I just figured this out today, after two different sessions, weeks apart and weeks ago, of trying to set that clock. The first was totally unsuccessful (and something like 20 minutes long), but when I made a cursory, half-hearted second attempt while in traffic, the radio-cassette player happened to be on, so it worked. I just assumed then that I was being dumb the first time, and missed something obvious. I didn't realize that the power being on was crucial until today, when I thought "hmm, maybe it needs to be turned on first."
There's no need for this. In fact, I think it would make more sense if the power had to be off before setting the clock (this was my reasoning before), because then it's isolated as the only operating function on the unit, or something like that. Anyway, now I know the mystery of the 1992 ford escort factory radio-cassette player: turn it on before adjusting the clock. Maybe some desperate googlers will find a solution to this problem here (I'd considered searching for instructions myself).
That might get the award for inane blogging.
I went to UPS orientation today. We saw some dorky videos about knee ligaments and hazardous materials paperwork. Tomorrow, I have to be at work at 3:50am. It should be fun, actually.
A few minutes ago, a piece of space music entitled "europa mission" was streamed by somafm. I looked the piece up, and it's 19 minutes long. About 18:30 after I looked up the song, the song ended. This means that I started downloading the stream almost precicely when the song started.
I bet someone might say "wow, what a coincidence...what are the chances?" well, I'd say about the same chances of someone starting to download the song two minutes into it, five minutes in, or seventeen minutes in. But the only event of significance to us is starting to download the song right as it begins. So where, exactly, is the sense of wonderment coming from? For every time you start streaming right as the song starts, there will be x-gazillion times you'll start streaming in the middle of the song.
We notice some example of two or more events, and remark with wonder at the meaningul coincidence we see, even ascribing some kind of spiritual value to it. But we don't notice the millions of times a day events don't coincide, according to our value-bank. Probabilistically, one or two of these millions events are going to show up on our cultural and experiential radars as "coincidence."
Our own sets of experiences are transforming the occurence of two events into a notable thing. Why, to keep using my example, is turning on the radio just as a song starts more notable than turning the radio on two minutes into it? We happen to assign value and notability to the "beginning" and "end" of events, and even split up reality into events in the first place. Then, when something nails these artificial values and associations right on the head, it's some amazing thing, as opposed to the laws of probability.
I wore that yellow sweater to work, and you wore a pink bracelet! What a coincidence! Of course, it's not taken as a coincidence; however if we both wore yellow bracelets, then that's'taken as a coincidence. My wearing a yellow while you wear a pink, however, is not taken as a coincidence, unless the corporate colors are pink and yellow. Then it is a coincidence. But of course the event hasn't changed -- just our culture.
Everything is a coincidence -- we can infer a relationship between any two events. But, we only take special note of things that fit our world view of the "amazing" or "notable." I hope I explained that ok; it might be really stupid truism. But I think maybe I have a point, especially when you consider the spiritual implications that some people assign, including jungian/freudian psychological references. For instance, someone might think it's notable that a person chose as a pet a dung-beetle because the dung-beetle is the sign of death (?), and that person harbors a secret wish to die. Well, karl, maybe he just chose a dung-beetle because it was the cheapest pet.
A while back, I bought a ticket for West Virginia, and thought it'd be fun/arguably useful to copy the source code of the confirmation page, and stick it on my website. I don't remember linking to it.
Anyway, google found it, somehow. I ranted a few entries ago about google not being able to find unlinked pages. I did a little reading on google's site. If your secret page has links on it, then its URL is passed to the page that is linked to. But the question still remains: how many page-authors publish their server logs on the web? Some, but probably not the big ones. Oh well. I give up.
I'm tired of trying to make web pages do what I want them to do. glutenfreedesserts.com and drsuzannegriffin.com haven't showed up on google yet, and it's been literally months. The tab I submitted to olga.net (notice that I don't link to them, because I hate them now) hasn't been accepted yet. I hate the web. Google hasn't indexed my blog properly in a long time (ever since I moved to my own server with DDNS nameservers, or something -- I'm probably getting the terminology wrong). I generally give up on life.
