Monday, February 25, 2008

really simple RSS

I'm into recursiveness

http://www.slate.com/id/2184810

it's an article about an improved RSS feed that filters out what you do and don't like in your RSS inbox based on your reading preferences. Think RSS and netflix ratings mashed up, based on textual analysis. Hot. I might try it.
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Wednesday, February 20, 2008

a life worth living

The past couple days, i've been meandering around town with the thought/question in my head "am i living a life that's worth living?". This i think is a little different than the question "what do you want to be known for" because the latter question speaks about your long-term impact on the people around you, while the first question asks about the quality of your life in-the-moment.

So, there's not a resounding no, but there's a cold 'not really' truth ring to my answer. I have a couple opportunities to create the programs and movements that i want to, but i'm not driving them to become actualities, much less driving them to completion.

what are they:
a black economic empowerment network
a program to develop computer literacy skills in African-american youth
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going down in flames

Clinton
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Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Why vote for Obama

here's something that i left on a forum thread whose title was Obama vs Clinton

here's why i am and think you (and everyone) should vote for Obama:

At least internally, he's resolved what many of us see as dualities. It sounds like to him there is no race, gender or class, despite the media attention and pigeonholing of democratic candidates into race (Obama), gender (Hillary) and class (Edwards) [and isn't that ironic that we have(d) all three discussions in our face and didn't know to comment on that].

Obama seems to have touched what it is to be human. He seems to know what it is to have your heart broken because of chance, racism, happenstance, economics and gender. When he talks, he talks to the core of what it is to be human. He's not thinking of you, me and others as individuals with different shades and shapes, he's talking to the fact that we're cut from the same cloth. He takes into account that after years, decades and centuries of injustice, still we live and toil. He talks to humans of what is possible for humanity and mankind [and possibilities create opportunities for action]. And i think that what he talks about is a reflection of his thoughts. He speaks hope. He is hope.

I'm somewhat hesitant to say it but . . . him being in the political arena, he's playing a game that's beneath him. He's Plato's philosopher-king, Rand's Galt and Neo after the Oracle. His true voice would probably be found, mined, smelted and formed in the halls of academia, but since philosophy has been so long divorced from politics, his craft and words would fall on deaf ears. So he's doubly equipped as a philosophical non-dualist clashing swords in the halls of academia and an expert in the game of politics clashing in the halls of congress. You'll not find another benevolent warrior-king inside the world of politics since Ghengis Khan and perhaps Mansa Musa.

When i argue with people who've known me for a while, I tell them that every four or five years i get a new paradigm. I've been afrocentric, socialist, capitalist and perhaps a few shades of other stuff. My problem was that many times, these paradigms for me would be an intellectual exercise, rather than something that spoke from my Being, both as a human, and as a blackman. But for the last couple years, since i have distinguished this, i've grown to know an cherish how to speak from my experience as a human, and occassionally managed to talk to others in terms of their experiences as humans too. And i'm no master, i falter. Obama is a master, and he falters too.

It seems like for Obama, the unrelenting aspiration for the expression of love and fairness in the lives of everyone is the only life he wants to live, not a dog-and-pony show for votes. I can't help but support that. This is in stark contrast to Hillary who emotes some of this on cue and Edwards who really feels it, but isn't it. Shit, i even like McCain. McCain has the same qualities that i describe in Obama, but living his life in the machiavellian world of politics (as an honorable politicisan, not the derogatory intonation that we think of today) McCain is anchored in this realm of passion for love and fairness, but as a ship, not as an anchor. Obama is the anchor, the mooring of hope.

So for me, at least, not voting for Obama and the hope that he exudes, exhorts and represents would be perhaps the most traitorous thing i could do as a human.

Hope for President


Okay Jeff, that's not why you should vote for Obama, but why i am. And i hope that looking through the particular glasses that i look through in life, you'll start to see what it is about Obama that i know you feel, but just can't distinguish.

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Saturday, February 02, 2008

tagging movies

I've always wanted to know how i can find a movie just like the one i watched. For instance, compare the two movies about magicians: the illusionist and the prestige. Both involved magicians, but it's hard to focus in on just magicians if you look in the more general category 'magic'. In that category, you'd find things like harry potter and the hobbit trilogy (whatever that name is). So i've been wanting some kind of tagging system that enables a person to add tags that are relevant to a movie so you can search for things like "plot twist" and "double-cross" if you like to watch that sort of thing.

That call has been almost answered in the form of the IMDB taggin feature. It's good, i' only tried it out on one or two movies and it got them (the aforementioned magician leading to those two movies). What i'd really like is that being cross-referenced with Netflix's user preference ratings. It would help netflix offer "movies like" that actually incorporated deeper elements of a movie than simple user likings . .. it would help users like me find movies that i'm almost guaranteed to like for the right reasons.

It would be like the pandora of movies!

peace
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