This is Violence

terrathefair: Ludwig Wittgenstein (click through to hypertext...

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 10:13:56 -0800

Ludwig Wittgenstein (click through to hypertext of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus)

Failed Jeremy Lin Headline Puns

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 15:56:05 -0800

LINner ear infection
Abraham LINcoln
White LINfandel
Dorsal LIN
LINsay Lohan
Terms of LINderment
LINt roller
Now is the LINter of our discontent
LINdow washer
LINsider Trading

also

Jeremery Irons

"All it actually means is that even when one remembers something one did not remember one remembered,..."

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:48:00 -0800

“All it actually means is that even when one remembers something one did not remember one remembered, one may have only scratched the surface in regard to things one does not remember one remembers.”

- Kate

"It disturbs me the way turducken does, like as a close cousin to cannibalism. More terrifying, with..."

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:49:48 -0800

“It disturbs me the way turducken does, like as a close cousin to cannibalism. More terrifying, with sharks in the diet, Americans who might have been swallowed by sperm whales would have had another thing to worry about: sharing the stomach of your predator with yet another predator. To be eaten after being eaten. To be the –en of the turducken.”

- Swallowed by a whale — a true tale? - Salon.com

jstn: LOL This would be funnier if it weren’t so truly...

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:23:00 -0800

jstn:

LOL

This would be funnier if it weren’t so truly pathetic.

Taken paragraph by paragraph:

- Neither of the bills in question is about “parties working cooperatively together”. Instead, it’s about a whole host of the companies that form the foundation of the web, and the public at large, being forced to surrender their own rights as the government that is supposed to be protecting those same peoples rights instead capitulates to a few influential industries and their no-longer-relevent business models. (run-on sentence, yes. But it’s a free internet - so I can do that.)

- Further, there doesn’t seem to any evidence at all that there is “a problem that all now seem to agree is very real and damaging.” It’s opposite actually. As Tim O’Reilly put it: “In the entire discussion, I’ve seen no discussion of credible evidence of this economic harm. There’s no question in my mind that piracy exists, that people around the world are enjoying creative content without paying for it, and even that some criminals are profiting by redistributing it. But is there actual economic harm?” And that’s just it - the very foundational premise of this entire debate is assumed. This is frankly terrifying as a precedent for establishing law in this country.

- The only “abuse of the power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today” seems to coming from the very people responsible for this document. It’s frankly anathema to the free market ideals these same legislators and CEO’s claim to hold dear that they would push for a federal law protecting their own business model given, again, the complete lack of any evidence of actual harm.

- In terms of “a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts” I’ll simply refer to the preceding bullet and note that I’m beginning to think this might actually have been written by the Onion.

- Finally, I can’t think of anything “gimmick”-y about exercising one’s first amendment rights. And yes, this blackout IS “designed to punish elected and administration officials” - that’s what protests, and elections, are for. Perhaps the senator has forgotten who he’s there to work for?

Louis CK Single-Handedly Undermines All Imagined Logic of SOPA

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 10:03:00 -0800

Louis CK Single-Handedly Undermines All Imagined Logic of SOPA:

How weird is it that this could happen at the exact same time congress is listing to the bozo’s trying to push SOPA through?

manicchill: OWS Invests In Unmanned Surveillance Drone Dubbed...

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 08:23:56 -0800

manicchill:

OWS Invests In Unmanned Surveillance Drone Dubbed The ‘Occucopter’

For years we’ve seen images of the military’s unmanned aerial vehicles aiding soldiers in combat zones, and their evolution from surveillance tools to the heavily weaponized Predator drones. Now, the Guardian reports, Occupy Wall Street livestreamer Tim Pool hopes to use that technology as an additional set of eyes on the police department.

Tim Pool, an Occupy Wall Street protester, has acquired a Parrot AR drone he amusingly calls the “occucopter”. It is a lightweight four-rotor helicopter that you can buy cheaply on Amazon and control with your iPhone. It has an onboard camera so that you can view everything on your phone that it points at. Pool has modified the software to stream live video to the internet so that we can watch the action as it unfolds.

The Occucopter comes in response to police departments, across the country, stepping up efforts to prevent their actions from being recorded. Some have started covering up their names and badge numbers. Others attempt to stand in the way of recording devices, or declare “frozen zones” that are off limits to even the most credentialed reporters. Tim hopes that the Occucopter will allow protesters to monitor the police, and record any cases of brutality that may have otherwise remained undocumented.

