Links

Here's an oldie but goodie rathergood.com
Nothing better than stompy kitties.
Also known as "The Lair of the Crab of Ineffable Wisdom - a load of stuff by Joel Veitch that will probably crush your will to live:"




Here's a little pick-me-up from Joel and 7 Seconds Of Love
Who's winning?

Last word?

These tee shirts are now available at the cotton factory













WARNING! You have been exposed to marketing! While the source of the previous advertisements in no way means to condition your behavior, your previous experiences with ubiquitous marketing may have made you susceptible to participating in the consumer culture not entirely of free will. As with all marketing, take a moment and think about your exposure levels before proceeding.

Warning!!!

They say that computer whizzes and such can track people fairly easily on the net. While I'm more comfortable than most, I'm not an expert. So I was surprised by how much information I could gather on visitors to Complex 39.
Now I feel obligated to warn everyone...the vanity counter below, at the bottom of the page will put a cookie on your machine (most sites do). The very act of clinking to a webpage anywhere can log your visit.
This is the information I have for the week (I won't post anything particularly sensitive). As you can see I can go deeper and view by city and by IP. Those details I'll keep private, but that doesn't mean blogger itself isn't keeping track, or google, or your ISP, or that sex tracking cookie, or....

I spent a lot of time concerned with keeping my identity private so I could happily continue in the intelligence or investigation field. Then I decided, if THEY don't like what I have to say about intelligence issues then fuck 'em, I don't really want to work where THEY are, humping the bosses leg, feeding them what THEY want to hear, lying to the "client" or "consumer" to keep the dollars rolling and not offending any of THEM. I don't want to work in Rah! Rah! fucking Law Enforcement if THEY want to keep doing the same old, tired bullshit that hasn't changed a damn thing since time immemorial. Crack a few fucking skulls, point fingers at the reprobates, and fucking call it a day. Hor-fucking-ray for the home team! God fucking bless you if you want to take that fucking barrel over the waterfall, but me...I've gotta get going on to a place where I can fucking live with myself. Fuck the oil kleptocrats, the product oligarchs, and the fucking theocracy cabal. I'm gonna find a nice non-profit or NGO and go help some people. Don't get me wrong, there are necessary services provided, but when the product is so manipulated and the manpower purged of anyone who might disagree...that's not intel, that's the manufacturing of (sur?)reality and consent.

Proposed IAO logo. It proved to be too creepy.

My former affiliation

Thank you. Thank you very much...
Now I've gotta take my meds for this fucking ulcer.

And by the way... a big "hello" and I'll try to keep my fucking country out of yours to all the foreign visitors (Is there really a foreign on the net?).

Additional resources
Bruce Schneier - Schneier on Security
CCleaner - freeware system optimization and privacy tool

Social Marketing Institute

Social Marketing Institute
"Advancing the Science and Practice of Social Marketing"

The Social Marketing Institute is being created to advance the science and practice of social marketing. Social marketing is the use of commercial marketing concepts and tools in programs designed to influence individuals' behavior to improve their well being and that of society. It is an innovative approach now being implemented by groups as diverse as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Cancer Society, the U.S. Agency for International Development, AARP, and private sector companies whose strategies incorporate both business and social objectives. (emp. mine - S)

No comment.

Opus Dei

I used to listen to a lot of Laibach until I just couldn't take the synthesizers anymore. They perform their music a little too well and I didn't want to get sucked into too much tolerance for digital music. I've got to defend analogue. (Devo is a whole other case and really are much more rock and roll than I think most people realize.) I was slowly getting sucked into "techno" and "industrial" even though I wouldn't necessarily classify Laibach as such.
Years ago, Laibach had fascinated me, however, with their heavy, stark imagery, hinting at fascism in their highly stylized performances yet "...are fascists as much as Hitler was a painter." Hailing from the former Yugoslav republic of Slovenia, the four member band developed a whole mythology of their own. I've seen satire used to describe what they're doing, but I've found their commentary to astute and direct, dismantling and defusing traditional symbols of oppression and reconstructing them into art. Very martial and Wagnerian. Much of their art still influences me indirectly today.
Video will probably do better...

Related is the Neue Slowenische Kunst (New Collectivism Studio).
From their website:

Retro avant-garde is the basic artistic procedure of Neue Slowenische Kunst, based on the premise that traumas from the past affecting the present and the future can be healed only by returning to the initial conflicts.

"Become a citizen of the first global state of the universe, the state of NSK."

I wonder if they'll accept me if I'm enlisted in Dr. Steel's army?

• Laibach at Wikipedia
• Laibach's official website

Also, I have links products related to this post that are available at Amazon. These are not the primary reason for my posts, but if someone is interested I'll provide links and generate a little bit of revenue. Remember though, these are still ads and there's a whole litany of issues I have with that, I will at the end of each post that contains such ads provide a consumer protection alert.

WARNING! You have been exposed to marketing! While the source of the previous advertisements in no way means to condition your behavior, your previous experiences with ubiquitous marketing may have made you susceptible to participating in the consumer culture not entirely of free will. As with all marketing, take a moment and think about your exposure levels before proceeding.

Moonimite Al-Boston

I was there man! You just don't know, man, until you've lived it, man! I was right down fucking town when it was all going down, man!

Yesterday, the Boston police arrested Artist Peter Berdovsky for placing these devices. They (moonimites) consisted of several LED's and a activation device. You see, a lot of people thought these devices were suspicious so the mechanism of Homeland Security went into action and started water cannoning these bits of advertisements that Turner Broadcast had paid for to promote a TV show. Traffic was snarled, people were delayed, and there was a great gnashing of teeth. Kinda stupid to place some of them on bridges, but I guess if you're not planning a terror attack you probably wouldn't consider that people freak out pretty easily.
After my head exploded, I attempted to sort out the different angles as to why this is bizarre.

