One week later, the spammer struck again, using Markley's domain. Five days after the second attack, the spammer struck yet again. Thousands of bounce reports and hate e-mails arrived in Markley's inbox. And Earthlink reps told Markley they could do nothing to help him. So "blood boiling, furious and literally foaming at the mouth," Markley set out to track the spammer down. (...)

Markley checked the headers on the original spam returned with some of the bounces. Then he learned how to access domain-registry information and how to use a trace-route program. Over the next two weeks, he painstakingly worked his way through a half-dozen hijacked servers and a dozen spoofed e-mail addresses and bogus identities to find "his" spammer. "Last Thursday, at around 7 p.m., I finally knew without a doubt that my nemesis was Eddy Marin, who has a reputation as the world's most prolific spammer," said Markley.

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 9:33:08 PM -

Bravo for Better Brains

Scientific American's September special issue "Better Brains" provides some important detail on several aspects of our emerging neurosociety.  Here I've highlighted each article's key point and put a link to a Brain Waves post where I came to the similar conclusions.   

• A Vote for Neuroethics - the editors - "Do we really need another subdiscipline of a subdiscipline?  After all, we have bioethics..."  "Our vote is a decided yes for moving ahead.  The technologies of the mind and brain are special..." Accelerating the Neuroethics Discussion
• The Domesticated Savage - Micheal Shermer - "Like foxes, humans have become more agreeable as we've become more domesticated."...A plausable evolutionary hypothesis suggests itself: limited resources led to the selection for within-group cooperation and between group competition in humans...this bodes well if we can continue to expand the circle of whom we consider to be part of our in-group" (note Jared Diamond is a biogeographer.)   A Relative Emotional Gauge
• Ultimate Self-Improvement - Gary Stix - "More important, the technology (brain imaging), perhaps coupled with genetic testing will create a more sound basis for diagnosing brain disorders."  Neurotechnology will Define Mental Disorders
• Brain, Repair Yourself - Fred H. Gage - "The challenge now is to learn more about the specific growth factors that govern the various steps of neurogenesis -- the birth of new cells, the migration of newborn cells to the correct spots, and the maturation of the cells into neurons..." Neurons Love to Kiss and Run
• The Quest for a Smart Pill - Stephen S. Hall - "...there are four million Americans with Alzheimer's disease, another 12 million with a condition called mild cognitive decline and approximately 76 million Americans older than 50, many of whom may satisfy a recent FDA definition for age-associated memory impairment (AAMI), a mild form of forgetfulness." Cogniceuticals to Enhance Memory
• Stimulating the Brain - Mark S. George - "...the use of rTMS (repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) as a treatment for depression is still considered experimental by the FDA...(but) has already been sanctioned for use in Canada..." Stimulating a Smarter You?
• Mind Readers - Philip Ross - "Should this concept-recognition system work with even minimal reliability, it might be coupled with lie-detecting fMRI software to produce a much more sophisticated tool.  In principle, law-enforcement officers might use.." When will the Feds Mandate Brain Scans?
• Taming Stress - Robert Sapolsky - "...such insight carries with it a social imperative: namely, that we find ways to heal a world in which so many people learn that they must always feel watchful and on guard or that they must always feel helpless." Dear Mr. President
• Diagnosing Disorders - Steven E. Hyman - "By combining neuroimaging with genetic studies, physicians may eventually be able to move psychiatric diagnosis out of the realm of symptom checklists and into the domain of objective medical tests." Neurotechnology will Define Mental Disorders
• Is Better Best? - Arthur L. Caplan - "It is the essence of humanness to try to improve the world and oneself...the answer is not prohibiting improvement."  "It is ensuring that enhancement is always done by choice, not dictated by others." "Market-driven societies encourage improvement.  Religious and secular cultures alike reward those who seek betterment; every religion on the planet sees the improvement of oneself and one's children as a moral obligation.  If anything, the impending revolution in our knowledge of the brain will require us to build the legal and social institutions that allow fair access to all those who choose to do what most will feel is the right thing to do."  Neuroethics: The Battle for Your Mind

Interesting crossover to say the least.  In my forthcoming book -- Brain Wave: Our Emerging Neurosociety, I weave a non-fiction future built on these issues that details the future of business, geopolitics and culture in a world driven by neurotechnology.

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 9:27:05 PM -

Courtesy of Scott Hanselman the folks at Google now have search by location.

