Run Ahead of Me

How To Get Full Length Video Files on Your Windows PC or PS3

2011-07-06T17:22:00.001-07:00

Just in case you were wondering, it is possible to get a full-length video file (from any DVD) on your PC or PS3.

This is probably true for the Mac and other gaming platforms, but I don't use them, so you'll have to look elsewhere for advice on those systems. You can also do this in Linux, but you'll have to figure it out yourself.

The first thing you should know is that a DVD is made up of VOB files. These are the actual video files. You can find them on the DVD in the VIDEO_TS folder.

When they're on the DVD they're read-only.

What you want to do is search for some free tools to copy these onto your PC hard drive. If you look for DVD Shrink or some similar application, you should quickly find something that will do this for you.

Once the files are on your drive, you can erase all the IFO and BUP files-- you don't need them.

The VOB format is a kissing cousin to the MPEG format, so you can actually play them directly (using VLC Player or some other similar free media player).

In addition, if you simply rename every file with a VOB extension so that it has an MPG extension, most video editing programs will recognize it and allow you to edit it. For example, rename VTS_01_1.VOB to VTS_01_1.MPG and it will behave like any other video file.

However, most movies are made of several VOB files in a row. If you don't want to open three files to play one movie, then you should join them together into one MPG file.

There are application to do this, many of them free, but the simplest and most elegant method is to use the "copy" command.

In Windows, go to the command prompt (click on the start menu, click "Run" and then type in "cmd").

Once there, navigate to the directory where your files are (use the "cd" command to change directories).

Now you are going to copy and combine the files into one large video file. The format is:

copy /b VTS_01_1.VOB + VTS_01_2.VOB + VTS_01_3.VOB MY_NEW_VIDEO_FILE.MPG

What this does is copy (in binary mode) the three files to a new file while combining them together. The last entry (with no plus sign preceding it) is the name of the new, larger file (which will play the movie all the way through).

The capitals are not necessary, but DVD files are named in all caps, so I do the same. You can name your new file anything you want, as long as the extension is MPG or mpg.

In addition, if part of the file name is the same on the files you are combining (in this case, VTS_01_ is the same for all of them), you can use a wild card symbol (the asterisk, *) in place of the part of the name that is the same. For example, the same files could be combined by typing:

copy /b *1.VOB + *2.VOB + *3.VOB MY_NEW_VIDEO_FILE.MPG

This saves typing and works exactly the same.

Now you have a single video file with a complete movie on it. This should, of course, be a movie that you're transferring off of your camcorder and to which you have complete rights. Maybe its a movie you bought and are simply backing up in case the kids scratch it up, yadda, yadda, disclaimer and so forth. If that is the case, some movie execs and the FBI still might not be happy, so I am taking this opportunity to clearly state that I do not support any copyright infringement, however innocuous. You are on your own.

In any case, I find it convenient to have all my videos arranged on my computer or PS3, rather than searching through boxes or wherever else I have them stored. So, all other considerations aside, this is good to know.

Having a list of files certainly takes up less space than a bunch of DVD cases and it can be quicker to access the movie you want without spending time searching.

The Playstastion 3 can play MPG files and its easy enough to copy a file, such as MY_NEW_VIDEO_FILE.MPG, onto the Playstation 3 hard drive and play it from there, eliminating the need to pop in the DVD or take out your game to play the DVD.

That's the extent of my knowledge, so only softball questions please. For all other information, get on Google like I do, and figure it out for yourself.

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This is the best PDF converter for Chrome

2011-04-16T17:06:00.001-07:00

https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/kpdjmbiefanbdgnkcikhllpmjnnllbbc

When you try to find a PDF conversion extension for Chrome via Google search, you run across a lot of crappy options. However, the link above takes to you SaveAsPDF by pdfcrowd.com, and it produces beautiful PDFs of the web-pages that you want to save.

Hopefully this shortens your search!

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This is when you really should've run for the border...

2011-03-21T16:00:00.001-07:00

When you're stupid enough to pull a stunt like this:

http://consumerist.com/2011/03/swat-called-to-taco-bell-gunman-pissed-over-price-of-burritos.html

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Acorns for the hungry...

2011-02-05T13:54:00.001-08:00

I'm not really at a point in my life where I *have* to gather and forage to survive, but I've always been curious about acorns.

They are a nutrient-rich, free source of food that we moderns don't really utilize. But the Californians that went before us ate them by the basket-load. So why pass up a free thing?

Maybe it's the work involved. I mean, we're not squirrels. We have "important" things to do. Maybe it's the taste?

Anyway, I decided to give it a try.

There is plenty of information online about how to gather, process and prepare them and I happen to have some free time.

So I went to the parking lot next to a local library, sat down on the curb and started work (gathering and shelling the suckers).

Here are the Oak trees.

See the full gallery on posterous

My main tool.

An hour's work....

See the full gallery on posterous

My report:

I didn't make a big operation out of it (why gather thousands of acorns if I'm not even sure that I want to spend the time shelling them?);

I was in a public place, gathering acorns, but I didn't get a lot of attention from passersby;

I was waiting for the library to open anyway, so it was a decent way to pass the time;

I was able to watch the birds and enjoy the sunshine while I waited;

My thumb got pretty roughed-up;

All-in-all it wasn't a bad experience.

However, I still don't know how much of this kind of work is necessary to get enough acorns to make it through a year (I assume the early Californians would stockpile them, or process and store the flour) or even to make a single batch of acorn mush.

I still haven't tried grinding them up into flour. I assume a food processor can be used (rather than a grinding rock). In any case, I'll report any progress I make and see how far I can go with this.

Anybody up for some acorn-cakes, acorn cookies, acorn mush?

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Two dads? Too weird...

2011-01-07T15:23:00.001-08:00

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/two-dad-mice/

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Unarguably the best approach to promoting a language...

2011-01-02T09:51:00.001-08:00

Who wants to be cultured? Learn the language or die!

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Here comes the New Year...

2010-12-28T13:26:00.001-08:00

Although this comic is a few years old, I think it's sentiments count for the current year as well.

Without any further ado, here's Kiskaloo.

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Various Links from the Past Year

2010-12-27T10:56:00.001-08:00

The Brazilian artist Novelli (9lli) amazes me. You can see some of his work here: http://www.mediafire.com/?2yyz2ytymnw

I think this project is cool-- digigrade or digitigrade legs are common in a lot of other animals (birds, for example) and in monsters. Here's a pair we humans can wear: http://www.mediafire.com/?my2jtmmbkiz

This PDF is one of the greatest collections of games that I have ever found. They are all based on Improv work, which is a kind of theater, but you can use them in all kinds of situations. I figure you could use up the rest of your life trying to learn them and test out all the variations of them. Some of them are invaluable in my work with kids, especially when I need to create enthusiasm and momentum in a group of impulsive kids: http://www.mediafire.com/?czz7tlu34ivei63

It's always nice to watch a time lapse of the night sky. This one is over Mauna Kea: http://www.mediafire.com/?mwzmn2jyjjn

http://www.mediafire.com/?mwzmn2jyjjn

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Mermaid Girl by Chris Sanders

2010-12-27T10:19:00.001-08:00

Chris Sanders is the guy responsible for the look & feel of the Disney movie Lilo & Stitch.

Needless to say, he is a genius. I like his big footed and big-eyed versions of just about everything.

Take a peek at his site and you'll agree.

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Four year-olds at NASA

2010-12-02T10:21:00.001-08:00

Controller 1: Okay! I have a rocket!

Controller 2: 1 - 2 - 3... 2...

Controller 1: 3 - 2 - 1 - blast-off!

Controller 2: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8... no! let me do it!

Controller 1: Hold it up, not down!

Controller 2: Let me do it!

Controller 1: Blast off!

Astronaut: Houston, we have a problem... and it's in my diaper.

Controller 2: You don't wear diapers! You're a big boy!

Astronaut: Astronauts wear diapers. It's part of the job.

Controller 2: Pkshpeeeuwwwffff! blast off!

Controller 1: I get to try it!

Controller 2: This is my rocket!

Astronaut: Hey, my rocket crashed.

Controller 1: We're going to do it again!

Controller 2: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 7 - 8 - 10...

Controller 1: Blast off!

Controller 2: Nooooo! Let me do it!

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Dave Needs a Shave (a la Seuss)

2010-12-01T12:09:00.001-08:00

Though it is hard to see, (because the picture is blurry),
This is the portrait of a man who is inordinately furry.

You can’t see much more than the tip of his nose,
But that’s fine ‘cause in this photo he’s wearing no clothes.

He grew up in the city in a family of lawyers,
In houses and vacation homes with house maids and foyers.

And he grew up believing in argumentation,
And in conducting oneself in accord with one’s station.

But as he grew older he began to resent,
That he was allowed to say little about what he wore or where he went.

So during a stint in a boarding school out in Ventura,
He began to rethink all the things he’d been sure of.

