It’s full of charts and facts and figures… October 31, 2005
Posted by Patrick in : Music , 1 comment so far…and lots of Magnetic Fields covers. Well, maybe not lots, but enough to tickle your fancy. The bands are unfamiliar to me. Maybe my friend Adrian, who’s usually more savvy to these sorts of things, has heard of them. So far, I’ve downloaded 100,000 Fireflies, The Book of Love, You and Me and the Moon, and Papa was a Rodeo, with the last one probably being my favorite so far. Some of the covers follow in the tradition of electro-pop (Moon), while others are more folky (Fireflies), and while another has a more grandiose pop sound (Papa).
Friends shouldn’t let friends blog and blog October 30, 2005
Posted by Patrick in : Random , add a commentFriends should warn you when you decide to start a blog that you will probably start to ingest massive amounts of information. Probably, more information than you can probably deal with. One of the phenonema that I’m experiencing is an overload of information. As I skim, quick-read entries, my head starts to ache after a long gorge. It’s like standing at a buffet table, choosing from all these delectable (sometimes not) foods and stuffing yourself, not allowing your digestive tract to do its part.
Also, I’ve noticed that keeping yourself updated in the blogosphere can be a large time investment. You could literally spend full 24-hour days, if you wanted to, perusing all sorts of different entries. Technorati boasts over 20 million registered blogs. Shouldn’t there be some time allowed for healthy reflection?
C. John Sommerville writes about this very same idea, but pertaining to news, in his book How the News Makes Us Dumb: The Death of Wisdom in an Information Society. Sommerville maintains that because news is served up daily, now hourly or minutely, we have a barrage of information hitting our minds without any time to sort or digest its relevance or legitimacy. He writes:
The product of the news business is change, not wisdom. You need to go elsewhere for wisdom. Wisdom has to do with seeing things in their larger context, whereas news is structured in a way that destroys the larger context. You have to do certain things to information if you want to sell it on a daily basis. You have to make each day’s report seem important. And you do that by reducing the importance of its context. If readers were aware of the bigger story, it would diminish today’s contribution to that story.
Now, I’m not trying to be a cynic. I like news as much as the next guy, but I think I want to be more intentional with the time that I give myself in the blogosphere.
Patrick needs… October 29, 2005
Posted by Patrick in : Random , 236 commentsHere’s another fun little thing to do with Google. Got the idea from Myles’ blog. Here’s what you do:
- Go to Google’s homepage.
- In the query box, type in: “first name needs”. (i.e. “Patrick needs”)
- Then laugh at the results. Here are the top hits:
- Patrick needs to change style.
- Patrick Needs You!
- Patrick needs to win a race to keep from becoming a pretty face without credible results.
- Patrick needs a very patient family who can provide consistency and structure.
- Patrick needs a win to keep the mania momentum going.
- Patrick needs a Blog!
Atomized October 26, 2005
Posted by Patrick in : Reading , 1 comment so farAs I’m sitting here staying up too late watching the World Series, I’ve noticed a word that has appeared in the last few articles I’ve read - atomization. Here they are:
- From Beliefnet (via Common Grounds):
We shy away from discussing sex because, like most other matters in our highly atomized, individualized culture, we think of it as private, off-limits–all evangelical-speak must be above-the-waist.
- From the New Humanist:
In an age of atomisation and social fragmentation it [the ipod] reinforces solipsism, places the individual and that dreaded value ‘choice’ at the heart of experience; it suggests connection — always the implicit promise of the digital age — while enforcing separation; it encourages the ‘tuning out’ of people while occupying social space with them, as if others were mere irritations, and it reduces the experience of music which is, at least in my view (I realise I might be in the minority here), an inherently social and collaborative art and medium, to a preselected relationship with the self.
- From the New Pantagruel:
IN THE YEARS years following the French Revolution, conservative thinkers reacted with relatively unanimous skepticism or outright horror at the forces of individualism and progressivism that had erupted with such violence against ancient traditions and institutions during that conflagration. Conservatives like Edmund Burke and Joseph de Maistre recoiled at the new conception of the human person as an atomized and fully free moral agent, possessed of abstract natural rights to be realized unconstrained by social limits.