While I don't know why they are choosing an obscure location on the near SW side as a starting point, and why Gino's East, Giordano's, Uno's, Due's, Pizza Capri, Leona's, etc. aren't listed first ;-) it is a very cool tool.

 http://labs.google.com/location

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 5:34:26 PM -

Other Dimensions? She's in Pursuit. Fascinating piece on one scientist and her obsession with 10 dimensions in the NYT:

It might seem obvious that we live in a world of three spatial dimensions and one of time. But physicists have become enamored of string theory, the "theory of everything," which posits that nature is ultimately composed of tiny vibrating strings. And the theory only makes mathematical sense if space-time actually has 10 dimensions.

To explain the discrepancy between theory and experience, string theorists have posited that the extra dimensions are rolled up, like the pile on a carpet, into little circles or six-dimensional balls, less than a trillionth the size of an elementary particle.

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 7:23:33 AM -

Great Aurora Picture.     [Astronomy Picture of the Day]

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 9:33:09 PM -

Written by a professor of Urban Planning, the book seems to have been written from the perspective of utopianism in urban design, with Walt as a kind of Bizarro-world Jane Jacobs. This is a subject that's always fascinated me -- the idea of a top-to-bottom Disney-mediated utopian community. There was a generation of Americna entrepreneurs who dreamed of these things -- Ford reportedly built planned communities in Brazil called "Fordlandia" where he subjected his rubber-plantation workers to his utopian vision (which included the banning of the local booze in favor of Tom Collinses, which were inherently Utopian in Ford's eyes).

"Mannheim does a remarkable job in detailing the Disney's revolutionary urban planning contributions that shape most of the modern world."
Edward J. Blakely, Dean, Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy, New School University, New York, USA

"The book is the first to reveal Walt Disney's deep personal concern for the urban "crisis" of the time..."
Gerald Gast, Associate Professor, Portland Urban Architecture Program, The University of Oregon

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 12:10:41 PM -

When Richard Nixon authorized the crime of breaking and entering into the Democratic committee offices in Watergate, he was riding high in the opinion polls, and faced a relatively weak opponent.  It was Nixon’s hubris, the belief that laws didn’t apply to him in terms of political power, that ultimately brought him down, once his lawbreaking scheme was uncovered.

But it took relentless pursuit of the lawbreaking before it finally rose to the level of an official and public scandal.

Today, we have the first indication of Bush’s Watergate.  It appears that Karl Rove has committed a felony in the Whitehouse, and the CIA has asked the Justice Dept. to investigate.  

The Felony was Rove’s telling Robert Novack that Valerie Plame, the wife of U.S.

Ambassador Joseph Wilson, was a CIA operative.  This was in political retaliation for the report and article written by her husband, Wilson, explaining his trip to Niger and how the reports of Iraqi attempts to acquire Niger uranium were discredited a year before Bush used that pretext to go to war.

Now, we have a situation where Ashcroft’s Justice Dept. is being asked to investigate a felony by Karl Rove.  This will go nowhere unless the newly empowered democrats pick it up, and hold hearings, force the press to cover it, and in general exercise some oversight with Ashcroft.

Ultimately, it will lead to the impeachment or defeat of Bush, who now has a documented case of his chief political advisor committing a felony to smear those who have said he was lying about Iraq.

Kos is asking the press to pick up on this.  I suggest that it get reported all over the blogs until the mainstream press is embarrassed into actually pursuing a story that is not fed them by their right wing masters.

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 5:44:05 PM -

Edison Schools.

Edison Schools

I am speechless.

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 4:34:37 PM -

[this is good]

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 4:38:36 PM -

River Person or Goal Person.

Dina Mehta quotes from an article by Chuck Frey:

The late self-help expert, Earl Nightingale, once explained that there are two types of people: river people and goal people. Both types of people can experience personal fulfillment and success in life, although in different ways.

Goal People

Most of us are undoubtedly familiar with goal people. They are the individuals who write down their objectives and timetables for reaching them, and then focus on attaining them, one by one. By laying out a roadmap of future achievements in front of them, goal people give their creative minds a clear set of stimuli to work on. Their subconscious minds can then get to work incubating ideas and insights that will help them to reach their goals.

River People

River people, on the other hand, don't like to follow such a structured route to success. They are called river people because they are happiest and most fulfilled when they are wading in a rich "river" of interest -- a subject or profession about which they are very passionate. While they may not have a concrete plan with measurable goals, river people are often successful because they are so passionate about their area of interest.

River people are explorers, continually seeking out learning opportunities and new experiences. For river people, joy comes from the journey, not from reaching the destination -- exactly the opposite of goal people.

