Stormfront.org

After reading the Wikipedia page for Fight Club and seeing that some of the more major literary critics completely missed the usury bit, I took the search to google and ~6 down was a site called Stormfront.org. The '.org' is White Power. On their forums I found some very philosophical people, highly educated and as well versed in cognition as I am (and I might add even more articulate). And they are neo-Nazis. I soon received a Trojan Virus storm and have not visited the site since. These guys are smart and their web-counter was over 100,000. Palahniuk was not meaning for his work to be used in this way. Fight Club had nothing to do with eugenics, it had to do with power and slavery. It's clear how these ideas could be manipulated or taken in the wrong direction (made possible by those who do not value human life in the way which ironically their own God intended), but let's hope history does not repeat itself in this regard.

Do NOT visit this site. It is heavily guarded.

Strength, Valor, Style

I was looking for deals at Express over the holiday weekend and found a new line of Fitted Men's Collared Shirts called the MK2 (perhaps introduced the MK1 sometime in the past few years, maybe around the time we started the Iraq War).






The catalogue reads:

"Strength. Valor. Style. Military specs get a modern update. Refined details and at ease comfort create the perfect uniform. Strong in tradition. Modern in style. Cut slimmer through the shoulder, chest and waist from versatile cotton stretch fabric." (1)

Do you think that military-type clothing falls into fashion in and around times of war (or recession)? Regardless of what you say I'm going to still buy this shirt.



1) Express Fashion Website, MK2 label. Accessed November 29, 2009. http://www.express.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=18917

DMCA and WIPO

Laws, international and then federal, which attack me personally!

WIPO: World Intellectual Property Organization
In 1967, 16 member nations of the United Nations met to discuss the protection of laws in place for intellectual property (when did Darpa first go online? The implication here being that the internet would test the law in ways it had never been tested regarding intellectual property)(1). Of course the United States does not really take this seriously for almost 30 years when they give us the enormously uncreatively titled Digital Millennium Copyright Act, DMCA, in 1996 (signed by Clinton 1998):

"It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (commonly known as digital rights management or DRM) that control access to copyrighted works. It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself. In addition, the DMCA heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet. Passed on October 12, 1998 by a unanimous vote in the United States Senate and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on October 28, 1998, the DMCA amended Title 17 of the United States Code to extend the reach of copyright, while limiting the liability of the providers of on-line services for copyright infringement by their users" (2)

So, how do I assimilate this information? Time to dl everything I think I'll need for the next 10 years. And it's interesting that the United Nations knew what was happening in 1967. That seems very prescient.

1) World Intellectual Property Organization. A wikipedia article accessed November 29, 2009.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Intellectual_Property_Organization

2) Digital Millennium Copyright Act. A wikipedia article accessed on November 29, 2009.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act

3) On Piracy and the Future of the Media. A documentary from topdocumentaryfilms.com. Watched November 30, 2009. http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/on-piracy/

No Fat Alumni!

Lincoln University (never heard of it) in Pennsylvania is requiring students with a BMI over 30 (and therefore clinically obese) to take an "exercise" course in order to graduate. (1) Let's see if this catches on, my guess is that it will not. Is it right to require this of students? Should it not be a choice (that is, to be fat)? This is going to be a major debate in healthcare in the next 20-30 years (Kessler's End of Overeating once again comes to mind).



1. Norris, Michele (host). Pa. University Targets Overweight Students, a segment on All Things Considered. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120784381&ft=1&f=2. Accessed November 25, 2009.

Oxford-Style Debates

I've watched a lot of debates on tv and internet (much easier to find on the internet). Here I've found NPR's podcast section for debates on a variety of important and interesting topics:

After I listen to a few I'll comment. I would also like to compare this to how debates are carried out on cable news.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6263392

Book Review: A Long Way Gone

Title
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

Author
Ishmael Beah

Date of Publication
2008

Reason for reading
A general interest in foreign cultures & current events.

Visualization

I noticed one of my co-workers was having trouble typing. He looks at the keyboard when he types and his overall speed is low. I told him about how when I was in high school and wanted to improve my typing speed I used what I learned recently is called 'visualization'. This is where you picture yourself doing a task in your mind and it turns out the motor neurons actually used in that task light up in brain studies. Gymnasts use it now apparently (1)


1) Winston, Robert. The Human Mind, a documentary. BBC. Viewed at http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-human-mind/