Jason Griffey

Hmm…So maybe the upload IS working. Still shaking the bugs out of the system here.

Well, tomorrow Bets jaunts off to faraway FLA and sticks me here by my lonesome, with just the kitties to keep me company. The kitties, and my new Xbox. 🙂 If anyone has game recommendations, post'em up…always like good game design, regardless of the genre. Also, if anyone wants to do dinner for the next week or so (late, though…working in the Collab 'til 8pm nearly every night) let me know…gonna be starving for human contact. 🙂

Speaking of gaming, for those who don't know, I _love_ games. Adore them. Game design is a hobby of mine, and I'm a playtester for a company (Comic Images) who produces one of the more popular Collectible Card Games, Raw Deal. It's a game based on the World Wrestling Entertainment brand of professional wrestling. The game is my major hobby…to the point where I'm competing in qualifiers for the world championships over the summer. 🙂 Wish me luck.

“The story of film begins around a fire, in darkness. Gathered around this fire are primates of a certain species, our ancestors, an animal distinguished by a peculiar ability to recognize patterns.”

William Gibson, from his speech to the Directors Guild of America on their Digital Day,  Los Angeles, May 17, 2003.

So many good things in the speech for information/media people. Gibson is just amazing in his ability to weave words into patterns that mean more than the words seperately…they hold weight they did not previously have access to when he finishes with them. Read this. Everyone who reads this blog…Read this now.

Ok…after much testing, it looks like this thing is live. Certain things may change (especially some of the layout, once I dig my fingers into the CSS) but I think this is how I'm going to handle my blog from here on out. Update links as necessary.

Ok guys…as I said, I’ve been working on getting a new blog setup going, and I think it’s nearly ready. Take a look, tell me what you like or don’t like…I’m going to Radio, I think, for it’s flexibility (I’ve wanted to break a blog into pieces and post different things to different blogs, and this allows me to do that easily). As well, the comments are built in, with the whole thing controlable by me and not Blogger.

Anway, see what you think.

New and Improved Pattern Recognition

Quick update on why I haven’t been doing much blogging….

….it’s mainly cause I’m building a better blog. 🙂 I’m in the process of trying out Radio Userland as an alternative to blogger for what I want to be able to do with my blog. Blogger is a GREAT tool, but the basic blogger doesn’t support comments (have to get those from another site) among other things. Radio uses CSS and XML in interesting ways, supports RSS feeds for my site, archives in XML instead of HTML…just generally does things the way I want.

SO….I’m building. Soon, all will be revealed.

🙂

Jason

More complete abuse of the DMCA. Security talk cancelled due to cease and desist from lawyers.

http://features.slashdot.org/features/03/04/14/1846250.shtml?tid=153&tid=172

and here, for your reading pleasure, is one of the papers that was “threatened” by our friends the lawyers. It provides vital security information to this campus in that one of these systems is in use, OneCard. I am providing this as a service to the campus community, and invite the legal team that threatened the talk to do the same to me. I am not only currently enrolled in a Security class which makes this relevant material and protected by fair use doctrine, but as a library science student, this directly impacts the income of my workplace, which makes it necessary to my livelihood. Combine these reasons with the First Amendment, and you’ve got a nice challenge on your hands.

Enjoy.

🙂

Ok…some time since blogging due to spring break and being without internet access.

The most interesting thought that I’ve had recently has to do with the title of my blog and the way I seem to handle information processing. In several classes we have discussed info processing of sorts, and I’m starting to try to pay attention to how it is I operate. I probably take in more info in a day than I should…I’m constantly connected, visit 6-10 news sites repeatedly thoughtout the day to stay on top of stuff, get tons of email, and IM with friends. In reflecting on that, several people have asked how I tell good information from bad on the internet (a common question from non-netheads). The best explanation that I have been able to come up with is that I do some kind of pattern recognition for what my brain tells me is “good” or “safe” on the net…things like level of language use, proper grammer, is it recently updated, keywords used, and other things I’m certainly not aware of. Somehow, though, I ferret through stuff. The same goes with searching…I google for something and can pick the most likely result on the first page to give me what I want in milliseconds, without consciously reading and processing the information in the text.

This phenomena interests me. I will be writing more as I think of situations and anecdotes.

Okay…still in KY. Granny is doing really well. Turns out that it definitely wasn’t a heart attack…and no damage was done. All in all, a great outcome. Still worried a bit about her.

Coming home to NC tomorrow…looking forward to getting home.

More later, when I have real internet access.

Blog MeetUp last night…very, very interesting stuff. Discussion about the reason for the blog explosion, the interesting social implications, the voyeuristic side of reading blogs (as well as the exhibitionist side of writing in one). Lots of interesting stuff.

In other thoughts…trying to plan for the summer. Lots of travel options, just have to work the finances out.

A little note about the title of my blog: it’s from the newest book by William Gibson. The book itself deals with branding and the saturation of symbols that we all just look past if we notice at all. The main character has an allergy of sorts to brand iconography…the Nike swoosh, golden arches….these marketing devices literall make her ill. Really a clever book thus far…very different from some of his other works. It’s more “near” than “future”….but the title jumped out at me. That’s what I think most intelligent people are trained to do…see patterns where others don’t. It’s something that I’m going to work on improving and formulating a bit more as the blog goes on.