Another Promised Land

God: so to where do you want to lead your people

Moses:Ca caa caan

God:Canaan?

Moses; no! to CANADA!

Chrono's Fog redirecting
Moses in Jews Discover America on AH.com

An Insult to Ireland and New Ireland

In a thread on AH.com, All countries' populations switched with their "New" counterparts, there is thus Irish insult from Wesforce.

And "New Ireland" is a tiny, rural island full of cannibals.

No change there then

A Few Good Ad Men

You can't handle a bigger logo!!!

Identity Fraud Explained Away as the Cost of Living in an Interesting Country

Even if this was true who cares. This country was built and run run by men with worse stories than whatever you imagined.

-Bertram Cooper of Sterling and Cooper

Ah the Wonderful Accepting Right

I spent the night with every republican luminary save McCarthy and Jesus.

-Bertram Cooper of Sterling and Cooper on the ocasion
of the 1960 American Presidental election.

The Voices in Our Heads

On Jihad Watch in a thread about a Muslim's attempt to promote "world peace" by random killing.

reference to the Bicameral mind and the origins of conciousness

ala-sux

Funny how that voice in the heads of Muslims never seem to tell them to clean the parks, help the poor, look after the orphans, get off welfare, stop forcing your wife to wear the bedsheet in public, buy breath mints, stop blaming evrything on other people, speak up about the Jihad that smears Islams image of Peace, treat females like actual equal Humans .

BUT NO , Allah keeps telling them to Murder, steal, whine, sue, behead, attack, plot agianst(sic) people, use welfare to breed like flies for more Jihad-Johnny's, bomb Public Transit, kill children, kill little girls going to school, Kill Kill Kill Kill.

Can you see a pattern here folks?

The voice in my head tells to to lose weight, pay your bills, be polite, help neighbours, pick up trash, help the elderly, help tourists, help immigrants adapt, donate to charity, give away my old PC , fix PC's for free or almost nothing, pay fair price for Yardsale items, and don't act as if my SH*T don't smell like everyone elses does.

Buy hey, maybe Allah is so deep and loving that I just can't comprehend why murdering people to show you're a Peaceful God is the correct way to love someone.

duh_swami

There are many psychotic people who hear 'voices'. Some of them hear the 'voice of God'. When God says 'strike that man down, it is time to strike that man down. With psychotics , there is a lack of critical reasoning. It may be that 'God' told this individual to drop his pants in public, or throw his dinner plate. The psychotic never question why 'God' would tell them to do something so stupid, or meaningless.

At least in the Islam, when Allah says to 'drop your pants', you can understand why. The voice of Allah comming either as a hallucination, or through the Quran, another hallucination, makes the motivations clear. With the psychotic infidel, the motivations are not so clear. So what Islam really is, is a structure provided to hallucinating muslims, who desire to 'drop their pants' in a pure and holy way.

So for the sake of purity, it is important to follow Allahs insructions, killing people, or 'dropping your pants' in public, is acceptable as long as you have Allah on your mind when you do it...

Cool New Show: Pushing Daisies

This show Pushing Daisies combines the amusing tweeness of "the trouble with Harry with lots of other amusing tweeness. Here is a quote from the secound episode from a "villian".

"...a long subliminated interest in botany."

Art School , Why?

If I wanted to mingle with a bunch of geeks wearing leotards I would have stayed in art school.

- Chi McBride giving the reason why or why not enough
of us have gone or stayed in art school.

The Downside of Misplaced Optimism

When it doesn't work out you end up drunk in my apartment and yell at my roommate's cats.

Donna Moss giving the other side of plans oft gang awry.

Be (un)Kind to Animals

"I've done unspeakable things to animals I've never intended to eat.

Stephen Colbert promoting anti-vegetarianism

Beware the Wrath of the Barefoot

"...you'd have your throat cut within five minutes."

"Because I'm a northerner?"

"Because you're wearing shoes."

An exchange on the danger of drinking
around shoe-hating rednecks in
Bernard Cornwell's Rebel.

Forest Factories

"It was not until November that I found my brother, printed on the back pages of a magazine..."

Roman Discipline

Legionaire Titus Pullo is a hero of the XIII legion, but look at him now. Justice knows everyman's number. He has committed a terrible sacrilege, he will pay for with his life. As will any man here who breaks the law. Brawlers and drunkards will be flogged, thieves will be strangled, deserters will be cruified.

- Senior Centurion Lucius Vorenus laying down the Law

Hitler as a Game Character/Player

Xbox Hitler is not as scary as Nintendo Hitler.

He can find Jews hiding behind walls simply by head butting the wall!

- Anonymous comment on a chart on Indexed that
shows an inverse relation between
calmness and the hero population.

