The Blog with No Name

[20:05] ( SteevAK) i want work - Steven Barnett in an IRC chat

Yes, I said that. Mom? Dad? Did you see that?

I had my last day of undergrad class today, and too bad I only can rant about it. By the way, yes, I am conveniently ignoring the fact that I have one GE to get out of the way. Anyway, today we discussed Kant some more. Okay, I mentioned in my last entry that Kant is “notoriously perplexing and complex.” This is true, but it seems some of my classmates were either not paying attention or just didn’t get it. I swear there were like three questions that were asked about six different times, all resulting in the same answer. I’m surprised my prof didn’t get frustrated. I know I was. Anyway, I think I got a pretty good grasp of the fundamentals of Kant’s project; some of my classmates…obviously didn’t.

Another rant. People who giggle or laugh after just about every thing they say can get annoying way fast. Especially when they offer their comments in this overly helpful tone of I-know-what-you’re-trying-to-say-so-let-me-say-it-for-you.

Guys with big poofy curly hair are annoying too. And I don’t just mean they tend to have sucky personalities, I mean the HAIR is annoying. Okay, that’s all.
________________________
Currently listening to Alone In December from the album “The Changing Of Times” by Underoath

I’m tired right now and that might have more of an affect on my current thoughts than I know. Anyway, I just got back from my Early Modern philosophy class. While in class today, I was struck once again how deeply complicated this world is. It seems there is no coherent worldview that doesn’t have enormous problems. Sometimes I think the whole ideal of making sense of the world is a hopeless task. The murk of this world is just impenetrable. I mean, today we learned a little about Kant’s notoriously perplexing and complex take on the world, and it was amazing to see somebody like Kant –a genius– bending over backwards to answer skeptical arguments. He’s trys to perserve a lot with his system: necessary causal relationships, free will, and the real experience of a real world. Kant’s system is so convoluted and cryptic. It definitely wouldn’t survive an encounter with Occam’s razor. Heck, it’d might as well slash its own wrists if that happened.

Heh, I was just struck by the irony that the chorus of the song I’m listening to (very loudly) is “we won’t stand for hazy eyes any more.” But this is precisely how I feel right now: hazy-eyed.

I’m not depressed or anything. . .just boggled.

Anyway, this song rocks.
________________________
Currently listening to You Know How I Do from the album “Tell All Your Friends” by Taking Back Sunday

My roomie just pointed me to this entertaining piece about Alaskan landscapers and Real Alaskans. Can’t really say any of this about Seattle-ites. I guess we’re just too darn prissy down here.

Okay, back to my paper.

10 Things I Want:

1. New laptop ($2000)
2. Gaming PC ($700-900)
3. LCD display ($700)
4. Gameboy SP ($100)
5. New iPod ($400)
6. Motorcycle ($5000?)
7. Digital SLR Camera ($2000)
8. Another something ($0)
9. More something ($0)
10. Just a little more ($infinite)
________________________
Currently listening to The Sound from the album “How To Start A Fire” by Further Seems Forever

I’ve now got a little page up with a list of all my DVDs. Isn’t that fun!?

I’ll get one up for my CDs sometime soon…
________________________
Currently listening to The Entire World Is Counting on Me, and They Don’t Even Know from the album “Bless The Martyr & Kiss The Child” by Norma Jean

I just added a dozen new pictures. All of them are pretty old, so they’re scanned. Since they’re scanned, they aren’t quite as good quality. They’re good enough though.

I’ve also discovered that I can recover a lot of my old videos from sophomore year that are on a failed hard drive. Hopefully early this summer I’ll be able to get those posted here.

I also am planning on integrating all my old content into my new format. This will involve converting all my old journal entries into blog entries and developing a few new pages for all the poems and other writing. My goal is to have this mostly done by the end of June.

