Archive for 2010
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[ Comments Off ]Posted on March 10, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010It’s interesting that in both boom AND bust times LOOKING like you’re doing work is more important than actually DOING it.
 This woman understood the importance of fake spreadsheets on the computer screen, but lost her job shortly after this photo was taken. Why? She forgot to generate fake desktop clutter. |
We used to have a weekly feature called Monday Demotivators in which we featured Flash-based games and puzzles to help you avoid actually (gasp) doing work on Monday morning. During the boom economy of a few years ago, I couldn’t help noticing that – as an aspiring entrepeneurial type – I often worked 60-70 hours a week, while my friends with “real” jobs spent an awful lot of time calling me during the day to fill time while they shopped on line or sent friends stupid links they found on Fark, or doing just about anything but their actual job. This not only had a big impact on my understanding of things like the 20-60-20 rule and the logic of overseas outsourcing, but eventually led to my amusement with spending time working to find ways to help others avoid working. Given the unemployment figures of the last year however, we decided to discontinue our little Monday feature. I mean, if you don’t have a job, you don’t have any work to avoid, right? The other day though, I received an e-mail in which the visitor said “I know this sounds crazy, but I miss your Monday Demotivators. Not because I’m trying to avoid work, but because of force reductions, I’m afraid I’ll get cut because I don’t look busy enough.” Yes, in the bizarre world of corporate employment, if you’re not the CEO that gets a bonus for running your company into the ground, you’re just a commodity that risks being shipped overseas if you’re not perceived as an asset as the ship sinks. And one of the best ways to be perceived as an asset is to not actually be an asset, but to look like one. So we’re here to help. It’s funny that “looking busy” was a valuable skill during boom times because your employer was oblivious to the same inefficiency that led to the staff cuts that now make “looking busy” a crucial skill again. Your Guide to Looking Busy at Work from 2003 is a slightly humorous piece that’s all about frittering away your surplus work hours with high-tech approaches, but last month’s NYT piece Working Hard to Look Busy was all about the new busywork, the kind that helps you keep the job that you were always avoiding. Decent management is hip to the more obvious “furrowing of the brow while clacking on your keyboard and faking a phone call” methods, so you have to get clever. This article gets down to the finer points like “abusing the interoffice envelope system” and “propping out your desk”. Following the simple suggestions in that peice should have you looking Busier than a one-legged man in a butt kickin’ contest in no time. Once you’ve successfully created the illusion of busy-ness, it still may be hard to get back to the more obvious nonsense like first-person shooter games, so you might want to try the games over at CantYouSeeImBusy.com, which are all designed to look like common office programs. Like Leadership, which appears to be a quarterly progress report, but is in fact a “navigate your rocket through the alien terrain” game. You could also resort to things like creating a fake desktop with lots of programs open (see below). Just remember that it IS fake if the boss wanders in; you’ll look pretty stupid if you start trying to drag around fake program windows. Got any tips of your own for looking busy? I have to get back to work now. Read the rest of this entry »
Washington’s Revolving Doors Make My Head Spin
[ 3 Comments ]Posted on March 9, 2010 by admin in Politics
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010The corporate takeover of the US Government is not tin-foil hat stuff, it’s well documented. We just don’t pay any attention. But will we ever DO anything about it?
 This attractive revolving door is made by the Crane Door company. We didn’t research them for influence peddling. |
I like to think of myself as a little more informed than the “average” citizen – whoever they are – yet I regularly find myself to be disturbingly naive (okay, just plain stupid) regarding how things really work in our government. It has bothered me for some time that our government seems to have been taken over by the finance industry, and that it operates in creepy collusion with a telecom monopoly, but until taking a closer look recently, I had no idea how active that revolving door in Washington really was. Considered “business as usual” by most Washington insiders, it even has a polite euphemism. Instead of calling it a corporate coup of our government, it’s called Agency Capture or Regulatory Capture. I believe in the old school Republican idea that government can be bad for business, but I can hardly accept the reverse, i.e.: that business is good for government. I think the recent banking catastrophes and USDA food safety failures speak for themselves; with the former you have the revolving banking industry/treasury department door, with the latter, the USDA/Monsanto door. I would be astounded if the current administration’s plans to make changes in revolving door policies were successful; the practice is simply far too pervasive. The amount of information on government agencies that are staffed with former corporate influence peddlers is overwhelming. Eisenhower warned of us the Military Industrial Complex back in 1961, and Monsanto has been a target of this scrutiny for some time; see lists like this one or this one. But these are just high-profile, extremely well-funded examples. This form of governing reaches across every industry, and at all levels of government. I’ve compiled a table of examples below, but for a really amazing resource, check out Open Secrets’ Revolving Door database. You can use it to do things like starting with a list of over 300 former public servants to track their connections, or look at revolving door employees by agency. The White House has nearly 500 on staff itself. In spite of the overwhelming number of federal employees that are infecting the way our government runs, there is a bright side. Rather than feeling paranoid and powerless against cold, inhuman, and faceless corporations, we COULD start targeting the actual people responsible with civic action. They only get away with it because we don’t pay attention. The tables and images below begin to give it all a face. Read the rest of this entry »
Neuroscience Audiomedical’s Antiviral Marketing
[ Comments Off ]Posted on March 8, 2010 by admin in Music
Monday, March 8th, 2010The latest video by the band Neuroscience Audiomedical is awesome. Problem is, they’re not a band.
