February 2005 Archives
Here are some of my most recent creations, they are still quite wet and haven't finished drying/shrinking yet. They should be ready in a few days.
These are dry, they came off the wheel a few days ago and have been almost completed. I think I would still like to dip some of them in glaze to make them really smooth, but they truely look better in person than they do in these images, the flash catches every defect, got to love technology right?
I would like to appologize to anyone who has ever had contact with me that has been hurt by my stupidity, ignorance, insensitivity or general selfishness. I only recently realized how damaging my brief contact with the world has been. I have no mountaintop to retreat to, so I don't know what i'll do to stop further hurt from occuring. Once again, im sorry for the pain I have caused.
On June 30, 2005 the .NET Top Level domain registry agreement between ICANN and Verisign will effectively terminate. I have been watching the proccess off and on, staying informed, but not getting involved. This change is so different from the .ORG transfer of several years ago. With that transfer there was a specially created organization (PIR) under the guidance of a trusted internet authority (ISOC) who was almost certain to win the appointment.
The reassignment of .NET will be a much more major issue. The primary factors involved aren't relevant to the operation of the TLD though. The issue of focus for this fight amoung potential registries is the cost of registration per domain. I personally think that the issue should be the amount that ICANN can trust the operator and the amount that the operator respects ICANN and IETF. The TLD registry function has become too much of a bussiness, it really shouldn't be. The operator functions used to be totally non-commerical, until the creation of InterNIC. InterNIC was created because it had to exist to keep the number of registrations in .COM, .NET and .ORG to a managable number and to fund a more stable root level TLD DNS system. Once the Internet reached a level where it was no longer just some noble experiment that was being funded by the government and educational institutions, it basicly became responsible for its own funding. During the change from the open registry (pre-incorperated InterNIC) to the days of InterNIC and Network Solutions one TLD was spared the evil fate, .US, also reffered to as US-DOM. The .US TLD was adopted and operated by Dr. Jon Postel from its conception in 1985 to 1998, when Dr. Postel died. During that time there were no registration fees in .US and everything was conducted on a very personal level. When Dr. Postel died ISI continued on with his tradition until March 2001 when Verisign was appointed to succed them, in an attempt to make the TLD more widely used. On October 29, 2001 the Department of Commerce expanded the namespace to allow commerical registrations in the TLD, however, the locality namespace was preserved, allowing the tradition to continue. There is room for commericalism in the operation of a TLD, but it cant be the only reason for being a registry operator and be able to do it effectively. Verisign-GRS has burned too many bridges to retain its position, which is the reason for the selection proccess occuring instead of the registry agreement simply being renewed quietly. The application proccess for the new registry position has gotten quite ugly in the past few weeks, every applicant (with the exception of Afilias, "the Irish applicant") is using the application forums as a place to mudsling against the other applicants. Aflias is currently my choice for .NET successor for that very reason. Judging from the letters to ICANN from various forces in the domain universe, the general concensus is that DENIC is the prefered successor, although I haven't seen why yet. I can't tell from the poor quality of the letters (see http://www.icann.org/tlds/dotnet-reassignment/dotnet-correspondence.htm) what the reason for this overwhelming support is for DENIC. Anyone who is for keeping Verisign wants to do so due to the simplification of the proccess by not breaking up the COM/NET team. I've got big news for those people, the team was COM/NET/ORG, and if one member can be removed, so can the others. On the other hand, it is very possile that COM/NET will be back together in 2007 when COM is considered for redelegation.
Many people are probably wondering why I care about this issue so much, well, its very simple: Chris and I both own three domains in the .NET TLD. I want to see the TLD treated well and operated with dignity. I don't feel that Verisign has done very well at that. Sometimes things just need to change...
Here it is! The 3rd throw on the wheel, and it came out decently. It isn't perfect, but im happy with it.
My perfectionistic nature finally caused me problems tonight. In an attempt to create a ceramic piece on the wheel tonight I managed to make an almost complete piece collapse into absolute ruin. The piece was taking the shape of a bowl, and getting to be almost completely symetrical and smooth, except for a small defect on the inside, one of the interior walls was a little lumpy near the base. As a result of smoothing that wall down to match the others, the adjacent wall collapsed. This occuring nearly brought me to tears immediately, but I toughened up and started looking for positive things in the failure. I can say one thing for sure about the piece, I had it PERFECTLY centered on the wheel head (the remains of the collapsed piece served to prove this). In addition, the piece had a nearly perfect base (roughly half an inch), which was holding to the wheel unquestionably. For the night I have given up on the wheel, but I plan to work on it some more during the weekend, if I can get that close to having a piece I am happy with then it is definately worth trying again. I have only recently (in the past year or so) become a perfectionist, but it is having a horrible impact on my life. I need to find the right balanace between perfectionist and slacker. It is a tough internal conflict.