He was thinking a thought that was long and quite subtle,
And then he began thinking his mother’s rebuttal.

And then, realizing he’d been trained much too well,
He snuck out at night and hopped a bus for Carmel.

Out on the cliffs with all that was wild,
He felt he’d been squelched since he was a child.

Forced to be shorn and forced to be svelte--
None of this matched his true inner self.

So discarding everything he’d been taught (and not learned)
And all the things that he’d been given (but had not earned),

He emptied his mind and took off his clothes,
(As the indecent exposure charge on the arrest report shows).

And that was the start of his extended flirtation
With radical thinking and self-exploration.

He ditched all his schooling and refused to go home,
He tried to live in a hole in the woods like a gnome.

He did without heat, clothes and food for a day,
Then he decided he’d better find some other way.

He felt he could deal with a job selling fruit,
Because it was close to nature and his boss was hirsute.

In his thinking, a job was not a capitulation,
But a very small concession to civilization.

In most things he wanted to be different from his folks
But he did not want to fail and be the butt of their jokes.

So he had to earn money, at least to get by,
Until food and housing start to fall from the sky.

The produce stand owner thought the kid was a freak
But he showed up on time and worked hard all week.

He made some new friends and got along with others
And made his own clothes out of stuff found in dumpseters.

One of his tenets was that it was a sin
To cut off whatever grew out of one’s skin.

He’d say, “Like the hair of the dog or the mane of a horse,
It is best to let things take their natural course!”

So, though his friends and co-workers found it all quite peculiar,
He just got furry and then he got furrier.

And being half Jewish with liberal political sympathies,
He soon had hair out to his extremities.

Soon he tripped on his beard and his hair concealed all emotion.
The wind caught his afro and blew him out to the ocean.

The Coast Guard found him entwined in the kelp,
Fending off otters and yelling for help.

Once safe on shore, shivering in the back of a squad car,
He admitted, “Even the best thoughts can be taken too far.”

What goes for the best, goes even more for the worst,
But if you’ve been similarly dumb, rest assured, you ain’t the first.

Now he’s a store manager, and wears a low fade,
And has traded self-abnegation for a desire to get laid.

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Reading to my Son (the visual part)

2010-11-30T00:18:00.001-08:00

One of the best parts of reading to my son every night (usually also at nap time) are the gems of illustration that I am continually rediscovering.

The Winnie the Pooh illustrations are among them.

I'm gaining more and more respect for how much the illustrators can do with a minimum of lines and simple colors. They also use fairly basic materials (pen, pencil, colored pencil, watercolors).

I think that picture books are consistently underestimated. The quality of storytelling achieved with the combination of absorbing visuals and parsimonious prose is on par with any chapter book. I expect the full character of the storyline's "world" is communicated more effectively as well. Illustration might even, on occasion, enhance the effect of poetry.

I am a very visual person, but I have always found it easier to express myself through prose. But illustration is, for me, a neglected path-- one with a strong attraction.

I am beginning to see how they do it. I'm starting to feel it in my bones. Just like prose.

It's not about virtuosity. It's about getting just enough across with the lines that the rest of it can be felt. Its about weight and presence and depth more than exactitude.

These are mere gestures, but they denote the fullness of being-- be it word or pencil line.

It is simulating the full spectrum of sun, using only shading. It is simulating the whole world of human activity, using only written words.

It is small things, as stand-ins for the very large.

It's pure magic.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Danger Stencils

2010-11-25T09:43:00.001-08:00

Here is a symbolic depiction of modern society, drawn using my new line of "Danger Stencils."

I think that the airplane, radioactive symbol and skull-and-crossbones represent our society pretty well. Plus the fire, to symbolize destruction.

Next I will produce a new line of stencils depicting common objects that are on fire, simplifying the task of drawing the average post-apocalyptic conflagration.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Only on Freecycle (where they give away the strangest things)

2010-11-16T10:40:00.001-08:00

Post ID	7496949
Poster	Ericka12345
Type	OFFER
Subject	8-10' boa constrictor skin from 1989, Thailand
Location	Laurel District
Description	They killed this enormous snake in the jungle, we ate some of it with watermelon rinds. They gave me the skin. It's been sitting rolled in the shed since then. Perhaps you have a need for this? It's not soft -- kinda crispy.
Date	Tue Nov 16 08:13:39 2010

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Baby - Os Mutantes

2010-11-10T10:45:00.001-08:00

There was one time when I was spending a lot of time out in the hinterlands of the Bay Area.

I would get a map, find some semi-remote destination, get on a bus and head off into the woods to go hiking and camping.

I spent most of my nights outdoors, my legs were generally tired, I bathed when I got back to civilization, and I liked it that way.

It was like voluntary sporadic homelessness, except I had a base-camp in civilization to which I could return.

In any case, one night when I was camped up in the hills of the Point Reyes National Seashore-- somewhere between Point Reyes Station and Bolinas-- I was listening to the radio as night fell and I happened upon the college station where they were playing the strangest line-up of Mexican metal bands and this Brazilian group called Os Mutantes.

Turns out Os Mutantes was big in Brazil at around the time of the Beatles and was part of that whole explosion of brilliant rock during the 60s and 70s.

Much of their oeuvre is insane, quirky, fun experimental stuff (reminiscent of the Beatles' more experimental work), but I fell immediately in love with this one track "Baby," which is a little ballad with a sparse instrumental track. I just love it.

It doesn't really matter what it means exactly. There's just something refreshing and simple about it that stands the test of time.

For me, at least.

It also takes me back to that campsite in the woods, where I hiked for two days straight through beautiful coastal woodlands and along the rugged seashore.

How do you beat that?

Pumpkin Master!

2010-11-08T12:26:00.001-08:00

So two Saturdays ago, my son and I went to see a movie at the mall. We went a little early so that we could swing by the Farmer's Market.

When we got off the bus, the first thing my son ran to was the "Guess the Weight of the Giant Pumpkin!" exhibit.

What he wanted to do was draw all over the little pieces of paper that were out for people who wanted to guess the weight. He also wanted to write his name.

So I was saying, "Good job! I like your train... oh, look, that's a letter 'i'," and stuff like that.

So my son says, "You do one, Papa!"

I look at the form, eyeball the pumpkin and say to myself, "What the heck. I know pumpkins. I've lifted plenty."

I think for about five seconds, comparing a few weights in my mind and then write down 211 lbs., my address, and slip it in the box.

I think no more of it.

A couple of days ago I get this letter in the mail that says I won!

Not only did I win, but I guessed the weight *exactly*!

What are the chances of that?

Just call me "Pumpkin Master."

Send me your pictures and I'll guess your weight, too!

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In Memory of Those Who Have Gone Ahead of Me

2010-11-05T16:33:00.001-07:00

I find myself writing this entry, just a couple of days after Día de los Muertos.

I put up some remembrances of Holly. I suppose I can post pictures here later.

October was also a month to remember my dear friend and co-worker, Tanisha, who as called to glory on 10/26/09. Never her equal shall I meet here on earth.

I am getting better at celebrating these times when I turn my memory back to people who have gone before me, but it is still mostly sadness that I feel. No longer regret. No longer guilt or agony. Just sadness.

In any case, here is a Laura Jansen song that I've enjoyed listening to recently [although I'm certain that I am taking some liberties with the meaning]: Laura Jansen - The End

And here, also, is a picture of the indomitable little Hollywog, whose battle started when she was only eight years old.

From the Coffee Table: Peter Sellars

2010-10-27T12:08:00.001-07:00

In this month's Psychology Today there's an interview of the director Peter Sellars [Sep/Oct 2010, p. 29].

He says a lot of cool stuff.

He's an oddball, but I must say I usually agree with him. What does that say about me?

Here's one quote:

“Turn your back on the money and walk towards your life.” – Peter Sellars

Good motto.

In addition, I enjoyed this little bit, because I often have to deal with classrooms and groups of kids where the clash of personalities is a big factor:

Q: Are there people with whom you cannot connect?

A: I'm trained in the tradition of community organizing, where you go with the most troubled spirit in the room. The whole point in my life's work is, "Go with the problem, not around it." As Rumi would say, the wound is where the light enters. You have to give the meeting over to the person who wants to disrupt it and destroy it. You have to reverse the energy flow and, again, not pathologize.

Excellently put, Mr. Sellars. I completely forgive you for those odd moles above your eyebrows. You are correct.

He said a bunch of other good things, among which were (I paraphrase): "I'm not sure how comfortable I am at buying into the term 'normal' at the end of the day. The assumption of what 'normal' is drives me crazy and shows a limited acquaintance with the human being."

He's a very quotable guy. I guess he directed Nixon in China, but I haven't seen any of his stuff.

The interview on religion and art over at PBS is also a very interesting read: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/voices/sellars.html

To all of you commenting on my previous post about the ECONOMY, thank you-- I can't log on to comment back, but I appreciate the traffic.

