Uh huh, did i say i liked Modern, Knowledge and Self? I lied. Very boring, lets see how many times i can say the same thing over and over again w/o anyone catching on. The blonde in the corner blinks twice and twirls her hair. Let me just set the stage for you… outside, sun is shining, starbucks frozen thing in my hand, ladybug crawling all over me, looking at the teacher like he is the second most stupid person on earth (no one beats the Bushman) as he goes over the fact that we need to liberate ourselves from the cave for the eigth time in an hour. Boy in the corner asks a question, teach stumbles…ah..ah…and…he DISREGAURDS the question. Now i understand that Plato’s world view was steeped in idealism, but telling me that i am questioning the validitiy of his argument b/c i am raised in the era of postmodern is bullshit. its like saying…”don’t question the idiot, his view point is from the era of dumbass and therefore valid in his time, but you are questioning it simply because you were raised on sesame street.” NO. Plato believed in absolute truth, somewhere out there you will find absolute truth (if you smoke enough of the cheeba), but it is out there. So how can something be truth if it is proven invalid…even years later. But it was truth then…fuck dat shit! Maybe we are confused with the word “truth,” i know its alittle ambiguious, but i think thats just because you come from the post modern era…fucks.

And then theres the fact that the entire piece “the Cave” is hypocritical. I refuse to sit there and take any analyzation of the contextual matter of the piece seriously. Of course we are in caves…of course in order to liberate ourselves we must no longer look at the shadows on the wall but find abstract reasoning….but i find the snow on t.v. caused by bad reception works just as well. But what if when we get to the dialectical thought it turns out to be just another shadow on another wall. Ok, i will admit that that is a very postmodern viewpoint, yes, but seriously, how pompous is Plato to think that that is it, abstract reasoning, that that is IT. $IT=’The liberating piece to set us aside from everyone else.’ Um, no. That my dear is just another shadow you are reading. A little ditty put together to trick you into your positions in life. You were meant to be liberally educated, here is where we insert the ego boast, feed the “eternal desire to be better than thou” and “poof!” entertain you sad fools chained in the cave with an allegory about the exact fucking cave you are sitting in. No thank you sir. We will never truly understand what it is we are in search of for we will always be distracted and chained to walls. Not that i a.) am complaining or b.) would mind it terribly because chains are fun, and walls, bedposts, trees, i dont care.

That was my spiel thank you for listening, since no one else will.

~shell

So school has started again. It is currently thursday and my apt is still not unpacked. damn. I have no time. I have some free time today between my 1 and my 4 oclock class, so i finally get to update the blog. New job, consists of me making spam (but apparently doing a damn good job at it. i have decided to post all the nice things ppl say so i can come back and gloat five years form now…

I just saw the design you did for the prospective student emails… NICE! ~joel

i rock. ) Humphrey is funny, but why the hall can i never escape the friggin OfficeSpace jokes ANYWHERE! Speaking of jokes, i still need to finish watching SuperTroopers mainly so i can relate to what the hell Aaron is talking about b/c yes…he still is quoting it. So apparently my role is to make traditional media turn all multimedia-ish and I KNOW i didn’t pursue journalism for a reason, why the hell did it catch up to me again?

classes are great, i think though i am alittle off being the only person on campus who actually likes Modern, knowledge and the self. I could do with out the Matrix analyziation and having to see Run Lola Run for the hunderth time, but we get to play with Plato’s The Cave AND the Symposium (plus got to listen to Ani DiFranco).

Ideas of Beauty in Ancient Greece started with rereading the Illiad, which of course i read just long enough ago to forget. But i am thinking i know what was considered beauty in Greece and it has something to do with the Symposium and alittle to do with the Theory of Projection with a smidge of…got distracted, pulled paper out of the cyber cafe printer…ahhh memories of last year. sigh. This is why I quit TLT, why am i still doing it? anyway forgot what i was saying but…Oh, i wish classes were more indepth, getting tired of having dumbed up conversations.

Donna had emergency surgey this summer so she is out till mid september. I heard she is doing fine so i am not too worried, she is a fighter. I hope she feels better soon and glad to hear she is doing well. I feel bad she had to get sick. those classes are cancelled till the ninth.

Lilith works, but only sometimes, but thats ok. I need to get started on my research for the backend AI thing. I have been learning PERL and have to schedule in time on the weekends to pursue it farther, no time during the week. Still really excited about it. Many ideas. Forming a stronger idea of how it will exactly work, now i have to get it on paper b4 it leaves.

