"...African women will cut their lips and stretch them out to fit plates. American men will wrap a traditional cloth around their neck and hang it in front of their chest in order to be taken seriously in a business meeting. It was all the same thing manifesting itself in different actions...I’ve always said that if we were seeing our world not even as an alien, but just from the perspective of people living a few hundred years ago it would seem almost impossibly bizarre. I have this routine that I follow where I hire a car to take me to the airport, and while he’s driving I sit in the back seat and get on the internet on my laptop.
Seems pretty normal and straight forward to most folks.
Now if you really think about it, just 400 years ago this “normal” routine that I have would have been the stuff of the strangest fiction.
I’m moving faster than a sprinting horse inside a big metal box that’s powered by tiny controlled explosions and we’re rolling over a hard, man made surface that’s interconnected throughout the entire continent. I’m typing away on a machine that is interfaced with the entire world through some invisible signal that almost instantly connects me to the entire current sum of accumulated human knowledge, and while all this crazy shit is happening, I’ll occasionally pull out something smaller than my hand, and I’ll use it to talk to people that are on the other side of the fucking world.
I will eventually get to a giant group of buildings where I will be scanned for explosives. I’ll then be strapped into a metal tube that’s also powered by explosions, and along with hundreds of other people I’ll be hurled through the sky so high that you can see the curve of the earth, and so fast that you literally go forward in time for the slightest fraction of a second.
What…
The…
Fuck.To pay for all of this I don’t give them gold coins, or a goat, or even let them fuck me. All I have to do is let them hold on to a small card that I have, and then I’ll scribble something that’s supposed to represent “me” on a piece of paper. This stands as an agreement that I am willing to pay in the future for this experience, and I will use this strange method to aquire everything in my life.
At the end of each 30 days I will pay for the total that I owe by, wait for it… writing on a piece of paper. Most of my bills are paid online now, so in that case I’m not even writing anything. I’m just pressing on little buttons, and those little button presses support me and fortify my life.
That’s our everyday life, and if you lived 500 years ago and explained that this is what the future would be like there would be a very good chance that a group of people would burn you at the stake."
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Joe Rogan breaks down modern life.
Why the "traditional" newspaper will die, and why that's good.
Xark!: The newspaper suicide pact:
"...On the surface, paid content is the reasonable idea that people should have to pay for the professionally produced content they consume. Its core, however, is a post-rational demand that consumers abandon their habits of the past decade in favor of new behaviors intended to restore media companies to the profitability ordained to them by God Almighty....Your newspaper overlords believe they can sell you their content if they can just get everybody on the same page and nail the sales pitch this time. They're looking for the magic words, not the underlying logic (the tricky part? Doing all this without breaking federal anti-trust law).
...All sorts of content can be sold online quite profitably... but trying to force people to pay for generic news content because your advertising rates have dropped so low they no longer cover the cost of your operations? Have fun selling that one, boys....But here's the terrible argument I mentioned: In contending that the paid-content movement was not so much about revenue per se, Isaacson used this alternate rationalization: Paid content models are necessary “to protect creativity.”
That's a pretty stunning statement, even in the favorable context of trying to save an industry in which people are compensated by middlemen for their published work. And so when I got my turn at the mic, I rose and asked him: What profit margins will these paid-content models have to generate in order to protect creativity?
Isaacson never responded to that question, unless you call staring at me with a horrified expression a response... He did eventually concede that stockholders might have certain profit expectations.
Yes. Expectations like 20 and 30 percent profits.
So can we finally, finally call this thing what it is? Quality journalism is expensive, and to the extent that it provides a public good, we will find ways to fund it. But top-heavy, poorly run, arrogant-to-the-bitter-end media companies? This is their crisis, not our crisis, and it certainly isn't about journalism.
...The chances of them adapting well to another failure are dubious. Remember, these are the same people who have acted as if there were no other options, even when those options were practically gift-wrapped for them. As if Newspaper Next never happened. As if commerce hubs and C3 and all the interesting, exciting ideas that are practically everywhere today do not exist.
They don't get it. They don't want to get it. And in many cases, they're literally paid not to get it..."
Honest parenting.
"Seven-year-old boy: Will I meet my goldfish in heaven someday?
Mother: I don't know anything about what happens to goldfish when they die, but I can tell you that there is no god.
--Bleecker & MacDougal"
Britain has the best buses.
Nice People Take Drugs - Release : Drugs, The Law & Human Rights:
"* Over a third of adults in England & Wales have used illicit drugs
* More people have used cannabis than voted for Labour at the last election
* 13,000 children were arrested for drug offences in 2006/07
* Over 1 million adults used class A drugs last year
Release specialises in drugs and drugs law and has over 40 years experience defending the rights of drug users. We have lawyers, policy advocates and drugs experts working full time to move our society towards a more sensible approach to managing drugs"
Last year...
