Friday, November 22, 2002
I'm at the point of integrating the full media galleries (support of most standard AVI formats, MPG video, MP3 and OGG audio files, and so on), but to do so I'm going to have to drop about a thousand dollars having an employee do it (it's very much outside of my experience, and I'm too swamped with other things to deal with it, and yes, PsyberCity does have employees other than me).
Anyway, there've been very few donations in the last four months or so, so I just wanted to make sure that people were interested in me doing the above (when it's just my work I don't mind doing it, but this is real money spent). I'm not asking for donations — I understand that a lot of people are tight right now — I just want to know if this is a feature that people would like. I know that a lot of digital cameras take MPG clips so it might be fun to be able to cleanly post them here.
Add this to the “Shannon shouldn't answer support mail late at night” file. An urgent request to add “a picture of a cheshire cat” had just come in:
From: Stevejs1@***
Subject: a picture of a cheshire cat
Please!!! Can I get a pic of a cheshire cat,
that maybe a little "mad".
People constantly ask that every stupid utterly unrelated thing to the subject matter gets added to the glossary (a few other recent requests include “animated four leaf clovers”, “kanji for serenity”, “genial tattoo”, “unicorn”, and “polyamory”). My reply:
From: glider@bmezine.com
Subject: Re: a picture of a cheshire cat
Here you go, I hope this helps.
Send me a photo if you get it tattooed on you!
Thursday, November 21, 2002
Add to Shannon's Christmas list:
Thursday, November 21, 2002
I'm not entirely happy with this article — it's a bit disjointed. You should see the original though. I've cut this version back to I think 3,800 words, with the original being a solid 1,500 longer. It's a big subject. Anyway, it won't go public until tomorrow so if you'd life first dibs on it, here you go:
Should Freedom of Expression be a right?
"If God wanted you to have a tattoo, you would have been born with one. Here in South Carolina, we still believe in God."
- South Carolina State Senator Jakie Knotts
"If God had wanted us to eat cooked food, he'd have installed a furnace in our throats."
- Anonymous author of the Fingernail Mods FAQ
Recent court cases regarding the legality of tattooing in the state of South Carolina have tested the question of whether the method of expression is included in the first amendment right of free speech. The court decided that freedom of speech is limited in its context, and does not in fact apply to tattooing (even though it has in the past protected far more socially questionable art forms). In this week's column I will make the case that freedom of expression rights are both desperately needed by the modified community, and that in modern times, it makes sense to consider a freedom of expression right as a single unifying right that also protects speech, culture, and religion.
(more)
I thought it might amuse people to hear how I write. I jot down my ideas on little pieces of paper that I carry around with me when I go out. Then I rough out a structure and type the body in on the computer using AbiWord (a free open-source competitor to MS Word). Then I print that out and go lie in the old hay in the barn editing it by hand.
Today it was supermuddy back there so I went for a spin in the ATV every time I needed to clear my thoughts. It's so warm and wet today that the four wheeler was throwing up a forty-foot rooster tail. Very fun!
Thursday, November 21, 2002
First, if you didn't see, the beast of an update is there. Even zipped at maximum compression it was still a 130 meg upload — the biggest I've done yet over the satellite. I'm amazed there were no problems — I'm amazed how trouble free big FTP sessions are. I can't wait until they release their new high-speed upstream dish in Q1 2003.
I had a long talk yesterday with one of my oldest online friends who felt a number of statements I'd made were insulting to Americans — let me make something real clear — I go to the effort of writing about US issues because I believe in the documents that America was founded on — it should be clear from my general behavior that I deeply value those principles and philosophies. Like it or not, there's a real good chance that America is going to define the 21st century's world government.
I'd like America to do that with American values and American know-how, not with some kind of religious extremist and corporate bastardization that serves neither the world community nor the American citizen. Maybe I live in some pre-Lincoln libertarian American Transcendentalist pipe-dream, but I think America can do it.
I think it would be a shame if America went from being a land of cowboy engineers, rock'n'roll, motorcycles on the open highway, and personal freedoms to a playground where wealthy forces vie for power and control, while Brazil* and other young nations take America's place as rulers of the free world.
So I hope you understand why I link to stories about how the US hopes the inspectors find weapons, but that even if they don't, they're attacking anyway. Or maybe I could link about secret courts or scary black ops… But please don't just write this off as America bashing. I wouldn't write any of this if I didn't care about America.
The Reichstag Fire Syndrome occurs whenever a democracy is destroyed by creating a law-and-order crisis and offering as a "solution" the abdication of civil liberties and state's rights to a powerful but unaccountable central dictator. The men of wealth who put the tyrant into power are then able to reap obscene war profits.
But there is one article particularly worth reading (quote above) that I got in my email this morning: The Nazification Of America. When I first got the link, I figured it was going to be some militia kook making far out claims, but it doesn't grasp at straws at all. It just lines of a clear comparison between the Nazi climb to power and fascist control over the US. Worth reading.
*
Note that I also say that with sincere admiration… I think South America in general is one of the most exciting places in the world right now and I think we're going to see amazing things continuing to come from it.
It's pretty blah out today… I think I'm going quickly burn through some must-answer messages, and then go for a walk and take advantage of the loss of snow to go clean up the BBQ space which still has some old garbage. Then it's back to work… Even though I've cleared the update backlog I still am incredibly behind.
Wednesday, November 20, 2002
