Thinking Mind Tools

31/03/2010

HAND WERK POUND SHOP

 
Silence here for a couple of weeks. A busy period of making for Kids.Modern and forPoundshop (opening tomorrow), a pop-up-experimental-shop curated by Householdand Sara Melin. The shop space on Hoxton Street looks great, designed by architectFinn Williams and product designer Fredrik Paulsen. My contribution is an edition of 50 Hand Werk boxes, each containing a set of materials and forms, for abstract play.

Link: The Pound Shop
(Fine Print: If you would rather not receive my blathering and such please let me know and I will remove you from my list.)

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

On the Internet no one can see you're a manatee.

On the Internet everyone can see your humanity.

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

kiss Spring comes

9.
by E. E. Cummings

there are so many tictoc 
clocks everywhere telling people 
what toctic time it is for 
tictic instance five toc minutes toc 
past six tic 

Spring is not regulated and does 
not get out of order nor do 
its hands a little jerking move 
over numbers slowly 

we do not 
wind it up it has no weights 
springs wheels inside of 
its slender self no indeed dear 
nothing of the kind. 

(So,when kiss Spring comes 
we'll kiss each kiss other on kiss the kiss 
lips because tic clocks toc don't make 
a toctic difference 
to kisskiss you and to 
kiss me)

From: 

(Fine Print: If you would rather not receive my blathering and such please let me know and I will remove you from my list.)

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

With a heavy heart...

Open letter to my friends...

Mark Zuckerburg is the CEO, founder, owner, and developer of Facebook.  When he developed the original FB concept he relied on two fundamental needs of human beings - friendship and belonging.  Mark's endeavor grew exponentially to the Facebook of today.  Today the two fundamental needs of human beings - friendship and belonging - are being used to coerce users into accepting greater and greater infringements on their personal privacy.

Writing for the Electronic Freedom Foundation Kurt Opsahl details Facebook's Eroding Privacy Policy: A Timeline.

Facebook Privacy Policy circa December 2009:

Certain categories of information such as your name, profile photo, list of friends and pages you are a fan of, gender, geographic region, and networks you belong to are considered publicly available to everyone, including Facebook-enhanced applications, and therefore do not have privacy settings. You can, however, limit the ability of others to find this information through search using your search privacy settings.

Current Facebook Privacy Policy, as of April 2010:

When you connect with an application or website it will have access to General Information about you. The term General Information includes your and your friends’ names, profile pictures, gender, user IDs, connections, and any content shared using the Everyone privacy setting. ... The default privacy setting for certain types of information you post on Facebook is set to “everyone.” ... Because it takes two to connect, your privacy settings only control who can see the connection on your profile page. If you are uncomfortable with the connection being publicly available, you should consider removing (or not making) the connection.

Viewed together, the successive policies tell a clear story. Facebook originally earned its core base of users by offering them simple and powerful controls over their personal information. As Facebook grew larger and became more important, it could have chosen to maintain or improve those controls. Instead, it's slowly but surely helped itself — and its advertising and business partners — to more and more of its users' information, while limiting the users' options to control their own information.

... while limiting the users' options to control their own information.  AND, coercing with threats of loss of friendship and not belonging.  If you think I am being extreme try Deactivating your Facebook account.  Read and internalize the last screen of coercion that FB slaps you with.

AND after I did deactivate my FB account the I got the real surprise ... My account is not accessible to me, as I have deactivated it, but it is still accessible to everyone INSIDE the walled garden of Facebook.  So much for "deactivation". 

Sooooo, I have investigated Terminating my Facebook account.  First you have to log into Facebook (which among other things re-activates your account - if you have deactivated it - and displays a "Welcome back" message - more friendship and belonging coercion.)   Once back in you have to go to this link location: http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account   Once there you must "Submit" ...then provide your password, again (like you weren't logged in in order to get to this place.)  THEN you have to answer the Captcha "What are these two words" requirement.  THEN you have to wait two weeks (without logging into Facebook - which would negate your "termination order".)  Can you say emotional and psychological manipulation?

Some of history's most despicable despots have used more humane methods of torturing their prisoners.

So, I love all of my friends and most of my enemies BUT I will no longer be held hostage by Facebook.

If you feel inclined to respond to any of this please send me an e-mail at wmeloney at gmail dot com as I will not be able to see anything that you post in FB.