Met a guy named Jesse when i was in pittsburgh. apparently we had dated b4 but neither of us remebered. (you know you have a problem when…? j/k) But he was nice and we are defiently talking now. But he is of course terribly Beaver County-ish and not very exciting to talk to. Not one of those ppl who will talk philosophy with you while rubbing your back, if you know what i mean. But he is a nice person and i always like making new friends. Beth goes home Sunday. Macromedia MX 2004 is coming out (ROCK) and I am FINALLY reading snowcrash. ..and something called Whitenoise, by Don Delillo. Keep ya informed.

I heart Time management and Outlook (yeh, i did just say that didn’t i? ewww)
~shell

wow. so…um, yeah. aaron and i broke up a few weeks ago, so you can imagine how odd it was when i had to stay at his place last night since the Days Inn was completely booked. OMG, what the hell did i EVER see in him? calm down shell, it will be ok. No it won’t. He lied to me again last night, this time though was like the breaking point. I dont think I even want to be friends with him anymore. No in fact I know i dont want to be friends with him. Besides it being the fifth time that i caught him lying, this time he put my life in danger which is defiently not cool.

On my way back into town i had called him to see if it would be ok to stay there he said sure. He said he would wait for me before he went to this party he was going to so that i could get into his house and preferably pass out (9+ hour car rides have that effect on you). So when i get into town i call him and he is already at the frigging party.

Are you drinking i ask

…a lil, i only had one.

You shouldn’t drive i told him.

I will be fine, he says, i am drinking soda now…i’ll get someone to drive me if it is too bad. I will see you around 11.

11? wtf am i going to do till 11…i need sleep now ahem* alright, c you then, i will be up in the lab.

so 11 roles around and in walks aaron, reeking of alcohol.

are you drunk? i ask him

no. i quit drinking a couple hours ago.

so abnoxious and stinky he starts talking of the party which makes my stomach turn so i change the subject, start showing him lilith and picks of what i did in vermont, seeing how drunk he really is through the conversation but he just seems to be slightly more annoying than usual and that could be explained by the weird situation we are now in. so i decide to leave with him and when we get in the car, i realize the error of my ways.

i get back to the house and offer to drive him to work. he declines, i can’t convince him otherwise short of knocking him. so i crawl into bed and he calls me from work once he gets there.

are you buzzing? i ask

a lil he laughs...even though this is seriously not funny. Drunk driving is like the deadliest sin in my book. i hang up, roll over and go to sleep.

the next morning he takes me out for breakfast…donuts in the park, mainly b/c i don’t want to go to the lighthouse like he always does. and i find out that when he said one beer he really meant 6 and when he said he was drinking soda he forgot to mention it was spiked with J.D. and everclear. i looked at him and walked away. when we finally got back to campus i asked nadler if he could drive me to the train station b/c i couldn’t stomach another minute with aaron let alone another hour and a half till my train came.

one day when i am sitting under a tree by the water reading tillich and eating strawberry shortcake while children play in outfits of white gauze like my own i will look back on my life and laugh a great laugh that will shake the heavens and the gods will laugh with me.

waiting for rainbows

~shell

Note to all: this is no longer my project blog, i have taken it over with reality b/c i have to…it is now one of those what i had for breakfast blog. It is going to be my forum for freewriting, a means to keep my mad writing skillz sharp yo. To find out how lilith is doing you should consult www.eden-project.blogspot.com and don’t mind the terrible layout, it is being fed into the main page of the eden-project which i will let ya’ll know where it is posted later. ok, well maybe some stuff about lilith and all that will be posted her, but you will have to weed through the random stuff which i wouldn’t suggest, b/c it would probably make you scyzophrenic. But how can something make you syczophrenic you ask? Do you REALLY want to take that chance?

Left Middlebury today. really really really sad. I loved it there. Back at juniata, horrible, i miss VT so much. Huntingdon is so depressing, and this is the summer season still. Can’t wait for winter.

I walked down to see an apartment today which i ended up getting. its ten blocks from the school so when all is said and done i will have a nice butt…not that its not nice to begin with (NO vainity here what-so-ever!). In all honestly it is precious. It is in a historically registered building and the man who owns the place lives downstairs. I ended up sitting in his apartment talking to him for an hour and a half. Definetly the kind of place i want when i grow up, piles and stacks and shelves of books (i believe the correct term is boxes of piles or bags…oh hell nm), classical music in the background, a drawing desk and a few overly stuffed comfy chairs everywhere. If any one ever wants to come visit Juniata…hahaha, ok nm, i thought it was funny too, but the offer is there.

