via gizmodo.com
The 1984 commercial that actually makes sense. Way to go Valve.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
YOU MIGHT FIND YOURSELF
Today I set out from my house and walked. And walked.
I didn’t have a specific destination in mind, but wanted to walk a bit before finding a quiet place to write. So I walked, out of the town where I live and along the tropical, white-sand coastline, to the next town over.
As others drove cocooned in their cars, I walked, and emitted nothing but my breath.
As others spent their lunch hour pounding down fat-laden burgers and greasy fries or some other cheesy fried piled-high dish, I walked, and burned calories.
As others rushed and stressed, I walked, and took my time.
As others sat at their computers, I walked, and got my blood flowing.
As others held power business meetings and made deals, I walked, and had time to think.
As others were productive and got tasks done, I walked and got nothing done, and cleared my head.
As others had the comfort of shelter and air-conditioning, I walked and worked up a light sweat and was buffeted by the wind.
As a white gull floated serenely above a calm bay, I walked, and watched, and loved it.
I walked for an hour, then wrote and read, and then walked for another hour to get back home, tired but happy.
I can’t walk this much every day, but I walk as much as I can, because you need nothing to walk, you spend nothing, you consume nothing, you emit nothing.
And yet you have everything.
the joy of walking
WONDER-TONIC
http://whythefuckdontyouknowabout.com/ aggressively challenges your familiarity with random Wikipedia art
Thursday, May 20, 2010
“Are you human?” video documentation GDFB | F.A.T.
via fffff.at
I like it, poorly implemented :p but I still like it.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
YOU MIGHT FIND YOURSELF
You’re going to study at Kyoto University and not quite sure how you’ll afford housing? How about Yoshida-ryo, a rundown dormitory built in 1913 that charges 2,500 yen a month.
At the southern edge of Kyoto University’s Yoshida Campus in Kyoto lies a tree-shrouded, sprawling and ramshackle wooden building. It is decrepit and sometimes even interweaved with overgrowth. But this building is no ruin. It’s the Yoshida-ryo dormitory — a bewildering anachronism in a city based on the idea of living history.
Nearly a century old, and looking every day of it, Yoshida-ryo is very likely the last remaining example of the once common Japanese wooden university dormitory. This building was built in 1913. Organized from the very beginning to be self-administering through a dormitory association (寮自治会), the students themselves have been responsible for selecting new applicants for residency. This autonomy, however, came under full-scale assault in 1971, when the Ministry of Education began a policy of regulating or closing dormitories, which were seen as “hotbeds for various kinds of conflict.” University authorities first tried to close Yoshida-ryo completely in 1979, and after failing to overcome opposition over the next 10 years finally closed the Western Yoshida-ryo across the street.
With the death of Japan’s violent student activism, the campaign to close the dormitory subsided for a time, but in the aftermath of the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake there were new calls to replace the poorly aged building, which had already seen its maintenance neglected for decades by a university that had wanted to demolish it.
At present, the future of the dormitory is unclear. While residents have performed some minor upgrades over the years, such as the haphazard stringing of Ethernet cables through the halls to each room, they have only recently begun discussing the possibility of performing serious repairs themselves. There has even been some discussion of bypassing the university and applying for historical building preservation funds, although the building may be considered too far gone for proper restoration, particularly while still being lived in.
The university has recently been fairly insistent on their plan to replace it with a new, safer structure, which fits in with their aggressive earthquake-proofing campaign. But the current administration seems unlikely to take extreme action along the lines of Tokyo University’s demolition of Komaba-ryo in 2001, when its residents were literally dragged out of the building by over 570 private security guards and university staff in the midst of a raging typhoon.
Originally only housing male undergraduates, Yoshida-ryo went coed in 1985, started accepting foreign students in 1990, and since 1991 has accepted any sort of Kyoto University affiliated student, including graduate students, with some current residents living there from their freshman year all the way through the end of graduate school.
While the facilities are sub-par by modern standards, the unbelievably low rent of ￥2,500 per month (technically ￥400 rent, ￥1,600 utilities and ￥500 to fund the Yoshida-ryo Residents Association) and bohemian atmosphere make it an attractive living place for financially challenged students (including a large number of self-financed students from China).
