AK State Fair 2005 - 15

AK State Fair 2005 - 15
Originally uploaded by roblef.

love the fair, they do.

Open Letter: Pastafarians

Open Letter:

"It is for this reason that I’m writing you today, to formally request that this alternative theory be taught in your schools, along with the other two theories. In fact, I will go so far as to say, if you do not agree to do this, we will be forced to proceed with legal action. I’m sure you see where we are coming from. If the Intelligent Design theory is not based on faith, but instead another scientific theory, as is claimed, then you must also allow our theory to be taught, as it is also based on science, not on faith.

Some find that hard to believe, so it may be helpful to tell you a little more about our beliefs. We have evidence thathttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it. We have several lengthy volumes explaining all details of His power. Also, you may be surprised to hear that there are over 10 million of us, and growing. We tend to be very secretive, as many people claim our beliefs are not substantiated by observable evidence. What these people don’t understand is that He built the world to make us think the earth is older than it really is. For example, a scientist may perform a carbon-dating process on an artifact. He finds that approximately 75% of the Carbon-14 has decayed by electron emission to Nitrogen-14, and infers that this artifact is approximately 10,000 years old, as the half-life of Carbon-14 appears to be 5,730 years. But what our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage. We have numerous texts that describe in detail how this can be possible and the reasons why He does this. He is of course invisible and can pass through normal matter with ease. "

also: Pastafarianism

http://www.zefrank.com/fsm/

spammy goodness

Those extra pounds starting to show?

--spam email subject

spammy goodness

melt your fat like butter


--spam email subject

Serenity Viral Marketing

http://www.ourmedia.org/node/46627
Title: R. Tam - Session 1 - Excerpt
File size: 3.8 MB
Length: 1:32
Format: quicktime
DESCRIPTION
The second clip to be released in the viral marketing campaign for the film Serenity, the followup to the television series Firefly.

http://www.ourmedia.org/node/46635
itle: R. Tam - Session 416 - Second Excerpt
File size: 2.1 MB
Length: 0:48
Format: quicktime
DESCRIPTION
The first clip to be released in the viral marketing campaign for the film Serenity, the followup to the television series Firefly.

I think this person has them in the wrong order. They look better with the one on top here as part one, and the one on the bottom as part 2. I'd love to see the rest of the "viral" marketing thing.

Alaska Freedom :: TSA Secrecy Must Stop.

"The Transportation Security Administration built a secret database on millions of Americans using flight records and commercial data.

It's been more than three months since we've asked to see our records.

We've reminded them three times to not destroy any records while we're waiting to see ours.

TSA's time to answer our appeals – and our patience – has run out.

And that's why we, a group of Alaskans, are turning to the US District Court in Anchorage for help.

The TSA collected Americans' personal information – over 100 million commercially provided records – and used it to test a program called Secure Flight, a system that designed to tell us whether we can or cannot fly in our own country. TSA took the flight records of everyone who flew during June of 2004 and are now running tests of the Secure Flight program."

oh, you must be from that really bad aim clan...right.

Hi-larious, geeky, intelligent fun.

A TALK show in Halo. A videogame. So, it seems like you can talk to each other in Halo, out loud, rather than typing. that's COOL. In World of Warcraft, you still have to type. The talking thing is COOL.

Go check out this talk show in Halo. Holy cow.

Oh, and give it time. Watch more than the first two modules. Watch all the modules of at least the first episode. It's fascinating on SO many levels.

http://www.thisspartanlife.com/

43 Folders: Eno on the Microsoft Sound: Here's a specific problem -- solve it.

43 Folders: Eno on the Microsoft Sound: Here's a specific problem -- solve it.: "In fact, I made 84 pieces. I got completely into this world of tiny, tiny little pieces of music. I was so sensitive to microseconds at the end of this that it really broke a logjam in my own work. Then when I%u2019d finished that and I went back to working with pieces that were like three minutes long, it seemed like oceans of time."

