This page contains all entries posted to Manufactured Environments in January 2004.

On The Stereo

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Retrospective Conversion

I spent some time yesterday working on the blog. Namely, I was doing a retrospective conversion adding entries from two old blogs of mine. You’ll note now that my archives go back to February of 2000. The entries from 2000 were from fishthing.net, an old website of mine. And the entries from 2001-2002 were from manufacturedenvironments.com. The fishthing entries were done completely by hand at the time, and I wasn’t using any blogging software. By 2001 though, I had started using Blogger for my blog content. That lasted until 2002, and finally in Feburary of 2003 I started using Movable Type. Feel free to peruse these old entries. Maybe you’ll find something of interest in there. I’ve done a slight bit of editing — references to those old websites have been changed to references to this site, danielstout.com.

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Aquinas & the Stoics: An Ethical Philosophy Selector

I tried out the Ethical Philosophy Selector, and this is how it rated my answers:

1. Aquinas (100%)
2. Stoics (99%)
3. Spinoza (89%)
4. Cynics (78%)
5. Aristotle (77%)
6. Ayn Rand (70%)
7. Jeremy Bentham (63%)
8. John Stuart Mill (59%)
9. Nietzsche (58%)
10. St. Augustine (54%)
11. Kant (52%)
12. David Hume (51%)
13. Jean-Paul Sartre (46%)
14. Plato (44%)
15. Thomas Hobbes (41%)
16. Epicureans (40%)
17. Prescriptivism (33%)
18. Ockham (26%)
19. Nel Noddings (19%)

So I scored highly with both St. Thomas Aquinas and the Stoics. The website had this to say about Stoicism:

• The common capacity to reason allows all humans to achieve virtue and wisdom.
• The external circumstances of a person’s life are irrelevant.
• One can achieve virtue by becoming indifferent to external differences.
• Passions must be rejected all together in deciding what is good and what is bad.
• Reason alone must be used in deciding what is good and what is bad.
• The common ability of humans to reason is why ethical relativism should be rejected.

Here’s the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s entry on Stoicism. I still remember Loyal Rue’s lectures on Stoicism my freshman year of college during a history of philosophy course (I was a philosophy major in college). Though their movement dates to the Ancient Greeks, it is still intriguing, and one I think that has value in this age of passions.

They have a variety of other philosophical “selectors” here, such as if your taste is more political philosophy than ethics.

[link via Caterina who rated 100% Nietzsche, which I think means that she’ll be wandering the streets stark raving mad in her old age]

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RSS Feeds for Library-related Websites

I gave a talk last week on XML, and before I forget I wanted to point out that there are a number of library-related RSS news feeds from various websites, which may be of some interest to the librarians I spoke to. You can find the listing here.

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Tremendous - cont.

Thanks to everyone who kindly emailed after this post. A couple of the things that I had in mind have now come to fruition, and I can now share what’s been going on. First off, I joined the board of a local charitable organization. I’ll be serving a two-year term on the board. I also do the monthly newsletter and created and maintain a website for them. The other news is that I’m going to SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas, this year. I’ll post more about this as it approaches — the conference is in March. Should be fun.

The biggest news is still in the works, and I will post information when it becomes available to me. Hang tight.

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532 Lawsuits from the RIAA

Here we go again. The RIAA has launched 532 lawsuits against individuals in their quest for total annihilation. Here’s a news brief via Edupage from Educause.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed 532 new lawsuits against computer users it accused of illegally distributing songs over the Internet. The suits are the first since a federal appeals court blocked the use of copyright subpoenas to identify the accused, who are labeled only by their Internet protocol addresses. According to the RIAA, each of the “John Doe” defendants has distributed an average of more than 800 songs online. The suits will work through the courts to obtain traditional subpoenas to identify the users’ names and addresses. The RIAA expects to contact each defendant identified to negotiate a financial settlement before amending the lawsuit to formally name the defendant and transferring the case to the proper jurisdiction.
San Jose Mercury News, 21 January 2004

You go, RIAA! Nail ‘em all! That’ll teach those meddling teenagers! (Teach them, that is, that the recording industry is a bunch of finks.)

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John Kerry wins Iowa City Precinct 16! (Update: And the rest of Iowa!)

