Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1998/06/10/to-work-2/
Ahhh, so you may have noticed that I haven’t written much here lately eh? Been busy … the biggest pain in the ass at EnterAct has been the whole moving thing, compounded with disorganization over administrative priorities and getting equipment together.
But the moving is done now. Got my own folding table, machine, window view, chair, and phone. Whee! We’ve got our own admin room where we all very much enjoyed ourselves today.
And I’ve got a negotiated salary, and health benefits and all, and my perks all sorted out – given the salary I’m now working at, and the likelihood that it will still go up considerably, there is very much reason to believe I shant be returning to school anytime soon.
I’ll need to order that ISDN line soon.
The Admin team is a cool group – Kevin is something of our fearless leader and a master of FreeBSD, Blake knows telco stuff and has what could most politely be described as an intriguingly strong personality, Eric speaks French, and will be working full-time this summer, and part-time when school starts back up, and just yesterday, we acquired Paul – a friend of Blake who apparently knows FreeBSD well enough, but I don’t know much else about him. He’s taking a vacation in Florida this weekend.
I’ve been working, for lack of anything more being demanded on me, of the interesting puzzle of rewriting some of the tools used by the techs to do user stuff like add users and change user names – the stuff we’re currently running stands a considerable bit of improvement.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1998/05/20/enteract/
Wed May 20 10:22:55 CDT 1998
I’m an admin guy – woohoo! finally getting paid money for doing the sort of thing I’ve been doing experimentally for at least the past two years – running systems. I was thinking the other day that we’re kinda like train crews in the old days – a chosen few who get to do the job of keeping these complicated machines that many people are depending on running, and running well, without crashing. Of course, much of the drama is lost in that our machines don’t barrel down iron rails or even weigh several tons, and nobody dies if we slip up, we just risk losing a lot of business by pissing off people who can’t do their email. Not that we’re gonna slip up in any big way of course.
No train though can route millions of email messages for tens of thousands of customers a day. Of course, I’m not actually certain how many customers we do have, but that’s not so much my concern.
I didn’t work for EnterAct at all last year, but records show I answered 73 support messages. Neat huh? I felt I had to make up for sasquatch’s free CoLo somehow ….
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1998/04/03/toly-the-labrats-and-westmont-girl/
To the editor:
I have a simple question that I would like anyone who is pro-Chief to answer. Who are we as Blacks, Whites, Latinos, Asians, etc…. to say whether or not the Chief is a racist mascot/symbol in the eyes of Native Americans? Did any of us grow up on their reservation? Did any of us grow up in their culture? Did any of us grow up in their traditions? Did any of us grow up in their footsteps? If you answered no to any of these questions, then I ask again, who are we as black, whites, Latinos, Asians, etc…., to say whether or not the Chief is a racist mascot/symbol in the eyes of Native Americans?
Jules Murray, Jr.
sophomore in LAS
Daily Illini letters,
3 April, 1998
Interestingly enough, it is the anti-Chief folks who use the word racist, so aside from Charlene Teters and all the other Native Americans who take offense at the Chief, Chief protesters might ask themselves the same question. Personally, I’m uncomfortable with the catchily short slogan “racist mascot” and think of the Chief more as being ignorantly offensive … is black face racist, or just dumb? Same thing. The intent of the Chief is arguably quite honorable – Chief isn’t setting out to denigrate Native Americans, it simply does because it’s really just a bad idea.
Fri Apr 3 21:08:14 CST 1998
So this weekend is our family celebrating Easter a week early. Some family members are going to be out of town, and Jessy moving to Texas, so … well, this weekend it is. I hope I don’t have damned head-winds driving back and forth this time. they really mess up my fuel efficiency.
Last night I had insomnia. Linda emailed me around 0300h saying she had pink-eye … we considered driving over to Carle but it seemed impractical .. mainly it was too irritating for her to get to sleep, poor girl, and her voice was getting hoarse. I considered if I couldn’t get to sleep I’d give her a call and we could hang out and watch a movie, maybe fall asleep … conveniently though, I fell asleep by myself. I hope Linda fared well.
