on bullshit

author proposes the development of a theoretical understanding of bullshit, and get’s the ball rolling. includes some historical framing of bullshit, or humbug as it was once described, and kicks around the modern trends of skepticism and the desire for if not truth at least sincerity. comes to the conclusion that, in a sense, our own identities boil down to a kind of indeterminate bullshit. enjoy.

posted by jmorrison on 06/30 | lost & found - ideas | | permalink
secret fun spot

endless saccharine nostalgia served up for you hot and fresh on this soul crushing monday. remember when you were not a stressed out, disease filled, hate fueled, wage slave? ah the good ol’ days.

posted by jmorrison on 06/29 | sights & sounds | | permalink
they, robots

saw some news today about new inductees into the robot hall of fame. they join those already enshrined. there are so many god damned robots that fit the criteria, considering they can be fictional, i wonder why they “honor” so few? what about poor maximillian? (who you can’t even find a decent image of on the whole darned internet!) or the cylons? what about good ol’ gort? or false maria? will shat upon twiki ever get his day in the sun? will the replicants? what about those cute hippy bots? sure few of them have any substance whatsoever… but then what about poor deactivated bender or even data for that matter? ah well. expect to see more of these guys in induction ceremonies in the years to come. anyhow, here is a nice history of robotics from 79-the present, and here are some robotics links as well. (p.s. johnny 5 sucks mad wee-wee).

in search of (4) the golden section

in our fourth installment of in search of we scour the web for information on the much lauded and much mythologized golden section, also known as the golden mean, the golden ratio, and the divine section…

posted by jmorrison on 06/27 | lost & found - ideas | | permalink
how to disappear

the short list

the detailed list

the skip tracers list

the online specific list

now get lost.

posted by jmorrison on 06/27 | lost & found | | permalink
street memes are made of this

came across this site called street memes. it tries to track many of the stenciled, stickered, wheat-pasted, kilroys of our urban existence. someone at metafilter pointed out that the term meme is very overused and likely misused in this particular case, but you get the point. another point of contention, after only a quick scan of the memes i noticed more than one of these memes were actually advertising disguised as street art, the d.j. honda “h” for example. do these really qualify? other sites: wooster collective, p.o.w., and the unrelated but worth noting box doodle project. enjoy.

posted by jmorrison on 06/27 | sights & sounds - art | | permalink
the sleep of reason or the misuse of it?

found this interesting piece about a cognitive study of religious beliefs. “people do not adhere to concepts of invisible ghosts or ancestors or spirits because they suspend ordinary cognitive resources, but rather because they use these cognitive resources in a context for which they were not designed in the first place.” though no questions are ultimately answered (if you are frustrated by the seeming lack of any logic in religious zealotry your frustrations will not be eased, the author actually suspects religious belief was an evolutionary trait) but interesting none the less. i hold out hope that the pharmaceutical industry eventually recognize what a huge untapped sector for treatment the devoutly religious are, classifying fundamentalism as a mental illness, and get to work drugging them into oblivion. i can see the felliniesque commercials now… one other quote from the piece: “experimental tests show that people’s actual religious concepts often diverge from what they believe they believe.”

posted by jmorrison on 06/27 | lost & found - belief | | permalink
365 days of odd

ubu web has relaunched it’s 365 days project which offers up free audio oddities (found sounds and “outsider” music, etc) for your consumption. includes background info and images up the wazoo as they say. good fun.

posted by jmorrison on 06/25 | sights & sounds - music | | permalink
a truckful of baloney

read this piece in popular mechanics and just found it online. documents all the phony scientific claims one man comes across in the course of a day, averaging 1 every ten minutes. a lot of baloney indeed. satisfying article.

posted by jmorrison on 06/25 | tech & science - theory | | permalink
was modigliani a great artist?

guardian uk piece asking just that question. fairly interesting, but i have a better one: why can’t anyone just admit that art is totally, utterly, absolutely subjective? there is only one question to be asked in art “do i like this?” simple as pie.

