Dear boxoffail,

Thank you for performing an anonymous, unrequested security audit of my personal blog website. I appreciate the obvious thought and effort that went into your test cases/attack scenarios.

In the future, we would appreciate it if you contacted us in advance before performing any such audits. Although we here at boxofmonocles.com consider the security of our website and our customers' private data our highest priority, random, unannounced testing such as this is neither welcome nor helpful. As an esteemed member of the online security community yourself, I'm sure you understand that these sorts of activities, even when conducted in a "white hat" manner, can undermine our own security practices. Furthermore, your queries look strange and confusing to our legitimate users, and may give the false impression that we have been 'spammed' or 'compromised', even when no such breach has occurred.

We will further address this issue in the coming days.

Sincerely,
The boxofmonocles.com Security Team

Internet Trolls....now available in hardcover!

A few days ago the 24-hour mainstream news networks seem to have decided that it was the correct day to discuss the new Jerome Corsi book, The Obama Nation. Presumably, this was prompted by the near laughably warm reception Corsi received from Sean Hannity on his television and radio programs that day. I wonder if Sean Hannity ever realizes that his public persona is a caricature as ridiculous as that of Stephen Colbert.

Anyways, I found out quickly that the book was simply a political attack book, and found out that it had reached New York Times #1 bestseller status within two weeks of its release. At first, I assumed this was simply a sad reflection of the American appetite for sensationalism. But later, I learned that the New York Times was reporting "bulk sales" as a contributor to this apparent success. Without getting out my tinfoil hat, I think it's reasonable to believe that so-called right wing 'think tanks' are buying the book in large numbers simply to inflate the best-seller numbers. People are then susceptible to statements such as "...according to the #1 bestseller", and may confuse notability with creditability.

Obama has released his lengthy criticism, Unfit For Publication, in PDF format. Good for him. After Abigail let me read her copy of Al Franken's now-slightly-dated Lies (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them), I realized what wimps the Democrats had been for letting people like Corsi and Hannity get away with their hateful attack politics. I'm glad to see that Obama won't necessarily stand for this kind of crap.

Unfortunately, the Wikipedia article for this book isn't fairing particularly well. When I first visited it last week, it seemed like an evenhanded discussion of the book's content, as well as some well cited criticism of its allegations. I was particularly impressed by the talk page where, although disputes had arisen, they had been discussed and resolved in a civilized manner. But now, not even a week later, the article is under protection because of edit warring. And the talk page is an unapproachable mess of the same tired allegations, over and over again, along with an alphabet soup of Wikipedia policy appeals (WP:RS, WP:BLP, WP:SOAP, etc...). I'm starting to believe that some people simply have an agenda, and aren't particularly interested in creating a neutral, accurate, freely-accessible reference work.

Anyone interested in an unbiased treatment of the subject is likely to be disappointed. And maybe that's the point. Maybe that's Corsi's real objective in publishing a book like this. An Orwellian attempt not to create debate, but to destroy it in a trivial shouting match of allegations. Corsi has stated that "voters can make up their own minds." I can't help but wonder if Corsi hopes that the electorate will do so in lieu of seeking out researched and established facts.

Someone needs to invent a simple word/phrase that means "wow, this is my first blog post in a while..."

Anyways: I left Pawtucket, RI at about 9 AM EDT Friday morning, and journeyed to beautiful Chicago, Illinois. The trip was hellish; the combination of layovers, delays and 'missed flights' (apparently you can't arrive at 11:20 for a 12:05 flight) caused me to arrive at Chicago Midway at 9 PM CDT.

Despite that, my trip has been absolutely awesome. I've been staying with my friend Sarah, and I've managed to attend a Red Sox game, which they won 6-2, and go to the top of the Hancock Building/Tower/Center (I'm not sure which is the official name...). It actually kind of creeped me out that there is a giant Hancock building in both Boston and Chicago.

Tonight I went to a couple of blues clubs that were in walking distance from Sarah's apartment. I had an amazing time. One cover charge grants you admission to both clubs on Sunday, which was completely serendipitous from my point of view. I met a few bona-fide blues musicians who were hanging out at the clubs on their off days (aka non-performing-days), as well as a couple from Kentucky and a couple from the UK. None of which would have been at all worthwhile if the music had not been absolutely wonderful! Seriously better than anything I've heard in Boston, and I've gone to some authentic blues clubs/nights in Boston.

