Why the fuck can't I read the posts that I have created? Slashdot having a bad day? Here's the error I'm getting:

Old signature: The MIC is in charge; it doesn't matter who the meat votes in.
Wake up! It's 1984. - Oingo Boingo, 1983

New signature: Something positive, for a change.

Stupid programming tricks: the "Write in Journal" button is at the bottom of the page. There's new fancy Ajaxian code to auto-load new items when the user scrolls to the bottom of the page. So, the ability to click that button is a lot like those old annoyance applications with "click the button" which moved around the screen as the mouse got close to it.

In closing: WTF, why aren't my <p> tags working when I preview? This is wall-of-text! Oh well, the info is the important part, but presentation is also useful...

Science controls nature; religion controls humans.

Wake up! It's 1984. - Oingo Boingo, 1983

And for posterity, here's the new one:

New sig 2010-04-25 SUN: The period at the end of this sentence represents Mohammed --> .

This is a reaction to the South Park death threats.

One day science will confirm the primacy of what you might call "pure awareness" as the foundation of the material universe. For my part, it will make this feeling of "being" seem more valid. It will dispel just a little of the mystery as to why my visual experience all seems to happen simultaneously, even though there is no one point where it all comes together in space. It all comes together in time, and somehow this arrangement of neurons - or more fundamentally, beings called neutrons, positrons, electrons... - somehow it translates into the experience of seeing - and making sense of it happens only after the seeing occurs. The seeing itself is not made sense of, it is merely accepted.

My question about your idea and my idea of consciousness is, if all we are is information processors, there is no need for there to be the residue of this visual experience, but it so happens that there is. Whether or not I pay attention to the lady in the green dress across the room, she is in my field. It may be said "I do not consciously see her" but this can't be true. She is there, in my experience. Information about her is not being incorporated and analyzed into my pictorial understanding of the world -- the map I was assigned to make at some point in the past.

And so we don't really bother to see the map either, and yet like the visual field it is there nevertheless like the corkboard collage of a madman, being experienced as a mirror image of the present moment. The mirror guides the dispensation of chemicals into blood, brain, and the environment: adrenaline, serotonin, pheromones. The pupils dilate to allow in more light, and as a sign of our disposition. The body stiffens or loosens.

Person to person we end up relating map to map, mirror to mirror. This hall of mirrors is the meeting place of people and nations. We need to acknowledge this in a common space.

My mirror, gleaned from a typically strangled life, stands as my guard on the window of reality, and lends me expectations, fears, concerns. The whole notion that "I am Scott" and that "this is my life" and every other aggregate concept I hold about men and women, old and young, mad and sane, and on and on vies for attention in every moment.

But back to the imminent experience of seeing. The imminent experience of hearing. There are Zen koans intended to crack these open for us, to demonstrate the difference between experience and interpretation. Meditation sets aside the senses and leaves you resting in the thinking mind - which in me is prone to drown out the present far too often.

There is no obligation in every moment to adhere to the being of one's socially-constructed self, and for those who take to solitary pursuits like boating, hiking, and even computing, there is joy to be found in immersing oneself in the act of acting natural, accomplishing larger goals by momentary steps.

In this visual culture one may as well be obsessed with the present act of seeing. Seeing - simply observed - leads directly to the realization of whose eyes we are seeing with, and how those eyes illuminate not only the so-called external world, but the whole universe within.

When I started the RealNetworks Rhapsody software this morning, I discovered a cause for some celebration by anybody who supports DRM-free music purchases: the Rhapsody store is now offering some unrestricted MP3 downloads. At present only about 5000 albums (roughly 50000 songs) are available, but that is just an initial offer - I haven't even found an announcement anywhere - and they claim to be working to increase the number of MP3 tracks available.

The MP3s are encoded at 256kbps, and cost no more than the standard DRM-crippled music (which is also 256kbps) at 89c/song for subscribing members, or 99c/song for non-subscribers (the subscription gives the ability to listen to streamed music on demand, starting at $13/month). Prices are US dollars, and I don't know whether the service is available internationally.

