Let me guess this out there before I forget

[pseydtonne]

I started writing this big post about the discussion of intelligence versus using it when it dawned on me what I really wanted to say.

I had a whole bunch of stuff, none of which is finished. I'll post that stuff under the cut. While I was flailing on the keyboard, my MP3 player came across "Third Uncle" by 801. For those not familiar, 801 was a jam-like side project of Brian Eno and Phil Manzanera (more the latter than the former, actually). Eno wrote the song "Third Uncle", which you may know from Bauhaus's cover. It's not a great song for lyrics, but it is a breakthrough compared to the rest of the album. I bet Eno purists would disagree. Point is: had he gone further in that direction instead of electronica and pensiveness, he'd not be remembered at all but he could've driven punk rock into a completely different direction. It was in his nature to eschew his own pragmatism, so it wouldn't happen.

What is the use of the brain? Finding that break in the middle of a ton of crap and hearing the other song inside that one snippet. Whenever I hear people talk shit about rap, I realize they've never sat down with a couple good albums -- only the radio stuff. Sit down to De La Soul's Three Feet High and Rising and tell me that isn't an impressive opus, not to mention a wicked enjoyable one?

The brain can synthesize. It can also criticize (and it must in order to know what's worth synthesizing) but it has a duty to posit as well. Don't just say "this thing sucks" -- build something better! If you're like me, though, you have a bunch of halfling creations that need finishing. You have no fear of creating -- it's the birth part that stops you cold. When you have to hand it to the world...

I am still hung up on my tools. I am sending up my 2.8 and will soon be setting up the AMD as an Athlon Barton 2800, just to compare. I think I avoided all of this because I knew I'd get caught up in billions of rococo details. Finding a tool to fix the names on my MP3 files (or worse, writing my own), getting everything installed, getting to my learning. I am talking myself into all of this because I spend far too much time doing hardware projects that aren't necessary but teach me a lot. I need to get happy with the tools I have and use them.

I want to learn enough about two specific programming languages -- C and Perl -- to see how each handles a program and would allow me to handle others. I have spent far too long wondering which combination of machinery is more powerful per second per dollar. Time to code.

Then again, I still need to install...

I'll bet this post didn't make any sense. Lemme know, eh?

Comments

[bluepapercup]

Don't just say "this thing sucks" -- build something better! If you're like me, though, you have a bunch of halfling creations that need finishing. You have no fear of creating -- it's the birth part that stops you cold. When you have to hand it to the world...


I alternate between content at being an observer and paraylsing anger that I can't do anything well enough to keep at it.

[michigansundog.livejournal.com]

I know I would be worthy if I could only somehow express what I feel when listening to "Sketchpad With Trumpet and Voices" by Peter Gabriel.

In the silent places of the late night
Frozen in grays and blues
an otherworldy ecstasy
this sharing
this quiet place
our names forgotten
it cannot last
dawn will take us