Austin’s Life

So I think I’ve figured out what keeps me up at nights, and what drives me to surf the internet so much.

Knowledge.

Or more specifically, the quest for it. I think it boils down to I don’t read enough. I surf the internet all day looking for new things to read. I think if I start reading more non-fiction books I might be happy. I think that’s the change I’m looking for.

I just want to know everything about everything I can. I think that’s why I like services like Twitter so much. It lets me know everything that’s going around me. I need to know everything!

Ars Technica has a good writeup about a report aiming to make our rollout of broadband in the US more aggressive. And I can’t help but agree with the report.

What’s different about the new report is just how aggressive its recommendations are: 100Mbps of “affordable” broadband available to all Americans by 2012, with 1Gbps service coming online by 2015.

The report’s argument is that broadband has become a utility service, and that communities that don’t have it (or that don’t have adequate speeds) are in danger of being left behind. “The history of electrification is repeating itself in the broadband era,” says the report. “Like the power companies of the century ago, the major communications providers are focusing first on their most lucrative markets and are leaving less profitable communities behind.”

This is something that is painfully obvious to me every time I visit my parents. I use the internet to keep track of many things, and when I go there, anything I try to do is slowed to a crawl. Even doing basic things like checking my email is an arduous process.

Hell it even means when I try to help my mom with her new computer, I can’t do anything. Her new Mac has great features to get me to help her, but they don’t have the internet power to sustain it. I might even go so far as to say this is why my parents don’t use their computer much. When it’s just a box that stores your pictures and types up documents, there’s not much to use it for.

It ultimately means I don’t send them as much email as I should. And that they see email as a primarily work related device. When it really doesn’t need to be. I can’t send them pictures, funny videos, or interesting articles because it just takes them too long to view them. They don’t have time to wait for stuff to download, nor do they want to stare at their computer while it does download.

We are falling way behind other countries in broadband penetration, when we started out on top. This is one instance where deregulation has not helped us, and instead needs to be pushed harder.

A side of the Israeli conflict that we normally don’t see. The side of the Palestinians.

From Digg:

A Dispatches documentary from May 2003 shows the shocking reality of seemingly ordinary Palestinians living under constant terror from Israeli ‘occupation’ forces. For some, life in Gaza can be a constant gauntlet of Israeli sniper fire, military rockets and army bulldozers. Warning, contains scenes of graphic violence which you may find disturbing

read more | digg story

This is quite possibly one of the most disturbing and surrealistic things I’ve ever seen. Some parts don’t even seem real. Armored cars rolling up to people with guns sticking out of the top. So dehumanizing it seems more like a robot than a person gunning you down.

They also talk to the IDF, to see their side as well. I couldn’t imagine being in their position either. They get fired upon from within crowds and have to react accordingly.

For every 1 Palistinian terrorist leader the Israeli Defense Force kills, they kill 3 Palestinian civilians.

Why we fund these people with billions of taxpayer dollars I don’t understand. Well I suppose I do, as they are the chosen ones. So obviously killing civilians is still alright in the eyes of God as it was during the Crusades, or the Spanish Inquisition, or the Salem Witch Trials. Thanks for evolving society.

I just finished my short stint at Psyop and it brought to light something that is a total cliche, but absolutely true. As long as you’re having fun, any job is alright. See? Cliche, like I said.

I’ve done roto for the past 3 weeks. And I absotlutely loathe roto. Just hate doing it, and some of the shots I was on, certainly wasn’t helping me like it any more. But because I was in a fun environment, I didn’t mind doing it. Work usually went by pretty fast. Most days I left work feeling alright.

And amazingly, management doesn’t completely suck there. They actually inform you of what’s going on, and they seemed pretty connected with their artists.

I guess I just hope that I either go back there, or find another place like it.

It’s nearly 1 and I’m dead tired. But as usual, my mind is racing and I can’t sleep. This happens most nights unfortunately. I’m not sure what causes it, or really how to stop it from happening. I lay in bed and I think. That’s it. I go over what happened during the day, and replay events in my head. Think of how to do things differently. Of how I can do better next time.

I think a lot of what’s to come. I’m not anxious about it, nor am I worried about much. I simply try to prepare myself for the next day. And it keeps me up at night.

I hate it.

Tomorrow I will be tired, and most of the things I will think about tonight will not matter. Nothing I envision will come to pass, those situations I’ve created won’t happen. Or if they do, they certainly won’t go as they do in my head.

Maybe I would feel better about it if I had some great cause to worry. If I felt like there was a reason for me to sit around just thinking, not allowing me sleep. Maybe a change is in order, but I don’t know what to change. My life has already changed so much since I’ve moved here, I can’t fathom changing it again so soon.

Anyway I suppose it’s off to bed with me, to lay down, and to think about everything I’ve done today, and everything I think I will do tomorrow.

So I ported my blog to Wordpress. I got kind of tired of the limitations of blogger, and found a wordpress theme I really like (that probably isn’t up yet.)

I’ll stick my flickr stuff and things like that back in here maybe later tonight or tomorrow. Not that many people read this, but I think I’m going to try and update more. And I know I’ve said that a few times, but I’ve just been having random thoughts about the web and want to share.

Just got out of Point Break Live! Holy shit. If you live in LA and
read this, do yourself a favor and go see this show. It is amazing.

God I fucking hate PETA. Ingrid Newkirk is on The Colbert Report and I just want to kill someone.

That’s all I’ve got.

So Shelby has been here since Saturday, and we’ve been having a good time. I’ve been to the fucking movies like 5 times though, and going again tonight. My poor wallet. =(

We saw The Orphanage with Shawn and his girlfriend a few days ago, and it made me think of a few things.

I am never, ever, ever going to see a horror movie in a theater ever again. I liked this movie. Thought it was well made. The people though. Holy shit. People talking “Oh nooooo”, girls screaming, boyfriends laughing at those screams and jumps. Never again.

The other thing that got me thinking. If we didn’t know it was a horror movie, how would our reactions be different? As the music started building up, and you wait for the inevitable jump out and blast of music, you start to tense. But you tense up because you know it’s a horror movie. Because you know that these things are supposed to happen. Shawn’s girlfriend would put her hands over her ears to muffle the loud noise that we all knew was coming when something would jump out. Without a predefined notion of this being a horror movie, would she still have done that? Would our reactions be vastly different?

I bet somewhere out there someone has done a study on this, or on the psychological and physiological effects of horror movies. Well I hope someone out there has done one because I don’t have the money to fund one myself. Maybe I’ll test it out by finding another horror movie that is named so inconspicuously, and show the trailer to one person, and not the other. And see how the reactions go. It’s so hard to keep someone on blackout about a movie though.

Oh, and I also haven’t posted pictures because I’ve been pretty busy, but rest assured I will as soon as I get time. I have been taking them.

I finally went to Lenscrafters about a week ago. And the optemtrist decided that since I normally sleep in my contacts, she would give me healthier ones to do so in. Well when I tried them on, I couldn’t see shit out of my left eye, and my right eye was perfect. A day later, and the exact opposite. Now I cna’t see shit out of my right eye past like 3 feet. If even that far.

Last night this culminated in a terrible headache. I really hope my prescription isn’t fucked because those glasses that are coming are expensive.

Anyway I just felt like bitching I suppose.