Note that this page is probably the most out of date page on this whole website. A lot of the topics covered are somewhat timely and were written between 2009-2012 or such. Software, websites, and other details need to be greatly updated. This is going to take some time to fix, and most of the "fixes" will simply be deleting old files and removing links. Take everything on this page with a grain of salt.
Random, Unedited Thoughts on the Universe. By which I mean exactly what it looks like I mean.
Actual ways to answer the question: Does Human Flesh Taste Like Pork? (20 May 2009). I mean, we all wonder about this, right? There are ways to find out for sure.
An idea for a student experiment: scattered tennis balls as introduction to data and error (25 Jun 2010).
Article on Dr. Charles Lundquist's and UAH's Agony and Ecstasy with restoring old NASA documents from outdated technologies (5 Jul 2013). Some vital (and generally useful) documents are sitting in out-of-date file formats. UAH is helping the cause.
Coincidence, synchronicity, and other things going bump, together, in the night... (11 October 10).
Doug's quick test to find out if that guy on the message board really *is* a professional (23 Apr 2010). Did you read on IMDB.com that someone is a some sort of movie guru who has always acted as DOP on a billion films and so knows more about the subject than you do? How about on a news-story where some "doctro" [sic] is claiming that there is no way he can stay in business now that health care reform has passed? What about someone who claims that she was there when they unveiled the aliens at Roswell? Is she a professional? Here's a quick test to find out.
Doug talks crazy talk; aka memes, reality, subjectiveness, being phildickian, information, and more... (15 Sep 2009). I mostly ramble on and on, but I talk about how objective reality and subjective reality are not the same thing, concepts of meme filters, and how you can use the latter to manipulate the middle to recreate the former. If you are evil. Dun dun dunnnnnn.
From zero to five stars in Facebook, applying common sense Information science to a sluggish social networking giant (17 Feb 2010). Facebook is massive. Millions of people use it. So many millions that it is on it's way to approaching the "b" word. We are talking about a country sized population. And, well, really it is almost unusable...let me tell how it is, and why it is, and one way to fix it.
Gary Gutting on what science (and scientific reporting) is doing, and why it seems to go so wrong so often (26 Apr 2013). There does seem to be something wrong with scientific reporting, but whose fault is it? Gary Gutting wrote about it, and now I'll write about him writing about it.
Growing up thinking that fish and milk were poison together... (22 June 2010). "It was a big deal in my family that fish and milk would kill you if taken together. Fresh fish and whole milk, it was sometimes appended. Sometimes it was just any milk and any fish. I knew something was up with that, because they would serve fish-sticks and milk at school lunches; but I assumed that fish sticks weren't proper fish, an assumption not exactly full of untruth. I do not know where it came from, but it was not the only binary poison system..." On families as an information gathering unit, on world-creature due to boredom, and on why wrong information does not necessarily mean you are ignorant.
Holy Neptune's Nascent Nebula! Star Gazer (nee Star Hustler) is still active! (18 Aug 2010).
The least satisfying [but possibly truest] argument against Peak Oil (13 Apr 2011). Peak Oil predicts we will eventually reach a point where demand will strip supply in oil, and this will create a massive issue as societies based around cheapish petroleum are strained. In a 2010 interview, a BP Chief Economist Cristof Ruhl gives an extremely unsatisfying but likely truest response to the concept of Peak Oil.
Morning, non sunshine, off to work and an information adage (31 Jul 2009). Only one portion of thise thing relates to this section, but it's a basic summation of the relation of the difficulty in finding information, and it's specificity.
On the Many Ways Language Can Go Wrong (3 Jul 2009). How can language break down? Oh, a lot of ways.
Polish hand math, proof that math is black magic! (from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal) (23 Jun 2010).
The power of doubt in research (2 Feb 2010). I explore how self-doubt can be used for the good, in opposition to thousands of better written books (well, not that much better written) telling you it is the greatest sin. Not only can it be good, but it might just required for good research?
