None of the Above

[ school ] 2000-08-31
An Austin homeschooler:  This Home Schooling page has a lot of good info, including an FAQ and mentions of Texas legal specifics. Neato.

[ canoe ] 2000-08-31
Shut up and paddle:  There are some impressive paddles at Gillespie's site. Once I figure out what my optimum paddle length is, I plan to get one of the double-bend ones, to see if I like that better than the single-bend Gray Owl I've got now.

[ design good ] 2000-08-31
I am sooo jealous of this:  The meditation area of an incredible custom-done bus. Wow. There are a bunch more at Mr. Sharkey's. I'll say it again: wow. This is the lifestyle I was truly meant to lead.

[ consume ] 2000-08-30
Interview with Scott McCloud:  From the Onion, this interview with the esteemed Mr. McCloud is pretty spiffy.

People talk about the new economy all the time, but there really is no new economy until we're selling bits. You can sell atoms, you can sell eyeballs, or you can sell bits, and the web is only half there as long as we're only selling atoms and eyeballs--as long as it's just physical objects and advertising. The real new economy comes when the zeroes and ones are actually worth something, and there's actually a means to pay for them in small amounts. Until then, it's just the old economy running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

[ weblogs ] 2000-08-30
I like this one:  So I will add the Torrez.org weblog to the list of ones I read a lot. So there.

[ weblogs ] 2000-08-30
Yet another one I like:  sevencrabrangoon. Especially (DEAD LINK) this entry and (DEAD LINK) this entry. Oh yeah, and (DEAD LINK) this one too.

There is something more noble out there than marketing. Marketing should be called what it really is. It's not about matching up buyers with sellers, or making my life more efficient. It's about lying. A con game. Getting people to buy crappy shit they don't need. There has got to be something more. There has to be. I need to believe in it. Something that remains pure and un-co-opted.

[ later ] 2000-08-30
Personality Types weblog:  Here. I wanna look at this later more.

[ weblogs ] 2000-08-30
Yet another one:  Lo, It's frytopia.

[ canoe ] 2000-08-28
Today is CANOE DAY!  This is it, it arrives today, in... 10-70 minutes or so, according to the trailer guy's most recent prediction (this morning). Spencer and I have come home from work for a bit to wait, and I'm all giddy with anticipation! I can't wait! I really must write a little essay/memoir about what this canoe means to me, about my experience the only time I've ever been in a one-man canoe like this... now is not the time, but I will do it soon. I'm wearing my Texas Outrigger Canoe Club shirt today, the special saddles are on the car rack, everything's ready to go. This is a very very happy day for me indeed. More later!

[ canoe ] 2000-08-28
Outrigger Canoeing and me:  Just a little history, about me and outrigger canoeing and why it means so much to me.

[ canoe ] 2000-08-28
The Canoe is Here!!!!  Yes, that's right, it's in my living room (& dining room) as we speak! It's gorgeous, and I'm very very excited. We're going to take it down to the lake tonight. Only one little hitch - somehow, they forgot to include the rudder. No worries, though, it will function just fine without it. Traditional outrigger canoes don't have them, and in Tahiti races, even OC1's aren't allowed to use them. It just takes a bit more skill to turn using only the paddle. Since I'll just be slowly cruising around the lake, I'm not too worried about it. They can send the rudder to me in the mail. We'll take video and lots of pictures of the canoe's maiden voyage tonight. Yeeha!

[ canoe ] 2000-08-26
Still waiting for the canoe:  I'm thinking about calling the # we have for the trailer person, but it's a cell phone so I don't know if he'll be available. We readjusted the car's roof rack today so that it fits as well as possible on my car, and I added the spiffy saddles to hold the canoe. It looks great! I hope the canoe comes tomorrow. I've got to think of a name for it, something Hawaiian, something not too long. I'm still sort of in denial until it gets here. I will be bouncing around with glee when I finally have it.