posted by jmorrison on 06/25 | sights & sounds - art | | permalink
kill your idols, yourself, and everyone else

not sure whether this is a joke or not, they claim it is not, but then who the hell are “they”? the short of it: “phasing out the human race by voluntarily ceasing to breed will allow earth’s biosphere to return to good health. crowded conditions and resource shortages will improve as we become less dense.” called vhemt, short for the voluntary human extinction movement, it’s just what it sounds like. all i can say is, was there ever a less necessary movement? lower populations? yes by all means, great idea. extinction of the species… in good time folks, have no fear. extinction for the sake of mother earth? ha ha ha. as george carlin has pointed out, earth is in no danger from us puny humans.

posted by jmorrison on 06/25 | lost & found - belief | | permalink
spider-man’s secret identity crisis

paraphrased from the times of india: “marvel comics plans to indianise the webmeister, peter parker of queens, the hero under the classic spider-man mask, will be replaced by a young, indian boy named pavitr prabhakar, a mumbaikar. as spider-man, pavitr leaps around rickshaws and scooters in indian streets, while swinging from monuments such as the gateway of india and the taj mahal. mumbai’s first web-swinging super hero will be joined by a reinvented villain. the green goblin will appears as a rakshasa, the indian mythological demon. spider-man india will become the first-ever ‘transcreation,’ where we reinvent the origin of a western property like spider-man so that he is an indian boy in mumbai dealing with local problems and challenges.” weird huh?

posted by jmorrison on 06/22 | sights & sounds | | permalink
hail to the cheif moon king

this story has been around for a few months but came across it again today and was inspired to post. there are many things going on in our government that have people scratching their heads, but this is beyond any of them for shear bizarre WTF value. the coronation rev. sun myung moon in a senate office building. (note, if the link does not show the full story you have to watch the ad to get a pass, etc, etc. damn salon!) if you have not come across this yet you have to check it out. it was originally reported here and the site has lot’s more on the subject. if you really want to gape, you can download a video of the proceedings here (bittorrent file). so… what do you all think of this?

posted by jmorrison on 06/22 | lost & found - wtf | | permalink
time after time

nice essay from the university of sussex about time. begins: “the intriguing notion that time might run backwards when the universe collapses has run into difficulties. raymond laflamme, of the los alamos national laboratory in new mexico, has carried out a new calculation which suggests that the universe cannot start out uniform, go through a cycle of expansion and collapse, and end up in a uniform state. it could start out disordered, expand, and then collapse back into disorder. but, since the COBE data show that our universe was born in a smooth and uniform state, this symmetric possibility cannot be applied to the real universe.” includes sections like, does time exist?, how to build a time machine, and engeneering wormholes. authors homepage also offers an essay on quantum mysteries among other things.

posted by jmorrison on 06/22 | tech & science - theory | | permalink
torture muthafucka torture

short round up with only the slightest commentary and even less of a reason…  curious punishments from bygone days, when men wore frilly lacy crap and torture was enjoyed by all. the torture museum. the house of de sade. the stanford prison experiment: a short summation, an in depth slide show, why “it does not explain abu ghraib” (yeah abu ghraib). “four more years?” and last as well as least what torture method are you.

posted by jmorrison on 06/20 | lost & found | | permalink
“if this isn’t class war, what is?”

bill moyers sounds off in a speech about inequality in america. good read. i think i can answer his question though. class war is when both the lower and upper classes duke it out. as it stands now i’d say there is only one side actually battling. not much of a war per se. actual class war can usually be recognized, i think, by the severed heads of the ruling class atop spikes.

posted by jmorrison on 06/20 | news & views | | permalink
curses!

“If I cannot swear in heaven I shall not stay there.” -mark twain. uh, no worries mr. twain, since heaven is a figment of your imagination, or a metaphor at best, the length of your stay is really a moot point. curse away! oh wait, your larynx was bored into and eaten by worms… never mind.

posted by jmorrison on 06/20 | news & views - people | | permalink
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