| hmmm |
[Nov. 10th, 2009|09:01 pm] |
I've kind of been putting stuff on the main blog if you so care http://shanem.net/randomness/
you can't actually comment over there though :) I should maybe fix that. I kinda figure most of you see them on FB anyway, perhaps I'm wrong. |
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| Things of our Children's Fathers |
[Aug. 9th, 2009|06:57 pm] |
 We remember people in various ways, but when they've left us it is their things we have left. These things give us a physical hold on them through time, and through this we can maintain a grasp on our emotional ties too. This is perhaps even more so with our parents. We spend the most pivotal years of our lives with out parents and they ingrain themselves in us ways even lovers can not. Most of these things will be new from parent to child, we don't plan on our children making these connections to something specific, it just happens. The things that do persist from generation to generation become heirlooms, some even forced down through history; the jade statue perched on the corner of the mantel waiting to be set free.
The things children cling on to will be of their own choosing, for reasons we likely will never realize, especially at the time. However we will certainly try to influence them. Give them things we think they'll like, hopefully cherish, and even better if it's something we have an interest in. Heirlooms persist themselves, some as sand worms, through history but what about when we want to pass things down, and what about when those things may not exist when they're old enough to care?
This all comes to me from one of my interests. I'd almost call it a hobby though that seems wrong, a hobby feels like you should necessarily be creating something. I play board games on a somewhat weekly bases. These aren't typical American board games, but derived from Europe and somewhat dominated by Germany. They feature interesting game play, unique physical pieces, and usually nice artistic images. Carcassonne is an decent though perhaps simplistic example. One problem I have though is that most games I'm interested in are already owned by other members of the group I play with, and I don't tend to play with other people, so there is really little reason in me owning any games myself.
This is where we come back to the first bit. I realize however that some of these games I'll still want to play years from now, and some I will distinctly want my children to play; they're kind of like the Montessori of children's games, but furthermore they're so unique to what we usually experience. However, if and when I do ever have kids, some of these may not exist anymore. Games like these have fairly small markets and are to a large degree necessarily physical. While they do exist digitally and mostly online, they loose a lot in it, and there's nothing to say the electronic version will persist even then. The internet is fickle. So what do we do with things like this?
I certainly can't buy everything, but I've decided to actually buy games I think I'll still want to play in 15 years, even if I never punch the pieces from their cardboard holders until then. I'll have to lug them around until then, but I think it's worth it. The first one I'm buying is Thebes, a fun Archeology type game. It's got some interesting game play around how it handles digging over two simulated years, and I think it's probably pretty educational. My kids probably won't remember it, and I hear they tend not to like what you think they will or should, but all you can really do is try right?
I do wonder where else this kind of issue might lie; the niche market that doesn't lend itself well to digitization.
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| Passive Persistance |
[Jun. 29th, 2009|09:50 am] |
We are all way over booked. I don't know if it's actually worse now than say twenty years ago or if it's like child kidnapping statistics, just more obvious. The fact remains though, we have more that we want to do than we can. To make it worse it seems our minds want to do less than we ourselves want. We easily let those things which take a bit of work to get into and will benefit us drop off the radar, where those things close to heart will blip away in our consciousness.
Persistence is how we manage to break through these barriers. We make notes, we schedule time, we sign up for programs, we commit ourselves to making new endeavors break though the inertia of what already exists in our lives. This is a very macro approach, but it works. It requires we decide on and commit to one thing, then actively pursue it with regular time and usually money. But what if we just don't have the energy for that, or the time, or the desire to work this way?
Hold that thought. It has recently been shown that one's social circle affects them more than we may think. People with thin or overweight friends have a higher incidence of becoming the same. I think it's fairly obvious here that if your friends eat out a lot, you likely will too and will gain wait, as well as vice versa, however I think there's a subtler as well a finer point here. While eating out is a fairly macro aspect of this, consider the part where you instead get more exercise because your friends do active things and they invite you along. Or even finer, that you start basket weaving because your friends already known how to and not only teach you but have the right materials for you to borrow. These simple barriers are often the hurdles that keep us from entering new domains, and it is our friends who can easiest let us slip over them. If your friend asks if you want to weave baskets with them, you know you have that 'in' waiting for you if/when you're ready. ( I would argue that this is why a lot of successful people are successful. Networking, social nepotism, being with the right people at the right time. And sadly, being able to be with the right people at the right time. )
Now back to the first point. If the problem you have is getting into something you know you want to do, then just go find a friend right? It's not that hard to meet people.... hmmmm Ok Perhaps meeting a basket weaver and striking up a conversation that doesn't involve "Teach me to weave baskets!" is not really going to happen. But there's something to be learned from what would come from that connection. It's the small things that get in our way, and having a friend who can give us a leg up over the hurdles is great, but when we're left to our own devices I think there is still hope on our own.
