Things that happened over the past week:

We finally finished the 06 Lebowskifest West job, which has dragged on for two weeks.
A very close friend is moving closer geographically, after many years far away.
I had a really good dinner with my mom and brother and sister in law and stepdad.
I made a rather excellent beat, after sorting through snare sounds for an hour.
I made a harrowing driving move out of a videogame- (thank you systema for the improved reflexes!)- and swore off texting and driving.
I got an $800 1 month LG&E bill at the shop, hence all those posts about oil depletion.
I imposed a book buying moratorium.



This is the pile of unread books. I'm going to get to the bottom before I buy any more. Unless of course something interesting comes out.

unedited text of an aim conversation with Emily:
[12:31] jsquaredathome: omfg
[12:31] jsquaredathome: they're all characters out of a chuck novel
[12:31] erittermle: huh/
[12:31] erittermle: haha... your head still spinnin with demonic supermodels huh?
[12:32] jsquaredathome: naw
[12:32] jsquaredathome: grouphug.us
[12:32] jsquaredathome: confession site
[12:32] erittermle: oh... haha.. yes
[12:32] erittermle: I saw that this morning.. interesting phenomena
[12:32] jsquaredathome: it's RAW... it's WRONG
[12:32] erittermle: only thing it's missing is the connectivity of identity..
[12:33] erittermle: I wanted to know who was repeat visiting
[12:33] erittermle: a couple of them could be connected as far as their writing goes...but it's too random to pin down
[12:33] jsquaredathome: i just thought... all the characters anyone could ever need
[12:34] erittermle: better than charecter.. conflict
[12:34] erittermle: eveyone needs conflict!!!
[12:34] jsquaredathome: totally
[12:34] jsquaredathome: well have fun
[12:35] erittermle: in referring to the middle class: "this class set in motion the systematic invasion of private life by survelliance, observation, evaluation and remidation"
[12:36] erittermle: seems like this site if further proof of the bourgeouise internet
[12:36] erittermle: haha.. sorry... tying in homework
[12:38] erittermle: hey.. you know who stanley fish is?
[12:48] jsquaredathome: alas no
[12:48] jsquaredathome: but I would buy the whole systematic invasion
[12:48] jsquaredathome: reality shows, funniest home videos- those are to make us comfortable with universal surveillance
[12:49] jsquaredathome: and we, like chuck's trapped authors, try to make it all about us
[12:49] erittermle: thats Nancy Armstrong... but Fish is the keynote speaker for the Lit conferance at UofL on thursday
[12:49] erittermle: awwww yess... astute!!
[12:49] jsquaredathome: check david brin's _the transparent society_
[12:49] erittermle: oooh.. I didnt' think about that in Haunted at all
[12:49] erittermle: I was so "caught" up
[12:50] erittermle: who is brin? I'm doing "superstars of philosophy" today
[12:50] jsquaredathome: the government is going to have universal surveillance technology to an increasing degree, forever. the only way to keep it from becoming a 1984 is to let the people watch as well, watching the watchmen
[12:50] jsquaredathome: so we all watch
[12:51] jsquaredathome: we can all see what's going on at the police station, and they can see the hallways of our apartment complexes
[12:51] jsquaredathome: david brin is a stanford(?) phd engineer, wrote sf, + some theory
[12:51] erittermle: false comfort... but enough to displace our fears..
[12:51] jsquaredathome: exactly
[12:52] jsquaredathome: we make it into our own importance, since we can't stand it to be our oppression
[12:52] jsquaredathome: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0738201448/sr=8-1/qid=1140371524/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-6929363-1832152?%5Fencoding=UTF8
[12:52] jsquaredathome: he was on to it BEFORE 9-11
[12:52] erittermle: the metanarrative is no different than the contrived narrative of the reality show... chopped and screwed into a dynamic of heros and villains.. to suit us
