Apps

Cupertino based Apropos have just shipped an app that monitors desktop/notebook and  Smartphone usage dedicated to real time profile building that can also parse your social graph to determine the most effective app(s) pertinent to your needs through lifestream and social graph analysis.

That's right an app that figures out what app(s) are best tailored to your needs. It's a quintessential American pedagogic idea that ticks over in the background, surfacing at the point of purchase to either endorse, reject or recommend an alternative during the period of app consideration review including organic search, or as and when needed. 

Genius really. Here's the stats.

Ok I made all that up but the middle man is where it's at. I alluded to this in the pointillist podcast though I don't think I made a very good job of it. In any case. It's very democratic, very bespoke and dare I say it very convenient. Apps are OK.

Samurai.fm

I feel Samurai.fm are worth a plug too. I came across them when the Web 2.0 moniker was a buzz word around 2006 latest. Initially I was blown away with the sheer volume and quality of content. They're a bit different from the other services as it's a curated music service so someone is choosing who does or doesn't make it.

They have pulled a clean interface together since their original layout, and somewhat unusually, have a keen bias towards Tokyo. This minimal set by DJ Camiya works for me.

911

There was a time when it would have been imprudent to write this but over the years I've learned that as more people become aware of the events of 911, it has become a sort of byword for open minded critical thinking. I've also learned a few things about polarizing issues. The first is that we can't argue people into adopting a point of view. So please don't think I'm trying. I simply don't need to.

A few years ago I came across the Loose Change video and its audacity floored me. I thought I'd try and research it a bit and find something so inconsistent with its assertions that I could then stop thinking about it. I haven't found that evidence to date.

I'm not the greatest fan of Occam's razor but in this instance it supports claims to the contrary better than the orthodoxy. There's now a second edition of Loose Change and it's a lot tighter than the first. If you haven't seen it yet then you owe it to yourself to do so. It still goes into areas that baffle me completely (The Pentagon. WTF?) But pick the one you can get your head round easiest and stick to it as a litmus test for staking out a postion.

I've found that the visceral response from people who prefer to use the conspiratorial epithet means I should clarify a couple of points in case anybody makes the common mistake of assuming that I'm asserting I know the truth of what happened on 911. The answer is I don't. I do know it wasn't President George W. Bush. But I also know that the people who think a man in a cave plotted the downfall of the United States merit the response 'looks like it worked'. Again a bit too fantastic for my tastes.

If there's one 911 issue that is most awkward to explain. It's the Building 7 puzzle. There's a substantial segment of the population who don't believe something till a familiar news broadcaster says it, or a trusted newspaper prints it. 

That should change soon.

Looks like somebody raised some dough. The following ad is about to air 350 times in the New York area. It should be interesting to see if it creates any outrage. I've found that the implications of coming close to accepting some quasi version of Thomas Becket's apocryphal 'will no one rid me of this troublesome priest' scenario, are so unsettling that irrational defensiveness is a normal response. 

Love to hear from you if you've got a silver bullet theory on Building 7 in the comments below.

NB:This post is dedicated to Will Self. I love Will very much (particularly for Great Apes which is the gift that keeps on giving) but about that disappointing article on conspiracies in The New Statesman? You left yourself a bit naked there as time will tell. To conspire comes from the Old French to breath together. 

Conspiracies are felonies. Theories aren't. Facts are stubborn things.

Tariq Ali - Empire & Resistance

Once in while I'll come across one of those inexplicably embarrassing gaps in my knowledge of the world where it seems I've must have gone out of my way to avoid getting to know something or someone.

Is it just me who is only now discovering Tariq Ali? I came across him being interviewed the other day by Jonathan Derbyshire for his production of the Wittgenstein movie directed by Derek Jarman . I Googled Tariq to find out a little more about him. Here's a quote from Wikipedia.

In 1967 Ali was in Camiri, Bolivia, not far from where Che Guevara was captured, to observe the trial of Regis Debray. He was accused of being a Cuban revolutionary by authorities. Ali then said "If you torture me the whole night and I can speak Spanish in the morning I'll be grateful to you for the rest of my life."