New opportunities

When god closes a door he opens a dress.

Roger Sterling of Sterling and Cooper

Film Voyuerism and Real Life

Ads for film festivals often emphasize the way the Cinema reality is often out of step with our own reality. When you go to the movies you often exposed to situations that would cause reaction in your real life. People had to learn to only watch movies.

Here are some more ads also for the Vancouver Film Festival; interrogation, possessed child and freak show.

Working Hours and Ompimal Efficiancy, One slashdotter's view.

In the comments of an article on slashdot about the tendency of many to fall asleep at work, syntaxglitch has this comment on death marches and Karōshi in the business.

In France, we often do work less than 40 hours a week.Less work also means better productivity. There surely is a "balancing point", but if it exist, it is different for every person, and is not constant with the time.

Believe it or not, there is actual research done on this--not that anyone ever pays attention to the results. If I recall correctly, it boils down to something like this:

- Productivity is low for the first 1-3 hours of a day as people get into the swing of things
- Daily productivity mostly goes up, but drops toward the end of the day (possibly because people are consciously "winding down")
- Productivity per worker hour peaks somewhere around a 30-hour week.
- Total sustainable productivity per week peaks at around a 45-hour week.
- Around 50 hours and up, fatigue builds up over time until burnout kicks in. Sustained work weeks of 50 hours are likely to be getting less TOTAL WORK done than sustained 35-hour weeks.
- Work weeks of around 80 hours are sustainable for maybe a week or so before catastrophic loss of total productivity occurs
- Anything much more than 80 hours likely results in immediately LOWER productivity, as fatigued workers make mistakes that take more time to fix than the extra hours provide.

From this, one can conclude that European schedules are more likely to maximize individual productivity (more work per hour), while American schedules are more likely to maximize organizational productivity (more work per person). One can also conclude that any manager who demands sustained work weeks of 50 hours or more is incompetent and a fool; the management equivalent of the kind of programmer who creates so many bugs he provides a net negative productivity to the team.

In practice, actual work hours are lower than they appear; most salaried workers are prone to finding numerous ways to not work while at work, largely because in many office environments physical presence is seen as more important than actual productivity.

I suspect the best balancing point would be something like four 9-hour workdays per week. Longer days to minimize the productivity drain of mornings, but a shorter total work week to allow occasional bursts of extra effort without creating long-term burnout.

Heroism and Reality

Being a hero never filled anyone's sack with salt and saffron.

Takezo Kensei, Actually some English bandit in medieval Japan.

The City as a Marble Maze

It does seems a little egotistical to turn the entire city into your own toy.

The Globe Mistakes "Modesty" for the Fear of Being Whacked by the Clan

In the Globe and Mail story, Concern for reputation leads Muslim woman to clarify sex assault, confuses a concern for ones reputation with the reasonable fear of being murdered by one's own family. A Muslim student has come forward to say the she was not raped. There is this context given for sexual politics in moslem countries.

Ottawa's Muslim community yesterday supported the woman's decision to clear her name.

"Who are we to judge somebody else, especially if a person is innocent?" asked Mumtaz Akhtar, president of the Ottawa Muslim Association.

He acknowledged that in some Muslim countries, especially in smaller villages, people do hold the belief "that victims of rape are unclean."

"They despise the person who has been a victim of rape, even if it is their own daughter. But it is not like that here. People are more educated."

He said she shouldn't worry about that connotation, adding that people are likely to be more sympathetic because it was not her fault.

Where honor killings are most common women who have been raped by members of their own families are then murdered to protect the good name of the same family of rapists. I am more impressed by societies where people clear their names through their own deaths rather killing a scapegoat.

Jungle ATM

Here is an ad of a Japanese tourist using an ATM that seems to be made out of Flintstone technology.

Hair Styling by Gum

Having little or no experience with hair saloons or barbers this seems quite reasonable. I expect that usually gum and hair don't go well together.

Lab Monkeys from the 50's Improving the Internet Today

This is actually an ad for Lycos, a web search company that has been forgotten in the present historical stage of Pax Googlia. Using monkeys as test subjects can lead to side effects, see drunk monkeys. I actually saw the original video, it was from a behavioral study to manipulate monkeys with aversion therapy.

The Hero and Reality

Being a hero never filled anyone's sack with salt and saffron.

Takezo Kensei, actually some English bandit in medieval Japan.

Scottish Cuisine Leads to Obesity, Really

Here is a BBC story about how the Scots have become secound fattest country, after the yanks. Grimm Reaper on AH.com is surpprised.

I would have thought haggis would be a major deterrant to...well, eating.

