Reg Spyder's Real World

Real life intrudes on my virtual world

noreply@blogger.com (Reg Spyder) — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:44:00 +0000

...meaning I don't get to post very often, but I've moved on to Flock, and it has what appears to be some great internal blogging tools. Seems good so far, supporting drag. and drip from the excellent web clipboard the Flock provides...

www.flock.com

Schrodinger's LolCat

noreply@blogger.com (Reg Spyder) — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 04:13:00 +0000

Weeks away from the blog, and this is the best I can do? A lolcat? For shame!

the changing sound of the noise floor

noreply@blogger.com (Reg Spyder) — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 00:31:00 +0000

As I listen to the dying notes of 'videotape', the final song on the new radiohead album, and the less-than-perfect 160kbit mp3 reproduction collapses into the alien digital noise floor, it occurs to me that I have become as emotionally attached to this sound as I once was to the the needle-drop, the rumble and the crackle of the vinyl of my childhood. It has become a pleasant sound, attached to more than two decades of music listening that has brought me much pleasure. The crappy digital noise now brings with it those positive emotions.

Over the past few years, most of my listening has been sourced from my computer, where I often have to deal with digital noise from hard drives. I wonder how ingrained that will become in my psyche, and if in later years, when solid state drives are the norm and computer sound more crystal clear than the best audiophile systems available, I will yearn for the strange clicks and whirrs of my knackered old hard drives clunking their way through thermal recalibration.

Checkmate!

noreply@blogger.com (Reg Spyder) — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 01:04:00 +0000

Ah, the net is filled with all kinds of funny.

The Accellerating Prescience of The Onion

noreply@blogger.com (Reg Spyder) — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 21:30:00 +0000

I've recently found a reasonably convincing set of arguments that google is god, or as close as the classic definitions as anything that has ever existed. Well, if gods can exist online, why not prophets?

Let's face it, The onion has been remarkably prescient from time to spooky time. Just check out their take on a bush presidency in January 2001, or their article on the RIAA in 2002. Here's a version of the bush prediction, annotated with links to actual events - it's quite scary.

Now check out this 2005 article regarding Bush's planned exit strategy for Iraq, which involves exiting through Iran, with a fuel stop in Syria. It doesn't sound so funny now. It hasn't seemed that ridiculous an idea for quite some time.

Previously we had to wait years for the Onion to go from satire to reality, now I fear that is coming down to months. I'm beginning to worry that the onion satire to reality time is part of an accelerating process that will soon reach a kind of singularity, where the onion will no longer be able to be funny. No matter how out there or ridiculous the headline, reality will have got there first.

The US 2008 Elections and the Rest of the World

noreply@blogger.com (Reg Spyder) — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 21:10:00 +0000

With 70% of America now online, a new force comes into play in the 2008 election which has never been of much importance to Americans. The rest of the world. The results of the 2008 elections and the candidates chosen will have a dramatic effect on global stability. While they may not have a vote, they do have a voice, and they can do a lot of work persuading Americans to make the right choice. Ideally the choice of a politician willing to stop US warmongering and to concentrate instead on making the US into a healthy rational peaceful country, which would be better for everyone (apart from a small number of rich people running arms companies, who, quite frankly, deserve a slow ignominious death).

Actually, whenever I turn on the telly and see 4 channels of American imported junk, and have to endure identikit strips of Macdonalds and KFC's, I think I deserve a vote too. Then I look at the crap UK imported junk TV and the crap homemade NZ junk TV and realise that the problem lies not in the country of origin, but in the medium. Maybe the same could be said about nationalistic party politics.

Anyway, there you go, Rest of the World. There's your challenge. Persuade and cajole your American cuzzies to vote for Paul, Gravel or Kucinich. Shit, just persuade them to get out and vote, or to put some thought into the choice they are making and how many lives other than their own it will affect. To some Americans their vote is still decided on which party will give them more money or job security next year, but to millions in Iran (for example) it is literally a matter of life and death.

So America, please stop electing warmongers. Pretty please. We'd go back to liking you and saying how swell y'all are. Then you'll be less scared of us, and we'll be less scared of you, and all will be well.

Reg rants on reddit again: American Consumption

noreply@blogger.com (Reg Spyder) — Sun, 20 May 2007 12:01:00 +0000

For American consumers, how much is enough? (reddit.com) context

This is a question the world has been asking for decades.

We'd really like an answer please, because if Americans don't stop their overconsumption, they're doomed. As much as they may feel picked on and hated by us Euros at the moment, we'd really rather see them succeed than go down writhing in the flames of their own greed. Most days.

