Journal

This is a feeble attempt at a blog. I promise to update it at least every second and fourth Thursday of WheneverTheHellIFeelLikeIt.

17 February 2005
	Braindump: Virtual Space vs. Real Space: When does the metaphor become the origin? We had a fascinating discussion in my Online Communities class about "Virtual Architecture." Among the topics were metaphor and space design. Using metaphors to design virtual spaces is an incredibly useful tool to make them easily useful. Their usage, however, does significantly constrain the possible design space. There is a strange transcendence of mapping physical affordances onto virtual space that seems to suggest that it might be harmful in the long-term. Take, for instance, the desktop metaphor for designing computer interaction. This makes newer users of computers more comfortable with the radically different capabilities of a PC versus a desk. Folders behave somewhat similarly, documents look like their paper counterparts, even the background is a 2-dimension surface on which documents rest upon and overlap each other. It's fine and dandy. However, computers are slowly replacing the traditional desk. The desk increasingly only serves as a surface that raises the computer to a comfortable typing and viewing height. I know this is conjecture that hasn't come about yet (in fact in some cases, like paper, the opposite is happening), but what happens when the computer completely replaces the traditional desktop? The origin of the metaphor will be gone. No one learning how to use a computer will have had experience with a collection of papers, collating documents inside a folder, or laying out things on a desk. The origin of the metaphor will be the computer's environment itself. But, the computer was designed that way to give novices something to relate to. That relation through the metaphor will map only to itself in this future. What's the point of the metaphor, then?
15 February 2005
	So it was brought to my attention that my blog entry on the main page was slightly out-of-date. I think the picture of John Kerry was one of the biggest give-aways. I'm now writing this simply to move the months-old entry down the queue. I'm also writing it to use my hyphen key. I'm kind of busy right now trying to juggle work on the Media Library and NASA stuff with my classes and outside activites. As a matter of fact, I have to go to band right now. I'll later on update the reading and listening pages with my latest ocular and aural adventures. Maybe I'll even start to braindump on my wepage again shortly. Won't that be fun.
28 July 2004
	The Wait is Over... Finally, the issue is resolved: John Kerry will be the next Democratic nominee for president of the United States. The suspense was killing me. Most people said he had it clenched, but I never gave up on Kucinich. I mean, the man just looks presidential. I don't know if it's the hunched shoulders, his way of sitting with his head lolling down between his breasts, or his dignified "I know it looks like a toupee, but it's not" haircut. There's a man I could get behind based solely on his appearance and presence, notwithstanding his experience or ability to run this mighty nation. That's why I trust Bush so much: his confidence and self-assurance just assuage any doubt I might have had about supposed "gross incompetence." He's easy to follow without any doubt or questioning, Orwell be damned. So what chance does the Kerry/Edwards ticket have of de-throning King George? Well, since I use Fox news as my exclusive information source, I think they have a decent chance of scoring votes among America-haters and idealistic, bleeding-heart, pinko-commie, liberal whackjobs. Hopefully the latter is the majority of the nation (perhaps not of the enfranchised nation, see election 2000 and election 2004). But overall, I think that Bush will probably win the election. And why not? He's proven to the US people over and over again that he can be trusted not to misrepresent major issues of national importance, especially pretexts for preemptive war. And let us not forget his outstanding record on protecting our environment, securing the futures of all of our children, and fostering trust between the public and the corporate communities. And don't forget that America is safer than ever before. So, what does John Kerry have to do to overcome these seemingly impossible odds? Well, I recommend taking a page from W's playbook. I have several ideas for him that I think could greatly enhance the chances of winning the elections. A distinguished military record can really hold back a candidate. Kerry should make sure that his military record is as obscured as possible. It would be a good idea for him to destroy or hide some documentation regarding his time in service, and mark out random comments on the records he does leave alone. With luck, liberal ideologues will simply defend him aggressively against any doubtful accusations. Recovered alcoholics and drug addicts score sympathy votes. Before the November election, Kerry should step out of the public eye for a little bit, perhaps a week or two, and develop a drinking problem and a coke habit. His wife certainly has the resources to get him cleaned up before the election. Once clean, he can talk about his harrowing descent into booze and drugs and how he got himself clean again. Extra points for being saved through Jesus, especially in Middle America. Kerry should stop trying to get a strong grasp of the issues at hand. I mean, if he's president he'll have advisors than can hold his hand through the tougher issues, such as the pronunciation of some of the funny-sounding countries, or more difficult English words like "nuclear." If he's too well-informed, it will seem like he's looking down to the public on issues that they don't completely understand. Americans don't like to be patronized or informed. This last point will probably not be as effective as the other ones, but it is valid none the less. Kerry needs to find more sinister looking people to be in his campaign. I mean, Bush has Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Rice, and many other administration officials who look like they're eternally pissed off. Who does Kerry have? John Edwards? Oh, please. Edwards is much too striking to be a member of the executive branch. Please Mr. Kerry, find someone who looks like they eat babies. You'll thank me when you're president.
