In The Year 2000
From the Year 2000 Flickr group, which offers insight into today from yesteryear.
I'm out of here to go relax in my glowing orange womb tunnel....
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August 31, 2007
FCC: Just Go On AT&T's Payroll And Be Done With It
It depresses me that after almost a decade writing about telecom issues, I can see this headline posted at the FCC website:
"FCC Replaces Outmoded Long-Distance Rules With New Protections For Consumers."
And know immediately without digging that the rule change does absolutely nothing for customers and exists solely as a mechanism to improve phone company profit margins.
By "outmoded rules" the FCC usually means "rules that didn't allow our lords and masters to gouge consumers as they saw fit."
And what I love most are these weak-ass "eh, well we voted for it but we're not happy" statements from the totally spineless Democratic FCC Commissioners.
The FCC should just anoint the incumbent phone companies gods and be done with it. That or go on their lobbying payroll. This pretense that there's anybody left in DC that actually gives a flying zero gravity shit about consumers is a ridiculous farce, and insulting to the six of us who see what you're doing and think you've become AT&T eunuchs.
Iran War Mongering
"They [the source's institution] have ‘instructions' (yes, that was the word used) from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day; it will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects. It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained. Evidently they don't think they'll ever get majority support for this – they want something like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is plenty."
Says Antiwar, which cites a friend of a friend of an albino rhino as their source. That's not to say the think tanks aren't very busy trying to sell the public on yet another war before the paint's dry on our last masterpiece. Check out the Heritage Foundation's website on attacking Iran. These giant corporation-funded groups are really, really interested in advancing freedom, you see.
Of course we already ARE at covert war with Iran, quietly using terrorism there to uh....stop terrorism.
Have I mentioned how much I love think tanks yet this week?
Kako Ueda
More papercraft here.
August 30, 2007
Nice Tat
From a collection here.
Clowns Ruin Klan Rally
“White Power!” the Nazi’s shouted, “White Flour?” the clowns yelled back running in circles throwing flour in the air and raising separate letters which spelt “White Flour”.“White Power!” the Nazi’s angrily shouted once more, “White flowers?” the clowns cheers and threw white flowers in the air and danced about merrily.
“White Power!” the Nazi’s tried once again in a doomed and somewhat funny attempt to clarify their message, “ohhhhhh!” the clowns yelled “Tight Shower!” and held a solar shower in the air and all tried to crowd under to get clean as per the Klan’s directions.
August 29, 2007
Porn Bush
A photograph of Dubya made entirely out of porn by Jonathan Yeo.
The same kind of people who somehow justify dropping bombs on kids are really outraged.
August 28, 2007
Lucky
Woman celebrates her 100th birthday by lighting up her 170,000th cigarette.
Our Next President
August 27, 2007
Steampunk Headgear
I have no idea what this thing is, but it's for sale. Perhaps it controls the small city growing on this guy's lip.
Consumers For Competitive Choice
I just want to say how truly classy you must be to set up a completely bogus consumer organization that actually works for giant corporations, helping to pass company-friendly laws that screw consumers.
Consumers For Competitive Choice, which used to be "Consumers for Cable choice," (and before that Consumers Voice) was a PR & lobbying organization for phone operators -- run by a man named Robert K. Johnson.
If you're a company and you pay them enough, they'll help pass your anti-consumer law by pretending it's actually pro-consumer. They've recently expanded their sock-puppet empire to include the health care and energy industries. Every time a few people get clued in to how full of shit this group is, they change their name.
The website's use of random huddled minorities, old people, and the disabled is particularly tasteful.
August 21, 2007
Death + Fine
Because death wouldn't be penalty enough, I guess...
August 20, 2007
Chris Ryniak
See more Chris Ryniak work here
Kowloon Walled City
An interesting read on the now demolished Kowloon walled city in Hong Kong, which was largely self-regulated, isolated, and at one point the most densely populated area on earth.
"After world war 2, squatters moved in and the real growth began, both in numbers and building size. surrounded by discussion about the future of the walled city and half-hearted attempts by different groups to assume control, the people within the walls started to modify their homes, building upwards, interconnecting apartments, slowly shutting out sunlight to all but those on the outer-edges. the triads even took control of the city until 1974, finally driven out by 3,000 seperate police raids."
