‘Nothing Profound’

(self portrait in Hawaii, February 2010)

Introduction
What's this site all about?

Hello! My name is Kyle D.P. Ross; I am an eccentric traveller and the inventor of the Marmite-&-hummus sandwich. This is my Web site; it is now called ‘Nothing Profound’. I started this whole thing because it seems like I answer the same questions over and over again, so why not just put it on the internet and then just give people the URL? Pretty damned clever, if I may say so myself.

Who Am I?
So, I get some e-mails about FAQ and so forth and people seem to wonder what I'm like and whatnot ... but, rather than say things about myself, I thought I'd say what other people think of me.

Anonymous Ex-Girlfriends
‘I really started off good being your friend, but sometimes hormones can't be helped ... You're selfish and mean, but I really like you and you're cute.’

‘I hope that you will die ... slowly and painfully.’

‘You are sensitive and hot.’

‘Kyle, you really annoy me.’

Friends
‘You and the rest of the cru are awesome.’–B.Matthew

‘You are a really bad person.’–M.zalewski

‘You have forgotten all my obvious faults ... I guess that's why I call you 'Sweetness'’–C.Bello

‘Kyle is great. He's completely irrational, but makes the most sense out of just about any human being i know ... Kyle is a super-hero of a friend, if you can manage to put up with his madness.’–S.Fallier

‘You're a huge nerd who is totally inept socially, but sometimes you say the most brilliant, funny, insightful things and it makes me forget how much an asshole you are.’–Shawn

‘Kyle is starting to look like the living dead!’–G.Hamon

‘You are a motherfucking well-dressed sweetheart!’–H.Hammarström

‘The brain is on holiday, but the mouth is working overtime.’–Utter

‘I tip my hat to you, sir.’–W.J.Ross, my father

‘You're the Fred Astaire of computer science.’–M.Fjeld

‘You're priceless.’–S.Dean

Okay, Maybe One or Two from Me
‘I'm not wise, I'm not rich, and I sure as hell ain't pretty, but I'm the luckiest sonofabitch ever to walk the face of the earth and you can quote me on that one.’

‘I am the last ray of the setting sun.’

‘My life is like a joke without a punchline.’

‘Invent your own truth.’

‘It's time to shine.’

Featured Image
I have a rather large collection of images—people, machines, nature, art, etc.—and I thought it might be nice to share some sort of interesting picture from my archives.

britishAirways1947

Air travel certainly has changed. This photograph from a British Overseas Airways (later merged with British European Airways to form BA) is from a late 1940s ‘Monarch’-class trans-Atlantic flight aboard a Boeing 377 ‘Stratocruiser’. Apparently, the aeroplane had a lounge, beds, ‘dressing rooms’, and—if other images that I have seen are reliable—gourmet food. As can be seen in this image, the fuselage was laid out in two levels (here is the spiral stair that joins the two; I can only envision trying to make my way down clutching the rail during unexpected turbulence!). If the estimate that I have seen is correct, this plane carried just over fifty passengers. I can't work out the price of a flight—this doesn't seem to be one of the ‘talking points’ on the adverts; no, this was a flight for people interested in ‘luxury, service, speed’.

Praise for this Site
I periodically receive e-mails from people who have liked the site; I thought I'd post a few of them ... I haven't received any ‘I hate your site’ e-mails, but, if I ever do I'll consider a ‘Bad Crap People Say About This Site’— section.

‘Interesting site—lots of content. I really like the bits on new technology.’–Sev

‘Your web site is ... wonderfully and oddly entertaining.’–S.Falier

‘I'm a complete stranger who came across your web page because it's part of my job to sneak around the internet looking for talent. Needless to say I got sucked in.’–M.Spencer

‘Your webpage is very popular with some of my friends ... I sent it to a couple and they were all pretty impressed so a couple send them to other friends and so on.’–S.Mehrabi

‘I must say, your web-site is pretty cool.’–S.d'Souza

‘I love it.’–N.Rao

‘Great site my good man.’–guy who e-mailed me but didn't leave his name

‘I enjoyed your website. Great stuff.’–C.R.Swift

No less than eighty per cent of unicorns surveyed visit this site compulsively. This is a fact.

