Things you CAN'T do when you're NOT in a pool

Don't be That Guy

Open Source D&D

Open Source D&D. And it is has GNU license.

My Defense of the Term Barbarian or Barb

Because of the recent post about Small Wars I have got flack for using the term "barb" short for barbarian. Some consider it a pejorative term that is dismissive and insulting of the people of less developed civilizations. It is that but it is also a legitimate term for relationship that develops between civilization and less developed peoples. It is not a racial insult. The Vikings were barbarians, the Japanese were pirates but their descendants are not. It is merely stage of development that many societies and peoples have passed through.

Civilization is not a term of endearment that is meant to honor favorite countries and societies. It is term to describe societies that have grown to be centralized states with specialists and recordkeeping. A civilization has to grow beyond the tribal level, when their entire society can be connected with kinship ties. It has to discover a way that unrelated people can live together. A civilization has standing armies with soldiers and has the monopoly force. In a barbarian society everyone is a warrior.

Barbarism develops at the border between civilization and less developed societies. A barbarian living in hut looks across to the civilization and wants the benefits of civilization he just doesn't want to join it. The civilization has more and better stuff than the barbarian society because it has the higher social organization and specialization. The rational solution for the barbarian societies, from their standpoint, is banditry. This is a problem for any neighboring civilization. Barbarians are not ignorant of civilization its tools and techniques. They can at times be almost assimilated into their neighboring civilization but until they are completely assimilated they remain a threat. Herman was a Roman officer who grew up in Rome before he ambushed 3 Roman legions in the Teutoburg forest. Acculturation doesn't automatically lead to allegiance.

On The Oceans of Eternity there is a passage that illuminates anti-civilization mindset of barbarians. One of the rebels, to Nantucket, goes to Egypt to help Africa. There George McAndrews schemes to aid the Nubians and Kushites, barbarians to the south of ancient Egypt.

McAndrews had picked up alot of experience with barbarians over the past ten years. Most of them weren't moved by the prospect of being civilized; civilization meant someone like Ramses hitting you up with the bill for his palaces and wars and forty-foot gold statues. He had found that barbarians were just as enchanted as anyone else in the prospect of wealth, and their chiefs were as greedy for power as any Pharaoh.

Moslem Politics

In a thread on Little Green Footballs about Pope Benedict traveling to occupied Anatolia and rabid angry of some the local barbs a Mike in MI has this breakdown of Moslems.

This is how I see the Muslim community of the world:

(1) Peaceful Muslims (small minority - denounce terrorism and just want to be left alone to worship peaceful Islam)

(2) Appeasement Muslims (vast majority - do not denounce terrorism, but do not wish to participate in active jihad. However, they will aid and give comfort to the active jihadists and work in other ways to promote victimhood of Muslims)

(3) Jihadist Musllims (small minority, however larger in number than the Peaceful Muslims - actively participate in jihad against non-Muslims and Peaceful Muslims to restore the Islamic Caliphate)

The GOP SUV

Odd and Beautiful Planes

Flitzerart is a site for an artist who concentrates on machinery. The plane above is the BV194, an asymetrical design that looks a little too lopsided. The way these planes are illustrated is remeniscent of the spaceship art from the 70's.

Kissinger Finally Concedes that Victory Not Possible: In Vietnam

Kissinger Finally Concedes that Victory Not Possible: In Vietnam. There have been much chortling at how the Iraq War/Occupation was doomed from the start. The problem in both wars is that if you you not serious in fighting a war, you lose. You have to raise taxes, recruit, draft and train more troops. You have to focus on the guns not tax cuts. If you are not going to fight a war with all of your resources maybe you shouldn't start one. This is not to play into the mythology of "one hand tied behind the back" reason behind the loss to the Commies. The Americans expended enough resources but were not focusing on Vietnam over the expected tank battles in the North European Plains. It is distraction not impotence that doomed the Americans effort in Vietnam and Iraq.