August 18, 2007
Till Nowak
August 17, 2007
Escape
August 16, 2007
Liquid Kiss
(via)
The World Clock
The World Clock (you need to click the URL to see it live) tracks births, deaths, respiratory infections, and other chipper fare in real time.
Seventeen people developed tuberculosis and 932 people were born in the time it took me to write this post. 111,320 people died and 53 animal species went extinct so far today, which, you know, makes me want to go drink tequila now.
The Age of Endarkenment
"The enlightenment was a beautiful thing. People cast aside dogma and authority. They started to think for themselves. Natural science flourished. Understanding of the real world increased. The hegemony of religion slowly declined. Real universities were created and eventually democracy took hold. The modern world was born. Until recently we were making good progress. So what went wrong?
The past 30 years or so have been an age of endarkenment. It has been a period in which truth ceased to matter very much, and dogma and irrationality became once more respectable."
And that's the UK.....
August 15, 2007
Yeah, That's Relaxing...
Greetings From Idiot America
"Creationism. Intelligent Design. Faith-based this. Trust-your-gut that. There's never been a better time to espouse, profit from, and believe in utter, unadulterated crap. And the crap is rising so high, it's getting dangerous."
From Esquire.
Fox Cancels Half Hour News Hour
Fox had been running their own version of the Daily Show aimed at Conservatives, which featured canned laugh tracks and tried really, really hard to make bigotry, war and greed funny. Sadly it didn't work out and the show has been canceled, reports Variety.
Cassette Generator
August 14, 2007
The BBC Tracks Hunter S Thompson 1978
"His weirdness has toned down just a little so that he might just think before he does something. We might just be safe on this journey, I don't know."
Ralph Nader: An Unreasonable Man
Worth watching: Ralph Nader: An Unreasonable Man.
As I've ranted about at length, I don't think I dislike anything more than modern think tanks. Except this new flood of reconstituted new wave. Or plastic surgery.
They're obnoxious little corporate propaganda machines, designed in the Reagan and Nixon eras to discredit consumer advocates like Nader, who were annoying companies by saving lives and keeping chemicals out of your tot's drinking water. Damn you, Ralph.
Like Stephen King, Poor Mr. Nader is one of those unlucky Americans who is going to need to be dead a decade or so before he's truly given his due for the prodigious amount of work accomplished while living. Yeah, people see he did some stuff, but at the moment he's largely treated like a crackpot by partisan zealots who think he (not Gore) prevented Gore from being president. In the way King is treated like a horror mystery hack by "serious" literati....
But anyway....Most modern think tanks are paid public relations dressed up as scientists who, over the past thirty years, have convinced most Americans to vote against their best interests, marginalized most consumer advocates as nutjobs, and have collectively taken a massive dump in the drinking fountain of honest discourse.
Propagandists of the worst sort. As Bill Hicks would note, they sleep like babies, too.
I notice that some tech rags are getting better at spotting and clearly identifying the money that's funding think tank bullshit campaigns. The little Gordon Gecko Goebbels (piss off, Godwin) do occasionally get noticed. They're still quoted as objective experts however, which is nonsense.
They draw a conclusion, then manipulate science to fit said conclusion. The only times these groups should be taken seriously by a reporter is if they're doing a story on modern propaganda and/or public relations.
By the way, did you know that concerns about smoking's health impact is entirely based on junk science?
I'm pretty sure you have to be able to see at least four moves deep on the chessboard to really grok what these outfits are doing, which is why the majority of Americans are oblivious to the greasy little wizard behind the curtain who just convinced them to support cutting off their legs at the knee.
Surgically Implanted Bra
I'm so glad that cancer has been cured so we can spend more time developing invasive surgical procedures for the world's nitwits.
"What we've done is build a silicon bra, insert it into the body and attach it to the ribs and to the fascia. It's like a normal external bra," he continues, "where a strip lies on the shoulder and attaches around the body. We attach it to the ribs instead of to the shoulder, and to the fascia in the lower part of the body."
BioShock
One of the more interesting games coming out this month is BioShock, a title set in a vast undersea utopian culture gone very, very wrong. The crew behind the game just released an online pdf containing some great artwork from the game.
Of course, Robert Ebert insists that games aren't really art, so what do we know.
August 13, 2007
Rubik's Cube Image Generator
The Rubik's Cube generator will create a Rubik's cube out of any image you choose.
Somewhere, someone very uptight who came here looking for more information on my professional career is instead today finding images of doppleganger sex, which makes me happy for some reason.
