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Showing posts from August, 2011

Zero - Smashing Pumpkins/[AMV]

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The App Model: Dangerous to the Net

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There are those that are working to attempt to change the browsing model. Have you ever thought, there seems to be an app for everything? It's because apps are not actual applications - they're really just web pages. And those that want to change the way we see the net - would love us to think otherwise. But there is a very, very dark undercurrent to allowing others to essentially deliver the software you use, as a service. And to take away an open, flexible method of moving across the net - in exchange for a proprietary, closed method where you pay 1.99 for each new site you want to hit. In December, Apple said it removed an application from its mobile store that let people browse WikiLeaks documents from their iPhones "because it violated developer guidelines." The company suggested that the app broke laws or could be harmful to people. Explain to me how the ability to be able to view Bank of America's internal memorandum, or find out exactly h

A Tropical Storm in Vermont

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Hurricane Irene , by all accounts a weak storm made landfall to New England as a category 1 - with winds barely topping 90 mph. The line between a hurricane, and a tropical storm - is whether or not the windspeed reaches 75 miles an hour. Above that, a hurricane. Below that windspeed line, a tropical storm. This is the NOAA windspeed measurement as it struck New England: ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE 954 MB MAX SUSTAINED WINDS 70 KT WITH GUSTS TO 85 KT. As she came ashore, she produced, in New England - 10 , maybe 12 foot seas/ winds of 70mph. I have lived through a storm that produced 32 foot waves, with winds of 145 to 150 mph. Irene was not a Hurricane. The storm, however, was far reaching - giant in scope . It is clear that this storm fed from vast amounts of hot, moist water from the gulf stream. It became a giant storm in scope - and dropped alot of rain. However, the storm was a precursor. Much stronger storms can and will exist - temperat

The Science Section

I had about 5 minutes to kill while something completed this morning, so I went over to a news media entertainment site - and on a whim , decided to hit their 'scitech' link. The idea that I had in my mind was - that this site is really aggravating because it tends to actually report , in and out of a week - but uses the rest of its time to push a political party's talking points as news. When I thought about it - I decided , why not check out their science section? Here's what I found. Five articles on the main page. The first article was one on a website hitting 1 trillion views. The second article wondered what the fate of Apple corporation would be without its venerated CEO. The third article was a review of a few websites whose traffic and ad revenue seem to be declining. .. Is there a trend here? In case you haven't figured it out by now - the trend is that none of this relates to science in any way shape or form. All of it is marketing i

Reports of My Death ..

A quote from a news article: Blogging is dead – or at least it has shifted to another medium. Now, instead of typing several pages worth of material, most Web users just tap in a 140-character sentiment on Twitter. “Long-form” blogging is not as popular, and we all know the jokes about the blogger in his parent’s basement. Sites like Blogger.com and TypePad.com have declined considerably of late, dropping about 25-30% in user visits per Compete.com. Granted, some have discovered the streamlined blogging tool WordPress.com, which has enjoyed steady growth the past few years. I find it interesting that news media entertainment seems to work strongly toward the prospect of reporting on other tools. I think this is because tools that constrain expression, and limit the ability of users to convey to others - ideas of some breadth - are often better suited for inclusion as a sidebar to news media entertainment. The underlying reality is that more often than not - they replace n

You Spoke to Me - Tree of Life

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Lacrimosa - Tree of Life

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Long, Long, Long Time - Asteroid Impact/Beatles [AMV]

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No Country for Old Men - Intro

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Junk Mail

Junk mail floods my inbox unfiltered overbearing stale, yet laced with toxin like mold on refried beans left too long in a refrigerator with a broken thermostat so that it grows black and poisons you if you even taste a little no matter how much of the bad stuff you scrape away And if the truth is known it can never really succeed to poison but it makes you sick you want to throw up and lay down you want to be alone in a dark room the windows drawn nobody home So here is my plan: throw it out by myself no one else empty deleted items then once done feel clean and in self reward surf dirty porn when no one is around and the cat touches my nose then falls asleep on my keyboard

CallerID of Cthulhu

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"Some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new Dark Age." - HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

Ghost of Stephen Foster - Squirrel Nut Zippers

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Lovecraft

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There's an undercurrent throughout my life that sex is somehow wrong. That it will harm you. This comes , quite possibly from a Catholic school upgringing. I acquiesce that sex can add to a relationship dimension, both positive and negative. It can hold relationships together, build trust, and it's a universally accepted apres ski. And it's fun. But... I have been thinking today about a man who thought very little of Tiger Woods, and seemingly - sex in general. Someone who shot himself in the head a day or so ago. He seemed to think that because Tiger got involved with a girl... ok... 12 girls... on the side, while he was married to a beautiful blonde swedish woman... that somehow Tiger should be stripped of his green jacket. For those that know, a green jacket is won by winning the greatest golf tournament of all time - the Masters. And it is not lost, ever. On this point, a friend of mine was confused. When we found that Woods had cheated on his wife, some sa

Girl , You'll Be A Woman Soon - Urge Overkill

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The footlong patriotic corndog of freedom

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Michele Bachmann, Bush Republican.