In addition to modifying the Parrot’s software for internet livestreaming, Pool is also currently working on modifying the software for multiple controllers. He even hopes to add 3G functionality, so that even protesters and supporters outside of New York could aid in the monitoring process. When asked about his plans by the Guardian, he explained:

We are trying to get a stable live feed so you can have 50 people controlling it in series. If the cops see you controlling it from a computer they can shut you down, but then control could automatically switch to someone else.

Now you, much like myself, might find yourself wondering, “Isn’t he concerned that some officer(s) will just shoot it down?”

No…They can’t just fire a weapon in the air because it could seriously hurt someone. They would have no excuse because the occucopter is strictly not illegal. Their only recourse would be to make it illegal, but it is only a toy

So it would appear that we finally have an answer to a twenty five year old question. Tim Pool is watching the watchmen.

And doing a damn good job of it.

(images courtesy of Time/iPhoneZA/GeekAlerts)

"The fact that there was any debate over whether to call in experts on such a matter should tell you..."

Sat, 17 Dec 2011 08:01:56 -0800

“The fact that there was any debate over whether to call in experts on such a matter should tell you something about the integrity of Congress. It’d be one thing if legitimate technical questions directed at the bill’s supporters weren’t met with either silence or veiled accusations that the other side was sympathetic to piracy. Yet here we are with a group of elected officials openly supporting a bill they can’t explain, and having the temerity to suggest there’s no need to “bring in the nerds” to suss out what’s actually on it… The chilling takeaway of this whole debacle was the irrefutable air of anti-intellectualism; that inescapable absurdity that we have members of Congress voting on a technical bill who do not posses any technical knowledge on the subject and do not find it imperative to recognize those who do.

This used to be funny, but now it’s really just terrifying. We’re dealing with legislation that will completely change the face of the internet and free speech for years to come. Yet here we are, still at the mercy of underachieving Congressional know-nothings that have more in common with the slacker students sitting in the back of math class than elected representatives. The fact that some of the people charged with representing us must be dragged kicking and screaming out of their complacency on such matters is no longer endearing — it’s just pathetic and sad.”

- Joshua Kopstein, Dear Congress, It’s No Longer OK To Not Know How The Internet Works (via drinkyourjuice)

This friends, is the most important article you’ll read today. (via shortformblog)

Louis

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 19:39:48 -0800

Louis CK: comedian AND expert brand manager.

That there is the note you find when buying Louis CK’s new comedy special and while not quite as progressive as Radioheads “pay if you want’ model, it’s another great example of how a really well managed brand doesn’t need to fear it’s customers or pirates or whatever.

The fact is: someone (probably a lot of people) will torrent this. But here’s another fact: someone (probably a lot of people) who has never seen him before will see this show because of that torrent and become a fan, and watch his show (which will add to his ratings), and will buy his next video, and will pay to see him next time his in their town, and become one of the vast majority of people who, like myself, WANT to pay for his videos.

Instead of spending his time and money finding strategies to wring every last cent out of any who ever might want to see him, Louis is spending his time and money making fans.

shortformblog: Netflix to air new episodes of “Arrested...

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 21:14:22 -0800

shortformblog:

Netflix to air new episodes of “Arrested Development in 2013: Oh, Netflix, we forgive you!

Wow. Great move Netflix.

"You can be shaped, or you can be broken. There is not much in between."

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 16:41:56 -0800

“You can be shaped, or you can be broken. There is not much in between.”

- David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest (via nomoreundead)

Yeeeaaaah. That. Man - if you grew up in the 80’s or...

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 16:57:00 -0700

Yeeeaaaah. That.

Man - if you grew up in the 80’s or early 90’s this is a YES for you.

Ummm, what? This is the disclaimer from the promo site for...

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 15:25:00 -0700

Ummm, what?

This is the disclaimer from the promo site for Carmelo Anthony’s new shoe.

Order to look at your site I need to fully QUIT any other applications I might be working in, not only switch which browser I’m using but also close all the other sites I might have open in tabs. THEN, I need to open my browser preferences to allow you to popup additional browser windows - which I’m not allowed to click. All this so you can….what?

Riiiiiight.

But - it is HTML5, so…that’s a thing.

"The point of grammar is to facilitate clear and precise communication, to make language reflect..."

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:14:00 -0700

“The point of grammar is to facilitate clear and precise communication, to make language reflect thought and intention as closely as possible. On that front, a lot of colloquial bad grammar is actually GOOD grammar. I think focusing on grammar for grammar’s sake is a mistake.”

- —John Green (via runalovegood)

This guy gets it.

(via sylviawrath)

Someone needs to tell all the AP kids….