There is no possible way they can continue with their current lifestyle. The 1000 mile Caesar salad, the Fiji water and the McMansion at the end of a two hour commute, all are entirely reliant on cheap oil. Problem is, most of the remaining oil is in The Rest Of The World. They have pissed off pretty much all of The Rest Of The World recently, so I wouldn't anticipate a return to cheap oil anytime soon.

So, somewhere along the line, the American mindset of 'bigger is better', the love affair with SUV's on steroids and the crass idolising of bling has to end, and a more sustainable mindset take it place. The only question is when, or is it too late?

Cthulhu 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Reg Spyder) — Sun, 20 May 2007 06:33:00 +0000

Let's face it, it can't get any worse. Surely some many-tentacled beasts from a hellish dimension would be a welcome change in US politics. Or maybe it would just be same-old same-old.

Reg's reddit response: The Clash of Civilisations

noreply@blogger.com (Reg Spyder) — Fri, 18 May 2007 00:02:00 +0000

"The real 'clash of civilizations' is not between 'Islam' and 'the West,' but instead within virtually all modern nations — between people who are prepared to live on terms of equal respect with others who are different, and those who seek the protection. Context

I think the problems runs deeper. The information/communication revolution is still in comparative infancy, but is part of more and more lives around the world. One of the results has been to shrink the physical distances between people even further, often to zero for digital natives. It has, however, caused a widening of the age gap, as the older generation have grown up with industrial age thinking and, for the most part, have difficulty grasping the changes in the world, the workplace and the fabric of society as a whole.

Unfortunately for the world, we have a few more years where almost all of our top lawmakers, policy makers, doctors, educators, reporters and editors are recent digital immigrants. These types of people as a whole have tended to be technology resistant and rely on advice from less-resistant peers. Unfortunately these peers are, like them, digital immigrants - while they may understand the net, they do not grok it like a native, and view it in terms of classical business/economic/social models.

It will be many years before the digital natives, those who have never known a world without the internet, mature to a level where they can gain power out in the real world, but here in cyberspace they will take over.

This is where the tension lies - in the tension between the industrial age paradigms (capitalism, expansion, dominance, secrecy) to the communications age paradigms (sharing, community, transparency, sustainability). Digital natives can see a future where knowledge is shared freely for the common good, industrial dinosaurs cannot imagine something of value without a pricetag.

Guinness Evolution Re-Edit

noreply@blogger.com (Reg Spyder) — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 12:55:00 +0000

I just had to cut this up and have some fun - the original guinness ad was one of the best I've seen in years - not shown in the US of course, since they'd be offended at the thought that we once crawled up from the mud and evolved.

Ooooh, two of my favorite things.

noreply@blogger.com (Reg Spyder) — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 04:13:00 +0000

Well, I love cooking, and I'm all for the sensible recreational use of natural plants, so here in all it's tasty glory is the stoners cookbook. The online bible of bud-based baking, the canon of cannabis cookery, the dictionary of dubious delights, it contains a huge tome of recipes to get tasted and get wasted. Mmmm yummy.

No Ad-Sense

noreply@blogger.com (Reg Spyder) — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 02:23:00 +0000

My google Ads are a bit off at the moment - I keep seeing paintball (pretty obscure) and psychic phonelines. Psychic phonelines????? aaargghhhhhhh. The only reason I'd expect my readers to click on a psychic phoneline is if they're off on a debunking mission....Hmmm there's an idea for a rainy day.

Where are the cons in Congress?

noreply@blogger.com (Reg Spyder) — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 22:46:00 +0000

Right, we all know that politicians are a bunch of lying no-good warmongering crooks, but in all seriousness, in the interests of a functioning democracy, where are the cons in Congress?

In a democracy, everyone should have a say in the running of the country and the making of the laws, agreed? The leaders of the country should be representative of the cultural, ethnic and socioeconomic spectrum of the country. In New Zealand, one of the planet's better democracies, they have a pretty wide mix of race (as NZ didn't commit genocide like certain countries we could mention), a pro-cannabis white Rastafarian and even a transsexual MP in Parliament.

In America, however, the leaders are almost exclusively chosen from the business and economic world, and they run the country for the sole benefit of those aspects of society. What's worse is that they're held to a higher moral standard than ordinary folks. Americans have been conditioned to expect their leaders to be solid upstanding christian family men. Ideally white. They certainly wouldn't elect a black atheist woman into the presidency. What's important though, is that in a country which locks up the largest percentage of its population in the world, those people have no representation. Imagine a Congress with a representative population of ex-cons, and then see how long anti-drug laws will last.

Without honest parliamentary representation like this, all a government has to do to undermine democracy is increase the legal tolerances until everyone a criminal. If you include speeding in a car, almost everyone in the western world probably is. Sociological mission creep, boiling the frog and all that.