Recognizing both qualities in yourself -- Most people are a combination of these two personality types. I know I am. In my full-time job, I am expected to be goal oriented. I have specific personal and departmental objectives for which I'm responsible. At the same time, however, I get the most "juice" out of being an explorer, learning new skills, collecting information and writing about innovation and technology.

So beautifully written. I guess I am a bit of both, though the river person tends to dominate. What about you?

[E M E R G I C . o r g]

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 3:01:58 PM -

Down at Marco's, my newly adopted cafe-for-the-evening, a habit is forming. Pico bounds in the arms of someone lovely, Mischa wanders into the bar and receives pizza crust benediction, and Lucy stands outside and watches the passers-by, leaving me, leads taut in three directions, stretched in the doorway, balancing my caffأ¨ coretto on the icecream fridge, and trying to remember enough Latin roots to work out what people are talking to me about. It's really quite amazing how long you can keep a conversation going without understanding more than one word in ten. I had a long one yesterday afternoon about hare coursing in Argentina. I think. Still: lovely chap.

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 4:08:38 PM -

My own view of the Metaweb is pretty straightforward: I don't think that the Internet, as it currently exists, does a very good job of explaining things to people. It is great for selling stuff, distributing news and dirty pictures, and a few other things. But when you need to get a good explanation of something, whether it is a scientific principle, a bit of gardening advice, or how to change a tire, you have to sift through a vast number of pages to find the one that gives you the explanation that is right for you. Generally this is not a problem with the explanations themselves. On the contrary, it seems as though a lot of people like to explain things on the Internet, and some of them are quite good at it. The problem lies in how these explanations are organized.

We have been looking for a way to get an explanation system seeded for a long time, and it occurred to us that a set of annotations to my book might be one way to get it started. At first, the explanations here will be strongly tied to characters and situations in QUICKSILVER and so may be of only limited interest to those who have not read the book. However, with a few clicks we might move on to more general explanations. For example, Robert Hooke and Robert Boyle appear as characters in QUICKSILVER, and so early on we might see annotations concerning specific things that they are shown doing in the book. But later these might link to explanations of Boyle's Law. Such an explanation need not refer to QUICKSILVER in any way, and so it could be useful to, say, a high school student who has never heard of me or my book but who needs to understand Boyle's Law and why it is important.

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 10:37:53 AM -

Pick A War, Any War

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 3:22:10 PM -

Exploring the Brain's Boundaries (A Six Part Blog by Tom Ray)

Next week Tom Ray, tropical ecologist, artificial life expert, and now neuro-mapping pioneer will share his thoughts on accelerating our understanding of the neurochemistry of consciousness by mapping what he calls "receptor space."

Tom is a true complexity expert -- an evolutionary ecologist of both the biological and digital worlds.  Tom's rich research agenda and advice have inspired me over the past 15 years.  His ecological research and conservation efforts in Costa Rica stimulated my work on disturbance behaviors in Atta cephalotes (leaf cutter ants) at Finca La Selva.  His work at the Santa Fe Institute on Tierra, a distributed digital artificial life reserve, pushed the science of complexity to new levels.

Hundreds of articles have been written about Tom's previous research.  I'm confident his approach to mapping the potential mental states that the human mind can experience will prove to be his most important work to date.  Few people have first-hand experience with multiple complex evolutionary systems.  It is this deep perspective that should allow him to contribute significantly to our understanding of the human mind.

As Paul Allen mentioned earlier this week, understanding the brain and how the mind emerges from it remains one of great frontiers of science.  I'm honored to have Tom Ray, for the first time, share his new research direction with us on Brain Waves.  Expect great thoughts!

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 2:23:24 PM -

Includes a blueprint for a life well lived.

The Interview Game. I have been interviewed by the Dynamic Driveler. Here are his 5 questions: 1. Do you believe in reincarnation? Give 3 reasons for your answer. 2. What do you hope to do in your life time to leave the world... [Indigo Ocean]

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 5:52:27 PM -

"Just in time for "Talk Like a Pirate Day" (Sept. 19), Dan Gillmor and I have this morning launched a site called www.WordPirates.com, a place where you can list and discuss words that have been hijacked by commercial and political groups for their own nefarious purposes.

For example, people who share MP3s may be many things, but they're not "pirates." And try telling the hotel checkout desk that because you were their "guest," you don't owe 'em a cent."

