February 2005 Archives

i'm just curious.

in case you aren't a news junkie, things are shaking up in lebanon. somebody assasinated the anti-syria opposition leader Hariri on valentine's day. in response, the people have risen up in protest and the pro-syrian president has resigned and dissolved his government. new elections will be in may and this may all pave the way for the syrian armies to finally leave lebanon to the lebanese.

except who killed Hariri?

this was going to be a Dark Alley's post, but really:

eels, one of the best bands of everever just gives it away so I GIVE THEM MONEY.

yep. it is true. are you reading this RIAA executive?

eels posted a free stream of their last album, Shootenany!, on their website. it was up forever. you could just listen to their new album for nothing. for free. (the flaming lips do this too!)

i bought Shootenany! anyway. then i went to the concert and bought a t-shirt. because i could hear the music for free. because eels we're like, hey, here it is. we trust that this is good enough so that you'll support us making more and we understand that DRM is like ear-jail. nobody wants to buy a ticket to ear-jail.

now eels are adding a free streaming track off their yet-to-be-released album blinking lights (and other revalations) to their site every week. there are four up there currently, the newest being railroad man. which kicks ass.

when the double album gets released and i've already listened to it over and over for free on-line?

i'm going to buy it. off their website.

because good things are worth money. and supporting artists who respect you is good sense.

as you might have gathered if you managed to read all the back and forth on my previous post, i've been thinking a lot about religion and science lately.

can everything be explained scientifically?

that's what i'm still thinking about.

is there something to existence that cannot be explained? could a scientist with enough knowledge and materials create consciousness so as to prove, via experiment, that a man such as me would think thoughts such as these? or exactly like these? because if consciousness is a scientific process, then it can be created and verified. thought patterns can be recreated. the daydream you were having before reading this? someday it can be induced in a lab brain. the love you feel? a beautiful product of firing neurons. a chemical sequence stored in fatty tissue. we could build a body and start the engine of consciousness if only we had enough science.

but:

if it is not a scientific process, then what is it?

really. i'm thinking about it. you feel strongly? convince me.

in other non-philosophimastibatory news, it's looking more feasible that by this time next year i'll be an eco-dive tour manager in mozambique.

on the way to work this morning, i was thinking more about what i posted yesterday. about how science is indistinguishable from religion.

the more i think about it, the more it seems right to me.

here's the final nail for me:

having an imaginary debate (uh. i'm not the only one who does this, right?), my mirror says to me, "i conceed to your brilliance so far. both religion and science are indeed the search for truth and an explanation of how life is. but science does not have a god. in religion, there is a figure or force which its adherents can rely on unquestioningly. a force in which they have faith. a faith it is dangerous to challenge and one it is frankly impossible to challenge. if you question god they say? 'god is god because he/she/it is god! how can you question the existence of god' and then they devolve into a gurgling pile of circular reasoning."

during our stroll down memory lane last night, the bartlebee and i discussed the search for the truth.

and really good chai that isn't too spicy and tastes like the chai you'd actually get in india served in a cup made out of river mud which tastes much better then you're thinking. at samovar, where the potstickers are overpriced and the chai is delicious.

she was talking about how she wants to make science understandable for the kids and i was talking about how i read things in the newspaper and want to write about how they are complete bullshit.

i said something like, "i read this stuff, like this article splashed across the NYT about how Porter Goss, CIA cheerleader, told congress that the terrorists are coming back and i think: you are all a bunch of ultra morons."

how much energy does it take to realize that Porter Goss is saying that as part of the congressional hearing about the CIA's budget?

Electronica does not exist. Not as a genre or a description. It was coined by the North American music press to refer to the second wave of electronic music's explosion in the late 90s, and exists purely as a marketing buzzword, not any actual quantifiable branch of music... Daft Punk, Fatboy Slim, Prodigy's 'Fat of the Land', Chemical Brothers and other big-time stars of that period were all called "electronica" at one point or another, but the person who really popularized it in the public consciousness was Madonna and her shallow, William Orbit-produced piss-poor attempt at appropriating trance music as something she invented (Ray of Light). She used that word all the damn time in interviews. God I hate her. So yeah: There is no such thing as electronica. I want each and every one of you to stop calling it that, because it makes you sound like a god damn retard.