By collecting small pieces of what we want around us I think we can create a simple path for passive persistence. By keeping your goal in mind through each and every day we're more likely to achieve our goals. When your bored we often latch on to those things at the top of our minds or even more so which we don't think will require a lot of work to just start doing. So if we have a steady influx of familiarity with what we want, we'll more likely let our minds wander to it and want to pursue it in our free time. What can constitute this? Pretty much anything I would think. If appropriate I think podcasts are a great tool. They auto update and get synced to your music player with everything else, so you always have a little bit of information just waiting for you. Magazine's can work, or even just setting your home page/portal to an appropriate site, preferably one that is dynamic so there's always something new for your mind to process. |
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| The Writing on the Wall |
[Jun. 14th, 2009|05:28 pm] |
I wrote this by hand a while ago when I was still in Dallas, it's the first story I finished in my writing book. There were some inconsistencies and perhaps some slow parts but I was pretty happy with it still. I tried to smooth out some of those, but this is still very much a Draft 1, I haven't even fully reread it, but it's good enough to share now.
( The Writing on the Wall )
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| The Usability of Supply and Use |
[May. 17th, 2009|02:33 pm] |
Imagine there's a service that allows you to rent DVDs through the mail. It lets you supply a list of movies you are interested in online and is 90% likely to always send you your first selection. Let's call this service NetFlix. Now Imagine there's a very similar service that let's you rent video games, and that they effectively copied NetFlix's queue system exactly. Let's call this service GameFly. Now imagine that from a user's stand point, NetFlix's queue is vastly superior to GameFly's, despite working exactly the same. Ok, you can stop imagining, because it's all true. In both cases when you return an item to the service the queue management is exactly the same. They start at the top of your list and send you the first item they can send to you in a reasonable amount of time. Here's the issue though. NetFlix has a lot more of each item than GameFly does. Here's the subsequent and much more damaging issue in my opinion. The overhead of renting a game is much much more than a DvD. The negative effects of getting a movie you don't want are less than getting a game you do not want. Renting a Dvd and a game are vastly different user experiences. A Dvd is like speed dating, there's not a ton of investment, you can do a couple at a time in a short period and there's not much consequence of taking interest in a few at once. Games however are like arranged dating. They require a month or so to complete, you can juggle more than one at a time, but you're probably better off not, and they take longer to 'set up' ( read get your game. NetFlix has the capabilities to have lots of copies of every DvD, coupled with the fact that the a single DvD is out for a short period of time they don't have to have as many copies of any given Dvd to satisfy demand. GameFly though suffers from users needing to keep the media for a month or so. Imagine the case of a hot new movie and game coming out. If there are 1000 users who want it NetFlix can probably get away with only buying 500 copies and satisfying all users in the first week. 500 people get it at the start of the week, watch, return, then the second 500 get it in the second half of the week. GameFly though, SoL, they need 1000 copies to make everyone happy in that first week. Now consider people will want to keep the game longer, so NetFlix can actually get away with saying they're going to take 2 weeks to satisfy everyone so they buy only 250 copies, but GameFly still has to buy 1000 copies. The usability effect with the Queue here though is that with NetFlix you have a high chance of getting your #1 item and then an even higher chance of getting your #2 item if #1 isn't there. With GameFly the effect is that you are much more likely to go deep within your queue when you are sent a new game. So here are the usability issues. We all keep Dvds we aren't really interested in 'right now' in our NetFlix queues, but that's OK because we push the stuff were more generally interested to the top and we know we're likely to get that stuff. With GameFly we really have no idea what we're going to get, it could be anything, so the only real way to ensure you won't get something you don't necessarily want is to REMOVE those other items. This is incredibly bad in my opinion because these are the items that are likely to be on the fringe of our interest. The Queue serves a dual purpose of telling the service what we want, as well remembering things we thought were interesting at a point. It's effectively a Queue and an Interest list at once. With Netflix this works fine, the things you really want stay at the top, the things you think