Label in Review: DFA Records

DFA Records Home Page
DFA Records @ MySpace
DFA Records @ Wikipedia
DFA Records @ Discogs
Interview w/ James Murphy @ In the Mix

When James Murphy joined with Tim Goldsworthy to form a label in early September 2001 Murphy wanted to name the label Death From Above. But the New York based label quickly nixed that idea in the middle of that September and the two settled on the acronym of DFA. Since 2001 DFA has become a force within the independent indie-dance and electro-rock scene, releasing the Rapture's first album, Hot Chip's The Warning in the U.S. and creating a literal heap of remixes for acts ranging from Justin Timberlake to Nine Inch Nails to Gorillaz. Home to acts like the Rapture, the Black Dice, Juan McLean, Shit Robot, Prinzhorn Dance School, the Shocking Pinks and James Murphy's own band, LCD SoundSystem, DFA is typically on the cutting edge of electro-anything and pushing beyond New York and into the electro-scene of European discotheques. Their remixes are highly sought after both by listeners and artists.
What makes DFA so distinctive is the mix between Murphy's 70s funk and Goldsworthy 80s new wave sensibilities. In particular their remix of Hot Chips "Just Like We (Breakdown)" transforms an otherwise excellent track into a nine minute sonic experience. Their emphasis on a mix of live instruments and electronic sounds allows DFA to stretch the boundaries of dance music without pegging themselves as simply another 'experimental' label.
Murphy's own LCD SoundSystem is a perfect example of what DFA seeks to achieve as Murphy and drummer Pat Mahoney blend live beats with synths, looped vocals and out-and-out rock music. Recently LCD SoundSystem released a single for Nike's runners ad campaign that was 45 minutes long. It is through these sorts of efforts that DFA has grown its presence in the minds of indie and even a few average music consumers.
On a side note, as the Wikipedia mentions, a copyright issue arose between DFA and the band Death From Above 1979 when DFA 1979 was going by the name Death From Above. While Murphy is made to look like the good businessman in all of this, DFA 1979 did not take the forced name change well. Murphy claimed it was simply and issue between Capitol Records and their label but DFA 1979 took it personally. Yet the label still stands and continues to produce and release new records by both their in house acts and new acts they can find.
So far, DFA has built a reputation as a respected independent label while eschewing the typical 'sell-outs' stigma for many (although there are a few who argue otherwise). Much like Matador Records in the 90s, DFA has become a trusted label for quality acts and music. Keep your eyes peeled for anything with the DFA logo as it represents good music to dance to.

Fascism as Faith

Seriously? - Megan McArdle

Historians of the 30s and 40s had such a terrible time trying to explain fascism because they were trying to put fascism in line with other traditional forms of ideology and government. But fascism defied those categories because it wasn't a traditional political ideology but politics experienced as faith. More than any other ideology of the last century, fascism relied on the mass experience to drive its ideology, to turn culture in political culture where everything you do is done for the state. Theocracies have similar characteristics but the difference is those under a fascist rule worship the state and its leader, not a god and a religion. Fascism is nationalism turned into a faith.
This is why the term 'totalitarianism' is such a misleading one; it encompasses to much while blurring the clear distinctions between authoritarian government like Communism, theocracy and fascism. It's not a helpful term in that way because you have a hard time figuring out why a counter to a communist ideology doesn't work for a fascist ideology. The idea of totalitarianism does help somewhat when describing the differences between it and democracy but beyond that the term becomes less useful in understanding the totalitarian system. They all commit terrible crimes but the why of those crimes is still important and categorizing any authoritarian rule as totalitarian makes it difficult to understand and undermine that rule.

My New French Rockstar Girlfriend

Soko @ MySpace

Clever Found A Name

Diving Deep, Unearthing a Surprise - Peter Baker & Dafna Linzer, WaPo (via The Danger Room)

That's actually pretty clever of Iran to do. They don't need to build an atomic bomb, but merely show their capability of doing so and thus avoid the claim that they are a building an arsenal of nuclear weapons. It's a great solution to the problem while providing Iran with a bargaining chip in any negotiations between the West and the rest of the Arab League.

Everything Is, And Then It Isn't

Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Order - by David Weinberger
Ludwig Wittgenstein @ Wikipedia

I've been reading Everything is Miscellaneous lately and have come to the conclusion that the author, David Weinberger, wants a digital search system that acts much like the way Wittgenstein described language. The way Weinberger argues that information inherently seeks disorder is similar to Wittgenstein's claim that language exists only in public and plays only by the rules of the particular game at a particular time. In other words, both argue that information and language are contextual. If a searcher is seeking a particular topic then the search engine needs to tailor itself in such a way as to retrieve the appropriate information. The search is thus a Wittgensteinian language-game where the meaning is attach by how the game is being played. For example, someone searching for an intellectual history of fascism would not need to read a biography of Hitler or Mussolini but rather rightist authors of the late 19th century. The search would have to alter itself around that kind of information. Thus information, much like language, gains meaning to the searcher by the rules the searcher is playing by.
The organic nature of the system both authors propose is one that changes constantly according to the users. Besides both being about how meaning is attached to information/language, each author argues that only through public usage rather than a single definitive listing will the systems work. Wittgenstein argued against both a private language and a static one, comparing language to a city that has developed over the centuries where the inner streets are a complicated mess while the later built outer streets have a more organized look to them. The point is, information and language both grow exponentially while leaving no concrete blueprint for people to follow. Instead they have to muddy through the language and information games required by the nature of each respective system.
The book itself is quite fascinating, especially when thrown against some of Warren Ellis's ideas he wrote in Planetary. It just may be the case that information is a fundamental element of the universe, or rather, the aether 19th century scientists believed held up the universe. Nothing is without information of one kind or another. And the only way to express that information is through language. I believe that information and language are intrinsic to each other, where neither is useful without the other.

Torture as Policy

What the Tapes Would have Shown - Matt Yglesias

I think what a lot of people misunderstand about intelligence gathering is that a lot of the process is winnowing out the signal from the noise. Millions of phone call, emails, letters and other forms of communication occur every day, not to mention the constantly increasing usage of satellite and UAV surveillance, and nearly all of it is noise. Out of six billion people on the planet our intelligence services are looking for maybe a few thousand who themselves are looking for ways to stay covert. So the majority of intelligence gathering requires analysis that give policy makers and operational leaders an idea of what is really going on. If you want to know what the real situation is like in a particular part of the world you need ears in the right places. And then you need people back in the States who can put this all together into a coherent picture.
See, that's the bigger misunderstanding, facts alone do not speak for themselves. The fact that A happens holds no meaning until it is interpreted. If A were to mean "You had a cup of coffee this morning" then it would mean nothing to someone looking for information of the possibility of a terrorist plot. But if A meant "Osama Bin Laden had a cup of coffee this morning" then that's of critical importance because you can start asking questions like "where did this coffee-drinking take place and with whom and what was said, from where did Osama arrive and where did he go afterwards" and on and on. But again, six billion people, millions who have coffee in the morning and we expect our intelligence services to find one person from all of that. Even if all the facts our intelligence services received were verifiable that still would not help construct a coherent picture of what various terrorist organizations were doing. This shit is hard and adding misleading or false information into the mix only makes the jobs of our intelligence analysts more difficult. Hence the logical argument against torture as a policy since verifying that information is far more difficult than the information received from a reliable source. It's all a matter of what is the most efficient and effective way to get the information needed to the right people at the right time. And most importantly, to allow our operatives to analyze that information without worrying whether or not it's even remotely true. That's why torture is a bad policy for information gathering.

