09.04.08
Posted in SEO, marketing, metaphysics, philosophy, preterphysics at 2:09 pm by nogre
I’ve made some progress on my metaphysics; enough to think about writing a monograph.
Today (Sept. 2 ‘08) I tried thinking of a name for this monograph. My thought process was to call it something with metaphysics but I couldn’t think of anything good. First of all the word metaphysics is inherently confused, so it is hard to use well. Its history, so I’ve been instructed, can be traced back to a librarian organizing Aristotle’s books on the shelf. The untitled book that contained what was to become Aristotle’s Metaphysics was sitting in front of Aristotle’s Physics, so the librarian called it ‘before physics’, Metaphysics. I know little of how words come into existence to pass judgment, but I am sure that I want to avoid all the baggage that this word has accumulated since then.
I thought about the Tractatus. ‘Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus’ is sufficiently meaningless such that it would be hard to regret calling it that later. I mean really. Of course it is a treatise, what philosophical text isn’t? And it’s on some logic and philosophy, ooo so descriptive. So even if W. changed his mind about any of the content, the title would still hold up.
So I began to wonder if it is worth it to have a particularly descriptive title at all. Then the hyphenation caught my eye. ’Hypermetaphysical’, ‘Pseudometaphysics’ and other prefixed monstrosities ran through my thoughts but I finally came upon pretermetaphysical. It is just too damn long. Preterphysical is less long, is meaningless though suggestive, and preter- means nearly the exact same thing as meta-.
No baggage either. Google returned 3 results for preterphysical and 0 for preterphysics. Of the 3 that came up for preterphysical, one was a cached reference to one of the other pages and 404ed when I tried to view it and the other 2 used the word one time each and only in passing. That sealed it. I am writing The Preterphysics.
Now no one steal my cool name. I claim it!!!!!!
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[For anyone who wonders why this was filed under SEO and Marketing, one of the goals of this post is to claim the name "The Preterphysics" for myself. In less than 3 days of publishing this post I'll likely be #1 in Google for a search for "Preterphysics" and "Preterphysical". (UPDATE: I am #1 now, only 6 hours after publishing) By having a blog and posting regularly (and no spam) Google and the other search engines regularly scan this site for new content. Granted, these words are made up and so there aren't other people who are using them, so there is no competition for becoming #1. However, this is irrelevant to my purposes: I am trying to claim some intellectual property space and being first counts for something. I am still 3, 4 and 6 in Google searches for "relativity biology" because of these posts months ago. One of the purposes for this blog is to be a record of things I have written and, since I am outside of academia, having a public record of when my work was published goes a long way in establishing a timeline of ideas (showing that the ideas were mine). At this point it would be hard for someone to make a claim to any of my philosophy of biology since it has been public domain for a good while now (and philosophy carnivalled). Sure I could try to get my work into a journal -all considering it would hit my target audience a bit more than this website and provide an even more secure record of my work- but journal publishing is much about being an academic (and takes forever and I'd probably not make the cut anyway). I'm concerned with getting my ideas out there, claiming the intellectual space for myself, and making it available to anyone who is like-minded. This post (even as silly as it is, making fun of Wittgenstein for titling his book as he did, completely deflating any meaning from my own words, and harping on hyphenation) does all of that because of the established internet machinery.]
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07.18.08
Posted in marketing, metaphysics, ontology, philosophy at 2:58 pm by nogre
I’ve put up another paper under ‘My Metaphysics‘ entitled ‘The Imperius Curse‘. No, it is not about the Imperius curse from the Harry Potter books exactly - it is about control, determinism and free will - but I am re-purposing the term for my own uses (just like the paper entitled ‘Occlumency‘).
When I approached the subject of free will and determinism from my metaphysical perspective, I felt that philosophers have focussed upon naturalistic or religious or logical issues and not enough upon our influence over each other. Basically, since we have to be convinced by some person (ourselves included) that the world is determined in some way, I see this as a more fundamental kind of control. Convincing someone to do or believe something is a Leadership skill, and I strongly believe that the concept of leadership has been neglected in philosophy. Hopefully some of my discussion of leadership will be of interest to non-philosophers as well (Charm is defined in this essay as well, which is fun.).
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Also, through the wonderful statistics that you can get for your website, I know that exactly 0 people have actually read any of my metaphysics and I’m sure this message will fall on deaf ears. Nonetheless I push on with the same expectations. I’m thinking that one day I’ll have enough for a proper book, which no one will read either, but this all makes me happy, so it’s going to happen.
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01.15.08
Posted in NYC, marketing, news at 5:44 pm by nogre
Yesterday I visited the first public toilet in New York City. It is much lauded. Here is my take:
The toilet it located near the southeast corner of Madison Square Park. It has the oh-so-typical whitish glass and brushed steel look. I am not criticizing the toilet specifically, it is a clean look for a restroom to have, but I’m getting a bit tired of this design scheme in general.
I had to wait a few minutes because the toilet was in use when I arrived. You can see the red occupied light next to the door. This gave me an opportunity to overhear a discussion going on behind me. A man who described himself as the Potty Patrol was chatting to a lady waiting for the gentleman occupying the commode. He told me he was there to make sure everything was going OK.
Then the gentleman exited. The door slides to the left smoothly and slowly and closes to the right in the same way to start the cleaning process. I nearly entered before the cleaning process, but saw that the red occupied light was still lit. Cleaning took about a minute, probably shorter, but when you are waiting for a bathroom, it always seems longer.
