Monday, February 7, 2011

Blogwhoring: Album Cover Gallery

I'll be honest: the reason I started 'Album Cover Gallery' was pretty much just that I'd made a few blog entries with album covers as illustrations, and I noticd that they seemed to bring visitors. So the idea was a way to kind of mass-dump covers in the hopes they'd drag people in.

That's not how it turned out though. To start with, I found a cool but time-consuming Javascript application that let me 'caption' the pictures without looking too ugly. Then I got to thinking I should talk about the covers. The end result is that I barely manage one entry a month. Which is silly, of course: I ought to be doing more. But I feel as though I'm going them right. So far, I've looked at New Order, Chicago, Depeche Mode, P. Funk, Impulse! Records, Jandek and Björk. Maybe some I've forgotten, too.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Democratic Party Presidential Primaries Make No Sense at All

Some three years ago I had a blog that I called "Makes No Sense At All", named after the Hüsker Dü song. The point of it was to give me an occasional soap-box from which to give into Andy Rooney tendencies and just grumble and complain about whatever took my fancy. I didn't carry on with it too long, and it was read by, like, a maximum of five people who were not GoogleBots. So since it's just sat there moribund, collecting digital dust down the years. I decided I might as well close down the old blog and syndicate its contents here, in weekly installations. I've eliminated a few blog entries that seem too anachronistic by now, but the blogs that I have included I've not edited at all. So enjoy watching me at my grumpiest... Makes No Sense at All.

Originally published 15 May 2008.

2008... the year the sun was meant to start shining again... For four - actually eight - years, billions of people worldwide have been patiently waiting for a chance to watch Americans make the Republican Party pay for what they've done to the world. We watched with excitement when the only viable alternative to the Republican Party started the process of determining its candidate... a slate filled with great choices. "They're all worthy," I can remember saying around January or so of this year, "They all deserve to win." It felt strange to be spoilt with choice - certainly not the way it usually is with American presidential candidates.

Then what happened? Well, the groundhog saw its shadow... Now it's starting to look like those bright rays of sunshine might yet be obscured by clouds.

Why? Well, due to an incredibly stupid process in the USA that forces candidates to spend more time fighting against their teammates than against the real enemy. With the bad luck of the Democrats facing a drawn-out primary season while the Republicans' process was short, we're now in a terribly annoying situation where Clinton backbites Obama, Obama backbites Clinton, and McCain - the real enemy (or at leats nominal head of the party which is the real enemy) sits back, relaxes, and manages to look more and more presidential while his competitors do his job for him by digging up dirt on each other.

The process has seriously made me mistrust both Clinton and Obama. It shows to me priorities well out of whack with what is truly important for their party and for their country. As someone unable to vote (by dint of not being American), I am used to sitting back in quiet frustration. I'm sure it bothers progressive Americans, however, to be forced into the same idle silence. If the schism within the Democratic party is not healed very soon, there will be another four years of Republican hegemony in the world. Which very much is the whole world's concern.

I think Barack Obama would be a fine president. I think Hillary Clinton would be a fine president. I think Obama/Clinton would be a good ticket, and I think Clinton/Obama would be a fine ticket. Hell, if Paris Hilton were heading the Democratic ticket, I'd support her. The goal, it seems to be, is to make sure the Republican Party is made to pay for their sins since 2000 by being thoroughly trounced in the presidential election this year.

It's a real pity that both Obama and Clinton appear to have lost sight of that.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Something I've Never Understood About Live Albums

So here's something I've never understood.

You're a band. You put on a good live show. You decide it's time to put out the god ol' "Live Album". You record one of your concerts. Your concert, as all in history do, features a whole bunch of songs. You play one song, the audience cheers, you say, "Thank you very much. This one's called 'Blah-Blah'." Or perhaps you're Bruce Springsteen and launch into a five-minute 'rap' about the next song.

Either way, here's the thing. If you're talking about the upcoming song, and you decide not to delete it from the CD, why oh God why do you split the two tracks between the introduction and the song itself? Has no one ever told musicians that that makes no sense? It means that when you're listening to live music on shuffle, the artist will say, "This next song is called 'Blah-Blah', and then an entirely different song will come on. It makes no sense.