I am really frightened at moving in by myself. It will be weird. Lonely, quiet, peaceful, relaxing, i dont have to take care of anyone else or support anyone else or stay up late wondering where the hell someone else is plus i have a dish washer. how nice is that. Apparently the apartment is the marriage apartment though, Jack(the landlord) told me every tenant he has had has moved out b/c they have gotten married. I told him “it was nice meeting you i gotta go” and walked towards the door. i laughed. I know better, i have stronger will power. wait, no, keep your wimpy “will power,” i have FEAR! Yes, beautiful beautiful FEAR, Thank you Pavlov. Shell is married to her work, shell has “geek” tattooed on her back in bugbites.

was talking to my mom about my newest…um…lapse of sanity…i guess would be the word. (i feel so ridiculous crying over the ridiculousticities of relationships with the opposite sex…like ppl leaving, or buying you flowers, or bringing you water or whatever else someone does to perplex you. y? y i ask? grrr) and she laughed at me. It is always good when your mother laughs at your relationship life, your mother who…doesn’t…have relationships. Well I guess it is good to be entertaining…trying to be optimistic her ppl. it is a sad, pathetic day when your mom laughs at your situation, but i sweeeeaaarr it is not my fault. he held a gun to my head! yes yes thats it!! :( never that easy. it was a horrible situatuion and i tried to be good, i really did. god, i feel like a horrible, horrible person.

I am going to hell.

Seth tried to make me feel better about it all…”there are worse ppl out there” he says…”like bush, look how many ppl he kills in a day” it didn’t help. I feel really bad for his gf, this poor girl i never met and like crush her world (well, atleast for a couple months till she discovers narcotics with which she burns out on and winds up like the old woman on Requiem. NOT HELPING.) Y the GF? Y all the miles? god damn it! I AM horrible. wow, i really hope that anyone who is reading this stopped a while ago…which is what i am going on. Here is one for the blog research, y is typing in a blog so theraputic when your NINA or emilie isn’t around to whine too?

Positives shell, must focus on the positives. At least i can regain hope in that there are infact ppl out there who will make you happy and talk geek to you and rub your back and bring you tylenol and act like they are five with you and…GOD DAMNIT! Not helping. here’s a positive…he wasn’t mean…finally! someone who isn’t a mean disrespectful, lying loser! i can be attracked to un mean ppl. wahoo…:(

Ok, so this is part of the getting over boy process…write it all down. once it is out of the system it will be easier to replace…with things like perl and java and actionscript and lilith and all that fun stuff.

I guess since i am going to actually be keeping this i should fix the damn layout.

the eternal masochist *sigh

~shell

so everything is cool. lilith (as the beta bot will be called…hence forth refered to as “she” or “party 2″) passes the URL and pops up the webpage wahoo. ty magic seth for making my computer magic! This blog will be moving to my eden_project page soon, so as soon as i buy some webspace (b4 the internet gets filled up) i will pass the link to my faithful audience. *tap tap tap…hello? is anyone out there? ah hell. working on the eden_project site right now. finishing touches tonight, a few javascript fixes and adding a few patterns so she talks about the site…thats my plan for to night…then its beirut!!!! *ahem…with soda.

These are two of sexiest sites….EVER. They are sexier than eric ;) but thank you eric for showing them to me, even though you have now been replaced…with sexy sexy sites. I heart these sites, they make me need cold showers.
All Media Studios
Wide Group: the digital multimedia path is AWESOME, but the corporate path has a really sweet interface.

THE BLACK LEATHER JOURNAL
DISCOURSE DEVELOPMENT

IN DEVELOPING SHELL, REALISM IS KEY. WHEN LOOKING AT THE CURRENT A.I. PROJECTS THAT EXIST SUCH AS A.L.I.C.E. AND ANNABOT, PROGRAMMERS TRY TO MIMIC HUMAN CONVERSATIONS AND THOUGHT FLOW IN THE MANNER ONE WOULD COME ACROSS IN DAILY LIFE, THIS OF COURSE IS SELF DEFEATING IN THAT YOU WILL THEN BE CREATING A HUGE OBSTACLE BETWEEN THE USER AND THE MEDIUM LEADING TO A BREACH IN BELIEVABLILITY, THUS THROWING UP RED FLAGS TO THE USER AND PUTTING THEM ON THEIR GUARD INSTEAD OF ENGROSSING THEM IN THE EXPERIENCE.

