Saturday, July 19, 2003

posted by chriszanf , 5:47 PM Þ 

Loyalty Cards, a great summarizing article, in two parts.

Studying till receipts will show whether you use a grocery store for a main shop or for a specific menu, or the number of people in your house, signalled by how much toilet roll you get through. If you've just had a child, your loyalty card retailer will be among the first to know; if you're about to go on holiday, they can tell that, too.

In the US, however, the process has been taken to a level that a British sense of fair play would probably not allow - consumers there are virtually strong-armed into signing up to loyalty card schemes, because a blatantly two-tier pricing system exists: if you don't have a card, you automatically pay more.

The real masterstroke of the loyalty schemes, however, is that you volunteer to join them - by signing up to the card, you have accepted the deal.

US-based Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion And Numbering, or Caspian (nocards.org)


Alien Technology, makers of ... Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), a form of electronic tagging using wireless technology.
posted by Alun , 12:28 PM Þ 

holy fuck indeed. shit is going to fly. something has to happen, there is no way this was an accident and this is far too high profile for it to go unnoticed. blair has to back down now, no one wants him there.

i really fucking hope he suffers. along with the thousands of iraqi, british and american lives he has helped to end he now has this 'albatros' around his neck. i hope this dents his brash confidence. i cannot stand blair's arrogance anymore, he struts around the international arena with an unearned swagger, a hollow confidence -- backed only by bush and his lame cronies.

anything is better than this. the proles are our only hope. if only they could see it.
posted by alex_tea , 4:56 AM Þ 
Friday, July 18, 2003
posted by Ken , 10:20 PM Þ 
posted by Alun , 3:22 PM Þ 

Anyone used Octal or Beast?
posted by captain davros , 1:16 PM Þ 



Jeff Noon, I like a lot.
Vurt is great stuff, and I've read all his others. Each has some good ideas.... but Needle In The Groove is the most imaginative of the bunch, taking the concept of the (musical) remix and applying it to text with some fabulous success in places. The process is explained in Cobralingus. The novel was accompanied by a CD of music made for it by David Toop, but I have yet to hear it. But reading the book somewhere peaceful, or, for example, on a train, allowed the rhythm of the text to flow wonderfully.
posted by Alun , 11:58 AM Þ 

later today::
Michael Gendreau
"one hour as a monitor of the microvibration of turntable motors and the macrovibration of roughly cut transcription discs"

Live studio performance utilising two studio decks, two accelerometers and home-cut transcription discs (such as my version of Ralf Wehowsky's piece "Nameless Victims" [metamkine] and used for my remix on "Tulpas" [selektion]). [michael gendreau]

........
16:00-17:00 h (UK):: resonance 104.4FM
other times
posted by Ben , 9:49 AM Þ 

another classic book...
Auto-Da-Fe by Elias Canetti
posted by THESE , 4:26 AM Þ 
Thursday, July 17, 2003

Banksy speaks.
Anyone going?
I'll be there at some point... it's only a 10 minute walk from home.



Steve Bell, ahead of this report on the Office of Special Plans. More OSP here.


One for the laydeez.
posted by Alun , 2:38 PM Þ 
posted by meau meau , 2:11 PM Þ 

Metalikkka
-JB

Here are a few things that work, Barrie:

Tea Tree Oil Soap (Dr. Bronner's is excellent)
A bit of sun
Lots of water
Green drink daily (like Greens+, will clean your blood and liver)
A facial (which is always wonderful)

It's just your raging hormones. God bless 20 year old men!
posted by mary13 , 3:51 AM Þ 

That metallica thing is... COMPLETELY INSANE. I hope it's a joke, cause there's no way they're winning THAT one. Maybe.

I forgot to mention that everyone should read "The Illuminatus!" trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea. Amazing good stuff there. You'll probably have to read it five or so times though. But the jewels you get from it are worth it.