Recent Movie Mashups

Stranger Than Fiction and Harry Potter


Boogie Nights in Star Wars


Pulp Fiction done with Muppets


Here is creators of Pulp Muppets being interviewed on CNN with Wolf Blitzer/Animal.

Doing Time - a Prosiac Prison Memoir

Doing Time is memoir of a Manga artist's period in jail. This memoir was also made in to film. The mnga artist Kazuichi Hanawa was originally arrested on a bullshit gun possesion charge, there is nothing wrong with people having guns only the wrong people having guns, people who kill can use lots of other methods beside guns. Hanawa memoir of prison life has none of the violence or oppression we can expect from worksd from The Gulag Archipelago and other politaical- sociological works. Instead prison is depicted as living with your parents, forever with petty ante and contradictory rules. Both Clockwork Orange and The Blues Brother has a scene where our hero, degenerate con, has to sign an form while keeping his feet a prescribe distance away. The harsh rule based system is what to gives inprisionment its sting.

Doing Time is an enlightening tour through the Japanese system, well worth the read.

The Human Flip Book

A Midwest sandwich chain has created a human flip book using t-shirts as the drawing surface. Although there has only been less than 5000 viewings of this ad it has been listed in 2 different blogs that I follow, Ads of the World and Cartoon Brew, and animation and an advertising blog. Here is the making of video below.

High Praise for New Mexico from Californian

In the commenting on an hokey western themed election ad that Bill Richardson made for his reelection campaign one viewer, starman2006, has this high praise for New Mexico.

This is a great ad, makes me want to vote for him, but I live in California, I've heard good things about New Mexico, like there the Rent is very cheap and the Single Women have Low Standards.

The Travails of Old Time Computing

And uphills! Both ways, to and from work, too! And we didn't have those fancy things called shoes, today you wouldn't go into a server room without your boots, we went in there barefooted. And did it harm us? When we wanted to know if a computer is on, we had to touch its wire, no fancy flashing lights and all the other goodies you have today! When the modem died, I had to sit there for hours and whistle in 300 baud what was on the screen! Yes, 300 baud, and we were GLAD we had that kinda speed! And no fancy debuggers either, we just watched the code fly by and we knew EXACTLY what it did. Wasn't that hard when your whole code has to fit into less than what you got as cache on your CPU today. Oh, and there was only ONE program running at a time, and you had to wait for yours to run. What do you mean "on my machine"? You didn't have one, there was ONE machine for the company, and it was in the basement. Rather, it WAS the basement! When it was cold, and it was often cold because we couldn't afford heating EITHER, that was just after the war, remember, we had NOTHING (ok, except kickass expensive computers)... where was I? Right, when it was cold, we'd huddle together between the tubes (no, Timmy, not the Tubes of the Senator, that Senator didn't exist... ok, he did, but at least he kept his yap shut back then) to stay warm.

Hey. HEY! Where d'ya think you're going? (muttermutter) Spoiled brat...

Opportunist on slashdot discussion about old DOS upgrade video.

Cardinal Wosey's Political Advice

If you want to keep the love of a prince this is what you must do, be prepared to give him the thing you most care for in all the world.

Cardinal Wolsey in The Tudors

The Difference Between The Russian and Swiss Armies Illustrated

from Dark Roasted Life

A History of Editorial Cartoons by an Editorial Cartoonist

Choose The Lower Road

Your eminence, don't be eagle, they soar too high. Be a pigeon and shit on everything.

Logistical Troubleshooting

In the 1st book of the Raj Whitehall Chronicals there is this "recommendation" for straightening out transport difficulties.

"We gots a bit a of problem, like. The other civvie stuff, its moves aside, but this bastard won't." The sargeant brightened, and dropped a hand to his sabre. " kill hem sor?"

The guards stirred, and the dogs of the two parties exchanged tail down snarls. The civilian opened his mouth to protest, looked up at the sargeant and suddenly realized there was real hope behind the request.

Studying Evil

He who studies evil is studied by evil.

Old Bajorian Saying

The Riot Act

After reading latest chapter from one of my favorite authors I looked up the full text of the original "riot act". Here are words that must spoken to use the riot act. Say it next time someone gets out of control.

Our sovereign Lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their habitations, or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the act made in the first year of King George, for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies. God save the King.

Wikipedia Reality

What I love about Wikipedia is that it lets democracy determine reality.

Neoplatonist Philosopher Stephen Colbert,
August 21 2007

Differerent Religious Extremists

"Christian warriors" - no drinking on Sunday.
"Jewish warriors" - Just leave us alone dammit
"Muslim warriors" - insert latest violent mass murder here, daily

obscured by clouds in Little Green Footballs
thread CNN Moral Equivalence Marathon.

