Next, our government wants to create the first restrictions on our most powerful free and open communication technologies. And they want to give the power to squelch those communications not only to our elected officials, but to CORPORATE entities.

This is how dystopian stories start. Seriously. We are living through the moments where the US becomes a corporately sponsored police state.

There is also talk of presenting nuclear arms against Iran. Colin Kahl, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, is quick to point out that this is just hypothetical talk and not a plan.

Why is nuclear opposition even being discussed. Are we really willing to go that route twice?

And this is in addition to the economic inequality that the Occupy movement has been focusing attention on.

What can we do?

Become active in the discussion! If you feel strongly about something, say something. This can be as simple as a Twitter or Facebook re-share. But really, you should give your voice an impact. Contact your elected officials.

Speak with your votes. Get educated on the issues, on the candidates, on the measures. Though the choice might be between a corporate puppet and a straw man, your vote chooses one over the other.

Sign petitions. Want to sign something in opposition of SOPA and PIPA? Please do.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Magnificent curves,
My eyes trace them
And the familiar muscle movement
Triggers a wave of…

Greed.
No, not greed.
I don’t care to possess
Such a shape is not owned.

Each so distinct,
Yet reminiscent and familiar,
So I know where to look
To enhance the feeling of…

Lust.
But not exactly.
The base instinct
Would disfigure and contort

Movements graceful
With a give and a sway,
A bounce even,
Instantly forming a…

Crush.
Yet it’s not so.
That’s too short lived,
Of the heart, not the eyes.

Unerring, innate
Beauty, of a kind
I can never exhibit
And it makes me…

Jealous.
Hmm. That’s close,
But more about me
Not the exquisite shape.

Round and full
Feminine form,
In it’s many varieties,
Leaves me so full of…

Intrigue.
I want to know more, see more
Experience the pleasing shapes
With all my senses, my full faculty.

Really, it’s everything
All crowding my heart and mind
Simultaneously.

– R. Brockey

[I still have the original verse available]

Magnificent curves,
My eyes trace them
And the familiar muscle movement
Triggers a wave of…

Greed.
No, not greed.
I don’t care to possess
Such a shape is not owned.

Each so distinct,
Yet reminiscent and familiar,
So I know where to look
To enhance the feeling of…

Lust.
But not exactly.
The base instinct
Would disfigure and contort

Movements graceful
With a give and a sway,
A bounce even,
Instantly forming a…

Crush.
Yet it’s not so.
That’s too short lived,
Of the heart, not the eyes.

Unerring, innate
Beauty, of a kind
I can never exhibit
And it makes me…

Jealous.
What? No.
Too negative, about me
Not the perfect shape.

Round and full
Feminine form,
In it’s many varieties,
Leaves me so full of…

Admiration!
A warm glow of
Appreciation, for
Each tableau.

Really, it’s everything
All crowding my heart and mind
Simultaneously.

– R. Brockey

So, I feel like this has been a valuable experience. I feel like I know her a little better, like I can empathize just this little bit more (which strengthens a marriage, as I learned from one of her magazines!). Hopefully this exercise has done the same for her.

Leah is an avid YouTube watcher. She has been a follower of the Shaytards since very early on, and she has a number of other people/channels that she subscribes to and keeps up with. So, that meant I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube. She offered up people like Elle Fowler (AllThatGlitters21) alongside channels like Philip DeFranco (sxephil) and The Mom’s View. Now, I will tell you that I had no inclination to watch Elle Fowler, who hosts a make-up and style vlog. It’s just not relevant to me. At. All.

I did watch DeFranco, Mom’s View, and Tobuscus (another channel she is subscribed to). I watched a lot of The Philip Defranco Show, and I am actually now subscribed to it. PhillyD makes a damn-fine vlog. The Mom’s View was actually really engaging, and I love the idea of these independent, internet versions of popular show formats. I want to find a good “late night” style show. Recommendations? Leah will probably be surprised to know that I only watched one of Tobuscus’s video-game videos.

For those interested, Leah can be found on YouTube as Elvnears.