Also, I place a curse upon acne. I hate you, acne. So, so much.
posted by Barrie , 2:54 AM Þ 
Wednesday, July 16, 2003
posted by Ken , 8:38 PM Þ 

In following the Tour de France and the protests that interrupted the riders I constantly hear Media drop the name José Bové with the only qualifying information "radical farmer" and no mention of what the protests signify. From the website FoodFirst (perhaps comrades-in-arm with SlowFood?) I found his biography rich with the fight against GMOs, corporate agribusiness and the ruin of small farmers:

During the 1970s in his native France, Bove and his wife helped to organize land occupations to prevent the expansion of military bases onto farmland in the Larzac plateau, and in 1976 he spent three weeks in prison for his role in the invasion of a military outpost. In 1987, he and colleagues established the Confederation Paysanne (CP), an organization composed of and for French small farmers and for their continued existence. The following year, Bove and the CP organized an event in Paris -- "Plowing the Champs Elysees" -- to protest EU farm policies. And, in a move that led to international fame and a six-week stay in prison, Bove organized and helped in the partial demolition of a half-constructed McDonald's in his hometown of Millau in 1999. On many occasions, he has also demonstrated his internationalism in defiance of governmental authority. For example in 2001, he and 1,000 Brazilian peasants uprooted three acres of Monsanto's genetically-modified soy in Rio Grande do Sul, and as a result he was deported.
posted by Josh Carr , 8:18 PM Þ 

gig info for people in the London districts...
rare appearance of The Beekeeper (Gilbert)

BLURT
ICARUS
DJ BRUCE GILBERT
Union Chapel, Compton Avenue, London, N1
(020-7226 1686)
7.30pm, £5.00
(Compton Avenue is just off Upper Street, at the Highbury Corner end of the street,
we've been told it's the back entrance to the Union Chapel, i.e. the smaller venue).

this is tonight btw...
posted by THESE , 4:17 PM Þ 

more book stuff...

thought perhaps it was too obvious to state before, but what the heck, almost everything by
W.S. Burroughs and J.G. Ballard is worth reading for alsorts of different reasons, and between
them you have a veritable battery of bristling ideas and images. 'Interzone' is a really good and
often overlooked collection of Burroughs short stories, spanning his earliest writings in a very
'straight', almost detective novel stylee, through to full-on disorientating psychoactive language
mangle...the huge 'word' section at the end was originally part of 'Naked Lunch', but left out for
reasons i can't remember. still very fresh and challenging stuff. for the tactical side of things
'The Job' is an absolute must. great writings on the nature of control/media/state, still very
relative today...more later

a.these
posted by THESE , 2:43 PM Þ 

illustrated books;
Peter Blegvad, Leviathan - extracts from his Independent on Sunday strips.
Martin Rowson, The Life & opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (and get the original by Laurence Sterne as well, and it's online)
posted by meau meau , 1:52 PM Þ 

Thank you all for your book recommendations. This is truly priceless information.

(keep 'em coming...)
posted by Alun , 9:28 AM Þ 

I like getting getting lost in music in tents. ho ho ho. But I did listen to Steve Reich on headphones the other day, that was amazing.

Alison, that pic reminds me of this I saw at the weekend, it's taken by Josh Davis of Praystation fame.

fuzzy praystation
posted by alex_tea , 8:35 AM Þ 

Ugggh. Just got back online after a week off due to cable problems. Just read all the back archives but don't have much to say as my mind is in a whirlwind. Am extremely stressed right now as I stupidly forgot how incredibly soon a certain exhibition deadline is. I will only be able to (maybe) finish one piece, out of my planned three. That pisses me off as I normally work in threes. Maybe this will be a learning experience. But argh, smart on me to decide on doing something not only very time intensive but also very painful physically. Carpal Tunnel anyone?

Books?
Thom Hartmann - Unequal Protection
Fareed Zakaria - The Future of Freedom
Andrew Motion - The Invention of Dr. Cake
posted by Barrie , 3:15 AM Þ 
Tuesday, July 15, 2003

posted by Alison , 9:45 PM Þ 

This weekend was pretty much a drug weekend, I tried for the first time to be on alone, in the morning, just me and my stereo and for the first time I heard my irdial music, while beeing on E. It was FANTASTIC, wearing headphones, so I could hear it very loudly! And I lost track of time, 4 min of music, became a beautiful journey into feelings, that felt like hours, days what ever, the 4th demension just disappeared. I have never tried to get lost in music that intence (besides when I was a kid and played the violin)

posted by Alison , 9:35 PM Þ 

It is summer, I havnt been near a computer for long time. But I have been playing mario party 4. with no sounds, but my irdial music. Perfect game music is truly PERFECT for gaming - I got quite supprised, that it was THAT perfect! I have never been gaming that much, but the other day I tried it with the drug AMT (just a little), and it was a great.
posted by Alison , 9:32 PM Þ 

Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much

Oscar Wilde
posted by Alison , 9:18 PM Þ 

posted by mary13 , 8:11 PM Þ 



This 50W Electrolyser produces hydrogen from distilled water. You use solar cells to power it.

