scot hacker's foobar blog

I am disgusted and amazed at the Taliban and their intentions to destroy some 2,000 year old statues of The Buddha, 174 feet high and carved into the side of a sandstone cliff in Afghanistan.

The Taliban claim that the statues encourage idolatry and are un-Islamic. So they’re going to rewrite history. They’ve already started blasting at them with rocket launchers, and have chipped away at the heads and feet. It’s like blowing up the Parthenon or the Sphinxes. Human idiocy and arrogance know no bounds. The whole world is against this, but of course they’re not listening, not letting anyone into the site. It’s on their turf, they can do what they want. It’s one of the saddest things I’ve heard in a long time.

Of course, it’s not like they can kill off the buddha spirit. They’ll only make themselves look miserable and pathetic. The whole thing isn’t much different from the Chinese occupation / destruction of Tibet. The world hasn’t done anything to stop that either. Mostly because no oil is involved.

The pressure is intense. The politics make it much worse than it needs to be. Feel like I’m being pulled in two dozen directions at once. And I’ve only got four limbs with which to be pulled. From.

Just watched Requiem for a Dream with Amy… what a heavy way to end the week. What an intense movie. Also one of the most originally shot and edited I can remember seeing, ever. Inspirational in that sense, but if anything has ever sent a successful “don’t play with fire or you might get burned” message, this is it. Also about delusional goals, irrational justifications, and the seductiveness of the rabbit hole. Unh.

It’s funny… I thought I knew everything about the history of Be and BeOS… but I’m learning so much more working where I’m working. Not all of it is stuff I necessarily want to be learning, either. I mean, it’s not like I shun the truth, only that I’m realizing that I’ve only known part of the story, and have been naive in some respects. Won’t say more about that here. Only that I’m feeling a little down on account of having my eyes opened.

Jazz pt. #7 was tonight. WWII, Bird and Diz. Intense and amazing tonight, as every episode has been. Made me realize… if there was a war right now and I got drafted, and they brought the music of the day to the front lines to entertain me, I would curse the stars that it was Ricky Martin and Brittany Spears. 50 years ago, it could have Ellington, or Basie. Amazing that those geniuses *were* the popular music of the day, not some historical curiosities. What has happened to great music? Is it really all but gone?

Still putting off that Byte column. Don’t know why… it’s harder to find the motivation to do these than it used to be, even when things are going well for Be and I should be totally enthusastic, I have trouble whipping up the motivation I used to have.

Looking back, the reason I got into BeOS to begin with was to explore new avenues for creativity. After a while, the cart started coming before the horse, and I found myself more into BeOS itself than in the creative avenues BeOS was supposed to be all about. The religion of it overtook the reality of it. It’s been fun, and still is, but from a certain perspective, it feels like a case of misplaced priorities.

Lately I find myself more and more wanting to get back to the roots of it all… to create, regardless what OS the tools are running on. Face it: Be didn’t come through in that department, and the available Windows tools are just so much more evolved. So if I want to get into indie film making, I’m going to be spending more time in Windows. It’s just an ugly fact of life for me right now.

Fried. Worked 12-14 hour days, three days in a row. Amy returned from Oroville, where she’s been photographing a Chinese Joss House (a temple). s at the Red Tractor, trying to work up the energy now to write my next Byte column. Urgh… I need about a week off.