This is it.

Online calendars

2009-11-09T22:28:58Z

This is a little open-ended, but: I'm looking for a decent online calendar that I can use to collaborate with a few folks. Some of us don't like google calendar, but we'd like something like it. iCal integration would be a definite plus. Any suggestions?

We Are All Connected

2009-10-23T02:56:45Z

"We Are All Connected" was made from sampling Carl Sagan's Cosmos, The History Channel's Universe series, Richard Feynman's 1983 interviews, Neil deGrasse Tyson's cosmic sermon, and Bill Nye's Eyes of Nye Series, plus added visuals from The Elegant Universe (NOVA), Stephen Hawking's Universe, Cosmos, the Powers of 10, and more. It is a tribute to great minds of science, intended to spread scientific knowledge and philosophy through the medium of music.

Check out "A Glorious Dawn" by Carl Sagan, another Symphony of Science project!

David Sylvian & Ryuichi Sakamoto - World Citizen (I Won't Be Disappointed)

2009-10-05T20:15:29Z

What happened here?
The butterfly has lost its wings
The air's too thick to breathe
And there's something in the drinking water.

The sun comes up
The sun comes up and you're alone
Your sense of purpose come undone
The traffic tails back to the maze on 101

And the news from the sky
Is looking better for today
In every single way
But not for you

World citizen

World citizen

It's not safe
All the yellow birds are sleeping
Cos the air's not fit for breathing
It's not safe

Why can't we be
Without beginning, without end?
Why can't we be?

World citizen

World citizen

And if I stop
And talk with you awhile
I'm overwhelmed by the scale
Of everything you feel
The lonely inner state emergency

I want to feel
Until my heart can take no more
And there's nothing in this world I wouldn't give

I want to break
The indifference of the days
I want a conscience that will keep me wide awake

I won't be disappointed
I won't be disappointed
I won't be.

I saw a face
It was a face I didn't know
Her sadness told me everything about my own

Can't let it be
When least expected there she is
Gone the time and space that separates us

And I'm not safe
I think I need a second skin
No, I'm not safe

World citizen

World citizen

I want to travel by night
Across the steppes and over seas
I want to understand the cost
Of everything that's lost
I want to pronounce all their names correctly

World citizen

World citizen

I won't be disappointed
I won't be.

She doesn't laugh
We've gone from comedy to commerce
And she doesn't feel the ground she walks upon

I turn away
And I'm not sleeping well at night
And while I know this isn't right
What can you do?

nationelectric @ 2009-09-24T20:04:00

2009-09-25T01:06:48Z

A musical tribute to two great men of science. Carl Sagan and his cosmologist companion Stephen Hawking present: A Glorious Dawn - Cosmos remixed. Almost all samples and footage taken from Carl Sagan's Cosmos and Stephen Hawking's Universe series.

nationelectric @ 2009-08-30T10:48:00

2009-08-30T15:53:14Z

I just learned about a journal that a friend of mine has been doing: ava_mortis.

It's pictures of dead birds that she's found.

There are only a few entries so far, but I think she has some more pictures. If that sounds at all interesting to you, you ought to take a look.

Hallo, burninators!

2009-08-28T07:37:18Z

I realize this is last minute, but an old friend of mine from California is suddenly very interested in going to Burning Man for the first time. As in, she's ready to drop what she's doing and head out there Thursday night.

She's an awesome person, but she's a n00b, and she's a little overwhelmed by the logistics... it sounds like some people have made it sound pretty intimidating to her. I'd love to help her, but I'll be back here in ATX, so I was wondering if you could help her with either of the following:

1.) Give her some tips on how to prepare that don't involve hysterics or hyperbole.
2.) *If* you're going out there, and *if* you're interested, offer to be a friendly face, orient her, give her a home base when the going gets crazy.

It would be her first burn, so she probably wouldn't bring 8,000 blinky EL clown masks or whatever. She's a great person -- really smart, really caring -- and she just needs a chance to check it out and see if it's her thing.

Thanks a lot, guys.

This was then...

2009-08-26T06:17:53Z

I began today on four hours of sleep, with a delightful email exchange. Then I got to revisit my dark past, resurrecting a dead project. I met an old friend for lunch, and spent the afternoon in a strappy stupor. I drove through intense rain, winds, and sun (?) only to arrive home and find a copy of The White Goddess waiting for me. Now, it's apparently kind of an odd book to begin with, but the shipping label had a message written on it in some illegible scrawl that took my roommate and I about ten minutes to decipher. It turned out to be the bookseller mentioning the inscription on the inside cover, which read:

... of Rhythm is image
of image is Knowing
of Knowing there is a Construct...

C. Olsen

... Eh?