I didn’t have a quarter, so I put in two dimes and a nickel. I noticed that one of the dimes didn’t make the right sound upon entering the machine. Nothing happened. I went over and told the Potty Patrolman that everything was not OK. The machine ate my dime. I looked in the coin return and could see that there was a quarter caught in it. I put in another dime and this time the door opened with its satisfying measured motion.
Upon entering everything is wet. Very wet. Thankfully there were hooks on the wall for me to place my backpack: you wouldn’t want to put anything on that soaking floor, even if it supposedly soaking with ‘cleaning fluid.’ There are indicator lights and large buttons on the wall by the door and near the stainless steel toilet of the kind I’ve seen on prison shows to keep you from killing yourself in.
By the door at medium height there are three buttons, one light and a speaker/microphone: Emergency Phone (red), Assistance Phone (yellow), Touch To Open Door (big and green), and When Light is On, 3 Min. to Open Door (orange). There is a fifteen minute time limit before all hell breaks loose and NYPD SWAT breaks down the door. I think you should be able to add time from inside.
By the ground there is a trash flap and another emergency touch to call button, still red but this time big.
The sink is likewise stainless and is labeled Soap Water and Dryer. You place your hands under each of the signs to get not soap but soapy water, water and hot air. The mirror is not glass but more stainless steel.
Though I did not need to use toilet paper, I still wanted to see what the procedure was insofar as it could not be exposed during the cleaning process. There is a button next to the toilet which dispenses soft double ply toilet paper. That is a nice feature, though I suspect if there are toilets placed in less corporate areas, we’ll be seeing single ply. (I did not investigate the toilet seat covers, which, if you look at the video look wet and practically unusable. Also it provides an open box that could potentially be used for creative New Yorkers to fill with things other than seat covers.)
When I left, I started to walk off pleased with the toilet. The P-Patrolman called after me. He insisted on refunding me my lost dime. This was a nice gesture, but considering a service is only as good as its weakest feature, this substandard money box is a significant problem. If I really had to go and only had 25 cents, it would have been a serious issue: the entire toilet would have failed because I couldn’t get through the door.
All in all the toilet is a nice and necessary addition to the landscape. New York can always use another clean bathroom. The BILLION dollars in advertising revenue that these toilets will bring the city will hopefully be put to good use. The current poster sized advertisement is not obnoxious enough to blight the general area (though I am sure they are going to the wrap the whole thing in advertising as soon as they think they can get away with it).
Some more pics:
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11.12.07
Posted in SEO, art, design, fun, internet, marketing, motivation at 8:56 pm by nogre
Perhaps two people know this about me but I am a design junkie. Notcot.org is my favorite blog of all time. Recently I’ve even contributed a few posts (#7106, #6974). I’m not sure what it is about design that I like so much. There is always that form/function distinction but I don’t think that is exactly what attracts me. It is more along the lines of personal engineering: with the right stuff you can do different things. You have the right tools and you can build a house (or a website); you have a spiffy outfit and you can get into an exclusive club; you have the right ideas and you can change the course of humanity.
Anyway, here’s some links (or slingks as Apartment Therapy calls them) to people with good ideas:
Check out the art galleries here in NYC with this handy printable list of the best galleries.
Running from Camera: Exactly what the title says and yet surprisingly entertaining. (via It’s Nice That)
Hi, My name is Joseph. I work in a cupcake.: Again self-explanatory. (swissmiss)
Wordcount: a visual representation of how often English words are used. ‘Pope’ is one behind ‘Logic’ and four ahead of ‘Discourse’. I couldn’t make this up if I tried. (via DamnIWishI’dThoughtofThat via Spoonbuzz) Surprisingly I found this site through my lesser infatuation with marketing (as compared to design) since it is more a work of art/design. However if you consider Search Engine Optimization choosing words lower on the list will inherently make your site more unique and hence searchable. I think I got lucky by tagging ‘relativity’ (#15559) before ‘biology’ (#6746) or ‘physics’ (#4543) and definitely before ‘philosophy’ (#2821).
Brevity is possibly wit: Overheard in NY - One Sentence
Witty and thankfully not brief comic/graphic novel (the only one I have ever liked, so this is high praise): Platinum Grit - and by the same people of wit (though not a comic): Poke the Bunny. You really should.
Who Killed Bambi? Art blog finding all those out there pushing the bounds of death and life.
Japan is good for so many things: Trends in Japan is full of products and ideas. Currently #1 on my wishlist for ridiculous things (which is my normal wishlist btw) is a Homestar Pro (no not that homestar) PERSONAL PLANETARIUM. I’m from NY. I have to drive like 4 hours to see stars otherwise.
On the topic of Japan Ping Mag is worth a look. It’s a Tokyo based design magazine.
And because you should always end with a bang, the Superest is my new favorite fun blog. It’s superhero competition with ‘The overprotective parent’ being vanquished by ‘Doug the Slacker Next Door’ who was vanquished by ‘The Charismatic Recruiter’, etc.
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10.25.07
Posted in internet, marketing, motivation, products at 12:01 am by nogre
Y’all should check out Spoonbuzz. It’s a blog dedicated to marketing in the best possible way: making your vision of yourself and your world a reality. I guess the way I think of it is a cross between motivational speaking and down and dirty marketing advice from a ‘I want to be in marketing for the next 40 years’ guy. And that is a direct quote because Josh is a buddy of mine. So go to his blog and sign up for the rss feed.
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