Crazy Idea of the Week

In classic Jonesian form, I bring you [dum da da dum]: Crazy Idea of the Week! (Coye, you're right, that font would be super sweet). As such, you can expect never to see [dum da da dumb] Crazy Idea of the Week! again; and if again, then perhaps again in a year and a half.

So without further ado, I bring you [dum da da...forget it]:
Ok, have you guys seen the current trend of video blogs popping up around cyberspace? Of particular note are Rocketboom and Mobuzz, though these both only represent a sliver of the possibilities behind the medium. Well, I was thinking how fun it would be to try our collective hand at writing and producing a little video blog of our own. What would it be and how would it be structured? I haven't a clue, but it is a crazy idea of the week, thus, this has been, [dum da da dum]Daaaaaave's Crazy Idea of the Week! [buy all our play-sets and toys!]

An Ex-Parrot?

So, inspired by Dave's latest poll (which I seem to be the only one to have voted on... even Andy is awol, apparently), I thought I'd make a little poll-like inquiry myself. Since I lack Dave's omnipotent administrative powers, this will have to be in the form of a post rather than a nifty bar graph in the margins. I take it from the occasional bursts of responses that pop up on the blog that there are still a lot of guys who check it out at least semi-regularly. So why no posts? Why such seldom comments? Is it a matter of boredom with the blog or wanting to disassociate yourselves from Coye and TEFKAMS or general bridge burning or what? Is there anything that would actually spark some renewed interest in it? More personal updates, book discussions, sociopolitical discussions, cake recipies, popular inventions, cheat codes for Metroid, the Cheat, more TEFKAMS, less TEFKAMS, more screaming in TEFKAMS posts, more inanity, less inanity, more discussions of inanity, more ex-parrots, what? Because we could just rename it "The Dave, Coye and Andy Show" but I know that the three of us don't want it to go that way. These are your friends, here, and we'd really like to hear from you. Something.

archival research and restitution

TEFKAMS said... AAAHHHH! Once my friends, long, long ago, I decided to tell you the story of my humble origins. It was an emotional story of a boy, looking for love and acceptance, who was chewed up and spit out by the cruel, cruel soul-killing machine that we call the Hollywood establishment. It was a heartrending tale, and one that I had never told. To anyone. Ever. But I once found kindness and acceptance in the halls of Traber 6, and so I shared my story and narrated how I came to be the Mr. Satan you knew and… tolerated. I was so young, so naïve.

To my chagrin and astonishment, my story did not reach sympathetic ears (or eyes, I suppose) on T611, but instead was eviscerated and torn from these pages. Dear reader, I was stripped of my voice and my dignity that day. Without a warning, without an explanation, I became the only contributor to ever have my words expunged from the blog. Flung into the ether, as if they never were. Chastened, I protested my lost voice by also giving up my name. I became TEFKAMS.

And there was nothing offensive about my posting. It was actually rather clever and amusing, if I must say so myself (and I must, since you can no longer go back and read it for yourself). So, why, I ask myself, is a posting that offends and alienates the readers here (by design, it would seem) afforded so much better treatment? Warnings. Time for consideration. I was never given any of these things. And no post of mine caused people to leave our community (except Mr. Satan, of course). AAAAHHHHH!!!

I am a fan of posting on the blog (and I’d like to see more of you write, too!) and I am as big a proponent of artistic freedom as the next disembodied entity. But if there needs to be a line drawn to distinguish acceptable content on our site, this photo helps us to see where that line might be.

AAAAHHHH!!

So, about that Einstein Fellow...

Steve came up with this fantastic idea to read some Einstein this summer and talk about relativity—that enormously interesting idea which, along with the quantum mechanics of the ensuing decades, shaped what has come to be known as the century of physics. But he followed that great idea up with a rather dumb one: outsourcing the implementation of the project to me. It has sat as a task on my iGoogle todo list for a couple of weeks with no action on my part. Sorry for dropping the ball.

But now that Steve is back from vacation (the pictures were great, by the way), and Dave should be back from Maine this weekend, and I’m still where I always am, it might be a good time to turn our attention back to Dr. Einstein. As they say, there’s no time like the present.

If you’ve forgotten, Steve provided these great links to the 1920 English translation of Einstein’s 1916 book Relativity: The Special and the General Theory: MS Word format, MP3 files, or Podcast. Or you could go to your local library.

Einstein wrote of this book in 1916 that "the present book is intended, as far as possible, to give an exact insight into the theory of Relativity to those readers who, from a general scientific and philosophical point of view, are interested in the theory, but who are not conversant with the mathematical apparatus of theoretical physics.... In the interest of clearness, it appeared to me inevitable that I should repeat myself frequently, without paying the slightest attention to the elegance of the presentation. I adhered scrupulously to the precept of that brilliant theoretical physicist L. Boltzmann, according to whom matters of elegance ought to be left to the tailor and to the cobbler."

For those who are interested—and several of us have expressed some interest in this endeavor—perhaps we could spend two weeks or so on part one of the book, which encompasses the special theory from 1905, before moving on to the more comprehensive general theory that Einstein finished in 1916. Please post comments, questions, reactions, connections to other things you know in science and/or culture and history. I'll leave it to you whether we want to make observations as separate posts with comments in response, or a big, long comments thread. I don’t want to make this really formal, but I also know from experience that without some sort of framework this discussion won’t have the traction it needs. So start reading, and we’ll talk more over the next couple of weeks about Herr Einstein and his world-changing theories.

Marvin K. Mooney

I'm currently in Amarillo, staying with my folks, and I saw a Dr. Seuss book here that I bought for my niece a few years ago. The book reminded me of a quasi-parody (Geisel helped write it himself) that Art Buchwald published in the Washington Post in 1974. I will refrain from parodying the parody myself, but it would be fair to say that it reminded me of another prominent middle initial...

Richard M. Nixon Will You Please Go Now!

Memory Application Beta almost there

Hey fellas. Check out the memory application I talked about a few comments ago. Now it integrates full ESV text using my special sauce. Single click a paragraph to get scrollable text up top, double-click to see the full text of the paragraph all together. Romans 1-8 is up there as a beta. I'm hoping to talk to the ESV online folks to see if they'd want to take this thing any further with me.

If you're at all into memorizing scripture, test this out and see if it helps. any suggestions are welcomed.

enjoying a vacation in Maine-- dave

OK, I couldn't resist...

There's a pretty good chance that this will just amuse Steve and Adam, but that's worth something in my book. You might remember in college that the Star Wars Gangsta Rap started as an audio file, and then someone found it on the internet with the addition of some pretty lame animation. Well, now the animation is much better. Wait for the Storm Troopers raising the roof toward the end. It's worth it.

On this day in history...

In 1960 the Ohio Art Company took Arthur Granjean's invention--which consisted of a couple knobs, some aluminium, and a plastic screen--and turned it into the Etch-A-Sketch. Suffice it to say that the guy that drew this puts the sad little doodles of my childhood to shame.

I'm Speechless... in a good way

It did not give of bird or bush

So I have what probably qualifies as a mandatory update announcement:

I just got an email from the editor of the Wallace Stevens Journal, and they are publishing my article on Stevens, memorialization and the World Trade Center. It's not the largest journal, but publication counts as a major career milestone in the humanities, so I thought I should share it with you guys. The earliest it would be out will be Spring 2008, but I could (today, if I wanted) start putting it down as a "forthcoming" publication on my CV.

And I am still up 2-0 against Andy in the frolf books. That particular poison wasn't a banned substance until AFTER the match; it was totally legal at the time.