Happiness is a Hangover

The company christmas party was last night. Suffice it to say that the events of that night, the names of the people involved, the performances we allegedly witnessed, and the location where we may have held it are all deep-cover classified, Code Level Tangerine. However, let me assure both of my readers that I can probably divulge this information in person, as long as you submit to thirteen hours of debriefing in a closed decompression chamber while trained operatives remove the relevant areas of your brain stem with a grapefruit spoon.

In any case, the anguish within my soul, the harrowing search for Advil at 4 am, the cottonmouth, these are all well-documented, the lingering traces of a vaguely-remembered good time that was allegedly had by all.

In other news, the threatened strike of subway workers resulting in the complete shutdown of metropolitan NY has been postponed. If you have been following this issue in your local newspapers (who am I kidding), you will know that originally, the strike was scheduled to start at midnight last night, forcing 10 million New Yorkers to find alternate ways to get to work. Instead, there has been a temporary ceasefire, and union authorities now say they will slowly shut down all service beginning tonight and lock down all train lines until Tuesday. According to Alicia, this is "sneaky but brilliant," shutting down the entire city on the last big shopping weekend before Christmas. According to me, the fucking MTA can die, die, die.

In the meantime, please enjoy these complimentary links.

The Zen of Iraq - fafblog! Zen! mock bush!
musicmap - I haven't fully explored the possibilities here, but I like what I'm seeing. Like six degrees of separation in the music world with a killer interface.
Cute Overload - just what it says.

just a quick thought before bed

record labels have an interesting way of pitching their DRM schemes: they act as though what they're doing is natural, that protection of music through copyright is a service to the universe. in reality, it is the record labels that are usurpers in this environment, because music was always shared, through all cultures. the boundary between musician and fan was less mediated by agents and PR and merch. these things--representation--cropped up with the same frequency as lawyers, accountants, and other pencil-pushers. shelved in neat Modern architecture, they pursued a regimen of ownership. but their dominance was always only partial; bootleg recorders, mixtape artists, and legions of fans proved them wrong. Endlessly strumming "Stairway to Heaven," they weren't "Stealing" the music, any more than the Grinch could actually steal Christmas. and for the same reason, the labels can't ruin it for us today; collaboration and innovation is stronger than their lawyering and book-learning. sharing is actually the future happening now. interesting thoughts on this subject here (click the link "Eight Ideas that will revolutionize the century.")

it;s my city

Just look at the titles of these books. I would like to own the whole set, but that would probably require a lifetime of Indiana-Jones-like achievements--if not George-Soros-like ones. Good thing they're available to check out at the NY Research Library. Now I just have to apply for a special research library card.

by Charles Bucke (1781-1846):


• Ruins of ancient cities: With general and particular accounts of their rise, fall, and present condition
  
  
• On the life, writings, and genius of Akenside: With some account of his friends
  
  
• On the beauties, harmonies, and sublimities of nature: With occasional remarks on the laws, customs, manners, and opinions of various nations : in four volumes
  
  
• The Italians;: Or the fatal accusation; a tragedy. With a preface; containing the correspondence of the author with the committee of Drury Land Theatre, P. Moore, and Mr. Kean
  
  
• Amusements in retirement, or, The influence of science, literature, and the liberal arts, on the manners and happiness of private life

I was thinking about this last night: the number one need in the virtual marketplace at this point is a fail-safe method of identity protection and verification. A company that can provide the user with an electronic ID verification system, failsafe and redundant, will control the marketplace, much as PayPal does, through providing an intuitive and reliable system.

Surprisingly, the federal government seems to agree with me: they have required that banks develop "two-factor" security systems by Q4 2006. The system banks use now is one-factor: to access your account, simply enter your self-created password or PIN. Two-factor requires independent verification through a redundant system. The most reliable ideas are biometrics and constantly refreshing passwords like those provided by a VPN SecureID. Of the two, I think biometrics should eventually become the verification of choice, but obviously we're a ways out from seeing that happen--technology like fingerprint readers or retina scanners would have to become standard equipment on any computer used to access a bank account. Nevertheless I suppose even this method could be hacked.

"We're seeing a bit of an arms race to upgrade networks."

Max Weise on the coming 4G maelstrom

Selections from the New Yorker this week

the recombinant city. noncoded DNA, reservoirs of language tissue, left turned on or off like lightswitches in corridors of genes.

a game plan. a unifed vision of the future as represented by liberal ideals. a 'contract with america' of sorts.

a deprivatory chamber, hypoxico, which creates walking-in-the-clouds syndrome, the feeling of light-headedness usually reserved for the lofty.

Peter Viereck, the founder of modern conservatism (piece not available online), a man who felt that its strength lay in being almost identical to American liberalism.

unexpressed desires, the secret code lay within, unexpectedly laid bare: it was there all along. the hidden potential of reality to recreate itself. the motions of growth, a leaf from a tree, ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.

it's difficult to concentrate on one project sometimes

So...just ignore anything you may see before this entry. It's all over two years old at this point. You can look at my Livejournal if you want to see anything I've written since then. Until now. Up to a few months ago, LJ was my home, but since then I've ventured outside that enclave, seen a lot of new stuff like real RSS and Atom and Ajax and APIs. Stuff I never thought about before. Now I try to read Slashdot and kottke and I furrow my brow and I look like a big sweetie. I don't really know what's being discussed a lot of the time--I'm a stranger in a strange land. But I find that it's really not enough just to be into books and fantasy and film and adventure. There are plenty of other factors to take into consideration, like true love and friends and science, discernment, sexual experiementation, bifurcation and more. Part of that is my experience with psychedelics, and the city, and life. But more importantly, this growth is a part of me, innate characteristics expressed, a few lines of the program designed to innovate, explore, and discover something new and unexpected, a vibrant juxtaposition, a creature of joy and actual transcendence. So part of that is this transformation into the Other, a digital transformation. To Be Continued.