RanTom Thoughts/20070620 Aural Gratification and other stories - Revision history

Tometheus at 03:54, 4 September 2007

2007-09-04T03:54:39Z

Tometheus: moving sketch

2007-07-05T03:44:19Z

moving sketch

Tometheus at 03:19, 22 June 2007

2007-06-22T03:19:38Z

Tometheus: /* Other Stories */

2007-06-22T03:15:52Z

Tometheus: /* Addendum */

2007-06-22T03:13:37Z

Addendum

Tometheus: /* Other Stories */ Addendum

2007-06-22T03:08:32Z

Tometheus at 17:19, 21 June 2007

2007-06-21T17:19:24Z

Tometheus at 04:40, 21 June 2007

2007-06-21T04:40:40Z

Tometheus: /* Aural Gratification */

2007-06-21T04:34:24Z

Aural Gratification

Tometheus: /* Aural Gratification */

2007-06-21T04:31:49Z

Aural Gratification

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 --[[Image:Tometheus-sig.png]] [[User:Tometheus|Tometheus]] <small>([[User_talk:Tometheus|talk]])</small> 22:08, 21 June 2007 (CDT)
-[[Category:RanTom Thoughts]]
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 ===Aural Gratification===
 </noinclude>
 You know the cliché:  Guys are more visually oriented than women.  However, just because it's a cliché doesn't mean it doesn't have some truth.  I know this will be old news to a lot of guys.  Consider this a primer for my female friends.  Call it ''Tom's Manifesto on the Visual''.  Or not, it's up to you.  I won't pressure you.<noinclude>
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 [[Image:2007-06-03@19-59_stump.jpg|thumb|right|121px|Stump in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moraine_Hills_State_Park Moraine Hills State Park].  No sounds here, just visuals.  Where did the [[RanTom Thoughts/20070525 Nymph-o-mania!|cicadas]] go?  Oh no!  They must be plotting their final onslaught!]]
-A couple of weeks ago, I rented a car because I needed to take care of my lease, which I couldn't do without one.  I decided to keep it for a week and took a road trip that weekend.  I wanted to catch some raw cicada sounds without city noises around, so I drove north towards a couple of state parks I hadn't been to before.  [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moraine_Hills_State_Park Moraine Hills State Park] was nice.  I ended up taking a 5 mile hike when I started on a half mile trail because it was so nice. Alas, there were no cicadas!  Afterwards I headed up to Chain O'Lakes state park.  I was very disappointed with it since the park only barely touches a single lake on the corner of the park.  (You can actually see the lakes better from the roads outside of the park.)  One thing I wanted to do was get back to some sketching.  Unfortunately, I left my sketchbook at home.  Afterwards I headed up towards Wisconsin, however I did still get some sketching in.  I haven't sketched humans since I got a mental block on them in high school.  So I decided to do some ''research'' and went to a "gentleman's club" on my way back.  I did a few Napkin Sketches like the one above.  (Ha!  And you thought the earlier references to nude women didn't have contextual relevance, didn't you? :P )
+A couple of weeks ago, I rented a car because I needed to take care of my lease, which I couldn't do without one.  I decided to keep it for a week and took a road trip that weekend.  I wanted to catch some raw cicada sounds without city noises around, so I drove north towards a couple of state parks I hadn't been to before.  [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moraine_Hills_State_Park Moraine Hills State Park] was nice.  I ended up taking a 5 mile hike when I started on a half mile trail because it was so nice. Alas, there were no cicadas!  Afterwards I headed up to Chain O'Lakes state park.  I was very disappointed with it since the park only barely touches a single lake on the corner of the park.  (You can actually see the lakes better from the roads outside of the park.)  One thing I wanted to do was get back to some sketching.  Unfortunately, I left my sketchbook at home.  Afterwards I headed up towards Wisconsin, however I did still get some sketching in.  I haven't sketched humans since I got a mental block on them in high school.  So I decided to do some ''research'' and went to a "gentleman's club" on my way back.  I did a few Napkin Sketches like the one to the right.  (Ha!  And you thought the earlier references to nude women didn't have contextual relevance, didn't you? :P )
-At work, we have new students at both places I work, so part of my time has been in showing them how to use the software we use.  Speaking of jobs, I've been cut back to 1/4 time at Argonne until the end of the fiscal year since someone (who's not working on the project) charged over 100 hours of senior staff time to the project I'm on, which means they no longer have funding for me.  Fortunately, I have the work at Unilab to take up the slack.  It does mean I have less free time since I spend more time traveling, and it means I can't be on the 'net as often.
+[[Image:20070603_OTB sketches_2.jpg|thumb|right|'Research' sketch.  And no, I didn't say 'oral', I said 'aural'.]]
 I finished reading The God Delusion recently.  I'll post a review on it sometime soon.  I also posted a [[Review/Lady in the Water|review of the movie Lady in the Water]] the other day.  Currently I'm reading the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elric Elric Saga].

