A very interesting Art Show

Thanks to Warren Ellis for this. Alison Jackson and her ‘paparazzi images’. I particularly like the ‘Prince Harry’ ones.

I’m always amazed when you see this sort of short-sighted reporting

From ABC.Net

A Japanese father has called for his own son to hang after a gruesome murder spree in which the teenager killed three family members before slashing open his mother’s belly and putting a doll inside. The father says he will seek the death penalty for his 18-year-old son, who is a fan of the grisly Hannibal Lecter novels and has written horror stories himself.

Now the part I have emphasised suggests that it was the ‘horror interest’ that made that kid bad no? But further down the article:

The father, who divorced the boy’s mother a decade ago and has been in and out of prison on blackmail charges, admitted he was partly responsible for his son’s poor upbringing.

I really hate the fact that the way that article is written is done in such a way that it clearly places more emphasis on the ‘interests’ of the child than in his upbringing, I mean this sort of crap always happens in the analysis of these ‘youth violence’ incidents, especially in the American media, I mean you can just see this event being used by some ‘moral majority’ jackass to ‘prove’ how ‘horror movies corrupt children’..

Bah, I’m tired and cranky but still… This crap really pisses me off..

A Decleration of ‘War’ against the Cult of Scientology

Thanks to Warrenellis.com for this interesting video:

Update: As Warren Ellis points out - what makes these videos so interesting is the sense of ‘threat’ within these videos as much as anything else…. Read the rest of this entry »

I swear the world gets more sci-fi every day…

Its not quite

but

is an interesting idea

Relying on real-time data from an array of sensors that detect muscle movement, the suit enhances physical strength by controlling the movement of 8 different motors that provide support to the shoulders, knees, arms and legs. To the wearer, heavy objects seem as light as 10 kilograms (22 lbs).

‘Kiosk’ by Bruce Sterling

This is a pretty good short story - take a look:

Borislav moved from his booth into the freezing wreck of a warehouse, where the survivors sorted and sold the effects of the dead. Another awful winter. They burned furniture to stay warm. When they coughed, people stared in terror at their handkerchiefs. Food shortages, too, this time: the dizzy edge of famine. Crazy times.
He had nothing left of that former life but his pictures. During the mayhem, he took thousands of photographs. That was something to mark the day, to point a lens, to squeeze a button, when there was nothing else to do, except to hustle, or sit and grieve, or jump from a bridge. He still had all those pictures, every last one of them. Everyday photographs of extraordinary times. His own extraordinary self: he was young, gaunt, wounded, hungry, burning-eyed.

I have trouble believing this story but:

From the BBC:

Five hundred drunken teenagers have attacked police during a wild party in the Australian city of Melbourne.

”Corey Delaney said he could not remember much of the party”…

I’m honestly not sure whether to congratulate this guy or hit him… Oh well.

Update: Now that I look at the photo of him, hit him. Definitely hit him.

Two rather entertaining lists:

The Evil Overlord list featuring such classics as:

My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.
One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.
If my trusted lieutenant tells me my Legions of Terror are losing a battle, I will believe him. After all, he’s my trusted lieutenant

And some 97 more.

Along with The 213 things Skippy is no longer allowed to do in the U.S army such as:

14.Not allowed out of my office when the president visited Sarajevo.
17. God may not contradict any of my orders
29. The Irish MPs are not after “Me frosted lucky charms”.
33. Not allowed to chew gum at formation, unless I brought enough for everybody.
34. (Next day) Not allowed to chew gum at formation even if I *did* bring enough for everybody.
48. I may not use public masturbation as a tool to demonstrate a flaw in a command decision.

And so on… There’s a pretty good website with this list explaining some of these stories here.

Shoes

The girls I know in the University of Limerick swear by this video, (in some cases literally). It freaks me out tbh, but when I was reminded of it today I decided I’d spread the oddness:

Up until the 1990’s you could set off the British nuclear arsenal with a bike lock-key:

Unbelievable:

PALs (Permissive Action Links) were introduced in the 1960s in America to prevent a mad General or pilot launching a nuclear war off their own bat - the Dr Strangelove scenario.

And this was apparently all you needed to do if you were any British soldier wanting to set off WW3:

To arm the weapons you just open a panel held by two captive screws - like a battery cover on a radio - using a thumbnail or a coin.

Inside are the arming switch and a series of dials which you can turn with an Allen key to select high yield or low yield, air burst or groundburst and other parameters.

The Bomb is actually armed by inserting a bicycle lock key into the arming switch and turning it through 90 degrees. There is no code which needs to be entered or dual key system to prevent a rogue individual from arming the Bomb.

The Garden of Eden sucked:

One of the most entertaining things I’ve read in the economist in a while…

Constant warfare was necessary to keep population density down to one person per square mile. Farmers can live at 100 times that density. Hunter-gatherers may have been so lithe and healthy because the weak were dead. The invention of agriculture and the advent of settled society merely swapped high mortality for high morbidity, allowing people some relief from chronic warfare so they could at least grind out an existence, rather than being ground out of existence altogether.