Whew.
It has been a busy week, but I think a respite is within reach. This weekend I ought to be able to have the "loafing around the house" that I wanted last weekend.
It's slowed down at work, too. Although the business itself has been slow recently, I've had a lot to do in the office. I can take a break today, though, and share some links that I've enjoyed recently:
The Langley Schools Music Project: I found this on metafilter, but it's something that I would have loved if I'd found on my own-- fifth and sixth graders singing pop songs from the 70s! Available on CD! In fact, it's Amazon's 32nd best-selling CD right now, up with U2 and above the Dave Matthews Band!
We're reading Carl Sagan's Contact for book group this month. This led me, eventually, to the official web site: carlsagan.com. Unfortunately, it is Flash-based. Flash-based web sites irk me. I am a fan of the low-tech web, the web that is easily accessible by everyone, on every computer. Flash is a step away from that and it makes navigation problematic. I often open links in a new browser window. You can't do that on a Flash site, and it makes me crankyThough I find her writing flawed on many levels (and her own life a study in hypocrisy (though this is true of all our lives)), I admire the philosophies of Ayn Rand inasmuch as they apply to personal, day-to-day life. I take exception to many of the conclusions that she draws regarding group rights and responsibilities (she would say that there is no such thing as a group right or a group responsibility), but find that my own philosophy of personal morals and ethics closely matches hers: "My philosophy, in essense, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason his only absolute." (from the appendix to Atlas Shrugged) I whole-heartedly agree with the first and third propositions in that quote, but find the second somewhat dubious. What is productive achievement? In her novels, her protagonists are cold and driven. They are portrayed as noble because they work work work and are never idle. This, to me, is contradicts the first proposition (man's own happiness is the moral purpose of his life), as I find much of my greatest enjoyment from idle activities. Regardless, Rand's work is challenging and thought-provoking, even if her zealous capitalism is irrational and off-putting.For the past year or so I've complained that Andrew doesn't communicate via e-mail enough. He's complained that I never respond to his messages, to which I reply that I rarely receive messages from him. It turns out that he's been sending messages to jdroth@foldedsapce.com, which doesn't work so well. This is foldedspace.org! You'd think he'd realize this since he was the one that chose the domain name. So, I haven't been receiving updates on his Australian adventure. Before I left, I tried to convince him to use blogger to keep a web journal, but he was typically resistant to the suggestion. Ah well -- if he has ftp access, he can update his site just fine.For years I've attempted to decipher the rules for rugby. Last weekend, I finally made some progress! On Friday night I went to the final Canby High School football game of the year with Mac. At one point we commented on how difficult rugby was to decipher. When I returned home, what was on television? Rugby! I watched the match and may have figured out at least the broad brush strokes of the game. It's more exciting to watch a game when you know what you're seeing and why you're seeing it. (It is for this reason that many people find baseball boring -- they don't really understand what's going on. There's always something happening on the diamond, even though it may not be obvious.)The weather has turned cold. The nights are clear and crisp, and the frost is heavy in the morning. It's nice. If this weather continues for the next ten days, the Leonid meteor shower ought to be very visible.
On this day at foldedspace.org
2004 —
What The Cats Did This Weekend
What the cats did this weekend.
2003 —
The Greatest Science Fiction Films
In which we discuss our favorite science fiction films.
2002 —
The Money Pit
A brighter person might have thought to himself, Hm. Maybe it's the motherboard that's bad. Not me. I kept spending money on all of the parts around the motherboard, but not on the motherboard itself.
