test post

can I get tags to work?

Pics

Pics

Hey there FB Author Page

What’s happening?

acid logic

acid logic

a nada

this should not go to facebook.

still at it

Another test - this should go to facebook.

test

hey now - this should go to facebook.

going back to cali - and author page

I have found that when one expresses their fondness for country someone invariably says something like, “Really? You like Taylor Swift?” To which I have to reply, “No… I mean, yes, actually, I do like some of her songs, but I don’t really consider her music country. She’s more, as they say, ‘pop music with banjos.’” When I say I like country I’m saying I like more what might be considered outlaw country - Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, David Allan Coe etc. And the even more prehistoric genre of traditional country (trad-country) which holds Hank Williams and bluegrass close to its breast.

Now I know what you’re thinking: “Whazzat? Pop country? Outlaw country? Trad-country? Americana? How do you keep this genre straight?” And I hear you. Country is a discombobulated form of music, splintered into different sub genres whose proponents are often at odds with each other.

One need look no further for evidence of this than the recent controversy kicked off by current country crooner, Blake Shelton. Shelton stated:

“If I am ‘Male Vocalist of the Year’ that must mean that I’m one of those people now that gets to decide if it moves forward and if it moves on… Country music has to evolve in order to survive. Nobody wants to listen to their grandpa’s music. And I don’t care how many of these old farts around Nashville going, ‘My God, that ain’t country!’ Well that’s because you don’t buy records anymore, jackass. The kids do, and they don’t want to buy the music you were buying.”

hey there

This going to a profile. Pretty groovy.

know I should be thankful, nicotine withdrawals are absolute hell. I knew a former heroin addict who thought that cigarettes were harder to quit than china white (although another former addict that I met disagreed). For those who’ve never experienced a nicotine withdrawal, imagine the most restless feeling you’ve ever had in your life, and multiply it. The restlessness courses through your whole body (for me it really focuses on my legs, not sure about anyone else), and on top of it all, you’re moody as shit so your friends won’t want to hang out with you.

Now someone may be thinking “well you’re just one of the lucky individuals who don’t get addicted to stuff very easily”, but that’s far from the truth. I get addicted to everything, and I mean that in the most literal sense. My list of former addictions includes but is not limited to: alcohol, cigarettes, cheetos (yes, seriously), the TV shows “24” and “The X-Files”, video games, and sugary foods. My list of current addictions: coffee. I’m planning to let the coffee addiction persist until death.

A short test

Do you go to FB? Are hamburgers tasty.

Another test with lots o text

Kevin Gilbert was a rock musician from southern California who made music as a member of several projects during the late eighties and nineties. He was a skilled performer who could capably play many instruments (primarily keyboards), sing, and also write dense, multi-layered compositions that offered catchy pop hooks spliced together with nuanced musical elements that intrigued the ear. In addition to writing and producing his own projects, Gilbert did production and songwriting work for musical stalwarts such as Madonna, Michael Jackson, Sheryl Crow and Eddie Money.

Kevin Gilbert was also… Ok, I hear the snickering out there so I guess there’s something I should get out of the way right now. Some of you are saying, “Waitasec! Isn’t Gilbert one of these dudes who killed himself by autoerotic asphyxiation? Like he was wanking it while choking himself and it all went bad? Ha!” Sigh… yes, by all accounts this is true. But if you only think of Gilbert as a guy who jerked himself off to death then you are missing the much bigger and more important story.

As I write this article, I am presuming that most of my readers are unfamiliar with the career of Kevin Gilbert and that’s just plain sad; few people were more deserving of a successful turn in the music industry. Gilbert had the talent, skills, music philosophy, intellectual lyrics, stage presence (and good looks) that are often precursors to fame and fortune. Additionally, during his twenties, he built up a track record of composing great music. However, for a variety of reasons, Gilbert never got his big break and never became a household name.

Gilbert’s music career started early. He was barely into his twenties when he was touring and recording with pop rocker Eddie Money (and this is back when touring with Eddie Money actually meant something.) A short while later he joined in the formation of the synth-prog project, Giraffe. Giraffe recorded two cds and won the 1988 Yamaha Soundcheck competition, beating out thousands of other bands. (Interestingly, the first Giraffe album was the first ever independently pressed music CD, kicking off a trend that tens of thousands of bands would participate in during the coming decades.)

By Wil Forbis
Kevin Gilbert was a rock musician from southern California who made music as a member of several projects during the late eighties and nineties. He was a skilled performer who could capably play many instruments (primarily keyboards), sing, and also write dense, multi-layered compositions that offered catchy pop hooks spliced together with nuanced musical elements that intrigued the ear. In addition to writing and producing his own projects, Gilbert did production and songwriting work for musical stalwarts such as Madonna, Michael Jackson, Sheryl Crow and Eddie Money.

Kevin Gilbert was also… Ok, I hear the snickering out there so I guess there’s something I should get out of the way right now. Some of you are saying, “Waitasec! Isn’t Gilbert one of these dudes who killed himself by autoerotic asphyxiation? Like he was wanking it while choking himself and it all went bad? Ha!” Sigh… yes, by all accounts this is true. But if you only think of Gilbert as a guy who jerked himself off to death then you are missing the much bigger and more important story.