If you were paying attention last fall, you might have caught a glimpse of the Neuroscience Audiomedical clip on the left. If you haven’t seen it, give it a look; it’s fun, and perhaps even a little disturbing. The only thing that disturbs me about it though, is that in spite of being a product-weary anti-consumer, I’m somehow disappointed that it’s NOT pitching a product at me. It has all the elements of a viral campaign or an Internet-Meme-to-be, but somehow is neither. It sort of points at the electronica DJ collective called Scratch Perverts, but none of their sites reference the clip, so you’re just left kind of thinking “Wow, that’s really neat, but WHY?” Well, keep wondering, ’cause I didn’t find much in the way of an answer myself. If you liked the video though, you’ll be pleased to know that Neuroscience Audiomedical has also done a live performance (also below). Or so say they say. It appears they used the same projection technology that was utilized for the Gorillaz and Madonna appearance at the Grammy Awards. The holographic projection method is a product called Musion Eyeliner, which allows 3-dimensional, moving, life-size holograms to appear within a live stage setting using Peppers Ghost techniques. Pretty cool. I just wish I knew what I was virally promoting here. More vids below. Read the rest of this entry »
5 Things The Oscars Have In Common With Presidential Elections
[ Comments Off ]Posted on March 7, 2010 by admin in Popular Media
Sunday, March 7th, 2010Race, gender, the Iraq war, and arrogant ex-husbands? The 2010 Oscars are feeling a lot like the 2008 election. Oh. And gay men throw the best parties.
I usually don’t pay much attention to the Academy Awards, but this year, an acquaintance of mine said “If Avatar wins Best Pic I will kick myself in the face. If I am unable to do so, I will train in leg flexibility until I am able to do so“. For that reason alone, I’m a little more interested than usual in the outcome this year, and as a result I couldn’t help noticing that this year’s Oscars have a few odd things in common with the 2008 elections.
1.) People of color will play a significant role in the outcome.
Avatar has aroused a lot of discussion about race and class around the world, and some people will be VERY upset if this non-white nominee wins. I don’t think Obama’s nomination caused suicidal tendencies though.
2.) A powerful woman may win, but an arrogant man in her past may impact the outcome.
Kathryn Bigelow probably deserves to win for Hurt Locker, but her arrogant ex-husband could easily muck things up for her. Read the rest of this entry »
Virtual Realty Inchvestments & Sovereign Citizenship
[ Comments Off ]Posted on March 6, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Saturday, March 6th, 2010Homeless? Jobless? No worries. Become a real estate mogul for a buck an inch. Or secede and start your own darn COUNTRY.
 I think Inchvesting is kind of like FarmVille except it’s no fun and costs real money. |
Arthur Miller said “Figure it out. Work a lifetime to pay off a house. You finally own it, and there’s no one to live in it“. Well, these are hard times; an estimated 15 million Americans can’t get work so they can even try to work their butt off to own a house, and later find themselves overextended and joining the ranks of millions nationwide who already blew it and defaulted on their mortgages. This probably has contributed to the estimated million or so homeless people already in America, the only upside being that it may have improved tent sales considerably. Heck. Even Iceland seems to be defaulting on its loans these days. I always laugh when an advertising-kludged pseudo-liberal site like Huffington Post asks stupid questions like Should Congress Take a Pay Cut?, because the fact that they’ll take a democratic legislator’s bandstanding seriously highlights in a convoluted way just how deep the problem really runs. Of COURSE they should take a pay cut. They should also think about spending less than 60 bucks on lunch each day. So. If you don’t have the job security of the guys who get paid out of the taxes they always say they don’t want to charge you, and you’ve lost your job and your home, is there still any chance you’ll ever live the American dream and have your own piece of land? Well, while you’re still homeless, you might want to get creative with your signage like these guys or abuse celebrities like this guy. And once you panhandle a few bucks, you could think about inchvesting it. Yes, for a dollar an inch you can have a little piece of Detroit. Another option would be to disregard social order altogether, secede, and claim any land you like. Think those teabaggers are crazy? You obviously haven’t heard about America’s new sovereign citizens.