fractalnavel : i.c.k.

no surprise here ...

fractalnavel — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 05:45:07 GMT

We have diagnosed you as most likely being a member of the:
Autonomous Rebels

To find out more about your diagnosed tribe, click the following link:

Autonomous Rebels

take the survey yourself, let me know what you are.

tech notes: good samaritans need not apply

fractalnavel — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 18:55:09 GMT

now, does this seem like a very useful thing to do:

those poor folks waiting for responses better hope the moderators are on the job, and know their jobs as well.

on the other hand, makes me wonder what they felt they had to protect themselves and the other forum users against. are they verifying all proposed solutions ? having spam issues ?

you'd think they'd have a sticky or other announcement there so that posters knew what to expect.

guano machine

fractalnavel — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 21:32:35 GMT

i poked around twitter a bit recently while I've been playing, and i noticed that there were basically two styles: the originally intended open-loop micro-blogging, and the chat. people don't seem to have figured out how to really use micro-blogging, they either fell back into chat patterns, or just compulsively post trivia. the news channels aren't so bad, but that's what used to be professionally provided via rss from the news websites.

so, i wonder: how has im traffic been faring lately ? i bet it's down by an amount corresponding to twitter use. not sure what im'ing in public gets you. and twitter makes a lousy chat room.

as for the micro blogging, what proportion of the updates out there are bodily function related ? "went to the gym" "got back from the gym" "at the gym" "tired / cold / hot / sleeping / stupid / omg, what's this infection, my nuts have just dropped off!". does anyone really want to know that ? does anyone really want others to know that ?

then there are those projecting "image". professional, cool, wacky, dark - all that self-indulgent cvrap.

here's what i had in mind, and why i haven't really used it, and why I've been tinkering with daily accumulation and posting of micro-posts: sometimes i have quick thoughts, or a stream of thinking, that doesn't quite go together in a longer coherent post yet. but i want to capture that stuff that's been getting lost to date. stuff that i don't email, im or talk to anyone about. in other words, i'm trying to catch another source of information. there are times when i'm just thinking about economics, or cosmogony, or metaphysics, or whatever. a string of what-ifs, conjectures, speculations, maybe an aha or two. and then they're gone.

so, maybe this new lighter weight tool might be of help there. i'll see. now that i have my tools built, i'll try it out, when i'm having one of those times. like anything else, it'll take practice. and maybe it just won't float at all. expectations of the lowest order would be of help here.

as for the twitter-world-as-it-is, as with any popular phenomena, there are a lot of critics popping up - and they're right.

so sure, there's unprecedented openness, but no one seems to know what do with it, on either end of the pipe. it's like i noted a long time ago, privacy is generally no big deal, outside of personal or institutional maliciousness. ever seen someone else's email ? once you get over the voyeurism, it's just boring crap. but maybe we never get over the voyeurism.

once upon a time i wanted to open up all exchanges anyway, making it able to delve into causality in new ways. and it's slowly been happening. global mind ? not yet. a demonstration of illusory free will / consciousness ? no one will pay attention (proving the point).

so - i have a rock. i wonder what i can bang with it.

watch your language

fractalnavel — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:00:55 GMT

this has been going on for far to long now. i think i'm going to loose my mind. it's having a negative affect on me.

and so on. the correct words are "too" (two o's), "lose" (one o) and "effect" (e, not a).

i don't where all of this started, but it has got to stop.

and no, those aren't alternate correct spellings. as you can see from the search links above, these issues have been brought up many times - but for some reason, a lot of people just don't get it.

there's a kind of ego-centric arrogance in internet society, especially among the younger groups, but in no way limited to them. is prior art that hard to recognize or respect ? as always, issues with "authority" are never simple.

i'm not talking about innocent typos here, although who knows, maybe that's where it starts. meanwhile, guess what people ? when you make these and other similar language errors, you come off as fucking morons. right ?

just thought you should know.

