Virtual Thought

RAW needs our help!

This guy’s writing changed my life. The Illuminatus! Trilogy should be required reading for weirdos. To quote the original article…

Any donations can be made to Bob directly to the Paypal account olgaceline@gmail.com.
You can also send a check payable to Robert Anton Wilson to
Dennis Berry c/o Futique Trust
P.O. Box 3561
Santa Cruz, CA 95063.

From the story at BoingBoing, RAW needs our help

(more…)

Saw this cool article about digital download royalties versus CD royalties. It caught my eye, of course, because it has to do with Weird Al Yankovic one of the primary geniuses of our time. He answers the question on his Ask Al page of which format to buy, physical CD or ephemeral DRM-ed digital, and he says, “Please buy CD.” I would buy the CD, Al, except sometimes that might allow Sony to root my box and might force me to pay $18 for packaging and, hey, wasn’t that price supposed to go down like ten years ago?

Dammit. According to the aforementioned article this is the record company’s fault. Apple can probably share some of the blame, too. Dammit. Instead of making it easy for what I see as the two parties involved in this transaction (artist and listener), the record companies and Apple have figured out a new way to screw everybody… the artist by not giving them the profits, and the listener by making us jump through these weird hoops of CD vs. iTunes because of

So hurry up and join Defective By Design and let’s end this crap.

What happens when you drop some Mentos into Diet Coke?

Tons:

Check out EepyBird for the whys and hows.

So my brother and I are chilling in the parking lot after aikido, trying to catch our breath and discuss what we’ve just learned (or think we’ve just learned), when this large truck pulls up next to us bearing the leged, “Ed’s Meat Delivery” (names have been changed to protect the innocent). The passenger leans out and signals me over. I think to myself, “Hey, this guy must be lost. Maybe he needs directions.” I saunter over closer to the truck.

“Hey, man… Want some meat?”

If the guy had said, “Hey man… Want some speakers?” my response would have been immediate and near-instinctive: No, I don’t want your broken, stolen speakers for, like, only a hundred bucks thanks. I don’t care how good of a deal this is.

But this meat offer brought me up short for a bit as the cognitive dissonance rippled around inside my head for a fraction of a second. Did he say meat? is all my brain can come up with. “Excuse me?” I reply. I certainly heard him correctly, but this is one of those conversational tricks I employ to give me more time to be clever.

“Y’know, steaks, sausages… I got some nice t-bones, some rib-eyes.. how ‘bout a hundred bucks?”

No clever reply, sorry. Sometimes I wish I was just a tad wittier so in these situations I could say something funny, scathing, dismissive—whatever the situation demands. As it is, I only have enough brain power for a lightning-fast polite response: “No thanks, man.”

The guy looks like I’ve turned down the winning lottery ticket and offended his lineage all at one go. “Whaddya mean? These are great deals! I got it right here!” He gestures helpfully towards the trailer. Yes, that’s where the meat is.

For the record, I’ve never understood this I’m going to be incredulous about what an idiot you are sales techniques employed by street dealers of every stripe. You’re not convincing me, you’re just offending me. This is what saves me now.

“Thanks, whatever,” I toss back to him as I turn and walk back to Carlos’ car. The guy then looks hopefully at Carlos. “What about you?”

“I’m a vegetarian,” my brother calls out. No he’s not. He’s just a tad wittier than I am.

The guy hisses in disapproval. What heathens I must deal with in my quest to bring cheap, back-alley meat to the populace. The driver, hidden in the shadows afforded by the dimly lit parking lot, guns the motor a bit and they accelerate away.

It comes to me later, the funny, scathing, dismissive response: “Is that a come on? No thanks, man,” and then I walk away. But my life doesn’t quite work that way. Oh well.

Have you seen Seizureman?

Hey fellas, have you heard the news…

So it seems that Libby says that Cheney told him that Bush told Cheney that it was okay to leak Valerie Plame’s name. Let’s examine the various conclusions this leads us to:

• When Bush had said before that he wanted the investigation to end so we would know the facts what he meant to say was, “I know the facts but I’m not going to reveal them at this time.”
• When Scott McClellan said previously, No one wants to get to the bottom of it more than the president of the United States, what he meant to say was, “The president knows what happened but is being hush-hush for now.”
• When Joseph Wilson insisted that his wife’s exposure was an act of political retaliation that ended her career the decision to endanger her life and end her career came from the President.
• When Bush said, I want to know the truth. If anybody has got any information inside our administration or outside our administration, it would be helpful if they came forward with the information so we can find out whether or not these allegations are true and get on about the business, he, at that point, knew that he was lying.

Of course, maybe Libby was lying. So that’s perjury. But isn’t he already charged with that?

Here’s some speculation:

• Cheney didn’t talk to Bush about declassifying this information… Cheney, by virtue of releasing the info to Libby, went over the President’s head! And then lied about it!
• The President forgot he did it in the first place!
• Libby is, in secret, a Democrat who hates America and doesn’t support our troops and that’s why he is attacking the President!

Of course, the CIA isn’t doing such a good job at protecting the names of employees anyway… and maybe we should take a look at that?