I have really enjoyed having her iPod and listening to her music. Our musical tastes overlap, so I liked almost everything that came on as I shuffled her whole library. I now realize I don’t own the Hairspray soundtrack, and I need to. She also listens to a lot of radio, so I followed suit. I listened to KDUK and also a news station, which is how I found out about third-party presidential candidate Rocky Anderson.

Finally, the print media. Leah gave me four magazines that she reads regularly: Good Housekeeping (January 2012), Self (December 2011), Beautiful Kitchens & Baths (Winter 2011), and Brides (December 2011). I read GH and Self front-to-back because they had actual content. The other two are really just browsing magazines. That said, I really liked these two wedding dresses:

This is a dress for a Greek Goddess. Leah could pull this off. She has the shape and the elegance for it.

This one is so simple. I love the sleeves and the straight-forward lines. After all, it's about the bride, not the dress.

I read the GH on the train back from Klamath. It had a lot of really good information. There were two recipes that I want to try, Cuban Steak & Beans (page 41) and Cauliflower-Lime Curry (page 143). There were also two quotes that I wrote down.

“On the days I don’t feel like running, I allow myself to walk. This way, I’m more likely to get outside and go.” — Kate Westervelt, editorial assistant (page 38)

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful” — William Morris (page 88)

I also learned that chewing gum can help fight midday fatigue and the benefits of three-minute meditation (page 44) . There was also a recommendation for a free online-storage and file-syncing service call SugarSync that I am going to be looking into. Finally, I read about the One-Minute Rule, a tip that I think would be useful for Leah, “Any task that can be finished in less than one minute is something I must do” (page 87).

The Self magazine was less appealing to me. It did have some interesting articles, and a cover story about Sarah Michelle Gellar that was more than I expected. Mostly it was a lot of clothing and make-up, but there was quite a bit of health and fitness thrown in as well. Definitely not the worst magazine Leah could be reading. The most interesting article, by Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn, was about empathy. Apparently the levels of empathy in American society, according to a study, have fallen. The time of the decline lines up with the emergence of social media. Two interesting thoughts that I got out of the article:

“Empathetic people tend to stay married longer.”

There’s a correlation between empathy, or a lack thereof, and immunity.”

Both are on page 118. The correlation between empathy and immunity is interesting. There’s gotta be a related variable that explains the link.

The original plan for the Great Media Swap called for a two-week exchange. Leah will be stopping by this Wednesday, on her way up to Portland, and we’ll return each other’s media. So, I still have a couple days to continue exploring the places where she finds mental stimulation. Maybe I will watch an Elle Fowler video, just to say that I did.

I will be happy to return to my sources, though. I want to read Engadget and engage with my Twitter feed. I can’t wait to talk with Leah about her experiences with my media. I think this has been a very worthwhile exercise. Maybe her and I can make it an annual, end-of-the-year tradition.

You can read the follow-up to this blog HERE

Leah had an idea:

What if, for two weeks, her and I swap media? That means forgoing our usual sources and using each other’s.

So we are.

She has given me access to her StumbleUpon and her YouTube account. We traded mp3 players. She took a few of my comic books. I have her new Good Housekeeping, Self, and other magazines. I gave her a list of the shows I watch on Hulu and the password to my Twitter because that is where I get most of my news.

This will be for two weeks; basically we’ll end the year experiencing information–and thereby the world–from the other’s perspective.

As soon as she mentioned this media swap I was on board. In this age of instantaneous information and personal devices, it is so easy to become ensconced in your own bubble. And that leads to close-mindedness.

I am not looking forward to reading through the bridal magazine or having to watch Elle Fowler on YouTube. But that is a great reason to complete this exercise. This is media that Leah consumes on a regular basis, so I should be familiar with it.

Since Leah and I aren’t living together and only see each other every couple of weeks it is even more important that we find ways to share experiences. This will help us continue to identify with each other. My hope is that this provides her with a glimpse at what I love about geek culture. Maybe she won’t be quite so hard on it when she actually experiences it. And maybe I’ll find something to like in beauty and consumer culture. She also has a lot of science and social commentary media that I am excited to explore.

