27/11/2008

26/11/2008

9 by Shane Acker



Via io9

BBC Journalist Get Pissed

This is last years news. Actually, more than last year I think, but it's still interesting to see. It's a part from BBC Panoramas investigation of Scientology. John Sweeney gets pissed and starts shouting, after the Scientologists interrupts interviews, confronts him at his hotel, have people follow him, and other nice and friendly things. It's mainly the same guy over and over, and John finally gets pissed enough to shout at him. I'd probably have ended up punching him myself. There's also good examples of the "Fair Game" tactics the so-called Church denies.

22/11/2008

20/11/2008

The Problem with Views

Everyone has views on practically everything. And while some might say that all views are vaild, I'd say that just wishful thinking on their part. Just like saying that everyone is special. Sure, it's true on genetically, and although I'd never go so far as to say that two people are identical, I'd never say their completely different either. Because no matter what, we're all human.
And, since we're humans, and since humans have this ridiculously big brain that we don't seem to use as much as we should, we have views and opinions on everything as soon as we've heard about it for the first time.
Obviously that isn't really a good thing, since when we first have heard about something, it's probably from a source we trust in some way. Like a friend, a nice news site, a blog, etc. We assume, that since we like this/that/them, that they're right.
When was the last time you really doubted something someone you like said?
But just by checking things up a bit on your own you'll probably discover a lot that got lost in the translation. Or that what you heard was wrong. Sometimes it's even right! Just like the news really.
The news is interesting, because the purpose of most forms of news is to sell. Exaggerating things, leaving something out to make it more dramatic, and so on. These are all signs of a bad news. Entertainment news are usually bad for instance. Because people don't really care about getting informed about the entertainment, they care about being entertained be reading about the entertainment.
Always being critical gets annoying in the long run though, so it's a good idea to take a day of once in a while. Take it easy, watch some stupid action or comedy movie, take a bath, cook something nice. Relax. Let your brain rest and absorb the information it's received lately. It needs to do that once in a while. Usually at night, but it's probably a good idea to take a day off from time to time, just in case. Plus, it feels good to do nothing from time to time.

But this is just filler. An appetizer if you so wish.
What I really wanted to talk about is views. I know, I've mentioned them a bit, bitched about them a lot, and generally been a bit too cryptic for my own good.
But, what I wanted to say is this: If you can't question your own views, they suck.
In case the reason for this isn't obvious, I'll tell you: If you can't question what you think, and listen to other ideas and views, your censoring yourself and the world. You're shrinking the world from the viewpoint of your mind.
Which, despite what you may think, isn't a good idea. We've discovered how huge the world is, the billions of things within it, and now we don't want them to be there anymore? Sounds like devolving to me. The sound of the spreading of stupidity and ignorance. How does it sound? Like the wind speeding by maybe?
But sure, if something you've questioned does seem to still hold afterwards, it's probably not a worthless thought at least. If you find something that can take a lot of questioning and still kinda makes sense, then you've got yourself a keeper.
And I'm not talking about personal questioning of your views here. You need to get into the head of whoever objects to your view. If you're a Christian, you need to know and understand what Richards Dawkins thinks, and why. If you're Richard Dawkins, you need to understand Christianity.
But, here it gets tricky. Dawkins is a scientist. He can't just beliveve things. He needs some sort of reason. Belife for the sake of belife isn't gonna fly with any athesist. If you say that you find comfort and brotherhood in Church, a Athesist could possibly say that you take comfort in the notion that there is a meaning with life, other than life itself. A pshycological effect in other words. Just as the shared belife also gives a sense of comfort. Safety in numbers. Safety in belonging to a clan of likeminded. A tribe, in a way.
This could also be a danger with modern society, at least in my mind.
Since we can usually find likeminded, we don't have to change out minds. We don't get challanged by other ideas and views if we just stay in our own little tribe.
I'm running out of thoughts now, but remember that many of the great truths of today where so radical that some of their proponents ended up dead back in the day.
Radical thoughts change our world, which is the same as changing the world, since our view of the world becomes part of it. While fundamentalism will keeps things static and simple, and by doing so prevent change, and keep the world small.

13/11/2008

Some Parkour Vids

I'm posting a lot of videos recently, which I find a bit disturbing, since it takes longer to post a bunch of videos than writing a page. You have to watch the videos, think about the quality, if there's somewhere else you can embed from that's got better quality, etc. But one thing you should know is that I love le parkour. I've been doing it on and off for around 2 years now, and even if I've just gotten going again after a month or two of just being lazy, it just feels so great doing it that I wonder why I didn't do it sooner. It's a form of self discovery really. You get to know yourself while you cling to walls, jump over rails, land on ledges, and a few hundreds if not thousand other things. It's of course very physical, but also very mental. Your mind works constantly, judging distances, relaxing and tightening muscles, gripping concrete and iron pipes. And then there's the mental blocks to process. Why can't I do this? Is it the hight? The surface that looks wrong? Too little space to land on? All traceurs have had blocks, some easy to get rid of, some hard. It takes discipline both to train parkour, to overcoming obstacles, and with overcoming obstacles of the mind, mental blocks. Here's a video about just that, a mental block:
But of course if you haven't done parkour it's really hard to know what it feels like to throw yourself over a wall and hit the ground running. Unless you have a headcam, that is:

11/11/2008

Horrible News and Movie Industry Hate

Really! It's news, and it's horrible/disturbing!

