03/09/04 09:59 - ID#34112
Beware the Ides of March
"Ground control to Major Tom: We found a hole in your theory and we named it Shawn."
Must learn Unix better... But that's another story. I'm thinking about rebuilding a box into a media server using the ClarkConnect Linux ISO (http://www.clarkconnect.org). Anyone got any experience with this?
Permalink: Beware_the_Ides_of_March.html
Words: 114
Location: Buffalo, NY
03/01/04 11:11 - ID#34111
Bill Murray was ROBBED
Man, what kind of moron could vote Sean Penn over Bill Murray?!? I think Lost in Translation was an amazing film, incredibly well-done on all parts, and Bill Murray deserved it. Did you see the look on his face just after they called Penn's name? He was crushed. You could see it from the longshots... The man did good.
I love that my affections this year were split between the cheapest film in the Awards and the most expensive. I'm very glad Peter Jackson got his due recognition, although I'm also sad that Coppola didn't get Director - sure, it's a dynasty, but how can you argue with Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation? The woman is doing good things. I guess we haven't seen the last of either of these two.
OK, back to being pissed about Bush...
Permalink: Bill_Murray_was_ROBBED.html
Words: 141
Location: Buffalo, NY
02/26/04 06:50 - ID#34110
the good old days my a$$
honest and truthful means naive and mute
when people say that the world used to be less violent, they really mean that the world used to not view violence as a bad thing.
Permalink: the_good_old_days_my_a_.html
Words: 40
Location: Buffalo, NY
02/25/04 11:08 - ID#34109
tradition
AND
Non-Participation == DEATH
If you are not participating, then just don't bother. If you don't intend to help us oust Bush in 2004 by compromising on a candidate who would at least reverse the most damaging moves of the current regime, then don't bother protesting, complaining, moaning, or whimpering.
If we do not remove Bush from office, we cannot get on with the discussion of improvements to our system that could create more desire for participation. Like proportional representation in the congress to facilitate more involvement and voice for alternative party participants. Wouldn't that be a better ammendment to make?
Permalink: tradition.html
Words: 182
Location: Buffalo, NY
02/24/04 08:05 - ID#34108
f*ck BUSH
And then there's the Constitution itself: You can't just amend the Constitution directly against the Constitution. I just can't believe that we'd let someone do that, no matter who their daddy is.
Let's face it: GW hates gays, lesbians, transgendered, bisexuals, thinkers, critics, reporters, women, and people who think to much.
It's pitiful: GW gives fewer press conferences during his presidency than any other president in the 20th Century, and he hates homosexual/s/ity so bitterly that he must come out on television and tell us all about it. In fact, he has so much hate for same-sex marriage, and apparently it so hurts and endangers the president's own marriage, that he wants to make it a major issue for the next 9 months -- he wants America to finally elect him to office based on his hatred.
I feel neither hurt nor threatened by the issue of same-sex marriage. I feel extremely threatened by the chilling effect the Bush administration's rampant bullying, both at home and abroad.
Let's get together on a choice for 2004, because we'll all be hurting by 2008 if we don't get a regime change.
Permalink: f_ck_BUSH.html
Words: 276
Location: Buffalo, NY
02/23/04 11:49 - ID#34107
GamesFirst!
We seem to have made it through with minimal hassle. We serve about 250K readers per month, so we wanted it to be as smooth as possible. Now we begin the work of re-creating the monster in the image of a dynamic PHP and mySQL -based website. Whoo! Get on the PHP bandwagon!
With luck everything will be in place in time for our 10 year birthday. Wow. 10 years online...
Permalink: GamesFirst_.html
Words: 160
Location: Buffalo, NY
02/20/04 06:03 - ID#34106
UT2k4 Demo
Permalink: UT2k4_Demo.html
Words: 108
Location: Buffalo, NY
02/18/04 11:56 - ID#34105
clearvoice pushed me over the edge
Paul's built so many cool things into (e:s) here that I haven't had time to take full advantage of all of them. However, I had a disturbing experience when I noticed I could click on my user image. I did so, launching an audio message telling the user that the journal owner had not posted an audio file. It was that completely characteristic Clearvoice TTS.