I just got back from the caucus, and Kerry did well. In the first round there were twice as many people supporting Kerry than Dean. In Iowa City Precinct 16, where I voted, there were 9 delegates. In the final say, Kerry came away with 4 delegates, Edwards had 3, and Dean had 2. All the other candidates were eliminated in the first round for having less than 15% of the votes. After the first round, the people who supported “unviable” candidates can either leave or join another candidate’s group. It’s an amazingly low-tech affair. People were in the gym, and went to one corner for Dean, another corner for Kerry and so on. And then the captains for that candidate do a head count. You can actually be “undecided” in the first round and hedge your bets, and then after seeing who did well join a candidate in the second round. The second round is final and the delegates are awarded by the percentage of the people who supported them.

This was the first Iowa Caucus that I’ve participated in, and it was great! It was chaotic and fun, and there were tons of people out. It was a clear message that people are absolutely fed up with the Bush administration. The elementary school where the caucus in my precinct was taking place was jam packed with people. There was a cutoff at a certain point, and they were turning people away. It’s really an exciting thing to witness—democracy in action, literally. The people I talked to were surprised at how poorly Dean did. His support really wasn’t there tonight, compared to what it had been initially. I was amazed at how many people were there that I knew. There were colleagues, people from the board of a local charitable organization that I’m on, people I knew from grad school, and so on.

All in all, it was a wonderful caucus. And you’re probably wondering who I supported. Well, let’s just say I had this on my shirt tonight (click the thumbnail to see the picture.)

Update: I just checked NYTimes.com, and it looks like Kerry indeed took Iowa tonight. Wow!

Update 2: The other surprising thing about tonight, besides Howard Dean’s slide, was that John Edwards came out of nowhere and took a strong second place. I will say at my precinct that the Edwards supporters were fired up tonight. They’ve got momentum certainly. The Iowa Caucuses would have been especially interesting if Wesley Clark had participated. I spent three hours late last night re-visiting the various candidates websites reading and re-reading their positions on various issues. Both Kerry and Clark had clearly enunciated positions on their websites, though Edwards seemed to fall more into political babble without clearly delineating his positions. But as my father wisely pointed out to me recently, it’s not necessarily having clear positions that gets one elected.

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Iowa Caucuses — Less than an hour

It’s less than an hour until the Iowa Caucuses. May the best man win. My friend J. nailed it on the head. She writes, “Seriously, it’s important. It’s also fun (well, it is for me, but I’m kind of geeky that way).” I totally agree. Voting is…well, fun. It’s also part of being a responsible adult, like it or not.

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Iowa Caucuses Today!

As I’m sure you’re already aware, today is the Iowa Caucuses here in…Iowa. The caucuses are at 6:30pm. The Iowa Secretary of State has an address lookup service where you supposedly can find the caucus location for your precinct. I tried it, and it didn’t work—but I’ll put a link HERE so people can find it. If you’re in the Iowa City area, including Johnson County, you can find out your caucus location at the County Auditor’s page HERE. And remember, even if you aren’t registered as a Democrat, you can register tonight at the caucus. So go and make your voices heard!

Update:The Secretary of State’s address lookup didn’t work, but the Johnson County Auditor’s precinct lookup does work, nicely: you can find it HERE. So input your address, and it’ll tell you where you need to be tonight at 6:30 for the Iowa Caucuses. Plan ahead and get there early!

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it’s the most wonderful time of the year

You’ll notice the light posting over the past week. The two weeks or so before the semester begins are some of my busiest ones of the year. I’ve been working long days and on my days off to get everything done in time. Oh, did I mention the semester starts on Tuesday? Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, which is this Monday, is a holiday for everyone at the university. All the offices are closed. I’ll have a day to rest and recoup before it really gets busy.

Anyway, enough about business. I’m here in my office looking out the window, enjoying the clear sky and the sunshine. Clear skies are rare this time of year, so it’s a wonderful thing to see the sun. It hit 40 degrees yesterday or nearly so, and we’ve lost most of our snow.

This is Iowa, of course, and the important thing about Monday besides being MLK Day is that it’s the Iowa Caucuses, where we get to decide who we like best among the Democractic presidential candidates and set the tone for the rest of the election. I was driving up highway 6 last night and passed John Kerry’s bus on the road. The candidates (except for Wesley Clark and Lieberman) have been criss-crossing the state, making their message(s) known. My friend J. says she’s voting for Kerry, and he may be a good choice. But I’m partial to [***], and of course I don’t tell strangers who I vote for. People around here would call that Midwestern modesty. To me it’s called “it’s-none-of-your-business.” At any rate, the only thing I do say publicly is I definitely did not vote for the guy who’s in office now. Update: As I’ve revealed in a later post, I did support Kerry in the caucus tonight. But given the choices available, I’m comfortable with that.

