Pensacola to Secede from Florida

BREAKING NEWS

Pensacola's leaders have voted to become part of Alabama.

Pensacola, AL?

More later.

On anarchism...

It seems that people are surprised and skeptical when they see the tattoo on my arm with the anarchy sign as part of the design. It seems most people think anarchism is stupid, an impossible dream, violent, ignorant of human nature, etc. I disagree.

Here's the definition in Infoshop.org's An Anarchist FAQ:

Anarchism is a political theory which aims to create anarchy, "the absence of a master, of a sovereign." [P-J Proudhon, What is Property , p. 264] In other words, anarchism is a political theory which aims to create a society within which individuals freely co-operate together as equals. As such anarchism opposes all forms of hierarchical control - be that control by the state or a capitalist - as harmful to the individual and their individuality as well as unnecessary.

This is how I'd define anarchism: I'm not required to obey you. It ties in with the other symbol within my tattoo, the Star of David. The only thing I have to listen to is God. My anarchism is very much shaped by my Judaism. I believe that Jews are called by God to never bow to the state or anything other than God.

We need to remind ourselves that the System as we know it is not carved in stone. We all agreed to it. We can dismantle it. We can do whatever we want. We are fully grown homo sapiens. We have been given the powers of thought and speech and movement and a great will. Are you a follower or a leader? Do you take possession of your personal sovereignty? Or are you a Slave to the Machine You Built?

...slave to the machine, he types disdainfully on his computer. On his computer...

Keep em teetering on the EDGE

GigaOm is reporting that EDGE networks will soon be sped up via a software update, Coming Soon, Even Faster EDGE Networks.

In case you don't know, EDGE, which stands for Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution, is adigital mobile phone technology that allows increased data transmission rates and improved data transmission reliability.[EDGE - Wikipedia] It's employed by AT&T and T-Mobile.

I'm an AT&T Wireless customer with an EDGE compatible phone so I think it's wonderful that they're upgrading even though I'm not sure that my phone would be able to take advantage of it. What I'm wondering is this, though: if a software upgrade can increase bandwidth, are they intentionally holding out on us so they can string us along and get more money out of us as we pay to upgrade each time or are they just now figuring out the code that'll take better advantage of their hardware?

collateral damage of capitalism

Yesterday, Engadget posted a letter from a disgruntled employee of a failing department in a huge technology company (Motorola) to its executive board: Motorola insider tells all about the fall of a technology icon.

I dunno...call me cold but I think the author of the letter is just a whiney crybaby who's mad because he's too weak to make his dreams into reality. It's not that his points aren't valid, it's just that they don't matter. Does he really think Motorola's board of directors cares what he thinks? Maybe a few do, but I can't help thinking that for the men (the board has 1 woman) being addressed in the letter, Motorola Inc is nothing more than a machine to make them money. Everything is secondary to HOW MUCH MONEY ARE WE MAKING? So the company's going down because the CEO would rather play golf? Who fucking cares? Right after the Primary Question comes their next one: HOW MUCH MONEY DO I HAVE? I have $100,000,000 will continue to rake in millions even if I lose my job, sink a company, and lay off thousands of workers. Fuck it. I'm a rich CEO who has worked really hard to do what I want to do with my life. It's not my fault you got ground up in the gears of one of my money-making machines. Collateral damage of capitalism. You bought into the system with all that you had. It's sweet that you grew so attached to a material object whose destiny you had no real control over. It's sweet that you wanted the whole world to walk around with a mobile digital communicator which you helped shape and design. Go do it. Quit whining to us and praying to Motorola the deity.

I can relate to all parties in this little capitalist soap opera. I feel the pain of the disgruntled employee, but I can't help thinking that it should be plainly obvious to him that he's a mere tool, little more than a slave. It's pathetic. He's practically groveling.

If you're an employee (as opposed to boss/owner) then your own concerns for the business (if you even have any) are hardly of any concern to those above you AS LONG AS YOU COME TO WORK AND DO YOUR JOB like the good little slave you are. Yes, there are enlightened bosses out there, but not many. The vast majority do not care about you when it comes down to it. You're just a small piece in the money game.

Engadget does well in referring to Motorola as an energy icon. Motorola is more than just a company, it's an idea...an idea which the author of the letter grew entirely too attached to.

I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

In other words, If you don't want to be a slave, do what God is about to say. (Which, of course, is utterly ironic yet totally true.)

Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any manner of likeness, of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down unto them, nor serve them...

A man bases his efforts and ideas on other men who do not care about him and gets mad when it all comes crashing down on him. He made an easily avoidable common mistake: he bowed to an idol and got burned for it. It's a story as old as humanity.

Here's to Us

Whoever knows how many minutes ago my phone lit up and played Blind Melon's No Rain, one of my favorite songs and the ringtone assigned to my lovely ladyfriend, the love of my life. She hesitantly inquired if I would deliver a drink to her, as she'd forgotten one. My first reaction was total panic. I was truly freaked out at first. All the trauma of 12+ years of public schooling poured over me like an avalanche of upside-down port-a-potties. Rage. Hate. I didn't want to go anywhere near that school.

