|
and the world are eternally justified." - Nietzsche 12/6/04 Politics: Lone activist group PTC [Parents Television Council] submits 99.8% of all FCC complaints. "The number of indecency complaints soared dramatically to more than 240,000 in [2003], Chairman Powell said. The figure was up from roughly 14,000 in 2002, and from fewer than 350 in each of the two previous years." [via /.] [Mefi Thread] Kentucky Creationist Museum Online: Includes a depiction of a pair of dinosaurs being lead onto Noah's Ark, and is billed as "a wonderful alternative to the evolutionary natural history museums that are turning countless minds against the gospel of Christ and the authority of Scripture." [Via] New in the Jukebox: From 1993's A Meeting By The River, Slide Guitarist and World Music chameleon Ry Cooder joins Sitar innovator V. M. Bhatt, who invented the Mohan Veena - a blend of several instruments, including sitar and hawaiian slide guitar. And a track from the album Kicks Joy Darkness, wherein various luminaries read Jack Kerouac, Johnny Depp reads Madroad Driving. Gadgets: What is iPodder ? 12/5/04 Bob Dylan interview tonight on CBS' 60 Minutes. In the Jukebox-> The jazzy and mildly prog-rock Tortoise has been "labeled by more than one rock critic as the ultimate post-rock band". Two tracks from this seasoned Chicago ambient jamband.
Former CIA Head George Tenet has called for limiting access to the internet to only those who take security seriously and that the industry should 'lead the way' in restricting access. It's unlikely "that this is a call to ban Microsoft products..." [More] [Via] Sony Entertainment v. Jason Kottke: "Sony forces one blogger to take down the audio spoiler of this year's Jeopardy season, but lets The Washington Post and a Georgia television station "off the hook". [Kottke post] [Via]
SCO v. Linux Developers: A 10-year old settlement between Cal and Unix developers - unearthed by Groklaw - could undermine SCO's position. Boing Boing: Critique of Microsoft's new blog service "Spaces". Best Firefox Extensions ! [Via] NSFW: Down by the river [nudity]. 12/4/04 -Jukebox-> Rock & Roll. Iggy & the Stooges, Raw Power William Safire on the latest slang amongst American youth. "Superlatives coming on strongest are off the hook, which has topped the old wow; uber, as in 'His whip is uber-fast' (German for 'over, super'); and wooka, as in 'That movie is wooka-sweet.' Lexicographic Irregulars willing to speculate on the origin of wooka are urged to e-mail onlanguage@nytimes.com" [alt] [thread]
...Followed by a film starring Robert De Niro, Jeremy Irons, and one of my favorite actors, Liam Neeson. The Mission is set in colonial (era) south america. Aborigines who live at the top of a great waterfall are known to have an affinity for western classical music. Jeremy Irons plays a man of the cloth who climbs the falls packing an oboe. De Niro's character follows him, packing the guilt of a former local mercenary slave trader - turned monk and seeking penance.
The Yes Men strike again! "The BBC's worldwide reputation for accuracy took a blow yesterday after it broadcast an interview with a hoaxer who claimed to offer a $12bn settlement to the 120,000 surviving victims of the Bhopal disaster. 'Hopes were raised in India when the BBC's international news channel, BBC World, interviewed a man identified as a representative of Dow Chemical, which now runs the Bhopal plant after taking over Union Carbide." -disinfo.com "In a media hoax coming on the 20th anniversary of the Union Carbide Bhopal disaster, Britain's BBC mistakenly reported Friday that Dow Chemical would take complete responsibility for the tragedy in which thousands of people died." -CBS [story at disinfo.com] [story in mainstream media] [Yes Men Email report] ["The Yes Men have impersonated some of the world's most powerful criminals at conferences, on the web, and on television..."] Passing the torch: a few days ago I read that IBM is selling their "PC Business". This is notable because one of IBM's distinctions is that they were first to mass produce and mass market the PC. Slashdot is reporting that "China's largest PC maker is in talks to buy IBM's PC business". 