you might want in the future stay at the bottom. This completely fails with GameFly. So GameFly's queue actually causes you to forget about games you otherwise want to remember. The secondary effect with GameFly's queue is that if you do maintain it as an interest list you then run afoul of the larger overhead of receiving a bad item. With NetFlix if you receive a movie you don't want, you might give it a try, waste 2 hours, or just simply return it. All in all a short investment. With GameFly though, you're likely going to invest many more hours before cutting the experience short. This too is very bad as with the movie you at least get the full experience, here you have basically wasted your time. ( I will mention though that this all is much worse currently in that it can take up to a week to get a new game, such that the investment and money lost are much higher than they necessarily have to be with a faster shipping system ). The solution to all of this? Game Fly should have a way in their Queue system to delineate between things you want and things you want to remember. Be it separate Queues or a dividing line in the single queue. I think this is a very elegant solution to their problem. Postscript I left out a side issue here to keep the above from being more convoluted. There are likely much fewer games a person is interested in than movies, such that if you only keep those games you really want to spend the next month on you are going to have few selections in your queue I think. I wrote Game Fly about this fact, that if you want a single game and you're willing to knowingly wait for it that you have to delete all those other saved items from your queue. This was their response. "By placing only your top game choices in your GameQ, you will be guaranteeing a shipment of those games. However, GameFly cannot guarantee a timeframe for those shipments and we, therefore, advise against this process [only having the 1 game you want in your queue] as you would miss out on receiving available games and we do not credit for unused service time." So basically they want you to rent something you may not really want over supplying a way for you to choose how to manage your queue. They did say they'd send on the suggestion though... |
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| Socialist Engineering |
[May. 13th, 2009|01:32 am] |
I had the great pleasure of seeing Sunday in the Park with George this weekend. It's an interesting love story around Georges Seurat as well a story of sticking to your guns and perhaps believing in yourself. I got pretty decent seats, row J, though the 2nd furthest seat on the left. The seat was fine, the closeness made up for any divergence from the center, however I ran afoul of that oh so typical issue, I got seated behind a fairly tall guy, and not just that, he too was seated behind someone tall. What's funny was, before the show when the less ideal situation was known to both of us, he kept complaining about not only the guy in front of him being tall, but also being wide. I found it amusing he found something beyond his own stature to find wrong in the other person. Though I never really figured out what he meant, the guy was maybe broader shouldered, but you're not trying to look around someone's shoulders to see past them, theaters are set up to mostly look over the head of the person in front of you.
While I eventually did settle down and the orb blocking the center of the stage became more blocked out by my subconscious I couldn't help but think that this was all solvable, so why was it still a problem?
There's no reason ticketing systems can't ask about height and take that into account. They could place tall people in seats where the row behind may be a bit higher than normal, or could place them at the back of sections, where there's extra space between them and the row behind. Theaters could even offer specially configured seats situated so tall people aren't blocking anyone. Extra seats on the end, for instance. All of this applies equal to short people, though the solution seems more mechanical there -- seat cushions. The wife of the tall guy in front of me even suggested I use one her husband decided not to, I declined so as to not chain the problem even further back.
Stadium seating is the real answer here, but with the arts, historical buildings are part of the flavor and even if they were willing, it'd be quite kitschy. The 5th Avenue Theater in particular certainly has its spice, decked out in a Chinese style from top to bottom. So with the performing arts, we're just stuck with the facilities we have, for better or worse.
Imagine we had a great reservation system that allowed people to specify their height and the system tried to organize everyone so it worked out. Would people use it?
I am inclined to say no. I think if someone were told they could only sit in certain seats they would not be so keen on the idea, even if they knew it would help someone else out. No one wants to have their options restricted. Especially if it's likely to be to worse seats: the back and sides of the theater. Also, what do you do for a tall couple?