Quick follow up. I stated in a recent entry that I thought that the threat SARS and the mad cow diseases were greatly inflated. Well here’s why. First, this article states well something I was going to say anyway. There has been no solid connection between bovine spongiform encephalopathy (a.k.a. mad cow disease) and human deaths. You can also read the same thing at the World Health Organization’s page about BSE and their counsel for consumers. In fact, in their counsel they list many things that are safe to eat, including, “skeletal muscle tissues, from which most quality meat is derived.” Just how reliable is the New York Times? I am not sure.

SARS also seems to be a non-threat, but you wouldn’t know it from media coverage. I’ll admit, when I first heard about it, it had me worried. It’s scary, and I’ve read quite a few books and seen a few movies that outline a biological threat that could wipe out the entire human race (e.g. The Andromeda Strain, Outbreak, Rainbow Six, Mission: Impossible 2, Assemblers of Infinity [not biological but the same idea]). What can I say? It’s a common plot in sci-fis and thrillers. Anyway, another trip to WHO’s website shows that this really isn’t as horrible as I was first led to believe. As of May 23, 2003, total number of reported cases is 8117. Total number of reported deaths is 689. Lethality of the disease so far? 8.4%. At the moment, this isn’t exactly the next bubonic plague. Of course, China could be vastly under-reporting the true situation there. And that wouldn’t be unlike them at all. After all, it’s a worker’s utopia, and what type of utopia would it be if it had an epidemic? I think it is interesting that Communist China is the one getting hit hardest. Anyway, back to the point. Even if SARS were to become a worldwide epidemic, as far as we can tell only 10% of us would die. SARS could mutate though . . . it already has before.

As long as we’re dealing with nasty stuff I’ll mention this. After reading and seeing pictures about the larger earthquake in Algeria, I am all the more thankful to be in a technologically advanced society. So, far there has been 1600 deaths reported (sometimes entire families were found dead), and this number will probably go up. They also had a some serious ground shaking back in 1980 that killed 5000. Pictures of Algiers show buildings completely flattened. It seems some areas were completely destroyed. To compare, the Seattle earthquake in February 2001 was the exact same magnitude as the one in Algiers (6.8 ), and there was very little damage (though it did cancel school for a day).

Alright, that was a lot longer and more involved than I was expecting. I guess I just got all wrapped up in this stuff.
________________________
Currently listening to Honestly by Zwan

“The grosser pagans contented themselves with divinizing lust, incest, and adultery; but the predestinarian doctors have divinized cruelty, wrath, fury, vengeance, and all the blackest vices.” -David Hume, Essays Moral Political and Literary

Oh no!
________________________
Currently listening to A Short History Of The End Of by Gwar

I don’t feel like typing too much, and I have reading I need to do. However, since I view my blog not only as a way to let the world know what I’m thinking (because it cares oh-so-much) but also as a personal journal I just want to log a few things.

Bombs are going off everywhere: Israel, Morocco, Yale. There are massacres in Indonesia and Congo. Disease threatens many sectors of the world: AIDS in Africa, SARS in Asia, and now mad cow disease in Canada.*

I’m now considering going to philosophy grad school instead of sociology. I did have a professor who told me I should get a masters in both fields, and THEN go to law school. That means I’d be in the education process for at least another 7 years. However, he did say that if I do that, I will be equipped with the skills to “succeed on a very high level.” That sounds nice.

It seems to me that there are some great causes in this world with very few champions. I’d like to take up one of these causes. You know, make a difference. Make the world a better place. etc. Aren’t I idealistic?

*For the record, I’d just like to say that the threat from both SARS and mad cow disease appear to be inflated by the media.

It feels like it’s been a short but very busy week. I suppose I could write a lot, but I don’t want to bore anybody with details. I guess I’ll just hit the more interesting points.