[ people ] 2000-08-26
I wondered about this:  Well, it turns out, Greg would never have voted for Kelly anyway. He said he would have changed his number if she'd picked the closer one. Heh! I thought perhaps he was just joking with it...

[ cognition people ] 2000-08-25
What Sucks About Being Really Smart:  I read this before but didn't have the link - an interesting article about maladjustment of high-IQ people. There's a lot more to it, but I remember there was a lot I identified with in this piece.

And for the record, my IQ has never been measured. I've taken online tests for fun, and according to my SAT scores, I could join Mensa, but I've never had an actual IQ test. I'm not sure if I ever want to. In a way, I'm curious, but I only want to know if it's really really high. :) I would hate to take one and get a score like 107.

[ cognition the net ] 2000-08-25
Rethinking Navigation:  Some great usability arguments are put forward in this post to a mailing list responding to a criticism of useit.com's lack of navigation. The whole thread is here, but I haven't read the whole thing yet. Probably more gems to be found there, I imagine.

[ humor quotes ] 2000-08-25
I want one of these:  A bumper sticker that says "Bush and Gore make me want to Ralph". Now if I can only find one of those "I didn't vote for his daddy either" bumper stickers I keep seeing around town. I greatly covet one of those.

[ later ] 2000-08-25
Clues to absorb later:  This page of Business Basics for Engineers looks incredibly useful, but I don't have time to read it in depth right now.

[ family ] 2000-08-25
Heal, Sadie, Heal:  My mom called me this morning to tell me that Sadie (her/our beloved schnoodle (half schnauzer, half poodle)) is getting sicker - her ongoing ear infection has gotten worse. Also, she has a heart murmur that wasn't there a couple of weeks ago and she seems bloated. :( So she is taking Sadie back to the vet today, where she'll be given anesthesia so they can do X-rays and investigate more closely. I really, really, really hope that she is going to be okay. She's a very sweet, wonderful, irrepressable dog. If you've ever loved a dog you know that no words can even scratch the surface...

Here's a pic of her as a puppy (she's 8 now):

Please get better, my little pal. I promise lots of gaschnarfing when I come visit at Xmas, okay?

I'm really afraid that I'm going to get a call later today from my mother with Bad News. I'm dreading it greatly.

In the meantime, I am sending all the good-health vibes I can muster to a brave little dog a thousand miles away...

[ later people ] 2000-08-25
More on Really Smart (and sometimes quite contentious) people:  This History of High IQ Societies was pretty interesting. Some of these seem worth checking into, but of course many don't. I think it might be worth it to find some way to make more friends who are more like me than the average person, but I dunno. Looks like there are a lot of political battles and infighting and power struggles. Yeesh. Not my cup of tea, but I suppose I can probably ignore a lot of that crap.

[ consume rants ] 2000-08-25
Fatbrain loses a customer:  Here's a copy of a letter I just sent to fatbrain.com's customer service:

Hello,

I ordered some books on July 21st (it's now August 25th), including the latest Harry Potter book. I received the other two books, but not the Harry Potter book, which was inexplicably on back order (I didn't see any information on limited availability when I made my order). After weeks upon weeks of waiting for this book, seeing stacks of it up to my neck in every bookstore (including at the airport), I finally just bought it from Barnes & Noble, in person.

I have no need for the copy in my order below, so please give me a refund for the purchase price.

I'm not a satisfied customer anymore, but I really REALLY wanted to be!

Some things that might have helped me to be satisfied with your service:

- Prominently displaying the TRUE availability of this book in the first place, when I made my order. I see that even now, I have to specifically request the individual page for this book to see that it's available in "3-4 weeks". Why can't someone at fatbrain go out and buy a couple cases of these books, to keep your customers happy? Inability to fulfill these orders is poisoning your future business, don't forget...