Or how about Nigerian Baby Farms?

Or The Woman Whiteout A Face, who's been roaming parts of Europe for 15 years, leaving a trail of deaths, robberies and burglaries behind?

Via Warren Ellis.

In other news, Hollywood has given up creativity and are now focusing mainly on destroying classics, and anything not made in the US.
Remakes of:
Old Boy (by Spielberg and Will Smith),
Let The Right One In (by that guy who made Felicity and Cloverfield),
Akira (Leonardo Dicaprio),
Ghost in the Shell(Spielberg again),
Cowboy Bebop (Keanu Reeves as Spike),
Conan (some dude I've never heard of),
Death at a Funeral (by Chris Rock),
Battle Angel Alita (James Cameron),
Ninja Scroll (thanks to Dicaprio),
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (...huh?)
Fame,
The Birds (Clooney),
and probably a bunch of other I've missed are being planned, discussed or produced as I type this, and as you read it. Capital over creativity, yey!
Keep in mind though that some of these are not confirmed, so we might still be spared mental rape if we're lucky.
I'd recomend Twitch for those of you who like movies and have realized that IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes are completly worthless, and are only good if you'd like to argue with people, or lern some basic trolling.
Alright, Rotten Tomatoes have some revives that actually have something with movies to do and are not just opinion. They're the minority though. And I'm not even gonna mention IMDB. Alright, it's a good place to check out some specs on movies, opening dates, actors, and things like that. As long as you ignore any lists, message boards, or ratings you'll manage.
Alright, I'm gonna stop ranting about my growing hatred for the comercial movie industry now.
I'm actually writting on a movie myself. I'm looking forward to when I can get furious over the disaster of a remake it will inevitably lead to.
Cheers!

This Makes Me Giggle Like a Schoolgirl:




And I'm even quite sure I haven't gone mad yet. It's only Tuesday dammit. I don't go mad until Thursday earliest.

Via Twitch Film.

Another Thing I'd Like To Add to My Resume

Professional Monkey Scarer

08/11/2008

I'm going to keep posting hip hop until you like it.

Seriously. People who don't like hip hop listen too much on the crap being played in commercial radio and television. And no, popularity does not equal quality. If that where the case Titanic would be considered the worlds greatest movie.
Anyway, over to what this is really about: the beats and lyrics forming these tunes. Ladies and gentlemen, brought to you by the utmost crappy quality that is YouYube, it's Soul Position!

06/11/2008

Bad Mom = No kids

I'm talking about a draft bill being considered in the Netherlands at the moment, and although the odds of it passing seem low, the mere fact that anyone propositioned such a bill is scary in itself.
If you've been deemed to be a unfit mother by the state you're gonna have to ensure you wont get pregnant for the following 2 years. If you do the child will be taken away by the state.
Needless to say I do not approve.

More details here.
Via Technoccult.

Some Awesome Ladies You've Probably Never Heard Of

Sylvia Pankhurst may have gotten called too radical by Marx, but I was thinking something a bit more contemporary. In this case: female vocalists, rappers, MCs, or whatever you wanna call it. Ladies making music. That the gist of it.
I accidentally stumbled upon something called Girl Powder on MySpace. Girl Powder is a project (or something) where a group of female musicians get together. Alright, so I didn't pay too much attention there...
Anyway, there was a lot of awesome music that was a part of this little thing. Here's 3 artists I managed to find on the horrible quality video site we all know as YouTube:


This is Donzelle. She apparently makes her videos into a little instructional of sorts. So it's not technically a music video, but it's cool. Unfortunately for me I don't speak any French, though that this song has something to do with sex wasn't really hard to get. It's called Libido Macro, for one.


GoldieLocks. British MC/rapper/singer/producer. She a forth Swede too, which makes me love her even more. Unfortunately this was the best I found on YouTube. No video, and the sound ain't too good. The music and lyrics, however, is.
Has also made an awesome refix of NERDs ´Provider´ that can be enjoyed on her MySpace.



Giselle Numba One. If there where 3 sisters in Cocorosie, she would probably be the third. Not that all her music sounds like Cocorosie or anything, but there is a strong resemblance in some cases so it's a comparison that has to be made.
She's a bit more energetic though, and also has some more pure rap tunes.

Hell, I've started so I might as well keep going:


De Tropix. Another cool band making music that at least makes me wanna get busy on the dance floor. Cherry B, the singer and dancer of the duo I think makes up De Tropix is/was a dancer for M.I.A. I got the feeling they're friends or something, but I might be wrong there so don't put any money on it.

Ok, there was a few other good one's that I couldn't find any good videos for.
Miss Odd Kidd and L'amour est la Guerre.

I did find one for Bunny Rabbit and Black Cracker though:

04/11/2008

The Story of Stuff

51 Years

That's how long ago Laika became the first living creature from our planet to go into space.
Trentemöller has dedicated one of their videos to her, and it's quite the thing of beauty:

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