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 4:19:27 PM -

Ashcroft Mocks Librarians and Others Who Oppose Parts of Counterterrorism Law (Note: I can't even decide what to bold for emphasis because the whole thing is one giant foot in his mouth that would be funny if it wasn't so terrifying coming from the Attorney General of the United States.)

"Attorney General John Ashcroft today accused the country's biggest library association and other critics of fueling "baseless hysteria" about the government's ability to pry into the public's reading habits.

In an unusually pointed attack as part of his latest speech in defense of the Bush administration's counterterrorism initiatives, Mr. Ashcroft mocked and condemned the American Library Association and other Justice Department critics for believing that the F.B.I. wants to know 'how far you have gotten on the latest Tom Clancy novel.'

The association, which has argued for months that the government's new antiterrorism powers risk encroaching on the privacy of library users, took some satisfaction from the broadside....

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for the department, said the speech was intended not as an attack on librarians, but on groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and politicians who he said had persuaded librarians to mistrust the government.

The American Librarian Association "has been somewhat duped by those who are ideologically opposed to the Patriot Act," Mr. Corallo said.

Mr. Ashcroft's remarks, he said, 'should be seen as a jab at those who would mislead librarians and the general public into believing the absurd, that the F.B.I. is running around monitoring libraries instead of going after terrorists....'

Mr. Ashcroft said critics had tried to persuade the public that the F.B.I. was monitoring libraries to "ask every person exiting the library, `Why were you at the library? What were you reading? Did you see anything suspicious?' "

The Justice Department, Mr. Ashcroft said, 'has no interest in your reading habits. Tracking reading habits would betray our high regard for the First Amendment. And even if someone in government wanted to do so, it would represent an impossible workload and a waste of law enforcement resources'  " [New York Times]

Ashcroft Bars the Doors to Democracy [Editorial]

"But while Ashcroft was telling Boston police how the government was using its powers under the Patriot Act, he didn't mention a January 2003 report from the General Accounting Office that revealed that three-quarters of the 'international terrorism convictions' for 2002 had been wrongly classified as terrorist crimes. They were, instead, routine immigration violations.

Nor did he mention a March 2, 2003, Washington Post report that out of 62 cases of 'international terrorism' that New Jersey prosecutors claimed to have handled, all but two involved Middle Eastern men who were accused of paying other people to take their English exams and who were not linked to terrorism in any way.

He may have repeated the claim, first made in a May 13, 2003, Justice Department report to the House and Senate Judiciary Committee, that FBI agents have contacted only 50 libraries nationwide to obtain records of library patrons, and then mostly in response to requests from librarians who saw something suspicious. But in testimony given to the House Subcommittee on the Constitution on May 20, 2003, then-Assistant Attorney General Viet Dinh stated that 'Most, if not all of these contacts that we have identified were made in the context of a criminal investigation.'

In other words, the number "50" referred to criminal -- not national security -- investigations of libraries." [Boston Globe]

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 2:04:06 PM -

My wife likes this political site (misleader.com), cause she's doesn't like George Bush.

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 2:00:03 PM -

copyright, noun

The notion that you can protect from the future what you stole from the past.

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 4:04:00 PM -

Good Luck

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 11:05:58 PM -

The total was 968 CDs labeled with one Sharpie marker. You can view tiny images of the CDs on the gallery page.

I estimate the total distance marked to be 1,800 feet.

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 2:36:53 PM -

# Premssioin to use, cpoy, mdoify, drusbiitte, and slel this stafowre and its
# docneimuatton for any prsopue is hrbeey ganrted wuihott fee, prveodid taht
# the avobe cprgyioht noicte appaer in all coipes and that both taht
# cohgrypit noitce and tihs premssioin noitce aeppar in suppriotng
# dcoumetioantn. No rpeersneatiotns are made about the siuatbliity of tihs
# srofawte for any puorpse. It is provedid "as is" wiuotht exerpss or
# ilmpied waanrrty.

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 10:57:52 PM -

What labor shortage?. Experts at Wharton find that conventional wisdom about the impact of a smaller baby bust and an aging population of boomers is misleading--if not outright wrong. [CNET News.com - Front Door]

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 7:34:40 PM -

Posted by Fung-Lin Hall

Life in the Present: A Weblog of the Beautiful and the Mysterious.

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 12:53:29 PM -

Reading Fact I Didn't Know.

I didn't know this until Corinne forwarded it to me. Interesting that you can't really question whether or not it's true, since it proves itself.

Aoccdrnig to rareasch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is that the frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a

... [TruerWords]

Cool.  I wonder how it works.

