From the newthink dept over at Google a decision that causes me to laugh , hard. A selective ban on video of weapons that are deemed to be of an intimidating nature. That should read personal weapons since I don’t forsee those that glorify the state’s ability to render large areas hostile will be included within this ban. You Tube is becoming just the kind of "damage" that the Internet is great for routing around and not a concern on its own. Does Google ,which owns You Tube , seriously think they can take into account existing social mores for each culture and apply that sanely? So for most of the world no piss taking of the prophet, no info on biological processes and a myriad of changes keeping up with tin pot edicts of the moment. This is not organizing the world’s info it’s recreating it in your own image.
Category Archives: Culture-internet
Guns don’t kill people seemingly videos do . Google tries once again to do no evil while engaging in it.
fifty percent of you will leave this post feeling better. Placebo the anti drug BBC Radio 4 series.
One of the greatest losses of moving to the USA was that of the BBC Radio services. Sadly the BBC is funded by a tax not for using their services but for the gall of operating a TV , Radio or Satellite receiver. Licensing electronic media which is the ONLY practical location were people of limited means could find out what’s up in their society, you know get informed which is what we’re told is crucial to playing the game that is democracy , is a pretty horrible way to behave.
You must pay the $200+ a year to the BBC even if you never use their service. Yet for free I can access this programming over the net. ( odd that but I’m grateful anyway)
I listened to a short series about the placebo effect ,BBC – Radio 4 – Placebo, which goes into depths on just how much ” it’s all in the mind” goes towards reducing the perception of pain, recovery time and general mental well being. Yep sugar pills work , their analogs work ( reiki, reflexology or anything that has a believable story that your culture buys into )
In short
We feel what we expect to find as long as we’re committed to that belief.
Reality can be changed by symbols , yep symbols really are for the symbol minded.
And advertising.. well 
that’s another story.
brandstreaming yet another nightmare that needs to find a way to Room 101.
Like most things in life, the universe and what’s still being called social media , you can pull up some aphorism from some Greek that’s been dead for over two millenia to anchor your point to. Do no harm isn’t a bad one, and it’s a lot easier to pull off than do no evil yet neither are as compelling , or succinct as Wil Wheaton’s “don’t be a dick” as an almost libertarian reduction of the non aggression principle into the vernacular. (Sadly his writings on politics really don’t ultimately follow this but let’s not get into that)
In short it’s a set of rules for the relationship between creators, promoters and fans around Sci Fi / Fantasy conventions which can be extrapolated to most commercial interactions. E.G Are we customers, consumers, data points or people that want to get things done?
When you have a “voice” for a corporation engaged in social media maybe it’s a good idea to think about the above because the mode of address you choose in 3/4 cases is going to be wrong
Can a corporation really be your friend? Does this construct sound real? X is out buying yummy things his company make , Y is out watching their Movie etc Does this sound remotely like a relationship your engaged in? If it doesn’t it’s for the obvious reason that it ISN’T.
I love dealing with people from companies, hate dealing with company names that have a rotating cast of interchangeable responses that would make Turing dance with glee. I can’t tell them apart from a machine or human either.
Wer in ur boahdroomz wutchin yu wit intrst
*invisible pink unicorn peace be unto her hooves.
The Question I shouldn’t have been trying to ask Penn. ( e.g any;) )
Ah the question.
The James Randi educational foundation are in their own words
The James Randi Educational Foundation is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1996. Its aim is to promote critical thinking by reaching out to the public and media with reliable information about paranormal and supernatural ideas so widespread in our society today.
I’ve been to a TAM , the conference tied to JREF and loved it. I was really shocked by just how many religious skeptics there were though , really amazed. Toss that in with the statists that believe that thinking and research are a government sport and I was a little unsettled that the critical thought movement would align on the democracy YAY! side of things I mean these people are smart Gell Mann smart. Just have to face it classically liberal ( aka libertarian) ideals just don’t fly in this land of the lobbyist. ( I don’t blame them they would not exist if the politicians weren’t corruptible)
Here’s the question as I thought I was going to ask it to Penn after seeing the show in Vegas.
I think Joe Rogan pwned Phil Plait on Penn’s show on more than one occasion how does that bode for his new position as the president of the JREF and how about a rematch moderated by Penn
Here’s what came out:
Erin gets a whiff of dick cheese.
