I've been far too narrow in my scope of skillsets. Sure, it's easy to say that you will be a carpenter and a computerdude and a traveller and an artist and solve all remaining questions of physics and mathematics, but in reality, every day is spent in the trenches, at war with yourself, your mammalian hindself, and your potential self. Not to mention the war on sobriety and pauperism.

Today, I realised that there are career avenues open to me that I had not hitherto considered seriously. A list of job titles so long that you'd think it a curriculum listing. And most of them relatively easy to masquerade my moneyless misanthropic mammalian self into, from where I am at this point in my life.

In the year 2040, there will be archaeologists mining landfills, sifting through tonnes of garbage. There will be people devoting entire PHD's analysing a single decade of late-last-century, scrutinising what, exactly, *the fuck* happened to our culture.
Thousands of years of recorded history is culminating in a radical change in how we view the world and ourselves. The last 40 years have seen a trillion tiny developments turn our world on its head, and we seem to be perfectly fine with that.

"Professor, we've found another handheld!"

The student hands the older man a grey, grime-covered device. It has only left-right buttons and one marked "punch". The screen is heavily scratched and broken. The battery acid had leaked and corroded even before the game was even thrown away, but the 35 years it's spent underground hasn't destroyed it entirely. It's plastic, after all.

"Wonderful! Ah, look at this: 'The Red Rangers Fight'. This is an early model of the Power Rangers line. You familiar with them?"
"Yes, sir, mid-nineties."
"Correct, though this one is a very early model, probably 1994, maybe even '93. There isn't even a 'kick' button. Look, there isn't even an on/off switch, you just put batteries in to turn it on!"

The Professor touches a pendant on his neck which emits ultrasonic pulses, scanning the immediate area for something interesting. It photographs and mass-spectrometrically scans the object, transmitting every data on every molecule back to a data-processor in the van.

"We might even get Fabrication to recreate this one. It's a good example of a 'cool' early-nineties toy. The Mass-Fab'ers are generally into that stuff."

The internet never really started until Web 2.0, really... Up until then we just didn't know what we were doing, no idea what, if any, limits cyberspace had.
Geocities, the proto-Internets boiling pot. A million teenagers learning HTML helped shape the future of communication as we know it.
Does that give you hope or fear?

Holy crap, it's WELL easier to join tables in MySQL than it is in MS Access *or* MS SQL Server. Man, I wish we used MySQL at work.

I'm fighting tooth and nail to refuse to let The Sims 3 be installed on my computer... but I fear this is a battle I'm going to lose.

*deep breath*
Where the hells do I start with this one...

Most of you will know that I have really, really terrible luck with cars. Most of you will find this hilarious, which is fine, because it often is. (*POP* goes the gearbox! that was a classic...) I've now pretty much completed work on my car.

My fourth Mitsubishi Galant GSR begun it's life down in Mandurah, where an inept twerp tried to make it nice by slapping on some stickers and some cheap audio gear. It looked clean and in good running condition. He neglected to mention the following problems:
- Rusted-out and clogged water galleries
- Build-up of slurrycrap on the valves
- A water pump so crapped-out and rusted that now, after it has been sitting outside in the dirt and rain for three months, it doesn't actually LOOK any different
- A blown headgasket so wide that it painted the silver engine bay black with grease
- An altenator belt ready to snap
- A clutch with less meat on it than Paris Hilton

So the thing overheats a couple of times on the way back up to Perth. Lucky I always carry 5L or more of water around with me. S'all good. Oh, lookit that. There's no altenator belt any more. Well, shit. I was wondering why it stopped squealing when I got out of Mandurah. Kinda need that.
Got to Perth when the battery finally died because the lack of belt (it did well to last that long, especially driving at night). Eventually got the car to Ant's place, where we mull the problem over. "Well, since the waterpump's gone, you may as well do a timing belt and a headgasket while you're there. It's about the age where they need done, and you'll be good for another 100,000kms afterwards."
All good in theory. Seven weeks, several missed loan repayments, one strained friendship and one very irate wife later, we put the head back on, bolt everything up, turn the key... and bend a valve. Well, fuck. Fuck, fucking fuck. I'm not sure I'm quite conveying my frustration, here. Fuck squared? Fuck^2? Fuck^fuck?

