Worth a listen

from:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvFz8ghX4Gs

Close call...

Thank heavens I noticed this sticker just before I was going to seal buttercup in a plastic bin and leave her in the car with the windows up.

I think I shall start a collection of these absurd disclaimer stickers, starting with the "don't pull the vending machine on top of you and die," one

I fear for the intelligence of our society.

Riddle me this...

I was told by a woman very close to me, that the to the left, reading "I shower naked," is "just not funny."

I do not understand this. This shirt is hilarious.

Furthermore, to add to my neverending confusion about this gender named female, the very same woman laughed aloud and said the t-shirt to the right, reading, "I'm naked," is hilarious.

Fully clothed and confused,

Crockett Dunn

Aluminum can crusher, Non-apology # 2, "Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds."

When the first atomic bomb in the history of mankind was dropped from a the Enola Gay to utterly and completely destroy a city and all living things within it, the pilot uttered a quote, "Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds." I would like to think he uttered these words with tears in his eyes, comprehending the full extent of pain and suffering he had unleashed. Unfortunately, it was probably just preplanned quote arranged with some consultation, similar to "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind..."

Anyway, I have an aluminum can crusher featuring a variant of the atomic bomb dropping quote:




Of course, someone pointed out to me that this is totally tasteless and offensive.

No, it is not. I interpret that reaction to mean, "I am not courageous enough to think about troubling issues."

Words are just words. It is the act associated with these words is horribly brutal and offensive.

PLEASE DO ME A FAVOR AND TRY TO PAY ATTENTION. This t-shirt is meant to be provocative! Wait, haven't we been over this before once already?! (see post from Wednesday, April 23, 2008, entitled, "brunch, bbq, t-shirt non-apology."


Provocation is needed, especially as we enter an era of a nuclear armed world run by kids who did not live through the cold war, while simultaneously paranoid former Soviet, first-strike advocate generals still hold positions of influence.


"Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds."

brunch, bbq, t-shirt non-apology

Hi,

My name is Crockett Dunn.

Here are a few of the things that I am:

1. IT business owner
2. passionate music lover
3. aspiring serial entrepreneur
4. obsessive systems optimizer.

Lately, over the past 3-6 months, I've had a lot on my mind related to the state of stuff in our world, especially some non-optimal systems. The thing is, I've been busy servicing my clients whilst seeking an operations manager for CDLLC, so the lots on my mind had no previous opportunity to settle into proper organization.

Yesterday I went to a housewarming party/BBQ with my wife, Dr. Marki-Dunn, and hung around with her doctor friends and their IT spouses. I had the opportunity to talk about some of the stuff that I'm curious about with Jason. I can't remember Jason's last name, or if he generates revenue online and therefor desires a plug/link. [Jason, let me know if you want a link.]

{update 5/18/2007- Jay commented, and he does in fact have a blog here.}

Some of the items Jason and I discussed were capitalism, socialism, wealth, interdependency, culture, hedge funds and certain investment vehicles increasingly removed from the actual items of real value, survivalists, elitism, television and how it teaches us what to think, revolutions, civilizations, a trend of increasing socio-economic class division, warfare, fire arms and the second amendment, federations/nations, mankind/humanity/human condition, and our ability to destroy the human race.

I just finished brunch with one of the 5 most kind/compassionate/helpful individuals from my days at Duke University. Her name is Russell Colver, and she does ADHD Coaching in Durham, NC.

So here is the important point in all of this- similar to ideas in previous posts about "c'mon, let's not all destroy each other," and this other post I wrote in the muggy heat of Mobile, AL in August of last year.

I've got this t-shirt depicting a mushroom cloud (which is really not a cloud at all, it's a ball of fire, similar to a pyroclastic blast resulting from a volcanic eruption, but faster, with a larger destruction radius, ergo deadlier.

I can't remember who I upset this time but yes, a t-shirt depicting a mushroom cloud is meant to be provocative and needs to be provocative, especially as we enter an era of a nuclear armed world run by kids who did not live through the cold war, while simultaneously paranoid former Soviet, first-strike advocate generals still hold positions of influence.

So here is my problem. My kindergarten classes have got stuff figured out more than the various governments of the world. If all world governments were on the TV show, "are you smarter than a 5th grader," they would lose in the cooperation category.

