At the 61c today, I ran into someone who sounded a lot like a guy I used to know in columbus from Insomnia - a self-described "bisexual witch" who talked endlessly about casting spells, manipulating energy levels, (view full entry for contents)

Lawrence Lessig's "change congress" project needs help documenting positions of politicians on reform issues so it can hold them to it - those interested can get involved here. As has been made clear to me by some friends who were involved in politics for a time, it's easy for a politician to honestly agree that some kinds of reform are a good thing and want to do them, but these beliefs are challenged with all the trading of favours that happens invisibly in politics. Whether Lessig's efforts will be able to impose enough of a cost on that invisible dealmaking is something we'll have to see.

Grr. I forgot to reinstall the rest of my development environment before I went out to do some programming. On the upside, it sounds like wonderful rain is on its way.

Two documents that are somehow like intellectual candy: Microsoft's Legacy-Free PC standards, and the Changelist for Perl 5.10.

OpenBSD 4.3's release song is harshly critical of Richard Stallman, (view full entry for contents)

Grumbly about spreadsheets.. (view full entry for contents)

There have been two recent tales of child abuse in the news, one in Austria (incidentally, did you know that Austria is an anglicisation of Österreich, which breaks down into Öst and Reich, "East" and "Reign/Realm", respectively? ), and one in Texas. (view full entry for contents)

I went for the Encyclopedia Britannica's offer of free access to their online edition to web publishers (which includes frequent bloggers). As I understand, this is intended to help keep them competitive with Wikipedia. Whether it can succeed or not, I think it's important that they do it. Which of them is a more worthy project, EB or WP?(view full entry for contents)

"They told us that tool usage and creativity with spatial reasoning is the core of intelligence. Sitting on the couch looking at the remote, I enjoyed the puzzle of how to get it without disturbing the pile of stuff on my lap, but returning to their idea, it felt a bit ridiculous. Still fun though.."

Further adventures with fondue are temporarily on hold until Gruyère stops being so delicious (I keep eating it before I'm in the mood for fondue).

I scooped up what looked to be another leaflet in the occasional animosity between Lubavichers and Modern Orthodox here, and was going to post a copy but on further inspection it looks to be instead a leaflet by Messianics against Lubavich. It's still interesting, but not as much so... it'll just be another member of my collection of religious tracts..

Various contries of Europe as well as Communists, Socialists, and other liberal factions recognise today as Labour day, a day to reflect upon and recognise the growth of organised labour and progress made by such movements. (view full entry for contents)

I have a (phone) job interview(ish thing) for a job in SB, California on Friday, with a company that does a lot of stuff with perl. I am a bit disappointed that UCSB never gave me so much as a phone call, as at least one of the jobs I applied for looks to be incredibly awesome, but doing stuff with Perl tends to make me happy too and this job would get my life moving again. It would be kind of weird doing for a job something technically close to some of my personal projects though - if I do get this job I'll have to make sure they never try to claim as their "property" things I have or will do on my own....

Misc: (view full entry for contents)

If I'm to leave the vaguely eastern part of the United States soon to take a job in CA, what should I do before I go, and what places should I visit? (view full entry for contents) I still need to figure out what to do about the cat situation. Like in many things in life, I wish I could manipulate time so as to have Beefalo for the rest of her life and then Tortfeasor at his current age for the rest of his life. As-is, nobody has come forth to offer to take him (or any of the computer stuff I tried to give away - like my occasionally open invites to grab food or do things never getting responses, apparently my blog is not in fact a good way to communicate with people I know)

Daydream: two celebrities are, arranged by their agent, to begin work on a project, but because they happen to be great admirers of each others works and have a fanboy attitude, they spend their entire first meeting getting each other's autographs and photos taken and other stuff.

Mind returns to thoughts of if, instead of no strong notion of self (anatman), there were a single atman - a single self looped through the life of every living being in the universe - a stronger karma. Also, profound loneliness and profound violation - strange emotions attached to strange ideas.

I sometimes wish that the fragments of me that explore ideas within other philosophies (some religious, many not, most mutually exclusive) could all be expressed and given a shot at in life - there are many spheres where I'd love to try out ideas and positions, but I cannot adopt their prerequisites with all of myself - the most I can play wih those ideas is inside a "shadow self", as insulated as a VM. Sure, I can dream up interactions with people I know and don't for those shadows, but holding all those branching possibilities in my head eventually becomes a burden and I can't emotionally benefit as much from things in these containers (but what if I could? If I ever learn to do that, perhaps I shall arrange minimal sustenace for myself and withdraw, just becoming a host of dreams. Maybe Sam Lowry had it right after all..

Today was a nice day walking around through the park with my accordion. I was up at 6am(!), and learned that Bruegger's bagels (and other bread products) are incredibly good when they're that fresh, leaps and bounds over how they are later in the day.

Strangely entertaining (for me) dream:(view full entry for contents)

I sometimes wonder what it would be like if we lived in a society where we could directly ask someone something like "What's the basis of your self esteem?" - I suspect a lot of us have a list of things that it is important for us to believe we are - popular, just, intelligent, tough, stylish, a good member of X ethnic group, on the path to being a tv star, etc. For some of us, we wear these on our sleeve - people who not only need to believe that they are X but need to believe everyone around them thinks them to be X as well. This creates problems, of course, when others do not believe it (and selects their circle of friends/acquaintences, in many cases). For others, it's enough that they believe it and they can disregard what most (or all) others think on the matter.

If one is observant enough, of course, one can see parts of this in others, but I suspect that many times, even with really close friends (maybe spouses too) one never gets the whole picture. I don't think I've ever thought to ask this of anyone I've dated or known nor has anyone ever asked it of me. I'm not sure I'd want to give an honest answer anyhow both because these kinds of things often sound arrogant or weird and having others know the honest truth of it gives a terrible vulnerability - the lines to self-esteem are disruptable in many cases.

It's interesting to think about what one can do if one finds that one's self esteem is based on things that are either unhealthy or lead one to actions that are against one's values (anorexics are an example of the former).

Amusing connection of ideas: Unix shell tab completion, hash buckets, English-unix vocabulary. My tab key on most of my keyboards is much more worn than almost any key (except possibly the space bar (view full entry for contents)"we like that typing is happening, and that we're in control, but we like it more when most of the typing is not being done by us"). It is left to the reader to think about how unix tab-completion can be connected productively to the idea of Markov chains.

Incidentally, sometime in the future, there will be pop-punk covers of most songs by Death Cab for Cutie, and it will be fantastic. In the closer future, there are nine days until their next album is out - they and Radiohead together form the core for what seems to be a circle of music with almost universal likability in people I know. I've always hoped Firewater and Plaid Tongued Devils would hit that status, but I think they're hurt by not being on a major record label.