Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Why I didn't like Jurassic Park (the book)
So I read Jurassic Park, and it was a book written by a deeply, childishly, moronic person. I don’t want to insult Michael Crichton too much, but good lord he was a stupid man. I’m not even talking about the flaws in his science, which others have discussed, I’m talking about huge flaws in his logic and the stupidity of the anti-science rants within the book. I was also fairly shocked on how badly the book is written. There is no character development, you can’t describe a person in the book unless you talk about what they look like and what job they have. The story is paper thin, and it’s filled with garbage that even a bad editor should have sliced away with their magic red pen. I do not intend to tear down the book line by line Red Letter Media style, so I’ll focus on two pieces instead.
The first is the introduction, where Crichton asserts that before the 20th century, scientific discovery was made by people working exclusively for the love of science. In fact, allow me to quote directly from the book…
For four hundred years since Galileo, science has always proceeded as a free and open inquiry into the workings of nature. Scientists have always ignored national boundaries, holding themselves above the transitory concerns of politics and even wars. Scientists have always rebelled against secrecy in research, and have even frowned on the idea of patenting their discoveries, seeing themselves as working to the benefit of all mankind. And for many generations, the discoveries of scientists did indeed have a peculiarly selfless quality.
…
In the past, pure scientists took a snobbish view of business. They saw the pursuit of money as intellectually uninteresting, suited only to shopkeepers. And to do research for industry, even at the prestigious Bell or IBM labs, was only for those who couldn't get a university appointment. Thus the attitude of pure scientists was fundamentally critical toward the work of applied scientists, and to industry in general. Their long-standing antagonism kept university scientists free of contaminating industry ties, and whenever debate arose about technological matters, disinterested scientists were available to discuss the issues at the highest levels. But that is no longer true.
Really? Has anyone told Edison this? He was one of the premier scientific minds of the last century, was he not? Or is Edison not a pure scientist because he invented things that people wanted? Further more. Do we actually believe that discovery is a selfless act? Columbus didn’t sail the ocean blue for the sheer hell of it. There were billions at stake. Not in today’s money, in the money of his day, a quicker route to Japan and India was worth billions and would make whoever owned that route so rich that a new metaphor would be needed to describe their riches. None of the explorers that I’ve ever read about did it for the love of discovery. They were all doing it for the money. Some did it because they wanted to build a better weapon, some did it because they wanted to make a better ship, some did it because they thought it would get them laid in 17th Century France (note: they were right) but they all hoped to get something from it. Tycho Brahe got an entire damn island because of his scienciness and ruled that little thing like some kind of Danish tyrant. I’ll admit, the idea of a Danish tyrant is sort of hard to picture. I’ve got Sandi Toksvig in my head demanding people beheaded for being taller than her, it’s a weird image. The point is that he threatened to move away in hopes that he might be offered the island (so says one biography) so he did science and then demanded a price. What is that if not commerce at work? The point is that the notion that before the 20th Century, science was just for SCIENCE and nothing else is bullshit. I really did sit there and yell “Oh come on! How fucking old are you? Twelve?” Science has almost always been for someone’s direct benefit, and rarely has it been investigated without reasons or goals. The idea of the selfless professor sitting quietly in his study with test tubes and microscopes is a myth of the 20th Century. To say otherwise is to have a narrow, naïve, and let’s just say it, plain damn ignorant view of the history of science. I’ve got James Burke’s entire body of work to back me up on this, who you got?
Yeah… that’s what I thought… bitch!
The next bit I’d like to argue with is later in the book, during the main anti-science rant where Malcolm explains why science is like inherited wealth. This section is much longer, but I’ll still quote it…
"Most kinds of power require a substantial sacrifice by whoever wants the power. There is an apprenticeship, a discipline lasting many years. Whatever kind of power you want. President of the company. Black belt in karate. Spiritual guru. Whatever it is you seek, you have to put in the time, the practice, the effort. You must give up a lot to get it. It has to be very important to you. And once you have attained it, it is your power. It can't be given away: it resides in you. It is literally the result of your discipline.
"Now, what is interesting about this process is that, by the time someone has acquired the ability to kill with his bare hands, he has also matured to the point where he won't use it unwisely. So that kind of power has a built-in control. The discipline of getting the power changes you so that you won't abuse it.