At 1700h we had a labsitters meeting. Don explained that there were certain problems rearing their heads, and what he wanted done about them. Me and Toly ate together at Cantina afterwards, a specialty restaurant run through the dorms which is cheaper than Murphy’s where we first considered going. You just have to stand in line a long while, which reminded Toly of Russia. It’s nice to talk to Toly coz we have plenty of things we disagree upon even though we basically agree on everything … it’s kind of like we’re of like mind, only with different semantic conclusions. He tends toward being Libertarian, where I’m just a good, old-fashioned Liberal kinda guy, who sympathizes with Libertarianism, even if I strongly disagree with a lot of it. I love to exchange views with the opposition.
Maureen just dropped by the lab, and I was talking to her for awhile. She just got back from working in a soup kitchen, and she said she was talking to this guy who smelled of beer, and so she wanted to shower. It was nice to talk to her … I think for both of us. This all hints at some larger stuff I’ve been working out in my mind, that doesn’t/won’t quite make it here into the journal.
Thinking too much. I told her I’d be down here working on computer stuff if she wanted to step out later. She said she planned to study – three exams next week!
Still, perhaps I could call her later, maybe invite her out to the Etc. for a little while.
Okay, clearing my thoughts. Time to take a break!
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1998/04/03/dawn/
Fri Apr 3 01:28:39 CST 1998
I started the journal back in … well, sometime between early 1995 and the March of 1997. I’d say sometime during 1996. If memory serves, it ran for more than a year, closer to a year and a half. Put that around late 1995. The web seems awfully young back then.
Originally, the idea was taken from some sites in Hawaii, notably Stacey Hayashi, who had not only a pretty face, but a compelling website with a journal on it. A journal, I observe, that is no longer present. It seems some of the pioneers in the Hawaii crowd, like Stacey, Jay, and Kat have since abandoned their public journal-writing practices. At least with the latter two, I know that part of the equation is busy-body Asian parents, whom I’ve met from time to time in my life, but have never had to worry over. My Dad’s still a hippie!
Anyways, in Marc of 1997, the old journal – hell, my entire website, in it’s second or third incarnation, was no more. It, and the entire contents of Dannyland had been wiped out in a hard disk crash. Nowadays I keep some backups. I didn’t mind terribly starting over from scratch – regrowth and renewal, but the lack of backups meant that that First Epoch, as I now call it, is gone, probably forever.
The Second Epoch ended just yesterday, as I concluded that the journal could reflect my interest in segmentation – dividing stuff into months and such. This era lasted a year, from the time I brought Dannyland back up with a new hard drive last March. I think, most immediately memorable in this period, is my relationship with Asao. I’d been dating her when the new journal came to take the place of the old one, and I dumped her in July after reluctantly concluding that the way things were just weren’t going to make it. I start out with a lot of cocky self-confidence, got shaken up by the whole break-up thing, then hide in pretentious soul-searching, reading Gandhi and all … I’m feeling much better now, and more honestly righteous, a little bit wiser, and somewhat humbled.
Another thing reflected in the Second Epoch is my growing prowess with Unix. From the start, the journal was indexed by a CGI program, which I revised over Winter Break. It has now been considerably lobotomized, to form more a role of that of a museum, because it should no longer be actively used. I’ve already adapted a few bits of the old code to indexing in the month section here though. In June I return to EnterAct where I will work in a system administration role – a definite change from my old technical support position!
Today, it is the Third Epoch – the perl wizardry can fill in the cracks, ligaments between the bones, but now my concerns are with information structure, hierarchy, and interrelationships between different modes of authoring and different contexts of experiencing the information. I want to structure my journal much as I would want to structure my life … I’m bringing form in, I hope, something that while it won’t give me doctrine or answers, it can at least serve to structure information, and facilitate my understanding and other’s understanding of me and my life.
Noble, immaculate goals, spoken so flowerily at 0200h. We shall see what may become of them. Feedback solicited!