Visiting Yoshida-ryo
Yoshida-ryo is located on the northeast corner of the intersection of Higashiyama and Konoe Streets in Kyoto City. As Yoshida-ryo is a working school dormitory and not a museum, visitors should not wander around the interior of the buildings, but students hanging out near the main entrance are often willing to give a quick tour of the public areas if asked politely.
For the frugal and adventurous traveler, it is often possible to sleep on the floor of one of the large (and admittedly pretty filthy) common rooms for a nominal fee of ￥200 per night, although at the beginning of the semester these areas are sometimes used to temporarily house new residents before rooms are assigned and may not be available for guests. (via Yoshida-ryo dormitory at Kyoto University | CNNGo.com)
2500 yen, is about $38 NZD currently. I like the concept, and life you would live living there, wish there was something like that in Christchurch.
YOU MIGHT FIND YOURSELF
Dex christened the Tao after the detached cool exhibited by three Steves of the world, Steve McQueen, Steve Austin from The Six Million Dollar Man, and Steve McGarrett on Hawaii Five-0.
The Tao itself is the philosophy that Dex employs to succeed sexually with women. It consists of three rules:
- Eliminate your desires.
- Do something excellent in her presence, thereby proving your sexual worthiness.
- Retreat, for as Martin Heidegger said, “We pursue that which retreats from us”.
Or, as Dave later recaps it:
- Be desireless
- Be excellent
- Be gone
sup Brodeep!
syntheticpubes: What is terrible is not death but the lives people...
What is terrible is not death but the lives people live or don’t live up until their death. They don’t honor their own lives, they piss on their lives. They shit them away. Dumb fuckers. They concentrate too much on fucking, movies, money, family, fucking. Their minds are full of cotton. They swallow God without thinking, they swallow country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them. Their brains are stuffed with cotton. They look ugly, they talk ugly, they walk ugly. Play them the great music of the centuries and they can’t hear it. Most people’s deaths are a sham. There’s nothing left to die.”
— Charles Bukowski (via 50yearstorm)
I agree, now how do I not end up being one of these people.
Dead Media Beat: analog journalism | Beyond The Beyond
http://www.mndaily.com/2010/05/02/journalism-professor-asks-students-unplug
Journalism professor asks students to unplug
Students were told to go five days without modern technology.
PUBLISHED: 05/02/2010
BY BRENT RENNEKE(…)
Last month, Heather LaMarre, assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, asked the students in her principles of strategic communication course to go five days without using technology created after 1984.
(…)
Also, the assignment enlightened the students on what life was like for many of their future employers, according to LaMarre, who said the year 1984 was chosen because this is the time frame in which many of the bosses of today lived in.
“That age group grew up without this technology and comes from a very different viewpoint,” LaMarre said.
The majority of the students in LaMarre’s classroom, however, come from an age group with a viewpoint firmly entrenched in technology.
Lucy Knopff, public relations sophomore, said the assignment forced her to give up her cell phone, which she has used since junior high.
“It is what I know, and it is hard to stray from what you know,” Knopff said.
LaMarre said technologies like Knopff’s cell phone have provided a valuable tool of convenience, but how we utilize this tool needs to be realized.
“I wanted them to realize the difference between using it in a strategic way and using it mindlessly,” LaMarre said.
LaMarre said technology should be used with an intended purpose and not needlessly.
“You wouldn’t just pick up a hammer or screwdriver and use it mindlessly,” LaMarre said.
It is this kind of “mindless” use that ended Knopff’s attempt a half hour after leaving the classroom the day it was assigned.
“After leaving class, I put on my iPod,” Knopff said. “It is so second nature to me that I didn’t even realize it.”
LaMarre said early failure in the project was common, with less than 10 percent of her 43 students making it past two days…. (((I’m surprised they made it that long.)))
via wired.com
I wouldn't think it's that hard to do, but then I don't have the motivation to do it.
Staplerfahrer Klaus [Uncensored, English Subs, High Quality]
via youtube.com
Awesome training video, skip straight to 6.26 sec if you don't want to learn anything, but watch.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
YOU MIGHT FIND YOURSELF
How Hipsters Break Up
OR: I just don’t think we’re compatible… I need someone more like Joanna Newsom. Plz forgive me? We can discuss this over a Red Stripe if that would make things easier.
