Monthly Archives: February 2007

Dear Future-Lloyd

0
Posted by Lloyd Morgan on February 28, 2007 – 2:07 pm
Filed under Everything Else, Sci/Tech

It’s been a while since I’ve found a website that really made me think about myself and, most importantly, others. It’s been a while since a website has really emotionally connected with me and made me take notice of more things than those directly in front of me. The last time this happened it was PostSecret. Now it is FutureMe.org.

Simple in concept and execution, FutureMe is a website where you enter your email address, write an email, and then set a future date for the email to be sent… to yourself. You can write some goals that you want to achieve in the next 12 months (so you’ll be depressed when you realise you didn’t do any!); write to say ‘Hi’ purely for the novelty of it; or write an email to remind yourself of a good (or bad) time in your life. The possibilities really are endless.

You can set your message to be private or public, and those tagged as public can be viewed by all visitors to the site.

Some are short, punchy and quite amusing:

Dear FutureMe,

I am a cynical pessismist who hates everyone and believes that they are all out to get me and jealous, too. Riley is four and talks back. I still hate my father. I have no health insurance.

While some are longer, really engage you in their story, and make you want to know more about this person’s story:

dear me,

how’s life treating you? for me, its going ok…been out of the hospital for a week now…we had viral menengitis, which is the better of the 2 menengitis’….brad is down in austin…fu–er…he’s leaving, i’m convinced he has the job…which is very very good for him…but very very bad for you…stop reading this right now and call him….he’s a very good guy and he’s in a terribly fu–ed up situation right now, but staying his friend is important, so do it, call him, i’ll wait….

,..how’d it go? i hope you were able to get in touch with him…as i write this he’s in a bad place and i’m doing my best to put a bright spot into it…i also just got off the phone with him…he sounds excited…stay happy for him ok, even if he did end up breaking your heart…

the family is good…dad found out last week he has to stay on chemo till november…it made mom cry….but at least he has the anti-depression drug, its helping keeping him sane, and therefore keeping us sane…ry comes home in june, and i’m scared to death of him leaving again, as it means he’ll be on his way to iraq…marines have it hardest of all and the way ry is, he’ll want to be front and center for everything…i’m so proud of him but so terribly scared at the same time…you and the parents haven’t talked about it, cause it makes you all cry, but stop reading this again and go write him a letter…and draw him a pic, you know how he loves our stick figures…

ben is over in iraq right now…its hard as hell…he’s your best friend and its hard not getting to talk to him face to face…has he been home or did he go to australia with the b!tch? how’s the rest of the crew? hopefully tamaeka and the babies are doing great…i’m sure she’s tired as hell…did she name #2 xavier? you and katie decided that would be a great name (even though it sounds similer to the other name)…how’s katie’s house? did nik ever move out? talk to them…they are the only ones outside of the family to make you feel special…those in the crew were the only outsiders to take our eccentricites and problems and love us anyway…call them…they need you as much as you need them

remember also that i love you with all my heart…no matter who you turn out to be…just do your best and leave the rest up to fate…life is good…and it will all be ok in the end…if its not ok, its not the end…stick to your guns, stick up for the little people, stick by your loved ones…and take some chances for the love of pete…you won’t get anywhere if you don’t…leap and the net will appear ok…i love you

Then again, you don’t necessarily have to send the email to yourself, or to one person; one I came across was obviously written to more than person. It was also the smallest I read and the one that hit me the hardest emotionally:

Hi Kids,

By the time you read this, I won’t be around anymore. I’m sorry I got ill. I love you with all my heart. Keep well, love mom

I’ve just written two - one to myself and one to someone else. Will you? Now all we need is a system to email our past-selves with the lottery numbers!

Shift Happens

0
Posted by Lloyd Morgan on February 28, 2007 – 9:22 am
Filed under Sci/Tech

‘Shift Happens - Globalization and the Information Age’ is a video I first found over at John Chow’s blog.

It’s a pretty interesting video (especially for those of you who like statistics) and as you may be able to deduct from the title, it’s all about the how the world is changing in today’s IT-centric world.

You can see the video on YouTube or watch it below…

Geeksta Rap: Chip Hop and Algorhythms

0
Posted by Lloyd Morgan on February 27, 2007 – 4:00 pm
Filed under Media (Films & Music), Sci/Tech

Armand Navabi is an Iranian-American programmer and PhD student who has contributed enormously to the computing fields of software watermarking and layout algorithms. Armand Navabi is also known as MC Plus+ or Sir Code-A-Lot… Armand Navabi is a Geeksta Rapper.

MC Plus+ is one of the promising stars in the emerging Nerdcore hip hop scene… a subgenre of hip hop music that is taking the ‘geek community’ by storm. Instead of the classic east-west rivalries, there’s hostility between universities; Mac and PC users; and programmers of different languages. Before a recent peace deal, Monzy was the rival of MC Plus+ and had been quoted as saying:

“In the past, I was like the complement of the Empty Set [MC Plus+'s 'crew']. And you know what happens when you union a set with its complement? It takes over the universe… of discourse.”

Wikipedia states that, though Nerdcore rappers rhyme about everything from dextromethorphan use to politics, there are some recurring favourites in Nerdcore subject matter, including Star Wars (”Mind Trick” by 2 Skinnee J’s and MC Chris’ “Fett’s Vette”), science (MC Hawking’s “Entropy” and “Pluto” by 2 Skinnee J’s), and computers (Optimus Rhyme’s “Reboot”, Monzy’s “Drama in the PhD” and “Computer Science for Life” by MC Plus+).

Nerdcore recently came to the attention of the mainstream technology magazine ‘Wired’ when Roger Thomasson wrote a scathing article there on the genre. After Thomasson’s article was printed, Kristin Ritchie - MC Router, the ‘First Lady of Nerdcore’ - and her posse 1GB (1337 G33k B34t / Elite Geek Beat) wrote a ‘revenge track’ about how much they hate Wired (mp3 available) which was widely distributed. And not unlike ‘normal’ hip hop or rap, it didn’t shy away from controversy. To quote BoingBoing (edited by me to keep this blog a family-friendly establishment):

Lest ye suffer under the misbelief that that the 21-year-old, Texas-based Ms. Router is a personage to be taken lightly, I present unto you a snip:

Nerdcore article got published in Wired.
That a–hole Roger Thomasson should get fu–ing fired.
What the hell’s going on with this sh–ty magazine?
You want this motherfu–ing knife in your fu–ing spleen?

Indeed.

MC Plus+ has two albums - Chip Hop and Algorhythms - both of which are available to download for free and are also completely DRM-free, meaning you can play them on any MP3 player and platform you like - this is how most Nerdcore music is distributed. Visit NerdcoreHipHop.org for more information.