Excerpt from a draft chapter: The Death

The bike ride home is the penultimate revelry in the rejection of moderninity. I swerve around and fly by gawking, fat people trapped in their steel, aluminum, and glass cages of opaque existence. Their trip to their loved ones is an indeterminate, indefinite, infinite period of time plagued by anger, frustration, ignorant apathy, and a misplaced sense of entitlement, “this is my car, this is my road, this is my lane, this is my right.” These feelings are stoked by variations of rustling electronic leaves that kindle their dying fire through self-important talk radio, bad music, and even worse accompanying singing safely within the confines of their mobile, man-wrought, invincible world. Some of them will shake their heads in disgust at my animalistic, sweaty work. Some of them will shake their heads in admiration that one of us can commit to a greater personal cause and shake off the yoke seemingly forced on us by an invisible hand, and they will have their recurring New Year's resolution to do something about it once they get home. Judging by the decided dearth of fellow riders, I can only discern that this never happens. I wonder how many New Year's resolutions the same lumbering obesity has sworn to himself seeing me on separate days- the previous promise already forgotten, the new one fervently sworn with the utmost trust in its righteous intensity.

walking through the graveyard

The somnolent dead

reposed with etched markers offset

By plastic flowers faking life

While the plastic interred dare forget.

My soul mirrors

These marred markers of death

I can’t escape the verdigris

That colors my soul, coloring each breath.

An old lady appears

And asks me where her husband is,

I walk away to walk

And leave her reticent with her abyss.

Then, how cliché;

He eyes me steely black and flies

From a crumbling stoop,

Taking my mortal serenity that dies.

Great Quote

From all of us wishy-washy, touchie-feelie, creative types to all of you damn literalists (courtesy of Mr. Fish):
"I've always found the titling of abstract art counter-intuitive to the point of the medium. Labeling a non-literal piece of art with a title like "Dignity" or "Ice Cream Salamanders Sliding Over Vickie's Backside" is both intellectually and emotionally misleading. Those who demand a literal translation of abstract art are usually the same sort who wouldn't understand the depth of their own humanity or the beauty of their own girlfriend's crotches without Hallmark or the Nestle corporation."

Fairy food

disbelief

I can’t believe in the dreams
That don’t believe in me.
I can’t believe it’s what is seems
If I can’t seem to be.
I can’t feel what can’t be touched,
If it can’t touch me.

it's been awhile

2 weeks without a post. so far from the early, heady days of the blog when i was posting multiple times a day. does anybody understand PROKASTA? i think i've got it, but i'm having issues determining how much to pull for the cost pools. spent over $300k of the company's money today on licensing. next time i'll have to spend that much money on my bank account.

yep, that's a lame first post back, but start slow, then i'll take the training wheels off again.

--brio

The First Column

I’ll devour
your anachronistic arrogance

And sour
false fealty to a rotten reality.

If I could
really restrict such accrescence,

Then it’s you
who subverted your normality.

Apparently this one needs some explanation. This poem is about philosophical arrogance; I wrote it after watching the movie, "What the bleep do we know?" The movie goes on and on with a fair amount of new age babble that rubbed me the wrong way. To be fair, some of it is worthwhile, and the overall message is a good one.

happy easter

how to make charcoal

when it was dark and you couldn't see
I set myself on fire to light the way-
now that the embers are dark and chilled
why should you be surprised that
the memories are ashen
from the flame you killed.
the red that once leaped and licked
was quashed and extinguished
scattering kindling deliberately picked
allowing this dry heart to be relinquished.

Famous quotes for the unfamous

"There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there." - Indira Gandhi

"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." - Charles Darwin

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill.

Now UCITA, now you don't

Quotes from around the web:

"Further, for every job outsourced from the U.S., nine new jobs are actually created in the U.S."

By reconstructing ancient genes from long-extinct animals, scientists have for the first time demonstrated the step-by-step progression of how evolution created a new piece of molecular machinery by reusing and modifying existing parts.

EETimes is reporting that ARM Holdings have developed an asynchronous processor based on the ARM9 core. The ARM996HS is thought to be the world's first commercial clockless processor.

Why was there so much action around the Massachussets Open Document format?
Let's face it, folks: open file formats are important, but they don't make it to the front page of the
Boston Globe without another agenda pushing the story. And it's easy to
underestimate how big that agenda is and how far it goes.

It's interesting to note that Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist implicated in
scandal with Republican Tom Delay, was employed by Bill Gates' dad's
law firm "Preston Gates", a political proxy for Microsoft. Microsoft
succeeded in lobbying both Republicans and Democrats to oppose ODF.

You Have the Right to Make Fair Use of Intellectual Property. In OPG v. Diebold, Diebold, Inc., a manufacturer of electronic voting machines, had sent out copyright cease-and-desist letters to ISPs after internal documents indicating flaws in their systems were published on the Internet. EFF established the publication was a fair use. With your support, EFF can help fight to protect bloggers from frivolous or abusive threats and lawsuits.

Scientists doing climate research for the federal government say the Bush administration has made it hard for them to speak forthrightly to the public about global warming. The result, the researchers say, is a danger that Americans are not getting the full story on how the climate is changing.

This is technically a quote, since I grabbed it, but this is part of my life at work:

Remote disabling of software

UCITA's "electronic self help" and "automatic restraints" provisions give software publishers the right to surreptitiously include time bombs and backdoors in their software, exposing customers to enormous security risks.

Bug disclosures

UCITA offers protection from lawsuits to software publishers that knowingly distribute software with bugs, even if they hide the knowledge from users who suffer major damage as a result.