Black Devil Disco Club, pt. 2

I figured, "I feel weird this morning so why not make everyone else feel the same way?" So here's a load of Black Devil Disco Club to make your morning coffee all the more surreal.

Can I Touch It?

Green Living: Solar City Teams Up With Tesla for Solar-Powered Sports Car Driving - Gizmodo

I think I saw one of these amazing cars on the highway coming home from work this week. It had the looks of a European supercar but didn't look like any that I knew. I had this gut feeling that this was a Tesla roadster. I want this for Christmas please.

Radioactive Codes of the Future

Roadside Picnic via Zoetica @ Coilhouse

I'm a bit of a noise art fan. The radio broadcasts Jeff Tweedy talked about when Wilco was making Yankee Hotel Foxtrot were the same ones I listened to in my sophomore year of college. Those strange voice rattling off numbers in a measured monotone pitch; secret messages from little girls to spies buried deep somewhere in the shadow worlds. And then I listened to the Aurora Borealis. Noise art isn't just some kitsch thing people do with their time. Noise art is pulling sound elements of the world and asking us to listen as if it were music rather than hear simply noise. It's an amazing aural feeling when you catch the pattern, because nature is not without its plans.

Really? Evidence Destroyed? Rights Violated?

Start Snitchin' - Matt Yglesias

While Mr. Yglesias ponders whether the Democratic chairs of the Intelligence Committee are up to the task, I'm thinking that it's about time for a few newspapers and civil liberty organizations to raise holy hell over committee chairs who can't do their jobs. Not that I'm surprised though, it seems whenever there's a chance for the Democrats to stick it to the Bush administration (particularly the ones in the House) they make it a point to somehow fuck the whole thing up.

Retro-Future, Or How to Time Your Smoke Breaks

Retro Tech: Wristwatch Lighter (Because It's Always Time for a Smoke Break) - Mark Wilson, Gizmodo

Wow, combining two things I love into one: watches and smoking. Now if I could only get it to pour me a scotch I'd never have to move.

Stupid Stupid Media

Can Books Have Ads? YES - Publishing 2.0

I'm not even going to read this article. My answer is a definitive NO and I'll brand that on the forehead of any publisher who tries this shit.

Previously Done Stunt makes David Blaine Really Lame

David Blaine Attempts to Stay Awake - Trumors

Hmm...where have I heard about this before? Oh yeah, that radio broadcaster in the 40s who stayed awake for nearly 240 hours and saw spiders coming out of his shoes. Amateurs.

Agree to Disagree or Death, But Mostly Death

Unsurprisingly... - Megan McArdle

College Dropout? What the hell is wrong with this woman? Late Registration is clearly the better Kanye album. Just a shame that intelligent people can't seem to understand good music when it hits them over the head and tapes their dog to the wall.

Going Faster than Coke at a Babyshambles Show

Bad Government: New Bill Would Make WiFi Hotspots, Email Providers, ISPs Responsible for Obscene Content - Gizmodo

Oh I give this bill about a month before a circuit court puts up an injunction. Congress just keeps trying and trying to push bills like this through and they always fail.

How the Sausage is Made

Intel Insider: Iran Report Ain't Political - Noah Shachtman, The Danger Room

This report on how the National Intelligence Estimate is constructed is a little disturbing but the more pressing matter of the current NIE is that it seems its writers are attempting to hedge their bets. A new report that goes against the Bush administration's claims in this day and age is a startling thing. But to have one that has the potential to pull us back from the brink of a war with Iran is promising, even if the report might have its flaws. I've come to take an NIE with a grain of salt. If the evidence points to a clear conclusion then fine, but if it is a constant stream of 'possibles' then I'm less sure that we should base our foreign policy around such a document. I can understand the intelligence agencies wanting to cover all their bases. Extracting meaning from masses of information is difficult to do and when you're under deadlines and bureaucratic pressures it only increases those difficulties. So, this NIE and previous ones I will now count on only to give a general idea of things rather than a clear idea of how the U.S. and it's allies should proceed. Iran may still have a nuclear weapon program waiting in the wings but if international pressure can continue to keep it there then that is the best way to go. But escalating the rhetoric against the Iran is not the solution at this point. Some needs to pull President Bush aside and explain that to him. Of course, this won't happen, but one can hope.

A Terabyte of txt Files

Western Digital network drives crippled--no serving any multimedia files - Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing

I respect Western Digital's tech department. I've long used WD drives and only once strayed for a cheaper Hitachi drive. So to hear that WD is looking at a hardware-based DRM solution is upsetting. The question is though, how long will it take someone to hack the hardware? The iPhone was hacked in less than a week and some hackers will go to any lengths just to prove that they can do it. So here's to hoping that a solution to a stupid problem will arrive quickly.

Obama the Economic Equalizer

Why He's Winning - Andrew Sullivan

It's no shock to me that Obama is slowly winning over black communities. I think the best speeches he's made have come in front of primarily black audiences. The tenor of his voice and the rhythm that comes with it are filled with righteousness and the fire of social justice. If Obama is a liberal it is because he seeks to even out some of the unfairness of our current political and economic structure. I believe that Obama might become the Martin Luther King, Jr we saw in the few years before his death. This is a man who sees economic fairness as economic equality and that is key to his style of liberalism.

Fish, Barrel, High-powered Machine Guns

LOLsheviks - Mikipedia


Now this I like. Making fun of Bolsheviks is always a good idea. If only we had a way to redo the dialog for Battleship Potemkin then we could have some real fun.

The 'Shockhorror' Moment of the Day

Results - Matt Yglesias

Well, I think my parents could have told you that. There are now schools in Texas where the teens are actually pushing school boards to stop the 'abstinence-only' sex education because, shockhorror, it doesn't work. Teens will have sex and I'd rather they have the info they need to prevent pregnancies and STDs than remain ignorant of what the consequences are. It's just common sense.

He Said, Sorta, Kinda, Maybe?

White House Changes Iran Intel Story - Noah Shachtman, The Danger Room

Wow, the spinning around the White House seems to be creating a vortex for bullshit. Not that that's any different, but amusing nonetheless.

Music Contests, News Style

Your Best Musical Moments of 2007? - Guardian UK

Now this is pretty cool. The Guardian is asking for reader responses to the question of what was their best musical moment of the past year. As a prize the reader receives what the Guardian considers the best ten albums of the year. It's this kind of interactivity that makes digital media (of both varieties) so compelling. A regular print paper couldn't do this sort of thing, or at least not very well. I give the Guardian high points for taking such an approach.

What Made Me Weird, Continued

Devo: Through Being Cool - Mer, Coilhouse

My dad listened to Devo back in the day when he had an MG, snitched a Lotus Europa from an exotic car dealership with a friend and then proceeded to take sharp curves at 70mph. I think he still has some Devo records on vinyl somewhere and at least a cd or two. When did my dad get so old?
Devo was my first real experience with music, that and opera night on WRR. One could cite a litany of bands and entire genres influenced by Devo but I think I like to best remember them as the band that told me that serious weirdness in music was possible. I guess you could say that Devo was one of those things that made me weird.

The Wrist Watch of the Gods - Updated

Horological Machine No. 2: Pure Watchporn - Cory Doctorow

Oh my god, I think my brain just reset itself, with an automatic winder and gravity-nullifying movement.

Update
Jaeger-LeCoultre Diving Watch Measures Pressure Mechanically, Makes Me Want to Have a Spare $22k - Jesus Diaz, Gizmodo

Jaeger-LeCoultre is one of those watch manufactures who still produce mechanical movements and play at the level of IWC, Brugeut and Patek Phillipe. These are the watches that make my mouth water. A watch that costs more than the average car is hot and the ones that sell a auction for more than my house is worth are even sexier.

