Grooveshark

Anyone else sodding about on Grooveshark? Spotify doesn't work in Asia so I've been mucking around with other services. The UX for Grooveshark has improved since I first joined.

Super Social

Just finished  a conversation with the very hip Helena in Athens. We were talking about all things super social (among other things) and I shared the video above with her as I watched it earlier in the week and it strikes me that it's worth posting here.

Mark's book Herd is in my opinion an important one, because like most big ideas, it's not so revolutionary that it's too much for us to digest but is equally recognisable as a tectonic shift in seeing who we are, how we are, why we are and any combo of those such as, why we are who we are. There's also a quite elusive to grasp explanation of group actions that I still think Mark needs a better soundbite for thus far. Here's Mark at the Do Lectures. I think he uses the super social term in this though I'm still gagging to know if he's read Will Self's Great Apes.

It doesn't get more anthropological.

Islamic Crescent?

I don't think the American right gets it. That's fine by me.

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.