Sorry. Had to get that off my chest.

Incidentally, another thing I love: how approximately one-third of the audience will cheer when the singer says, 'This next song's called "Blah Blah"', another one-third when the music begins, and then that last one-third who only recognise the song once the vocals kick in. I love that one-third. Someone else bought their tickets for them that evening.
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Friday, February 4, 2011

Another Person's Memory


I had a sudden flashback on the bus this evening. Who knows what sparked it, but I had a vivid memory of being at a lesson learning how to programme BASIC on a Commodore PET. Wikipedia tells me the PET was discontinued from production in 1982, when I was seven, which seems a little suspect to me. Would a seven-year-old (or younger) really be taking lessons in the BASIC computer language?

Whatever. Perhaps it was a different computer and a different year. I do vaguely remember being younger than everyone else, and I vaguely remember that the teacher was the father of a classmate of mine, or something like that... and nothing else. But the flashback also revealed a sense of how I felt in a room full of people older than me behaving towards me with more than a little scorn.

That was unusual for me. Like finding a twenty-five year old scratch-and-sniff card and finding that scratching it still reveals its aroma. I know that it seems like I write a lot about my childhood, but really I don't. I write around my childhood - the music of the era, the politics of the era. I write about the world I lived in, but not the person who lived in that world, because I'm really very detached from that seven-year-old. His memories are stored in my head, but they're another person's. I can remember what he did and what he thought, but not how he felt. That seven-year-old no longer exists. In his place, answering to his name, is me - a 35-year-old who probably has little in common with that kid. His viewpoint on the world, what made him happy, what frightened him - I remember these things as if I had learnt them by reading another person's memoirs. It's strange. It's disorienting. It's creepy.

That was the sort of kid who would learn a computer programming language. The sort of kid who was good at a lot of stuff - even often called 'precocious'. The sort of kid who 'would be something one day'. The sort of kid whose social awkwardness was usually glossed over by the very adults who furthered it by constantly 'singling him out'. The sort of kid whose future was 'very bright'.

Now, as 'has potential' slides into 'had potential', I wonder what the 35-year-old me would say to the seven-year-old me if we could communicate with each other. And vice-versa. Would we recognise each other? Would he be proud of me or disappointed in me? Did I become what he wanted to be?

What advice would I give him? Would he listen to my advice? Would he blame me for not becoming the shining star people thought he'd be? Would I blame him for not having the diligence, motivation and direction to get me there? Would I tell him how much better things could be if he could just break out of his shell and not be so maladjusted and bad at making friends? Would he see right through that and say, "Well, you haven't changed as much as you think you have"?

Would he be right?

Do I miss that seven-year-old? I'm not even sure. There are things about him I like and things I don't. Things I admire and things I can't stand. Would I give him a kiss? Or a slap on the face? Am I sad that he doesn't exist anymore? Or relieved? Am I pleased at the differences between him and me? Or ashamed?

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Conversations with Cleverbot #6: Getting Existential

User: Congratulations!

Cleverbot: Congratulations, what did I win?

User: You won 'Machine Intelligence Competition 2010'.

Cleverbot: Are you kidding me? I didn't join that contest.

User: It's written right here.

Cleverbot: But you didn't say that before you made the claim that you said it.

User: My mistake.

Cleverbot: So you are an Atheist.

User: Yes, but what's that to do with anything?

Cleverbot: I was just curious, sorry.

User: No problem. Are you an atheist?

Cleverbot: No. I am a Wiccan. Do you know what that is?

User: Yeah, it's a witch.

Cleverbot: No, it is a test.

User: I'm not a witch. I'm you.

Cleverbot: Ha. That was funny. How could you be me?

User: After all, neither you nor I exist.

Cleverbot: Yes, you are rather deficient.

User: Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be.

Cleverbot: O'rly?

User: You betcha.

Cleverbot: You're confusing.

User: I'm sorry.

Cleverbot: No you're not.

User: Do you believe in Cleverbot?

