense. The part that's typing now is, by definition almost, the story-telling part. And yet it's talking (I'm talking) about "me" and "my consciousness"; so if that refers to anything (and why shouldn't it?) it refers to the story-telling part, or something that the story-telling part is part of. Maybe I'm just a story my brain tells itself. Favorite Authors: barthelme barthelme barthelme (donald, as if you needed telling - though I'm sure frederick is great) fick David Chess, of course. Isaac Asimov James Clavell Carl Sandburg donald barthelme - but then you knew that Yukio Mishima Franz Kafka Fick who? I was in this story discussion list once (an age and an age ago) and we all read a Yukio Mishima story (it was very good; I forget the title and all but the vaguest impression of the plot, but I'm pretty sure it was Mishima), and we were all saying good things about it on the list and trying to figure out just what made it work so well, when one guy chimed in saying that it was "promising", but that it was missing certain critical elements "that editors are looking for these days"; he closed with some faux-encouraging words, ending "I hope to see more from this author." Words failed then (we eventually broke it to him gently that this was one of the greatest authors of the 20th century, and that words of encouragement would unfortunately not be able to reach him, at least not in this life), and apparently they fail again now. But at least I told the story. My favourite author, Sir, and the only one worth lending any admiration to, is of course Our Lord, author of all things. And instead of mooching around the house of a Sunday, vaguely wondering about storm windows or playing one of your darn fool electronic "games", I think you know where you should be. I am in the sacred place of the author of all things, reading the sacred writings, as always. (It's not like there's anywhere else one could be, after all.) With perhaps one exception, that's all we get on favorite authors: In a vain attempt to stop my mind going wild, I give you [link] - whilst it's not at all related, it's always fun to throw silly URLs your way to see if they get a comment, and even if not in the hope that they make you chuckle. Let's see a picture of that new haircut!!! Grrr...sorry, hit a wrong key there. I was trying to say that this is not a favorite author, but I thought you'd appreciate this link. taste taste taste--tasty plaCENta! I think the one for star tempature is "Oh Be A Fine Gal, Kiss Me!" you can replace "gal" with "guy" or "gorilla" but I wouldn't recomend it. You're so smart! Late in Autumn Trolls Explode= Logarithmic, Inverse circular, Algebraic, Trigonometric and Exponential. Chuckle! *8) No pictures of the haircut right now, I'm afraid (it was mostly just a trim this time, so my bangs would stop tormenting me). And I'm gonna hold out for some evidence on that "Inverse circular" one. And finally we have what I think is a first for the log; someone has sent us an entire weblog entry (I'm even somewhat puzzled as to how they did it; I didn't think normal clients would let you type this much into a one-line input box). I'm posting the whole thing here because, well, what the heck. Straight from the paracingulate cortex, yo, it's a question of semiotics: words from one mind to meaning in another... but what's the Higgs field through which thoughts in transit ripple? Vibration, ink, bits on the wire... we daily try to read the mind of dead people and Markov text generators. The tools which extract meaning from this morass bear the imprints of a million minds: Google says "look on your works, ye mighty," and we despair. Favourite authors? Brownian motion, static on the phosphors, shaky pen lines, typos - chance poetry. State-smartness is evil and can be exorcised, but for now, State Library, dream deep. (One of the links above was completed by input from the Spy Satellites, and may be incomplete or nonfunctional.) A marvelous set of favourite authors. If we could figure out exactly who this was writing, it might turn out to be a favorite author of ours as well...
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