blog (April, 2002)
Emergency
Emergence is what happens when the whole is smarter than the sum of its parts. It's what happens when you have a system of relatively simple-minded component parts -- often there are thousands or millions of them -- and they interact in relatively simple ways. And yet somehow out of all this interaction some higher level structure or intelligence appears, usually without any master planner calling the shots. These kinds of systems tend to evolve from the ground up.
A threaded discussion board turns out to be an ideal ecosystem for that peculiar species known as the crank-the ideologue obsessed with a certain issue or interpretive model, who has no qualms about interjecting his or her worldview into any discussion, and apparently no day job or family life to keep him from posting voluminous commentary at the slightest provocation. We all know people like this, the ones grinding their ax from the back of the seminar room or the coffee shop: the conspiracy theorist, the rabid libertarian, the evangelist-the ones who insist on bringing all conversations back to their particular issue, objecting to any conversation that doesn't play by their rules. In real life, we've developed a series of social conventions that keep the crank from dominating our conversations. For the most pathological cases, they simply don't get invited out to dinner very often. But for the borderline case, a subtle but powerful mechanism is at work in any face-to-face group conversation: if an individual is holding a conversation hostage with an irrelevant obsession, groups can naturally establish a consensus-using words, body language, facial expressions, even a show of hands-making it clear that the majority of the group feels their time is being wasted. The face-to-face world is populated by countless impromptu polls that take the group's collective pulse. Most of them happen so quickly that we don't even know that we're participating in them, and that transparency is one reason why they're as powerful as they are. In the face-to-face world, we are all social thermostats: reading the group temperature and adjusting our behavior accordingly.
i'm about to go to town on your money and your ass
Australian scientists say they have created a "thinking cap" that will stimulate creative powers.
Ontological:
(adj.) Of or relating to the argument for the existence of God holding that the existence of the concept of God entails the existence of God.
-- Dictionary.com
It's only in movies where people die because they deserve to die.
-- Lou Giannetti
chomsky on middle east
What the right response was to the terrorist bombings on September 11 is another question. If we want to talk about that, we should be willing to establish some principles. So for example, one elementary principle is that if something is right for us, then it's right for others. If it's wrong for others, it's wrong for us. If we can't accept that principle, we can't even talk about right and wrong.So if those who believe that the right way to respond to September 11 was by bombing Afghans, should also believe that the right way to respond to US terror is by bombing Washington. I don't know anybody who believes that. I certainly don't.
...
It's extremely hard to take Bush and his advisers seriously when they talk about their reasons for wanting to depose Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein is a monster, there's no doubt about that. Getting rid of him would be a boon to the people of Iraq and the world. But Bush's advisers are not opposed to him because of his crimes or because of his efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction and we all know that.
-- Noam Chomsky, Interview: Lateline in Australia
Dave Douglas blow your horn
Being the third caller to a radio show on WRUW won me two seats at the Dave Douglas New Quintet concert tonight at the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art as part of the Tri-C Jazz Fest. The fivesome was hot as hell, especially not the bassist. Four of the fivesome were hot as hell. I sat on a piece of cloth that pulled tight when the two dual legs of my unbacked chair were unfolded, about 15 feet directly over the saxophone player's head, looking through the railbars that enclosed the opening to the second floor above the stage. The saxophone player's playing was hot as hell. So were the stage lights that were 2 feet in front of me. Find me the setlist -- they hit on something from Birth of the Cool -- which, I can't remember now -- maybe Budo. The rest of the tunes, I think, were originals, except for an arrangement of a Rufus Wainwright tune called Poses. The encore was incredible.
Walked through some of the museum before leaving; some cool pieces -- a lot of minimalist stuff in their current Painting in Zero Degree exhibit. My favorite pieces, besides a bright-orange carpeted floor and wall, were works by this Fabio Kacero fella -- with these deadly designs on rounded-edge metallic-looking wood things. Bwaaah.
2002 pimps and hoez ball
Right to left: dre, punkin, jeffrey, Me (if only my time-keeping necklace made me half as bad as flavor flav,) and maffew; my suite minus one whi-beck. The night could be described as scandaloso - this picture doesn't do it justice. I definitely need my own camera.
Richard Melville Hall
Moby's website holds some essays he wrote included in some of his album liner notes. They're all short and worth reading; he is insightful and straightforward. Essay excerpts:
Bowie: What shall we be excited about tomorrow?
Moby: To see heaven in a grain of sand and eternity in a wildflower. And 'Cops' on Fox.
Bowie's Questions with Moby's Answers
the conservatives want a seemingly neat and compartmentalised society wherein stable appearances are maintained and archaic cultural archetypes are adhered to religiously. i grew up in a world of rigid cultural archetypes. i grew up with white businessmen going to office buildings while their wives stayed at home and their kids went to school. or, more accurately, i grew up with alcoholic, adulterous businessmen who lived culturally insular lives while their wives took sedatives and smoked cigarettes and vented their frustrations on their kids, and these same kids took reams of drugs, got abortions, drove drunk, and victimised the weaklings. i grew up in what most conservatives would consider a utopia; lots of money, prestige, cultural cohesion, and good conservative values. but their values were in fact aesthetics, and maintaining these aesthetics ruled and ruined their lives. almost everyone in this suburban bourgeoisie system hated their lives, but because they had been brought up to worship these aesthetic myths they felt that to question them was an admission of personal failure.
-- Moby, Cultural Conservativism
important discovery
Cut your nails without making a mess:
Place your hand or foot to be trimmed inside a good-sized clear plastic bag, as well as the clippers. Operate the clippers with the opposite hand from outside the bag. All nail clippings land in the bag, with no mess.
