It is fitting that the locality whose residents enjoy the least personal freedom is none other than our nation's capital. Corrupt city officials, extortionate taxes, draconian laws, ubiquitous crime, militarized police--you suck balls, D.C. Only your museums redeem you.
Not a very accurate analogy. Wouldn't it suck if the car were to unconditionally burst into flames unless you were sure to also purchase an extra $1000 in "safety features" and have them installed perfectly before ever attempting to drive it? (And without the dealer actually telling you this.)
...and thus begins another Pontiac owner's tale of woe.
All you need to make it a great scene in a movie is for the laptop to shake, slide off the table, then explode in a huge fireball when it impacts the carpet as the guy knocks her out of the way.
How about a nuclear rocket? That might meet the criterium of "motherfuckload," as you say.
Ion engines are still primitive, but nuclear rocket motors are much closer to practicality. All the theoretical work is done, as are working blueprints. I saw one design, linked to on this site if I am not mistaken, for a nuclear-powered rocket, massively redundant and overbuilt for safety, designed to land vertically after releasing a massive payload into virtually any orbit you please.
Now that's a rocket, and maybe the very sort of technology that this undertaking would require. But who knows, maybe we will have progressed beyond the current state of antigravity tech to something practical. At present, we have only these rather modest experiments to give us hope.
And nobody has mentioned solar sails, or should I say, solar parachutes. Of course, they would need to be big.
Or just put it in an orbit outside the Van Allen belts. A big, rugged space station there would be nice. Somebody get Virgin Galactic on this, or reshuffle the consortium that brought us the International Space Station boondoggle in favor of a truly worthy multinational project that will:
a. Give us an opportunity to explore techniques for redirecting asteroids.
b. Provide a test bed for asteroid mining techniques.
The problem is the accumulated years of advertising that has rewired their brains to accept only windows. The image of that little "start" menu with the multicolored Windows icon is etched into their consciousness.
It's behavioral and neurological. Most people are thoroughly conditioned to function on emotion and instinct. Their higher cognitive functions controlling creativity and critical thinking are disabled, making them predictable and obedient. Advertisers understand this, and beat down the resistance of their targeted market through the ubiquity of their message. They want the consumer to get a warm, fuzzy feeling every time they see their name, ultimately distilling the message to the appearance of a single well-crafted logo (Apple, anyone?) At this point, the advertiser's main task is finished, and then all that is required is to lead the consumer to the right feeding trough, credit card in hand.
Naturally, rival companies work tirelessly for the allegiance of the consumer, but once the consumer associates warm, fuzzy sense of belonging and fulfillment is associated with one brand, it is hard for the rival to break the relationship. Microsoft is personal computing. That status is wavering, but unless they fuck up very badly, a huge market is theirs for the foreseeable future; too much public consciousness is tied up in the Microsoft brand. All they need to do is to keep instilling the warm, fuzzy herd-belonging feeling in their customers, and they'll keep coming back. Relentless advertising + mediocre product + established customer base = long term dominance.
To break the lock, Microsoft needs to falter badly with the quality of their product, which arguably has already happened, and sombody needs to drive a wedge between Microsoft and their customers by exploiting this through advertising. Apple can do it, because they have a quality product and excellent advertising. Linux will have trouble in this sphere because it is not a single brand, unless you count the penguin, but a consortium of for-profit and non-profit entities, a complex picture for prospective consumers. Consumers hate complexity.
Kind of tangential but still funny: Now for the best example of what advertising can do, look no further than the triumph of Budweiser among American rednecks. Budweiser is a horrid beverage, yet it is unassailably ensconced as the "king of beers" among the rural white working class, who consider it's routine consumption not only a matter of course, but one's patriotic duty. It's very strange: "This Bud's For You." What the fuck is that?"
Ah yes, the urinal. The Dadaists weren't happy with their performances unless they culminated in scenes of bedlam. But that was a more cultured era, when, rather perversely, the average European found something in art worth rioting about.
The funny thing about Duchamp was that he possessed such surpassing skill--he could paint or sculpt basically anything, any way he wanted, and yet he chose to pull stunts like the urinal, just to see what kind of reaction he would get, which made the whole process of presentation a form of performance art, a test of the crowd's capacity for provokation.
For my part, I say Duchamp and the other artistic radicals of recent history (Lenny Bruce, The Doors, etc.) stated well the first part of the question of art's definition, that is, any kind of public spectacle that compels people to ask if it is indeed even art. For example, from at least the 70's to the present is the "shlock art" phase, wherein no-talent artists join forces with cynical art dealers to relieve culturally illiterate yuppies of thier money. This art will depreciate in value as it's intellectual and spiritual impoverishment becomes obvious; because the intent guiding it's creation was lacking in skill and passion, it is not an enduring work of art.