"But scientific power is like inherited wealth: attained without discipline. You read what others have done, and you take the next step. You can do it very young. You can make progress very fast. There is no discipline lasting many decades. There is no mastery: old scientists are ignored. There is no humility before nature. There is only a get-rich-quick, make-a-name-for-yourself-fast philosophy. Cheat, lie, falsify-it doesn't matter. Not to you, or to your colleagues. No one will criticize you. No one has any standards. They are all trying to do the same thing: to do something big, and do it fast.
"And because you can stand on the shoulders of giants, you can accomplish something quickly. You don't even know exactly what you have done, but already you have reported it, patented it, and sold it. And the buyer will have even less discipline than you. The buyer simply purchases the power, like any commodity. The buyer doesn't even conceive that any discipline might be necessary."
…
"A karate master does not kill people with his bare hands. He does not lose his temper and kill his wife. The person who kills is the person who has no discipline, no restraint, and who has purchased his power in the form of a Saturday night special. And that is the kind of power that science fosters, and permits. And that is why you think that to build a place like this is simple."
The last bit actually had me scoffing and being sarcastic out loud. “Oh yes.” I announced to the cats. “That’s why Chinese literature isn’t replete with tales of martial arts masters abusing and killing their wives and children. That’s why Mike Tyson is such a gentle and serene creature who never beat his wife or raped anyone.” Violent dickheads are violent dickheads, the discipline just makes you better at hitting when you get mad and decide to hit. Believe me, I know. Let’s just deal with the specific Karate Master comment, and we can talk about all the martial arts masters in Japan who have killed their children through extreme forms of what some might call discipline, but I call abuse. It is not an unheard of event for someone trained in the arts to become abusive, loose their cool, and kill someone. The metaphor is false, and stupid.
Besides, what’s the alternative? If we take this rant as read, he’s suggesting that you should never read the work of another scientist, that you should discover each idea for yourself. That’s not at all feasible in any realistic sense if you’re talking about science. Everyone had to read Newton and Copernicus, and then extrapolate further from that. You can do Galileo’s ball drop experiment, but after a while you just have to start taking proofs as read and extend into your own experiments. If the Wright Brothers had to discover how to build an engine and make a glider and all the hundreds of other things you need to make even a primitive airplane before getting to make their plane, they’d have never made their plane. You see? There are dozens of scientific discoveries within the relatively simple Wright Flyer and it wouldn’t be possible to discover them all yourself. It would be like asking a child to construct a working gas powered automobile using only Sesame Street as a guide.
Everyone reading this is doing so because of a device that was built because many, many people stood on the shoulders of giants as it were and made something greater. That’s what we have been doing ever since we started developing language. Communication was formed so we could share ideas and not have to discover that rocks aren’t edible by ourselves. Most the things you’ve learned in your life are very likely, things that someone else imparted to you in one form or another. Somebody told you, showed you, wrote it down for you, explained to you, or possibly transcribed onto your brain with a laser scalpel. There is almost no form of learning that isn’t in someway standing on the shoulders of someone bigger than yourself and to suggest otherwise is simply intellectually dishonest.
I’d like to complain more about the book, particularly the misogyny which really pissed me off, but I’ll skip it for now because I have to write a review of the movie.
The first is the introduction, where Crichton asserts that before the 20th century, scientific discovery was made by people working exclusively for the love of science. In fact, allow me to quote directly from the book…
For four hundred years since Galileo, science has always proceeded as a free and open inquiry into the workings of nature. Scientists have always ignored national boundaries, holding themselves above the transitory concerns of politics and even wars. Scientists have always rebelled against secrecy in research, and have even frowned on the idea of patenting their discoveries, seeing themselves as working to the benefit of all mankind. And for many generations, the discoveries of scientists did indeed have a peculiarly selfless quality.
…
In the past, pure scientists took a snobbish view of business. They saw the pursuit of money as intellectually uninteresting, suited only to shopkeepers. And to do research for industry, even at the prestigious Bell or IBM labs, was only for those who couldn't get a university appointment. Thus the attitude of pure scientists was fundamentally critical toward the work of applied scientists, and to industry in general. Their long-standing antagonism kept university scientists free of contaminating industry ties, and whenever debate arose about technological matters, disinterested scientists were available to discuss the issues at the highest levels. But that is no longer true.