[12:53] jsquaredathome: actually my origin for the infestation of superheroines/divas is- what happens when we can buy either a drug or a genetic makeover than makes us into a copy of someone famous- an elaborate means of identity-suicide
[12:54] jsquaredathome: leaving behind someone with no redeeming qualities but beauty and confidence- something that many would suffer ego-death to posess
[12:54] jsquaredathome: an army of clones, each thinking they are the real one, the others are all fake...
[12:55] erittermle: but where does class fit into this? Are the elites less surveilled and more immitatable?
[12:55] erittermle: are the poor more surveilled and less immitatable?
[12:55] jsquaredathome: money is always going to be power
[12:55] jsquaredathome: power is always going to watch
[12:55] jsquaredathome: the antidote is for the powerless to watch the powerful... without worship
[12:56] jsquaredathome: everyone grovels at donald trump's boots
[12:56] jsquaredathome: but not if they find out he likes being whipped or some crazy shit
[12:56] erittermle: Boudieu would say that's the aspirations of the poor to rise up in society
[12:56] jsquaredathome: exactly... but since most can't, all they have is fantasy
[12:57] erittermle: but if the poor do not worship the rich... they won't aspire out of poverty...therefore they are constantly in a state of hegemony
[12:57] erittermle: I don't know if I used "hegemony" right there.. I'm still figuring out this concept
[12:57] jsquaredathome: hegemony is being ruled
[12:58] jsquaredathome: like britain and india, the whole society had an overclass
[12:58] erittermle: hmmm.. ok... I'm getting close to it then..
[12:59] erittermle: I'm half-way through my chapter on "historiscm" in my theory class...
[12:59] erittermle: it's cool shit..
[12:59] jsquaredathome: when you and I work within the system to carve out a small life for ourselves- ie, heat, electric, aol... we unwittingly submit
[13:00] erittermle: haha.. I like how you threw AOL in there... but the poor have limited internet access...
[13:00] jsquaredathome: anarchist theorists would have us question the validity of the system we work through to provide us with resources- is the exploitation of our labor worth what we recieve in return?
[13:00] jsquaredathome: I say yes- but I also designed my own subsystem
[13:00] erittermle: not with Aol anyways.. haha
[13:00] jsquaredathome: exactly
[13:00] jsquaredathome: the poor are too caught in the struggle for survival to climb to the next rung
[13:01] jsquaredathome: when he gets closer, daver wrecks his car
[13:01] jsquaredathome: or the heating bill doubles
[13:01] erittermle: I guess what I'm wondering.. is if the poor aren't much less controlled by a power structure than the middleclass due to thier lack of surveillable resources?
[13:01] jsquaredathome: that's their way out
[13:02] erittermle: but to no end.. right? since becoming middle class opens you up to this new and improved hegemony
[13:02] jsquaredathome: the french revolution, the hippy subeconomy, deadheads, gutterpunks, solar fanatics off the grids
[13:02] jsquaredathome: the main economy has uses for unskilled labor, so we are allowed enough freedom to fail at schooling, then no mercy in the mainstream job market
[13:03] erittermle: awww... I see, by reveling in poverty.. you do not worship the rich
[13:03] jsquaredathome: that's the gutter thing
[13:03] jsquaredathome: anarcho freak rejectionism
[13:03] erittermle: yeah... sevi was like that... It does work.. it's hard.. but it works
[13:03] jsquaredathome: but society is perfectly happy to let you do that... eventually the artwork they produce is commoditized
[13:03] erittermle: better if you are on some mind altering drug..
[13:03] jsquaredathome: their rebellion gives way to child rearing
[13:04] jsquaredathome: they are co-opted by necessity
[13:04] erittermle: or Lithium.. or something that feeds into the market
[13:04] jsquaredathome: exactly
