while i was out

_this_brazen_teacher_ decloaked.
then she “streamlined” the blog.
it’s harder to look at now.

quarterly report

i’ve posted nothing here for several months.
i don’t exactly *plan* to return to regular posting;
we’ll see what happens.

fall quarter was much the busiest i’ve been
with actual *paying work* in several years…
so there’s my excuse if any were needed.
i started the quarter with a 2-section
Teaching Assistant post (Calc 4; 3D stuff
and whatnot). then 2 grading positions
came along (Abstract Algebra & Intro Analysis)
and i snapped ‘em up. finally, several weeks
into the quarter, the instructor for a
Linear Algebra class took a rest-of-quarter
medical leave and i stepped in and took over.

i also posted *almost* nothing in
MathEdZineBlog. again, i make
no claims about my future behavior.

my “home” connection, never reliable, appears
to be getting worse. meanwhile, my mac is
almost three years old and more and more
online software refuses to deal with it
until i download this-or-that; it’s worked
these three years *without* taking such risks
and’ll probably go right *on* working
for three more if i keep refusing;
meanwhile the net will become useless
to me on that particular box. i’ll still
have *TeX* and “garage band” if i can just
learn to move the files around. you’d think
i was joking but i sadly assure you i mean this.

very likely i’ll get a new, internet-capable, phone.
it’s making me sick to my stomach just thinking it,
but there it is. university people just assume
you’re well-connected and will cheerfully refuse
to deal with you if you can’t keep up. businesses,
too.

i’ll have told the story before somewhere but
here it comes again: i was, for once, an early
adopter when i got a t-mobile “sidekick” in early
2003 and they fucked me but good. there was a
yearlong contract and it quit working in june.
when i tried to get it fixed i was three-quarters
of an hour on the phone before anybody even
*claimed* to be able to help me. and maybe
they could’ve… but they didn’t (i was supposed
to be sent a new username-password combo
but never got it). so i decided to hell with it.

naturally, when i got online (on somebody else’s
connection) to report the bug and explain why
they weren’t gonna get any more monthly checks
i was confronted with a robot rat-maze designed
to gather information about me without helping
me in any way and i soon quit. so the bills
kept coming in and i kept throwing them away.

which would be the end of the story if the
account hadn’t originally been set up on
my then-wife’s credit card. they kept dunning
*her* and she kept wanting *me* to do something
about it. it got pretty fucking emotional.

well, now she’s gone and of course the
whole “mobile phone” racket has undergone
umpty-blue-million updates. meanwhile,
literally millions of people have signed on
and now use the god-damn things routinely.
so how hard can it be? even without
mountains of money or endless patience?

on the other hand, “go with your gut”;
i’m not kidding about this making me
want to throw up.

“what’s vlorbik *on*?”…”wordpress-dot-com!”

in today’s edition of “too much time
on the net”, we have bousquet’s
piece on student guestworkers
(after a month’s absence) and this
announcement for independents’ day
(9/17 in downtown columbus).

okay. i’m gonna wash the dishes now
and make some lunch or something. geez.

lay down your weary tune

soundcloud was acting up yesterday
but finally i succeeded in posting
this version of “for john henry”.
difficult, madam? would god
it were impossible.

go tell it on the internet

computer security at xkcd. if we could just get rid of these pesky “humans”…

same thing when i try to wear
my backpack into the drugstore.
“leave it up here where anybody
can easily take it, please… it makes
our robot overlords feel more
secure. women with purses are
okay [so what if they could easily
slip something into 'em out of
sight of our three-gazillion
hidden cameras whereas you'd have to
be some contortionist and master
thief to get anything into your
backpack while it's on your frigging
back without being noticed].
we just feel more *secure*
when *you* take a risk. this
is a *business*, buddy.” good news
for both of us then: i’m outta here.
and anyhow won’t now be harassed
for my stockholm-syndrome “loyalty card”.
hell. i can get better drugs on the damn
street if i’m gonna have to *gamble*.

but just try living without a phone
or a bank account for a while if you
think you can escape this “password” snafu.
and xkcd doesn’t even *mention*
that “impossible to remember” *also*
implies “much easier to crack
even *without* a computer” since
the victim will of course want
to write the damn thing down
and make it easy to find.

also this: the “defense” department
is actually the *war* department and
changing its name didn’t change its
nature in the least. now this:
the emperor has no clothes. and:
if they call it “security”, somebody’s
rights are being trampled (and you’re next).
more wars! more prisons! more TV!

and the last fight let us face

hyperreality at “recall kasich” rally.

miracles of the web

i haven’t seen… or heard from…
bob shaffer since even before he
painted the cover for this issue of galaxy.
and of course it’s too common a name
to look for him in farcebook or its ilk.
anybody seen my old pal?

political maneuvering

medicine and media: MedFraud and p. heimlich’s blog. spotted at, of all places, MPG’s.

crosspost: poster by me

remarks in MEZB.

how public like a frog

video of me playing three-string guitar. recorded by john martin. studio space, computer, and wi-fi connection by madeline.