Rural Telecom - India

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My friend Syamant has written a nice ready reckoner on the India rural telecoms landscape. A part of the world that culturally and geographically I'm fascinated by primarily because there's so much unspoiled strangeness and mysticism (unlike China's uber-rational homogeneity) which I think makes for a fascinating ethnographic topography as it collides with the 21st century. 

There are many who bemoan India's irrational  contradictions and yet deep down I view those same frustrations as a much more meaningful organic flowering of humanity for the future. 


I've no evidence for this and I also am probably guilty of varnishing some tough realities such as poverty and health indices with some sort of Caucasion cultural posturing though I mean it with the best of intent.

Andrew Hurd - Bangkok

The last time Andrew Hurd made a claim about me I asked to meet him and he bottled out even though he claimed in his Twitter profile to be a truth seeker (oh dear). 

So once again Andrew. I challenge you to a public recorded debate on the 9/11 commission findings. 

Let's do this. It'll be a pleasure for me. 

Heart 2 Heart

Via Brain Pickings

Birkenstock

Our long international nightmare is over. Rob is back in Birkenstocks.

The Military Industrial Complex

Is an absolute sweetie sometimes. There are simply no absolutes are there?

Werner Herzog's - Cave of Forgotten Dreams

I'd love to see this 3D documentary by Werner Herzong. Coincidentally, I've been spending a bit of time  over the last few weeks listening to descriptions of the caves in Lascaux in Southern France where Picasso emerged and said 'we've learned nothing' after seeing the intense visionary drawings which in this instance also adorn the caves at Chauvet Pont d'Arc. However both locations (and others) liberally portray therianthropes for no explicable rational reason.

Anybody else learned of the similarities between these caves and the features of cathedrals such as Chartres? 

Rak Razam interviews Dan Schreiber

I'd not heard of either of these gentlemen till yesterday but the podcast interview was for me (three times now) a delight to listen to as it's chock full of modestly articulated but  fabulously mystical dialogue. 

Gentle, considerate, unhurried. 

The kind of interview you simply never heard before the internet came along. A credit to both of them and for me the extra bonus of a couple of very nice ideas that articulated answers to questions I have about consciousness and emergence. I now aim to make the Gold Coast in Australia my first port of call. That's Melbourne and Sydney that just slipped to second and third place on a podcast.

Hey Jude

Ramones versus Misfits

Even critics who initially perceived the Ramones as a studied parody of a rock and roll band began to complain that the joke was wearing thin - What goes around comes around.


The documentary is excellent.

Infographic Of The Day

No China! More stats over at The Economist who still haven't done an online Big Mac Index (wasted brand equity sitting there gathering digital dust).

Mindfulness by John Kabat-Zinn

It's a little bit odd that Google (or God as somebody called it the other day given how many requests we make) is responsible for me actually making a little time to see what meditation is all about. I don't remember how this tipped up on my screen but the reality is that John Kabatt-Zinn is like a black belt meditation zen master or something and paid by Google for this session which is about as simple as it gets with a few thoughtful comments. Who knows you might find someone you don't recognise or even better forget someone you know quite well. I think most importantly is timing for this so if it isn't the right time then you know where to find it in the future (or not).


Correction: He implies he isn't getting paid in this. He's still like the Ultra fight Club champ of meditation. Soothing voice.

Must Affect The Brain In Some Way.

Classic. I remember the first time Michelle in the office near Bournemouth where we worked gave me an acid music cassette and I played it in my car for a few weeks on the daily drive on the M27 from Southampton. It was like nothing I'd ever heard and my brother thought it was his sanity he'd lost when I woke him up from a nap by playing it at home. I still like acid loops and riffs in music as it's a distinctive sound but I've moved on to the jazz of electronica otherwise known as minimal tech. Probably boring to most and so now I listen to the youngster rave on about dub and it's not the same is it? OK just kidding.