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 8:17:24 AM -

What's your choice? On what levels are you going to accept or reject this setback or that confrontation, this creative surge or that overture of love? What are you going to do with this ball of raw malleable energy in your lap? Will you use it to work on yourself? To peel back the layers of your own BS, go deep and ask yourself the hard questions, what the hell do you really believe, with what sort of spiritual attitude and aggressive tone do you really want to go through this life? To what sort of symbol do you really want to pledge your true allegiance? This is the only decision that really matters, the only choice that has any true power. Will 9/11 and every subsequent emotionally explosive event in your life result in bitter conflict and finger-pointing and bile, or self-discovery and personal opinion and raw compassion? It's that simple. And that difficult. Choose the former, you are a proud lockstep American, accepted and nicely conformist and a happy member of the Bush-approved herd, ready to shop hard and suck down that paltry tax refund and defend the nation against those gul-dang liberals and gays and America-haters. Choose the latter, and you are quickly outcast, shunned, radiating all by yourself, dancing to your own inner samba, smiling like a demon, godless heathen pagan progressive intellectual traitorous blasphemous slut that you are, as the establishment just scowls and adds you to its blacklist. Because it all comes down to one vital question, really. All the pain, all the forced patriotism, the commemorative plates, the media blitzing and force-fed jingoism and BushCo viciously leveraging 9/11 for political and corporate gain, and you merely left hanging by bare emotional and spiritual threads, raw and naked and wondering just what the hell is happening to the world, and where did this handbasket come from? It all comes down to this: Can you, on the deepest and most acute levels possible, in a raw and divine way that does zero dishonor to the various tragedies of your world but instead injects them all with mandatory doses of perspective and divine drunkenness and hot screaming love, can you, with every fiber or your being, with the deepest breath you can possibly take, laugh at the cosmic carnival of it all?

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 7:11:34 PM -

Jim Moore on False Gods

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 3:52:20 PM -

Forecasting Happiness

Do people really know what will make them happy?  Not really, according Danny Kanheman, who shared the 2002 Nobel prize in Economics with Vernon Smith.

While we know a Rolling Stones concert beats a trip to the dentist, we almost always overestimate the intensity and the duration of our emotional reactions -- our affect --  to future events.  Although we might believe a new BMW will make life much better, it will likely be less exciting than anticipated and it will not excite us for as long as we thought.

Over the past few years, a group of experimental economists have begun to question the decision-making process that shapes our sense of well-being: how do we predict what will make us happy or unhappy -- and then how do we feel after the actual experience? For example, how do we suppose we'll feel if our favorite college basketball team wins or loses, and then how do we really feel a few days after the game?

Here are a few excerpts from "The Futile Pursuit of Happiness" which is a conversation with the leading figures in "affective forecasting". I highly recommend it.

Daniel Gilbert, Professor os psychology at Harvard, calls the gap between what we predict and what we ultimately experience the ''impact bias'' -- ''impact'' meaning the errors we make in estimating both the intensity and duration of our emotions and ''bias'' our tendency to err. The phrase characterizes how we experience the dimming excitement over not just a BMW but also over any object or event that we presume will make us happy. Would a 20 percent raise or winning the lottery result in a contented life?  You may predict it will, but almost surely it won't turn out that way. And a new plasma television? Worse, Gilbert has noted that these mistakes of expectation can lead directly to mistakes in choosing what we think will give us pleasure. He calls this ''miswanting.''

George Loewenstein then explains: ''Happiness is a signal that our brains use to motivate us to do certain things. And in the same way that our eye adapts to different levels of illumination, we're designed to kind of go back to the happiness set point. Our brains are not trying to be happy. Our brains are trying to regulate us.'' 

Then he goes on to describe the "empathy gap", the difference between how we behave in "hot'' states (those of anxiety, courage, fear, drug craving, sexual excitation and the like) and ''cold'' states of rational calm. This empathy gap in thought and behavior -- we cannot seem to predict how we will behave in a hot state when we are in a cold state...''These kinds of states have the ability to change us so profoundly that we're more different from ourselves in different states than we are from another person.''

Tim Wilson says: ''We don't realize how quickly we will adapt to a pleasurable event and make it the backdrop of our lives. When any event occurs to us, we make it ordinary. And through becoming ordinary, we lose our pleasure.''