Really? Has anyone told Edison this? He was one of the premier scientific minds of the last century, was he not? Or is Edison not a pure scientist because he invented things that people wanted? Further more. Do we actually believe that discovery is a selfless act? Columbus didn’t sail the ocean blue for the sheer hell of it. There were billions at stake. Not in today’s money, in the money of his day, a quicker route to Japan and India was worth billions and would make whoever owned that route so rich that a new metaphor would be needed to describe their riches. None of the explorers that I’ve ever read about did it for the love of discovery. They were all doing it for the money. Some did it because they wanted to build a better weapon, some did it because they wanted to make a better ship, some did it because they thought it would get them laid in 17th Century France (note: they were right) but they all hoped to get something from it. Tycho Brahe got an entire damn island because of his scienciness and ruled that little thing like some kind of Danish tyrant. I’ll admit, the idea of a Danish tyrant is sort of hard to picture. I’ve got Sandi Toksvig in my head demanding people beheaded for being taller than her, it’s a weird image. The point is that he threatened to move away in hopes that he might be offered the island (so says one biography) so he did science and then demanded a price. What is that if not commerce at work? The point is that the notion that before the 20th Century, science was just for SCIENCE and nothing else is bullshit. I really did sit there and yell “Oh come on! How fucking old are you? Twelve?” Science has almost always been for someone’s direct benefit, and rarely has it been investigated without reasons or goals. The idea of the selfless professor sitting quietly in his study with test tubes and microscopes is a myth of the 20th Century. To say otherwise is to have a narrow, naïve, and let’s just say it, plain damn ignorant view of the history of science. I’ve got James Burke’s entire body of work to back me up on this, who you got?
Yeah… that’s what I thought… bitch!
The next bit I’d like to argue with is later in the book, during the main anti-science rant where Malcolm explains why science is like inherited wealth. This section is much longer, but I’ll still quote it…
"Most kinds of power require a substantial sacrifice by whoever wants the power. There is an apprenticeship, a discipline lasting many years. Whatever kind of power you want. President of the company. Black belt in karate. Spiritual guru. Whatever it is you seek, you have to put in the time, the practice, the effort. You must give up a lot to get it. It has to be very important to you. And once you have attained it, it is your power. It can't be given away: it resides in you. It is literally the result of your discipline.
"Now, what is interesting about this process is that, by the time someone has acquired the ability to kill with his bare hands, he has also matured to the point where he won't use it unwisely. So that kind of power has a built-in control. The discipline of getting the power changes you so that you won't abuse it.
"But scientific power is like inherited wealth: attained without discipline. You read what others have done, and you take the next step. You can do it very young. You can make progress very fast. There is no discipline lasting many decades. There is no mastery: old scientists are ignored. There is no humility before nature. There is only a get-rich-quick, make-a-name-for-yourself-fast philosophy. Cheat, lie, falsify-it doesn't matter. Not to you, or to your colleagues. No one will criticize you. No one has any standards. They are all trying to do the same thing: to do something big, and do it fast.
"And because you can stand on the shoulders of giants, you can accomplish something quickly. You don't even know exactly what you have done, but already you have reported it, patented it, and sold it. And the buyer will have even less discipline than you. The buyer simply purchases the power, like any commodity. The buyer doesn't even conceive that any discipline might be necessary."
…
"A karate master does not kill people with his bare hands. He does not lose his temper and kill his wife. The person who kills is the person who has no discipline, no restraint, and who has purchased his power in the form of a Saturday night special. And that is the kind of power that science fosters, and permits. And that is why you think that to build a place like this is simple."
The last bit actually had me scoffing and being sarcastic out loud. “Oh yes.” I announced to the cats. “That’s why Chinese literature isn’t replete with tales of martial arts masters abusing and killing their wives and children. That’s why Mike Tyson is such a gentle and serene creature who never beat his wife or raped anyone.” Violent dickheads are violent dickheads, the discipline just makes you better at hitting when you get mad and decide to hit. Believe me, I know. Let’s just deal with the specific Karate Master comment, and we can talk about all the martial arts masters in Japan who have killed their children through extreme forms of what some might call discipline, but I call abuse. It is not an unheard of event for someone trained in the arts to become abusive, loose their cool, and kill someone. The metaphor is false, and stupid.
Besides, what’s the alternative? If we take this rant as read, he’s suggesting that you should never read the work of another scientist, that you should discover each idea for yourself. That’s not at all feasible in any realistic sense if you’re talking about science. Everyone had to read Newton and Copernicus, and then extrapolate further from that. You can do Galileo’s ball drop experiment, but after a while you just have to start taking proofs as read and extend into your own experiments. If the Wright Brothers had to discover how to build an engine and make a glider and all the hundreds of other things you need to make even a primitive airplane before getting to make their plane, they’d have never made their plane. You see? There are dozens of scientific discoveries within the relatively simple Wright Flyer and it wouldn’t be possible to discover them all yourself. It would be like asking a child to construct a working gas powered automobile using only Sesame Street as a guide.