- You could have sent me an apologetic message about the fact that it was on back order, and given me some kind of reasonable explanation about why you would offer a popular book for sale that you DID NOT HAVE IN STOCK. I really wanted to buy this book from YOU rather than the thousands of other retailers I could have chosen. If you weren't going to be able to fulfill your orders, you shouldn't have offered the book for sale. Did something go horribly wrong? Was this bad planning? Is your distributor causing the problem? What's the deal, and how come your customers don't even deserve an explanation?

- You could have informed me that although I had to wait for the book, I would definitely have it by such-and-such a date. I have no idea how long it would take to get here if I decided not to cancel my order. Would I have to wait until 2002? You didn't give me any estimate of when the waiting would be over, so I gave up.

- You could have told me "Look, sorry, we don't have the book, but we'll give you a big gift certificate (in excess of the book price) to keep you as a customer". I would gladly have accepted that for my trouble.

As it is now, I'm back to using Amazon. I don't want to use Amazon, but I've found cruddy service with everything else (except for Bibliofind). If I want a book, quickly, and I want honesty and clarity about the book's availability, I have to choose Amazon or else be incredibly frustrated.

Sorry, but it would take a LOT to win me back as a customer at this point. You had your chance...

-Beth Roberts
p.s. If you need further information from me in order to process the refund, just let me know.

[ weblogs ] 2000-08-25
Looks like a good weblog:  But of course I'll have to read more to decide how often I want to read it: caterina.net.

[ humor ] 2000-08-25
A (satirical)  commencement speech by Larry Ellison had me laughing out loud, especially since I'm a college dropout myself.

New Haven, CT - In one of the more controversial commencement addresses in memory, Oracle CEO and college dropout Larry Ellison told Yale's Class of 2000 they were "losers" whose hard-won diplomas would never propel them into the ranks of the super rich.

[ people ] 2000-08-24
My thoughts on Survivor:  Last night I was sooo excited to watch the end of Survivor. I really got sucked in to the whole series. I thought the whole concept at first was hackneyed and artificial and goofy, but I watched it out of curiosity and found that the people and the unfolding story were much more compelling than I had anticipated.

I started my vcr and settled in to watch the finale with Elena. We danced around the room in glee as Kelly won challenge after challenge (she had won 5 in a row - absolutely incredible!), and jeered at Rich as we were sure the evil bastard was going to lose.

Oops! Totally wrong. Kelly lost, Rich, the conniving scheming jerk, won. I couldn't believe it - I yelled "NOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooOOOOOOOOooooO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" when the final vote was revealed.

And then I started thinking about what this all meant, and examining the whole thing. Some of my ruminations:

1. I realized I had been wayyy too emotionally invested in the outcome - it's just a game. But then my attitude improved tremendously. I did still feel a bit as I did when OJ was declared "not guilty", but it wasn't so bad. I felt a lot of release of tension that it was all over. I take satisfaction in the fact that Rich has a very good chance of being thrashed by the relentless media machine, and every mistake he ever makes from now on will be splattered all over the media, misconstrued and twisted to his disadvantage. (It's already started, with the stuff about his son claiming abuse).

2. I live in a country where OJ walked, and Rich won Survivor. This must be one of the signs of the fall of Western civilization.

3. They created a game where the point was for people to symbolically destroy each other, so of course the most pompous arrogant conniving manipulating jerkface won.

4. He may have a million bucks, but he's still an asshole, and still a lousy father. I hope his kid benefits quite a bit from the money - he deserves to, having to put up with Rich for a dad. (I'm basing my opinion on the quality of his fatherhood on what he ADMITTED to doing in a TV interview I saw, not on the specific allegations that the kid made which are unsubstantiated.)

5. I just read that Rich was once a car salesman. He's now a corporate trainer. Think about that - think about how well he has learned to manipulate people, to gain their trust while he is getting something from them, at their expense (and as a corporate trainer, teaching other people to work the system too). How could people who actually do something worthwhile for a living compete with someone whose livelihood has depended on bending others' opinions to his gain? He was also a bartender, so he has probably spent quite a lot of time dealing with people in an emotionally vulnerable state, and learned how to use that to his advantage as well.