At the Coverville party Aug 2008 Erin poses with the amusing and more talented than you’d think Dick Cheese and lounge against the machine
the iPhone as a sci fi prop or in my case Agit prop:)
Repost from Work blog. Mobile web is something I am about to become boring on. I really would like to remake Apple’s 1984 commercial in a similar vein with the projectile of choice being mobile handsets.
This is my iPhone There are many like it but this one is mine*. My iPhone is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I master my life. My iphone, without me is useless as it can’t hold a charge too long . Without my iPhone, I am useless and have to ask strangers for directions and risk poor restaurants and ….
I read a lot of speculative fiction , a lot of fantasy and enough horror to know that I don’t need to read anything original on what happens when squishy meets, hard, soft,sharp, fast or a myriad other inventive and leg crossing endings to books. I digress. The point is that in my hand the iPhone , and it’s ilk, provides me with many of the ideas I read about in Clarke, Asimov and a few others in my youth. Yet so many people want to recreate the desktop world to walk around with.
We all can see what’s there , ok creationists can’t , but sifting the invisible from the non existent is a fun task and one which makes me interested enough to stay awake for a while.
*actually it’s my employers.
Iphone wordpress
Input a post on the iPhone wordpress
Or read Galt’s speech ?
The latter. Seems quicker
Will the iPhone kill anything other than common sense?
I’m going to start posting items from my work blog onto this one since I get more exposure here.
A couple of items appeared on my reader in close proximity that suggested that iPhone isn’t just a neat phone but it’s also the future of handheld gaming and the death of terrestrial radio.
It’s also the death of common sense least for the current incarnation of the iPhone. Which network is going to have the ability to support that many real times streams? If you don’t have immediacy it’s not radio. Sure you can DL the playlist 1st over night then just add in the hosts locally may work, but why bother what are we trying to achieve here? Replication of radio? Why if it’s so bad, would we want to?
Apples target… 10 million phones.
Yep that kills radio’s more than 1 unit per person. > 300 million.
that kills Nintendo’s ( just one companies) 20 million DS base.
It doesn’t even kill XM/ Sirius merge with 17.3 million paying users. It’s a bit late to walk by the bleeding corpse of radio and get your friend to take a picture of you standing with your foot on its chest. That’s the perception of radio anyway. Sadly it doesn’t jibe with these results.
Radio reaches more than 235 million listeners over the course of the week according to the RADAR 97 June 2008 Radio Listening Estimates. (link)
20 times more people than Apple expect to sell phones to. Radio Two controls, no computer needed to keep it in sync and oh battery life can be in weeks/ month range.
As to handheld gaming? Would you pay $70 a month for your kid to play games on it? Beggars belief really that it’s being seriously considered as a question.
Can we start using the iPhone to do excellent iPhone related things rather than trying to recreate the old world?
Doogie Howser WMD aka Dr Horrible’s sing along blog
Fans of things Whedonesque have got a lot to be thankful for. This show may be instructive on proving that Unions still have a use That point is that whenever a sea change in technology ,be it media or improvements to manufacturing , education ( yeah right) they are always present in the role of societal Canute. I will grant you their role had value back in the early days but in the latter half of the 20C it’s been all about maintaining their power from that point on , the organization uber alles. I digress but this show is a product of the WGA strike and rumblings on who gets paid what in relation to online content from both sag and aftra. There’s a great post on that here from the closest thing to an objectivist I think you’ll find in media ( I saw closest as I am agnostic about their existence;)
Anyway this is a mini web series , three episodes, and other than note that anyone I know already has this , so , so who the hell am I telling? Frak that .
Think live action Venture brothers with a tad of Pinky tossed in. Seeing Captain Mal, er Hammer again rocks as the “good “ guy that wants to take the heroine on a tour of a VW’s rear , you know somewhere uncomfortable was great. It’s not like most web shows , ephemeral to the power of mayfly , you truly can watch and sing along more times that may be healthful:) Don’t be horrible, buy this , don’t rip it off as I want to see more, more more!
Mike Schmidt Comedy – “40 year old boy” Podcast listening recommendation
One of the original cast for Now never funny, er Never not funny ( buy season 1 disk it’s really good )started a podcast sixteen episodes back. I forgot to mention it to people. If you don’t like casual vulgarity , talk of violence towards those that deserve it .
If things like
“I’d stick my dick in a fence just to get it away from Lucy “
re Lucille Ball in a made up piece re “the joker”" Cesare Romero trying to hit on Desi. His mind doesn’t just wander, it books cruises and circumnavigates the Earth.