[13:05] erittermle: aww.. well, I guess I should be happy I'm above Jane Austen in this respect.. that I understand both sides of the spectrum
[13:05] jsquaredathome: so I view memetech as an experiment in creating a capitalist structure that doesn't screw the workers, sets it's own agenda. it's still whoring out, but we negotiate our own terms.
[13:05] jsquaredathome: ya... Jane could only look up? or down...
[13:05] erittermle: Jane was consumed with the bourgiouse... I like to think of Memetech as an agraian model
[13:06] jsquaredathome: sharing the land?
[13:06] erittermle: seasonal and tied to the weather
[13:06] jsquaredathome: kibbutz?
[13:06] jsquaredathome: lol
[13:06] erittermle: yeah.. that too
[13:06] erittermle: we are shirt farmers...
[13:06] jsquaredathome: someday, technology will reach a point where the rejectionist will be able to subsist at a level equal or near that of the bourgoise
[13:07] erittermle: so... tech spreads out and evens out.. to become like TV?
[13:07] jsquaredathome: I in my solar powered camper, living off the land, will be able to educate my children, generate electricity and knowledge, while relating to society only through the net and ups
[13:07] erittermle: eh.. I think technology is instrinsically classist...
[13:08] erittermle: there will always be *better* solar powered campers
[13:08] jsquaredathome: that's not the nature of it, that's just design
[13:08] erittermle: with more doo-idgits.. that cost more that do more
[13:08] jsquaredathome: once upon a time, sewing machines had huge rubber belts that caught limbs and tore them off
[13:08] erittermle: although.. here I am.. in my dial up land... talking to you in your broadband land... right?
[13:08] jsquaredathome: oooo
[13:09] jsquaredathome: but when you can download the blueprint for your machine to build a satelite dish- we become equal
[13:09] jsquaredathome: all you need is the one fab machine, and you have a corucopia
[13:09] jsquaredathome: cornucopia
[13:10] erittermle: hmmm.. but will I have the means to actually do that? and to what gain? for instance with the sewing machine, our most advanced models today are playthings for middleclass hobbiests..
[13:10] erittermle: no one is out there making clothes to work in ... or sewing dishrags
[13:11] jsquaredathome: because it's easier to buy it.
[13:11] jsquaredathome: what if it's easier to make it?
[13:11] jsquaredathome: ie, download something, press print, put it on.
[13:11] erittermle: so... if my dialup becomes SO easy that poor people can use it.. then it's universal?
[13:12] jsquaredathome: ya
[13:12] jsquaredathome: so cheap that it's almost free
[13:12] erittermle: but it isnt... because the same resources, aka the "information" that I get in dial up land is MUCH slower than you...
[13:12] jsquaredathome: only until you fab a dish
[13:12] erittermle: so... the hunt is slowed down..
[13:12] erittermle: ahahah.
[13:12] jsquaredathome: it's bootstrappable
[13:13] jsquaredathome: it's the only answer to having people like me (technical, agressive) become an aristocracy
[13:13] erittermle: and the poor will WANT to pull themselves up by thier bootstraps and build a dish... because they aspire to be more
[13:13] jsquaredathome: and we get back to the cult of the rich
[13:14] jsquaredathome: the only way to cure it is to make everyone rich
[13:14] erittermle: haha..
[13:14] erittermle: or communist!
[13:14] jsquaredathome: then we get to the biggest problem
[13:14] jsquaredathome: communism sucks.
[13:14] erittermle: yeah.. too bad..
[13:14] jsquaredathome: communism divides everything until everyone is equally poor, and screwed by the dividers
[13:15] jsquaredathome: postcapitalism will be a land of plenty based on molecular manufacturing... because it's the only way to keep the poor from revolting
[13:15] jsquaredathome: you give everyone enough to live off of, and then they stop bothering you
[13:15] jsquaredathome: the problem with the 'post-need' economy is: what does everyone do?
[13:15] erittermle: OOOH NANOTECH!
[13:15] erittermle: ahha.. I'm having an acid flashback for some reason
