dubious.biz(ness)

I have heard of TiVos suddenly developing assumptions about their owners. For example this guy’s tivo thinks he’s gay, this guy’s thinks he’s an idiot. I thought this nonsense was funny, that a TiVo would suddenly record hundreds of suggested shows based on one show, but overall I found it was mild manners and probably ours was a bit schizophrenic because my mother only watches soap operas, my dad only watches canned-laugh sitcoms and police chase shows, and I watch only cooking and travel shows and cartoons.

Well, I have no idea what happened, but today I come home, and the TiVo has recorded, in the course of a single day twenty new shows. Starting from the top: Good Times, The Cosby Show (6), Sanford and Son (2), What’s Happening!, A Different World, and most concerningly Full House (4). Yeah, FOUR EPISODES OF FULL HOUSE. Frankly, I don’t care if the TiVo thinks I love nothing more in life than afrocentric sitcoms. Maybe I do. Hell, I’m watching the Good Times episode right now. But, Full House? Why TiVo, why?

The fact that “my tivo thinks” exists at all shows how much we have anthropomorphizing the technology behind it into something that is actually trying to cater to our desires, and in fact some of my friends seem to find nothing better in life than to collect thousands of gigs of media and often they suggest that I check out something. Word of mouth is the best advertising they say. And so one puts some sort of trust in TiVo not just to know our taste, but to have some freakin taste of its own. There’s a lot of trash on TV but I’ve never come home and had found it recording CSPAN for me or the government access channel. And that would have been less of a betrayal than this.

For our TiVo, whom we have been diligently guiding for over a year to suggest a shitton of sitcoms is a bit alarming, but for it to suggest that we are so desparate to know the happenings of DJ, Uncle Jessie, and whoever Dave Coulier plays, is deeply disturbing. I’m deleting them all and I’m giving everything three thumbs down. If it happens again I swear to God I’m reseting the TiVo.

Did I mention that J.J. is in trouble with Mom and Dad because he is hired to paint a nude? Ain’t we lucky we got ‘em.

What you’re about to read is a project that hopefully will have a few entries. Spooky and I are going to trade story pieces and maybe make a big story. Or, like most of my other projects it will have two entries and then die. Either way… part one is here, and part two is up, as well as a discussion board.

There were only three possible reasons why he would do this that Gretchen could think of. Either he did not care about her, he was cheating on her, or he led a secret life as an agent for the CIA. She squinted to see the road as her tears blurred the taillights of his car into streaks. She had been trying to stay far behind him, but now they were in the middle of nowhere with absolutely nothing around so she had no choice but to follow straight behind him.

She couldn’t see him, or even his outline, just the high backed seat he sat in, but her gaze burned through and she was sure would feel his hairs singeing. She tried to maintain a reasonable distance though at this point it had to be useless. She had followed him all the way from his apartment and on this empty narrow road surrounded by on both sides by emptiness shaded black by a starless sky. No matter what distance she kept, their two cars would still seem huddled together.

It had been nearly three hours now when she had heaved her old car into his apartment’s lot with roiling fury in her eyes. She knew that Max was forgetful, that he was a man, and today had been important, so she had made sure that he understood. She had made him make the plans, she knew better than to arrange everything. They had reservations at Palermo, they had tickets on a river cruise. He was going to pick her up at seven. He was going to pick her up at seven and where the hell was he? Not answering her calls, not at the door, not here.

She worried first, she sat as his whereabouts because more and more twisted inside her mind, until he was kidnapped, murdered, and maimed. Finally she could take it no more, and in the narrow evening dress she was planning to wear out and streaks of makeup down her cheeks she got into her car.

When she got to his, she caught sight of his car, backing out. She swung her car in a wide arc, its headlights sweeping the lot and by the time she had, he was already leaving. In her mind she could only imagine nasty things she would say once he got to her house and she followed him as he drove back, forming a lecture that would last into the early morning. She would jam her heel into his groin, slap him, and then berate him until he passed out.

She was so lost in her torture fantasy that she nearly missed it when he took a wrong turn. A very wrong turn. Now he was heading out away from her house, in the absolute wrong direction. It must be flowers, or perhaps some more elaborate gift to catch her off guard. As he drove on to the wide freeway her eyes narrowed and the hunter in her began to meticulously stalk her prey. The things she would do to him. As he drove further down the freeway, she was careful to keep a few cars between the two of him but remain in his lane, watching the space around her for any sudden movement as she continued to develop and refine her speech.

And now, here she was, on this dirty empty black road, and there he was. He must know it is her behind him, he must be trying to outrun her, afraid of what she would do to him. Or perhaps she wasn’t the predator at all, perhaps he was luring her into the middle of this wasteland to rape her and kill her. She searched her memories for indications that he wasn’t a serial rapist. Realizing it was as likely that he was as that he wasn’t, she lifted her foot from the accelerator slightly and let the distance between them grow. Her mind was completely shot, having journeyed through every emotion, and now in total isolation with only a hum from her car’s engine she felt as if she was slowly freezing, her thoughts left her and she became statuesque in the heavily cushioned seat for miles.