The show iss deeper than this of course but I’m trying to make the point that if you believe that truth can only be found in civil company with no naughty words then please avoid this and go back to your Marmaduke comic collection
Wanted: Review. Not everyone’s a Wall-e this is more Rat- a-kablooey
Ah yes I remember this game, Mikrogen’s “everyone’s a wally” but not everyone this weekend was a Wall*e as Wanted took down some serious money too.
Interview with director on ,Daywatch, his prior movie
Myspace sued by people with no sense of irony.
I hope they win. Then I hope the daughter sues the parents. You know the people that took on the responsibility to protect their kid. Seemingly they don’t.
Family’s lawsuit claims MySpace responsible for daughter’s assault
Gregory Coleman, a lawyer for the girl’s family, said the law only gives MySpace a “limited shield” from liability.“It has a responsibility to (protect) children,” he said.
The girl, identified as Julie Doe in court papers, was 13 when she created a MySpace profile in 2005. MySpace requires users to be at least 14, but the girl misrepresented herself as 18 years old.
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Yes here’s why we need the state. They keep us X from Y ( HHR Huge head ruination) fails safety check.
There’s 182 thousand cheap people out there that need their head examined. Seemingly the point that most people miss here, and one which I will make sure you do not miss is this! It’s not the state that makes you safe, in fact they abrogated that responsibility to the people that you want them to protect you from. So we pay more money to protect ourselves to the people that say, nah we trust you . go on knock yourself, and your customers out. Maybe without so much “regulation” there would be enough money to make cars that work right the first time:)
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — General Motors said it will recall 181,516 Chevrolet HHR wagons Wednesday after finding that some of the vehicles don’t meet government standards for protecting occupants from head injury in a crash.
Chevy HHRs not equipped with optional roof rail-mounted airbags and sold between 2006 and 2008 failed GM’s side-impact tests, said GM. Roof rail-mounted airbags are designed to reduce the risk of head injury in the event of a side-impact collision.
GM to recall more 181,516 Chevy HHRs due to side-impact risk – Feb. 13, 2008
Turning into y for yawndetta.
Just in case I don’t pass approval with this one. Here’s the reply to the last comment which has yet to be approved.
I don’t use drugs. ( I’m just not opposed to those that do) Strike 1:
I was “attacking” your incorrect ideas and not the person holding
them. I’m very much anti state.All the woes you try to lay at my
feet are caused by them. Yeah I’m sorry I made such a mess in the inner city.I’m not even from the USA your presumption of privilege based on
some atavistic fantasy of my family lording it over the poor is your
second strike.Lastly I’m an anarcho capitalist. If you must hate me at least do it
for the right reasons.So rather than being pleasant and discussing ideas lets talk about
your claim to love mankind and help them when you can’t even take an
obvious case like Anton-wilson and apply his philosophy correctly,
regardless of wether you agreed with it or not.Thank you, I can do without you, and your friends, modeling society
for me when you can’t apparently control your anger at the world
without attacking a commenter on your blog that holds a contrary
opinion.You have no idea which non profits I assist, no idea which causes I
lend technical assistance to and no basis in reality for your claims
that I am oblivious to severe structural issues within my adopted
nation. We just don’t agree on remedy that’s all.That’s the problem with collective solutions you can’t see
individuals and have decided to take me for that which I am not. A
key lesson that RAW had to offer and one which is never going to take
with someone stuck in the Fnords of gender, race or perceived
privilege
Oh damn it looks like I have gone and made a friend:) Socialist calls me out as a white priviliged stoner!
It’s been a while since a comment of mine made somebody’s day. Hell it made such an impression that I got my very on post: Seemingly the best way to deal with individuals is to lump them into one group you can dismiss as “them” My “themness” is based on my colour , income and advocacy for individual rights in the form of allowing people to control what they put into their body. Oddly many of the same people that hate the latter idea are way too happy when it’s regulating things that come out of a body. I digress. Where I think he’s wrong is that it’s statism that’s the enemy regardless on how you get their by vote or by violence. ( Really the first is a thin proxy for the latter) It’s the collective, the large group the kind of people that have left thoughts from thoughts that should have been left back in the 20th C. The Century that more people died at the hands of the state, any state than any time prior.
Good Times and Bad Times in Lost America
Here’s an interesting interchange between a commenter and myself coming from the post where I pointed out that Robert Anton Wilson very clearly denounced democracy as having caused more casualties than Nazism and Stalinism combined.