God, I wished I used this a few times, before I became so entrenched with some peoples lives :S
Why Roger Ebert Hates 3-D (And You Should Too) - Film - Gizmodo
Why Roger Ebert Hates 3-D (And You Should Too)
While Avatar was technically impeccable, we have already said that 3D is Hollywood's next big scam. Film critic, Russ Meyer devotee (amen), and overall good guy Roger Ebert agrees. And he provides a definitive list of reasons:
1. It's the waste of a dimension.
2. It adds nothing to the experience.
3. It can be a distraction.
4. It can create nausea and headaches.
5. Have you noticed that 3-D seems a little dim?
6. It's an excuse to buy new digital projectors.
7. Theaters slap on a surcharge of $5 to $7.50 for 3-D.
8. I cannot imagine a serious drama in 3-D (neither can I).
9. Whenever Hollywood has felt threatened, it has turned to technology to save the day.I have to agree with him. I see 3D serving a purpose in interactive experiences like gaming or science visualization, but I hope 3D movies die soon. At least, in its current form.
Read Ebert's crystal clear explanation of each point in his list at [Newsweek]
Send an email to Jesus Diaz, the author of this post, at jesus@gizmodo.com.
via gizmodo.com
I agree, especially point 9.
HOWTO: Read more books (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought)
HOWTO: Read more books
I’ve read a hundred books a year for the past couple years. Last time I mentioned this, a couple people asked how I could read so many books. Do I read unusually quickly? Do I spend an unusual amount of time reading? I did a simple calculation: The average person spends 1704 hours a year watching TV. If the average reading rate is 250 words per minute and the average book is 180,000 words, then that’s 142 books a year. To my surprise, I wasn’t reading nearly enough books. So I’ve taken some steps to read more:
Block your favorite blogs. I definitely have the mental habit noted in this xkcd cartoon: at the first sign of mental difficulty, I tab to a different window and begin typing the URL of a favorite blog. This habit is purely automatic, I do it without even thinking about it. As a result, I spend many, many hours a day reading blogs and following their links.
To overcome this habit, I added all my favorite blogs to an
/etc/hostsfile that redirects them to a bogus IP. Now when I type their URLs, I get an error message. I did the same with Hulu and other sites I use to watch TV shows; if you have a real television, be sure to get rid of it too. Now I usually try visiting a couple different blogs before my conscious self realizes what’s happening, but this happens soon enough and, over the past couple weeks, I’ve managed to pretty much train myself out of this bad habit.Now I either focus on the problem at hand or think enough about it to take a break and go for a walk, eat something, drink some water, read a book, or take a nap.
Order lots of books at the library. Most people think the way you read more books is by spending more time reading. But I’ve found that, like exercise, this is an effect and not a cause. I spend time reading when I have a great book to read. When I don’t, I feel no urge to read and when I do start reading something, I put it down quickly. But if I’m reading a great book, I spontaneously come up with times and places to read it.
But figuring out which books are great in advance is hard. People’s experiences about which books they find compelling depend somewhat on their interests and finding accurate critics is problematic. So the best way I’ve found to see whether a book is good is to just start reading it.
My local library system (Minuteman) allows you to request up to 20 books online and then delivers them to the branch library nearest you. So whenever someone makes a book recommendation or I hear about a book that seems interesting, I request it online. Then I go and pick up a stack of books at the library every week or so.
I begin reading them and finish the ones that are exciting enough to finish and return the ones that are unpromising enough to give up on. Then I return them all and get some more.
I also find that the due dates and the growing pile of books provides additional impetus to read them. And the habit doesn’t cost me any money this way, so I don’t feel guilty about it. (I’m sure you can come up with reasons I should feel guilty, but the fact remains that I don’t.)
Alienate everyone close to you. The biggest consumer of time is undoubtedly other people, in large measure because talking to other people is so fun that you don’t notice time going by. By keeping yourself away from other people (living alone is a good start), you free up an enormous amount of time for reading. I find this is particularly useful in reading books, since books can usually substitute for human company: you can take them with you on the train and to meals and curl up with them at night and so on.