An alternate system would have you select sections to sit in, where the seats in each section were more or less the same, and everyone was randomly assigned seats in the section. In this way tall people aren't being singled out, but the system would optimizing for theoretically everyone's height. Additionally the ticketing experience would be the same for everyone, you don't know your exact seat until the time of the show. I think people in general would be really turned off to this too. It's perhaps a bit too touchy feely? A little too much forced community? American's tend to be fairly thick skinned as such it seems.
It'd be nice if someone came up with a fair system though, and actually put it into use. It's not really right that you can pay $80 for a show and possibly not be able to see the show. This does bring up the philosophy side of things. Are tall people just mean?
Hardly of course, but there must be real considerations a tall person ends up making through their lives as such. They certainly know they're likely to block someone's view, so does such a person consider this when they go out? Is it right of them to just go to a show without making some special consideration for those behind them? Is it right for them to have to? Does such a person have a responsibility to somehow make amends or to alleviate the situation, or are they simply given the right to make others experiences less than their own?
I suppose this must be the consideration overweight people make with flights. No one wants to be forced to have to behave differently from others based on their stature, especially the overweight as it is certainly a sore point they live with. They especially don't want to have to when it is going to cost a lot more money to buy an additional seat, but obviously We have decided this is ok in some situations, as some airlines require it. The tall have few personal problems from their height too, and if anything they get a bit from it. So I guess here is one group double harmed by being physically excessive, where another is not. I'll say though, being of fairly average height, I'm quite fine with it.
(Coincidently, the fore-most tall person did not return for the second act. Though the shorter part, it was at least a better experience.) |
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| The Face of God? |
[May. 11th, 2009|09:23 am] |
 What Jesus looked like will never be known, but how it is presented in America is almost certainly pretty off. Jesus was from the Middle East yet we depict him as fairly Caucasian in almost all cases. We are certainly not alone, though, there are Black and Hispanic visages in those cultures too. Given that we know Jesus was not Caucasian though, I find it interesting that He is so often represented as so in our culture.
I can only assume this this is a form of assimilation many cultures have done. To adopt the one being who is important above all else to their own look. There are certainly many benefits from this too. It is easy then to claim God as your own, to apply a territorial ownership to God, to claim him for our country over theirs. From this then there's even the sub-conscious idea that God is somehow tied to your country, that He is in your neighborhood, town, state more than He is somewhere else. I see the appeal of this for sure. As well, if Jesus looks like you then there is less doubt that He is not like you, not a part of you. I certainly feel a little bit of these things, and I do not even practice.
Despite the good I'm sure ownership gives an individual, I wonder if it doesn't hurt us as a whole. The main thought I have here is that if Americans worshiped a visage of Jesus that was Middle Eastern, would we still be so bigoted as a country? Would we have so easily turned on the Arab citizens in and of our country after 9/11 if they looked like the savior we worshiped as a nation?
I don't know that it would have attenuated it completely, but I can't help but believe it would have been better than what we saw. I can't help but think it might make us all a bit more tolerant, to those elsewhere in the world and to ourselves.
Being from the South I've seen my fair share of deep rooted Southerners being horribly discriminatory whilst being overlooked by their Lord. This is certainly not the churches fault or influence, but the external culture of those who believe with every cell in their body since they were little, such that they have never had to believe with their minds. I can't help but believe that they would not be a little different at their cores if the one they worshiped all their lives, the one they hung on their walls, the one they payed homage to on Christmas was different from them.
( Having lived in Boston, Texas and Seattle I also know that this is not a Southern thing, so no harping on the South. ) |
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| 24 Heroes |
[May. 5th, 2009|08:51 pm] |
I've watched all of 24 from the beginning to last night.
24 gets vilified a lot, and I won't dispute it here, however it occurred to be a few weeks ago, that 24 does do something positive in the entertainment land scape.
On 24 there so far have been 2 black presidents ( before Obama came on the scene even ), 1 woman president and 1 white male president. Of those 4, the white male was the evil one and the rest have been held in fair praise on the show. |
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| B. Hussein O. |
[Jan. 24th, 2009|05:39 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  pleased | ] |
I was happy to hear on last Tuesday that President Obama was inaugurated with his full name as is tradition.
