2004-03-01

Ecstasy Club

I just realized that when I said I had finished reading Ecstasy Club, I never said what it was about. Well, on a literal level it documents the rise and fall of a cult-ish rave club in San Francisco. At it’s worst it’s a drug-induced psychological journey through the collective mind of a bunch of ravers trying to take the human raise to the next evolutionary level through drugs and electronica. At it’s best it’s a paranoid vision of corporate brainwashing and mind control.

“A darkly comic contemporary fable: a brave, very funny, very knowing trip through the neo-psychedelic substrate of the wired world.” - William Gibson

Read it. And don’t do E.

This article was modified 2012-12-22.

2004-02-29

I should do homework. Eventually.

I went down to the beach today and took pictures. Perhaps, if I get unlazy, I’ll upload the pictures I took with my digital camera. If I’m feeling anti-lazy, maybe I’ll even scan in the pictures I took with my 35mm. But I doubt it…

The guy at the Walgreen’s photo counter noticed the NIN patch on my jacket and commented that Pretty Hate Machine is a good album to listen to if you’ve just broken up. This made me chuckle.

Well, I fell to the dark side today and replaced my falling apart binder with one of those portfolio-folder-thingies. Perhaps I’ll get a pad of yellow paper and become “deck”, instead of my current “fin” state. Heh. I love these words. Kids these days make me laugh. ....Wait.

Apparently the Oscars are on. Would somebody be so kind as to post all the winners?

This article was modified 2012-09-15.

2004-02-23

Demistify the Pixel

I’ve uploaded Douglas Rushkoff‘s H2K2 speech, Human Autonomous Zones: The Real Role of Hackers. A highly recommended listen.

How the role of hackers in society has changed. They used to be a necessary counterbalance to corporate and government power. Now, it's more like hackers are the only ones who understand the technology. They have become a balance to the power of technology itself. A discussion by renowned author Doug Rushkoff.

Also check out his article Electronica, the True Cyberculture: How Rave Culture Embodies and defines the Digital Age.

Subscribers to BPM will recognize Rushkoff’s latest novel, Club ZeroG.

This article was modified 2012-09-15.

2004-02-22

backups, linux

Simple MySQL Backup/Restore

To backup:

$ mysqldump -u username -p -h hostname databasename > filename

And restore:

$ cat filename | mysql -u username -p -h hostname databasename

This article was modified 2012-12-22.

2004-02-21

review, books

Simulacra and RFA

I just realized that I never posted a few days ago when I finished Reading Simulacra: Fatal Theories for Postmodernity. So, yeah, I did. It was interesting, but seemed to dragged on at certain parts. You can tell it heavily influenced The Matrix.

Jason Scott is on the last episode of Radio FreeK America, 99.

This article was modified 2012-12-22.

2004-02-13

Pretty Good Day

2600 came today. I have next week off. Ice skating tomorrow.

This article was modified 2012-09-15.

2004-02-09

2600: Winter Edition Released

So the Winter edition of 2600 is out. Some people have already recieved them, I have not. Hopefully sometime this week.

New Firebird, too. They renamed it to FireFox http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

This article was modified 2012-09-15.

2004-02-02

review, books

Fear and Loathing

I finished reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas last night. That’s a damn good book, in an LSD-induced sort of way. I Think the New York Times Book Review quote on the back does a good job of summing it up

The best book on the dope decade.

Speaking of the back, here’s the excerpt they put on it:

We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls... But the only thing that worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible than a man in the depths of an ether binge...

I can’t wait to see what traffic Google is going to send my way because of that quote.

But, yeah, good book. And short. So read it.

This article was modified 2012-12-22.