I watched The Matrix: Reloaded last night. It was great and went by all too fast. The first thing I’d like to say about it is that it is obviously a bridge movie. And, in my opinion, bridge movies are very rarely as good as movies that function as a whole part in and of itself (instead of a component of a series). One noticeable exception to this the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. So, as far as The Matrix: Reloaded is a bridge movie, it does it’s job very well. A lot of reviews I’ve read said that it lacked the philosophical depth of the first one, and it was action almost the whole way through. I found this not to be the case at all. First, it definitely was not purely action (not so much like Terminator 2 or Die Hard). In fact, the movie hardly gets going and then there’s a long break in action . . . though there is some “action.” Second, the philosophy is in many ways much more subtle and compacted. Besides, to expect the second installment to pack the philosophical punch of the first one is ridiculous. The first one had a lot of explaining to do to even get the story started. The second one is built on all that explaining. So, all the philosophy of the first episode was implied in the second one. I’m not going to give away anything except that I think Reloaded adds a cool little twist to it all. If you haven’t seen it, pay attention towards the end! Anyway, the philosophy wrapped up in the Matrix is flawed and uninteresting by itself. It is only “cool” because there is a concerted, thorough attempt to render the philosophy in terms of real lives. Bottom line: this movie was very good and very fun (and at times quite funny), but I still think the original one was better So, if the original gets like 9 stars out of 10, this one gets at least 8-8.5)

Yesterday introduced a big change in my life. Yes, how are the mighty fallen. As of yesterday, I am an official owner of a cell phone. How do I justify this? The main reason is that Chris and I do not plan on getting any landline when we move to our apartment, so if I want any type of phone access it’s what I have to live with. By the way, it’s a T68i. Very very cool little phone.

Speaking of the apartment. Chris and I got the lease for a two bedroom apartment in lower Queen Anne. It’s in a superb location. Pretty much everything is within walking distance: Space Needle, the theater, the opera house, grocery store, Tower Records, Dick’s, Blockbuster, and even downtown Seattle isn’t too much of a walk. We move in sometime during the first half of June.

Finally, my Apple Store grand opening video got hammered over the past week. It got posted to 4 news sites (3 were German). Current hit count on it is 7486. It was much more popular than I thought it would be. Altogether, this site has pumped out roughly 250 GB of data in the past week. Thanks, AJ!
________________________
Currently listening to Confusion by New Order

Apparently this is a hoax according to this. So, it seem that not only does MS have a Trustworthy Computing initiative but also a Trustworthy Press Release initiative.
________________________
Currently listening to In Conversation from the album “Love” by The Juliana Theory

I put up a new version of the Apple store video. It corrects a stupid typo and gives better sound and image quality. Now 19 MB instead of 13 MB. I’ve also reduced the size of my “Ring by Spring Killer” video. I believe it is now 44 MB instead of 62. It’s also streaming, so you can watch it while it downloads.
________________________
Currently listening to Hollywood by P.O.D.

I have put up a little video of the grand opening of the Apple Store in the Bellevue Square mall. I went with Brian Mansell, getting there around 8:35 in the morning. It was interesting to feel like the only normal guy my age in line. And the line was huge. I’m guessing it stretched about 200 yards altogther. The first 1000 people in the store got a free t-shirt, which included me. I’ll probably never wear it in public, but it’s kinda cool.

There were a bunch of total nerds in line with their laptops. Why?! Why did they bring their laptops?! I dunno, I thought it was completely worthless. I guess some of them might have been getting them looked at by the Apple Geniuses, but that couldn’t have been all of them.

I finally held a new iPod in my hand. It is really small and very nice. My current 5 gig seems really big now.

This is amazing. And once again I ask myself, “How in the world did this company become the most powerful tech company on the face of the planet?” I’m not sure what I can say. This is just so unbelievable that the software monkey’s at MS can be so bad that some dude can find a huge flaw in 4 minutes. Granted the timing may be an exaggeration, but the fact that such a flaw even exists and is so easily exploited is damning in and of itself. Their “Trustworthy Computing” initiative is a total farce.

Microsoft’s glib reply of “you live and learn” speaks volume about their concern for privacy and their power in the industry.

My roomie asked me the other day why certain parts of the computing world hate Microsoft. This is why. They can release buggy, flawed products, and still they will remain dominant. Tell me that’s not a monopoly.

Just one more reason why I’m glad I own a mac.
________________________
Currently listening to 94 Hours by As I Lay Dying