Microsoft just realized the internet was a good place to build applications. They’ve now decided that www.live.com will be their amazing set of web based apps, and the feature app right now is “Local” and the full title is “Windows Live Local”. Quizzically, the word “Map” isn’t in there, which is what it is.

Anyway, twelve US cities have “bird’s eye views”, which is a really interesting and somewhat bizarre isometric view of the city from each of the four compass points. This is a beta feature and for the roll out mostly notables like San Fran and Manhattan were picked. Far at the bottom of the list for no logical reason sits Lexington, KY. Thought leaders that we are I guess they knew if they didn’t have BEVs of us, they might as well not bother. No matter what, it is awesome that we have really good aerial images of the city, not awesome for any useful purpose, but just generally awesome.

So a few fun BEVs of places around town. The interface sucks, really really sucks, but if you click on compass points you can spin around and see different angles. If you click on the grid of images, you’ll move but it’s not in the most logical fashion and takes some getting used to. You can click and grab the map and move it like google maps as well, but it has edges. Without further adieu:

• The office. The dlink antenna is not on Victorian, and there are no leaves on the trees. My guess is winter time last year.
• My Old House. Awwww I miss it so much. Must have been after we moved out or shortly before because the MR2 isn’t in the driveway.
• My Parent’s House. But we still lived there when the photo was taken. The blue car is the spitfire, steadily rusting.
• My House. Not a BEV cause the BEVs don’t reach to Nicholasville.
• Commonwealth Stadium.
• Henry Clay Memorial

I’m sure you can find others. To be honest the direction system is so frustrating I’m tired of looking. But there are my residences for the past 16 years or so stalkers. Get to it.

A bit more about the images: The company is Pictometry, based in Rochester, NY. It looks like they did a survey for LFUCG, and finished in January for E911 and GIS. I can’t imagine a GIS use, and frankly I can’t imagine a good use for E911 (not like centerlining and perhaps aerials), but Lexington isn’t known for its purchasing decisions. I’ll ask whether better res images are around that I might look at when I next talk to the GIS guys. Cool anyways.

While desperately attempting to procrastinate I wrote a little story up for a contest about wireless sensor networks. They asked for something “bordering on science fiction” so I wrote something science fictiony, and popped it in the submission box. 5-6 hours work, 6000 euro prize, ignoring physics for a bit. Brilliant.

The premise of it was something along the lines of wireless sensors save ocean-side town from tsunami. Yes, that is lame, but it was poignant. I’m not posting it anywhere because it was pretty bad, and I’m still waiting to hear back about my prize money. Anyway, today Slashdot was kind enough to point out a “new use of GPS to predict tsunamis”, which was perhaps one of the most shaky premises that I based the story on. I wasn’t sure that a little sensor sitting on the ocean floor would be able to tell the existence of an earthquake any faster than a seismograph on the land, and whether it would be any more useful than a seismograph.

Turns out some geologist thinks so, and of course, since we’re out linking environmental sensors everywhere its best to link them together in a peer to peer wireless sensor network. Seriously that is the only pragmatic way of getting covering the entire earth. So while I may get beaten by some ridiculous story about a futuristic Japanese teenager’s day in a futuristic Japanese city, at least I know I’m not full of crap, this is a realistic scenario for the use of wireless sensors.

So next, I think I’ll use my powers of intuition to solve the problems of minimally invasive brain surgery. Any volunteers?

Oh, and if you’re interested read the whole GPS tsunami thing.

In a scant six months, I will be pouring cocktails at Wolfson’s June Event, and the choices must be made. What better way to pass the time than by separating the best martinis from the rest. The Goat o’ Bees and I had our first research session last night. Actually I think I drank a lot of cocktails and the Goat drank a screwdriver, but he tasted nearly all of them. So before I forget, notes:

• Reversing vodka/gin proportions and using real Lillet Blonde makes the perfect Bond martini. I mean honest to god perfect. Were I to order one, I would go to the arrogant effort of giving the bartender the recipe, something that only Bond himself should do.
• Godiva White Chocolate liqueur makes a perfect Chocotini. Unfortunately, Godiva is also expensive.
• Blackberry Brandy tastes like port/sloe gin/medicine. All those things are nasty, and they’re particularly nasty when mixed with vodka in an attempt to make a cocktail. Still in search of the blackberry martini.
• Sour apple liqueur is really sour on its own, and makes a better appletini than apple vodka/apple schnapps.
• The reaction of people who don’t like the high alcohol content of drinks may be to chug it. Tres chic.
• Da Ali G Show is hilarious (no I’ve never seen it before, and I’m not sure it’s the same as the British one but I now have six episodes on DVD).

So from the first lab, we can see that the old standbys are there for a reason. The vesper and sour appletini
are the only clear picks, if I can find a white chocolatini (or I suppose creme de cacao + splash bailey’s?) that is also a winner. The last two spots are as of yet unfilled. My liquor cabinet is approaching capacity as well. Any nominations?