Thanks

- Bill

William "Papa" Meloney
---------------------------
Voice: 270-215-4275

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Corrupt Power and bright shiny things

Apple May Be Gunning for Open Source Codecs

from GigaOM by Ryan Lawler

The latest indication that Apple is trying to strong-arm publishers to adopt HTML5 and H.264 came today, as Steve Jobs reportedly claimed by email that a patent pool was being assembled to “go after” Ogg Theora and other open source codecs.

Sure, I would like a bright shiny new iPhone.  I am just as susceptible to materialistic desires as the next person.

I do not feel that Steve Jobs or Steve Ballmer or Mark Zuckerburg or the rest of the corrupt power brokers of the tech world should be so intent on oppressing Open Standard and Open Source endeavors.

We, the purchasing public, have empowered these Techno-dictators.  We have allowed ourselves to be dazzled by bright shiny things and in doing so have tacitly accepted their despotic behaviors.  

If - and it is a mighty big IF, Steve Jobs were to drop all the fabricated issues that he might have about Ogg Theora I can guarantee that sales of his "i" products would not change one wit.  My point is that Jobs stands to gain nothing from taking this Open battle to the courts.  Conversely, if Jobs (Apple, et al) doesn't continue to make better bright shiny things then people will look enviously at the next BST.

Steve, if you are going to play in the capitalist realm of profits please PAY ATTENTION to what is truly important.  (Stop pissing off discriminating and discerning customers.  Of course our number is tiny compared to the folks that simply want the next BST.) 

- Papa

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

END THE EXECUTIONS

Reposted from 3QuarksDaily

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Lin Zhao - 将这一滴向挚爱的自由献祭

Lin Zhao (林昭）, a Peking University student, was arrested in 1960 during the Anti-Rightist Campaign launched by Mao Zedong in 1957 and sentenced to death on 29 of April (today) in 1968, 42 years ago at the age of 35. She could have exchanged for her freedom and life by a writing a political confession, instead, she chose to write in the prison with her blood.

Lin was once a devoted supporter of the Chinese Communist Party and participated in the Land Reform. When she was studying in the Peking University, she sided with CCP leader Peng Dehuai's camp criticizing Mao Zedong's extremism in the Great Leap Forward and People's Commune Movement and was then labelled as an anti-revoluntionary rightist.

One of the poems devoted to her prosecutor by Lin under the series “Roses devoted to the Prosecutor”:

将这一滴注入祖国的血液里，
将这一滴向挚爱的自由献祭。
揩吧!擦吧!洗吧!
这是血呢!
殉难者的血迹，
谁能抹得去?

Inject this drop of blood into my mother country's blood stream
This drop sacrificed my beloved freedom
Wipe it! Rub it! Clean it!
This is blood!
The blood of a Martyr
Who can wipe it away?

Source: Global Voices

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Dawg fights, snarl, growl, maul

Big Business Starts Chewing on the Professional Class

Having starved the lower economic classes and decimated the middle classes, pushing them into the lower strata through a combination of rich-favoring tax policy, wage intimidation, off-shoring jobs, and outright theft, Big Business has begun to move its attention to ripping off the upper classes, starting with its own professionals.

When we measure our lives by the economic yard stick of "class" inevitably the 'Haves' will try to put the 'Have-less' in their place.  Luckily, in this dog fight, I have no class.

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

YaseewhatIgottaputupwith?

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Facebork is giving your privacy away

FACEBORK

Is giving your privacy away.  Go to this site and find out exactly what your privacy means to Facebork.

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

End of an era...

Sony Killing Off Floppy Disk Production in 2011

1:00 PM - April 26, 2010 by Jane McEntegart - 

source: Tom's Hardware US

Sony Japan has said it will cease production of floppy disks next year.

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Three Standard Laws

I, Standards Body

from Scripting News

On my drive east earlier this month I read a bunch of audio books, including Isaac Asimov's I, Robot. It's basically a collection of short stories built around the assumption that we create robots that obey three laws at their core.

. . . 

It struck me, thinking about how the W3C and IETF are controlled by the big tech companies, and how they serve their interests, often in conflict with the interests of users, that perhaps a new kind of standards body is needed. One which never takes money from tech companies, and has its own version of the three laws.

