have a cup of moon

apwunrequited @ 2005-10-10T10:21:00

2005-10-10T15:24:51Z

Recall the Iraqi constitution for which State Dept. officials have been rallying support around the Middle East? Lawmakers are putting the finishing touches on it. Iraqis are set to vote this Saturday.

apwunrequited @ 2005-10-07T10:36:00

2005-10-07T15:55:18Z

What do you get when you take a healthy dose of "consumers don't want it", mix it with a helping of the old standard paradigm "consumers don't know what they want" - and throw in a good portion of "it doesn't work"? You get new efforts at digital copy protection. On the bright side, it's interesting to see lawyers less than MBAs and psychologists deciding what's best for the world. At least you know up front what you're getting with a lawyer. NPR reports, September 19.

apwunrequited @ 2005-10-07T10:32:00

2005-10-07T15:33:00Z

No one knows much about Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, beyond her spiritual conversion, which was a defining moment in her life. She's apparently not like many evangelicals. What she is like remains open to interpretation... as soon as somebody finds something out about her views... Sorry, no link available.

apwunrequited @ 2005-10-07T10:26:00

2005-10-07T15:27:54Z

Goodbye, Ronald McDonald: California has sued McDonald's, among others, over cancer-causing agents in fast-food fries. The suit calls for printed warnings that french fries can cause cancer. [more...]

apwunrequited @ 2005-10-07T09:52:00

2005-10-07T15:03:28Z

The Old West Moves Back East: If you've ever felt threatened at Disneyworld or the senior home, or maybe the beach, you might be glad to know that Florida will now allow you or any other resident to defend yourself in public with guns. The new law is called "stand your ground". Hear what NPR humorist Brian Unger has to say about this disaster waiting to happen.

apwunrequited @ 2005-10-07T09:43:00

2005-10-07T14:44:47Z

New Orleans' two public hospitals are being shut down, and with most of the city's health infrastructure in general in ruins, the outlook may not be good for the city's population in need of health care. [more...]

apwunrequited @ 2005-10-07T09:35:00

2005-10-07T14:38:22Z

Vermont's Circus Smirkus, the non-profit group with the upbeat name, needs to raise roughly $250,000 by December 1st or the touring arts company will fold. [more...]

Coming soon!

2005-10-07T14:27:53Z

More news sources - coming soon. Not just yet, but soon.

apwunrequited @ 2005-10-06T23:22:00

2005-10-07T04:25:14Z

Bizarre: Ai Ai the chimp, who picked up chainsmoking 16 years ago when her husband died, has finally quit, with the help of exercise and special food treats. Her patrons at her Chinese zoo wanted her to quit for health reasons. [more...]

apwunrequited @ 2005-10-06T22:29:00

2005-10-07T03:58:15Z

California police agencies say they have a good reason for rounding up homeless people and dropping them off in downtown Los Angeles. [more...]

apwunrequited @ 2005-10-06T21:58:00

2005-10-07T03:02:39Z

Defying George Bush's threats of continued abuse, via a threatened crafty veto, the Senate has overwhelmingly approved as part of the defense budget that military detainees be given humane treatment. [more...]

apwunrequited @ 2005-10-06T19:31:00

2005-10-07T00:55:47Z

Iraq's government voted yesterday to cancel plans to keep the referendum from failing. [more...]

The times, they are a-changin'. And everything's blowin' in the wind. And if I catch Alphonso Spagoni, the Toreador, with a mighty swipe I will dislocate... er, wait... Anyhow - the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is deciding on striking down a 1913 law that keeps out-of-state same-sex couples from marrying in Massachusetts. [more...]

1977: Disco is king, Jimmy Carter has just started his term, and GE has dumped more than a million pounds of PCBs into the Hudson River. 2005: George Bush is divine-right monarch, Jimmy Carter is doing humanitarian work, and the federal government signs a deal with GE to do something about the polluted Hudson. [more...]

apwunrequited @ 2005-10-06T14:29:00

2005-10-06T19:35:35Z

New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward, traditionally and recently very poor and very black, looks like it might be shit out of luck. Click here for more on this...
"Kill The Poor"

Efficiency and progress is ours once more
Now that we have the Neutron bomb
It's nice and quick and clean and gets things done
Away with excess enemy
But no less value to property
No sense in war but perfect sense at home:

The sun beams down on a brand new day
No more welfare tax to pay
Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light
Jobless millions whisked away
At last we have more room to play
All systems go to kill the poor tonight

Gonna
Kill kill kill kill Kill the poor
Tonight

Behold the sparkle of champagne
The crime rate's gone
Feel free again
O' life's a dream with you, Miss Lily White
Jane Fonda on the screen today
Convinced the liberals it's okay
So let's get dressed and dance away the night

While they
Kill kill kill kill Kill the poor
Tonight

(c) Dead Kennedys

Coming soon!

