Page of Moss - Bloglet

A very happy birthday to Tori!

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02:01:40 PM, Monday 1 September 2003

Because neither Mirabai nor I could remember them properly the other day, I now offer: the lyrics to Celia Learning on the Spinnet. It is my favorite round. If the point of it seems unclear, you may wish to hear a recording or two.

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11:54:44 PM, Thursday 28 August 2003

Language Hat has translated Hugo Ball’s Dada Manifesto, and it is a thing of much yumminess indeed. Now I’m listening to I Zimbra.

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11:12:25 PM, Thursday 28 August 2003

Cornelius Manicotti and the Three Devils of Leicestershire _
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08:17:57 PM, Thursday 28 August 2003

The BBC is planning to make its TV and radio archives available over the Internet. Fuck yes.

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05:11:08 PM, Thursday 28 August 2003

Goodbye, nice warm summer weather. Hello, weather that is actually good.

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12:50:52 PM, Thursday 28 August 2003

We at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology would like to thank you, Moxy Fruvous, for your contributions to the awareness of science, technology, and other areas of study. Specifically, these departments commend you for the following... _
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01:04:53 AM, Thursday 28 August 2003

Wow... now there's an online quiz I don't have any qualms at all about posting:

You are the Fourth Doctor: A walking Bohemian
conundrum with a brooding personal magnetism
and a first-rate intellect concealed somewhere
beneath your charmingly goofy exterior. You are
perhaps the most terribly clever of all the
Doctors, though your occasional bouts of
childishness get you in trouble. You never go
looking for a fight, but when someone messes
with you... good heavens, are they ever sorry
they did.

Which Incarnation of the Doctor Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla _
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01:01:50 AM, Thursday 28 August 2003

Julian Dibbell is keeping a blog describing his efforts at realizing the following curious proposition: On April 15, 2004, I will truthfully report to the IRS that my primary source of income is the sale of imaginary goods—and that I earn more from it, on a monthly basis, than I have ever earned as a professional writer.

The mechanism for all this is the sale of Ultima Online goods through eBay, and it turns out to be an interesting perspective from which to look at all kinds of other ideas. It's all very cyberpunk. _
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07:19:51 PM, Wednesday 27 August 2003

The Christian Science Monitor discusses how gas prices got so high. I’ve sometimes been inclined to complain about gas prices lately (about $2.19 for regular here in California), but then I think about how much worse the people with SUVs must have it. And then I just giggle.

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01:54:58 PM, Wednesday 27 August 2003

So, anyone going to Fray Day? _
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07:19:09 PM, Tuesday 26 August 2003

What disturbs me: someone found my blog by Googling the keywords buffy and objectivism. What disturbs me more: the entry they found wasn’t entirely irrelevant to their search.

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05:02:03 PM, Tuesday 26 August 2003

Ian Oeschger posts a nice mnemonic for the seven deadly sins.

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03:13:09 PM, Monday 25 August 2003

Salam Pax recommends Iraq Today as the best Iraqi newspaper in English. If‘n you happen to be looking for a source of news about Iraq.

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02:10:46 AM, Sunday 24 August 2003

I’m in!

Want to interview me? Post a question here.

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01:19:02 AM, Sunday 24 August 2003

This US version of Red Dwarf failed to get past pilot stage, and has never been screened anywhere.

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06:12:12 PM, Saturday 23 August 2003

Did you know that the actor who played Principal Snyder on Buffy was also Quark on Deep Space 9?

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04:35:32 PM, Saturday 23 August 2003

Spam subject line of the day: This Online Seminar is Hot

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12:20:11 PM, Saturday 23 August 2003

By hacking heavily on Mark Pilgrim’s fabulous (and eminently hackable-on) PySiteStats script, I have made it generate individual referer pages for all the m14m.net bloglets. Yours is at http://www.m14m.net/your_username/stats.html. Mine, for example, is here. Any questions? (This, of course, supplements the overall statistics page for m14m.net.)

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11:12:58 PM, Thursday 21 August 2003

Testing. 1. 2.

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07:02:11 PM, Thursday 21 August 2003

When I was in Montana this weekend, I kept being reminded of all the smoke from the fires in Oregon around this time last year.

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03:43:32 PM, Thursday 21 August 2003

A unit testing framework for ActionScript, pointed out to me by someone who had seen my plea for such a thing on the Wiki. This is highly rockin‘, especially since we’re just now embarking on a large project that will involved a fair bit of new ActionScript code in Flash MX.

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03:41:22 PM, Thursday 21 August 2003

Did I really cut my hair just two years ago? I guess I did.

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03:36:18 PM, Thursday 21 August 2003

No one was injured, but the Jeep Grand Cherokee was destroyed.

[via Matt Haughey]

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03:01:22 PM, Thursday 21 August 2003

This weekend kicked ass. Wonderful wonderful wonderful unspeakably wonderful people. Cool games. Beautiful places to walk. Singing “Folsom Prison Blues” at Gay Karaoke. Eating cheese fries, and trying to convince Mirabai that she didn’t actually need to finish her brains and eggs, and then being awed (AWED!) when she did. And just… everything. Yeah.

