Important PSA from Mr. T

Mr. T - Treat Your Mama Right

The Reagans - On Drugs

glumbert.com - The Reagans Speak Out On Drugs

You're Invading My Bubble!

A "sanctuary dress"

Bumping Flash

Apparently a new feature of action script for flash, sound synchro

check it

and here

can't wait till the ad people get a hold of it

Video Fun!

Seems I am on a youtube kick lately, eh?

May I take this moment to introduce the Greasemonkey Firefox Extension, and then immediately after that the Youtube Googler script for Greasemonkey. Basically Greasemonkey lets people write some code that will make a website do anything they want. This script makes youtube much nicer, with a bigger window and less clutter.

Food for browsing.



Couple classics you might have missed:

Ridiculous Internet Phenomena

I deem it worthy of four minutes of your life. Skip the first minute if you just want the song.

Steering Wheel? Out. Drive-by-wire? IN!

The cockpits of some passenger cars in the future will have neither a steering wheel nor pedals. Instead, what are known as sidesticks will become increasingly common - ergonomically shaped "levers" in the centre console and interior door panels which enable the driver to control all the movements of the vehicle. Steering will no longer be by means of a wheel, but by merely moving the sidestick to the left or right; acceleration and braking will no longer require pedals, but will be controlled by pushing the stick forward to accelerate as required or pulling it to the rear to brake. The driver will only indicate his intentions, after which high-performance computers interact with mechatronic actuators. Everything is done electronically via data links, hence the name of this technology: "drive-by-wire".

Can't freakin wait!

Coolest Yuppie/Boomer Toy Ever!

The B.R.P. Can-Am Spyder Grand Sport Roadster

...the Spyder, which the company says can reach 110 miles an hour, uses a 106-horsepower Rotax V-twin — the kind of engine found in sport motorcycles made by Aprilia — to drive the rear wheel.

The Spyder, which in most jurisdictions will require a motorcycle or three-wheeler driver’s license, will be introduced to dealers and the press on Friday in San Diego. There will be two transmission choices: with a five-speed manual, the price is $14,999; with a five-speed sequential gearbox that deletes the clutch lever from the handlebars, the price is $16,499. The prices include electric power steering, a reverse gear and antilock brakes.

The Spyder will go on sale this fall in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Wisconsin and Virginia, as well as the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec. By next January, nine more states will be added as well as France and Spain.

Lemon Jelly Time

A delightful music video from a delightful duo who go by Lemon Jelly



Thanks Andrea!

Sheer Nostalgia

Thanks Tara!

bureaucracy

Wikipedia defines the noun, Bureaucracy, as

a concept in sociology and political science referring to the way that the administrative execution and enforcement of legal rules are socially organized. This office organization is characterized by standardized procedure (rule-following), formal division of responsibility, hierarchy, and impersonal relationships.

I encountered a serious dose of this poisonous crap this Friday. I am the president of a student group at UWM called the Electronic Music Coalition. I was rightly chosen as the President because I actually go out and do work for the group to get things done. In order to ask for funding from the all powerful Student Association Committee (SAC), one must submit some standard paperwork including justification for all expenses and of course there needs to be eight copies of every piece of paper for the eight members of the committee. The hardest part about this is the dates - all of our funding requests for Fall had to be turned in this last Friday before 3:00pm. So being the procrastinator that I am I was laboring furiously in the computer lab at quarter to three, I printed everything I needed for the various requests I had and sprinted over to the copy center to make all of the copies for the not-quite-into-conservation-enough-to-share-some-paperwork committee, despite the jovial reminder to "Save A Tree" on the front page of the requests forms.