This bottle can hold 20 litres of H:



and this one, 250 litres:
posted by Irdial , 6:45 PM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 6:38 PM Þ 

posted by Irdial , 6:34 PM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 6:12 PM Þ 

Hey Anthony, my Freeplay radio charges just great on the windowsill in central England. No winding needed! Not a huge step admittedly, but it really is amazing to NEVER have to worry about batteries. A real "wireless" experience.

Now I need to find a decent solar charger for my AAs, since my new Sony shortwave receiver goes for about a week on a set, which would be plenty of time for solar charging a backup set in the meantime. One thing about Ni-Cads though is they tend to go dead very quickly, whereas alkalines sort of fade off (in as much as anything fades off with digital equipment).
posted by captain davros , 3:39 PM Þ 

'Proven' comparison of wind and solar
posted by meau meau , 2:06 PM Þ 

solar power is obviously a boon for those living in Iowa, but would be next-to-useless for someone living in the middle of Dartmoor; a small turbine fixed onto the roof, however, as you suggected Mary, would be ideal, and i suspect, readily taken up
posted by a hymn in g to nann , 1:20 PM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 1:10 PM Þ 
posted by captain davros , 12:46 PM Þ 



And wind farms would be even better if they had psychokinetic patterns
posted by meau meau , 10:33 AM Þ 

That was no coincidence Chris J. It was the divine power of...well, okay maybe it was. I love Thomas Dolby, he is fab.

Anyway, I think the cap on electricity is a great idea, and I feel that those of us who support windpower would not object to it. But whatever you do with electricity, it has to be generated at some point, and I guess the main concern of the windpower lovers is that it appears to be "green" and "free".

I have a particular fondness for harnessing the wind. In 1991 I built a small savonius rotor from a paint can and a bicycle wheel. It was lovely watching it go round. I also recall visiting a friend of my fathers out in Lincolnshire, who had his own wind farm. Giant hand made rotors which he winched up himself on these big towers. They charged a wall of old British Telecom batteries in his workshop where he was a carpenter. Being out in Lincs they had the land to do that and not bother anyone else. But it was marvellous to see it in action.
posted by captain davros , 10:18 AM Þ 

Given this, what do you think I think about Tidal Power?

Dead in the water?

Solar power beats wind power by a long shot, but I wonder what the embodied energy of a panel is (why it is so expensive presumably)

they come with a meter you pay Shell for the electricity that the sun generates

It's like these houses with natural wells that have to pay the water rates.
posted by meau meau , 9:58 AM Þ 

What's your view on solar power, tidal power?

Solar power is simply the most wonderful way to make electricity. Panels can be integrated into buildings beautifully and they collect heat for your hot water AND electricity from the same surface. Passive solar heating of your house interior is done by simply letting the sunshine in through your windows. Its elegant, its silent, its powerful, its private.

Even when its distributed for communities, look at some facts:

If 1000 acres of Iowa land were covered with solar panels, the energy produced would:

* equal the energy use of 111,000 homes
* displace the consumption of 438,480 tons of coal per year
* keep $10.9 million from being exported from Iowa to pay for fossil fuels
* avoid 1,200,000 tons of CO2 per year
* avoid 2,900 tons of NOx per year
* avoid 33,000 tons of SOx ozone and carbon monoxide (CO)

Solar-thermal systems collect the sun's heat to warm buildings, heat water, dry crops or destroy waste. Solar heating has been used in the United States for more than a century, with the first patent issued in 1891. Currently, more than 1.2 million buildings in the nation have solar water-heating systems, along with 250,000 solar-heated swimming pools. The amount of sunlight in Iowa will support most solar hot-water systems, even during winter months.

Thats impressive.

In France, you can get a grant to have your house "solared" - thats money well spent. Each house that reduces its drain on the grid is a good thing, and since solar panels are "expensive" there is a barrier to entry to most folks.