Getting rid of other hobbies no doubt also helps. (And, unlike people, books don’t encourage you to have other hobbies.) I didn’t have any other hobbies, so this was less of a problem for me, but you may want to think about the things you do instead of reading books and stop doing them.
Keep the temperature low. A common problem is falling asleep while reading. But I find it’s difficult to fall asleep when I’m cold (whereas it’s very easy to sleep when I’m warm), so I keep the temperature quite low in my apartment during the day. Even when I’m snuggled up in bed, I’m usually cold enough that I can’t fall asleep.
I suspect few people will take all of this advice, but hopefully some of it is useful to you.
March 2, 2010
Comments
Of course, long ago Cosma Shalizi said all this shorter and better:
Where do you find the time to read so much?
I don’t watch TV, I have no social life, and I read about a page a minute, if there isn’t any math to slow me down.
…but then again, everything I write is just commentaries on off-hand remarks by Cosma.
posted by Aaron Swartz on March 2, 2010 #
Um, #3 seems a little extreme. Though I guess this is titled “how to read more books” and not “everything in moderation”.
I also read a lot, but would like to have some evidence that it helps me with my broader life and goals. It’s pretty easy just to read frivolously, like you can watch TV frivolously.
posted by Andy C on March 2, 2010 #
Nice post. And yes, while #3 is a bit extreme, I’ve found living near(and using)! a Minuteman library trebled my reading. Good plug for ‘em.
posted by Michael Morisy on March 2, 2010 #
I find audio books another excellent source for getting more reading in. I use Audible.com as my audio-crack supplier. Basically, the ability to commute to work listening to a good book makes it much more enjoyable. Indeed, anytime I need to spend time doing chores (cleaning the kitchen, washing up in the morning, etc) I tend to have the headphones on listening away. Obviously, when the wife wants to talk, I put them away. But, when I can’t actually sit down to read, audiobooks are there to the rescue.
posted by Jason Lotito on March 2, 2010 #
Getting rid of other hobbies to explore a specific hobby doesn’t sound like a good idea unless that specific hobby is going to earn your bread and butter.
I see hobbies as complementing each other rather than being destructive to other hobbies.
I will try blocking favourite news sites from today and see how that affects my lifestyle. A few good hours should easily be salvaged. Thanks for the post.
Nice post. Thanks. I have a little rack next to my computer which hold a book open, so I use that same impulse to switch attention to look over at the book instead of a newsfeed (part of the time). It’s amazing how much book reading this produces.
Also, if you’re a good reader, you’re an even better scanner. For those books that don’t deserve the old word-for-word you can scan through a book quickly and profitably.
Good advice Aaron. One more simple lesson that I learned only in my early twenties.
You don’t need to finish every book.
This is a simple but powerful lesson. It reduces the mental burden of starting a new book to near zero. I’m now comfortable putting a book down 200 pages in. And that makes it much easier to start the next 600 page novel.
High school english classes teach us the wrong way to read books. It took me a long time to unlearn what I was taught.
posted by Matt Brezina on March 2, 2010 #
This brings up the interesting question of whether reading books is a better use of your time than reading, say, blogs. If you choose the blogs wisely, that’s not always the case.
It also brings up the question of whether reading books is a better use of time than other hobbies (say, exercise), or than spending time with people.
I love reading, but the answers to these questions aren’t always a given.
My tip: talk with more people who love to read books, and you will read more yourself.
I have another one: stop using your car and start reading on the bus, tram, taxi, metro! But I also think that “stop meeting other people”, “eliminate all other hobbies” and “stop reading any blogs” are not convincing 100%. Reading books is wonderful, but news and newspapers, specific blogs, other hobbies and especially friends are wonderful (and friends also important), too.
posted by it's me on March 2, 2010 #
Maybe I am taking the phrase out of context, but “alienate everyone close to you” sounds going against a big purpose of reading books - to grow ourselves in the real world. Is there specific type of people you are avoiding? Like you wrote, when we see great books (people) we just make our time and that’s healthy, I think, even if it reduces the amount of books read.