Now I knew I was cutting it close so I even ditched the last grant request at the copy center, knowing in the back of my head that I was way too close to the deadline already. So I smashed together what I hadn't been able to staple yet into a big ol' pile and ran, ran up the stairs to the third floor, passing other back-slapping members of different student groups on my way who shouted good luck and other nonsense as I sprinted past. I make it to the office and yank on the handle to find...

they had locked the door

They all see me standing outside the window with my pleading look but no one makes a move to open the door for me, even though I was there an hour earlier asking about what I needed to have done and it was QUITE obvious that I just needed to pass along my paperwork as every other group has done up to this point. Luckily someone else in the office had to leave so they opened the door for me and I walk in feeling nervous and triumphant and confused at the same time. Now here is the part where the loving, friendly young woman who works at the Student Organization RESOURCE center looks at me and says,


"Sorry, too late"

Now I don't remember exactly how the conversation went because all I could think of was this:

But basically my argument went something like:

PLEASE I JUST WORKED FOR HOURS AND SPENT TEN DOLLARS ON COPIES JUST TO GET THESE HERE FOR MY ENTIRE GROUPS SAKE AND TURNING ME AWAY WILL CAUSE HUGE AMOUNTS OF DEPRESSION AND AGONY

and her argument went:

despite the fact that I am the one who actually places the stamp on the paper, because of the big hand moving around this circle on my office wall a full 360 degrees before you got here, it really means that if I actually let you slide and accepted your requests I would get fired, stabbed, raped, and all my relatives would get cancer, maybe next semester!

Of course the proper words for tackling someone of such agonizing single mindedness failed me at the time, but if I could travel back to that point I would point out to her that WE AREN'T MACHINES YOU STUPID BITCH!

Maybe if we lived in a binary universe where all of our decisions were based on a 1 and a 0 this kind of encounter would make sense. But are we not men? If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? Do we not have rational thought processes that are capable of deciding when the rules are able to get bent by an extra thirty seconds of time?

This is the type of blunt trauma to the spirit that has the potential to discourage and disillusion someone entirely from trying to work within the system. Who knows? Maybe this is my wake-up call that is really telling me I should be out promoting concerts on my own and not trying to give the university a say or a cut. Don't get me wrong, I will certainly appeal this load of bull (and would appreciate any advice towards this end) but only time will tell, as is often the case, so stay tuned for some more belligerent updates.

A Blow to Life

Kurt Vonnegut died today. I am sure if you have made your way to this blog that you already know this. He was one of the most enjoyable authors I have had the pleasure to read. Cat's Cradle is an all time favorite and should be read by everyone. I still have a lot of catching up to do on his catalog. BoingBoing has a nice memorial compilation of some of his media, including this touching video with many great quotes and moments:



I can still remember one of my favorite lines from Breakfast of Champions about the man who pushed his daughter so hard to excel at competitive swimming: "'What kind of man would turn his daughter into an outboard motor?'"

Happy Easter

see also

Bills congress passed last week

Vicks treats toenail fungus?

From BoingBoing

Pictorial history of televisions

Laura Levine's Musician Photos

Home destroyed by Craigslist users

Bagel Storing Tip:



a blank cd spindle case



I think I might try and get this guy to come talk at UWM also

Happy Easter, don't support the greeting card industry, use crayons and a pen and 15 minutes of your day, hell! do it on the pot, they will never know!

I'm Drunk And Naked On MySpace!

The always spot-on Mark Morford takes on what it means to be part of the Generation Next with his column this week. Does it really matter that a wide swath of society is putting up for the whole world to see, every drunken body shot, every joint passed around at a party, EVERY SINGLE PICTURE from your cheap digital camera that you happily snapped away, not censoring in any way all the blurry, out of context, out of legality memories that will now become part of the information superhighway. Well the answer is mostly no, no it doesn't matter. He supposes that eventually people will get over it, stop caring completely about all the silly shit you did in college, even if there exists a permanent record like no generation before has been able to collect. I personally uncheck all the privacy boxes in facebook and myspace, leaving my online avatar only available to people that I at least loosely know from somewhere. Anyways enjoy the article because his writing is so much better than mine:

It is like watching ferrets finger-paint. It is like watching kittens with ADD chase flashlight beams. It is like reading only US Weekly and eating chocolate Pop-Tarts and masturbating with a brown Microsoft Zune. Interesting for a few minutes, then it's all oh my God my brain is seeping through my toes and everything hurts and please make it stop.

The Future of the Desktop Interface

This one is coming



This one is already here