Speaking of scams, Shell is planning to develop solar systems that they install in your home for you. You dont own them; they come with a meter you pay Shell for the electricity that the sun generates........a perpetual money making machine!

Given this, what do you think I think about Tidal Power?
posted by Irdial , 9:26 AM Þ 

Banksy exhibition, 18th - 21st July, London. Register at http://www.banksy.co.uk/turfwar for location.
posted by chriszanf , 4:09 AM Þ 

that's the funny thing though alex, it's intermittant. I think it might be down to either Mozilla or operator error.........my money's on the latter.

Curious. Capt Dav quoted the first verse from a Thomas Dolby tune last week and the topic has come up in discussion.....Windpower.
posted by chriszanf , 3:38 AM Þ 

When I try to access certain sites an alert pops up and says that the domain could not be resolved. It's done this on Blogger and Google.

Sounds like a DNS issue to me. Could be something to do with your ISP. Try pinging google.com and see if it resolves.

(on the commandline type: ping google.com)
posted by alex_tea , 12:07 AM Þ 
Monday, July 14, 2003


I saw this windmill on my trip to Ontario. Lovely. It powers about 600 homes. If we do some simple math, does this mean that a windmill 1/600th the size of this one could power my home? I think that would be the ultimate, a distributed model, though in Vancouver, a water-wheel would be more appropriate.

It's certainly another example of human nature: a good idea, starts small, gets developed to its most massive, imposing scale, and those opposed (must?) fight back in physically destructive ways to make change. Are we ever going to get to another way of doing things?
posted by mary13 , 11:23 PM Þ 

Building wind farms is a scam . Companies get hundreds of millions in funding from central governments.

just like nuclear power.

In a fair world there would be no need for grants, but as you put electricity is underpriced (you can buy more expensive 'green' electricity, if you wish - but that avoids the central issue of standard electricity being underpriced)
'New' alternatives have a handicap because people aren't in a position/corner where they can act correctly, the door with the low handle is only a cupboard - you'll have to strectch at the other one to get outside.

Or let me have a stool.
And is the floor sinking?

It has to be better to give wind power a chance now rather than in 15-30 years when the UKs fossils fuels become too expensive to extract when we would get supremely ripped off - even if that means grant aid - ideally raised through taxes on pollution emissions (or not pissing about with other countries).
'The polluter pays' - at present the UKs airborne pollution goes to Scandinavia and we have given future generations catacombs of nuclear waste.
Of course people don't want the sound of wind turbines (as a preference) but if they wanted to hear them less they could consume less electricity.

And because building wind farms is a scam doesn't mean wind power is necessarily a scam.

... and we will not have to suffer these dreadful windtowers spoiling the land and seascape for generations.

The alternatives being? Fossil fuels will run out no matter what you tell people. What's your view on solar power, tidal power?

Maybe I'm warped but I don't find them unattractive. There's some nice ones on Simon Fisher Turner's 'Swift' CD/DVD

Did you know that there are groups of people who go out with crossbows and long lengths of steel cable, who shoot at wind turbines?

They don't have my sympathy. People would soon put a stop to it if it was their only supply.

Don Q. tilted at windmills and it didn't do him much good.
posted by meau meau , 8:44 PM Þ 

I keep getting strange errors from Mozilla [1.4].

When I try to access certain sites an alert pops up and says that the domain could not be resolved. It's done this on Blogger and Google.

anyone else get this?
posted by chriszanf , 7:24 PM Þ 

more books:

Ive just started reading "Web of deceit - Britain's real role in the world" by Mark Curtis.

"Tragically I was an only twin" - The complete Peter Cook. A collection of all his writings.
"Perfume" - Patrick Süsskind

"A truth's initial commotion is directly proportional to how deeply the lie was believed. It wasn't the world being round that agitated people, but that the world wasn't flat. When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold to the massesover generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic" - Dresden James
posted by chriszanf , 7:13 PM Þ 

Who says European culture isn't entertaining anymore?[...]

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/385.htm
posted by Irdial , 7:06 PM Þ 

Windpower for one in six UK homes by 2010

[...]The wind farms will all be sited about five miles from the coast, and will take account of any areas of special interest such as bird sanctuaries.

