deviant synapse

Closing up this shop

Sun, 04 May 2008 11:32:00 -0400

Well, I got sick of Tumblr’s problems and lack of comments and e’ything, so now we’re back at the original home of the ‘Napse. Our RSS feed is back at:

http://www.fbesp.org/blog/atom.xml

Sorry for the confusion.

Something Real Quick

Thu, 01 May 2008 07:29:27 -0400

I gotta get to school, but I wanted to hip you all to yesterday’s Democracy Now!, which featured a very interesting discussion about Rev. Wright. I had a TYFST (“Thank you for saying that”) moment after reading this comment from Melissa Harris-Lacewell:

[Obama] has built a national, multiracial, intergenerational coalition of men and women, working class and wealthy people. That is what has happened, whereas the other two candidates, John McCain and Hillary Rodham Clinton, have mostly built largely, vastly predominantly white coalitions. And yet, they’re not having to answer questions on race.

I’m getting really sick of hearing everything Obama-related put in terms of race, and everything for everyone else (especially every discussion of every other election) in race-neutral terms. It’s as though “white voters” was never a significant portion of the electorate before.

I’m just waiting for the day when white people are no longer in the majority in this country. Then maybe we’ll have some actual discussion about how we can all come together.

Okay, I gotta go to school.

Two Important Things About Rev. Wright's GDA Speech I Didn't Learn Until I Went And Listened To It

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:47:15 -0400

I keep hearing the noise about Jeremiah Wright – who’s been speaking out against imperialism and racism and feeding hungry people at the Trinity United Chuch in Chicago since 1972 but only recently gotten any attention as a result of knowing Barack Obama and saying “God Damn America” – but I’ve had trouble getting more than “I like English” soundbytes.*

*Ask somebody.

So I listened to the speech. It’s definitely worth listening to, not because he insists that a government entity created HIV , which I disagree with; not because he rails against US misbehavior from 1492 to the present, which I do agree with; but because he – like many African-American preachers – has a commanding vocal presence, and he’s enjoyable to hear. The context of the speech is very important, even though I don’t agree with the sentiment of “God damn America”.

Two things I insist on pointing out, however:

Immediately after the third or fourth repetition of “God damn America”, he adds: “…so long as she tries to act like she is God and she is supreme.” (around 34:48)
Later in the speech, he makes a joke at his own expense: “Forgive him for the ‘damn’, but it’s in the Bible – blessings and curses.”

You’d think that in hours and hours of pundicratic commentary, these two points would have been made. But I didn’t hear them anywhere.

TimeWaster™

Wright speaks to the the NAACP. I haven’t watched it yet, but it’s next on my list.

Today I’m listening to: David Cross!

Indecision is so.. how should I put it?

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:49:48 -0400

I’m glad everyone is so happy about me losing my close friend the XBox. Now I can blather on here about nothing. Only.. I don’t know if I want to keep using this for blathering. At first I really liked the quick and easy way of adding pictures. But the commenting jerry-rig I came up with is pretty unsatisfying. (Am I supposed to just let the comments build up forever? Or delete them after a certain amount of time?) But then Blogger seems to have screwed up my archives lately, and I don’t really feel like spending the time sorting all of that out.

Ah, me. The frustrations of blogging technology. How put-upon I am. Playing an original XBox like a caveman. Also, I can’t put TimeWasters™ in here, because the HTML code editor doesn’t like embedded video for some reason – and I’d SO much rather put the YouTube dealie right here in the thing.

Tell me what to do.

Bill Gates is Satan

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 08:41:50 -0400

Well, you’ll be happy to know that I’ve no choice but to start blogging more regularly for the next two weeks or so. For you see, my XBox 360 has died. Yes, I have been victimized by the red ring of death. Although apparently I can still try unplugging everything and then trying it again, I don’t have much hope that this will work.

So I come to my point: Bill Gates is Satan. He has promised – and delivered – pleasure and good times. But, just like a crack dealer suddenly cutting off an addict, he has provided a product which is unstable and unreliable. Hundreds, if not thousands, of gamers around the world have experienced the same crash as me, and yet Microsoft offers nothing aside from free repair. (Don’t get me wrong – that’s a good first step. But they should have caught whatever is causing this before they shipped.)

Jack in Fight Club explains the entire modus operandi of modern corporate theory: “A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don’t do one.” Your frustration and rage are less significant to us than posting $12.6 billion in profits. Obviously, my whining is nothing compared to the people who really get screwed by corporate greed. But c’mon – I’m hurting here. Have some sympathy.

I suppose in the long-term, this is a good thing. I spend way too much time playing that stupid thing, so maybe this is Altin looking down and helping me break the stranglehold Satan Gates has on my free time.

Or maybe JB will let me go over and play on his machine.

From KateBeaton.com, which features many funny comics. Now if...

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 08:36:00 -0400

From KateBeaton.com, which features many funny comics. Now if only she would give us a site feed.

Another Great Teacher from a Movie Not About Classroom Teaching

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:13:00 -0400

Part Two in a Series of Five: Yoda (The Empire Strikes Back)

This one’s obvious, but it’s worth noting: For all of the Dooku-butt-whipping he dishes out in the prequels, Yoda is more than anything a teacher. He was Lao-Tzu and Sun-Tzu together in one. Winning wars without violence, like Hopha said in Slam.