garbage in…

fractalnavel — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 07:11:12 GMT

following up on what i was saying about the first local tv channel to stop broadcasting in analog, they stopped altogether after two weeks of that dtv instructional loop. i wasn’t watching at the time, but i suspect it “faded to gray” unceremoniously – pffft!
if you’ve noticed some odd posts here that are sort of coming out of left field, those are picked up from my tumblr site using community server’s “feed mirroring” feature. i’m also picking up my (rather rare) twitter posts (ok, “tweets” – how stupid, i won’t pretend otherwise; everyone else says it with a half embarrassed giggle) in tumblr. not sure if these are also being syndicated there and subsequently ending up here as separate posts. not exactly desirable if so, but i post to twitter so rarely it won’t matter.
“late night with jimmy fallon” is improving, he might make it after all. he’s got to do something about that laugh, though. he may only be able to succeed at that job if he approaches it like a role, not as himself. does he really want to spend the next 15-20 years – or more - there ? the core – or the rest – of his career ? perhaps this will be short term.

bubble rap

fractalnavel — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:47:00 GMT

From: Craig

Sent: Monday, February 23, 2009 09:25

Subject: simple

Saw this on xkcd today -- http://simple.wikipedia.org/

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deflation

deflation bad, inflation opposite, we need things to make us go....

and in my typical long-winded manner:

depends on how you've been running your life, really. if you're in a hand-to-mouth mode, and wage-slave mode, mild inflation is the temporary way to go - but it's ultimately non-sustainable and encourages perpetuation of those modes - until everything crashes, of course.

thing is, there are some longer term phases in economic cycles that no one seems ready to plan for. at the onset of every one, people adapt and assume it's a steady-state thing, getting too deep into the rut (whatever rut it is), holding on for too long, as, inevitably, the phase shifts and "catastrophe" sets in (of various severity).

I dunno - I'm working on some ideas I haven't seen out there so far. I agree about the consensus regarding inflation / deflation, but there are some nasty implicit assumptions there about the "natural" order of things, that just ain't so. in some ways, this is similar to what I've been saying about longer term cycles in science & so on - we are merely in transient phases, these trends, of what we like to think of as more or less consistent growth / expansion of "knowledge", are not at all a given. over longer periods of time, there have always been movements forward, stagnation, and movements backward - and often it's only the perspectives that shift.

personally: I'm a weird animal - since I've had to have savings because of my (sense of?) isolation, deflation would actually benefit me - in the short term. heavy inflation would put me on the street.

consumption has been artificial for years, in the sense that people have been almost forced into buying all kinds of crap that's not needed, artificial demand created by mass media, etc. that "bubble" the government has been maintaining for quite some time now - regardless of party - masks the collapse of the "growth" driven economy that happened years ago - at least, a rational one.

to continue this, people would need to keep filling their ever larger paper-walled mcmansions with gluts of useless toys & knick-knacks. but in the end, even psychology & advertising can't keep things moving - reality has a habit of catching up to us. there are limits to resources, and limits to "new value" that can "created" with existing technology.

didn't I just mention recently something about important differences between studying static phenomena as a simplification, and the reality of dynamics that often mean those static approximations aren't even achievable ? with regards to black holes v. "frozen stars", I believe.

anyway, again, a work in progress... given the state of the planet, and the fact that this shit has been repeating itself to one extent or another every ten years or so for at least a few centuries, there really isn't much reason for taking to heart "accepted" "knowledge" in this area. however, those theories are useful in a limited short-term sense for certain groups and individuals - always the same ones.

"simple wikipedia" - good god, a reference for morons. someone has been insulted here. perhaps everyone.

that deflation article ? oversimplified to the point of being wrong. go read something worthy of your intellect. start with the main wikipedia article.

longish reply, eh ? one last comment: our profession in particular is notably deflationary - automation simultaneously increases productivity and decreases head-counts. this works out (again, short term) when there has been high demand and other areas of the economy can absorb dislocated workers, but in the end - haven't you ever done things personally in the course of your working life that have put people permanently out of jobs ? hell, that's always a big union thing too - can't be too productive, or else everyone loses.

anyway, I first started thinking of this way back when I started work, first with foundry automation equipment (no wonder one project was sabotaged), and afterwards at that actuarial consulting company. that place was already on a 35 hour work week, expecting to go lower. I kept thinking, what if I kept getting better, making things work very fast, shouldn't everyone continue to be paid the same or better, even if working less ? shouldn't they reap the benefits of what they had accomplished ? of course, we all know how that works out: workers get shed, and all newly "created" profits - the long-term benefits of those workers - gets pocketed by those in positions of power, those whose job it is to re-distribute the wealth. truly fair compensation would include the future value of one's efforts.

but ok, I'll stop before I start getting into monetary and tax theory, which starts to get necessary at this point. yeah, I've been thinking of these things off & on since childhood.

to which craig responded:

Blog blog blog….