Pro Booze, Anti Torture Motto from Tom Waits

"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal labotamy"

Tom Waits on Fernwood 2Nite
after playing The Piano Has Been Drinking.

Headache Ad from Horror Fan

President, a Title for Thieves and Murders, Mostly

Harper should be insulted at being titled "president". As I argrued earlier, "president" is mainly used for the head gangster in cruel despotic regimes, like President Saddam Hussain (whacked) and President Robert Mugabe (at large).

Bad Weddings

HA HA. From The Guardian.

How to make the best of your best man's speech

Tim Dowling
Wednesday August 15, 2007

Guardian
No wedding is complete without a best man - although we might perhaps extend this sentiment to "no wedding is completely ruined without a best man", courtesy of a case currently being heard by a jury at Preston crown court. According to the prosecution, the trouble started when the best man at a wedding reception in Yorkshire misjudged the mood of his audience, and decided to expose himself in the name of entertainment. He then allegedly went on to batter a guest who upbraided him for this behaviour.

There are no doubt weddings where this sort of thing is positively encouraged, but herein lies the dilemma for any best man: it is impossible to gauge the mood of a group made up of two different sets of friends and family.

Best man speeches come in three basic varieties: pompous and lawyerly; shambolically ribald; and inoffensively boring. There are "good" best man's speeches - well judged, amusing, moving and brief - but they don't appear in sufficient quantity to constitute a separate category.

At the diabolical end, you have best men who employ PowerPoint and the odd one who thinks it's a good idea to recount the bride's sexual history in song while accompanying himself on the guitar. If you spot him at the rehearsal dinner scrawling on a napkin and asking people for words that rhyme with "venereal", replace him with a second cousin immediately.

Never, under any circumstances, have two best men (as happened at the Yorkshire wedding). If there's one thing worse than a loudmouth who can't wait to tell the family of the bride what a drunken, sexually incontinent no-mark her future husband is, it's two loudmouths trying to outdo each other.

And if you should ever be asked to be a best man, just remember that your main obligation is to thank the bridesmaids, and that anything else you say is liable to offend somebody. And when in doubt, don't get your penis out.

Acton's Dictum Updated

Power corrupts. Powerpoint corrupts absolutely.

JeanBaptiste in a slashdot discussion about Karl Rove.

The Gourmet Anarchist

I like the French though, they make champagne and they burn McDonalds.

Shimbo in a Alternate History discussion
about redoing Verdun 300 style.

Don't Be a Good Dog

Being a great employee is like being a great dog; at the end of the day, they'll still euthanize your ass when you're no longer of use.

SatanicPuppy in a slashdot thread
about hiring programmers.

When Gamers Breed

(From TechEBlog)

Safety Adage for Subway Riding

Man who go through turnstile sideways, is going to Bangkok.

UbuntuDupe in slashdot discussion
about harnessing energy from crowds.

300 Movie Mashups

These are all mashups from the trailer to the movie 300.

The 300 trailer staged in Counter Strike.


Lego 300


Simpson 300


PG 300


And Its Raining 300 Men

Ultra Nerdy Movie Poster

A Cold Hearted View of Human Life

Cost of treating wounded gunshot victim: $25,000

Cost of burying dead one: $18,750

Help the economy - shoot to kill.

The Sandman,
Signature of a poster on
AlternateHistory.com

Odd Life Affirming Animation

Wild Police Chase

Fashion is Evil

Nazis really knew how to dress - proof positive that fashion is evil.

Sam Handelman in a
slashdot thread about
Games Workshop mistreatment of fans.

Behind A Coke Ad, Inside The Happiness Factory

This is follow up documentry to Coke ad from the SuperBowl, The Happiness Factory. In the original ad the inside of a Coke machine was represented as some magical world. (Adfreak where I got this link noted that the documentry was still silent on the issue of Snowman murder.) In the followup documentry different characters explain their part in whole production. These parts are voiced by actual Coke employees. The effect is something like Nick Park's Creature Comforts. On a related note here is assembly of quotes about the Iraq War set to Creature Comforts.

Stupid Ciminals and the Reasons they agree to be on Camera

Transformarama

Transformers the movie is coming out in a week so now is a good time to look at some and nerdy ways people have reinterpreted and re imagined the whole concept of robots transforming out of of other things. For me Transformers didn't do anything for me, besides a line from the theme song, Transformers - robots in disguise.

Transformer costumes


Transformer as used car


Working robot transformer

Reasons for Suicide Bombing

Rick McFee of the
Augusta Chronicle,
Found on Cagle

Exciting New Game Enviroment

Frank Varvel of
The Indianapolis Star-News
found on Cagle.

Missing Masterpiece

This was part of campaign by an architectural preservation group in Chicago.