Strange Powers

The Strange Boys @ The Granada , Nov. 30, 2007 - Miss Information, fotophonic

Damn, I really wanted to go to that show. Thankfully our dear Miss Info was there to snap a few pics for the kids at home like me.

Rocketo the Mapmaker

Parts & Labor - Home Site
Parts & Labor @ MySpace
Parts & Labor @ Wikipedia

I've been listening to Parts & Labor's new album Mapmakers off and on since I bought it. While technically compelling, there's just something off about the band that holds me back from completely loving them. Their sound, DuPont Circle post-punk emo by way of Dublin, is one of the closest things to a pure rock album I've heard in a long time. They do verge on being noise but their sense of melody and song structure and pacing keep them from being labeled so easily. However, their greatest asset I fear is also the greatest liability. Drummer Christopher Weingarten (who, incidentally is leaving the band) is brilliant and nearly as spastic as Deerhoof drummer Greg Saunier. Yet his sound is the one that stands out the most. When identifying this band as it comes up in my player I always know it by drums alone. While the rest of the guitar work is of good quality it has tinges of too much pop for a band based around the idea of breaking down some of the traditional song structures. Vocalist Dan Friel has a distinctive voice that gives the band its Irish touches just as the semi-punk stylings remind me of the hardcore emo bands of the late 80s and early 90s.
On the whole the album is a solid piece but shows the limits of the band (unless, of course, they go the route the Liars took and completely reinvent their sound a couple of times over). It was worth the purchase but I fear that this album's use will come more from the individual songs making their way onto my mix tapes rather than any particular urge to put the album on for simple listening. Still, despite all it's flaws, it is a good and remarkable album.

Day of the Ninja

Celebrate Day of the Ninja With Ninja Gadgets - Jason Chen, Gizmodo

Well damnit, I missed a whole day where I could have gone around throwing sharp objects at people. Stupid Internet, not giving me information when I needed it.

Sticks, Stones and the Presidency

Hillary Clinton's Campaign Admits to Smear - Trumors

One would think that such an email smear would have come from the Republican field and yet we have a supposed 'liberal' campaign trying to attach racial and religious slams against another liberal. It's amazing what a presidential election reveals about the character of some organizations.

Captain Obvious to the Rescue

Sex and Chocolate 'Boost Brain Power' - Trumors

Hmm....well personally I think this requires further examination.

A Liberal and a Hard Place

Clinton and the NIE - Andrew Sullivan

Hence the problem with trying to triangulate yourself between the leftist of the left who remain ardently against the war, and the moderate right whose general worry about national security has long propelled Republican wins. What will eventually drag Hilary down, much like Romney, is her inability to stake out a position and then open herself up to honest debate on it. While someone like President Bush can remain steadfast in his principles and still get it completely wrong, someone like Obama or Edwards don't view compromise as a sin. For Hilary or Guliani or Romney, compromise becomes the center of their being leading to the wild contortions they make in order to stay just above 51% of the electorate.
The platform that Hilary has slowly built isn't substantially different than that of George Bush when it comes to foreign policy. Diplomacy isn't an adequate tool nor are sanctions. Only military force is considered as real power. And Hilary has put herself in a position where any movement away from that stance immediately leaves herself open to a 'soft-on-terror' attack from the Republican side. It's strange, isn't it, that when a liberal isn't afraid to actually take a non-conservative stance on foreign policy their opponents have a hard time tackling the argument. This is why Obama has such appeal.

Your NIE and You

Caution (Foreign Policy) - Matt Yglesias

There's not much more that I can add to Matt's assessment of those who are unhappy with the NIE conclusions that Iran has halted its nuclear weapons program since 2003. There is just one little things however--the same argument was made about earlier NIEs and Iraq's weapons program five years ago. Now had the invasion of Iraq led to the uncovering of a covert nuclear program then the war supporters could convincingly argue that the new NIE is wrong and we should take a more aggressive approach with Iran. But reality has that funny way of not always agreeing with your truth. The argument (re: mushroom clouds) was made in 2002 and proven disastrously false in the following year. We were told not to believe the intelligence assessments and international organizations who said that Iraq had abandoned its program long ago. We were told that the danger was imminent. And we were told that the removal of a psychotic dictator would led to a more peaceful and progressive region. If the Bush administration wishes to make the same argument again concerning Iran then they have that right to do so. But I honestly don't think that the American public is that gullible after four years of being a foreign occupier. So for those who disagree with the new NIE, go right ahead, but you better bring your evidence and your balls to the table if you want to win the argument this time.

Polar Confusion

How Polarizing Are They? - Ezra Klein

I think Klein misses the distinction between polarization and simple mudslinging in modern politics. Two your right I've included these photos of Adolf Hitler and Stephen Spielberg as examples of the difference between someone who's very nature is polarizing and someone who, while praised by many, has not avoided controversy or had his share of mud thrown at him. Let me make this clear though, these are examples of polarization and living a high profile public life. No comparison to any particular candidate is intended by these images. They are simply useful illustrations.
Now, with that out of the way, one can see clearly why a Hitler is polarizing in a way that a Spielberg is not. The very mention of Hitler immediately causes a visceral reaction. The famous message board usage of Godwin's Law is meant to avoid causing a polarization of the conversation. On the other hand, Spielberg has had his own time in the limelight as well as his moments of criticism, both valid and vapid. The same man who made one of the most honorable war films of modern times in Saving Private Ryan was castigated when he made Munich. So Spielberg is a fine example of someone who the majority of people known and recognize but hold no firm, visceral opinion of and is vulnerable to a mudslinging campaign.
Klein attempts to deflect the idea of Hilary Clinton as a polarizing figure by pointing to John Kerry's favorability factor during the 2004 campaign. But Kerry was not polarizing in the way that Clinton is and has been for quite some time. And to say that the same results will happen when the public becomes more aware of candidates like Barak Obama and John Edwards is confusing the idea of polarization with the typical criticisms of an election. Obama and Edwards are not polarizing figures in the way that Clinton is and probably will never achieve such a level of polarization. But Clinton has been in the public eye for nearly two decades now and from the very start was a person who others quickly formed clear and firm opinions of.
The mistake Klein makes is equating electoral criticism and rhetoric with polarization. Six months from now no one is going to look at Obama and say immediately that, not only do they dislike him, but hate him. Clinton, on the other hand, will always carry that weight. Certainly Obama will suffer from smears and underhanded attacks but nothing about his character causes the gut reaction Clinton does. And while those smears and attacks may hurt his chances for election, they will not lead directly to his garnering a status as a polarizing figure. It's just simple politicking to attack Obama in an attempt to turn people away from him. For Clinton though, those smears and attacks will rely on previous knowledge of her and serve only to reinforce her polarizing stance. It's a subtle difference but it is a difference that a blogger like Klein knows well enough.

Abandon All Hope

Dinosaur "Mummy" Discovered - David Pescovitz, BoingBoing

I wonder what a Curse of the Mummy Dinosaur movie would look like?

Neo-Bavarian Style

Coilhouse Style Vanguard: Princest - Coilhouse

Oh now that's just cool.

The Check's in the Mail...

Watchdog Group: White House Lost Over 10 Million Emails - Trumors

Oh, they aren't lost, just probably on a stolen laptop somewhere, or in the server room at the White House where Dick Cheney hangs with his electronic kinfolk.