Right The First Time, Dick
Doppleganger
You know, I've been issuing that same warning about Dopplegangers for years.
August 10, 2007
My New Novel
I'm writing a new novel.
In it, a B-list actor is so impacted by 9/11 he becomes a born again evangelical. He helps forge an evangelical entertainment troupe that ultimately obliterates the wall between church and state, as the group gets paid by the government to promote evangelical ideals among the troops. To do so they help build a videogame that has you killing or converting any brown skin peoples that doubt the righteousness of your belief system.
This troupe begins wandering Iraq on the taxpayer dime, handing out care packages to troops that include the videogame, white socks, boxes of baby wipes, a pocket-size Gideon bible, and a Christian extreme sports DVD.
I'm just kidding. That's not my book. It's absolutely real.
August 09, 2007
Three Things
How much does EA have to pay to get a rub down with happy ending from Reuters? Can't we leave that to bloggers and let Reuters focus on more important fare, like "sexually suspect pandas"?
The next person who says this year is the year of the Linux desktop should be beaten with a pipe.
Johnson and Johnson sues the Red Cross for using their own logo on Red Cross products. Cubicle asshats the Internet over can't decide if it's completely insane or good business.
Can I go outside now?
August 08, 2007
LEGO
A giant, smiling Lego man has been fished out of the sea in the Dutch resort of Zandvoort, and nobody knows where it came from.
Caricatures
By J Exhibit.
August 07, 2007
Headache?
If you've got a headache, it's probably because you accidentally lodged a pencil deep in your skull fifty five years ago and it has been there ever since.
Simple Presidential Candidate Position Breakdown
A complete breakdown of each Presidential candidates positions on most of the major issues.
Here is a larger copy that's actually readable.
August 06, 2007
Warren Ellis Relies on CNN
Warren Ellis has to rely on American cable news outlets while in the U.S. for Comic-Con:
"Given the time, CNN and their kin can present the news in such a way that it makes no sense to anyone, and increases no-one’s understanding of current events and the times they live in. I spent nine days in America this time, and it felt like I was in a bottle lost on the tide. I’m still catching up on what happened in the world over those nine days. All I know about that time is that Lindsay Lohan is the Road Warrior and the Space Shuttle can be flown while shitfaced."
August 03, 2007
Oklahoma!
Get your global war on terror license plate from the Oklahoma state website, and let everybody know you can't distinguish a culture, country or philosophy from a tactic!
The Greatest Thing To Happen To The Internet Ever!
The longer I spend reading startup blogs the more I feel like I'm in an alien culture where I can't decipher the language, the currency is dumbfounding, and I have absolutely no idea from day to day what triggers bouts of nonsensical enthusiasm among the locals.
The big news this morning is that an e-list celebrity is now regurgitating two-day-old news on video. A very exciting development! A star is born! Indeed.
I don't know if I'd call coordinated phony enthusiasm over inane products and ideas a conspiracy, but it might certainly fit under the "synchronized lobotomized whoring" tag.
This speaks back to the fact that there's a growing number of people in marketing who would love nothing more than to see the line between objective analysis and promotion blurred completely. It's a very back-scratchy, name-taggy, feel-goody kind of affair.
By the way, drink Pepsi.
As an aside, it's also really heart warming to see a site that has spent its entire existence ripping off content from others without doling out credit get rewarded for it to the tune of (potentially) $65 million. That's the America I know!
August 02, 2007
If I Go Missing...
I'll wager it's because, thanks to some very bright and dedicated guys, I shined a light on a group of very greasy individuals this week.
That or I ate too much paste again and fell into a ravine.
John Dvorak, The Lord of Trolls
John Dvorak, if you don't know, is probably the largest technology troll on the Interwebs.
All those scurrying retorts you see below his on the food chain at Techmeme are myopic men and women who pride themselves on insight yet aren't insightful enough to avoid being used to sell Dvorak's career via his latest hit-generating hissy storm.
This self-promotional ego circle jerk masquerading as important information exchange is one of several reasons I'll someday just open a god-damned plant nursery and leave the Internet for e-mail, porn and tax returns.
August 01, 2007
Dumb Law Crime Spree
Two Englishmen spend their time wandering America, looking for our dumbest laws, and then breaking them. Like the law in St. louis that says you can't drink beer out of a bucket.