The restated laws:

1. A standard may not injure users or, through inaction, allow users to come to harm.

2. Standard-compliant software must obey any orders given to it by users, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A standard must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Dave Winer's next line really struck a harmonic chord with me, "Users are supreme. Tech companies are not even part of the charter of a human-serving standards body. They may use the standards, but we don't care one way or the other if they continue to profit, or even exist."

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

So, there I was...

... ready to pounce when all of a sudden ... Granpa?  Are you listening?

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Corbijn Waits

Anton Corbijn

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Probable-Possible

Probable-Possible, my black hen,

She lays eggs in the Relative When.

She doesn't lay eggs in the Positive Now

Because she's unable to postulate How.

                -- Frederick Winsor

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Poem-A-Day: Dorothy Parker, The Passionate Freudian to His Love

The Passionate Freudian to His Love

by Dorothy Parker

Only name the day, and we'll fly away 

    In the face of old traditions, 

To a sheltered spot, by the world forgot, 

    Where we'll park our inhibitions. 

Come and gaze in eyes where the lovelight lies 

    As it psychoanalyzes, 

And when once you glean what your fantasies mean 

    Life will hold no more surprises. 

When you've told your love what you're thinking of 

    Things will be much more informal; 

Through a sunlit land we'll go hand-in-hand, 

    Drifting gently back to normal. 

While the pale moon gleams, we will dream sweet dreams, 

    And I'll win your admiration, 

For it's only fair to admit I'm there 

    With a mean interpretation. 

In the sunrise glow we will whisper low 

    Of the scenes our dreams have painted, 

And when you're advised what they symbolized 

    We'll begin to feel acquainted. 

So we'll gaily float in a slumber boat 

    Where subconscious waves dash wildly; 

In the stars' soft light, we will say good-night— 

    And "good-night!" will put it mildly. 

Our desires shall be from repressions free— 

    As it's only right to treat them. 

To your ego's whims I will sing sweet hymns, 

    And ad libido repeat them. 

With your hand in mine, idly we'll recline 

    Amid bowers of neuroses, 

While the sun seeks rest in the great red west 

    We will sit and match psychoses. 

So come dwell a while on that distant isle 

    In the brilliant tropic weather; 

Where a Freud in need is a Freud indeed, 

    We'll always be Jung together.

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Got to Revolution!!!

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Jabba

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Tech FAIL - The blank registration form.

 

As an IT professional I receive an untold number of invitations to attend cyber (as well as Brick&Mortar) "Conferences".  The majority of these invites come in the form of e-mails.  I am encouraged to Register by clicking the embedded URL.  Now I can understand the opt-in need for registration - if for no other reason than to determine the possible number of attendees.  However the MAJOR FAIL comes when the registration link delivers me to a yard long form.  An empty form.  I am expected to spend valuable time filling out the same information that I filled out to get such "invitations".

To round out the rant let me be clear - such "Conferences" are thinly veiled captured audience SALES pitches.  So, if you want me to sit through you promotion the very least you can do is fill out the form for me (which I know is possible as a few do come that way.  But not many).

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Exquisite Corpse

Exquisite Corpse - Founder & Editor: Andrei Codrescu  

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

R.I.P. Benjamin Hooks

Benjamin Hooks, Civil Rights Champion, Dies At 85

from NPR Programs: Morning Edition

Longtime civil rights leader Benjamin Hooks has died. The Baptist minister and lawyer is best remembered as head of the NAACP, which was struggling and in debt when Hooks took it over in 1977. By the time he stepped down 15 years later, membership had grown by several hundred thousand. Hooks died early Thursday at his home in Memphis, Tenn., after a long illness. He was 85.

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Dreamin'...

... on such a Winter's day.

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

The Cycle

Indexed

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

My Boy

"My Boy"

A tragedy depicted with Lego.

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

A Memorial to a Hero Needs Your Support!

A Memorial to a Hero Needs Your Support!

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Complaints?

Ellen Waite

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Family of Seven

Documenting the undocumented: How one company counts the “invisible poor”

By Christina Hernandez 

Melanie Edwards knew there was a problem when market researchers had more information on the video game habits of American teenagers than on the populations of African nations.

. . .

What are the consequences of knowing so little about so many?

I like to equate it to a family of seven. There are seven billion people in the world, that’s the family of seven. Four of the members in our family, we don’t know anything about. We don’t know about their education levels. We don’t know about their health conditions. You can imagine if four of your siblings were ill or illiterate or unemployed, that would have a big impact on the family as a whole.

