Here’s a little known fact about me that you’re all dying to hear.

When seated in public places (coffeeshops, restaurants, offices, etc.) I have to sit with my back immediately to a wall. If I’m working (on a computer) I also have to be positioned so people can’t see my screen.

Clearly I’m not a spy, but if I can’t sit as described I become very self-conscious and a piece of my brain remains focused on my surrounds and keeping my radar up. Consequently I can’t focus, I get all twitchy and irritable, and I’ll want to leave as soon as possible. So I guess if you want my undivided attention, sit me at a wall.

• Refried Beans with Peanut Butter
• Anything with a Cockroach
• Saturday with Monday
• Slippers with Cats
• Email with Shemale
• Coke with Jack and Coke

I’ve been thinking about tools. Odd, right?

In my mind a tool is anything a human creates that augments, compliments or magnifies our innate capabilities. So a hammer and a computer are both tools, though clearly for different tasks and ends.

I would say, as would most, that the computer more powerful tool than a hammer. The hammer is a tool of force and leverage, it can kill or build a house. The computer put a semi-autonomous robot on Mars capable of exploring and reporting back from an alien planet that is (currently) about 34 million miles away.

The Duality of The Tool is that it is a neutral multiplier of the one who holds it. The hammer neither knows nor cares whether it is swung to kill or create; the computer neither knows nor cares whether it models the hydrogen nucleus or builds a hydrogen bomb.

The Tool is always neutral. There is no tool that can be used only for “good,” or only for “evil.” Every tool brings out both the best and the worst of humanity to the degree it multiplies the human capacity for either.

So the hammer can kill and create, the computer can build weapons and medicines, the internet is home to hate speech and free speech.

If you want a powerful tool for beneficent uses, it will necessarily be a powerful tool for maleficent uses as well. There is no legislation, trigger lock or porn-blocking software that can change that.

This is an indie band from Nashville. I saw their poster in a local coffeeshop and thought it was interesting, then found them on NoiseTrade, a site that has a bunch of artists following a hybrid Derek Webb / Radiohead (billionaires don’t get links) model where you can download music free for telling 3 friends or paying what you want.

Anyway, I downloaded their stuff to check it out after listening to a sample and I’m hooked. Their MySpace page describes their music as “Bohemian Bookworm Prog-pop.” I would describe them as a sub-pop love child of The Decemberists, The Tragically Hip, and either the melancholic side of Sonic Youth or Starflyer 59.

Which is a pretentious name-dropping way to say they totally kick ass. You can sample and download the songs with this widget too. And you should do it because, as I said, they totally kick ass.

(This widget is a different collection of songs than I downloaded but they still kick ass. Just download their music!)

I had a few minutes while I waited for the girls to finish eating, so I wrote an extensive About Josh Oakes page which would only be interesting if you don’t know me, so if you read this blog and do not know me, you should read it. I know there are a lot you.

I also noticed that my category menu (the drop down…over there…in the sidebar…to your right!) doesn’t work at all. That’s my bad. If you are trying to browse my categories, I apologize. I’ll fix it sometime.

My brain never shuts up. No matter what I am doing, I am always doing something else too. Here is the latest fruit of that defect. I present the Comprehensive List of Humanity’s Good and Bad Ideas, 1st Edition. I may post revised editions in the future, but I don’t see many of these switching lists anytime soon, so changes would require Humanity come up with new, good ideas.

Humanity’s Good Ideas

• Crop Rotation & Small Scale Organic Farming
• Bread & Cheese, any combinations thereof
• Storytelling
• Shoes
• Music and Musical Instruments
• Hammocks
• Wine
• Clothing (admitted only begrudgingly)

Humanity’s Bad Ideas

• Everything not on the Good Idea list.

What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

Hamlet

I am continuing to prune unneeded information intake in my life, as I increasingly realize this info-packrat tendency motivates me to inaction rather than action.

Today I accidentally launched NetNewsWire (feedreader) for the first time in a while.

A few days ago I saw a dude in the “local” supermarket with crocs on. Orange crocs no less. And the thing about dudes wearing crocs is that dude crocs are huge even in normal sizes. Not huge like, “Whoa, this burger is huge!” No, huge like, “Everybody run it’s coming right for us!.”

So this chance encounter prompted the following tweet on The Twitter.

A few minutes later I received an email from The Twitter informing me that I had a new iFriend following me on The Twitter and this new iFriend was crocsinc. You know where this is going.

Clearly some marketing-bot intern over at crocsinc has been assigned the barbarous task of monitoring The Twitter for mention of crocs. The only logical course of action is to mess with crocsinc.

Which elicited the following inflammatory response from crocsinc:

Clearly, marketing-bot does not realize crocsinc is on a slippery slope to become a lightning rod for so much pent up misanthropy.

Stay tuned.

Because Flo took a M-B test via Alice, she made me post my well-established M-B/Keirsey results:

INTJ - The Rational Mastermind

Some excerpts from INTJ profiles:

To outsiders, INTJs may appear to project an aura of “definiteness”, of self-confidence. Sometimes mistaken for simple arrogance by the less decisive, this confidence is very specific rather than general in nature; its grows out of the specialized knowledge systems that INTJs start building at an early age.

INTJs are known as the “Systems Builders,” perhaps in part because they possess the unusual trait combination of imagination and reliability. Anyone considered to be “slacking,” including superiors, will lose their respect — and will generally be made aware of this. On the other hand, they do tend to be scrupulous and even-handed about recognizing the individual contributions that have gone into a project, and have a gift for seizing opportunities which others might not even notice.

Contingency planning and entailment organizing reaches its highest level of development in the Rational Mastermind. It is not an informative activity for them, but a directive one in which the planner tells others what to do and the order in which to do it. As the organizing capabilities the Mastermind increases so does his or her inclination to take charge of whatever is going on.

While they are capable of caring deeply for others (usually a select few), and are willing to spend a great deal of time and effort on a relationship, the knowledge and self-confidence that make them so successful in other areas can suddenly abandon or mislead them in interpersonal situations.

And some “rules” for dealing with INTJs:

• Be willing to back up your statements with facts or sound reasoning.
• Don’t expect an INTJ to respect you or your opinion without reason: respect must be earned.
• Expect debate. INTJs like to tear ideas apart to discern their worthiness. They will argue a point they don’t support just for the sake of argument.
• Do not confuse the strength of your conviction with that of your argument. INTJs do not need to believe in a position to argue it well.
• Do not be surprised when you encounter sarcasm.
• The ultimate insult to an idea is to ignore it. This means it isn’t even interesting enough to deconstruct.
• INTJs believe in workable solutions. They are extremely open-minded to possibilities, but they will quickly discard any idea that is unfeasible.
• INTJs do not care about how you view them. They already know that they are arrogant bastards with a morbid sense of humor. Restating the obvious is a waste of time.

And, last but not least, a few alleged and actual INTJs:

• Augustus Caesar
• Mr. Burns
• Ayn Rand
• Niels Bohr
• George Lucas
• Colin Powell
• C.S. Lewis
• Professor Moriarty
• Gandalf the Grey