This says a lot about a man. Even if it wasn't true it's a first class anecdote. If you want to know my politics by proxy then before this weekend, I'd have said listen/watch/read everything Chomsky has to say. I'm now adding Tariq Ali to the short list of people who can't seem to put a foot wrong. This isn't quite as gemütlich as it may sound. I'd prefer it if I disagreed with someone on some points and at least once or twice fundamentally.

It's more plausible to have some disagreement isn't it? 

However after working through a good deal of his online presence, I've yet to find that point. The video above is classy. I've noticed it seems to start at a slightly later point than when I originally watched it, so I may rectify that if it changes, but it's worth it just to see a man who can talk about the American Empire through the mind of the Roman Tacitus or even more juicy Neocon gossip, mentioning that the inside story on a troubled Korean peninsula is not about the North Korean's but  perversely about the South Korean Generals who have already factored in the potential of acquiring nuclear weapons overnight in the event of conflict with the North. This would destabilize the region putting pressure on the Japanese to nuke up in double quick time. It actually makes startling sense for East Asia watchers, but then so does much of what the erudite but avuncular Tariq Ali says.

I've learned something recently. The really class acts are the people who sound most relevant the further you dig back into their historical record. It's hard enough to stand out from the crowd in the present, but to consistently stand out in the past? That's quite rare. Don't take my word for it with respect to this gentleman. There's a lot online and I'll be coming back to some of it now and again to knock on the head some double standards I can no longer remain silent over.

HTML5

I've embedded this in the new Youtube iframe embed code for HTML5. I'd appreciate it if you could leave a comment for any viewing difficulties; particularly on mobile phones. Thanks a lot.

The Stoned Ape

The inexplicably rapid evolution of the neocortex is akin to an organic singularity event. It's the first piece of steak to recognise it is a piece of steak. Not quite a tautology but not far off either. I came across this yesterday night by accident. Peter Webster does a lovely job of reframing a potential hypothesis for why we have a garden of Eden story in our mythology, and he provides more evidence for Terrence McKenna's stoned ape theory which hits my confirmation bias hotspot.

The Great Internet Balloon Race

I'd really like to put this widget in the margin for the duration of Balloonacy, but I don't think it's going to fit. 

Balloonacy Is Back

The lovely people at Poke are doing Balloonacy for Orange again. You may have noticed a floating animal icon around the blog as you're reading this, but it's simpler to understand if you watch the video above that Orange made to explain how it all works. I hear that this latest version makes 2008 look like an 'Atari game of Pong'. That's tucked between the Babbage Difference engine and a ZX Spectrum I'm guessing.

I'm looking forward to joining in, and you can too. If you know where your blog template is then cutting and pasting a snippet of code into the end shouldn't be so hard. Then you're off. More over here.

Minnie Nandakwang - มินนี่ นันทขว้าง

Waiting for you. Email me here

Silence Is The Loudest Scream

This isn't the first time I've wanted to cut and paste a comment. I wrote this before my Sheepish post.  So a bit of seriousness after the madness.

Giles Ungapakorn is a Thai academic in political exile in the UK because of Lèse majesté laws. Nobody takes the subject seriously elsewhere, but Thailand is the world heavyweight champion, the undisputed leader. Full evidence in that first link. It's good that there's no such burden in the UK. A lot of people think Prince Charles is a bit of a tool. I don't know for sure as I've never met him though I like his multi-faith ideas, I think it's healthy to have a viewpoint on architecture even though I disagree with HRH. Other than that I could say openly and for all to hear on public transport for example that Prince Charles is a complete cunt and I'm almost certain that nobody would object to what I think but to the use of vulgarity.

More obscene would be the loss of freedom to talk about say Republicanism. Or how moved the Brits were as Charles Spencer delivered his eulogy at the funeral for his sister The Princess of Wales. These things matter. The importance of talking uninhibitedly about the large crowds listening to the service outside Westminster Abbey matters. How their applause for Charles Spencer's scathing speech against the Royal Family coalesced from outside Westminster Cathedral and swept inside and unquestionably humiliating the Queen. It was a gesture of solidarity for the Peoples Princess, as Tony Blair named her.