Atheist Bus - Official Website » FAQ:
"The campaign began when comedy writer Ariane Sherine saw an advert on a London bus featuring the Bible quote, “When the Son of Man comes, will He find Faith on this Earth?” [sic]. A website URL ran underneath the quote, and when Sherine visited the site she learned that, as a non-believer, she would be “condemned to everlasting separation from God and then spend all eternity in torment in hell”.
Unsettled that religious groups were allowed to advertise websites which warned that the non-religious would face torture at the end of their lives, Sherine pitched and began to write a comment piece for The Guardian’s Cif website, called Atheists - Gimme Five. As part of her research for the piece, she called the Advertising Standards Authority, but was told that the website advertised wasn’t part of their remit. At the end of her article, keen to suggest a solution..."
"In my experience all holy books are written so that you can't quote them honestly." - More fun with religion.
"USA Today has a handy rundown of ways in which Obama edited the most holy and exalted mystic Quran to get cheers while avoiding the actual import of the passages. Which is not probative either way: In my experience all holy books are written so that you can't quote them honestly."Clapping for the Quran: Holy text is Obama's best draw - Faith & Reason:
"The political parsing of President Obama's address to the Muslim world will go on for days but one point was clear instantly -- quotes from the Quran prompted almost all the applause.Oh, that healing power of faith...
Obama hit point after point on Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, September 11th, nuclear disarmament, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the social and political gifts and flaws of modernization and the virtues of democracy. And the Cairo University audience largely sat on their hands.
But they responded with cheers and whistles for any mention of the Quran that punctuated the speech, starting with Obama's first selection: 'Be Conscious of God and speak always the truth.'
...He paraphrased from Sira (chapter) 5), saying "whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind; and whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind."He skipped the qualifying phrase about killing "unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land.""
Friday, June 05, 2009
"Solidarity though functional carrying cases. We will win this war." - Joe Rogan's bringing back the fanny pack.
The Joe Rogan Blog » Conduit to the Gaian Mind:
"I made this video yesterday and posted it on youtube and twitter, and it’s gotten a tremendous response. Apparently there are a lot of us closet fanny pack lovers (maybe not the best term?) and we’re sick and tired of having to hide our appreciation for a functional wardrobe choice.
It’s started a tremendous debate on my messageboard, and from that debate we have acquired support from fanny pack wearing bad asses all over the planet, including Chuck Motherfucking Norris, Hulk Motherfucking Hogan, and of course the great Anderson Silva, the #1 pound for pound fighter on the planet.
I’ve got other examples of fanny pack wearing bad-assery as well for all you haters, so you can just go suck it! The fanny pack is making a comeback!
[on why the fanny pack isn't a purse with a belt] - Because I'm a fucking man, and I wear it right over my dick. Plus, it's not a purse because I have two hands free to wrestle mountain lions or what have you.
Finally, a proper use for religion.
"Reverend: God was too big to die. So he lives, and so it's an empty cross.
Child: (asks unheard question)
Reverend: Well, you could use them against vampires too.
--First Presbyterian Church, 5th Ave"
Thursday, June 04, 2009
To be truly evil, you need bureaucracy.
"...from San Francisco:"He sleeps under a bridge, washes in a public bathroom and was panhandling for booze money 11 months ago, but now Larry Moore is the best-dressed shoeshine man in the city...
...until last week it looked like Moore was going to have saved enough money to rent a room and get off the street for the first time in six years. But then, in a breathtakingly clueless move, an official for the Department of Public Works told Moore that he has to fork over the money he saved for his first month's rent to purchase a $491 sidewalk vendor permit."
It just gets worse from there.
• The city bureaucrat who clamped down on Moore did so after reading about his success in the newspaper.
• A spokesman for the city's Department of Public Works described the city's interaction with Moore as an "educational" experience for Moore.
• The city official wouldn't tell Moore what building he needed to visit to get the permit, because she didn't know.
• When Moore was able to collect the money (which included donations from his outraged customers), got the right forms, and found the right office, they wouldn't take his money, because he didn't have a government-issued photo ID..."
"Politics Explained" - by the Illuminati [the game.]
Politics Explained:
"FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.PURE SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all of the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.
BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and put them in a barn with everyone else's cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs as the regulations say you need.
FASCISM: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them and sells you the milk.
PURE COMMUNISM: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.
RUSSIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.
CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government takes both of them and shoots you...
PURE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk...
BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.
PURE ANARCHY: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to take the cows and kill you.
LIBERTARIAN/ANARCHO-CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.
(Original source unknown . . . this version expanded and Illuminated by SJ.)"
The Wisdom of Robert Anton Wilson.