Anyway, after about seven MORE weeks we finally lift another motor in there, a 1.6L motor out of a smaller car instead of the 2L that it came with. Swapped various shits'n'bits over to make it work, turn the key... SUCCESS! Use the above profane exclamations again, but this time in a positive light =D

I'm not sure how long the 1.6L will remain in there. I want to do a full reconditioning of the 2L and put it back in there, but I'm not sure if it's really worth it any more.
Ah well. Now, at least, I have my own car again.
And I will be receiving the final pieces of my CarPC soon - the 7" touchscreen and Dc-Dc powersupply. This'll be SWEEEEET.

The Coolgardie Safe is a resturaunt dedicaated to 'Australian' food. To summarise: Very nice - cooking quality definately above average, especially as myself and my wife walked in through the door about 20min before the kitchen was meant to cease taking orders. Staff were very friendly and helpful.

For starters, we had damper. I hadn't had damper since highschool, and I had forgotten just how much I loved this stuff - it was VERY good. Stole the whole show, it was that good. It came with rosella butter (home-made butter with traces of nectar mixed in) and some mango chutney. Very good.

For the meal we had a salmon risotto - not very Australian, but we're doing some travelling tomorrow and were on a budget =P It was good. They were very quick making the meal, it came out before we finished our damper! Utterly stuffed by the end of it.

We had a pot of peppermint tea with it, which we were also very impressed with, as they used actual peppermint leaves for it. This is rarer than it sounds, because even peppermint teabags are often just tea with peppermint flavouring.

We're going to be going back in a month or so, because we have to try the $27 'Taste of Australia' starter - it has crocodile, emu fillet, 'roo, lemon myrtle... something, emu eggs, prawns, and lots more stuff. Even a witchity grub for an extra $9.

Although the atmosphere had 'local pub' written across it in neon letters, it was very good. We live south of the river, so it was a bit of a trek, but worth it.

Yesterday marked my Beloved's 26th completion of the circle around the sun. (At what point am I not allowed to say a woman's age? Does it count at all, since I'm a toyboy?)

Working on the car, I came home at 0026, which meant I was able to deliver her birthday present before anyone else =P

We went out for dinner (which I'll wankerously review in a separate post).

With all these layoffs, the economy, the constant money troubles, and sibling worries... Sometimes it feels like I'm an unlucky person. Sometimes the string of accidents can just seem a little too coincidental. Sometimes you really gotta step back and look at things.

And then I look at my Cass, and I remember everything about why I love her, and why I AM a really lucky guy. What more could I really need?

Thankyou, my Cass, and I love you.
Chocolates and cherry blossoms.

Microsoft have just announced the latest and greatest feature for Hotmail!
POP3!

In Two-Thousand and fucking Nine!!!

Truely, this is the future of email.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB_htqDCP-s

Tim Minchin ripping shit into a hippiechick called 'Storm'.
Amusing stuff, especially near the end.

I recently got involved in a conversation with a true believer on Facebook. A real, honest-to-God, Eve-was-made-from-a-rib and there's-no-such-thing-as-biological-science believer. I was amazed, really amazed. They don't hide from the truth, they stand up in the face of it and proudly proclaim their own ignorance, proudly scream their own ability to refuse to listen to facts. It... it hurt me, inside, to explain in simple terms how biology works, and then to have insults thrown at me and the same arguments made 5min ago recited as if nothing had been rebutted.

To Christians reading this: please don't be offended by this post. I've nothing against monotheism, or your religion in particular. I realise that the individual I'm referring to is merely a part of a very vocal minority.

Tim Minchin IS very funny, though.

So here I sit, upon a wonderfully large, soft bed, watching anime with my love, in a south-coastal town.

It's been a great week so far, just what I needed to relax and reconnect. The farm is good for that. Today we laid to rest a sheep, though. Haven't done that since leaving Esperance.

We got quite successfully lost taking the scenic way south, which was mildly amusing and gave me time to finish off anoth book. The more Arthur C. Clarke I read, the more I love. I'm diggin' hard cifi more and more these days, despite the dryness off the topic.

Gods, I love it down here. I'd forgotten how much more friendly people are outside Perth.
The house we're staying in is FANTASTIC. A green garden to walk through, big bath, electric towel-warming racks, wonderful furniture... I just love the smell of the whole place. There's even a piano for me to play (read: murder). This is good, as I'm better at extracting tunes from my head via percussive methods (take that how you will) rather than using strings or brass or wood.

