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"Song", by John
Donne
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This just about sums up my feelings about women in general. Men aren't
all that much better, I guess, but they're not the targets of my
frustration. I thought about posting "Woman's Constancy" or "The
Canonization", but I liked this one the most.
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"The big story about crypto is a power struggle between two American tribes:
geeks and spooks. Occasionally innocent people blunder into this situation,
but they get lost, either because they don't understand the technology (that's
what geeks say) or they're not to pry any further into stuff beyond the reach
of mere civilians (that's what the spooks say)."
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I don't subscribe to the whole 'Net apocalypse theory. By the way most
people define it, it's happening every day, because the 'Net is often
so lagged in the afternoon that you can't do anything.
However, this article written for c|net uses the Four Horsemen of the
Apocalypse as the main dangers for the Internet in the future. Whether
you believe it or not, comparing the Millenium Bug to Pestilence and
Famine to address shortages fascinates the Hell out of me.
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Sometimes people do the silliest things. Like remove a legend from their
city because they think that legend is tainting their reputation. Yes,
the business thinktank in Nottingham is trying to get rid of Robin Hood
because they want to be known for their business. It ain't going to
happen, guys, and you don't need to get rid of a Medieval figure to
do it anyway.
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Man, you should have seen me when I read this the first time. When I
got to the part where the true point of the story was revealed, I almost
fell off my seat. "Did I misread this like I completely misinterpreted
the symbolism of the buck in that obscure Wordsworth poem?" But no, I
read it correctly. Swift's a riot.
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Lance has the particular ability to sum up in a few words what I try to
say in a few paragraphs, and I respect him for that. And he taught me
a few things about the Web in this essay. Writing like this makes me
go back every day to see if anything new has been posted at his site.
Lance Arthur is the author of Glassdog, an award-winning personal
site, and, in my opinion, the best on the Web.
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Back in the day, when every day brought a new national crisis to the United States,
it was important for our presidents to be stern and eloquent, even when speaking
about issues that could affect the stability of the nation.
Roosevelt's speech is now oft-quoted for its reference to the Axis calling
Americans weaklings and playboys. It inspired the nation to do many great
things afterwards and to have confidence in its own abilities.
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Written in his usual, beautiful style, Donne paints a different picture of
the almighty and merciless figure, Death.
Everything has more than one side to it. We live in a three-dimensional
world.
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Pandora, who is able to turn on both body and mind, writes consistently
fascinating essays on a regular basis. In "Corn in the Sahara", she
explores the future of the Web. I can't say I want to agree with what
she has to say, but it's a very honest look at a struggling medium.
Pandora is the owner of PBoT, a site
where various authors write about their lives under Greek mythological
characters' names.
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I admit it. I like Microsoft's goals. I just don't like how they're
getting there, stepping over competition.
Michael Kinsley, who is just plain cool (but is a little weird to be
around, I'm sure, from seeing him on various TV shows), writes about how
e-mail is being praised for the wrong reasons. He tells the reader of an
interesting quote, "At Microsoft, the phone never rings." Very intriguing
article. Man, I wish I worked at Microsoft.
Kinsley's article appears in the Forbes ASAP: The Big Issue
magazine. Other interesting articles are written by Bill Gates, William
F. Buckley, Jr. , and my dad. Yes, my dad! Like what you've
read so far of this issue? Then buy it.
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My dad bought this issue of Forbes ASAP right before I went
on the plane to go back too Austin. This article of his is in it, and I
guess he knew that article would be right up my alley. And it was. He
knows almost everything, and I say that not as his son but as an admiring
writer!
Fred (as I call him) has explored the reconstruction of our world very
thoroughly, so when you read this article, don't be thrown off at the
beginning, like I was. I guess, since I've lived with him, that I
figured his wishes not to use e-mail or computers beyond a word
processing level carried over into this article. I was wrong.
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Delightfully twisted. Gives me chills.
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A lot of people didn't like Guns'n'Roses after they switched to a
different kind of sound. "November Rain" is one of their epic songs,
and it has to be one of my favorite songs ever.
Too bad I can't place the music video online. Oh well, maybe when
everyone's zooming around on cable modems and companies aren't so
strict about copyrights, eh?
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Anthrax isn't regarded as a popular anything, really, but upon closer
inspection, I found I liked their lyrics and their music. I
don't expect you to like them after reading this, though ("damn white
trash heavy metal groups...").
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There's something about the melancholy sound and beat of this song that
I love. I can listen to it over and over like a mental patient. If this
song doesn't make you feel mellow, I don't know what will.
It would be entirely possible for me to place just about every U2 song
on this page, but I won't. They're all so good though...*sniffle*
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Guns'n'Roses. They've consistently produced albums I've thoroughly
enjoyed. But I liked their epic songs most of all. One was "Estranged",
the third part of a music video story which probably won't be completed.
The storyline makes no sense, but the videos are titillating and the
music never wears out.
"Estranged" is nine minutes and twenty seconds long, plenty of time to
put me into a melancholic fever every time I listen to it.
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Textbook Dali. If you look from a perspective other than your first one,
you'll see the matador on the right side and the bull with the large pins
in it on the left.
Not everything you see is as it first
appears. Now if people would actually
remember that...
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I think this fresco was my first encounter with Renaissance art. I think,
in fact, that it was the first painting I ever became attached to.
It's such a beautiful idea to have all of the greatest philosophers in
one place, relaxing and debating outside of the School. If only I could
be there, mingling with them... The painting has a lot of hidden
things as well -- some speculate the boy hidden in the picture may be
Raphael himself (of course, Raphael put him there).
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"The Scream", by
Edvard Munch (.jpg, 52k)
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If "The School of Athens" wasn't the first painting I became attached to,
it was "The Scream". The figure in the painting sums up how I feel about
things sometimes, and it's comforting to indulge in the chaos of colors
and maelstrom of emotions.
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