[13:16] erittermle: Oh Uncle JJ.. tell us about Nanotech!!
[13:16] erittermle: I tend to think no one will ever be satisfied
[13:16] jsquaredathome: exactly
[13:16] erittermle: Eliot has this issue at the homesless shelter all the time
[13:17] erittermle: the bums argue back and forth trying to kill each other over bullshit.. like having to sleep on a cot instead of a bed
[13:17] jsquaredathome: then we need famous humans and their exceptional stories to entertain us even more
[13:17] jsquaredathome: as to nanotech - it's mostly bullshit at the moment- as we think of the godlike build-anything machine
[13:17] erittermle: so we MUST aspire to something... there have to be humans who are Better than us...
[13:18] jsquaredathome: or a fashion system of people altering their nature or exploring... something to be Next
[13:19] erittermle: hmmm... the next...
[13:19] jsquaredathome: but anyway nanotech in terms of materials science, biotech and geneering basically boil down to, "Things Keep On Getting Better"
[13:19] erittermle: thats one to think about
[13:19] erittermle: religion
[13:19] jsquaredathome: see... this is what our parents figured out
[13:19] jsquaredathome: we don't have to solve everything
[13:19] erittermle: its not appearence...its religion
[13:20] erittermle: thats the only thing our world is lacking
[13:20] jsquaredathome: we just have to hold it together and the universities, the artists, the logistics people- they will make things better
[13:20] erittermle: untill the prophet arrives
[13:20] erittermle: ahhaa
[13:20] jsquaredathome: our religions tell us we get to work now and then we go to heaven
[13:21] jsquaredathome: but with a little twist in the translation, maybe what we're trying to do is turn our imperfect earth into a heaven
[13:21] jsquaredathome: maybe that's the commandment
[13:21] erittermle: oooh.. maybe we find out... that there IS no heaven
[13:21] erittermle: like: for real.. through our advancing technology
[13:21] jsquaredathome: what if we could build one?
[13:22] erittermle: it wouldnt be "ideal"
[13:22] erittermle: unless it was a "holo-heaven"
[13:22] erittermle: I think that's already a movie though.. *snicker
[13:22] jsquaredathome: what if the spirit realm is an analogy for our transcribed minds living on in a virtual (spiritual) realm?
[13:22] jsquaredathome: see... I think it will happen during our lifetimes.
[13:22] erittermle: Maybe... when we are ooooollld
[13:23] jsquaredathome: either we will nuke ourselves out of the game, or we will progress to the point that we are functionally immortal
[13:23] jsquaredathome: if old is like 60, yes
[13:23] erittermle: that sucks.. we gonna be on our deathbeds.. and not even have heaven to look forward too.
[13:24] jsquaredathome: the independant analysis of the social security problem came up with a retirement age of 85... because each year for the next 20 years, life expectancy should go up one year.
[13:24] jsquaredathome: I look forward to rejuvination by then
[13:24] erittermle: so we are 85, and the world has a crisis of faith.. due to the fact that no one wants to die..cause life is heaven..
[13:24] jsquaredathome: because Crazy Billionaires will pay anything not to due
[13:24] jsquaredathome: sounds like a drug addiction
[13:25] erittermle: what a horrible horrible thing that is..
[13:25] erittermle: yeah.. it does
[13:25] jsquaredathome: hell, things never go the way we expect
[13:25] jsquaredathome: today and now is the thing to worry about... what are you going to do today?
[13:26] erittermle: *scowl... read more historicism..
[13:26] erittermle: OOH.. but flava of love is on tonight!
[13:27] jsquaredathome: I'm gonna go hang with my mom, see Bill.
[13:27] jsquaredathome: And I think if you don't mind I'll post this conversation to my blog?
[13:28] erittermle: say hi for me...
[13:28] jsquaredathome: will do
[13:28] erittermle: naw.. go head.. it's an interesting prediction
[13:28] erittermle: let's see in 50 years if we are right!

