It’s been so long since I’ve taken foot on theparagon.ORG soil that I almost forgot that I even had a website.
As always life has been keeping this old kid busy. I’m settling down with certain things in my life while getting ready to burst in others. I’d have to say I’m rather happy with how things are.
In other news - Evolt.org published another one of my short articles on Voice Over Web. Same article posted below this one.
I’m also learning quite a bit about Mac OSX administration, along with some AppleScript. I wrote my first little program that can automatically upload a file to a server when I need it too. Nothin fancy yet but learning non-the-less.
A New Interest
From a scene other than that of computers in my life - I’ve taken quite a fancy to this
book called,
“Islam and the Jews” - The Unfinished Battle after hearing the author speak last Sunday. Mark A. Gabriel, PH.D. is an amazing guy that has a very contagious story.
He memorized the Quran by the age of twelve with much encouragement from his Muslim family in Egypt. His entire childhood education was spent in Muslim schools, and he earned a doctorate degree in Islamic history and culture from Al-Azhar University, the school that is the source of spiritual authority for the Islamic world. After graduating 2nd in his class of 6,000 he became a University Muslim teacher for many years.
Through quit an amazing story of being tortured by the Egyptian government, excommunicated from both family and country, and wandering through the Sahara Desert he explains how after 40 years he became a Christian.
He goes in great detail explaining what Muslims believe and why they show so much hatred toward the Jews and their culture.
I might write up a little essay after I finish the book but right now I’m just caught up in what he is saying. I wish I could buy you all the book.
So other than those things, not much else is different with my life.
posted on March 30, 2003| 2:26 AM EST
Around the time Google announced their purchase of Pyra Labs (indirectly buying Blogger.com) another company came out called Audblog. Their concept is to offer people voice posts on their weblogs via phone and everyday users can listen to their posts instead of reading them - such as you are reading mine right now.
It hasn’t taken off and I’m not really sure why. Maybe the people geeky enough to even consider such a concept are too afraid to actually carry on a conversation with themselves. Most of them just like constructing their thoughts through random taps on a keyboard.
I listen to a couple myself and it got really annoying. (1) I was continuously trying to hang on to the person’s conversation through all the background noise, (2) things didn’t flow as nicely when being spoken than when reading, and (3) you could tell they felt very nervous and reserved. Basically it’s good idea but needs a lot of work.
Today, however CNET came out with a great concept that may have come from this idea. CNETRadio.com was born out of the idea that - people are busy and don’t always have time to read up on all the news. Real news - not just someone spouting off about their new socks.
The news comes twice a day in .MP3 format. You can listen to it on your computer or quickly burn it for that car ride to and from work (also great for listening during a jog, walking your dog, etc..). With CD’s as cheap as they are and being re-writeable, it makes complete sense.
Going further:
I think the above it a great idea and I even signed up for it. However, it’s just a start with voice on the web. One idea I see this technology being used for is journalist purposes. Folks in the field being able to updating quickly with what’s going on. Getting interviews on the spot and actually hearing people’s voices.
So how is this different from radio? Simple - not much different. The main benefits would be archiving purposes. Being able to quickly search thousands of voice archives over the web for research projects.
Another difference from radio would be un-edited journalism. There wouldn’t be any commercials, there wouldn’t be any bleeps, there wouldn’t be any “Let’s take this out and only point out this side of the story” - there would be pure journalism.
Another idea that comes to mind is quick voice searching. Google Labs developed a system somewhat doing this very thing but very simple right now.
Hook Google’s voice search capabilities into un-edited journalism and you now have fully compiled content for websites. Resources from everywhere being pulled in based upon what’s going on. If the reporter is reporting on terrorism the site will pick this up and pull in other links that deal with the same situation. Maybe past instances of this or simple “How to deal with Terrorism” links for quick comforting reads.