Everyone reading this is doing so because of a device that was built because many, many people stood on the shoulders of giants as it were and made something greater. That’s what we have been doing ever since we started developing language. Communication was formed so we could share ideas and not have to discover that rocks aren’t edible by ourselves. Most the things you’ve learned in your life are very likely, things that someone else imparted to you in one form or another. Somebody told you, showed you, wrote it down for you, explained to you, or possibly transcribed onto your brain with a laser scalpel. There is almost no form of learning that isn’t in someway standing on the shoulders of someone bigger than yourself and to suggest otherwise is simply intellectually dishonest.
I’d like to complain more about the book, particularly the misogyny which really pissed me off, but I’ll skip it for now because I have to write a review of the movie.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Ten rules for the care and feeding of GreyWeirdo
Ten rules for the care and feeding of GreyWeirdo
1. Don’t try to freak me out. I get weirder things than you free with my breakfast cereal.
To say that I have been a few places and done a few things is probably an understatement. I’ll grant, there are still places things left unbeen and undone, but leave it said that I have a rich and full set of experiences. As such, attempts to freak me out with how odd and unusual you might be are probably going to fall flat at best and come off desperate at worst. There is a time and a place to admit you’re into cross dressing dwarves, and it’s rarely our fist or second conversation. Even then, I’ve been around queerfolk all my life, cross dressing dwarves is hardly the strangest kink I’ve heard of. Worse yet, for the love of Fancy, don’t play like your one tattoo or single bisexual experimentation is an unheard of oddity that should shake the foundation of my world. I was alive during the 90s! I know many, many inked and pierced people and see above comment about queerfolk. It’s okay if you’re freaky, but let it come out in casual conversation. Even then, don’t be offended if, when you ask if I’d like to go pick up a cross dressing sex dwarf, I don’t even blink before answering you. I’ve had stranger requests.
2. This isn’t an act, I’m like this pretty much all the time.
I’ve been known to start conversations by telling people my thoughts on how porn fits into the history of the second crusade. Not for shock value, but because I’d been thinking about it all afternoon and I had to talk to someone about it. Not all conversations are that interesting, but I’m making an example. I’ve got a lot of things that I think about, and I like to at least bounce the ideas off another mind. I’ve also got an expansive and sometimes explosive vocabulary. I use words that fit the thoughts in my head as closely as possible. That does mean things considered to be ten-cent words and remarkably profane things can rattle off together. For example, today I said “That disingenuous whore can suck a dead pope like a catamite who thinks it’s the only way to achieve enlightenment for all I care”, which both amused and confounded my listener. I also have a habit of accusing machines of being possessed by souls of the famous dead. That however is only because the AGFA company leaves their equipment so open to possession by Walter Winchell. The point is that I’m not actually tying to freak you out, it’s just how my mind operates. The days where I’m not bouncing ideas off you are bad days where either my mind has shut down out of exhaustion, or I’m not interested in talking.
3. You’ll have to speak clearly and interestingly.
I’ve been going deaf for a number of years now. As far as I can figure, it runs in my family. The difference is that I’m not trying to pretend that I’m not hard of hearing and that the rest of you need to stop mumbling. However, if you want to talk to me, you do need to try and speak clearly and loud enough that I can hear you. Even then, I might ask you to repete what you just said. It’s no a ruse, or playing some kind of clever game because what you said was so unbelievable, I honestly didn’t hear you. Also, I’ve got a case of A.D.D. and sometimes, even when I’m trying to listen, my attention just slides off like a fried egg on a greased marble ball. As a result, there will be times where I’ve drifted off in mid-sentence. Try not to be offended, it’s just a thing that happens sometimes, even when you’re being interesting.
4. Don’t give me no mushrooms, don’t give me no shellfish!
Mushrooms disagree with me, sometimes violently. Shellfish like shrimp, crab, lobster… quite nasty as well. I’m not a big fan of food from the sea in most cases anyway. I know, we’re supposed to snarf ichthyoids by the dozen, but I just don’t like ‘em much. Probably the association with foods that make me sick puts me off.
