July 21, 2008: Backdated to July 10, 2008.
It seems that there is always a price to be paid for existence… we’ve traded tending to the fields and animals for tending to mix-ups at the insurance company or the mortgage office; we’ve traded making clothes and shelters ourselves to making sure that the clothes and shelters we purchase aren’t actively trying to kill us; and we’ve traded the hungry horse for the thirsty horseless carriage.
We wage political campaigns in our workplaces to ensure our survival at the whims of capricious Gods; we struggle to understand everything so that we won’t fall victim to the perception that our years of experience at solving problems and making things work are no longer useful because they’re not Web 2.0 compatible; and we try to make sense of it all at the end of the day.
How much of your week is consumed by just dealing with crap?
July 21, 2008: Backdated to July 9, 2008.
I’ve got it and I’d like to be rid of it.
Any takers?
July 21, 2008: Backdated to July 8, 2008
Be thankful. This entire post could be a shaggy dog story about an infestation of mustache ticks that almost cause the end of civilization, and how, ironically, the last few humans discover that the only thing that removes them safely is epoxy. (See title.)
July 21 2008: Backdated July 7, 2008.
Can you spot the difference between these two people?
: - )
: - (
Answer: Hey, that’s me!
July 20th 2008: Backdated to July 6, 2008
Have a couple of hours to kill? Become a better informed citizen of the world by learning about Bollywood!
Defined.
List of Films.
Bonus points:
Suggest a Bollywood film that hasn’t been made yet.
July 20th, 2008: Backdated to July 05, 2008
Ever have the thought that since there is a finite amount of notes distinguishable by the human ear; a finite combination of meters by which to measure said notes (sure, argue that time is infinite but how long are you really willing to sit and listen to a G sharp?); and a fixed range of instruments to produce said music (yeah, go ahead and say infinite again and I’ll play you Lady of Spain on some broken glass mixed with nails a few dozen times); that music could most likely be modeled, measured, and otherwise mistreated by mathematics?
Well, so did Mozart apparently, when he (may or may not have) invented musical dice.
And so did David Temperly, when he convinced the publishers at MIT:Press to fund the publication of Music and Probability.
Odds that I’ll ever read it after the thoroughly rousing description on that web site? Well that would be some kind of math again, wouldn’t it?
July 20th 2008: Backdated to July 4th.
Editor’s Note: The contributors to this blog are hiding under the couch with the dog, so there will be no post today. Well, except for this post that states that there will be no post. Which, in and of itself might constitute a post, technically, but not really, because it fails to communicate anything of any substance. Then again, as there is rarely anything of substance in the regular posts, it is possible that this post (which unequivocally states that there will be no post) is more substantive than regular postings, making it a post.
July 20th, 2008: Backdated to July 3rd.
Another blank box to fill with words! Why?
What am I, some kind of blogging Adrian Monk that becomes agitated when there’s a series of dates on the tiny little archive calendar that don’t have active hyperlinks? Some kind of Marquis de Sade of Movable Type that enjoys inflicting words of little to no consequence on an unsuspecting public? A WordPress Witch casting a spell that is no longer legible from a book that was dropped in the river, run over by an ox cart, shot by a flaming arrow, and used as a prop in a Bruce Campbell movie?
Hey, no “blogging blob bouncing bandying bifurcated bits of binary badness before a bunch of beloved browsers” comments… that is sooo overdone.
Looking back on the past month from the vantage point of July 20th, there has been so much that hasn’t happened. As I frantically sit down to backdate a series of posts starting with this one (July 2nd), questions arise.
Will this be yet another post where I drag some point of little to no interest from the depths of some historical archive and mildly regurgitate its contents?
Perhaps a post about something that Google now offers?
Or maybe some self-indulgent dance across the keyboard ending in the humor based equivalent of a drive-by-shooting?
A copy-paste of a poem?
A book discussion?
A work of original short fiction designed to illustrate why some people never become writers?
A list of names?
The suspense!
29 years ago, the Sony Walkman hit the streets of Japan. It went Footloose; it Flashdanced; it went to prison (48 hours); and it found itself nestled in the pockets of Members Only Jackets around the world.
Over the years, it has made the transition from cassette to CD to Minidisc to MP3 to mobile phone. It has stumbled over digital rights management, and it has suffered by being tied to an entertainment division in a country where company loyalty trumps everything.
It’s amazing to think how the iPod (which topped 100 million units sold in less than five years) toppled the Walkman’s empire. It’s more amazing to think that the estimated volume of those 100,000,000 plus iPods and 150,000,000 walkmans would make a pyramid about a third of the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza.*
* An estimate made by a mostly non-mathematical person who doesn’t mind being a couple airplane hangars (or airports, even) off in his wildy speculative statements.