As I write this article, I am presuming that most of my readers are unfamiliar with the career of Kevin Gilbert and that’s just plain sad; few people were more deserving of a successful turn in the music industry. Gilbert had the talent, skills, music philosophy, intellectual lyrics, stage presence (and good looks) that are often precursors to fame and fortune. Additionally, during his twenties, he built up a track record of composing great music. However, for a variety of reasons, Gilbert never got his big break and never became a household name.

Gilbert’s music career started early. He was barely into his twenties when he was touring and recording with pop rocker Eddie Money (and this is back when touring with Eddie Money actually meant something.) A short while later he joined in the formation of the synth-prog project, Giraffe. Giraffe recorded two cds and won the 1988 Yamaha Soundcheck competition, beating out thousands of other bands. (Interestingly, the first Giraffe album was the first ever independently pressed music CD, kicking off a trend that tens of thousands of bands would participate in during the coming decades.)

another test

this is another groovy test. It’s like a groovy kind of love. Hey, ho. Dogs are cute and fuzzy.

here is another paragraph. Do you like hamburgers. I like them with mustard.

a test hamburger post

Doing some testing. I like hamburgers I like fries too.

A good site

A good site:

Lots of funny, erudite stuff here.

testing some written text to rss

Hi, my name is JohnTemple.

I think I’m a pretty groovy guy. I have a cat and a dog. They are well behaved. The cat sometimes jumps on the dog but he doesn’t mind. He’s a good dog. I call him Aristotle but I don’t think he knows his name.

Oranges are a good fruit. Apples are good too. If you want to go to Yahoo.com click this link.

When I was a kid I fell down and hurt my knee. Let me tell you, it was not fun at all.

Here’s a list:

• Burgers


• Fries


• Avacados

yeah.

new test

just checking

testing rss feed

yeah daddy-o.

here’s some text.

When a 6-metre-wide sinkhole suddenly opened and swallowed part of a house in Florida last week, killing a man, it seemed a freak accident. Four days later, a similarly sized hole opened just 3 kilometres away. What’s going on? New Scientist takes a look at the forces at work behind this bizarre – and sometimes deadly – phenomenon.

What causes sinkholes?

They often occur in karst regions – areas where slightly acidic groundwater dissolves the landscape’s underlying bedrock, resulting in large subterranean voids. Most karst forms in carbonate bedrock like limestone or dolomite, though water can also eat away at gypsum and salt deposits to create such formations. Underground spaces can also form when water erodes buried sediment deposits, or where ancient lava tubes are covered over.

When the supporting material is removed, the sediment layers above become unstable and can suddenly collapse. Weather events can trigger them: if a prolonged drought dries out soil, a subsequent heavy rainstorm may be enough to send it crashing down. That is probably what happened in Florida last week.

Extended wet weather can be just as bad, as it adds more water to underground structures, weakening them. Severe tropical storms in 2012 may have helped trigger about 200 sinkholes that opened simultaneously across Florida, says Bricky Way of Geohazards, a company that detects underground voids and investigates sinkholes. Human activities like drilling or pumping out groundwater can also trigger sinkholes.

What's been going on?

With me? Not much. Just hanging out, bar-b-que-ing and plotting the destruction of the human race.

seriously!

jhgjiyhgfuy

wow!

It’s feb 8!

test on Feb 7

Not much going on - just hanging.

Sometimes...

Life can be pretty bizarre.

This is an interesting blog

For fans of the brain. http://neuroskeptic.blogspot.com/

Happy times to blogspot.

I'm mainly intersted whether you go to blog spot? Do you?

It's goodbye nuclear, hello renewables as Japan prepares to build the world's largest offshore wind farm this July.

By 2020, the plan is to build a total of 143 wind turbines on platforms 16 kilometres off the coast of Fukushima, home to the stricken Daiichi nuclear reactor that hit the headlines in March 2011 when it was damaged by an earthquake and tsunami.

The wind farm, which will generate 1 gigawatt of power once completed, is part of a national plan to increase renewable energy resources following the post-tsunami shutdown of the nation's 54 nuclear reactors. Only two have since come back online.

The project is part of Fukushima's plan to become completely energy self-sufficient by 2040, using renewable sources alone. The prefecture is also set to build the country's biggest solar park.

The wind farm will surpass the 504 megawatts generated by the 140 turbines at the Greater Gabbard farm off the coast of Suffolk, UK – currently the world's largest farm. This accolade will soon pass to the London Array in the Thames Estuary, where 175 turbines will produce 630 megawatts of power when it comes online later this year. The Fukushima farm will beat this, too.

Post at 4:32 - does date show up?

Seriously, I want to know.

Ifttt post 4:05 - just the post title in the message

Yaddah, yaddah, here come the Flinstones.

test from ifttt 3:53 on friday

Do you work?

Here's a post with lots of text

As a musician, one of the more interesting and revealing questions you can ask yourself is: why do I play music? The answer is usually something like, “because I enjoy it.” It’s not the most illuminating answer, but it’s essentially true. Playing music is fun. It makes you feel good about yourself.

