"Nothing Profound"

(image credit: W.J.Pories)

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

Over 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.

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

‘Time is all we have.’–R.Pausch, during his fight against cancer

‘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

‘Over billions of years, on a unique sphere, chance has painted a thin covering of life—complex, improbable, wonderful and fragile. Suddenly we humans ... have grown in population, technology, and intelligence to a position of terrible power: We now wield the paintbrush.’–P.MacCready

‘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

‘The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.’–H.D.Thoreau

‘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

‘Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.’–quoted in e-mail from N.Rao

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.

Avatar (J.Cameron) yay
The Boys Are Back (S.Hicks) notSure
Death at a Funeral (F.Oz) notSure
Half Nelson (R.Fleck) yay
The Lovely Bones (P.Jackson) notSure [1]
Moon (D.Jones) yay
My One and Only (R.Lonchraine) boo
Serenity (J.Whedon) boo boo boo
Sherlock Holmes (G.Richie) yay
Up In the Air (J.Reitman) yay

[1] - I'm largely unimpressed with this film because—unsurprisingly—it fails to match the utter genius of the book on which it is based. Don't waste your time watching it; read the novel: It's not quite ‘Lolita’, but it's decidedly one of the best-written that I've ever read.

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

What Am I Doing? (live from Twitter):

Follow me on Twitter. Do it. Do it!

Status on Facebook:
K.D.P.Ross

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!

Trying to Make Sense of Things (01 August 2009):
I am now back in the States over a month, but I've still much to understand about the experiences in which I was party and participant during my tenure in Central America. What was intended to be a temporary change of occupation and environment has, indeed, been something quite different, something greater. The person who arrived in Costa Rica in mid-January no longer exists: I am the object of a profound transformation, what I have heard called a ‘quantum change’—a massive reörganisation of values and a fundamental and pervasive alteration of perspective. I am not prepared just now to articulate the nature or scope of this shift, but I suspect that it will redefine the course that I shall follow during my remaining days on Earth.

I appreciate the support, interest, patience, and encouragement from everyone whose life I touch, and I regret that the journey on which I have embarked will likely leave many disappointed and confused. However, I have but one life to explore, to ponder, and—most importantly—to act in order to mould the small part of my surroundings that I am capable of influencing into something better than it was on my arrival, in keeping with a somewhat more self-accountable version of the Athenian Oath. As Frankl, one of the thinkers who has influenced most markedly my understanding of what existence means, advised: ‘Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now.’. We must take enormous risk in order to act in accord with our most-deeply-held convictions, even when this means stepping away from both the common path and the ‘one less travelled’ to make one's own way. As Keller said: ‘Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.’.

Naturally, I am a product of influences above both my control and my understanding, but I aspire to reach beyond the limiting frames of reference in which I have been conditioned to operate, to find new terms in which to define my self and my narrative. Mine promise to be either quiet successes or thundering failures; I am at peace with this fact, and I look forward to becoming (to misquote Butler) that for which there is only a marginal place in the given regimes of truth. If this seems an impossibly-vague proclamation of sorts, my apologies. You will—as, frankly, I, too, will—simply have to wait to see how things unfold, how the ‘becoming’ that we each represent defies our expectations and demonstrates that we have, yet, the capacity to be surprised—pleasantly so, let us hope!

Advanced Open-Water Diver (16 April 2009):
In a completely unexpected turn of events, I've ended up spending a month in Bocas del Toro, Panamá. With a rather sizable lot of free time and the sea everywhere, I had no choice but to unpack my scuba kit to blow bubbles. It worked out to be less expensive, in the end, to sign up for the AOW course—and, of course, I received another certification at the end. Although a bit hesitant about the deep dive (30m / 100ft) it turned out to be great ... except that I heard mermaids singing (look up nitrogen narcosis). Underwater navigation was also much easier than I'd anticipated, and the rest of the dives (fish identification, night, and underwater photography) were wonderful. If you're ever in Bocas and you're a diver, you absolutely must make a dive (or two!) at Sashen: The current is a bit strong at times, but it's full of gorgeous coral formations and is home to some lovely creatures (pufferfish, angelfish, damselfish, lobsters, and—if you're very lucky—nurse sharks).
(Image: Photo of me underwater. Credit: N.L.Murdoch)

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]
Twitter: XcentricXplorer
Facebook: Kdp Ross [2]
mobile phone: +1 206 326 8795 [3]

[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.)

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.’.

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