DTV: Internet TV

Yes! More Open Source TV. Just like i/ON TV, this is an open source, participatory video aggregator. Fromt he website:

DTV: Internet TV

"Internet TV is Open and Independent
DTV is a new, free and open-source platform for internet television and video. An intuitive interface lets users subscribe to channels, watch video, and build a video library. Our publishing software lets you broadcast full-screen video to thousands of people at virtually no cost. The project is non-profit, free and open source, and built on open standards. A Windows version of DTV and a full website are well underway and will arrive in the next several weeks.
The Channel Guide is Open
Today, along with the Mac Beta, we're launching the built-in DTV Channel Guide. Publishers of DTV-compatible channels can now submit channels to be included in the guide. If you have an RSS feed with video enclosures, your channel is already compatible (see our ideal RSS format). This beta version of DTV embeds QuickTime 7, so any video that plays in QuickTime will play in DTV. DTV suppports standard HTTP downloads as well as BitTorrent downloads. Submit your channel today!"

anyone on tribe seeing this?

i love reading my tribe friends' blogs, and they show up right on my tribe home page. this one I know shows up on my profile page. i'm guessin it doesn't show up on my tribe friends' home pages. Anyone on tribe reading any of this?

owrede_log: Music video milestones

Sometimes, my problems seem bigger than they really are.

peace


owrede_log: Music video milestones

Video Ode

Redneck Hillbilly Video

From BoingBoing

new things i'm doin

(1)The three little words are: "Hold On, Please..."
Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of
hanging-up immediately) would make each telemarketing call so much more
time-consuming that boiler room sales would grind to a halt.
Then when you eventually hear the phone company's "beep-beep-beep" tone, you know it's time to go back and hang up your handset, which has efficiently
completed its task.
These three little words will help eliminate telephone soliciting.

(2) Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one on the other end?
This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes phone calls and
records the time of day when a person answers the phone.
This technique is used to determine the best time of day for a "real" sales
person to call back and get someone at home.
What you can do after answering, if you notice there is no one there, is to
immediately start hitting your # button on the phone, 6 or 7 times, as
quickly as possible. This confuses the machine that dialed the call and it
kicks your number out of their system. Gosh, what a shame not to have your
name in their system any longer !!!

(3) Junk Mail Help:
When you get "ads" enclosed with your phone or utility bill, return these
"ads" with your payment. Let the sending companies throw their own junk mail
away.
When you get those "pre-approved" letters in the mail for everything from
credit cards to 2nd mortgages and similar type junk, do not throw away the
return envelope.
Most of these come with postage-paid return envelopes, right?
It costs them more than the regular 37 cents postage "IF" and when they
receive them back.
It costs them nothing if you throw them away! The postage was around 50
cents before the last increase and it is according to the weight. In that
case, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in these
cool little, postage-paid return envelopes.

Send an ad for your local chimney cleaner to American Express. Send a pizza
coupon to Citibank. If you didn't get anything else that day, then just send
them their blank application back!
If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything
you send them.
You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to just to keep them
guessing! It still costs them 37 cents.
The banks and credit card companies are currently
getting a lot of their own junk back in the mail, but folks, we need to
OVERWHELM them. Let's let them know what it's like to get lots of junk mail,
and best of all they're paying for it...Twice!
Let's help keep our postal service busy since they are saying that e-mail is
cutting into their business profits, and that's why they need to increase
postage costs again. You get the idea !

someday...

David's Journal: Payola

Payola, from David Byrne's (Talking Heads) Perspective

David's Journal: Current: "I wondered if every pop song that had moved me on the radio, from when I was in my teens, had been paid for. Oh jeez! Therefore, other than a few free-form stations around at that time I was being treated like a Pavlovian dog — what I had believed were my subjective passions and discoveries were actually the result of a concerted program to pound certain tunes into my innocent brain. I had been totally manipulated! What I thought were decisions and loves that were mine and mine alone had been planted in my head by sleazy characters I could barely imagine. Free will? Hah! My entire past was called into question. Who am I? Am I not partly what I like? And if those things I like were not completely of my own choosing, then what am I?

Obviously, this insight applied to our audiences as well. And now, with the success of this single, to our own songs! I caught myself thinking to myself, “they APPEAR to be loving this song, but little do they know they’ve simply been manipulated to like it, just like I was manipulated to like the stuff I like!” They don’t REALLY like it all THAT much, I shouldn’t believe what I see. In fact, I began to doubt whether the song was as good as its reception seemed to imply. As a songwriter and musician I of course would like to believe that when an audience shouts for a song it’s because we’ve written something pretty good that touches them in some significant way. The implication is that my fellow musicians and I are pretty talented. We should pat ourselves on the back, be proud, we deserved some of the perks that were coming our way.