A Little Late for the Party

Matt's Rhetorical Question - Andrew Sullivan

It's nice to know that the same administration that dismissed the claims of international observers over Iraq's weapons program is now claiming that the same kind of pressure is working in Iran. It's amazing what a bungled war does to the decision-making process, isn't it?

The Presets

The Presets

Fuck

Yeah

More Please

Now

Bright Like Neon Love

Cut Copy @ Myspace
Cut Copy Blog/Website
Cut Copy @ Wikipedia

Now Cut Copy has been around since the beginning of the decade but it's only been recently that I have discovered their brilliance. Despite my lateness, I'm compelled to promote them somewhat as the aesthetic of their sound is right in line with the electro-rock movement without seeming derivative. One can easily make comparisons to LA electro-rockers Shiny Toy Guns but unlike the girl-fronted synth-pop band, Cut Copy is more than mere ear candy. One doesn't get bored too easily with this band as they blend analog and digital in an organic way. Their first album, Bright Like Neon Love, was released back in 2004 and after a slew of singles and 7"s they are preparing to release In Ghost Colours sometime in early 2008. This is the band I'm in love with for the moment so enjoy the sampling I've prepared for you.

The Return of Solid States

Conventional Vs. Solid State Hard Drive Race, Sony TZ91 - Gizmodo.com

After using a SanDisk 32GB SSD for the last couple of months in a new laptop I do have to say that the advantages of SSD over HDD is significant. Not only is boot up and shut down far faster but after leaving the system in stand-by mode the machine almost immediately is ready to use. Other advantages include the silence of the drive along with the added security that and bang or hits will have little effect on the drive. If you have the money then I recommend either a Samsung or SanDisk SSD. Considering that Supertalent has already released a 128GB drive and the constant push towards more laptops and less desktops, I think the prices will start to fall soon.

Audio Diver 12/2/07

My eyes burn a little, my knee still hurts, my brain is a little overloaded, but here, for your pleasure, is my audio dive for the day. Enjoy.

Badger Beta Test Three

Firefox 3 beta

Well, most of my extensions don't work (at least adblock does) but on the whole the next version of Firebadger looks good, feels good and kisses even better. Pages are loading faster on the whole and generally the GUI looks better than the old one without you needing to relearn everything. Nothing out of the ordinary thus far but then again I haven't really pushed it yet. If you're not afraid of some occasional glitches and can live without some of your extensions for a while then I suggest downloading the beta.

The Yes Men

At only a passing listen you'd might think of Yeasayer as TV on the Radio gone shoegazer or an electronic version of Beirut. The Pitchfork review of All Hour Cymbals likens the band's sound to that of late 70s Eno and Byrne. For my part I hear some of the same musical origins that Pitchfork cite for TVOR, Celebration and Animal Collective but my instinct is to credit the prog rock of Gentle Giant, King Crimson or (god help me for saying this) Genesis more than the Talking Heads in Yeasayers heritage. There is one element that stands out as clearly contemporary is Yeasayer's production quality is almost identical to that of the last two Liars albums. The sound echoes as if the band were recording in the same Berlin warehouse Angus Andrews fled into to create the masterpiece Drum's Not Dead. Everything reverberates, including the vocals, which gives the music a mystical quality. It's a conflict of auras, I suppose, as the urge to use the drums in a full-on Africanized beat is quelled by the use of silken strings and soft synthesizers.
The music itself floats along in a dreamlike wave as lead singer Chris Keating lets his voice hang in the air from lyric to lyric. The whole affair has a definite psychedelic quality to it as the band wraps itself in global instrumentation while Keating sings about the present and future of the human condition. 2080 in particular puts Keating's fears of the future front and center. Yet the band's wanderlust attitude comes on as an attempt to reassure us of something but without saying what. This is not a band you rock out to but instead lie back and let the music shake out your mind like some old maid cleaning away the dust from a carpet. It's an overstatement to say that the album is greatness on a platter but Yeasayer has put together an emotionally satisfying record without diving into sappiness. This band is driven and the music meanders willfully.
On a side note I'd like to mention the dual meaning contained in the album's title. When I first typed it out I replaced Cymbals with Symbols but another glance at the label saved me from a potential faux pas. Even so, I noticed one can read the title in two different ways: one being All Hour Cymbals as originally written or as All Our Symbols. Whether this dual meaning was intention or not I do not know. Still, cleverness like that, however unintentional, is worth mentioning. Pick this album up if you like the sounds of Animal Collective or early 80s Brian Eno production.

Yeasayer @ MySpace

Color-Change Coffee Mug

Coffee Mug Knows When You're Going To Burn Yourself - Gizmodo


You know, I never thought I needed a mug to tell me if the coffee was too hot, but now that I've seen this, I want one. That's super tech sexy.

Band Red

Band Red by KaitO

T gave this to me a long time ago. I thought the band would take off but apparently the hipsters couldn't handle post-britpop riot grrls. Ah well...

Grand Halls of Gilded Memories

Mmm...it's a fun bit of surrealism to look back at the music you once adored, even if briefly, but rarely pull out now for mix tapes or even a quick listen.

Walter Mitty It For Me Please

Who are the Melissas? - Nitelife

Aw, my fake, party-hosting girlfriend is famous.

Drifting on the Void looking in...

Astronomers Find Stellar Cradle Where Planets Form - Science Daily

One night I will dream of floating in stellar and planetary nurseries. I will see the gases and colors and I will watch and plasma and rocks meld together into new forms. I will watch this all and wake up with the colors still in my eyes. This is the dream I want.

The Typewriter Robot

Recycled Typewriter As Art - Robot Made from Old Parts - Trendhunter

Damn, they stole my work again! Those bastard DARPA guys always sneaking into my room at night, plugging into my brain and sucking out all of my ideas. Oh, I'll get them, them and their little dog too.

Urban Policing

How Tech Almost Lost the War - And How We Still Might Win - Noah Shachtman, The Danger Room

It's interesting to note the recent spat of articles on the correlation between the number of officers in a city and the decline of crime during the 90s. What was found was an increase of officers typically did not correspond to a decrease in crime. What was found was that the integration of officers into communities had a highly positive effect where neighbors became comfortable being seen with and talking to the police. Once a rapport was established, the people began to help the police find the criminal hot spots and clear them out. The same has happened in areas of Iraq and typically it hasn't taken a new sort of weapon or some high-tech gear but a simple beat-cop approach to things. COIN operations call for this kind of action but it takes time and doesn't always promise results. The primary issue in this approach is that of trust--if the people you live around don't trust you then they won't provide the information needed to root out the criminal elements. Ham-handed and humiliating tactics are the exact opposite of what is required. The successes seen in the past few month are a testament to that. To reach anything approaching a stable environment for political action to take place such tactics need continue. The goal here is to pull out of Iraq as soon as possible and have no need to return five, ten or twenty years later. Hopefully this low-tech approach will allow this to happen.

Looking Over Shoulders

No More Clintons - publius, Obsidian Wings

Now I agree with publius and Andrew Sullivan on the idea that Hilary and Obama represent two sides of the liberal establishment; one that grew up constantly on the defensive against some intellectually strong arguments from conservatives, and another that has come of age after this and are no long afraid of conservative arguments since they no longer make any sense. Publius hits on another point that I had never considered before: that had Bill Clinton not screwed up with his sex life then we might not have had a George W. Bush presidency. And for B. Clinton to inject himself into the debate over who was against the Iraq War first is even more disturbing when you consider what he might do if his wife does win the presidency. Where is the line cut between First Husband and former president asserting his authority as such? I think a Hilary win will not give the left any significant advantage since Hilary will only push the most watered-down, moderate and popular ideas without having the balls to stand up to the Limbaugh-era conservatives. When put next to someone like Obama and the rest of the Republican field, you realize that Obama has the chance to not only take on the mantle of JFK but of Reagan as well. That kind of hopeful crossover vote is what this country needs right now, not a fight between those bitterly opposed to Hilary and whoever the right picks who will need bitter opposition as well. After eight years of polarization in the body politic it would be nice to have a campaign where hope is the leading idea of a Democratic contender while the status quo is all a Republican could run on. So here's to hoping.