Words of Wisdom
Here are some quotes from assorted sources—news sources, friends, me, etc.—that I thought people might enjoy or think funny or learn something from.

‘The first follower is what transforms a lone nut into a leader.’–D.Silvers

‘The world is a small village.’–H.Hilal

‘Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction.’–E.F.Schumacher

‘If you don't contradict yourself, that's probably because you are not saying much.’–J.Ortega-y-Gasset

‘We are at a point where we either can control the world for ourselves and make things better for ourselves and hope that other people see that betterment and choose to join us or we can choose to ride along with our fellow zombies into an apocalypse that's already here.’–J.Spirko

‘The good times travelling always reach an end, but we live with the hope that they'll some day return.’–K.D.P.Ross

‘Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?’–Juvenal

‘I'm wearing sunscreen on a cloudy day ... If that's not optimism, I don't know what is’–K.D.P.Ross

‘When we are no longer able to change the situation ... we are challenged to change ourselves.’–V.Frankl

‘Freedom is a myth.’–P.McGoohan

‘Better a goat that can give milk than a cow that cannot.’–Estonian proverb

‘Esse est percipi.’–G.Berkeley

‘Society is a foolish juror.’–M.B.Eddy

‘Being willing is not enough; we must do.’–L.da Vinci

‘To be is to be the value of a bound variable.’–W.V.Quine

‘No one really belongs anywhere; that is why we have legs.’–E.Hernandez

Films I've Watched Recently
Many people seem to think that there aren't any films worth watching; I disagree. Here are a few of the films that I've watched or rewatched recently ... with ‘yay / meh / boo’ analysis.

The Big Lebowski (J.Coen and E.Coen) yay yay yay
The Book of Eli (A.Hughes and A.Hughes) boo
Crimes of the Past (G.Bennett) notSure
An Education (L.Scherfig) yay
The Hangover (T.Phillips) yay
Iron Man (J.Favreau) yay
Iron Man 2 (J.Favreau) notSure
The Road (J.Hillcoat) notSure
Surregates (J.Mastow) yay
Sweet Smell of Success (A.MacKendrick) yay

News
Some notes about what's going on with my life, my travels, and my less-geeky hobbies.

Status on Facebook:
K.D.P.Ross

Travel Plans (15 February 2010):
Travel plans are in the works for mid-May through late August. I'll be heading south again; further details to come as they are decided. I am very much looking forward to getting out of the States!

‘He Just Smiled and Gave Me a Vegemite Sandwich’ (25 March 2010):
I am extremely pleased to finally announce that I will be travelling to Australia for the winter (or, as it's known in the Northern Hemisphere: summer) to work on a small sustainable farm in New South Wales. I have been working on plans related to this, in some way or another, for the better part of nine months. My visa application was accepted last month, and I have been trying to work out solutions to an incompatible set of constraints related to where and when I will be since then; tonight, I finally purchased (extremely long) flights (I'm already feeling guilty about the immense amount of fuel and the estimated 5,7 tonnes of carbon involved.). Further details to come.

Off to Oz (12 May 2010):
I actually depart in a few days, but I am not anticipating spending much of that time updating my Web site. I dread the long flights, but this is the price that we pay to travel distances that would have taken weeks by ship. The plan is that I will live and work on a 14-acre farm that primarily grows produce distributed via a CSA scheme. My understanding is that Mark, who owns and runs the farm, studied directly with Bill Mollison. As I wrote to Mark in one of the early e-mails that I sent to him: ‘I am looking for[ward to] an experience that will help me to understand what is involved in establishing and maintaining a permaculture system ... to grow in experience with various tools and techniques, to increase my agricultural literacy ..., to work hard and get dirty, to face interesting challenges, and to be among people who share my passion and interest for growing (and cooking and eating!) responsibly- and honestly-produced food.’ See you in a while!

No More Twitter (11 May 2010):
Because of the addition of sponsored nonsense (i.e., adverts), I will no longer be using Twitter. This was certainly not a terribly surprising change: I know that everybody is in favour of ‘monetisation’ (e.g., Hulu), but I have little interest in using such services. I don't understand why it is seen as acceptable to change the nature of such services: It is not cool—to use the parlance of our times—to change a free service to a paid one or an advert-free service to a sponsored one. Twitter was useful to me precisely because it was free and without adverts; now, it is not. Goodbye.

