A letter to the class of 2062

The following letter will be saved to a floppy disk and placed in a time capsule to be opened 50 years from now.

Honestly, we expect things have changed more than they will. We want change and miraculousness, but things are probably about the same. Sure, technology may (ok, probably) has improved, clothing will be different, and the Rolling Stones might have died off, but for the most part, we live the same lives. The context around our lives may be drastically different, but there are far more similarities than historians or evolutionary psychologists give credit. Bureaucracy is frustratingly inefficient, taxes are unfair, and Nicholas Cages acting ability is underappreciated. Popular music seems shallow and nobody can ever quite seem to understand exactly what troubles you are going through. The Israelis and Palestinians will still be fighting (or all dead).  Bitches be crazy, men be idiots, but we continue dancing along, going through the motions. You will find yourself waking up earlier and staying up later for stupider and stupider reasons. Things are going to be OK in end, and you will be rewarded for your efforts. Unless you die of alcohol poisoning, as us DePauw students are want to do.

Some Questions for you, future person:
- Dude Chuck Norris die? If so, how totally bad ass was his death?
- Did the 9/11 monument at ground zero get completed? People better still be remembering that. (Just like I still remember the Alamo. Respect)
- Have we been to the moon again, yet?
- Did we ever figure out what was wrong with Lady GaGa?
- As a child, I was able to eat insane quantities of unhealthy candy and sugar. Is this still possible, or are you guys all "healthy"?
- Is California still attached?

And some notes on things that may be skewed historically:
- Politics is an innane process where you can buy your way into power, lobby for what you want for and appearance/oratory is everything. You don't need to know anything abut how the world works to run it, you merely need to be persuasive and have a good smile. Lets hope this has changed.
- Charlie Sheen wasn't (isn't) that crazy
- Michael Jackson wasn't that adored (until his death)
- People sometimes say acronyms out loud. We do this because of how much we "txt" each other, which is all of the time. It's kind of weird but I beli- hold on, i need to respond to this
- People of this time did watch Jersey Shore seriously, but nobody here likes those people.
- Bill Nye the Science Guy is totally boss
- as is Spongebob Squarepants, Ed, Edd, & Eddy, Dexters Lab, and other cartoons (Loony Tunes is still great now, These will still be great then (er... now)
- Obama is a cool dude
- We are totally reliant on foreign oil to power our cars, of which most families own multiple. It's pretty bad.
- Girls enjoy wearing really tight pants that are textured to look like Jeans. They are called jeggings. Nobody is complaining.
- We have the word "God" on our money
- There are way to many people who believe in Creationism (I hope you have never heard of this, google it).
- "Google it" means to search for something on the internet.
- The internet, at this point in time, is a complicated series of tubes people use mostly to share pictures of cats and videos of people hurting themselves. You can buy pretty much anything on the internet, and have it shipped to your house in under 2 day for not that much money. I can only assume by your time, that has decreased to same day shipping.
- There is a "Top 10" (very popular) song with the following verse: "Ass. Ass. Ass. Ass. Ass. Ass.".

- Poop jokes: funny always
- There is a McDonald everywhere.
- Hot Stock Tip: invest in Apple, not Enron.
When you get this, give "Hunter (Hugh) Dyar IV" a call. You can find his number by flagging down any local "maps of the celebrities houses" guy. That guy will probably be Hunter, as he will not likely have any sort of respectable job. This is, of course, assuming Hunter is still alive, and hasn't tragically died in an event that will be known to simply be called "The dolphin incident".

Flip Spiceland, A Magnificent Bastard

The theater nerds at DePauw do a pretty cool project called Insomniac theater. The idea is simple. Actors, Writers, and Directors all meet Friday evening at 7:00. Actors auditions and writers select them. Then, the actors and directors go to sleep. Meanwhile the writers stay up all night and they each deliver a 10 minute play by 7am. From there the directors and actors meet and get the play memorized, blocked out, and ready to be performed. The performance takes place at 7:30 Saturday night (24 hours after it "began").

Last year I was an actor. This year, I wrote and directed my own play. Basically, that means I got even less sleep.

The writers had three rules to follow: There must be a character named Flip Spiceland, Toilet Paper must be used as a prop, and the line of dialogue "Do you have to do that now" appears.

Sadly, my camera died before my play could get recorded (it went last), but click here to download and read the play. It got changed a bit while we rehearsed and worked out a lot of the dialogue kinks, but there was nothing major changed.

You may notice "magnificent" is spelled wrong in the title page. I added that at the last minute at 4am, and I am leaving it in there as a mark of the play's rapidly-written nature.

An interesting thing about writing a play in one sitting overnight is that you don't get any perspective. You have nobody to tell you if the whole is offensive, irrelevant, wordy, strange, or just plain stupid. That's what made these plays so great. One of the other writers wrote a play about a secretly gay husband, which was very funny - but some people were offended. All of the plays were very different and they all were insane. They also all were comedies! Insomniac theater is a fantastic project, and we had a great time doing it.

