Communication

Arthur C Clarke

Jim's Notes — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:38:03 GMT

Worth noting: Arthur C. Clarke passed away last week. His death was almost at the exact time that an enormous gamma ray burst that happened 7.5 billion years ago reached our lonely planet. It has been suggested that this event be named the Clarke Event.

Ghosts

Jim's Notes — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 00:21:34 GMT

I just want to chime in to tell you all about Trent Reznor's new four volume album called Ghosts. It is available for download from the Nine Inch Nails website for only five bucks, and there are a number of tracks that you can get for free. I know NIN might not be everybody's flavor, but I think this new world of label free music is worth supporting. Recently Radiohead released a pay-what-you-want downloadable album (which is no longer available) and Saul Williams also experimented in a free giveaway. In the very least this amounts to the first shots in a war between record companies (who have notoriously taken advantage of performers) and artists.

What Obama Really Means

Jim's Notes — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 00:19:23 GMT

This was a comment that I posted in the discussion of my last post. I think it is worthy of a post of it's own.

Thank you all for your comments.

If you haven't been to the site listed in the first comment I recommend that you check it out. http://www.votehelp.org According to my results I am most in tune with Hillary which is no surprise to me as I have always been a centrist at heart. But regardless of my similar views with Hillary as far as policy goes, I feel that this election means so much more. What Hillary doesn't see is that there is a fundamental problem with the system itself.

If you've heard Obama speak then you cannot deny that the man is a great orator. He has a way with words and can turn a phrase in a way that even such great speakers as Lincoln, F.D.R., and J.F.K. would be jealous. And it strikes me now, in the face of recession and with so many other problems in this country, that sometimes it takes a great orator to inspire the masses to rise above the status quo and make real change. Lincoln freed the country from the tyranny of slavery and motivated an Army to fight to protect the Union. F.D.R. (who was both a great orator and policy maker) inspired a nation to overcome the Great Depression and led our country to victory over an evil and vile force. Churchill inspired England in much the same way. Kennedy put a man on the moon with his words alone.

What the country needs now, what the whole world needs now, is inspiration to pull itself out of what has become a downward spiral. Words are powerful things. Hopefully Obama can lead us to have the courage, the bravery, and the will to rise up and become something greater than ourselves.

Tags:obama

Hold Everyhting!

Jim's Notes — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 22:50:53 GMT

We are not alone!!!

Quick note

Jim's Notes — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 22:33:00 GMT

In the header of Jimsnotes, you will now find a box that contains items of interest. These are stories that I find interesting. It will display three items, but if you click read more, you can see other stories that I think are noteworthy. Take a second and check 'em out.

Tom Robbins

Jim's Notes — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 23:33:26 GMT

"...to emphasize the afterlife is to deny life. To concentrate on heaven is to create hell." -- Tom Robbins

The author I begin with is Tom Robbins. The guy just exudes coolness. He's so cool that his publicist has advised him to never appear in public without sunglasses or his glare might instantly turn the room into a walk-in cooler, prompting pointy nipples of his adoring fans. I have read near about everything that the man has written. Robbins writing is comic, yet intelligent, perverted, yet poignant. His characters often launch into philosophic diatribes about many topics, the most prevalent of which is religion. In what I consider to be his best book, Skinny Legs and All, the Seven Veils of Salome are dropped in each part of the book revealing the truth behind the seven "illusions" that obscure humanity's potential. The characters in his books are often whimsical and have included, Pan (Jitterbug Perfume), Tanuki, a badger like demigod who parachutes from heaven by his scrotum only to cause mischief amongst the mortals (Villa Incognito), and the unlikely quintet of a dirty ol' sock, a can of beans, a dessert spoon, a painted stick and a conch shell (Skinny Legs and All). No topic is taboo with Robbins, and you often find his characters engaged in activities that would make a porn star blush. But the real beauty of his books is the factual (and obscure) information that he weaves into his stories. Robbins is well versed in theology, and by reading his books as a young undergraduate, I learned a lot of trivia about religion, most of which has been relegated to that dusty old box in my memory labeled "things I used to know."