6. Another aspect is a strong personality that presents a credible appearance of authority actually succeeds pretty well at causing people to go along with it. Think about his attitude - "I will win, I will do whatever it takes", his successes in eliminating rivals showing that he was a force to be reckoned with (you might perceive him correctly as the petty, manipulative jerk he is and find you're the next one voted off the island). And think about the emotional state of many of the others - hungry, tired, bored, missing loved ones, worried about being voted off, missing their usual lives and the satisfactions thereof. People in such situations tend to cling to any kind of structure, to things that help them make sense of their situation. And someone who has a very clear message "I will win, I am powerful" is quite compelling in such a situation.

7. More on Rich's ability to get people to accept his view of things - the people who voted for him, in my view, seemed to buy whole hog that he played the game the best. As in, he didn't let anything get in the way of winning. That he was more devoted to winning, to using people than to befriending them, to stepping on anyone in his path no matter what it took, than anyone else. And they bought that this behavior should be rewarded. Because "that's how the game is supposed to be played". Is it just me, or does this seem... a bit mindless? No one questioned this or thought, "Fuck the producers of the show, I'm going to vote for the person who acted more like a decent human being, because I think that's who deserves the money?". I wonder if any of them regret their vote. What they essentially said with their votes was that it's okay with them for a bully to win. Personally, I think it's more fun to get the last laugh on such an artificial situation, and let the bully see how close he got, but that his character wasn't up to the task, didn't have the basic decency to deserve to win. But that's just me.

8. In usual contests (sports and the like), absolute ruthlessness is not the name of the game, as it were. The struggle to exceed is, and one is expected to behave well while doing one's best. But in Survivor, it was assumed by many of the participants and observers that ruthlessness was the whole point, was required in order to win. But was it?

I maintain that it wasn't required at all.

People (including me in my comments above) have treated this as though it were inevitable that Rich would win, somehow. But it's TOTALLY ARBITRARY. You don't even have to take into account any of the goofy challenges to realize this, or the fact that none of the participants had control over who was placed in which tribe at the beginning. Greg, the goofball, based his game-deciding vote ENTIRELY on a "pick a number between 1 and 10" game. Rich chose 7, Kelly chose 2 (or maybe 3, I can't remember, though since she went second, 6 would have been the most logical choice).

The number was 9. If Kelly had chosen 8, 9, or 10, she would have won, and everyone would be talking about how obvious it was ahead of time that Rich couldn't win, that Kelly's winning of five challenges showed her superiority, etc. Greg is a wily fellow who is a LOT smarter than how they edited him to appear (though of course he did talk into a coconut as though it were a cell phone...). By doing a "pick the number" game, he showed how arbitrary this whole process is. It's not a true contest of skills, or will, or personality type, or morals, or anything. It's luck and happenstance. That's all.

And that, in large part, is what determines who wins in the larger game we call "real life", too.

[ people ] 2000-08-24
Big Brother:  An interesting Salon story discusses the distortions created by the editing of the show Big Brother. Apparently there's a web feed where people can see what's really happening, live, and compare it to what CBS eventually airs.

Heh! And of course they've done a lot of editing to Survivor, too, slanting the story to be more like whatever they think people will watch. Which makes me think, gee, did they make Rich out to be much worse than he is, considering that they knew he won already and it would be compelling for people to watch a big Villain? Nah. I think he's really an asshole.

[ cognition later ] 2000-08-24
Spiffy:  I happened upon Geoffrey Nunberg's Publications, and I want to read them later, so I'm logging this. He seems to have some interesting things to say about language, for one thing, and I'm a lapsed linguo-geek so I find it interesting.

