[ Comments Off ]Posted on September 17, 2009 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Having a Hyena as a pet may sound like fun, but the Hyena will probably have the last laugh. If you really want an exotic pet, there’s always Photoshop.
When I first saw Pieter Hugo’s photos of the Hyena Men of Nigeria , I instantly knew what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to be a Hyena Man of Nigeria. The problem being, of course, that I was neither Nigerian, nor had a Hyena. Nor was I bad-ass enough to walk around with a Hyena on a heavy-duty chain, and convince a Baboon to wear a Beckham jersey every day. Still, as an animal lover I’ve always had a childish fantasy of having a few especially beastly animals as pets. In my beastmaster vision, I have a falcon on my shoulder while I walk my black panther and white wolf, who happen to all be best of pals. Alas, as anyone who’s watched Grizzly Manknows, these attempts at bridging the gap between man and the wilder members of the animal kingdom don’t always turn out so well. That doesn’t seem to stop a lot of people from making the absurd decision to try, leading to “tragedies” like the Siegfried and Roy mauling, the occasional Elephant rampage (that video’s not for the faint-of-heart), and the random nature show host’s death. I’ll probably never live out my little dream; the fact is that trying to turn wild animals into pets generally ends in either the tragic death or injury of a human, or the tragic neglect of the animal. If you really want an exotic pet, there’s always Read the rest of this entry »
And he sold Bush a bailout that Bush didn’t understand. But can he sell you a book?
So Long, And Thanks For All The Crocs!
I guess the fact that Hank Paulson is releasing the book On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System in 2010 should instill in us all a comforting feeling that the financial crisis is well behind us now. Well, it doesn’t. It does however, instill in some of us the feeling that Paulson is a greedy self-engrossed bastard that is so out of touch with the reality of those of us that are paying for his spectacular destruction of capitalism as we know it that he thinks we’d buy his book. Or be able to afford it, for that matter. It also – along with the impending release of Bush speechwriter Matthew Latimer’s Speech-less: Tales of a White House Survivor – makes for some hilarious pre-release reading. The only thing that might give you a better laugh than Latimer’s self-aggrandizing piece in GQ is Wonkette’s reaction to it. My favorite excerpt is when Wonkettes’s Juli Weiner takes Latimer’s passage “Paulson was supposed to be a nonideological, pragmatic, sensible type. He was bald with glasses and had a scratchy voice that sounded like he had a thousand-dollar bill caught in his throat” and translates it as “Paulson loved eating money. This is why the economy became so bad, because he ate all the money, we’d write. Because that’s what we were told.” Taking a more serious tone, the Vanity Fair piece Henry Paulson’s Longest Night rambles on in an almost surreal attempt to build compassion for Paulson by telling us what a tough job it was for him to hoodwink Washington with his buddy Bernanke and then sweep their frightening mess under the rug using the veil of secrecy provided by being in charge of the Federal Reserve. Probably the most gratifying thing in this piece is when the author describes Paulson throwing up in the next room while he talks about Nancy Pelosi. I can’t wait for more of the continuing flood of these opportunistic and treacherous “insider views”, but so far the most interesting thing I’ve learned from Latimer’s, Paulson’s and Tom Ridge’s tell-all sellouts is that Bush wears Crocs*. Read the rest of this entry »
[ Comments Off ]Posted on September 15, 2009 by admin in Technology
Our endless plot to chart your demise by making you view graphic depictions of life, work, and money.
Now that there’s an Internet Addiction Treatment Center, I wonder if there are plans for a treatment center for infographic addiction? As I pondered this, I wondered, of course, what a “no graphs infographic” would look like. My quick prototype is on the left. Which raises an interesting question: If infographics are such a powerful communication tool, why am I writing about them? We’ve touched on flow charts and a variety of amusing infographics before, but there seems to be an endless supply of them. I’m especially partial to the kind that puts incomprehensible things into tidy visual form, like what does a million dollars like? Which is why I especially like What If You Printed the Internet? Economic data is also always more palatable when viewed graphically, as in this Good Magazine piece. A bunch of little “MSN Buddies” out of work are much cuter than a photo of a bunch of haggard hungry people in line. Technophiles in particular are naturally drawn to data visualizations, which is why the food-group-like pyramid graphics Balance Your Media Diet and The Hierarchy of Digital Distractions have made the rounds lately. It’s interesting that “gaming” and “device failure” top the respective pyramids. If I don’t get treatment for my little graphic addiction problem, I’ll be back with more soon. But if you’re yearning for more now, check out some of the sites below for more interesting data visualizations. But first, can someone explain to me what Iowa’s problem is? Read the rest of this entry »
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on September 14, 2009 by admin in Music
While we’ve been busy trembling in fear of terrorists and calling our new president a socialist (is that actually an insult?) Canada has been busy invading our country. With a bunch of awesome indie music.
