As I Live the Questions:postings, weblinks and ramblings by Ryan Schultz

Blogger Meetup/Dinner Has Been Cancelled...

2004-08-16T21:27:00.000-05:00

The Winnipeg Blogger Meetup/dinner originally scheduled for this coming Wednesday has been cancelled: http://s89693428.onlinehome.us/blog/archives/000910.html --Ryan.

2004-08-02T09:51:00.000-05:00

I remind everybody that this is a test blog only; my real blog (the one I update regularly) is at http://ryanschultz.net/blog .

Teddy Bear

2004-06-07T13:17:00.000-05:00

This is a test of the post-to-blog feature in Flickr with a Blogger blog set-up. Teddy Tattoo Originally uploaded by Quiplash.

As I Live the Questions:postings, weblinks and ramblings by Ryan Schultz

2004-05-14T18:17:00.000-05:00

I have to admit that I am quite impressed by the many new features offered by the newly-revamped blogger. And having free audioblogger posts is just the icing on the cake. However, I'd better check to see how much $$ it costs for a a long-distance call to the audioblogger phone number...

My first audioblog post

2004-05-14T18:01:00.000-05:00

Quotation from Stephen Covey:

2004-04-21T22:51:00.001-05:00

Third time's a charm....

2004-04-21T22:51:00.000-05:00

Just checking to see if this still works...

2004-04-21T22:50:00.000-05:00

*ping*

2004-01-12T11:05:00.000-06:00

Over Christmas I installed the MoveableType blog software on some UNIX server space I have, and so I've moved this blog to a new location: Ryan Schultz: as I live the questions.

2003-11-17T15:07:00.000-06:00

Sign of the times: while driving up Pembina Highway this weekend I was following a car with a Pennsylvania license plate, which had a URL on it: www.state.pa.us. Later, when I was at Grant Park Shopping Centre, I noticed that the new Shoppers Drugmart store had their URL on the sign outside. We are starting to see URLs pop up everywhere now.

2003-11-11T09:55:00.000-06:00

Report from the Browser Wars :-)Well, having used Opera, Mozilla Firebird, and Netscape 7.1 for several weeks, both on my work and home PCs, I can report back. My favourite browser, and the one that I will use from here on in, is Opera. I will only be using Internet Explorer for those Web sites that demand it. Mozilla comes a close second, but Opera still gets my vote. Frankly I am so sick

2003-11-06T17:20:00.000-06:00

Holy shit! I finally reached the "I'm feeling lucky" (first hit) position on Google! I guess all the Friendster whoring is starting to pay off :-) I'm still trying to figure out what to do with my livejournal space (other than to troll the lj friendster community for people to add to my network).... God I am so pathatic at times :-(

2003-10-23T12:03:00.000-05:00

Well, that spur-of-moment decision to purchase the Rio S10 player is turning out to be one of the best things I've done lately. After finding out that I can only stuff about about a dozen tunes onto the built-in 64MB memory, I went out and bout a 256MB SanDisk SD memory card, went back onto puretracks.com and brought in my CD collection to pillage songs from and convert them to WMA, and presto!

2003-10-18T11:12:00.000-05:00

Well, you may ask, what does Ryan put on his first-ever CD burned from downloaded tracks from puretracks.com? Well, my tastes in music are rather eclectic: Patsy Cline: Walkin' After Midnight Patsy Cline: Crazy The Mamas and the Papas: California Dreamin' The Mamas and the Papas: Monday, Monday Belinda Carlisle: Circle in the Sand Belinda Carlisle: Heaven is a Place on Earth The

2003-10-17T13:35:00.000-05:00

Meanwhile, I am installing Mozilla Firebird on my work PC, again because I am getting so fed up with Microsoft's Internet Explorer failing to load images. I'll give it a test drive for a week or two, and report back to the blog on what I think of it.

2003-10-16T21:40:00.000-05:00

Microsoft's Internet Explorer is driving me crazy...after a few pages, it refuses to load images, especially after browsing through all the thumbnails at friendster. It's gotten so bad on my less pwerful home PC that I finally threw up my hands and switched to the Opera browser. Problem solved.

2003-10-16T14:10:00.000-05:00

Spent my lunchhour buying and downloading some tunes from puretracks... it's kind of fun to be able to create your own CDs (even if you can only play them on the computer)...