One thing that sort of caught me by surprise this trip was finding out that I had happened to arrive exactly in time for Terminus, a Harry Potter convention that I had first learned about on 07/20/07 while wandering around what had become "Hogwart's Square". I was discussing my fandom with some folks when I was given a promotional pin and an invitation to invite. "Yikes," I thought, "A Harry Potter convention, and more than a year away. I can't imagine I'll be attending." And I was right, I only actually heard about the conference again through a local news station I happened to be watching, and then only after it had, ahem, terminated.

All in all, my trip was fun and exciting, and probably exactly what I needed to help me climb out of the 'funk' that I've been in the past couple weeks. Thanks again to Sarah, who was a gracious and welcoming host.

Looks like moveon.org is giving out free Obama stickers, no strings attached:
https://pol.moveon.org/obamastickers/

Well, with my imminent unemployment, my resume has found its way back into the luminiferous aether of the Interwebs. Since it contains a link to this here website, I imagine that any number of recruiters, hiring managers, regular managers, engineers, ex-engineers and various other assortments of motley folk will soon be casually browsing my blog. Hello to all of you!

In an attempt to seem more amicable, or at the very least hirable, this time I will be forgoing the posting of an inflammatory rant. I'll also hold off on posting the tantalizing new shots of Paris Hilton exposing herself that I've recently obtained.

Instead, I post a GRAND CHALLENGE:
To all those who are reading this blog simply to get a gist of my hire-ability, I challenge you to reveal yourself! Click the 'Add a comment' button below and participate in the discussion.

Who knows? Maybe we'll become friends. Maybe you'll become totally addicted to my blog and find yourself at 3 AM visiting boxofmonocles to get your "Travis Is A Poopyhead" fix. There's only one way to find out...

I remember reading this Washington Post article last year around the time I became interested in busking. It was, in fact, an inspiration for me. Of course, the larger inspiration was hanging out with Hunter and his busking friends, which lead me to believe that busking is something that relatively normal people do.

It's getting to be that time of the year again. The temperature is in the 70s and it's sunny. Of course, I'll have plenty of time to busk after May 23rd, which is when my contract with Brightcove is up (I found out earlier in the week that they won't be renewing it due to budget constraints).

I don't know how, in my internet meanderings, I came across this quiz site, but MAN is it lame. Just thought I'd share. My favorite up there so far is wat bitch, followed closely by do boyzz think ur hot or a dork. If only 13 year olds reigned over the entire web...

Of course this site still has nothing on the worst website of all time (which my co-workers insist is walthampizza.com), but which we all know is, of course, www.fanfiction.net. If you have some time to kill, why not casually peruse their selection of 8,745 Power Rangers stories, or waste your life away reading the entire collection of over 352,000 Harry Potter fics.

Oh God, did I just say "fics"?

So as I was waking up this parody popped into my brain, fully formed

You better watch out

You better not cry

You better not cross

I'm telling you why


Santa Claus is driving around

He's makin' a turn

Signal's not on

Give him 4 seconds and

Find that he's gone

Santa Claus is driving around

He sees you from his Bentley

He doesn't even wave

He bought it with money from selling the gifts

Of the kids who misbehaved

You better watch out

Better stop quick

Santa has never learned to drive stick

Santa Claus is driving around

I've started a new blog. Here's a quick FAQ.


Q. Why did you start a new blog?
A. I wanted to do a blog with my friend Sheila. She used to write articles in college, but she hasn't written too much lately. The fact that we're 'buddy-blogging' will help motivate both of us to keep posting

Q. Won't the output of THIS blog suffer?
A. Probably. But I'll be posting music files here, once I get my home studio set up again

Q. Okay, so what's the new blog?
A. It's called Hip Devil and it's located at http://hipdevil.blogspot.com

Posts about exponential growth....no wonder no one reads this nonsense!


Anyways, I made a quick 4 question Harry Potter quiz to stump my sister. It's limited to Goblet of Fire (book 4). Good luck!


http://www.quizyourfriends.com/quizpage.php?quizname=071208231748-397814&

I was just trying to 'waste some time' on Facebook and found that the signal to noise ratio has gotten REALLY bad. Facebook has, in my opinion, finally outgrown the "wow! what the heck is this neat new thing?" phase and is now firmly in a phase more like "what? what the heck is this thing in the way of me doing what I've always done". It has jumped the shark. Gmail, I'm looking at you, because you're getting dangerously close to this.

