Well Pubski, I bought a viking camp yesterday. 8000 sq.ft house, 4 cottages, workshop, and a kindergarten which pays rent. It's on beautiful cape on a fjord. Renovating starts right away. It will become a mathematics creativity center with classroom, meeting space, coffeeshop, art gallery, math garden, bar, and store. I'll be giving up my job this summer to do this full-time and we'll be open for business August 1st.
Yeah, I just got an email from him too saying the same regarding the break. Hopefully he was pleasantly surprised.
Yeah, me too. It was nice to get. We have to remember that even while we're real people from our point of view, we might also be a distraction or addiction from other points of view. As charming and funny and creative and supportive as we can occasionally be, we are also j U S t letters on a screen. Well, I am anyway. You are also soundclouds and podcasts. On a screen.
You are also a podcast on a screen. Don't diminish your role in those. I love hearing your perspective. But yes, I know first hand how it can be easy to neglect things in meat space because interactions online are so much more easily had. Balance. All of life is a balancing act.
And I understand that in the world of cyberpunk faction, "meatspace" is the term used to refer to that place we are that is not cyberspace. In places like World of Warcraft and 2nd Life, it's a commonly used term. and perhaps individuals have a personal, dynamic and idiosyncratic meaning for the word. Indeed, "meaty" is a word used to describe something as having depth and substance, something you can bite into. but here in Canada, I cringe when I hear that phrase. It's cold here and the term "meatspace" reminds me of my freezer, where I keep meat. I realize that "meatspace" is one wordish, while "the real world" is three. And "reality" has too many meanings to stick into your sentence above: Come to think of it, "meatspace" is a kind of handy descriptor of here, where we are when we're not on line. :( maybe I don't like it because it denies subjective reality. And it reminds me of the freezer . . . and, on some level, the grave (a fine and lovely place/but none, I'm sure, do there embrace). Time for a drink.But yes, I know first hand how it can be easy to neglect things in meat space because interactions online are so much more easily had.
Do we have to use the term "meat space?" I know we are made out of meat. I read the story here, on Hubski, so it must be true.I know first hand how it can be easy to neglect things in reality...
I think the "real world" diminishes spaces like Hubski. This place, what we are doing, the conversations we are having are all real. I don't disagree that there could be a better term than meat space, but I don't think "real world" is it.
Excellent point. The implication that there is a "real world" and a "other-than-real world" is less than preferable. That's along the lines of the experience vs reflection myth that I alluded to in another post. Reflection is another kind of experience. I don't disagree that there could be a better term than meat space, but I don't think "real world" is it.
How about "on-screen reality" and "non-screen reality"?
This is the first time I have ever heard the term "meatspace". And I consider myself somebody who has spend the majority of his teen life in "cyberspace"/"screen space". We used to call meatspace IRL, which means (I think) "in real life". But I do agree that Hubski is not what RPG gaming was for me back then, so another term should describe the difference...
Well, Lesson with a member of the Cleveland Orchestra bass section today (looking at postgrad programs). Wish me luck!
Update: Well, I think it was okay. My initial reaction was one of abject disappointment in myself and my ability, but I don't think he saw it as badly as I did. He definitely pointed out some areas in my playing where i need to step up, hard.
My daughter has hit that phase where her first question is "what's that?" and her next question is "why?" It took about 5 rounds of this before I determined that she wasn't interested in "why" she was making conversation. As such, I respond with "why not?" Satisfied, she has now omitted the "why." This has led to some delightfully Taoist proclamations. "Whatsat?" "That's a garbage truck!" "Why not!" ... "Whatsat?" "That's called a 'floor clean-out.'" "Fwokeenout WHY NOT?" ... "Look! The moon!" "Why not!"
This is a fun age, I loved when my daughter's language was first emerging. I have audio of her spending five minutes having a conversation with the moon. Saying things like, "hello moon, how are you. I love you moon. Tiger is mine. No moon you no take tiger.." All while looking up at the moon from the back seat of our car. She has a stuffed tiger she loves. Anyways, it's all amazing!!!! Have fun. My father in law tells a story about my wife as a small girl. She would always ask "why." She asked this so much that he eventually said to her in frustration, "Honey, if you ask me why one more time you have to go to your room." She paused for a moment, looked up at him and asked, "how come daddy?" Smart kid.