The bad news: downloading the music requires running the Rhapsody player software (version 4, just released) and at present it's only available on Windows. Online streaming is available to other OSes through http://rhapsody.com/ (works in Firefox, via a plugin) but the cross-platform Real Player software cannot access the music store, and last I tried it wouldn't run in wine.

>Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue.

I fear it's more like, "Democracy is 48 sheep and 52 wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Well armed sheep contesting the issue is, 'traitorous liberal domestic terrorism.'"

Today I friended two people: ConceptJunkie for referencing Ankh-Morpork, and leonbrooks for referencing Nisodemus from Diggers.

I just finished most of his catalog and need more!

That, and the old saying "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

But I'm more interested in what they're saying; if they're bigots or technophobes/luddites or humorless, or if they're just trying out the interface and freaking by accident, or if they're just like me and spend just a couple hours a day and want to see good stuff during that short time. Although I tend toward the carrot more than the stick: I have zero foes, but many friends. And everyone who fans me becomes my friend. It may take a while as I don't check it daily, more like monthly. But when I do, I bring everyone in so I can see what they're saying. I keep my threshhold at 3, but I +1 Funny and some other stuff so if you're making a joke, chances are I'll see it.

At any rate, shouts out to my freaks and hopefully I can turn you into fans! And if not, it's all good anyway. This is the Internet! ;-)

My new sig states "Bunch of Assholes" which is a link to http://www.sco.com. The idea behind this (the post I responded to) was that Google spiders Slashdot, and ranks based on how many pages link to a certain site (PageRank), so the more people who link the phrase "Bunch of Assholes" to SCO, the quicker it'll bubble up in the search ranks and turn up when someone searches for "Bunch of Assholes."

At the time I posted it, SCO was nowhere on the first page of search results (searching with quotes or without). They still aren't, but it's only been a couple days. Won't you join me? (Post a reply if you do.)

Thanks to the 120-char limit, I had to shrink my original .sig but it still makes some sense (Homer's insights are great). Hope this new year's better for you than the last year, especially if you're in IT (I'm working and haven't been for over a year -- woohoo!).

There is a service which purports to eliminate your debt because banks are violating Federal regulations when they issue credit cards. The sales pitch states that all you have to do is write a letter asking them to clarify their compliance with these laws, and they have 90 days to answer or your debt is eliminated.

They then said most banks will write back without answering the inquiry, stating that "you signed the forms, you owe us the money" but they didn't answer the actual question, so you write another letter asking them to clarify and they have an additional 90 days.

They state that you will become debt-free in 6-10 months, and that they've helped 20,000 people do this in the past 5 years. The cost is $2,995 for $40k of debt, and $995 for each $30k of debt above that (so to eliminate $130k of debt, it would cost $995 x 3 + $2995 = $5,980).

This is not a small amount of money, and although they have a money-back guarantee (which they said nobody has ever taken them up on, i.e. they have 100% satisfied customers), I am very skeptical and would like to know if anyone has heard of this, used it, or knows definitely that it's a scam.

They have a few websites with more information: a sparsely-detailed site, a site with more details and links, and a link to the parent company.

I am seriously considering bankruptcy (as I'm sure many of us are after the dot-com crash), and if this "too-good-to-be-true" process actually works then it'll save my credit from being torn to shreds. (They'll also help you fix your credit when you're done.)

Fox put this great show in a terrible spot and pre-empted it with the end of football games. Any wonder it's going away? The article is here and the fan club page is here.

Subject: Humor: "KILLKILLKILL -- The SCO Group"

The Scoop: I was reading news at Excite and saw this article in relation to SCOX: "KILLKILLKILL -- The SCO Group".

The article is actually a note for PRNewswire to disregard the earlier article about SCO's acquisition of Vultus Technology, but the headline gave me a good chuckle.

Dude, I'm getting a cell!

The "Dell Dude" was caught with a misdemeanor's amount of marijuana on him.

In related news, Hank Azaria (as Apu) said "420!" last night on "Inside the Actor's Studio" with the Simpsons.