yeah, i hear ya.

i was hoping for hissing and popping

fractalnavel — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:55:21 GMT

From: Craig

Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2009 10:15

Subject: funeral for a friend...

http://bcnm.berkeley.edu/tvfuneral/

report's of analog tv's demise are premature, if only for a bit. instead, it's going to be a long slow illness, at least until june 12. and if the one local station that did quit analog is any indicator, after june 12 there will be zombie signals, alternating multi-lingual dtv how-to segments with a "blue screen of death" style static announcement display telling you that they are no longer broadcasting analog, go call these numbers for more info. i should get a picture / recording.

so why are they even on the air ? morons. if you're going to continue with that transmitter, why not just feed the normal shows ? otherwise, shut the damn thing off. it's saving no one anything. well, they are also the same station that must hire high school druggies for weekend & late night work, there have been frequent mistakes over the years, problems occurring without fixes, showing movie "reels" out of order, and so on. so I'm not surprised that other things they do make little sense.

i was hoping that the analog signal ended with some recognition. at least play the national anthem like they used to do when stations went off the air nightly back in the 70s, then a test pattern for a few minutes, then static. one of the local pbs stations still does that. not sure if it's only their analog signal; their schedule shows all night programming, but they always did have that habit of going off-air even before this dtv cvrap.

one shutdown tradition i liked was a station (in detroit) that ran a tape of the poem "high flight" being read while a fighter plane (?) was shown going ever higher into the sky. followed by the national anthem, then a test signal, of course.

one might hope for something less ignoble than a dtv transition loop, or a simple switch off - although this latter option still preserves at least some sense of dignity. perhaps just a run-through of old test signal displays. better would be an extended version of the old sign offs that they used to do. best would be some sort of special broadcast, some recognition & dignity for what has probably been the most globally transformative technology to date, internet / world wide web included. this transformative power is still being felt in areas of the world today as broadcasts get up and running ... but those are mainly satellite feeds now. somehow the relatively low-tech radio wave signals seem far more egalitarian, and certainly more accessible.

wonder what the aliens will think. you know, the hypothetical ones watching "i love lucy" re-runs light years away. the move to digital is likely to look like static to them, unless they perform sagan's "contact" routine in reverse. and what is the relative coherence of digital vs. analog signals in such a situation, in terms of snr, etc. ? so they may just think that we've blown ourselves up, turn off their sets, and move on with other pursuits.

which is what i'll be doing when all this draws to an end.

y.a.s.c.u.p. #(n + 1)

fractalnavel — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 20:16:10 GMT

seemed like a decent day to post. man, i haven't done anything since christmas. no laundry, no work outs - finally getting to it all today... dang shoulder just seems to keep getting worse, not sure what to do.

*whine*

* * * * * * * * * *

craig sent along a link to Bruce Sterling: State of the World, 2009, and that started me off onto a two and a half week intensive reading "program" on sustainable economies & lifestyles, aka peak oil, survivalism and The End of the World as We Know It ^TM. basically what i learned was that i'm gonna die - sooner rather than later, and after a good deal of uncertainty and suffering.

not that this is really any news to me. it was pretty apparent twenty years ago even from random bits & pieces of information. i was just never sure what could be done about it, at any scale from global to personal. coulda woulda shoulda - gotta deal with the here & now.

there's a lot of material related to this on the web of varying quality, as usual. the best jumping off point for me was dmitry orlov's stuff; he brings an interesting perspective to the current state of affairs, having been through the soviet version of it twenty years ago. he's more focused on pragmatics than mere doomsaying, and community rather than isolationism. read the articles linked to in the sidebar, and some of the linked blogs as well - there's not many, and the ones there are a good selection.

anyway, i still need to digest this, not that there's a lot of time left. i pretty much want to stick with actions that would be worthwhile to take even if the future was purely rosy. if i want a self-sufficient lifestyle, especially for eventual retirement, gotta start now. no need to be extreme about it, but certainly an elimination of unnecessary dependencies makes sense. problem is, i'm in the wrong place to start.

well, just need to apply the usual project approach to this. i do have some skills, the ability to identify and acquire new ones being the most important in this context. and it will go from there... more updates to come, i'm sure.

one personal observation: while immersed in this topic, the advertisement on tv, and other events, seemed downright surrealistic. things are coming down around our ears, while the tube runs merrily on, as if nothing was happening. oh, there's a mention of troubles, but then bang, onto next news item. the cognitive dissonance has been stunning.