Then I thought of my girlfriend, the greatest girl of my life. Almost as fast as the disarray swept over me it was gone and ordered was restored. The object of my affections is drinkless. I must save the day. It is my duty. I love her.

And the Hellfire scene subsided and was replaced by beauty, reason, truth, and love...nebulous, but altogether good, sensations of inner warmth and clarity...a mission.

The sky is that glorious shade of blue that keeps me stuck right here in Pensacola FL, happily. I love that stuff, this air, these breezes, the light, the warmth...

Here's to the lovers out there, and here's to Us.

Accept Fear but Do Not Submit

This is good stuff. It's a clip from G4TV about the Great Firewall of China. Xeni Jardin is a real-life cyberpunk chick. I found this video by way of BoingBoing, which Xeni coedits. The story fascinates me because it encompasses both technology and revolt. I support any person's or people's drive to greater self-determination. I really cannot comprehend what makes Person A want to kill Person B for not wanting to be subjected to Person A. Fuck that shit. Why don't more people see how messed up that is? Why do we allow our governments to behave this way? Fear? What else could it be?

I'm reminded of V for Vendetta.

God bless alliteration!

I am not wholly sympathetic with the Tibetan cause. I can't help seeing shadowy figures from the US government skulking in the background. I'm not a fan of theocracies, even a Buddhist one. And I can't trust what I see:

Question everything. Do not blindly accept what They tell you.

Open Your Wallet to Open Computing

It's nice to get up early.  I recommend it.  There's something right about it.

Gizmodo informed me that computer manufacturer Acer may start producing an open platform gaming console.  I imagine it's basically going to be a gaming oriented linux based desktop computer.  Good idea.  I hope Acer succeeds.  By the way, the computer above is not the one referenced in the article.  The one above is the bitchin' Acer Aspire Gemstone Blue.  What is up with that stuff beside on the left side of the keyboard?  I think it might be an alien device.

In other "open" news, Verizon is, and this is almost impossible to imagine in today's business landscape, studying ways to improve peer to peer traffic!  Verizon has once again shown that it wants to do business the way an increasing number of consumers who want to use technology the way they want to use it and are simply looking for the fastest, cheapest service provider.  While companies like Cox and Comcast are throttling users who are heavy bandwidth consumers, Verizon is looking to improve such users' experiences.  Coupled with last year's announcement that they would open up their mobile service to "any app, any device", Verizon is showing itself to be a worthwhile, progressive business.

Speaking of open phones, check out this video Google's open phone software, Android.

Apoptosis: Pulse of Life

Life's many layers blow my mind.

The interweaving of seemingly disparate wormholes and mindthreads from across the blanket of reality and even from beyond the fabric itself, seeing how it all connects...beginning to see how it all connects, sometimes visibly and sometimes you can just feel it.

Life and death. Good and evil. How beautiful is the above entity? Is it odd that we instinctively know we're looking at a manifestation of life? That's prostate cancer, my friends. Real bad shit. [snicker] Odd how something so deadly can be beautiful. Guess it isn't, though. A great many beautiful things will kill you. Death itself is a thing of beauty. Death is a polytentacled energy vector. Death is simply energy transfer and movement on the atomic level.

Mitochondriate eukaryotic cells live poised between life and death, because mitochondria still retain their repertoire of molecules which can trigger cell suicide.[16] This process has now been evolved to happen only when programmed. Given certain signals to cells (such as feedback from neighbors, stress or DNA-damage), mitochondria release caspase activators which trigger the cell-death inducing biochemical cascade. As such, the cell-suicide mechanism is now crucial to all of our lives.

Cell-suicide mechanism? That'd be a good band name. Biochemical Cascade. Bad-ass.

Programmed cell death. Some cells are designed to die in specified situations. Their deaths benefit us.

Beautiful. We live and we die every day in a million different ways, the pulse of life.

Curt Schilling Pitches Perfect MMORPG

With Major League Baseball in spring training and pre-season, media of all kinds are rife with baseball news. Here's some from beyond the base path.

VentureBeat has a couple great articles today about Curt Schilling's video game company, 38 Studios, and its upcoming massively multiplayer online role-playing game, codenamed Copernicus.

From baseball to an online fantasy gaming world: Q&A with Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling of 38 Studios

Cryptic words about Curt Schilling’s Copernicus

I'm not a videogamer, but I'm excited by the idea of a game based on visuals by Todd McFarlane and storytelling by R.A. Salvatore. Lead by the drive and focus of one of the best pitchers of all time, a CEO plucked from Electronic Arts, and two of today's great creative minds, tales of the development of 38 Studios' Copernicus will be a part of tech/videogame blogosphere for years to come.

Donkey of the Week

This week's Donkey of the Week:

Yes, it was the first donkey picture I saw when I searched for donkey on Photobucket. So what? I think it's an excellent donkey picture with which to start my Donkey of the Week project.

Donkeys are funny.