Then I made some delicious fart noodles (?) and talked to an old friend. (A lot of Old Friends lately...) Fixed my email (partially), worked out, showered, shaved, had a great talk with my roommates about assorted stuff, beat a couch with a hammer, and now I'm going to catch an early night's sleep.

It has been a worthwhile day.

Public service announcement...

2009-08-25T20:56:27Z

My email is currently jacked. I'll straighten it out in the next day or two, but if there's something you want to say, it's probably best to send it to me here.

Comments screened, for that silky smooth sheen.

Ahhhhh.....

2009-08-18T15:43:29Z

Life, life, life.

Purpose

2009-08-13T22:23:10Z

I think I need to spend more of my time imagining, making, and disseminating awesome stuff. Yeah.

nationelectric @ 2009-08-11T16:11:00

2009-08-11T21:13:16Z

overcompensating

nationelectric @ 2009-08-08T14:21:00

2009-08-08T19:22:46Z

HA! Check out the first result for a search on "austin burn ban tiki torch".

nationelectric @ 2009-08-06T01:50:00

2009-08-06T07:07:38Z

This isn't about worship, or about prayer. But it is about doing what we do with our lives not because we expect to get something good in reward, or because we're afraid we might get something awful as punishment, but because our love and our compassion and our selves are all we have to offer to each other or to the future that are worth a damn. Our best is the only gift we have to give that is worthy of us, or of those who will receive. Life is short. Love is rare, and hard to find. Your soul – my soul – poured freely into our work, no matter what work we do, ennobles the work. Ennobles us. Leaves a trace of something good behind, something that wasn't there before. Something that can, perhaps, continue after we're dust.

-- Holly Lisle, Mugging the Muse

nationelectric @ 2009-08-01T22:47:00

2009-08-02T04:43:31Z

OH MY GOD Peter Sinclair is AWESOME. For the past the few months, he's been producing weekly videos that each take one climate change myth and then completely dismantle it. The videos are short, fairly polished, and really do a great job of *clearly* (yet concisely) explaining the issue. I've found them to be weirdly addictive, and they've really helped clarify my understanding of the climate change debate.

Here are a few:

Global cooling and the 1970's. This one is particularly interesting, as it includes a brief overview of the history of climate change theory since the *1890's*. Yes, really!

Have 32,000 of the world's leading scientists signed a petition denying global warming? This one is... amusing.

Are humans making even a noticeable impact on global CO2 levels, or should we all stop breathing? This one gives a sense, in the geologic scale, of what exactly we're doing.

Check this list of videos, grouped by topic, or visit Sinclair's youtube channel.

nationelectric @ 2009-08-01T14:25:00

2009-08-01T19:44:46Z

Reading this 1955 pamphlet on nuclear testing, it occurs to me that, for all the significance of nuclear explosions, for as fundamentally important as they were to the politics and history of the twentieth century, for as fundamentally important as they will be to the politics and history of the twenty-first century, for as often as they appear in the news and in fiction, I've never actually seen a nuclear explosion.

Probably, hopefully, I will never see a nuclear explosion. I don't want there to be nuclear explosions, in any capacity. For as much as they have reshaped the history of humanity and the world, for as much as they will shape our future, at least let them do so silently, invisibly. Let our world be defined by the weight of their absence.

And yet, on a simple, short-sighted, primitive level, I really wish that I could safely see one.

nationelectric @ 2009-07-31T11:05:00

2009-07-31T16:09:19Z

I cannot tell you how much it delights me that the FRONT PAGE NEWS this morning is the president hanging out with some guys and having a beer and talking about race. That is AWESOME. That is Just. So. Cool. Also, money quote:

“We hit it off right from the beginning. When he’s not arresting you, Sergeant Crowley is a really likable guy.”

nationelectric @ 2009-07-30T17:28:00

2009-07-30T22:47:28Z

For some reason, I find that I have lately become interested in having a slightly more formal, more polished presentation. I suppose there are practical reasons for that, but really, there's just something about it that appeals to something inside of me. Maybe it's this particular moment in my life. Maybe my tastes are changing. Maybe it's the novelty. Maybe I'm just getting old. All of those things are probably true, to varying degrees... but, honestly, I just kind of miss it. I feel like I haven't cleaned up in years.

... I just wish this could've waited until the fall.

nationelectric @ 2009-07-30T15:23:00

2009-07-30T20:23:41Z

At the end of the day, it all comes down to beating on something with a wrench.

The Death of Becoming Something

2009-07-30T12:54:05Z

Like 99% of the world, you probably think you need to become someone.

Well, you don’t. The only thing you need to become is who you are. Because if you’re like most people, you’re probably not who you really are all the time. You might be yourself when the situation is comfortable. You might be yourself when the risk of defending your ego is minimal.

But you’re probably not who you really are all the time.

