The Transcendence of The Ego (by DerrickT)
What was made to look like a series of disconnected incidents now appears as what it always was: a worldwide web of corruption whose murkiness resembles something out of The Wire or a David Peace novel. A dark network comprising private investigators, the criminal underworld, tabloid newspapers, multinational media conglomerates, the police, politicians, the banks, and the bodies supposed to regulate them (who are at best impotent, at worst part of the problem) cannot now be kept hidden from public scrutiny. This is less a conspiracy than a network of complicities: fear on all sides, nobody trusting anybody else, the whole thing depending on who’s got the goods on whom … Cops watching hacks watching cops; threatened politicans looking for favours …
This is the news of the world…
What Dawkins says is that we are just machines - our function is just machines whose role is to allow embedded systems to carry on over time. And what these systems are doing is playing mathematical games of strategy against each other, hoping to survive. So we become soft, fleshy machines to carry these codes. I think that’s another example of a system that diminishes us. We’ve embraced it quite happily, because it offers us a retreat from trying to change the world. Whatever we do, liberals, the right, corporations, in recent history it seems to lead to unforseen consequences. We throw up our hands and go, “Oh dear!”.
Paddington to Ealing Broadway
(by markhillary)
Essentially the system we have evolved is based around wealthy farmers feeding the poor crap, cheap food, and poor farmers feeding the wealthy high-quality, expensive food.
Real-food campaigner Michael Pollan: how the food industry works.
Vacant Taco Bell, Pinconning, Michigan.
(by wachovia_138)
New Taco Bell, Janesville, Wisconsin.
(by compujeramey)
Taco Bell and the Golden Age of Drive-Thru
After a while, I do begin to detect a pleasing, steady rhythm to the system, the transaction, the delivery of the food. Each is a discrete, predictable, scripted interaction. When the order is input correctly, the customer drives up to the window, the money is paid, the Frutista Freeze or Atomic Bacon Bombers (a test item specific to this Taco Bell) handed over, and you send people on their way with a smile and a “Thank you for coming to Taco Bell,” you feel a moment of accomplishment. And so does Harkins, for it has all gone exactly as he has planned.
- Karl Taro Greenfeld
Alienation. Porto, Portugal.
(by Arianna_M)
… stuff
(by x-ray delta one)
Back in 1984: Commodore Vic 20
(by Extra Ketchup)
my standards for technological innovation:-
1. The new tool should be cheaper than the one it replaces.
2. It should be at least as small in scale as the one it replaces.
3. It should do work that is clearly and demonstrably better than the one it replaces.
4. It should use less energy than the one it replaces.
5. If possible, it should use some form of solar energy, such as that of the body.
6. It should be repairable by a person of ordinary intelligence, provided that he or she has the necessary tools.
7. It should be purchasable and repairable as near to home as possible.
8. It should come from a small, privately owned shop or store that will take it back for maintenance and repair.
9. It should not replace or disrupt anything good that already exists, and this includes family and community relationships.
Wendell Berry
Order and Progress opening (by Rosa Menkman)