Morning News Highlights October 25, 2005
Posted by Patrick in : Reading , 1 comment so farPerusing the Morning News this (ahem) morning, and found some interesting articles and photos. Here are some of the highlights:
- Snippets from one-star ratings of Amazon customers of Time magazine’s 100 best novels from 1923 to the present. On the Grapes of Wrath: “While the story did have a great moral to go along with it, it was about dirt! Dirt and migrating. Dirt and migrating and more dirt.”
- Neat photos from German photographer, Martin Wolf Wagner. His landscapes are simple and minimalistic, usually of an industrial space or machine, set against an unvaried and constant background. Usually taken at night or near-night, the subject is usually illuminated by a warm yellow or green. Eerie and very pretty.
Hacking Google Maps October 24, 2005
Posted by Patrick in : Software , add a commentI’ve been perusing some great Google Maps hacks (via the Utne Reader).
- Find the cheapest gas in your area.
- Traffic information
- Maps and Flickr mashup
- If you dug a hole through the earth, where would you end up?
There’s a whole slew of them. And, going by the map, if you dug a hole straight through my basement and out towards the other end, you’d land somewhere off the coast of Antarctica.
Culture mapping
Posted by Patrick in : Pittsburgh , 1 comment so farThe CommonCensus Map Project sets out to “show how the country is organized culturally, as opposed to traditional political boundaries. It shows how the country is divided into ’spheres of influence’ between different cities at the national, regional, and local levels.” 
I’m not sure if the rest of the country is mapping correctly, but the northeast looks fairly accurate. Pennsylvania is split right down the middle, with the influences centering around Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. The two cities are quite different, both practically and socially. Pittsburgh has more of a blue-collar, hometown attitude, while Philadelphia seems more progressive and outward looking.
Via fancycanoe.
A new domain, a new blog
Posted by Patrick in : Photography, Software , 2 commentsFinally, after weeks of deliberating, the courts have spoken. A new domain was finally chosen. Personally, I had no idea that domains were so difficult to come by. My friend Adrian helped me throw around a few different ideas.
Ultimately, I wanted a domain that was two words or less. The words would need to be somewhat common and easy to spell. They would have to evoke somewhat of a good mental image. And if the domain had anything to do with my interests, that would be a plus.
Overall, I’m satisfied with the results. Yes, I’m bummed that aeiousometimesy.com was taken. But right now, I’m just elated that my whois marathons have come to a long-needed close.
And as a sidenote, I also installed Gallery 2.0.1 to showcase my friends Nate & Melissa’s wedding photos. There are some great enhancements to the new version (as opposed to 1.*), like a better UI and the ability to link print services.
Commercials an’at October 22, 2005
Posted by Patrick in : Videos, Pittsburgh , 1 comment so farFunny commercials with a Pittsburgh twist.
Mountain Goats show October 21, 2005
Posted by Patrick in : Music , 3 commentsThe Mountain Goats played at the Uptown Theatre in Washington, PA earlier tonight. Unfortunately, tomorrow night’s show at the Warhol (the more convenient one for us Northsiders) was sold out.
The opening band The Prayers & Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers hailed from Chapel Hill, where I think the Mountain Goats make their home. They were pretty good; I liked how their songs slowly built over time. Though, I must admit that I was pretty tired and I half-slept through some of their softer songs.
The Mountain Goats impressed me. Except for a few songs that I downloaded about a month ago, I was pretty unfamiliar with their stuff. My expectations were middle-of-the-road going into the show. Their performance easily put them on the high one.
John Darnielle, the frontman of TMG, has an incredible gift of storytelling. And it’s interesting because he doesn’t seem to write so much in verse, but prose. Each song is a story onto itself. One minute, he whispers the tale, while the next, he hollers like hellfire into the microphone. But it’s all done with the greatest of tact. The show converted me.