Via Richard Buchanan (I've forgotten your twitter account you use it so seldom)

McKenna On The Money #1

It seems like most of McKenna's stuff is turning up on Youtube these days as I just completed a marathon 62 item playlist set from one of his workshops recently. It's an awkward way to listen to a long long podcast but there are so many gems in there its worth the effort.

I intend to try and make clips of some of the shorter and more interesting soundbites that are more in the way of cultural observations as a 'gateway drug' to his longer sets like the one above which is touching, as I think it was organised by the Mathematician and friend Ralph Abraham at Berkeley where McKenna left his studies early in the late 60's and if I'm not mistaken Ralph still lectured. (Incidentally Ralph appears in the Spirit Molecule documentary too)

McKenna is unsurpassed when up against a home crowd of entheogen aficionados but here he wasn't always so sure of the crowd temperature and is thus slightly more cautious than usual though still connecting warmly with the mainly campus crowd. The full set is called Taxonomy of Illusion on Youtube.

Gravity

The Mushrooming Science

Roland Griffiths, Ph.D., is Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurosciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His principal research focus in both clinical and preclinical laboratories has been on the behavioral and subjective effects of mood-altering drugs. He is also currently a member of the Expert Advisory Panel on Drug Dependence for the World Health Organization. The most interesting find (and not unusual for anyone studying entheogens) is that the Psilocybin mushroom is measurably more real than the reality you are experiencing while reading this. 


Additionally according to the scientific results, it is also in the top five experiences ever; such as child birth, marriage and other spiritually moving and deeply human experiences in life.


What's the point? Well as Joe Rogan pointed out in a video I saw earlier. It's not very good for capitalism and the military industrial complex. 


Weird how top down hierarchical religion and government deemed it illegal and immoral.


I just can't figure it out. Can you?

Thailand's Tropical Gulag

The troubles down south have been going on a lot longer than the reductionist story of Reds versus Yellows. It's straight forward ignorance, chauvinism and arrogance coupled with territorial insensitivity and inflexibility to subsidiarity, that only exists due to the geographical and historical idiocy of the British empire in that part of the world . 

I used to occasionally cross the border at Narathiwat though that is no longer sensible given the violence that takes place in that part of the world. It's evident to me that the muslims down South or rather less materialistic cultures are de facto materially/fiat currency poorer in the the 21st century than materialist cultures that value stuff over non stuff. 

Things like feelings and consciousness for example. We should be aware of that when assessing a balance sheet for the superiority of cultures. Once again Al Jazeera does more serious and more pertinent content than any other global news organization.

Brands & Social Media

Doug Rushkoff (who put me on to Terence McKenna) thinks he may have gone over the top on this talk but I think it's smart and cogent. I would have liked to embed this in my page here but the organisers of the branding conference don't quite get the mechanics of what makes a brand in the 21st century. It's about a half hour and is a must see video.

Quora Versus Yahoo

Via Jay Dolen

American Twitter: Who & How

Via We are Social

Is Science Predicated On Woo Woo?

Behaviour Change

As much as for me as for anybody. Via Mike

Terence & Typography

Lazyscope

It all very much depends on how you use Twitter and drilling that thought down a bit further; what types of user experience you either have or wish to have. For example sometimes I like to have Twitter alerts on while I'm watching a movie or other times I want a really low level intrusion experience. Lazyscope is a bit different because if you're in content reviewing mode i.e. Interested in taking a better look at the content being linked to in tweets without opening up a new tab or browser, then it's a great tool and one I like to use when the intensity of Tweetdeck is too much for getting on with other tasks. You can add RSS and Google reader's feeds to it as well as some other stuff if that sounds interesting.

War Porn - Festival of Dangerous Ideas

I was all prepared to criticize P.W. Singer in this talk, properly entitled Wired for War at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. He's too young to work at a think tank, he must be immoral for working at the Pentagon, he's too tall and so on and so forth but in conclusion it's a useful exploration of technology acceleration in war though it really is depressing to hear a well framed adumbration of war technology squared when the reality of an ecologically strip mined planet with obesity and hunger as the definitive wellbeing paradigm is where the good brains should really be put to work.