HUMAN MANNERISMS AND DISCOURSE CHANGE DRAMATICALLY WHEN YOU COMPARE EVERYDAY CONVERSATION AND INTERACTION TO THAT YOU FIND ON THE WEB. SO BY TRYING TO MIMIC THE COMVERSATIONAL STYLES FOUND IN DIRECT HUMAN TO HUMAN COMMUNICATION, YOU WILL BEGIN TO FIND YOURSELF BEING LIMITED BY YOUR MEDIA’S SHORTCOMINGS INSTEAD OF EXPLOITING THEM.

WHERE AS MANY PEOPLE WOULD FIND THE STYLES OF ONLINE COMMUNICATION COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE TO ACHIEVING A BELIEVEABLE A.I., THESE STYLES HAVE BECOME A FACT OF LIFE TO MANY AND ARE READILY ACCEPTABLE FOR THE MEDIUM. TXT AND INSTANT MESSAGING HAVE CREATED AN ENTIRELEY NEW SET OF MANNERISMS AND DISCOURSE THAT WILL NEED TO BE TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION SINCE THIS WILL BE THE WAY SHELL WILL BE COMMUNICATING TO USERS. SINCE HER INTERFACE WILL BE MIMICING THE APPERANCE OF AN INSTANT MESSAGING DEVICE, HER DISCOURSE WILL ALSO HAVE TO MIMIC THAT USED IN INSTANT MESSAGING SO THAT USERS, WHO HAVE ASSUMABLY HAD PRIOR EXPERIENCE WITH INSTANT MESSAGING AND CHATROOMS WILL BE ABLE TO IDENTIFY TO THEIR EXPERIENCE WITH SHELL AND REGISTER IT INTO A PRE-ESTABLISHED SCHEMA.

So in trying to come up with an idea for my project i called my mom, I love my mom b/c she will take you even farther off topic than i will.

“mom, i can’t think of anything”
-silence-
“mom?”
-hahahaha-
“mom?”
-oh what?

“what are you doing?”
-watching that how to lose a guy movie
“oh thats a cute movie” (here’s where we both get distracted)
-have you seen the new Harry Potter movie?
“no mom, i don’t read Harry Potter, no time”
-oh you should, if not for the plot for the computery stuff (did my mom just call me a geek? noooooo….well, maybe)
*ahem “really?”
and here she begins to tell me about Harry getting sucked into a book and i wonder what the hell does this have to do with anything and she finally comes full circle like always…so make it like they are writing into a book. hmmm, so from here visions of sugarplums and AI filled my head and i began to develope mad ideas. I could train an AI to have cybersex with ppl….but you dont have cybersex, you dont know how too…i could, um research…do you really want to expose yourself to that? noooot really.
so i looked at this AIML (artificial intelligence markup language) thing and began to think…based on XML, why couldn’t i used it as navigation of sorts for my website? as you communicate with this bot, she will pop up pages in another window that corisponds to what she is telling you. The only problem here would be makig the bot realistic enough and making her respond with “lead” type comments to guide the user through the site but at the same time maintain the illusion of free will. So the discourse will take some time to develope, but for now…or the two weeks i have before the fair, i am going to work on making a sample conversation about some topic, making the comment trigger a window to open with a relevant link in the window and develope an information site/cd that discusses the project and where i would like to see it go.

so i was sitting here pondering the elements of navigation like any self respecting college student would be doing on a weekend *ahem (oh god, the tinge of sarcasm burns…omg it burns!!!) and i began to think (see? i blamed the sarcasm for the pain, scapegoat!) there are theories left and right about sex in media, subliminal, phallic symbols, stimulating colors, freud here, freud there, blah blah blah, but the more i thought about it, the less i would say i have seen too many examples of this in web design, besides the typical www.porn.com or the manifestations of the music industry (for a good time go to www.justintimberlake.com and witness the amazing musical navigation system…then shoot the designer…what the f*bomb were they thinking? and hello meta tags anyone?…sorry had to spiel.) which are just full of sleezy sexuality anyway.