And yes, the sky is not actually falling and the liberals should just shut up about it.

I am not about to engage in debate about credit default swaps and 401k accounts and taxing investors. Not happening.

That whole post was a repost of an entry from Alicia Morgan's site (http://lastleftb4hooterville.blogspot.com/) and I agree with a lot of what she said, but not because I'm a liberal or a Democrat (I'm not), but because she's right.

She doesn't paint a complete picture, but the part she covers, I agree with. And I agree with a lot of other things as well, a few of which come from you argumentative Xangans.

Feel free to argue in my comments section, though. Flame away.

I'll be over here remote-posting from Posterous and helping the elementary school kids.

Happy Halloween and Día de los Muertos!

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Differentiated instruction: solution or fad?

2010-10-26T15:46:00.001-07:00

Differentiated instruction: solution or fad?

By Katy Murphy
Monday, October 25th, 2010 at 2:08 pm in Steven Weinberg, students.

Steven Weinberg, a retired Oakland teacher and Education Report blogger, questions the effectiveness of a popular approach to teaching.

Last month Mike Schmoker, a prominent writer and speaker on educational improvement, wrote an article for Education Week (September 29, 2010, p. 22) denouncing differentiated instruction as a “pedagogic fad” supported by “no solid research or school evidence.” The article is available here.

This caught my eye because differentiated instruction is frequently suggested to Oakland teachers as the way to cope with the increasingly wide spread of student abilities within a single classroom, which has developed as ability-grouped classes have been discontinued and more special education students have been integrated into regular classes.

My experience in the Oakland school district seems to confirm Schmoker’s statement that it has quickly become “one of the most widely adopted instructional orthodoxies of our time.”

The basic idea of differentiated instruction, according to Carol Ann Tomlinson, who is its foremost proponent, is that “a teacher proactively plans varied approaches to what students need to learn, how they will learn it, and/or how they can express what they have learned in order to increase the likelihood that each student will learn as much as he or she can as efficiently as possible.”

Schmoker says, “I had seen this innovation in action. In every case, it seemed to complicate teachers’ work, requiring them to procure and assemble multiple sets of materials. I saw frustrated teachers trying to provide materials that matched each student’s or group’s presumed ability level, interest, preferred “modality” and learning style. The attempt often devolved into a frantically assembled collection of worksheets, coloring exercises, and specious ‘kinesthetic’ activities. And it dumbed down instruction: In English, ‘creative’ students made things or drew pictures; ‘analytical’ students got to read and write.”

I have shared Schmoker’s article with several teachers, and in every case they said that it confirmed their own feelings about differentiated instruction. One said that she thought it was a convenient answer for district policy-makers when asked how teachers were to deal with the wide-range of student abilities they faced in the classroom, but it was impossible for teachers to carry out successfully.

In my own teaching I sometimes created lesson that would meet Tomlinson’s definition of differentiation, but I did not organize my entire course around it. I usually tried to meet the different needs of my students by having a variety of whole class activities for each unit, aimed at different learning styles and strengths. I found this much easier in History classes where most of the information I was presenting was new to all students, than it was in English where some lessons might be a total waste of time for some students, who already thoroughly knew the skill being discussed, and still too difficult for some others, who did not have the prerequisite skills to do the work.

What do other teachers and parents think about differentiated instruction? Have you used it successfully or seen it work well, or do you agree with Schmoker that it has “corrupted both curriculum and effective instruction?”

Steven Weinberg, students. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. --> [You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.]

via ibabuzz.com

In my work I'm often proposing some sort of differentiated instruction, but I'm usually there to deliver it and support the teachers in finding ways to appeal to our clients' strengths.

However, I agree with Schmoker and Weinberg about the dangers of taking this approach too far.

The idea definitely should not be pushed in such a way that teachers rush to scramble disparate materials for each lesson plan and it shouldn't replace good behavioral management. But, insights from this approach can help reach a student and help motivate them to learn in ways that more standard approaches would not.

A balanced view of the issue would see differentiated instruction as neither solution nor fad, but as another lens through which to view students and another set of approaches that can help engage students with the classroom-culture and the learning process.

Posted via email from azul60's posterous

Last Left Turn Before Hooterville: In Plain Language - What the Hell Happened

2010-10-14T17:50:00.001-07:00

In Plain Language - What the Hell Happened.

Look, folks - it's really simple what happened here. And everything else is bullshit.
For the last 30 years, ever since Reagan came into office and busted the unions, wages have stayed the same or even declined, while prices have risen. This has resulted in every year as a whole workers have made less and less, but it's been so incremental, like the 'boiling frog', that we haven't noticed it, except to think that perhaps we weren't workng hard enough or were spending too much.
The 'investment class' on the other hand (those who don't get wages for working, but make money from investments and stock options - the 'top 1%' who makes money from money and not work), has had its income RISE over 400%.
BUT - since we are no longer a producing society (with most manufacturing jobs outsourced overseas - thanks, Chamber of Commerce!), but a consumer society, the ONLY way our economy stays afloat is for people to BUY things. Remember when Bush said "Go shopping!" after 9/11? This is the reason for the great credit push - they know we aren't paid enough in wages to buy a lot of stuff. So how to get Americans to keep the economy going without raising wages? Make them go into debt! So we get this unlimited credit (and all the costs included in that - the hidden fees, the late charges, the ability to change terms without notice). But that's STILL not enough.
So - enter the real estate/housing bubble, where homeowners are encouraged to buy what they need from the imaginary 'equity' in their homes. Since it doesn't really exist, it's more debt which will be handed down to our children and their children. And since we are NOT paid fair wages (wages that increase somewhat close to what the cost-of-living increase is) because the unions have been demolished, that's the only way we can stay afloat.
But, now even that is exhausted. We have come to the end of the line. The investment class has stolen every penny that we have. There's nothing left to steal from us, the working people. We finally had to stop spending, and that is when everything went down in flames.
Now, the top 10% whines that they pay 40% of all taxes, which they deem unfair. But what they don't say is that they control 90% of the wealth of the country! So, is it fair to pay 40% of the taxes on 90% of the wealth? Is it fair that we pay 30% for taxes on payroll (from WORK), but only 15% on investment income (money made from money)? And when the majority of the wealth of the country is held by investors, THEY DO NOT SPEND IT. It does NOT go back into the economy, it does not create jobs. It goes OFFSHORE to make more money for itself, and is not taxed.
When working people make more money, on the other hand, it DOES go back into the economy in the form of purchasing, which creates a market for things, which creates jobs to serve that market. Investment income does not help the economy. Working people buy things. Working people save money. Non-working people or people teetering on the edge of poverty do not spend, and they do not save.
Don't believe the hype, people. We are being stolen from, and until we see it for what it is, these suited thugs will continue to do so.
Sorry for the rant, but - when I hear this Republican piffle about Big Government and Tax Cuts, I just can't help but holler. If the investment class would pay its fair share, we woldn't be in the mess we're in. We've done it their way for 30 years, and we have become serfs. Guess what? The Trickle Down Theory just means we're being p***ed on.

posted by Alicia Morgan @ 3:50 PM

via lastleftb4hooterville.blogspot.com

This is so completely spot on. Very nicely done, Alicia Morgan.

Posted via email from azul60's posterous

Versos Naturales de mis Vegetales

2010-10-04T14:28:00.001-07:00

Estoy enamorado con mis aguacates--

a véces salieron cuates.

Cómo como mis tomates?

Los como cómo chocolates.

!No digas disparates!

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Don't You Know That You Can Count Me Out - Let's Try Democracy

2010-09-28T13:18:00.001-07:00

Ted Rall's new book "The Anti-American Manifesto" advocates for violent revolution, even if we have to join with rightwingers and racists to do it, and even if we have no control over the outcome which could easily be something worse than what we've got. We have a moral duty, Rall argues, to kill some people.

Now, I much prefer a debate over what radical steps to take to a debate over whether it's really appropriate for President Obama to whine about people's lack of enthusiasm for voting. Should we try to pep people up for him or gently nudge him to appoint a new chief of staff who's not a vicious warmongering corporatist? Decisions. Decisions.

Rall's book is packed with great analysis of our current state and appropriate moral outrage. I highly recommend it for the clear-eyed survey of the tides in this giant pot of slowly boiling water where we float and kick about like frogs. To an Obama proposal to create 17,000 jobs, Rall replies:

"The U.S. economy needs to add one hundred thousand new jobs a month to keep up with population growth and keep the unemployment rate even. At this writing, in March 2010, it would require four hundred thousand new jobs each month for three years to get back to December 2007.

"Seventeen thousand jobs? Was Obama still using drugs?"

I recommend Rall's manifesto as a call to action. The only question is what action?

There, the book is much weaker. As people come to terms with the need for radical action, we need to provide them with a serious debate of the alternatives. Many will drift inevitably toward violence, unaware of any choice. To not present the alternatives, whether to argue for or against them, is less than helpful.