Putting the "fund" in fundamental science research (9 Jul 2009). Paying for science is never pretty. That should be enough said, but you know me...I go around and up and down and near a rant on it.
In response to Niko's "The Impossibility of the Posthuman Event" (17 Dec 2009). My friend Niko pondered on the impossibility of the posthuman event. I'm not sure about the impossibility of the event itself, but I do discuss some barriers to us ever knowing it.
Scenes from a Backwards Universe. Where I muse about what works and what is weird with our universe, by showing how it works backwards. Also just a mental exercise in mirth.
Some Observations on ASK (7 Jun 2009). Musings and thoughts about Anamolous States of Knowledge. We do not know what we do not know...and this hoses the whole thing, sometimes.
A Smart Ass Looks at Alternate Dimensions and Their Impact on the Court System. I play around with the notions of alternate universes.
Thinking about planetary-sun distance in more every-day terms. I.E., briefly: Will our Sun bake us like a potato? (15 Nov 2009). If you were to discuss the massive distances between the Sun and the various planets, in more everyday terms and with "to-scale" models made up of smaller distances, what sort of numbers would you get?
The Truth (and Clarification) of Plastic in Soft-Serve Icecream, Fast Food Shakes, and more (aka somewhat apologies to Alicia) (15 Jun 2009). No, there is no plastic in McDonald's milkshakes. Yes, there are other things to look for.
Why don't we take what we say online seriously? (aka, do others take it too seriously...) (3 Jun 2010). A man tweeted that he would 'blow up an airport', later described by his attorney as a 'Basil Fawlty' moment, after authorities reacted to what he said. A few years back (decade or more, maybe) one guy had his college career somewhat derailed after posting what was taken to be a suicide note. I personally had a roommate that loved to 'attack by proxy' and then acted surprised when someone complained. Is this a case of people not watching what they write or a case of other just not getting the joke?
Why the Christy "returning to the climate of our grandparents" only looks at half the picture, though I agree with the general conclusions (30 Jun 2012). John Christy looked at average high temperatures across the state and found that it used to be really hot here and so lately it has not been so much warming up as returning to the norm, but I do feel like pointing out *one* thing.
Philosophy One...oh, Doug: I Think, Therefore I Am (30 Mar 2010). Cogito ergo Sum, possibly the most quoted line from all of philosophy, and easily one of the most misquoted. When Descartes, the avuncular figure of modern thought, wrote those lines: was he really postulating that thought might, in fact, be the foundation of existence? Or was he up to something trickier? I'll give one example why, in philosophy, always bet on the "tricky" horse.
A brief note about my day in the life posts (boring, but possibly interesting use of Python datetime) (13 Jul 2012). Just pointing out something that you may have not noticed about my day in the life posts, some very short code to find out how many days you have been alive using Python.
The final return to first intentions with Wyrmis.net (4 Dec 2009). A look at what I wanted to do with my website from the beginning (i.e. link to blog posts as static webpages after the fact) and how I finally got around to doing it, something like 6.5 years later. Includes some history of this website, for those who might be, for whatever reason, curious.
What I did to my website, how, and why. aka breaking for a good cause... (9 Dec 2009). About how initially simple solutions can lead to big headaches down the road.
New website design (sort of) and the trip to Tuscaloosa to see Neil Gaiman (20 Feb 2010). This past Thursday, Sarah and I went down to Tuscaloosa to visit the University of Alabama campus (especially Gorgas Library) and to attend an event featuring one of my favorite authors: Neil Gaiman. I talk a little bit about that event and some about changing the layout of my site to better work with mobile devices and so forth.
According to the rash of SEO types who contact me to get their webpage re/linked to through the library's... (17 Aug 2011). My URL is all wrong, apparently.
In absolutely no particular order...
Why I Have Come to Dislike Facebook
7 Reasons I Hate Twitter, Despite Kind of Liking It (13 May 2009). One of the last posts from the old blog format (and the last full, non-misc post), and one of my favorites. Whats more, nearly every single thing is still true as of the time I link it here).
Is the Internet Making Us Dumber? (26 May 2009).