I was saddened when previously that day there was plausible speculation that he would break with tradition and just use 'H.' If ever there was a way to draw attention to his middle name, that would be it. We may not consciously know it, but I think we all have come to expect the full name of our president to be used during the inauguration, such that in any record of history it would stand out otherwise. It's ironic and short sighted that the goals of those in favor of 'H.' are to not bring attention to the connection with Saddam on this single day in history, when not using it is certain to bring attention to the baseless connection for all of history.
It was President Obama's decision and his alone, and I give him praise for his decision, despite it being an easy one. To fear a name is to give it power. I wonder if 'John' or Christianity fell out of popularity after Lincoln was assassinated. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 18th, 2009|07:03 pm] |
If this shows up then I've successfully published this from google docs. Very awesome given LJ's kinda nasty posting/spell check UI.
Here's instructions on setting it up: http://documents.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=37571
Edit: ( from gDocs even ) It looks like the gDoc subject doesn't show up as the entry title for LJ. Ah well, still better to put in the title after the fact than deal with LJs interface I say.
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| Germany in review |
[Jan. 15th, 2009|11:20 pm] |
I've yet to really say anything about my trip to Germany. Most likely because Rachel showed me up pretty nicely out of the gate ;o) She did a great write up that gives a nice day to day view of what we did, starting in Rudesheim. I recommend you check them all out.
The main things I remember about Germany was just how much it felt like I fit. Every city we were in just felt like somewhere I wanted to be from. I loved that you could simply hop on a train and get to anywhere else and that there was a decent hotel within 100 yard of getting off of the train. And also really close to the trains were the hearts of the city where you could just wander around and check things out without having to worry about getting run over by a car. There were the bikes, but that was just awesome.
There are times where I feel like the cities in the States are maybe a bit much for me, just too big, too homogenized, not enough unique areas. Of course you can live there fine, but can you thrive? Germany seems to have so much history that modern times have moved in but not taken over completely. Maybe I'm just a quaint town kinda guy, but I loved the small towns along the Rhine. Small communities that are only 10 minutes apart by train and less than an hour from the closest big city.
I've never really been outside of the US before, but this was certainly a wonderful start, sans the Franfurt airport.
We really weren't expecting the weather to cooperate with us during the trip; however, I don't think we could have asked for anything better. Our trip began with staying in Castles overlooking the Rhine with snow no less, a treat even to the Germans; and ended with us having mastered the Christmas markets and Gluhwein, realizing we could take some very unqiue souveniers back with us in the form of the custom city Gluhwein mugs. I completely plan on drinking from mine in 20 years, perhaps even during a visit with Rachel over some good intentioned mulled wine.
It was a long time after that I didn't expect to step out my front door and be on the brick lined streets, or to be surprised by the snow on the unexpected castles that were never there. Maybe in those 20 years later I can be there all again.
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| Odds |
[Jan. 4th, 2009|09:57 pm] |
1. BioShock is an awesome game and I finished it in like 5 days.
2. If people say they're going to buy you a drink on a flight because they made you move, they should damn well do it.
3. First class is awesome, especially if you're going to just sit on the plane in the snow for an hour.
4. Delta sucks, I knew this, though I guess I needed a reminder, not that it really matters in general since you have little choice airline wise.
5. Day Break was a good series, though I'm thinking maybe it was best off as a short series. Maybe a few more episodes or more notice to the writers it was getting canceled would have been good.
6. I've only managed to shower/get dressed twice this year so far ( see #1, mostly )
7. It snowed another few inches outside my place tonight.
8. Teenagers apparently only want money for gifts these days, and give each other money for gifts.
9. The Federal Reserve sucks. Why can I only make 6 transfers a month out of my savings account? Care to pay the $50 in bounce check fees for me?
10. 'Atleast' should be a word.
11. There's a new super powers movie coming out this year called Push. Stupid name, but I think I like it for the gritty look it has in the preview.
Ends |
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| American Made, German Bound |
[Nov. 10th, 2008|10:23 pm] |
In the continuing line of 'Rachel does research and Shane agrees that's an awesome thing to have'* I today finally bought the luggage for Rachel and my Germany trip. The bag is from a cool company in Montana called Red Oxx, and soon two of them will be the only things accompanying us to Germany. I thought I was going to have to go with something less nice as they were out of stock, but it turns out their making them anew today and should be able to send my pack out tomorrow!