They could consist of up to 300 turbines each, but Ms Hewitt said they would be far enough offshore not to be noticed from the coast. [...]

hmmmmmmmmm

"While we all want more electricity to be generated from all forms of renewable sources, offshore wind requires enormous capital investment and carries high transmission costs," he said.

"Claiming that one home in six could be supplied with electricity generated by offshore wind power sets a new standard of absurdity." [...]

The Guardian

suck it and see!
posted by Irdial , 7:03 PM Þ 

Sony Pictures Digital has struck an agreement to purchase all of Sonic Foundry's desktop software products and related assets.

CULVER CITY, Calif. & MADISON, Wis. — Sony Pictures Digital and Sonic Foundry®, Inc. (NASDAQ: SOFO) announced today Sony Pictures Digital has struck an agreement to purchase all of Sonic Foundry's desktop software products and related assets for $18 million cash and assumption of certain trade payables, accrued liabilities and capital leases associated with the desktop software business.

The acquisition of Sonic Foundry's desktop software follows the recent retail release of Sony Pictures Digital's Screenblast® Movie Studio™ and Screenblast® Music Studio™ video and music-mixing applications created in conjunction with Sonic Foundry's award-winning software team.

Sale of the desktop software assets includes Sonic Foundry's popular, industry-leading ACID®, Sound Forge® and Vegas® series of software products, as well as other related assets. Sony anticipates maintaining the group's Madison, Wis. base. The Board of Directors of Sonic Foundry has approved the transaction and certain shareholders have agreed to vote their shares in favor of the sale. Approval of the agreement may be subject to Sonic Foundry shareholder approval and other various conditions (see details below).

"During the past three years, we have come to recognize and admire Sonic Foundry's engineering expertise and value their software applications. We are excited to integrate this world-class team and their products into our ongoing efforts to produce and deliver the next generation of consumer entertainment services," said Patrick Kennedy, executive vice president of Sony Pictures Digital.

"The sale of our music and video digital software products is a key milestone in Sonic Foundry's history," said Rimas Buinevicius, chairman and CEO of Sonic Foundry. "We couldn't pick a better partner than Sony Pictures Digital to carry on the same passion and success we've achieved over the past 12 years," he said. "Consummation of this agreement will give us the cash we need to pay our debt and allow us to focus our attention on writing the next successful chapter of Sonic Foundry's story - rich media - and building upon the early success we've already achieved with our Web presentation solution, Media Site Live™."[...]

http://www.sonicfoundry.com/news/ShowRelease.asp?ReleaseID=536
posted by Irdial , 6:51 PM Þ 

Alas, living in Blighty so much has to be made more efficient. Simply replace $var1 and $var2 in the statement above with alternatives from the lists below to create an equally valid statement.

lets try it:

The whole transport system has to be made more efficient, and the wasteful car driving culture has to be controlled. Simply banning the manufacture cutting the numbers of cars would reduce the amount of road capacity needed dramatically

The sentence fits. The variables fit. Its all true!

Since the congestion charge has been running in London, the roads around where we travel have been transformed for the better. All it took is someone with some guts to do what needed to be done.

They are talking about making the M25 a 4 lane highway. Only a complete idiot would think that the roads can be expanded indefinetly. Just when does anyone think that someone will say "we cannot buld new anymore"? When every last blade of grass has been Tarmac'd? When all the roads abut all the other roads? when everyone in the UK lives in the sea because the car is the main inhabitant of the UK?

Building wind farms is a scam. Companies get hundreds of millions in funding from central governments (both here and in France) to build these windfarms, which are not commercially viable. Its another way for slick dudes to swindle the public, and its all done in the guise of environmentalism and clean energy. The fact of the matter is that electricity is too cheap when it is priced correctly, wind farms will be commercially viable, and you wont have to pay someone to put up a farm, they will grow out of theground like giant beating trees.

Anyone who has heard these things knows what I am talking about when I use the word "beating"....

Someone has to stand up and say: "there is no more electricity". Then, the price will start to adjust itself according to demand, the market for high efficiency bulbs and "dead man" / "no one here switches" will explode, and we will not have to suffer these dreadful windtowers spoiling the land and seascape for generations.