Knowing that the song was partly paid for throws all that ego boost material out the window. Ooops, maybe the song is just O.K., and we’re all so easily manipulated that it doesn’t really matter if it’s good or not. And, as well as thinking less of myself, I began to think a whole lot less of our audience. When people would come up to me and say “boy is that a great song, I LOVE that song!” I would be tempted to tell them, “no you don’t, you’ve just been saturated with it and manipulated like the rest of us. You like it because your soul, your likes and dislikes, are up for sale to the highest bidder.”"

David Byrne's Journal: Current

Seriously, give this one a read. Good shit.

David's Journal: Current:

"Gaming and narrative

As computer games inch beyond shoot-‘em-ups into the narrative territory of books and movies I wonder how far the medium can actually go. I wonder if a more interactive and involving version of narrative might emerge that will replace, at least partly, those traditional ones.

I believe that narrative — the story, the myth — is something we have a deep psychological attachment to, and sharpening one’s carnage skills or doing a treasure hunt are not acceptable or satisfying substitutes. They are exciting and fun, but they don’t serve the same needs and don’t have the deep and lasting resonance with us as individuals and as a social group. Stories, however fragmented or disjointed, do that.

Games are edging closer, though. Characters have back stories and sort of personalities, but they don’t really change, evolve or “grow” — the popular Hollywood term. They remain the same person at the end as they were at the beginning, but maybe with more stuff or accumulated points. The primal hierarchical struggle for power and status is there, something males have found ways to practice in thousands of forms — from childhood games to office politics — but not much in the way of development. Something else males have been accused of more than once. Women, for the most part, are just not genetically programmed to find any of this of much interest.

We don’t much identify with the characters in videogames either, except to the extent that they are avatars of ourselves. They don’t exist apart from our own decision-making. In books and movies the characters have their own motivations and personalities, we may love or hate them, but they are not us. Somehow the fact that they are not exactly the same as us allows us to invest more emotionally in them and their future. The distance allows us to see part of ourselves — a problem, an issue or a relationship — being acted out to some unknown conclusion. Or even to a known conclusion — many myths and stories don’t lose power even though we know the ending. So it’s not about the surprise of the change, it’s about the resonance and thrill of observing it happen"

Boing Boing: Remote control lawn mower

I want one. Now. :)

Boing Boing: Remote control lawn mower:


"Evatech's RCLM 2006 S-Class is a Hybrid Remote Control Lawn Mower with a gas engine, 22' mulch blade, wireless electric starter, and optional gyro. Just $2299"

I'm guessing htey meant 22'', rather than 22'. Now, THAT'S a blade. :)

Boing Boing: Space Shuttle lands safely at Edwards AFB

YAY!!!


Boing Boing: Space Shuttle lands safely at Edwards AFB: "Space shuttle Discovery landed safely on Earth before dawn landing in the Mojave desert, two weeks and 5.8 million miles later. Here's a snip from John Schwartz and Warren Leary's story in the NYT:

The shuttle began the end of its mission at 7:06 by firing its engines over the Indian Ocean for more than two minutes in what is known as a de-orbit burn. About 30 minutes later, at an altitude of 76 miles, the shuttle entered the atmosphere at a maximum speed of more than 16,000 miles per hour, guided at first by its steering jets and later, as the atmosphere became thicker, by its wing flaps and rudder."

my turn?

Ok, so maybe I have something real to relate. some nugget of personal wit...about my kid. :)

SO, we're in the car today, driving home from the gym, on the way to the bank and the Blockbuster (and the donut place, Hunter reminds me). We're drivin, and she says (she being my 4.9 year old daughter), "dad, what are eye boogers?" And, me, unafraid: "They're dried up mucus from your eyes." Not sure if they actuall yARE mucus, but it sounds good.

She then says, "You mean like this green thing I just pulled out of my eye?"

AHAHAHAHAHAH.