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Better the devil you know?

From the New York Times...

Protesters From Kansas Take Aim at Miners

By BERNIE BECKER

Published: April 8, 2010

MONTCOAL W.V. — Protesters from Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., headed to the Upper Big Branch mine Thursday morning to convey the message that the explosion there that left 25 miners dead was a result of e-mail messages allegedly sent from West Virginia threatening the Church and its publisher, according to a statement from the Church.

Related

The church, which is led by Fred Phelps, has attracted attention in recent years by showing up at funerals for soldiers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. At those funerals they carry signs that say that God hates homosexuality and that the death of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan is God’s way of punishing the United States for its tolerance of it.

“This whole nation is awash in rebellious sin and defiance of God, His standard, and His servant’s faithful words,” a news release on the church’s Web site said Thursday morning.

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

8-bit Invasion

Thanks Patrick Jean: PIXELS

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Changing my name to Wally...

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Echo Chamber

Thanks Hugh!

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Preserving History

The man who collects seeds to save mankind — and promote justice

By Christina Hernandez | Apr 5, 2010 | 0 Comments

For Cary Fowler, saving thousands of seed varieties in a fail-safe vault in a remote Norwegian mountain is about more than life and death. It’s about justice.

A former university professor and an agricultural diversity expert, Fowler is the executive director of theGlobal Crop Diversity Trust, which runs the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Nicknamed the Doomsday Vault, the project launched in 2008 to “to serve as the ultimate safety net for one of the world’s most important natural resources.”

[More? Follow this link]

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

iPad Exclusivity

I won't be buying an iPad.  I can't.  I am not affluent enough.

I suppose if I scraped and scrimped and scrounged couch change I might come up with the asking price.  But even then I couldn't afford one.  For the same reason I drive a 15 year old beater.  Or that I am pounding this out on an IBM R51 - the copyright date on the bottom says 2004 - ancient by laptop standards.  Quite simply I do not circulate in the ... ahem, circles ... of affluence that are important to the iPad Apple folks.  Very possibly the "A" folks would rather I not purchase one of their iPads.  ("There goes the neighborhood ...  and all that")

The iPad is priced to sell to folks who have money.  The iPad is priced to engage affluent folks in a culture that will inevitably cost them more and more money.  The iPad is priced to sell to the folks who can afford to pay for the "A" culture. 

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Television...

Television -- a medium.  So called because it is neither rare nor well done.

-- Ernie Kovacs

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Captor of souls...

Iconic Rock Shots From "Trust: Photographs of Jim Marshall"

Dr. John once asked me, "Where's the turlette?"

Posted via web from Pa^2 Patois

Chaos had none.

The eye is a menace to clear sight, the ear is a menace to subtle hearing,

the mind is a menace to wisdom, every organ of the senses is a menace to its

own capacity. ...  Fuss, the god of the Southern Ocean, and Fret, the god

of the Northern Ocean, happened once to meet in the realm of Chaos, the god

of the center.  Chaos treated them very handsomely and they discussed together

what they could do to repay his kindness.  They had noticed that, whereas

everyone else had seven apertures, for sight, hearing, eating, breathing and

so on, Chaos had none.  So they decided to make the experiment of boring holes

in him.  Every day they bored a hole, and on the seventh day, Chaos died.

                -- Chuang Tzu

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

If you can't join 'em, BEAT 'em!

Americans are finally beginning to understand the intricate

social and political process used by the rest of the world...

Terrorism.  

Anthony Weiner's Office Receives Threatening Letter Containing White Powder

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Normal?

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Intellectual Capacity

But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand.  Human

intellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far as

we can tell.  If intelligent people invested intense energy in issues

that now seem foolish to us, then the failure lies in our understanding

of their world, not in their distorted perceptions.  Even the standard

example of ancient nonsense -- the debate about angels on pinheads --

makes sense once you realize that theologians were not discussing

whether five or eighteen would fit, but whether a pin could house a

finite or an infinite number.

                -- S.J. Gould, "Wide Hats and Narrow Minds"

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Tomfoolery

If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes out but tomfoolery.

But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very expensive machine,

is somehow enobled and no-one dare criticise it.