2005-10-06T19:21:59Z

Links to in-depth coverage of my news abstracts are on the way. As is fact-checking. What is this world coming to...

Station APWU Update #4

2005-10-05T00:23:21Z

That wacky Pat Robertson quipped recently that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez should be assassinated by the United States. What a solid, decent, honorable, upstanding Christian we have in Pat. Send him your money so he can buy guns.

A new study from the British Cheese Board claims that different kinds of cheese can give you different kinds of dreams.

Andre Messeri, Chief of the Pain and Alternative Medicine Department at Children's Hospital in Florence, Italy, has found that having a clown present while a child undergoes general anesthesia greatly reduces anxiety.

Iraq's Sunnis are standing in the way of a referendum turning out properly, and George Bush wants none of it. US State Department officials are currently touring Arab states mustering support for the Iraqi constitution.

A New York federal court has allowed the Salvation Army to hire and fire based on employees' religious beliefs. This is considered a major milestone in the Bush Doctrine, as the Salvation Army gets most of its funding publicly.

The NFL's New Orleans Saints are now known as "America's Team".

Trent Lott, longtime anti-civil rights protestor and perpetual member of the US Senate, has a new memoir out: "Herding Cats".

Some scientists say there's ample evidence for a large cougar population in Michigan. Some scientists say there are no cougars in the state. Who is correct? Tune into NPR for some conflicting views.

Station APWU Update #3

2005-10-02T17:33:07Z

Let Them Play Video Games: Researchers, in an ever more frustrated attempt to get people hooked on profitable ventures and placate nervous mothers, are experimenting with video games as substitutes for prescription painkillers for kids in pain. I'm not ordinarily one for strong words, but that makes ME feel a little ill.

Station APWU Update #2

2005-10-01T17:48:21Z

Ohio is having problems. There is a small infestation of the hungry emerald ash borer beetle in Toledo, and 20,000 ash trees are being cut down. Workers are beginning to clear brush from a 50-acre fenced-off section of Cuyahoga Valley National Park, which still needs the toxic waste removed from when the section was used as a chemical dump. Herman Ashworth, who waived his rights to appeals, is being executed. Go Ohio!

Hurricane Katrina has ruined an estimated two-thirds of Louisiana's oyster harvest for the year. Losses could approach $1 billion.

YOWZERS! President Bush and some members of Congress are rethinking the Posse Comitatus act, which prohibits the US military from enforcing the law.

German filmmaker Thomas Riedelsheimer has a new documentary called "Touch The Sound", featuring deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie.

In Pennsylvania, a court case is in the works, involving biology teachers who don't like being forced to teach creationism.

Radio host Bill Bennett recently let his sense of humor shine through on the air and posited that aborting black babies would reduce the crime rate. Help.

"Green Light", a reality show produced in Dubai, follows four young Arabs as they follow one of the four pillars of the Islamic faith and attempt to do good deeds. The catch is that they have no money, and limited time. The show has gained a dedicated following in Arab communities worldwide.

Sea lions have taken over docks and boats in Southern California, and nobody's quite sure how to get rid of them.

Former professional oboeist Blair Tindall sheds some light on the world of classical music performance with her new book, "Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music".

Station APWU Update #1

2005-10-01T16:26:11Z

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer has sued nine fast food and snack companies to force them to use warning labels about cancer-causing agents in their products.

Hundreds are gathering in the southern California desert to honor Gram Parsons, most remembered for his best friend having stolen his body from a coroner's office and giving it a funeral pyre in Joshua Tree National Park.

Barbara Ehrenreich has a new book - "Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream"

The Springfield, Missouri Mayor's Commission for Children has released a survey that shows a rise in aggression in the kindergarten classroom.