The New Pornographers’ Myriad Harbour
may end up being my favorite video of 2008
It’s somehow telling that there’s only one derogatory name for Canadians, and even that one’s pretty friendly sounding. I mean, who could get mad about being called a Canuck? I’ve been marveling for a while at the explosion of indie bands over the past several years, whether from the American scene, the Balkans, Japan, Iceland, or even in the form of surprisingly un-incongruous German Reggae. It’s almost impossible to keep up! And thanks to our kind & sensible friends north of the border, now I have even more to catch up with. I hadn’t noticed until recently how many bands creeping onto my playlist were Canadian: Arcade Fire, The New Pornographers, A.C. Newman, Feist, Great Lake Swimmers, Mother Mother… I think there are more, but my version of Winamp doesn’t seem to have a “sort by country” tab. But wait! There’s more! Okay, a generic list of over 200 bands isn’t very useful. Here’s a Wikipedia entry that describes the scenes a little bit, and here’s a list of 33 favorites picked by Canadian music bloggers. Guess I have some listening to do. If any of the stuff I haven’t listened to yet is half as brilliant as the The New Pornographers’ Myriad Harbour video featured here, I’ll be one ecstatic listener. Know of any Canadian indie bands worth checking out? Feel free to share. Read the rest of this entry »
[ Comments Off ]Posted on September 13, 2009 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Why you should buy me a copy of Carl Jung’s pivotal and unplublished Red Book. And you should listen to what I say, because I’m an ENFJ.
If you want to achieve a deity-like status to me, buy me one of the $3250.00 editions of Carl Jung’s Red Book. I’d still worship you if you bought me the regular $195.00 edition, but I’d consider you a less-than-loving deity. Like many people who are slightly crazy, I developed a deep interest in psychology fairly early in life. After exploring abnormal psychology textbooks with a friend and gaining some perspective regarding just how crazy crazy can be, I got a little more serious in my exploration, and have always been thankful that around this time (I was ten or so) Carl Jung’s biography (Memories, Dreams, Reflections) happened to be on the same bookshelf in our home. I read it with considerable enthusiasm, and even greater ignorance. It was admittedly a little over my head, but helped launch my early exploration of alchemy, religion, astrology, and eastern mysticism. In my teens, Jung’s Man and His Symbols became a bestseller, and reinvigorated my interest in Jung’s work, leading me to read just about anything Jung-related I could get my hands on. If you’re not familiar with Jung’s work, you’re at least familiar with the results of his work; although in casual conversation, Freud is mentioned much more often in relation to modern psychology, Jung’s influence eventually superseded Freud’s foundational work in many ways. And if you’ve ever taken a silly Facebook version of the Myers-Briggs personality tests , you’ve used his principles to decide your own personality type. The very thing that was an impediment to Jung’s work being accepted early on later became its chief selling point – mainly the fact that he understood that science as we know it is not a complete enough system of perception, measurement, and analysis to even begin to treat the mysterious territory that is the human psyche. His work has since not only influenced psychology, but modern physics and British pop as well. So why the fuss about Jung’s Red Book? Because it’s never been published before, and has barely even been examined by professionals in the field. It contains artwork and writing he produced between 1914 and 1930, the period during which he developed his principal theories, including the concepts of the collective unconscious, the archetypes, and the psychological types. It’s like finding lost Rolling Stones recordings or symphonies by Mozart. Only cooler. In fact, I predict the release of these volumes next month will have a second-wave effect on psycholgy as a science. And I’m an ENFJ , so you should listen to what I say.
When I first saw Pieter Hugo’s photos of the Hyena Men of Nigeria , I instantly knew what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to be a Hyena Man of Nigeria. The problem being, of course, that I was neither Nigerian, nor had a Hyena. Nor was I bad-ass enough to walk around with a Hyena on a heavy-duty chain, and convince a Baboon to wear a Beckham jersey every day. Still, as an animal lover I’ve always had a childish fantasy of having a few especially beastly animals as pets. In my beastmaster vision, I have a falcon on my shoulder while I walk my black panther and white wolf, who happen to all be best of pals. Alas, as anyone who’s watched Grizzly Man 
Now that there’s an Internet Addiction Treatment Center, I wonder if there are plans for a treatment center for infographic addiction? As I pondered this, I wondered, of course, what a “no graphs infographic” would look like. My quick prototype is on the left. Which raises an interesting question: If infographics are such a powerful communication tool, why am I writing about them? We’ve touched on flow charts and a variety of amusing infographics before, but there seems to be an endless supply of them. I’m especially partial to the kind that puts incomprehensible things into tidy visual form, like what does a million dollars like? Which is why I especially like What If You Printed the Internet? Economic data is also always more palatable when viewed graphically, as in this Good Magazine piece. A bunch of little “MSN Buddies” out of work are much cuter than a photo of a bunch of haggard hungry people in line. Technophiles in particular are naturally drawn to data visualizations, which is why the food-group-like pyramid graphics Balance Your Media Diet and The Hierarchy of Digital Distractions have made the rounds lately. It’s interesting that “gaming” and “device failure” top the respective pyramids. If I don’t get treatment for my little graphic addiction problem, I’ll be back with more soon. But if you’re yearning for more now, check out some of the sites below for more interesting data visualizations. But first, can someone explain to me what Iowa’s problem is? Read the rest of this entry »
