How Not To Blog ?

Oh, my! It's the fucking matrix. Games are teaching us that there is no spoon.

But perhaps the most dangerous property of these books is the fact that they follow a fixed linear path. You can't control their narratives in any fashion?you simply sit back and have the story dictated to you. For those of us raised on interactive narratives, this property may seem astonishing. Why would anyone want to embark on an adventure utterly choreographed by another person? But today?s generation embarks on such adventures millions of times a day. This risks instilling a general passivity in our children, making them feel as though they?re powerless to change their circumstances. Reading is not an active, participatory process; it?s a submissive one. The book readers of the younger generation are learning to 'follow the plot' instead of learning to lead."

Here's a pretty creative public-safety ad to promote seatbelt usage.

I'm convinced that my theory on why Google won't survive can also be applied to certain segments of society. Particularly, in explaining how the hell the lamest songs reach the top of the charts.

Unlike a lot of other people that claim they "like everything" when it comes to music, I actually mean it. I like jazz, blues, R&B, classical, a little reggae, rap, hip hop, some country, metal, a little punk, Latin, French, Polish, and Chinese music. I've got likes and dislikes in each. I think I know a good song when I hear it. Not much has changed in songs popular to each popular genre over the past few years. The best-selling pop songs today, for example, sound pretty much the same as did the popular songs from a few years ago.

There is, perhaps, no other explanation than that the songs touch a massive number of listeners at the right emotional angle. The songs elicit a useful emotional response for many/most listeners.

The same kinds of songs reach the top of the charts not because they're great, truly wonderful songs or so different than any other previous song. I think they are so popular because there are many people that are addicted to certain emotions that those songs are able to satisfy. The songs enduce the emotional response that a great number of listeners are actually addicted to. Thus, you will hear the same kind of song over and over again. The reason that the songs are so lame is because you've heard its like thousands of times before.

(If you're puzzled as to whether or not people can be addicted to certain emotional states, see the movie What the Bleep Do We Know?, or just pay closer attention to your own emotions once you have reasonably expanded your definition of what emotions are to include just about every variety of thought that you can imagine, to determine for yourself if I'm just talking out of my ass.)

On the road to dictatorship, are you?

Excerpts from the Rolling Stone article, Bush's Most Radical Plan Yet:

The proposal, spelled out in three short sentences, would give the president the power to appoint an eight-member panel called the "Sunset Commission," which would systematically review federal programs every ten years and decide whether they should be eliminated. Any programs that are not "producing results," in the eyes of the commission, would "automatically terminate unless the Congress took action to continue them."
...
...With a simple vote of five commissioners -- many of them likely to be lobbyists and executives from major corporations currently subject to federal oversight -- the president could terminate any program or agency he dislikes. No more Environmental Protection Agency. No more Food and Drug Administration. No more Securities and Exchange Commission...
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This year's budget eliminates twenty percent of the programs that were rated most effective, including efforts to improve the environment and education, and increases funding for programs that received the lowest possible rating -- including an attempt to reduce the number of poor people claiming a low-income tax credit.
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The first hint of Bush's plan to create a commission surfaced only weeks after he won re-election last November.
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The commission not only threatens the environment and public health -- it would also violate the constitutional separation of power between Congress and the executive branch, enabling the president to dismantle programs created by lawmakers. "Under the administration's proposal, Congress would relinquish its constitutional power to legislate," says Rep. Henry Waxman, a Democrat from California who has been the commission's most vocal opponent. "Power would be consolidated in the executive branch, and the legislative role would be emasculated."

Did anyone have the idea that he had given up on his dreams of running the country with an iron fist?

Funny, all the stupid shit that blogs, including HNTB, like to focus on. All the while, the concepts that indirectly make most of that shit possible is being torn asunder.