But the moral is, the guy is cool. So cool that he has now decided to write a children's book.... about beer.

Bibliography

Open Forum

Jim's Notes — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 23:41:45 GMT

I am writing this because I have nothing to write about. Inherit paradox aside, I am looking for suggestions for things to write about. I tend to be too political at times and it is because politics is an easy subject. But sometimes I don't feel like talking about how Colin Powell spoke out against Guantanamo, or that Joe Lieberman is an asshole. Not that this stuff isn't important, but honestly, sometimes I am too tired to be outraged.

So what should I talk about? Or should I take the hint and just shut up?

100

Jim's Notes — Fri, 18 May 2007 01:57:44 GMT

100 Posts. Hmm. I don't know what to say. Mathematicians say that 100 is a one with two zeros after it. Also known as 100 ones. Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius. Benjamin Franklin is on the 100 dollar bill. This is my hundredth post.

When I bought this domain I never pictured a blog per se, but more a place to put whatever curiosity that crossed my mind. A virtual notebook. At the time I was passionate about climate change so it immediately became a place where I could talk about that. I am no scientist and I don't proclaim to be an expert, it is just something that I think should be discussed. I have this theory, that speech changes society. As persons we are beings of sound and the things that we say quite literally makes waves. So it is important to talk about issues that are bigger than yourself. So this became a blog.

It is probably apparent to my readers that this blog doesn't know what it wants to be. Serious at times, goofy at others and sometimes even a little camp. Sporadic. Disparate. It is a hobby at best and it gets me to write. It suffers from my lack of desire to be on a computer when I don't have to be. Nine hours a day staring at the glow of an LCD is enough. But I still find time. The process can be relaxing, frustrating or engaging. I have learned from it.

So where to go from here? This domain is mine for 9 more years. I'm not even sure where I'll be in nine years. Married. That is already in the works. Kids? Could be. A house would be nice, hopefully with some land where I can do something in the physical world like plant a garden, or build a shed. Will I still be blogging? Time will tell.

FYI: Comments

Jim's Notes — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 01:39:20 GMT

You may notice from time to time that I turn off comments for a post that is older than seven days old. While I normally don't get comments after seven days anyway, the reason I do this is there are spam bots that like to promote cheap pharmaceuticals and other such filth in my comments. It seems that turning off the comments for a week or two fixes the problem temporarily. There are spam blocking utilities like captcha support and such if I upgrade to the new subtext version, but it seems to work if I turn off the comments for a while. So heads up, the comments are now off for posts seven days old or more.

Magazine Madness

Jim's Notes — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 01:49:07 GMT

Now I am as patriotic as the next guy. I believe that we have some pretty special things in America. The right to think and speak for ourselves being one of these things, among others. Margaret Thatcher said that the difference between Europe and America is that the former was founded on history and the latter upon philosophy. While that may be an over simplification I think that there is some truth to that. And you'd think will all that philosophy in our blood we might have some good weighty heads on our shoulders. In the very least we should be able to engage in discussion with the world. And I am probably right. For the most part we are citizens of the world. But unfortunately the editors of Time don't think we are engaged in the world discussion and decided to show us a different cover in a recent issue than the cover that the rest of the world sees. The rest of the world is presented with the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and we are presented another more nationalistic story about the bible in public schools. While that may not be that bad, you have to wonder why the editors of Time don't think that the American public cares as much about the world stage. Newsweek did the same thing. They presented the same story about the Taliban to their international readers and presented America with a story about Annie Leibovitz's life in pictures. No offense to Miss Leibovitz, but I don't even know who she is. What this really indicates to me is that demographic and marketing studies have shown that the American magazine buying public has little concern over world matters or at least that national news is a better seller. I am just surprised that there isn't a picture of Anna Nicole on both covers.