Goodbye Grey

Bye bye grey blog. It was nice for a change but now it’s back to green. I’d say that the protest was overall a smashing success, however the fallout has yet to be fully digested. We’ll see if anything positive or negative comes out of this demonstration.
In other news, check out this ‘deer in headlights video’ of the commander in chief of the U.S. of A. answering straightforward questions with his usual grace and style. Notice his eyes, his stance, his general defensive posture. Very enlightening.
Finally a bit of meta news – Wally has finished remastering the last of our audio conversations. We start off talking about Waking Life and meander through many subjects from google to a bottle of whiteout. This was recorded sometime in October of 2003 I believe, although I could be wrong. It’s not a bad one, but we do come off as pompous pricks so be warned.

The link

Here’s the Grey Album bitTorrent link if you’re interested. If you don’t have bitTorrent I suggest you get it. It’s pretty neat, and it comes bundled in with Shareaza which is all in all a superior P2P software package. BitTorrent works by forcing you to upload as you download – no leeching here! This alleviates the strain of hosting large files on individual servers – the bandwidth costs get spread amongst all those who download it. Very communistic and very back to the roots of what the Internet is all about.

Grey Tuesday

Tomorrow, a form of digital disobedience will occur. Many sites are participating in a protest called Grey Tuesday to take a stand on musical rights. Many of you may not appreciate remixed music or hip hop, but they are incrediblly influential and beautiful as forms of musical art.

DJ Danger Mouse created a remix of Jay-Z’s the Black Album and the Beatles White Album, and called it the Grey Album. Jay-Z’s record label, Roc-A-Fella, released an a capella version of his Black Album specifically to encourage remixes like this one. But despite praise from music fans and major media outlets like Rolling Stone (“an ingenious hip-hop record that sounds oddly ahead of its time”) and the Boston Globe (which called it the “most creatively captivating” album of the year), EMI has sent cease and desist letters demanding that stores destroy their copies of the album and websites remove them from their site. EMI claims copyright control of the Beatles 1968 White Album.

So this site, along with many others will host links to the complete album and turn our colours grey in protest. Join the fight for musical rights! Break the chains the bind us and participate in digital disobedience!

Time

There is never enough time in this world. There are so many things I want to do and ideas I want to explore that I get lost in a sea of choices and end up wasting away my precious time on this earth. At this point I have to come to some decisions about where my life is taking me, whether I should be planning to travel or preparing to go back to University, whether I should be starting a new business or exploring more meditative pursuits. I’m lost in a sea of choices and I’m looking for a sail, or at least a compass to guide me in the right direction. I’m afraid if I don’t make a decision then I’ll live to regret my indecision. I don’t know where the sense of urgency is coming from but I still feel it. As always, I’m looking for suggestions.

Futurology

Wally sent me this link about Futurology and how they believe they can use physics to explain the behaviour of the masses. Kind of like psychohistory in Asimov’s Foundation series.

“we sometimes act en masse as though we are a collection of atoms interacting with one another through forces of attraction and repulsion. This doesn’t mean that everyone does the same thing, but it can mean that our quirks get submerged beneath averages and mass movements. It doesn’t mean that we lack free will, but it does suggest that we might not be as free as we’d like to believe.”

If we assume that at all levels of complexity entities make value choices, then it would be easy to infer that they all follow the same rules of probabilities when making them. What we see as fact in the interaction of matter at the subatomic level could really just be highly predictable value choices by the matter at that level. However, this allows for the possibility of matter to interact and choose a different unpredicted path, however improbable. I guess that’s why in string theory there exists the probability that you will walk through that wall as opposed to hitting it, despite the overwhelming odds against it.
Likewise, it would allow for more complex entities like ourselves to follow and interact based on the same rules of probabilities as the sub atomic partices. You have to keep zooming out and believe that the rules work at all levels. Then our choices become probabilities, and it’s up to us to fight against the odds when it comes time to roll the dice. Perhaps thats what life is, taking the chance and going the road less followed, but in the end making all the difference.

Winnipeg

It’s hard to describe living here. It seems to me that there are so many pluses and so many negatives. You have the bitter cold, and let me tell you it does get bitter. A week ago it felt so cold that I began to wonder if the Sun hadn’t been just snuffed out, and the chill I felt was the slow emptyness of space about to consume us. It gets cold. I’m finding though that I don’t mind it as much as I used to, even though practically speaking I spend more time outside in the winter then I normally would because of the smoking ban. I guess all it does for me is intensify sensation and provide a stark contrast against our realities of room temperature. Yes it can get this cold but soon enough it will be warm again. The sweet isn’t as sweet without the bitter.

Continue reading Winnipeg

A question for the men

Ladies (ya right – like any girls come here!), please disregard this post as the question I am about to ask does not pertain to you. Well, in some ways it does but it’s like the question of abortion – that’s always a womans choice (in my mind). This however is a man’s choice.
So I got a piece of spam today (one of maybe 100 I get at work) that made me wonder about the lengths that men go to in order to, *ahem*, enlarge their members. So I pose this question: Would you put your dick in this?

Canada

Conan O’Brien was in Toronto for today’s show. It was a wonderfully strange experience for both Canadians and I’m sure Conan. There was a bit of Winnipeg slander in his opening segment but I’m willing to ignore that. If nothing else the truth in his jibes is a testament to the trials of Winnipeg existence, which only a Winnipeger knows. His show (and other events) has brought me to the realization that I should probably spend more time discussing Canadian politics as there is little that I can do to affect American ones. Only problem is that I don’t know as much about Canadian politics as I do about American.
There’s an interesting definition of conservatives and liberals on this is class warfare. Very succinct description if you ask me. Liberals and conservatives are going to war in Canada right now, this upcoming election ought to be an interesting one. The Liberals in power are beset by scandal and corruption. The conservatives are still trying to put together a whole party after it split a dozen years ago. Interesting times indeed. Thank god that Canada doesn’t just have two parties – other parties balance them out. There’s always lots of choice up here.
How many of you have ever been to wikipedia.org? It’s an interesting site – a user edited and contributed encylopedia of knowledge. I happened to come across an unused entry for The King of Canada and I felt I should contribute at least something. I’ve also contributed to the Sustainability Wike, but I suppose that’s on a different network. Ah well, at least I’m throwing a bit of information pollution out there.

The Information Economy

The future economy lies in information. Email, webpages, Instant Messenger conversations are all very personal to the consumer and therefore eventually of great value. If, through unforseen circumstances like a fire or harddrive failure, this information is lost it will be a tragic event for the individual, akin to losing all of their photo albums in a flood. As more and more people connect to the internet this problem will occur for more and more people. In order to prevent this tragedy we should offer secure, safe and dependable information storage.

Continue reading The Information Economy