Dora's Evil Twin

I've gone on record as a harsh critic of children's television, and Dora the Exploiter...er...Explorer in particular.  And now, from the annals of Youtube, I bring you my sentiments made real courtesy of SNL.

 

 

Technorati tags: Dora the Explorer, Maraka, SNL, funny

More Mexican Mayhem

The United States has been up to no good again. What with our lax enforcement of laws against illegal firearms leaving the country in the dead of night under their own power.

Four police officers have been killed and several other people abducted in the northern Mexican state of Sonora.

A group of about 40 armed men entered the town of Cananea near the US border and kidnapped the policemen from their patrol cars, reports said.

Our bad. Totally.

Almost 800 people are thought to have been killed in Mexico in drug-related violence so far this year, despite efforts to crack down on drug gangs.

Damn us and our guns.

Elsewhere, authorities in the northern state of Coahuila said men disguised as Mexican federal agents captured the state's chief anti-kidnapping investigator, AP said.

Actually, that's kind of funny in a sad, ironic way.

Technorati tags: Mexico, crime, guns, kidnapping

Enter the Strandbeest

Ever hear of Theo Jansen? Me either. My loss. He's amazing.

[He] is an artist and kinetic sculptor living and working in Holland. He builds large works which resemble skeletons of animals which are able to walk using the wind on the beaches of the Netherlands...[he] is dedicated to creating artificial life through the use of genetic algorithms. These programs simulate evolution inside their code.

Not convinced? 

How about now?

 

Technorati tags: Theo Jansen, art, Netherlands, kinetic sculpture, evolution, genetic algorithm, science, engineering, artificial life

 

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Cradle to the Grave

Tonight's random surfing turned this up. It kind of made me just stop and think for a bit.

Technorati tags: Life, images, pictures, art

Asking the Hard Questions

BBC Journalist John Sweeney's Panorama special on Scientology is a must watch. Regardless of your feelings about Scientology in general or Sweeney's well-publicized blow-up  at Scientologists it's worth the half-hour.

 

 

Technorati tags: Scientology, BBC, John Sweeney, Panorama, Clearwater, religion

The Pot and the Kettle

A top Mexican anti-drug official said the United States must do more to stop weapons from being smuggled into the hands of drug traffickers who are using them to kill Mexican soldiers and police.

Because we are the ones who have a problem sending things across the border illegally?

Assistant Secretary of Public Safety Patricio Patino made a fresh appeal Tuesday for U.S. authorities to cut off the supply.

"The firepower we are seeing here has to do with a lack of control on that side of the border," Patino said in an interview with The Associated Press. "What we have asked the American government ... is that they put clear controls on the shipments of weapons."

Wow. Just wow. Balls of titanium must be standard issue south of the border. How else do you explain that level of hypocrisy?

Since when does Mexico care about what comes across the border?

 

 

Technorati tags: Mexico, Immigration, US, smuggling, illegal immigration, border, guns

Hardcore Bullshit Obfuscation

I've always thought the concept of political correctness...calling things by another name to make them sound more neutral or palatable is a stupid, and in some cases, detestable practice.  It's really one edge of the fine blade known as bullshit.  The other edge, of course, would be buzzwords and phrases like 'leveraging deployed solutions.'

People resort to this level of communication when they're either socially crippled or are so inherently wrong as to actually have the need to literally re-word their comments to slip them in under the radar.  It's the old 'this is shit / this is fine fertilizer' routine.

Here's a fine example:

Bob Zitter, Chief Technology Officer for HBO, speaking at a cable broadcaster's conference in Las Vegas last Tuesday, as suggesting that customers might accept the concept of digital rights management [DRM] if it were named something else.

Zitter suggested, according to the report, that the technology should be marketed in such a way that it conveys a message that viewers could "use content in ways they haven't before." For that reason, he is suggesting the term "Digital Consumer Enablement. [DCE]"

If that's not a bullshit artist at work, I don't know what is.  Think about this for a second.  Calling DRM an 'Enabler' is like calling handcuffs 'Personal Freedom Enhancers.'  It's totally illogical and is nothing more than a cheap trick designed to fool non-techies into thinking that it's something new and good.

Call a spade a spade.

 

 

Technorati tags: HBO, DRM, DCE, rights management, consumer enablement, tech, copyright