Yale/Shmale: The Reality

At the History News Network there is link to a study about civics, historical knowledge and politics. The study is omniously titled The Coming Crisis in Citizenship. There is one item in the executive summary that reminds one of the recent ad campaign from Lakehead.

At many colleges, including Brown, Georgetown, and Yale, seniors know less than freshmen about America's history, government, foreign affairs, and economy. We characterize this phenomenon as "negative learning." A majority of the 16 schools where senior scores were actually lower than freshman scores are considered to be among the most prestigious colleges in the United States.

Hurt

It was a Nike Ad that brought this Johnny Cash cover to my attention because it was so unNike. Nike normally tries to surport the jock ethos. This ad, and its various versions focuses on the downsides of atlethtics and of life. The video of this cover has lot of Christian iconography especially the Passion, the tragedy of a man tortured to death. It is also Johnny Cash's epigraph.

Winning "Small Wars"

At the History News Network there is a discussion of small wars and ways to win them. There is also discussion of a treatise written by an Indian Army Officer Col CE Callwell, Small Wars. His solution for winning such conflicts is to use the same tactics of the barbs, in the words of the article " to win small wars, mere victory isn’t enough, the enemy must be thoroughly and utterly destroyed to the last man, woman, and child – which means enormous civilian casualties." If the tactics sound familar it is because there are what Julius Caesar did. Recent news reports tell of Americans fighting jihadis being unable to pursue gunman back into their armories/garrisons/mosques. Treating barbs in a civilized manner doesn't civilize them or reduce the numbers of barbs. Only after their culture is beaten out of them can barbs become cilvilized.

On a related note there was ad next to this article advertising a new book on the AK-47.

Binary Translater

The web application of the day the Binary Translater from NickCisk allows you to communicate in your computer's, or your computer nerd's favorite code.

10 go to program
20 use program
30 laugh
40 repeat

01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110111 01100101 01100010 00100000 01100001 01110000 01110000 01101100 01101001 01100011 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100100 01100001 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01000010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01010100 01110010 01100001 01101110 01110011 01101100 01100001 01110100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01100110 01110010 01101111 01101101 00100000 01001110 01101001 01100011 01101011 01000011 01101001 01110011 01101011 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 01101111 01110111 01110011 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01101101 01110101 01101110 01101001 01100011 01100001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01110101 01110100 01100101 01110010 00100111 01110011 00101100 00100000 01101111 01110010 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01110101 01110100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101110 01100101 01110010 01100100 00100111 01110011 00100000 01100110 01100001 01110110 01101111 01110010 01101001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01100011 01101111 01100100 01100101 00101110 00001101 00001010 00001101 00001010 00110001 00110000 00100000 00100000 01100111 01101111 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01100111 01110010 01100001 01101101 00001101 00001010 00110010 00110000 00100000 01110101 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01100111 01110010 01100001 01101101 00001101 00001010 00110011 00110000 00100000 01101100 01100001 01110101 01100111 01101000 00001101 00001010 00110100 00110000 00100000 01110010 01100101 01110000 01100101 01100001 01110100

How to get Charitable Funds From Cats

Thanks Geek Humor

Timeline: Modern German City in the 3rd Reich

At altenativehistory.com there is an interesting timeline of a modern German city sent to the 1940. here is a good quote: ...then he would merely do the best he could to not end up with his back to the wall, facing grim Grenediers with shouldered rifles... he would do his duty, and hope for the best.

Nigerian Scam Letter

Here is a Nigerian Scam Letter that was recently sent to me from the Ivory Coast. The spelling and grammatical errors are entirely the fault of the sleaze who emailed me this screaming letter. John Etembe is famous enough from previous scams here is an earlier scam letter used as example of why you should never trust anyone from West Africa.