The only thing is, people have asked me to "get their sites into google." when I insist that I can't do it (other than "submitting URL"), that I do not and cannot control google's cache/index, I get "oh, but you're smart...i know there's something you can do." anything that I do is going to get interpreted by google as shady search engine optimization, and the sites are going to get punished as a result.
I totally give up. I don't understand how google found that page. I sometimes think reverse psychology would work on google: if you DON'T want a page to be found, submit it, include numerous META tags, and link to it umpty-billion times. If you DO want it to be found, keep it hidden inside 50 nested directories, don't link to it, and never visit it yourself -- it'll end up as hit #1 for the search "website."
Isn't it disturbing how google is becoming the web in some ways? Remember their credo: "don't be evil." I guess we have to trust them, or firebomb the googleplex. See? I'm using google maps there. Truly, I've come to rely on them, just because they provide the best services on the web. Ugh, I sound like a promo. What does the sulking anti-capitalist do when a corporation actually provides a useful service? It's sort of like the liberal dilema of what to do when he or she becomes rich.
The argument against worshipping at the altar of google, even if their services are useful and wonderful and superior, is that they have a shady privacy policy. Well, who gives a shit? All they're going to do is send you relevant advertisements. THE HORROR. I'll obviously never recover from that terrible onslaught. Internet privacy is like a hobby to some people. It serves no purpose, but it's becvome this self-perpetuating thing that's turned into a pursuit for its own sake.
Anyway, when "page 2" is linked to from "page 1", and then that link is followed, "page 2" ends up in "page 2"'s server logs as a "referrer." I'm looking at the cache of my "hidden" page, and on it I link to a site, which now has that information. But how does google know about it? That site has to be giving that information to google by posting those server logs on the web.
And that seems unlikely; I've seen a few server logs posted on the web, but there's no way a big company would do that; it'd be bad publicity. The only things I can think of are 1) I had the google-bar installed in my browser when I was visiting my own hidden page, and it transmits information on web-pages visited to google, or 2) I linked to the page somewhere and forgot.
Microsoft, google, dell, and intel. I might as well mail them the deed to my soul.
Most excellent google search:
Guinea Pig Disease, Vacation Poopy Pants and Unleashed Mystery Ailment
I'm the ninth hit, on "epistolary journal.".
I'm going through my server logs, as I do, looking for google searches. I see someone in brazil is searching on my name. Maybe someone saw my orkut user page (orkut enjoys a brazilian majority, at the moment and for some reason). I met some girl from brazil once, at SIGGRAPH in san antonio, but I don't think she remembered me. Who could it be? Who could it be?
Holy crap, this one is even better:
jonathan frakes naked x-rated pic
This time I'm the fourth hit, again linking to my collection of sent emails. As I've said, this document catches all of the weird searches pointing at my site.
Jonathan frakes is, of course, "commander riker" on "Star Trek: the next generation." people would often say, when I had my full beard and normal-guy hair, that I looked like him. And now, people are arriving at my site via google searches on riker porn. An argument for intelligent design if ever there was one.
I get a lot of hits from seven locks, bunnyranch, rachel-haircut, khoisan, and jumper cable-related searches. The overwhelming majority of visitors are directed to my writing, and are (surprise!) after information. It's sort of humbing, in a way -- here I am with this big artsy site that's supposed to enrich lives or something, and people just glance at it in search of bunnyranch prices. Sometimes, they read my blog, because it's frequently-updated content, something to peruse, half-interested, during down-times at work, like an issue of "people" in a doctor's office waiting room.
I see that NO-ONE, in almost a month (as far as my logs go back), has accessed skeletonMeat, a shockwave file I produced back in college. It's good, too! But no-one cares about it.
Having a website is sort of like having an esoteric music collection -- everyone is really proud of their music collection, and is always trying to push their tastes on others, so as to show those others how cultured, original, smart and creative they are, as evidenced by what music they've happened to accumulate. Proprietary pride in aesthetic sensibilities.