That leads to the second part of the art question: does it endure in the public consciousness? Does it become a prized museum piece or a prominently displayed heirloom in a rich man's home? Is it played by orchestras 200 years after the death of the composer? If yes, then it's passed the test.
So, in summary, if it provokes and outrages people and is treated with scorn and derision, yet years later is revered by nearly everyone, without question, then it's art.
If anybody's done it, it's these people. Their pilot project involved the waste from a turkey processing plant combined with various mixtures of discarded plastic. The investors included agribusiness and petrochemical companies, and they poured a lot of capital into the technology.
Granted, breaking down simple polymers and animal guts into water, carbon, oil, and trace elements is a lot simpler and less energy-intensive than breaking down metals and PCBs, but recycling technology is in its infancy. Resource scarcity, driven by economic development and a rising population, combined with the worldwide growth of environmentalism, will drive the technology forward. Note that their website features a landfill--to me, that's a hint that they see a market in the materials buried there. As the technology--especially nanotechnology--progresses, it will become profitable to dig up old trash.
Whatever these guys are up to at present, I suspect it's working, as the new site is greatly expanded from the old one, and they no longer appear to be focusing only on the animal by-products. Imagine applying thermal depolymerization to municipal water treatment.
The weak link, as everybody else has already mentioned, is finding an energy source to run all of the machinery.
Well, I agree with you in principle that the program is an imposition, there are a lot of other scams that put this one to shame. Example? And that's a drop in the ocean.
The major problem with electronics is the heavy metals that go into their manufacture and disposal, polluting the soil and groundwater for generations. I can foresee a day when people file environmental lawsuits against the electronics manufacturers, in a manner analagous to what they've done, rather unjustly, I add, with the tobacco and handgun industries. Hopefully, the manufacturers see the writing on the wall and clean up their own industry both as a defense against future litigation, and more advantageously, as a marketing gimmick.
Personally, I see the consumer as bearing the full weight of responsibility for the heaps of digital crap getting dumped into landfills. Nobody is making anyone buy that stuff, nor are consumers exactly burying the electronics companies in demands for greener manufacturing. And companies do respond to customer feedback, some more than others, but being profit-oriented entities, they will recognize an emerging market in green electronics, and the smart ones will capitalize. Yuppies will, as always, be the early adopters and pay a premium. Prices will drop, and the masses will follow suit.
It weeded out all those retards with a geology degree who were in it just for the cash.
Interesting--I've never met any retarded geologists. Are they allowed to use rock hammers when they're doing field work, or do they have to use the Nerf ones?
Yes, disable it, and use a quick and functional third-party PDF viewer like this one. Acrobat in an ponderous, bloated abomination, kind of like Mothra in larval form.
I think the grandparent post does have a point, most people would rather die of an instant death, such as bombs dropped accidentally in civillian areas, than being tortured by Saddam.
Beg pardon, but for every "surgical" strike hitting its intended target, any number of nearby innocents are killed, disfigured, or tormented by the grief of having their parents and siblings blown to bits. The moral process behind the bombing is depraved, akin to firing a howitzer into a crowd because you spot your enemies its midst. There is no "freedom" in the aftermath, only death and ruin.
We could start fitting shades on the streetlights to deflect the light away from the sky, for starters, although I can see such a process getting very expensive.
Light pollution is as much a cultural problem as an environmental one, because it helps to sever our emotional ties to nature, and blunts our understanding that a rich universe exists outside the grey expanse of the city. If you're an urban kid and you never get a chance to see a sky that is relatively unblemished by artificial light, how likely are you to develop an interest in astronomy? While I haven't seen the phenomenon first hand, I've heard stories about the city kids that get bused out to the countryside and are completly awestruck by the night sky because it's the first time in their lives that they've been able to see it.
Precisely. It is about taking one more job (the weather) out of the hands of the Almighty and into the claws of the military-industrial complex. Above all, these devices are strategic weapons intended for the manipulation of weather systems over rival countries, with serious economic and humanitarian consequences. It's ingenious; is there a better way to surrupticiously wage war than to screw up some other country's weather?
Mercifully, people are getting hip to the experimentation being done on the ionosphere, and with a little luck, we can look forward to a monster scandal when the hearings are convened. And don't look at me funny, Google it and see.
Have you tried doing a special order from your local independent bookstore? I realize that in such an instance you won't get it straight to your door, but these people are under a lot of pressure to deliver, thanks to the web-based retailers, and they'll happily take special orders. Trust me, I buy a lot of books and the local people will give discounts on volume special orders because they don't have to stock them and they want repeat customers.
And you're correct about the UPS shenanigans. I prefer FedEx whenever it's available because they arrive early in the morning, as opposed to late in the day when I'm at work. They also will leave packages unsigned at your request, whereas their big brown competitor will not.