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1998/03/23/to-work/
Mon Mar 23 19:39:28 CST 1998
There’s a guy on the radio who is talking about public school reform, and is lamenting that the ideals of Horace Mann have been replaced with those of Adam Smith.
Mon Mar 23 21:28:14 CST 1998
You know, I really can not concentrate in the presence of any noise that might stimulate me in any way. Certain background noises are okay, but speech that might interest me, or music … no.
We’re over next door for a few days. I’m back in Chicago for Spring Break. The guy at Drollinger Auto Repair managed to get the van fixed after I managed to reproduce the problem I had been having with it. I made it back to Chicago alright, and now, like I just wrote, we’re taking refuge next door on account of they’re refinishing the floors. It is no small production to move everything in your apartment over next door for two or three days and then back again. ![[Kitchen]](/journal/images/980323.gif)
Uncle is having the apartment here done after ours is done. We’re being done over Monday and Tuesday and this apartment will be done over Friday and Saturday. Meanwhile, Uncle is busy painting ceilings and getting other nice things done to this apartment because the guy who’s moving in next door to us, a middle-aged African guy, will be storing stuff in the apartment in the part that wont be finished starting Wednesday. I’m wondering how quick Uncle’s going to get the kitchen here done. I know he’s going to fix up the floor before the guys come to sand and finish it, ripping out the tile to let the wood come out, but to get it to be a nice kitchen like ours, with lots of cabinets and neat things instead of the pantry he ripped out, that’s going to be some work!
Anyways, Wednesday will be busy – we gotta move a lot of our stuff back and wash the walls next door, so that the guy who’s moving in can move his stuff in. It might be worth it though. Mom says that since she’s getting the floors done and the walls washed, it’ll be like a new house – a non-smoking house. She’s going to make another try at kicking the habit – she says that she was pleasantly suprised that the nicotine gum that a friend had offered her on a long trans-Atlantic flight, didn’t upset her teeth and calmed her nerves during the long, smokeless trip. I offered that a gum might also satisfy the oral fixation, which I understand to be an ingredient in cigarette addiction.
I went in to EnterAct today to talk to Tracy about summer work. Ended up sitting on an admin meeting, and discussing oh-so-briefly what I might be able to do with them this summer. Tracy beamed at the idea of having four full-time admins! Charlie bragged to me that they were signing two to three CompleteAct accounts per day – that’s the expensive business stuff that makes them the real money. $20/month dialin accounts are a lot lower revenue. EnterAct seems even more complicated than NCSA’s network … but that’s largely because the admin staff do a lot of things that at NCSA is handled by other departments, partly because they’re dealing with commercial dialin access mostly off of PCs as opposed to networking several hundred people in different buildings to campus, Industrial Partners, vBNS and some other experimental networks … well, actually NCSA seems more complicated, but the stuff we do downstate is a little more static – EnterAct is growing at least as fast as the Internet at large, whereas NCSA has been around since before the modern commercial Internet has been on anyone’s mind, and so doesn’t have to move quite as fast, or something. EnterAct is about three years old see, everything’s being reinvented at once.
Anyways it’s a bit chilly in here, I’m going to lay off typing for awhile and scan in a few pictures before I go to bed. Jessy’s boyfriend, Dion, managed to get the scanner working with mom’s computer, and now we’ve got it talking to stumpy’s Sambda via NetBEUI, not to mention sharing stumpy’s ppp connection. Sweet. WinAmp was able to read in stumpy’s directory of MP3 files and throw them into a random playlist a lot quicker than I was able to write a rather crude perl script on stumpy to do the same thing. Sometimes, Windows-based software does just what ya need it to do … maybe I need to learn me some Unix GUI programming! :)
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1998/03/09/computer-literacy-narrative/
My history with computers begins Christmas of 1984 when Grandpa gave our family a Commodore 64 computer. It was several years before we had a complete system including disk drive, monitor, and printer. At first I was relegated to typing commands into the basic interpreter and playing cartridge-based games.