But seriously this is a valid concern. where’d the sex go? take google for example…now you might be thinking…oh the o’s, in which i would have to say bullshit. or the red…but youre forgetting the blues and yellows, or you could be saying…it’s google for christ sake get a life shell in which case i would say…well what does sex have to do with coke a cola? nothing. i dont use coke for sex. sprite maybe but definetly not coke. but everytime i watch one of those commercials i feel like i am watching mini soft porn…or print, i will use my HOW magazine for a reference (HOW is a design magazine…there’s nothing sexual about design, but this is not why i choose this. I choose this mainly b/c cosmopolitian requires some interest in the opposite sex which is not where my main concern lies, i heart my computer, and frankly…if it doesn’t run on batteries, i dont want anything to do with it.) Back cover…stockphoto group Masterfile two red headed females laying on a flokati (I HEART FLOKATI!!!!) rug looking at you all seductively. But go to their site? nothing. green interface, nothing round or feminine, nothing phallic. where the hell did this obsession with squares come from? just b/c we are watching through a square screen doesn’t mean we need to mimic the shape. I hate squares. everything is a filetab. ok, the internet is a big symbolic file cabinet, i get it already. now do something to entertain me. Dancing monkeys for christ sake. I want dancing monkeys! Minimalism? Thats NOT A MONKEY!!! I can pick up a soda can and find things symbolically sexual in under three seconds, but get online…nothing. classic forms of sexuality is all…pics, erotica, overglorified phonesex.

Maybe I can’t see past all the squares ppl are trying to make look like they are popping off the page at me. Is this your idea of virtual reality? you’ve got to be kidding me. These “squares” dont even register in my carnal natural urges, why would i care? But look, they are so pretty and REAL, you could just reach out and TOUCH them. um, no. I am still not sold. since when has seeing something just to see something ever sold anything. You must have a connection, emotional, sexual, something that strikes a cord, something that gets a rise out of the viewer. We are trying to create realism but we are working from the wrong direction, it is very difficult to trick the mind through the eyes and ears (i didn’t say impossible…anyone who has ever put two index fingers infront of their eyes and seen a hotdog could argue this, but has anyone ever tried to eat the hotdog? b/c they truly believed it was a hotdog? you’re laughing now. but honestly, how many of us have been truly engrossed in a movie or a book? how many of us have cried b/c of these or a song? how many times has every song on the radio made you want to kill yourself out of misery (not literally mind you) Now how many times have you been online and have been so engrossed in a site (not a game, a site), how many times have you been to a site that made you want to kill yourself (and not b/c they used frontpage).

There is something we are missing. this outlet has infinite possibilities and yet are stuck in some encyclopedia-esque design schema. just b/c it is hypertext does not mean that that is all it is. We have at our dispossal some of the fastest, most advanced processing systems and video cards and sound cards and internet connections ever. any schmuck can draw some one point grey box outlines on a page, ad an uber contrasty picture and add some 8 point font and call themselves a designer. I call you FRAUDS.

The web is over ten years old. We should be past this. We should be approaching our works of art. Film had gone with the wind, tv had i love lucy. I watched a representative from Entertainment Arts ask this question once to a bunch of video game designers “where is our work of art?” The sad thing is…they were closer to achieving it when their industry was this age than we are. There is no excuse for this. You say you are “experimental”, thats because no one is paying attention to call you out. you “experimentals” are recycling the same old shit everyone else is “experimenting” with. ubergoth is not experimental, minimalism is not experimental, ITS BEEN AROUND SINCE BEFORE THE WEB EXISTED. experimenting with style is not experimental at all, its skining templates.

Its time to wake up to what we are really about, to what our potential really is. If you are not willing to eat, sleep and dream code, to master psychological theory, to test yourself and push your limits, to form community to enhance ideas, then leave. If you are not willing to dispose of the masks of old media we are continuing to carry then leave. We are not an encyclopedia (”look up reindeer…reindeer have antlers…look up antlers…”), we are not the news papers, we are not television or radio or print. If you wish to continue to ignore our children and refuse to watch them and refuse to learn with them then leave. (they are our future, they are growing up with todays technology, this is not the same as the way we grew up with technology, commadors do not count in todays world. Our children are forming communities in real time around technologies, they have cellphones before they are ten, they are multitasking before 12. They have so much to teach us about how to play using technology, they perfected the game. We must learn to play.) If you cannot get up from your computer to watch nature and and to listen to it and to learn from it then leave. Nature too has so much to tell us. it is so easy to get lost in this world of florescent lights and cooling fans, to forget what we are part of, to ignore ourselves and our souls. If you can’t create, if you cant play, if you cant make mistakes and laugh and open up and stand up for yourself or talk to others ppl in r/t and not behind a screen name then leave. If you are hiding behind your screen and your “career” b/c you are lazy or afraid or anti-social then leave, you are hindering what needs to be done and where we need to go. Webdesign is about people, how they interact with their computers, with others on here, with the sites. If you are elite and a god in what you do then you are not doing it right, and if you cant see this then you need to leave too. If you do not like what i say then it is only because you are afraid i might be right.