A federal judge in San Francisco has allowed bail for a Muslim charged with lying about his son attending a Pakistani terrorist camp.

The chemical depot near Hermiston, Oregon has begun destroying its share of America's chemical weapons stockpile.

Portland, Oregon author Marc Acito has a musical novel out which looks interesting: "How I Paid For College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship and Musical Theatre".

apwunrequited is back online :(

2005-10-01T15:59:14Z

Thanks a lot, guys. None of you bothered to add my new LJ to your friends page, so I'm going back to this one. I hope you die. ;)

But it's okay, because "thelunartick" was kind of a stupid name anyway...

SITE CHANGE

2005-09-03T09:27:29Z

As of presumably tomorrow, this LJ will no longer be updated. All old entries will be transferred over to http://www.livejournal.com/users/thelunartick - and I will continue from there.

Update your links as needed!

Part 2 of previous

2005-09-03T08:54:48Z

It might be more appropriate to call it THE LUNAR RATE, as that's what it is - moon-based, not pot-based. Based on the moon. Base on the moon! I'm an astronaut!! WHOOSH!!

Er, anyway - THE LUNAR TICK sounds funnier. I'm kind of like a lunatic in some ways, and a "tick" is a computer science measurement of time, just like "rate" is a measure of something PER time...

But anyway, skip the reefer rate, and skip apwunrequited. That name sucks. thelunartick rocks. I just hope it isn't taken! Shall we find out?

Day 3(?) of the 48-hour cycle

2005-09-03T08:40:50Z

Ugh. I expected tonight to be a really early night, seeing as how I had only had a short nap for sleep. But NOOOOOO! Here I sit, first getting tired enough to warrant passing out in bed - at 2:45 a.m. What the hell.

I think I want to give up on my 48-hour experiment, because the goal wasn't to "be able to stay up later, whether I want to or not" - the goal was to make more efficient and enjoyable use of my time, and avoid oversleeping as a consequence a few steps down the chain.

All that's happening so far is that I'm not able to sleep at a reasonable time, and I feel like shit constantly.

So to summarize the results of this experiment, it could very well be possible to shift to a 48-hour cycle, but I don't want to take the two weeks or so necessary to reset my circadian rhythms.

On a side note: when I do cycle, bipolar-wise, I cycle twice every 28 or 29 days. I did a little calculation... if the natural human cycle is actually a 33-hour period, and a solar day is 24 hours long, the time it takes for a 24-hour solar cycle to catch up with a 33-hour biological cycle is 264 hours - which is 11 days, suddenly rendering me astonished (but not too astonished) as I realize that whatever math I used to come up with a 29-day matchup, after having been awake for 30-odd hours the other day, was completely useless. I was about to proclaim to the world that the method behind the madness of my bipolar cycles lies in a strange underlying circadian rhythm, but it turns out I was just using bad math that I can't even remember. Shit.

Well, let's see - with a 24-hour day, what sort of biological cycle would first match up after 29 days, or 696 hours? 696=3x2x2x2x29... 24=3x2x2x2... a 29-hour cycle would do it... and it would pretty much have to be a 29-hour cycle, because the uncommon prime in that factoring is 29, and that's a huge fuckin' number. 29 is the *lowest* number of hours, and the next-highest would be 58. I highly doubt I'm on a 58-hour biological cycle. No ubermensch me. And a 29-hour cycle (assuming there is at least a grain of merit to my assumption) would explain why I'm a night person and why I always seem to stay up a little later and get up a little later all the time if left to my own devices... my body wants a 29-hour day, but the sun provides a 24-hour day, and... sure shit, that would also explain why I can go just fine until just about 5 hours past my ordinary bedtime before I start getting weird, assuming I had gotten enough sleep the night before. This is very intriguing...

I'm not sure exactly *why* my biological day matching up with the solar day again would cause me to tend to shift bipolar cycles... I don't know enough about human physiology, psychology, etc. to fathom a guess... I feel like (Galileo? Kepler?) - whoever first plotted the orbits of the planets as strict ellipses... they're not actually strict ellipses, but the guy that plotted those orbits in the 17th century didn't have access to the proper tools to figure that out, and he did the best he could with the tools he had available.

Hmmmmmmmmm... let's say I'm on a 28-day cycle, or a 30-day cycle... I just said 29 because for a while, I was noticing perfect correlation with lunar cycles...