Upon graduating eighth grade in 1989, I convinced my family to reward my endeavors with an Amiga A500 computer, which blew the 64 away, holding twenty times more memory, much more speed, a capacity of 4,096 colors at higher resolution with special graphics chips, compared to the 64’s 16 colors, and best of all it had a cool built-in disk-drive on the side.
By 1992 I had saved up half the money required to make the purchase of an Amiga 1200, the descendant of the A500, with more advanced graphics, processing power, and a continued low price tag of around $600. The A1200 and A500 were cheap enough for my family to realistically afford, and gave a great amount of ability for the price. The graphics, sound, and multitasking Operating System were far superior to that offered on any other platform. Unfortunately, Commodore’s management and marketing sucked, and they went belly-up by 1996.
After being discharged from the Army in 1994, I began attending the University of Illinois in Winter of 1995, where I was for the first time exposed to NCSA Mosaic, and was induced to create my first web page. I remember the great effort it had been to find, scan, crop, and convert a small photo of me to augment what I had there. The web loaded a lot quicker before everyone started putting graphics all over the damn place like they do today.
Telecommunications has always been a strong interest of mine. Unfortunately, online services were priced beyond my reach throughout most of my childhood. By the time I came to the University I was finally making enough money to subscribe to a local Chicago Internet access provider. I’d felt like I missed a lot not having the financial capabilities to get on the networks sooner though.
When I first arrived at the University, my interest was in not going in to Computer Science, as I really only liked the Amiga, ever-waning in it’s popularity. That and I wasn’t particularly interested in making Math a great thing in my life. However, I eventually did join the CS department after my first experiences learning code – it was so fun and liberating! Now I had some power over computers, I could write the software, and do things the way I hoped they could be. And, after all, the other computers weren’t so bad. The Unix systems at least seemed to work well enough.
Well, Math of course, is not my strong suit. A year or so ago I met Brad in the Allen cafeteria, and was shocked at his approach of being a Rhetoric major with a minor in CS! Gee … I’d always enjoyed writing for my own personal interest, much as I loathed research papers. And I did hit the 99% percentile on the ACT for “Rhetoric” – whatever that was, I had not known at the time. And come to think of it, hadn’t I placed out of Rhet 105 three different ways?
The next week, I proudly made the switch.
The Internet continues to play a very big part in my life. My web site grows slowly every week. I keep my diary on-line for others to read. I write CGI applications. I’m a hard-core Unix geek, administering two of my own systems, writing my HTML and perl scripts in vi, wowwing friends with afterstep. I work for the networking group at NCSA, for the CSIL as a labsitter, and worked last summer at an ISP in Chicago called EnterAct, where I may very well return this summer.
I now use only Unix, and my old Amiga systems from time to time out of nostalgia and respect for history. I own two Unix boxen, four Amiga systems, and the old Commodore 64. While most of these are antiques, I still lend some systems out to others from time to time to facilitate their computing needs.
My fanatical Unix snobbery does mean that I know very little about Windows 95 or Mac. Because I have good computer karma, I still tend to negotiate such systems better than the average Joe, but I’m by no means a wiz. Instead I enjoy spending my time tinkering with completely open systems like FreeBSD. I am proud and inspired by the idea that there are now several very competent Operating Systems available even for normal users that are built and maintained entirely by volunteer effort. It is my goal to continue to learn and ultimately contribute to this effort as I can.
I hate Windows though. I find Microsoft’s philosophy of “Might Makes Right” peculiarly offensive. It seems a holy war between the dark forces of greed and the efforts of people writing useful stuff for free. I’m proud to say that not one byte of Microsoft code has ever run on any system that I own. In order to push this idea of independence I am even now writing a school paper in the archaic language of troff through vim, sending the job to the Dorm’s NT print server through lpr.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1998/03/03/mister-illiniwek/
You know, organized Republicans make me jittery?
You know, this past week I’ve been working on a web site for the daily-menu stuff?