But, no-one gives a shit -- they're all too busy pushing their own music collection on others as well, telling them to download this or that mp3, offering to send songs, etc. Appreciating something on a creative or artistic level is a lot more effort than trumpeting "ME ME ME," and frankly, a lot less enjoyable.
(of course, some of us are Children of the Light, and welcome new music with an open heart and open mind, even when it's shoved at us by status-seekers, but we are few and far between.)
It's the same with websites: no one cares about them, except the designer, who is of course shocked that people don't care about his site, even when he doesn't care about others' sites.
People seeking the business hours of the seven locks detention center care about the information, but not the website itself. Those people aren't about to look at a paper I've written that happens to contain their search terms, and from there navigate to my index page and browse all of my other crap. They aren't even going to conceive of these pages as being put together by a human entity, let alone of doing so being a lot of work. Well, maybe one out of a thousand visitors. But most of the time, they couldn't care less. And why should they, exactly? It's just a damned web page.
I bet there are papers, burried deep within my writing section, that will go un-glanced-at for years. Furthermore, there are sections of text, such as some of the denser paragraphs in my philosophical magnum opus, that will probably never be read.
Then there's the 400-page collection of sent emails spanning something like three years, even though it might be the most interesting piece of writing on here, because it's 1) blog-like, and 2) personal and private in nature. Even though it gets downloaded pretty often, due to searches on riker porn and the like, I guarantee that the whole thing isn't going to get read, even if it's up for a hundred years.
Web-designers would be wise to think about the way they themselves surf the web. It's done in a cursory way, jumping from this page to that in a few seconds. If I find a site, I'm not going to make a big effort to find the author, or even make a mental note of credit to him as some kind of phantom. It's as if the web is one big mass of information and garbage, author-unattributable. It can certainly be treated that way with no ill effects, except the miffed hurt of people like me who want praise.
Media like flash and shockwave constitute a tremendous amount of drawing and programming effort, but that's just not seen. When someone looks at a 50" x 50" oil painting, they think "wow, that must have been a lot of work." but a flash game can take at least as much time to create, and people gloss over it -- they don't even see it as a created work, but rather just as a part of their own computer, on their own monitor, in their own home or office, a computer which is always doing twitchy little things that really aren't all that disparate.
Someone else's brilliant web-page isn't all that different than "minesweeper." both constitute pixels on the screen, of course, but furthermore, both are interactive, creative efforts. I bet if you designed and programmed "minesweeper" you'd be pretty damned proud of it.
It's just a fact, sad or not, that computer, and especially internet art, isn't seen as creative, personal effort. The web-designer, or rather the artist/musican/writer/whatever who chooses the web as a distribution hub, had better get used to it.
But you know, now that I think of it, it's possible that I'm asking for too much. It's hard to get a sense of just how interesting your work really is when it's on a computer monitor. Just because I've been working on this site for five years (!) doesn't mean that it's any good.
Basically, I majored in "having a website." I think I somehow wound up with an overblown sense of the importance of my web "artwork," just because I spent a lot of time and effort on it. Well, moving a pile of sand, grain-by-grain, from one place to another two feet away is a lot of effort and takes a long time, too.
It takes another web-creator to appreciate how many pints of blood, sweat and tears go into this sort of thing. But still, that other web author isn't going to care about others' sites. Or maybe he will. To a degree. I might be just in a bad mood, talking about absolutes, missapplying self-analyses to the world in general, and generally being a self-centered bratty little fucker. I'm going to bed.
Also, I have to stop and think about how much credit any artist really gets, unless they're van gogh, james joyce or j.s. Bach. An argument for business school if ever there was one.
I submitted my brisebois chords to olga.net, the oldest and geekiest guitar tab/chord site on the web. It's been around since 1992, and first existed in USENET form. I'm excited.