Double strength Earl Grey double steeped, with extra sugar... (29 Jul 2009). Something of a two-fer article, in which I complain about the Amazon Marketplace and how the shipping comes about, as well as talking about FUD and the spreading of it across the net...and a woman who was sued becuase she tweeted about mold in her apartment.
Since more and more of my friends are obsessed with Facebook Quizzes, please read... (15 Sep 2009). I think the rules have changed since I made this post, but I just wanted to keep it up since it's the kind of thing that shows up on Facebook at least once a year.
Twitter Parody That Might Work: Just Five Words Or Less (28 Sep 2009). I started out making fun of Twitter and its future, but honestly, I think I can make this work.
Four basic tips to make Facebook a tad more sane in these "trying" times (26 Oct 2009). A lot of my friends went angry after the switch to "Live Feed" on Facebook. I came up with tips on how to overcome some of the features. I was mostly ignored, but there you go.
What we blog, a quick look at two and two half axes of interest (aka from 11nr to 77uw)(18 Dec 2009). I come up with a way to roughly measure what we blog about.
9 Things that Web 2.0.09 Has Taught Me (2 Jan 2010). Web2.0 proves one thing, no matter how much the tools change, the tools that use them stay the same.
The night of many posts, dealing with the mood I am in, facing Doug's Third Rule about Blogging, and coming back on Monday (16 Jan 2010). In the middle, I talk about three related "rules of Blogging" as seen by me. Namely, you can care about the blog's input or output, but the two things are surprisingly exclusive.
From zero to five stars in Facebook, applying common sense Information science to a sluggish social networking giant (17 Feb 2010). Facebook is massive. Millions of people use it. So many millions that it is on it's way to approaching the "b" word. We are talking about a country sized population. And, well, really it is almost unusable...let me tell how it is, and why it is, and one way to fix it.
The Solitude Project (March 24 through June 24, 2010) (23 Mar 2010). I have begun to wonder the power of solitude in our day and age. However, rather than some project where you go completely without contact, or completely without social sites, or some other extremes, the plan is to merely redirect some of the energy spent on social connections back into self-development, quietude, and peace. To perform this miracle of the modern age, I will use a simple Quadrant system. The time spent upon secondary contact (meaning all contact not fully developed or fulfilling) will be fourthed. The new free time will have new direction.
My End-of-Semester Resolution - Fewer, or No, Brain Droppings (7 May 2010). Brain Droppings, our short littly pithy quoted adages and false intellectualisms that run the gyre of Facebook and Twitter, where human discourse becomes less about communicating and more about being, however briefly, recognized, where the greatest compliment is not merely imitation, but replication. How about I stop contributing to the mess?
Eight and a Half Reasons Why Tomorrow Will See the End of My Facebook Account (11 May 2010). Tomorrow, I will delete my Facebook profile that I have increasingly used as an online persona for, man, I don't know. Awhile? The reasons are varied (partially, I just need to take a break) and I wanted to lay them all out since a few them might be eye opening.
My greatly shrinking online footprint, mixtape for my brother, and 3000+ visits to DoaB (12 May 2010). Over the past few weeks, I have greatly changed my online presence to just a couple of core sites. I'm starting to twitch. In other news, making a mix-tape for my brother, Danny, and my website has reached 3000+ visits since December.
Are Social Networking Experts Going to Eat the Internet? (17 May 2010). As I see more and more blogs about blogs, more and more tweets about tweet, and more and more social network experts being self-proclaimed on social-network sites: I can't help but ask, will meta-net eat the Internet?
10 Things We Do on the Internet Even though We Know They Waste Our Time (25 May 2010). I was sitting around and thinking about this today, the way that Internet, for all its good, does become a giant time sink for most of us. I figured it would be fun to chronicle just some of the ways we waste time, many of us daily, using it.
Lazy Days, Policies and Procedures, Months without Facebook, Inception, etc (29 Jul 2010).