Anyone who has ever been taken in by a "and then THEY tell two friends" type pyramid scheme knows how exciting exponential change can be. But quite honestly, it doesn't really fit into your head. Or at least it doesn't fit into mine. In my mind, all change is linear. You come back 21 days later, there should not be millions of comments. When I look at all the crap on people's facebook profiles, and think about how long it would take me to understand, never mind APPRECIATE that nonsense, my brain simply shuts down and I freeze up faster than my new phone.

Speaking of which, Sprint charged me 57 dollars to replace my phone with a (presumably) refurbished model that was identical. They left me with the same battery and the same phone number. The new phone works fine while it works, but it does tend to freeze up sometimes.

My phone broke in half this morning. The top flip part detached from the bottom flip part and the wire is ripped in half.

I don't know what I'm going to do, and I'm a bit panicked. I'm still not getting paid till like the 17th, so I can't afford a new anything right now, nevermind a new phone.

If you can't get ahold of me, know that I'm not ignoring you. And I'm also going to need your phone number again if I want to call you

Sigh,
-Travis

I'm writing you this letter to inform you that <PORN SITE NAME CENSORED> was found on my child's iFruit computer this afternoon.

As you are well aware Sec. 117 of <US CODE> specifies that it is illegal to market, attempt to market, think about <PORN SITE NAME CENSORED> in the state of Maryland. And you can't do it in DC either.

I read in <NEWSPAPER NAME CENSORED> Ask Alice column yesterday that <PORN SITE NAME CENSORED> was censored by <a href="http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Bill_gates">Bill Gates</a> (brought to you by MICROSOFT) automatically by CyberNanny ME. Or was it XP.

Anyways, I would sincerely appreciate you reversing the charges for <PORN SITE NAME CENSORED> on my husband's credit card.

Sincerely,
<EX-WIFE NAME CENSORED>

PS. Ask Alice also told me that the XBOX 360• sites "gunk up the memorey (RAM)" more than the adult websites. But that might just be a myth propogated by Microsoft

PPS. Don't be Evil. Or at least have fun.

At some point you stop feeling bad for all the kids who don't get to celebrate Halloween, and you start enjoying Halloween.

If you've ever seen the Home Movies Halloween special, you know what I'm talking about.

Melody, my little sister, today said "Hahaha, keep laughing at your own jokes". And I thought "That's what I have a blog for".

Discuss.

When I thought of the scariest thing that I could dress up as for Halloween, I instantly got discouraged. How do you dress as Cancer?

Maybe I could go as Breast Cancer. For 49 dollars at Super Stop and Shop, I could get 49 of those pink ribbons and tape them to myself. October is breast cancer awareness month after all.

Or maybe I could go as CantAffordTheRent...Again. I could be the sheriff in Roger and Me who comes and actually takes your shit out of your house and puts it on the sidewalk. Or I could be the woman in that film who is raising cats for food. Spooooky!

How do you dress up as MinimumWage? Or his scarier uncle MinimumWageForTheRestOfYourLife.

Or maybe I could dress up as Police have documented cases of madmen randomly distributing poisoned goodies to the little tykes who come calling on Halloween. But people would get mad when they realize I just as easily could have dressed up as Bigfoot or the Gyroball (Hint: none of them exist).

This Halloween I'm going to dress up as TheGhostOfHalloweenPast. I'm going to dress up half as that cherished memory from your childhood, and half the realization that you'll never be that happy again.

At least no one's ever accused me of not having an imagination.

Roses are red
Violets are, too
Wait no they're not
Who invited you?

---

if you stand close to an airplane
you might not fly
but at least your eardrums will be shattered
by the powerful jet engine

---

dreams are like puppies
they're cute when they're young
but eventually they grow up
they're less cute
they're bigger
they eat more
...
I never had a puppy as a child

---

Camels are brown
Violets are, of course, violet
Zoos are fun
But what's the point?

---

If being depressed is like being In Jail
Then I'd like to believe I'm 'Just Visiting'

This is an open letter of apology to anyone who read my previous blog post and was offended.

Although I'm no newcomer to blogging, I'm still struggling to find a middle ground between "say whatever the bleep you want" and "be sensitive, people are listening".

So fuck fuck fuck, I can say whatever I want. Whoopdee-poo hoo-ray la la la. The dumb part is that I'm writing naughty things about myself on my own bathroom wall.