Sorry I'm Late

I just got done taming a wild honeymoon stallion for you guys. A semi-random list of some films , for your enjoyment - more or less organized by director, according to rougly how G I think they are. Which is your favorite? Did I miss any? Apocalypse Now The Tree of Life Harold and Maude Fantasia * The Call of Cthulhu Serenity The Sound of Music Napoleon Dynamite ** *** Natural Born Killers The Matrix The Spy Who Came in from the Cold Das Boot Caddyshack Starship Troopers The Last Temptation of Christ Across the Universe Happy Gilmore It Might Get Loud Sid and Nancy The Princess Bride Aliens Easy Rider O Brother Where Art Thou? A Serious Man There are others. There's one that's right at the tip of my tongue - it's a cool film about an island in the mediterannean, that has these holes in it... and it's a love story about this woman who conceives there with a man she doesn't know, and his daughter is born

Afternoon Nap

The world seems clear and bright after only five minutes of night stolen from the day at my desk an imprint of my face so much more fun that facebook

Murder in the City - Avett Brothers

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Beauty

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True beauty, emanates from the core of a person and spreads out in radial lines throughout the entire spacetime continuum. A beautiful woman can change the very fabric of reality. When she walks in, sound changes (ex. the sound of your own voice) - other items and/or people in the room can fade - and a heightened sense of the faintest chemical trace of perfume can be immediately analyzed , chemically matched and identified. If she brushes up against you, fireworks can explode beneath your eyes - the entire world will build to some higher purpose and you will believe that heaven not only exists but that you can quite possibly travel there. The color and light against the dark like west texas sparklers in the half light of an open field. The shimmering glow of the water around your arms as you stare up at the carribean night sky. The distance between two fingertips at the roof of the sistine chapel long after man has faded away to nothing and all that remains are our buildings and

Bon Iver

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How Not to Be A Bear

One thing that makes an effective bull, especially in a wild market - is the ability not so much to see how high something can get, as it is to see where it will settle. A good stock market bull sees the indices like the Dow Jones Industrial Average, as a kind of rising tide that will lift all boats. But he never. Ever. Makes the mistake that whatever stock he has chosen, has anything other than its own path to take upward. Instead of seeing a stock that has an amazing, unlimited upside - a bull will see a stock that will have a certain price valuation and he will buy when it is below that valuation. Being a bull, is slightly easier than being a bear. But not by much. Your exposure, as a bull, is to buy into something whose price can drop by the total amount you have invested. So your effective exposure is the stock price on the day of purchase. Perhaps the best part about being a bull is that usually, ( unlike bears who tend to be more solitary hunters) - you get to run

Cold Sweat - The SugarCubes

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A Networking Perspective on Facebook

News Media Entertainment can be utilized to create some pretty strong backcurrents of support for things that can harm society in many, many ways. Case in point: Facebook. Facebook is just another website. However, its internal mechanism is designed to expose the private information of billions of users. This marketing data is valuable to the corporate paymasters of the news media entertainment industry. They are, themselves, also a source of revenue to the news media entertainment industry - which is frantic to try to get some sort of 'single sign on' that lets them track and market even more effectively. It's not surprising that news media entertainment loves to report about this company - even though the majority of their supposed innovations are something you usually opt out of. Facebook, like many other websites - is susceptible to attack. In a healthy and open network - attack is, more or less - a part of life. Sometime's it's intentional - a

Separation of Church and State

The separation of church and state, peace and harmony being the strength of all well regulated institutions - has become a cornerstone of our democracy. The Freedom of the press, is almost equally important. And yet that freedom has been under attack for nearly twelve years - in a most insidious form. The goal of an entertainer - is not to inform. I liken the modern entertainer - to a priest, in the days of colonial America. American, during colonial times - harbored two main paths to citizenship. True, technically you were born a citizen - but in most communities your citizenship was earned. One could either work, at a trade, or on the farm (and by and large, most men worked on the farm). You could then raise a family, join the community - as an artisan, or a farmer - and in this largely agrarian country - you , and your sons and daughters - would, as small businessmen, forge a new village in the wilderness. And if you somehow didn't have the strength, or the aptitud

Baba O Riley - The Who/Blue Man Group

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Why they downgraded America

Washington must stop its practice of "letting its domestic electoral politics take the global economy hostage" - Standard and Poors, on the US Credit Downgrade Bush Republicans and Corporate Lobbyists. Please, if you have to go get a cocktail napkin to write this down. Do it. Write it on your hand with a sharpie. Whatever. Just get a clue. Thanks.