You know, I went to a program tonight where pro and anti Chief folks were presenting their opinions to the University student Senate? See, the Republicans were there, all sitting front and center, and except for a token black lady and a blond girl who said “my great great grandmother was a Cherokee princess” they were all white people. Now I have nothing against white people myself – I mean hey my whole blood family is white people – but a whole bunch of them sitting together cheering on the cause of a Native American mascot makes me feel ooky.
The Senate will be voting on a resolution to remove Chief Illiniwek as the school mascot. Even if it passes the Senate though, nothing really happens unless the Board of Trustees, appointed by Jim Edgar, approve it as well.
The Board of Trustees is a bunch of crusty old white people who think they’re right. The arguments of the pro-chief forces were basically “I like the chief, he means a lot to me, and he’s not so bad, we should keep him.” The anti-chief folks kinda stressed how he was inaccurate, offensive, patronizing, and tended to reveal the University’s hypocrisy – the chief is meant to honor, but he offends Native people. Proponents claim he raises awareness of Native culture, but the University doesn’t have a Native American studies program. The University promised a dean for Native American students, and then reneged.
Judging by the statements made by Senate members who were present, there was a strong anti-chief feeling by the end of the meeting. It felt reassuring. I know the whole conflict isn’t at all about to be resolved overnight. If the senate passes it’s resolution to retire Illiniwek though, and the BOT shits on the student action, things might get very interesting indeed. The student body is pretty fucking apathetic especially after that DIA move.
One Senator asked a question as to why if the Chief was okay back in 1927, is it no longer acceptable? I think it was a rhetorical question, but I muttered to myself “Black face was acceptable in 1927.” The guy next to me heard and quipped “and the Klan was an RSO.”
There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.
One student, Tammy Stanke, went on a big thing about how our University was a leader, and its students were leaders, and yadda yadda yadda yah … and so it is fitting that our symbol is a Chief, because “the Chief is always listened to.” I thought of how, if my understanding is correct, the Chief in an Indian tribe generally lets others speak and decides amongst the arguments presented, presenting a verdict, more like a judge. A University and a wizened judge sort don’t seem the same type to me … we’re full of babbling youngsters, who produce ideas for society to use and judge. Our supercomputers are not something I could envision a wise old Indian Chief taking a leadership role on. But then who am I to speak for native culture?
While he started out kinda nervous-sounding and stuttery, David Song made a point I found especially agreeable, that the Senate should pass the resolution in part to bring the debate before the BOT, who would just as soon forget about Native American affairs and issues of student democracy entirely, like they were bad dreams. Okay, I’m putting words in his mouth there, but I do agree that the Senate would serve the student body well by being more contentious with the Board. I, for one, am not a Happy Camper.
I went to lunch, and they were serving Cheeseburgers. Now normally these are kinda processed-meat looking things with a little rectangle of cheese over part of them that makes you think you’re in a fast food place. Shake the grease off well and you’ve got a fairly tasty burger by those standards. Today they were cooked poorly though. Dark on the outside, pinkish cold on the inside, and all the lettuce was flat and wilty. I cracked. I got pissed off and really bitchy and went on a little tirade about how I hate everything. As much as we get charged for this food, you think they could do a decent job! We agreed that getting Old Country Buffet in there or some private enterprise that does a good job might be pretty keen. If you can’t tell, I’m not at all keen on dining services.
What else? The guy from the Observer, our local left-wing loony tabloid, argued that we should keep the Chief because there’s this football fanatic who drives to every game from Kentucky or somesuch who would stop coming if the Chief were retired. Tammy also compared incidents of the Chief being burned in effigy by opposing schools to incidents of the American flag being burned in foreign countries – “they’re not burning us” – no, Tammy, they’re not, they’re burning an image of a Native American which we have appropriated for our own use. I’d rather be represented by old glory than the people we raped to build this great country, and if anything is to be burned in effigy, I’d rather not it be an image representing a people we collectively owe a great deal to.