Well, I figured out "my only," and it didn't take 1,000 years, as I'd thought. But it did take a while, and as I predicted and feared, a lot of process of elimination, trying out every M7 and m7 chord on all 12 tones, until one sounded right. I arrived at that single half-diminished 7th chord serendipitiously. I'm not sure what inspired me to finger it, but it was right-on. This is "as good as it gets," harhar.
The song was featured in the movie, when helen hunt and jack nicholson are in that baltimore restaurant having their tete-a-tete. When I heard it, I was enchanted. I love the expressive voice (sans vibrato!), bossa-nova rhythn, guitar/bass/drum combo, and crazy modulation.
Go here, scroll down, and click on the song "my only" to get an idea of what it sounds like. I'd post the mp3 for you to download, but I don't want to get sued. The latin swing makes the melody very hard to notate (i tried, and gave up). Also, the lyrics are nearly indecipherable; danielle brisebois has a bit of a problem there, in keeping her soulful breathiness under control. But the effect is nice.
There's a long tradition of internet guitar tab and chords. The old-school interpretations are in txt form, and include the interpreter's name, email address, and maybe a few comments. I'm happy to be joining this community. I searched long and hard for tab and/or chords to "my only," and finally ended up putting it down myself. It was hard, but pretty fun.
"My Only" - Danielle Brisebois, Hector Pereira, and Phil Roy
as heard in the movie "As Good As It Gets"
Em7 Bm7 Am7 Bm7 Em7 Bm7 Am7 Bm7
my only man, my only one, my only
------------------------------------------------------------
Em7 Bm7 Am7 Bm7 Em7 Bm7 Am7 Bm7
my only man, my only love, my only
------------------------------------------------------------
CM7 Am7 Em7 Bm7
there was a time, not long ago, I only had myself
------------------------------------------------------------
CM7 Am7 CM9 Bm7
i walked alone, I danced alone, there was no one else
------------------------------------------------------------
C#m7 D#m7 EM7 D#m7
share the stars with me, to blah blah blah with me
------------------------------------------------------------
CM7 Am7 C#m7b5
my only man was only in my dreams
------------------------------------------------------------
Em7 Bm7 Am7 Bm7 Em7 Bm7 Am7 Bm7
my only man, my only one, my only
------------------------------------------------------------
Em7 Bm7 Am7 Bm7 Em7 Bm7 Am7 Bm7
my only man, my only love, my only
------------------------------------------------------------
Ebm7 Fm7 Gbm7 Dbm7 Am7 Bm7 Cm7 Gm7
soon every kiss blah blah blah, blah blah blah
------------------------------------------------------------
you for me for--ev-er-er
F#m7 G#m7 AM7 C#m7 DM7 CM9
It's obvious to me that the chords of this song were composed by a guitar player. Guitarists have a very easy job moving a chord up and down in perfect parallel, preserving the original intervals -- all they have to do is slide their chord-shape up or down the neck. This is actually a pretty neat, stark effect, and it works well with funkier tunes. Look at the chords in the line "soon every kiss..."; I'll bet you $100 either hector periera or phil roy is the guitar player in the song. It's just not normal, otherwise, to sequence a bunch of chords like that of all the same type. Uh-uh, uh-uh. And then he preserves the same sliding pattern in the next line. Crafty hector.
Actually, I think danielle b. Composed the melody herself, singing over the chords, which is pretty impressive, considering the modulations. It was probably a two-person composition that just sort of took shape while improvising. The drummer and bass player are just losers, who serve no creative function. However, they do serve a practical function: the drummer is the one supplying the bossa nova, and we need the bass player, since the guitarist plays only partial chords.
Here's another interpretation of the lyrics I found on the web, which is questionable, at best. At least I have the decency to let the listener know when I have no idea what d.b. Is singing; these guys just wing it:
My only mate My only one My only My only mate My only love My only There was a time that a long ago I only have myself I wasn't lonely I dance alone And there was no one else Share the stars with me to day And I have me Only mate was only in my dreams Only mate Only world My only My only mate My only love My only Soon Marry kiss And the feels will be That no mine You're for me forever
...my only mate?!?