That's a freedom not fully appreciated until discussion of the monarchy can land a 20 year sentence.

I haven't read any of Giles' academic work. I'm sure he was a Marxist before me. I'm also sure he wouldn't agree with my Neo Marxist thinking which is principally about sharing as an economic model. However he's written a piece about the Royal Thai Military which I think is extremely interesting to those like me who find his analysis helpful in negotiating the rapidly shifting multi-factionalism that typifies Thailand's institutional and political relationships.

The article is also really useful as a ready reckoner for astute people who find Thai current affairs confusing. A lot of the contextual information is unintentionally informative. There's more glimpses of the national psyche than entire books I've read about Thailand. I've noticed that Giles attracts a lot of irrational venom. As far as I can see it's mostly the people who think that Marxism is historically obsolete . This is odd given that Capitalism's single largest failure is its inability to factor in the costs of relentlessly liquidating nature. A colossal miscalculation that is least easy to grasp by those who are rewarded for ignoring the blunt logic of corrosively global imbalances.


In any case. Once in a while a comment I write needs to be here so that there's no ambiguity about what I think. This ticks off a fair bit of where my heads at on a lot of things, and although I categorically accept that Communism was nothing less than a complete disaster for millions upon millions of people around the world. It's evident our current model is busted. I'm often surprised that nobody calls me out on this post I wrote back here, because I got some things the wrong way around. I totally underestimated Wall Street and The Federal Reserves' ability to game the system. My timing was wrong but I still stand by what I wrote back then. As indeed I stand by this comment.

Giles gets deserved airplay because nobody articulated the military triangulation dynamic better. His consistency and coherency are an anxiety to the bildungsphilister. A leitmotif to their impending loss.

That is loss of respect, loss of credibility, loss of status and finally loss of wealth not to mention the plot.

The Royal Thai Army has its own poetic consistency. Periodically massacring Thai citizens with asymmetric force while safeguarding with first class whitewash. A matter of least vulgarity to those most disinclined to sharing the peoples burden no less.

Instead of applauding he who speaks truth to power, the calumny commentariat debase reason, side with might and bully in unison. They are intolerant to pluralism, ignorant of Marxism, drunk on capitalism while hallucinating on history.

Why else would one solitary exiled voice continue to rock every institution his attention focuses on.

Mixcloud

I know I said back here that I was digging Soundcloud. I still do prefer it for scanning through sets and tracks, but I have to champion Mixcloud for having an elegant look, lovely UX, good sociability and suggested music. This is the track I'm working to right now. Trying to keep the girls' gossip from not distracting me too much. If only they talked in Laotian when I'm working. Instead they save that for when I join in their conversation. #asialiving

Travel Mix by Dj Phil G. on Mixcloud

 Love to know your thoughts on this. Shit? OK? Showing my age? Whatever :)

Tea Leaves

Via @diemkay

Straight To Video

Some things I take a bit too seriously. And some things I don't. I made the clip above a short while back so that I could test the Twitvid function on Tweetdeck. I bought the sheeps mask and tried it out. It's only worth embedding because I'm not taking myself seriously and it's consistent with the next clip.

Same shit right? Nope.


The trouble is, I have no recollection of doing the one above. I realised the next day something wasn't right as I couldn't recall getting home. Most unusual for me, so I retraced my steps. The main event was buying a couple of pairs of sunglasses from the night market. I did stop off beforehand to have a couple of local spirits called Lao Cow.

It's served in a small shot glass and often coupled with seasonal sour fruits like unripe tamarind pieces or wild berries and then dipped in chilli sugar. It's very blue collar, an acquired taste and most valuable for getting an unvarnished view of the world. I mean talking to people it's hard to normally break the ice with. I don't mean with beer Goggles on.

