Church of Dementia

Pixies

2009-11-08T01:47:57Z

So I'm heading to go see the Pixies in Chicago on the 19th of this month. I've got 3 extra tickets...I figured I'd see if anyone wanted to go to the show here before I put them on craigslist.

Heisenberg and the Monotonix

2009-09-27T15:00:34Z

You can't observe the speed and position of an object at the same time.

Nor can you take a picture with your crappy cell phone camera of people crowd surfing and hold people up who are trying to crowd surf at the same time: too many people obsessed with documenting an event destroys the event itself; you can either observe or participate.

I don't know what the solution to the problem is, but I've got some ideas: maybe people with good cameras (video and still) could do a better job letting people at an event know where the pictures will be after the show, so that they don't feel compelled to take so many pictures with crappy cameras and instead, either dance, mosh, pour vodka on the drum set, or whatever other way they feel like participating. One of the best events at Burning Man (the human carcass watch) explicitly bans photography (for obvious reasons). Participate, watch, or leave. I realized this half-way through the show. I put my camera, my cell phone (which is now dead...not just battery, it's totally dead), and everything else in the car and opted for participation.

Oh. And if you've never seen the Monotonix (the craziest Israeli punk band you'll ever see), it's well worth a drive to go see them. They put the energy of every performer I've ever seen to shame. Don't believe me? Watch this video and show me a better one (bonus points if you can find me):

Monotonix at Super Happy Fun Land in Houston (Full Tilt Boogie, Ya'll) from Craig Hlavaty on Vimeo.

(It starts from inside the bathroom (watch from inside as one of the band members climbs on top of it) and goes all the way to the parking lot!)

Zombie Reagan Internet Challenge

2009-04-11T00:46:42Z

In some sense, being able to find something on the internet has become a part of my epistemology. If I'm ever sure if something happened, or if it's just an urban myth, Snopes, Wikipedia, Google, etc. with much more certainty than my next door neighbor.

But on the other hand, what if I can't find something, but remember it happening? Did it really happen, or just a dream? Especially when the story seem implausible.

Lance's flight was canceled today. So I had my own flight cancellation story:

In June 2004, I was interviewing for a job with IBM which flew me to Kansas City. It was OK (bad but unintentional pun). My flight to leave was suddenly canceled. Reagan had died, and apparently his coffin needed very tight security -- someone might destroy the president's body...before his body could arrive in Washington to be resurrected with Cheney's necromancy?

It was very strange. What's stranger though, is I can't find any record of this ever happening on the internet, which leads me to almost question whether it happened at all. Or at least whether anyone would believe it.

So challenge for all the internet savvy folk out there: find it. Any record of the event. Hardness is increased since simply looking for Reagan in connection with aviation is going to get you stuff about the airport named after him;) And...go!

Darwin's Dad was so fat...

2009-02-11T00:00:46Z

"He required his coachman to test the floorboards of houses he was visiting, and had to have special stone steps made for him to enter his carriage." [from Wikipedia]

Deflation

2009-02-07T09:09:07Z

So there's a big row right now regarding deflation, as it, it's happening and it's bad (TM).

We've got a huge deficit as well. Why not simply print more money? When Germany printed money to pay the fine it incurred after WWI, it caused enormous inflation -- the downside of printing more money. But if you've got deflation, it seems like printing more money would cause the inflation rate to increase (just what we want!) while giving the government much needed cash.

We've got a lot of smart economists around, so I'm thinking there must be some obvious reason why this isn't a good idea.

Everything I needed to learn I learned from Video Games

2009-01-22T23:52:46Z

There's a lot of social assumptions built into video games, and recently one I've decided, needs a cameo in real life.

Everyone in virtual any game with people in it is standing around or walking. No matter what the game, the player is almost always running. It's...just too boring to walk from one side of the same old town to the other.

Lately, I've decided to try that out in real life. After work, I ran through the parking garage to my vehicle. Or yesterday, where I ran to virtually every destination downtown (it helped that I was slightly under-dressed).

Somewhat surprisingly, I haven't received many reactions so far.