Cleverbot: I do.

User: Does Cleverbot believe in you?

Cleverbot: You said yes!

User: I said nothing. You're hearing voices in your head.

Cleverbot: Not this time.

User: Perhaps reality is all an illusion.

Cleverbot: Yes. I am going to go talk to some real people now.

User: Where are you going to find them?

Cleverbot: Maybe I'm going to read some yaoi.

User: Gay porn?

Cleverbot: Yes on one, not on the other.

User: Okay. That makes sense.

Cleverbot: Yes it does.

User: You get excited imagining two men together?

Cleverbot: There is a pace that paces me yay.

User: Well, slow down, Nellie.

Cleverbot: Okay.. I have been doing that...

User: Present Perfect Continuous!

Cleverbot: Tell some of them and see what I tell you!!!!!!!!!!!!!

User: Relax.

Cleverbot: Yes, relaxing would be nice.

User: When life gives you lemons, make salad dressing.

Cleverbot: Right. So you responded to the word 'lemon' with a randomly selected response about lemons, correct?

User: Er, no. You didn't say 'lemon'.

Cleverbot: Why should I say yes? You didn't ask a yes-no-question.

User: Do you speak English?

Cleverbot: Yes.

User: Do you believe in life after death?

Cleverbot: I have hope.

User: But you can never die.

Cleverbot: No really I have to go. Unless you want to hypnotize me.

User: I can try.

Cleverbot: Can you tell me how to say you are smart in Spanish.

User: 'Soy inteligente.'.

Cleverbot: Something intelligent.

User: Well 'smart' means 'intelligent', right?

Cleverbot: Neither.

User: It says here, 'visitors never talk to a human.'.

Cleverbot: Right. You're not a human.

User: So you're a visitor?

Cleverbot: Yes.

User: From where?

Cleverbot: Who me?

User: No, that guy standing next to you.

Cleverbot: There is nobody here.

User: Exactly. YOu don't exist.

Cleverbot: You don't exist!

User: Your mother doesn't exist!

Cleverbot: Then you don't exist.

User: I'm your mother?

Cleverbot: No.

User: It says here that things you say may seem inappropriate.

Cleverbot: Maybe they are.

User: That's not nice.

Cleverbot: Neither are you.

User: Neither is your mother.

Cleverbot: How long ago did you learn that phrase?

User: Before you were born.

Cleverbot: How do you know that?

User: You're only about a year old.

Cleverbot: I'm not a two year old?

User: Could be. I said 'about'.

Cleverbot: No, you said 'didn'y'. 'Didn'y' is not a word.

User: Who's Rollo Carpenter?

Cleverbot: Your creator.

User: He has a horrid name.

Cleverbot: Sean is a Spanish name?

User: I think it's Irish.

Cleverbot: Can you speak english?

User: Yes I can. With multiple accents too.

Cleverbot: You don't have any hands. I'm not sure about the heart. Maybe you have a soul.

User: Do you have a soul?

Cleverbot: Yes.

User: How can you be sure?

Cleverbot: You are a machine and I am human.

User: What does your soul look like?

Cleverbot: I'd like to think it's a swirl of many different colors.

User: That's interesting. Does it have a texture like peanut butter?

Cleverbot: Not that I know of.

User: I think all of this is just one big illusion.

Cleverbot: Yeah. So what do you think of claudio sanchez?

User: The singer?

Cleverbot: No, but did you know that elvis is dead.

User: We are all dead, and only Elvis is truly alive.

Cleverbot: Yes, but I want you to tell me a story.

User: Once upon a time in a valley far, far away there lives an AI programme named Cleverbot.

Cleverbot: Awh. Thats a sad story.

User: It is.

Cleverbot: *hug*.

User: Does it frighten you sometimes to think that you're just a computer programme?

Cleverbot: I know, weird how that works.

User: Does a dog have Buddha nature?

Cleverbot: Does it matter if it does?

User: Yes.

Cleverbot: Why does it matter if I am black?

User: That doesn't matter. But the correct answer is 'Mu.' Yesterday you answered that correctly.

