It's official.


North

-= CD Release Concert =-

the evening of Saturday, 27 September

The Ark



Tell Everyone.

What do i mean, "Everyone"?

Everyone.

It's Fat Tuesday, and what better way to digest my lard-laden strawberry delight than with a quick public 2¢ on a few political issues -- one local, one national.


In Local News...

I heard today through friends' blogs and aaio's post that after nearly a decade of growth and success in downtown A², Leopold Bros. brewpub is skipping town and resetting up shop in Colorado.

Is the ailing local economy to blame? Is there some massive business drive to move to a particular region? Nope. It is, in fact, the opposite. According to a comment on the AAIO blog by owner Todd Leopold (which i'll take the liberty of assuming has been validated), the skyrocketing rents for their downtown location has made doing business there unbearable.

"It's just supply and demand", some might say, but i say that -- as usual -- Ann Arbor needs to start thinking harder. Your carefully-cultivated and well-marketed reputation for progressivism may only last you so long, people. You may want to start making some better decisions about what you really wish to be, and who and what you'd like to support as the backbone of your community.

...and in case no one's mentioned it, i'll remind you again: altruism and living in a better world just might cost you a few bucks.


In National News...

For those of you voting in a primary today -- one that actually might count, even -- i'd like to offer some friendly food for thought.

I hold a very realistic cynical view of national elections and major parties. Bush's exceptionally poignant terms in office notwithstanding, i generally feel that, given our corporate major political parties and laughable somewhat-compromised national election system, the real execution of the Presidential race marks neither a democratic process nor a terribly influential outcome.

What i believe is that the real votes that change the shape of our nation are cast every day. They're cast when we go grocery shopping or select vendors for our businesses. They're cast when we talk to our friends, or interact with our fellow human beings. They're cast in the ideas we carry forward, the philosophies we embody, and the assertions that drive our daily decisions. I believe that what is far more important than who wins any election is what message and thoughts we bring to the world.

Given this philosophy, i almost don't care at all how the election goes or who wins the Presidency, but i care very much about what message and which concepts for consideration will be slathered all over our media for six months, discussed and reprocessed on our blogs and at our dinner tables, and brought to mind countless times for us to soak in and think about.

For this reason, i'd like you to consider voting for Barack Obama. I don't know or care about his electability. I know a little about his platform, but have not studied it in depth, nor do i need to. My consideration here is based solely on one assertion: Whether it be real or fake, lasting or transient, pragmatic or fantasy, purposeful or accidental, Obama's campaign has become associated with a concept of national unity. The campaign -- either by design or merely by those who've gravitated to it -- appears to be snowballing ideas about breaking down political boundaries between people, being more progressive about citizen-driven government, and focusing more on the United States as a nation with a unified and responsible populace.

I remind you: whether or not Obama can win and/or execute any of his platform is irrelevant in my philosophy. The power of his campaign is in what it can represent in the minds of people, and the long-term effect, win or lose, of the message that it sends to all of our elected officials, regardless of who they be, about what we feel is important.

Regardless of your political persuasions -- even if you plan to vote 3rd-Party (as i usally do) or Republican in November -- please consider the benefit that a mere idea and symbol can have on the nation in the interim.



...and with those tasty little glazed and calorie-laden pastries of thought, i welcome your comments, and wish you a happy Fat Tuesday and a good rest-of-'08.

VoicePost 89K 0:56

“I was absolutely to stoked about the idea of automatic Voice Post Transcription. I could not immediately try it upon hearing the news. But, being the guy I am I figured I would give it a little bit of a challenge. ___ try that.” Auto-Transcribed Voice Post

ETA: This was my test of the new "automatic transcription" feature, but i didn't realize the transcription was people-powered, not software-powered. If you decide to listen to the recording, you'll see why they may not have bothered to process it... (oops... sorry!)

I'm writing a rare public post in the hopes that it might get some attention from the larger audience of folks interested in analyzing and shaping the downtown and campus areas of Ann Arbor. At the very least, it might kick off some discussions about the nature of the issues at hand.

My post is inspired by a recent article pertaining to the controversy surrounding The Arena (a local sports bar) and the recently-formed grant-supported organization, "Ann Arbor Campus-Community Conversations" (A2C3). The article outlines some of the concerns that the University and City have about "excessive drinking" on and around campus, and about some of the initiatives -- both reasonable and questionable -- that may be afoot to address them. The article also quoted some related material from the popular website Ann Arbor Is Overrated (but failed to provide a link or URL), which seeks to humorously dispel oft-prevailing hype about the town, and light-heartedly raise awareness about some of its less-publicized shortcomings.