The Pubski is Open I cycled in the sub-zero to work this morning wondering when the pubski would open and what I would say. (Yes, pubski, I think of you when we're apart.) I've been wondering this: Do people really learn from experience? I decided to find out. Arriving in class at 9:00, I said to the assembled, "I'm doing a research project. How many of you have dropped your phone in the toilet? Show of hands." About 25 of 41 students had drifted in. Of these, six hands went up, reluctantly, after first looking around to see if they were the only one. "Ok. Thanks. Now of the six of you, how many have dropped your phone in the toilet twice." An unbelievable three hands went up. This was not what I expected. But we can't let research subjectivity and desired outcomes blind us to the facts. Right, oh scientists of pubski? "OK, now, how many of you have dropped your phone into the toilet three times?" No hands went up. Conclusion: People learn from experience. Eventually. Some learn faster. One student came up to me and said, "Well, it wasn't exactly a toilet, but it was equally bad. Worse actually." I didn't ask. --------------------------------------------- Reading elizabeth and coffeesp00ns comments on this thread below reminded me of this.
I'm reading this while on the toilet, terrified because I've never dropped mine in there and it would seem I'm due. Off to finish my #grubski dairy creation. Hands will be thoroughly washed.
Be careful when you use your phone on the toilet. :) And don't use your phone on the toilet drunk. Also, if you spend significant time thinking about how things could go wrong, they seem to actually go wrong somewhat less. When I was much younger and at Girl Scout Camp (yes), I dropped a turned-on flashlight into the open latrine. (By accident.) I guess I just have an affinity for toilets, and putting things in them that don't quite belong.
Should I be excited to go back home? I have only three weeks left here in Canada, and so far every person I've told that fact to has asked me whether I'm excited to go home. Seems like a weird question to me. I mean, I like it back home, but I also really like it here, so I have mixed feelings. Had two big presentations yesterday, and I'm really glad that's over. Because I've done so much work already in the last month, I have time now to work on my assignments without having to hurry myself too much. And I have time to go skiing for the first time this weekend!
Donated a pint of blood! Some foundation's bus rolled up at school and took off with our good stuff at the end of the day. Luckily the doctor still left a little bit for me. Also learned that Armenia is the one country in a 1,500km radius that I am permitted to visit and still be eligible to donate. Any other country around there and they would turn me back out right. Neat-o.
This is why the site crashed this morning. Get some damn calories! Are you sure that a T-Bone steak is the best re-entry food? Good luck
The beer may be enough. So, did you have any juice or was it strictly water for 72 hours?
I guess "cleansing" was the wrong choice of words… you're supposed to just know what I mean - not what I say! ;-) I remember reading that article when it was posted here, and we spoke about it in Portland. I know this isn't your first rodeo, but how often are you doing it? Or do you even have a schedule in mind?
I'm just trying it this one time. I get sick all the time. If by some chance I go several months without falling ill, maybe I'll consider doing it again. Part of the motivation is just the challenge, and curiosity. I've never gone so long without getting a single calorie. It's not a lot of fun, but I have definitely learned something in the process.
I'm completely intrigued. I fast about once a month for religious reasons - but it's no food or water - NPO for 2 meals or about 24 hours. It's crazy. Right at the end, you hit this wall, and then break through to crazy clarity. I had a friend who went water only for 5 days and said it felt amazing. He claimed clarity, vigor, and even the disappearance of some knee pain… but that sounded suspect to me. That's it - I'm trying it. I'm not sure when, but I'll post about it.
That is a weird thing. My shoulder has been killing me for about 2 weeks, so much so that it hurt to put on my jacket. Yesterday evening, I realized it was gone. I do think that they might be related. Maybe inflammation drops when you don't have the energy to spare. You can do it. It's rough at times, but really, 66 hours in, I feel remarkably ok.I had a friend who went water only for 5 days and said it felt amazing. He claimed clarity, vigor, and even the disappearance of some knee pain…
That's it - I'm trying it. I'm not sure when, but I'll post about it.
Good on you! I did my 72 hour fast this summer and I'll be doing another one this month. Every six months is my goal. Last night I was traveling and didn't eat dinner. I got into the hotel hungry and thought about going out to find a restaurant. Realized I didn't really need to eat. Missing ONE dinner? Easy! Fasting makes you realize you aren't dependent on eating all the time and that you will survive just fine if you go a little while without food.
Thanks. I think six months is about as soon as I would want to do that again. It wasn't as difficult as I imagined it might be, but it wasn't a lot of fun either. I found it difficult to focus at times. It is true that I learned something about myself. I definitely will see feelings of 'hunger' in a different light.