According to Rall, "no meaningful political change has ever taken place without violence or the credible threat of violence." And, "without violence, the powerful will never stop exploiting the weak." From these statements, scattered throughout the manifesto, one would have no idea that anyone else believed there was a third choice beyond violence or doing nothing. There is no indication here of the role of nonviolence in evicting the British from India or overthrowing the ruler of El Salvador in 1944, or even in ending Jim Crow in the United States and Apartheid in South Africa, in the popular removal of the ruler of the Philippines in 1986, in the largely nonviolent Iranian Revolution of 1979, in the dismantling of the Soviet Union in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany, in the resistance to a stolen election in the Ukraine in 2004-2005, and in hundreds of other examples from around the world.

Now, Rall could try to argue that many such movements have violent as well as nonviolent components. He could claim that nonviolent activism can constitute a threat of violence. That is, even though the actors themselves may prove their willingness to die rather than use violence, the understanding of those in power as well as of activists like Rall who think only in terms of violence could be that violence is being threatened. But Rall attempts no such arguments, so we don't really know what he would say.

Rall does make the following claim about U.S. political struggles: "[P]acifism has been the state religion of the official Left since the end of the Vietnam War. Can it be a coincidence that progressives cannot point to a single significant political victory since the early 1970s?" It could be a coincidence, yes, or it could be that what we have lacked since the early 1970s has been serious resistance to power -- which does not answer the question of which would have been more effective and which still could be, violent or nonviolent resistance.

The two points I found most persuasive in Rall's case for violence were points he may not have intended as planks in that argument, an argument that -- again -- he does not so much make as assume. The first point is that, even as people are refraining from killing CEOs and politicians, they are not refraining from killing. In increasing numbers, they are killing themselves. They are losing their homes, their healthcare, their savings. They are being forced into debt-slavery, humiliating misery, and hopelessness, and -- for lack of any other approach -- are killing themselves. It's not clear that assassinating the powerful wouldn't make things even worse, but it is worth noting that people are killing the innocent and not the guilty.

The second point is that people are not just killing themselves. They are killing random innocents as well, former coworkers, family members, and strangers. We are perfectly capable of ending such violence. Redirecting it is not our only available option. But in contemplating violence, we are not starting from a nonviolent state.

And, of course, the impoverishment of millions of people has resulted in a shortened life expectancy in the wealthiest place on earth, a place where some are able to indulge in the greatest and most wasteful luxury ever seen. But Rall makes no argument for his root assumption that our choices are to kill people or "sit on our asses." Rall wants jobs created at a rate that approaches the actual need. He wants corporations nationalized and brought under control. He wants an end to eight-figure bonuses on Wall Street. His solution is "a hundred thousand angry New Yorkers armed with bricks (or guns)."

Now, I'm not suggesting you have to know something will go perfectly before you try it, but shouldn't you try the approach most likely to work the best? And shouldn't we know what has and has not worked before? Rall claims that the 1999 Battle of Seattle slowed corporate globalization because a few people broke a few windows. Yet, many people who were there and engaged in that struggle point to the nonviolent blocking of the streets that prevented the conference from being held, and the moral force of the broad coalition that took over the city and won allies even within the halls of corporate power. This was done despite, not because of, a few jerks smashing windows.

I share with Rall his concern that people think they have no choices and his conviction that something must be done. If it were impossible to organize committed, independent, uncorrupted nonviolent resistance with the dedication necessary to succeed, if violence were our only option, we'd certainly have to look into it. But I suspect organized violence would be even harder to bring forth than organized nonviolence. Rall attempts no argument to the contrary. He predicts a hellish nightmare with or without his violent revolution. I predict peace, sustainability, and justice if we nonviolently resist. A deeper debate is needed.

via davidswanson.org

Lots of good thinking in this piece. Do you think we can fix our nation without violence? What would be the keys to either a non-violent or violent overthrow of the status quo?

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Cut & Paste: Self-erasing Credit Card

2010-09-20T16:34:00.001-07:00

Well, this is also very cool:

[from The Credit Card That Rewrites Itself in the Consumerist by Ben Popken]

This week Dynamics is showing off a new credit card that can rewrite its own magnetic strip on the fly. So you get a card that you have to punch in a code before it can be swiped or before you can read the credit card numbers. After a few minutes, the information erases and it returns to being an inert piece of plastic. Or, for the convenience factor, a card can have multiple credit cards on it. Just push the button of the card you want to use. The future is here and its in your wallet.

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Cut & Paste: Gigantic Spider Webs Made of Silk Tougher Than Kevlar

2010-09-20T15:32:00.001-07:00

Well, this is certainly cool:

[from Gigantic Spider Webs Made of Silk Tougher Than Kevlar in Wired: Wired Science by Brandon Keim]

A spider discovered deep in the jungles of Madagascar spins the largest webs in the world, using silk that’s tougher than any known biological substance.

Named Caerostris darwini, or Darwin’s bark spider, the inch-wide arachnid’s webs can cover 30-square-foot areas, hanging in midair from 80-foot-long anchor lines.

The webs’ size generates enormous structural stresses, magnified by the struggles of trapped prey. Strands must “absorb massive kinetic energy before breaking,” and are “10 times better than Kevlar,” wrote University of Puerto Rico zoologist Igni Agnarsson in Public Library of Science One.

Agnarsson and Slovenian Academy of Sciences biologist Matjaž Kuntner discovered C. darwini in 2008. It’s similar in many ways to Caerostris species found in Africa, but those spiders live at the edges of forest clearings. In Madagascar, where animals have taken kaleidoscopic forms since the island split from mainland Africa 165 million years ago, C. darwini evolved to exploit the airspace above streams and rivers.

A few other spiders build stream-side webs, but none “routinely utilize as habitat the air column immediately above sizeable rivers and up to several meters above water,” wrote Agnarsson and Kuntner in an August Journal of Arachnology article. The spiders’ superior gossamer likely evolved in tandem with C. darwini’s migration to Madagascar’s rivers, and is twice as elastic as silk from other web-weaving spiders.

That elasticity is key to the silk’s toughness, and its molecular underpinnings remain to be studied. The researchers also plan to study how C. darwini build their webs, likely by casting threads that drift over water and catch branches on distant shores, providing a central structural element.

Another intriguing question is how these relatively small spiders maintain such immense, energetically taxing structures. The webs certainly provide rich sources of food; Agnarsson and Kuntner witnessed catches of dozens of insects at a time. They didn’t see the spiders catch birds or bats, but say it’s possible.

By the time these questions are answered, some other spider may hold the World’s Toughest Material title. The researchers point out that there are more than 40,000 arachnid species, manufacturing some 200,000 types of silk. Scientists have studied only a few dozen.

Images: 1) Man looking at C. darwini web and a C. darwini female./Journal of Arachnology. 2) C. darwini webs spanning a Madagascar river./Public Library of Science One.

See Also:

Citations: “Bioprospecting Finds the Toughest Biological Material: Extraordinary Silk from a Giant Riverine Orb Spider.” By Ingi Agnarsson, Matjaž Kuntner, Todd A. Blackledge. PLoS One, Vol. 5 No. 9, September 16, 2010.

“Web gigantism in Darwin’s bark spider, a new species from Madagascar (Araneidae: Caerostris).” By Matjaž Kuntner and Ingi Agnarsson. Journal of Arachnology, Vol. 38 Issue 2, August 2010.”

Brandon Keim’s Twitter stream and reportorial outtakes; Wired Science on Twitter. Brandon is currently working on an ecological tipping point project.

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La Burbuja de la Realidád

2010-09-20T14:09:00.001-07:00

From an interview with some musicians:

"Cuando digo esto sé lo miserable que soy y nunca he podido ponerme en juez de los demás, pero vivir en una nube de pedos, en una situación cortesana, no es una cosa conveniente, tampoco. Es como una manera que uno tiene de detener la realidad para que no te afecte todo el tiempo." --La García

He's basically saying that he is as bad as anyone else and he doesn't appoint himself judge over other people, but keeping up appearances, being oblivious, or "living in a fart cloud" is not the most comfortable way to live. However, he understands that being oblivious and unconcerned (i.e. "living in a fart cloud") is a way of keeping reality at bay so that such realizations don't affect you all the time.

I think this is an Argentinian phrase, "to live in a fart cloud" (vivir en una nube de pedos), which means to be unconcerned about what is going on around you.

I suppose we who live in a literal fart cloud would definitely fit the bill. Ignorance is bliss.

This isn't a "gross" phrase in Argentina, although it's probably a bit slangy, but I think it captures nicely the intersection of how we ignore the reality of what is around us (the fart cloud) in preference for our "preferred reality," or escapist pursuits, while simultaneously denying how we contribute to the whole situation (our farts).

It's all tied up nicely in one stinky little bundle of words.