I'm mostly posting this to encourage you to buy American if you can. My back up option was going to be REI, but as a big retailer now they have crappy photos on their site and as it turns out the bag I was eyeing was imported. I have nothing against foreign products, but in our economy and with people loosing their jobs, it's essential we focus on what we produce. You obviously shouldn't buy shoddy products, but much like Red Oxx, there are American companies making really good products.
(* I had tried to get the Mei Voyageur, but they were backed ordered 2 months!)
( The title could also apply to Rachel and me, I suppose. ) |
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| One year in Seattle |
[Nov. 1st, 2008|01:28 pm] |
A year ago I left a hotel room, a nice one too, in Boise Idaho and made the final leg of my trip to Seattle. The weather is about the same now as it was a year ago, but the time in between has been very different. There are trees everywhere in place of the convenience of anything you want within a 5 minute drive; The temperature tops out in the 90s in the summer, though the winters kinda just hang around. Electricity is cheap and usage is low, though water seems to be expensive.
There's a mystery to the areas around here that is brought upon by the canopy of trees and the lack of access. You can of course drive places but it's hard to really get a handle on everywhere as you could in Texas. I'm not sure this is bad, it just makes it harder to know the area; maybe this is good. I probably want to buy a house in a year or so, so I need to get on top of just figuring out what all there is around here. It's like a scavenger hunt, so fun, I just need to get into gear on it. It is a little disappointing though that the public transit around here is so hard to use. There's a good bus system, but no real good way to plan trips around it. Google Maps is about the best option for specific trips, I'm thankful it's there. But one would hope, I would expect, that there'd be more fixed path options like light rail and subway; sadly no. It's kinda coming at least, so in 20 years there will be a bit of it. At least there will be an option to get to the airport next year, though involves going through the city.
I'm looking forward to the winter and the coming year. There's lots of wonderful entertainment and arts options up here, you can't throw a rock without hitting something new and crazy, and I'm a bit more settled to balance everything and take advantage of it all. |
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| Oh oh oh the sweetest things |
[Oct. 28th, 2008|10:02 pm] |
The other night I came across an episode of That 70's Show that I hadn't seen before. It was a musical show and pretty good. One part stuck with me the most though.
I'm pretty sure the first time I ever heard this song was at the end of Starman which I happened to catch the end of on tv when I was pretty young. Starman was a love story, with a sadish ending and the song was vaguely appropriate as love songs can be. It also was just sweet, and I think it spoke to the innocent ideals of my untapped heart. This rendition is also a nice portrayal of the song, maybe more so with the innocence the kids being in it lends. There's a little smoothness to ends of the main lines that gives it just the right emotion.
( Somewhere above I managed to fight off a wild tangent which I give to you here. Starman was a love story, between a man and a star. Well not actually, I guess that's more like Sunshine. Though in Sunshine there were a lot of people in love with the Sun, which I guess would make it Starorgy. There is perhaps a strong chance that movie has been made already. )
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| Covering Books |
[Oct. 20th, 2008|10:31 pm] |
A week or so ago Neal Stephenson gave a talk at work about this new book Anathem. During the talk I kinda zoned out and started to think about typography and visual presentation of books. My subconcious took audio and put it together with literature and came up with the thought of covering literature much like you might cover a song, give a little person twist to someone elses words.
Changing the words themselves would be out, though it has been done in the form of say rap versions of Shakespear. However I'm more interested in the visual aspects. Think of taking an excerpt from your favorite book and then visually redoing it to give it a little life of its own.
The furthest extent I can think of this being done is in House of Leaves, where the book takes on the dementia, paranoia and creepiness of the story through typography alone. Another instance is Griffin and Sabine. The beautiful letters could be just standard type in a regular paper back, but they have a life of their own in the visual presentation they come.
I think this would be really cool to see, the types of ideas people will come up with when they put their artistic ability to the stories they love the most. It also seems like something that could do nicely from a little annual competition to bring out the best works.