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 ==[[RanTom Thoughts/20070620 Aural Gratification and other stories|Aural Gratification and other stories]]==
-Let's talk about sex.  No?  OK, maybe not.  How about Politics?  Religion?  Oh right, that's going to be in my review for ''The God Delusion''. Fine, we'll talk about something boring like aural memory.  Maybe I'll let people know what I've been up to lately as well.<noinclude>
+Let's talk about sex.  No?  OK, maybe not.  How about Politics?  Religion?  Oh right, that's going to be in my review for ''The God Delusion''. Fine, we'll talk about something boring like aural memory.  Maybe I'll let people know what I've been up to lately as well.
 ===Aural Gratification===

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 A couple of weeks ago, I rented a car because I needed to take care of my lease, which I couldn't do without one.  I decided to keep it for a week and took a road trip that weekend.  I wanted to catch some raw cicada sounds without city noises around, so I drove north towards a couple of state parks I hadn't been to before.  [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moraine_Hills_State_Park Moraine Hills State Park] was nice.  I ended up taking a 5 mile hike when I started on a half mile trail because it was so nice. Alas, there were no cicadas!  Afterwards I headed up to Chain O'Lakes state park.  I was very disappointed with it since the park only barely touches a single lake on the corner of the park.  (You can actually see the lakes better from the roads outside of the park.)  One thing I wanted to do was get back to some sketching.  Unfortunately, I left my sketchbook at home.  Afterwards I headed up towards Wisconsin, however I did still get some sketching in.  I haven't sketched humans since I got a mental block on them in high school.  So I decided to do some ''research'' and went to a "gentleman's club" on my way back.  I did a few Napkin Sketches like the one above.  (Ha!  And you thought the earlier references to nude women didn't have contextual relevance, didn't you? :P )
-At work, we've had a new student at both places I work, so part of my time has been in showing them how to use the software we use.  Speaking of jobs, I've been cut back to 1/4 time at Argonne until the end of the fiscal year since someone (who's not working on the project) charged over 100 hours of senior staff time to the project I'm on, which means they no longer have funding for me.  Fortunately, I have the work at Unilab to take up the slack.  It does mean I have less free time since I spend more time traveling, and it means I can't be on the 'net as often.
+At work, we have new students at both places I work, so part of my time has been in showing them how to use the software we use.  Speaking of jobs, I've been cut back to 1/4 time at Argonne until the end of the fiscal year since someone (who's not working on the project) charged over 100 hours of senior staff time to the project I'm on, which means they no longer have funding for me.  Fortunately, I have the work at Unilab to take up the slack.  It does mean I have less free time since I spend more time traveling, and it means I can't be on the 'net as often.
 I finished reading The God Delusion recently.  I'll post a review on it sometime soon.  I also posted a [[Review/Lady in the Water|review of the movie Lady in the Water]] the other day.  Currently I'm reading the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elric Elric Saga].
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 ===Addendum===

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 <noinclude>
-====Addendum====
+===Addendum===
-The night before I was to take the car back to the rental location, the front passenger tire went flat on me.  Fortunately I was 2 blocks from a gas station, so I could pull in there and change the tire.  After taking it off, I found that the tread had worn down to the steel belting.  eek.  (Yes I can change a tire.  See, I'm not completely useless!) While changing my tire, I noticed the rental's jack was bent.  I went into the gas station to borrow one and they didn't have one.  I asked a sheriff who was sitting in the neighboring parking lot and he told me that they weren't allowed to carry jacks anymore! (!?!?) I went into an auto parts store in the shopping center and ''they'' didn't have one either!  Doesn't anyone carry jacks anymore???
+*The night before I was to take the car back to the rental location, the front passenger tire went flat on me.  Fortunately I was 2 blocks from a gas station, so I could pull in there and change the tire.  After taking it off, I found that the tread had worn down to the steel belting.  eek.  (Yes I can change a tire.  See, I'm not completely useless!) While changing my tire, I noticed the rental's jack was bent.  I went into the gas station to borrow one and they didn't have one.  I asked a sheriff who was sitting in the neighboring parking lot and he told me that they weren't allowed to carry jacks anymore! (!?!?) I went into an auto parts store in the shopping center and ''they'' didn't have one either!  Doesn't anyone carry jacks anymore???
-This 'break' at Argonne was probably a good thing from a certain point of view.  Work was wearing me out.  I sometimes get up at 6am and don't return home until 10pm.  Working 6 days a week gets old after a while :D
+*This 'break' at Argonne was probably a good thing from a certain point of view.  Work was wearing me out.  I sometimes get up at 6am and don't return home until 10pm.  Working 6 days a week gets old after a while :D
 --[[Image:Tometheus-sig.png]] [[User:Tometheus|Tometheus]] <small>([[User_talk:Tometheus|talk]])</small> 22:08, 21 June 2007 (CDT)

