Unreliable information since 1972
1) Bush Moves Toward Martial Law. The US has previously had admirably strict laws regarding the use of the military on it’s own soil. Is this a move toward a dictatorship? I’d be astonished if it were (although the fact that the question is one that even occurs is a little disturbing). Is it alarming anyway? Yes. You all know the quote I’m thinking of about liberty and safety…
2) Via sigma7, strong rumours that Studio 60 is to be cancelled. Not a shock, given that it’s a ratings disaster, but the rumours that it’s to be replaced by reality TV or a game show have a particularly (sickeningly) inevitable ring.
1) Bush Moves Toward Martial Law. The US has previously had admirably strict laws regarding the use of the military on it’s own soil. Is this a move toward a dictatorship? I’d be astonished if it were (although the fact that the question is one that even occurs is a little disturbing). Is it alarming anyway? Yes. You all know the quote I’m thinking of about liberty and safety…
2) Via ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
sigma7, strong rumours that Studio 60 is to be cancelled. Not a shock, given that it’s a ratings disaster, but the rumours that it’s to be replaced by reality TV or a game show have a particularly (sickeningly) inevitable ring.
I went to the London Roller Girls halloween bash the other night. Here’s the first of a few photos. If, at any point, I start wailing in public about how basically bloody awful they are, please slap me. I have to keep repeating to myself that they’re not bad, give the conditions, and that I’m not going to improve unless I practice. Also, I really need to get a diffuser dome.
The rest will follow in dribs and drabs, as I have time to process them. (I’ve done five tonight, it’s take me two and a half hours, and I want to revisit two of them, because I’m not quite happy with the results.)
Should any of the people in the photos be pointed this way, and like the results, I’m happy to supply the full res versions of anything I put on line (or take down anything you don’t want on-line), and I’ll let Chris know when the full set (however many that turns out to be) is available on flickr.
We’re hiring yet again – still looking for a PHP developer, and also a graduate designer.
If anyone knows anyone in London looking for work in either of those sorts of jobs, send ’em my way.
Questions from sushidog:
Questions from sushidog:
1. When you cut your hair off, how did it affect your self-image? Have you ever regretted it?
I don’t regret it, but I do still find it a bit strange, the fact that suddenly, I blend into the crowd. I spot another alternative type walking down the street, and get no flicker of recognition from them, and that’s a little saddening.
2. What makes you angry? What’s the angriest you’ve ever been, and why?
Lots and lots of things, in an abstract sense. The state of the planet, creationism, the fact that George Bush has not yet been hunted down by an angry mob, all this pisses me off. But in a more genuinely about to lose it way, the single biggest thing is when others treat my friends and loved ones badly.
Angriest I’ve ever been? Well, in as much as it’s an indicator: the only fight I’ve ever started was at a gig, over the singer of the headline band that night yelling abuse at my then-girlfriend while she was on stage as part of one of the support acts. Not big and not clever, but it’s the only time I’ve been so pissed off that I started a screaming row that ended in violence.
I can think of one occaision that I’ve been angrier off the top of my head, but I really don’t want to talk about it on LJ (not ghastly trauma or an attempt to seem interesting, I should add, just a lack of desire to go over something long since dead and buried where other people who might know what it is can see). Ask me at some social gathering or other, if you’re curious.
3. What do you look for in a potential partner? Do you have a type, whether physical, personality-wise, or whatever?
Hmmm. I don’t think I have a physical type, other than perhaps a preference for pale skin. Other than that I don’t think any of the people I’ve dated have had much at all, if anything in common with the others, physically or personality-wise. So, erm, novelty? Only meant in a way that doesn’t make me sound bloody awful, if such a way exists.
4. Do you have a unified philosophy on life? If so, what is it?
Firewater summed it up very nicely: “We walk but once among the living, so no regrets and no forgiving”. I have no idea if there’s anything after this, but I don’t think it matters. I feel I ought to add though when I say “no forgiving”, it tend to reserve it for really *big* things – once people are on my bad side, they’re pretty much going to stay there, but it does take quite a lot to get there. Everyone gets a second chance, but a third is often pushing it, perhaps…
I once wrote quite a long post trying to sum up my beliefs, which is here, and remains pretty true, especially the part about belief being and analogue state.
5. If you had to choose between never working again on anything productive (not even your own writing, food criticism, or whatever), or working every day for the rest of your life, what would you choose?
The latter, in an heartbeat. My big problem is laziness, so if there was something compelling me to do things, that’d be absolutely great. (This is assuming that my own creative hobbies count as productive work, or at least, that I would not have to sacrifice time on them as part of working every day. And that I’d still have time to see my friends. And possibly an extra couple of hours in the day…)
Via warren_ellis, I urge you all to watch this, and think about how it applies right now:
There’s a conference on at the moment that I would really have loved to go to – PopTech. I’ve been reading various reports from the conference, and ran across two quotes that I think merit being put in front of more people.
Firstly, Brian Eno, on art:
“Art is created by artists so that the viewer has the opportunity to create something.”
Secondly, William Gibson, writing in the NYT, quoted at PopTech:
It is becoming unprecedentedly difficult for anyone, anyone at all, to keep a secret.
In the age of the leak and the blog, of evidence extraction and link discovery, truths will either out or be outed, later if not sooner.This is something I would bring to the attention of every diplomat,politician and corporate leader: the future, eventually, will find you out. The future, wielding unimaginable tools of transparency, will have its way with you. In the end, you will be seen to have done that which you did.
I’m less interested in Gibson’s thinking as it applies to the powerful on out planet, and more in how it applies to the regular person, but I think it’s equally valid.
Eno, on the other hand, raises the ever interesting point: why do people create? Has he got it right, do you think?
Me personally, what little art I attempt is generally made with the idea that it should convey something of my thoughts about the world, and I suppose that yes, on that basis, I do want people to respond, and I’d probably be delighted if they created art in response.
There are quite a few creative types, both amateur and pro around these parts – what do you think?
(both quotes via Jason Kottke.)
Here’s a link that deserves to do the rounds. Matt Taibbi, writing in Rolling Stone, on the 109th Congress of the United States:
These past six years were more than just the most shameful,corrupt and incompetent period in the history of the American legislative branch. These were the years when the U.S. parliament became a historical punch line, a political obscenity on par with the court of Nero or Caligula — a stable of thieves and perverts who committed crimes rolling out of bed in the morning and did their very best to turn the mighty American empire into a debt-laden, despotic backwater, a Burkina Faso with cable.
To be sure, Congress has always been a kind of muddy ideological cemetery, a place where good ideas go to die in a maelstrom of bureaucratic hedging and rank favor-trading. Its whole history isone long love letter to sleaze, idiocy and pigheaded, glacial conservatism. That Congress exists mainly to misspend our money and snore its way through even the direst political crises is something we Americans understand instinctively. “There is no native criminal class except Congress,” Mark Twain said — a joke that still provokes a laugh of recognition a hundred years later.
But the 109th Congress is no mild departure from the norm, no slight deviation in an already-underwhelming history. No, this is nothing less than a historic shift in how our democracy is run. the republicans who control this Congress are revolutionaries, and they have brought their revolutionary vision for the House and Senate quite unpleasantly to fruition. In the past six years they have castrated the political minority, abdicated their oversight responsibilities mandated by the Constitution, enacted a conscious policy of massive borrowing and unrestrained spending, and installed a host of semi-permanent mechanisms for transferring legislative power to commercial interests. They aimed far lower than any other Congress has ever aimed, and they nailed their target.
And it goes on. This is some very fine writing indeed, I I heartily recommended taking the time to read the whole thing.