"Well I sometimes call myself a libertarian but that's only because most people don't know what anarchist means. Most people hear you're an anarchist and they think you're getting ready to throw a bomb at a building. They don't understand the concept of voluntary association, the whole concept of replacing force with voluntary cooperation or contractual arrangements and so on. So libertarian is a clearer word that doesn't arouse any immediate anxiety upon the listener.- Interview in TSOG (2002)
And then again, libertarians, if they were totally consistent with their principles would be anarchists. They take the position which they call minarchy, which is the smallest possible government... The reason I don't believe in the smallest possible government is because we started out with that and it only took us 200 years to arrive at the sorriest occupation of government that we have now. I think any government is dangerous no matter how small you make it. Instead of governments we should have contractual associations that you can opt out of if you don't like the way the association is going.
Religions fought for hundreds of years over which one should dominate Europe an then they finally gave up and made a truce, and they all agreed to tolerate each other — at least in this part of the world... But I think government should be treated like religion, everyone should be able to pick the kind they like. Only it should be contractual not obligatory. I wouldn't mind paying tax money to a local association to maintain a police force, as long as we need one.
But I hate like hell paying taxes to help the US government build more nuclear missiles to blow up more people I don't even know and don't think I'd hate them if I did know them. A lot of anarchist had a major role in influencing my political thinking, especially the individualist anarchists. Benjamin Tucker and Lysander Spooner especially. But I've also been influenced by Leo Tolstoy's anarcho-pacifism. And I find a lot of Kropotkin compatible even though he was a communist anarchist. Nothing wrong with communist anarchism as long as it remains voluntary. Any one that wants to go make a commune, go ahead, do it. I got nothing against it. As long as there's room to the individualist to do his or her own thing."
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
"You must like it when people in authority they never earned lie to you." - Spider Jerusalem.
Telecom Spy Suits Dismissed / UPDATE: EFF, ACLU Plan Appeal - Boing Boing:
"Bad news for freedom. Snip from WIRED Threat Level piece by David Kravets:A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed lawsuits targeting the nation's telecommunication companies for their participation in President George W. Bush's once-secret electronic eavesdropping program. In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker upheld summer legislation protecting the companies from the lawsuits. The legislation, which then-Sen. Barack Obama voted for, also granted the government the authority to monitor American's telecommunications without warrants if the subject was communicating with somebody overseas suspected of terrorism."
Yeah, I don't understand what the hell Obama is doing either.
"...Everywhere I go I keep hearing people say, "How come Obama is letting X happen or Y happen, how come he's letting his underlings do Z? It seems so unlike him!" It reminds me of the way people view leaders in Russia. Going back centuries, Russian peasants wrote impassioned letters to the Tsar, sure he was completely unaware that his Grand Dukes were all thieves and his okhranka agents were rapists and torturers. Now that Obama's on the scene a lot of Americans are demonstrating a similar public desire to believe in the good king. Obama seems so decent and intelligent, it's hard to imagine that his act is just a big sales job, that he's really just a smooth-talking shill for a bunch of Wall Street bankers and Pentagon generals. So people tend to scramble for the exculpatory explanation: he's being tricked, he's unaware, his hands are tied, and so on.You can sort of see that, maybe, with the economic policies... But this Gitmo thing is different. It's not like Barack Obama doesn't know what habeas corpus is. The guy was a freaking constitutional law professor (or "senior lecturer," if that controversy over his academic title still rankles you). And yet Obama seems to be determined to preserve the whole concept of preventive detention...
...it's important to remember that what's going on at Gitmo has to be construed as a specific, public endorsement of preventive detention. For we all know that there has always been preventive detention of one sort or another in this country, ever since America became a world power: suspected spies whisked off in the middle of the night, political dissidents in foreign countries busted on trumped-up charges and quietly flown to someplace like Syria or the Phillipines for the car-battery-to-the-balls treatment. Hell, even here on American territory, we have a legal framework through FISA to quietly do all sorts of things to suspected miscreants. Where there is a will, and a loathed enough suspect, there has always been a way in America, no matter what the actual law is or has been.
At the same time we've tried never to allow ourselves to openly legalize these practices. When we have, like during the era of the Palmer raids for instance, it's always been a black time our history. Keeping preventive detention and extrajudicial punishment illegal puts a brake on their use: it forces the government that would use these tactics to enter a legal gray area, to risk scandal and exposure, and to take all the responsibility for crossing the line. When a thing is illegal and has to be hidden from the general public, one assumes that governments will try to exhaust every conceivable alternative before resorting to its use, or better yet will avoid using it at all. But making it legal not only transforms preventive detention into a part of all of us, a conscious expression of who we are, it suddenly makes it an easy option for governments to choose.