PERMIT ME TO INFORM YOU OF MY DESIRE OF GOING INTO
BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP WITH YOU.
I AM MR JOHN ETEMBE, THE ONLY CHILD OF LATE MR AND
MRS.ETEMBE,MY FATHER WAS A VERY WEALTHY COCOA
MERCHANT BASED IN ABIDJAN, THE ECONOMIC CAPITAL OF
IVORY COAST BEFORE HE WAS POISONED TO DEATH BY HIS
BUSINESS ASSOCIATES ON ONE OF THEIR OUTING TO DISCUSS
ON A BUSINESS.
WHEN MY MOTHER DIED ON THE 21ST OCTOBER 1994, MY
FATHER TOOK ME SO SPECIAL BECAUSE I AM MOTHERLESS.
BEFORE THE DEATH OF MY FATHER ON 29TH JUNE 2005 IN A
PRIVATE HOSPITAL HERE IN ABIDJAN. HE SECRETLY CALLED
ME ON HIS BEDSIDE AND TOLD ME THAT HE HAS A SUM OF US$
10,500,000 (TEN MILLION FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND,
UNITED STATES DOLLARS) LEFT IN A SUSPENCE ACCOUNT IN
LOCAL BANK HERE IN ABIDJAN, THAT HE USED MY NAME AS
HIS ONLY SON FOR THE NEXT OF KIN IN DEPOSIT OF THE
FUND.HE ALSO EXPLAINED TO ME THAT IT WAS BECAUSE OF
THIS WEALTH THAT HE WAS POISONED BY HIS BUSINESS
ASSOCIATES.THAT I SHOULD SEEK FOR A FOREIGN PARTNER
IN A COUNTRY OF MY CHOICE WHERE I WILL TRANSFER THIS
MONEY AND USE IT FOR INVESTMENT PURPOSE,
(SUCH AS REAL ESTATE MANAGEMENT).
PLEASE, I AM HONOURABLY SEEKING YOUR ASSISTANCE IN THE
FOLLOWING WAYS.
1)TO PROVIDE A BANK ACCOUNT WHERE THIS MONEY WOULD BE
TRANSFERRED TO
2)TO SERVE AS THE GUARDIAN OF THIS FUND SINCE I AM A
BOY OF 20 YEARS
3)TO MAKE ARRANGEMENT FOR ME TO COME OVER TO YOUR
COUNTRY AFTER THE MONEY HAS BEEN TRANSFERRED.
MOREOVER,I AM WILLING TO OFFER YOU 15% OF THE
TOTAL SUM AS COMPENSATION FOR YOUR EFFORT/INPUT AFTER
THE SUCCESSFUL TRANSFER OF THIS FUND TO YOUR
NORMINATED ACCOUNT OVERSEAS.
FURTHERMOIRE, YOU CAN INDICATE YOUR OPTION TOWARDS
ASSISTING ME AS I BELIEVE THAT THIS TRANSACTION WOULD
BE CONCLUDED WITHIN SEVEN (7) DAYS YOU SIGNIFY
INTEREST TO ASSIST ME.
ANTICAIPTING TO HEAR FROM YOU SOON.
THANKS AND GOD BLESS
JOHN ETEMBE
PLS REPLY HERE FOR SECURITY REASON:
john_etembe2004@yahoo.fr

The Easter Bunny Hates You

DS9 Quote

A man with a deathwish is a danger not only to himself but to the rest of his team. - Odo

Isn't it Sad When Cousins Marry

Looking the history and politics of Arab "nations" one is often confronted with a difficulty in building nation states. Steve Sailer wrote Cousin Marriage Conundrum: The ancient practice discourages democratic nation-building to address so of the difficulties that inbreeding presents to nation building. In a similar vein is this article by de Atkins, an American military officer wrote in 1999, Why Arabs Lose Wars. Such happy reading.

Locations of Roman Legions

If you ever wondered if the XII Fulminata was stationed in Egypt, Syria or Judea or in all three provinces consult this chart.