Sorbet

And finally, to round out the night, a three song e.p. of a light fare. The first is world music, silly but interesting beats. The second is Vampire Weekend, displaying their knack for unevenness by producing one song (other than "Oxford Comma") that I like. And finally, Zookeeper, who surprisingly keeps no zoo, but an acoustic guitar instead. Enjoy.

Quarta IV

A quick mix of a few tracks by artist Gabriel Ananda. Yes, I know, German minimalist techno isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I find it good to float on occasionally.

Menomena - Wet & Rusting

I know this song already appeared on my audio dive playlist, but it's such a beautiful song and I've finally been able to stop listening to it and come out from under the desk. More please.

Spaceballs?

Damn Dirty Apes! Gorillas Use Weapons Vs. Humans - Sharon Weinberger, Danger Room via Wired


Well, I think that just about does it for humanity. I, for one, welcome our new ape overlords.

External Factors

Horatio Alger's IQ - Matt Yglesias

I'm not quite sure if I completely agree with Yglesias on the proposition that the majority of events in your life are completely out of your control. As much as people like to think of history as a tale of the macro society and civilization, it is also a tale of the personal and individual. Many factors go into each moment and some are in the realm of your control and some are not. You can detail to a great degree which is which but ultimately you don't really know until after it has happened. Hence the reason why even experts are poor predictors of the future. It's the future and it hasn't happened yet. I'll go to my grave remembering Hunt Tooley proclaiming to one of his classes in '89 that the Berlin wall will not fall in their lifetimes. That's just the nature of history and its relation to the individual. Randomness and luck are always options.

Put That Fire Out

DHS to Firefighters: Snoop on Emergency Victims for Evidence of Terrorism - Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this is probably the dumbest government-related item I will read all day. Unless Bush starts lobbing grenades at Iran...

Inevitable?

Michelle's Move - Andrew Sullivan

Oh, I think that'll about do it for Hillary's 'I am woman, hear me roar' shtick.

Scouring the Pipes

Below is a skimmed list of the music I scavenged off the intertubes last week. Generally I use a combination of word-of-mouth recommendations, Pitchfork.com Amazon.com and the wonderful wilderness of elbo.ws. Some of it I have already purchased in album form. Some of it isn't really that new either. But until I have absorbed and processed my audile efforts into mixed-tape form we will all have to do with a general alloy of sounds.

The Dissatisfied Inventor

Technology Innovation is Driven by Deep Dissatisfaction - Scott Karp, Publishing 2.0

Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better. -Florence Nightingale

Karp hits upon a fundamental element of any sort of progress from the old to the new: innovation requires someone thinking that it could be done better and then doing it. It's this rebellious attitude that drove the original developers of the internet to create a network of computers communicating with each other in the 60s and 70s to the first World Wide Web users looking for better ways to connect and use this new technology. Blaming the user will only get you so far. Yes, sometimes the user just needs to figure it out on their own, but that doesn't make up for a bad design or bad system. Firefox itself is a good example of some people saying, "Well yes, Internet Explorer works, but a browser could work better." A confusing or laborious interface will only push users further away, as it has done frequently with the Linux desktop. Once the more densely-minded programmers realize this all sorts of new technological adoptions will take place. It just takes people who are dissatisfied with what they have and believe something better is possible.

Dallas Music Eats Babies and Shoots Lasers from Its Eyes

Something I've wanted to do for a while but never had it in mind when it matter. Still, here it is, some of the better music from the Dallas area by bands (with the exception of Baboon) have all fallen by the wayside. Even so, this shows the greatness of Dallas music with it's own pecularities.

Across the Sea

Thoughts about the Writer's Strike - NaiveLondonGirl

I might disagree with her, but she does have an interesting perspective on what the WGA strike means to those who are trying to break into the industry. I support the writers but still, for someone standing on the outside wanting in, the strike might look like a bunch of punks asking for larger slices of pie. So remember all those friends of yours with scripts and skills of their own who haven't gotten their chance yet before you wholeheartedly support the WGA.

I don't see it...

How Do We Make Sense Of What We See - Science Daily

I do so love articles like this one. The interpretation of our perceptions is critical in how we respond to the physical world. One thing I wish the study had done was examine how color, or rather the interpretation of color, plays a role in assembling a logical picture of what we see.

Lotus and Hot Wheels Create Badass Concept - Gizmodo

It's only a 1:5 scale model but I still want to touch it. I can only imagine how cornering in this car is like. It's far too incredible not to build at least a prototype and let the guys from Top Gear take it out on their test track. I think the Stig could put it through its paces.

Probably Something Amazing...

Vrubel's Enigmatic Art Nouveau - Zoetica, Coilhouse

There's something dreamlike to the art of Mikhail Vrubel, an obscure Russian artist uncovered by Zoetica at Coilhouse. His paintings have a quality of Monet or Van Gogh yet the subject matter is that of mythic tales and fables. The painting of Pan seen here is closer to a ghostly Greek fable than the art of someone like Mucha or Klimt. The figures look weakened by something, as if caught in a moment of exhaustion. It's a strange sort of emotion provoked by Vrubel's work.
Each character has a fateful appearance and is posed in an anticipatory action. The movement occurs around them, but they themselves are caught in that movement. Destiny is a central theme it seems. I hope those like Zoetica are able to post more about artists such as Vrubel; those artists who fell between the great and popular. Their art had an influence on their respective movements, even if our minds remain unaware of it.

Imagined Communities of Music

The Segmented Society - David Brooks, NYT

I didn't mean to do it. It's not as if there aren't hundreds of other articles, posts and op-ed pieces I could write about. But goddamnit Brooks, if I ever catch you on the streets I'm punching you in the nose, hard. You and Steven Van Zandt. Fucking old men and their old opinions of music developed during that brief period when music came in album form. But oh no, we have to bitch and moan about how music isn't as good as it was 'back then', how the bands of today are ignorant of their musical heritage and since they no longer attempt to play for the widest audience possible they are one of the causes for the social dissolution we are witnessing. This is the tack Brooks and Zandt take; arguing that since a band like the Rolling Stones wouldn't have made it as big now as they did then there must be something wrong with the music scene of today.
Of course, this is ignoring the whole series of movements and scenes that took place between 1969 and today. Take a gander at the British Isles alone and you'll see bands that played to more people in less time than the Beatles or the Stones have. Didn't anyone bother to mention the whole Brit-Pop thing and the Oasis versus Blur competition that lead to huge sales and concerts? Or how bands from 60s, 70s and 80s continue to heavily influence the bands of today? Garage rock would not have been possible without the Sonics or the Kingsmen and how long did those bands stick around? And if longevity is the key component then shouldn't Michael Jackson be considered one of the most unifying musicians of all time?
Sub-cultures happen and sub-genres will always exist. Despite our ability to categorize a band into a particular 'sound' each band is always different. And to say that these sub-genres are isolated is more than ridiculous as the sub-genre generally forms because a few musicians, either together or separately, dabble with the sounds of another genre. Hip-hop would not exist without funk or R&B. Metal would not exist without 70s stadium rock. Rock'n'Roll itself was a fusion of blues and electric instruments with Bo Diddley.
What so infuriates me with Brooks and Zandt is their attitude that modern music requires a 'canon'--some sort of grand narrative that music teachers can impose upon students and the public consciousness. Yet, much like in history, the grand narrative is false; it doesn't exist and never did. No single line exists from one musical act/movement to the next that you can point to and act as if ignoring one point along the line is blasphemous. Certain eras have certain tones but that's more due to our need for classification than of some real, concrete effort by that era's bands. Music, particularly the sub-genres, is one of the more raw forms of culture and so it moves in odd and unusual ways. There's only so much you can say about one time period through its music since music is so close to the ground of cultural production. It's just unfortunate that Brooks and Zandt don't get this and attempt to cover up their old-man-syndrome with some argument about the unifying aspect of music when that aspect never really existed in the first place.

