tychoish, now without a net

http://www.uncommongoods.com/item/item.jhtml?catId=3&itemId=12199Here’s a prety cute piece of wear. Thanks Jish for the link. Awww It’s prety cute….. Don’t mind me. Awwwww

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tagged: interwebs

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2003-11-14-philly-gays_x.htmWho knew? Sounds like a good idea, but they could have done pictures of Ben Frankly super imposed onto a club scene. Rainbow flags are great, don’t get me wrong, but people looking for a mad night life are intrested in something other than rainbow flags.

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tagged: interwebs

Its no secret that the main point of education isn’t to teach content (or perhaps more importantly shouldn’t be to teach content) but rather to teach process skills and thought processes. That’s great, because answers change a lot, but the way to find the answers doesnít really change. But what form do those process skills take, and dose this really make us better more knowledgeable individuals?

The traditional paradigm would seem to be all about accepting what’s come before. To internalize information in a very flat way, that doesn’t involve the learner. Accepting and not questioning, this kind of learning is still widely employed, but I feel my life’s been working under a different paradigm for a while. Basically, through my theory of knowledge class, through the whole Anytown experience, through my gender studies project, I’ve been forced to take something of a deconstructionist attitude towards knowledge, and I’m not sure I like this idea. Rather than accept, construct, synthesize information, and reach some sort of clarity, the opposite happens: I have to take a masse of information and break it apart into lots of little pieces. Science, gender, oppression, social science, math, sexuality, identity, and history, rather than build up knowledge, accept what is, we’re looking for all the exceptions, all the flaws and while this is a good way to approach knowledge, if nothing else it’s put a HUGE crimp in my ability to write effectively.

Within this paradigm, (which I’m starting to feel is just as limiting as the flawed one it replaces) I feel as if I’m obligated to deconstruct everything. To get in there and notice how it’s flawed, how the rules and categories society provides don’t apply much of the time, how bias skews so much knowledge/information and our interpretation of aforementioned knowledge. But of course everything is flawed, and this is inescapable. But we can’t or shouldn’t invalidate anything because it’s flawed, because then we’d be left with a whole lot of nothing. But you can’t accept knowledge as it is, because it’s flawed, because it’s not right.

I suppose the question I’m looking to answer, is “where does that leave us?” I can’t accept flawed information blindly, and I can’t deconstruct everything into an unrecognizable pulp. There has to be a middle ground, or so you’d think; but both ends of this spectrum seem to exclude each other. Ironically, the only thing I can think to say right now is “faith.” Not really faith in a god sort of way, but faith in an understanding that the information you are working with is reliable, and that your treatment won’t do any harm.

Not an easy task.

This difficulty is compounded by the fact that we’re not just talking about disciplinary knowledge here, we’re also talking about gender and about identity, which is where it gets *really* difficult. Because on some level I know what makes up my own identity, and I know what society expects, we all do; but on another more intellectual level I also know that this isn’t true of everyone. I know that there are exceptions that defy categorization. What do you do? Or, I suppose what *can* you do?

I’ve said in the past that the only thing you can do is keep on going, and endure. Because this chaos is what the world seems to exist in. Now there’s this whole order in chaos; and chaos in order idea, but I’m not sure how to apply that. So there might be an answer in there somewhere.

So ultimately, I feel stuck and lost. I mean I can continue to function and I can continue to be productive on some level, but I guess the real problem with that is that I don’t feel like that would lead to any progress, and just more of the status quo which in it’s way is part of the whole flawed traditionalism.

It’s a vicious cycle, and I can’t get away from it; even when I’ve tried to remove myself to discuss it. Also, there isn’t an end, every statement leads to a question and every question leads us somewhere.

Just as a general commentary, I’d like to say that it’s slightly ironic that I’ve identified this as deconstructionism, because thatís a critical school that I’m not fond of. (It should be noted that my opinions of critical schools exist in varying shades of disapproval). Additionally, I think I can finally understand existentialism, which is another paradigm that *I* don’t want to touch, but I can understand it now.

Since there’s no logical conclusion for this mess of philosophy and thought, I’m going to end this here, rest assured that I’ll get back to it at some point.

But before I go, I offer my most sincere apologies for this entry which must be nearly unintelligible. I look forward to the resulting discussion.

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tagged: TealArt

Last year when Brad opened up Link and Think for the 2002 Worlds AIDS day, I eagerly signed up. And then TealArt promptly crashed and was down until January. So we missed it, which was seriously not cool.

We’re at least going to try and make amends this year. For all of you who also operate weblogs/independent websites. I’d like to implore you all to take part. It’s a great idea and a good way to unify and take part in a worthy crowd. Check it out, join up, and we’ll be here on the first for World AIDS day Link and Think.

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tagged: TealArt

Agenda:

New Skins
I have a lot of new skin news. I reciently made up this new database powered skin engine that makes the whole skinning process a lot simpler. The actual changes on the site are basicly non-noticeable, but since I made this change I’ve started to add a new skin every week or so. There are currently 27 skins installed, which will probably lead to redisgn of how the Skin Page operates, but in any cases, I’ve added a number of different skins to TealArt that you might like to know about:

“Rainbow Pride” is a rainbow skin taken from a diary land template that I found using google. Yes, I’m shameless, but at least it looks cool. The skin uses tables and font HTML tags, so from a web-standards, HTML point of view the skin is horrid, but the surprising thing is that it renders perfectly in every situation I’ve tried it in, so go figure. Enjoy it, but don’t expect to much.

