The secret life of money

I can't pretend to understand all that much of it, but this article has some interesting data, claims, and postulates regarding money, paper and gold, debts, etc.
"The decision to sell England’s gold thereby saved Goldman Sachs and insured the political future of Gordon Brown. Goldman Sachs’ is still in business and Gordon Brown is now the Prime Minister of England—proving that good things come to those who do the bidding of the powerful (whether either outcome was worth 415 tons of England’s gold is questionable)
Selling a nation’s gold to save the bankers’ parasitic system is now common practice as the banker’s system continues to collapse and gold continues to rise. Since Gordon Brown sold England’s gold, gold has risen from $275 dollars per ounce to its present price of over $900 despite the thousands of tons of central bank gold sold to prevent its inexorable movement higher."

... Aha, this guy echoes something I've said for a while:
"Though, today, we look to government to provide and protect our freedoms and welfare, we are fools for so doing. Throughout the ages, the greatest threat to freedom has always been government."
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A comment:
How would you expect a group of people to act civilly towards each other with no one establishing and maintaining some sort of rules/guidelines for society?

I wouldn't. I just think we should be aware of how governments are likely to behave when push comes to shove.
For example, it might cause us to think twice before passing suppressive legislation like the Patriot Act. The threat of government is *far* greater than the threat of "terrorists", just look at the number of people each of those has murdered in the past.
Notice the article is only peripherally about government, though.

Mad skills

"I got mad skills," as Eliza Dushku said.



Joe said:
The quote "All things are possible with training" at the start of the video is not true.
With continued training I could never do half the thing it this video.
The wisdom of age lets me accept the things I cannot change.

I agree. I used to in into that thing, but not now. That dream is based on the false idea that to be able to win the Olympics or something is necessary to have a full life. I don't even think it's desirable. I almost commented on that when I posted the video. I didn't post it for "inspiration", just for entertainment. People who have some insane skill are not more fulfilled than others. Maybe on the contrary, due to the equally insane sacrifices they have to make to acquire that skill, and the admiration it buys them.

To some this will sound like I don't believe amazing things can be accomplished. But it's more of a shift of priorities. Now I value communication, beauty, and brotherhood with the universe and god higher than winning some contest.

Underwater fairytale

Underwater fairytale. A strange idea, but I sorta like the resulting pictures.

On and on and on and on

On and on and on and on.

Ugress

Ugress. Norwegian, pretty much a one man band. Awesome music. Lots of free samples, but I've just paid a big overprice on their newest, because he's given me so much over the years.

This is also a tribute to the power of giving-away-material-for-free marketing. Four or five years ago I got a few of their songs from a friend, including "Decepticons", and as I listened to them over the months, I liked them better and better. 

He has an interesting model, he is giving away the latest "EP" for free at 128k encoding, and selling it in 320k encoding. I think that works. 

If it were me, though, I'd throw in a bonus track for buyers, since the difference is so slight otherwise. (And maybe delete the $10 minimum price, it seems silly since you can get the thing for free anyway.)

Old Chicago poster art

Old Chicago poster art. I love that olde-worlde poster art. I wonder why lineal art is so lost today.

Sheep art

Sheep art. Total fake of course, but pretty funny.

A sneezer

I've just watched some of the first season of an oddball show called Modern Toss. It has ten-minute episodes each with various recurring characters. The part I really liked was Sneezeman (nine minutes, 38MB). Total genius. (These are all of his bits from the first season.)

I have a dream

I dream of a world of such beautiful directness that cups of coffee could just be labelled "small", "medium", and "large".

Ah, such honesty it would be, such communication, such simplicity. But I fear it will remain a dream.

Pano print

Another article on huge high-quality prints, with a specialized camera (to say the least).

Det er Ikke Pop

Interesting Iggy Pop interview.
I am watching a documentary-slash-concert-film about the Stooges. Interestingly, I find the interviews more compelling than the concert footage. For one thing, they avoided playing any songs from Raw Power, which to my mind is the strongest Stooges album. [Update: I just now see from an Iggy docu on the disc that on the third album, the Asheton brothers were not there. I don't know how they could call it a Stooges album. By the way, Ron Asheton just died in January of a heart attack.] And in extension of that, I don't think Iggy is the greatest song writer on the planet, all my favorite records of his were done in collaboration with Msr. Bowie. (Bowie produced Raw Power. Iggy claimed he ruined it, but see what a classic it became.)

I am sure the girls still love Iggy, even at sixty. His stage persona is as kinetic as ever, he is fit, and he's continually fighting the tendency of his trousers to fall down. (I don't understand why he doesn't just buy a belt or suspenders...)

I always find it interesting when an artist manages to still be on top after 40 years. That's just a super-human accomplishment.

... In the middle of Iggy's interview, he got up and stretched, and asked how far they were. When they said 33 minutes, he said "aha, so a little over half." And the interview continued, and he continued to answer questions in a very pleasant and sincere way, even when the interviewer for some reason included a few questions like "what's your favorite color". And then when the interview had lasted an hour, suddenly he got up and said "I guess this is it". No rounding off, no by-your-leave, nothing. Isn't that odd behavior?

Here's Iggy's The Passenger (disregard the video) And China Girl. These are both great songs, which I prefer much over the very early Stooges material. I'm reminded of about 20 years ago, friends who were musicians made an amateur band specifically for me to be able to sing China Girl. It was brief-lived, but fun while it lasted. I mixed elements of both Iggy's and Bowie's performance of the song. I think a more lyric approach than Iggy's energetic one is more fitting for a melodic song like this.

Flying trike

This is cool. (Butterfly LLC)
I'm interested in the fact that it seems the unpowered rotor on top (gyroplane) apparently is more efficient at low speeds than fixed wings. Seems counterintuitive to me.
But surely it also means that speed and range are quite limited, since the back rotor has to drag the top rotor through the air.

Update: Joe points to this interesting little flying car.