So as I lost my memory, I thought maybe I'd been spiked or something. But then I remembered a girl joining me who always turns up when I'm around. I roped her into a mini flurry of Lao Cow shots. Nothing that excessive, but definitely more than I've ever had before. I think six shots.

Then all mayhem apparently let loose.

I"m guessing I came home, tweeted about my glasses and then made the Twitvid above. There could easily be lots more carnage judging by the random replies to me on Twitter the next morning. I've still not checked my timeline to piece together the full story but just in case anything abrasive was said or done, I do apologise.

This post is sponsored by @pristyles who sheltered me (most graciously) from harm.

Who Let The Logs Out?

I've always liked politics though it wasn't till I turned my gaze on the United States and began to inhale a lot of political  biography that I discarded with European policy debate. The thing about American political life is that it's the only game in town. Noam Chomsky memorably pointed out in Manufacturing Content that the reason the European Press gets to say a lot more than its transatlantic other half is that they are largely irrelevant. That's the truth of it in much the same way that most E.U. politicians ignore the English Language Xinhua despite a prestigious and ostentatious recent Manhattan office lease deal.

The internet though is proving to be the most creatively fertile and outspoken media aperture ever. Here are two I came across yesterday. I'm usually suspicious of any appropriation of Rap because it gets done so badly but Robert Foster's Juice Media is exceptionally coherent, hip and engaging. 

And lest anyone accuse the internet of dumbing young peoples chances of learning then EconStories.tv is the most polished and tightly edited introduction to Keynesian Economics available anywhere.

I came across this thumb snapping content through the only news media organisation that I watch on screen. I don't have a TV by choice, and Al Jazeera are the most even handed global news service to my mind so I picked up on this via there Listening Post channel on Youtube. Incidentally one of their last shows titled Thais turn to New Media is worth a look.

Motorola

Just because Motorola slit their corporate wrists over RAZR's extended hubris there's no need to take this kind of position given it's mother nature that provides the materials to make their products. Or is this something to do with Motorola realising their rare earth supplies just got fist fucked in China and now they have to resume scrape mining in Mountain Pass, California?

T - Mobile Jumps The Shark

It's got Saatchi & Saatchi Lovemarks all over it hasn't it? I know if they asked me for my homecoming riff, I'd have responded that I get homesick as soon as I'm circling Heathrow ready for landing (I love the smell of the M4 in the morning), but then I find the chap brandishing my name on a card ready to drive me elsewhere a bit of an intrusion, so I'm not the best kind of punter to ask in this instance. 

Life is for sharing. I agree. But everything is contextual too, so shouldn't we be prudent what we share. Like venereal disease.

Here's the an earlier post on the subject.

America Fuck Yeah

Food For Thought

Some lovely soul had this in their feed and I don't recall who, which is a shame because I'd really like to connect a bit deeper with them? Is it you? Leave a comment please.

This TED talk came out in 2007 and I'm surprised I haven't seen it before. Not because I've seen all of them. But because it's the most robust case I've seen argued and presented at TED connected to this topic. You may recall that only recently I was switched on to Raj Patel and his ideas on food sovereignty, and so this is now two exemplary videos on a subject that is integral to our future unless you've bought into that monoculture vision peddled by Monsanto that the Gates Foundation is unfortunately investing in with a view to making profit out of hunger. (Zizek is so right on charity)

I heard a lovely quote earlier today. The people who want to sell you a nice smell are not interested in you. I think that's most interesting in light of the lovely touchy-feely Old Spice work which was responsive, warm, humorous and most importantly championed a seminal dialogue/real-time tone-of-voice (look at him, now look back at me) which could be tapped into later for what is now considered a text book case study for social media in marketing.

OK.... I've been interrupted and lost my train of thought so as I want to come back to paragraph above later. I'll just leave it up there as it will be useful. I hope it's not too distracting but if you find it confusing..... well just be grateful I haven't started mucking around with digital William Burroughs narrative cut up experiments. Not sold? No I don't blame you. Sorry about that.