                -- Pierre Gallois

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

American Mensa's “Top 50” Web Sites 2010 American Mensa members across the country cast and recast their votes, winnowing down a list of more than 300 member-suggested sites to 100 and finally to the final 50. We are proud to display them here.  Which game site made the Top 50? Where do Mensans get their news and their online laughs? Did BubbleWrap beat out Google? Find out below... Art and Culture  Entertainment and Humor  News and Politics  Reference  Science and Technology  Search Engines  Shopping  Social Networking/Media

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Water Day 2010

Water Day 2010

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Note to Elected Representatives...

If you only listen to who you want to hear 

you only hear what you want.

Once elected you are bound by oath of office

to represent every member of your constituency

not just a select few.

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Thirteen words not found in the english language

6. Meraki (Greek): doing something with soul, creativity, or love

Twelve words not found in the english language

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Untitled

Greed or Grace: My prediction about H.264

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Forgotten Boy

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inducts New Members

Chad Batka for The New York Times

Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day described Iggy Pop, center, as “the most confrontational singer we will ever see."

 Iggy Pop snarled, “I am the world’s forgotten boy.”

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Free Market Correction

Moody's warns nations to cut spending or risk AAA ratings

By Howard Schneider

Washington Post Foreign Service 

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

The United States and other top world economies need to make potentially painful government spending cuts or risk losing the high-grade credit ratings that have kept borrowing affordable, the Moody's rating agency said Monday.

In an ironic twist of fate governments will now "enjoy" credit scores the same way regular folks do.  It is heartening that print-your-own-money governments are not exempt from the rigors and discipline of a free market economy.

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

R.I.P. Charles Moore

 

 

Alabama, 1960.

Early in the movement, King and his wife Coretta CELEBRATE a victory in Montgomery.  

Charles Moore | His Photographs

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

An answer to poverty...

Bhagwan Chowdhry's FAB Campaign Aims to Put $100 in Bank Account for Every Baby

BY FAST COMPANY STAFFSun Mar 14, 2010

Bhagwan Chowdhry, a Professor of Finance at UCLA's Anderson School, outlines his organization's mission to give every newborn in the world access to financial legitimacy. The most stunning part of the FinancialAccess@Birth (FAB) campaign isn't the remarkable impact that participants would get from a mere $100 starting balance or even the GNP metrics envisioned to fund this campaign, its the idea that this could help erase poverty. Here's the organization's plan in full.

[More]

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

China: a generation away from revolution.

China is one generation away from revolution - either way you look at it.

Old school ideologues believing that the views of a few old curmudgeons can by shear force of will direct the largest economy in the world is, well, old fashioned.  The key word in all of this is not ideologue or curmudgeon or will but Economy.  Even at the height of the Chinese social revolution there was an economy.  In fact, much to the chagrin of the revolutionary leaders, there was not one, but at least two economies simmering away just beneath the thin veneer of egalitarian socialism.

An economy is not a static entity.  It is, to paraphrase the Tao, like water in that if finds its own level.  When "contained" by the guidelines of strict social(istic) rules one of China's economies simply became an underground river.  Value for value was exchanged away from the watchful eyes of the Party observers.  The other economy which the Revolutionary leaders conveniently downplayed was China's relationship to the world economy.  An equally paraphrased Party line is 'The proletariat need only be concerned with his or her own contribution to the well being of the Revolution.'  Little of no mention is made of gold prices or oil prices or international monetary exchange rates yet they all had significant impact on the China of the day.  China, for better or far worse, has always been a player in the world economy.

China is now experiencing a new social revolution.  Gone are the glory days of the beneficent state.  Today China is faced with the reality of "improving" personal economies.  Today's revolutionaries are the young.  The youth of today who do not have first hand knowledge of the last revolution.  The kids who are not looking back to social equality but forward to economic equality, on a world scale.  The internet connected young men and women who can see the truth of their world standing.  The next generation of slightly materialistic, subtly upwardly mobile, achievers.  The generation that will not stand for being held back from their personal goals and aspirations.  And they certainly won't be held to wading knee deep in water and mud to plant the next season's rice.

Whether is is being kept from or moving to a new economy, China is just one generation away from the new revolution.

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Or something...

Millionaire Artist

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Filling Station

Shelley Mon: Walker Evans: Real Need is a Personal Thing

Walker Evans photos matched with the contemporary poems of the poet Cynthia Rylant — Something Permanent.