The PRC representative asked rhetorically why the College Republicans were participating in an effort to build a monument to Ronald Reagen in every state when for Native Americans it was sufficient to honor them as a football team mascot. Why not honor Native Americans with a statue, a monument, or something more honorable?
The whole issue makes my stomach churn and my blood boil, but I kinda need that now anyways, keep me motivated!
Someone retorted to all those who argued that Chief Illiniwek honored them that it’s not about you it’s about Native Americans!
Well, enough about me.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1998/03/03/jimi/
Tue Mar 3 22:57:21 CST 1998
Manic Depression is touchin’ my soul!
I know what I want but I just don’t know!
(How to go about gettin’ it.)
Feelin’ sweet feelin’
I wish I could caress, and kiss.
Manic Depression’s a frustrating mess!
Today I was depressed. Not for any good reason, mind you, I think it’s kinda like garbage collection. I slept through my morning classes and I’m starting to feel a little better now.
Too much thinking about women, that old Beavis screaming how it’s unfair and we’re never gonna score kinda thing was part of that, and a whole symphony of other things … some of my most important people are feeling kinda down in the dumps too, for respective reasons, and I may have carried off some of that.
All’s fair in love and war, for a good cause.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1998/02/22/the-man-who-sold-the-world/
I’ve been reading up on Roman history. There’s an exam on Tuesday. I think I’ll do alright. I’ve done a decent job with mostly keeping up with readings, and it’s a survey course, so hopefully my relaxed attitude will be better reflected by my peers in the grading curve.
Recently I developed for myself a new … thing.
Yeah. In my home directory there’s a file called scorecard.txt which I fill out every day … something like at the end of the day looking back and reviewing what has or hasn’t been accomplished. The categories I’m keeping presently include something I’ve read, outside of class, a good deed, my “high point”, a “lesson learned” and an “Idea for Tomorrow”
Reading, that’s important to me. I’d like to be able to say most any day that I voluntarily read something I had some reason to find interesting.
The good deed … well, it’s not even a Boy Scout thing so much as it reflects a belief on my part that we live for others. We’re social creatures and all, and if I can’t think of any good thing I’ve done for my community or some person, well … This way I can also keep track of what I’ve been doing good, make sure I don’t “fall behind” as it were. For Friday, for example, the best I could offer was “held a door open”
I’m thinking I won’t keep this public on the web page just yet, but for now, for understanding, howzabout a sampler?
-----
22 February, 1998
-----
Read:
Discover - article about building microscopic robots
Good deed:
I was prepared to give up a seat on Tim's couch for Jacob, when Eric
finally gave in and did as he was asked. I handed him the husband I had
prepared to use.
Complimented Ganita on her emerald crushed velvet shirt.
High point:
Idea drawing parallel between Apostle Paul and Gandhi in that they both
desire above any other capability of man "love" or "charity"
Lesson learned:
Hypothesis - Moral altruism may be a consistent end of philosophers. To
catch popular acceptance though, they must tie this to a material benefit -
heavenly reward for Paul, national self-reliance and peace for Gandhi ...
racial equity and personal piety for MLK, etc.
Idea for tomorrow:
Catch NetDev AM meeting, study more for history, microtheme.
I just filled that out right now.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1998/01/28/monday/
So, Monday morning I got up at 0630h and rode to work with mom. I dozed off in her office, then grabbed a very inexpensive breakfast of French Toast in the cafeteria. After that we headed off to traffic court for my 1030h hearing.
On the way out, mom introduced me to “the girls” – all her Physical Therapists seem to be in their twenties, which seems weird but cool. Like college, only everyone’s a few years older, and there’s four peers as opposed to 40,000.
Anyways, we waited in traffic court, the proceedings going uninterestingly. From what I could tell, mine was a somewhat special case. Others seemed to feature mainly repeat offenders for speeding and other infractions. I was in there for a moving violation which resulted in an accident with no injuries, property damage, and no problems insurance wise. All the same, when I was called forward to the bench, the witness, Mr. Goldman, whose car I had hit, was not present, and the prosecutor said that the police officer was sick with the flu and asked for a reschedule. As the judge explained that I would have to come back in March, I interrupted, “Your honor, can I just plead guilty?” She seemed a bit surprised, but complied, issuing me a thirty dollar fine, a light penalty considering other fines were running forty to sixty with “supervision”.
