2008may01. Reason Magazine: Power From the People. Long article on Jim Mason, the shipyard, and his trials and tribulations fighting city hall. As long as America continues to have an overly-restrictive profit-driven nanny-state permit structure, smarter/greener/more creative ways of dealing with day-to-day living are going to get caught in the net. They’re trying to stop the future. They’re always the last ones to get it. We’re running out of time. [via doc]
Still, Mason feels crushed by the conflict – and radicalized. While others on his team are more optimistic that it will all work out, he thinks experimental living in a highly regulated context might ultimately be hopeless. Never any kind of libertarian, he was shocked to discover that giving someone the right to shut down a physical site is no less a significant power than giving someone the power to arrest me. The lives of 30 people have been stopped, and there is no immediate review of that decision.
I live life in economies based on what is interesting, he adds. I’ve found no matter what the rules or processes, in the end the thing that’s interesting somehow gets chosen. But getting beat down, I realized that is completely irrelevant. They will not listen or make consideration for interest in anything. They only care, what does the letter of the code say, and does that completely encapsulate the conditions they determine are sitting in front of them? It’s an impossible set-up in which to engage the messy flux of the world.
2008may05. The Gospel of Consumption.
2008may09. Friday.
Darwin’s crazy moth w/12-inch tongue
theory on the money.
Schlieren
photography
Zowie! Coney Island
caviar! [5min]
[via doc]
Book of Spam advertisement featuring toast
animation.
The reviewer finds the new Pixar movie
unbelievable.
I already told you about this, but you didn’t believe me: synchronizing
metronomes.
The Phone: a freeform
get-to-the-next-screen “experience.”
Vectorpark: Spider.
Green Porno: Isabella
Rossellini. Bugs. Sex. Safe for work, as long as your boss is cool with
seeing Isabella Rossellini humping a giant fly, for example. If your boss
is not: get a new boss or be your own! Now who’s the bug porn-watching
taskmaster?
Smithsonian:
Hyenas!
(hyenas.)
Mango crash.
Awwww yeah ... you CRASH that mango. You know what makes me hot? It’s not a
woman smashing things underneath her boot, it’s not seeing a video of a
woman crushing objects beneath impractical footwear, it’s that this is
something that makes specific people hot. That’s a turn-on, right there. My
fetish: empathy. And world peace. Also: mangoes being smooshed. HOTT
2008may11. Bush is going to run again because he wasn’t actually elected in 2004.
2008may11. US says cocaine routes shifting from US to Europe ... the US knows a lot about cocaine routes. Don’t do hard drugs kids, you’re just putting more money in Unca Sam’s greedy little pocket. The more you know!
2008may11. Cops are here to protect you. A disheartening round-up of inhumane fuck-ups.
2008may12. Government: They’ll break your legs and expect a thank you for the crutches. Or they’ll put you on the rack and then take a freakish photo of you celebrating your extra length. Hooray I’m longer!
2008may12. I was idly wondering when ram air turbines started appearing on planes, but the wikipedia entry doesn’t help any. The oldest relevant patent I can find was granted the day of the stock market crash, and indicates that the patent was an improvement on the invention. Any mention of RATs of course requires a pointer to the Gimli Glider story, which is Essential Internet Reading. It reads like a movie. Of course they’re going to land on Family Day. Directly on.
2008may13. U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration: Some Road Songs. Government: doing what it does, so well. Buy the seven CD set.
2008may15. It is definitely fascism when it happens to you. Feelin’ Safer Already, Part Nine Billion Something.