(via zeenie)

I think this is mostly true, but not entirely true.

As someone who’s grasp of even basic grammatical rules is fleeting at best, and who is a fairly firm believer in power of slang and colloquialisms, and who only recently acquiesced to using apostrophes in possessives (I’m a child of the IM era), I recently had my eyes opened to an additional factor in this discussion by way of David Wallace’s essay “Tense Present” which is: the baseline effectiveness of relaying a concept is only part of the equation. Your choice of words and the way you structure them are also a critical aspect how you convey what you’re thinking in the context of the reader.

In this way, I think using slang and colloquialisms are 100% acceptable as long as their meaning as signifiers of larger concepts is something you want your reader to infer - like in Infinite Jest, for example (to stay with the DWF thing). If on the other hand, you’re writing for an audience that doesn’t use that sort of language you should make the choice to use it conscious of what you’re signifying by doing so.

Blouse

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 11:48:14 -0700

apropos of the previous post:

I was in the future yesterday

October:

Well before shooting was scheduled to start, Rob, Ned, and I were at the warehouse to supervise the set up of what would serve as our laboratory. In one corner of the huge space, the plumbers were at work rigging a system that would allow us to precisely control the temperature of the water coming to the sink, and to measure the amount of water flowing. To the left of lab, across from the halfpipe and the dingy sofas was the cyclorama, painted half white and half blue and in that was a drum kit, a couple microphone stands and a few speakers.

“A band uses this as their studio.” Judah told me.

September:

We loved the dreamy ’80s-leaning first single from Portland’s Blouse, but this woozy, fleetingly wistful new jam is kind of next-level for the band, and has us extremely psyched for their forthcoming debut LP, due November 1 via the great Captured Tracks. Way too short, so put it on repeat for a while

I put it on repeat for like a month

October:

I knew Judah worked with a lot of local bands, but still there was more going against it that for it, like astronomically more: 1) As far as I knew, it was Peter, not Judah, who had secured the warehouse. 2) There a like a million bands in Portland 3) Who was to say that the equipment in the cyc was even a bands - it could have just been for another shoot.

Still, driving down Russell on my way to the warehouse I kept thinking: how amazing would it be?

“Judah - do you know who’s stuff this is? Does this all belong to a band?”

“Yeah, they’re called Blouse, they record here or something”

“…”

blouseband: Our record is officially out today! This album is...

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 11:48:01 -0700

blouseband:

Our record is officially out today!

This album is amazing. Seriously. I never write about music here, but this is insanely great.

the understatement: Android Orphans: Visualizing a Sad History of Support

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 12:06:48 -0700

the understatement: Android Orphans: Visualizing a Sad History of Support:

understatementblog:

The announcement that Nexus One users won’t be getting upgraded to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich led some to justifiably question Google’s support of their devices. I look at it a little differently: Nexus One owners are lucky. I’ve been researching the history of OS updates on Android phones…

Yeah - this is going to be a problem. It’s striking to me that apparently neither Google nor Microsoft seem able to internalize the intrinsic connection between hardware and software. This sort of fragmentation is the result.

The article does a good job of explaining the outcome of this fragmentation and the technical reasons for it, but one additional thing I might add is the cultural aspect to it. It would appear that both Microsoft and Google seem intent on trying to bending society to match their internal cultural rather than designing a company to meet the needs of society. It seems to not be working out well for them.

Advertising is a poison that demeans even love – and we're hooked on it | George Monbiot

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 12:35:09 -0700

Advertising is a poison that demeans even love – and we're hooked on it | George Monbiot:

“Advertising is a poison that demeans even love – and we’re hooked on it”

The Bank of Starbucks

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 11:05:51 -0700

The Bank of Starbucks:

This seems like a really terrific idea.

A great example of where the convergence of economies of scale a corporation can bring to bear with individuals doing what they can to help each other out. It doesn’t seem like this could work without both parties. Which is cool.

Also interesting to me - from a brand strategy point of view - is that this idea really asks Starbucks to sort of decouple themselves from coffee. Instead, it views each location as a place where a lot of people are, and where a lot of small amounts of money - in the form of change - are available. Nothing having to do with their core product. In some ways it’s just leveraging a very classic “instant gratification” emotion, but I think there is some other interesting stuff going on. At least in a proto way.

shortformblog: shitthatsirisays: SOURCE We like to think...

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 08:00:52 -0700

shortformblog:

shitthatsirisays:

SOURCE

We like to think that Siri is really Steve Jobs, in AI form. Also, this site is the funniest thing on the internet today, by far.