“Boy Looking” is a new skin that’s completely original. I took another Abercrombie & Fitch graphic, did some semi-creative photoshoping to it, and then put together a style sheet all by myself. There’s a Mozilla Version, and an Internet Explorer Version. I might put together some more color options together (this one uses warmer colors), and the sidebar is on the right. It’s a pretty cool design, so check it out.

“Blue Robot 3″ Is similar in style to the “Robot Theft” Skins that have been around for almost as long as I’ve had skinning available on TealArt. Itís a simple, text based skin for those who like it, and its about as unoriginal and stolen as they come. The only reason I’m listing it alone here is because it’s the first TealArt skin to use three columns, and it paves the way for future skins to take advantage of some really pretty three column layout ideas that Chris and I have in the works.

The Stolen Skins, represent a surprisingly larger percentage of the TealArt skins. These are skins that we’ve taken from template repositories and turned into TealArt skins. Some have more originality infused than others, while some are downright shameful and were thrown together in mere moments. But they all present some sort of aesthetic quality that we like, and enjoy. These skins include everything that we’ve taken from Blue Robot, the Rainbow Pride skin, and two others that I took from random template repositories. Blue Robot skins are CSS and Text wonder pieces, the rainbow skin is fun, and the last two are both pretty good in a melodramatic boggy sort of way, so enjoy them if you want, but enjoy them for the novelty that they are.

Notify List
The version of quarto that we’re using on TealArt is a bit behind the version Amy’s currently working on. Rather than have to piece together the database regularly for the next couple of months (or really more than once per quarter), we’re going to hold out on our dated version and wait for something monumental. I mean the truth is that it works fine now, and I’m not in the mood to go off breaking things. One thing that I could never get to work quite right, until now that is, was the notify list.

Finally, I went digging for the code in question, and found a rather unsightly bit that was all commented out, and after some toying around and the introduction of the dandy mail(); function, I was able to “encourage” email notification. When I talked to Amy to brag tell her about my conquest, she told me she’d switched over a long time ago. Go figure, and I thought I was brilliant.

Long story short I’d like to offer you the TealArt Notifty Page which will let you subscribe and alter your subscription to the TealArt notify list. There aren’t and probably won’t be email lists for quotes and links without popular demand, and we have separate lists for The Times of TealArt and the Paradigm Brainfeed. I hope it’s useful.

New Contributor
While Chris and I have been really impressed with the progress the site has made in recent months, in terms of readership and in terms of the operation and content, we’re not satisfied with ourselves as the sole personalities of the site. While we kind of learned our lesson about the problems of starting an independent website bassed on the contributions of a large community with CollectiveArts and don’t want to have TealArt run into those problems, we would like to see a broader perspective here. So we’re still looking for TealArtists/Crew folks.

To that end, we’ve decided to add another contributor. Ryan Davis will be joining here to give his take on the world, just like the rest of us. He’s in the process of moving (to my fair city, as coincidence would have it) at the moment, but once he gets into gear, I think you’ll really enjoy his offerings.

New Profiles
Just a blurb to tell you that I’ve updated my profile. When I wrote the old one I kind of anticipated having it stick around for a while, but I suppose life and the world change too much for such things to remain true even months later. No new pictures I fear, but we’ll get something soonish.

Also Chris promises us that he’ll get some sort of text based profile up by the end of the evening (Wednesday November 12th 2003), but we’ll see, sometime in the very new feature we hope.

New Site
On November 5th the CollectiveArts.net domain expires. And thus ends a three and a half year endeavor to create a single website on the independent web that would provide a “home” for all the writers who wanted a professional co-operative web presence. It’s a great idea, and I hope someone else can do it, but after all this time, Chris and I got to the point where all of the things we wanted to accomplish in a website were already happening on TealArt, or could happen very easily on TealArt. (After we made the decision, the traffic to TA almost doubled, surprisingly enough). So now that CollectiveArts is gone, I’ve registered another domain that I’m going to use as a portfolio type site. It’s all forthcoming, but I just thought it’d be worth noting here.

Site Statistics
Nothing big here, and I’m not going to jinx myself by giving out exact numbers, but Chris and I have been really surprised by the increase in the traffic, really pleased. It’s nice to know that there are people reading the site. It’d be even nicer if people emailed us from time to time, or even commented, but we’ll take what we get gladly. Independent sites like TealArt rely on word of mouth to gain readership, and so we’d like to implore you all to use your mouths to spread the word. Thanks!

I think that about does it for this time. I hope this one does it for a while.

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tagged: TealArt

Family isn’t just the people who relate to us by blood or by law. Those people are a given, and we don’t really have much of a choice in the matter. For that matter we don’t really have a lot of choice in any of our families, they seem to choose us. Family are the people you love enough to keep a caring eye on even when you’re mad at them, the people whose love you never need question, the people who will always show up. It’s not something that happens by choice, and after a while people just become family.

Family are people like the closet case ex-boyfriend who you can’t help worry over, and who will always need a hug. Like his little brother who you look after, even though you’ve never spoken to him. Like the girl who would seem to be the unlikeliest match in the world, but remains constant. Like the compassionate and neurotic gay mobster who is always forgivable, it’s his ex-boyfriends who may not be as forgivable; it’s his asshole brother who really does have an ounce of good underneath it all.

It’s the guy who’s always up at two am and willing to talk about life, loves, and Linux. Itís the best friend who you love but can’t and won’t for years to come. Your best equal. It’s the friends who manage to change with you and still remain refreshingly grounded in a shared past. Itís the only person with enough balls to stand up to you, and still match you move for move. It’s the friends who still invite you to sing, despite apparent tone deafness.

Family is these people and more. In some ways it’s all of their families. When you think about things that way the world doesn’t seem like that big of a place after all.

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tagged: TealArt