I’m slowly developing this idea but it could really take care of itself. No more teams of web developers slapping things together and trying to gather resources from the newsroom (which is hard as hell if you’ve ever worked for a paper) - information would just evolve and grow on itself.
posted on March 18, 2003| 10:06 PM EST
Classes are finally over at Davenport University and I’m now spending my nights and weekends finishing up projects and enjoying the hours in the day. For a good amount of time I had to shut everything off in order to keep up with college demand but like I said - that junk is over.
To celebrate my first day off I bought my department at the Sentinel breakfast at Burger King. Let me tell you how much those $3.00 morning meals hit the spot before a long day of work. Later I treated myself to David Pogue’s 725 page Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Second Edition book. Already I’ve picked up so many resources and now understand, even more, why I love Mac and that pretty UNIX backend.
The rest of my time has been filled with finishing up the Likeminded website for a local band. My buddy Brian Sharda also sits high in there with his keyboarding skills.
So I feel much better about life, dispite the random crap I have deal with on a day to say basis - it’s still much more relaxing than when my nose was stuck in books.
posted on March 15, 2003| 6:25 PM EST
_00:18
College and Mental Freedom
A couple months ago I got into an debate with my roommate on personal goals and dreams. I couldn’t understand why many students in college had little to no clue on what they wanted to do with their lives.
For me, it was simply a matter of looking at what you like to do and figuring out a way to get paid for doing those things. The only problem with this theory of mine was the lack of mental freedom college students are given.
I miscalculated the amount of thought that must go into figuring out this type of system and also miscalculated the lack of mental freedom students are given to think on such things.
Taking just a few classes right now has helped me understand a bit more on why this may be a problem in our society. Whereas college is incredibility important in our social development and growth - it doesn’t seem to account for the time needed to successfully allow ones mind to develop a plan.
You’re given classes upon classes and statistics on top of statistics - a students mind is so consumed with these facts and figures they are to mentally exhausted to think on any future development. It’s constantly a struggle to just get through the next hour in life.
All this said and learned, I don’t detract my statement fully. I do think college students should think about their future and doing this isn’t as painful as many assume.
The first and easiest way I have found to help is figuring out what you like to do. This doesn’t have to be work related but value related. If you like doing something as simple as playing hacky-sack go from there. How can you get paid to do just this little task? Many times people will develop functional business plans just on this form of simple thinking.
The next thing is just to talk with other people that are professionally doing the things you wish to do. It’s very important to hang out with your buddies and people holding the same social role as you - it’s also very important to attach yourself to groups that are much higher in society and are doing the things you want to be doing.
So if you want to become a professional hacky-sack player then hang out with people that are playing hacky-sack. Proceed to hang out with people that challenge you and never let you settle for being still.
Where did all this come from?
I’ve been pumping social statistics into my brain for almost 4 hours straight now. It’s almost impossible for me to think on anything other than the subject(s) that I’m learning about. During this process I thought back to the debate with my old roommate and thought I would stop learning for a moment and reflex on that thought.
I may be completely wrong and could drastically be overlooking something. I do however think this is a serious issue and should be looked at. If college’s aren’t discussing the implications of these factors I fear we’re only hurting ourselves and economy later on. I will now open the floor for any thoughts on this. That is - if you can break your mind away from your college training :-)
posted on March 10, 2003| 12:35 AM EST
_20:07
Almost Done With School
Just a quick update to let ya all know I’m
almost done with school. This coming Tuesday I finally finish classes at Davenport University and will have a lot more time on my hands.
I won’t go into the amount of stress that’s clouded over me like a dark winter day but I will say I have learned a lot.
On another note: This site has been mostly a place for me to just discuss whatever I wish. Whereas it may stay the same I’m hoping to start using it to explain new things I’m learning. Yea, I have no idea what that means either.
I heard a wise person once say, “Anyone can have a website, but the difference between a good site and a plain site is whether you have something to talk about or not.” So I’d like to start contributing good content. Maybe I’ll start up a new section of my site that I actually finish and have my idea played out there. It’s anyones guess how I figure this out.
I would like to ask however - what interests you? What gets you excited and what makes you love life?
posted on March 7, 2003| 8:20 PM EST
