I’ve updated the backend behind my website to allow for a bunch of new features, including a real-time list of what is being played by Winamp on my home PC, and a modular data system that will handle mini-reviews of books and movies I’ve recently watched, without me having to do stupid amounts of coding everytime I want to input my thoughts on a bad film.
More nifty things coming soon.
Ten years ago today, NCSA Mosaic was first released, marking the first release of a web browser which could display inline images.
Although the HTTP protocol itself outdates Mosiac by several years, the development of a browser with inline images marked a shift in the way the web was used and developed, allowing it to come into its own as a powerful internet resource.
“…the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”
– Herman Goering, Nuremberg Diary.
So it had come down to this, for some reason.
The lines were drawn in the sand (chalk, actually, on pavement) and Crowd was there, ready to decide who would live or die.
The fight was just between him and I, of course, but Crowds always know before you do, they speak to each other with a wall of noise that shapes fate for everyone who can hear.
I was going to bloody up his pretty-boy face. I had him on size, skill, and hate.
I had my cane with me, and it was Excalibur.
The little things get to you, sometimes.
…
Hearing him talk, wishing above all else that he’d shut up, just shut up.
Looking at pictures of places I will never see, wondering what the air tastes like.
The way that everything, everything is different when you’re the only one awake.
Hearing her talk, wanting nothing more than to take forever in this moment, and watch her behind dazzled eyes.
“”I got into television because I hated it so,” he said. “And I thought there was some way of using this fabulous instrument to be of nurture to those who would watch and listen.”
The last two days have been madness.
Leslie and I just finished the third two-day Dark Carnival festival, and while it was a resounding success, it has left us feeling quite drained. There were a lot of technical problems that we had to overcome, in addition to the more mundane stresses of putting on fourteen hours of event time in two days. There were seven different musical acts (not including Leslie and myself), and at least a dozen artists involved this time around, and co-ordination took a lot of time and effort.
Plus, we have another event in a week or so that we need to start polishing up, and perhaps another two in the month following that… and another half-dozen in the works, with plans stretching as far as October.
We’ve been doing pretty well with the finances for the events, which means that we haven’t lost more than a thousand dollars on any given show in the past half-year. Being able to support ourselves full-time with promotion work would be nice, but I think at this point we’d kill to break even two shows in a row.
…
Leslie’s birthday was yesterday, but with everything going on, there wasn’t much celebration time. I feel pretty bad about this, she made sure that on my last birthday, I had my every desire fulfilled, and not being able to do the same for her doesn’t sit well with me.
I think we’ll take a day off sometime soon-ish and do a belated birthday celebration, but it would have been nice to be able to give her the birthday proper that she deserves.
…
Work continues to progress on our not-so-secret Cafe project, and while things are slowly coming together for it, my inability to attend work over the last month has really hit us financially. Almost all of that lost income was earmarked for use by the Cafe, and my insurance company has yet to rule on my application for short-term disability.
While the disability would be retroactive to the day of the injury, the possibility of my application being rejected is very real, and very upsetting. The temptation to try to attend work regularly, even at the cost of permanent damage to my knee, is overwhelming.
I’m really not sure what to do about this, except for work full-steam on our business plan and funding applications, and hope for the best.
…
I need to spend more time doing nothing, sometime soon.
“It’s no wonder, then, that smart kids tend to be unhappy in middle school and high school. Their other interests leave them little attention to spare for popularity, and since popularity resembles a zero-sum game, this in turn makes them targets for the whole school.”
I’ve been inside my house for three weeks straight now, having made it outside only three times. My knee shows no signs of spontaneous recovery, although I hold out hope.
…
I’ve began working on a remix of an Iszoloscope track for an album to be released in the near future, but I’m not very happy with my work. I took a heavy noise/gabber track, sped it up, and tried to turn it into what is essentially hard techno. Instead, I think all I’ve done is make 7 minutes of dull, uninspired trance.
To be fair, I’ve only been working on the track for two days, I’ve only been working with these music-creation tools for two days, and this is the first time I’ve tried to make music in any serious capacity since I was sixteen (when I was quite prolific within the tracker scene), but I find it incredibly discouraging nonetheless.
I have three weeks until the remixes need to be submitted to Ant-Zen, and I may or may not continue work to try to have something by that time.
…
Most of my hair is in a garbage bag in the washroom. I’ve shaved a good portion of it, leaving a wide strip of blue hair along the top of my head.
Rarely have I been so immediately happy with a change in hair style/cut/colour, but I’m really pleased with the way it looks. With that said, I have not discounted the possibility that being indoors for a month has caused me to lose all sense of style.
I hope to have added a piercing or two before I go outside again, and perspective returns.
…
In other news, I’m very happy with Restraint‘s recent facelift, even if most of the non-journal material isn’t currently available. Having a new look does wonders to motivate me to keep writing.
“The first limit to be going live is post frequency, per 24 hour rolling window…
Free users: 3 posts (maybe 4 or 5?)
Early adopters: 10 posts
Paid/Perm Users: 20 posts”
There’s a report of neurological damage in the children of vegan/vegetarian women that was published in a recent Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. It relates primarily to the effects of a lack of cobalamin/B12 which are well-known in adults, but less so in children.
Most vegetarians and vegans I know haven’t educated themselves on how to eat healthy without meat, and do themselves much more damage than benefit with their diet. If you’re going to make a lifestyle choice as big as becoming a vegan is, please take the time to learn about your choice.
The revolution was over, and the corporations had won a victory so complete that consumers actually thought they were the ones winning the whole time.
I’m trying to put together a collection for ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
dirtybunny‘s birthday on Feb 25th… I was hoping I could draw on you fine folks for help with her gift, which I have in mind but don’t wanna say over LJ, just in case she manages to read this friends-list-minus-Leslie entry somehow…
Could all interested parties please email me at jairus@restraint.org? No substantial financial commitment is required. Thanks. :)
The best cyberpunk short story I’ve read since Aleph.
(Try and get past the name to read the story, will you?)
The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible.
Sites like this are the reason that the internet was invented.