I am going to make a point of writing at least a couple of blogs about topics I normally wouldn’t based on information and articles I encounter in her media.

My relationship with Leah is best described as a series of well-intentioned experiments. This is the latest.

Wanna know how it went? Read the follow-up post.

What do we do? Our government does not represent us. This is the point where the masses rise up and our government uses our own military against us. How is it that the biggest threat to our freedom and happiness is the government we supposedly chose?

There is so much uncertainty with what is happening that I cannot look into the future with any certainty. I just read that 1 in 2 Americans is classified as low-income. That’s half of us. Obama, for all his hope, has proven too weak to do what needs to be done. I appreciate the strides he has made, I have medical insurance until my next birthday. Maybe our country was too far gone, had too much momentum.

How do things get better from here? I can keep living my day-t0-day, and I have to, but will it all be ripped away. Is there a future here? Is there one anywhere? The whole world is going to hell. It seems ridiculous, but the pace of degradation is picking up and 2012 really could be the end. I know that’s not true, but our world could be so fundamentally different one year from now.

The two biggest problems with our world: money/capitalism and religion. Take them out of our government and politics!

I was nervous. With the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act I am downright frightened.

– R. Brockey
(12.27.07)

TechCrunch: Tablet Zero

Baekdal: Apple Never Designed the iPad, They Undesigned It

Apple’s chief aesthetic is simplicity. “It just works,” as their ad-campaigns say. But when you’ve “designed” your devices–OS, hardware, and all–to be so simple as to not have room for confusion or error, then everything that follows is going to have to share all of those elements. By necessity. You cannot create a wheel without using a circle.

I do agree that other companies should take some risks to differentiate their products. And actually, most do. But they are not going to take risks in every part of the design. When working from the most basic form, it only takes a few additions of complexity and features to make a device unique. Especially this early in the game when nothing other than the most basic version has proven successful.

These two articles clarified for me why I don’t use Apple products. They have no strengths. They are so basic, intended to do everything, and so they do nothing particularly well. I want a product that is differentiated, that is designed to fit my particular use-case and needs. I am still waiting for a device that is actually designed to do something and fill a need.

You know what really grinds my gears? Those math polls on Facebook. You know the ones like

1+1+1+1*0+1 =

• 6
• 5
• 0
• 1
• …

People that fancy themselves good at math answer these and then proceed to argue in the comments about the correctness of their response. What these people fail to realize is that there is no correct answer. “But, order of operations! Surely PEMDAS says you multiply before you add!”

Order of operations is just a convention we’ve adopted to approach problems like this in a standard way. For that matter, the operations themselves are merely convention. Addition and multiplication (and their inverses subtraction and division) are the standard arithmetic operations, but there is nothing fundamental about them. They are merely adopted as the basic operations.

I could just as easily create a new operation, let’s call it @. So A@B would be defined as the Ath prime number after B. For example, 3@5=13.

What would 1+1+1+1@5+1 be then?

I haven’t defined a priority for @ing yet. Any logical answer is valid. Most illogical ones too.

Those polls emphasize the poor math pedagogy in our schools. They are not creative nor snarky. Yet many “smart” people consider those to be interesting math questions. But they are, in fact, trivial. Not worth contemplating deeply, and definitely not worth passionate discussion.

For really interesting math questions, check out Vi Hart.

So, Facebook math polls: Don’t.

And that’s how Sue Cs it.

Did you enjoy this blog post?  Let me know by clicking the Like button below.

Tell me what you think by leaving a comment or contacting me.

You can also click one of the other buttons below to share this post.  That’d be cool.

My little brother DMed and we had a great time. I juggled knives, to everyone’s surprise. We talked about nerdy, nerdy things, like whether Elves are truly still Fey creatures. We spent a ton of time creating our characters, then played. We laughed at ourselves and at each other. We got into the world that my brother was crafting.

So, I am thankful. I am thankful for the friendship of geeks.