Listen to audio books while at work.
posted by Jason Adams on March 3, 2010 #
1, #2 and #4 are really helpful, I had the same habit of openning a new tab out of nowhere and automatically type in a URL. Blocking is the only way I found too!
I think eliminating friends and hobbies depends on what your purpose in life is. There are some people worth more than thousands of books, they can teach you some lessons you can never learn from books; books are written by people anyway.
I believe a happy person is a person in harmony with his life, knowledge, health, peace of mind are all necessary.
There is no frigate like a book To take us lands away, Nor any coursers like a page Of prancing poetry. This traverse may the poorest take Without oppress of toll; How frugal is the chariot That bears a human soul!
posted by Emily Dickinson on March 3, 2010 #
no. 2 is great!
posted by Balakumar Muthu on March 3, 2010 #
Is the author proposing reading for the sake of reading itself? (Agree with ISAO) I would like to share with my fellow mates to get different perspectives on the things i read…. Published authors are not know it alls…(Just read some of the investing guides just b4 the financial crisis for a taste of this.)
But nice post
posted by newtaraday on March 3, 2010 #
lol… I average 5-10 books a week WITHOUT doing any of these. But then, I don’t watch TV. I don’t want to even imagine how high my average would get if I cut out internet time. I think I’m doing just fine.
posted by shawna on March 3, 2010 #
I don’t understand the author’s point. Reading blogs is reading. As well as reading comic books or user manuals. Or nutriment information on the back of boxed cereals.
I have the same problem with people who believe that someone who’s reading non fiction has no “culture” compared to someone reading novels. Are novels superior to non-fiction? Are books superior to blogs? Another example of that way of thinking: lucid dream forums. People there are counting their lucid dreams, and aim for the maximal number of lucid dreams.
I say: what’s the point? Bragging rights in your e-mail signature? “This year I read 154 books and had 485 lucid dreams.” Who’s got the highest score? It’s not a video game.
I understand the blog post may have been designed to attract such reactions. But in case someone’s doubting: reading is about diversity, pleasure and discovery. Not olympic performance.
posted by HED on March 3, 2010 #
I love point three and laughed when I read the title. The only suggestion I would add is suggestions on how to alienate other people, but that could be a completely new post all together.
Wow— this is impressive. Though I wonder, do you think you would you still read so quickly if more of the books were fiction? Or perhaps a better way to phrase it: would reading fiction at this rate be desirable?
posted by Rachel Rosenfelt on March 3, 2010 #
I’m french, so sorry for the faults. I hope I’ll be understandable…
Watching television or a play in a theatre, if you are active, mentally active, can be compared to the fact of reading (receiving and treating information, eventually stocking then transmit this information or the result(s) of its tranformation(s)), and at the opposite you can read a lot of words without understanding it, or, even if you understand the words and what they probably mean, those readings can still be unusefull for you, for the others, or worse, they can be dangerous.
After you read a book, watched a stupid video on a web site or have been the witness of something particular in the street, the point, in my humble opinion, is : what are you doing with this ? how did you receive, treat and then maybe stock and/or communicate those informations ? because for each of those cases, you can act/think like a mollusk, like a pre-human, like a human, or like what the humans are aiming to. You (it’s a general ‘you’, not a ‘you==Aaron’ ;) can read 389 books a year (or a day !) but if you are stupid and anti-sexy as a computer, you’ll die stupid and virgin.
posted by Bertrand on March 4, 2010 #
Wow… a lot of people don’t seem to see the back-handed wit in #3. Do I detect remorse for alienating someone recently? I hope not… I hope things are going well, Aaron.
posted by Dan Connolly on March 5, 2010 #
If I blocked reading blogs, I would not reach this article, then I would not know that I should block it! :)
posted by Ping on March 5, 2010 #
Any plans for what you’ll do with all that knowledge once you’ve finished accumulating it?
Reading a ton of books is not a goal that appeals to me. I like learning as I do things, so I can apply knowledge right after picking it up. If you read a book without having an application in mind for the information in it, you run the risk of never actually using that information. (Of course there is also information in some books that you wouldn’t know to look for, though.)
posted by John Maxwell IV on March 5, 2010 #
I can read 20~30 books per year. There is a big gap between you and me. ^_^ I did a translation(into chinese) work on this essay, link: http://wavebehind.org/2010/03/how-to-read-more-books.html
I feel there are some misleading concepts here, rather than reading more books there should be more important to read better the books as well as to read high quality books (with high interest). When I was a little boy I devoured the books, they did last top 1 - 2 days no matter there were 100 - 350 pags, but after several years I read again some of those books and I noticed I got / understood / discovered much more stuff.
