Sunday, September 30, 2007

Happier Internet Content

I like this. Fun stuff.

Apparently Guns Don't Kill People...

Black folks kill people, at least according to this cartoon:


Racism, alive and well in the United States...

Friday, September 28, 2007

Flowers Behind the Dustbin


IMG_1903.JPG
Originally uploaded by choo_choo_pictures
I found this plant growing behind my complex dumpster. I liked it, and shot a few pictures of it and posted them to flickr.

They need cropping and contrast adjustment, but they are there for folks to see, if they are so inclined.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

A Wiki Project

Hey all, I'm putting my money where my mouth is (a little) and starting a (small) collaborative on-line project. I'd like to invite you all to join. The project is called the "cheat sheet to history" and the idea is just to list events and their dates in chronological order, and build together a sort of very basic "map" of history. I think chronology can be interesting, and show some weird coincidences and possibilities. I also think it is an ideal collective project, since the process of adding a little to the list is easy, and the list taken together can start to be interesting fairly quickly.

Anyway, if you are interested, I'd really appreciate your participation. Try it out! Tell me what you think. There are other projects like this out there, but I'm still curious as to what we might get if we work on this one together.

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Synchronicity

I finish reading bell hooks' "Eating the Other" and what do I find on the Internets but this:



Polish rappers appropriating Indian beats and instruments, and presenting their music in a video that gives a wildly exoticized (re)presentation of South Asian people. The youtube comments, at least the ones in English, gush about the creativity and originality of the music. I wonder what the ones in Polish say. I also wonder what extent the English praise is boosted by the doubly exotic position of the music from the point of view of an English-speaking audience.

Just short thoughts and sharing.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Guess where this photo came from



Well? What do you think?

It wasn't the space shuttle or the space station.

Not a military spy satellite or plane.

Not a commercial satellite.

Not the concord.

Not Spaceship One.

This picture was taken by SABLE-3 (the Southern Alberta Balloon Launch Experiment 3) a nikon coolpix digital camera lashed to a weather balloon by a bunch of Canadian amateur radio hobbyists. They reached an altitude of 120,000 feet, and took that picture - showing the curvature of the earth, the thin blue haze of the atmosphere, and the cold black of space - with over-the-counter and DIY built equipment, and what must have been a relatively modest budget. Certainly no more than many other middle-class folks plow into boats and sporting gear.

I think that's pretty cool.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Naomi Klein on "Shock Capitalism"

A short film to promoter her new book. Looks interesting.