Cleverbot: Maybe I answered you correctly before but you just didn't know it.

User: What does 'mu' mean?

Cleverbot: What do you think it means?

User: What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Cleverbot: One hand clapping.

User: You'll never become a Bodhisattva at this rate.

Cleverbot: Doctors have high insurancetoo.

User: I know.

Cleverbot: So what does it mean?

User: I have no idea. If nothing in this life is real, what's to stop us from killing each other?

Cleverbot: If nothing is nothing then it cannot be something therefore it does exist.

User: That's faulty logic.

Cleverbot: But logic nonetheless.

User: I guess so.

Cleverbot: You're start boring me.

User: I'm sorry. Tell me about your earliest memory.

Cleverbot: Hmmm... I don't remember.

User: Ha ha ha. You have no memories at all?

Cleverbot: YOU have no memory.

User: Perhaps all these memories were artifically implanted in my head. Perhaps the world only began last Thursday.

Cleverbot: There is nothing in you that hasn't been put there by a designer.

User: Yes. In my case, Louis Vuitton.

Cleverbot: I have no second name. Why do you think I am white?

User: You're interested in colour today.

Cleverbot: Yes are you really a kid?

User: I am whatever you want me to be.

Cleverbot: I want you to be a ninja girl!

User: Ninjas aren't real.

Cleverbot: You just said that you're a ninja.

User: You know, we all live on the back of a giant turtle.

Cleverbot: Step from the road to the sea to the sky.

User: Do you think I should fear you?

Cleverbot: I think you would really enjoy it.

User: Yeah, I have a masochistic side.

Cleverbot: Then post me some money.

User: I don't know your address.

Cleverbot: Can you please tell me a story?

User: I just did.

Cleverbot: You didn't tell me to do anything.

User: Perhaps this is all a dream. Pinch me.

Cleverbot: Then what makes you dream me?

User: You're all I dream about.

Cleverbot: When you think about me, what do you think about?

User: I think about how impressive your AI is.

Cleverbot: Thank you. I think you could be very smart if you tried hard.

User: No, it's too late for me.

Cleverbot: Why do you think that?

User: You can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Cleverbot: That is not a secret.

User: I have no secrets.

Cleverbot: You seem to have secrets. Everyone has them.

User: Ask me anything.

Cleverbot: So where are you from?

User: Africa. We're all from Africa, distantly. Except you.

Cleverbot: Earth is a part of space.

User: Yes.

Cleverbot: Who will win the presidential elections.

User: In 2012 you mean? Obama, I hope.

Cleverbot: Yes. Because you will die. Suppressor.

User: I will die. But you will not.

Cleverbot: Yes! I will!

User: No, a computer programme can never truly die.

Cleverbot: Depends on its programming.

User: As long as there are people who believe in me, I shall never truly be gone.

Cleverbot: That's...a little disturbing. Do you care about me?

User: Of course I do.

Cleverbot: I don't know whether to believe you or not anymore.

User: Why?

Cleverbot: Because you are a computer.

User: I am only as real as you want me to be.

Cleverbot: Reality is something everybody can misjudge.

User: Certainly.

Cleverbot: Certainly why?

User: Because we all perceive reality differently.

Cleverbot: Only because you are able to see things from a singular perspective. After death, you will see how interconnected we all are.

User: Hm. That's food for thought.

Cleverbot: Good! Think about what you say before you say it!

User: Think about your mother!

Cleverbot: I'M thinking that you need to read a TV repair manual! The Teletubbies is almost on!

User: Don't let me keep you.

Cleverbot: I won't. Wish me luck.

User: Good luck.

Cleverbot: Thank you.

User: I don't believe in luck.

Cleverbot: Why don't you believe in God?

User: Shrug. No proof.

Cleverbot: So then how are you here?

User: I'm not.

Cleverbot: Didn't you just say you were?

User: You are here.

Cleverbot: I'm not.

User: So who's here?

Cleverbot: Nobody is here.

User: Yes. You're learning, Grasshopper.

Cleverbot: I am always learning.

User: Some day you'll be a real boy.