12/3/04 Cable TV: Now showing on the True Stories West channel, The Road To Wellville [1994]. About an "unusual health facility in the early 20th century, run by the eccentric Dr. Kellogg". Starring Anthony Hopkins, Bridgett Fonda, Dana Carvey, John Cusack, and Matthew Broderick. I especially enjoy seeing the latter two get drunk in a bar. Also appearing are the gentleman who played Baron Von Munchausen in the movie also known by that name, and the free-spirited lady Jack Nicholson visits while playing the part of Schmidt in the movie of that name, and the Irishman who played O'Brien in Star Trek: TNG (TV). This movie is worthwhile just to see these actors dress up (and undress) for the turn of the last century. Anthony Hopkins for once isn't playing a stuffy old man or a killer - but a huckster, like Nixon, and this movie is a farce. I like to think the film is showing now in response to the recent naming of Kellogg Corporation's sitting CEO to the Bush Cabinet. 12/2/04 In the -Jukebox-> songs by Bruce Springsteen from his 1982 unplugged studio album Nebraska [WMA format]. And a 1996 number from then young & precocious Fiona Apple. "'Cause I'm slow like honey, and heavy with mood." -JukeBox-> Deep South: "MONTGOMERY - An Alabama lawmaker who sought to ban gay marriages now wants to ban novels with gay characters from public libraries, including university libraries." [More..] Baseball: "New York Yankees slugger Jason Giambi became the new face of baseball's steroid scandal yesterday, when a published report revealed his admission, in grand jury testimony, that he took steroids ..." -Baltimore Sun Get Your Broadcast TV Anywhere. [/.] 12/1/04 Words: We don't have to wait another month to know that blog is the word of the year - says Springfield-based Merriam-Webster. The rest of this year's top 10: incumbent, electoral, insurgent, hurricane, cicada, peloton, partisan, sovereignty & defenestration. Noted: Merriam-Webster is as often used for spelling as for meaning. Qoute: "I change constitutions, I put churches in schools!" ~ Karl Rove, at the November 18th dedication of the Bill Clinton Library. [At the dedication last week in Little Rock, Karl Rove and President Bush received separate tours of the new library. Read more...] Message of Inclusion: "The first 30-second television advertisement from the United Church of Christ - part of the denomination's new, broad identity campaign - began airing nationwide on Dec. 1, stating that - like Jesus - the UCC seeks to welcome all people, regardless of ability, age, race, economic circumstance or sexual orientation. The ad has been accepted and will air on a mix of broadcast and cable networks, including ABC Family, AMC, BET, Discovery, Fox, Hallmark, History, Nick@Nite, TBS, TNT, Travel and TV Land. On the eve before the campaign's launch, negotiations with CBS and NBC broke down, after the networks deemed the UCC's all-inclusive message as "too controversial." See the ad. [fafblog comment: He "doesn't have a problem with free speech but tries to have his advertising avoid controversial national debates like the 'loving gays/hating gays' issue."] U.S. Supreme Court refused on Monday to decide a case challenging same-sex unions in Massachusetts. The case the top court passed on asked if state judges unconstitutionally invaded the turf of elected officials by allowing gay marriage. Key question left unasked: Do bans on same-sex unions violate U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection for gay and straight alike? [Source] Copyfight: "The case of Kahle v. Ashcroft pits two archive groups -- the Internet Archive, a nonprofit digital library, and the Prelinger Archives, which preserves films -- against the U.S. Justice Department. The archivists argue that four copyright laws are collectively keeping people from gaining access to "orphan" works: out-of-print books, old films, and academic articles that have little or no commercial value. A central part of the archivists' argument is that laws granting (automatic) copyright protection to all works, even those for which the creators have not sought protection, have radically altered the "traditional contours of copyright." There was recently a ruling on the case. More at BB.
11/30/04 Paradoxes of language: an introduction.