Proof of Concept - Updated

The Go! Team - Proof of Youth

Two months after its release I finally picked up the Go! Team's latest album. Quick summation, it's exhausting in its enthusiasm and has secured a place in my current cd rotation. Far more 80s hip-hop influenced than their last effort (Chuck D himself guests on one track), the band does expand its arsenal of genres to pilfer. 60s Go-Go music alongside Blondie-esque 80s jams work together brilliantly. Yet, the segue into 70s AM radio on the third track "My World" almost throws the whole album off beat. Otherwise, the rest of the album blast from one bombastic banger to the next with little down time (hence the exhaustion).
On the production side a better quality ends up cutting both ways. Taylor and Tsuchida's vocals are more pronounced while the cheerleader chants are a rarer commodity. Cleaner production allows the band's performance to shine yet restrains the raw emotion of Thunder, Lightning, Strike. Thus the album is distinctly different from the Go! Team's previous album without sacrificing their artistic integrity.
Proof of Youth is an excellent follow-up to Thunder, Lightning, Strike but for those of you who fell in love with the cheerleader chants the album will come as a bit of a disappointment. Still, the hooks are great, the lyrics hopping and the drums continuing their efforts to crack the firmament and extinguish the stars.

The Go! Team - Grip Like a Vice
The Go! Team - Flashlight Fight

Advertising Torture

Amnesty's Unsubscribe Me video reenacts CIA stress-position torture - Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing

For the longest time I've wondered why one of the more leftist organizations with a good deal of money and connections haven't produced advertisements or short films showing the effects of declared 'coercive interrogations'. It a pretty well known thing that most Americans have no idea what coercive interrogation means nor the effects on the body. They hear the words 'sleep deprivation' and think of the times when they had to go into work early for a week. A stress position doesn't sound so bad. And waterboarding has become such a confused concept due to the rightist punditry that most people completely misunderstand the idea. I've had the urge to hire someone to climb into a filing cabinet and stay there until they're screaming to come out (this is in public of course). And I often point to the experiment a radioman did back in the fifties in which he attempted to stay awake as long as possible. By the end of it, he was seeing spiders coming out of his shoes and other such hallucinations.
Naturally, papers like the Weekly Standard, National Review, and the Wall Street Journal will cry foul and declare these aids nothing more than scare tactics by a bunch of leftist radicals bent on destroying America, the rule of law, security and puppies. Of course, that is their right (no matter how wrong they are). I simply hope that those of use who do oppose torture show these aids and make the appropriate arguments. The whole idea of 'coercive interrogation' is bunk as it often leads to false confessions weeks or months after any possible 'good' intelligence has become useless. And as for the 'ticking-timebomb' scenario, you are describing a situation where we have an individual in custody perfectly willing to die as a martyr who, more than likely, will simply lie to his captors long enough for said bomb to explode. Now even if such a scenario took place and did result in the stopping of an attack, no grand jury in this country would even let the case go to trial. It's akin to justifiable homicide. Of course proper procedures would take place but that's simply the way our justice system is supposed to work.
So next time you meet someone who knows little to nothing about 'coercive interrogation' or even supports it, remind them of the consequences and how their supposed killer arguments fall rather flat.

Guns at the Ready

Via Warren Ellis's blog is this uncommented on image from Libby Bulloff. But I have to offer one comment: gorgeous.

Quiet Genes

Is The Inability to Express Emotion Hereditary? - Science Daily

Now this I believe in since from my grandfather to my father to me we each have this amazing ability to internalize everything. Until, of course, it breaches our emotional walls and manifests as some sort of severe quirk (is alcoholism a quirk?).

What About Spam

Email is NOT Dead - Publishing 2.0

I have to agree with Scoot Karp here that email is certainly not dead. Instead, email has simply become like the telephone of old; something that has become so ingrained in our everyday life that we no longer notice is prevalence. But I email every day, along with using other services like Blogger and Twitter and text messaging. These are all form of communication that serve different purposes. But email is a one-to-one or one-to-few communication that allows for less time sensitive reading and response. It allows for a greater amount of information to pass that texting and twittering do not and it's not meant for mass consumption like a blog is.
Email also allows for image and audio communication in ways that YouTube or Flickr do not. Links to those sites are easily added but for a lot of people that kind of embedding doesn't occur to the or, for the business world, not allowed. Email is still the most viable form of communication in most ways since email allows for more verbose messages while not needing an instant response or a modified language for faster communication. So I sincerely doubt we will see the fall of email any time soon. There's no real replacement for it and it is still one of the standard-bearers of what the Internet means.

Thanksgiving Blogging

Today is a day of food, drink and a lot blogging that I'm catching up on. Some of the posts are weeks, if not months old, but I tagged the item because I wanted to write something about it. So, today I will.

A Weekend in the City

Lee Harvey's
Darkside Lounge
Lollipop Shoppe
Lizard Lounge

Eventful weekends typically aren't the planned for sort of thing. You might have in mind a few places you'd like to visit during the night, but it's difficult in the Dallas scene to know what precisely to expect, which is a bit of the fun (even if there's the occasional night where everything turns into a bust). First, house party, friend of a friend and that sort of thing. Nicely done but quiet and far too tame. Even so, it was a fine way to work oneself into the evening. Some light chatter and a beer to ease yourself to the next thing, which became a cop-infested set of the Happy Bullets, who were allowed to rock their particular style of poppy Irish-inflected music.
This is where the 'until' comes into play. Apparently some soon to be without a working car or front door asshole decided things were too loud and had the fuzz bring down the Bullets' fuzz. Lameness ensues for a few moments until decisions are made, plans developed and cars started. The Darkside Lounge, not one of my favorite places but worth going into once in a while, had what appeared to be a semi-punk, semi-hardcore show going on. While on my way in I had to quickly duck out of the way of a slew of bouncers with some poor but deserving soul leading the way, hanging from his jacket and fading dignity. Cheap beer was bought, so was a burning shot of Jameson's, and after a few songs and questions I come to find that one other person had already made his bouncer-driven launch from the bar. Things like that only raise the quality of the bar in my opinion.
However, boredom settled in quickly and we made a mad dash for the Lollipop Shoppe to witness the dance stylings of modern mods and freshly-pressed go-go girls. Some pictures were taken (naturally not by my camera since I only received the new repaired item today from a burly UPS fellow). Go take a gander at fotophonic if you'd like to see what images made it through the night.
Despite the burgeoning fun at Sloppyworld, my wild hare of a idea to go to the Fetish Ball at the Lizard Lounge took hold among my companions. Can't say why, but we scurried over and took in the lovely leathery sights for some time. After my friends made a quick exist for the door I meandered a while longer, suffering at the hands of a dominatrix for a few minutes (the flogging way fine, the choking I could have done without). After that, mind, body and soul declared me done for the night and ordered a long walk to the car.
Long night--fun, adventurous, a little dangerous but entirely worth what little cash I had left. The holidays always seem to bring out the better events. Something about the Dallas cold that gets people all frisky and active. Next year, no fetish, unless in private. But more of the Lollipop Shoppe and the Happy Bullets please. They satisfy that space between my stomach and diaphragm.