Also it´s worth considering that as the time pass you go discovering new reading strategies, so on there are books that deserve a full detailed reading while with others a fast reading will do. No one is more important than the other, they are better for some situations / books.
I noted some very insteresting comments about the other info source. Sometimes a picture it´s worth thousands words. So books are only a fraction of the useful / insteresting / etc etc resources around. In my university studies sure books are important, but they are really valuable when you combine it with videos, images, the practice**- experience etc etc, the other sources open you as well to other perspectives wich are really really important for creating new understandings, new links (that a book may be unable to do alone).
I can´t avoid not to mention the T. of multiple intelligences, if I´m not wrong Howard Gardner defined eight independent intellingeces, well reading may apply to only one.
Last but no less, I totally disagree to the “Alienate everyone close to you”. Are you a sort of autoist guy?? Social activities are very important, so… if you actually dedicate most of your time to work and reading you don´t know what you are missing…!
posted by Phil D. on March 8, 2010 #
You are hilarious! Either that, or as my kids say, a “funsucker” who sucks the fun out of er…well: life. Kids…hey kids must be killing my reading average…better put that on the list, too.
thanks for the post.
posted by Theodore Mook on March 8, 2010 #
You can also send comments by email.
via aaronsw.com
I
Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Eclipses Concept Album Classics | Underwire
via wired.com
A very good article about concept albums, I like what it has to say about Pink Floyd in particular.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
ShieldsUP Tests Your Firewall for Vulnerabilities - Firewalls - Lifehacker
via lifehacker.com
Quite good for testing single Windows machines vulnerabilities, over the internet.
BLDGBLOG: Optical Spelunking
Optical Spelunking
[Image: The CAVE at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, now called the CAVCaM].
I mentioned a week or two ago that I had been out to Reno, Nevada, visiting, among other things, the Desert Research Institute, where Nicola Twilley of Edible Geography, Mark Smout of Smout Allen, and I began a roadtrip down to Los Angeles, through San Francisco—less a city than a peninsular amphitheater of conflicting microclimates—by way of the Virtual Reality CAVE that you see pictured here.
[Image: Daniel Coming, Principle Investigator of the CAVCaM, manipulates geometries that don't exist, and we photograph him as he does so].
The facility is no longer called the CAVE, I should add; it's now the CAVCaM, or Center for Advanced Visualization, Computation and Modeling. CAVCaM "strives to maintain a state-of-the-art visualization system, improve data collections, simulations, and analyses of scientific information from the environment."
Advancements will create new capabilities for multidisciplinary research, produce top tier visualization environments for use by the broader scientific community, and offer opportunities to improve management decisions including prediction, planning, mitigation, and public education throughout Nevada and the world.
It also blows the minds of landscape theorists and practitioners in the process.
[Image: Touring virtual light].
In most of the photos here you see Matthew Coolidge from the Center for Land Use Interpretation, Bill Gilbert from the Land Arts of the American West program, and activist landscape historian and theorist Lucy Lippard all trying their hands at setting virtual forest fires, chasing digital terrains off cliffs, and navigating a world of overlapping proximities that sewed together around us like high-end neurological garmentry—a perfectly tailored world of pharaonic nonexistence, standing in tombs of imagery and light—to become almost seamlessly 3D. Glimpsing, in advance, possible afterlives of the optic nerve.
[Image: Cthulhoid satellites appear in space before you, rotating three-dimensionally in silence].
Of course, these photos also show the inteprid Dr. Daniel Coming, "Principle Investigator" of the CAVCaM—a fantastic job title, implying that this strange machinic environment that the DRI has built isn't so much put to use, in a dry, straight-forward, functional way, but investigated, researched, explored. Daniel showed us all how to use the hand controls, putting on a display of virtual light and shadows. Objects that were never built, reflecting light that isn't real.