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04:51:22 AM, Monday 18 August 2003

Mark Pilgrim has found the best Google calculator feature yet.

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05:59:04 PM, Thursday 14 August 2003

I was thinking the other day about making a Python module that would be sort of like xmltramp for CSS. Something that would let me load in a CSS file, manipulate it like a normal Python data structure, and then write it out again. This would make it pretty easy to write, for example, a web interface for editing the layout of a blog. Anyway, it turns out that half of this, at least, has already been done: a Python module that reads CSS and wraps it in a dictionary-like object. I wonder how hard it would be to make it write, too.

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04:09:27 PM, Thursday 14 August 2003

Dude! I’ve just been linked to from a syllabus for an art class at UMBC! It’s in week 4—my Exquisite Corpse Server is used as an example. This just makes me all bouncy with glee.

(And by "have just been linked to" I of course mean "was linked to early last year". But someone followed the link lately, and I just noticed it in my referrers.) _
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03:04:59 PM, Thursday 14 August 2003

And this should make Anne happy.

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02:39:21 PM, Thursday 14 August 2003

So you’ve probably already heard, but Google now has a calculator function. It’s pretty slick—you just enter what you want to calculate into a regular Google search box, and it gives you the answer. It even does conversions. It’s ever so useful to be able to tell, at a glance, without any confusing reference books or anything, that, for example, 100 miles per degree = 45 836.6236 furlongs per radian. _
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02:34:02 PM, Thursday 14 August 2003

Some kids at MIT have made a radio station that takes the other radio stations and glomps them all together in a big burst of math. It’s fucking fascinating.

When you’re tuned in to Eigenradio, you always know that you’re hearing the latest, rawest, most statistically separable thing you can possibly put in your ear.

[via MetaFilter] _
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07:35:18 PM, Wednesday 13 August 2003

Skills

BASIC
Change a lightbulb,
restart a computer,
install software,
paint a room,
check oil,
change a tire,
bake muffins and pasta,
operate a grill,
play an instrument,
unclog a toilet,
know how to turn off water and electricity (I could probably do it if necessary),
identify an unmarked police car on the highway,
communicate basic needs in a foreign language (Spanish. But it would be a bit of a struggle.),
complete income tax forms,
carry a tune,
sort a load of laundry,
start and tend a vegetable garden,
Heimlich manuever,
deal with salesmen and proselytes and mendicants,
tend sprains and minor infections,
administer first aid,
sketch a likeness,
lie with a straight face,
mow a lawn

MEDIUM
Hang drywall,
build bookshelves and tables (only from a kit),
bake bread,
change oil and brake fluid,
rotate tires,
install hardware,
diagnose simple computer problems,
identify location and nature of car trouble,
be fluent with correct terms in all disciplines (what, all of them?),
fix plumbing leaks,
know basic mixed drinks and how to make them (despite my prejudice towards whiskey, I really ought to learn),
know how to set a table at all but the very highest levels of formality (possibly. how formal?),
read music (but only very slowly),
complete business tax forms,
operate a manual camera,
sing harmony,
communicate at social levels of politeness in a foreign language,
make paint,
make and iron casual clothes (really need to learn to do this),
CPR,
familiarity with basic medicinal and nutritional properties of herbs and foods,
therapeutic massage,
fend off unarmed attackers (possibly. Haven’t had opportunity to test.),
hotwire a car,
shoot a handgun,
identify local flora,
drive a motorcycle,
give birth unassisted,
bargain,
perform acts of basic masonry,
build a deck,
lay flooring

ADVANCED
Build beds and chairs,
diagnose car and computer problems,
replace common engine parts,
install electrical wiring,
install plumbing,
understand federal and local laws,
know wines and spirits,
know at least one programming language,
improvise on a musical instrument,
make cheese,
make and iron formal clothes,
set a broken bone,
fend off an intruder armed with a knife or small firearm,
pilot a small plane,
kill unarmed,
seduce the initially unwilling,
perform at normal competence while injured or incapacitated (only in my field of expertise),
design an architecturally sound structure,
operate farm and construction equipment,
administer a network (not professionally),
design clothing,
cannibalize a car for parts,
build a computer,
be courteous, compelling, or gallant in a foreign language.

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01:40:07 AM, Wednesday 13 August 2003

The difference between copyrights, trademarks, and patents is not hard to understand.

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09:12:06 PM, Tuesday 12 August 2003

Setting out from a passing remark in Dahra’s excellent advice: is the western tradition mired in denial of the body? I have a terrible feeling that it is, but it shouldn’t be. Since Aristotle, at least, it has no reason to be. Again and again, our best, most perceptive thinkers have shown the way. We should be prepared, by now, to see ourselves as living, embodied beings, without falling into hollow materialism or idealism. But it is still so tricky. Denying the body still seems to be such a strong temptation for anyone who thinks.

(I’m not sure I’m being at all clear here. Ah well.)

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08:12:40 PM, Tuesday 12 August 2003

It used to be really hard to find caf�s that served chai. But now, thanks to Oregon Chai, it’s fucking impossible.

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03:49:20 AM, Tuesday 12 August 2003

Band name: The Parents’ Music Resource Center

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05:48:56 PM, Monday 11 August 2003

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