It tasted great. Really fantastic. It was nice having a bone to chew meat off of, it made the experience feel primal. I went from 147 to 142 lbs. I expect that I'll put two back very quickly. That was a nice benefit. I have been 3-5 lbs. over my ideal weight (I've weighed about 144 lbs. for 20 years) for some time. Hopefully this will reset me down a bit.
Hopping on this to say that Happy People is a very interesting film, and that's a ming from someone who is naturally opposed to anything with the word happy in the title.
Not a squatting event, just a (large) house of punks and some old friends. Fun fact, the building was closed due to its drug culture. The walls were whitewashed of all explicit drug references and it was re-opened. This is it after the whitewashing...
That last picture looks like it came from a "Subnormality" comic. Though i don't think it actually did - not the one i was thinking of anyways.
I juste wrote it out and realized my current problems are not even remotely interesting. Skip the next two paragraphs. I want to burn my computer after failing do solve for 2 days my optimization research problem... I'm sure I modeled the problem correctly but there must be something wrong either with my version of excel or the way I input it in the solver. Frustrating as fuck. Also fuck macs. I can't use my computer in my IT class cause SAP GUI is not Mac compatible. So I spent 2h downloading Windows on my laptop. Had to clean out my computer cause there was no space left. Half the semester passes and the teacher tells us the mac version of excel is not good enough because now we have to link excel with SAP GUI to generate graphs in real time. We also have to install Microsoft access (also a pain to do on mac, i tried for another 2h and failed miserably). So I just gave up and stole my dad's computer. You can start reading here. Went to a pretty neat concert last weekend and filmed a couple of songs. It's Klezmer/Balkan style music. This band would really benefit from a bit of vocals but it was still good. The playlist of anyone is interested: I missed a cool concert last week too but my boyfriend borrowed my camera and filmed it too. It's the first three song in this playlist: They play in Toronto pretty often, I would 100% recommend going. Hey way the crowd gets during their concerts is crazy. My parents came back from their trip to Portugal. I'm already getting frustrated with my mom just /being/ there and talking to me in the morning. And little comments like "you should wear gloves, it's cold outside today". I know she means well and i'm not taking it out on her but I feel like I really need to move out. The constant walking into my room to talk to me about irrelevant stuff like what do I think of her new earings... It's sweat and all I feel like an angry teenager again. I guess I just need space.
I'm hating on Pages now. Had to uninstall and go back to last year's version. I've started learning to use Word of all things. I used to do professional publishing in Pages, but Apple decided its users don't want to be professionals. They want to make preformatted documents on their iPads to share with their grandmas instead. I miss you, Steve Jobs.
we'll need to chat at some point - I was slow to adopt the new version (I still have the old version on my work laptop, but current version on the home mac). After some initial "hey - where did they put THAT button" I am kinda ok with the new version. What am I missing? Or more to the point - what is the new Pages missing?
oh dude… I played with numbers for exactly 6 minutes when iWork first debuted… and I don't think I've installed it since. It is… an abomination. unless I guess… you want a pretty looking personal budget for a family from the 1950s. And look - excel on a mac is fine… I use it relentlessly every day - but I miss some of the shortcuts and the quick feel of excel on Windows.
I dreamed my sister and I found a baby orca whale last night and had to save it. At one point I carried the whale across a busy street! We were running! Oh, poor baby orca. We got into a hospital, filled a bathtub with water, and plopped the baby in (you had to carry him with both arms wrapped around, he was a big sucker) so we could plot our next step. The ocean wasn't far, you see. I realized the baby needed salt water so I found a container of iodized table salt and poured some in. When I woke up I thought about orcas, and Seaworld, and the degrading state of our oceans and earth, and I was sad. But on the way in to work the radio played some pretty great music, so that helped a lot. Edit: Also, I don't think I mentioned, but I went to the Philadelphia Zoo this weekend with the honey! It was nice. I saw a caged zookeeper: 
I figure anyone who posts a dream is looking for some dream interpretation. Here's mine: Let's assume that the baby whale is a projection of your inner landscape. If you were to go back into the dream and be the whale, how would you finish these sentences: As the baby whale, I need . . . (to be saved? to be protected?) On the other hand, you completely rise to the occasion and carry the whale to the hospital and add salt. So maybe both parts of you are in that dream and they are currently struggling - the part of you that wants to be saved and protected and the part of you that says, look I can do this. I can carry a heavy load. I can get it do safety and plan the next step. If I recall previous discussions about relationships . . .