Here's the deal: collaboration, cooperation, interdependency, everyone being indebted to one another, global community, teamwork- whatever you want to call it- results in better life. Better, in this extremely general sense, means more problems solved = survival. Some examples of this "better" include

1. reduced chance of starvation
2. reduced chance of death by diarrhea resulting from lack of clean water
3. reduced chance of being randomly killed by an intentional act of anger-motivated violence
4. reduced chance of dying of disease
5. reduced chance of dying as the result of natural disaster.

Global collaboration would produce a world of abundance where with basic needs met... well, we would be free to have fun, party, watch soccer and football- play.

OK, so for this reason, in kindergarten and most school systems, when someone attempts to solve a problem using physical violence (example: can I have that apple? no. ok I punch you in the face and take apple) is considered unacceptable to the point that both parties involved- both aggressor and victim- are usually suspended or otherwise punished.

So why do educational institutions consider violence so unacceptable? Because violence creates fear, hatred, a desire for revenge- it awakens our animal instincts- and this becomes a cycle which is very difficult to break. In some cultures this cycle has been running for 1000s of years.

Does this make me a Utopian? No- I think sometimes people enjoy indulging their animal instincts- it's human nature. Even when we try to satisfy our animal instincts by proxy, spectator sports, often the spectators engage in violence (riots, etc).

Utopian/idealist/romantic I am not.

Pragmatist I am.

I like being alive and would like to continue being alive as long as possible. And again, we are entering an era of a nuclear armed world run by those whose childhoods did not include looming fear of the destruction of the human race, duck-and-cover drills, the concept of mutually-assured-destruction/lose-lose warfare, visions of entire cities leveled and the fall of western civilization.... all because our global community isn't governed by the basic rules of kindergarten school children.


Suggested reading:

• Alas, Babylon
• War Scare: Russia and America on the Nuclear Brink

gotta run- dinner time. more links later

The demise of Kasparov's bid for presidency, as it relates to human rights and free market competition

You know what? I think the demise of Kasparov's bid for presidency represents progress (if libertarian values are the objective) for this particular political and economic system. Being blackballed* is certainly better than being mysteriously killed.

Can we agree that coercion by bribe is a step above coercion by lethal force.

*Note: Here I am assuming the blackballers were not motivated by death threats.

monk-beaters & journalist-killers

Who in hell beats monks and murders journalists?!? Apparently the military government of Myanmar a.k.a. Burma.

(unchecked power + military technology) * fear = evil

worth watching

nice to see some talking before we jump to fighting:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14547.htm

Wow this guy is quite a politician. Talk about playing both sides!
"Death to America,' or, "Today is the era of thoughts, dialogue, and cultural exchanges."

tippity tappity tap tap dance!

I don't know if I should be encouraged by this amicability, or utterly terrified, because this reminds me of the peace talks of November 1941 with Japan before they hit us at Pearl Harbor.

read a book rap

celebrate war... good times!

Not!

Something has really been bugging me, but I haven't been able to compose a blog-worthy (although as I type this I realize my blogworthiness standards are low) analysis. A couple weeks after reading Slaughterhouse-Five, viewing The Fog of War, and immediately after watching the HBO documentary film, White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (2007), I am disturbed enough to share my unpolished thoughts.

It has often occurred to me that war is usually, if not always, NOT a smart move. Especially when one considers the human cost, the long-term cost (read: blowback) of the bad-will generated by the conflict, and the eventual resentment held by the defeated (how's that Afghanistan reconstruction going? And how are the losers of the United States Civil War faring in comparison to the winners?).

Seriously, starting an unnecessary war is just intellectually lazy. The action itself indicates that it has not been thoroughly considered. We understand this about nuclear war: No one wins, so no one starts global nuclear wars. Good for us.

I mean, the violence of warfare is about as glamorous as a multi-fatality motor vehicle accident. If high-tech civilization & society are a organisms, then war is our cancer. See what I'm saying?

OK- we all agree: war sucks. I think everyone who has seen first-hand death & violence knows that, right? Sure, military might is cool (awesome toys), but destroying lives is not. So why do we keep fighting throughout recorded history? Certainly powerful men are well versed in history. So am I naive? Or perhaps I lack a certain predatory gene or brain region?

Or am I the only sane one around here?

What if a nation took the unprecedented action of sending a ton of diplomats to live in a rogue state, rather than tons of destruction?

