Nov 2007
- Nov 2
- asymmetric warfare (mozilla vs microsoft)
The argument about ECMAScript 4 (the proposed next iteration of Javascript) could very well become quite interesting, although, realistically, this probably won’t be happening for a few years.
· Read more… - Nov 3
- the under city
On the way home, I took a different route today. I absentmindedly stayed in the right-hand lanes on the Santa Ana Fwy. going north, and ended up getting shunted onto the Santa Monica Fwy. heading west.
· Read more… - Nov 3
- the continuing evolution of google
The transformation of the Matrix (also known as Google) is at hand.
· Read more… - Nov 4
- hoping it isn't too late
As I drove through the hidden streets of L.A. yesterday, on the final leg of my trip back home from S.D., I found myself haunted by this song by Ben Folds, who sings a requiem to the late Elliot Smith:
· Read more… - Nov 4
- revisiting crisis theory
I was actually first introduced to Marxist crisis theory while reading a fantasy novel, Perdido Street Station, by China Miéville. My simplistic one-liner about crisis theory is that it predicts that increasing prosperity actually diminishes the ability of labor to produce the same amount of profit, inevitably leading to a clash between capital and labor. But mathematically speaking, what this means is that the normal progression of a capitalist economy starts off high, but steadily declines, eventually approaching 0 asymptotically (although never actually reaching zero). There is probably a critical point where crisis occurs, and wealth becomes redistributed in some manner (usually violently.) This restarts the engine of capital expansion, which again inevitably declines.
· Read more… - Nov 4
- terrorism, drugs, and the prison system
Just finished watching “The American Gangster” with Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, which documents the rise and fall of the drug lord Frank Lucas in the late ‘60’s to the mid ‘70’s, concomitant with the Vietnam War era. (The New York Magazine has an article about him.)
· Read more… - Nov 6
- the jig is up (the desktop is dead, long live the web appliance)
Well, ain’t this a kick in Microsoft’s pants?
· Read more… - Nov 6
- seven years of wandering the desert
Of note, yesterday marks the 7th anniversary of my blogging endeavors. Why is it that I always watch druggie movies in November?
· Read more… - Nov 7
- hasta la vista, baby!
More news about the Internet appliance cum computer: the ASUS P5E3 Deluxe sports a mini-OS called Splashtop, similar to the Phoenix Hyperspace Mini OS which I mentioned previously. The writer seems to be missing the bigger picture, which is that your primary OS resides on the Web. (Specifically, Google OS)
· Read more… - Nov 9
- yet another reason why San Diego sucks
Today is the last day of the Stacy Taylor Show, the only local progressive AM talk show on the air here. They are being evicted by their corporate task masters, the evil empire known as Clear Channel. They give me yet another reason to continue pirating music, to bring these motherfuckers down.
· Read more… - Nov 9
- backwards compatibility with ms-dos
Yikes! Programming for Windows definitely has some harrowing pitfalls.
· Read more… - Nov 10
- emo elvish poetry
Adding a few new feeds to Google Reader has caused it to dredge up a bunch of old entries, but I find this rather pretty:
· Read more… - Nov 12
- play
Not sure where exactly this entire weekend went. My mind feels like it’s been liquified, and I’m not sure if I’m coming down with something, if I’ve grown allergic to my parents’ dog and my sister’s dog, if I’m suffering from really severe caffeine withdrawal, or if I’m quite possibly losing my mind.
· Read more… - Nov 13
- incomplete, unfulfilled
trip me up with the frailty of life
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the inevitability of mortality
even at this height, I can see the deep darkness
of that impending horizon where no stars shine
and night is eternal - Nov 15
- not a djinni in the lamp
Wow. I find the governor of Georgia’s attempt to ask for rain extraordinarily presumptious. What gives us the right to ask God for anything, really? I am reminded by a scene out of the Bible where the priests of Baal have a theological contest with the prophet Elijah.
· Read more… - Nov 16
- from there to here, from then to now
Seven years is slightly less than ¼ of my life so far, and exactly ¼ the number of years of memories I have tucked away somewhere in the eternal labyrinth of mushy grey stuff hidden away in my skull. (I remember my first memory quite distinctly. It is rather mundane and extraordinarily unremarkable, but I know it is the first. Me and my dad were driving south on Alvarado St. in Echo Park, past the Safeway just before Reservoir St. Why this sticks to me, I don’t know.)
· Read more… - Nov 20
- round corners
The round corners of the menu bar in Mac OS seem to be an artifact from the early 1980’s, when the 9 inch CRT of the original Mac 128k had rounded bezels.
· Read more… - Nov 23
- tired and weak but thankful
Is this just pure sleep deprivation? Is this dehydration? Am I just hungry? Or maybe this is the characteristic post-post-call torpor? Paranoid thoughts about the H5N1 virus flit briefly through my brain, but the probabilities are pretty slim.
· Read more… - Nov 23
- false etymologies
I have a thing for trying to discover the underlying etymologies of proper names. It becomes a fun game to generate names in imaginary languages that have similar meanings to names in real languages.
· Read more… - Nov 25
- grains of sand in an hourglass
Come December, and the end of the year is nigh
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and though the air is dry and warm
the sky glimmers, shimmers with cloudy gray
and the waning sunlight casts long shadows
upon the cold blue sea - Nov 28
- a theory of miracles
I thought to myself this morning:
· Read more… - Nov 29
- coping with existence
Not sure what exactly changed this evening, after I gave up with lying in bed, weary, defeated. Maybe it was the odd impulse to write this line on a random scrap of paper:
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