Found out today I didn't get a job I interviewed for. It was to be Editor of a consumer tech magazine. I felt like I came really close so to be pipped at the finish line was a bit gutting. It was a two-horse race between me and some other guy apparently. He's older than me and "knows the market better". C'est la vie. It was really cool to even be considered, and I learned a lot from the process.
Technical writing. It's part of my job, I do it a lot. I'm doing a lot of it right now. I try to avoid using the word "thus" when I can. Sometimes it's just the perfect word, but I still feel gross every time I do it. It sounds so waspy and antiquated. Every "thus" adds 6 months to my age.
you should bring back the thorn. "Þus" will add decades to your readers life, (but divert it to your life).
3 finals, 2 homework assignments, 2 quizzes, one project report, and one project presentation and then this semester is over.
I don't pay anything. I "borrow" from youtube where many of these clips are already "borrowed". I don't love piracy - but I don't feel like what I'm doing is overtly evil. I kinda feel like I'm taking that rogue nickel out of the penny jar at the gas station and making something nice with it. And Python? I try to include them as often as possible.
I always feel like it's okay so long as you're only using a small snippet and it's obvious you are attempting to create new art out of existing art and most importantly, you are not making any money off of it. I'd have no problem with someone taking a snippet of a song I made and collaging it with others so long as they weren't trying to make money with it or claiming it was their own work. It's an interesting question, what do we own? When does an artist or creator lose control over what they've made?
If I take one of your tracks, change it's title and stick my name on it is that original? I'd guess most people's answer to that would be 'no'. However, what are the boundaries of originality and what counts as part of the 'work' of the art. In placing my name on what was your song, by changing the title, I have re-contextualised it. I have altered the perception of it a listener may have through the way I chose to present it. Does that count as original? It's not original musically, but as conceptual whole it is arguably a completely original work.
I think if you fundamentally change the nature of what it is I made, it becomes something new, it transcends the original artifact. If you simply change the title, this isn't the case at least not so much with music. It's an interesting question though. From a copyright perspective, there are some concrete rules that govern such things and I'm not entirely clear what they are. In regards to the video's and podcasts that we make, I'd rather ask for forgiveness than permission. Again, we make ZERO money from these things and I never plan to either. But still, this poses some interesting questions. Anyone else have a better answer for rezzeJ's hypothetical?
2 Exams today, 1 down 40 minutes ago, 1 in 6 hours. I'm not sure how to best spend my time. I got ~8 hours of sleep last night, but a nap could definitely happen. I should study, because the last exam I had in this class didn't turn out as well as it could/should have. Just feeling indecisive. Eating a bagel and staring at the clock wondering if anyone would judge me for ordering a beer exactly at noon.
my advice? put your notes in the bathroom. You're not doing anything else with your brain while you're there.
some people spend time in the bathroom avoiding things. Also some people have longer bowel movements than others i guess.
Turns out there's a lot of underexplored space in the signaling networks / systems biology of most of the above and that the tools for actually seeing and manipulating these systems are just coming online. So that makes me pretty hopeful that I can be useful! Quote from a discussion yesterday: "Alzheimer's is presently where cancer was about 30 years ago. Everyone has their favorite gene to explain what's going on, but no one has really started looking at how they all play together." Malaria has progressed even less, and the NTDs are, well... neglected. The word from an alumni in this lab is that Tb is in a similar position (But biofilms are another nut entirely to crack). Alzheimer's runs in my family and is one of the worst ways to die, so I'd be pretty happy to make even a dent that disease (Or really any of the above). So yeah, left my meeting on Friday pretty excited!
I've become immensely frustrated with the way things are going in my life lately, and so in response I changed. Changed. This phenomenon that too few people realize can happen. I see people struggle with it. Change is hard. Change is really fucking hard. But it needs to happen. For us to evolve as a species. For us to rise above those before us. For us to be more than we are. Life isn't fair. You didn't decide to be put here. You didn't decide what color you were, your name, your schooling. So change. Do what you want, because in the end how will your reflection feel about the person staring back at them?
Good on you! Was it a big change? I think that decision to change is so key. Some years ago I was tired of arranging the universe so that I could someday be an artist. One day, I just decided to be an artist and let the universe arrange itself around that. It worked. Almost immediately. Change is amazing!