2003-10-15T10:42:00.000-05:00

Puretracks was officially launched yesterday...Canada's first (legal) download music service. And me with a brand-new work PC, complete with CD burner. Hmmm...guess I should test out my new equipment (in my off-work hours of course). I'm really glad to see the music industry wake up a bit; a service like this should have been launched several years ago. Now they're madly playing catch-up

2003-10-14T08:15:00.000-05:00

Currently reading a book recommended to me by someone on the Social Software Tribe on tribe.net: Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software...very engaging reading. The author talks about systems that demonstrate adaptive behavior, such as ant colonies, urban areas, and character-recognition software. A very engaging read.

2003-10-12T23:05:00.000-05:00

Friendster - Home: "You are connected to 1,136,432 people in your Personal Network, through 79 friends."

2003-10-11T13:30:00.000-05:00

Now this is bizarre but strangely compelling: grouphug.us is an anonymous confession site. Post your own confession, anonymously, then read others' anonymous confessions.

2003-10-10T15:05:00.000-05:00

How you know that your Friendster habit has gotten waaaaaaaaaaaay out of hand :-)Friendster - Home: "You are connected to 1,027,426 people in your Personal Network, through 56 friends. "

2003-10-09T13:34:00.000-05:00

More proof that there is something very, very seriously wrong with today's Catholic Church. When I come across crap like this, I want to go out and bitch-slap a bishop.

2003-10-08T15:01:00.000-05:00

Well, it's nice to know that I'm not the only one doing this :-) ... Jackie Spinner writes for The Age: Click for clique - www.theage.com.au: "Counting friends — the contest" Mike Nguyen admits he’s addicted. Nearly every day for the past five months, the 27-year-old has logged on to count his friends and the friends of his friends. And their friends. At last check, he was up to 210,185 in all.

2003-10-06T20:07:00.000-05:00

Here's a blog I quite like: jason ronbeck > out of control

2003-10-02T15:28:00.000-05:00

The Onion: '48-Hour Internet Outage Plunges Nation Into Productivity'...God ain't this the truth :-)

2003-10-01T17:43:00.000-05:00

Actually, this person's post kinda sums up my ambivalent feelings about Friendster: "Maybe I'm wrong. But my first impression of Friendster is that it sucks. I mean, you have to invite friends in order to do ANYTHING on that netowrk. 'Invite Friends' = give out your friends private email addresses. NICE. Ok, ok, they SAY they won't sell, lease, give out, share, your email address, but suppose

2003-10-01T16:59:00.000-05:00

Well, I've spent two days tinkering with Friendster and Tribe, and perusing the comments that bloggers have made on both systems (which, I've discovered, can be a very effective way to get a sense of what's going on). Friendster is great--provided you can plug into a large network without too much work. If you're starting from scratch, it's frustrating, and you feel like a loser just because

2003-10-01T10:23:00.000-05:00

From a Fortune article by David Kirkpatrick: Fortune.com - Fast Forward - I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends of Friends of Friends: "There may be a new kind of Internet emerging--one more about connecting people to people than people to websites. The blog phenomenon, where blogs link to blogs, is another aspect of this same trend. Mark Pincus, an investor in Friendster and founder of

2003-10-01T10:20:00.000-05:00

Here's a good series of blog posts by Marc Canter on social networking and Tribe.net vs. Friendster (admittedly from a Tribe perspective/bias): Topic: Tribe.net

2003-10-01T09:39:00.000-05:00

This is hilarious...BlogsCanada, the Canadian blogs directory, complete with faux federal government banner LOL

2003-10-01T09:37:00.000-05:00

Here's an interesting one to bookmark and explore further: Popdex : the website popularity index

2003-10-01T09:32:00.000-05:00

Quote from the Abstract Dynamics article on Friendster: The Idiot Savant (Friendster Triumphant): "Now Metcalfe's Law actually isn't much of a law, its a conjecture that, at the moment, is pretty reasonably supported by empirical evidence. What it says is that the value of a network increases exponentially with the number of members in the network. Now Friendster's network is shockingly large.

2003-10-01T09:26:00.000-05:00

Interesting article from the blog Abstract Dynamics on the head-start that Friendster has over competitors such as Tribe: Abstract Dynamics: The Idiot Savant (Friendster Triumphant). I spent a couple of hours last night exploring both Friendster and Tribe..I think I prefer Tribe, but it's kinda hard to judge when you are only linked to one other person :-)

2003-10-01T07:50:00.000-05:00

Well, here's a sign of the times: our library just received a new Prentice Hall book... New Biology for Engineers and Computer Scientists, a primer on the essentials of new biology (genes, proteins, cells, the Human Genome Project, etc.) for intotech geeks making the shift to cash in on the biotech gold rush. "This book provides an effective tool to teach new biology to those engineers and

