I cannot say that I knew Mike Ford, outside of his writing, and a couple of fleeting bits of e-mail correspondence, once upon a time. But I will say this:
I hope that one day, when it comes my time to go, that I am remembered as well and by as many good people as he.
Thank you for all the words and the stories. Best speed, sir.
Had a lovely weekend, full of nothing much to report. Just a nice lazy watch TV, websurf, and hermit.
Lacking real content, here’s some interesting things to look at:
Fortunately, someone is trying to conquer that very problem, as featured in a recent issue of Wired:
Daniel Gluck, executive director of the Museum of Sex (NSFW) in New York, sympathizes with the situation as well — so much so, he’s trying to do something about it.
The result is the fledgling MoSex Index (NSFW), an attempt to combine the best of social content with “taste networking.”
“Our social content engine is similar to Digg or Reddit, where members can post content and others can rate it. Based on content thresholds, who is doing the rating, karma and reputation, links make it to the homepage,” Daniel says.
“But — and I think this is an extremely important aspect of the project — we’ve also incorporated a collaborative filtering element. On other sites, you rate or (don’t) rate; we have a degree of rating based on a 7-point Likert scale that adds weight to your like or dislike. We take that intelligence and form ‘taste profiles,’ which combine to form ‘taste networks.’ When people in your taste network find content they like, that content gets recommended to you.”
I spent some idle time on Saturday, and did manage to find some interesting sites that I’d previously been aware of. The site is currently a bit sluggish and intermittently available, since the Wired article has generated a huge spike in their traffic. If you’re at all interested in finding online erotic material, this is a site to keep an eye on.
(one of Ze’s readers also did an extended remix, setting the whole thing to a techno beat. I’m sure there will be a video soon. Stay tuned.)
Finally, Happy New Year to all my Jewish friends. May the year ahead be full of light and joy for each and every one of you.
” I wash my hands in the presence of all these witnesses.”
No, wait. That’s Talk Like A Pilate Day…
“Roger, tower, Delta 886 now approaching runway six from the northwest at…”
Darn it, no. That’s Talk Like A PILOT day. One more time.
“In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti….
*sigh* No, that’s Talk Like A Prelate Day!
I’ll never get the hang of this….
I just got a spam with the subject line “Soul Commissariat”. 🙂
My work day began at 8am yesterday. It’s now 2am. There’s an end in sight, I think….and then sleep.
I could have sworn I did this one, but I can’t find it, so, what the heck…..vectored from the lovely melissanmn
Since you are on my friends list, I want to know about you. Doesn’t matter if we have ever met or not, tell me any way. Come on… spread the joy. 🙂 Post it to your journal to find out more about your friends too.
1.Your Middle Name:
2. Age:
3. Single or Taken:
4. Favorite Movie:
5. Favorite Song:
6. Favorite Band/Artist:
7. Dirty or Clean:
8. Tattoos and/or Piercings:
HERE COMES THE FUN … … …
1. Do we know each other outside of LJ?
2. Whats your philosophy on life?
3. Would you have my back in a fight?
4. Would you keep a secret from me if you thought it was in my best interest?
5. What is your favorite memory of us?
6. Would you give me a kidney?
7. Tell me one odd/intresting fact about you:
8. Would you take care of me when I’m sick?
9. Can we get together and make a cake?
10. Have you heard any rumors of me lately?
11. Do you/have you talk(ed) crap about me?
12. Do you think I’m a good person?
13. Would you drive across country with me?
14. Do you think I’m attractive?
15. If you could change anything about me, would you?
16. What do you wear to sleep?
17. Would you come over for no reason just to hang out?
18. Would you go on a date with me if i asked you?
19. If I only had one day to live, what would we do together?
20. Will you repost this so i can fill it out for you?
Thanks to John Scalzi, I now have an entire album’s worth of classical music interpreted as 60s surf pop, as performed by Takeshi Terauchi & The Bunnys.
If you can listen to these mp3s and not smile, I would seriously question the state of your soul. Go listen, it’s all good stuff.
I had intended not to post anything today, or if I did post anything today, I intended not to mention the Anniversary of the Big Event.
It’s not that I have a problem with people remembering. It was something that affected each and every one of us, and my cynicism over how that event has been exploited for political and commercial gain doesn’t change the fact that very real people are experiencing very real emotions today. I’m not immune. I won’t ever forget that day. But I won’t let it define my life. I can’t. If we let this tragedy define us, then we’ve allowed the bad guys to accomplish something, and I guess I’m just too stubborn to give in to that.
On the other hand, a moment of honest reflection is worthwhile. So I offer you three things, in memory of all we lost, and all we gained.
So in the last week, President Bush has called on Americans to use the five-year anniversary of September 11th as a chance to recall the unity that we felt in its aftermath. It was a pretty amazing unity. We were certainly bonded together by fear but also by a kind of hopefulness. It was a hopefulness from the experience of the amazing strength that we have when we decide to help each other.
That unity was not about the government. It was a shared determination among us to make things better. The President seems to think that “unity” implies supporting him and his policies. In my personal opinion, the President has no right to attach himself to that part of our experience. He already had his shot. While every other aspect of 9/11 is defiled this Monday, let us at least keep intact the memory of what that unity meant to us.
I heard a lady on the radio this morning with the best Idea ever.