The Complete War Poems of Wilfred Owen

BBC3 is reading Wilfred Owen's poetry in five minute chunks.
Asleep - Strange Meeting
A Terre
The Parable of the Old Man and the Young - SIW
1914 - Dulce et Decorum Est - Futility
The Letter - Insensibility
Disabled - Happiness
The Spring Offensive - The Dead Beat
Has Your Soul Sipped? - Exposure
Le Christianisme - The Unreturning - The Next War
The Chances - Mental Cases - Six O'Clock in Princes Street

Borat Saved by House

True story!

Movie Timelines

The Movie Timeline is a combination of many different movie timelines. Andy Dufresne was wrongly sentenced to Shawshank a few short months before someone else was framed - Roger Rabbit... or

1988

First appearance of Akira's true powers (Tokoyo, Japan - Akira)

Bill & Ted meet Rufus for the first time, and begin to travel through time (Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure)

I haven't added the date of Aguirre's trip down the Amazon yet.

Chris Rock's Rules of Safety

How not to get your Ass kicked by the police.

1. Obey the Law
2. Use Common sense
3. Stop Immediately
4. Turn that shit off
   
5. Be Polite
6. Shut the fuck up
7. Get a white friend
8. Don't ride with a mad women
   

The Eyes Have It

This is an amusing ad for MicroJerk's IPod copy. I don't really see the connection to selling boxes of crippleware and this very cool piece of anaimation. In the ad a creature with many eyes (an Argus?) gives one of his eyes to a creature with no eyes. This is supposely about the Zune's sharing feature. The problem is the that shared items, songs, videos, are erased on the sharee's machine after 3 uses or 3 days. If the ad followed Zune and Microsoft's policies the creature that gets the eye would lose it after 3 days because it lacks a end user license or a valid serial number or because it was a time limited demo.

Exercise in Rhetoric

Here is an election ad from Argentina that is both positive and negative at the same time. First the lines are arranged in a negative way then the text rescrolled and everything is happy. The words and sentences are arranged like an optical illusion to show either a cup or faces. There was a similar ad earlier this year put out by AOL in the UK in "Bad" and "Good" the same facts and images were used to argue opposite points.

(thanks Bestadsontv)

Your Cheating Heart

In American Prospect, Rick Pearlstein, has a depressing view of the recent American election. The Republicans lie, cheat and steal. It is what they do well.

CSI Fragment

We continue to perform the routine motions of our life until the moment of our death.

How Long do I Have Left

The Proceeding of the Athanasius Kircher Society has a story about a patent for a watch that tells you how many years, months, days and secounds you have left alive. Doesn't this sound alot like the Heinlein story, Life-Line. In the story Life-Line an inventor creates a machine that tells how much time you left and then is murdered on day, hour that he predicts.

Sad Little Kiwi

Topographical Map Server

Canada now has put its entire topographic map database online. The map server, Toprama, does two things better than Google maps. You can get the contour elevation and spot elevation. And the best feature is that you can distances that don't depend on driving directions. Not that driving directions are not useful but if want to find out the width of a bay you want the distance from two points not the drivable distance betweeen them.

The limitation is that the source for the Top maps can be out of date. Google depends on satellite information that is relatively un processed. The map above has the elevation in feet. I was looking at Toronto and the Greenwood Racetrack was still showing.

Genealogy of Influence

We all know the philosopher family tree of Socrates to Plato to Aristotle. That is Socrates taught Plato who taught Aristotle. Aristotle taught Alexander the Great, but that is another story. People can be influenced by people long deadby shards of thought fossilized in books. This chart, the Mike Love Genealogy of Influence, is meant to chart the interconnection and relationship between such disparate individuals as Votaire, Dickens and Asimov. Andart has some outtakes and analysis of the Genealogy of Influence.

More on the cultural genealogy from AndArt. Even more network trees from AndArt.

Why is There Combat in Gaming

Tim Carter answers the question of why games are continued to be overstuffed with combat in an effort to please the players.

