Category Archives: fun links

fabulous spam signature

[From a friend at lab]
Subject: Moralistic bleetings of a SPAM agency…

In the disclaimer section of some spam I just received:

>>>>
We are dedicated to saving the global economy by helping small companies
with cost effective advertising. If you attempt to stop bulk email, you
are damaging the economy and threatening our children’s future.
<<<

those damn crush sites

I always thought it was a bit odd that people sent me crush notes to the address that i use for my websites. I mean, anyone who has a crush on me probably knows me well enough to know one of my “real” email addresses, right? Well, truth be told, it appears as though there’s a bit of harvesting going on by those silly crush companies… I guess my procmailing those to the spam folder was a bit more accurate than i first believed!

eating

People always give me shit about the fact that i can’t get much food into my body and otherwise get annoyed by the process of eating. Well, studies might show that i’m bound to live longer! Of course, those studies probably don’t account for the large quantity of junk food intake, the sedentary computer-bound lifestyle, carpal tunnel, a broken neck and a few other maladies that make me Darwin’s nightmare..

eminem

So, out of curiousity to hear what the rapper produced, i bought the new album. I had bought the last one after all the controversy erupted, in order to form an opinion. Listening to it was painful. Not only wasn’t it my style, but the lewd language often made me cringe and the hate that bubbled inside just make me depressed. So, i did my once through listening, read the lyrics and that was enough. Even in that one listening, i realized that the man was quite brilliant and talented. He was filled with hatred but he was also so aware of the violence, hatred and oppression around him. That made it interesting.

The new album is even more fascinating in that way. It’s calmed down, even if he pretends otherwise. He’s still cranky and angry, but he’s actually articulating some very sound thoughts recognizing his audience and arguing with them in his lyrics. It’s still harsh, but it’s much more coherent and he definitely has an argument to make. And one of the harshest songs is unbelievably catchy (video).

trade yous Safeway card!

I’ve always humored myself by putting fake names on my Safeway card, or at least names that humor me. Or, i use the names and addresses of people who annoy me so that they have to process all of my junk food habits. But, i really like this idea that appeared on Politech this morning: trade those cards. Every once in a while, trade with a friend or acquaintance and pass it on. Thus, the databases get entirely destroyed because they don’t even track one person, real or otherwise…

managing sources

It’s not surprising that everyone loves Google, as it continues to be the topic of so much controversy. And personally, i love the controversy as it reflects so much on people. Yesterday, i brought up that people were starting to think about its impact on privacy. Tonite, i ran into an article questioning whether or not Google was ruining students abilities to think. Of course, i read this article as i was taking a food break from websurfing for sources for my thesis.

I’ve got into the most hysterical of habits. I’m sitting in my room, surrounded by the 92 books that i deemed “thesis related” and did not move to my mother’s in preparation of my upcoming move. Yet, academics and other writers are *terrible* indexers. Thus, as an example, i just picked up one of Lacan’s books and Googled for the concept/term that i knew he said at some point in the 296 page book. Much to my dismay, i learned a long time ago that magically waving my hands at a book and screaming “grep” will not result in figuring out what page a quote is on. Thus, i Google. Google gives me a page number from someone’s paper and i look it up in the text. Voila, i’ve got my source and can read the full context of what it was that i wanted.

Google has definitely made me lazy, although i’m not sure how much. I’m a terrible note taker. In fact, i can’t read my own handwriting so unless it made it to the computer, i can’t read it. Thus, my books are all underlined but i can’t read the notes along the side, so i’ve stopped writing more than one word there. Regardless, sticky notes do not ease my problems in finding an idea from a book that i’ve read. But writing notes onto the computer has many other problems. So, i’ve given up on note taking for the most part. I read, voraciously, and never remember the source for something i’ve read. Thus, when i invariably need the source for something, i rely on Google. Some student, somewhere has referenced the idea in one of their papers. Thus, i find out what they are quoting and go back to the original source to reconsider that section of the text. (Of course i am also fundamentally aware that you cannot ever trust someone else’s source. And given my aversion to the library and my love of half.com, this recognition resulted in my need to move 16 boxes of books home last weekend. But still…)

Google may have made unmotivated schoolchildren unbelievably lazy, but it has also helped us lazy academics focus on the ideas and have our notetaking eased into oblivion.