Yeast Makes a Good Friend (18 January 2010):
Some time ago, Michael D. Adams suggested the question: ‘What skills should a well-rounded person have?’ Among other things, I came to the conclusion that baking bread ought to be part of any self-respecting person's repertoire. For that and several other reasons, I've undertaken a series of experiments making my own bread (the image to the right is not the result of these efforts; my loaves are not quite so impressive, yet.) So, recently, I have tested assorted recipes—unlike cooking, it seems that combining somewhat-random things together is not the correct approach to baking. My constraints on the project are twofold: Firstly, the ingredients must be yeast, salt, flour, and water (a small amount of cornmeal as a release agent, a bit of oil to prevent the dough sticking to bowls, etc. are allowable, too). –and–Secondly, no fancy equipment is allowed: The recipes must rely only on a traditional ‘batterie de cuisine’ (no electric toys, no baking stones or proofing baskets, no exotic dough whisks, etc.).

Most of what I have tried relies on the ‘no-knead’ method: Time accomplishes all of the ‘hard’ (apparently-gluten-related) work that is otherwise done via kneading. Also eliminated: Proofing the yeast (apparently, commercially-available yeast is reliable enough that this step is obsolete). My more recent attempts have involved making a large quantity of dough (about enough for three or four loaves of bread), storing this in the refrigerator, and then pulling off a bit to bake when I want fresh bread. This is nice in that the flour-flies-everywhere step of making the dough—and the consequent washing up—is done once, rather than each time, minimising the amount of cleaning involved. The bread that I've produced isn't quite perfect, but I'm reasonably satisfied that progress is being made. Next, I'll have to give the more traditional kneading-based process a go—that and keeping a pet sourdough culture!

Bloomington Beastie (13 March 2010):
I have been intrigued by the idea (and taste!) of sougdough for a long time. So, it was only a matter of time before I started my own culture. The surprising bit—at least during this attempt—was the ease with which it is possible to capture airborne yeast and have the culture bubbling ‘happily’ (although, it did take almost a week of daily feedings to get there). In honour of the town that ‘birthed’ it, I've named my culture (pictured, relaxing in the kitchen in its home jar) ‘Bloomington Beastie’. I've only made one loaf of bread—a whole-wheat-white-wheat mix—so far; it tastes quite good, although there were some textural problems with the dough, which made it a rather tricky to work with. Clearly, I've not yet quite worked out how to adapt a recipe calling for use of commercial yeast to sougdough (i.e., How much water and flour does one unit starter replace?).

Contact Info
If you want to contact me (and you know that you do).

e-mail: kylerossgmxnet (not checked frequently), kdprossgmailcom (work-related mails only, please) [1]
Facebook: Kdp Ross [2]
mobile phone: +1 206 866 5505 [3] [4] [5]

[1] - If I've given you one of my other Gmail addresses, please use that. In theory, I am available on Google chat for that address on my phone.
[2] - If I know you, please send me a friend request!
[3] - Please don't ring me up if I don't know you; that's creepy! (–and– I won't answer.)
[4] - Please do send SMS's to this number; I will (probably) receive them (via Google Voice).
[5] - I will not have phone access for the next few months; there *is* a possibility, however, that I will receive SMS's.

Everything on this site is copylefted. Use it, mock it, whatever. I'd ask that you link to this site if you decide to take any major portion of the content. A ‘citation’ for this site could be something like:
<a href=‘http://osl.iu.edu/~kyross/’>"Nothing Profound"</a>

Please also feel free to use this logo for the link:
linkImage

Image Disclaimer
Any and all of the images on this page or anywhere else on this web-site may (or may not) have been tweaked, cropped, adjusted, edited, etc. to my liking (so long as the general meaning is preserved) and are intended to represent the surrealism of the world that I perceive rather then any kind of objective reality.

Privacy Disclaimer
Anonymous visitor statistics are collected by Woopra so that I can see which bits of the site are viewed, etc. No personal information (to the best of my knowledge) is collected.

Towelie says ‘Don't forget to bring a towel.’.

This page was generated by WebGen on phoenix900 on Tue May 11 12:14:32 EDT 2010 (last edited: 2010-05-11).