"I've always been one to believe we put things into games for reasons other than pandering to some animalistic, self-propogating desire on the part of gamers."

Warning Signs for a New Age

A Swede has come out with a new line of warning signs. Anders Sandburg has explains the need for all of these new signs along with logarithmic scaling of risk. Here is explaination for the sign above, Lack of Internet Connectivitity. Anders Sandburg's blog, Andart, is so choke full of cool, cool stuff that goes on regular rotation.

Lack of internet connectivity: today a nuisance, tomorrow a serious problem and possibly even damage risk. As our exoselves become more and more dynamic and linked to our biological minds a loss of connectivity could cause breakups of our extended minds.

(thanks RG)

Dark Redwall

I have enjoyed the various Redwall TV series. It is set in a medival world populated by funny animals. In the Alt history discussion board is a timeline for a Dark Redwall. The story of Redwall is of a good triumphing over evil, in this timeline evil wins. Cue evil laughter.

New Phrase

New phrase of the day is Intentional Community. I wonder if this phrase was coined to get away from the dirty hippie connotations of commune. But why use a 8 syllable phrase when a 2 syllable word is available.

Odd Tolkien Bio

At Wikipedia while trying to get to the JRR Tolkien page I ended up on an alternative bio. Don't look now it was only there for a short time. Here are the highlights:

Famous director, author, actor, politician, biologist and hockey player (as well as frequent mentor to Batman's younger cousin Manbat), J.R.R.S.F.B.A.B.C.D.E.F.X.Y.Z. Tolkien is the historian who discovered that the true history of the earth was being covered up by the world's governments, who did not want the general population to know of the existence of dragons, elves, hobbits, magic, etc, in order to maintain control over their people.


His written work is characterized by disputes over the ownership of jewelry, and the hand injuries that occur as a result.

He was also reputed to be the head of a secret society of monarchists who use film to undermine democracy and return the West to the Dark Ages. This secret order is called The Royal Society for Counter-Strike revolution.

Ate a lot of corn and peas.

Advertising and the Maladjusted

For advertising award program, ShowSouth, a site was created to show how advertising types are not really suited for any other line of work.

Biblical Passage to live for .

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. reference

Indian Ocean Slave Trade

The Middle Passage has been covered in many stories, books and histories but their is another story. The other half of the story of the western slave trade is the arab slave trade that wasn't limitied to Africa. Saudi Arabia only outlawed the slave trade officially in 1962. The blog Trade Routes concentrates on the history trade routes here is a story about the Indian Ocean Slave Trade.

Ad for Restraint

I saw this ad earlier this year on Best Ad on TV. The problem is that it doesn't promote one condom brand over another.

Proto Typical Campaign Ad

Here is an ad for some kid that looks like every other American election ad.

The New Beetles

Nosing around in the Rummy's Wiki entry I see that a slime-mode beetle is named after him, agathidium rumsfeldi. One blogger has provided a comparison of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld and their beetle namesakes.

Monkey Death Wish

Monkey Death Wish, a very silly monkey teases equally silly but more dangerous tigers.

YouTube Hits and Intellectual law

Slate recently had a feature on the top hits of YouTube. Now that YouTube has real money behind it, after the purchase by Google, much of the features, clips of copyrighted material, of it are disappearing. Comedy Central clips have been pulled. On the show On The Media there was a discussion of the expected content drought on YouTube. It all turns on a content rights, there is copyright material, copyfree material, and copyright material that is free to use, sort of. If you consider land the same way as copy rights, there is public space, there is private space, and there is some private space that can be used by the public.

There are No Accidents

There is a great new ad put out by what used to be called Workman Comp. A woman has a bad accident and then points out her "accident" was expect because she and the store wasn't following the correct safety procedures.

Do You Have Feelings of Inadequency?

Listen to this ad which is an promotes booze in the same manner as a pharma ad.