...I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't get what Obama is doing here. He could have closed Gitmo, created some sort of tribunal system for the current inmates, and then stood up on a pedestal and announced that the United States is no longer a country that detains people without due process. And as soon as he finished that speech he could have gone on doing what presidents have done for decades before Bush, finding the soft spots in international criminal/military law to basically arrest and detain anyone whom they considered a genuinely dangerous suspect. But what he's done instead of that, seemingly, is specifically endorse preventive detention. He apparently is anxious for people to know that that is in fact what he stands for..."
Training 345.
NEPA - 30m light shadowboxing/Rutten MMA Thai Boxing 3m rounds
Incredibly inspiring. Via RossTraining.com - Blog - Bridging the Gap Between The Ordinary And Extraordinary:
"The Terence Haynes story (originally posted in March) has been updated with a new video...
After watching his story, you’ll realize why it is worth the repost. Many who are currently overweight need to see stories like this to realize that it IS possible to completely change their lives. Inspiration for many doesn’t come by watching professional athletes, but rather by watching people with similar backgrounds who have changed their lives for the better.
Even if you saw the original video, the new video is still well worth it."
Mindboggling parkour/freerunning/gymnastic talent. Via Boing Boing
Kicking ass, via Bodybuilding.com - Over 40 Transformation Of The Week - Over 40 Transformation Of The Week - Scott McCullock!:
"Name: Scott McCullock
Before:
Age: 39
Height: 5'7'
Weight: 255 lbs
Body Fat: 40%
Waist: 42'
After:
Age: 41
Height: 5'7'
Weight: 157 lbs
Body Fat: 5%
Waist: 29'
Good stuff.
"Guy: Let's go watch the Jonas Brothers 3D Concert Experience!
Girl: Suck my dick.
--86th & 3rd"
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
If you ever wondered why Japanese TV game shows are a little crazy...
Unicycle...
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3 legged race...
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4 legged race...
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Stilts...
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Horse and rider...
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"Centipede..."
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Tire drag...
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Join hands/run, and then...
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Jump rope!
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And then you're done. No wonder Japan has the best physical challenge shows.
A little can of heaven.
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I used to be a fiend for Mitsuya Cider. It delivered what those 7-Up ads used to promise back in the day - "crisp and clean" taste. But I've pretty much kicked the soda habit, with all the crap sugar and high fructose corn syrup.
Been drinking diet colas for a while now, but this latest diet I'm on is really cleaning up my taste buds and palate. Even the artificial sweeteners in the diet sodas I usually drink taste fairly foul. I can only have a few gulps - to appease the carbonation addiction gods - before I can't drink anymore. Coffee is too bitter, and I've pretty much cut that out of my diet as well. And the sweetener I'd even been using for that is all sorts of cloying. [What with coffee and sodas gone, thank god I've got the caffeine tabs/fat burners to keep me from going into total withdrawal/uselessness.] I even noticed when I add the amount of salt I usually do to food, it's too much. This is a good thing, I think. Re-learning the way food is supposed to taste. How that's happening when I know the protein shakes I've been drinking are flavored with sucralose is beyond me... but hey, I'll take it.
But this, today, was the first time I've seen/had diet/zero calorie Mitsuya Cider. It was pretty damn good. Glad they don't have it everywhere or I'd be sucking it down, to my detriment, all the time. Good stuff, though.
Training 344.
[Obligatory pretentious self-timer photo... "Look at me! I'm actually training again!"]
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Elementary school sports day - the video.
Tsuyazaki Elementary Undokai [Sports Day Festival] 2009 from Rob Pugh on Vimeo.
Japan is full of cuteness and kids who ham it up for photos.
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The occasional "shy girl."
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Okay, I'm a ham too.
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Do you have YOUR own Japanese child labor head masseuse? Well? Do you?
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Tsuyazaki Elementary Sports Day Festival 2009.
Great day though.
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Mandatory synchronized warmups...
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Unbridled cuteness.
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Waiting to take the field...
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Relays...
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Sychronized Dance! Japan's specialty.
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And flags, of course.
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More dancing... [lots and lots of dancing...]
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Jazz Hands!
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Tug o'war.
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More relays...
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Too cute.
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I really do love how they mainstream kids here. Out there with everybody else, doing her best, adapting and overcoming. Awesomeness.
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Next year's 1st graders. [A real sense of community in Japan...]
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Basket wars.
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Battling!
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Running!
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...and winning.
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Absurdly fun huge inflated ball race...
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Battle of Red vs White.
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She's very serious :)
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The littlest kids racing. Adorable.
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Teamwork is EVERYTHING in Japan.
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Busby Berkley redux.
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Plus feats of strength.
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A big finish...
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Obligatory post-festival organized stretching. Only in Japan.
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The final confrontation.
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