Kahneman, who did some of the first experiments in the area in the early 1990's, affective forecasting could greatly influence retirement planning, for example, where mistakes in prediction (how much we save, how much we spend how we choose a community we think we'll enjoy can prove irreversible. He sees a role for affective forecasting in consumer spending, where a ''cooling off'' period might remedy buyer's remorse. Most important, he sees vital applications in health care, especially when it comes to informed consent.

To Loewenstein... a life without forecasting errors would most likely be a better, happier life. ''If you had a deep understanding of the impact bias and you acted on it, which is not always that easy to do, you would tend to invest your resources in the things that would make you happy,'' he says. This might mean taking more time with friends instead of more time for making money. He also adds that a better understanding of the empathy gap -- those hot and cold states we all find ourselves in on frequent occasions -- could save people from making regrettable decisions in moments of courage or craving.

''You know, the Stones said, 'You can't always get what you want,' '' Gilbert adds. ''I don't think that's the problem. The problem is you can't always know what you want.'' 

The implications of this research are profound.  Indeed, neuroceuticals are the tools that will help ordinary people reduce their "empathy gap" and gain control over their "impact bias".

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 8:15:01 PM -

NEW YORK (Reuters) - International Paper Co. said on Wednesday it will cut about 3,000 jobs, or 3.5 percent of its global work force, over the next year as part of its previously announced $1.5 billion profit improvement plan.

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 2:49:36 PM -

I blew up today. I mean, I got really mad. People who are unreasonable can do that to me. So can people who are unfair, cruel, dishonest, greedy, intolerant, or relentlessly negative. I suppose those are my seven deadly sins of other people, the qualities I just can't bear in those I deal with personally or professionally. I won't bore you with the trivial details, except to say I got threatened with bodily harm, threatened with arrest, and almost run over by a tractor. While trying to cool down, I compiled my own list of seven personal deadly sins. I've resolved at various times in my life to overcome these character flaws, but so far without success. I suspect I'm in good company with many of them. If anyone has any self-improvement ideas for these, please let me know: Inarticulateness: especially under pressure, and despite all my blogging Gracelessness: in the social, rather than the physical, sense. Some people just instinctively know how to behave in difficult situations, how to defuse a situation, how to behave with what the British call 'aplomb'. I am completely plumbless. Intransigence: not so much stubbornness as just an inability to adapt and accept things I cannot change. I'm way too idealistic for my own good. Insensitivity: I'm a guy, maybe that's all I have to say on this. It's sad but true. Procrastination: everything last minute, no matter how I try to train myself to leave lots of time for things. Lack of stick-to-it-iveness: I'm sure there's a word for this, but I just don't persevere when the going gets rough. I hate to fight, hate conflict, would rather solve everything peacefully even if there is no peaceful answer. Maybe cowardice. Discontent: I'm unable to relax. Insomniac. Never really at peace. I don't think my personal deadly sins are as bad as the seven I can't abide in others. But thanks to personal deadly sin #7, that's small consolation. Anyway, I'm calmed down now. (Can't remember where I snatched this remarkable picture from. It was an online gallery of art works, and if I remember correctly the original was for sale. When I find the reference I'll put it up here.)

[How to Save the World] via [Dewayne Mikkelson]

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 11:34:55 PM -

September Honor Roll Winner -- Watkins Best Blogger for Today

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 1:02:06 PM -

XENI!!!!! OMG!!!! I AM MARIAM ABACHA DA PRINCIPAL MANAEGR COPORAET R3SOURCES OF DA EQUITY BANK OF NIEGRIA LIMIETD LAGOS BRANCH!1!!!1 WTF??? I WISH 2 MAEK U A PROPOSAL WIT REGARDS A TRANSACTION IN WHICH I R3QUIER FOREIGN ASISTANC31!!! OMG ABOUT 4 Y3ARS AGO IN APRIL 199 A VENAZUELAN BUSIENSMAN AND A P3RSONAL FREIND OF MIEN BY NME MR11!1!! OMG LOL GIOVANI VILAET MAED A FIEXD D3POSIT IN MAH BANK OF MOUNT US$13750000111! OMG LOL (THIRTEN MILION SAV3N HUNDR3D AND FIFTY UNIETD STAETS DOLARS)!1!! LOL UNFORTUNAETLY HA DEID OF CARDIAC AREST IN D3C3MBR 200AS!!1!11 WTF HIS PERSONAL FREIND I DO KNOW FOR C3RTANE TAHT H3 HAD NO RALATIEVS HARA IN NIEGRIA NOR ANY TAHT I KNOW OF IN HIS HOME COUNTRY!1!! WTF ACORDNG 2 TEH LAW HERE TEH FUNDS WIL HAEV 2 B CLAMEED BY DA GOVERNMANT OF MAH COUNTRY IF AFTER 5 (FIEV) YEARS NOBODY APLEIS 2 CLAME DA FUNDS!11!1 WTF LOL