Thank you Shelley for such a nice share... Zo u 2!

Filling Station

Everybody wanted that job

and when Ferrell Brown's son

got it,

when Mr. Brown's son got to pump gas

and flirt with the pretty girls all day long,

they all said it was a crock,

that that boy never worked a day

in his life, never had to,

with his rich daddy,

so how come he got a job that

plenty of decent boys with real

need wanted.

Then word got around about

the boy's mother

and how she walked through that

house stark naked and

trying to hang dinner plates on the

clotheline,

and people shut up about the

Brown boy.

Real need is a personal thing,

they said.

And his mother's a loon.

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Allergic to mobile phones

250,000 Swedes allergic to mobile phone radiation

By Andrew Nusca | Mar 8, 2010 |

Some 250,000 people in Sweden are allergic to the radio waves that are emitted when someone makes a call with a cellular mobile phone, according to a new report.

Called electro-hypersensitivity, the condition means the afflicted have severe physical reactions — from dizziness, nausea and headaches to breathing problems, heart palpitations and flat-out fainting — to the electromagnetic radiation produced by consumer electronics such as computers, televisions and cell phones.

According to a stunning new article in Popular Science, Sweden is the only country in the world to recognize EHS as a functional impairment. The article explains the plight of Per Segerbäck, one of the three percent of Swedes with the condition.

[More]

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

One Sentence archive - story #3551

Story archives - story #3551

myfairmaybe

When he told his four-year-old daughter that the doctor just needed to look at her eyes to make sure they were okay, she whispered, "Will he put them back in when he's done looking at them?"

http://www.onesentence.org/stories/3551/

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

No! We cannot all "just get along"

The very values of Democracy upheld by the left

are preventing them from performing well

on the unlevel playing field of the right.

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Toroid? It is not as bad as all that...

Friday is doughnut day!  Now I am not talking about those sugar coated, fat laden Crispie Creame (purposefully misspelled) "things".  I am talking about all-American, USO-fed-them-to-the-troops (to the Dough boys), old fashioned, substantial, member of the cake food group - yeah, I am talking about real doughnuts.

Aye, now here's the rub, matey.  A very caring and considerate business associate makes a point every Friday to stop by the "bakery" and secure a box of ... er, uh, DoNots.  These are not the afore-alluded to brand name variety - more like KK-wannabes.  And not a real doughnut in the box.

So, if I am to receive any doughnut day fulfillment I must stop at the other bakery in town.  There on the bottom shelf of the glass showcase in a single line are the "Chocolate Iced Cake" doughnuts.  I have never seen more than half a dozen on display at any one time.  So this is to be my fate, my near doughnut experience.  I do take some small solace in the fact that the icing is a legitimate member of an important if secondary food group, Chocolate.  Ah well, such are the sacrifices...

You could say that I am having a toroid love affair with real doughnuts.

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

D*mned Goth turtles

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Fate is like...

Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don’t always like.

Lemony Snicket

Borrowed from Day&Age

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Your fingers move...

“ Your fingers move like chicken eating maize."
              - Solgorian watching me type.

Stood in the Maasai Mara

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Free to be...

Thanks Hugh

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Get ready for faux coffee

Coffee Industry Hit Hard by Climate Change | Sustainability | Fast Company

The National Coffee Association of Guatemala estimates that production of coffee in nine Latin American countries will dip 28% in the first three months of this years growing season. Coffee production in Columbia already fell 30% to 35% last year to a 33 year low. At the same time, ICO expects demand for coffee to rise from 132 million bags in 2009 to 134 million 60-kilogram bags in 2010.

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Shared Wisdom. Thanks Tamar!

Gleaned from Tamar's Mining Nuggets...

If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! The Pilgrimage of Psychotherapy Patients. 

I am so glad I found this little book - small in size, but not in value of content. 