5. I’m generally quite for a while when we first meet.
It takes me a while to warm up to people, and that results in me sitting quietly and listening for the first little while. When I start to speak, it’s normally low and docile tones. It’s an interesting skill I picked up along my travels, dealing with wild animals. You let them make the noises, see which noises mean what and how they react to the sound of your voice. Then, once everyone is comfortable you can start to talk about cross-dressing elderly dwarf felching porn or whatever it is you want to discuss. May I just say, for the record, I’m actually not surprised that my spell-check doesn’t know the word felching. I’m often surprised and sometimes annoyed, but this time I find the lack
6. Still poly after all these years.
I’m not going to explain the terms, you’ve got google, go google it bitches! After ups, downs, sideways and an interesting weekend where I went through the forth dimension and was sort of pulled lengthways but still forward, I’m still a polyamorous person. So, you know, there’s that.
7. I have very little to no nostalgia blinders.
I don’t believe things were ever that much better. There has never been a time when young folk were more respective of their elders, there was never a time when the music or movies were much better than it is now, and whatever other bullshit parents and grandparents have been trying to convince you of about “The Good Old Days”, that’s not true either. Almost every dream about a golden period has been just that, a dream. What music you like is greatly dependant on where you were mentally as a kid and where you are now. Some things that I liked as a kid have held up to adult scrutiny, some things have not. I’m not so blinded by childhood memories that I refuse to see that some of the things I liked as a kid are kind of stupid. I won’t defend them as some kind of brilliant thing that you had to be there to understand, but I might shrug and say “I know it’s stupid, but fuck it, I still like it.”
8. I sort of like things that are kind of dumb.
I really like dumb movies, and silly novelty songs, and people who don’t understand Nietzsche. I’ll grant, I tend to like them when they’re at best unpretentious and understand what they are. The movie can be cheap and stupid, but so long as the people who made it understand that, we can al have some fun with it. There are lots of dumb things that you can get enjoyment out of, if you try. Likewise, I like people who are uncomplicated and mercifully free from the ravishes of intelligence. This will sometimes confound some folks because I am indulgent and friendly to the just plain dumb, but so unapologetically savage to those who are averagely stupid. This is because the person who is dumb is probably at the height of their powers, while someone of average intelligence being stupid is just lazy. I suppose I could put my enjoyment of those who are ignorant, but trying not to be so here as well. I like a person who is trying to learn.
9. I like a lot of smart things too.
I listen to classical music and watch documentaries for fun. I dig deep into historical texts and philosophy books on a regular basis. I like learning new stuff, and I like having weighty and difficult material around me. I sometimes think that the last point and this current point probably counterbalance. The Mystery Science Theater
episodes and The Day The Universe Changed
provide a ying and yang that pleases my palate. I like talking to intelligent people, who also have a wide variety of interests. Quite often, I like people whose interests and my own barely intersect. That way, we have more to talk about and I can learn about more things. The person who is into elderly dwarf felching porn for example. That there is an entire genre that I have absolutely no interest in what-so-ever, so we’ll have a lot to talk about when they explain their kink to me.
10. I often forget I’m writing a set of care instructions and just sort of go off on tangents sometimes.
Deal with it.
BONUS!
11.. Know that it is the year ten thousand, one ninety one.
Just… know that shit. And something about spice, must remember the spice.
1. Don’t try to freak me out. I get weirder things than you free with my breakfast cereal.
To say that I have been a few places and done a few things is probably an understatement. I’ll grant, there are still places things left unbeen and undone, but leave it said that I have a rich and full set of experiences. As such, attempts to freak me out with how odd and unusual you might be are probably going to fall flat at best and come off desperate at worst. There is a time and a place to admit you’re into cross dressing dwarves, and it’s rarely our fist or second conversation. Even then, I’ve been around queerfolk all my life, cross dressing dwarves is hardly the strangest kink I’ve heard of. Worse yet, for the love of Fancy, don’t play like your one tattoo or single bisexual experimentation is an unheard of oddity that should shake the foundation of my world. I was alive during the 90s! I know many, many inked and pierced people and see above comment about queerfolk. It’s okay if you’re freaky, but let it come out in casual conversation. Even then, don’t be offended if, when you ask if I’d like to go pick up a cross dressing sex dwarf, I don’t even blink before answering you. I’ve had stranger requests.
