Ten Year Anniversary of Ten Years of How and Tao

Happy Yom Kippur, folks.  This video is from my banjo teacher. Whom I have never met.  But who has nonetheless taught me much about banjo and guitar and music. He also has some health problems, including deafness.  He wears a bone conducing hearing aid you can see. Anyhow, his heartfelt vlog on the ten year anniversary of publishing his book makes me cry like a baby as he talks about his realization that music isn't a journey Nice way to start the morning.

http://youtu.be/0bYvJutc7G0

I'm baack

I feel like I have more bitching to do than I want to broadcast over social media.

Perhaps that is the purpose for a blog.  A place to store rants you don't want to inflict on anyone, especially those involved in the time.  So it can be a good safety valve.

Cockroaches and the role of thoughts in the metaverse

As I cleaned out my the underside of my desk today, I heard a rustling inside a a paper bag.  "It's nothing," I said to myself, though I distinctly heard the scrabble of little legs against the paper. "Nothing."  Then, turning back to the bag, I started screaming like a little baby, lunged toward the bag, threw it out the door and slammed all 267 pounds of me onto a cockroach which I could now see quite clearly. I will spare you the picture of its little black and yellow guts all over the bricks outside my office.

Now, did I bring that cockroach into the universe by thinking about it?  Ridiculous, right? I mean, I learned as a stock-boy (holla Newmark & Lewis!) that cockroaches love paper bags and corrugated cardboard for laying their eggs.  It's one of the reasons you don't want to leave any bags or boxes from the supermarket in your house.

But here's the thing.  Earlier this morning I thought I saw a cockroach in our living room.  One of the cats was batting at something small, black and creepy in the wooden window blind. I thought it might be a cockroach but, as I got closer, I saw it was a GIANT fly. I closed the blinds, and made a run for it, since calling the exterminator is already on the Honey Do list.

That is when I went back to my office, and picked up that fateful bag. Yuck. Hate cockroaches. Remind me to tell you the cockroach story from when I lived at 97th between Park and Madison. Not now though; I can't risk bringing another through the space-time continuum into my office.

Multiverse FTW!

BoingBoing Meetup #1 Notes and thoughts and pictures

The first BoingBoing Meetup on June 7 was a blast!  Thanks to Mark for facilitating, and all for coming. Xeni, great to meet you.  But I have to say, the highlight for me, the thing that made me run up to my wife as I was running late to get out the door was meeting Bruce Sterling. Gosh. Oke, let's move on.

Anyhow, I posted my iPhone snaps of the Meetup for your viewing pleasure.

My trip to the Meetup turned into a bit of a saga, and I promised myself I would allow some self indulgence and blog about it later, rather than cluttering up my trip with frantic tweets about how I eventually ended up arriving about T+50 mins. This blogpost is the start of that account. Only I haven't written any yet.

The Cognitive Costs to Doing Things | SebastianMarshall.com: Strategy, Philosophy, Self-Discipline, Science. Victory.

I just had to connect to this piece. Terrific summary by Sebasian Marshall, now in Mogolia.

The Cognitive Costs to Doing Things | SebastianMarshall.com: Strategy, Philosophy, Self-Discipline, Science. Victory.

Thanks boingboing for pointing me to it.

Life is complicated; wherein slugs abound

Turns out there are slugs in this neighborhood too. Proof is in the squishing. I thought it was another worm until I stepped outside in the light just now. Poor thing. Maybe I need to start wearing shoes out to my office in the mornings.

(Tetris) Heaven: Greatest Uncommon Denominator Magazine

Tetris fans must check out this XKCD-inspired version:

Heaven: Greatest Uncommon Denominator Magazine