TheBigUpshot

I ran across an article that is pretty interesting. It’s a collection of speeches by Joe Bageant. He’s enamored with South American culture. That’s fine for him, but I don’t particularly identify with that culture. Too much touching. Joe may long for a “daily life in the flesh, belly to belly and soul to soul, lived out in the streets and parks and public places, in love and the workplace,” but that sounds like hell to me. God. The last thing I need is mutual public belly-touching.

However, his critique of American culture is well articulated:

Our daily news is the modern version of Roman coliseum shows. Elections are personality combat, chariot races, not examinations of solutions being offered. None are offered.

I happen to disagree with the implied solution he proposes (emulate the fuzzy tactile family structure of Belize), but I’m grateful that he actually goes so far as to offer up a solution to discuss. I have a different solution in mind. I think we could do a lot better if we spent more time and money on the work of craftsmen. I think it would be great if we were each others’ patrons when it came to individualized beautiful works of art and technology. The corporate, fad-oriented, marketed to death, planned obsolescence, throw-away culture is oppressive. But there’s no need to give up our comfortable “personal space.”

But my dream of a Neovictorian techno-utopia is far fetched. The blogosphere is my substitute for now, though. A place where people can engage intellectually with a little distance from the pervasive corporate interests… and there’s a great book on the subject over at Amazon.com on how to make money while blogging! Buy it through the link at right and support TBU!

(I’m only being half-ironic. Seriously, that button up top? You can buy that too! Know a designer who can spruce that up that design for me for a reasonable fee? Give me a yell.)

-Peter

Tags: Leadership, Philosophy by Peter
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The hot topic du jour – the internet weekly special, as it were – is the Rainbow Party. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking this involves rainbow hats, buttless chaps, rainbow disco balls, possibly a rainbow cake. A pleasing party fit for a princess. Perhaps a unicorn is hired to give rides.

Well, the truth is far more sinister, sister. Rainbow parties are the new trendy teenage pastime that the New York Times is Raving about. Do these parties involve… multicultural awareness?

No. An entirely different threat to youngsters’ morality is afoot. Young ladies show up to these parties wearing different shades of lipstick. Young men attempt to leave said parties wearing all of the possible shades available. And not on their lips… nod, nod, wink, wink…

No, I’m talking about them having lipstick on their penises. After fellatio. In case you didn’t get the subtext.

These “rainbow” parties are nothing more than oral sex parties! I’m as outraged as anyone. And what I want to know is, why did this idea need to wait until the 21st god-damned century? Lipstick, rainbows and parties all existed in my youth, yet nobody thought to put them together until now!

Well, I (and we all) need to face the facts. Had I been invited to a “rainbow party” at age 16, I would have respectfully declined. “That sounds super gay,” my cursed, stupid, ignorant 16-year old self would have said. I would have found out later the degree to which my homophobia had bitten me in the ass, and I would have considered suicide.

So, in conclusion, these rainbow parties are terrible ideas. You kids out there need to go through the same dry, barren, abstinent decades as the rest of us.

It’s only fair.

-The Jester

Tags: Humor by Jester
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Hot Tipper Rob (after one year, our number 1 supporter!) sent us this amazing little piece about strange multi sensory illusions. There are lots of optical illusions – certain shapes fool our interpretive abilities. What is surprising is that visual stimuli can produce tactile illusions.

So it turns out that if you happen to look at a bunch of horizontal lines moving upward on a screen for a while, then feel a little vibrating line with your fingertip, the line will feel like it’s moving. Evidently, the visual lines predispose our tactile sense to interpret motion.

Here’s another one (via Wired) I found interesting. It’s called the hollow mask illusion and, evidently, it doesn’t work on people with schizophrenia.

I wonder if the Jester would see the mask, or the face?

-Peter

Tags: Science by Peter
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Via Wired, it seems that bottled water has some contaminant issues (like that whole scare about polycarbonate water bottles). I still think that leachates are not so great a concern as people think, but most things that will get people to stop drinking bottled water are good ideas in my book.

The study referenced used snails to measure the effects of sex hormone analogues (probably pthalates) that are used as plasticizers in all kinds of things these days. Snails grown in bottled water tended to have a lot more little snails. That is an indicator that there might be some hormone analogues coming out of the plastic.

I doubt the effects on humans will be so easily determined.

Cheers,

Peter

Tags: Humor, Science by Peter
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