Naomi Wolf writes about Porn and the influence it has on people’s view of sexuality. While I think that some of her conclusions are a bit simplifying her essays is truly an exception. Compared to the booming multi billion dollar porn industry there is virtually no public discurse about the matter. Many views and discussions get stuck and some moral questions that originate in a world that seized to exist a very long time ago. Arguments that first were heard in the 70s, and that made sense then, can still be heard when the matter gets attention. Which is similar misplaced as if Pfizer would try to use 500 year old alchemists notes to create medication. The world, specificially the world of media consumption, and precisly the ubiquitousness of porn have changed. Changed in matters that are breath taking. Much of the problems in the middle east for instance originate from the clash of the availability of the entire internet with the moral framework from a couple of hundred years ago. Porn, like it or not, is a reality of the media landscape. It grew radically while nobody was looking. It’s high time that we pay attention and figure out how society can exist with it.
Category: history
Before 2003 there was no connection between Al-Quaida and Iraq. Of course now that the war drags on in that country, it sounds real great if ‘our troops’ fight ‘those terrorists’. After all: the 9-11 shock can justify allot of stuff in many peoples minds. So the news sounds often like US troops would be engaging Al Quaida Terrorists. Since there were not any before 2003 those people have to be either Iraquies that became terrorists during the occupation, or they come from the outside. One of these arguments that can often be heard is “fight them over there, instead of here”. This article focuses on the origins of those foreign fighters. What I found more shocking is the number: 135 of them are being detained right now. So it takes more than 1000 US troops to detain one of these foreign fighters??? If capturing terrorists would be the goal then the US would have spend 3.2 Billion dollars to get one of those detainees. Of course these numbers are simplifications. Of course the situtation in Iraq is probably complicated. Much more complicated than most USAmericans would understand. Wether they are here or fighting over there.
Wired writes a little about Nigeria’s film industry. It is nice that technological advances allow for local movie production to flourish. Might be also a little bit of wishful thinking on Wired’s side: Nigeria has allot of sketchy aspects in it’s economy. 419ers aside the country makes around fourty billion a year in oil revenue, but manages to keep most of that money away from it’s 150 million inhabitants.
Compared to those oil revenues the 250 million film industry dwarfs in size.
It seems that things have changed in the last decades.
Of course, I can not spell, even if my life would be depending on it. But I am not in the business of making public displays. Lame excuse. I know.
People like symmetry. More than you would gues. I would not be surprised if there would be more positive voices around the ISS, now that it has reached a certain size. Not looking like being a biplane attempt of the 7 year old darth vader might help that device up there that is under construction for so long now.
Bush will probably want to go there or something along those lines.
The SE was great. 2,500 Deutsche Mark, even after buying it via a student friend of mine, was allot of money. But it was a computer that you could buy books about. It was actually documented. That I had only seen like this for a Sun.
The LC and Newton I bought in an impulse. I lived 400 Meters from a Mac dealer back in the day. Which there were like 5 or so in the whole god damn country. Played a little bit of Myst on it. Started to develop for the Newton. But it was so odd and different from any API I cared about that I declared it a waste or time. And money I might add.
Power Macintosh I got a work. Slow like hell.
Powerbook Titanium I got at work as well. My boss brought it in one day. And I was very very very happy. Then, after the while, the hinge just snapped off. Apple pretended that that would never happen. Machine got hot, but was nice otherwise. Miss it.
iBook I got for my wife. Old CPU rev, real cheap. Worked great. I think she made the mistake of opening and
closing it though: the backlight display failed
iPod 1st Gen. Failed by now. Was ok though.
PowerBook Al 12″. Nice. But hot.
PowerBook Al 15″. Smoothest Mac I owned. Had to leave it when I left that job. Which was a shame.
iPod 3rd Gen: Broken. Those 4 buttons in the row are such a bad idea!
iBook G4. Mac I bought in 1995 working on my own in the US again. (I had in Germany before 1997). Nice machine. Real nice. Would still use it, would it’s keyboard not have failed.
iPod Shuffle: refurb, started to listen to podcasts on that one. Not ideal.
iPod Nano: Nice. Refurb, which made it an awesome deal. Left the connection cable in Germany last week though. So I will probably pay alsmost as much for that then I paid for the nice.
MacBook Pro: Tis ok. First Gen. Get’s hot like hell. Disabled spotlight and it helped somewhat.
MacBook: For the wife. Unusable with 512MB or memory. With 1.5GB I have not have heard any complaints. About the computer. (joke that is not true, but was unavoidable in a way)
iPod Hifi: emberrassing. Only used it one day, scaring kids with it during Halloween. Expensive for what it is. Can not even find a tuner for it, which would make it a decent looking kitchen radio. Seing it in the store the other day I was shocked how much I had paid for it.
NTX: First laser I owned. And loved. Got it as part of payment in a job back in the day. Still runs and makes ozone. Is entirely yellow by now.
How odd that I can recount my life by Apple products I used / owned.
Will I buy an iPhone? Certainly not. I am looking forward to it’s release. So that I go publish with the Interdubs-iPhone features, and since Razr prices will go down. It’s an ok phone, that works and that I am used to. If I want more I use a computer. There is no room for an intbetween. I never used a PDA or Blackberry. And UMPCs still make me laugh.
My life in Apple. How weird.
The Daily Mail looks at how far kids can go on their own. Now and then.
I don’t agee with all its points. But it has been a while since there was a ‘Barry says’ like piece.
A brief story about the beginnings of Photoshop. Interesting, I had no idea that Pixar made computers. Which is a bit embarrassing, considering what I do for a living. Well, now I know.
Somehow there is this long history of really small screens. And most of them were failures. OK, Sony became known by shipping a load of portable TVs via one of the first 747s to NYC. But apart from that, the watchman wasn’t really that sucessful. Neither was the iPod with video capabilities. There are actually much better devices in terms of screen size or price. But none of them really caught on. I think the problem is, that there is no real content and need for such a device. It’s technical feasibility seems to lure people into thinking otherwise. But how often do you find yourself wishing to watch a couple of quare inch screen? When? As much as the original walkman concept of having a mobile music source with headphones was a hit the mobile visual pendant is a miss. It’s not flying. And I honestly doubt that the iPhone will change that. Nothing will. How many of your chat sessions are video chats? Exactly. Yet, the picture-phone had the same feasibility driven shadow life for a while. Lateral progress I would call these things: Something is a hit. And then people just extend the concept to the side. Cinemas add first sound and then color. Both times it’s been well perceived. Smelling is another sense! Just that it did not work. Walkman -> Watchman. Same deal. Ears are happy with a walkman on, let’s feed the eyes now. It’s probably easy to pitch. Stupid board member can ‘see’ this simple lateral extensions. As Homer Simpson said “They have the internet on computers now”