2003-09-30T09:15:00.000-05:00

Preparing my Libraries orientation for graduate computer science students, and found this fascinating article on ACM Queue vol. 1, no. 4 - June 2003 - "How Much Storage is Enough?" : "In 1999, the world produced about 1.5 exabytes of storable content (1018 bytes). This is 1.5 billion gigabytes, and is equivalent to about 250 megabytes for every man, woman, and child on earth. Printed documents of

2003-09-30T08:04:00.000-05:00

Matty (a link I found via Let Me Get This Straight) gives a good overview of Internet trends over the past year. Bang on. I hear so much about Friendster, and I've signed myself up, but I haven't recommended any friends yet, so I can't surf :-( but it does sound interesting. and it certainly is generating a lot of buzz. I wonder how well something like Friendster would work if you live in

2003-09-29T19:40:00.000-05:00

Came across this by accident: Let Me Get This Straight...

2003-09-27T05:44:00.000-05:00

Why you should fall to your knees and worship a librarian: "People become librarians because they know too much." ... just spreading the meme :-) now go worship your nearest librarian...

2003-09-26T20:19:00.000-05:00

Well, I have been sucked into blogspace, and I may never return :-) I listed my Rainbow Lives Blog with the Blog Search Engine, Blogdex, and the Eatonweb portal. I also went merrily a-blog-hopping using the top 100 lists at BlogStreet. I'm discovering a world that I barely knew existed! I could sit and watch Geoblog for an hour...it's somewhat mesmerizing when you realize that you're

2003-09-26T11:50:00.000-05:00

MemeFirst reports that Chuck Palahniuk, the author of Fight Club, has come out to avoid being outed by Entertainment Weekly: So Palahniuk, the author of Fight Club, went and audio-blogged a very angry message, talking about the EW writer's suicide attempt and generally coming out because he felt he had no choice in the wake of the publication of the article. (I can't seem to access that message

2003-09-26T02:50:00.000-05:00

I've set up another test blog on Mo'Time. (Well, O.K., actually three blogs, but who's counting?)

2003-09-25T22:54:00.000-05:00

Had a bit of fun going through Joe Clark's Alternadomains, and thinking about some of the fun domain names I could make up. My personal favourite is: http://fel.la (hey.fel.la! fun.fel.la! gay.fel.la!)... but it's not worth shelling out US$200 for that particular pleasure :-) I thought it was hilarious that this site states "Los Angeles is the world's first and only city to receive its own

2003-09-25T14:02:00.000-05:00

Here's the article on blogs that got me started on my investigation of blogging: The Intimacy of Blogs (Maclean's magazine, September 15th, 2003). I first heard about Layne Johnson and her blog here. So if I have to blame somebody, she's it... j/k :-)

2003-09-25T12:45:00.000-05:00

Over lunch, I printed off and read an article in The Altantic by Paul Davies about the impact of finding extraterrestrial life would have on Earth's organized religions: "...the discovery of just a single bacterium somewhere beyond Earth would force us to revise our understanding of who we are and where we fit into the cosmic scheme of things, throwing us into a deep spiritual identity crisis

2003-09-25T10:38:00.000-05:00

Wow. Blogdex is full of very good stuff today. A quote from an article on why weblogs should be allowed to apply for International Standard Serial Numbers (ISSNs): Compatibility of Weblogs and ISSN: "For the first time in history, A.J. Liebling’s maxim that freedom of the press belongs to whoever owns one has actually come true. In the past, only corporations and institutions could afford to

2003-09-25T10:01:00.000-05:00

My favourite Michael Moore quote about librarians, from a Buzzflash interview: "I really didn't realize the librarians were, you know, such a dangerous group...They are subversive. You think they're just sitting there at the desk, all quiet and everything. They're like plotting the revolution, man." I just love this quote.

2003-09-25T09:46:00.000-05:00

Oh my God! Michael Moore has a Web site. I should have known he would (duh!), it's an obvious medium for him, but I cannot believe I have never stumbled across it before in all my Web surfing. Or maybe I had, filed it away somewhere, and forgot about it.Michael Moore.com (found this due to a story linked via Blogdex)

2003-09-24T22:14:00.000-05:00

I got the Archives thing working again (yay!) Now I just have to fix it for my other blog Rainbow Lives: Queer Biography and History.

2003-09-24T20:43:00.000-05:00

I'm also experimenting with blog-city, another free software program. It has some nice features. Still investigating, looking at options...

2003-09-24T02:39:00.000-05:00

ARGH!! I am having problems getting the archives feature working on this blog, so I temporarily disabled archives and posted a message to the Blogger FAQ blog. Thank God for people like Phil Ringnalda to help out us clueless newbies :-)

2003-09-24T00:18:00.000-05:00

glbtq.com: the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender & queer encyclopedia is a marvelous Web site, and I participate in the discussion forums there.