We were all there on an invitation from the staff of the Nevada Museum of Art—who don't appear in these photographs, but were absolutely key in making this tour happen.
[Images: Photos by BLDGBLOG and Nicola Twilley].
For whatever reason, meanwhile, that last photograph, above, featuring Matthew Coolidge, Bill Gilbert, and Lucy Lippard seemingly entranced—as we all were—by this new altarpiece of virtual surfaces, reminds me of the final lines from R.S. Thomas's old poem "Once":
Confederates of the natural day,
We went forth to meet the Machine.Or perhaps it was the Machine that has come to meet us.
[Image: The CAVCaM reboots after a universe of simulation].
Posted Saturday, April 03, 2010 • 4 comment(s)
Monday, May 3, 2010
IMDb :: Boards :: The Jackal (1997) :: Do Americans realise how offensive this...
Board: The Jackal (1997)
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Subject Posted by Date
Do Americans realise how offensive this film is?
by j30bell (Wed May 4 2005 02:44:45)
Ignore this User | Report Abuse UPDATED Wed May 4 2005 02:49:37
Presumably not. To cast a convicted IRA terrorist as the chummy, cuddly good guy in this film is tasteless and offensive beyond, frankly, my ability to express.Whatever one thinks of the struggle for a united Ireland, and for the record I’m in favour of a united Ireland, this film’s treatment of the IRA is about as nasty as I’ve seen on film.
For those who have trouble extending their code of morality beyond the borders of the USA, let me just explain. It would be a bit like an English film writing in Tim McViegh as a decent upstanding citizen who was persecuted by the US government for his political beliefs. It would be like a French film arguing that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was a political freedom fighter.
This film treats the campaign of murder by thugs without any moral or democratic authority (even among republicans in the North) as some kind of theme park. The only people who can afford such narrow-minded, bigoted views are the pseudo-Irish types who frequent Boston bars, comfortable in the knowledge that they live thousands of miles away from the thugs they send money to.
Time is limited here, so of the thousands of innocent Irish and English people who have died at the hands of these butchers, lets just take the 11 people murdered by the IRA at Enniskillen. Note, the IRA did this by placing a bomb near the WW2 war memorial, timed to go off during a Remembrance Sunday service. The people who died were William Mullen 72 yrs, married with children and retired (Civilian), Angus Mullen 70 yrs married (Civilian), Kitchener Johnson 70 yrs married murdered with his wife Jessie (Civilian), Jessie Johnson 70 yrs married murdered with her husband Kitchener. (Civilian), Wesley Armstrong 62 yrs married murdered with his wife Bertha (Civilian), Bertha Armstrong 53 yrs married and murdered with her husband Wesley.(Civilian), John Megaw 68yrs (Civilian), Edward Armstrong 52 yrs member of the 'Chosen Few' Orange Lodge and a member of the RUCR, Georgina Quinton 72 yrs widow with four children. (Civilian) ,Marie Wilson 20 yrs single and was a nurse (Civilian), Samuel Gault 49 yrs (Civilian). In addition 63 people were injured, seven seriously. In other words the death toll could have been close to 100 people.
I could have taken (but not accepted) Gere’s character had this been a serious treatment of the IRA. But it’s not even that. Gere couldn't even be bothered to do a proper Northern Irish accent (not even a convincing Southern Irish accent) let alone attempt a plausible treatment of an IRA man. It’s just a big dumb backstory in the story of big gay Bruce and his big gay death cannon.
And it’s okay because, as the film makes clear, that butcher Gere only does these things because he really, really believes in the cause. Great! I’m sure the Washington sniper is delighted to hear US citizens are so tolerant. Except of course you’re not are you? Because it’s a different story when it happens to Americans.
combatreview (Wed May 4 2005 05:46:05) Deleted res_evil (Sat Feb 2 2008 21:24:17) j30bell (Wed May 4 2005 08:22:18) Deleted jclayton-2 (Wed Jun 1 2005 09:07:36) gary_overman (Tue Mar 25 2008 05:46:32) SpiltPersonality (Fri Aug 28 2009 00:11:25) Paul_Jay (Thu Jun 9 2005 17:31:34)
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Great rant.
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