On Twitter's Strange Robo-accounts... (29 Nov 2010). ...in which I ask what they're really for...those weird, random tweeting accounts with bit quotes and odd observations on the hour, every hour.
On using Livejournal to talk about Facebook...our drift away from a compartmentalized Internet (1 Dec 2010). On the way that my friends talking about one social site by posting to another made me about what we've lost with our tendency away from niche websites.
The Moribundity Criers, How [and a guess as to why] X is Dead is the New Futurism (22 Feb 2011). Stop me if you heard this one: _______ [insert any tech, cultural idea, etc] is dead. I have. A lot. And I'm finally ranty enough about it to try and get some of my frustration with the phrase out there. By why do they keep it up? Wrong assumptions? Or an myopic view of technology? Fanboyism?
Avoiding Schadenfreude Sites, Eschewing Comments, and Deciding to Keep the Fedoras (20 Sep 2011). I have come to a point where I need positivity in my life. The Internet has that potential, but certain steps need to be made: turn off the links to schadenfreude sites, avoid reading comments where possible, get out more and enjoy the company of others, and keep wearing my damn fedoras.
Want to guess what stupid thing teenagers are doing now? Sharing passwords to social sites. (18 Jan 2012) Kids start sharing passwords with other kids on social sites. It is a sign of trust (and no doubt will soon devolve into a sign of DIStrust to not do it) but there are much better lessons to be learned by keeping privacy even under passionate circumstances.
Some good, weird, and ugly side-effects of Priv.Ly [not that they haven't already thought of these], and musings on a client centric for-pay social site (18 Apr 2012). Some good, weird, and ugly side-effects of Priv.Ly [not that they haven't already thought of these], and musings on a client centric for-pay social site
Taking NotAlwaysRight.com off of my reader list. Can't take it, anymore... (1 Mar 2013). I've read NotAlwaysRight.com pretty much daily for a couple of years. After a bit, decided just let it go.
Day in the Life 13071: The very nearly Twitter mistake + taking stock of possessions prior to our non-move which is a double move (13 Mar 2013). Though I don't have many rules for my Twitter usage, I still managed to violate one. Also, Sarah and I have a bit of physical labor in front of us, and I wonder how much stuff I really need.
Ok, ok...my thoughts on Kickstarter (29 Mar 2014). I have backed a number of Kickstarter projects, despite having mixed feelings on the platform. Let's talk about what I consider the pros and cons.
From blocking all YouTube comments to turning off Twitter's Trending Topics (and Who to Follow), why Stylish is a most awesome extension to have... (4 Oct 2011). I love Stylish. Here are some tips for using it to get rid of the worst of the web, so you can focus on the best.
Eight [relatively quick] ways to get past the 10-articles per month limit for New York Times's nytimes.com (22 Apr 2012). NYTimes.com has a new paywall set up that allows you to view the homepage and up to 10 articles per month without pay, with unlimited articles being available if you start paying for it. Here are seven ways to avoid that limit, if you cared do such a thing.
The Ulimate (maybe too powerful) Comment Killer! Bonus: Most Bad-Ass Young Girl With a Violin You Are Likely to See Today... (2 May 2012). I have been looking for a way to get rid of comments as whole on the Internet (well, get rid of me having to see them). I found a solution that might just be too poweful. Also, check out this photo of a bad-ass girl on a violin.
A twofer! The greatest spam subject-line enticement ever? and Speaking of evil Spam, the worst "referer Spam" I have seen (both published 17 May 2009)
What if spam (e-mail) was more like actual Spam... (8 Dec 2009). A humorously intended "top 10" list asking what if the e-mail plague was more like the not-quite-foodstuffs.
The NYTimes on why innocent e-mails can lead to trouble (20 Aug 2010).
Notes to Spammers Trying to Trick me
True stories: The internet is a bad, bad place; no water; et cetera (23 May 2009). Only the first part is about the Internet, but it's one of those "absolutely amazing" stories.
Here is a secret. I kind of like clever spam (4 Mar 2011). Spam is the scourge of the digital age. But, hey, sometimes...it makes me smile.