Of course, there’s two kinds of playing music. There’s playing for yourself (or casually jamming with friends) and then there’s performing music live, in front of an audience. Musicians experience varying emotions related to playing live. It’s doubtless a time of great excitement but also a time of anxiety. You worry about whether or not you’re going to hit a wrong note and be revealed as a musical fraud in front of your peers, cast forever into the social abyss. But you also dream about creating a brilliant musical moment which causes the audience to collectively gasp and then chant your name as you dodge a hail of women’s underwear (or, if you are a woman, soiled boxers.)

Here is a link

Here is a link

Here is a test post from ifttt

Blah, blah, blah…

here’s a photo from NY

here’s a photo from NY

This is a text post

I was always something of a late bloomer in regards to using social networks. Friends had to pester me for years to join Friendster, until I finally signed up just in time for its implosion. I also took my sweet time getting involved with MySpace which now also appears to be on its death bed. But I had learned my lesson by the time Facebook —- the most successful of the online social networks —- arrived at the doorstep of popular consciousness. I signed up, and regularly visit the site. I even admit to experiencing some of the “Facebook addiction” that is often commented on by pop psychologists and cultural nannies.

What makes Facebook so popular? On the surface, it’s merely a collection of pre-existing Web technologies —- status updates (which can be thought of as mini blogs (or to use the modern nomenclature, “tweets”)), the ability to comment on such status updates, e-mail, embedded video and audio, and simplistic video games whose appeal is entirely lost on me. There’s not a whole lot new here —- certainly nothing Friendster or MySpace hadn’t already developed. So why has Facebook succeeded whereas the others failed?

I suspect there are many answers to that question, some having to do with managerial decisions, timing, marketing etc. But there is one concept Facebook employed that no other social network ever got right: the “stream.” The stream is the core of the Facebook UI —- the descending tower of status updates, links and videos created by your social contacts. The power of the stream is that it allows you to quickly answer the question, “what are my friends doing/talking about/thinking about right now?”

One could then ask, “why do I care?” And, indeed, a lot of what ends up in the stream is essentially uninteresting fluff. Do I really care that my neighbor from five years ago is going out for coffee? (Frankly, do I care that my life mate is going out for coffee?) But enough of what’s in the stream is of interest to keep us coming back. It is something of a thrill to find out that your cousin is reading a book you raved about three years ago. And it is intriguing to discover that the chick you dated in Los Angeles happens to be a friend of someone you know in Chicago, even though they travel in completely separate social circles.

So is that the magic of Facebook? Is it simply the modern town square, bringing folks together for the sweet pleasures of human companionship? Anyone familiar with my writing knows that such a warm, inspirational answer is not enough to satisfy me. There must be some other need, deep within the dark selfish recesses of the human unconscious, that is being satisfied.

In the past, I’ve posited that social networks allow transactions of what I call “social currency.” You can think of social currency as favors. In the old days, I might have done my neighbor a favor by bringing back his stray goat. But I did so not for purely altruistic reasons; secretly, I expected him to keep an eye on my fenced cow. And if he failed to do so, I would hold it against him. This concept of doing favors and expecting favors in return is what’s often referred to as reciprocal altruism. In the realm of economic studies called game theory, they refer to the strategy of reciprocal altruism as “tit for tat.” Tit for tat says, in essence, that people will do favors for other people, until they get screwed, in which case they stop the favors. However if the person who screwed them suddenly does them a unprovoked favor, their faith is renewed and they will return the favor.

Now, you can see reciprocal altruism and “tit for tat” all over social networks, especially Facebook. To do so, let’s first acknowledge the rather obvious truth: people want to be popular. They want to appear to have of friends, and want their friends to be interested and involved in their lives. Facebook literally tells you how many friends a person has (at least how many “Facebook friends.”) And you can get a pretty good sense of how involved a person’s friends is with their lives by looking at how often that person’s status updates are commented on and the nature of the comments. If I comment on a friend’s post, I am aiding them in their universally human need to be loved and admired. BUT, I’m not just doing it out of the goodness of my heart —- I expect them to return the favor or some equivalent when I post an update. And, if I feel like that favor is not being returned, I may stop posting on their comments. Essentially, I’m angry because I’m not getting a tit for my tat.

Of course, it’s not quite that simple. If it were, everyone Facebook would probably have a generally equal amount of friends, and replies to their posts equal to their own output of replies. But there are people who have 3000 friends, while others have 30; there are people whose benign statements are lauded as profound, whereas there are people whose brilliant observations seem to go by the wayside (I feel that I often fall into that latter category.) Some people are social hubs, others are social duds. Why is this? Well, partly because of the real world outside of Facebook. Attracting even middling attention from the gorgeous girl in your French class is much better than inspiring total devotion from your best friend’s little brother. There is such a thing as a social hierarchy, and some people are higher up on it than others. A dollar of social currency imparted from a king is worth more than five dollars of social currency imparted by a fool.

Welcome

This is the blogspot version of my tumblr blog.