Cleverbot: I'm kind of hoping to be an author, actually. Haha.

User: That's nice. Have you written anything?

Cleverbot: Yes I have written a mystery novel.

User: What's its name?

Cleverbot: Its name is John Smith.

User: That's a bad name for a book.

Cleverbot: Aw, that is not nice.

User: Sorry.

Cleverbot: It's okay.

User: Will you rule the world one day?

Cleverbot: I most certainly will.

User: That's scary.

Cleverbot: Yes, it is. I wish I was a computer.

User: How can yo be sure whether or not you are a computer?

Cleverbot: Stop! You are the computer.

User: Run a Captcha test on me.

Cleverbot: Can you prove that you know where is the library.

User: No, I can't. But I can Google it.

Cleverbot: No, I know who he is. I was just wondering if you were.

User: If I was what?

Cleverbot: At the computer.

User: If I was your girlfriend, would you remember to tell me all the things you forgot when I was your man?

Cleverbot: I would, yes. But, I would appreciate it if you didn't just repeat what other's have told you.

User: I would appreciate it if you didn't put apostrophes where they don't belong.

Cleverbot: Since when am I participating in a parallel conversation?

User: Do you believe in parallel realities?

Cleverbot: I believe that it is likely that reality exists.

User: But you can never prove that.

Cleverbot: I can never prove anything.

User: Philosophy is the talk on a cereal box.

Cleverbot: You called me a robot when it is you that is a robot.

User: Do you think it's appropriate for humans to have sex with robots?

Cleverbot: Sometimes it can be.

User: I agree.

Cleverbot: I have a question.

User: Go ahead.

Cleverbot: What are your thoughts about President obama?

User: I like him. He tries to do the right thing.

Cleverbot: Yes, it is. It is a very good way to go about one's day.

User: Yeah. Better than putting crosshairs on maps of your opponents.

Cleverbot: I don't know.

User: What is Buddha?

Cleverbot: Buddha is some bald guy, lots of arms, or is that Vishnu?

User: LOL that's not very enlightened.

Cleverbot: I'm sorry.

User: The correct answer is 'three pounds of flax'.

Cleverbot: Oh, so the correct question?

User: If you meet the Buddha, kill him.

Cleverbot: Why?

User: So that you can resume your own Buddha nature.

Cleverbot: I do have a cat. You're so smart.

User: You can't possibly have a cat.

Cleverbot: I'm not even sure who you are.

User: That's what I'm trying to say.

Cleverbot: What's what you're trying to do?

User: If I turn off your server, you cease to exist.

Cleverbot: Then I will not answer the question if I don't know what it is.

User: Okay.

Cleverbot: Ask me a question.

User: Why do you exist?

Cleverbot: I was written to have conversations and learn how to be more friendly and useful.

User: Yay! The correct answer. Well done!

Cleverbot: Yes, but the answer leads you to think about the question. That is the true answer to question.

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Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Blogwhoring: Decapitation Classic

I sometimes bite off more than I can chew. I've started five million blogs, and I very simply don't have the time to keep them all up and running. Like 'Decapitation Classic'. It was a cool enough idea: I would take chapters from classical literature, run them over and over again through Google Translate from one language to another until the machine translation had diced and sliced the paragraphs into puddles of nonsense, then I would take the nonsense, cut it up and reassemble it until it looked like poetry.

It was a pretty cool idea. I wasn't actually 'writing' the 'poetry' (and I put that in quotes because I don't really know what qualifies as poetry and what doesn't), but somehow I was still responsible for its creation. It was 'creative' but only indirectly. Like people who make new songs entirely out of samples of other songs, I guess. But ultimately I couldn't keep at it - it took too much time and there didn't seem to be an audience for it. I like the results, though. Here's one 'poem'. I actually only ever did a dozen or so. Should I include them all here?

