imagine creation

Does anyone still read this?

I get so sick and tired of the constant references to 9/11.  It's like, enough already.  Don't get me wrong, it was a tragic event where many people died.  But asides from all the gory details of what we watched on media pipe, how many people remember what else happened in 2001?  So many of us had a shared experience that is constantly used in recollection of terror, war, fear, George Bush, airplanes, twin towers, ground zero and the striking images that polarized a nation.  I think that is bullshit.  Instead of remembering that experience, perhaps we need to turn our focus away from the singular experience and remember some other things that happened in 2001.  What I propose is to let some of the other things that happened in 2001 replace our thinking and recollection of what that year was.  Have a picture?  Post it.  Have a song you wrote?  Post it.  Fall in love with someone?  Post it.  Fall out of love with someone?  Post it.  Have someone you lost?  Feel free to post it and share it because it is part of our shared experience.  What we're trying to do is get out of the negative conditioning that was applied through the rhetoric and expand our social memories to include more than just the shit that is evoked every time some jackass mentions two numbers together.  Yes, that includes me.

So for your perusal, I have decided to put a few of the juicy news bits of '01 into a post just to fucking get rid of the popular associations with the year of 2001.  I'm gonna be cheap and start where anyone else would: wikipedia. 

- Ho' shit, Wikipeda started in January of 2001! 
- Remember the US submarine that struck the japanese fishing boat?  That's right. 
- NEAR Shoemaker (a spacecraft) touched down on asteroid 433 Eros.
- On April 1st, the Netherlands became the first nation to allow same sex couples to wed in almost two thousand years.  BIG PROPS! 
- The first space tourist, Dennis Tito sails into zero g. 
- The youngest person to summit Mount Everest does it.
- Dmitry Sklyarov is arrested by feds for violating the DMCA. 
- Enron

Software Releases include:
- Code Red Worm
- Internet Explorer 6.0
- Windows XP
- Clippy dies. YAY!

In video games, Nintendo's GameCube and the Microsoft Xbox were released.

The following video games are released:
- Myst III: Exile
- Clive Barker's Undying (PC)
- Final Fantasy IX (PS1)
- Tribes 2 (PC)
- Serious Sam: The First Encounter (PC)
- Black & White (PC)
- Final Fastasy X (PS2)
- Max Payne (PC)
- Devil May Cry (PS2)
- GTA III (PS2)
- Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 (PS2)
- Aliens vs Predator 2 (PC)_
- Return to Castle Wolfenstein (PC)
- Luigi's Mansion (GC)

And for a little bit of personal reflection, my son was born in August.  This blog opened in December of 2001 with a meme from a Playboy;

I was reading Playboy and came across an article that asked different people of significant accomplishments what commandments they would put in school. Following is the one that impressed me the most.

Alan Dershowitz is a professor at Harvard Law School:

1. Never claim God supports your team or is on your side of an issue.

2. Don't hang out only with kids who are members of your religion or race.

3. Don't denounce as antireligious those who differ with you about the role of religion in public life.

4. Don't accept something as true just because "The Bible says so"

5. Honor and respect the diversity of the nation, remembering that many Americans came here to escape the tyranny of enforced religious uniformity and, more recently, enforced antireligious uniformity.

6. Do good because it's right and refrain from doing bad because it's wrong, not because of any promise of heaven or threat of hell.

7. Do not accuse those who reject formal religion of being immoral. Some of our nations greatest leaders did not practice or accept religion.

8. Do not equate morality and religion. Although some great moral teachers were religious, some great sinners also acted in the name of religion.

9. Be a skeptic about everything -- God, science, your teachers, your parents, yourself.

10. Remember that every belief is a minority belief somewhere, and act as if your belief were the least popular.


Here's another one that I liked a lot...

Susie Bright is the author of Full Exposure: Opening up to Sex and Creativity.

1. Bow your heads and observe a moment of profound daydreaming.
2. Read banned books.
3. Defy stereotypes.
4. Assume everyone is sexual.
5. Develop a healthy cynicism for standardized tests.
6. Take care of your beautiful body.
7. Remember, Drugs are bad.
8. Appreciate the simplest gesture.
9. Love all creation.
10. Avoid the cafeteria.

