(previous)

Every once in a while I come here. Every once in that while Blogger loses my entire post before it reaches publication. This night is that every once in a while. I had planned (and written) a preamble to the following madness. I might be able to reproduce it to some extent, but my memory has left me with not even the title much less the crucial adjectives. It was good, but I won't paraphrase it because you would just have had to be there.

Assorted things to do today:

• Search for the list of things to do yesterday. You will know it by its total dissimilarity to a scheduler or daily planner. Look for a small piece of notebook paper with bits of spiral-binding artifact hanging off one side. It will be contrastingly scrawled in black Pilot V5 Extra Fine Point pen. Once the list is found, try to remember the things you had meant to add to it. Don't forget to panic.
• Choose an album from the bookcase half-filled with cds. Spend the first two tracks justifying your selection based on the state you have been put in by school, people you know, and your current neuroses. If you must leave the room, have a hard time deciding whether to stop or pause the music, or to just leave it softly playing for whomever else may wander in.
• Take a shower. Allow the near-scalding water to run while no activity involving soap occurs until the heat is sickening and it would feel better to be out of the stall.
• If you are sick, take pleasure in the fact that now your smokers' cough actually has something to work with.
• Compose in your mind a letter of longing to a lover no-longer.
• Try to remember a clever saying you thought of. Realize it is less clever in print.
• Pass by the hordes of plain old college students and wonder how much avoidance in your young life it would have taken to achieve that kind of inobtrusiveness.
• Come up with yet another theory about the afterlife.
• Based on whether you have classes early or late, throw on one or two blankets respectively, and sleep it off.

i've been robbed!

The fictionfiction.net mailroom has felt a surge. Our best CSRs are on the job. Here's one that got into my hands.

Below is the result of your feedback form. It was submitted by Inspector Gum-Shoe (gumshoe@expect_no_potted_meat.org) on Wednesday, October 29, 2003 at 12:15:25
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subject: My little boat is empty?

realname: Inspector Gum-Shoe

body: whatever happened to "my little boat is empty" that was such an enjoyeable site
i enjoyed downloading the childrens stories a great deal, which I read to the students in my kindergarten class.
well, i hope you at least put up some pictures of kittens instead.

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Inspector Gum-Shoe,
The site you are looking for is in retirement. Find all writings by George K. George at the graveyard. Knowing you, I wouldn't trust you to Satan's own kindergarteners.

low sampling rate

aliasing - 1. The appearance of jagged distortions in curves and diagonal lines in computer graphics because the resolution is limited or diminished. 2. The static distortion in digital sound caused by a low sampling rate.

If my theory that the universe is built in binary holds its liquor in any philosophical realm, human experience can be aliased by a number of methods.

Sight:
Jpeg images are smaller in size than bitmap images because they follow a mathematical compression pattern to then be decoded by the viewing software. Bitmaps assign a binary number, respectively larger or smaller based on the large or small color depth of the image to create each element. When millions of colors are represented, the number becomes larger, and then the x and y of the image are factored with this number. The result is the bitwise size of the image. Jpegs are smaller, but contain overlying color distortions as a result. In some cases, it isn't pleasing to the eye. Anti-alasing can be computed for jpegs, but the accepted definition of anti-aliasing is to smooth pixelated edges of objects. A very low resolution image of a simple circle may look like bars of different lengths when one forces the mind to see it as such, but its recognition as a perfect circle is the initial and unavoidable perception.

Sound:
Mp3s work on a similar priciple as jpeg images. A raw wave file will consume much more physical space on a storage device because the entire sequence of sound is mapped bit by bit. Though barely detectable to the ear at very high sampling rates, an mp3 will reflect, with some metallic-sounding wavering, the fact that it is a patterned compression of the original. Thus, it is smaller is size. Like the style of clip heard on a vinyl recording, the mp3 could have extra appeal for its subtle distortion. Effects pedals of rock-n-roll guitarists can be configured in inumerous ways. Some resemble fuzz, others bring to mind gritty soil. Through the mess, a note with sustain and pitch is perceived. The mind oscillates between pattern and uniformality, generating a dynamic experience. Rock-n-roll!

Controlled Substances:
Pepsi, I have discovered has the same potency as a similar volume of coffee. I'm in no condition to function any morning before one or the other has been imbibed. Coffee is much prefered, though sometimes less available. Not only for the bold taste and warmth in these Autumnal times, but for the particularly smoother let down than given from a can of Pepsi. I believe a tribe I hung with for a time incessantly pointed out the use of 'Federal Drugs.' Caffeine, acetaminophen, nicotine, dramamine are all legal inducers of human aliasing. They roughen the edges, smear gunk over our eyes and fill our ears with gravel. Beautiful, isn't it? Coffee in the quote-unquote morning, cigarettes to see the day through, and grain alcohol to lessen them all in prep for the dull slumber. The 24-bit world is posterized to a more managable Atari 600 level.

I just finished a six-page research paper, I needed to unwind.