* * * * * * * * * *

somewhere near the end of that i got sidetracked for a day or two into some mormonism reading. bottom line: yeah, it's a cult. somewhat benign, compared to many others, but a cult nonetheless. same applies to numerous other organizations, religions, academics, corporations, entire nations... mental and emotional abuse, deception and secrecy, in the name of god or an idea or any goal - sorry, not a good thing. of course, cultishness is a continuum; few groupings are exempt.

* * * * * * * * * *

let's see, what else has been happening. new national administration, sure. pretty impressed with the first few days. been watching news and various talk shows (moyers, rose), and there are a lot of popping eyeballs.

i gotta admit, i got a little teary at some points during the inaugural speech. took me a while to figure out why, since the language wasn't all that evocative, nothing earth shaking was being said, just good straight talk - and that was it. after all these years of outright idiocy from the previous holder of that office, it was the relief from the sheer humiliation and frustration of having to live with that jerk as the public face of a what could still be a great nation. the tears were a returning of a sense of pride that i hadn't even been aware that i had lost. not chest-thumping, nationalistic pride, but pride as a human, that's all - not the subhuman crap we've taken for the last eight years.

the contrast between bush and obama is breathtaking in just about every way. god knows where we'll be in days, months or years, but even just a few days of decency and honesty ^[1] makes a world of difference. i had some serious reservations about obama, and really, he seemed to be missing the point early on in many issues. but he learned! my god - the complete, asinine foolishness of "staying the path" when all evidence says otherwise. and not only that, but shit - much the same undertakings could have been attempted, but carried off far better, if that honesty and willingness to learn had been in place.

so - mccain or clinton ? at the moment, i'm glad it was neither of them. that's a change from my earlier opinion. what the fuck - let's give the new guy a chance. can't be a whole lot worse than the last century of bozos to date.

^[2]

i dunno - was that only more cognitive dissonance ?

^[1] well, apparent honesty at this point. we'll find out later - much later.

^[2] data from http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/popularity.php

feedback loops

fractalnavel — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:03:28 GMT

some thoughts from a brother on things auto industry:

Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2008 09:32

Subject: more car stuff & economics

...

"From some rough approximations, the car companies have added more value to the autoworker (and population) pocketbook than most other industries. Due to the automotive worker increasing wage, the average car price is going up; however, the recurring cost of gasoline has improved (mpg from 1970 to 2010+), while the $/gal gas cost has negatively impacted the car companies gains. Again, roughly - car companies have had a neutral effect on %take home pay, while housing, insurance (car & house), and health costs have reduced the take home. Taxes (income, property, sales, socsec, medicare) - I don't have enough information at this time to put this into perspective.

"Taking this into consideration, the next questions concern -

"is the automotive laborer wage chasing the cost of living or vice-versa?"

"how about other industries?"
i.e. if health care and general insurance costs (items everybody needs) rise, workers (union & non-union - both will feel the effect) will want compensation< to neutralize their effects.

"The three major increases in cost of living (excluding taxes, I'll still have to chase this) are;

housing

car insurance

health care (ins premium & treatment costs)
(house insurance a somewhat distant 4th)

"So - housing costs are up because raw materials are up? If so, then wouldn't house insurance increase also. Or are the claims not substantiating enough? Are house insurance claims less likely to be fraudulent, then the insurance model may be okay, and car insurance fraud should be minimized.

"car insurance costs are up because raw materials are up? True, however; here multiple factors are chasing themselves. The more cars are made the supply/demand pricing takes place, and labor wages are chasing themselves. However, those suppliers that failed to make the successful OEM original build bid, can still make aftermarket parts sold to PepBoys, AutoZone, Murrays, etc. I've seen similar initiatives at these places like GM's cost reduction to limit aftermarket increases. It's said that insurance customers should request OEM parts; however, all OEM's globally quote and source any component, including those Asian "counterfeits" who may have quoted on the OEM parts, and missed due to a number of reasons - price, timing, politics, procedures, lack of quality certificate (which doesn't always guarantee non-recalls, otherwise there wouldn't be recalls now, since all parts are sources with TS, ISO, or VDA qualifications).

"Insurance costs are minimal (low labor, low materials, low overhead), until claims are paid. Hence my comparison statement to housing insurance modeling rates against claims.