2003-09-23T20:14:00.000-05:00

I've decided to move a lot of these blog links to myInternet Treasure Map, rather than just leave them here in the blog. I'm still not so sure what I'll be using this thing for (certainly not for pouring out my heart on my sleeve...boy, I guess I have really changed from when I was younger).

2003-09-23T16:59:00.000-05:00

The BradLands: Must See HTTP...another fun site.

2003-09-23T16:50:00.000-05:00

Weblog Awards -- woohoo!

2003-09-23T10:40:00.000-05:00

On a coffee break at work. You know, I am really starting to have serious second thoughts about this whole blog business. Plain Layne writes how she's afraid that her girlfriend will find out she writes a blog. I don't know that I feel comfortable about hiding something I do, like it's shameful or something. I mean, if you put it up on the Internet, why the fuck don't you just tell her

2003-09-21T23:45:00.000-05:00

And another one...QueerFilter GLBT Blogs & Journals

2003-09-21T22:44:00.000-05:00

And here's another list worth a ramble...

2003-09-21T22:25:00.000-05:00

Another favourite list that I've been using as a starting-point for some blogsurfing: East West: Top 30 Gay Blogs

2003-09-21T13:20:00.000-05:00

One of my favourite blogs from back in early 2002 when I first started exploring blogspace (only to set it aside until now): Ernie's little. yellow. different. And some classic posts...

2003-09-21T13:09:00.000-05:00

Another interesting blog I found thru Layne's list: intellectual properties, by Amy Leblanc.

2003-09-20T20:15:00.000-05:00

Puttering around in my housecoat, still feeling sick. Housecleaning gets put aside again, as I plunk myself down in front of the TV to watch La Barbra in Timeless. (I didn't plan it, I just came across it while channel-surfing.) I came to Streisand late, and I haven't been playing it much lately, but it's fun to hear her belt out the tunes.Aaaah... she's doing Evergreen. "You and I will make

2003-09-20T19:05:00.000-05:00

Exhibit A on how having a blog can impact your life...Heather B. Armstrong (a.k.a. dooce): "I am that girl who lost her job because of her website. It was really cool. You can read about that here."

2003-09-20T18:46:00.000-05:00

Matthew Baldwin of Defective Yeti has some very funny posts, as I discover while blogsurfing late on a Saturday afternoon, nursing some sort of cold or flu bug, sucking back orange juice in the mistaken belief that massive doses of Vitamin C are actually going to fix anything at this point. ARGH.

2003-09-19T22:51:00.000-05:00

Here's another one: Confessions of Shameless Agitator... another intelligent, well-written, well-argued blog. Hallelujah! A Question to Live: How much of a shameless agitator do I want to be?

2003-09-19T22:36:00.000-05:00

Still trolling thru blogpsace, using Layne as my jump-off. A few links led me to Space Waitress Gate A, where she posts about the problems she is having with depression and thoughts of suicide. Having struggled with that myself in the past, I felt compelled to respond. So I actually posted a comment on a blog: my first ever. In her most recent post, spacewaitress talks about getting

2003-09-19T15:54:00.000-05:00

Someone at work wanted to know what "phat" meant and I did a Google search at the reference desk and came up with this. I must admit it's a good idea: have the slang-users define the slang. It beats having some eighty-year-old lexicographer do it :-)

2003-09-19T13:20:00.000-05:00

I spent a very enjoyable lunchtime skimming through 50 Years of DNA, an engagingly-written overview of the first fifty years of the discovery of DNA's structure and the implications of that discovery. (2003 marks the 50th anniversay of Watson and Crick's paper on their discovery of the double-helix.)

2003-09-19T04:29:00.000-05:00

Here's another one I like...

2003-09-19T03:18:00.000-05:00

Ooh, and Rebecca's got a list of reference sites, rebecca's guide to the perplexed. She gets major points from this librarian :-)

2003-09-19T03:16:00.000-05:00

Still up, still blogsurfing. I kinda like what's in rebecca's pocket? as well; I can remember following this site a year or two ago (becuz it's in my IE Favourites list), but looking at it again, it's refreshing to see someone who uses their blog for more than this-is-what-I-did-today.

2003-09-19T01:52:00.000-05:00

Well, I've decided to go ahead and rename this blog As I Live the Questions, with reference to the Rilke quote I mentioned below (Sept. 11th). I'll try the name on for a little while and see how it fits...