Say it's 28 days, because unmedicated and in a shit environment, I would cycle roughly every two weeks. Very precisely roughly every two weeks, like clockwork... so let's say 28 days. That would be 672 hours... 672=3x2x2x2x2x2x7 - 24=3x2x2x2. The whatchamacallit (LCM??) of that thar dealy would be 7 hours. With a biological cycle of 7 hours, I'd have a matchup every 7 days (24 bio cycles (BCs) per 7 solar cycles (SCs)). AFAIK, I don't experience any sort of unusual trait every *7* days, so we can throw in the ol' 2 factor and figure a 14-hour cycle. That would mean a matchup every ... well, 7 days again. (12 BCs per 7 SCs). Wow, pattern recognition. 28-hour BC would be 6 BCs per 7 SCs. 56-hour BC (in Philip K. Dick's universe) would be 3 BCs per 7 SCs.

Pattern recognition part 2: 29-hour BC = 24 BCs/29 SCs. Holy shit, I'm reinventing the wheel backwards!

Anyway - just for shits 'n' giggles, 30-hour BC = 4 BCs/5 SCs. A matchup every five days! (Where does the weekend go, anyway?)

Okay - so factoring in that it actually seems to be more like a 14-and-a-HALF day cycle: we're looking for a matchup every 14.5 SCs, or a 14.5x-hour BC. Meaning that my earlier guess of a 29-hour BC fits appropriately. (24 BCs per 29 SCs, or 12 BCs per 14.5 SCs)... meaning, it's time to reduce myself to a number! Are you ready?

We're looking for ONE BiPolarC per 14.5 days, meaning a 348-hour BPC. My magic number is thus 348. (I could have said that right from the beginning without any of the stuff in the middle...)

348 numerologically reduces to 6. From what I remember of numerology, 6 isn't a bad number. But I'm trying to be as non-pseudo-scientific as possible, so we'll skip the numerological analysis.

Instead, we'll factor 348!! (YAY!) That works out to 3x2x2x29. Wasn't that fun?

Now, we'll spell it out loud: "The reefer rate"! (??)

Never one to overlook symbolism, 348 is apparently such an integral number to my existence that - dare I venture to say - 348 could represent ME! (Technically, yes, it only represents a PART of me which doesn't even apply anymore... but why the hell not...) Therefore, i am THE REEFER RATE!

I am the rate at which you smoke your joints and compute symbolism.

I am strange. I quit.

Day 1 of 48-hour cycle experiment

2005-08-31T09:33:27Z

I'm trying something new. I'm going to see if it can work sleeping for long stretches, every other day.

I've read about studies that showed that the actual natural human physiological cycle tends to run something like 33 hours, which is still about half a day less than what I'm shooting for, but we shall see.

(In one study, they put people alone in rooms that had no clues whatsoever as to how much time had passed... the people were monitored, and they wound up settling into a 33-hour cycle or so. There are times when I wish sleep were optional, but if I can just extend my usable day, that would be more than enough.

What do I do on days when I have nothing to do, though? Short answer: those never happen anymore, now that I'm building a Linux system entirely from scratch, and that's enough to keep anyone occupied as long as they want to be occupied.

But anyway, if I can reset my biological clock to deal with something like... 33 hours awake, 15 hours asleep... or perhaps 36 hours awake and 12 hours asleep with a short nap involved... I will be in good shape.

The reason for my experiment: I've wrestled with being an insufferable night person my whole life. Once I get going on a project late at night, I don't want to go to bed. This causes problems with work, because when I do finally go to bed, I tend to do things like sleep through my alarm. Solution: try to get on a 48-hour day, and everybody's happy.

I will try and post updates in here to let everyone who reads this know how I'm doing. I will give up after 8 days - 4 cycles - if it turns out to be ineffective.

Next goal: cutting down on smoking. Inspired by something Amy told me about how she eats a long time ago, I've started to alter my smoking patterns. I now wait seven seconds every time I want to take a drag, and am trying to train myself to put the cigarette out with one drag less than I would ordinarily take. It's not a hard counting thing - I just intuit what my ordinary last drag would be, and try and catch myself before I take it. So far, I don't always remember that I'm doing this, but after enough practice, I'll get good at it. Hopefully, this will eventually lead to a gentle cessation effect.