We've still got a few days down here before we return to the farm and then Perth. Although i'd like to visit Albany and even Elica, both of which I haven't seen for six or seven years (how those words, in themselves, surprise and frighten me me...),we won't be able, but that's okay. Save that trip for the Esperance run, in a few years time =)

In a contradiction of everything I know about battery technology, the usage-before-needing-a-recharge on my Google phone is getting BETTER, not worse.

I used to get about 6hrs. Now I can stretch it out to about two days, if it's just idling and I'm not fidgeting with it every 5min, maybe 3 or 4 days.

Every morning I wake up and I could swear blue that it was 2006/2007 yesterday. The last two years have raced by and I'm now beginning to catch up.
I'm maried. I'm fucking married. Wow. I still can't believe that.

I'm sure that this will end up being a stunted post, instead of a long one. I need a long one, if only for the therapy value. I wonder if my lack of blogging is at all to do with my creative drive slackening in general. I haven't drawn anything for ages.
Cass, over my shoulder: "Or you could just be getting lazy, my love." Heh. That, too.

Still living in Perth, still working for Monos and loving it. Still with my wonderful wife, and we are living with her sister+defacto.

I'm now on my FOURTH Mitsubishi Galant GSR. Bought this new one in great condition, but it seemed to be overheating, so I decided to take the head off, change the timing belt, and clean all the internals since it wazs getting to the 200,000km mark. A couple of months later it's still sitting in Anton's driveway, poor sod. I've really tested his patience.

Life is bubbling along its course satisfactorily. I'm a coder in a successful company that prides itself on flexibility and getting results even on very large projects, rather than beaurocratically run and getting bogged down in red-tape.
Every so often I get to go to site, which is great, because the food is good, the beer is cheap, and it's a chance to get away from the city.

My projects have been 2years in the making, I guess... and most are nearing completion.
The Galant is nearly ready. The CarPC is ready to bolt in, and the servo-motors controlling the screen and other gadgetry have been sourced. The controlling software is written and set up. I just need a $250 touchscreen monitor, though this isn't needed for the system to function.
Although I've given up on a voice-driven audio system. The quality of microphone required is FAR out of my budget.

And in September, I'll have finished paying for it all. So, then I can get back to paying off my creditcard and loans covering the previous car crashes. It's all rather depressing, but one must keep the end in sight... and if I stick to my ludicrously detailed budget, it will be a lot sooner rather than later. And then we can buy a house... providing the government is still doing the First-Home-Buyers thing.

I love you, Cass.

But I'm only going to say this.

Nearly a year after being employed here, it still hits me, every now and then.

I'm a programmer. Like, by trade. Employed by a company. I'm being PAID to create.
I've finally made it. HFS.

How did this happen? What sane person would employ me, let alone pay me MONEY?!

I love this job.

Relieved entirely from http://www.defmacro.org/ramblings/taming-perfectionism.html

There was a time in my life when I couldn't get anything done. I was studying many different subjects at once, from theoretical Computer Science, to Zen, to principles of graphics design, when I developed a perception of deep underlying beauty of all things. Suddenly I could tell beautiful code from ugly code, a beautiful design from ugly design, and beautiful writing from ugly writing.

I could always do this to some degree, but this time the sense of beauty (or its lack) felt far stronger and more refined than ever before. It was so strong that I found myself unable to complete any serious tasks. Whenever I sat down to implement my vision (whether by coding, or writing, or designing), I'd find that what I produce inevitably falls short. The code was too crude, the writing too clumsy, and the design too ugly. No matter what I did, there would be something essential missing from my implementation, and I could never put my mind on what it was. Producing anything took forever, and ultimately I discarded it all because it just wasn't good enough.

What is worse is that not only was my work not good enough, it was also not important enough. After I'd work on something for a while, a doubt would inevitably creep in and convince me that what I'm doing is irrelevant on any reasonable scale. My work was always a flawed, irrelevant vision with a crude implementation. Why bother doing anything at all, then?

Perfectionism, which was always a friend, turned into my worst enemy.

I've heard that "perfect is the enemy of good enough" many times, but the repressed artist in me refused to accept this as truth. I was stalled in a proverbial checkmate that my mind has cunningly set up for itself and I could see no way out. And I desperately needed a way out, lest I be stuck in endless cycle of consumption samsara. I knew that real artists ship, but I refused to ship mediocre work, which meant I could never ship anything.


