Public Airwaves for the Public Good

EVERYONE!!!!!!!



This is a golden opportunity to make wireless internet more readily available to the entire country, everywhere!!! That is such a crucial step to a more advanced, communal society where everyone has opportunities.



Sign this petition through MoveOn.org!!!

Signaling Vlunerabilities in Wiretapping Systems

In My Opinion, if you're a paranoid then this is worth reading.

Spamland

I love the Brothers Mcleod's cartoons with dialogue taken directly from spam e-mails. This is the newest one.

Jim Henson II

Another experimental short by Jim Henson.

Gas Price Gouging

With gas prices at a record high, the highest in US history, even adjusted for inflation, there is a bill on the floor to make price gouging a federal crime punishable by up to ten years in prison.



If you have thirty seconds, click this link to help fast track this bad boy!!!

Jim Henson Experimental

Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets, can be seen here on Johnny Carson doing an experimental film/performance piece. It's not perfect and the mix isn't great, but it's neat to watch in the context of his puppet/children's work.

Save Net Radio

It amazes and confuses me the way the internet is consistently under fire from... well, the government.



Today the internet's Radio is in a heap of trouble. A new law requires internet radio to pay a little bit more money in royalties (RETROACTIVELY, TOO!!) and the price is set to increase to three times as much in 2010. Lots of 'net radio spots have barely enough money to run! The new law could put most internet radio places out on the streets, which means you too.



As I write, SaveNetRadio.org has a count of "54 days, 12 hours, 52 minutes, 52 seconds left to July 15, 2007 the Day the Music Dies." Sounds melodramatic, but it's really not. Check their website out to get familiar with what's going on, and find ways to do something about it. As usual, it's really not difficult to help out at all! A click of a mouse, a quick phone call, no more than 2 minutes out of anyone's day.



Maybe you don't listen to internet radio that much, or maybe you do. But either way, it is In My (humble) Opinion that things like Internet Radio are crucial to helping unknown musicians get more attention, and to giving people like you and me options beyond the crap-cluster-fuck that is normal radio. Help out!!

WOO GAMES!!!

THiS GAME is so much fun. And it's really kind of simplistically beautiful.



More games here at BB

Philosophy of Machines

I really love philosophy, and the concept of what makes reality, what makes us intelligent, what makes us conscious. Part of that conversation must always include the idea of artificial intelligence; what makes a machine "intelligent?" Can we make machines conscious? Will we get to the point that we cannot distinguish between a human being and a machine?



We are always pushing the limits of machines, making computers process more and more quickly, trying to make them mimic us as a way of understanding ourselves and also exhibiting our own intelligence.



This website is an interesting account of what happens when you pit "chatbots" (computers that use sets of rules to converse with people through instant messaging programs) against one another. They fed one machine a "seed question" and then let them run on their own, talking with each other. The results are surprisingly existential and enjoyable to read.

Spying on the Homefront

It's not YouTube, it's not Myspace, it's not MoveOn.org.

It's PBS.
Watch this documentary online for free. It's not too long and it's a good Public Broadcasting look at things I talk about and express fear of on this blog all the time. Show it to your friends and family.

KICKASS!!!

Sorry Safari – Video Games


Just give it a little load time after you hit play, and then enjoy the first sweet studio sounds of my band, Sorry Safari (courtesy of last.fm)

Wiretap the Internet

It has been some time since I've written, for which I apologize.



These days there is an overwhelming sense of fear... Paranoia is becoming a small but ever-present part of my life. I am convinced that all telecommunications are dangerous to me, that my government is an unstoppable force slowly poisoning the world around me and caging me in the process.



Today is "the day that all US network operators are required by US law to install back-doors to make it easier for cops to snoop on their traffic."



It has dawned on me the size of the hole into which we have been digging ourselves, and I realize now more than ever that between surveillance, an unsupported war, Human Sheep Syndrome (made it up... the American public is largely constituted by sheep, people who just walk around like fucking zombies nodding and agreeing with everything the government throws at them), and other evils, the bubble is getting too large too support its surface pressure.



I don't want to be here when it explodes. I have a great fear for the future of our country and of the world. At the very least we are headed for a huge economic bust, into which I will be released thanks to my graduation from college, and at the very worst we are headed for a dystopian, Orwellian slave-state in which our fears are exploited, our rights taken away, and our lives reduced to rubbish.



I may have to move to Canada sooner than anticipated.





(PS the government is spying on me because of this blog and undoubtedly for other reasons... and it's probably spying on you for reading this)