Holographic Lives

What you see to the left is a four-dimensional sphere--a tesseract. Basically, the idea is that the object is larger from the inside than from the outside. Either way, it a different way of looking at our spatial dimensions. String theorists claim that our universe has another six dimensions or so along with the dimension of time. For the most part those dimensions are too small to see; wrapped up in the strings that form the subatomic particles of the universe. Now that alone is quite interesting but not the point of this particular missive.
I've taken some inspiration from both watching Heroes and reading Warren Ellis' Planetary. My moment-in-the-shower thought was what if one of the dimensions of the universe was a one dimensional informational plane? Ellis toyed with the idea in Planetary with the claim that we are all three-dimensions holograms of a one-dimensional informational plane. Where I got sidetracked was with the character Charlie from season one of Heroes and her ability to pick up on information intuitively.
To make information a fundamental part of the universe is actually quite brilliant because information differentiates one object from another, one particle, person, building and anything else from another. Sure, the means by which we measure information is subjective but the fact that the information exists is made no less real by that. Moreover, it says that there is an underlying structure to the universe holding everything together by giving it different informational properties. Information becomes the new aether, the substrate that the universe rests upon.
Another interesting (and this is where my mind starts going wonky) element to labeling information as a dimension is that it answers Heidegger's old question of why is there something instead of nothing? Nothingness becomes impossible in a way since to use the label of nothingness is to ascribe an informational fact. Nothing becomes something because you can call it something. I still can't quite wrap my head around that idea because I believe that nothingness is possible, the absence of existence, of information, but much like the waveform collapse or Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, nothingness remains only until observed.
The strange thing about turning information into a dimension is the question of how large of a dimension it is. Personally, I believe that the information dimension is one-dimensional and spans the entirety of the universe. Information is constantly holding up the universe by constantly providing informational facts to the rest of the dimensions. The way the character Charlie was able to pick up on information so quickly shows that there are informational channels we can attune ourselves to much like we can see a wavelength of light. Micha, another character, can read technological information in much the same way. The Drummer from Planetary can do much of the same thing.
What I don't believe is that the information-dimension is deterministic, i.e. I don't believe that it locks each of us into a particular set of facts that we can never remove ourselves from. Instead I believe that the information-dimension allows for many different facts to take shape, and like the uncertainty principle, doesn't resolve itself until measured. Time has no internal means of measurement nor does length, width or height. Thus information does not become determine precisely until it is observered.
I think this is an idea that I will kick around in my head for a few days. I warn you that another post may come along, but so be it.

Evolution

So I've been watching Heroes, catching up and all, and I keep catching little bits and pieces of other writers' work throughout the series. Aside from the elements of Warren Ellis' work, I also see a lot of Grant Morrison's work and ethos when he wrote New X-Men. One thing he wrote when he was first handed the assignment was how he wanted to create a series about "beautiful people with incredible powers doing startling, diverting things!" Which is exactly what Heroes is doing. Moreover, Morrison used the idea that the transition from one species to the next is generally quick and violent as the newer, stronger species eliminates the slower, weaker species.
While the characters in Heroes are not like the X-Men, not even the leather-clothed, day-glow neon jacketed versions, they are like the type of characters with special powers who don't know what do with them or how they can use them to help. The elements that Ellis use in series like Planetary or Newuniversal are about those people who are special and how they deal with their abilities. The most interesting aspect is how certain characters develop powers that are essentially new senses. Micha can talk to technology, must like the character The Drummer in Planetary while Syler can intuitively figure out how things work.
Personally I think DNA evolution will take this path to new senses. Reading information like we see, hear and taste things. This is the kind of evolution that makes sense considering the environmental pressures on the human species at the present moment. Of course, this is the sort of thing I love.

The Moment, the Collapse, and the Angel of the Nebula

The image above is of the Bug Nebula in which a dying star blasting superhot gases is shrouded by a cloud of icy 'hailstones'. (Credit: ESA/NASA and Albert Zijlstra)

Consciousness Causes Collapse - Wikipedia
Mediations by Marcus Aurelius - Wikipedia

You know, back in the 18th century there was this philosopher--a Bishop Berkeley--argued that only through direct perception is the world made real. No abstract ideas of matter were possible, i.e. once you stepped out of a room the room ceased to exist in a real, material form. I think that's bunk, as do a lot of other philosophers, but the thought experiment behind Berkeley's thinking makes other ideas all the more interesting. Marcus Aurelius wrote in his Mediations that the only part of time we possess is the moment we have this very instant. Once that moment passes then we lose possession and of course we can't possess the future.
Another idea, not terribly well thought of, called 'consciousness caused collapse', makes the point that conscious observations cause the waveforms in quantum mechanics to collapse into a single observation. Thus all the possible waveforms collapse into a single one upon observation. It's akin to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle as the observer changes the outcome of what is observed.
How these three elements tie into the Bug Nebula photograph above is in my idea of how time moves and is perceived by our minds. As Aurelius said, all we possess is the moment we have. The entirety of the past, a mass of possibilities winnowing down to a single moment and then spreading apart again like the cosmic dust being blown away from a dying star. Berkeley would say that this is due to the immediacy of the observation, just as in the waveform collapse. The heart of this star is the nexus of time which we possess, that moment of right now of which we only can have a fleeting grasp of.
This is how I view the flow of time. Whether it is cyclical or not is beside the point. The past moves from a wide range of possibilities to a single point and then widens back out again into the potential of the future. We are constantly at that nexus, all of our pasts collapsing into this one moment and then move outward again. The further you predict into the future the less likely you will get anything right. Which reminds me of a joke I once heard: "You want to know how to make God laugh? Tell him your plans." Live in the now and don't worry too much about things too far in the future.

Quote of the Day

Lunch Conversations # 4223: Getting in on the Ground Floor - John Rogers

Sure, the robots rend criminals with horrible tearing jaws. But if you're telling me they eat white and black criminals equally, that is a marked improvement over the situation as is --

The Right to Wait for a Ballot

I was subtly denied my vote today after getting off work. Went to my normal polling station and was immediately told that the stations was out of ballots and more were on the way, but the original call was made more than half an hour ago. Went I live in nearly walking distance of City Hall, I find this sort of cock-up appalling. I live in a precinct that actively votes and votes Democratic. The proposal that was bringing people to the station was one that riled liberal interests and made traditional businessmen (re: conservative) jump with glee. So to find that near the end of the day, after most people left work and (like me) wanted to go vote, that we could not exercise our constitutional right due to a lack of paper in a high voting, liberal precinct, I became more than a little suspicious. I don't like it, particularly after pestering my friends to go vote themselves. There's something to be done here and some of you will have to help me.

The Human Profit Margin

A More Perfect Union - Megan McArdle

The first question that springs to mind in McMegan's wrap-up is "what if the executives don't want to implement new production-enhancing techniques but wants to make the profit margin larger in quick order?" The obvious answer is, of course, to fire some employees. I'm not going to make the executives look like the big bad wolf here, because one part of what unions do that McArdle clearly misses is unions also seek to provide job security, which in turn lead to some absurd practices like auto workers who sit around simply because the company can't fire them. But this is just another instance where the interests of one party taken to an extreme can become an absurd boondoggle, thus making unions look absurd as well.

