Tomorrow could be one of the biggest days in what will be our generation’s history. I talk about it too much already, so I promised I would keep this one brief (I lied). Also please don’t assume I’m jumping on some sort of endorsement bandwagon here, as I totally don’t care about endorsements outside of entertainment and I think it’s important for everyone to talk about this crap with everyone.

It is important that everyone makes time and goes to their polling place and sticks four fingers into the system that has been fucking up their lives for the past few years. The only way to beat this system is to use it; this is a basic fact of American civics.

I want to also note that it is particularly important for anyone under 25 to get the hell off of their lazy asses and just go to their polling places tomorrow and vote. Look up where it is, stop whining about it, and go do it. If you are an older person that cares about the horrors of government and interact with the 18-25s regularly, inspire them. Make it happen.

As for me, I will be representing my home state and the man whose birthday I stole next week (who understood the concept of inspiration as catalyst) by voting for the guy that announced his candidacy in the same place as some of the most eloquently backhanded speeches ever have been delivered.

I have been talking about this quite a lot over there on the twitter, but it’s not about buzzword bingo or hot shit trends or bandwagon bumblefuck. This is about reform that will relieve the poor of the rich’s burden (without empty leftist rhetoric promises). It is about technology not scaring off the elderly Washington geriatrics. It is about SERIOUSLY TECHNOLOGY IT’S THE FUTURE. It is about taking our country back from companies and stockholders by using it against itself. It is about diversity and proving to Negative Nancies™ that our country really has come this far.

I am a skeptic leaning far into the realm of cynicism. That cynicism is a result of the past seven years, and I don’t consider it permanent. I looked into this guy and the whole behind the scenes mess, and I said fuck libertarianism for a couple years if this will actually improve life. I genuinely think it will, and that is after excessive cynical review. I am much more surprised than I am proud to report that the state of Georgia agrees.

It is time to move on and up. This rutwalking can finally end with thinking positive, and I say that with the most respectably desperate tone possible. I already voted for this guy in Illinois, watched what he did after that, and now I’m going to vote for him again. Thank you for listening.

Supplemental: Here is a very detailed, objective assessment of Obama that I admire.

…calculated by Dr. Cliff Arnall…and has been quoted in the popular press, although there is little if any scientific basis to his methods…”the fact is that Cliff Arnall’s equations are stupid, and some fail even to make mathematical sense on their own terms.” The date was calculated by using many factors…weather conditions, debt level, time since Christmas, time since failing our new year’s resolutions, low motivational levels and feeling of a need to take action…typically falls on the Monday of the last full week of January. This would make 21 January the Blue Monday of 2008.

So it sounds like it makes sense, awesome arbitrary formula, and it certainly aligns with a damned full moon week this year. That’s a one-two menstrual punch for some. Then TIME magazine has to get all pseudo-tech with the whole idea:

Aside from the fact that Arnall’s theory has been discounted by many in the academic community, I’ve got a better way of finding the true nadir of depression: Look to our search behavior. If we think we’re suffering from a real bout of the blues or a mental crisis, we’re likely to Google the symptoms. In fact, online searches for “depression” are among the most popular searches sending traffic to the 5,900 sites that we track, but the peak is not in January. According to our Internet behavior, our depression spikes reliably in mid-November every year, right in time for Thanksgiving, the launch of the holiday season.

That’s true too! Holy shit!

Or maybe we’re just all crazy. I know I am blessed with my own manstrual cycle that tortures me every four weeks. Serious.

The doctor guy says the best day of the year is in the 24ish part of June also.

We’re not electing our pastors, priests, preachers, reverends, rabbis, shamans, mysticismists, or teachers here. We’re electing someone to manage a large part of the that godless heathen called the government. It cannot be tainted by one nor all religions.

This is part one of three. Stay tuned for the rest (the video feed on the right or do your youtube thing on it or whatever), which is a detailed discussion of your options when approaching the arena of electronic games in a manner that doesn’t piss off god.

IN FACT see you tomorrow here is part 2 and part 3 (it is arguably worth watching all three).

Driving from Illinois to Georgia, we saw someone with a Ron Paul bumper sticker somewhere in Tennessee. I didn’t think those existed in real life irlstyles meatspace.

Today the only other place on the street that was open was that huge coffee chain. Dude that is always there was talking Ron Paul with a customer.

Could an internet subculture be much much huger than the mass media portrays it? Yes. Would this be one of those cases? That question is why this is interesting.

not a needle/haystack type thing

Virus Status: Safe!
Your computer is free of known threats.

22981388328 files scanned, 0 file(s) infected on your disk drives.

No viruses were detected in memory.