"So - should US car companies get a loan (not a bailout, like the underscrutinized finance industry)? Cars are globally made, each corporation having to adhere to each nations' specific emission controls and safety standards. But the unequalizer are tariffs. As was seen as lately as four years ago, US government steel tariffs requested by USSteel and other US steel makers, caused an increase in material cost until they were repealed, then the global market for construction boomed (construction uses about 70% of globally used mined ore), and supply/demand pricing once again flourished.

"Pricing including imaginary profit geometrically raises prices as OEM's raise outsourcing and their Tier1's have more Tier2's, then Tier3's, etc..... Then the Tier3's, and so on, don't have enough buying power to push the supply/demand principle to their favor. When the OEM's purchase material with their buying power for Tier1's to Tier3's+, then this is somewhat limited. But automotive is still competing with construction (industrial/commercial buildings, infrastructure/roads, transportation (shipping, rail, ...)."

...

which highlights the complex nature of any major industry in today's global economy.

funny that we merely blinked (really) at sending funds approaching $1T (that's $1,000,000,000,000 - !) to assist an "industry" that no one is sure is even real, but when it comes to actual physical goods, and a price tag less than %3 of what has been committed elsewhere, the prevalent attitude is decidedly unsympathetic - and that's stating it gently.

so many things wrong about all this (the national reaction, i mean). but it reflects more a historical antipathy towards detroit and organized labor (where did that come from?) than anything approaching a considered response to the matter at hand.

but what people miss is that (1) old concerns of a domestic car quality gap disappeared long ago, (2) a separable "domestic" auto industry has not even existed for a couple of decades now, and (3) outsourcing and anti-labor hiring practices undercut (sometimes costly) protections that people fought for for years in this country.

ask yourselves who all this benefits. again.

(2) is even more interesting, because of the interdependencies globally and between industries. a domino effect would ensue if the supplier / skill concentrations are lost, not only for "foreign" auto makers, but other heavy industries - and _light_ ones as well. one of two things could happen: all those "foreign" companies could pull out, there being too little appropriate labor resources available; or they could stay but demand - and get - large additional labor compensation slashes, amounting to this country switching to a non-"first world" status. already, we're seeing many people not only seriously considering, but actually acting, on taking employment overseas because of "domestic" economic issues. you know how you look at mexico today ? well, start looking out your front window.

"oh, that could never happen - we're America!"

morons - it's been happening for over a decade now.

granted, preserving the huge global inequity pattern that has prevailed to date is neither wise nor possible, but there are far better ways to handle transitions.

and in a deep sense, the current perspectives, attitudes and trends are tied to the underlying "scientism" and "secular mysticism" that causes everyone to believe that everything is controllable, and that there are responsible parties for everything that happens. this is further interestingly compounded by the contradictory attitude that everyone believes in the existence of free choice. so - perfect causal chains of responsibility (determinism), ending at persons who chose to start that chain of events (free will).

the last few years i've run into many examples of this glaring logical error- the poor chose to be that way (laziness, maliciousness, whatever); the hyper-rich deserve their wealth (personally, as if there was something trans-human about them). and so on.

but no one recognizes it. and no one recognizes their own greed and intolerance as well.

burn censors, not books !

fractalnavel — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 01:57:59 GMT

... or movies.

big "wtf?!" moment this evening: getting back from the conference today, i think how i will be early enough to kick back with a beer or three and catch the the third harry potter movie (prisoner of azkaban) that was advertised by abc last week during the showing of the second harry potter movie. but i forgot what city i live in. flipping over to the channel, i see:

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 00:00:00 UTC
Your Reality Checked: Floral Designer
(#810006) A corporate executive contemplates leaving her job to become a florist. (House/garden, Series)

[2004-07-18]

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 01:00:00 UTC
The Insider's List With Julie Moran: Eco-Hotels
(#780016) The top 10 hotels that are ecologically-friendly. (House/garden, Cooking, Series)

[2004-10-18]

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 02:00:00 UTC
Chuckwagon Cook-Off
The annual competition takes place in Ruidoso, N.M. (Special, Cooking)

[2006-03-04]

proof ? hardly. but it's happened before here with this series and other flicks. you want me to believe that demand for the above garbage is higher than for a multiple academy award nominated film ?

bastards. not even so much the local station (cincinnati wcpo), but the fuckers in the community i live among. really, people, it only happens because you want it to. how fucking stupid do you think i am ? like you ?

this ~~also~~ especially goes for those who may not share those sentiments, but nevertheless stand by and let it happen. next time yuou hear this sort of attitude from a neighbor or coworker or whoever - challenge it.

intolerance is intolerable.

yeah. community "standards". sure, it's not like i have a right to view things on a private corporation's broadcast, and if it had never been placed on the schedule in the first place, what can i say ? but that isn't what happened, is it ? the garbage above is a local pre-emption of the national feed.

yes, y'all can do this crap and get away with it. way to go.

hard not to wonder what's been happening that's less noticeable. for that, a comparison to international programming is a start. not like that is any better in many cases.