Did you know that there are groups of people who go out with crossbows and long lengths of steel cable, who shoot at wind turbines? Turbines are very delicate, and once they are wound up with many meters of steel cable all sucken (yes, sucken) into their gears and gubbins, costs $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ to repair....all it takes is 4 guys with crossbows & cables, and a farm can be put out of action for many many weeks.

Its already happening....spanners in the works!
posted by Irdial , 5:55 PM Þ 

Wow, Ben, I rarely hear anyone mention Charles Biederman. His theories on abstraction in art and what it means for us as a species are enlightening. My good friend Chris Benincasa is making a documentary on him and has visited his home in Red Wing, Minnesota several times to shoot video and interview.

I have been a major fan of Guy Davenport's work for some time now. His collection of essays, The Geography of the Imagination is an incredible foray into the possibilities of the human mind in the arts and sciences. His short stories put his theories to work while culling from social utopian concepts to create modern worlds of fun, love, seeing, sex, creation and harmony. Starting with the Jules Verne Steam Balloon could do you no harm.

While in Los Angeles I read Chinua Achebe's selected essays under the collected title Hopes and Impediments. Wonderful insights into imagination and the possibilities and responsbilities of modern fiction writing.
posted by Josh Carr , 5:49 PM Þ 

Audiopad

Audiopad is something I have developed with electronic musician and fellow Media Lab graduate student Ben Recht.

It is a composition and performance instrument for electronic music which tracks the positions of objects on a tabletop surface and converts their motion into music. One can pull sounds from a giant set of samples, juxtapose archived recordings against warm synthetic melodies, cut between drum loops to create new beats, and apply digital processing all at the same time on the same table. Audiopad not only allows for spontaneous reinterpretation of musical compositions, but also creates a visual and tactile dialogue between itself, the performer, and the audience.

Audiopad has a matrix of antenna elements which track the positions of electronically tagged objects on a tabletop surface. Software translates the position information into music and graphical feedback on the tabletop. Each object represents either a musical track or a microphone.

WATCH THE VIDEO
posted by Ken , 4:16 PM Þ 
posted by Ken , 4:03 PM Þ 

The whole $var1 has to be made more efficient, and the wasteful end users have to be controlled. Simply banning the manufacture of $var2 would reduce the amount of capacity needed dramatically

Alas, living in Blighty so much has to be made more efficient. Simply replace $var1 and $var2 in the statement above with alternatives from the lists below to create an equally valid statement.

$var1,$var2
rail network, away matches
road network, tractors
telephone network, 56k modems
water supply system, large toilets
local transport infrastructure, beer
supermarket checkout lane concept, individually packed yoghurts
music festival, indie bands

You can of course make up your own $var1, $var2 items, even if you don't live in the UK.
posted by captain davros , 3:05 PM Þ 

If I were king ...

there would be wind farms hither and thither. I grew up in Cumbria and the noise of fighter plane training is the most annoying noise (aside from tourists). Far better to have wind farms in the Irish sea than the discharge from Sellafield (loss maker).

There's ACRES of space here up north where these things could go if noone wanted to see them.

----

just found this: http://www.gnn.gov.uk/
posted by meau meau , 2:06 PM Þ 

unbelievably good piece of news

http://www.countryguardian.net/case.htm

"The noise from a wind turbine comes from both the mechanical gearing and from the aerodynamic properties of the rotating blades. The former can to a degree be controlled and insulated and some makes of turbine are quieter than others.

The more intrusive noise comes from the effects of the blade moving through the air and the industry has had virtually no success in controlling this. Indeed, it has probably not tried seriously to do so. The web site of the VESTAS turbine manufacturer is revealing: "The new design allows the blades to cut so aggressively through the wind that the kilowatt counter runs as much as 17 - 19% faster than even its highly competitive predecessor. Development work on this turbine has focused on one factor: profitability." [Country Guardian's italics - and it should be noted that these are the latest machines, a fact which undermines the industry's claim that only the early machines created significant noise levels. Theses turbines were erected at Ireleth in Cumbria and in 1999 The Westmorland Gazette reported: "Barrow's chief environmental health officer said the council was taking action against the noise nuisance."]"[...]

Hmmm the NIMBYs are rustling!

The whole electricity grid has to be made more efficient, and the wasteful end users have to be controlled. Simply banning the manufacture of wasteful light bulbs would reduce the amount of capacity needed dramatically.

