Neatorama has created a T-shirt neatly summing up the stock market… A roller coaster with an abrupt ending. What can you do but laugh…
other stuff
The Minature Earth
It’s always nice to re-discover a pleasing site online. One very good site which is an illustration of a thought experiment is The Minature Earth. The original text was written by Donella H. Meadows in 1991 and consists of a portraying the world as a village of 1000 people while maintaining the proportions of the real world. Here are some excerpts:
If the world were a village of 1000 people:
584 would be Asians, 123 would be Africans, 95 would be East and West Europeans, 84 Latin Americans, 55 Soviets (still including for the moment Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, etc.), 52 North Americans, 6 Australians and New Zealanders.
The people of the village would have considerable difficulty communicating: 165 people would speak Mandarin, 86 would speak English, 83 Hindi/Urdu, 64 Spanish, 58 Russian & 37 Arabic.
If the world were a village of 1000 persons, there would be five soldiers, seven teachers, one doctor. Of the village’s total annual expenditures of just over $3 million per year, $181,000 would go for weapons and warfare, $159,000 for education, $132,000 for health care.
The facts have been made into a pleasing film which can be seen on the site or on YouTube here. This is the type of thing I would like to use in a lecture but I don’t seem to have the opportunity to slip it in. Naturally it would be interesting to do some fact-checking but the general idea is easy enough to follow.
Slightly Mad
Queen unsurprisingly have a song that explains the way I feel right now: I’m going slightly Mad:
Im one card short of a full deck
Im not quite the shilling
One wave short of a shipwreck
Im not my usual top billing
Im coming down with a fever
Im really out to sea
This kettle is boiling over
I think Im a banana tree
Oh dearIm going slightly mad
Im going slightly mad
It finally happened – happened
It finally happened – uh huh
It finally happened
Im slightly mad
Oh dear
I want to formally launch the scietific significant desease called “keyboard madness” which I am suffering from. The affliction occurrs after too much type in front of a keyboard and leads to headaches, frustration, desire to shout profanity out loud and irrational anger. Most sufferers are pale and have a dazed expression. As a bonus some may have a repetitive strain injury known sometimes as mouse arm.
By removing them slowly, gently but firmly from their keyboards and forcing them out into the outside world, and making sure they have no digital devices with them – recovery is rapid and often complete. However patients relapse often and rapidly once they are again in the proximity of a keyboard.
Friday list 2: Miracles in Concrete
A second list you cannot miss on this early Friday evening is the Swedish Miracles in Concrete. This is not a mistake in translation: miracles, indeed! Well what they actually are trying to create is a list of the seven concrete wonders of the world but in Swedish wonders becomes miracles!
Örebro water tower – (about)
The Sandö Bridge – (about)
Turning Torso – (about)
The Kaknäs Tower – (about)
The new Svinesund bridge (about)
Arlanda Air Traffic Control (cannot find about)
Öresund Bridge – (about)
How did they chose these seven? Well first 21 buildings were nominated and there was an open vote for the seven best.
Friday list 1: Worst 100 films
Everyone needs a useless list. Especially on a Friday. Among the more interesting useless is the 100 worst films (ever). This comes from the Internet Movie Database. Here are the worst ten films ever:
| 90. | 2.3 | Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952) | 671 |
| 91. | 2.3 | The Quick and the Undead (2006) | 803 |
| 92. | 2.3 | Kazaam (1996) | 9,637 |
| 93. | 2.3 | Levottomat 3 (2004) | 1,660 |
| 94. | 2.3 | Shark: Rosso nell’oceano (1984) | 1,018 |
| 95. | 2.3 | Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie (1997) | 3,077 |
| 96. | 2.3 | House IV (1992) | 797 |
| 97. | 2.3 | Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 (2000) | 31,463 |
| 98. | 2.3 | The Last Sign (2005) | 972 |
| 99. | 2.3 | Track of the Moon Beast (1976) | 1,254 |
| 100. | 2.3 | American Soldiers (2005) | 1,417 |
Makes me want to go and rent them!
Rolling with punches
I am not short. Not really tall – but I suppose that all this is a matter of perspective. But perspectives and realities of length change and shift after years of riding a desk and huddling over a laptop, standing tall is something I need to remind myself of.
Then there are times when the blows come too fast, too effectively, striking the weaknesses we work so hide to protect. In times like these the urge to curl into a protective ball physically and metaphorically appears to be the only viable option.
It is here where the impulse to run, hide and forget – to lose oneself in fantasy, dreams or the narcotic (from the Greek “to make numb”) substance of choice. My own inclinations lean towards unhealthy food and enough red wine to float a rhino, to which pop psychology deduces deep-rooted insecurity. But I will rebut, if I had the energy, that easy answers mean that you are asking the wrong questions. Never mind that – focus.
