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hcs imagines that people care by hcs at 6:16 PM EDT on May 13, 2008
Michael Leyton gave us a pep talk before we took the final exam for his class.
by MarkGrass at 7:15 PM EDT on May 13, 2008
That must have been neat, atleast for geeks like us. :D

From what i've read about Leyton, he is a mathematical and musical genius...
by nensondubois at 8:07 PM EDT on May 13, 2008
I went on a fishing trip today which sucked because I hate fishing so I hung out inside with friends.
word of the day: ensorcelled by hcs at 9:21 PM EDT on May 13, 2008
@MarkGrass: Did you by any chance read that in something written by Leyton? The man is so full of himself it's amazing, but it's OK because every great artist in history thinks exactly the same as he does.
I recall, on the first day of class, he gave a talk about overcoming adversity, being childlike, saying "civilization" sarcastically, and not growing into a useless adult. He said "really, to be president you need to have the mind of a five year old," and I broke into applause. I don't think that's what he was going for, though.
I'll acknowledge that his math is neat, but the messiah complex is a bit wearying.

---

Some photos.
Secret advertising burial ground 2
radio transmitter

edited 9:51 PM EDT May 13, 2008
by MarkGrass at 10:21 PM EDT on May 13, 2008
Ahahaha, actually, alot i've read about him were "insights" by others. Though, some were by Leyton, himself. I have no problem with that because...

""The man is so full of himself it's amazing, but it's OK because every great artist in history thinks exactly the same as he does.""

EVERY single person I have ever met with the slightest amount of intelligence (that didn't "follow the leader"), is a cocky son of a bitch. And I love it. People with natural-born intelligence deserve the right to be full of themself. If they weren't, how would anyone else "learn"? They set examples for us all, and teach even when they're not even aware of the fact [that they are teaching].

""I recall, on the first day of class, he gave a talk about overcoming adversity, being childlike, saying "civilization" sarcastically, and not growing into a useless adult. He said "really, to be president you need to have the mind of a five year old," and I broke into applause.""

Pwahahahaha, that is f-ing great, and perhaps the greatest thing I have heard in a long while. After reading that exact sentence (president-related), I immediately "cracked" a huge smile and literally gave my PC monitor a "thumbs up". I couldn't agree more... but i'll spare you my view of politics ;)

the messiah complex is a bit wearying

Hmmm, I wasn't aware that he publicly spoke of religion... what exactly are his views of the "messiah"?

@"Photo of fallen laptop" - I don't think that laptop was dropped from a "higher story"; it looks like someone beat the shit out of it with a blunt object, then threw it. The HDD looks like it had seen it's "better days"... Besides, it's a Gateway; I would have thrown it out a window, myself (<-owns a Gateway >.>).

P.S. I would pay to own that KFC bucket-sign. @_@

edited 10:28 PM EDT May 13, 2008
by hcs at 5:41 AM EDT on May 14, 2008
Well, the messiah complex is not necessarily religious. He is convinced that physics, mathematics, and art criticism have been completely missing the point because the mainstream theories don't use his theory of shape as memory storage. From page 4 of his book for the course, "The Structure of Paintings":

"
STANDARD FOUNDATIONS FOR GEOMETRY
(Euclid, Klein, Einstein)
A geometric object is an
invariant; i.e., memoryless.

NEW FOUNDATIONS FOR GEOMETRY
(Leyton)
A geometric object is a
memory store.

Furthermore, my argument is that the latter view of geometry is the appropriate one for the computer age. A computational system is founded on the use of memory stores. Our age is concerned with the retention of memory rather than the loss of it. We try to buy computes with greater memory, not less. People are worried about declining into old age, because memory decreases.
The point is that, for the computational age, we don't want a theory of geometry based on the notion of memorylessness - the theory of the last 2,500 years. We want a theory of geometry that does the opposite: Equates shape with memory storage. This is the theory proposed and developed in my books."