Update: Original video censored or deleted. Replacement is a similar presentation.

Myth Matters

Brilliant story telling from around the world that is echoed time and again through the lens of fractal and recursive geometric patterns illuminated by Joseph Campbell. I love the way he talks about the need for fresh metaphors to illuminate ancient religions including his advocacy of Star Wars to that end.

RGB

Two completely different directions but this and the last post are both executions I really like, though that doesn't mean I think they are effective. Liking something is a little too subjective from a planning perspective as I may be projecting my bias against cars and thus for environmentally responsible motoring, though that too is up for debate given the manufacturing footprint both of these may or may not require. Like I said, I just like the work. I'm feeling too lazy to figure out if they would actually work.

This execution via AJ

a priori language?

A priori language via Gemma

Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?

Feels like Google's hire of Matias Duarte from Palm to Android was a good move. I'm certainly feeling better about Android over Apple after this interview at CES, which gets into the 'to and fro' of designing for people as well as open source developers (though of course the latter are people too).

Entheogen

This documentary on Entheogens is quite uplifting. I recommend bookmarking it for one of those times when being cheered up isn't going to work or help, but taking your mind off things will or if you just want to skip to the Stanford and MIT geek-mafia talking about the inseparable relationship of computing and LSD when pitching the hippies against the pocket protector brigade for creative output (no contest). It's at 50 minutes 30 seconds. 


In case you know of any good documentaries, talks and so forth, I'm in the process of hoovering up as much of the internet's video content on quantum mechanics, relativity, entropy, and of course big bucking bang as well as mysticism including all the deisms. so please do let me know of any gems.

The Internet's Mid-Life Crisis

Tim Wu is the guy who coined the phrase net neutrality. I've blogged about him before as his grasp of the internet, media and commerce is well thought out, as exemplified by his ability to identify and reconcile the dangers of corporate narrow interests along with the need for Stalinist self interest in the face of egregious competition. Uncomfortable business thinking indeed.

In this video he elegantly entangles the dynamics of censorship, vertical integration, technology suppression and the emergence of Apple as a record label/TV Station or even old school film studio. He makes great use of historical but little known precedents to support his claims.

Steve Fuller

I rate Steve Fuller in this. He has  dazzling verbiage skills  and at least talks from his heart though I still say he's unwilling to pay homage to the nicompoop(s) deer-in-the-headlights reverence on the right. 

Anybody else feel that way or is it a bit too boring and grown up?

Update: I got Steve Buller mixed up with Simon Conway when originally posting this so I've amended the title and post. Sorry about that.

Dark Matter

One

This is the best I've seen yet (you generally know something is good on Youtube if it's under 50000 views and preferably under 5000). Sean Carroll is brilliantly lucid and engaging in this presentation.

Intel

Cocks (Look Mum This Colour's Perfect)

There's always Charlie Brookers 10 Biggest cocks (and she-cocks) in advertising if you wish to pursue the theme.

Oh go on. Do some more.

Less Is More

Junk Science?

This dramatic European Space Agency image shows all the satellites and human-made debris now orbiting space. What are your views? From the Holistic Quantum Relativity Initiative.

Minimalism

Less is more (over here)

London Adland

Via iboy

Is This The Voice Of Consumerism?

Asymmetric Follow

Twitter is a hyper contextual communicaton tool.

The number of different types of user experience is infinite (a big claim that I am prepared to stand by)

This means for example that the user experience of a person with 100 followers is not the same as 200 followers.

The next obvious context is the users preference for follow-back which is in itself a ratio.

Then there is the intent or purpose of use. Al Jazeera, Financial Times, BBC Podcasts are all monologue, but there are also power users that choose to mainly hold a monologue.

Which leads to the content of the 140 character limit. That in itself is almost impossible to describe.