Eventually I lucked out. By accident (or was it an accident?) I stumbled on the fascinating Book of Tea which led me to the concept of Wabi-sabi - the Japanese art of imperfect beauty. Wabi-sabi is a set of philosophical principles that relate Buddhist concepts that can be observed in meditation to all aspects of design. For the first time it occurred to me that Dukkha (the fundamental lack of satisfaction with anything in the physical realm), Anicca (impermanence, lack of any "timeless" principle), and Anatta (lack of "self", or the idea that any object can be complete in and of itself and exist separately from the subject) apply to all things we create.

Looking at Wabi-sabi objects was a breath of fresh air. Inability to achieve any lasting perfection is not fought, but embraced via lack of symmetry, respect for blemishes, and unsanitized simplicity. Imperfection, impermanence, and incompleteness is incorporated directly into the design - a simple idea that cuts the disease of perfectionism at its core.

Everything about this article is flawed - what I intended to say has an absolutely essential piece missing, the writing is poor and doesn't express my vision well (however imperfect that vision may be), and it probably doesn't matter in the long run. But I'm publishing it for all to see.

Real artists ship.

http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/franklyn/trailer

Looks like a thriller, to me, though. Looks like it's going to be awfully awesome.
That is, awful enough to be awesome.

Whatever... I'm just looking forward to the costumes and Eva Green.

Heisted from JD

I want to know you so you know me so please copy and paste into the comments section and fill in the following.

YOU
1. name?
2. date of birth?
3. where you live?
4. what makes you happy?
5. currently listening/the last thing you listened to?
6. do you read my journal?
7. if yes, what makes it especially good or bad?
8. an interesting fact about you?
9. what do you love at the moment?
10. favourite place to spend time?
11. favourite lyric?
12. the best time of the year?

RECOMMEND
1. a film:
2. a book:
3. a band, a song, or album:

PLUS
1. one thing you like about me?
2. two things you like about yourself?
3. look at my friends-list and tell what you like about one of our mutual friends:
4. put this in your journal so that I can tell you what i like about you

http://www.mazapan.se/games/BurnTheRope.php

In otehr news:

Here's a little mushroom kingdom "cartoon physics" lesson for you. First, though, a background: The normal blocks? The ones you get "points" for breaking? Those contain people. Normal, full-grown, adult people. The SMB1 manual says so--Bowser has turned the locals into blocks. Breaking them doesn't kill the people trapped inside, or do anything else distasteful, though; it simply sets them free. The "points" are good karma for doing this. Sometimes they reward you for it as well, with money or special items. (Don't ask me about vine blocks.)

Anyway, assuming:

1. A block, therefore, is about a 4'-5' cube (you can imagine that people get curled up a bit when blocked in, but don't immediately go into the fetal position inexplicably.)
2. The world of SMB1 is to scale, as portrayed on the screen (this is the biggest assumption I'm making here, but it makes all the fun happen.)
3. Mario is the same height as one block--let's be generous and set it at 5'5".

Therefore: Super Mario is eleven feet tall (two blocks.) He also fills his sprite container width: he's five feet wide.

He can jump 27.5 feet (8.4 meters) off the ground (five times his own height.) The human jumping record, meanwhile, is held by Stefka Kostadinova at 2.09m, or 6.85 feet. That should give you a bit of perspective on what makes the guy impressive to his fellows.

Meanwhile, start thinking about the other denizens of the Mushroom kingdom. The princess is easily ten feet tall, but you can assume she's got all sorts of regalia on that are responsible for that--platform shoes, a five-foot wig, etc. Bowser is also 11 feet tall, and additionally 11 feet wide.

Goombas are five-foot-tall horrors. Koopas are dinosaur-sized. Yoshi is a beast of burden, about the side of a Clydesdale.

The axe you use to cut the rope? Four feet high, weighing in at at least 300 lbs. It's basically an anchor. Flowers are about sunflower-sized. Mushrooms are the same size as people (and thus "poisonous mushrooms" are more likely living creatures than hallucinogens.) I don't know what Mario does to them, but it's not using his mouth. I'd say the 1-Ups are large enough to be cloning pods.

If you ever wonder why Mario would die from any single fall down a "bottomless pit" when he's such a master jumper, think about this: one screen of vertical height in SMB1 is 77 feet. It's questionable that the mushroom kingdom obeys regular gravity, as Mario does not accelerate downward but instead falls at a constant rate, but it is implied by games such as Yoshi's Island and Mario 64 that a "ground pound" will let an object accelerate downward with great momentum after only a sudden, ten-foot rise. Let's assume, then, that Mario's constant falling rate is a subjective experience factor, his mind increasing in speed to match his stress as he plummets.