If we can all agree that generally humans want (1) to survive and (2) to not hurt, then why do we still fight wars? Well, someone has to start them, right? Who? Maybe the leaders who are also starters of war lean more towards the socio/psychopathic than true representation of the will of the population?

Even the monitors crash now?!

I have this totally bad-ass, 21" Gateway HD Flat panel display.

Part of the awesomeness is the ability to switch from portrait to landscape physically by rotating the monitor. This gives added flexibility for those of us with multiple displays who spend lots of time at computer and desire frequent office configuration changes.

Here's the thing, though: it crashes sometimes. Yes, my monitor remains dark and its on-off button becomes unresponsive.

And I always fall for the trick of believing it's my OS. You see, the monitor that crashes is the primary display where I should see my login prompt when I wake up the computer. But I don't see my login prompt- just dark screen. So I think one of my remote RDP sessions is "stuck," or there is some other issue.

I usually try control-alt-delete, and login via another remote computer, before remembering that the solution is to cycle the power by unplugging the monitor (soft-switch button is unresponsive).

And the first time this occurred, I even began troubleshooting hardware, but realized what was going on as soon as I swapped the two monitors' vga plugs and saw the previously hidden login prompt on other monitor.

What is the meaning of this? Dunno. Either, "technology marches forward," or, "I'm becoming old and inflexible." I often suspect the latter when I try to relate to the millennial-generation developers I work with, like Yan).

cheers!

Important book

Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is literally the MOST IMPORTANT BOOK EVER!

And it's as relevant to the information revolution as it is to the industrial.

-Crockett

The Globe as a Country, or, "Practical Idealism"

Two things have been bugging me for the past couple of decades:

1) Can our global community be seen as analogous to the federation of the United States? The answer is no, right? Interactions between countries on the planet follow a different set of rules than interactions between states or people within a country of laws. Or do they?

Within the United States system, citizens value "civilized" values such as non-violence, human life, diversity, individualism, and tolerance.

But we live within a global community that includes periodic genocide and regular war. I don't see a parallel to this with people within the United States. Violent crime, I suppose, is the "war" between individuals, but I haven't seen much interstate strife unless you count private-public sector strife (businesses over-billing governments).

Either I am sheltered, naive, and/or elite, or the global community is still closer to the wild west than the current United States system.

2) Other thing that's been on my mind is Scarcity vs. Abundance: Is there really enough to go around, or do we in fact have to fight for a way of life? I would like to talk to an economist about the world's energy and food sources.

What I am wondering is, if there is NOT enough to go around, are our leaders making a decision to act a certain way within the global community in order to preserve a standard of living and way of life? If so, there needs to be a public dialogue about this.

I will say that again. There needs to be a public dialogue about this. U.S. citizens deserve the right to choose how our country will behave within the international community. We can consciously choose what we're willing to do in order to preserve a way of life, or what sacrifices we are willing to make to avoid international conflict. Why doesn't anyone talk about this?

If there IS enough to go around, well then, why can't humanity get its act together? I suppose we're doing OK when one looks at the past few hundred years' views of slavery, "savagery," and religious self-righteousness.

I'll tell you the answer. Everyone needs Internet access and education (although I'm not sure if everyone actually wants that).

Over and out. I will continue saving the world another time.

processing vtech

It's been a busy week in my technology world, and only today am I beginning to come to terms with the gravity of the Virginia Tech shooting and what it means for our society.

"The scene was something these experienced officers had never witnessed. As they entered each room, they asked the students to hold out their hands, show that they had no weapons, and then led those who could walk down the stairs and outside. But there were so many bodies. Blood everywhere, pieces of flesh. The shooter himself, with a gun lying nearby, was almost unrecognizable, a face destroyed. And the innocent victims did not just have bullet wounds, the police would recount later, but were riddled with bullets, gushing blood. The scene was so emotionally overwhelming that many officers could not hold back tears even as they went about their business."

There's not much I can add to the gravity of the scene described in the above text, so I won't even try.

Thoughts are beginning to formulate in my active-unconscious mind regarding how this event:

• affects our sense of security
• fuels both gun control advocates and opponents
• draws scrutiny, criticism, and hopefully improvement to our mental health system and overall mental health awareness
• encourages us to rethink our public and private safety
• encourages us to rethink our humanity in the age of isolation, technology, and connected anonymity (word has it that some of Cho's attempts at human connection were in the form of IM correspondence with women that degraded into harassment and/or stalking).