23 July 2004
	Sticky Notes and Tomato Soup. This entry has nothing to do with sticky notes or tomato soup. In fact, it has nothing to do with anything. I didn't sit down to write with a subject in mind. I don't know what the next sentence will be. As a matter of fact, I was surprised when I came up with a title as specific as "Sticky Notes and Tomato Soup" without any forethought. It's just a random bit of wordage that seemed to sound good on paper. It's funny how random things can come together and make something that seems to make sense, when in reality, it's complete bollocks. Take the Earth and our existence on it, for example. The only reason that I'm alive here and right now writing this is a fluke of temperature fluctuations. See, our planet sits just the right distance from the sun and has just the right atmosphere to allow water to exist in liquid form year round for most of the planet. See, that's pretty specific randomness that worked out pretty cool for everybody involved. I mean, I'm grateful for my existence and you should be too. Too many people take their existence for granted. Basically, they take themselves too seriously or don't care enough about themselves to enjoy their being. It's amazing that people can be depressed and have their eyes open. Look around and realize how unlikely you are to be here and how rare an opportunity you have from just being able to see. I know that people have their ups and downs, but on the whole the ups are much easier to deal with. If you have your eyes completely open, you should live in a perpetual state of wonderment. How lucky we are. So, I guess that in my mind "Tomato Soup and Sticky Notes" is a euphemism for existential philosophies. That's probably apt since existence is fairly irreverent, as it should be. That was fun. It's amazing where you can wander to if you just start walking with no particular direction in mind.
20 July 2004
	Random Thoughts Vol. 1 Issue 1 Part the first, using finger signs for quotes. In my 23 years in this English speaking community, I have noticed that some people will "quote-unquote" manually with twitch-like motions from the index and middle fingers on both hands. There are several varieties of finger quotes, some involving the entire arm, some resembling digital hummingbirds. I personally think that this is a fantastic idea, and wish to propose several other punctuational gesticulations: The index finger stab period This is a thrusting motion made when ending a sentence. When the speaker finishes a sentence, they should hold their arm down, with their forearm at a 90-degree angle out in front of them. The palm should face up, with fist clenched excluding the index finger, which should be extended with a certain degree of stiffness. The motion is simply making a stabbing motion forward when the period is reached. The severity of the stabbing motion should correspond to the emphasis of the sentence. The parentheses head container The parentheses head container should be used when saying something that would be in parentheses in written works. The motion is made for the duration of the phrase in the parentheses. Take your arms and hold your forearms around your head. Your wrist should be bent slightly inward to emulate the curve of the parentheses. The semi-colon left hand brush The left hand brush should be used for semi-colons. This is the epitome of grammatical gesticulation correctness. When a semi-colon is reached in speech, the speaker should hold out his right fist at shoulder level. This is the top dot in the semi-colon. The left hand is then used to make a brushing motion below the right hand in emulation of a comma. If used correctly, pedantic gesticulators will instantly recognize the speaker as having reached the pinnacle of the art. The how's your father exclamation mark This is used to emphasize excitement when ending a sentence. The first part is a stroke down with the right hand from about head-level to waist-level. This is immediately followed by a devastating punch from the left hand to the groin of the person the speaker is engaged in conversation with. Spanish speakers will benefit from the ability to start a sentence with a punch to the other person's face.