I'm the kind of guy who hates robotic voices on answering machines and tries to humanize my own messaging systems. So I decided the time had come to upload an audio file. I'm trying to generate new material for another DJ FnW feat. CM album, so here's a wee sneak peek at some experimentation I've got going on... The quality on the journal sound file is kind of cruddy in order to get it in under the filesize limit. But I've posted a full CD quality version on my personal webspace. Click the link to download the MP3:
Permalink: clearvoice_pushed_me_over_the_edge.html
Words: 176
Location: Buffalo, NY
02/18/04 12:49 - ID#34104
wYrd :: No Witchcraft for the Deaf
Looks like Bush's Dept of Education has created a new list of television shows that will be barred from being captioned for the hearing impaired (apparently there's not much going on in education these days). Here's a link to the list:
Needless to say, the approved and disapproved lists reflect the far-right, rabidly Puritan values of the current administration. What can I even say about it? It's ludicrous mistreatment and abuse of a service intended to aid people. But apparently BushCo doesn't think the hearing impaired are smart enough to protect their children from the evils of The Amazing Spiderman... Needless to say, the National Association of the Deaf are upset about the whole thing (http://www.nad.org/openhouse/action/alerts/captioningcensorship/pr.html).
And not many folks are talking about this. The decisions went into effect last October. The effect is that groups applying for federal funds to caption television programming will not be eligible if they are captioning the disapproved shows. So no captions for "Gay Hollywood" or "Papparazzi Part 1: New York", which may or may not be so bad (many of the shows on both the approved and disapproved lists are probably better off not being watched by the general public, IMO), but it also means that poor little hearing impaired children won't be able to get their Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, or Samurai Jack fixes. It's classic class-oriented cultural eugenics. Cartoons and fantasy are bad for kids and might get them doing things like reading Harry Potter novels and sacrificing babies to Satan.
In the eyes of the right wing radicals, it's better to watch The Fountainhead (approved) or Amazing Animal Videos (also approved). But regardless of who is making the list, the whole endeavour is dumb. Why isn't everything captioned? Can't we pull that off? To cut any group out of the loop when it is so feasible to provide a modicum of accessibility is just treacherous. When making lists like this to fasttrack the meager distribution of a pathetic amount of funds is how the Department of Education spends its time, things must be really rough.
Permalink: wYrd_No_Witchcraft_for_the_Deaf.html
Words: 384
Location: Buffalo, NY
02/17/04 10:42 - ID#34103
Anyway, it's about a subculture of men who fetishize the HIV virus, and it's one of the most disturbing and sad things I've ever seen. But I was struck at the connections to web culture and web communities. The general trend of porn sites is to fetishize the repulsive -- in many ways it has been claimed that net.culture drives us to the fringe of acceptability and palatability. Sites like SnuffX (http://www.snuffx.com) and Stileproject (http://www.stileproject.com) have been longtime suppliers of images and movie files of mixed porn and snuff. I saw this as really connected to that sort of gruesome one-upmanship that goes on in these "backrooms" of the Internet. I think that once there's a whole group of people ingesting and commenting on these kinds of subjects, then it's inevitable that some kind of community would be formed. I've seen design sites where you could be shot for using a dropshadow. Or gaming sites that cater (unofficially) to very particular tastes. There are the meta-customs we see in all boards and forums, but each individual site has particular rules and traditions. In many ways, the phenomena described in "The Gift" reminded me of these odd, insular discussion groups.
Anyway, I was just really struck by how much the Web and websites were involved in building and maintaining the subculture covered in the documentary. I definitely recommend checking it out.
Permalink: .html
Words: 264
Location: Buffalo, NY
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