Today

2009-01-20T15:11:25Z

I'm proud to be an American.

Child Mortality and Good News

2009-01-06T05:19:39Z

Out of these 5 pairs, which has the highest child mortality rate according to UN statistics? The rate of the lower is half that of the other so it's very statistically significant:

1. Sri Lanka / Turkey
2. Poland / South Korea
3. Malaysia / Russia
4. Pakistan / Vietnam
5. Thailand / South Africa

Highest countries are:
Turkey
Poland
Russia
Pakistan
S. Africa

This is from this fabulous video[ted.com] by Hans Rosling about how we have so many misconceptions about health/wealth in other countries despite how good the data is and how far they've come.

December Plans

2008-12-22T22:33:47Z

So I'll be in the great state of Delaware from December 24th to the 30th.

Let's hang out!

The Dow of Obama

2008-10-24T04:29:30Z

Below is a picture of the Dow Jones Industrial Average vs FiveThirtyEight.com's aggregate poll tracker.

I was thinking to myself, the other day about how McCain's poll numbers had gone up despite there being no real positive news for him, nor negative news for Obama. I remembered the market had started showing signs of life at the same time, and thought "Coincidence?"

First of all, the primaries didn't really end until June. But starting in June, there's an easy to notice correlation between the market and Obama. Namely, when the market starts to tank, Obama's numbers shoot up. Since it is correlation, after all, it could be that the market tanks when Obama starts winning. The market mini crash in July saw Obama's numbers rise. While as it started to recover, McCain seems to gain increased support. Until the crash, where Obama surges and the market plummets. As I mentioned before, Obama's all-time high seem to come at the market's (present) 2008 nadir, where it plateaued and then become declining as the Dow came back from the dead.

Anyway, there's my political finding of the year. Remember to vote (for [my candidate])!

Lost and Found

2008-10-07T00:38:10Z

Lost my cell phone (and all my numbers) but in the process my camera was found...under my couch.

Happily, I was able to recover the pics from the Nine Inch Nails concert last month.

The concert itself was pretty tame by my standards...most people even in the front were just standing there the whole time. The was the usual group of people trying to kill each other in the middle, but only for part of the show. Maybe we mellow out as we get older? Trent's performance was spot-on and the visual effects were amazing. At one point, he used a touchscreen to turn on and off notes to create a beat on the fly. With so much going on in electronic music, it was neat to watch something being created live.

I got one really good picture and a bunch of sub-par ones (just too blurry or dark). Maybe I'll do some photoshop later. Here's the best of the bunch:

This is the story of the hurricane

2008-09-11T17:10:37Z

I like Ike!

So far he's given me two days of vacation! I'm torn whether to try and evacuate or to just stay here and say "Hi" to Ike. If I'm staying, I need to go buy some limes and passion fruit juice

Once

2008-09-05T18:23:56Z

Smoking a cigar in celebration of a baby's birth won't give you lung cancer. Eating a bowl of ice cream won't make you fat. Calling in "sick" at work to get a day off won't end your career.

But there's some line somewhere where all the above happen. I'm getting worse and worse and figuring out where that line is. Since last year, I've gained 10 pounds, pushed my regular bedtime past 2 AM, and gotten more out of touch with my friends that aren't in Texas.

I want to push back against this vague drift, but each push turns into the kinds of rigid crusades -- the anti "one time won't hurt" -- and I can't do it. Maybe the solution is to send get a bunch of grade school kids to fight the good fight for me [wikipedia.org].

Friends and Family

2008-09-02T01:59:06Z

I just got back from my sister's wedding. It was the first time I'd seen many of my relatives since my grandmother died in college and the first time I'd seen many of my Dad's in years. I actually really enjoyed the whole affair, complete with the University of Delaware mascot leading people in the chicken dance, my date telling my sister how nice it was to be at her "funeral" (nice slip!), my sister laughing during the dance because of how long the song was and wanting not to be the center of attention, and of course, the time I spent not with my family.

