The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time
PC World lists the 25 worst tech products of all time.
Oral Fixation vol. Winslow
Over the years, I have often used sampling as a way of staving off despair. In Chicago, for example, while waiting at a bus stop in winter, I would sing the theme song from the Smurfs through clenched teeth to distract myself from my situation. During the last week or so, I’ve been dancing in the style of Shakira in my apartment in Plantation, Florida to distract myself from the fact that I live in an apartment in Plantation, Florida. Beyond this distraction, I think the dancing is very helpful.
Skillful Means
Govern large territories
the way you cook a small fish.–Tao Te Ching 60
Memory
Out of my grief I made a bicycle.
The Last Hurrah (And the Yellow Tank Rumbles On)
The triangle. I’m not referring to Tex Winter’s offensive scheme but the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area. Cary Town Center was the final mall. Not surprisingly, my motivation had taken a downward turn. As in, off of a cliff. But, it was a glorious ride down.
Katherine Dunham
It was a bitterly cold winter day three years ago when I last saw the pioneering choreographer Katherine Dunham teach. She was rolled into the Howard University dance studio in her wheelchair, bundled up like a prized antique. First a thick fur blanket was peeled off, then a woolen wrap, and then Dunham herself was revealed, somewhat hunched, wearing lots of gold jewelry. Peering through her oversize glasses at the more than 100 students sitting on the floor in front of her, she got right to work.
“Think of everything you learn from me today as part of a way of life,” she announced in a low, raspy voice. “Now — breathe.”
This was not as simple as it sounds. For Dunham, a tireless activist who died Sunday at the age of 96, invested every aspect of her life — indeed, you could say, every breath — with meticulous attention and an unflinching eye.
Free Cage (Hutch?)
Out by the gravel road (Shady Lane), right at the second entrance to our property, where if you turn in the red shed is to your left, there is a wire and wood cage or maybe you would call it a hutch. It is not really what you would call an outbuilding, though it is pretty big, big enough for one medium-sized animal or many small ones. I do not foresee any use for it, nor does J (we have two screened-in porches), and imagine that anyone who is willing to drive over here north of Logandale, south of Vergette to pick it up is welcome to it.
Refusing Heaven
Recently, while listening to “Fresh Air” on NPR I heard Terry Gross interview a poet who was new to me, Jack Gilbert. Older now, he was brilliant, and the poetry he read was stunning. Here is just a taste:
BURNING (ANDANTE NON TROPPO)
Prada
Animal-printed fur also covered the crash helmets that were the show’s favored accessory. However fantastical they sound, they were a reflection of the enduringly successful blend of creativity and commerce that grounds Prada. Everyone rides scooters in Italy, so everyone needs a helmet.
MICS
Make It Complex Smarty
Notes from the Countryside: Snake!
“Snake!” she declared in an alarmed voice. “Big, too!” and sailed out the door. I followed, and there stretched in perfection across the grass was all five and a half feet of it. It was black, filigreed with diamond patterns of delicate silver and red over the back.
Four of us crouched down, up close to get a better look at the head—non-poisonous (Lampropeltis getulus niger), a Black Kingsnake.
“Can I touch it,” someone said.
“Better not,” I replied, even non–poisonous snakes bite. We looked at it for many minutes without fear or loathing, staring at each other across the great divide. I was never more proud of my grandchildren.
Slowly it turned, and then gaining speed it headed directly for the venerable Post Oak in the Commons. Amazingly, it climbed the bark without difficulty, grabbing hold of any roughness and ascended twenty feet in seconds, disappearing into the high branches. The land-lover had suddenly become a tree-dweller right before our startled eyes.
The nest architecture of the Florida harvester ant
Pyramid as Giant Agricultural Clock
The archeologist Bob Benfer will never forget the moment when he realised that a pyramid he had unearthed high in the Andes was the New World’s oldest alarm clock.