"... i love my species. i love my species. i love my species. ..."

tech notes: sucky is as sucky does

fractalnavel — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 02:01:41 GMT

broadband, that is. check this out:

nice site, by the way, if more than a bit bloated. and i swear they have some sort of memory leak there...

anyway, the story gets more interesting when you look at the comparisons they have available:

eh, downloads, not so bad. but according to the site, the top isps in the world are offering more than three times this now.

now for the uploads:

now i feel cheated. friggin' roadrunner doesn't even match up to the pathetic state average, much less national or international. and the top isps ? near symmetric speeds.

and to think i pay nearly $50 a month for this joke. there are other places getting twice the speed for half the price. so much for free market systems in this part of the world. this also ilustrates the corporate control over p2p. want to publish here ? well, we'll throttle you. don't like it ? then go to one of the big corporate hosting sites, or buy our premium services.

yet again, so much for independent voices, or "free" speech.

self takes a holiday

fractalnavel — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 00:42:24 GMT

a hall of mirrors, kicked off by a story :

the brain is the vat !

who, 'me' ?

out of my mind

one focus of reading for the day, rabbit-holing into many related corners. even found my way to "space settlement" at one point.

eh, self is back. says we're out of beer...

today is...

fractalnavel — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 16:02:50 GMT

pi day !

craig:: Sent: 2008.03.14 10:40:08 Eastern Daylight Time
Subj: happy pi day! 3/14

http://www.piday.org/
me:: first reaction: thank you sir, and same to you.

second reaction (after seeing where that link goes): oh no - they've commercialized it ! next thing you know, they're going to dumb it down for the masses.

on the other hand, should have thought of this myself. except i'm not of that mindset. easy enough to do, using those free produce & fullfill on demand shops.

see http://coolwhois.com/d/piday.org/20080314085304. i can't get a decent response from the host domain name it returns.

ah, but ok, they've been around for a while, that takes a little bit of the edge off: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.piday.org/. wayback has been slow lately...

this is also interesting: http://trace.die.net/search/?source=bm&q=http%3A//ord.dreamhost.com. from there, get alexa info, and some interesting whois: http://whois.domaintools.com/piday.org (too bad a lot of these details are only available for a price - sometimes steep).

looks like the site has had regular changes over the years, so at least the guy is somewhat committed to this.

and what about the guy himself ? http://cbri.umn.edu/~kunau/?p=89 (they must know each other through choir) (interesting, that wordpress site looks almost identical to scott w.'s graffiticms site - see http://evil.che.lu/2007/4/6/skittlish-0-4-release-and-sightseeing (which is also worth browsing around on)), and mostly, his site: http://www.hellerich.net/ - he's a young'un, gradgitated in '05. means he put up the piday.org site when he was 18 or so - !

but "official" site for pi day ? gimme a break. surprised there's nothing _on_ that site _about_ the site; i wouldn't have done all of the above ;-)

btw, relevant to a recent discussion of ours and to your employer / customer: http://cbri.umn.edu/~kunau/?p=143 (linked paper: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/08/02/data-visualization-modern-approaches/). worth checking out other stuff from that guy's site and his outbound links, etc. he's in the bioinformatics field. also check out his department: http://cbri.umn.edu.

anyway, thanks for triggering that tour, interesting stuff out there.

i think that's what you might call a disproportionate response ;-)

tech notes: if you're listening right this moment ...

fractalnavel — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 22:28:20 GMT

... you might want to put aside time for

The three 2008 TED Prize winners, each granted “a wish to change the world,” will unveil their wishes at the legendary conference. Streamed live on the Web: TED 2008 today at 5:15pm PST.

from Communication Arts, news.

previous events have been - eventful. yeah, that's the word.

rabbit-holing

fractalnavel — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 23:24:51 GMT

curiouser & curiouser, said alice.