Anyway, I like the phrase and thought I'd share!

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Damned Good Storytelling: Scalped

2010-09-19T15:24:00.001-07:00

If you want to get into a graphic novel that can tell a good long-form story while making every single issue interesting, then Scalped is the one to pick.

It tells the story of Dashiell Bad Horse and is set on the Lakota reservation in South Dakota.

This comic is full of interesting and well-developed characters and Guéra's artwork is sparse and gritty enough to set the right tone.

Some have characterized it as "Sopranos on the Rez," but I think it deals with even deeper issues than the Sopranos and I don't think it glorifies the violence so much. The characters are allowed to be truly sorrowful for the bad things that they've done and wrestle with their nature, which gives the novel a more nuanced view of violence, grief, loss and death than you get with the mafioso mindset.

I like to use the program Comical to view these .cbr and .cbz files. It's an easy download.

You can easily find other sources of these around the web, but here's my collection:
[mediafire link]

However, I recommend going to the local comic store and picking up a hard copy. I usually get a collection of issues for about $15. This allows you to curl up on the couch and really sink into the storyline and linger on the illustrations. At this point, you could pick up at least three volumes of the series and get lost in the thing.

You can also read the first issue for free (in PDF) at this link: http://www.dccomics.com/media/excerpts/7722_1.pdf

Fall is here. Hope you all had a great weekend!

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Pretty Damn Cool: Dustpin + Wastebasket

2010-09-16T15:48:00.001-07:00

Click here to download:

b025_binpan_kawamura-ganjavian_web-21[1].jpg_pictureId=6786360&asGalleryImage=true&__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1284364034142 (43 KB)

Simplicity in design is always refreshing.

Next step-- how to eliminate the need for a wastebasket liner?

All you engineers---> take this design and give it a smooth interior without corners that can be easily washed out, or give me some other alternative to a liner that would be practical and hassle-free.

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Flaming Bobcat Starts Wildfire

2010-09-07T14:40:00.001-07:00

We don't make this stuff up, we just pass it along:

Electrocuted bobcat to blame for Ventura County wildfire

from L.A. NOW by Tony Barboza

It wasn't arson, a tossed cigarette or a lightning strike that ignited a five-acre brush fire in eastern Ventura County.

It was an electrocuted bobcat.

About 75 firefighters responded to the brush fire that broke out near the town of Piru about 3 a.m. Monday, containing the blaze in just a few hours, said Ventura County Fire Capt. Ron Oatman.

When fire investigators arrived on scene, they found an unusual piece of evidence: the charred remains of a bobcat that had apparently scaled a power line, been electrocuted and fallen to the ground, lighting the grass on fire.

"It's very common to happen with birds; this is the first bobcat I've heard of," Oatman said.

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Anti-Immigrant Vogue: "Anchor Baby" Nonsense

2010-08-25T15:36:00.001-07:00

With the debate about immigration law heating up, the offensive term "anchor baby" has been thrown around a lot of late.

Just in case you were wondering, the term has been around at least since 2005, perhaps coined by Lou Dobbs:

Dobbs has used the term “anchor babies” to refer to the
U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants, suggesting
inaccurately that having a U.S. citizen child is a means
of acquiring legal immigration status or being protected
from deportation. (Lou Dobbs Tonight transcript, 3/31/05).

That's from page 16 of this document: http://www.civilrights.org/publications/hatecrimes/lccref_hate_crimes_report.pdf

Jezebel magazine rightly denounces the term (and it's companion term "anchor embryo") and this article goes into more detail about the harmful effect of the term.

This kind of talk has been leading to a real rise in violence in many parts of the country and represents a real threat to the physical and psychological well-being of the families I work with, so I hope it stops soon.

But the fire of stupidity is easy to kindle and hard to stomp out.

Do some stomping, willya? Thanks.

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Overheard: Robert in the Yard

2010-08-23T14:49:00.001-07:00

Heard in passing:

"How can I do this with ROBERT IN THE YARD? Get him out! He knows people be coming here trying to look at the house..."

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César Chavez Library: Thursday the 19th of August

2010-08-19T15:12:00.001-07:00

The guy to the left of me does philately in his ECKO Other Ground print shirt. The guy to the right blasts death metal into his headphones while he draws careful line drawings on sheet-after-sheet of copy paper. The guy to my immediate right is quiet and square-looking; he reads and writes and occasionally types. The guy down at the end of the row has recently rolled out of a boxcar and wears acid-washed denim blackened with grime and a Karl Marx style beard. I believe mice live in it.

There's a lady who is here often. She sits perched on the edge of a chair and does not read. She just watches everyone and appears perturbed by the hard rock music. Her ears lay back like an irritated cat's. Soon she leaves.

I spent much of the morning with my son at pre-school. Now I won't see him until the evening. I'm on vacation, so I just come here to kill time. I find the environs and the people watching to be pleasant.

Later on I will have some Thai iced tea and a chicken-and-rice bowl at the nearby Quickly snack bar and watch the Simpsons on their TV.

Tomorrow is the last day of my vacation and I will return to my normal schedule. The goat in me is happy (Capricorn)-- I frolic in my goals and ambitions. I love tasks and plans and passion and motivation. This is my native element, and only in the soil of realism and daily duties does my imagination take root-- not in the airy vagaries of vacation time.

Yay, work!

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Walking My Neighborhood: Friday the 13th of August

2010-08-18T18:54:00.001-07:00

The kamikaze dog who bit my pants legs repeatedly the other evening scratches desperately against the screen door and chews on the bottom corner with her lip pressed desperately against the metal, exposing her horrific 1/4 inch fangs.

The girls one house up are dousing each other randomly with the hose. They don't even bother to spray. I think their game is more like Marco Polo, but with a hose. Since they keep spraying the sidewalk I didn't stay long enough to figure it out.

As I reach the corner, the two snack vendors approach from opposing sides. God forbid they ever face each other in open battle; fruit skewers to the midriff, hot sauce in the eyes, smearing oil and mayonnaise on their arms to slip the enemy's grip. It would be a mess.

They honk their horns insistently and glare at each other across the main thoroughfare.

I speed up to avoid the conflagration.

In someone's back yard they are doing terrible things to a tuba. The cymbals and snare get their abuse, too. The combined effect is drunken, carnival-like madness. Next door the Templo Monte Sinai stands in severe silence.

I catch a lyric from a passing Escalade, blasting a bolero-- to my Spanglish ears it sounds like "comiendo hongos con las sirenas." I'm pretty sure I missed the mark, but it would be fun.

To my Spanglish ears every single bolero sounds like it has the same rhythm and the same tune. The same tuba baseline. Its like a game where you make up different words to the Yellow Rose of Texas, like Emily Dickinson did, and sing them really loudly, pretending they're brand new songs.

A woman walks slowly down a full story staircase talking urgently in K'iche'.

A few houses down a woman smiles at me. She wears a blanket knotted at the shoulder, tying a bundle to her back. I am likewise carrying things-- a booster seat in a messenger bag and a jogging stroller under my arm.

We are bonded by the kinship of carrying things, divided by the particularities of custom.

Later, as I return with my son, the street is flooded with bicycles. They are fitted with carts with amps and speakers and the riders are fitted with hipster clothes and sculpted hair.

Hundreds of them mass in the square. It's a "bike party," as they loudly exclaim, but only for those to whom bicycles are a lifestyle accessory-- excluding all who use them out of necessity.

On the way back, the tall women in stilettos prances around her coupe, emblazoned in Morrissey, The Cure and other decals. She is waiting for her boy toy to finish up with his slow rearrangements of items from seat to seat. He has streaks of glittery Christmas tree foil and green-apple green in his hair, and a funky hat.

They both seem to have recently run off from the circus. Or possible they're carny folk. I think she's slumming it with him, but he doesn't know.

We pass the El Centenario taco truck and the tortilleria (La Finca) and head up the hill. On the other side the far hills seem emblazoned with Christmas lights and the perfect half-circle of the moon lazes above, lighting our journey.

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Snippets: BART Tunnel of the Future

2010-08-17T14:39:00.001-07:00

For the RL analogue, follow this link: BART OKs test of ads in tunnels

California 2050

Inside the BART train tunnels, LED screens shoot video advertisements that keep pace with the speed of the trains.

Rockets and fireworks flash past the car during intermissions, provoking screams and laughter from the younger riders.

Sometimes the holographic images in key sections of tunnel jump out and seem to fill the space in front of you, hover next to you as a cartoon character or a spokesperson, or they bathe you in an avatar skin.

Spokesmodels, operating on focused frequencies cued to the individual inner ear, smile and hawk products customized to you via facial recognition software.

Cancellation headphones could rid you of this annoyance. Some early adopting tech-heads wear holographic face shields that projected down from a visor, foiling the attempts of cameras to read their face.

Hacking the tunnel LEDs allowed a new form of graffiti, with a spray can made of pixels.