On a barren hillside just north of Lima, he had found an observatory more than 4,000 years old that had been built by a lost civilisation with astonishing sophistication.
Intelligence
Observing the countryside out my window this morning, the glow of a Red-headed Woodpecker backlit in the grass under the Water Oak caught my attention. Definitely not its normal habitat, it was pecking through debris on the ground like its seed-eating cousins. Presently it held a small acorn in its bill, spread its wings and flew to the crotch of the oak and lodged it there securely between two large limbs. Held firm, it began its normal behavior, pecking at it to open a crack in search, I suspect, not of nutmeat, but of a grub. With one clear call, it flew off into the cool morning air.
Free Cages
WANTED – rat/ferret cage
I’m in need of a wire cage for my rescue rat. She’s in a cracked 10-gallon fishtank and I need to get something better for her.
A wire cage larger then a 10-gallon tank is preferred as well as one in which the animals died of old age rather then an illness.
Thanks!
Weekly Picture 55
Red Blooms, New Orleans, LA, April 2006
Free Shit
Khaled El-Masri
Back on New Year’s Eve of 2003, a German citizen named Khaled El-Masri had a fight with his wife and decided to blow off steam by getting on a bus and going to Macedonia. Unfortunately for him, his name was similar to that of an associate of a 9/11 hijacker, so he was picked up at the border by Macedonian police, who in turn contacted the CIA.
There was apparently no evidence of any kind against Masri, but the CIA took custody of him anyway. He was handcuffed, blindfolded, drugged, and put on a plane for Afghanistan, where he was beaten, kicked, and interrogated by American agents for weeks. He says he was told, “You are here in a country where no one knows about you, in a country where there is no law. If you die, we will bury you, and no one will know.”
Finally, in March of 2004, the CIA figured out they had screwed up. Masri’s passport was genuine, and he was just some poor unemployed schmoe who had had a fight with his wife. But they kept him for two more months anyway because they weren’t sure what to do. Eventually, they flew him to Albania and dumped him off at a narrow country road at dusk. “They asked me not to look back when I started walking,” Masri said. “I was afraid they would shoot me in the back.” Three men met him and drove him to an airport, where he was flown back to civilization.
Apple’s New Store
Complexity of Life
Life is complex. Each one of us must make his (or her) own path through life. There are no self-help manuals, no formulas, no easy answers. The right road for one is the wrong road for another … The journey of life is not paved in blacktop; it is not brightly lit, and it has no road signs. It is a rocky path through the wilderness.
–M. Scott Peck
Double Edged
Nothing is better than this.
Just in case. . . .
Apparently many of us are too unreflective to figure out whether our political opinions make us conservative, moderate or liberal. For help understanding yourself, you can take this quiz.
Tolle on Joy
When you say, I enjoy doing this or that, it is really a misperception. It makes it appear that the joy comes from what you do, but that is not the case. Joy does not come from what you do, it flows into what you do and thus into this world from deep within you. The misperception that joy comes from what you do is normal, and it is also dangerous, because it creates the belief that joy is something that can be dervied from something else, such as an activity or thing. You then look to the world to bring you joy, happiness. But it cannot do that. This is why many people live in constant frustration. The world is not giving them what they think they need.
–Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth, 298
Marina Bychkova
Wanting to make Dolls was the most constant thing in my life. The turning point was The Cinderella doll, in 2003. That’s when I found the fundamentals of a language with which to express myself. Something I always knew I wanted to say, but didn’t know how. That’s when I discovered my creative identity. As for making a living with it; I have faith in me. There is a doll market in the US, but it’s very conventional. I’m hoping to contribute something new to it by keeping some of the iconographic elements of a doll, but taking it to another level somehow. I strive for my dolls to transcend the social and traditional concepts of a doll. I want to function not as a doll maker, but as a fine artist who is dealing with dolls as a medium for further dialogue not as the sole subject matter.
My, oh my
Radio personality Doug McIntyre talking turkey.