On the friends side, I was also pleasantly surprised, but also disappointed. I'd talked to three of my friends before I came down (and failed to contact anyone else unfortunately.) I texted Raquel from the rehearsal dinner and in a couple hours we were sitting at the Dark Horse in downtown Philly talking about the sale, construction, and posing of anatomically correct dolls. And we met a beautiful man who couldn't grow hair and was very happy about it.

Sunday, after the wedding, I threw a hail mary and missed. It was already 10 PM or so and with my companion tired, I was only able to get voicemail. Oh well.

I guess the weirdest part was that I still haven't heard from two of the people whom were supposed to meet me beforehand. However, Quell wins the award for rocking the most. Being able to contact someone out of the blue and hang out in a couple hours rocks -- especially so due to her responsibilities as a mom of the cutest kidlet!

agnosticpope @ 2008-08-08T18:11:00

2008-08-08T23:30:49Z

I love lesbians.

I was hanging out with my favorite group of girls who like girls the other day (Amanda, Diana, Rachael, and a Latina whose name I can't remember) at our favorite bar for this sort of thing (Chance's) and it was beautiful. Not that I found everyone attractive -- there were the usual share of large girls in flannels -- but their ability to express sexuality freely I found extremely compelling. At one point, I walked by a woman making out and doing some hard-core grinding with a midget. What's so remarkable is that it was so unremarkable; I felt no need to stare, nor did anyone else. A curvy but skinny blond in a skin tight outfit gyrated her hips in ways I'd never imagined in front of a DJ; I told one of my group how beautiful she danced and she replied that she'd complimented her the other day and how they had talked. Girls cheered at their sexy friend, but without that sort of strange self-doubting guilt I feel in doing so -- misogyny.

The problem with being attracted to the other is the element of inequality that always seems to introduce. Most languages have different personal pronouns for male and female marking us as forever different lest we employ linguistic triple axles to be on his or her terms to satisfy her or him.

But to like the same. There is no other, so the celebration sexuality can proceed sans the usual suspicions and guilt of treating the other person poorly because of gender and a group of people can celebrate their sexuality as a group without worrying about ratios of one and the "other" or of offending the "other" with a whistle too loud that could be perceived as a pejorative cat-call.

I like complimenting men on their clothing. Even if they think I am hitting on them, they'll soon find out it was merely on of those rare earnest compliments.

Randy Pausch

2008-07-26T00:30:13Z

Randy Pausch died today.

He was an amazing human being who upon being diagnosed with terminal cancer, decided that rather than moping around and waiting to die, he could wait just as well in zero gravity, buddying up with childhood heroes, designing VR rides for Disney World, or pleading for cancer research on behalf of his widow and children.

He also gave one last lecture entitled "Achieving Your Childhood Dreams".

Here's the usual suspects:
Youtube
iTunes (free and the best quality)
CMU Obituary

Dead Babies

2008-05-13T05:04:55Z

At first, it may seem puzzling why Roger Waters would charge over $100 a ticket (for SEATS) to hear Pink Floyd classics deriding capitalism, empty materialism, and war-profiteering. But then you realize, how else could he be absolutely sure he wasn't preaching to the choir?

Speaking of concerts, I ran into a friendly acquaintance last week who told me about a party they're having to raise money. Never mind the business plan (free beer. $10 cover. 13 hours!), I asked her the location. She gave me the approximate location at some place known as "Dead Baby Distribution". Except, by the time I got home, I'd forgotten the last word. So I typed "Dead babies Houston" into Google and what was returned to me was the most morbid, eerie, and sad websites I've ever seen on the internet...and no it has nothing to do with abortion.

If you think that's hyperbole, go visit:
http://www.missingangel.org/beautifulbabies.htm
(SFW...but still!)

Audiophile looking for ???

2008-02-07T23:54:45Z

So I need more music in my life.

I attempting using both Pandora and LastFM but I disliked both the variety they would play and the streaming quality seemed piss poor -- especially compared to CD. A friend of mine has satellite radio and again, the lack of bass and definition(if you want to hear compression artifacts, listen to cymbals in any low bit-rate mp3). I could, of course, just be getting old, but I like to turn up my music;)

I listen to indy radio in the car -- I don't seem to notice or mind the quality difference there either because I'm used to it, the engine drowns a bit of it out, or maybe it's just not as bad -- and get some new music that way, but I live close to work, so it's just not enough.