Sometimes birthday or wedding announcements flashed across the screen. Hubby could remember your anniversary remotely, requesting that an individualized sentiment be broadcast to you on your morning commute.

The Luddites among us just don their headphones and close their eyes, dreaming of simpler times.

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Astonishing! My Storyline (update)

2010-08-12T11:15:00.001-07:00

I have 19 chapters up on authonomy.com:

http://www.authonomy.com/books/7307/outside-of-forever-mackerel-sky/

And now for some witty zombie dialogue:

"Naaarrrrrghhhh!" he said idly.

She was intrigued. "Splechhhnaffpflggtt-- ack, ack!"

"Hrrrghhhafarrragagaghargmfffttptfmff..." was his response. He drooled in an offhand manner.

She could wait no longer, "Braaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiins!!!!!"

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Insanely Amazing: Magnetized Floating Table

2010-08-04T17:05:00.001-07:00

http://rockpaperrobot.com/?p=9

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Firestarters

2010-08-03T14:37:00.001-07:00

Not that it makes me happy, but my storyline predicts the increase in wildfires and their influence on Californian society (especially a rise in arson).

Here's reality backing me up:

In Lull, 'Hot Shot' Crews Target Smaller Fires

The news story says that this is the biggest evacuation in history (17,000 people in Qualcomm stadium) and that they are investigating whether the fires had human origin.

To read some of my chapters that touch on this topic, check out http://sites.google.com/site/runaheadofme/Home/outside-of-forever, chapters 10 through 17 (approximately).

And it's not just California. It seems like Australia and Greece and Arizona are having similar problems with disgruntled youth (and others of the arsonist persuasion) and the disenfranchised (immigrants or those denied entry to the U.S.) setting fires as a way of expressing their upset or circumventing authorities.

Link to story about Arizona blaze allegedly set by border crossers: http://www.infowars.net/articles/june2007/190607illegals.htm

I predict that if France continues to pander to the right wing by banning burqas and other forms of Islamic behavior, then the same thing will start to happen in France. Then Paris will be burning for real.

The good thing about being a pessimist is that you're either right or pleasantly surprised... let's hope for the latter.

Break out the marshmallows!

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The Social Construction of Trust

2010-08-02T10:27:00.001-07:00

One of the key points made by those who espouse the concept of "social construction"-- or, the idea that we create our reality through social agreements and institutions-- is that when we participate in our social realities we are not merely acting according to our "inclinations" or natural dispositions, but are instead submitting to symbolic powers, duties, rights and obligations that don't "exist" in the natural world, but are created by our social agreements.

We construct our own reality through language and behavior, and this changes everything.

This was the recent topic for Philosophy Talk on NPR: http://theblog.philosophytalk.org/2010/07/social-reality.html

John Searle, of Berkeley, is one of the main thinkers in this field.

What I find useful about this line of thought is that it clears up some issues I have with American culture.

You see, I think we esteem the values of individual freedom and liberty too highly to submit gladly to any but the most minimal levels of social construction.

The natural inclinations or disposition of human beings tend to lead us to narcissism and license when we are given too much freedom and liberty.

The social reality is there to reign those behaviors in and control them with duties, obligations, respect for rights and submission to authority.

I think our society has experienced the steady erosion of these social agreements until we have the thinnest film of socially constructed reality standing between us and our natural inclinations to act in a self-centered manner.

What we need is a social construction that places additional obligations on us-- not more freedom. What we need is a common social language that allows us to build and earn trust.

We see a nationwide erosion in trust-- in government, in finance, in education, in health care, in laws, in the police and in the intentions of others (both our neighbors and strangers).

This erosion is occurring because the agreements that held together our social reality have been stretched so thin that we don't trust them anymore.

The news barrages us with stories of people who have succumbed to their baser inclinations, even when all the social clues indicated that they should not have done so.

We lack an identification with a greater social ideal, with a national identity, with an inclusive whole that would keep us from splintering off into individual behaviors that harm others.

Small social groups that offer a coherent social reality (like terrorist cells) can exercise a strong influence on people who are looking for a social identity that feels "real."

So I think that in order to rebuild trust in our nation and our institutions, we need to construct a more collectivist whole-- a social reality with additional levels of inclusion, obligations, protections and rights and an awareness of the constant need for involvement, education, activity and validation of individuals in order to maintain a shared identity and a shared social reality.

We know that without a well-educated electorate our representative form of government will not work properly. We have already seen the erosion of our political system.

What we don't as often realize is that a without well-educated and highly involved citizenry our social fabric will unravel-- not just at the political, but at the moral and emotional level.

Without a shared social identity, or constant attempts to cultivate an agreement about what our society means and what we represent, we devolve into fragmented regional and economic social groupings, with self-interest and survival as our foremost values.

To my mind, we also get the housing bubble and the recession. We get a bloated health care system and the collapse of social security. We get immigration hysteria and increased policing of our cities and our borders. We get an erosion of trust.

Where does trust come from? It comes from shared beliefs and values.

We used to have regional and religious stop-gaps to cultivate shared values and inculcate rules of civility in our populace. We had strong Catholic and Jewish and Protestant communities of faith. We had Southern hospitality, the brashness of New Yorkers, Midwestern reserve and the pioneering individualism of the West.

These ways of life modulated our individual inclinations and helped forge us into different kinds of Americans with distinctive ideas of who we were and what America was about. There was an underlying morality that held hands with our political ideals of freedom and liberty.

The restraint and collective mindsets given to us by our regional ways of life and religious outlooks allowed us to enjoy individual freedom and espouse liberty without devolving into narcissism or licentiousness.

But all of these regional ways of life and religious communities have experienced an erosion of values and influence.

I'm not saying these institutions and regional mindsets were ever ideal, but they banked the coals of liberty and kept the hearth fire from going out or burning the house down.

Now we have a moral vacuum, no true leadership from any of the religious communities, an erosion of regional distinctiveness, a unifying media that tends to stir up hysteria more than facilitate a national conversation about the truly important things and an economic situation that leaves the citizenry with little time for anything but getting by and getting theirs.

Any extra time and resources tend to be spent on entertainment.

So when we're all jacked into our little entertainment worlds, insulated from the very real threats to our way of life, how will we find the time to rebuild the trust and sense of connection necessary to take back our nation, revive our values and ideals and preserve our way of life?

We won't.

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The Situation in Mexico (the other big chunk of North America)

2010-07-25T11:18:00.001-07:00

This is a pretty good synopsis: http://www.economicroadmap.com/2010/07/looks-like-a-war.html

There is a war going on next door-- just as surely as in Iraq or Afghanistan.

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Jr. @ the Hayward Airport

2010-07-11T12:40:00.001-07:00

We spent the day at an event hosted by the Black Pilot's Association, honoring the Tuskegee Airmen.

It was a lot of fun (Jr. especially liked the jumper) and we got to see the control tower and a lot of planes.

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Jr.'s B-day Proper

2010-07-11T12:12:00.001-07:00

Here's pics from the b-day :)

He has a continuing fascination with trains.

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The Birthday Tree

2010-07-07T16:56:00.001-07:00

If the internet has taught me anything, it is that we have an unspoken obligation to document everything in our lives online-- insofar as is humanly possible.

This is my small contribution to the human species' aspirational goal to overshare every damn thing under the sun.

My son's Birthday Tree.

Each gift contains another addition to his wooden train set.
He gets to open a small gift each day, leading up to his birthday on Sunday.
The tree has a water-source that is built into the table by drilling a circular hole in the table and affixing a glass jar to the underside.

The End

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Untitled

2010-07-01T17:44:00.001-07:00

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Best. Xanga. Subscriptions. Update. Ever

2010-06-29T18:02:00.001-07:00

Latest Updates from Everything_But_Myself

pollock parchment

impressions are only ever left for us in futures;
they are exiled, like us, they are empty things,
copies of themselves, adroit in dalliance, the
dark behind your eyes, optical recollections
who live thinking they are not made of
what their flesh is made of.
i have always been scared of things
without meaning, spent lifetimes searching
for numbers, counting echoes,
saving sounds forming concentric scribbles
in the pockets of my trousers,
rivulets of the accent i could always taste,
but never see, on your tongue, blind memories
vomiting braille in a code we couldn’t decipher.
you are there, at all times and infinite, a ghost
soiled in butter and jam, my old shadow
dripping with sky water, smocked in canvas
and exactly like you always were.

same.
Posted 6/28/2010 at 9:01 PM - 4 eprops - 2 comments

Latest Updates from NoGraySunflowers

long (v., intransitive)

Heard once.
The coil; the dark brown tangle
falls.

A set mouth, twist up
from the side. It calls, as a
watchword or tremor

the skin warm as
sand.

sift through the
fingers, this skin
this tangle,

hear me say
the name and
know your
pull.

