neurotwitch

Tuesday, July 30, 2002

well, so what?

12.5 %

My weblog owns 12.5 % of me.
Does your weblog own you?

posted by lee on 07/30/02 at 11:51 AM
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Bush to Create Formal Office

Bush to Create Formal Office To Shape U.S. Image Abroad (washingtonpost.com)

"A senior administration official said the goal of the office was not to supplant the State Department, which has primary responsibility for "telling America's story" overseas, or replace other agencies with international outreach functions. The office, he said, would add "thematic and strategic value," along with presidential clout, to their efforts."

Sounds like the Ministry of Propaganda to me. So are they going to start trying to control movies, television, etc. before they're "shipped" abroad? Just another way to waste my tax dollars.

posted by lee on 07/30/02 at 07:51 AM
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Monday, July 29, 2002

the only thing creepier than an abandoned sanatorium is one that isn’t abandoned

Check out The Essex Mountain Sanatorium Home Page. An extremely well-done site. Why it was made, I have no idea, but it's great. (Urban archeology is something I love!) Check out the links page for more.

posted by lee on 07/29/02 at 09:50 AM
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infographics with a beat

"Remind Me" by Royksopp has some nicely done infographics. Reminds me a lot of the work XPlane does.

posted by lee on 07/29/02 at 07:30 AM
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Friday, July 26, 2002

Didja ever wonder what makes light sticks glow?

Well you can find out here: WHAT'S THAT STUFF?, courtesy of Chemical & Engineering News.

posted by lee on 07/26/02 at 10:59 AM
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Thursday, July 25, 2002

poison ivy league

Yale accuses Princeton of hacking

"... admissions officials at Princeton hacked into a Yale Web site that was set up for prospective students. Yale said it found 18 unauthorized log-ins to the Web site that were traced back to computers at Princeton, including computers in the admissions office ... "

This is why the ivy league costs so much more than it's worth -- worrying about stupid crap like this.

posted by lee on 07/25/02 at 07:37 PM
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Tuesday, July 23, 2002

SURL’s latest newsletter

Usability News - 4.2 2002. I love the stuff from Wichita State's Software Usability Research Lab -- they do REAL research and present it so I can draw my own conclusions, apply their findings in ways that make sense. SURLs stuff on kiosk usability is good, too (poke around the site).

posted by lee on 07/23/02 at 02:08 PM
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Monday, July 22, 2002

Lomax - not an anthropoligist, but a rip-off artist

I meant to blog on Sunday about the New York Times lionizing Alan Lomax, proclaiming him as king of American folklore because he "discovered" blues musicians such as Leadbelly and Muddy Waters. And he did do some excellent research. But he was also less than honest and had little integrity. He hated the rise of folk rock not because, as he claimed, it was inauthentic (never mind that music is SUPPOSED to evolve), but because people listening to the new folk would no longer listen to the old folk music as much and therefore cut way into his income stream. Plus, he could no longer set the rules.

So I was interested in Dave Marsh's article in Counterpunch: Alan Lomax: Great White Fraud.

[snip]
As a veteran blues observer wrote me, "Don't get too caught up in grieving for Alan Lomax. For every fine musical contribution that he made, there was an evil venal manipulation of copyright, publishing and ownership of the collected material."

The most notorious concerns "Goodnight Irene." Lomax and his father recorded Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter's song first, so when the song needed to be formally copyrighted because the Weavers were about to have a huge hit with it, representatives of the Ledbetter family approached him. Lomax agreed that this copyright should be established. He adamantly refused to take his name off the song, or to surrender income from it, even though Leadbelly's family was impoverished in the wake of his death two years earlier.

Lomax believed folk culture needed guidance from superior beings like himself. Lomax told Bochan what he believed: nothing in poor people's culture truly happened unless someone like him documented it. He hated rock'n'roll--down to instigating the assault against Bob Dylan's sound system at Newport in '65--because it had no need of mediation by experts like himself.
[/snip]

posted by lee on 07/22/02 at 09:40 PM
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Sunday, July 21, 2002

As Stanley says, “But it’s a benevolent dictatorship”

Wider Military Role in U.S. Is Urged

"The Bush administration has directed lawyers in the Departments of Justice and Defense to review the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 and any other laws that sharply restrict the military's ability to participate in domestic law enforcement. Any changes would be subject to Congressional approval."

Hey, put a tank in my back yard. That'll sure make us all feel safer. Sure it will.

What makes me even nutser is that the gubmint is spending OUR MONEY to figure out ways to take away our rights.

posted by lee on 07/21/02 at 09:54 AM
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More than 500 innocent Afghanis are dead. And for what?

Flaws in U.S. Air War Left Hundreds of Civilians Dead. (Sign-in required, but it's free.)

" ... the evidence suggests that many civilians have been killed by airstrikes hitting precisely the target they were aimed at. The civilians died, the evidence suggests, because they were were made targets by mistake, or because in eagerness to kill Qaeda and Taliban fighters, Americans did not carefully differentiate between civilians and military targets."

From the New York Times, Sunday June 21, 2002:

What is our goal, here? To "get" OBL? To wipe out terrorists? Did we accomplish either? If so, there has been no mention of it in the media.

posted by lee on 07/21/02 at 09:36 AM
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