Ramblings of a Technology Addict

Wednesday, June 4, 2003

For Krempasky

Which Firearm are you?
brought to you byStan Ryker

10:45:40 PM  comment []

Those Planes you hear...

Attention DC residents: Air Defense Drill tonight. That means those F-16s you hear screaming over town are conducting an exercise and no more. Fear not.
4:25:27 PM  comment []

Disappointment

When I awoke this morning, and read about Sammy Sosa corking his bat, I was disappointed. I was hurt. And I know that's not what Sammy meant to do, he was in a slump. You know the slump, when you go day after day after day without any success at work, or at home, or in the things you love. That feeling is dark-night-of-the-soul kind of stuff. The stuff that Preacher writes about every once in a while. It's somthing I think we all have dealt with in our lives.
However, Sammy seems to have done the wrong thing here. He cheated. He picked up a corked bat, and he went to the plate. Don't tell me he did it by accident, you can feel the ounce and a half difference in weight. Don't tell me why, just apologize, be forthright and we can get it on with our lives.
There will be those who condemn you for the steroids, and now some who do it for the corked bat. You've put a tarnish on your career. But you're still a damn fine player, and a good human being. I loved watching you and Mac punch it out in the summer of 1998. I loved that fall when you guys fought it out to be the home run king. There were several of us in Dr. Katz's PoliSci class that would be waiting on baited breath as we walked into class. "Did you hear? Sammy had another one!" or "Mac's picking up the pace!" That was a time in my life where I loved baseball more than anything else, and I loved you and Mac for making me care again.
So for that much, I will always have you to thank. Be the real deal, admit you were wrong and serve your suspension. Do any less and you'll damage the game further.
3:50:36 PM  comment []

Complexity and Webs

Riding on the Metro this morning, reading Neal Stephenson and listening to my iPod, I took a moment and looked up around me. I saw maybe 80 others folks confined to the same small train car. We were mostly staring off into space, dozing, reading, listening to music, or somehow otherwise occupying our minds. There was no dialogue in this car. It's not that we didn't like each other, or had some sort of vendetta plans in effect. It's that we didn't know one another.
Glancing from face to face, I saw 80 other normal people, riding to work, going about their lives. I felt suddenly small. They all had lives and families and friends, webs in which they place themselves, like creeping spiders. But, it's more than just their web. Their web, of which they are they center, is connected to the webs of the friends and family at intersecting axes. All of these people, like electons in an atom, connected on different energy states with various other people to make some deeply complicated chemical reaction. So much of our lives is spent in search of these common bonds, both the strong ones and the weak ones.
Now, we're adding a whole new layer to this with the technology behind blogging and people can reach much farther for their bonds. Suddenly blog-pals in California aren't so hard to make from Washington, DC, nor are friends in Australia and beyond. And while our reach is growing, we are still but one in several billion, getting smaller every day.
And that's when I got afraid.
1:06:16 PM  comment []