Posted 6/28/2010 at 11:34 AM - 16 eprops - 20 comments

Latest Updates from merriej

they disgorge it

arrow
    strikes
       the moon,
          and pierces,
             falling, leaves
         a deep wound,
                unmendable by
                 night's blackness;
                  out pours silver
           blood, splashing out
                 into blue-stem field;
               resting mirror now,
                 solitary iris, widens
                   with amaze as
                  midnight's white,
                 suspended fruit
                drains out into
               crescent closed-
             eye curve;
           blinks out
        then, into
    quiet
rest.

Posted 6/28/2010 at 3:56 PM - 22 eprops - 21 comments

Posted via email from azul60's posterous

The Strangest Man by Graham Farmelo

2010-06-25T19:17:00.001-07:00

WINNER of the L.A. Times Book Prize!

Selected as one of the best books of 2009 by The Economist, The New York Times Book Review, and Amazon.com

Paul Dirac was among the great scientific geniuses of the modern age. One of the discoverers of quantum mechanics, the most revolutionary theory of the past century, his contributions had a unique insight, eloquence, clarity, and mathematical power. His prediction of antimatter was one of the greatest triumphs in the history of physics. One of Einstein’s most admired colleagues, Dirac was in 1933 the youngest theoretician ever to win the Nobel Prize in physics.
Dirac’s personality is legendary. He was an extraordinarily reserved loner, relentlessly literal-minded and appeared to have no empathy with most people. Yet he was a family man and was intensely loyal to his friends. His tastes in the arts ranged from Beethoven to Cher, from Rembrandt to Mickey Mouse.
Based on previously undiscovered archives, The Strangest Man reveals the many facets of Dirac’s brilliantly original mind. A compelling human story, The Strangest Man also depicts a spectacularly exciting era in scientific history.

via thestrangestman.com

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First Working Replacement Lung Created in Lab

2010-06-25T18:26:00.001-07:00

via news.nationalgeographic.com

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Ay, Chihuahua...

2010-06-25T13:27:00.001-07:00

Too much killing...

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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The 39 Questions Both Sides On The Prop 8 Trial Must Answer

2010-06-17T08:18:00.001-07:00

Proposition 8, California's November, 2008 offense against America that bans same-sex couples from marrying, has been on trial -- federal trial, that is -- since January. The federal case, technically Perry v. Schwarzenegger, concludes this week, wit

via thenewcivilrightsmovement.com

The judge seems to be promoting a thorough examination of the issue (although there might be a couple of elements that he leaves out).

Posted via web from azul60's posterous

Legend of the Mapache [Dos]

2010-06-15T11:23:00.001-07:00

[slide 1] Safe atop their former mountain sanctuary, the raccoon-dogs laid in their fortifications.

[slide 2] The demonic eyes of their ravenous foe haunted their dreams.

[slide 3] Their only thought was for revenge...

[slide 4] and sustenence.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Legend of the Mapache [Uno]

2010-06-15T11:07:00.001-07:00

[slide 1] They once enjoyed an idyllic existence, in the peaceful woods atop Raccoon Mountain...

[slide 2] but one day their peace was interrupted by war.

[slide 3] The neighboring raccoon-dogs attacked, [slide 4] progeny of an unholy union, and they were driven from their homeland...

[slide 5] to become refugees.

[slide 6] They wandered the dark night of their exile, [slide 7] did what they had to to survive, [slide 8] let nothing stop them.

[slide 9] Sometimes they felt they would go mad.

[slide 10] They came to a place where people fed them peanuts.

[slide 11] They were looking for a home.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Human Security: Hellen Keller Quote

2010-06-14T16:23:00.001-07:00

"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of humankind as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or it is nothing at all."

--Helen Keller, (1880 - 1968)

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Galaxy Zoo: these large-scale aggregates need your help!

2009-11-30T09:38:00.000-08:00

Help out the astronomers at Galaxy Zoo and contribute to science!

Ehidense Dictionary

2009-03-31T14:54:00.000-07:00

Neave: Pacman

2009-01-18T17:58:00.000-08:00

Neave: Frogger

2009-01-18T16:41:00.001-08:00

Frogger made by Neave Games

Neave: Hexxagon

2009-01-18T16:39:00.002-08:00

Hexxagon made by Neave Games

Neave: Tic-Tac-Toe

2009-01-18T16:39:00.001-08:00

Tic-Tac-Toe made by Neave Games

Neave: Simon Says

2009-01-18T16:37:00.002-08:00

Simon made by Neave Games

Neave: Snake

2009-01-18T16:37:00.001-08:00

Snake made by Neave Games

Neave: Asteroids

2009-01-18T16:33:00.001-08:00

Asteroids made by Neave Games

Neave: Tetris/N-Blox

2009-01-18T16:27:00.001-08:00

N-Blox made by Neave Games

Neave: Space Invaders

2009-01-18T16:24:00.000-08:00

Space Invaders made by Neave Games

T I N Y D A N C I N G: Truth

2009-01-01T21:16:00.000-08:00

T I N Y D A N C I N G: Truth

Make Yourself Foundation

2008-12-26T18:16:00.001-08:00

Digsby Widget

2008-12-26T14:05:00.000-08:00

Visual Image Reconstruction from Human Brain Activity

2008-12-12T15:51:00.001-08:00

http://volokh.com/posts/1229116617.shtml

Lathe of Heaven, here we come!

Sorry, it's true... Santa is a Yeti.

2008-11-24T11:41:00.000-08:00

What most people don't realize is that Santa is a Yeti and his suit just serves to cover all his fluffy white fur and huge cranial ridge.

Just Some Tommy J to Chew on

2008-11-08T10:09:00.001-08:00

"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." --Thomas Jefferson

So are we really just so happy with our current form of governance that we feel no need to rebel? I mean, according to TJ we are about 18 rebellions behind, that is if we count the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement as embodiments of that spirit of resistance. We may question their results, but they do show without a doubt a willingness to risk life and limb for the sake of liberty. We shouldn't accept everything that Jefferson says without question-- he is as fallible as the rest. But without refreshment has the tree of liberty survived? or have we just not noticed it's loss? Freedoms are given, but liberties are earned. We are free, but we're "freely marching on to exploitation," and the next four years are not likely to be quantitatively different-- so I suppose we're just not paying attention.

View Original Article

Oakland - Aerial View

2008-08-13T12:01:00.000-07:00

Caricatures are sometimes "more real"...

2008-08-12T13:57:00.001-07:00

The image to the left is some caricatures by Subway Surfer who can be found sketching New Yorkers on the Subway, to mention one place.

The picture below it is a background from some old, Tex Avery era cartoon.

I think both exemplify the emotional realness of the exaggerated, the caricatured, the stylized, the non-representative.

There is plenty of science out there that confirms that at times a cartoon can have more impact on our perception than a realistic drawing or photo. The mechanism behind this is supposed to be because when we perceive things, we actually give more emotionally weight to certain features of what we see, rather than absorbing all the details, so what we retain in our minds is actually an emotional caricature of the actual thing. Therefore, sometimes our recognition of the identity of a well-known face is quicker when we see a caricature than when we see a photo of the actual person. The caricature brings out all the salient features.

I think the same can be said for trees and mountains and rocks and buildings-- we retain a generalized image of them, but it's mostly the pointyness of conifers, the jaggedness of the rocks, the scrubbyness of bushes and the roundness of deciduous trees. Everything that we feel is "real" can be approximated with much less detail than we might suppose to be necessary, and it will have the same emotional impact on us as the "real" thing-- perhaps more.

Cartoonists have always used this quality of human perception to their advantage, and with the proliferation of images on the web today I think we can easily find countless examples of completely unrealistic images that excite us, provoke us, influence us, entertain us, titillate us, and convince us through their power to access the key elements of our perception without going to the trouble of simulating reality.

I like to draw, but am lazy with the detail, so I think I am going to use this insight as my guide as I put my visual ideas on paper. Just enough, and no more. Not that this kind of art is "easy" by a long shot, but certainly simpler than the Sistine Chapel.

Timothy Leary

2008-02-13T15:25:00.000-08:00

http://www.scribd.com/upload/bulk_upload_progress/337399?ga_uploads=1

Gaviotas

2008-01-04T14:45:00.001-08:00

I like this story of how they constructed a sustainable community in the arid highlands of Colombia. Makes me want to go there.

Yo uelo el aire de otro pais y me hace ganas de quitar el mio.

Jacob Two Two

2008-01-03T15:26:00.001-08:00

Ultra Peepee

2008-01-03T11:24:00.000-08:00

My daughter and I love Ultra Peepee.

Mpatapo: Reconciliation and Peacemaking

2007-12-31T13:52:00.001-08:00

This image is an Adinkra symbol (a system of symbols from Ghana in West Africa) called mpatapo. It is meant to represent the "knot of pacification/reconciliation," and as such it is the symbol for reconciliation, peacemaking and pacification.