After the collapse I questioned why I actually enjoy working with the wheel and clay in general and I couldn't find any answer that followed a logical path of any type, but I did find an answer that was more of an emotional path. My grandmother and I used to work with my old pottery wheel a lot every summer and we had several nice creations, so there is a link there, but there is more to it than just those memories. I love working with my hands, even though recently I have become very "clean natured". I used to maintain a decent small garden every year, but haven't done it seriously since 1993, when my grandfather sold his store. I have had gardens since then and done some stuff with my parents's garden, but nothing like what I used to do. I have intentions of having a garden this year, I am focusing on herbs and stuff though, so I can have some stuff that I don't have to worry about preparing garden soil for too much (Herbs for me are a dish-garden event). Sticking my hands into wet clay is a very good feeling for me. It gives me a sense of control as I direct the clay in how it is to act, however, the clay gives a constant reminder that too much force cant be used, or collapse will occur. Balance, interaction and focus are all required during the ceramic creation proccess, or collapse will occur (Notice a reoccuring theme here). I am realizeing at this point that because tonight's creation wasn't a total failure I am regretting disposing of it. The piece had a failed wall, but the wall was still intact and the other half of the piece was still standing, and was nearly perfect. The only reason I could even call tonight's end result a failure is because nothing physically exists as evidence to what went RIGHT tonight. My first instinct with an errored piece seems to be to lift the walls of it and impload the piece back into a ball (even though the clay needs to be reworked before its next project). I made many advancements in my abilities with the new wheel tonight, and with that fact I am happy. Maybe at some point I can train myself to not be so perfectionistic. In addition, I need to get to the point where when something happens that takes the piece off course, I can just stop the wheel and accept whatever final output occurs.
Overall tonight, nothing physically lost, nothing physically gained, but a lot learned.
The identity crisis with one of my courses just got more complicated...
When the course was still being planned it was called INFO2231, but then was posted to the registrar as ITCS2231 (by the ITCS department), and I enrolled in the course. For this semester the course is listed only as ITCS2231, but for the summer it is listed as INFO2231, with a cross listing of ITCS1214, meaning that ITCS1214, INFO2231 and ITCS2231 are essentially the same course. The course itself evolved from some internal issues between the Belk College of Business (COB) and the College of Information Technology, department of Computer Science. The COB decided that the CS department didn't teach programming in a way that was effective. The ITCS department responded with a request for the COB to rewrite the curriculum to the way they wanted, the course essentially was the same, except for sucking all of the fun out of the course. ITCS accepted the changes, but assigned the course to Sara Scott, the only ITCS instructor who has never been called "mean" or "difficult" by anyone, and who makes the course fun anyway. As of this point the new course has NOT been written to any catalog or course description list in the University, which makes me question whether or not either department will declare it as existing, or if it will fade away with no record, and things will continue with ITCS1214 as the introductory programming course, but offered with VBA instead of Java.
Fortunately for me, this change of opinion of ITCS2231 will result in it being able to count as ITCS1214 for me and I won't have to take ITCS1214 as an ITIS (COIT: Information Systems) major.
note: ITCS/INFO 2231 is "Introduction to Business Programming" and ITCS1214 is "Introduction to Computer Science".
I would like to start this entry by stating the following: At this time I am retracting my hatred of mathmatics.
My previous hatred for math was based on a predisposition to it being a foriegn concept due to 3 levels of Algebra in high school. My predisposition was then linked to the instructor, Mrs. Diane Ward. Mrs. Ward has a great personality and is a good math teacher to most, but it just didn't work with me. The predisposition likely caused me to fall off the horse for second time in AP Statistics when I allowed myself to become discouraged. I must have learned something from the course, I managed to pass the Advanced Placement exam.
I don't know why, but for some reason this evening I decided to complete some Calculus homework that is due next Wednesday. The homework covers limits and the concept of handling infinity in a limit situation. I noticed after I completed it that I used some of the concepts that I learned in logic (primarily orderly execution of a formal method) in completing the assignment. Either Jae Woo Jeong is a great instructor, or Calculus is easy. I still don't want to try the other version of Calculus (for engineers), but I feel a little better about my math skills now. I won't know until final grades are posted whether or not I made a mistake by circumventing Campus Pipeline's registration system validations. At the moment I think I made the right decision, but it is still possible that it was a mistake.
Now off to do Accounting homework, or maybe just read a little Plato... either way, there is educational stuff to be done. (ok, how many of you know that I am going to run off and work on GITI or something?)
I just completed my first thow on the new wheel, it went fairly well. I had minor issues getting started on the new wheel during the centering phase. The bat came off of its mount (I guess I didn't have it secured well). I considered removing the bat all together (as is reccomended when getting adjusted to the wheel), but the bat was already coverd in clay debris, and the bat mounts would have to be removed, so I reattached the bat and continued from there. Next time I think I will start bat-less. The base wheel-head itself is quite nice and I don't see any problem with using it without a bat, except for the clean-up thing. I like being able to remove a bat to clean it.
The end piece wasn't exactly the greatest thing on earth, but perfection wasn't my goal on this first throw. The goal on this throw was to become familar with this new wheel. All of the things I encountered with the wheel tonight I can adapt to and adjust for, with the immediate exception of the wheel making my table wobble. I need to seek a more stable structure to put the wheel on. The wheel itself only weighs 27lbs, but yet has a centering capacity of over 25 lbs, so it really relies on the structure it is seated on for stability. There are some legs availible for the wheel that I have given thought to, only problem there is that I would have to sit while working with the wheel, which would require me getting a potter's stool (because none of my furniture sits at the right height), so there is a whole mess of things required to go that route.
In addition to the wobble, there was a slight defect in the clay, which had I been more thorough in the preperation of the clay, would not have existed (or would have been detected). The defect was in the form of a patch of slightly course clay. There was also a defect in the final piece because I moved to quickly to bring the piece to its final height. This resulted in a slightly fat base.
Even though the piece didn't turn out that well I will post some pics of the finished piece once I do the completion prep and it is fully dry. I will also at that time post some pics of my previous works, both wheel and hand-built. It should be no suprise to anyone who knows me well that the most round and most uniform piece was created as a hand-built piece from a square block of clay (as opposed to the standard ball).
I should be ready to post in about 2 or 3 days, depending on whether or not I decide to glaze. I have no intentions of attempting to get this piece fired.