2003-09-19T01:18:00.000-05:00

Wow. WOW. The woman behind Plain Layne can really write: "I remember walking along that sugar cane field like it was earlier today, skirting its knife-edged emerald fringe in the moist torrid heat. Everything was plastered to me with sweat -- hair, clothes, dirt. Even my backpack was soaked. Jungle-coated mountains were slicing open the bellies of clouds and I could smell the unmistakeable odor

2003-09-18T12:49:00.000-05:00

At lunch today I created a couple of new gay.com userids. I find it hilarious when I sign on as someone new and immediately get hit upon as "fresh meat". I'm also carrying around this crazy idea of visiting several chatrooms under the username rainbowlives and putting a link to the Rainbow Lives Web site into my bio line, to promote my hobby Web site.Sigh... God, I have just got to get myself a

2003-09-18T10:31:00.000-05:00

I was reading Maclean's (the Sept. 15, 2003 issue) on my morning coffee-break when I came across the article on blogs, and I surfed over to Plain Layne to take a peek (she's discussed at length in the article). Fascinating. The idea of posting the most intimate details of your life, then actually encouraging feedback from strangers (and fans...this woman has fans!!!) is still a little

2003-09-18T07:42:00.000-05:00

Well, I finally got around to scanning some pictures of myself and putting them up on my personal Web site. I always think I photograph so terribly, but at least I have a handful of pictures that I don't mind showing to the world :-) I really like the three photos from my trip to Banff and Yoho National Parks this summer.

2003-09-17T17:02:00.000-05:00

Came across the Moontaxi site while investigating the impending launch of puretracks.com. Started listening to the Ultimate 80s station while working... sounds pretty good. I can't wait for puretracks to launch :-)

2003-09-14T09:07:00.000-05:00

Flash mobs...gotta love'em. I'd go to this one, but I have to go to church and sing with the choir. Damn :-)

2003-09-13T16:45:00.000-05:00

I actually had a nice time last night! I actually met someone nice on gay.com (who'dathunkit). Later on I went to Fuel café and met Dr. Mike and Stephen. I had a pretty good evening, but I skipped the bar...I was just too tired.

2003-09-12T17:06:00.000-05:00

Tonight I'm meeting somebody who chatted with me Monday on Gay.com, I'm 50% expecting to be stood up, I guess I'm not going into this with any sort of expectations. I'm becoming cynical in my old age :-)

2003-09-12T17:04:00.000-05:00

The technolust never goes away--it just transfers to something else. Now that I've had my Blackberry for a while, and integrated it into my life, I find myself longing for an iPod. I just wish they weren't still so expensive. Oh well, I can wait.

2003-09-11T23:23:00.000-05:00

I love this Live The Questions quote, in fact, I bought a journal that has this quote on the cover. I was even thinking about calling this blog Live the Questions. But I'm still wondering: Why a blog? Is this meant to replace my paper journal? To supplement it? Do I really want to post things here where anyone with a Web browser can read them? Maybe these are some of the questions I

2003-09-11T09:47:00.000-05:00

It wasn't until I saw the flags outside the fire station flying at half-mast that I realized it was 9/11, the anniversary day. There's a prayer session at University Centre at 10, but I've got so much work to do (which is why I'm wasting my time with a post to my blog). Well, back 2 work, I've got several student orientations to prepare. Sigh...

2003-09-10T22:47:00.000-05:00

Tonight was the first rehearsal for The Rainbow Harmony Project's fifth season. God I am so tired tonight, but I'm glad I decided to take part again this year. I'm looking forward to going to Montreal for the VIIe Festival International GALA Choruses next July.

2003-09-05T03:31:00.000-05:00

On Sept. 1st I put a web page counter on my hobby Web site, Rainbow Lives. I'm surprised that the page has had 130 hits in only 4 days! Somebody must be looking at it...even if it's only the Web bots (sigh...). I've been so busy lately that I haven't had time to update it.

2003-09-05T03:17:00.000-05:00

The Smoking Gun does it again. Former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers' mugshot... a lot of people had been waiting for that one :-)

2003-09-03T00:30:00.000-05:00

My friend Brian took a great picture of me at Yoho National Park this past Tuesday, a week ago today. I put it up on my personal Web site.

2003-09-01T02:31:00.000-05:00

I think that The Smoking Gun is a brilliant Web site. They recently broke the Oui interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger, which is going to give him some explaining to do to California voters :-)

2003-09-01T02:14:00.000-05:00

Well, I've decided to try my hand at the blog thing. I had an earlier one but it petered out after a few posts. That might happen with this one, too. We'll see. I've decided to call it As I Am because I used that phrase in a headline for my most recent gay.com profile: "As I am, for who you are".