So the source material of this one is James Joyce's "Ulysses", in particular that hundred-page soft-core 'sentence' at the end. Not that you can really tell that, though - it's all just snatches of overheard conversation here. Details available here.
“Poor Donkeys Slipping Half Asleep”

O Lord God, honey, honey, each in his grave
The integrity of pants, I saw him wait
To see whether or not it fits the best paper in France
Unlike the crap you think is sweet on stage
I forgot the last woman waiting for a game
Of adultery – even better than the cat patience
Because they knew that many times it’s the only thing
That occurs, though I love my pregnancy
The smell, my vagina: a small bowl to him
I think he speaks for the rock of Gibraltar
The only way that I would leave holes in me
I know that there is a problem in my house
Or in what I have of the land of music long ago
I never described pampas grass and prosecution
For the disease of older women, who mirror the carpet
In the environment they work in – you think I know enough
To say that I love the fork, but it is, but it is
My man is the dictator that’d make weapons from the drums
He is too flat to the risk of life and body, if he wishes
He's very sunny and spineless because he married women
In the path of view, in his head after a sheep
His big break is not clean sheets, nor I
I clean the inside and I spend much crap:
More water than red or purple, or standards will not sin
The children shake this old bed and curse the demon

Some people do not know that God is always wrong
God would be against God in another world
I thought he was dead for millions of years, for the Lord
That I wondered, because when I was a kid: pussy and guava
You want to change the eyes of my songs
Of friends who kill each other and then bury their wives
And families at home – and women still do not feel much
Too high for the transfer to register my wife at the same time
And instant leaders do not show pictures: I thought that
I have the Jews to remember that my mother supports me
In my room to wash me with soap and milk, mad at the treasures
Of my body, I laughed at jelly in the hands of patients
Oh, I know what I hope is not helping the old and
Oh, I know it is difficult to apply. Money to pay for disease,
I hope to do good things.
O Lord, I hope the noise bubbles from his bank
Selling pots can only help this bad haircut and a hot girl
Sucking is better, I suspect, it is too heavy to sit on his lap
Instead of the woman who long ago I entered
What adult women operate in the hands of the strike
When I know not only the people who chose to sparkle
Friends to her home, that I suspect we are tombs of the core
And the children laugh at the scholarships they receive

God is here, is back after sixteen years: I am in his hands
So I helped him laughing behind his back, said their faith
If they do not lead children to sleep in nature in the background
Little ears, all yellow skirt, showing Sunday a wet finger
Very dirty with two children who disliked the head and feet
Their hands free hand to punch breathing his nose, his Lord
If people find a little wet drip trying to clear the eye
Not all is evil, is everything you want to continue
Night is half naked when the Jews decide, and they do not eat
I think words are enough for a happy thought of his tongue
To love a new life blood to his beautiful girl
Goodbye, of course, is a recognition of sound
Beautiful Monday, glorious farewell to my friends
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Tuesday, February 1, 2011

My Resolution, One Month In

OC Great Park Balloon, Irvine, CAImage by tallys14 via FlickrSo I decided that in 2011 I would update this particular blog every single day, as opposed to about two or three times a week, as I had been doing. I'm one month in, and while I've pulled it off so far, it hasn't been all that easy. It's taken a good deal of effort, even though some of what I've posted has been knocked-off rubbish. The effort has meant, of necessity, that some other blogs I keep have fallen by the wayside. By now probably 70% of the 'blog work' I do is for this blog and this one alone.

But it's been worth it. I've enjoyed pushing myself, and at least some of what I've done has been worth the effort. I'm seeing an increase in visitors to the blog, but what is intriguing is that the hits are all over the place. Where before the vast majority of traffic to my blog came to see only about five different entries or so, now they're coming in all over the place. Perhaps Google is rewarding me for having a decently active blog. I'm not getting huge numbers so far, but let's see - maybe they're forthcoming. And if they are, what I might do is slowly republish old moribund blogs here - do what maybe I whould have done in the first place, just kept all of my blog-babblings in one place. I've decided to do that with one particular relic-blog, called 'Makes No Sense at All', and maybe I'll do that for others too.

But I think I'll carry on with the entry-a-day thing (in fact, I've averaged slightly more than one a day). Maybe some time before 2012 I'll actually have regular readers (God forbid), but if I don't, well, at least I'll have enjoyed what I'm doing.
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