All's well that starts well

2005-08-31T04:53:32Z

Well, well, well. All well. 11:25 and all is well. Or something like that.

I'm building a custom Linux system from scratch. That's keeping me mucho occupied and is lots o' fun.

In other assorted news, I've met an awesome girl named Melissa who just moved up here from Texas. The old awesome people named Amy and Brendan have also reappeared in my life. The questionably awesome guy named Chris has vanished from internetland and is heading for England soon for a semester of study in Haggishockinghamshire, Northumberland... er, actually, Derby. University of Derby.

What else?

The sexually questionably awesome girl named Julie R. and I have finally come to a conclusion on something without chasing each other in circles for hours. That occasion in and of itself is on the same level as the first launch of the space shuttle... or the collapse of the Soviet Union... etc. etc. But we've shelved the project we've been puttering around on since 7th grade in favor of stuff that will actually sell, for the time being. Maybe we'll go back to the old project, maybe never. I'm actually kind of hoping never, because you can only take something that started in 7th grade and run with it for so long before it gets so self-contained and esoteric that the only people who think it's funny are the authors. :P

What else?

I get to go to Neenah tomorrow and do some sort of conversion. I should have been doing that elsewhere today, but between lack of gas money and other assorted problems, I couldn't make it. I couldn't find anybody to go instead of me, either, and I hope I didn't fuck anything up too badly by not being able to make it. I had a couple of missed phone calls from company people when I woke up today, but no angry e-mails waiting for me, so I'm hoping I haven't destroyed my reputation completely. I feel like an asshole, but there was nothing I could do about it.

What else?

I could really go for a couple of servings of my protein drink right now, but as luck would have it, I'm out, and broke. The stuff costs $8 for 14 servings. I need the stuff because I'm a veggie and don't get much into the kinds of non-meat foods that provide protein... so to avoid chronic system-wide muscular atrophy, I load myself up on protein drink. It's good stuff... it tastes pretty good, and when I drink a couple of servings of it, my muscles feel like they're bulging. But because I'm going to be broke for maybe a week, maybe two weeks... I'm kinda fubared for the next couple of weeks. I have a couple dozen eggs in my fridge, but I'm trying to move away from eggs - even though I've always gone on the assumption that they take the eggs before they're fertilized, and nothing actually dies in the process, I could be wrong - and for that matter, how does a mother hen feel when some guy's always coming in there and taking her eggs?

Anyway - besides all that, eggs don't have all THAT much protein in them, and each egg has like 80% of the daily value of cholesterol... I tend to eat about 4 eggs per meal. I already smoke very heavily and take a medication that increases cholesterol levels (and can also cause lactation in men sometimes) - and get very little exercise, so anything to help avoid dropping dead of a heart attack before I'm 30 is good. Next goal, when I actually get to a point where I'm ready - quitting smoking, so I don't drop dead of *lung cancer* before I'm 30. Although with lung cancer, it isn't so much "dropping" dead as slowly suffocating over a period of several months. Doesn't sound like the most fun way to die. Denis Leary has his theories, but I don't really buy into them. Hell, if I could somehow be a 90-year-old *rock musician* - see, it's like... I would know so much more about life by the time I'm 90, if I stay open-minded and live that long... and would probably have mastered the art form as much as humanly possible - but rock music also involves raw energy at the very least and a good dose of sex appeal if possible... along with a minimal laugh factory factor (assuming you're not in it for the comedy) - and a 90-year-old rock musician is severely lacking in sex appeal for most people, is most likely lacking in raw energy, and would probably be a huge laugh factory, if you even bothered to stick around for the show.

Mr. Bungle could probably pull it off. Not sure why that makes sense to me...

Anyway, I have to do laundry before I go to bed - I have no pants that don't reek, and I have to work a full day tomorrow - and because none of a select group of people are online right now, I'm going offline and rebooting to my custom Linux build-in-progress, where my next task will be to compile the final build of GCC. This will be the third GCC compile since I started with an empty partition. The first install was like a bootstrap, and the second install was compiled with itself three times over, or something like that... and that version is what's getting used to build the final one, using the final version of glibc that took me two hours to build. I'm somewhere between ubercool and completely unfathomable. :)

!!!

2005-08-29T14:24:10Z

Oh no!

There are people outside, pounding things! :O