After falling just one screen-height in Earth gravity, Mario would be travelling at over 400m/s, faster than the fastest skydivers. Even at this speed, he manages to land solidly on the ground.

Mario 64 later requires some seemingly reactionless upwards-momentum-gain, in the form of ground-pounding, to adjust for this--strange, given that it has less gravity than its predecessor; yes, gravity in the Mushroom kingdom is actually much stronger than on Earth (but, as an odd note, it's slowly aligning to ours over time.) 400m/s was an understatement. Because of Mario's relatively large bulk--he fills doorways in huge, Gothically-inspired castles, recall--it's pointless to calculate a terminal velocity; it's well above the point where any human being would be splattered into paste on impact. His survival after seemingly normal on-screen falls is anything but guaranteed; it likely has something to do with the mushrooms.
--------------------------
Stolen from this guy.

Mom, Dad, I'm Into Steampunk.
BY Marco Kaye

- - - -

Remember when I was crawling around the attic, looking for my old Planters-peanut-man Halloween costume? I didn't donate it to the children's theater, like I told you. I salvaged the monocle, top hat, and cane, combined them with a swallowtail tuxedo, and stole away to a midnight screening of the underrated masterpiece The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Don't get me wrong; I still live in your world. In this very house even. But now I exist between two eras: an Edwardian past and a quixotic future where dirigibles can travel through space and time.

No, I won't take off my topcoat. And that's exactly my point. I understand your confusion. The nascent trend I have latched onto is difficult to define. Maybe I can explain it to you with the new mods I've been working on. No, Mom. Not like in Quadrophenia, although I appreciate those mods' fondness for tailor-made clothing. These mods.

This looks like a late-18th-century organette, correct? Look again. It hides the Dell laptop you got me when I went to college. This bronze hand crank turns it on, and I've hidden a miniature photo printer where the tune sheet is supposed to go. I even installed Linux. I've put a lot of time into this since I quit my job at Anthropologie, which is something else I wanted to tell you about. Don't get up and go to Lowe's yet. But when you're there can you get me a two-speed fan capacitor?

You'll appreciate this, Dad. Would I ever lose this cell phone? It's got a back plate of soldered brass. I created the aged patina with simple ammonia and salt. I'll replenish that soon, if you'll quit bugging me about it. Check this out. These interlocking gears are what I use to dial. They also explain why I haven't been replying to your texts recently.

Of course, I didn't need to mod Grandpa's railroad watch, but I did want to tell you that I'm borrowing it indefinitely.

If you want to label me retrofuturistic so I can fit into your compartmentalized worldview, that's fine. But look past my airplane goggles. This is my lifestyle. While many of my kind doubt there'll be a complete societal collapse in the future, a near-cataclysm is likely. In this scenario, I will be able to repair a generator, suture the wounded, and even train carrier pigeons. I'm learning valuable skills.

Don't be silly. I am not affiliated with the goths who hang out at the end of the boardwalk. Yes, rivetheads have made attempts to horn in on my culture. It's attractive to them. Since Evanescence went mainstream, they've been able to buy their clothes at Spencer's Gifts. But just because they read about our ways on Boing Boing doesn't mean they can rock a true neo-Victorian lifestyle. It takes a lot of time and a lot of welding.

How long? Why are you so locked down to the months and weeks of today? Anyway, I've known for a while that I belong to a hypertechnologized gaslight era. I've loved trains since I was 2. Remember my obsession with Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? And although I don't remember getting a good grade on that Nikola Tesla essay, I was really enthusiastic about the subject.

Don't shackle me to your outmoded ways of work. Trade and barter are more valuable to me than any coin. Besides, I'm plenty busy guest-hosting a blog called The Neon Corset. My band, Shades of Crimson, has taken off. We just booked a gig at the Rusty Rudder.

Is it too soon to invite you to a night of experimental performance and magic? My friends and I are hosting a postvaudevillian event at the VFW Hall. If you attend, I would appreciate if you called me by my new name, Alchemancer.

Don't look so crestfallen, Mom and Dad. At least I'm not into cyberpunk.

----------------------

Ripped directly from the link above without permission.
Have a fantastic NYE everyone!


And there's nothing at all wrong with cyberpunk. Cyberpunk chicks are fucking h4wt.