Open Pit Sandbox

From Ads of the World

Spam on the Eastern Front

Let us look at the email inbox for General Erich Manstein on 3/2/42, when he was engaged in the Crimea:-

Sender.....................................Subject

HeiniKreditAnstalt...............Get the cheapest motor insurance quotes from us

Adolf Hitler.........Why did Lt Schmidt take one-and-a half hours for lunch yesterday?

Mrs Manstein....................He's your son, too. What are you going to do about the gum disease?

Adolf Hitler........................Why are the water cooler maintenance people late?

Bill from Sonnenliebe...........Have you made pension plans? Try us!

Colonel, 541 Infantry...........Regiment will be at start-line 12 am.

Adolf Hitler....Transfer Corporal Schultz & his 6 men from Kerch to the Tartar Ditch.

As you can see, of all these messages, only one is relevant to the matter in hand.

From Johnnyreb on the thread Modern (2006) computers and the internet in WWII on AH.com. For the record Hitler was into to giving detailed and mindless tactic instructions. This tendency can be seen as this clip of Hitler as a gamer.

Apocalypse Now / Real Life Mashup

Capt. Frank Willard, US Army Special Forces, Caguyen River, The Philippines:-

At first I thought they handed me the wrong dossier. I couldn't believe they wanted this man dead. Third generation West Point, World War One, the Battle of the Beltway, about a thousand decorations. Like they said, MacArthur had an impressive career, maybe too perfect. He was being groomed for one of the top slots in the Corporation, four-star, Chief of Staff. Then things started to slip. Leaving the bombers on the ground to be blasted by the Japs. That gold the Philippine President gave him. And this guy was still in the field, commanding American troops. LOVED YOU IN WALL STREET.

The last comment, screamed out loud, caused the boat's crew to look up in surprise. Then they shrugged their shoulders. Willard was a spook: Those guys were nuts.

From Modern (2006) Computers and the Internet in WWII
on the Alternative History Board.
This was written by Johnnyreb.

Bad Booze From those Crazy Anti-Castro ex-Cubans

Here is an interesting ad from Bacardi. Bacardi used to make rum in Cuba and now makes weak watered down booze in an anonymous international setting, Havana Club is much better. The family that founded Bacardi like many rich Cubans chose to leave Cuba. The anti-Castro ex-Cubans are in a word crazy. They often wish to appear sane and well adjusted like in this passage in a blog I found.

The msm press would just ridicule as another one of those crazy anti castro Miami mafiosos, discredit him, and negate any effectiveness he does have...

Unfortunately this was from a blog on killcastro. The mission of this site is to encourage murder. The weasel word this site uses to excuse murder is that they do not "advocate the illegal execution of Fidel Castro." You can never trust a crazy ex-Cuban.

Cool Engineering

This is from a campaign in by a Norwegian utility to encourage more poeple to study engineering.

(from Adfreak)

How To Sell The Exotic Bananas

Is Political Reform Taking the Fun out of Politics

“It’s funny how when you take away the free booze and take away the babes, people just aren’t as interested in hanging out.”

NY State Lawmaker who understandly
wishes to remain anonymous, in
In Albany, Life Has Seeped Out of Night Life,
in the NY Times.

Robot Coke Machine Cadging Coins

Here is a Japanese Coke ad from Japan. A Coke Machine springs to life as a Giant Robot. What is amusing the the over the top dramatic intro, something appropriate for a cheesy robot TV series and quotidian story of a day in the life of a giant Coke machine robot. More videos can be seen here.

Monster with High Approval Ratings

In in a slashdot discussion about another Bush League scandal, this time the use of outside email accounts to shelter official activity from scrutiny, there were many despairing comments.

Whitney Mac Fanboy asks:

Just how obvious does the corruption in the White House have to be before you demand a change of government?

That's the problem with presidential systems, which is why it is government system of choice for the new tin pot banana republics , is that it can be auitocratic autocratic. Presidents don't lose non confidence votes.

Sheldon offers this bit of possible political theatre.

Bush could have a live press conference where he bites the heads off kittens, and nobody would care. The 28% who still support him would claim he was showing true leadership by biting heads off kittens. The news media would report both sides of the story as if they had real credibility.

I don't know if this was planned, or just accidental, but basically after all the false scandal coverage during the Clinton years people have learned to just tune this shit out.

Lawpoop also thinks that scandal fatigue from the 90's republican witch hunts against Clinton is helping people overlook Bush's notable failures.

Talkshow host Tom Hartman said that he can't help coming to the conclusion that the endless investigations into Clinton's Christmas card lists, travel agent's activities, and sexual peccadilloes was an effort to sour the public on the process of impeachment, and make whatever crimes the next president would do seem like partisan politics. It's hard not to start thinking this way.

