These are the droids you are looking for

February 9th, 2010

and

Die Antwoord – Enter The Ninja

February 2nd, 2010

First Blaumkamf now these guys. SA is apparently blowing up culturally. I’m not sure if they’re serious or parodic but they’re entertaining either way. Plenty of musical quotations from hip hop/electronica/jpop. And no matter what you think we can at least agree their production values are good.

stolen gleefully from boingboing

Wikileaks in danger of closing

February 1st, 2010

Like wikipedia, they are a nonprofit. Only, instead of collecting the mass knowledge of humans, wikileaks seeks to expose corrupt businesses and governments.

I, unfortunately, am broke. However, I will do what I can, and spread the word around.

“ … serves as an uncensorable and untraceable depository for the truth, able to publish documents that the courts may prevent newspapers and broadcasters from being able to touch. ”
— In praise of… Wikileaks – The Guardian, October 20, 2009

I’m sure there are many in goverments and businesses around the world that would love to see this website shuttered because they expose ugly truths that otherwise would not see the light of day. They’ve been involved in some pretty heavy-duty shit.

A copy of Standard Operating Procedures for Camp Delta – the protocol of the U.S. Army at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp – dated March 2003 was released on the Wikileaks website on 7 November 2007.[42] The document, named “gitmo-sop.pdf”, is also mirrored at The Guardian.[43] Its release revealed some of the restrictions placed over detainees at the camp, including the designation of some prisoners as off-limits to the International Committee of the Red Cross, something that the U.S. military had in the past repeatedly denied.[44] emphasis mine

So, they exposed a lie the US goverment told. They have faced legal challenge after legal challenge, and one of their spokepeople’s houses was raided in Germany. They are considered very dangerous. Knowledge, after all, is power. And power is dangerous to those who jealously hoard their own power over others.

A 20/20 question – Would you pull the trigger on Joseph Stalin?

January 26th, 2010

Without Lenin, the White Russians would have won the struggle for control of Russia, and a non-communist, possibly even democratic government would have eventually emerged. So Joseph Stalin wouldn’t have been around to kill tens of millions of Russian people, which would have been super

Sounds like the noble thing to do, right? I mean, you’d be world-famous. Your name would reverberate around history, single-handedly putting an end to one of the more brutal dictatorships the world has known. The person who tried to assassinate him, well, she and thousands of others were killed the next day in retribution for the attack.

But.

there also would have been no “Uncle Joe” to drag Russia kicking and screaming into modernity so that they could have the military badassery to kill eight out of every 10 Germans that died in WWII.

You heard what I’m saying, sun? America got the layup in Europe on dub-dub-deuce from the brutal, totalitarian Ruskies. If Russia had disintegrated into warring tribal areas, Germany would have Stalinized them, post-invasion.

So, is your answer still yes?

missing Polaroid is one thing, but…

January 23rd, 2010

ShakeItPhoto is the most realistic instant photo experience for the iPhone. Works just like a real instant camera. Watch the photo develop. Shake your iPhone to make it develop faster. Our Perfect Processing makes your photos look just like the real thing.

propagating the myth that shaking your Polaroid makes it develop faster just doesn’t belong in the future. Seriously though, unless you’re waiting for processing time, why do you want to wait and watch your digital image slowly appear. Is waiting to see the output of might-as-well-be-instantaneous (if you can shake it to make it go faster…) processing some sort of mental luxury I just don’t understand?