signalnoise

Watching Britney's reality show is probably like watching Faces of Death.

Thanks for the compliments on the pics.

I read the review of Britney's show in The Washington Post. I didn't even know there was going to be such a thing, but it sounds just about as a dark as the Anna Nicole show. Although, Anna Nicole's might be even worse considering that she seems to have really bad drug problems.

I think I know what you mean by empathizing with her. I tend to encounter peopole whom assume that once someone makes a certain amount of money that they deserve none. That's hogwash; did we all forget the clich that money doesn't buy happiness?

I have to be honest: I liked Arete's last set better.

I really wanted a muffin. The bagel vs. donut decision was based on the fact that I could probably fool myself into thinking that bagels are good for me more easily than I can fool myself into thinking donuts are good for me.

Have you seen the naked pictures in Cobb yet?

No one will take away your geek card, but only because it's Layer Cake, and the director oof that is directing X-men 3. That's like a Mobius strip of geekdome

Best of luck on the second year review.

I think I'd pay big money to see you do Karaoke.

If I'm reading the above correctly, it's not that your uncle is in a bad situation, but rather that a dramatic and abrupt change is on the horizon?

hola. i see everything is going ok. i've been pretty busy lately and with little internet connection. will you be around chicago this summer?

There's one thing to keep in mind about dialogues that sometimes is an advantage that you didn't list, especially in the earlier Platonic ones. Later stuff, like Republic past Book I ends up being a lot of "yes, Socrates, of course." But I think something more interesting is going on in several of them - the dialogue format sometimes lets Plato write between the lines, as it were (and if you go too far down this route... voila, Strauss!). Take the Meno, for example - lots of folks take the conclusion to be "we have innate ideas." But that's not what Socrates says... he says that attacking the problem on Meno's assumptions leads us to the conclusion that we have innate ideas (and, as I read it, implies that that conclusion is a bit loopy...).

Re: moving. I hear you. M and I are moving at the end of the month, after putting up for about six months with a similar sort of will-we-or-won't-we situation over my job uncertainty. Here's to hoping your wife gets into UIC.

I share your gripes with Cicero for the most part. On the Commonwealth, I believe, is an utterly fragmented piece of worthless shit. It's almost impossible to get anything from it. And doesn't it end with something very much like The Myth of Er?

But have you read On Duties? This I find to be much better. I guess it was preserved better; I don't remember any excessive lacunae. And, he takes aim at Plato in this one: Book I, 28.

I'm with you on the dialogue stuff, too. It's not so much that I feel tricked, but that there is this whole dialogue about the dialogue. What is he saying? What is he not saying? I can't stand it.

Good luck figuring out the living situation.

So...remind me to tell you a story that involves Bredoteau, alcohol, and seminar.

I'm going to have to tell you over email. haha.

Cobb's a good place to grab some grub on campus. They stock food from all over the HP. Div School's good for that too.

Is that the sandwich place in the basement?

Ah it's definately worth checking out

Oi...

RMIT is a mixed bag of a university, and your sense is correct -- it's one of a number of former "technical schools" that became a university some time late in the 1980s. Some of those newer institutions are doing ok, carving out a niche for themselves, but some struggle for one reason or another.

RMIT seems to be struggling, but there are administrative and management reasons for that. Of course, in some disciplines, you'll find some very good people (they have, at times, tried to hire "star performers" to raise their research profile), but just coincidentally, while I was in Canberra last week (at the ANU, one of our top universities) I was privy to a "Damn, isn't RMIT in a mess" conversation.

Aust. universities generally are rather like US state universities -- dependent largely upon public funding, although we have a deferred fees scheme that works reasonably well. Lots of institutions, RMIT being one, are working very hard to get students from the full-fee international student market.

I hope that helps. None of this, or course, predicts whether your advisor will have a good time or not -- hopefully, they'll enjoy themselves and the people they;ll interact with will be outstanding. But your overall impression was correct, sir.

The Canberra place sounds like the ANU, indeed. There's another college-turned-university, the University of Canberra, but it's the ANU that's the big wheel -- it's our best known institution internationally. (It DOES have undergrads, but it started out as a research-only place.)

As for the planned city thing, not only do you get the planning phase, but you also get the less planned self government phase which came after.

True ocnfession: I grew up there, and it's a strange place to grow up. Originally there was a (quasi Stalinist, but in a touchy feely way) planning body called the National Capital Development Commission. It set all the rules for the city's design and growth. The consequence was the town was a very pretty but sterile place.

Self government was achieved in the 1980s, and the town has changed a lot since. More "human",

What happened with your photog that was so bad?

I'm starting to feel better, but I'm still uncomfortable with the tube they put in me. The doc said it would get better and that he'll take it out on Wed.

Let's just say there has been a lot of unpleasantness. I don't want to go into the details because the are graphic and gruesome.

The important thing is that they renew my Vicodin script today.

I think we have a winner

Oh, don't get me wrong - I think ID probably does have a tremendously interesting intellectual history. I just hate to see philosophical systems *reduced* to poor intellectual coping, even if they're bad ones.

Hmm...tough call on Havel in '81. *Goes to bookshelf and pulls down Living in Truth* The Power of the Powerless is from '78. And Charter '77 made some waves, right? It sounds possible.

Btw., my whole thing in my last post about the ancient and moderns is completely stolen from Heidegger! I confess! If you haven't, some day check out at least his first volume on Nietzsche. I think it should be required for intro to theory. Incredible!

Aww, that's totally sweet. You'll have an awesome time.