Flashes of Panic"A school is a factory is a poem is a prison is academia is boredom, with flashes of panic." — Joseph BrodskyUnimportant finger update- June 30, 2008 Scrawling on a few postcards this evening, I realized that I am in fact using my sliced finger fairly regularly for typing. However, my handwriting, never the neatest to begin with, has suffered grievously. I wonder if these postcards will be legible.http://www.flashesofpanic.com/panic/002349.php A brief word from our producer- June 28, 2008 I&8217;m pretty busy here. I may find time to write a few graphs now and then, but I may not, so not all my good ideas for this space may make it. I regret the incompleteness, but I never promised comprehensiveness here.http://www.flashesofpanic.com/panic/002348.php The crime of the Trials- June 28, 2008 There&8217;s been, rightly, a lot of attention focused on Amy Yoder Begley and her last-lap heroics to make the Olympic team in the 10,000m last night. Begley ran what may have been the race of her life. But her story won&8217;t appear in her home state&8217;s newspaper. The reporter for the Indianapolis Star couldn&8217;t convince his editors to send him to the meet, so he took vacation days and came anyway, on his own dime. Because he&8217;s &8220;on vacation,&8221; the Star apparently...http://www.flashesofpanic.com/panic/002347.php The town that cranks- June 27, 2008 I did notice pretty quickly that there appear to be more bikes about in Eugene than I&8217;m used to seeing in Amherst. And, parenthetically, I&8217;ve seen more bikes than what seems to me to be usual in Amherst this summer. I think it&8217;s a gas-price thing, because many of the riders have backpacks or panniers (i.e. they&8217;re commuting) and many of the bikes make the sibilant grinding sound that means the chain hasn&8217;t been lubed in two or three years. Eugene seems to have taken...http://www.flashesofpanic.com/panic/002346.php Pedal shuttle- June 27, 2008 I am three hours east of whatever time is reported for this, so it is still Thursday here. Although I&8217;m reaching that state of fatigue where time zones are sort of irrelevant. Anyway, on our way back from parking the car at a remote shuttle spot, we got picked up by Wayne (I&8217;m guessing) from Pedal Junkies, two guys working on starting a pedal cab service in Eugene. I don&8217;t know how crowded the bike path between the parking lots at Autzen Stadium and Hayward Field is going to be.http://www.flashesofpanic.com/panic/002345.php Justin and Butch- June 24, 2008 In the breathless pause (or a breathy one: the moment when hundreds of pundits inhale before beginning to speak) leading up to the clumsily-named U.S. Olympic Team Trials&8212;Track and Field begin this Friday in Eugene, the &8220;news&8221; of the sport is being dominated by the worst sort of story: doping. Justin Gatlin, the disgraced former co-World-Record-holder and Athens 2004 gold medalist, is trying to litigate his way in to the Trials despite being under a doping ban. (As the gold...http://www.flashesofpanic.com/panic/002344.php Forking a college- June 23, 2008 This weekend was A&8217;s sister&8217;s wedding. The groom is a CS professor at my College&8217;s biggest rival in nearly everything&8212;an old, cherished rivalry as close and heated as only two nearly-identical institutions can manage. Early in the weekend I overheard him (I think I was meant to overhear) remarking that the College was an &8220;offshoot&8221; of theirs. This is not far from the truth; the College&8217;s founding was made possible by the defection of their president and many..http://www.flashesofpanic.com/panic/002342.php Pocket characterizations- June 21, 2008 I wear dress clothes so infrequently that when I pull out a jacket, I dip in the pockets to discover when I last wore it. Generally I discover a place card from a wedding reception, but not always; yesterday, my suit&8217;s jacket revealed only a large square of moleskin, suggesting that whichever occasion I had last worn it had included uncomfortable dress shoes. (I recently invested in respectable-looking shoes I can wear for a day without resorting to moleskin.) The blue blazer has seen...http://www.flashesofpanic.com/panic/002341.php A big step to Firefox 3.0- June 19, 2008 Along with a few zillion other people, I downloaded Firefox 3.0 last night, and installed it this morning. Much as I like Firefox, however, I have to admit a little bit of buyer&8217;s remorse about the upgrade. The primary driver of this, of course, has nothing to do with the Mozilla Foundation themselves, or at least, not directly. The problem is that I&8217;ve become quite fond of a certain constellation of extensions (or &8220;Add-ons&8221; as the Firefox crew are now calling them), and...http://www.flashesofpanic.com/panic/002340.php Finding the right venue- June 18, 2008 A lot of modern technology, for me, seems to be about setting up the right venue. For example, &8220;podcasting&8221; struck me as a faddish buzzword until I discovered that it also means &8220;time-shifting NPR&8221; and that having a load of podcasts on my iPod meant actually keeping the part of my brain that gets bored engaged on long drives. (I might have discovered this sooner if I drove anywhere on a regular basis.) Today I discovered that I can make necessary phone calls if I&8217;m...http://www.flashesofpanic.com/panic/002339.php |