Booze and calories are a brief narcotic bringing short lived relief and a nasty aftertaste (hangover would be a cheap pun) of additional guilt, anxiety and the beginnings of a wicked downward spiral of self-loathing.
But the pain I try to avoid is artificial, brought about by false dependencies and a lack of personal moral independence. No matter how real I make it feel.
And yet it is here in the depths of self-created misery that growth occurs. Failure is the true manure of growth. Success and love relaxes and breeds complacency. So it is important to recognize this as the shitty bottom a learning curve. No place to go but up. As the window of self-loathing closes I pull myself up and stand tall to disguise my made-up pain and bring this self-deception of defeat to its knees.
My therapeutic act is to write this in a public place making those who I know read this space and the casual visitors part of my recovery.
But is it art?
This is just plain silly. The Telegraph reports that a convict who may get the death penalty has agreed that if he is sentenced to death he will give his body to art. The body will be deep-freeze-dried and turned into fish food. Visitors to the exhibition will then be able to feed goldfish with the ex dead con.
The artist says:
“..it is not his story that is as important for me as the system that exists in a society such as America’s in such a vulgar and primitive way, the system, of killing people like this. I wanted to raise awareness of the fact there are people killed legally in our Western civilisation.”
Is it only me or does this all just feel like a publicity stunt to increase the ego, reputation and through this economic value of the artist?
photo Secret Life of Wanda by tomanthony (CC by-nc-nd)
but did anyone ask what the fish want?
Scientology Organised Fraud
The Church of Scientology will be tried in a French court for “organised fraud”. Scientology is not a recognised religion in France and there has been trouble before. The French see Scientology as a sect and therefore kept under observation. This is not uncommon in several other European states including Belgium, Germany and Greece. The sect has been in trouble in all these states for exploiting its members financially.
Scientology is a particularly nasty sect but it is interesting to see that some forms of delusion are permitted while others are not. Reminds me of the quote in Dawkins book “The God Delusion” which went something like this: One persons delusion is madness, a delusion shared by all is called religion.
While writing this I was happy to see that Operation Clambake was still online. Check out the wikipedia page about the site.
Update: I came across this on EFF apparently there has been a massive takedown of anti-Scientology videos on YouTube.
Over a period of twelve hours, between this Thursday night and Friday morning, American Rights Counsel LLC sent out over 4000 DMCA takedown notices to YouTube, all making copyright infringement claims against videos with content critical of the Church of Scientology. Clips included footage of Australian and German news reports about Scientology, A Message to Anonymous/Scientology , and footage from a Clearwater City Commission meeting. Many accounts were suspended by YouTube in response to multiple allegations of copyright infringement.
From EFF Blog
Goodbye George Carlin
I missed that George Carlin died in June. He was a great stand-up with a wicked sense of humor. He had some great observations about the arrogance and stupidity of human beings. Among his great lines was this:
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
Acceptable sex for priests
This must have catholic priests sniggering in their vestries.
Swedish priests are allowed to be married. Swedish women are also allowed to be ordained as priests. Therefore it is not strange for two priests to be in bed together and know each other in the biblical sense (ooh, that’s a bad pun). Apparently there are unacceptable sexual acts among priests.
The whole thing started when a priestly couple. To be clear: a husband and wife both priests. Anyway the priestly couple had a threesome together with a male acquaintance (not for the first time). The husband priest took pictures of the act with his mobile telephone. Reports are a bit hazy but the wife later attempted to delete the photographs and the husband lost it and started beating his wife. Naturally all this ended up with the police and the tabloids had a small snigger at the whole affair. Even for swedes this raised a few eyebrows. What can I say: Sex sells.
What makes the whole thing much more interesting is the response of a Swedish bishop (also a woman) who stated that the priests may be dismissed. What is queerer is that even the wife priest may face the same end or at least be given a warning. The dismissals are not only due to the wife beating but also are due to the threesome.
It appears that the the couples sex acts “exceed the boundaries for what may be accepted within marital relations” (my translation) The Swedish church does not have general rules for what priests may or may not do but they may not act in a way “that harms the reputation a priest should have. Also having something like group sex breaks the vow of sexual fidelity in marriage” (again my translation). Maybe they should write a manual of acceptable sexual acts.
I’m sure that the catholics are clucking sanctimoniously but let’s not forget the many, many, many sexual scandals they have caused. Isn’t it incredible? It does not matter which priests or which religion they are all really mad. Religion is not only a total waste of space it is also a harmful activity.