It’s weird how when we’re little kids, our parents tell us “You can be anything you want when you grow up.” As if we should be anything other than ourselves, right?

Well they have good intentions, anyway. Maybe they should have said “You can do anything you want when you grow up.” I think that would have been a little more appropriate.

But then something happens when you get a little older. Into junior high and high school, your parents and teachers start telling you “You need to make something out of yourself.”

Now, wait a minute. What happened to “I can be anything I want”? Now I have to make something out of myself? I guess it’s easy to tell innocent kids that their potential is limitless. But when you get older, it’s time to “get real,” right? It’s time to “grow up” we’re told, and “become an adult.”

I really think that this is where it all starts. Our dissatisfaction complex takes root at an early age, and somewhere around our teen years it blooms.

Then we start looking for something outside of ourselves. We search for an identity in our possessions. Once we get that car, that apartment, and all that stuff, then we’ll be a “real person.” Or so we think.

Because it doesn’t stop there…

More...

nationelectric @ 2009-07-29T01:23:00

2009-07-29T06:24:02Z

Prefix notation: what's not to love?

Nausea

2009-07-28T19:39:20Z

Lately I've been feeling nauseous. It's almost certainly just nerves, because I really only feel it before some kind of social event or challenge. It's not a big problem: I just get over it, then I go to the social event or whatever, and everything is fine. Still, it's frequent. Most every social event, most every activity that isn't purely, personally recreational, even many relatively simple tasks. I don't feel especially stressed or nervous -- a little, I suppose, but nothing remarkable, nothing out of the ordinary. I am not always terribly good at being aware of my emotional state, though, so perhaps my body is trying to tell me something.

Oh, monkeys

2009-07-28T06:24:44Z

I do love you so.

On gratitude

2009-07-27T08:31:14Z

I was at a great party the other night. Thinking back on it, though, something keeps jumping out at me.

There were a lot of people from out of town. One of them was an Italian guy. He was running around taking pictures, trying to get people to evoke their characters for the camera ("You're evil! You're so evil, you're going to rip my throat out!"). He exuberantly kept saying, "This town is wonderful! It's beautiful! You're so lucky!" He was really just a joy.

There was also this really hot Asian girl. She sat aloof, alone, surrounded by people. For some reason, she kept expecting people to supply her with cigarettes. We were talking at one point, at about 4am, and she told me the most amazing thing. You see, she was from New York. (I know! A real, live New Yorker, in our little cow town!) Apparently she was disappointed in the party, and could I get her a cigarette? At first I said, yeah, sure I could. Then I thought about it for a moment and realized I'd rather just talk to my friends than do anything to continue this tiresome conversation. So I told her that, yeah, actually no, I couldn't get her a cigarette. She sighed in an exasperated fashion, and we both walked off in separate directions. Then some of my friends and I left and sat around Magnolia eating and laughing until 6am.

The moral of the story is incredibly obvious, and yet I just keep thinking about it. The contrast between the two attitudes was just so striking.

Thank you for being a part of my Austin experience.

nationelectric @ 2009-07-26T20:31:00

2009-07-27T01:36:07Z

I was somewhere the other day where there was a large television, tuned to some news channel. They were running a tribute to... Michael Jackson.

OMG JUST FUCKING GET OVER IT. IT'S BEEN A GODDAMN MONTH ALREADY. HE'S DEAD. HE WAS POPULAR. HE HAD A LOT OF WEIRD ISSUES.

WE GET IT.

WE. GET. IT.

WE GET IT.

nationelectric @ 2009-07-23T11:38:00

2009-07-23T17:00:55Z

So, I recently saw Moon. It's pretty good!

... Some have said the trailer is spoilery but, eh, I'd say not terribly so. Here's a summary I found:

In the near future, astronaut Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is living on the far side of the moon, nearing the end of a three-year contract with Lunar Industries to mine Helium-3 (vital for Earth's clean energy production). Bored and lonely, Sam's only companion is GERTY (voice of Kevin Spacey), the base's helpful computer, and taped messages from his wife and young daughter home on Earth. Sam begins to experience migraines and hallucinations which interfere with his work, and ends up in sickbay (with no memory of how he got there), facing a radical change in his circumstances. Sam Rockwell gives a tour-de-force performance in this intriguing science fiction story, reminiscent of such thought-provoking classics as THX 1138 and Solaris.

bradhicks has a longer review. I don't exactly agree with his review, although I don't strongly disagree with it. Anyway, here's what I'll say:

Moon is good. The pacing is a little slow, but appropriately and effectively so, and it kept me interested throughout. The atmosphere, character development, and acting are all really solid. Most importantly, though, it surprised me. It surprised me in a subtle but significant way.

I really kind of want to get into what I liked about it, but that would definitely be a spoiler. Seriously, it's worth seeing.