I have often wondered when we'd start to see a truly organic interface arise for computers. One that lends itself not only to precision but to play.

Check it out.

At first you'll think, "wow, that's trippy, but so what?" - but that's only the first minute of the video.

Of course it's apple.

Mashed potatoes on a cone. Just think of the market. A franchise chain, spreading across the midwestern US, Ireland, and Germany. Mashed potatoes, whipped up and served on a cone made out of the same bread as dinner rolls, with just a little more starch to keep it from getting sloppy. You just clone the whole ice cream/cream custard manual. Want to add-in walnuts and butter to your mashed potatoes? Go right ahead, it's a blizzard-equivalent mashed potato smoothie. Royalties, please.

Yeah, I keep thinking up wierd stuff. We were going over Hegel in my modern philosophy class and it suddenly occurred to me: Hegel's idea of Spirit becoming in the world is really close to a strongly-Godlike AI. Hegel's rational Christianity basically has God existing as Spirit- or a potential implicit in the world- which becomes more realized as history occurs. The Unfolding bit, where the World-Historical Consciousness arises- that sounds a hell of a lot like a human-built strongly-godlike AI converting the planet into computronium. Voila. After the singularity, we find that we've built God, and Hegel predicted it.

Likeliness factor: eh... not much - Hegel's God would then have to develop time travel and send back portions of itself to be Jesus. It's reaching.

Life is good at the shop. Just got a shocking $800 gas bill and started to think about the long term economic impact of peak oil. The one to watch on this one is Saudi Arabia. Ghawar alone produces 4 million barrels of oil a day. Saudi Arabia produces 9.2 million barrels a day as a whole. If they've peaked, then the world has peaked. And then commodity laws do the rest.

If I had money, I'd invest in battery companies, solar patent holders, etc. What I'll really wind up doing is focusing on retrofitting a building somewhere. Efficiency is going to be the sales pitch of the teens. (as in 2010-2019) - I wonder if my little operation can survive. Screenprinting ink- it's made out of petroleum. But while you're scared of the long term, you forget to make a move that gets you anywhere. I saw the internet stock crash coming in 1992. So I sat out. World history is made out of the hacks that keep things running until you can retrofit and do it the right way.

Anyway, enough bs-ing. Time to go home and read a bit.

I was wondering over the past few days, "Why the heck am I waking up at 7am completely amped on adrenaline, ready to start the day?" - then I realized- next week is the sale.

I usually wake up around 9:20 and get to work by 10 to open the shop. Usually. Sometimes earlier, sometimes later. After many years of not enough sleep, I run a no-alarm system. The only time I set alarms is at the sale, or when I have a set appointment. Usually I wake up one minute before the alarm and go turn it off. I admit, I'll crack an eye open 5 minutes before, and watch it count down.

The horse sale is fairly intense. I'm cashiering, getting to know the faces and names of the people who buy from us and sell with us. It goes solid from 8am until 8pm. People want their papers for the horses in correct order, and they want the line to move- it's not something to do in a lackadaisical fashion. Anyway, so I set the alarm for seven for about 3-5 days, four times a year. The first day, I'm usually pretty tired, which results in lots of coffee.

So I was standing the shower this morning, wondering, why did I get up at 7 again? And it hit me. The cycle of the sales has gotten into the subconscious and I am waking up early to adapt to it.

Being human is neat.

I've always had strange dreams. Literally, in terms of the dreams playing in my brain at night, as well as the other kind- goals for your life. When I was a kid, I remember being in a field chucking hay onto a wagon, looking at this amazing sunset. I wished that I could take a picture of it and play with those colors, somehow get them into a computer, and change the colors around. I then realized that I'd been born too early- there was no way this was going to happen.

Then I wandered into a demonstration at college, some years later, for version 1.0 of a new program called "Adobe Photoshop". That was one dream come true. I've been playing with it ever since, even back when it would crash if you moved the mouse while it ran a filter.

When I was in High School, I wanted to start a company to mine the asteroids. I figured it wouldn't take much platinum or gold to break even. And in the asteroid belt, if you have time, food, and air, you could find it. Then the Challenger exploded and I recognized that I had in fact been born too early. Now I think maybe not. It might take a billion dollars I don't have, but someone will do it.

For a while my dream involved music. Bringing a lot of people together to reach some sort of critical mass, where some people would go away inspired in some way that actually mattered. I think that one actually happened, but now I realize that in high energy environments, not only do some particles shoot up out into the sky, some get plowed into the ground with just as much force. I can dimly see some sort of future of mind-to-mind interface crossed with visual, sonic, and virtual art that leads to a new kind of consciousness- really a new life form- in which people are more like cells in a larger mind. But that will probably be illegal, persecuted, and technically impossible for another couple of decades.

One that remained the whole duration of my life has been the dream of remaining free. Not free in the sense of no responsibilities- but in the sense of choosing them. Not that I don't want to give my life to something, but that I want to choose something worthy of giving it to. I walk into this strange economic organism every day, and watch it grow and get better at what it does- and it feels good. We screw up less than we used to. We accomplish more with less stress on all of us. Everyone is learning to do not just work- but creative art. Most of our customers have no idea just how amazing the crew's art is. Damon's going to do a show in March at the Green House Arts Project... I suggest you check it out, he's a hell of a painter.

I don't know why I put all this up here... there's so much else I need to do- update the lame websites, organize the new office, finish the files for the year end. I just have to remind myself that any time it feels like a nightmare, that it's actually the opposite.