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 I finished reading The God Delusion recently.  I'll post a review on it sometime soon.  I also posted a [[Review/Lady in the Water|review of the movie Lady in the Water]] the other day.  Currently I'm reading the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elric Elric Saga].
-''[[Talk:RanTom Thoughts/20070620 Aural Gratification and other stories|Discuss!]] Tell me what you've been up to.''</noinclude>
+''[[Talk:RanTom Thoughts/20070620 Aural Gratification and other stories|Discuss!]] Tell me what you've been up to.''
 <includeonly>[[RanTom Thoughts/20070620 Aural Gratification and other stories|more >>]] (Some mild adult content)
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 [[Category:RanTom Thoughts]]
 </noinclude>

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 Don't get me wrong, I love sounds and music.  I think most visually oriented people have a certain -- ''tolerance'' -- for music that other people don't have.  Music just stays newer for them.  I know I can listen to a single CD repeatedly much longer than others can tolerate without getting bored.  I just can never get interested in discussions ''about'' music, such as in DVD commentaries about a film's music.  (How many movies are there in which you can hear some composer say something like "This was a very emotional scene.  It was very tricky to score."  Where's the originality?)  On the other hand, I love commentaries on foley editing.  Does that seem like a contradiction?  Not really.  Foley enhances the visual.  Foley effects very specifically relate to the visual images.  Music scores, on the other hand, can be completely disengaged from the visual content.  (It's known as a Soundtrack CD.)  (Incidentally, this is what started today's RanTom Thought.  I was watching the special features on a DVD last night and almost fell asleep during the discussion of the score.)
-I have a theory that most 'educated' people tend to be aurally oriented.  Your first years of school are visually oriented, focusing on reading and writing.  However, higher education is oriented more towards audio.  Many professors teach strictly by lecturing.  If you can't learn from a class lecture, there is simply no book to fall back on.  They use the excuse that there are no books covering their specific topic sufficiently, so you must take careful class notes or die.    This can be a hard experience for someone visually oriented, thus making higher education tough for eidetic individuals.  (This is one reason I love subjects in which you can re-derive the content logically with a few key facts / tools.)
+I have a theory that most 'educated' people tend to be aurally oriented.  Your first years of school are visually oriented, focusing on reading and writing.  However, higher education is oriented more towards audio.  Many professors teach strictly by lecturing.  If you can't learn from a class lecture, there is simply no book to fall back on.  They use the excuse that there are no books covering their specific topic sufficiently, so you must take careful class notes or die.    This can be a hard experience for someone visually oriented, thus making higher education tough for eidetic individuals.  (This is one reason I love subjects in which you can re-derive the content logically with a few key facts / tools.)  Also, think about the activities that are typically considered high-brow vs low-brow.  Low-brow activities are generally visual in nature (sports, TV, strip clubs).  High-brow activities are often aural in nature (classical music, lectures, poetry readings).  Of course, there are exceptions (rock concerts, art museums), but those activities often started as one and switched to the other.  (classical music concerts eventually evolved into rock concerts.   Scandalous nude paintings became todays 'high art'.)
 So, if you're a female friend and you're wondering why I don't call as often as I write, just remember it's because I'm visual baby!  :)  On the other hand, I ''do'' like the sound of a female voice -- don't get me wrong.  You'll just stick in my memory longer if you write it down. :D  (Even longer if it includes a nude photo, although I may forget the actual conversation then.  Ok, scratch 'may', try 'probably will'.  Or 'definitely will'.  Mmmmm.. nude women.  What was I talking about?)
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 [[Image:2007-06-03@19-59_stump.jpg|thumb|right|121px|Stump in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moraine_Hills_State_Park Moraine Hills State Park].  No sounds here, just visuals.  Where did the [[RanTom Thoughts/20070525 Nymph-o-mania!|cicadas]] go?  Oh no!  They must be plotting their final onslaught!]]
-A couple of weeks ago, I rented a car because I needed to take care of my lease, which I couldn't do without one.  I decided to keep it for a week and took a road trip that weekend.  I wanted to catch some raw cicada sounds without city noises around, so I drove north towards a couple of state parks I hadn't been to before.  [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moraine_Hills_State_Park Moraine Hills State Park] was nice.  I ended up taking a 5 mile hike when I started on a half mile trail because it was so nice. Alas, there were no cicadas!  Afterwards I headed up to Chain O'Lakes state park.  I was very disappointed with it since the park only barely touches a single lake on the corner of the park.  (You can actually see the lakes better from the roads outside of the park.)  One thing I wanted to do was get back to some sketching.  Unfortunately, I left my sketchbook at home.  Afterwards I headed up towards Wisconsin, however I did still get some sketching in.  I haven't sketched humans since I got a mental block on them in high school.  So I decided to do some ''research'' and went to a "gentleman's club" on my way back.  I did a few Napkin Sketches like the one above.  (Ha!  And you thought the earlier references to nude women didn't have a contextual reference, didn't you? :P )
+A couple of weeks ago, I rented a car because I needed to take care of my lease, which I couldn't do without one.  I decided to keep it for a week and took a road trip that weekend.  I wanted to catch some raw cicada sounds without city noises around, so I drove north towards a couple of state parks I hadn't been to before.  [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moraine_Hills_State_Park Moraine Hills State Park] was nice.  I ended up taking a 5 mile hike when I started on a half mile trail because it was so nice. Alas, there were no cicadas!  Afterwards I headed up to Chain O'Lakes state park.  I was very disappointed with it since the park only barely touches a single lake on the corner of the park.  (You can actually see the lakes better from the roads outside of the park.)  One thing I wanted to do was get back to some sketching.  Unfortunately, I left my sketchbook at home.  Afterwards I headed up towards Wisconsin, however I did still get some sketching in.  I haven't sketched humans since I got a mental block on them in high school.  So I decided to do some ''research'' and went to a "gentleman's club" on my way back.  I did a few Napkin Sketches like the one above.  (Ha!  And you thought the earlier references to nude women didn't have contextual relevance, didn't you? :P )
 At work, we've had a new student at both places I work, so part of my time has been in showing them how to use the software we use.  Speaking of jobs, I've been cut back to 1/4 time at Argonne until the end of the fiscal year since someone (who's not working on the project) charged over 100 hours of senior staff time to the project I'm on, which means they no longer have funding for me.  Fortunately, I have the work at Unilab to take up the slack.  It does mean I have less free time since I spend more time traveling, and it means I can't be on the 'net as often.