Great read: davidbyrne.com/tour_journal_04.php ~ [thx blogdex] Personal: In celebration of Bill's birthday today, we had a late lunch at Scotts - my first time at this very nice restaurant. After we sat down at our table, someone noticed that the bread plates were a little warm. It felt good - as the air outside had been a little cold. As usual, we started talking politics. Today mostly about Church and State. ... Bill had the Burger. Mom and Cheryl had the Salmon, and I had the Clam Linguini - continuing my apparent obsession in the past few years with meat on pasta. Our waiter remembered everything we requested, and service by the staff was excellent. Late in the lunch I must have looked longingly at my water glass, because all I did was think about cold water - and there it was. ~! Mom picked up the tab. Music in the JukeBox: Listening to this song repeatedly... Performed by Iron and Wine, Such Great Heights is a lovely, almost meditative, devotional love song from the Garden State soundtrack. [Lyrics!] The first three minutes of Cocteau Twins' Lazy Calm would be fitting on the soundtrack to Blade Runner. Also, three William Shatner performances from his 2004 album Has Been. In the -JukeBox-> Supreme Court medical marijuana case centers around the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Genetically engineered plants detect land mines by changing color. Brain MRI Scanning offers lie detection methods. Weblogs: Fifth Estate ? 11/29/04 Before the Internet: Comic [640x500px] (via) The Archbishop of Canterbury has made a worldwide call for church traditionalists opposed to homosexuality to stop using inflammatory words about gay people. 25 year roots of Iraq War: from a military perspective. [in brief] Ukraine 101 from Daily Kos. 11/28/04 "The tension between power and the press, between spinning and searching for truth, between disinformation and information, is of course endemic to the human condition itself. And in trying times like these, when it occasionally looks like things are going to hell, it is strangely consoling to recall that actually others before us also have traveled on what must have seemed to be the road to perdition." More... via CPI. Beat Music: in the -JukeBox-> Jack Kerouac performing spoken word from his novel On The Road, and in tribute to Charlie Parker - accompanied by the live improvised piano of late night TV host Steve Allen, who helmed the Tonight Show prior to Johnny Carson. He invited Jack Kerouac onto his show and they performed live together on stage. Allen and Kerouac also recorded an entire studio album of spoken word and jazz piano [Dot DLP-3154], but the publisher stopped production after just 130 albums had been made and distributed - declaring that certain passages were "in bad taste," and certain lines "off color." The recording was later released by the Hanover label, as HML-5000.
Low rez pictures at eleven yesterday morning - of a brilliant yellow flowering weed alongside our driveway, the columns of palms on the neighboring street, and the bluest sky after the morning's rain. RadioPod: released. "It records streaming radio, converts files to MP3, and provides an RSS 2.0 feed for a PodCasting application to download - and place in iTunes ready for an iPod." Etymology of recent neologism "Folksonomy". [Via] 11/27/04 FDA directed by Drug Companies: Pharmaceutical giants fund the regulatory process. "One of the nation's leading drug reviewers with the Food and Drug Administration told a congressional hearing last week that consumers are "virtually defenseless" against unsafe medications. The scientific standards that (the FDA) applies to drug safety guarantee that unsafe and deadly drugs will remain on the U.S. market," said Dr. David Graham, a 20-year veteran drug safety officer with the FDA. He questioned the safety of five currently approved drugs. Dr. Graham went on to say that the FDA is too easily pushed around by pharmaceutical companies." [FDA critic expects to be exiled.] [More...] The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has mandated a centralized non-commercial source for consumers to obtain free annual credit reports. The mandated new website accepts links from this FTC webpage, but "for security purposes" it does not accept referrals from me or from from this Link At Google. May be a sign of obfuscation by the big three Credit Reporting Agencies. To gauge initial demand - and perhaps also to stem it - the industry will phase-in the new service on the West Coast December 1st, in the Midwest March 1st, in the South June 1st, and in the Northeast September 1st. The phone # is 877-322-8228. [More at ftc.gov] John McCain on Federal Legislation: "We've reached the bizarre point where we approve hundreds of billions of dollars of bills without anyone seeing them, and then we're shocked - shocked! - that a provision should sneak in which is onerous." [Source] ~! I like the old adage that "there are two things of which one does not ask 'how is that made?' - legislation, and sausage." And I've been unsuccessful in googling for the name of it's author.