So while this is a terrific post about the asymmetrical twitter experience the point is, that how people experience the service is really up to them. So get stuck in and define how you like to use it. It’s a remarkable evolutionary development in human communication on a par with the telegraph wire.

More over here

Evolvify

Sure. He's a human and takes a shit like all of us on this painfully extraordinary planet but equally it's hilarious listening to Sam Harris trip over his snooty superiority and resort to ad homs on non locality plus I can't ignore that funniest for me so far (and thank you so much for putting this my way) is Michael Shermer answering the question of whether it's him or his x squllion neurons firing off when he's thinking and he replies it's his neurons. 

Chopra calls him a Zombie. The Scientist snookered on logic and the mystic hurling epithets? This is what Youtube was made for. 

Maddeningly frustrating is the inability not to join in and take both sides on as I have my own point of view which is deeper and darker heresy ;)

More over here

Aflockalypse

More Karmageddon over here.

7 Billion Reasons 2 Think Twice

Swift

I Hated You, I Loved You Too.

Written at the age of 18 years old and performed here at the age of 19. It's a remarkable song if only for the way Kate Bush squeezes the lyrics and syntax to achieve something different for "so cold, let me in your window" with emphasis on the second syllable of the last word not the first syllable as would be expected. 

As soon as I understood what she did just now here, I realised it was as pure as art gets in a singer, song writing (not forgetting interperative dance) and then I thought of the parallels (lines) with Debbie Harry's lyrical contortions and Mezzo Soprano vocal transitions in Heart of Glass that made the song worth posting too. They both sing of the love/hate dynamic often found between lovers, which I have to say I'm not a fan of in real life, but recognise as productive and useful in many relationships I've observed.

Whatever you think of these two songs I've yet to hear someone sing them so that they are indistinguishable from the original. If you do let me know.

MyCrAsian (Crazy + Asian) Mother

Consistently brilliant. Human, Insightful. More over here.

Second Coming

Paul has written a very useful gem over at Forbes: Chonqing Express. You heard it here first.

Woah This Is Trippy

The multiverse as outlined in M-Theory is, as most bleeding edge science is, both mathematically supportable and at the same time as mystical as say the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It's well outlined in an entertaining manner in this Family Guy episode.

All the best for 2011.

Personal Responsibility

This one is for the Department of Homeland Security: Y'all come back again any time you feel need.

A Darwinian Theory of Beauty

Editor of compulsory internet culture site, Arts & Letters Daily Dennis Dutton died recently and so I'm posting his last TED talk on Darwinian theories of beauty. For me it fits just beautifully into that point of evolutionary biology where, for reasons nobody can yet say certainly, the lights were switched on both at the point where art began to be made around 100 000 years ago and then again later when speech emerged from our mouths around 30-40 000 years ago. There's also a great EDGE video of Dennis rapping about his favourite subject of art within and of our species.

Whom were you talking to?

2010 Facebook Global Social Graph - Via Tony

Surreal

More on the Angry Birds over here

Unleash Your Inner Psychopath

No raping of women or disemboweling of children yet. It's your duty.

4am Materialism

Attachment is suffering.

Reality Check

Hipski

Quantum Science & Aristotelian Logic

It was Andrew who pointed out recently that I have a flair for pointing out the intellectual brilliance of someone and thus immodestly declaring my own brilliance. It's a fair (and funny criticism) because one of the things about branching out into evolutionary biology and quantum physics this year (along with Gnosticism and Hermeticism et al) is that the more I learn the more I realised how diminished is the full extent of my knowledge. 


And I haven't even mentioned my capacity for plain mistake making and errors that like to go large with me.

One of the benefits of trying to be as intellectually diverse as I can handle without lurking to long on the Alien Abduction scene (very interesting from a Jungian Analysis perspective) is how gorgeous and deeply orcestral is the range and tightly interlocking depth of Universal symmetry. 

Its Oneness if you will. 