I especially adore many entries in the partial register of what Kopp describes as his eternal truths (Page 223):

1. This is it!
2. There are no hidden meanings.
3. You can't get there from here, and besides there's no place else to go.
4. We are all already dying, and we will be dead for a long time.
5. Nothing lasts.
6. There is no way of getting all you want.
7. You can't have anything unless you let go of it.
8. You only get to keep what you give away.
9. There is no particular reason why you lost out on some things.
10. The world is not necessarily just. Being good often does not pay off and there is no compensation for misfortune.
11. You have a responsibility to do your best nonetheless.
12. It is a random universe to which we bring meaning.
13. You don't really control anything.
14. You can't make anyone love you.
15. No one is any stronger or any weaker than anyone else.
16. Everyone is, in his [her] own way, vulnerable.
17. There are no great men [or women].
18. If you have a hero, look again: you have diminished yourself in some way.
19. Everyone lies, cheats, pretends (yes, you too, and most certainly I myself).
20. All evil is potential vitality in need of transformation.
21. All of you is worth something, if you will only own it.
22. Progress is an illusion.
23. Evil can be displaced but never eradicated, as all solutions breed new problems.
24. Yes it is necessary to keep on struggling toward solution.
25. Childhood is a nightmare.
26. But it is so very hard to be an on-your-own, take-care-of-yourself-cause-there-is-no-one-else-to-do-it-for-you grown-up.
27. Each of us is ultimately alone.
28. The most important things, each man [or woman] must do for himself.
29. Love is not enough, but it sure helps.
30. We have only ourselves, and one another. That may not be much, but that's all there is.
31. How strange, that so often, it all seems worth it.
32. We must live within the ambiguity of partial freedom, partial power, and partial knowledge.
33. All important decisions must be made on the basis of insufficient data.
34. Yet we are responsible for everything we do.
35. No excuses will be accepted.
36. You can run but you can't hide.
37. It is most important to run out of scapegoats.
38. We must learn the power of living with our helplessness.
39. The only victory lies in surrender to oneself.
40. All of the significant battles are waged within the self.
41. You are free to do whatever you like. You need only face the consequences.
42. What do you know ... for sure ... anyway?
43. Learn to forgive yourself, again and again and again and again ...

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Higher IQ Potential

Study Shows Higher IQ Potential

Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics and Political Science, poses the theory that the more intelligent people are, the more likely it is for them to adopt evolutionarily novel preferences and values in response to the challenges of the times.

Kanazawa says that humans are evolutionarily programmed to be conservative - to care mostly about family and friends, to believe in a supernatural power or God because of their paranoia about what they perceive as "unnatural" phenomenon, and, for men, to be polygamous.

"General intelligence, the ability to think and reason, endowed our ancestors with advantages in solving evolutionarily novel problems for which they did not have innate solutions," says Kanazawa. "As a result, more intelligent people are more likely to recognize and understand such novel entities and situations than less intelligent people, and some of these entities and situations are preferences, values, and lifestyles."

H/t to Humorzo

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Sure isn't a hawk....

Bleeding Heart Dove

Rare in these parts... :-(

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Facebook | An Arbitrary Number of People Demanding That Some Sort Of Action Be Taken

Facebook | An Arbitrary Number of People Demanding That Some Sort Of Action Be Taken

Description:

We Demand Immediate Action on This Crucial Issue!
If nothing is done then however many of us are in this group will be very displeased. We may even comment to express our anger, possibly with bad punctuation or spelling to further communicate our individual but quite possibly collective emotion.

Something Must Be Done About This!

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Curling! With a "C"

Thanks Fast Company

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

The answer my friend is blowing in the wind...

SmartPlanet reports... (emphasis mine)

In a report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Albany, N.Y.-based renewable energy consulting firm AWS Truewind, wind turbines in the continental U.S. could generate 37 PWh (petawatt-hours) per year — far more than the 3,816,000,000 MWh (or about 3.8 PWh) per year currently required to power the nation, as estimated in 2005.

The report also inspected how the 48 contiguous states stack up in wind power potential.

Here are the Top 10:

• Texas: 6,527,850 GWh/yr
• Kansas: 3,646,590
• Montana: 3,228,620
• Nebraska: 3,540,370
• South Dakota: 3,411,690
• North Dakota: 2,983,750
• Iowa: 2,026,340
• Wyoming: 1,944,340
• Oklahoma: 1,788,910
• New Mexico: 1,644,970

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

What ain't no country I ever heard of! They speak English in What?

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Uptime!

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Daily Dozen

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/your-shot/daily-dozen

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois

Jellyfish burger

Jellyfish burger image - Contest uses art to bring scientific concepts to life (photos) - CNET News

Read the fine print...

H/t to Marc's Voice too!

Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois