Author: lhl

Posted on by lhl

Chris Hedges, author of War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning gave a commencement speech at Rockford College (in Rockford, IL) that was booed and interrupted multiple times. Reading the speech, I found it both interesting and insightful The predictable response was both sad, but also (more?) sadly not unexpected.

We will pay for this, but what saddens me most is that those who will by and large pay the highest price are poor kids from Mississippi or Alabama or Texas who could not get a decent job or health insurance and joined the army because it was all we offered them. For war in the end is always about betrayal, betrayal of the young by the old, of soldiers by politicians, and of idealists by cynics. Read Antigone, when the king imposes his will without listening to those he rules or Thucydides’ history. Read how Athens’ expanding empire saw it become a tyrant abroad and then a tyrant at home. How the tyranny the Athenian leadership imposed on others it finally imposed on itself.

This, Thucydides wrote, is what doomed Athenian democracy; Athens destroyed itself. For the instrument of empire is war and war is a poison, a poison which at times we must ingest just as a cancer patient must ingest a poison to survive. But if we do not understand the poison of war — if we do not understand how deadly that poison is — it can kill us just as surely as the disease.

Posted on by lhl

If you’re reinstalling Mozilla (or possibly Mozilla Firebird), here’s a list of add-ons/tweaks that I use to get me back into a working state:

Posted on by lhl

Had my first day of class today. I’m taking CTCS 505 (Survey of Interactive Media) this summer. It’s a 2 unit class, but is from 9-3PM TTh. Yeah, seems weird to me too. It’s being taught by Dan Harries, who seems like a nice enough guy. Also, introduced myself and had lunch with a few of my fellow grad students, all of whom seem like neat people. The reader is The New Media Book, which, well, despite the title might not be all bad. I’ll probably set up a blog for my class notes. Maybe get around to installing SnipSnap or TikiWiki.

Sometime last week I decided I was going to actually enroll in the Interactive Media grad program. Some thoughts on my upcoming schedule:

0.75x Work
0.75x Grad school
  My girl
  Personal projects
  Freelance
  Misc social commitments

Note, that sleep is not accounted for in this schedule.

Posted on by lhl

I haven’t written much about Matrix Reloaded. Perhaps a rather funny thing considering I dedicated a skin to it. But, w/ everyone having their own reviews, here’s mine: I had fun watching it, and I can’t wait for the ending this fall, but there was a slight tinge of disappointment at missed opportunities. Unfortunately on the road to sequeldom, Reloaded ends up losing so many of the elements that made the original so refreshing; the sense of style and deftness, darkness, and danger instead gets replaced by sprawl, hamminess, and pure spectacle (and a beyond cheezy Zion). Probably most objectionable for me, however, was the disjointed nature of the film on almost every level. What was so amazing about the original film was how organic and unified it was. The visual and thematic elements blended perfectly and the plot twists and philosophy didn’t come in globby exposition but unfolded fluidly, expressed and supported by the action.

I have no idea if this is properly expressing what I’m thinking. Part of me wants to write paragraphs about how great the dojo scene or the original Smith showdowns were at viscerally expressing and tying together the story’s themes. Having given some thought to it, that in fact seems to be perhaps a more revolutionary and the true triumphant achievement of the movie.

Anyway, at the very least, the philosophy bits in the second was interesting. (see: some thoughts on the original movie)