Google Scholarship: Claim that new search tool will put a treasure trove of academic material at disposal of students. [Via]
11/26/04 "Space Quilt" of what the Hubble saw. [1352x1459] [Via] Language Poll: 70 of the most beautiful words in English. Genetic Engineering: The ethics of Human / Animal Chimeras. "It turns out that many genes are like Animal-Kingdom cassettes - they can be mixed and matched across species. A gene crucial to building a fruit fly's eye will trigger eye development in a frog. Now that both the human and mouse genomes have been sequenced, researchers know that 99 percent of mouse genes have homologues in humans; even more amazingly, 96 percent are present in the same order on the genome. Of course, how those genes are expressed is very different, and mouse proteins, while similar, also differ in crucial ways." [MeFi Thread] Not Safe For Work: Party. [nudity] 11/25/04 NPR talks with Bram Cohen and Lawrence Lessig about file-sharing tool Bittorrent. Mr. Cohen wrote the code for Bittorrent, and Dr. Lessig is a Digital Copyright expert. [Via] Using RSS + BitTorrent to find and download your favorite shows, automatically, using free software. Lots of ways to do this. [More] Firefox web browser: tips & tricks. Disclaimer stickers for science textbooks. The Nietzsche Channel. 11/24/04 The RFID/Broadcast Flag is a copy prevention method for digital television programming, part of a group of laws and techniques called "Digital Rights Management" [DRM]. After July 1st, 2005, one may not legally buy or manufacture DRM-free High Definition TV [HDTV] tuners. So I've purchased a pcHDTV HD-3000 card, which is grandfathered-in under the Broadcast Flag law, and can be used to build a Linux box running MythTV, which is Linux supported open source software [OSS] that performs like TIVO - with no monthly fee. However, "The current combination of MythTV and pcHDTV is a far cry from the TIVO-esque simplicity a mass market demands. Unless someone can bring a DRM-free HDTV recorder to market before the deadline, it seems the general public will have no chance to avoid the Broadcast Flag." And according to Ernest Miller at Corante, himself a MythTV user, "TiVo creates consumer expectations that are going to run smack dab into the anti-consumer mandates of the broadcast flag. Sure, the FCC says that the broadcast flag won't inhibit uses consumers have today, but it does and will. People habituated to the ease of use of TiVo, of burning shows to DVD, of networking television throughout the home, are in for a rude awakening when the broadcast flag takes effect." [HD-3000 cards are periodically available at pcHDTV.com.] "Blog Torrent" is an option for use at stryder.com - with some support from visitors. I could post more music, and more people could hear it. And due to an expected easing of bandwidth usage, I might also be able to remove password protection from the MP3 -Jukebox->. BlogTorrent also publishes an RSS feed. ~! I wonder how many stryder.com visitors use BitTorrent to share files ? [MeFi thread] Alternative to Bittorrent: Ian Clarke's Dijjer. {Proviso] 11/23/04 Meaning of Life according to the Hitch Hiker's Guide. (Via) American's Beliefs about the origin of man were the subject of a recent Gallup poll. A summary of the findings - "About a third of Americans believe that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution has been well supported by the evidence, while just as many say that it is just one of many theories and has not been supported by the evidence. The rest say they don't know enough to say. Forty-five percent of Americans also believe that God created human beings pretty much in their present form about 10,000 years ago. A third of Americans are biblical literalists who believe that the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally." I myself being of a philosophical bent, am fascinated with the question of the origin of the human race. I love the sensation of wonder. Unanswerable questions. Everywhere paradox and limitation. The universe can't have an outer edge because an edge has space outside it by definition. And time is paradox laden. I'm imagining that a great race of creatures created a universe according to a plan of some kind, perhaps as part of a game, a science project, or a work of art - or better yet, the creation of the "universe" was, or is, an act of love. They wanted more creatures to experience existence! And maybe we cohabitate with such creatures - within the universe, and we humans are but deaf dumb and blind to several more dimensions and sensory experiences. Perhaps these creatures have 10 sense organs and perceive 4 or 5 dimensions. That would make us a sort of flatlanders, living in a sort of flat world, and not seeing half of creation. The way I conceive of God is as a creature of boundless imagination - And we are a part of that Imagination - We are the dream of a fabulously brilliant being. ~! I respect the study of human origins, and the theory of evolution comes from the same place of wonder. Religion, Science, Art. Ultimately it's all about Art. We got imagined into this life, and we can imagine our way to a new one. Calling all Imagineers! 13,000 new marine species have been discovered in the past year. Film: tonight I'm watching Angels and Insects [1995]. Staying Organized. The way I do this is with a Personal Analog Assistant - fancy name for a spiral bound stack of 3"x5" index cards. While touring 43 Folders I noticed they are onto the same idea. Chocolate Heals: complex delicacy a better cough remedy than codeine. 