There are light bulbs available now that can produce the same amount of light as ordinary incandescents for 60% less electricity. Forbidding the manufacture of these juice gobbling is an obvious first step.

There is enough electricity produced already, if we make efficient use of it, we dont have to find more sources to feed increasing demand; increased effeciency should slacken off the pressure.

Then there is the problem of the transmission lines, which are horribly inneficient. These all need to be replaced with cables that are near transparent as possible in terms of juice loss.

It will cost billions to retrofit the entire grid, but surely this is a better thing to spend money on than COLONIZING OTHER COUNTRIES...right?
posted by Irdial , 1:26 PM Þ 

for windfarms ... what an unbelievably good piece of news to wake to on a monday morning ... it would be just incredible if we could pull this off
posted by a hymn in g to nann , 12:54 PM Þ 

meau are you FOR or AGAINST windfarms?
posted by Irdial , 12:53 PM Þ 

"Creative genius and crime express themselves ..."
don't know how crime would fit into this, but i had a thought along these lines some time ago ... that the "mark-making" is, at some level, a mating call, in the way that male birds will work to create the best-looking nest ; once a mate has been attracted, the goal has been achieved, territory staked out, what have you, so the necessity to urinate on lamposts is removed ... actually, crime would fit into the theory at the "biggest, baddest alpha in the pack" level .... maybe
posted by a hymn in g to nann , 12:43 PM Þ 
posted by a hymn in g to nann , 12:31 PM Þ 
posted by meau meau , 11:57 AM Þ 

"Now does he feel
his secret murders sticking on his hands;
now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;
those he commands move only in command,
nothing in love: now does he feel his title
hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
upon a dwarfish thief."


Want a US president who can blog?
http://www.blogforamerica.com/



Pumped up full of vitamins
On account of all the seriousness



Summer sickness.


Bastille Day!
posted by Alun , 11:03 AM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 9:25 AM Þ 



This is a picture of an "Iranian" man demonstrating in the USA, for "regime change" in Iran.

Someone set me straight; this guy ALREADY LIVES IN A DEMOCRACY right?

He lives in a democracy, he has access to the entire world, and inside the continental USA every type of landscape imaginable.

WHY DOESNT HE MIND HIS OWN BUSINESS and STFU??
posted by Irdial , 9:13 AM Þ 

OULIPO

"The more constraints one imposes,
the more one frees oneself
of the chains that shackle the spirit...
the arbitrariness of the constraint
only serves to obtain precision of execution."

Igor Stravinsky

Anthony!
Phil!
posted by Irdial , 7:39 AM Þ 



ask
posted by Ben , 12:08 AM Þ 
Sunday, July 13, 2003

Montserrat visible light:
posted by Irdial , 11:59 PM Þ 

re: books::

i'm about to end Jose Saramago: "Blindness" [Panther] ..OK, but not great.

recommendations::

Thomas Pynchon: "Gravity's Rainbow" ..if you have a LOT of spare time..and perseverance

i keep dipping into this collection of letters, which show great moments of clarity and insight by Bohm; less so from the artist Biedermann..
David Bohm & Charles Biedermann: "Bohm-Biedermann correspondance (creativity and science)" [Routledge]

for sheer bloody-mindedness:
Jose Luis Castiilejo: "The Book of J's" and "TLALAATALA" [alga marghen] Both come with audio documents [cdr and lp, respectively] of their 'readings'.

Atlas press seem to publish a lot of good things.

books on cd::
this also gets dipped into every now and then,
John Cage: "diary: how to improve the world (you will only make matters worse)" 8cd [wergo]

Some of these also seem interesting, if you speak the language.


the 'to read' pile::
Rene Daumal: "A Night of Serious Drinking"
"The Tibetan Book of The Dead" W.Y.Evans-Went (editor)
[on recommendation] "Empire" Hardt/Negri
posted by Ben , 11:57 PM Þ 

MP3 creator speaks out
"I don't like the Napster idea that all music should be free to everybody."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3059775.stm
posted by alex_tea , 7:28 PM Þ 

yay me.




Which Donnie Darko character are you? by Shay
I wanted to be Frank, but I turned out to be a peado.
posted by alex_tea , 12:13 PM Þ 
posted by Ken , 9:01 AM Þ 
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