Click here to download a pdf of the play

For those curious, I wrote in Google Docs with Fountain.io, and then a bit in vim, and finally in adobe story

Friday the 14th - Radio Playlist

updating in real-ish time

This is the music I played during my radio shift, weekly from 2-4am. It's one hell of a time slot. Songs are listed here in the order that I played them.

Bold means that the artist is a personal favorite.

• Charlie Winston - Kick The Bucket - Hobo (album)
• Moonface - Yesterday's Fire
• Magic Trick - Melodies - Melodies (Album)
• Fistful of Mercy - Father's Son
• Beach House - Lazuli
• Steve Martin - Late For School - The Crow (album)
• Beachwood Sparks - Sparks Fly Again
• First Aid Kit - Emmylou
• River City Extension - Point of Surrender
• Wax Tailor (feat. Charlie Winston) - I Own You - In The Mood For Life (album)
• Crystal Fighters - Xtatic Truth
• Kormac - This Party Must Continue - Word Play (album)
• Jack White - Sixteen Saltines

The top of the hour now: AP radio news.

• The Shins - The Rifles Spiral
• Propellerheads - History Repeating (Featuring Miss Shirley Bassey)
• Poor Moon - Pulling Me Down
• The Fresh & Onlys - Yes Or No
• The Cat Empire - Panama - So Many Nights (album)
• David Bryne & St. Vincent - Who
• Tea Leaf Green - Let Us Go
• Sufjan Stevens - Futile Devices - Age Of Adz
• Iiris - Melyse
• Father John Misty - Hollywood Forever Cemetary Sings
• Harper Blynn - Busy Hands, Empty Hearts - Busy Hands (album)
• Moe. - Stranger Than Fiction
• Opossom - Why Why - Electric Hawaii (album)
• Massive Attack - Girl I Love You - Heliogland (album) 
• Yung life - Back For You
• Fanfarlo - Fire Escape

I played a lot of songs that have a few standout lines that have stuck with me over the years. like "Some people won't dance if they don't know whose singing / Why ask your head it's your hips that are swinging" from History Repeating or "I love things that seem impossible" from Panama. If the artist above is in bold, it probably means the song has some line or another that has stayed with me for a while, or had some sort of significance. That is this weeks 'theme'.

While I recommend purchasing/listening "by the album", but I still link to individual songs because most people listen "by the song".

My Problem with Agnosticism

Warning: religious and philosophy talk ahead. Proceed at your own risk.

Click on the follow through link to read my essay "My problem with Agnosticism". It's probably worth reading if you like philosophy, I think. Before you begin, however, here is a link to what Wikipedia has to say and understand that I will define agnosticism and then refer to my definition of the term. So before you write me off for being "wrong", try and understand my points and my point of view. Don't disagree with me until you understand what I am saying. OK, disclaimer over, essay ahead.

Also, there arn't any photos, because throwing some in would be irrelevant. Sorry.

God Damn I am tired

I got 1 hour of sleep last night, and that is being generous. The past 3 days don't total nine. This isn't so much of a blog post as it is just holy balls I am tired.

Creative and Functional goal-aware software

By creative software, I mean software that is the tool for creation. By Functional software, I mean software that is the tool one uses to get things done.

Creative software is text input, drawing programs, modeling programs, image editing software, music software, etc. Something where you save a creative work out of it.

Functional software is for completing tasks. Email, calendar, clients (such as for FTP, SSH, etc), music players, file browsers, etc.

With both pieces of software, a user goes in with a goal. With creative software, that goal is not predetermined or predictable. The tool must step out of the way. A paintbrush does not give recommendations or auto-complete brushstrokes. It is not the creative software that makes the thing, is is the creative software that lets users make the thing they want to make. Users also have a goal for functional software, and this sort of software should be stepping in and helping out wherever possible - making it as easy and fast as possible to complete the task.

IMHO, the best software in either camp follows UNIX's philosophy of "One Thing Well", but particularly functional software. The more things a piece of software tries to do, the worse it is at doing everything. By just doing One Thing Well, design is more streamlined an efficient. Navigation trees are smaller - there are less steps to figure out what the user actually wants to do. Software - good design - should know and work with the goal of the user. With one-thing-well functional software, we get really good products.

But what about creative software, - there is no way to know what the user want's to do outside of really broad categories like 'paint' or 'write'. Programs like Photoshop have adaptable workspaces (read: changing/customizable interfaces that bring out the features of the programs depending on what the user wants to do, be it image editing, digital painting, proofing, or whatever. This allows a program as feature-packed as Photoshop to remain as useful as possible. Show the user what they need, hide what they don't, and get out of the damn way. Without the changing interface, the program would look a lot like pre-ribbon-strip Word. Menu after Submenu of categorized features that a user must hunt through, because the program does not know what it is the user want's to do, and thusly has to have everything be an option. It's better to have fewer yet more important [to the user's goal] options at quick access than to have every option 8 steps away. Weight the design towards what the users use - don't be equitable to the software's functions.

If software is just doing One Thing Well, then there is no need for this context-based interface modifying. Merely by launching the program, it knows what the user want's to do, and thusly the design can focus on making a better experience for the user. This is the best method I know for software to determine the goal of the user.