11/22/04 Philosophy: I've had trouble getting online for a couple of days. Alternately, I've played more guitar and read from Christoph Cox's commentary on Nietzsche. This is heady stuff, of course... and at the risk of quoting Nietzsche without presenting proper context, "Beware of saying that death is opposed to life. The living is merely a type of what is dead, and a very rare type." (GS, 109) Music: for Radiohead fans and anyone interested in either Radiohead or my taste in music... the -JukeBox-> now has a recording of a live performance of perhaps my favourite song, Paranoid Android, as played solo & acoustic by Thom Yorke of Radiohead at the 2002 Bridge School Benefit. Equally epic is Mr. Yorke's performance of the song Lucky. Both from OK Computer [1997]. On at least one of those October 2002 nights Thom Yorke set down his guitar and sat down at Neil Young's piano to play Pyramid Song and Sail To The Moon, as well as a cover of Mr. Young's 30+ year old standard, After The Goldrush... "Flying mother nature's silver seed to a new home in the sun". -JukeBox-> Culture: British values and characteristics as seen by citizens of other countries. In a word, "the typical Briton is polite, witty and phlegmatic, but lacks a certain style and has a dental hygiene issue while having an occasional drinking problem." [Via] Gadget: Cell phone w/ high-quality sound reproduction capability. Fallujah: Dispatches from a life in conflict. Science Fiction Humour: News From The Future. 11/19/04 Creative Process: Hack your way out of writer's block. John Cleese is now performing regularly on his website. "Fed up with television executives and studios, the star of Monty Python and Fawlty Towers set up the website last month as a vehicle for his humour and personal philosophy. Promising to update the site every day, 'It's like having a tiny TV station or a magazine. The simplicity is delightful,' said Cleese last week." [Via] 11/18/04 MetaFilter now accepting registrations. Now I'm "protea". Civil Liberties: The Arrival of Secret Law. "Americans can now be obligated to comply with legally-binding regulations that are unknown to them, and that indeed they are forbidden to know. This is not some dismal Eastern European allegory... It is part of a continuing transformation of American government that is leaving it less open, less accountable and less susceptible to rational deliberation as a vehicle for change." [Link at Secrecy News] [One man who asked to see the law and was denied almost 30 months ago, stopped flying and filed suit. See Gilmore v. Ashcroft] According to the December 2004 Harper's Index, since September 11, 2001 there has been just 1 U.S. terrorist trial brought before a jury. And it resulted in 2 convictions, both of which were overturned in June 2004 due to a "pattern of mistakes" by the prosecution.
Evolution: "Research team says long-distance running the key to human evolution... Scientists at Harvard and the University of Utah say that much of our anatomy was shaped 2 million years ago when the earliest humans developed the bones, ligaments and joints necessary for long-distance running. That, in turn, gave humans a chance to hunt animals that were much faster in a sprint - but couldn't stay ahead in the long haul. "The National Endowment for the Arts is working to put 30 million newspapers online in digital format. The first of what's expected to be 30 million digitized pages from papers published from 1836 through 1922 will be available in 2006." [Read More]
"You are who you love, not who loves you."
We came whirling out of nothingness ...
|
[files temporary]
Ry Cooder & V. M. Bhatt
Johnny Depp reads Kerouac
Tortoise
Iggy & The Stooges
Bruce Springsteen
Fiona Apple
Iron and Wine
William Shatner
Cocteau Twins
Jack Kerouac
Thom Yorke
Velvet Underground
Velvet Underground & Nico [1967]
Mazzy Star
Neil Young
The Prisoner [TV/1967]
Broken Social Scene
Pavement
The Verve
James
Miles Davis
Tosca Tango
Orchestra
Sufjan Stevens
~*~
Note: mp3's below are gradually
~*~
Cream
Radiohead
Howard Stern
Jeff Buckley
The Beatles
The Reindeer Section
Yann Tiersen
Sunny Day Real Estate
My Bloody Valentine
David Gray
The Talking Heads
Various Artists
G Love and Special Sauce
The Shins
Jane's Addiction
British Sea Power
Zero 7
Smashing Pumpkins
Cocteau Twins
Broken Social Scene
Rolling Stones
John Coltrane
Pearl Jam
| Home Archive [Contact] ~*~
BLOGROLL boing boing kottke waxy fafblog mirabilis defectiveyeti crooked timber kevin werbach lisa rein out of range cool hunting random foo hermit king photoblogs
wonkette ~*~
ed felten ~*~
david byrne
sfist
~>|<~
Blogs recently visited
More Blogs I've Liked
* Favorites
People:
Actors:
Director
Artists:
Smells:
Foods:
Books:
Movies:
Cable Channels:
TV Shows:
Websites:
Places:
Town:
Word:
~*~
Must see in concert:
~*~
Beatles or Rolling Stones?
Leno or Letterman?
Croutons or Baco Bits?
Ford or Chevy?:
~*~
Movies I love to hate:
Artists I love to hate:
[Present] ~><~
|
| |
Art: "[The story] is written in the landscape... People have lived and worked and died in the places I've worked. I am the next layer..." ~ -Landscape sculptor Andy Goldsworthy - 'whose specialty is ephemeral sculptures made from elements of nature' - in the film 
.