My intent was, of course, to avoid the expense of traveling to and fro for such a trivial matter. Thirty dollars is less expensive than the cost of round-trip between Chicago and school, without even counting opportunity cost of missed classes and work.
After paying my fine I saw Mr. Goldman in the lobby. He had been delayed due to car troubles. Irony. He seemed disappointed or frustrated or otherwise unhappy with my guilty plea. “No, you say ‘Not guilty’ because it was just an accident and they let you off!” My understanding ran contrary to this, but I know Mr. Goldman’s testimony and that of the police officer could only have helped. This is this matter of impatience on my part. Some have suggested this gives me a criminal record or somesuch, but I figured if just going and pleading guilty was so bad the judge might have said something, especially as I hadn’t bothered to consult the legal counsel, which would have taken longer.
Ahh, the intricacies of court.
So, after that, I drove back, with mom in the car, which was very nice of her. I didn’t want to miss all the things I had scheduled, like the NASO meeting, dinner with a friend, and work from 1900h.
At the NASO meeting I volunteered to write thank-you letters for Organizations that had contributed to Pow Wow. Bill said he thought that the lack of thank-you letters was offensive, and that furthermore he hadn’t time to finish the rest.
I’m a Rhetoric major.
Of course, this was after one of the more … outspoken members launched an attack on what she felt to be a terrible lack of Native Americans in Native American Student Organization, being reflected in the President and the Treasurer-elect being non-enrolled persons. This sparked a debate that was way tangential about the meaning of enrollment, qualifications for what is a Native American, and stipulations that NASO might attach to it’s executives. She was particularly offensive in her approach, but she seemed to be the only one who felt such a way. The other enrolled Indians seemed perfectly comfortable with us white oppressor types pitching in to help the group. The president is a white guy, which is kinda cool in it’s colorfulness, while still illustrating the problem of Native Americans at the University: there just aint enough.
One of her objections were to fake Indians
or folks who claimed some Indian ancestry but weren’t enrolled. I may be 1/16th Cherokee, but as far as I’m concerned, I’m a white guy, and that’s all I’ve ever claimed to be. I thought she was just barking up the wrong tree with me. Lots of passion and justifiable resentment, but it just isn’t targeted very constructively, in my opinion.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1998/01/26/amtrak/
I am so excited. I haven’t rode a train in years. Being in one of the front cars, I swear I can hear the sound of what I believe to be the beautiful putt-putt of the train’s diesel engine.
The leg room is astonishing! Trains, being the wonderfully fuel-efficient devices that they are, have less to gain by packing us in like sardines. To serve more passengers they only have to add another car. For an airplane or a bus to do the same … well they can’t do the same!
And that, of course, is why trains are superior. Nowadays even trucks ride trains, in a sense, for the long-haul. There are modular containers which can be stacked on trains and ships and placed on trailers for local delivery. That’s just cool.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1998/01/23/all-aboard/
This section was written Sunday evening on the Pilot.
I was waiting on Green Street for the bus to take me to the train station. A campus bus called the Illini pulled up and I nodded my head “no” to save him the trouble of stopping. He stopped anyway, pulling the door open.
“What bus are you waiting for?”
“Green.”
“That one aint running anymore.”
“I need to get to the train station. Any suggestions?”
Clearly this was a difficult request. He hopped on the radio and asked about another bus.
“You can catch the yellow. It’s up there. Hop on.”
I rode with him a block towards Wright. He stopped in front of the Union to pick up a group of students.
“See that bus up there?”
“Ya.”
“That’s the yellow – he’s waitin’ for you.”
“Thanks!” as I took off running in front of Everett to catch up with the bus resting at the Wright Street shelter. As the doors opened I looked at the driver and tried to explain myself.