"Mpatapo represents the bond or knot that binds the separate parties in a dispute to a peaceful, harmonious reconciliation. It is a symbol of peacemaking after strife." --from West African Wisdom: Adinkra Symbols & Meanings

I am trying to expand my efforts at teaching conflict resolution throughout the schools where I work and have chosen this symbol as the "badge" to give kids and adults who have successfully learned the principles and have pledged to embody them throughout the school.

My guiding principles are summed up pretty well in the words of a Buddhist nun, so I will let her speak for me:

We need to bring loving-kindness not only into the family but also into the schools. Before I became a nun, I was a schoolteacher, so I have especially strong feelings about this. The most important thing for children to learn is not a lot of information, but how to be kind human beings and how to resolve their conflicts with others in a constructive way. Parents and teachers put a lot of time and money into teaching children science, arithmetic, literature, geography, geology, and computers. But do we ever spend any time teaching them how to be kind? Do we have any courses in kindness? Do we teach kids how to work with their own negative emotions and how to resolve conflicts with others? I think this is much more important than the academic subjects. Why? Children may know a lot, but if they grow up to be unkind, resentful, or greedy adults, their lives will not be happy.

Parents want their children to have a good future and thus think their children need to make a lot of money. They teach their children academic and technical skills so that they can get a good job and make lots of money -- as if money were the cause of happiness. But when people are on their deathbed, you never hear anybody wishfully say, "I should have spent more time in the office. I should have made more money." When people have regrets about how they lived their life, usually they regret not communicating better with other people, not being kinder, not letting the people that they care about know that they care. If you want your kids to have a good future don't teach them just how to make money, but how to live a healthy life, how to be a happy person, how to contribute to society in a productive way.

My personality, as viewed through psychological instruments.

2007-12-31T13:52:00.000-08:00

It is hard to reproduce the results of the personal inventory for Timothy Leary's Interpersonal Behavior Circle without reproducing the image, but I can summarize it by saying that I come out being fairly assured, responsible, and competitive, somewhat cold, aloof and hostile (ouch!), and moderately distrustful. Maybe on a bad day.

I am NOT very submissive or self-effacing, absolutely not deferent or docile, and only slightly warm, friendly, or sociable. However, I also scored very low on the "selfish"part of the test, as well as the "bossy" part, so I am evidently not a brash, loud sort of unfriendly person. Perhaps I am a likable misanthrope?

But that's not the end of the story.

On John Birchtnell's page there are a battery of tests to take regarding a person's ability to relate to others, and I fared far better on those. The greater the number of questions and the more multidimensional the concerns of the test are, the better I make out. I'm just a complex guy.

However, the results I like best are from the IPIP-NEO Narrative Report (Short Version). The results are given in graph form again, but there's also a conversational version of the results. Mine are as follows:

1. Your score on Extroversion is average, indicating that you are neither a subdued loner nor a jovial chatterbox. You enjoy time with others but also time alone.
2. Your high level of Agreeableness indicates a strong interest in others' needs and well-being. You are pleasant, sympathetic, and cooperative.
3. Your score on Conscientiousness is high. This means you set clear goals and pursue them with determination. People regard you as reliable and hard-working.
4. Your score on Neuroticism is average, indicating that your level of emotional reactivity is typical of the general population. Stressful and frightening situations are sometimes upsetting to you, but you are generally able to get over these feelings and cope with these situations.
5. Your score on Openness to Experience is average, indicating you enjoy tradition but are willing to try new things. Your thinking is neither simple nor complex. To others you appear to be a well-educated person but not an intellectual.

I like those results. Makes me sound like a balanced guy... who has a passion for helping others. Well, that's who I want to be, anyway.

I think the element that was screwing up my circumplex results is my "take no bullshit" stance on life, which is a self-protective stance, but also serves to protect others from the effects of dishonesty, unforeseen consequences of ill-advised actions, recognizing and defusing disrespectful behavior, hostile attitudes, and put-downs and firmly directing the wayward back to the path of virtue. But how do you communicate all of that in a test format without coming off as someone who is strict, impatient with others' mistakes, hard-boiled, outspoken, irritable, blunt, complaining, doubtful of others, hard to impress, touchy, and stubborn? What I have described is a stance on life that allows me (within the public school system) to promote kindness and teach kids how to resolve their conflicts with others in a constructive way. Sometimes that requires confronting some destructive interpersonal patterns head-on, sometimes that requires stepping in and expressing zero-tolerance for put-downs and malicious rough-housing. What cannot be communicated in the context of these tests is all of the positivity and compassion and intuition that goes into effectively communicating with these kids.

But maybe that's not "personality" maybe that's a learned skill. Maybe I'm a person with a more "abrasive" personality who has learned to channel those qualities into compassionate action. How well do we know ourselves anyway? All we know is how we act within our habitual environs. All kinds of stuff can come out in duress, and maybe some of those stress reactions are closer to our actual "personality" than the nice behaviors that we have learned to get by within the context of our family, friends, work life, and in public.

In any case, these tests are good tools to zero-in on our personality traits, which might not be so evident to us otherwise. (I know that I need help seeing my behavior for what it is.) We can reject the results if we like, but in a good test the questions are educational in and of themselves and stimulate my thought such that taking the test is an end in itself, whatever the results are.

"Red Hot Riding Hood" by Tex Avery

2007-12-31T13:05:00.000-08:00

Watch this old Tex Avery cartoon (all you wolves out there) and tell me, ain't that the truth about women?

She'd kill me if I told her, but my girl reminds me of the old Grandma when she's feeling "randy." Not exactly a turn on.

But I keep coming back anyway. That's the dog in me... as George Clinton says:

Why must I feel like that?
Why must I chase the cat?
Nothin' but the dog in me....

Bow, wow, wow!

Run Ahead of Me

How To Get Full Length Video Files on Your Windows PC or PS3

This is the best PDF converter for Chrome

This is when you really should've run for the border...

Acorns for the hungry...

Two dads? Too weird...

Unarguably the best approach to promoting a language...

Here comes the New Year...

Various Links from the Past Year

Mermaid Girl by Chris Sanders

Four year-olds at NASA

Dave Needs a Shave (a la Seuss)

Reading to my Son (the visual part)

Danger Stencils

Only on Freecycle (where they give away the strangest things)

Baby - Os Mutantes

Pumpkin Master!

In Memory of Those Who Have Gone Ahead of Me

From the Coffee Table: Peter Sellars

Differentiated instruction: solution or fad?

Differentiated instruction: solution or fad?

Last Left Turn Before Hooterville: In Plain Language - What the Hell Happened

In Plain Language - What the Hell Happened.

Versos Naturales de mis Vegetales

Don't You Know That You Can Count Me Out - Let's Try Democracy

Cut & Paste: Self-erasing Credit Card

Cut & Paste: Gigantic Spider Webs Made of Silk Tougher Than Kevlar

La Burbuja de la Realidád

Damned Good Storytelling: Scalped

Pretty Damn Cool: Dustpin + Wastebasket

Flaming Bobcat Starts Wildfire

Electrocuted bobcat to blame for Ventura County wildfire

Anti-Immigrant Vogue: "Anchor Baby" Nonsense

Overheard: Robert in the Yard

César Chavez Library: Thursday the 19th of August

Walking My Neighborhood: Friday the 13th of August

Snippets: BART Tunnel of the Future

Astonishing! My Storyline (update)

Insanely Amazing: Magnetized Floating Table

Firestarters

The Social Construction of Trust

The Situation in Mexico (the other big chunk of North America)

Jr. @ the Hayward Airport

Jr.'s B-day Proper

The Birthday Tree

Untitled

Best. Xanga. Subscriptions. Update. Ever

The Strangest Man by Graham Farmelo

WINNER of the L.A. Times Book Prize!

Selected as one of the best books of 2009 by The Economist, The New York Times Book Review, and Amazon.com

First Working Replacement Lung Created in Lab

Ay, Chihuahua...

The 39 Questions Both Sides On The Prop 8 Trial Must Answer

Legend of the Mapache [Dos]

Legend of the Mapache [Uno]

Human Security: Hellen Keller Quote

Galaxy Zoo: these large-scale aggregates need your help!

Ehidense Dictionary

Neave: Pacman

Neave: Frogger

Neave: Hexxagon

Neave: Tic-Tac-Toe

Neave: Simon Says

Neave: Snake

Neave: Asteroids

Neave: Tetris/N-Blox

Neave: Space Invaders

T I N Y D A N C I N G: Truth

Make Yourself Foundation

Digsby Widget

Visual Image Reconstruction from Human Brain Activity

Sorry, it's true... Santa is a Yeti.

Just Some Tommy J to Chew on

Oakland - Aerial View

Caricatures are sometimes "more real"...

Timothy Leary

Gaviotas

Jacob Two Two

Ultra Peepee

Mpatapo: Reconciliation and Peacemaking