Ahem, gentlemen, I suggested the Smithsonian because it is a prominent and extremely well-funded American museum that might be amenable to sponsering an international exhibit of this kind. I had not intended the suggestion as a slight to other nationalities, but being the bigoted American cunt that I am, it was the first idea that came to mind. But to tell the truth, the guy posting below is basically correct about modern computers being of U.S. and U.K. origin, having been employed with staggering success in the early days to crack the Axis codes. And as for the PC, that is indisputably an American innovation.
Slashdot Mirror
(flame on)
...and thus begins another Pontiac owner's tale of woe.
Somebody get Jerry Bruckheimer on the line...
I screw them by making my own music. If those wankers on MTV can pretend to have skill, so can I.
Ion engines are still primitive, but nuclear rocket motors are much closer to practicality. All the theoretical work is done, as are working blueprints. I saw one design, linked to on this site if I am not mistaken, for a nuclear-powered rocket, massively redundant and overbuilt for safety, designed to land vertically after releasing a massive payload into virtually any orbit you please.
Now that's a rocket, and maybe the very sort of technology that this undertaking would require. But who knows, maybe we will have progressed beyond the current state of antigravity tech to something practical. At present, we have only these rather modest experiments to give us hope.
And nobody has mentioned solar sails, or should I say, solar parachutes. Of course, they would need to be big.
a. Give us an opportunity to explore techniques for redirecting asteroids.
b. Provide a test bed for asteroid mining techniques.
c. Become an orbiting space station.
d. Promote international cooperation.
It's behavioral and neurological. Most people are thoroughly conditioned to function on emotion and instinct. Their higher cognitive functions controlling creativity and critical thinking are disabled, making them predictable and obedient. Advertisers understand this, and beat down the resistance of their targeted market through the ubiquity of their message. They want the consumer to get a warm, fuzzy feeling every time they see their name, ultimately distilling the message to the appearance of a single well-crafted logo (Apple, anyone?) At this point, the advertiser's main task is finished, and then all that is required is to lead the consumer to the right feeding trough, credit card in hand.
Naturally, rival companies work tirelessly for the allegiance of the consumer, but once the consumer associates warm, fuzzy sense of belonging and fulfillment is associated with one brand, it is hard for the rival to break the relationship. Microsoft is personal computing. That status is wavering, but unless they fuck up very badly, a huge market is theirs for the foreseeable future; too much public consciousness is tied up in the Microsoft brand. All they need to do is to keep instilling the warm, fuzzy herd-belonging feeling in their customers, and they'll keep coming back. Relentless advertising + mediocre product + established customer base = long term dominance.
To break the lock, Microsoft needs to falter badly with the quality of their product, which arguably has already happened, and sombody needs to drive a wedge between Microsoft and their customers by exploiting this through advertising. Apple can do it, because they have a quality product and excellent advertising. Linux will have trouble in this sphere because it is not a single brand, unless you count the penguin, but a consortium of for-profit and non-profit entities, a complex picture for prospective consumers. Consumers hate complexity.
Kind of tangential but still funny:
Now for the best example of what advertising can do, look no further than the triumph of Budweiser among American rednecks. Budweiser is a horrid beverage, yet it is unassailably ensconced as the "king of beers" among the rural white working class, who consider it's routine consumption not only a matter of course, but one's patriotic duty. It's very strange: "This Bud's For You." What the fuck is that?"
Hopelessness assails me.
Why not? She might pick up some extra income.
The funny thing about Duchamp was that he possessed such surpassing skill--he could paint or sculpt basically anything, any way he wanted, and yet he chose to pull stunts like the urinal, just to see what kind of reaction he would get, which made the whole process of presentation a form of performance art, a test of the crowd's capacity for provokation.
For my part, I say Duchamp and the other artistic radicals of recent history (Lenny Bruce, The Doors, etc.) stated well the first part of the question of art's definition, that is, any kind of public spectacle that compels people to ask if it is indeed even art. For example, from at least the 70's to the present is the "shlock art" phase, wherein no-talent artists join forces with cynical art dealers to relieve culturally illiterate yuppies of thier money. This art will depreciate in value as it's intellectual and spiritual impoverishment becomes obvious; because the intent guiding it's creation was lacking in skill and passion, it is not an enduring work of art.
That leads to the second part of the art question: does it endure in the public consciousness? Does it become a prized museum piece or a prominently displayed heirloom in a rich man's home? Is it played by orchestras 200 years after the death of the composer? If yes, then it's passed the test.
So, in summary, if it provokes and outrages people and is treated with scorn and derision, yet years later is revered by nearly everyone, without question, then it's art.
My ears are still ringing from that.