I don't mind science as an approach, though the gadget-fetishists appear in my eyes to be ethically stunted. In my estimation we're measurably into morally diminishing returns when it comes to the latest technology, though it's clear they work extraordinarily well from the perspective of distraction. 

Sorry did you say something?

I find science fundamentalism ball-achingly lacking in imagination. This is why I think the mysteries of quantum physics point the way towards the limits of repeatable experiments and are thus a robust case for a cosmic deity as supra-scientist.

One of the most disappointing observations from watching the theists and atheists slug it out is the crudely empirical nature in how they both forward their arguments. This morning I came across somebody who frames these questions and thoughts in ways that are much closer to me than say Hitchens' and Blair's recent pedestrian effort.

OK, OK, so it was Einstein, but please read it if you get a chance.

A period of silence on my part would be most appreciated right? 

Well..... Robert Anton Wilson in the background?

Radovan Karadzic

I just realised I got it wrong in that post the other day. It wasn't Slobodan Milosovich (who of course was an oaf) that wrote the poetry about staring at the sun like the BMW retina burning advertisement. Of course it was Radovan Karadzic. He was also a psychiatrist. Worth remembering in a world where people are all to easily persuaded of handing over the consciousness or limits of consciousness to the state. Here's the poem. I first heard it quoted by Slavoj Zizek:

Convert to my new faith crowd

I offer you what no one has had before

I offer you inclemency and wine

The one who won’t have bread will be fed by the light of my sun

People nothing is forbidden in my faith

There is loving and drinking

And looking at the Sun for as long as you want

And this godhead forbids you nothing

Oh obey my call brethren people crowd

可愛さ (Kawaii)

I have a theory about the Japanese and technology. I believe that as they were (and still are the only people to be) on the receiving end of atomic/nuclear technological warfare, that they shed their Samurai traditions and embraced technology with a fervour that is drenched in Kawaii cuteness but is ostensibly, an all out potential pursuit of revenge. Well it's either that or they're just really 'into it', though I urge you to read a little into the history of Astro Boy before you dismiss my thinking on the subject.

JOY IS BMW

Slavoj Zizek talks about the necessity for the poetry that the Serbian Slobodan Milosevich wrote and used to stir the emotions of his countrymen to carry out war crimes against the Croats and other members of the Balkan states back in the 90's. I can't remember the exact wording though he quotes it in some of his online speeches. Roughly speaking it goes something along the lines of 'come with me, dont worry about the rules, today you can stare at the sun, you can play and do as you feel, free and unblinking from everyday life'.

Is one man's ethnic cleansing another man's (BMW's) brand experience? I'll find the exact words to the poetry and post it below when it turns up. Incidentally, Zizek says at the beginning of the video I link to at the start of this post exactly the same thing regarding images, as was quoted in the Wittgenstein fascist advertising complex post I did the other day. I'm quite sure they're unconnected other than perhaps mutual nods towards Baudrillard's gulf war simulacra or Guy de Bord's Society of the Spectacle.

I'm mildly amused that people at the screening of this thought it was cool. This is not unexpected from BMW customers.


Update

Joyeux Noel

I don't celebrate Christmas. It's been a long time since I wasn't turned off by the commercialisation of what is after all meant to be a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, a figure who by any metric began a story which in the age of horse travel was beating at the gates of power in Rome within half a century or so.

Are Vogue doing this for commercial reasons? I don't know but I can imagine some curled lips at both this and the mention Jesus' gets in the post. More over here.

Are Harleys For Pussies?

Quite possibly the quintessential freedom-brand has nothing to say about freedom of the press, freedom of the individual, freedom of the State to pursue an individual facing fishy rape charges and so we're left wondering if the whole Brand image is an illusion that lives in an abstract and hermetically sealed world that bears no relation to the one ordinary people live in. Ordinary, as in people who don't wear shiny leathers, have long hair and sit on the fence usually reserved for gay moped owners?

What do Harley think about Julian Assange and those fishy rape charges? Are they even thinking? Or is it a thoughtless, no-trousers brand?