i've been spending some time trying to learn valuable lessons about Goa-Buttrock and Illbient music at Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music (not electronica).

this time last year, i was nutsy-cuckoo.

this time last year, i was counting the hours before i saw bartlebee. on the 16th at samovar. for the first time since she had become truly single. perhaps for the first time in which it would be just the two of us, ever.

would we still get along? would all those sparks that were flying on the phone, after all the drama, pain, insanity, would they go off in person?

well. we're engaged now. three-hundred and sixty-five days later. reading the ol' blog from this time last year. heh. whew. woosh.

on saturday, i looked my childhood fears in the face and kicked them squarely in the nards.

yes. i played soccer again.

i used to play soccer when i was pre-pubescent. i was, as they say, not very good. i couldn't really move the ball too well. i had power for my size, but i weighed about eleven and a half pounds, so...

i played fullback. it was there that i used my secret weapon: my complete lack of coordination. advanced players with armpit hair and a comprehension of how babies were made would race down the field towards me. i would scream, "yeaargghghghgh" and kick them solidly in the shins regardless of where the ball was.

it worked pretty well.

i never left the backfield and never scored a goal. then everyone began to have growth spurts and i remained wee. no more sports for zack.

neil makes me laugh.

i just had lunch with a ballerina, so it all makes sense, right?

today i sent an email to lifehacker's gina, cc:ing the folks who run boingboing (see my earlier post). gina responded to my snark, commented on my blog, and changed her lifehacker post.

at the same time, xeni from boingboing posted about the letter i wrote, linking to Troublonia.

uh, what? in one internets instant i'm referenced on Lifehacker and BoingBoing?

i am blogger. hear me meow.

then i get an email from this guy Xopl who's posted on his site about how we're dopplegangers and he's been devoured by mice.

naturally, in these circumstances, what one does is have lunch with a ballerina.

the word of the day is sell out.

wait, let me start again. the two words of the day are sell and out and whore. the three words.

nobody expects a spanish inquisition.

last night i went to check out lokitorrent for some perfectly legal torrent downloading and saw that lowkee, the dude who ran the site and swore he wouldn't sell out to the MPAA, the dude who collected money from his visitors to the tune of $40K to fight the MPAA with a hatchet and some anti-freeze (or lawyers, whatever), had rolled over like a french poodle with no nuts.

not only did he kill the site, but he signed some sort of gag agreement with the MPAA and turned over his server logs.

have you ever read hacker death threats before?

not that i'm worried or anything. the Man is doubtfully coming after me. i'm just, frankly, disappointed. at the cheesy-ass replacement page the MPAA posted on the loki URL.

you can click but you cannot hide? puh-leeze! if there's one thing that's become quite clear it's that hackers are pretty good at hiding while the MPAA and RIAA are pretty good at screaming like tippi hendren coming off a meth run.

i watch a lot of teevee.

there. i said it.

maybe not a lot lot, but more than i used to. not like, come home, turn it on and watch even if it's reruns of Mad About You. just, what are we doing tonight? nothing? i guess we should watch some Battlestar Galactica then.

yeah. i like me the battlestar galactica. i've got a little crush on starbuck. she's all tough and can fly half-alive cylon planes.

sassyass likes the Lost. i'm not so much on the Lost so far, but he talked it up some more so maybe i'll give it another chance. we also tried watching that new show Numb3rs. the title is all 1337 so i thought they might make it work for the kiddies.

nope. it sux0rs!!oneoneeleventyone!!

anyway, sassyass came over last night to watch The Office with us. this show is high-larious in that physically-painful-to-watch way.

reading boingboing today, i find this statement from the Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement about how they support the copyright defying screenings of Eyes on the Prize.

if you haven't been following this, the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) has been sponsoring an act of civil disobedience in which groups (school and otherwise) are screening Eyes on the Prize, the award winning civil rights documentary. why is it illegal to screen Eyes on the Prize? because it contains copyrighted material that the producers can no longer afford to re-license. such as MLK singing "happy birthday."

so ferget it! pay up or you can't show the movie! to schoolkids. to, uh, educate them about civil rights. unless you GIVE ME MY MONEY.