Of course the appeal of politicians who don't do appealing things, who have the courage to do crack the eggs to make the omelets explains why some still admire Stalin the Murder. When Sideshow Bob was mayor and a criminal he said the people need evil. People like him or Francis Urquhart people who are willing to "put a bit of stick about".

Because you _need_ me, Springfield. Your guilty conscience may force you to vote Democratic, but deep down inside you secretly long for a cold-hearted Republican to lower taxes, brutalize criminals, and rule you like a king. That's why I did this: to protect you from yourselves.

Drunk Cat

Globalization in Food Ingredients

The NY Times on Saturday had an interesting story about how food processors have been sourcing their ingredients world wide, Globalization in Every Loaf. What is mildly disturbing, and this article was in the business section is this paragraph. It is rare for business journal to not sing the Internationale in favor of the wonders of free trade.

The lowering of trade barriers more than a decade ago has pushed food companies to scour the globe for more exotic — or the cheapest — ingredients to compete in a more global marketplace, not unlike automakers shipping in parts from all over. But with America’s relatively permissible food-import rules and weak inspection regime, is the trend to assemble food from so many far-flung locations heightening the risks of contamination?

Unemployed Robots

On slashdot there is this slideshow of a visit to a motherboard factory in Taiwan, or as I like call it Free China. Many, especially those who have seen electronics factories over the years noted how unautomated the factory is compared to Califronian or Japanese electronic factories in the '80s. Many blamed globalization for making people cheaper than machines. Mechanization has historically happened when the capital and running cost for a machine is cheaper than the extra hands it replaces.

Animats pointed how the decline of low skill wages because of illegal immigration has deautomated some service jobs in the US.

It's discouraging. I've watched America go from robotic car washes to "100% hand wash" over the last 25 years.

The assembly line for the Macintosh IIci was more automated than this one. Back in the 1980s, when consumer electronics came from Japan, the Japanese makers were frantically trying to automated enough to keep their labor costs down. Seiko and Sony developed some beautiful technologies for making small consumer electronics items untouched by human hands.

Now everybody has those long lines of low-paid women in some low-wage area.

But denoir points out the dimishing return of automation.

Many of the things don't have to be made by hand, but it is simply cheaper. And it's not just in Taiwan.

A few years ago I worked on a project at ABB Robotics (largest maker of industrial robots) and had the chance to often see their production lines. Once upon a time their assembly lines were automated to a large degree, until they realized that their throughput wasn't big enough to benefit from robots doing the work. People were cheaper and needed less maintenance. When you built a new robot model, you could use the same people - with little extra education required. Robots on the other hand required expensive reprogramming and testing for each small change.

When I was there they were just dismantling the last robot in the line - the one that painted new robots. Instead they outsourced it and now three guys in gas masks spray paint them manually.

Explosions are Cool

Prank a Funeral

Nothing wrong with a little bad taste to remember a friend. As John Cleese said at a memorial for Graham Chapman "anything for him but mindless good taste".

Chinese Ad Suggests Ad World full of Aliens

Doesn't this image of an Art Director for an ad for Chinese Campaign Brief Magazine, also here and here.

Look alot like this image from the documentry Men in Black.

Ahmadinejad's Demons

In line with Golda Meir's depressing view of Arab and Moslem family values, “We will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us”, is this report on the actions of the Basij in the Iran/Iraq war. In that war the iranians religiously conscripted teenagers to clear minefields. Iran current civilian, not religious leader, Mr ImATuxedo was in this organization training teenagers to willing clear minefields with their bodies. Here is a disturbing report of Ahmadinejad's demons and his world.

At one point, however, the earthly gore became a matter of concern. “In the past,” wrote the semi-official Iranian daily Ettelaat as the war raged on, “we had child-volunteers: 14-, 15-, and 16-year-olds. They went into the minefields. Their eyes saw nothing. Their ears heard nothing. And then, a few moments later, one saw clouds of dust. When the dust had settled again, there was nothing more to be seen of them. Somewhere, widely scattered in the landscape, there lay scraps of burnt flesh and pieces of bone.” Such scenes would henceforth be avoided, Ettelaat assured its readers. “Before entering the minefields, the children [now] wrap themselves in blankets and they roll on the ground, so that their body parts stay together after the explosion of the mines and one can carry them to the graves.”

What Money Can't Buy

Money can buy everything, except civilization.

Anonymous
said about Saudi Arabia
and all the rich Arab sheiklets

An Interrogator's Story

Tony Lagouranis joined to the army to learn Arabic so he was trained to be an interrogator. His training stressed the importance of rigoriously following the Geneva Convention and fobeying its rules and regulation with everyone an interrogator comes in contact with. Then he was sent Abu Graib and was told to not follow the Geneva convention and to use harsh measures. The newly authorized techiques didn't work.