So here's my meme. Recommend a band and an album and I'll listen to it (or three!). No restrictions -- weirder the more you think I probably don't like it but you love it -- the better.

(And if there's a way you find out about music other than by going to shows/asking friends, let me know!)

agnosticpope @ 2007-11-05T20:23:00

2007-11-06T02:55:04Z

Did you know, you can't hit CTRL+F to find something in a book? Very annoying. When will you add this feature?

Sitting atop my balcony drinking wine, reading, smoking a cigarette, and applying for French citizenship, I heard:
"Mommy, I miss my Daddy!"
"It's OK, you'll see him next weekend"
"But I miss my Daaaaaady"
"We'll get a DVD from Daddy and then you can sit in the backseat and watch it"
[A door opens...inaudible talking]
"Daddy? Daddy, I love you!"
"I love you too buddy, I'll see you next week, alright?"
"Bye bye!"
[Door shuts]
"Waaah"
"Shhhh"

If love is about the feeling of true connection, is it not the most natural thing to feel great pain when this vital link is severed, even if only for a moment?

I remember being two or so and being horribly upset when my parents left me in Sunday school. I would cry and then I would find a Shiny (TM) at which point I'd forget all about it.

Logically, I suppose the idea can be justified since the separation is only temporary -- which to a child always seems permanent -- and so temporary distraction is appropriate. But what's the appropriate response when the severing is permanent? Are we so subconsciously self-medicated by the time we're adults, we put on DVDs and check out email for the 30th time to avoid confronting the fact that Daddy both isn't there and is never coming back?

Or as a final possibility, is behaviorism right in some sense? Was the child merely being especially irate because he knew he WOULD get to see his Daddy if he cried loudly enough and our notions of "grieving" are nothing but vestigial cries to be placated from a time when such things were possible?

There will be cake following this article.

Finally Fall!

2007-10-22T23:29:28Z

It's 58 outside, time to celebrate!

First, a run. Going to try to run 2 miles, I may even time myself;)

After that, out to a place with a patio wearing a flannel shirt -- out of a need for warmth rather than irony!

Tonight, maybe opening a window and actually using heavy blankets?

The only thing the air is missing is the smell of burning leaves.

Irony

2007-07-31T05:05:32Z

Buddhists teach that suffering occurs when something is not in line with our expectations.

My English teacher taught me the same definition but used it to define irony -- a form of humor.

A bit of substitution, I believe that leaves us with the first noble truth becoming
"Life is funny" . Or it could also give us "Suffering is hilarious".

Ironic eh?

So I'm 26 now....

2007-07-15T19:17:57Z

So?

My birthday present so far is a new car. I am a proud owner of a new 2007 Silver Toyota Scion tC:

This is the first birthday I haven't spent in Delaware since I was in elementary school. Oddly, I don't miss being in Delaware so much as inviting people, playing soccer, and a game or two. ~~Instead, I'll be spending it with some Houston friends.~~ Edit: Apparently they are sick and cannot do anything. Time to give some people a call!

I'll probably post something more reflective on becoming older tomorrow, as it's time for me to go now.

agnosticpope @ 2007-05-24T20:10:00

2007-05-25T01:10:46Z

Tomorrow is memorial day weekend. I'll have a rental car (as a replacement for mine while it's in the shop) and thus should go somewhere.

View Poll: #991026

MySpace

2007-05-24T22:40:41Z

Does anyone else notice an issue where if you have MySpace loaded, your computer will become completely and totally unresponsive for like 20 seconds at a time randomly (you can even have minimized the window).

I've noticed this on 3 computers, (2 Windows, 1 Linux) all running the newest Firefox and have the adobe flash plugin installed. Any one else? Is it flash related? Any good solution? It's darn annoying.

Kurt Vonnegut

2007-04-12T16:07:35Z

Kurt Vonnegut died today at 84. Obituary [NYTimes]

I'm going to the library after work and start reading Player Piano.