by Matt Stratford

May 31, 2012

Remote

I feel bad for not having the finger on the pulse of my good friends’ lives as much as I should. I’ve been barely aware of some pretty major stuff until way after it happened. When you’re separated by miles and miles, life just tails off in different directions and there’s nothing that can be done about it. And it’s not so bad, usually, ‘cos when you’re back in proximity, you pick up where you left off. Maybe after a while, though, there’s just too much distance to face. The trick must be not letting it get to that point. To be remote and not to be remote, just like that, and yes the line drops from time to time, but the cord mustn’t break.

May 30, 2012

Time for a new Mac

Turns out that Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8, due to drop later this summer) will not support my 2006-vintage white Macbook.

That’s a sure of a sign as any that it’s time to upgrade later this year. I think I’ll set this thing up with an install of Ubuntu and use it for mucking around on. A good few years left in it that way, hopefully.

May 29, 2012

Frankly adorable invitation from my Vancouver-based friends arrived on my doorstep today.

I wish I had the money to go there.

May 29, 2012 with 1 note

Flat earth hypothesis

But not the one you think.

May 29, 2012

MA graduate at 90

Curiosity about things is the gift that keeps on giving.

May 23, 2012

What Facebook has revealed about human nature—and this is not a minor revelation—is that a connection is not the same thing as a bond, and that instant and total connection is no salvation, no ticket to a happier, better world or a more liberated version of humanity. Solitude used to be good for self-reflection and self-reinvention. But now we are left thinking about who we are all the time, without ever really thinking about who we are. Facebook denies us a pleasure whose profundity we had underestimated: the chance to forget about ourselves for a while, the chance to disconnect.

—Stephen Marche

May 20, 2012

Don’t get me wrong

It’s not that I am anti-work, I’m just pro-remembering what’s really
important and what is ultimately just a transitory ripple in the ocean
of life.

May 20, 2012

I feel like, I dunno, a kite in the wind or something today. I wonder
how much control we really have over anything. Not a lot, I guess. I
assume the trick to happiness is being fine with this, day in day out,
and riding the wind, not fighting it.

May 19, 2012

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

—Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

May 19, 2012

Dreamin’

Here are some of my dreams:

to write and direct a film
to build a computer game
to create a piece of art I would be happy to hang in my own home
to get a motorcycle license
to be in a band

All of these things take time and energy, but I sometimes wonder if I’m getting any closer to any of these? I’m pretty sure some people spend their whole lives with this brain crack in their head.

I don’t want to be one of those people.

Right now, I am learning to code using MIT’s Open Courseware lectures (which I highly recommend, incidentally). It helps me in my job and it is going to help me build a computer game one day…

But it isn’t really doing it. Am I addicted to brain crack too?

by Matt Stratford

minimal, but not too much

Remote

Time for a new Mac

Don’t get me wrong

Dreamin’