Listen to him in discussion on NPR. During the program a more senior interrogator talks about techniques that sound wishy washy but actually work.

Spooking Airline Travellers

This is a varriation on the trick that Bart pulls on Moe, force someone to announce something weird over a public address system.

Industrial Film as Video Game Ads

Roger Heddon has kindly given me a link to a Sega site promoting a new racing game. The site and associated videos are done as industrial films. The new game technologythat is being highlighted is quite cool. Instead of things just "blowing up real good" with some standard animation. Sega has examined that way things blow up in real life.

AK-47, a History

AK-47 is a history of the famous Soviet assault rifle. Here is an ad for this book that is found on the author's website. The book covers the life cycle of the gun from its creation by a soviet tanker to its use in the various "wars of national liberation" of the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's down to the present day. Now the Russian have a new generation of assault rifles and have begun to replace the AK-47 at least in the Spetsnaz and other elite units. In the history of the Ak-47 is the the history of the world for the half century after the atomic bomb. A period of the Cold War and many, many small brushfire wars. In the small wars AK-47 shone in the hands of the badly trained, half trained and completely untrained "innocent bystanders". It is not a weapon for the professional millitaries with their detailed training schedules and maintenance rules.

The problem of creating an infantry weapon is different than a hunting rifle. A hunting rifle is used for a small number of shots a few days a year. After a small degree of use the hunting rifle is cleaned and put away. The infantry rifle might be used continuely. It cannnot be cleaned after each use. In the Great War Canada was saddled with the Ross Rifle because of the mendious incompentency of the Minister of Militia Sam Hughes. The best weapon isn't some panglossioan ideal. The best weapon is the one right right here, right now, working.

The safest times in history is when weapons and weapon systems are expensive and scarce. The dangerous times in history are when weapons and armies are cheap. In expensive days armies are few and small and precious. When weapons become cheap and easy small freelance armies spring up otherwise know as brigands. When the State no longer has the monopoly of force the State disappears. In one history there was a mention of the democratic nature of the Cowboy or Gaucho in the sense instead of being a "man on a horse" a phrase that has been applied to the officer/knight/squire the cowboy was a man on a cheap horse. The horse in some times and places in history are cheaper or more expensive to keep. When horses are expensive they are reserved for knights and officers. When horses are cheap and available cowboys and huge mongol armies are possible. What military resources are available dictate what tactics are available be it a small elite or some sort of Levee en Masse. A small professional army is given the best weaoins and training money can buy. A revoltionary situtation much like the French Revoltion means near total mobilization of the population resulting in ill equiped untrained parttime soldiers. The AK-47 is perfect for a Levee en Masse.

Aircraft Beauty Contest

Here is a story of a guy who entered his homebuilt airplane in the huge air show/convention/beauty pagent of Oshkosh. The article for Air&Space has a drawing of his entry and the more typical winning entry. I love the way the slob airplane builder is being penalized for "mustache improperly alligned".

Police Recogition Poster

This is an ad from VW that mimicks the identification posters that were used in WWII, look at one below as an example. It also replicates the posters that shows the different marking and heraldry that is found on identical units from diferent counties. For both of all pictures click on for larger image.

Albanian Pimps and Thieves Looove Bush

Graphic evidence that war to conquer Serbia for the benefit of Albania was a very bad thing. I think it was the worst thing that Tony Blair did, right up with there with coddling Irish terrorists and calling it peace. This still is from an article on Jihad Watch, this has also come to the attention of Boingboing, link has video of theft in action, which normally doesn't comment on Muslim criminial activity.

I call Albanians pimps but a better word is slavers just like the founder of their cult Mohammed. Here is an unflattering view of Albania land of Scum is from Anti-Slavery International.

Ronald McDonald Worship

It looks like Ronald McDonald is having a better time in Japan than he had in Pakistan.

We Have ways of Making you Talk

This is a mash up of the Monty Python Spanish Inguistion sketch, a Tony Robinson (Baldrick) sketch and current news clips discussing torture. If torture worked as a way to win hearts and minds and information John McCain today would be a fervent communist. John Mccain and his history prove the pointlessness of torture. However interrogation is ok and asking after name, rank and serial number is given is part of the dance. I once saw a Brittish movie that explored interrogation techniques used on spies in WWII. Instead of using goodcop/bad cop it was very, very sympathetic civilian employee (not cop) which caused the subject to react and become very helpful at same time being angry at the good cop.