That and his moderately lame motivational speeches which popped up all the time.
I don't quite understand why I had a problem with him. I had a similarly-minded teacher in high school and he remains one of my all-time favorites. It may be because I was taking Leyton's class to fulfill requirements for my degree that I really couldn't care less about, but that doesn't seem very convincing. Had it been a geometry class, without the appeals to emotion (which in the end still came down to misuse of terms and pointing at a line and saying "doesn't this look depressed?"), it may have been fine.
Oh, and he insisted on emphasizing every syllable in "e-mo-tion". He wanted to emphasize the "-motion" part, but it got old quick. I suggested (after class) that maybe he could just stress the two parts, which would at least make sense, it would be tolerable. He agreed but didn't change.
Maybe he'll turn out to have been right about the vast importance of his work and I'll look like a fool, but I hope you can at least see why I felt this way.

At least the exam was easy.

I always thought those bucket things were cool, too:
desktop

edited 5:45 AM EDT May 14, 2008
google maps by unknownfile at 10:38 AM EDT on May 20, 2008
Some guys in my comsci class did a VB application that essentially just uses Google Maps in order to do stuff. As someone can just open up Internet Explorer etc to use Google Maps, I did an MSPaint of the whole thing:



Now, thanks to this stupidity, I am going to be including a Google Maps feature in my own presentation that will be coming up.
by hcs at 12:27 AM EDT on May 25, 2008
In preparation to move, I went through my huge stack of CDs looking for anything irreplaceable.
Found some lousy old videos from an English project back in high school, thought I'd share some.
It fell to me to assemble the videos, that other members of the project group had filmed, into a single presentation. Of course they didn't actually get me the videos, on VHS and 8mm, until the night before it was due, and I knew nothing about video editing. I had a computer with an ATI All-in-wonder card, which did video capture and output, albeit only at 320x240. So I loaded up the videos, burned a lot of stuff to CD (as I only had a 2 GB hard drive), and spliced things together the best I could with VirtualDub. Then I recorded it back onto another VHS tape
Note that the videos are at a fairly high bitrate despite the shitty quality.

Title 90 MB 1:09. I put this together by playing the song (Tangled Up In Blue) in Winamp with the tiny fullscreen visualization running, with the output going to the VCR. I then read that back in, superimposed the text over it (which was made with Aldus Photostyler SE), and eventually wrote it back out to tape.
"High-Quality Productions" is intentionally ironic.

Tim Coffield & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 47 MB 0:37

David Stone & And Then There Were None 36 MB 0:28

Pete & The Hobbit 18 MB 0:11

I was also involved in a skit, which I'm uploading now so you can see just how terrible an actor I am, in addition to being a terrible editor.

edited 12:30 AM EDT May 25, 2008

Inside the Writers' Studio 635 MB 8:23
This might be considered funny if you imagine us playing people trying to act. I think Anthony did a decent job.
For those unaware it's supposed to be approximately the SNL parody of Inside the Actors Studio.
Sorry it's so huge but I don't have the time to reencode it.

edited 1:07 AM EDT May 25, 2008
Return to Forever Returns by hcs at 6:33 PM EDT on May 30, 2008
I saw Return to Forever last night, their first show together in 25 years. Lots of energy, technical proficiency, and good humor. Although none of the songs (all vast complicated works) are destined to become a favorite, it was impossible not to enjoy when the musicians were so energetic and happy to be playing again.

I picked up their Anthology album, here it is: individual ogg Vorbis or zipped ogg Vorbis, FLACs available on request. I hope those of you who have never heard of them will check it out, maybe catch them on the reunion tour.

The drummer, Lenny White, said: "In an era of Boy Bands, we're a Man Band."

edited 6:40 PM EDT May 30, 2008
by hcs at 12:14 AM EDT on June 7, 2008
In case anyone was interested, I started my first non-temporary (well, at least without set endpoint) job this week. I'm at IBM in Austin, working in the AIX group. I'd like to tell you about what I'm working on but
a) I don't know much beyond the name yet
b) IT'S A SECRET TO EVERYBODY.
When it is eventually released I'll point at it.

My office (larger than it looks, w/ door!)

Fwiw, my manager's office is right next door, same size, and also has no window.

My picture for the employee directory (least chubby-looking of many photos).

edited 12:27 AM EDT June 7, 2008

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