2. This isn’t an act, I’m like this pretty much all the time.
I’ve been known to start conversations by telling people my thoughts on how porn fits into the history of the second crusade. Not for shock value, but because I’d been thinking about it all afternoon and I had to talk to someone about it. Not all conversations are that interesting, but I’m making an example. I’ve got a lot of things that I think about, and I like to at least bounce the ideas off another mind. I’ve also got an expansive and sometimes explosive vocabulary. I use words that fit the thoughts in my head as closely as possible. That does mean things considered to be ten-cent words and remarkably profane things can rattle off together. For example, today I said “That disingenuous whore can suck a dead pope like a catamite who thinks it’s the only way to achieve enlightenment for all I care”, which both amused and confounded my listener. I also have a habit of accusing machines of being possessed by souls of the famous dead. That however is only because the AGFA company leaves their equipment so open to possession by Walter Winchell. The point is that I’m not actually tying to freak you out, it’s just how my mind operates. The days where I’m not bouncing ideas off you are bad days where either my mind has shut down out of exhaustion, or I’m not interested in talking.
3. You’ll have to speak clearly and interestingly.
I’ve been going deaf for a number of years now. As far as I can figure, it runs in my family. The difference is that I’m not trying to pretend that I’m not hard of hearing and that the rest of you need to stop mumbling. However, if you want to talk to me, you do need to try and speak clearly and loud enough that I can hear you. Even then, I might ask you to repete what you just said. It’s no a ruse, or playing some kind of clever game because what you said was so unbelievable, I honestly didn’t hear you. Also, I’ve got a case of A.D.D. and sometimes, even when I’m trying to listen, my attention just slides off like a fried egg on a greased marble ball. As a result, there will be times where I’ve drifted off in mid-sentence. Try not to be offended, it’s just a thing that happens sometimes, even when you’re being interesting.
4. Don’t give me no mushrooms, don’t give me no shellfish!
Mushrooms disagree with me, sometimes violently. Shellfish like shrimp, crab, lobster… quite nasty as well. I’m not a big fan of food from the sea in most cases anyway. I know, we’re supposed to snarf ichthyoids by the dozen, but I just don’t like ‘em much. Probably the association with foods that make me sick puts me off.
5. I’m generally quite for a while when we first meet.
It takes me a while to warm up to people, and that results in me sitting quietly and listening for the first little while. When I start to speak, it’s normally low and docile tones. It’s an interesting skill I picked up along my travels, dealing with wild animals. You let them make the noises, see which noises mean what and how they react to the sound of your voice. Then, once everyone is comfortable you can start to talk about cross-dressing elderly dwarf felching porn or whatever it is you want to discuss. May I just say, for the record, I’m actually not surprised that my spell-check doesn’t know the word felching. I’m often surprised and sometimes annoyed, but this time I find the lack
6. Still poly after all these years.
I’m not going to explain the terms, you’ve got google, go google it bitches! After ups, downs, sideways and an interesting weekend where I went through the forth dimension and was sort of pulled lengthways but still forward, I’m still a polyamorous person. So, you know, there’s that.
7. I have very little to no nostalgia blinders.
I don’t believe things were ever that much better. There has never been a time when young folk were more respective of their elders, there was never a time when the music or movies were much better than it is now, and whatever other bullshit parents and grandparents have been trying to convince you of about “The Good Old Days”, that’s not true either. Almost every dream about a golden period has been just that, a dream. What music you like is greatly dependant on where you were mentally as a kid and where you are now. Some things that I liked as a kid have held up to adult scrutiny, some things have not. I’m not so blinded by childhood memories that I refuse to see that some of the things I liked as a kid are kind of stupid. I won’t defend them as some kind of brilliant thing that you had to be there to understand, but I might shrug and say “I know it’s stupid, but fuck it, I still like it.”
8. I sort of like things that are kind of dumb.
I really like dumb movies, and silly novelty songs, and people who don’t understand Nietzsche. I’ll grant, I tend to like them when they’re at best unpretentious and understand what they are. The movie can be cheap and stupid, but so long as the people who made it understand that, we can al have some fun with it. There are lots of dumb things that you can get enjoyment out of, if you try. Likewise, I like people who are uncomplicated and mercifully free from the ravishes of intelligence. This will sometimes confound some folks because I am indulgent and friendly to the just plain dumb, but so unapologetically savage to those who are averagely stupid. This is because the person who is dumb is probably at the height of their powers, while someone of average intelligence being stupid is just lazy. I suppose I could put my enjoyment of those who are ignorant, but trying not to be so here as well. I like a person who is trying to learn.
