installing AVG free anti-virus in ubuntu

you dont really need this in ubuntu, but its useful if you run windows as well, or if you want to test downloaded files for windows' viruses.

just copy-paste the commands in this ubuntuforum article into your terminal. Remember to change the .deb filename to that of the more recent version you downloaded.

michael moore on cnn ..on cnn

You've got to watch the whole thing -its hilarious

a basic delicious hack

a quicksearch shortcut to get to your del.icio.us tags:

1. In the firefox bookmark menu, choose Organise Bookmarks..
2. in the Bookmark Manager, click on 'New Bookmark'
3. name it something like delicious quicksearch
3. Enter http://del.icio.us/jaysen/%s in the location field (replacing jaysen with your delicious username),
4. Enter d in the keyword field.

Now, typing d tag1 in firefox's address bar will take you to your delicious pages tagged with tag1, and d tag1+tag2+tag3 will take you to your pages tagged with all of tag1, tag2, and tag3.

simple, i know, but i haven't seen it on any delicious-tool-list sites, and i use it a lot, so thought it was worth mentioning.

The Century of the Self

propaganda and the engineering of consumer culture. (part 1)

part 2, part 3, part 4

a sense of numbers

"Because the number system is like human life. First you have the natural numbers. The ones that are whole and positive. The numbers of a small child. But human consciousness expands. The child discovers longing, and do you know the mathematical expression for longing? The negative numbers. The formalization of the feeling that you're missing something.

And human consciousness expands and grows even more, and the child discovers the in-between spaces. Between stones, between pieces of moss on the stones, between people. And between numbers. And do you know what that leads to? It leads to fractions. Whole numbers plus fractions produce the rational numbers.

And human consciousness doesn't stop there. It wants to go beyond reason. It adds an operation as absurd as the extraction of roots. And produces irrational numbers.
It's a form of madness. Because the irrational numbers are infinite. They can't be written down. They force human consciousness out beyond the limits. And by adding irrational numbers to rational numbers, you get real numbers.

It doesn't stop. It never stops. Because now, on the spot, we expand the real numbers with the imaginary ones, square roots of negative numbers. These are numbers we can't picture, numbers that normal human consciousness cannot comprehend. And when we add the imaginary numbers to the real numbers, we have the complex number system.

And that (the complex number system) is the first number system in which it's possible to completely explain satisfactorily the crystal formation of ice."

from Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow.

laaitie

check out 'laaitie'.
from the blog:

‘Laaitie’ is a South African colloquialism used to refer to someone younger than oneself or a young person. It may also infer someone being younger in experience or intellectual ability. It may be used positively, as a term of endearment, or as a way of dismissing someone as inferior to oneself. Mostly, laaities are not taken seriously in the world. This has not, however, stopped laaities all over the globe from changing the paths of history. Today, too, in struggles from Soweto to Paris to Argentina, it is ‘laaities with lus’ (Koenraad De Buys, 2006) who speak out and act against authoritarian and exploitative relations, situations and regimes. While the term ‘laaitie’ is often used to dismiss the fighting, critical and unrestrained spirit of young people as being outside of the domain of ‘the rational’, and ‘the responsible’ (not yet mature enough for proper consideration), it is reappropriated here in celebration of the laaitie as that spirit of unbridled freedom and rigour of critique and action in life.

Ok, it looks like I've told this wrong (many, many times). I had it that he used the symbol to get out of a recording contract, but thats not quite right. Heres the story from an article i stumbled onto:

"In 1993, Prince’s dissatisfaction with his record label, Warner Bros., finally reached its peak. Despite his superstar status and $100 million contract, the Purple One didn’t feel he had enough creative control over his music. So 'in protest,' Prince announced that Prince would never perform for Warner Bros. again - this unpronounceable symbol would instead.

The symbol for the Artist Formerly Known as Prince combined three ancient symbols: the male symbol, the female symbol, and the alchemy symbol for soapstone, which was supposed to reflect his artistic genius. Prince retired the symbol when his contract with Warner Bros. ran out in 2000. Today, he is again Prince."

just slightly wrong, but i thought that I could straighten things out here. and yes, I am a fan.

anyone for scrabble?

..online, or via email. at Scrabulous -the username is jaysen. Leave a comment if you want a game.