“The other guy sent me.”
“That would be Chip.”
“He’s a great guy!”
“Yup.”
Yup
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1997/12/17/live/
Wed Dec 17 23:43:45 CST 1997
![[DANNYCAM!]](/journal/images/971217.gif)
Bought a QuickCam the other day from a place called PC Mall. It wasn’t easy, but I got it hooked up and running under FreeBSD. Now, the ultimate in geekness, it’s live on the web!
The first reaction I get from folks is “What about if you want privacy?” to which I reply “I live in a Quad – there is no privacy!”
It’s really not that bad at all, especially since it doesn’t handle low light well. If I’m really cool I’ll get to hack up some of the source over break and see if I can’t convince it to do some auto-correction of contrast and brightness and such.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1997/10/23/fanatics/
I just back from Quad and classes. There was yet another preacher out today. It was nice and warm this afternoon. Actually, it is still nice and warm this afternoon, as far as I know. The sun came out see, and that’s so valuable in October.
Anyways, this guy was wearing yellow signs on him, saying who all was going to hell. I had a hard time finding anything I fundamentally disagreed with him about, which was kind of creepy, though I didn’t stay long. He was saying the professors and all manner of people were a path to hell and the like, as they were more concerned with their own ends. Yeah, lotta people are missing the point, but I don’t see it as anything particularly terrible, even if it is disheartening at times.
What scares me now though, in retrospect, is the increasing number of these fanatics out there. This year especially, the upswing on our campus, at least, has been tremendous. Did I mention the other day the God Fleet of these guys, actually only a few adults and several younger kids who were carrying huge signs spread out on white sheets damning people to hell. They managed to chase a group of schoolchildren off the Quad by calling their teachers witches and encouraging them to not follow “the system”.
The sense of danger is prolly more from reading The Handmaid’s Tale than anything else, but you ever wonder that these people will continue to attract followers – I mean some of what they say is true, is of concern – namely that people aren’t really keeping their moral priorities straight and all, and that it is a strong negative tendency … I completely disagree with their nutty rhetoric that they see as the solution – basically a return to the crappy days when men were men and women were suitably cowed, and we were all fanatical followers of God and believed in Jesus … but they seem increasingly to disrespect our government, the system, and seem to be advocating that something stronger must be done.
I think any time we see people flirting with the cause of revolution, we need to keep an eye on them … and these people do seem to be getting around …
And no, they’re not popular, but how many Christians in this country? Catholics probably can’t be counted as possible comrades for these zealots, but there are plenty of fundamentalists, anti-abortionists, born-again weirdos, and the great mass of vanilla-flavored Christians that if they ever were nutty enough to put their government where their passions were that things could potentially get really really ugly and bad.
But I do have a great faith in the strength of our government, and it’s ability to adapt and respond to threats, ultimately getting a little better each time in the interests of all.
But then I’m also one of those God-forsaken Atheist Liberals.
And I publish my thoughts openly. the second that Christian Nazi we had on the Quad a few weeks back gets the chance to run the government and conduct public executions of Liberals, I’ll be on the first lists of folks who just gotta go …
If something like that ever did come to pass, it would mark an interesting turn in world history.
This time, it would be America in flames, and perhaps an economically depressed Europe trying to put it straight. Asia too. I wonder how Japan and China would react to a bloody revolution in the USA.
Definitely being overly speculative here, but it never hurts to be aware of possible contingencies.
I’m glad to see my imagination kicking in though. It’s been missed a lot since grammar school and high school
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1997/10/10/cisco/
Last night I went to a company presentation for Cisco Systems – the “Microsoft of the Internet” – an analogy which I am uncomfortable with as Cisco products don’t yet suck. In fact, I’m pretty fond of Cisco and am impressed with its energy. It’s a place I might consider to work at, though I’m a bit wary of living in Silicon Valley, if my understanding of California Suburban Sprawl is true. San Francisco, an hour away, might offer a nice home though.
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