Other stuff comes to mind, though, including a sign I see in town for an exhibit in Los Angeles, "In Violence, We Forget Who We Are," a title inspired from a Mary McCarthy quote. I haven't even seen the exhibit, but these words haunt me. Not sure why. Maybe a thought will solidify later.

Freeway blood

I see tire skid marks crossing several lanes, broken safety glass, cut-away clothing, and a large blood stain on the CA-10 East just about one mile west of the 110 North. It was there yesterday, and it persists today- barely faded.

I noticed this blood and remnants of violence yesterday on my way from Mid-Wilshire back to Pasadena.

Earlier that same day, en route from Pasadena to mid- Wilshire, I saw a large maroon motorcycle being loaded onto a tow truck in the same area, while other lanes were blocked with wrecked autos. I suspect that someone from the freeway West ended up on the East side, and the skid marks were from an evasion attempt.

There is something unsettling about this persistent blood stain. The city (city's infrastructure) claims a life, but the system cannot be stopped, even for a moment, to remove the gruesome evidence. Someone's life is either ended or abruptly altered, yet the flow of traffic moves on and on. In an instant, the lives of the loved ones of whoever's blood this is are altered: friends, co-workers, spouse, children, parents, siblings. Many life paths have been changed. But the freeway system is bigger than all that, so it must not be stopped.

Individually we are capable of tremendous compassion and empathy, but collectively... collectively, in the context of the freeway system, we've adapted not to feel.

This is a strange city, Los Angeles. Full of life and tragedy;

trash and beauty:

It's sunny and windy today. So windy that if you are driving through downtown on the 110, trash, leaves, and papers blow across the freeway surface and far up into the sky. In addition to the normal smog, the air today is literally dirty. But so sunny and colorful, too, with the blue sky and green hills. Brown mountains in the distance. It's important to keep your eyes open for the beauty, even if you are on the freeway.

We are living in exponential times

My uncle sent me this, and I love it! Change is good. I think it keeps our brains malleable.



This is a video that was created by Karl Fisch, and modified by Scott McLeod.

The Case for Racism

just kidding.

The Internet Will Save Us All, or, The Great Equalizer

OK, I've had this idea for years that universal connectivity could lead to an end of scarcity and war in our world. That's the inner idealist/optimist.

The inner wise-old-cynical-nihilist says there is nothing new under the sun, and people will be people, regardless of technology and education.

The inner optimist got a boost today when I read the following from the KenRadio Daily Tech News Clicks:

Wi-fi buses drive rural web use

Buses equipped with wi-fi are being used to deliver web content to remote rural villages in the developing world. In rural India and parts of Rwanda, Cambodia and Paraguay, the vehicles offer web content to computers with no internet connection. The buses and a fleet of motorcycles update their pages in cities before visiting the hard-to-reach communities. As well as offering popular pages, the United Villages project also allows users to request specific information. A small box, with an antenna, onboard the buses and motorcycles communicates with the rural computers. In many parts of the developing world it is too expensive to lay the fibres and copper cable to deliver a standard internet connection. Wireless technologies also do not reach many remote places.

"hope you brought your a-game, bitch."

"Hope you brought your a-game, bitch," is one of the taunt moves in the new video game, Def Jam Icon. I caught the following advertisement while watching TiVo'd Family Guy last night.


Anyone who has ever downloaded music can see that artists need a new way to get paid for making great music. Music as an experience-enhancement, specifically in video games, is one solution to the artist's dilemma.

On another topic, are hip-hop artists the cowboys and indians, or mobsters of a generation? In other words, is this healthy, harmelss fantasty? Or have today's artists crossed a line by BEING, pretending to BE, or BECOMING the violent, drug slanging, gun-toting, bitch-slapping characters they rap about?

This comes to mind as I picked up the latest copy of Source, and felt a pang of nostalgia.

I grew up with this stuff, but it was not just fantasy about which they rapped. Real people really died.

Forgive the multi-theme, un-wrapped post. This idea has been marinading for 2 weeks, and it is to move on. RIP Tupac/Biggie.

The same force that privately put man into space will solve global warming?

I love it when the private sector does nifty things such as putting a person in space, or solving global warming:
http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn11146-25-million-prize-for-greenhouse-gas-removal.html