9. I like a lot of smart things too.
I listen to classical music and watch documentaries for fun. I dig deep into historical texts and philosophy books on a regular basis. I like learning new stuff, and I like having weighty and difficult material around me. I sometimes think that the last point and this current point probably counterbalance. The Mystery Science Theater
episodes and The Day The Universe Changed provide a ying and yang that pleases my palate. I like talking to intelligent people, who also have a wide variety of interests. Quite often, I like people whose interests and my own barely intersect. That way, we have more to talk about and I can learn about more things. The person who is into elderly dwarf felching porn for example. That there is an entire genre that I have absolutely no interest in what-so-ever, so we’ll have a lot to talk about when they explain their kink to me. 10. I often forget I’m writing a set of care instructions and just sort of go off on tangents sometimes.
Deal with it.
BONUS!
11.. Know that it is the year ten thousand, one ninety one.
Just… know that shit. And something about spice, must remember the spice.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Oh shut the musical fuck up
Today I saw Rebecca Black's "Friday" and WOW! That's a vapid, stupid, childish song. Why hasn't anyone killed her for not writing a song about the horrors of Darfur? Seriously! I don't know if you know this, but pop music is SERIOUS! FUCKIN'! BUSINESS!
It must be, because everyone, but everyone is calling this the worst pop song EVAR! And why shouldn’t they? Wait, what’s that? It’s written by a 13 year old girl? GOD FUCKING DAMNIT! KILL HER NOW! Everyone knows that thirteen year old girls are expected to talk about the most weighty and important of topics. No one would ever suspect that a thirteen year old might not have a grasp of more important subjects than this. I mean really, she’s 13, where is her deep and personal story about being raped by the neighbor’s dog on the night of her senior prom? Oh, right, SHE’S ONLY THIRTEEN! She hasn’t been raped by the neighbor’s dog and she isn’t old enough to have had her senior prom.
Seriously, shut the ever loving fuck up. You sound like a bunch of old cunts stand on your porch, waving your colostomy bags, telling kids with their syncopated rhythms and lack of respect for their elders (no matter how fucking stupid they are) to get off your lawn. You don’t just sound old, you sound old, stupid and out of touch. It’s clearly singing for another generation that wants to hear that sort of thing. Everyone does autotune these days, guys. Didn’t Britney get a Grammy for autotuning up the ass?
I’ll admit, I don’t love the song, but then I’m also no fan of The Bieber or much of anything else floating around the mainstream recently. The last new thing I liked was Everybody by Ingrid Michaelson. The point is that music like this is aimed at a specific category, sorry if that category isn’t you. Get over it, The Kids (of which YOU are not longer a member) are into different things. People bitching about this sound like the assholes who complain about Twilight because “How dare some bitch steal vampires and werewolves from guys?”
Now, I’ll grant I don’t actually like the song. I think it’s kind of crap. However, I’m old enough to be this girl’s father, and as a result I don’t need to like it. I’ve got Prince, Catie Curtis and Acoustic Alchemy (which is a combo that has caused people’s head to pop) so I don’t really need this sort of thing. I’ll admit though this is a fairly inane song, with some amazingly stupid lyrics…
HOWEVER!
You know what else sounds stupid? You know what other song has lyrics that sound inane and moronic?
THIS!
Yeah, I fuckin’ said it. Stupid, inane, full of the sort of idiotic claptrap that I’ve always hated in pop music. And by the way, the tune SUCKS!
In fact, I tell you what. Go find the Billboard Charts for any of the last 50-60 years. NOW! Find me a year when something vapid and stupid WASN’T in the top ten. I tried, I couldn’t find any. in 1993, Whoomp! (There It Is) by Tag Team was number two, Runaway Train by Soul Asylum was 22! The year before, Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit came in at #32 and End Of The Road by Boyz II Men was #1.
So if it won’t hurt your geriatric knees too much, could you climb off your high fucking horse? If you don’t like the song, fine, neither do I, but could we PLEASE stop pretending like this is the end of music as we know it? Music ended on February 3, 1959 when it died in a plane crash with The Big Bopper. OR! It didn’t die at all and still goes on and who gives a fuck if this song or that song tickles your G spot? You like a song, listen to it, you don’t? Well as George Carlin once mentioned a radio has two knobs on it, one turns it off and the other one changes the station.
I’m seriously fucking sick of listening to man-children complain because the world moved on and is pandering to people younger than them. It’s not all about you, and there is going to be a lot of things that are popular that you won’t like. You should have learned this back in Jr. High. I know I sure as fuck did. Grow the fuck up and get on with your fucking lives.