Expecting these 'high moral standards' of our representatives, is not representative of society. This happens in the church too - priests are set this abnormally high standard of behaviour and the failure to live up to this standard manifests in aberrant sexual behaviour in many cases. In politics it comes out more as financial corruption, but there's plenty of sexual shit in there too. The point is, these overtly high expectations encourage corruption. Cover up something small, and you're on the road to bribery and muck-raking power plays. We need more politicians of the George Clooney mould. 'Yeah, I did it all, I inhaled, snorted, laid whatever'. Be fucking honest, and then no-one can bribe them and pressure them into serving special interests other than the public.

The US should get more like NZ - get a few stoners, gays (open not closet), ex-cons, transsexuals into Congress. It would make for better TV too.

No wonder they're able to recruit angry young men...

noreply@blogger.com (Reg Spyder) — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 00:48:00 +0000

... I'd be angry too if my dick had been mutilated and desensitised as a baby like so many american christians and middle eastern muslims. Isn't it glaringly obvious - male genital mutilation (or circumcision as it's more often known, but if the corportate media can fuck with the language for dramatic effect then so can I), which is so prevalent in the 2 societies currently at each others' throats, both have armies filled with angry young men with desensitised dicks and a fucked up religious upbringing filled with guilt.

No wonder they're so ready to go off fighting. I'd have lifelong anger issues if I'd had the second most sensitive part of my dick removed (without anaesthetic) and the most sensitive part changed from being a delicate internal organ to a hardened external one.

It should, in any civilised nation, be a crime to cut off part of a child's penis. There are no health benefits, and no medical reasons to do it. We don't practice female genital manipulation in the west on baby girls, so why do it to boys. It's fucking sick. Anybody who's not a brainwashed sheeple should be able to make that call. cutting kids cocks = bad MMMmmmmkay!?!

This goes a long way to explaining why american pr0n seems so obsessed with anal too.

I want your filthy lucre...

noreply@blogger.com (Reg Spyder) — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 00:33:00 +0000

...and in return I'll send you this fetching T-Shirt. If you need to spot christians, just wear my 'just say know' apparal and look for the pursed lips and hateful glances.

What to buy me for for my birthday

noreply@blogger.com (Reg Spyder) — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 06:32:00 +0000

Oh, I gotta have me one of these. Novelty mugs are normally a no-no, but come one, this is genius.

Disappearing Civil Liberties Mug

Pour in a hot beverage and watch your civil liberties disappear! Mug features the complete text of the Bill of Rights, but temperature sensitive print responds to the change and shows what remains thanks to the Patriot Act!

The dreaded inaugural post

noreply@blogger.com (Reg Spyder) — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 00:27:00 +0000

Welcome to the first post in Reg Spyders Real World. Let's get a few things straight, right off the bat. This is a reality-based blog. Here, we do not believe in fairies, pixies, santa claus, the easter bunny, god, paris hilton, ghosts or astrology or any other ludicrous nonsense. If you believe in any of the above, you're not gonna like it here unless you really enjoy losing arguments.

Reality is an amazing place. blows. my. fucking. mind. It really does. I still spend hours just trying to grasp the scale of our universe, how unbelievably big it is, how incredibly small it goes, how amazingly old it is, and just how lightning fast it can be. The incredible arrogance of people who think that they're somehow chosen as the reason all this exists, and that there's some great sky-daddy who brought this all into being just so they could scrap it out over a patch of pretty ugly desert... It's simply staggering.

Well fuck them. I'm not going to let a bunch of arrogant, superstitious throwbacks drag my world to war when humankind is so close to spreading out into the universe. If we can get through the next couple of hundred years without the whole thing going tits-up then we should be able to get some colonies going on the moon, start mining the asteroid belt for raw materials, take earth's heavy industry offworld and start mankind's first terraforming project: fixing the damage to our homeworld.

If we don't let go of these childlike fantasies we're going to end up in a new dark ages, with scientists and athiests culled off as we have been for millenia. Not on my watch. If the past couple of thousand years has taught me anything, it's that that no amount of wilful ignorance can supress reality. No matter how much you twist the words of an ancient book, there will be no antichrist, no nazarene, no biblical apocalypse unless we allow a minority of crazed religious fanatics to bring it about. If we're going to throw self fulfilling prophecies around let's pick some with a happy ending for everyone, not just a 'chosen few'.

I call on all you rational folks out there to join the fight. Next time one of your religious buddies spouts some nonsense, I ask you to quit respecting their personal 'right' to a childish supernatural belief and unleash the attack dogs. Let down the tires on their SUV. Burst out laughing. Show them your fresh new 666 tattoo you got just to piss them off. Just be ready to run. Most religious types, especially the abrahamic ones, have a long history of killing and torturing people who don't believe exactly the same nonsensical beliefs as them.

It's neither love nor money that makes the world go around. It's inertia.