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Christmas Redux

I know I already said that I swore off Holiday music, and by God it is the 13th of January. Tonight though, I threw on a Christmas mix CD that some friends sent, which I didn’t receive until after Christmas. At any rate, there’s some good music on it, and overall the quality of the mix is higher than last year’s. The mix has Xmas music by The Flaming Lips, The Mekons, Frank Sinatra, Diana Krall, and of course Mike McAbee: Trucker, Musician, and all-around Sensitive Guy. Thanks T.&F.!

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John Adams Night

It’s John Adams Night here at Casa Stout. John Adams is a contemporary composer known for his minimalist works. Tonight we’ve had on Hoodoo Zephyr, a disc of music composed and electronically performed by Mr. Adams, and right now we’re listening to a violin concerto with Robert McDuffie on the violin. Next up is Naive and Sentimental Music.

I rather like Adams work, as I do many of his peers such as Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and so on. One of my favorite pieces of Adams’ is his Lollapalooza, which you can find on this recording. Highly recommended!

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NYTimes Magazine on Blogging

The NYTimes has a longish article on blogging this morning in the Sunday magazine. It’s blogging from the high schooler’s view—these new means of communication from the perspective of those who are basically growing up with them. The article is online here.

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Mogwai

Tonight, Mogwai’s “Come on Die Young” is on the stereo. It’s mellow, instrumental, and yet inexplicably rock at the same time. To compare this album, I’d have to say that Chicago’s Tortoise comes to mind, especially their Millions Now Living Will Never Die album from 1996. I’d like to think that Mogwai derived some inspiration from Tortoise’s efforts. There are many similarities in the music, and both albums have titles dealing with mortality. Update: I just checked iTunes Music Store, and they don’t have any Tortoise (bastards!) but they do have Mogwai if you’re wanting to hear more.

Life at the university was quiet today. Most people in my department are off to a conference in San Diego for a few days. It was Paul and I holding down the fort. Instead of San Diego, I’m going to a conference in Austin soon. The semester starts on the 20th so we’ve got a few more days of quiet before things get going.

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Tremendous

This week has been tremendous. It’s just flying by. I’ve made some huge decisions about the next couple of years, and I feel awesome. I’ll fill in the details soon. Trust me, it’s massive! It’s been a week of taking risks, and it’s paying off.

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Foggy Day

As I mentioned earlier it’s a foggy day. Here are some photos I took of the trees behind my place this morning.

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Rockin’ Vinyl

I broke out the vinyl records last night here at Casa Stout, and we took in The White Stripes first album, Joy Division Still (first disc only), and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion Now I Got Worry. A good time was had by all.

It’s foggy like crazy here this morning.

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2003 DanielStout.com Year-End Review

Since it’s now 2004, I decided to have a look at some statistics culled from the DanielStout.com enterprise over the past year. This is more for my records than anything else, but I thought I’d share.

Top 10 Search Engine Searches for 2003 (in order)

1. trip shakespeare
2. show desktop icon
3. soy latte
4. egpyt (*)
5. daniel stout
6. london skyline
7. syracuse sicily
8. website hacking
9. riaa tracking
10. mosta malta

Top 10 Browsers for 2003

1. Internet Explorer 6.0 (65.4%)
2. Internet Explorer 5.0 (9.2%)
3. Internet Explorer 5.5 (8.0%)
4. Mozilla (2.2%)
5. AOL 8.0 (1.3%)
6. Netscape 7.0 (1.1%)
7. Netscape 3.0 (1.1%)
8. Internet Explorer 5.2 (1.1%)
9. Internet Explorer 5.1 (1.0%)
10. Netscape 4.0 (1.0%)
11. Everything else (8.6%)

Top 5 Operating Systems for 2003

1. Windows XP (38.5%)
2. Windows 98 (17.6%)
3. Windows 2000 (16.9%)
4. [Unknown] (13.2%)
5. Mac OS (4.9%)
6. Everything else (8.9%)

Click the thumbnail for a look at DanielStout.com traffic over the past year:

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Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you had a great 2003 and here’s to an even better 2004!

Astute readers of this site will have noticed some tweaks happening over recent days. Have a look around and let me know what you think.

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