It must be, because everyone, but everyone is calling this the worst pop song EVAR! And why shouldn’t they? Wait, what’s that? It’s written by a 13 year old girl? GOD FUCKING DAMNIT! KILL HER NOW! Everyone knows that thirteen year old girls are expected to talk about the most weighty and important of topics. No one would ever suspect that a thirteen year old might not have a grasp of more important subjects than this. I mean really, she’s 13, where is her deep and personal story about being raped by the neighbor’s dog on the night of her senior prom? Oh, right, SHE’S ONLY THIRTEEN! She hasn’t been raped by the neighbor’s dog and she isn’t old enough to have had her senior prom.
Seriously, shut the ever loving fuck up. You sound like a bunch of old cunts stand on your porch, waving your colostomy bags, telling kids with their syncopated rhythms and lack of respect for their elders (no matter how fucking stupid they are) to get off your lawn. You don’t just sound old, you sound old, stupid and out of touch. It’s clearly singing for another generation that wants to hear that sort of thing. Everyone does autotune these days, guys. Didn’t Britney get a Grammy for autotuning up the ass?
I’ll admit, I don’t love the song, but then I’m also no fan of The Bieber or much of anything else floating around the mainstream recently. The last new thing I liked was Everybody by Ingrid Michaelson. The point is that music like this is aimed at a specific category, sorry if that category isn’t you. Get over it, The Kids (of which YOU are not longer a member) are into different things. People bitching about this sound like the assholes who complain about Twilight because “How dare some bitch steal vampires and werewolves from guys?”
Now, I’ll grant I don’t actually like the song. I think it’s kind of crap. However, I’m old enough to be this girl’s father, and as a result I don’t need to like it. I’ve got Prince, Catie Curtis and Acoustic Alchemy (which is a combo that has caused people’s head to pop) so I don’t really need this sort of thing. I’ll admit though this is a fairly inane song, with some amazingly stupid lyrics…
HOWEVER!
You know what else sounds stupid? You know what other song has lyrics that sound inane and moronic?
THIS!
Yeah, I fuckin’ said it. Stupid, inane, full of the sort of idiotic claptrap that I’ve always hated in pop music. And by the way, the tune SUCKS!
In fact, I tell you what. Go find the Billboard Charts for any of the last 50-60 years. NOW! Find me a year when something vapid and stupid WASN’T in the top ten. I tried, I couldn’t find any. in 1993, Whoomp! (There It Is) by Tag Team was number two, Runaway Train by Soul Asylum was 22! The year before, Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit came in at #32 and End Of The Road by Boyz II Men was #1.
So if it won’t hurt your geriatric knees too much, could you climb off your high fucking horse? If you don’t like the song, fine, neither do I, but could we PLEASE stop pretending like this is the end of music as we know it? Music ended on February 3, 1959 when it died in a plane crash with The Big Bopper. OR! It didn’t die at all and still goes on and who gives a fuck if this song or that song tickles your G spot? You like a song, listen to it, you don’t? Well as George Carlin once mentioned a radio has two knobs on it, one turns it off and the other one changes the station.
I’m seriously fucking sick of listening to man-children complain because the world moved on and is pandering to people younger than them. It’s not all about you, and there is going to be a lot of things that are popular that you won’t like. You should have learned this back in Jr. High. I know I sure as fuck did. Grow the fuck up and get on with your fucking lives.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Friday, March 11, 2011
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Monday, March 7, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Atomic Sex Kitten
I know, you're getting photo fatigue. I'm trying to work out all the photos though and I hope you're still willing to put up with all these shots.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
New Camera
Syd got a load of money for VEWPRF and has been sitting on it for months trying to decide what to do with it. When I mentioned wanting a camera, she looked up prices and said the gift from December would cover it. So we did that, and then I lost my glasses but to hell with that part. We've ordered new glasses and I'm going to get an appointment for an updated prescription.
Here is Fancy, posing with the new camera...
I'm not done with the Sony, not by any means, but I'll be working with this new camera and getting to know it. If you're wondering if this new proper camera means I'll be taking any photography classes, I'll be taking the same one I took before, shooting 10,000 pictures until I'm good with this camera.
Here is Fancy, posing with the new camera...
I'm not done with the Sony, not by any means, but I'll be working with this new camera and getting to know it. If you're wondering if this new proper camera means I'll be taking any photography classes, I'll be taking the same one I took before, shooting 10,000 pictures until I'm good with this camera.
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