Smoking is the opposite of talking to yourself. The former can safely be done in large open places where there's not anything or anyone (living) around. The safest way to talk to yourself, meanwhile, is in a dark room, preferably owned by yourself or your family. You should be under covers. The curtains should be drawn. Sometimes it's fun to cry and pretend people care.

The sad thing about talking to yourself is that it's a great way to think about things. Especially if you're "talking" to say a book (they communicate via flashlight). Or an iPod/Gameboy (Duh, the light's built in). Or maybe you're "talking to yourself" into a phone that got disconnected (ad campaign) or whatever.

Maybe you're just sitting on the fucking Blue Line having good ideas (talking to yourself) about what clever technologies you can apply to your shitty blog that no one reads.

The awkward stares are hard. What's worse is the questions.

What's much worse is coming to the realization that the CleverAd you're staring at that claims Hey-Wanna-Work-In-Software-We've-Got-Cool-Stuff-You-Can-Think-About-All-Day is for a company that builds shitty blogs that no one wants to read. Or more likely bank software. (How the fuck does anyone convince creative people to work on bank software nowadays? )

Actually maybe it's worse when you realize that the candidate that you're "secretly" Googling just wrote you what he (hoped) was a CleverWay to tell you Fuck-Off-Stop-Reading-My-Blog. Sorry for the profanity, but it's the goddamn cloak-and-dagger 'secret' part that pisses me off. I've got a blog. You're reading it. Let's both be adults and realize that it's okay. I also have sex and it's awesome.

Duh.

I was on an impromptu vacation starting August 30th. Sorry if I didn't answer your calls or emails. But I'm back now (I've actually been back for a number of days) and I'm ready to live in the real world again.

Except for the fact that I left my job at Brightcove. Did I mention that? Apparently I got it in my head that I was a 'professional musician' and I didn't need my day job. Can you spot the error in that logic? I can, with three words: source of income.

So now I'm looking for another job. Wish me luck.

I bought my guitar. It's a Creation acoustic/electric with a rose-patterned body. It's flashy and great sounding and spectacular and I couldn't be more happy with it.

I spent yesterday busking, first in the Embarcadero center subway stop, and later on the Embarcadero itself. I eventually made my way to Fisherman's Wharf (the Fanueil Hall of SF), where I met another busker named Adam. He was playing with amplification and singing in Chinese. Very cool. The two of us and his friend Stu hung out for the rest of the evening.

I just bought a fedora. I'm going to drive back to SF now and try to find somewhere in GG park to go busking. Wish me luck!

Okay, every city (person) has a dark side. Have I already seen San Francisco's?

I'll freely admit that I'm completely naive about crime. In all my time living in Worcester, a place where many of my friends experienced crime first hand (home invasion and mugging), nothing bad or sinister or even simply illegal happened to me. Nothing traumatizing enough to make me fear crime.

But I'm naive-not-stupid (compare with Google: rich-not-stupid). I'm in a new city. I don't know really know where I am, I don't really know how to get back to my hotel. It's 2:15 in the morning. What's a boy to do?

Nothing. I mean, I couldn't find any good clean fun. Plenty of people offered me drugs and prostitution, and one guy was even creepier (offered to 'help me if I could help him'; I gave him a buck to go away)

Okay, SF, I've seen your dark side. I'm waiting for 6:21 AM (PST) and then I'll be back to see your sunny side. (pun intended).

I arrived in San Francisco yesterday and made the trip to Silicon Valley (turns out it is an actual, semi-well-defined place; ie I bought a Map of It) during rush hour. That clearly was an iffy choice, as the traffic was the equivalent of I-93 in Boston (on a good day) the entire time.

I'm in Mountain View now, it's almost tomorrow (midnight). Of course, to my body, it's already tomorrow; it's 2 AM EST. I can't deny that I'm jet lagged, yet the concierge at my hotel (the fabulous Hotel Avante; the room has a Rubik's cube!) just informed me that bars/clubs in San Francisco stay open until 6 AM....and some until 3PM the next day!! Now, quite frankly, I don't really like clubbing. Which is why I'm sitting here blogging about this information instead of driving up Route 101N right this moment. But as a hacker, I love freedom. And the freedom to stay up till 6 AM, if I so choose, is momentously refreshing.

Also, the weather today was fantastic. Sunny, 70.