• A local artist participated in a guerrilla ad campaign sponsored by a large corporation, so my sympathies may not as great as they might have been. They probably will defend the artist tooth and nail, otherwise if he goes down the company can be held liable.
• The cops and DHS completely went into overkill. But when you have agencies and institutions more and more culturally removed from the various communities that they serve, it's no surprise.
• Society is so far removed from technology, that they can't distinguish a simple bread-board LED display from an explosive device. Everything is so prepackaged with electronic secrets locked beneath consumer friendly veneers, that we just don't know what goes on inside anymore.
• THEY have so distorted the whole issue of threat and terror, terrorising the masses themselves with threat, that we can't distinguish from nothing. Look at the picture of the device. It is funny. Organizations that utilize terror generally do not want to be laughed at, they take themselves quite seriously. (Maybe a single psychopath might, but I don't think the Joker is currently in town.)
• What could they possibly charge the artist with? Defacement of property with non-permanent markings? Aggravated making lite-brights that could be confused by a misinformed public that would create an over-reaction by the police and garner lots of media attention?
• Perception and semantics. What if someone reported a "weird" device rather than a "suspicious" device? What if someone reported a suspicious "lite-brite"?
  

The TV show being promoted? A cartoon geared toward adults starring a talking milkshake, a box of french fries, and a meatball.
Links

• Boing Boing "LED ad campaign ignites terrorism scare in Boston"
• Boing Boing "Boston Moonimite installer arrested"
• Peter Berdovsky's website
• Boston Globe "Froth, fear, and fury"

Hmm...I hear on the morning news there's a second arrest....

Addendum 2.1.07

Security specialist Bruce Schneier at Schneier on Security comments "Non-Terrorist Embarrassment in Boston"
Real fake bombs are found in Boston during the same time. No one freaks out. "Two fake pipe bombs found not part of marketing stunt"
"We've been trained to fear everything." Mark Frauenfelder of Boing Boing has a link to his interview on ABC.

It's getting really Kafka out there.

Addendum 2.2.07
Boing Boing has a link for these stickers out now.

Under the Radar - Branscombe beach

This struck me as particularly Ballardian.
From a Boing Boing post.

LONDON, Jan. 22 — Ignoring health warnings and threats of prosecution, hundreds of people foraged among containers washed from a stricken cargo vessel on the southern English coast on Monday, hauling off booty that included BMW motorcycles, shoes, diapers, beauty cream and carpets. (NYT. More...)

One of those...

..who are you quizzes. To a degree, I'll agree. Probably whose character's do you identify with in this case.

I am: William Gibson The chief instigator of the "cyberpunk" wave of the 1980s, his razzle-dazzle futuristic intrigues were, for a while, the most imitated work in science fiction.

Which science fiction writer are you?

Radiation - Alvin Toffler

When I talk of those that have particularly influenced my thinking, I've chosen the keyword radiation as their metaphor. Information is all about us, radiating energy like the product of the weak force, mutating our beings. Alvin Toffler is one of the most influential on my meta-political understanding. When using his models, such as Third Wave, War/Anti-war, and Future Shock, individual incidents seemed to fall into place in the bigger picture. I felt I was an infinitely better intelligence analyst having read his works.

Third Wave is the post-industrial society. Toffler would also add that since late 1950s most countries are moving away from a Second Wave Society into what he would call a Third Wave Society. He coined many words to describe it and mentions names invented by others, such as the Information Age. (Wikipedia. More...)

One of the prepositions made by Toffler that struck me when I read Third Wave in the 80's, was that the transition to Third Wave socio-economics would usher in a new "Dark Ages" during the transition. Toffler estimated that within twenty years we would see an increase in religious and tribal style violence as people's increasing anxiety about changing economies drove them towards increasing xenophobia, lashing out at the "other." His view was that this gnashing of teeth period (my phrase) would last around twenty years as cultural change has increased exponentially due to the modern speed of communications.

Toffler Associates - Corporate Website
Alvin and Heidi Toffler {Futurists} - Personal Website

Fallout & Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow

First...
I don't play a lot of computer games, but when I do it's got to be worth it. One of the most beautifully designed games, it had the most atmosphere of any game I've played. Very moody, dark sense of humor, and a good story. I actually cared for the characters in the game.
Venture out of the fallout shelter 80 years after the nuclear conflagration and travel the wastelands.
Check out this flick from the opening of the game.Hone your post apocalyptic skills...
Fallout
Fallout II
No Mutants Allowed



Sky Captain actually came out in 2004 however, to help establish some of my aesthetic taste, here's a quick review. Visually brilliant, but in trying to be a little too camp, dragging out the implausible scenarios, the razor's edge escapes, and a multitude of settings, it gets lost. No, one doesn't have to throw in the kitchen sink to make a robust film. They should have stuck with what it really promised... an old fashioned serial. Keep the first story simple and then keep good stories coming ala Indiana Jones. I won't go into the plot much, you already know the story. Again, the issue was a lack of time to really give a shit about the characters.
Here's what you do. It's the 21st century, you make a retro style movie that would have had two dimensional characters, but in a hip ironic twist of the modern era you make them more real. Trust me, anyone who's gonna appreciate the style will be sophisticated enough to enjoy actual characters.
So much promise...It was too young to go. A shame.
If you've got a damp, rainy afternoon to kill and you're stuck on the couch with the flu, this could be just what the doctor ordered.
Trailer here.
The Wikipedia entry here.