Party Animal

it was as if I were joining a club one in which we don't have to live apart we can explore their heart and feel deeply what must have been the only way for centuries past and, with imagination centuries to come to live and to create living memory within you and me And when I fell asleep that night I had a dream that I was on a sun washed shore the wind bright upon my skin and cool sea I crawled to safety with fins the air burning my lungs so thin and hot I desperately longed for the cool rush of water through my mouth but instead I pulled myself forward again to feast upon the wealth of the shore escape the pelagic sharks that patrol and the dark ocean every move forward is a move closer to her side where I belong not in front not behind

The Rules of Lunch

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How To Be A Bear

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The above chart is from one hour ago, showing the market dropping towards a floor that is commonly reserved for correction. What this means, is that there are automated trades that will drop their holdings if the market drops a certain amount. When we reach that threshhold things will get hairy. But if you're a bear, then you're already covered in a thick, protective coat of bear fur. How to get there, is pretty simple. Remember two basic things. First, your potential for losing money is nearly unlimited. Unlike someone who buys a stock, hoping it will rise - your potential to lose money is more than the amount you put in. A person who plays long on a stock, can buy 10 shares at 10.00 a share. The stock could go to zero, losing them 100.00 . But a Bear, who decides to buy options for stocks at 10.00 a share, could see the price of the stock spike upware to 100.00 a share. They will have to cover their purchase of the stock - and use their options to sell it at 10.00 a

If you want to make money on the stock market, today

Today will be a bear market. The stocks will continue to fall for the next few days, and possibly crash completely. The level of risk, you wish to take, as a bear, is up to you. Unfortunately, as a bear, your level of exposure is also unlimited. However, the game that the Bush Republicans played - failed miserably. Two hours ago China downgraded its debt rating of all US Debt. The Chinese official statement regarding the rationale behind their downgrade of US Debt: The two parties acted in a very irresponsible way and their actions greatly exposed the negative impact of the U.S. political system on its economic fundamentals.. Our downgrade simply reflects reality... it was the inappropriately high ratings for the U.S. by Western agencies that had led China to make risky investments in U.S. debt - Dagong I would bet , right offhand, that the crash will be on the order of around 300 points today. And over the next week, push the market below the 11,000 mark. After that, it al

The origin of TEA

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Politics, Power and Life

I am a firm believer that living well is the best revenge. When the Republicans manufactured the crisis that the Democratic Senate and President, minutes ago - averted - to my mind they were obviously and immediately attempting to subvert an economic recovery for their own political agenda. Who really cares, if America has a debt ceiling? When the economy roared to life under Bill Clinton, gas was at 99 cents a gallon, and millionaires abounded in my own neighborhood - there was a debt ceiling. Our economy was so strong, we didn't need it. Bill Clinton ran America at a net surplus , not a deficit. Debt ceilings are like credit limits - they are not needed if everything goes well. And yes, Bill Clinton had everything going extremely well indeed. Unlike the Bush Republicans, he helped to make our economy strong and when he left office, he handed over a surplus. This was quickly turned, by the Bush Republicans, into a deficit. In fact, it took them less than a year to waste all of

My Message to Congress, on August 1, 2011

I am, in many parts equal measure liberal and conservative. I feel that liberal governance suits well a country for wartime - its citizens grow victory gardens, sacrifice for the war effort - and focus the power of the country toward victory. Likewise, in peacetime, the structures and edifices that we build to administer a country - should be properly disassembled and set towards the goal of building free markets and, like the internet, follow a model of libertarian expansion. And so, each year - I listen to both Republican and Democratic candidates. I often vote on either side of the ticket. I am a strong supporter of healthcare reform, financial reform - and I feel that our country has made great strides in rebuilding itself after the great Bush Republican Crash of 2008. Today is August,1 , 2011 - and the Republican party is attempting to crash our economy again. They are doing so with an artificial crisis that they engineered. They are so disunited that they could not even pa