So I'm giving my kid a 16GB SDHC chip for his MP3 player for his birthday.  I'm just starting to put on music for him to listen to, and I'm going to give him some of my favorite stuff to listen to, but I know there's a lot of stuff out there that I don't have that would be great to put on.  Whatever he doesn't like he can delete.  I'm looking for suggestions to put on.  He's only 8 and I don't intend to put things like death metal on, so keep it reasonably clean (no raunchier than what he'd hear on the radio, please). So far I've got the following:

- Collective Soul
- Foo Fighters
- The Nylons
- Women & Song Beginnings
- Enigma
- The Bellamy Brothers
- Pendulum
- Aaron Simpson
- Dieselboy
- LTJ Bukem
- Orbital
- Underworld

What do you think? 

Nothing like starting the morning with some Prodigy!

If you believe the western sun is falling down on everyone
If you break it free and the mornings come
If you would now your time has come
If you believe the western sun is falling down on everyone
And you feel it burn, dont try to run
And you feel it burn, your time has come

And I feel it
You feel another energy and I feel a power growing
You feel another energy and I feel a power grow
You feel another energy and I feel a power grow

If you believe the western sun is falling down on everyone
If you break it free and the mornings come
If you would now your time has come
If you believe the western sun is falling down on everyone
And you feel it burn, dont try to run
And you feel it burn, your time has come
I feel it!
You feel another energy and I feel a power growing
You feel another energy and I feel a power grow
You feel another energy and I feel a power grow

Om Namah Narayana
Om Namah Narayana
Om Namah Narayana
Om Namah Narayana
Om Namah Narayana

I feel it
I feel it
You feel another energy...

So I noticed today when I fired up Peerblock, that it's now blocking "Detected AP2P on Shaw".  Shaw is my ISP, and AP2P is Anti-Peer2Peer.  The ip address is 24.84.214.183, which resolves to S0106001fd0d32a66.vc.shawcable.net.  A tracert does nothing, and gives me "General failure".  So does ping -a. 

Does anyone know more?  Cause I wonder if it's time to start routing through a VPN service like iPred...

peace!

I've had the second stanza rattling in my mind for a while.  This is me putting it down again.  Funny thing, I have had the first and third posted up for the longest time...but completely forgot about the second stanza.  I rediscovered it when I wrote my Ten Fscking Years post.  Originally written six years ago. 

Three to be four, hidden no more
Fire shall last, while the bruise fades into the past
Gifts from a god, distracted from the footprints that have been trod

Elements from within, seeds of unknown origin
Given, taken, misused and mistaken
Puzzles of Power, Twins from the Tower

Golf and Bravo
Yankee and India
Oscar and Romeo
Victorious with focus
Trojan without
The walls shall fall, revealing all

When authority acts irrationally without sight to perceive what is affected by its actions, in particular the business of an internet hosting provider, it is blind.  Seizure of property is no longer an option for authority, as impact is much larger than authority is willing to open it's eyes to. 

Blind authority is not authority, but madness unwilling to see it's own madness.  In the end, it brings its own demise as it is self-consuming.

Response to this article.

Today wasn't good for getting online at work.  I spent more time figuring out this website of mine, which is a much needed step in the direction of personal empowerment.  Yay to website!

Synchronicity seems to work in wonderful ways.  I let myself be guided around downtown after work without much thought, seeking jewelry.  It just so happened that I ran into a good friend near the end of my wanderings in the Portage Mall.  It's interesting how quickly relationships can change, even feelings change.  I knew that when I told her I loved her, I'd have to subsequently let go.  We're nowhere near as close as we once were, but it's still good to be able to see a friendly smile and to run into her every once in a while.  The magic of life only seems to be growing stronger by the day.

Peace

I'm curious if there are any mathematicians that could elucidate my question on a very simple equation: E = mc2

What is mass?  I'm sure there's formulas to show what mass is, but I'm not a mathematician, so I'd need it in simple language, please. :)

Peace!