Go out today and do something tangible, that makes the world better.
Visit someone in hospital, give blood, make a $5 donation to a charity, bake a cake for a neighbour, fix up that hole in your mother-in-law’s fence, write a letter of congratulation to a Nobel peace prise winner, hand in that umbrella to lost and found, pick up litter outside your work, drop off a bundle of tinned food to the local homeless refuge, scrub off some graffiti from a wall, change the light bulb in the hall of your block of flats, sweep off the sidewalk outside your house and clean out the gutter, help Mrs Johnson across the road to carry her groceries in.
Just go out and do something. Make sure it is physical, tangible. Make the world a better place in some way. Help someone. Help each other. Make today not about the death, and destruction, and violence, and intolerance, but about the gift that you can make, yourself, right now.
Change the world.
Pass this idea around folks. Link to my little spiel, or copy it into your own journal. Then make a comment (and encourage others to, also) letting each other know what it was you did today.
Some nights I still can see them, like a ghost.
King Kong was right about the Empire State.
I’d rather not hear what you’ll miss the most.
A taller building? Maybe. I can wait.
I hugged the stranger sitting next to me.
So this is what you call a second chance.
One turn aside, into eternity.
This is New York. We’ll find a place to dance.
In closing, while remembering the events of this day, remember also this: we were hurt, but we were not destroyed. We are still one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all, if we want it to be. And when someone tells you that we must give those ideals up in order to be safe, remember this day well. And tell them no.
It’s been a quiet weekend, so far.
Friday, we spent the evening after work with wheezinggirl and her husband M. After meeting up at their house, we went into downtown Roswell for dinner at Sugo, a remarkably good Greek/Italian restaurant. I had the Loose Lasagna (“I prefer my lasagna to be a bit of a hussy, quite honestly.”), and kitanzi had one of the specials, a delightful halibut and scallops dish with a perfect sauce. After dinner, we retired to their house for a game of Munchkin. The final score was 10-9-8-7, won by me on a wonderfully munchkined play (Looking for trouble, played Kali, then played Typographical Error to make her level 1. There was an exchange of cards in an attempt to stop me, but I had enough cards in hand to counter them.) A good close game like that is much more fun than a blowout, so I was glad it was so close. 🙂
The rest of the weekend has been spent largely undertaking the project of finally watching Babylon 5. It may come as a shock to many folks who haven’t heard the story of my long and troubled history with this show, but I’ve not actually seen the large majority of it. That’s not to say I haven’t tried.
See, when B5 first came out, I sat down to watch it, because it was SF on television, and there wasn’t that much SF on television in those days, aside from Star Trek. Generally, anything that had a science fiction theme was going to get watched by us, regardless. And, I have to admit, I didn’t care for it. I hated it. And after four or five episodes, I stopped watching it.
Two years later, all anyone can talk about is Babylon 5! “Oh, you’re not watching it?” people would say in amazed horror. “Nah,” I said. I tried to watch it when it first came on, but I really didn’t care for it.” “But, it got better! Really!” After enough of these conversations, often with people whose taste I trusted, I agreed to give it another try. And they were right, it *had* gotten much better. The new commander was much more interesting, the characters felt much more deep and interesting, and the plot was engaging. Unfortunately, it being the middle of season 3, I had no idea what was going on.
But, I figured that sooner or later, they’d show it again, and when they did, I’d watch it and see what all the fuss was about. in 1998, TNT announced they were going start showing the series from the beginning. And I settled in to watch it. Two weeks later, my apartment building burned to the ground.
Ever since then, I always managed to miss when it would restart. filker0 tried to alert me of one rotation starting up a few years ago, but it was right at the time that my relationship with deidrecorwin was disintegrating, and it wasn’t on at a convenient time for me to see it unless I missed all the traffic on my evening commute, so I didn’t get to see more than a handful of episodes at that time.
So, recently, I have borrowed Season 1 DVD from a friend of mine, and this weekend kitanzi and I have settled into watch it, in order. We’ve gotten through the first two disk (eight episodes), and I’m pleased to say that I’m genuinely enjoying it. I still think Sinclair is made of wood, and the scenes which are supposed to be emotional often seem to ring a little false, but I know that it gets better, and honestly, I’m having much more fun enjoying the good bits than snarking at the bad bits. I do honestly think that I’ve changed a bit as a consumer since I saw these before — I’m much less picky about my entertainment, and am much more willing to overlook absurdities in order to enjoy the shows.
I don’t intend to keep an episode-by-episode reaction to the thing, because I really don’t want to put that much work into it. But I do intend to keep watching it until I’m done with it, and then I’ll finally understand all the in-jokes and the songs, and stop feeling like I’ve missed out on something exceptional that everyone else knows about but me.
Back when kitanzi and I first started dating, she was living in New Hampshire and I was in Georgia, and we got to see each other at best about once a month. Usually, by the beginning of the third week apart, we were climbing the walls and counting the hours until the next time we’d see each other. Through all of it, there was a sustaining thought that we used when we thought we’d reached the end of our endurance:
If tarkrai and katyhh can manage, we can manage. And we’d hold on just a little bit longer.
Kit and I gave up on the whole long distance thing years ago, and I’m happy that, as of this week, tarkrai and katyhh can drop the LD from their R as well. Congratulations on the wedding, guys. May this be the beginning of many long years spent….together.
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