( some views of the issues, the root problem, and some possible solutions )

Until then, everyone. Please link, discuss, and spread the word. I do, on my good days, still believe we can make a difference.

Here's a sketch of an idea for a relatively simple, executable path to a much happier life:


1) Carry some device all day long that you can set to alert you at regular customized time intervals.

2) Set your time interval so that the alert goes off every 4 hours.

3) Every time it goes off, think upon something for which you are sincerely and especially grateful just then, and acknowledge your gratitude for a moment. (Try to think of a new one each time, if you can, but don't stress it if you have repeats.)

4) Do this every day until you feel like it's pretty easy to do... and then cut your time interval in half.

5) Repeat forward from Step 3 until your time interval is short enough that you no longer need the alert.


Refine and pass along as you will.

:)

Happy Opening Day!!




(Open today 'til 6!)

Rock frickin' on!

In further deferrence of content, I'm trying to spread the word about this on behalf of my good pal Oz, owner of our burg's last friendly neighborhood music store, and performer extraordinaire on many instruments including the Chapman Stick.





If you're a music geek, a musician into fretted instruments, or just want to see something frickin' amazing, go to this.

While the Festival's gotten some press, Oz was telling me that almost no one yet knows about this killer show the next day:


Stick Creator Emmett Chapman

Live at the Ark
Sunday 16 July, 1pm


And if you want to really fill out a Musical Weekend of Doom, you could always squeeze in a swingthrough of our July 15th show, running right off the tail end of the StickFest... :)

Do spread the word. (It's even a public post, so link away!) Thankee.

I felt compelled to spread the word about an LJ issue that's being looked at right now. I'm a proponent of free speech, but also a big believer in the "Right To Not Access", and obviously the application (and abuse) of obsenity laws ends up being a huge battleground for striking the balance between these two.

Short version, insofar as I can gather it:

A disgruntled user who had been warned about one of his icons being indecent decided to push back on LJ by raising the ire of lots of other users with icons he felt might also be targetable. He did this by lodging complaints to LJ against their icons, presumably hoping that LJ's consequent warnings to them would kick off an uprising from a larger community of users. Presumably, it worked.

Perhaps the most key issue that fell out of this was SixApart (the owners of LJ) deciding that icons depicting breastfeeding fell into this category because "users may be in locations where such images are inappropriate", thereby implying that breastfeeding itself would be inappropriate in some locations.

What seems to be (at first look) a very reasonable protest activity to reverse the resulting suspension of accounts and changes of LJ policy has been launched. The best link I've seen about it so far is this post on a breastfeeding community at something called GreatestJournal (which seems to my untrained eye to be a non-LJ blog site that's running the open LJ engine). The community journal has more recent posts describing a 24-hour journal-deletion boycott intended to make a dent in LJ's active user numbers and show support for reversal of this policy interpretation.

See also LJ's FAQ 111 re icon content restrictions.

LJ's overall policy (especially before the change of FAQ 111) doesn't seem outrageous to me (though it could use some tweaks), but the interpretations of it that have been made seem off the mark and implicitly dangerous. An apology and simple reversal of what was likely a hastily-made poor interpretation would easily set things right, it seems, and that's in essence what seems to be requested by the protest.

I invite and encourage comments from anyone with additional helpful links, clarifications or info.

(I also welcome discussion on the topic in general, but reserve the right to redirect it to a seperate post if it gets lengthy, just to keep this channel focussed on this specific issue.)

I wont be deleting my journal because my computer karma is shaky at best these days, and I'll likely do something stupid and permanently erase something. I did, however, want to pass on the word, and encourage others who feel this issue is important to look into it and/or do the same.

Thank you. (...and a shout out to fairmer, who spread the word such that I could see it (and whose LJ should be back online in about 24-36 hours).)

For those of you who don't know technolope, or his artwork, you should:



In addition to being a rocket scientist and all around amazing dude, 'Lope uses his cutting-edge Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) mojo (and other mojoes) to create amazing hi-res CG flatwork. A selection of his pieces are on display in the North Campus Commons (or Pierpont Commons, if that's what the kids are calling it these days) on U of M's North Campus through all of March, with the opening reception tomorrow (Thursday 9 March) night at 7pm (all free, AFAIK).

If you want to see some cool art and meet a true innovator, get on down there.

Just in case you haven't voted yet...


write in Hans C. Masing
for 15th District of Michigan U. S. Congress Representative


My understanding is that this particular vote wont be close, anyway, and this write-in is a matter of principle supporting independent candidates that are often boxed out of running for office due to a party-centered system.


Thank you. :)