why am i writing about this again? two reasons. the first is because the VoCRM is saying, if i may summarize, "fuck you, the man." or, in slightly longer form:

To us, knowledge is a human right every bit as important as the right to vote and the right be treated with courtesy and respect. Therefore, we do not believe that reading, or viewing, or listening is, or should ever become, a crime. Nor should access to information become a luxury sold only to the wealthy.

the second reason? i had a fantasy about this very thing last night.

today, i am full of the mayonaisse. i mean malaise.

our landylords sold our building. to some woman from scottsdale with $1.25 million dollars.

that's a lot of dollars.

we have been told that she's all skippy mchappy about having such fantastically foxy people such as us for tenants. we shall see. will she fix the sink when it starts to spew blood? will she come up here to chase down the rats with a miniature pick ax and some powerful magnets? will she let us use the hot tub?

landylords. you have abandoned us. what? is our rent no good to you? did we not leave the curtains open when we were changing often enough? were the scones too crunky?

when did people forget how to share?

reading boingboing today i find assholes are claiming copyright on the image of the eiffel tower at night and demanding license fees on model airplanes. in america, you can own rights to math, to biology, to damn near anything.

a school was denied rights to screen the civil rights documentary Eyes on the Prize because they didn't pay licence fees. that's disgusting.

this blog is published under a creative commons license. you can use anything you read here, altered or not, as long as you don't sell it. granted, this blog is not as valuable as say the image of the eiffel tower at night (put that camera down, tourist! i own that image!) but it's what i've got to share.

owning things is overrated.

sorry to go all hippy on you, but today i think you should give something away. something you could reasonably claim rights to. a dollar. an idea. an hour. a thing. and if you work for a big company that's hanging onto things just to squeeze another buck out of school teachers and tourists, you should copyright the way you enter your office. then, if anyone enters your office the way you do, you can sue. make the fuckers crawl.

it's that time. that time to begin thinking about drinking insane amounts of cheap american beer and running until you puke while screaming at the top of your lungs.

in short, the 11th Annual Urban Iditarod is almost upon us. i will be fielding a team again.

if you're dog enough, let me know.

Saturday March 5th from 10:00 am until unconsciousness.

you will be required to pony up some dough for costumes. you will be required to wear an absolutely ridiculous getup. you will drink. heavily. running is required. as is the temporary theft of a shopping cart. urinating on policemen is optional.

let the butt-sniffing begin.

there's a new blog in the Gawker Media Empire. it's called Lifehacker.

i've been reading blogs in this group for a while. Gawker bores me, but Defamer i like, and Wonkette is interesting, and Fleshbot can be titilating. i've noticed that subjects posted to one blog tend to bleed their way to the others if there's any slight crossover in audience interest. (Gawker is about media, Defamer: Hollywood, Wonkette: Politics, Fleshbot: Porn), so reading one is like reading a fifth of all the others. they beat with one heart.

this new blog, Lifehacker, is about getting along with your tech and, somewhat less so, hacking your life as if it were software. it's sponsored by Sony.

huh?

this is about as appealing as having Wonkette sponsored by the ghost of Strom Thurmond. Sony? telling me how to hack my life? on the one hand, good for these bloggers to get some dough. on the other, yuck. not only am i suspicious of Lifehacker, i'm now wondering when the other Gawker blogs will sell out. when Wonkette will advise me to buy a big flat screen tv to better watch C-SPAN. when Fleshbot will advise me to buy a big flat scree... um. you get the idea.

we'll see. maybe bloggers are better than traditional media at avoiding corruption, but i doubt it.

here in Troublonia, freedom of the press means the newspaper box has been busted open.

hear ye, hear ye:

i made with the simple viewer flash thingy and now you can see my balls. those being a housewarming ball and a snow ball.

what did you think i meant?

dear no-good despicible bastard,

where the fuck is my Wonder Woman mug? you think just because i take Monday off to go to Tahoe and throw snowballs at my brother you can swipe my precious ceramic totem of the amazon goddess?

if it is broken so help me there will be flensing. i will go batman on your ass. but not in a homo-erotic way.

ooooh! you! grrr. i exhibit displeasure!