Sneakwrap modifications

UCITA allows publishers and on-line services to materially modify terms of an existing relationship by posting changes on their Web site, changes that are unlikely to be noticed by many users.

Freedom of information

UCITA helps make it possible for commercial entities to erect barriers against free exchange of information through libraries and academic institutions and even to put restrictions on criticism of their products.

Transfer of ownership

Common shrinkwrap license terms prohibiting all transfers of ownership in a copy would become enforceable under UCITA, undercutting basic principles of copyright law and possibly forcing companies to repurchase software they already have after corporate acquisitions, mergers, or restructuring.

Reverse engineering

UCITA could allow software publishers to unilaterally outlaw all forms of reverse engineering, even when it's done only for reasons of interoperability.

No pre-sale access to terms

Software publishers are still allowed to take the traditional "terms inside the box" approach denying customers opportunity to review terms before they buy, even in the case of online sales where providing the terms would be easy.

And now the wrap-up:

• Global economy, flat world, outsourcing is a necessary evil.
• If you personally don't believe in evolution, then good for you, stop bothering the rest of us.
• Asynch processor = awesome. Less power, less complexity, lower EMF.
  
• The intrigue of open source extends to the sordid world of politics through seedy back-room lobbyists. Who would have thunk it.
• EFF advocates that IPR does not allow carte blanche protections for the owners. The extrapolated effects can be quite far-reaching toward individual rights.
  
• UCITA, DMCA, NET... all good fun. Where was the balanced representation with the consumer at the table? The excerpts with UCITA are absolutely true: they can back-door, they can change terms at any time, and my favorite: it is illegal for you to publicly criticize a software publisher by name. hahahaha!
  

--brio, CITAM

we create our own reality

How f@*#$& are you?

Well, according to a very comprehensive study on drug/alcohol usage in the United States (conducted by the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services), we now know the following:

• 62.1% of adults use in alcohol in Wisconsin (high).
• 29.3% of adults use in alcohol in Utah (low).
• Illicit drug use in 12-17 year-olds is 10.9% in the past month.
• National average for drug use (all age groups) in the pasth month is 8%.
• Alaska is 12%.
• 15000 adolescents go to the emergency room after trying to commit suicide by drugs annually.

How did they pay for their treatment?

• Private Health Insurance - 25.9%
• Medicare - 12.1%
• Medicaid - 14.2%
• Public assistance - 15.9%
• Own Savings/Earnings - 43.9%
• Family Members - 17.8%
• Courts - 9.5%
• Military Health Care - 4.9%
• Employer - 6.2%
• Free - 7.1%

The numbers are greater than 100% because of multiple ways of paying.

Hmm, so what does this mean. >54.2% of the time, the taxpayer is footing the bill. Including the greater impact on the public, >69.9% of the time someone outside of the immediate family is paying the bill. For those of you who are rail against a socialist system... guess what, you're in one. It's merely a question of how efficient it is.

found some new artwork

artist's name is andy bell, he has an exhibit open in brooklyn until 11 APR. for more, go to http://www.creaturesinmyhead.com/.

the title of this piece, "i hope you like it since i can't return it".

Technical Hyperreality

excerpt from all apologies

I wish i was like you
Easily amused
Find my nasty salt
Everything's my fault
I'll take all the blame
Aqua seafoam shame
Sun burn with freezerburn
Choking on the ashes of her enemies

In the sun - in the sun i feel as one
In the sun - in the sun
I'm married
Buried
Married
Buried
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

All in all is all we all are

who's #1?!?

University of Florida - national men's champions in NCAA basketball.
University of Maryland - national women's champions in NCAA basketball.

My school drought in college athletics is over. One reason to not go to West Point, you can almost never celebrate winning in the semi-professional world of college sports. Solution: become an alum as a Terp and attend school (currently) to become a Gator! Haha! There is still dispute in some circles about whether I can claim the University of Texas-- I went to UT-Arlington for 15 completed credits (one class under half a degree) for an MS in EECS before dropping out. You be the judge. Hook-em horns (when they win)!

--brio

Today is a day

Long day at work today. Got in really early-- 49 voice mails awaited on my phone. New record. I think I would have had more, but somebody had put my phone on forward. Emails were in the hundreds and that was with my trusty lil' Ipaq doing its darndest to whittle down the list while I was on the road. Everything is exactly the same as I left it. A lot of effort, a lof of hurt feelings, and not a lot of progress. Ah, stability. I think the powers that be sense my discomfiture with the situation. My two bosses (one official, the other is vying to be) both were/are trying to keep me "well-fed" so to speak. One is working to continuing to expand my scope (of course, that is a double-edged sword since I have yet to hear any such discussion on commensurate salary); the other is trying to be very sensitive to my needs.

Found out a friend of mine is leaving as well. There goes one of the last of the JMO's; we're a dying breed here.

Early April Resolution - be a better person... to myself and to others. =)

--brio

on the road

the blogging has been sparse as i have been on the road. flew up wednesday (per previous post) and then picked up my brother's 98 honda civic to drive back to florida on thursday. saw some old friends that night. then, the next day, just getting on the road south of norfolk, and clank! the entire exhaust system had rusted through and fell out on the road. got towed to a place, had the whole thing replaced, then had to drive back into norfolk to buy a battery that i had to replace myself. i have now managed to make it into south carolina, but did somehow get off the small highway i was on and didn't discover i'd been going west until 30 miles later. mission for today: georgia.