When you go to Craigslist, the default view is SF. When you hit Google Earth, they suggest SF as a place to search. To anyone but a hacker-nerd-geek, these would seem contrivances. But to me, it's philosophically refreshing to be in the default namespace for once...

...It's also not a pipe.....(sorry)

There are very few areas of human endeavor in which achievement is based more on talent than hard work. Child acting, I would say, is one of them. So is Gymnastics. In those fields, you really have to be 'born with it'. For child acting, you're a kid: you don't have time to study, work hard, gain experience, etc. You just have to have a knack for acting, and be lucky enough to have that knack manifest itself before you start growing hair in awkward places. With gymnastics, you need to realize that it's what you want to do early, while your body is still nimble and flexible and you can then train it to grow in a certain way. One also needs to have enough talent to sustain one's focus, so that the craft is fun and rewarding and never full of drudgeries.

By contrast, with almost everything else in the world that human beings aspire to be good at success is more dependent on hard work than 'raw talent' or 'intrinsic ability' or whatever. The main areas that I want to highlight that fall into this category are: Computer Programming; Music; (which are my two main passions) and.....Professional Baseball.

Of course there are tools out there that can....ahem....'enhance' your 'performance' in certain areas. Like a good text editor, or a debugger. Or a guitar pick or amplifier.

Is using these devices 'cheating'? Or to put it more broadly, is it unfair competition? It depends on how the competition is set up; what it's rules (both explicit and implicit) are. If one believes debuggers to be immoral then using them would definitely be cheating: at the least, cheating yourself. If there is a code of ethics in your field and you use a tool that violates that code, then you are undoubtedly a cheater.

There's an upside and a downside to believing the premise of this post (which, by the way, is this: hard work is more important than talent in achieving your goals). The upside? You can achieve anything you want if you're willing to put in enough hard work. The downside? To achieve something you want, you have to put in enough hard work.

Here's a video of me playing a song I wrote with the title of the same name as this post.

Enjoy!

Brightcove:

YouTube:

I honestly can't believe it was that easy to make a podcast! Not that I couldn't have (ahem) done it myself using Ruby on Rails...(To get to it, click the 'Get Podcast' button in the widget directly below the song module on the main page)

I fricken' love storymaker. How much does it cost? Would a regular shmoe like me be able to afford his own account (and not have to use the demo account that Brightcove gave me since I work there)? Even if I have no way of monetizing my content but just want to share with friends and family?

Looking at the storymaker website, my instinctive answer to my questions is no (since you have to talk to customer engagement to get a free trial, that screams $$$$ to me). I spend ~100 dollars a year on my shared hosting, so I would only be willing to pay maybe another 25-50/year for the mp3 player project in storymaker. But don't quote me on that.

Speaking of my costs to run this website, I might be adding AdWords soon...not because I need the money (or even expect them to make money) but more to get a feel for how the integration works.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I work for Brightcove, who bought Storymaker (which up until then was its own company) maybe a year and a half ago

I'm in this week's Weekly Dig, a local free magazine. If I were to quote the article, it would look something like this:

Thompson, Barry. "exit polls". Weekly Dig. p50.

    Volume 9, Issue 30; July 25-August 1 2007.

It's interesting, because Barry didn't tell me that he was a reporter for the dig. He just said "Can I interview you and take your picture".

Same in the end
Same in the end
If you're told different
It's a liar...
...or a friend

Harry Potter. My blog is a spoiler free zone. By even SAYING that, I'm afraid that someone will post something in the comments. I actually left a showing of The Princess Bride at the Somerville Theatre (during ArtBeast 2007, an arts festival in Davis Square) because I was worried about spoilers.

So I spoiled it for myself. It was the only true way to take power away from those who would spoil it for me

That's right, I read the end of the book. The last chapter. Well, I more skimmed it than anything, so I'll still reserve the pleasure of reading it at a later date.

But honestly, I'm not going to let something as trivial as Harry Potter control my life, even a small portion of it.

Life or Death: Same in the end!

I have my secret thing with the secret company tomorrow. It's barely a secret, actually, since my boss already knows. I'm pretty nervous, but I definitely intend to post a full review here afterwards, if only because I know it will increase my page views.... :)

In other news, only about a half dozen people have downloaded my songs off of here. This is unsurprising, but still a bit disappointing. The original point of putting them up here was so that I would be inspired to compose/record more, because I would have an outlet for my creative output. Well for the first couple weeks that I had the songs up, that was definitely true. But nowadays, I've seemed to have a built-in creative drive, where I'm composing and recording almost every day with no thought to posting any of it. And that's a fantastic feeling!