So my point about this video is that it's so well argued I'm surprised it hasn't surfaced in my lifestream before. What it has done for me this morning is begun to coalesce further, some ideas on marketing, 21st century branding and most importantly reconciling that gap between wealth creation and consumption that nags at my amygdala like a rodent in 1984. 

I wont dip into the structural imbalance of capitalism and growth (I know I'm knee deep in Marx again) but what I will say is that this video re-enforces the point about food being pretty much the only link in the chain which can resolve the full spectrum of 21st century  impending doom.

From  diseases like type two diabetes epidemics in the USA and India, global obesity and starvation (an imbalance capitalism can't fix despite sufficient food being the hallmark of the 20th century) and say the extraordinary influence of big agra, big pharma, big retail and fast food (and yes I still see great work for McDonalds in all this which is why I love them). 

That's a tall claim but if, and if is a fucking huge word I know too well, but if we took all of those things really importantly, and actually we do but we're freaked out by the scale of our individual thoughts vis a vis planetary action. If we we're serious about nailing on the head some of the most pressing challenges of our time then what you and I next put into  our mouths, by hand or by silver cutlery, it doesn't matter. What you put in your mouth is the most influential consideration to make as a consumer ever I'd go as far as to say that once in control of that the word person is a much more powerful noun though we can settle on citizen if you wish.

Problem is, as I know all to very well from putting weight on a bit too quickly for my own liking. If self control over our own body mass is hard as hell to control. Then what chance has collective change got? Slim chance right?

I think there is a way though, and this video just nailed it a bit further for me. I hope you watch it because as I think things through I know I'm going to be asking for your input. I certainly don't have a hope in hell without it.

In Defense of Philosophy: Derek Jarman - Wittgenstein

Whenever I hit on a rich seam of content of the net I mine it empty like the hardcore info glutton I am. About 5 years ago there was nothing on the internet in video or audio that Chomsky had said, and which I hadn't consumed (the only use of that word I feel comfortable with). That's changed a bit as there are whole channels devoted to Chomsky who I fear is the last great American intellectual. The rest being too cowardly to take on the Anti Semitic Zionists dominating Israeli and AIPAC political discourse at present (though at least the formidable Haaretz is printing more bravely than any American newspaper has done).

Recently I just wolfed down Zizek's entire content except for a badly recorded lecture, a problem that recurs often with many amateur recordings, and may require a software solution that just irons out the speakers voice for something more synthetic but less aggressive on my ears and speakers.

I've been wanting to write about this Golden Age of the internet. It's truly awesome and I can't imagine it being any better than this. In fact I dread it all going downhill compared to the current flood of top quality content, peer to peer sharing, pretty good speeds/bandwidth, and net neutrality. I can't imagine this lasting given the disproportionate advantages that predatory business takes of any commons resources (House of Commons is next) and the depressing discretions that people/public seem willing to sacrifice, but I might be wrong on that as even China struggles to keep a lid on content it doesn't want shared and at least the French seem prepared to protest on behalf of Europe.

I don't want to write too much about Derek Jarman's Wittgenstein as I've not seen it yet. But it is 69.2% downloaded and as it's 4.33 am and I've an early start tomorrow I should try and grab another hour or so because the real point is I woke up in the wee hours and just passed a pleasant hour listening to Tariq Ali (lovely chap) and Jonathan Derbyshire (he seems like a nice lad too) talking about all things Ludwig and Jarman, through the generosity of the Tate Channel which just emphasises that point I want to elaborate on which is that that I'm finding a critical mass of content on the subjects and topics I'm most interested in. Often there's only a few thousand views of it on Youtube so I can't imagine this is any different and yet it's a lovely example of the long tail in action. Or at least keeping my boat floating.

Thailand at the International Criminal Court on Crimes Against Humanity

I'd appreciate it if any of my United Kingdom readers could raise an objection to David Cameron's intended holiday in Thailand as a guest of Prime Mininister Abhisit Vejjajiva in any way they see fit. I assume that's why Dave didn't book a vacation with Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe and so the same principle applies here.