Your computer is free of known threats.

You do not need antivirus software, or at least you haven’t for the past two years. Did you have it?

Sarc says 40% of their scans showed a need. I am not convinced.

I know some people could be sensitive and call it dry, but James Burke is a pretty serious cut-up considering his field of study, and I’ve worshiped his books for years. Note that this is part 2 of 5 of episode 1 of 10. This can be a serious fast track to general knowledge of the history of science, and is almost an eerily appropriate primer for skeptical thought and understanding of the scientific process and how it effects history, all under the umbrella of chaos! This is multi-threaded teaching and thinking.

In the closing scenes of The Day the Universe Changed, Burke suggested that a forthcoming revolution in communication and computer technology would allow people all over the world to exchange ideas and opinions instantaneously. Subsequent events seem to have proven him right. His views of the connected nature of history have also been substantiated by recent research in chaos/complexity/network theory.

Essentially anything here is going to be similar or have an even wider berth, but I definitely suggest Connections as it caused a bit of an educational revolution that logically played out to its fullest form on the internet.

This is essentially a compilation of my thoughts and reactions to the various things asked and said during these debates. Part 1 is here, and part 2 is here.

I have a Bachelor of Arts degree in film/video and digital media technology. What the hell people? There is no way I should be having this much trouble making this thing; i.e. everyone that regularly makes high-quality videos with the overshoot-and-edit-and-upload model deserves a significantly high five. I don’t really see myself being able to cope with Premiere for that long.

So if you’ve ever wanted to see me actually saying out loud the ridiculous, self-contradicting, political counter-terror-hobbyist rantings I’ve made elsewhere on the internet, here’s your big chance. And hey, I can spew my poisonous propaganda all over the place at the same time.

Winners: Ron Paul, John McCain, Mike Huckabee.

I gave a bit of a rambling speech wondering how the generation currently coming of age will handle having grown up during a dudfucking rut in American culture. I was pretty tired but I think i got the idea out of my mouth (and subsequently the head for the night).

That’s the thought for today? How brainwashed was I by Mister Rogers? Anyway, I found out today that a huge reference I have made a few times was a reference to something that didn’t exist, so I responded to myself. Embarrassment aside, I’m trying to set myself straight today.

TIP: There’s a hole in my Mario Pants? TRAGEDY; AM I RIGHT? Yes.

We’ve gotten to the point where even people with shitty taste are tired of how crappy mass media has gotten this last decade. I also forgot to mention how I am seeing 2009 as being the beginning of a new era for a culture-starved and corporate-ruined country. Guess why.

News flash: Britney Spears is no Madonna.

(p.s. thank fucking god for wordpress’s autosave, but i lost all my tags)

(P.P.S. I don’t really like the band Priestess. Better make a Priestess tag just for safe keeping)

This website seems to help. It’s a consumer advocacy site, with many rumors about it afloat, called Ripoff Report and anyone can submit (and any company can refute) reports of low-level fraud, corporate horseshit, etc.

No report is ever removed. No company has ever successfully sued the site. No one writing this article checked any facts in reference to this (possibly a future project to be undertaken at a later, more verbose, date).

It’s…girthful. People are pissed.

Oh and this website has all kinds of porn you’d probably recognize, viewable much like youtube.

There are problems with the Bay’s plan was wrapped up in a single comment from Anonymous:

It wont be OiNK. There will just be hoards of transcoded, non-seeded, mislabled, shit uploaded. This is why OiNK existed, as a reliable source of good quality music, which ‘BOiNK’ won’t be.

It’s true. No matter the level of care taken for the Bay to claim this niche, what is most likely going to end up happening is a “haven” for music that is just like any other public tracker…i.e. crap. What set oink apart was high quality, and a tracker where anyone could upload anything doesn’t have the infrastructure to maintain the same level of quality.

Who knows? The Bay could moderate it for real, and make a genuine attempt at maintaining the standards, but it’s not likely. They are more about the message than the method. It has its place, but it’s not what oink users seem to be seeking; for them, it is about quality and even community.

Scams and misinformation continue, in case you were wondering. There appears to be one source of super-reliable information, and elsewhere is going to be hearsay.

The internet isn’t as fast as people think in some departments, and one of those departments is getting over the 192kbps hump. Many folks do not even know of the v0 “standard,” and have never heard of flac, either. And to think some people take blu-ray seriously.

Bittorrent is a bigger idea than a country or a law. It is decentralization manifest, which is a concept that backfires when the topic of restrictions and private community comes up. In fact, they appear mutually exclusive. What will happen?

Lots of the same ideas coming up here are coming here. Read it.