[ canoe ] 2000-08-24
Bum-o-rama:  I had thought that my outrigger canoe was going to arrive yesterday, but it didn't. I sent email to the sellers today, hopefully I can figure out where it is and when it will get here. Maybe I should have bugged them more ahead of time, I don't know. I had thought that my job was to 1) Agree on the item & price 2) Get payment to them 3) Give them my address & contact info, and 4) Wait. I have the nagging feeling I should have prodded them more. Ah well, nothing to do but wait some more right now.

[ body ] 2000-08-21
Annual Womanly Stuff:  I had my "well-woman" exam today, which means "professional cervix-scraping", really. (Which then inspires the image of amateur cervix-scraping, which I really don't want to think about). It was uneventful. They did have nicer gowns & sheets than last time, though - actual fabric instead of that crappy plastic-backed thin paper.

[ canoe ] 2000-08-21
Canoe-itude!:  Well, it turns out the canoe won't even be picked up by the trailer person until 8/24, so I don't feel so bad, and now I've got contact info for them, so I think somehow this whole thing will come together. As a bonus, my canoe hoisting system arrived today, so when the canoe gets here, we can store it in the garage adequately (well, assuming we install the hoisting thing okay!). Oh yeah, and my fabric arrived too. :)

[ good ] 2000-08-17
A Pleasant Shock:  At work today I'm talking with JM next to me, and out of the corner of my eye, I notice... a volleyball net outside. My jaw gapes open, and I go to the window for a closer look. Sure enough, on the grass is a greener rectangle of grass, with a nice little volleyball net, and two picnic tables nearby.

Wow.

This is unheard of here (at IBM, where the trees grow in straight rows, and a cow orker friend of mine was chastised by a security guard for merely walking across the grass once).

Someone told me there's a basketball court being built nearby, too, and that these changes are supposedly the result of the Tivoli people moving to our campus. Great! I don't care why they did it, I'm just giddy with delight that they did it!

I'm going to bring my volleyball tomorrow and get Spencer to come outside with me and play a bit. I can't wait :).

[ books family random thoughts ] 2000-08-17
The Mismeasure of Man and Woman:  A couple weeks ago or so, Elena was messing with our (fancy, digital) scale and somehow changed the units from pounds to kilograms. Spencer and I were baffled - what the heck does it mean if I'm 82kg? We also couldn't figure out how to change it back, and we couldn't find the instruction booklet.

Spencer messed around with it some more after we had been this way for a week, and after taking out the batteries and poking around, he managed to change the units to stones. Oh, great. Now I'm 13 stones, I'm just as lost as before.

So, several days later, I take a stab at it and by random flailing figure out how to adjust the units (press both buttons, wait until ALL unit symbols flash, then press up arrow to choose the one you want - not exactly obvious), and we're happily back to pounds again. Well, not all that happily, since we've both gained weight since this whole fiasco started.

So we blame Elena for that. Not exactly fair, but what can we do when we don't know how much we weigh?

[ humor the net ] 2000-08-16
What's the opposite of a Pyrrhic victory?  Okay, so this morning I scanned two polaroids of Lena and emailed 'em to myself at work.

I get to work.

I have a Delivery Failure message. In my work inbox. It seems my return address was messed up or something (that's odd, I dunno why). So it sent the failure to the place I wanted the original mail to go.

Um. Okay!

As long as it worked, that's all I care about.

Is it just me, or is this kinda funny?

[ beauty design good ] 2000-08-14
Oooh, pretty!  A wooden mirror. It's composed of little wooden blocks that are computer controlled to tilt at various angles and reflect the light. Wow, beautiful and amazing.

[ consume ] 2000-08-11
On Greed:  I'm catching up on jwz's site, and I happen to like what he said about greed.

[ humor ] 2000-08-11
Like Deep Thoughts [tm], but different:  I thought R.M.'s Ruminations & Ponderances were quite funny, and even laughed out loud at quite a few of them. Oh, and the little ASCII-art cartoon there is cute, too.