FROM MAH YEARS OF 3XP3REINCE AS A BANK3R SUCH FUNDS USUALY END UP IN PRIVAET POKETS OF CORUPT GOVARNMENT OFICIALS1!!!1!1 I DO NOT WISH THIS 2 B TEH CAES OF DA HARD 3ARN3D INV3STAD FUNDS OF MAH LAET FREIND1!! OMG LOL I THANK U FOR UR UNDARSTANDNG OF TEH PRIVACY OF THIS PROPOSAL 2 U111!! LOL

AWATENG UR PROPMT R3SPONS3
WARM!1!1 OMG WTF LOL REGARDS
MARIAM ABACHA!!! OMG!!! LOLOL!!!!

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 9:52:51 PM -

Record stores around the country have been closing; our local Harvard Square HMV closed a few months ago.  Universal is cutting CD prices by 30 percent (but not for classical).  The really interesting question is how did the industry survive for so long?

The record companies don't make artists happy (see Courtney Love's speech from May 16, 2000).

The record companies don't make government regulators happy, having been prosecuted for price fixing and other antitrust law violations.  (see this Federal Trade Commission consent order)

The record companies don't make convenience seekers happy.  A CD is absurdly huge compared to the number of bytes that it holds.  Why would you want to devote a whole bookshelf to storing a collection of 500 CDs when the same music would fit onto a pocket-sized MP3 jukebox?  Why would you want to lug your music from house to office or house to car when the MP3 files could be easily copied onto a separate device?

The record companies don't make environmentalists happy.  A digital file that could be transferred electronically is instead encased in a plastic anti-theft package, a plastic shrink wrap, a plastic anti-piracy sticker, a plastic jewelbox, and a plastic disk.  Why pump all that oil out the ground and make all those environmentally unfriendly wastes when we have multiple magnificent electronic infrastructures that can carry a song?

The record companies don't make audiophiles or technophiles happy.  The encoding system is so badly designed that 80 percent of the bits in the disk's data stream carry no information, which is one reason that MP3 compression is so successful.  They forgot to allocate a few bytes for the name of the album or the titles of the tracks on the disk so you have a medium that stores 700 megabytes but not the critical text information that you'd want to see (if, for example, you loaded your CDs into a jukebox).

CDs are so badly engineered that they actually have more distortion than the LP records that they supplanted, especially for classical music (the CD is at its least accurate for very quiet sounds but works great for Heavy Metal).  Most serious audiophiles listen to analog LPs or the new DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD (SACD) formats.  The record companies have done their best to alienate their least price-sensitive customers by charging insane $25/disk prices for SACDs and releasing only a handful of titles in the new formats.

How does an industry like this survive for so long?  Faced with high monopoly prices, why wouldn't consumers simply turn on the radio or TV, watch DVDs instead of listening to music CDs, or ... (gasp) read books?   Actually that may be what is happening.  The record industry likes to blame the peer-to-peer file sharing services but these are awfully painful to use.  Someone with money to spare could presumably find something more entertaining to do than wait for half-broken files to download.  More likely Joe Average looked at a nice collection of 500 CDs being offered for sale at the old prices and said "Thanks, but I'd rather have a brand new car instead.. and it comes 20 channels of free music on the radio."

Copyright is created by the government in order to encourage artists.  Due to a combination of technology stagnation, lack of imagination by the music industry, and price fixing by record companies, the artists haven't been getting too much encouragement, at least not as a percentage of the $12-15 billion in annual revenue (source).

In the long run it is tough to see how the average consumer would be willing to pay more for music than the $10-12/month that Sirius and XM satellite radio charge for a subscription [I've tried both XM and Sirius by the way; XM has a lot of tremendously annoying commercials and "house ads", even on the ostensibly commercial-free classical station; Sirius is much superior.].  It probably makes a lot more sense to treat the Internet as another form of subscription radio.  Individuals pay 25 cents per hour to listen to music, up to a maximum of $10 per month, and the revenue is divided up among the artists according to how much airplay there was.  To make it work would probably require "trusted systems" such as the new Microsoft Palladium environment but at least this fits with how consumers actually like to buy stuff.  Most people don't want to make a lot of 25 cent or 99 cent purchase decisions every day.  They'd rather pay a fixed known subscription and have the freedom to "flip channels" to their heart's content.

