14
JUL

The peppermint propaganda you sit and read on your beach house porch on some lonely ocean moon watching the past drift in and out like the tide of your miserable lonely forgotten life. The sun reflecting off thousands of diamonds buried beneath the hot sand that rarely breathes moist air despite its taunting proximity to the ocean. Your mind wanders and you think of the battles you’ve won with ships, with words.  As you contemplate the medals you’ve earned and the worlds you’ve burnt, I drift through space in this coffin on another irrelevant run to sell tobacco to a bunch of tall gray men, delivering leaves to these old unforgiving trees just to watch them burn up. I feel like a patriot walking sinners to the gallows back on earth.  What, leaves, have you done to deserve such a harsh end to life?  Did you always know this would be your fate?  Did you live life with the knowledge of how it would end, not where, not when, but how? At least your ashes will be spread among the stars you reached for for so much of your life, reached for with the humility of a bow, reached for a possibility that was never really possible, without hope, but with peace.


Red Lights.


Red lights are never good.

I don’t understand what red did

To be branded bad, green good.


Stop blinking.


This contrast is too much, my eyes

can’t adjust to the in and out

over and over


The controls.


What’s wrong?

Who gave you that black

eye of broken glass

shards filling the cabin

like fairy dust helping me fly

towards you ever so slowly,

carefully.  Another lost boy drifting

homeless if home is a location–

a destination.


That hiss.


Air must be leaking.

The slow sound of death

as life runs like rats

hopelessly jumping ship.


Hurry.


Hurry hurry hurry

hurry hurry hurry

the fingers disobey.

A rebellion of the body

as it awakens in time

to witness the end.

Birth and death hand in hand,

lovers sharing a final embrace.


Oh bright stars!

Oh guiding light!

Come close, comfort me.

Envelop me in your

warmth one last time.


The ship

is dissolving

into darkness

but you

haven’t

abandoned

me.


I’ve reached

and


finally


have


touched.


Automated Mental Impression (AMI) for unknown being recovered 5 Dec. 326 G.E.

Posted by Kevin @ 17:59 on July 14, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized;
26
APR

This post has been a long time coming, and in light of recent events I feel the need now more than ever to write it. I don’t intend to be the most comprehensive or elegant critic to make the following points, but hopefully it will go a little ways towards raising awareness.

The Latest Tradeoff

Facebook recently announced a series of new initiatives, the largest of which they refer to as the Facebook Open Graph. In a nutshell what this means for users is websites are now able to provide specific information to Facebook about themselves (and about you). If you log into a site, such as Pandora, using your Facebook profile, it will start broadcasting your likes, dislikes, and listens back to Facebook. Facebook then has the ability to share this information with your friends, advertisers, or the general public. ReadWriteWeb has a more in depth explanation of the details of this announcement from the perspective of a user.

The implications of this announcement are tremendous. Previously Facebook sought to be the owner and manager of personal data that you entered into its system (and it has succeeded extremely well so far). With this new initiative, it seeks to track and own not just your personal information, but also your activity across the web.
(Continue reading…)

Posted by Kevin @ 13:50 on April 26, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized,rant,software; Tags: , ,
26
MAY

I’m currently in Europe for the next month so posts will most likely be absent. Expect stories/thoughts/etc when I return towards the end of June.

Posted by Kevin @ 6:12 on May 26, 2009
Categories: Uncategorized;
01
APR

from http://www.yesbutnobutyes.com/3403409600_f51b9f3eb7.jpg.jpg found by Double M

Posted by Kevin @ 8:36 on April 1, 2009
Categories: Uncategorized; Tags: , ,
23
APR

I don’t really have anything specific to write about today but there are a lot of questions floating around in my head that I would like to get down somewhere.

1. What is reputation, why does it matter, and how much should we care about it?
2. In regards to #1, what is privacy and how does it affect our lives. Where does it’s importance lie and how should it be protected? (I’m probably not going to even attempt to speculate on this one. At least not without doing some research first.)
3. At what point does it become necessary to know everything about something you are doing? For example, when doing something, is it necessary to know the history and motivation behind every action? This question was raised by a recent short discussion about religion, but I think it applies in a more general sense.