[ consume rants ] 2000-08-11
More on Greed:  Or actually, on just basically having a dollar sign plastered over every damn thing on the planet (to paraphrase Saint Bill). I'm just so sickened by it, but it's getting worse all the time.

Recent examples: the naming rights for the new stadium in Denver - why oh why? Just because they think they can bilk someone out of $89 million dollars, they're going to auction the naming rights to the highest bidder. The old stadium actually had an identity of its own, Mile High. It was a city pride thing. Well, screw that, they say, what matters more is the almighty dollar (of course).

At Elitch's (oh, sorry, "Six Flags Elitch Gardens", sheesh), the whole deal is that the rides are there to get you to spend 32 bucks to get in, so they can squeeze even more money out of you once you're inside, on those stupid games (with lame-ass prizes), and on exorbitantly-priced food (and of course it's VERBOTEN for you to bring in any of your own food). Oh yeah, and on stupid merchandise, too. Puhlease! Just give me a park with good rides, and forget all the crap and the bogus "themed" stuff. I don't care if there are Batman logos plastered all over, or if the Pepsi machines have customized Mind Eraser (the name of a rollercoaster there) fronts on them. Just a waste of money. Argh!!!!!

And another Denver thing - the latest crop of cuddly cutesy polar bear cubs which have been given to another city were recently renamed, from some Inuit-related pair of words (one for each cub) to some other Inuit-related pair of words (ditto). Now, what they should have done, is auction off the naming rights for the cubs! Can you imagine, you could watch Coke and Pepsi duke it out on a faux iceberg and battle over fish encased in a block of ice. The scary thing is, they'll probably figure this out and do it with the next set of cubs...

[ humor ] 2000-08-11
Another Laugh:  From An Entirely Other Day, Seven Deadly Sins Week. Boy, I seem to really be finding the funny stuff today.

[ beauty design good ] 2000-08-11
Fabric Fetish:  I bought... a LOT of fabric when I was in Denver. I couldn't help it! Denver Fabrics has a new Annex which has womdigeous loads of cheap fabric, like $2/pound or $2/yard. So I grabbed tons of linen-like stuff, and various rayon-oid things too. I can't wait to make some nice clothes for Elena and me.

Speaking of which, it was triply temping since not only did they have kinds of fabric I can't find here, but it was ultra-cheap, and the Annex was set up such that Elena could freely run around while I shopped without causing damage or being damaged, so I was able to browse for quite a while and thoroughly explore almost everything they had. Also, she played in the fabric bins for a while, which was really cute. Anyway, there was no way all the stuff I bought would fit in my luggage, so I packed it in a box for my mother to send to me. So I have to wait for it, but it's not too terribly rough. I really miss sewing! I already have huge amounts of fabric, but it's been a long time since I bought any, and I kind of went nuts. Oh well.

[ atheism family ] 2000-08-10
On Spirituality  : A nifty thread on a Parentsplace web bboard about spirituality, that I really liked. The board is about Atheist Parenting, and I've found some really good stuff there before, as well.

[ cognition ] 2000-08-10
Um, this is good:  A little thick in places (I confess, I scanned quite a bit), this bit from Red Rock Eater Digest is rather interesting.

Critical thinking means that you can, so to speak, see your glasses. You can look at the world, or you can back up and look at the framework of concepts and assumptions and practices through which you look at the world. Every such framework edits the world in some way; every such framework has its biases.

[ canoe ] 2000-08-01
My canoe is coming!  Yesterday, we sealed the deal on the canoe, and it should be slowly making its way here starting today. It will take until (roughly) August 20th to get here. That's fine with me, since we need to get a rack for the car (and tie-downs for the front and back), and come up with a way to store it in the garage. Apparently, it's 20ft long. And the garage is about... 21.5ft long. So it might be a tight fit, but we can do it. I want to have everything totally ready so that when the canoe comes, I can take it to the water right away. I can't wait... now I have to come up with a name for it.