Thunt.net

As I sort through this pile of various versions of old Thunt.net’s…. Website templates, database versions, broken old piles of SQL with blog posts locked inside, I wonder if it was all worth it. Was it worth so much of my time to make a webpage that no one reads and that (in hindsight) I should have just put on blogger in the first place and then I wouldn’t have had to move or redesign or mess with SQL and databases, eventually making things so complicated that the data became lost (and I am currently searching for it).

But then I remember that I did teach myself HTML, PHP & SQL (with a little help from my friends) and that I ended up using these skills to maniuplate data for my job solving technical problems for corporate lawyers. So I guess that even though very people read my website, and probably less were interested in all the changes I made to the template and all the different versions of databases I wrote and the various times the site moved from server to server and format to format, I guess it was all worth it, because in the end I learned what they wouldn’t teach me in school.

Thrown from the Computer Science program by courses desgined to run fast and hard to burn students out of the program, I lazed around in History, Humanities and English, scoring high marks and learning the history of the world, but always drawn back into computers by my website and my desire to be a part of the internet culture (when studing History I read Vonnegut, when studying English I read PHP programming, when studying Computer Programming I read History).

Though I never made it (I’m not kottke, or boingboing or really a blog that anyone reads (except maybe Rex), I am still a blog and still a blogger and kindof a programmer as well as being a Historian and a writer. I am many things, but not employed. Ah well, back to sorting a seemingly never ending pile of old files that I have accumlated through the years. So many different versions of websites never read.

Even looking at this version of Thunt.net I can tell something is wrong with the text, and though I’ve been on Tumblr for a few years, I still want to migrate to Blogger, so I can complete my selling out to the great and powerful google and achieve total data unification. I’d also like to work for google or facebook. I’ve been thinking about facebook from the “how to destroy facebook” persepective for many years, but now I’ve turned a corner and am interested in “how to improve facebook”, from the same perspective I used to fear google because of the obvious overwhelming privacy concerns, but now I see it the other way and imagine what an incredible tool they could build for humanity if they go all the way and truly connect everything together. I wish I could be a part of that.

Inside Facebook's Outsourced Anti-Porn and Gore Brigade, Where 'Camel Toes' are More Offensive Than 'Crushed Heads'

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 08:50:20 -0800

Inside Facebook's Outsourced Anti-Porn and Gore Brigade, Where 'Camel Toes' are More Offensive Than 'Crushed Heads'

Minimal Mac: Microsoft's Biggest Miss

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 13:42:22 -0800

Minimal Mac: Microsoft's Biggest Miss:

minimalmac:

One of the benefits of a long car trip with my wife is the opportunity to have really great and insightful conversations with the smartest person I know. Yesterday, on the first leg of our trip, we spent some time discussing Microsoft’s many missed opportunities. The failure to take the iPhone…

define Romney: to defecate in terror

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 08:34:17 -0800

define Romney: to defecate in terror

anyone who makes this list is truly my hero

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 08:12:33 -0800

anyone who makes this list is truly my hero

"From Henry Miller on Writing, his 11 commandments: 1. Work on one thing at a time until..."

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:18:48 -0800

“

From Henry Miller on Writing, his 11 commandments:

1. Work on one thing at a time until finished.
2. Start no more new books, add no more new material to “Black Spring.”
3. Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.
4. Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!
5. When you can’t create you can work.
6. Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.
7. Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.
8. Don’t be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.
9. Discard the Program when you feel like it — but go back to it the next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.
10. Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.
11. Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards.

”

- Henry Miller’s writing commandments

"What if the Constitution were written not to limit government, but to expand it? What if the..."

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:50:00 -0800

“What if the Constitution were written not to limit government, but to expand it? What if the Constitution didn’t fulfill the promise of the Declaration of Independence, but betrayed it? What if the Constitution actually permitted the government to limit and constrict freedom? What if the Bill of Rights was just a paper promise, that the government could avoid whenever it claimed the need to do so? What if the same generation—in some cases the same people—that drafted the U.S. Constitution enacted laws that violated it? What if the merchants and bankers who financed the American Revolution bought their way into the new government and got it to enact laws that stifled their competition? What if the civil war that was fought in the name of freedom actually advanced the cause of tyranny?

What if the federal government were the product of 150 years of stealing power and liberty and property from the people and the states? What if our political elites spent the 20th century importing the socialist ideas of big government Statism from Europe? What if our political class was adopting the European political culture from which our founding fathers fought so hard to break free?

What if our political leaders no longer acknowledged that our rights come from our humanity, but insisted instead that they come from the government? What if you had to produce your papers to get out of or into our once-free country? What if you couldn’t board a plane, a train, or a long-distance bus without providing documentation telling the government who you are and where you’re going, without paying the government, and without risking sexual assault? What if your local police department could shoot down a plane? What if government agents could write their own search warrants, declare their own enemies, and seize whatever property they want? What if the feds could detain you indefinitely, with no visitors, no lawyer, no judge, and no jury? What if they could make you just disappear? What if the government broke its own laws in order to enforce them? What if the government broke down your front door in the middle of the night and shot your dog, and claimed it was a mistake?

What if you were required to purchase a product that you didn’t need, didn’t want, and couldn’t afford, from a company you never heard of, just as a condition of living in the United States? What if the government told you what not to put in your body as well as what to put into it; and how much? What if the government claimed that since it will be paying your medical bills, it can tell you what to eat, when to sleep, and how to live? What if the government tried to cajole and coax and compel you into behaviors and attitudes it considered socially acceptable? What if the government spent your tax money to advertise to you how great the services are that it provides? What if the government kept promising to make you safe while it kept stripping you of your liberties and committing crimes in your name that made you a target of more violence?

What if you didn’t have a right to every dollar you earned? What if the government decided how much of your earnings it will keep and how much it will permit you to have? What if the government took money from you and gave it away to its rich banking and corporate friends whose businesses were failing? What if the government thought it knew better than you did how to lead your life and had no problem telling you so? What if the government took the credit for every success your own human actions helped you achieve? What if the government told you that only it could build roads, run schools, keep you safe, and collect trash even though it’s never been able to do so efficiently before? What if the government spent nearly twice as much as it took in? What if it couldn’t pass a budget on a timely basis and funded itself just weeks at a time? And what if the government kept borrowing money against the wealth of future generations to pay for wasteful programs today?

What if you worked for the government and the government didn’t work for you? What if freedom were a myth? What if we don’t live in a free country? What do we do about it?

From New York, defending freedom; so-long America.”

- What if the Constitution Expanded Government? - The Plain Truth - Freedom Watch - Fox Business