I've always considered myself 'Liberal' in political views.

However, I just read the following footnote on page 18 of The Monk and the Philosopher (which is a very interesting book and deserves its own post):

'Liberalism' means in Europe almost the opposite of what it means in America. Thinkers considered liberal in Europe are John Locke, Adam Smith, Alexis de Tocqueville, and John Stuart Mill.

Damn! That's always what I've thought I meant when I've said I'm liberal. That I believe in, you know, Liberty. Freedom. That we have free will. That our government has been established to protect our Freedom and never to take it away.

But I guess that means I can't be 'socially' liberal at the same time? Because that would entail big government and lots of social programs, which would be against the ideals of Smith and Locke?

ARGGH, I wish I had taken a BASIC polisci course in college. It's times like these when I feel just woefully undereducated.

I hate the federal government, but I love America. That's the way I truly feel. I love the American people, I love the ideals of freedom and liberty on which we were founded. I hate unchecked Capitalism and privatization of public lands and resources. I love the fact that we have a highway system, a post system, the internet, and clean running water almost everywhere. I hate the fact that we don't have health care, that social security is bankrupt, that the rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer.

I hate George W. Bush. He's a fucking asshole; and absolute idiot and a clueless anti-leader. Him and his cronies are quite literally ruining America. But as this article from LiveScience points out, presidential power has been growing for decades, and George W. Bush is only the latest manifestation of an Executive Branch that is out of control.

As Jefferson pointed out "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes" (Declaration of Independence). So whatever is wrong with America, it would not be prudent to throw the whole Grand Experiment out the window. However, we must not let our leaders (Bush in particular, also the Supreme Court) trample on the traditions and precedents that have made our country great.

So like I said, I hate the federal government.

But I fucking LOVE America.

Happy Independence Day! Fuck the Brits! :)

The first line of the Tao Te Ching, roughly translated, is "The Tao that can be known is not the true Tao". I struggled a lot with that last night, but the following paragraphs, ripped wholesale from Stan Rosenthal's introduction to his Tao Teh Ching 'translation', helped a great deal.

Consider a thing such as a strawberry. If we wish to find the word 'strawberry', we look in a dictionary; if we wish to find a description of a strawberry, we look in an encyclopaedia. But if we are hungry, we do not go to the library, but to the field where fine strawberries may be found. If we do not know where there is such a field, we might seek guidance as to where fine strawberries may be found. A book on the Tao is like such a guide.

It can point us in the direction of the strawberry patch, but cannot provide the fruit itself. It can give an idea of the taste of Tao, but of itself, has no taste to compare with direct experience of the Tao.

Consider now three things: There is the universal principle which enables all things to be, and to flourish naturally; there is the name 'Tao', by which that universal principle is known; and there are words which describe the manifestations of the Tao.

Pretty hefty title for a blog post.

I was talking to my roommate Frank today about all sorts of different things, and I came to two conclusions, which I will now share:

1. I really want to go to Wikimania 2007. Unfortunately, "Wikimania 2007, the third annual international Wikimedia conference, will be held August 3-5 in Taipei, Taiwan at Chien Tan Overseas Youth Activity Center (CTOYAC)."
2. If you want to make the world a better place, first focus on 'your corner' of the world. This doesn't mean you should be selfish and only do things to benefit yourself. But maybe that wouldn't hurt, either. If you think of karma as the doctrine "Whatever good or bad you do in the world is reflected in yourself" then the corollary is "Whatever good or bad you do to yourself is reflected in the world". Also, focussing on 'your corner' means not forcing yourself to act or forcing yourself upon a situation. This doesn't mean being lazy! It's simply taoism, 'going with the flow'. Leave your mind open to helping situations that you are familiar with, and when the appropriate time comes to act you will recognize it and benefit all involved.

I agree with Socrates, who stated:

"My opinion is more or less this: no wise man believes that anyone sins willingly or willingly perpetrates any base or evil act; they know very well that every base or evil action is committed involuntarily."

So really, I'm once and for all rejecting the Puritan work ethic. My belief is that an effective strategy for doing good works and therefore 'making the world a better place' is to "do what you can, with what you have, where you are." (Theodore Roosevelt).