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 [[Image:20070603_OTB sketches_2.jpg|thumb|right|'Research' sketch.  Note there's no audio. Could it be that I'm visually oriented?  And no, I didn't say 'oral', I said 'aural'.]]</noinclude>
-You know the cliché:  Guys are more visually oriented than women.  However, just because it's a cliché doesn't mean it doesn't have some truth.  I know to a lot of guys, this will be old news.  Consider this a primer for my female friends.<noinclude>
+You know the cliché:  Guys are more visually oriented than women.  However, just because it's a cliché doesn't mean it doesn't have some truth.  I know this will be old news to a lot of guys.  Consider this a primer for my female friends.  Call it ''Tom's Manifesto on the Visual''.  Or not, it's up to you.  I won't pressure you.<noinclude>
 I am very much visually oriented.  Most of my artwork is visual.  My memory is visual.  I just prefer seeing things to hearing them.
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 I have a theory that most 'educated' people tend to be aurally oriented.  Your first years of school are visually oriented, focusing on reading and writing.  However, higher education is oriented more towards audio.  Many professors teach strictly by lecturing.  If you can't learn from a class lecture, there is simply no book to fall back on.  They use the excuse that there are no books covering their specific topic sufficiently, so you must take careful class notes or die.    This can be a hard experience for someone visually oriented, thus making higher education tough for eidetic individuals.  (This is one reason I love subjects in which you can re-derive the content logically with a few key facts / tools.)
-So, if you're a female friend and you're wondering why I don't call as often as I write, just remember it's because I'm visual baby!  :)  On the other hand, I ''do'' like the sound of a female voice -- don't get me wrong.  You'll just stick in my memory longer if you write it down. :D
+So, if you're a female friend and you're wondering why I don't call as often as I write, just remember it's because I'm visual baby!  :)  On the other hand, I ''do'' like the sound of a female voice -- don't get me wrong.  You'll just stick in my memory longer if you write it down. :D  (Even longer if it includes a nude photo, although I may forget the actual conversation then.  Ok, forget about 'may', try 'probably will'.  Or definitely.)
 ''[[Talk:RanTom Thoughts/20070620 Aural Gratification and other stories|Discuss!]] Tell me what you've been up to.''