If anybody's done it, it's these people. Their pilot project involved the waste from a turkey processing plant combined with various mixtures of discarded plastic. The investors included agribusiness and petrochemical companies, and they poured a lot of capital into the technology.
Granted, breaking down simple polymers and animal guts into water, carbon, oil, and trace elements is a lot simpler and less energy-intensive than breaking down metals and PCBs, but recycling technology is in its infancy. Resource scarcity, driven by economic development and a rising population, combined with the worldwide growth of environmentalism, will drive the technology forward. Note that their website features a landfill--to me, that's a hint that they see a market in the materials buried there. As the technology--especially nanotechnology--progresses, it will become profitable to dig up old trash.
Whatever these guys are up to at present, I suspect it's working, as the new site is greatly expanded from the old one, and they no longer appear to be focusing only on the animal by-products. Imagine applying thermal depolymerization to municipal water treatment.
The weak link, as everybody else has already mentioned, is finding an energy source to run all of the machinery.
Well, I agree with you in principle that the program is an imposition, there are a lot of other scams that put this one to shame. Example? And that's a drop in the ocean.
The major problem with electronics is the heavy metals that go into their manufacture and disposal, polluting the soil and groundwater for generations. I can foresee a day when people file environmental lawsuits against the electronics manufacturers, in a manner analagous to what they've done, rather unjustly, I add, with the tobacco and handgun industries. Hopefully, the manufacturers see the writing on the wall and clean up their own industry both as a defense against future litigation, and more advantageously, as a marketing gimmick.
Personally, I see the consumer as bearing the full weight of responsibility for the heaps of digital crap getting dumped into landfills. Nobody is making anyone buy that stuff, nor are consumers exactly burying the electronics companies in demands for greener manufacturing. And companies do respond to customer feedback, some more than others, but being profit-oriented entities, they will recognize an emerging market in green electronics, and the smart ones will capitalize. Yuppies will, as always, be the early adopters and pay a premium. Prices will drop, and the masses will follow suit.
Interesting--I've never met any retarded geologists. Are they allowed to use rock hammers when they're doing field work, or do they have to use the Nerf ones?
Yes, disable it, and use a quick and functional third-party PDF viewer like this one. Acrobat in an ponderous, bloated abomination, kind of like Mothra in larval form.
And today? Why, he's enjoying his new life of freedom with his shiny new prosthetic arms. Probably misses his family, though.
Beg pardon, but for every "surgical" strike hitting its intended target, any number of nearby innocents are killed, disfigured, or tormented by the grief of having their parents and siblings blown to bits. The moral process behind the bombing is depraved, akin to firing a howitzer into a crowd because you spot your enemies its midst. There is no "freedom" in the aftermath, only death and ruin.
Which is far more likely to lead to our downfall than any foreign enemy. It's the biggest open secret in the U.S. at this moment.
Hey, I like the Postal Service. Their uniforms are cool.
Light pollution is as much a cultural problem as an environmental one, because it helps to sever our emotional ties to nature, and blunts our understanding that a rich universe exists outside the grey expanse of the city. If you're an urban kid and you never get a chance to see a sky that is relatively unblemished by artificial light, how likely are you to develop an interest in astronomy? While I haven't seen the phenomenon first hand, I've heard stories about the city kids that get bused out to the countryside and are completly awestruck by the night sky because it's the first time in their lives that they've been able to see it.
It's about military-industrial applications:
Precisely. It is about taking one more job (the weather) out of the hands of the Almighty and into the claws of the military-industrial complex. Above all, these devices are strategic weapons intended for the manipulation of weather systems over rival countries, with serious economic and humanitarian consequences. It's ingenious; is there a better way to surrupticiously wage war than to screw up some other country's weather?
Mercifully, people are getting hip to the experimentation being done on the ionosphere, and with a little luck, we can look forward to a monster scandal when the hearings are convened. And don't look at me funny, Google it and see.
Fuck you, Bergman, you egotistical wanker. Get a job at DHS where you'll fit in.
And you're correct about the UPS shenanigans. I prefer FedEx whenever it's available because they arrive early in the morning, as opposed to late in the day when I'm at work. They also will leave packages unsigned at your request, whereas their big brown competitor will not.
Don't be silly. Optimus' authority is beyond dispute, and Autobots never fight Autobots.
I am offended by your Decepticon-ish post. Did Starscream put you up to this?
What kind, African or European?
Ahem, gentlemen, I suggested the Smithsonian because it is a prominent and extremely well-funded American museum that might be amenable to sponsering an international exhibit of this kind. I had not intended the suggestion as a slight to other nationalities, but being the bigoted American cunt that I am, it was the first idea that came to mind. But to tell the truth, the guy posting below is basically correct about modern computers being of U.S. and U.K. origin, having been employed with staggering success in the early days to crack the Axis codes. And as for the PC, that is indisputably an American innovation.