21 June 2004
	Campus construction. Georgia Tech seems to have no shortage of it. After the money-raising blitz of G. Wayne and the Georgia Tech Foundation a few years ago, the new buildings sprung up like daisies all around campus. Like the first rains of spring, money rained down on the campus, and the new budding buildings bloomed in the dewey morn of fiscal fecundity. A new "chemical" complex was build to the west of the baseball stadium at huge expense to Tech and the Ford Corporation. Technology square sprung from the earth like Orion. The glass towers sparkle in the morning sun like beacons of academic and corporate radiance. The days have been good for the brick and mortar on the Georgia Tech campus The College of Computing, not to be outdone, has begun construction of its new building across the street from the Ford glass-and-brick behemoth. The money for the new CoC (pronounced like it looks) building was graciously donated by super-rich Tech alum Chris Klaus. The scattered faculty and students of the college will remain as such even when the building is complete, though. Apparently, they're going to fill the new building top to bottom with packing peanuts. I for one will enjoy this greatly, as I have always wanted to romp through thousands of cubic meters of edible-looking styrofoam. In the meantime, we have the construction to deal with. I can't really complain, because even though it adds several hundred feet to my trek between Tech Square and the CoC Building, it provide a great deal of entertainment. They've excavated so far what appears to be the volume of Io in earth moved in dumptrucks that barrel down the pedestrian-infested roads at near-supersonic speeds. If a student was hit by one of the trucks, I don't think anyone would notice. There would be nothing left other than a vacuum and a loud sucking sound. But, by far the best thing that the construction offers is the blasting. Apparently, being just a few miles from the largest piece of exposed granite in the world, there's a lot of granite in the dirt. The engineer's solution: explode it. Excellent. They've told us a few times before that they were going to be blasting, and that we definitely would feel it, but they always cancelled at the last minute. I received an email today saying that they would be attempting again at 2:00 P.M. I wait with bated breath. Will today be the day. If you are so inclined, you can watch through the College's construction webcam
18 June 2004
	Gmail is making the rounds. The World Wide Web is abuzz with this new mail phenomenon. I heard about it back when it was an April Fools day prank. I believe it went something like this: Google: Starting soon, we'll be giving free 1 Gigabyte email accounts. Internet: Hahaha, very funny Google, great April Fools prank. Google: Right. Fast-forward a few weeks Google: Hey, remember when we announced that 1GB mail thingy? Yeah, so we're starting soon. Internet: That was real? Google: Yeah, but you guys thought that we were kidding. That was great. My favorite part was when you thought that is was completely unrealistic. That was classic. By the way, it's invite only. Internet: I see... Bartender, could you send a drink to that Search Engine over there? Actually, I think that the invite format is a great idea. It keeps the system from being abused early on by the seedy individuals who trade in digital nomenclature. Have a common name like Adam? Good luck getting an email address even remotely resembling it. As a matter of fact, I heard recently that hotmail is completely out of account names that contain vowels. With the invite formula, I believe that the google mail will span over the Internet, it'll just take a while. And that's good. See, when someone gets a Gmail invite, they'll treat it as the precious nugget of digital come-hither it is. They won't abuse it by signing up "Turd Ferguson, professional cock-fighter" for 10,000 accounts. That's good news for my uncle Turd. Hopefully Gmail can usher in a new era of enlightenment, where all ignorance and hate is gone. It'll probably just usher in increased expectations of free services, but you gotta start somewhere. And so I come to it. If anyone has any extra invites, I would greatly appreciate one. In return I shall supply you with a wav file of me saying "Thank you and good night" into a $2.14 microphone. I won't offer my eternal gratitude, because I have a very inconsistent memory.
14 June 2004
	Today I updated my Ani Ani Web. I put up a new up top, and added your friend and mine, the evil monkey that lives in Chris Griffin's room. You know, he wasn't always evil. Expect few changes in the future now.
15 December 2003
	First entry in what I hope will be very few. I just mainly wanted to try out the blog stuff in AniAni. Plus, I was bored out of my skull what with classes being over. Hold on while I find my life... I think it's hiding somewhere before GaTech. Oh yeah, I complained about Clive Cussler's Latest Book too. I'm feeling excessively bitter right now. I wish the text box editor in Mozilla had a spell-checker too.