Luke is a nice archetypal student, like Daniel-San – too impatient to sit down and think about what he already knows. Yoda’s all about the dance between student and the knowledge. His greatest achievement, we might say, comes when he dies and literally gets out of Luke’s way. But not before showing him the door. (This is as good a place as any to mention Morpheus, since he’s not in this series of five. He gets Honorable Mention.)

Yoda teaches us about looking within. Walking the path. The force which has a name is not the true force. Get rid of your attachments. Sounds like Lao-Tzu to me. Hail Yoda.

A Great Teacher from a Movie Not About Classroom Teaching

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:48:00 -0500

Part One in a Series of Five: Mister Miyagi (The Karate Kid)

Mister Miyagi is a superb teacher because he trains his student in what he needs to know, without him knowing it. (Spoiler alert!) Daniel-San thinks he’s just waxing the car and painting the fence. He’s all like “This has nothing to do with karate! When am I ever going to need to know how to do this crap?” But then when it’s karate-fighting time, he’s totally ready to whip his enemies.

The simplicity of Mister Miyagi’s pedagogy is also evident in his commandment to Daniel-San: “I teach. You learn.” No state benchmarks, no standardized curriculum, no wiggle room for whining, no extra help on quizzes, no quizzes for that matter. I teach, you learn. That’s it. Would that it could be so simple in my classroom.

Mister Miyagi also catches flies with chopsticks. That would be so cool if I could do that.

Today I’m listening to: Public Enemy!

From Wikipedia: 1893 ad from a Chicago newspaper for...

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 00:05:42 -0500

From Wikipedia: 1893 ad from a Chicago newspaper for “Kirk’s Soap”. The ad plays on the opening that year of the Yerkes Observatory’s 1-meter (40-inch) refracting telescope (the largest of its type in the world), and the idea that Mars was populated with intelligent life.

Movin' On Up

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 17:44:25 -0500

I’m the 37th Google result for “esp”. Nifty!

Best Laid Schemes

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 15:29:00 -0500

I thought this Tumblr thing was perfect for blogging, since it automatically duplicates any linked images, and posts them to a data.tumblr.com directory. But then I realized it only does that when you post an image by itself. Grrr! So now we’re nearly back to square one – if I want to post an image within the text of my post, I have to upload it to Tumblr, then copy that URL and paste it in here. Hassle! Why can’t I have a more convenient solution? Why!?

/me shakes fists at heavens

I also don’t know how I feel about this WYSIWYG editor. I’m so used to [[html editing]] that I feel weird using ctrl-b for bold.

Ten Reasons XBox360 Owners Should Subscribe to XBox Live

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 12:00:00 -0500

You can virtually hang out with your friends that you don’t see often in real life.
It’s actually easier to quit playing a Live game. There are no checkpoints, no game to save, no boss to kill.
It’s a new chapter in video game history. See this post of mine from 2006.
Dude, come on. Stop being a hoser.
You can listen to angry drunk idiots threaten each other, sometimes going so far as exchanging addresses. “Come on then! Come meet me!”
You can torment people who want your gamertag (like students) by refusing to give it to them.
I’ll give you a dollar.
Someone you know is probably longing for decent people to play with, rather than just skipping from dingus to dorkus, finding no one of intellect or wit in the XBox-osphere.
My Blogger archives are all screwed up. (That has nothing to do with XBox Live, but I’m angry about it and I need to vent.)
I can complain about Saints Row through spoken words, rather than always through online text! Woo!

There’s something very zen about Garfield Minus Garfield.

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 11:32:42 -0500

There’s something very zen about Garfield Minus Garfield.

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early This...

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 11:29:03 -0500

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

This is actually the first Onion News Network video I’ve seen. I’m very impressed with the quality. (Though I can’t imagine why. Did I expect less from The Mighty O?)

Let's see if I can maintain a dedication to THIS new project for more than three months

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 11:25:00 -0500

Well, thanks a lot, Madsimian! (What should I use as your main link page? You’re all over the freakin’ place!) You’ve gotten me into yet another online .. thing. (You, meanwhile, have way too many things. Pick two or three and stick with them! Soon you’ll need a website to keep track of all the websites keeping track of the things you post to different websites.)

First, of course, it was blogging. Then it was podcasting. Then it was Twitter. Then it was Wikipedia. Obviously, MS can’t be blamed for all of these, but I’ve started down a rhetorical path, and I shall not be deterred! (Hey, this text editor is a bit funky.)

I hope you’ll be able to enlarge that comic when you click on it. Otherwise, me and Tumblr are going to have words. (Update: You can’t, so I have to provide a link for the larger image. Grr!) It’s from Overcompensating, a superb comic I learned about from Netfluvia. (Soon none of us will have real names – only our witty little online nicks. 5w337!)

Anyway, I have high hopes for this project. Maybe it will get me actually blogging again. I must say, the old-style blog was getting to be a bit tedious. I’m a modern American high-tech internaut. I need everything simplified to one-click activity, and then converted to keyboard shortcuts so I never have to use the mouse.

TimeWaster™

Hmm. Can I not embed videos into these text posts? Grrr. I’ll have to find a way. Oh well. I’ll have to post TimeWasters™ separately.

Today I’m listening to: DI Breaks!

How to build a cardboard spaceship. Via MonkeyFilter.

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:29:00 -0500

How to build a cardboard spaceship. Via MonkeyFilter.

"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast."

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:26:05 -0500

“Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.”

- Oscar Wilde

That’s me. Photo by Lan Kopptich.

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:25:00 -0500

That’s me. Photo by Lan Kopptich.