History of Underwear

This is part of a promotion of a advertising agency to sugest there alwyas is a perfect fit. The Institute of Practical Underpants is a fake research institute into underwear. I can just see the latin motto for the group as Semper Ubi Sub Ubi.

Gordon Brown as Vader

In a thread Clone War on Terror on AlternateHistory.com Sargon makes this comparison between Gordon Brown and Vader

Gordon Brown certainly seems to breathe a bit like Vader...just watch whenever he speaks and pauses to suck in air!

"You cannot defy the power of the treasury...., soon all your cash will be in my grasp (suck).... I shall drain it out of you....".

Jose1337 chimes in:

"never underestimate the power...of trade deficits!"

and the great Thande adds:

I find your lack of financial prudence...disturbing."

Cat Photography

The above is a photogragh from the daily rambling of a German cat named Mr Lee. Mr Lee kept disappearing at times so the person who fed him rigged up a camera for him to wear. Here is the technical details so you too can make a cat camera. A friend of Mr Lee an actor cat Squeeky in California also kept disappearing, he was fitted with a video camera. Watch here for Squeeky movie.

The Latest Giant Walker: ChairBot

Here is a Walking Chair prototype that some lab has created. It is very cool lokking and impractical like BattleTech itself. Over at slashdotm where I got story, many were inspired by the sheer nerdiness of this project.

Creimer wanted a toll to make gaming easier.

I just can't wait for the model with integrated gaming computer, toliet and soda dispenser for those long deathmatch games where it can walk you home after you pass out from playing too much.

Bughouse wanted a fanboy toy.

I'll take one with 6 Medium Lasers, an AC/20, a PPC-10, and an LRM-6 please.

Dr Memory expressed a fear that these could be widely adopted.

Heh, that was my first thought: "Jesus, how soon before I see these things stomping around Wal-Mart?" I swear, I go there about five times a year, and every time it's like Bloated Freaks on Wheels week.

cephal0p0d includes links to many more walking robot sites.

http://www.plyojump.com/ [plyojump.com]

Favorites:
BigDog http://www.bdi.com/content/sec.php?section=BigDog [bdi.com]
RHex http://www.rhex.org/ [rhex.org]
ZMP, Inc. http://www.zmp.co.jp/e_home.html [zmp.co.jp]
RiSe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzfP0Ig7eVQ [youtube.com]

How Some Police View Police

In a segment on informers on the program On The Media there is this horrifying insight in how some from disenchanted communities view police.

There was a session at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice a week or two ago, which is a school of higher education that trains law enforcement officials, and there was an open session about whether it's appropriate to snitch.

And among the students, among the students being trained in law enforcement, some of them took the position that it's not appropriate to cooperate with the police because the police can't be trusted. And this manifests itself in rap music. It manifests itself on tee shirts. And it does seem to be a societal movement or feeling with some force.

It brings to mind Kipling's line "lesser breeds without the Law".

Nazism and Office Politics

"Showing an interest in Nazism [was] a career-wrecker in Germany"

German Ambassador in the ISOT Second Chance,
a story on the Alternative History Bulletin Board

Be Afraid of the GUM

from Newgrounds.

Photos from a Gunship

A helicoptor pilot in Vietnam has created this slideshow from the photos of his tour.

A Logo for Christ

Snowman Hit and Run

From an ad for brakes.

"Maximum Booze to the Beer Community out There

This is from an upcoming Norwegian TV show which is going to be an interview show animated. There is also a followup video done in amateur Youtube fashion, there are interruptions, background noises, doorbells, airconditioning hum and framing problems. The followup video includes the disclaimer that "beer is good in moderate amounts". NSFW

Low Corporate R&D Spending, Huge Corporate Resources

In a thread on slashdot about recent advances solar cell technology thpr has this insight into a lack of R&D spending by oil companies in particular and large companies in general.

I'd note that most oil companies do have lots of research into alternative (non-oil) energy. It's just hard to see in their financials because oil is so lucrative. The major one that realy gets criticized for its lack of investment in areas like solar is ExxonMobil - and the reason they don't is probably the same reason that Cisco doesn't tend to develop most of its revolutionary technology inside the company. XOM and CSCO both have tons of cash, tons of cash flow and a well-priced stock giving them the ability to simply buy a producer of new equipment if it becomes a valuable market. Why bother to spend tons of money on basic research when you can let the newcomers fight it out in the market and just buy the leader when the time is appropriate? As strange as it is, that's R&D economics at many large industry-leading corporations. It's "efficient outsourced innovation" [businessweek.com].

Geographic Instructions

Yes, England boy. England, a big damn foggy island nor noreast of Usher.

Captain Pellew

Pokemon of the Sea

A Dumbo octopus.

from a slideshow on deep ocean ecology.