Actual sales figures seem to bear out this idea.  While the CD industry has seen unit sales drop by 10 percent and has resorted to suing 20-year-olds, Sirius had signed up more than 100,000 subscribers by June 2003, less than a year after beginning operations.  XM, a slightly older, cheaper, and (in my opinion) crummier service has nearly 1 million subscribers.

People will pay for music but they won't pay $18 for one song that they really want to hear that otherwise could be nicely stored in less than 1 cent of hard drive space.

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 9:46:40 PM -

Memo from Human Resources

This, from 365gay.com...

It has been brought to management's attention that some individuals throughout the company have been using foul language during the course of normal conversation with their coworkers. Due to complaints received from some employees who may be easily offended, this type of language will be no longer tolerated. We do however, realize the critical importance of being able to accurately express your feelings when communicating with coworkers.

Therefore, a list of "TRY SAYING" new phrases has been provided so that proper exchange of ideas and information can continue in an effective manner without risk of offending our more sensitive employees.

TRY SAYING: Perhaps I can work late.
INSTEAD OF: And when the fuck do you expect me to do this?

TRY SAYING: I'm certain that isn't feasible.
INSTEAD OF: No fucking way.

TRY SAYING: Really?
INSTEAD OF: You've got to be shitting me!

TRY SAYING: Perhaps you should check with...
INSTEAD OF: Tell someone who gives a fuck.

TRY SAYING: I wasn't involved in the project.
INSTEAD OF: It's not my fucking problem.

TRY SAYING: That's interesting.
INSTEAD OF: What the fuck?

TRY SAYING: I'm not sure this can be implemented.
INSTEAD OF: This fucking shit won't work.

TRY SAYING: I'll try to schedule that.
INSTEAD OF: Why the fuck didn't you tell me sooner?

TRY SAYING: He's not familiar with the issues.
INSTEAD OF: He's got his fucking head up his ass.

TRY SAYING: I'm a bit overloaded at the moment.
INSTEAD OF: Fuck it, I'm on a salary.

TRY SAYING: I don't think you understand.
INSTEAD OF: Shove it up your ass.

TRY SAYING: I love a challenge.
INSTEAD OF: More fucking shit to do.

TRY SAYING: You want me to take care of that?
INSTEAD OF: Who the hell died and made you boss?

TRY SAYING: I see.
INSTEAD OF: Blow me.

TRY SAYING: I think you could use more training.
INSTEAD OF: You don't know what the fuck you're doing.

Thank You,
Human Resources

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 8:52:23 PM -

Realistically...

Paul Krassner is back with a column in the New York Press.

I was supposed to have everything ready for the printer the next morning. I was exhausted, but there were two final pieces to write. My bare buttocks stuck to the leather chair as I created an imaginary dialogue about clean and dirty bombs. Then I borrowed a form from Mad and composed "A Child’s Primer on Telethons." Our office was on the same floor as Mad, in what became known as the Mad building—225 Lafayette St. I had sold a few freelance articles to them, but other submissions were turned down because they were "too adult." Since Mad’s circulation had already reached incredible heights, publisher Bill Gaines intended to keep aiming it at teenagers.

"I guess you don’t wanna change horses in midstream," I said.

"Not when the horse has a rocket up its ass," Gaines replied.

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 5:38:00 PM -

But Geoff's after a simpler form of "real map" -- he wants a map "with the actual names of countries on it. If you look at a typical American-produced map, it's full of countries with names like "Germany" and "India" and "Greece" and "China" and "Japan" and "Hungary" and "Egypt," etc. etc. etc. You might not think that's strange, but the fact is that there are no such countries. Sure, we in the English speaking world may have been calling certain countries by those names, but it's not what the people who live there call them. This is ridiculous. It's time to get rid of at least one vestige of colonialism and produce an accurate map."

He's gone ahead and produced a real map of Europe. It's nice. I'm going to print it out and hang it up in my bathroom, near my shower-curtain that has a map of the world on it. Link Discuss [Boing Boing Blog]

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 1:19:48 PM -

Yookando

Design is Kinky posted a link to Marcus Shäfer's Yookando photography site. I really like the small On Land section. It has the "environment as meditation" quality that some of my work aspires to. (I'm guessing Marcus is a Brian Eno fan - On Land and Plateaux of Mirrors are both Eno albums).

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 5:15:18 AM -