It was so funny, i LOL'ed. Truly

I love the net: From Wikipedia:

The hardened mucus that forms in the eyes during sleep is sometimes referred to as "eye boogers".

mimi smartypants

I think my favorite line is, "So I stabbed him in the eye" Go Mimi!

mimi smartypants: "yesterday I was waiting for the self-checkout at Jewel, and it is kind of anarchic there---Jewel-shopper society has not quite used its hive mind to decide whether we are going to make two distinct lines, one behind each set of self-checkout machines, or just form one line and use the 'whoever's next' system. The latter mode was in play, and I was standing behind a man who was kind of off to the side, staring into space, when a self-checkout opened up. He made no move toward it, so I gestured to him and to it, awkwardly, and a few beats later when he was still blankly staring I stepped forward and started for the self-checkout myself. THEN all of a sudden he snaps to attention with, 'HEY! EXCUSE ME!'

'Sorry, go ahead,' I say.
He is still standing there, and now he has an aura of Righteous Indignation coming off of him like body odor. He continues, 'There is just ONE LINE. I believe I WAS NEXT.'
'Please, go ahead,' I say. Again. 'I just thought...'
'DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM?' he asks. 'THAT LADY JUST STEPPED AWAY A HALF-SECOND AGO. GOD.'

So I stabbed him in the eye with the corner of my Amy's Soy Cheese Pizza In A Pocket Sandwich box. Why must there be so much ugliness in the world? Why can't there be more tolerance, more civility, and more bleeding eyeballs for the people who think that the world must be out to get them, who sense disrespect lurking around every corner, and who always choose to preempt the merest hint of Being Wronged with a histrionic freak-out?"

karmagrrrl: tales of a karmically challenged life...: Meet the Vloggers SF Intro

karmagrrrl: tales of a karmically challenged life...: Meet the Vloggers SF Intro

There is something about this that sparks something in me.

"Our vlogging presentation (pix by Steve Rhodes)at the San Francisco Apple store was a blast. The audience seemed really interested in learning more about vlogging and becoming actively involved (especially a future musician vlogger in the second row who asked a lot of great questions). Thanks to Laura Sydell from NPR and Barb Dybwad for covering the event.This video is just a highlight mix of vlogs that some of us liked. It was used to introduce the audience to vlogging. Unfortunately, it doesn't include all the great videos out there"

karmagrrrl: tales of a karmically challenged life...: Meet the Vloggers SF Intro

karmagrrrl: tales of a karmically challenged life...: Meet the Vloggers SF Intro:

I'm thinking these people have got someting here...

"Our vlogging presentation (pix by Steve Rhodes)at the San Francisco Apple store was a blast. The audience seemed really interested in learning more about vlogging and becoming actively involved (especially a future musician vlogger in the second row who asked a lot of great questions). Thanks to Laura Sydell from NPR and Barb Dybwad for covering the event."

karmagrrrl: tales of a karmically challenged life...: Meet the Vloggers SF Intro

karmagrrrl: tales of a karmically challenged life...: Meet the Vloggers SF Intro:

I'm thinking these people have got someting here...

"Our vlogging presentation (pix by Steve Rhodes)at the San Francisco Apple store was a blast. The audience seemed really interested in learning more about vlogging and becoming actively involved (especially a future musician vlogger in the second row who asked a lot of great questions). Thanks to Laura Sydell from NPR and Barb Dybwad for covering the event."

ONTV: Ideas Through Digital Content

This may well be the next big thing:

The Internet is filled with innovations, artistic expressions and independently created entertainment. Our goal is to make that digital content easy to find, view, share and manage. ONTV builds conduits between you and others, to enable the exchange of thoughts, ideas, and emotions, embodied within digital content.

With the Beta Release of I/ON, we hope to begin to make our vision a reality. I/ON is an Internet Video Console that allows you to watch the web - accessing rich media content directly, on-demand.

I/ON could not have been created without the efforts of many open-source software developers. We hope to advance the efforts of others by making I/ON available under an open-source license, as well.

ONTV: Ideas Through Digital Content

365tomorrows.com � 365 tomorrows

365tomorrows.com %uFFFD 365 tomorrows: "365 tomorrows is a collaborative project designed to present readers with one new piece of short speculative fiction each day for one year. Utilizing the broad palate of science fiction, our vision of the future creates a diverse pool of stories with something for everyone to enjoy.
365 launched August 1, 2005 and will continue until July 31, 2006"