Kyle Barnhart grew up in Panama City Beach, Florida: The Redneck Rivera of the Gulf Coast. He graduated from JR Arnold High School back in 2005 and immediately high-tailed it to Houston, Texas, to attend Rice University. He enjoys food and quantum mechanics and was the 2009-2010 co-editor of the Rice Thresher's Backpage. He has worked as a community development assistant at a local open educational resources web site, a web developer, IT computer-mover and freelance writer.
Posts
All Comments
I've been busying myself with a not-so-short story that I hope to post soon. It's about Facebook.
In the meantime, you can either take this seriously or cash it in for its fully entertaining value.
[David Lynch Launches Transcendental TV Site | The Underwire from Wired.com]
I love USA Today; they are a model newspaper. The news and content of any given issue are always more informative and upbeat than the next story you might read in your local rag (hint: it's about a double-suicide car wreck abortion that caused a Republican senator to viciously assault a 12-year-old page and the DOW to drop 500 points). USA Today is a daily pick-me-up for intercontinental travelers wasting away in a world of plastic silverware and business class blues, and they have my deepest appreciation. Plus, there's a sort of campy charm to those blue paper-dispensers that you find in diners, Best Westerns, and airport terminals across this great nation.
In today's edition, I came across a little gem that mentions Houston's rising rate of police force applications as part of an overall national trend. How many? Two hundred more applications per month in Houston since late last year.
I'm a bit confused about how this makes me feel, but I'm so intrigued by this flux of applications that I had to mention it. On one hand, it's encouraging to think that HPD can finally stop hiring every former high school quarterback with a superiority complex-- instead, they can choose from a pool of applicants to fill their beat force with educated, rational, cool individuals. Of course, the article also mentions that ~50% of applicants fail their FBI background check. Maybe we're in for a lot more of the same old, same old.
In any case, it's never a good reflection on the institution of the police force when it takes a global economic downturn to get people excited about the profession.
[Police agencies buried in resumes - USATODAY.com]
There is no power at my office right now.
At roughly 1pm a taletale thud resonated throughout the building, selfishly denying the entire floor of tasty blue electricity. Over the years, I’ve become acclimated to the otherwise jarring transition from sitting in bright, white fluorescent light to a fumbling around a pitch-black abyss illuminated by the eerie glow of laptop monitors and back again. Call me a veteran of 21 long, hot, wet hurricane seasons.
It’s a strange day to be in dark—the very last day before Cristina, Louie, Augusta, Flowers, Korey, Zach, Sam, and I all high-tail it to Fredericksburg, Shiner, and the other popular places to consume culture in east/central Texas. I’d been counting the seconds until happy hour since I got into the office this morning, but now I’m watching the tiny little battery icon in my taskbar slowly, slowly deplete itself. And when I finally run out of juice on the Funputer, I’m slinging my office wares over my shoulder and saying sianarya until March 7.
There are ten different APCs in my office, all beeping and booping and sounding like an impromptu Hot Chip cover. It’s only taken an hour for the floor to rise about ten degrees. Fuck you, Houston February. Everyone in my office is slowly going insane without the bone-chilling frost of the air conditioner sputtering out of the ceiling. Right now they’re arguing about which among them is the office Fire Martial, and what the chain of command is after the Vice Fire Martial, and I think there might be blood if I don’t step in and restrain them.
26%... and the hits just keep on coming.
Oh, speaking of Spring Break…
Shit, the thing was lying to me. I’ve only got 5%. SAVE AND CLOSE, SAVE AND CLOSE!
...Nevermind. It came back.
This is just flat-out nerdy. I've been trying to come to terms with Linux ever since I took a job where 30% of my day is spent in a PuTTy session. I've always wanted to use Linux if for no other reason than to impress people by doing everything from the command line, LIKE MORPHEUS. Most of the people here at the office check their e-mail and edit code straight from the shell.
Anyways, today I found out about Lynx-- a text-based browser at my disposal-- and decided to give it a spin. It's awesome... I CAN THINK SO CLEARLY WITHOUT ALL THE VISUAL CLUTTER. Above is this site in Lynx. But yeah, okay friends, disown me or whatever.