A Monkey in the Works

...to Catch a Monkey - Matt Yglesias

Now why can't we have this sort of problem in America. Just imagine needing to hold a special mayoral election because your old mayor was ousted by rampaging monkeys? We need to start importing apes to, just so we can have them roust the bums from their corners.

The Nuisance People

Recently my grandfather got a water bill for nearly $900 when the previous bill was about a tenth of that. My mom went to see our general practitioner today for a check-up and to ask some questions about some problems she has faced since her last visit. Last week I made a somewhat desperate call to the same doctor concerning the medication I was on and its ineffectiveness. The thing that connects all three of these events is that a solution to the problem was brought about by become a nuisance to those we needed assistance from. Right now my grandfather is at City Hall demanding that the water billing office fix his bill (of which they have not done for the last month). My mother didn't get the chance to ask the doctor the questions she needed to so we've made a phone call to set up another appointment in the same week. My own medication issues were finally resolved after a few weeks of whacked-out conditions and several phone calls.
The point I'm trying to make here is that sometimes being a nuisance, while frequently rude, is an excellent solution to get those we need assistance from to finally act. Call it the 'squeaky wheel' principle or whatever you choose. But the fact remains that sometimes people, particularly busy people, won't understand the nature of your problem until you repeat it enough times to them. I face this at my own work, where a customer will as for a certain kind of work and my own assumptions of what they are asking interfere with what they are really asking for. And sometimes it's the customer's doing as well, lacking the knowledge and terminology for accurately expressing the problem and desired solution.
Being a nuisance in an economy based on service can lead to employees disliking you, but it can also lead to getting what you really want or need. Don't simply accept what your doctor or bureaucrat or anyone else just hands you if it is not satisfactory. Yes, fighting everyone all the time is exhausting, but often it is the best way to arrive at the needed solution. So don't hesitate to make yourself a nuisance if it seems that you are not getting the needed help going through the normal channels.

I've Got a Bone to Pick...

There are a few phrases that cause me to go into an apocalyptic fit and the phrase "everything happens for a reason" is one that irks me to no end. The entire phrase is a panacea for those who have a difficult time, or an impossible time, understanding why things happen in history, particularly in their own personal lives. The greatest problem I have with the phrase stems from the view of history it imposes, one that would have you believe there is a certain course to history. It's the first step towards a teleological view of history, that history is a series of endless progression toward some unknown utopian future. I don't buy it obviously. It's that utopian type of thinking that has led to the most destructive ideologies of the last two centuries. From Marxism to Fascism to religious endtimes thinking there runs a common thread in the belief that some sort of perfect future awaits humanity. For some, they believe it is their duty to hasten or even bring about the events that would lead to said utopia. Such a view of history does not have to remain at the macro level however. It can run even in the small scale, say in a belief of the domino theory of foreign policy thinking during the Cold War or, for a more modern reference, the belief that a democratized Iraq would topple other local regimes through example leading to an ideal, pro-Western Middle East. While utopian thinking does provide a sense of purpose to ones actions, that purpose general does not lead to a healthy or morally good outcome. For the serious believers, any action, no matter how grotesque, immoral or ugly, is justified if that action brings the utopian society one step closer to reality. Hence the phrase, "everything happens for a reason," with its tinges of teleological and utopian thinking, makes me want to throttle the speaker.
Another part of the phrase that bothers me, one tangentially related to my first point, is the implicit idea that all events hold some sort of meaning. History itself has no meaning and its events, while certainly having causes, lack meaning as well. This applies to the future as well, a future that necessarily will one day become the past. Things happen and that's all you can say about the facts of history. Anything more become interpretation of meaning, but that meaning isn't attached by history itself, but by human minds attempting to understand the whys of history. Often you see a lot of 'what-if' questions in history and historians playing devil's advocate. This is because historians are constantly asking the question of why this event occurred and not some other event. This is due to history lacking any sort of grand system or cosmic plan. History moves of its own accord, tied to human actions but no director of those actions. So to say that everything happens for a reason is to say that each human action has a reason, despite the obvious daily evidence that this is patently untrue. Each event can contain meaning, but that meaning changes from person to person, and most importantly, how that person is looking at the historical fact.
All of this is to say instead of using thinking and phrases like "everything happens for a reason" it would do you well to follow the idea that whatever happens happens. You can say something like "the Berlin Wall will not fall in our lifetimes" and then go back and figure out where and how you were wrong. But to imply that there's some underlying meaning to that action is to read too much into the event. Look for causes, but don't look for meaning within historical facts themselves.

The Meta of Religious Experiences

Neuroscience and God - David Pescovitz, BoingBoing

I know the more we study the brain and how it acts the more we'll understand how we come to have certain types of thoughts and how we perceive certain experiences. Yet I can't quite escape the feeling that we still won't know where consciousness resides. We might even get to the point of moving consciousness from one brain to another or some other type of neural repository. But I think the problem is consciousness isn't an object in the same way we thing of physical objects. This isn't one of those "science can't answer all" reactions, but it is an argument for the continuation of the metaphysical study of the mind. Neuroscience itself doesn't answer the deeper 'why' questions but it does help arrive at those answers. The most important question that neuroscience will continue to have difficulty answering is why we have certain experiences, like religious epiphanies, naturally. What do these experiences add to the human experience? When neuroscientists ask these kinds of questions they're asking the meta question, the philosophical question. Those are the same questions that genres like cyber-punk attempt to answer, or at the very least pose. They're also the questions I love.

Quote of the Day

The Peace Corps with Muscles - Michael Totten

“Woo hoo!” one of the soldiers yelled in the dark. “Another fucked up adventure in the United States Army. I love it!”

Elemental Cities

Cui bono? - Megan McArdle

I don't often agree with McArdle as she seems to take a more hardline capitalist approach to things, but she does make a good point here on the supposed low-carbon aspect of urban areas. While most urbanites tend to expend less carbon than those in the suburbs, that happens for the most part because urbanites export their carbon to other areas. Power stations, particularly coal-fired ones, are not built near cities, yet produce a great amount of carbon emissions.
Still, McArdle does mention how, despite the exporting effect, urban areas do maintain a lower carbon output than suburbs. And, more to the point, a carbon tax would encourage urban living as the power suburban homes draw, along with the attendant travel to and from those homes, would feel the effects of the tax the most. I'm a proponent of a carbon tax, as it would let the market to its thing with the least amount of government interference. If you'd like to make a moral issue out of it, you could say that a carbon tax is a sin tax much like the taxes on cigarettes and alcohol are. I'm not opposed to government interference with the economy, but when a nudge could do more than a shove, I think that is the better route to take.

Obama's Social Justice

Obama at Howard - Andrew Sullivan

One element of Obama's speech that I like is how he points out the disconnect between the need for nonviolence and the pressure placed on blacks toward violence. It's the disconnect between what's justified and what's right. The assault on a white student by six black students was in no way right morally, it was justified in the same sense that homicide done in self-defense is justified. This assault did not occur in a vacuum and so the treatment of it cannot do likewise. Sen. Obama here is attempting to charge the student body with the sense that social justice is always an appropriate thing to stand up for, damn the personal consequences. It would do Obama well to continue to focus on such events as it points out both his desire for change and his willingness to actually act to bring about change. While the authenticity of any politician is always up for questioning, I think Obama's speech goes a long way to showing that he does have some balls and will take some chances.