Somewhat randomly, I asked Stephenson about the visual aspects of writting citing House of Leaves. He didn't seem to hot on the idea in general, though he did cite one of my favorite physical book copies as an instance where his publishers did something different with Snow Crash. I'm not so sure what was so special about the copy. It was slightly smaller in height and width than a paper back, but it was a hard back, and kind of fit in your hand. The pages were also a tad thinner than usual, so that it was seemingly the perfect depth given the smaller page. Wish I still had my copy. |
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| Absenteeism |
[Oct. 19th, 2008|10:59 pm] |
Shane Votes 2004
Originally uploaded by flamesplash.
I received my Absentee ballot the other day and it actually made me feel kinda down. With an election like this years I really want to go to the polls with everyone else and vote in person. It's been said about previous elections, but I think this one really merits the election to vote in. ( You could argue Bush never being electing would have been better though ;o) )
I think I may still go to the polls though, even if no one else ends up being there and it's lickety split. It is good that this is an option for those who don't feel they have the time to vote. But part of me kinda wants election day to be a holiday and to go out with everyone else and vote. |
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| The Freedom to Not Tell You Who I Voted For |
[Oct. 14th, 2008|12:09 am] |
With the election coming up I'm reminded of an Americanism that kind of baffles me. In such a free society, with two very distinct political parties that seem to only be able to hope to garner .1% over the other every four year, why isa vast portion of society so secretive about who they will or did vote for? We live in a society that lives, and tries to die by, the first admendment and equality, yet it's a little crazy that so many people don't want to say who they voted for.
Perhaps it's biased on the ideal and not the actual, but it seems like the strength in this conviction holds strong even today. |
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| Zen and the Art of Video Gaming |
[Oct. 7th, 2008|10:49 pm] |
I normally only play video games for a few hours on the weekend. It's not that I relegate them to only the weekends but that they just fit in better there. I like to keep my weekend mornings quiet and laid back. Get up at 10, have some coffee, listen to the humorous weekend NPR shows all while playing some games. This leaves the rest of the week gameless. The problem is I'm not exactly doing anything more useful per sey during that time ( sans working of course :) ).
I often find that the weekday nights seem to slip by despite there being a couple hours between getting home and going to bed. Problem is I find most of that time is spent listening/watching TV and doing not a whole lot on the internet. These effectively brain dead practices make the hours and entire week just whiz by.
I few weeks ago I did a practice in not watching tv ( well ok I made an exception for the Daily Show ), and made the personal realization that TV unchecked will suck your life away, and more so combined with the internet. During that time I read some magazines ( which I almost never get around to ), played with the cat more, listened to some old podcasts, and played some video games.
The thing I realized is that games are a good balance between the mind suckingness of TV and the elevated mental levels of reading/writing and even arithmetic. Games may have you sitting on the couch, but you're engaging with something. You're constantly making decisions, solving little and big puzzles, trying not to die and moving that little controller about. And if you're playing Resident Evil, you're heart is beating away.
This all started with TV and time slipping by. I think the way we measure time is influenced and differentiated by our enjoyment and involvement with our activities. TV is in general enjoyable and not involved. So you think a lot of time has just passed, but it doesn't really feel like it, it ususally feels like it just passed quickly. Where with a good game or book which are mentally involved, you both think and feel like a bit of time has passed. And I think this ratio makes you feel like your time was better spent.
So I think my new policy is going to be that cable is on for only new shows, and the rest should be spent elsewhere, with games being a decent alternative and not only a weekend venture. This also brings me to my other recent success, I broke out of my reading rut! I tend to get a little attached to my book, maybe a bit like a relationship. I tried to read The Invention of Everything Else many months ago. I mean it's got Tesla in it and I heard about it from America's Librarian! Sadly I just couldn't get in to it. I didn't want to simply ditch it though, I mean it has merit, it's won awards, there's a cute pigeon on the cover, it's me not you! and much like we do with relationship issues, I'd rather ignore it and simply do without than admit my loss and move one. Well that, and I didn't have anything else enticing at hand, another tragic but true relationship ender. I've broken through this though. My attempts to bridge the gap with Vonnegut failed when my local indie used bookstore only had Slaughterhouse Five, but I was saved when I saw an interesting binding of a Confederacy of Dunces. Wish me luck. -shane |
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