garbage in, garbage out

According to a CBS News report U.N. weapons inspectors are sick of US intelligence being “garbage after garbage after garbage.”

Example: satellite photographs purporting to show new research buildings at Iraqi nuclear sites. When the U.N. went into the new buildings they found “nothing.” Example: Saddam’s presidential palaces, where the inspectors went with specific coordinates supplied by the U.S. on where to look for incriminating evidence. Again, they found “nothing.” Example: Interviews with scientists about the aluminum tubes the U.S. says Iraq has imported for enriching uranium, but which the Iraqis say are for making rockets. Given the size and specification of the tubes, the U.N. calls the “Iraqi alibi air tight.”

I still get surprised

Google bought Pyra/Blogger. I wonder what comes next.

What's phase 2?

Hmm, sometimes it seems like our response to 9/11 hasn’t been well thought out. I was just pontificating on what the OBL game plan might have been.

Osama bin Laden Game Plan: Listening: Cold Cold Water-Mirah Listening: Cold Cold Water-Mirah

From "The Demolished Man" by Alfred Bester

“In the endless universe there is nothing new, nothing different. What may appear exceptional to the minute mind of man may be inevitable to the infinite Eye of God. This strange second in a life, that unusual event, those remarkable coincidences of environment, opportunity, and encounter…all may be reproduced over and over on the planet of a sun whose galaxy revolves once in two hundred million years and has revolved nine times already.

The continuing search

After listening to about 40 mix CDs (40 more to go) collected from around the country I’ve been stunned by how uniform people’s preferences are in NYC and Boston. LA people are okay but Toronto/Montreal natives win for the most eclectic and interesting CDs. If you live in the three previously mentioned cities make sure you’re up on your indie rock standards like “The Hives”, “The Shins”, “The Vines”, “eels”, “Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs”, “Hot, Hot, Heat”, etc. A good knowledge of Sub Pop and Matador will take you far in those cities.

Seeking Musical Nirvana

Just as Steve Albini would appear to have been born to produce Mogwai and godspeed you black emperor! albums I think I’ve come across another match waiting to happen. Vindication comes in the form of pitchforkmedia news about Björk’s new album:

At this point, very little is known about the album, tentatively titled LakeExperience, but we can promise that our continual pleas for Björk to just try collaborating with The Microphones’ Phil Elvrum have again gone ignored. Listening: Bus Stop Boxer - eels

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disappearing/reappearing act

What a small world. Russ L. is now dating a previous co-worker of my parents. Before that he had previously dated a friend’s girlfriend. It’s kinda weird how some people seem to re-appear in your life, however tangentially.

Stunning Fact

I’ve only recently learned how to read books at will. Previously a book was slowly consumed over many, many weeks. Typically, it wasn’t finished. However, if you spend the two or three hours you might spend watching a movie, TV or the Internet you can read most of a book. I never realized that.

Oh sure, you unbelievers may scoff at me. It’s true. I’ve actually tested this repeatedly in the past year. I pick a book. I read it. I finish it. I never knew I could do that. Oh sure, I finished some books in the past. That lives on as a testament to how amazing they are. Listening: Another Morning Stoner-And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead-Crabwalk.com / January 2003

entropy CAN be overcome

I feel like such an idiot. I’ve been reading Steven Johnson’s book Emergence.

At the Free University of Brussels in the fifties, llya Prigogine was making steady advances in his understanding of nonequilibrium thermodynamics, environments where the laws of entropy are temporarily overcome, and higher-level order may spontaneously emerge out of underlying chaos.

Why didn’t I learn this in high school?! This is the kind of thing that completely alters ones perception of the universe. Why isn’t emergence theory part of the basic curriculum of American public education? I’m not saying one has to understand the science (I certainly don’t), but the philosophical ramifications of emergence theory have radically altered how I see government, economics, art, music, biology, physics and my own interpersonal relations.

Straight outta Compton

It’s still rare enough that I get excited and slightly scared when it happens. I feel like my previous domiciles were anesthetic and plastic compared to what I get now. Listening: Murphy Bed-Mirah-You Think It’s Like This But Really It’s Like This