I guess I’ll start on #1 and see where things go from there. I used to be incredibly over-concerned with what other people thought about me. Then I went through a phase where I basically said “Fuck you, world” and didn’t care at all (at least that was my ideal). Now I find myself somewhere in the middle of those two extremes. A large reason for this reversion to the middle has been exposure to professional environments. I have always known that it is important to be well liked and respected professionally in order to really go places in a corporate world. However it is only somewhat recently that I have given in and decided to play the “game.”

I am of the opinion that reputation is important since we are social creatures. We’re stuck together and are going to form opinions about one another, so why would you not want that opinion to be a good one?

Networking is still something that I have issues with. It still seems incredibly self-centered and fake to be making “friends” only with the hope that they can somehow help you get promoted or make more money or something similar. I understand that this isn’t necessarily the only reason to meet and befriend professional contacts, but I think it is the driving one in many cases. I find it incredibly difficult to make small talk with somebody simply because doing so might let them know I exist. Now this is completely different from just being friendly. I’m talking about the following type of thought: “That guy is the vice president of . I should go talk to him because he would be a good person to know professionally and might help me out in the future.”

I have no problem with wanting to be successful. I’m just saying I feel dirty whenever I try to do something like the above scenario.

On a purely personal level, I think the line is actually harder to draw. At one extreme we have the person with no regard for others’ opinions of her. At the other we have the person who’s every action is dictated by what others might make of it. I’m still somewhat inclined to side more with the first person’s perspective. I have yet to hear really good arguments for why I should care what any random person thinks about me. Of course there is the idea that I want people to like me so that I can have friends and people to talk to or hang out with (going back to the whole social creatures thing). How far can you extend this? Also, when does not caring (or at least acting like you don’t care) become another way of enticing people to think more highly of you?

So from what I’ve said so far, it seems to me like personal reputation is itself a purely selfish thing. On a purely individual level, I don’t know if there is anything that isn’t selfish about it. Not that this is necessarily bad. However anytime you become a member of a group or organization then your reputation adds to the collective reputation of the group and any actions damaging to your reputation are also damaging to the group. In this case there is a level of unselfishness and responsibility involved.

I think I am actually more confused at the end of this post than when I started. I attribute some of this to lack of sleep. Anyway I will maybe be able to address the other questions above in later posts. I just needed to get them down as to not forget.

The things you said, I’m rehearsing them
Posted by Kevin @ 22:23 on April 23, 2007
Categories: Uncategorized,rant; Tags: ,
21
APR

There is no ending to the title sentence except this sentence. This post is not about the issue or the question or becoming of things. The original intenture of the language application that follows (for what do we do but apply language?) was to convey a thought of the fleeting kind that I wished to record before it learned there was a large an interesting world out there and flew away. Now, if we were to deviate from that in a hopeless attempt to… Ah, sorry why would all of this matter to you? Instead of telling you what teh post is not about or the complications regarding it, but instead get to the content of the original post itself.

What follows is an account of sorts. I say of sorts because it is not the type of account you might be used to. This account is of a young man. What is extraordinary about this young man’s account? Well the fact that instead of typing I am analyzing every sentence, consciously or subconsciously for possible interpretations that could lead to some sort of idea about me as a person. The fact that I told you exactly that I’m doing that tells quite a bit itself in a step the other way. I told my self I wasn’t going to the fuck care at all below. However it’s not something easily stopped or remedied. But once again I digress. Back to the man’s account.

Well this young man woke up one morning on a typical day in the place where he typically woke up. Nothing was out of the ordinary is what I am trying to stress. But what exactly ordinary is is probably defined differently wherever you are. I wonder if it’s sort of the simple statistical average or linear regression or something. The norm so to speak. It is becomming hard to type, I must take my leave for now. ‘Till we meet again. (Now I search for kickass song lyrics… or just copy what I hear right now)

Grass will never grow near this town again
Posted by Kevin @ 0:23 on April 21, 2007
Categories: Uncategorized; Tags: , ,
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