I created an app on Facebook using their API. It's called 'Wishes'. It was inspired largely by the 'cheer' idea that I'm using for songs on this site.

Anyways, the way it works is that each user makes a 'wish' that gets added to their profile (as well as the global wish board). Then, other users 'cheer' the wish to help it come true.

If you think that sounds cool, or if you think it sounds really lame....well give it a try: http://apps.facebook.com/makewishes/

The only real purpose of this entry is to pop up in your RSS reader and get you to come to my site and see my new Song Display Module (tm).

Holy SHIT it is so sweet. It put my CSS and javascript/AJAX skills to the absolute limit, and took a good 9 hours straight of coding. But it's here, and it works.

Also, if you hadn't noticed, you can "Cheer" songs if you like them. Yes, it's a ripoff of Digg...whatever at least you don't have to register.

To download the songs, simply click the title or the image. Wooooooooot!

Okay, so it's not really finished. What I'm working on now is a way to link blog entries to songs, so that I can talk about songs I upload, and so that songs can have their own display page that displays the full title and info about the song. But I think what I have now is a great start!

So last night I excitedly uploaded a bunch of new code to this here website.

But it didn't work.

In a frenzy, I quickly tried to delete the post where I had been flaunting my new features. But too late, it had already been picked up by my facebook notes, and cached by Google Reader.

Anyways, I HAD tested my changes in my local environment, and everything had worked fine. But whatever, I'm not bitter. Apologies to anyone who read the 'Mr. Mustard' post and got their hopes up. I'm looking at re-implementing the file upload capacity with "acts_as_attachment" (a rails plugin) instead of using "file_column" (another rails plugin). And this time, I have set up a mechanism to test that everything works before the feature goes on the front page.

I've decided to link my blog to facebook. Previously, I had resisted this, because I thought it would be the equivalent of spamming facebook. But it seems that nowadays facebook is doing a pretty good job of spamming itself, so whatever.

I'm also going to start posting songs on my blog here, in their own special section. Once I roll out that feature, I anticipate that I'll be aggressively promoting my blog, much more than I do now. So get ready!

I still think it's a good idea, but I'm not sure my choice of topic was a good one. I just don't think I'm interested enough in Harry Potter to write a five paragraph essay on him. Especially one with such a narrow topic. I tried writing an outline, but all I could come up with was "Harry's not an asshole just like most people aren't assholes. He had some rough spots growing up, but who doesn't? As Dumbledore puts it in OOTP, 'You were not a papmpered little prince, but as normal a boy as I could have hoped under the circumstances.'"

Actually, I think it's more of a convenient plot device than anything that Harry grew up with the Dursleys. The story is told largely from his point-of-view, and thus the reader gets the pleasure of 'discovering' the magical world along with Harry. It's the same wonderful feeling you get when you watch The Matrix for the first time.

On a completely unrelated note, I REALLY think that <i> and <b> and their kind should be re-introduced into HTML, simply for the fact that in online sites which allow 'some HTML' in profiles and comments, they will rarely allow for <span>s. And for good reason.

I've moved into my new apartment, with an amazing amount of help from Paul. For something that I got at the very last minute, it turns out to be a really nice place. Two roommates, and they both seem pretty chill. Only real downside so far is that I have to mooch wireless, since we don't actually have an Internet connection ourselves. But whatever.

Yes, this post is useless. It's just to let people who may/may not care know that I'm okay, since the last time they may/may not have talked to me I may or may not have been very upset about not having an apartment. It's kind of a 'closure' post, so that I can 'get on with it' and post something interesting/creative without feeling bad.

PS: I was thinking about linking Paul's name to his blog, but I realized that he doesn't really publicize it much, so it wouldn't be polite. But I encourage you, if you know Paul, to ask him for the link!

My love of blogging and my hatred of copyright laws, I believe, stem from my innate irrational fear that I am fundamentally incapable of original thought.

Holy shit.....I don't think I can even write anything more after that...I'll just gleefully link to my old favorite website and my new favorite website.

This will be my last post from Amsterdam. Perhaps the less astute readers (readers? Hah!) will notice that it is also the first. Hopefully we can gloss over this unfortunate fact. There's something about the....let's call it the áir....in Amsterdam that makes you just want to wander around and really do nothing at all. Also, the computer I'm at has this sick coin slot that wirelessly broadcasts the fact that you have added coins to a computer locked under the desk. I wonder if the guy who owns the bar, or maybe a friend of his, built it from scratch. Anyways, we'll chalk it up to the fact that this was more of an exploratory journey, and that I will be returning to Amsterdam sometime in the future, with big ideas for a Google my map.