This is really for my parents. It’s a not so subtle replacement for the list I wrote to Santa when I was three. This way, they knew what to get me without having to be so obvious about it.

• 12-Cell battery for the lappy.
• Stand for my monopod
• Pleasures of Counting (I don’t like counting but I’m curious to see why someone does).
• New Turing Omnibus Something I should have read this summer.
• (Spooky!)A nice go set.
• A nice watch
• A heart rate monitor. Possibly could be combined with the watch but (in all seriousness) watches are made of metal, not plastic.
• Synthetic base layers (like Duofold). Short sleeve tops or long pants.
• A hobo
• A book about hobos
• Lonely planet guides to places in europe you think I should go, or particularly Germany, Austria (Vienna), Czech Republic (Prague).

I think that should more than cover it. If by chance you happen to have gotten a big xmas bonus: one of these would be nice, in basalt black metallic. Oh god, what I would do with that thing. In-de-scribable.

The photos of Fairbairns races are up but they’re copyrighted so I’m going to link to them.

Photos of Wolfson III (my regular crew):

• Uno: I’m at the front. I seem to be working hard.
• Dos: Hmm, look to be too far up on the blade, probably because I had a blister. Rest of the crew really looks to be pulling as well. Our cox looks like a mummy.

Photos of Wolfson IV (my sub crew):

• One: In this boat I’m 4, wearing the grey beanie. Looks like I’m catching early.
• Two: The edge of me, Richard and Ziyad are behind me.
• Three: Terrence, Holger, Karan, and Me. We all look pretty damn good in that shot. Nice reach, Terrence and I should be splitting out legs again.
• Four: The eight, looking good except the blades aren’t even.
• Five: The front four are rowing dilligently, the back 4 are looking at the camera.
• Six: and this isn’t us, but the crew that was just ahead of us and that we got disqualified against in the previous race. And the stroke is looking behind him, why?

I just finished reading Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos. I’m really surprised that I haven’t read the book before. I’ve really only heard of it in passing despite having read Joyce and Fitzgerald, with whom I believe his work is closely related. Perhaps it is because he is more commonly associated with a different group of writers, the Lost Generation. At any rate, Manhattan Transfer is a razor sharp read that seems at once to pan the notion of New York and American life, but at the same time I think his embittered look at it coaxes out the realities that forged the characters.

Particularly, not a lot of thought is given to situation and circumstance, very little seems to happen with reason in the novel, it is exactly as if the characters are being processed in a huge and complex machine with thousands of hidden parts, and every small act is an act of God himself, though they don’t even bother to ask why. In fact, throughout book the godless idea of “luck” reiterated. The novel clearly portrays a communist view, and it seems the Dos Passos was in fact a socialist or communist.

The novel is set in the teens and twenties in Manhattan, and in fact it never leaves the island, though characters do move through. That time period is populated with all sorts of novels, and many are favorites of mine. The real story seems here however seems to be about place, about New York, but told through people. I am obsessed with place to the point of feeling chillingly cold in my interactions with people and reading a book that describes people to explain place resounds within me.

However while I have already said that the novel is not a character study, two characters in particular run through the novel. The first character: Ellie, Ellen, Elaine, Helena, Helen (she changes her name several times through the book) is the quintessential New Yorker, someone who is willing to metamorphisize into any form to survive, leaving behind everything at each transformation. The second character: Jimmy, is the quintessential outsider to machinery of the city, who seems to have no place and fit absolutely nowhere. He enters New York on a boat, and is tossed through it aimlessly, but never losing his dignity. Or at least not in the same sense of many other characters in the book who seem to be trampled to death by the pressure of the city.

There is something in Jimmy in particular that I identify with, in a way I’m not sure I’m willing to explore. It seems possible that Dos Passos wrote himself into Jimmy, Jimmy is cooly detached from the world, living in literature and words, trying to make writing a career but never happy. Finally in the most Joycian passages Jimmy’s own words wrap themselves in knots choking the page with nonsense as he drinks and daydreams and lives aimlessly finally ejecting himself into what sounds a hell of a lot like New Jersey. Yes, New Jersey, in this book, is salvation.

Along the way it is bitterly frank about the harshness of city life, every form of murder, homelessness, drinking, adultery, abortion, divorce, and all described in a way that seems almost practical. I can imagine the book was a great shock in its day, bringing a slice of city life to anyone. Anyway, it’s a really good book, and if someone else has read or reads it (spooky!) I want to chat about it, it’s definitely that sort of book.

I lost my old US mobile number, so switched to cingular while I was at it, slightly better reception in the boonies. If you want to call me (while I’m in the states), email or IM and I’ll pass along the new number. Otherwise GIVE-LIP works.

I’m officially back in Lex, so bring da ruckus. Uh, tomorrow that is, because I am dead tired. And I still have my room key. Is that bad? :-O It was nice to see my avacado toilet again, but not as nice as it will be to sleep in a proper bed.