I had a very sad dream the other night that my sister wanted to tell me something but then chickened out at the last minute. It made me think about my relationship with my parents and my family and feel a little sad about the fact that I'm not closer. In fact, if they are reading this, it will be their first clue that I'm in Amsterdam at all. The trip was booked partially as a "Fuck it, I don't need to ask my parents' permission to go to another country. I'm 22 years old and I can book the flight and hotel myself" kind of experience.

And then last night, I dreamt about a teacher I had in high school that I wasn't particularly fond of. It was the second day of class, and our assignment had something to do with baking in various shapes. I had gotten very angry with her, because she had assigned the first chapter of our vocabulary book which was filled with nothing but shameless self promotion for the previous book in the series. Questions were something like "What would you say you have learned so far from our vocabulary book series?" and then a multiple choice response with presumably only one correct answer.

Of course, everyone says this, but it makes me really consider and appreciate the importance of good teachers at both the secondary and post-secondary level. And I definitely think that WPI has some damn decent ones. I mean the teacher has to sort through maybe a hundred years of kruft that has accumulated around their given subject, and somehow condense it into a 50 minute lecture that is relevant to students of today. I definitely see myself teaching someday, though probably not until after I've retired.

You know, I think that even if no one is reading (And obviously there's some really skeetchy geeky MIT girl who is...), it is important to write down one's thoughts each day. Keep the old brain working, and make sure that you manage to actually have some thoughts. I'm really going to try to post to the blog everyday, and hopefully post musical ideas every couple days or so. AND, I've decided to try and write a five paragraph essay each week on a subject of my choosing. This week's topic is: "Given his miserable and abused upbringing, explain why Harry Potter isn't more of an asshole."

Also, the teacher that I was thinking of in High School reminds me a lot of Professor Snape. And my piano teacher's surname is Snape, so as I've told him previously, he has a lot riding on whether or not Snape turns out to be a good guy or a bad guy in the 7th book. Though I hear that Rowling has said she is going to kill off Harry Potter so that people can't write him after she's gone. Cool idea.

If a blog gets posted in a forest and no one is around to read it...does it really exist? I suppose there is some statistic I could read to see how many visitors I actually have. But it would be tainted, because a long time ago I realized that I had become a target for spammers. So all of my visits are actually spam bots trying to post their viagra and porn ads.

Quite honestly, that is REALLY depressing...

I thought about it tonight, and I realize that I have an RPG driven view of life. Like, I'm supposed to be somehow 'levelling up' my stats in various skill areas. And generally, in my life, the thought that I wasn't doing so would drive me nuts. I think the major stats are things like "musical ability", "worldliness", "general knowledge", and "contributions to Wikipedia". Subconsciously, I'm pretty sure I've included in these such stats as "Decadence" and "Risk Taking", though I feel like in the last couple summers I may have maxed these out.

I have finally come to the sad realization that these 'stats' are illusory at best. Life plods on, day by day. You can't stop it, you can't change it...so what are you going to do? Minute changes from day to day hardly have a chance of adding up over time...

Actually, today I was contacted by a recruiter at Google and I was very excited at the chance to send her my resume. Seems like they are aggressively hiring at Youtube, and seeking to poach some young Brightcove talent. Seeing as I am the first result for "Travis Briggs", I guess I should start being more careful about what I post on my blog? But honestly, in light of the ideals of 'free speech', 'net neutrality' and general open-ness, I can't really bring myself to censor my posts or color my ideas based on the fact that I want a job at Google.

It's fundamentally wrong to me. And I think that's okay.

Daddy's swimmin in the ocean
Mommy's hangin on the beach
Sister's standin with a boyfriend
Everybody's out of reach

The prime minister is boring
And the president is lame
Now I'm looking out my window
Everybody looks the same

Take a monkey to the office
Put a bunny in a box
Eat an apple in the morning
Make some money selling stocks

When there's purple in the sunset
And there's laughter in the rain
Go and climb the highest mountain
You and I are both insane

--Me

This post is awesomely vulgar, but very, very funny. Please don't think less of me for sharing:

A Playlist For Life's "Special" Moments