How I Waste My Precious Time

Whew, a big flutter of chatter in the news last week about some recent scientific findings: the gases let off by shower curtains are bad! That’s right folks: those foul, chemical-smelling, plastic-manufactory odors that you smell when you open the package of a new plastic shower curtain are actually noxious gases. No shit! Thank you again science, I couldn’t have figured it out for myself. 

I do think the way news is reported these days is ridiculous in all its forms, and one of those is definitely the portrayal of really obvious things that have now become verified by science. I admit that there could be some use to it if it helps establish some legal boundaries or something to assist the greater good, but can’t science work on something more important?

Read this today, it’s connected to the way my point of view has been evolving lately. There’s also a nice bridge here between “the nature of things” part of it all and the “why are we in this predicament” view of society at large.

I’d been thinking mostly about the first half recently: it’s in our nature and an expression of life itself to do unlikely things, to pursue something bound to fail, to create something for no reason, to be (willfully or ignorantly) defiant of the odds. That was starting to be a hopeful point of view too, but as Wil points out it could be responsible for humanity’s stupid pursuit of extinction and catastrophe as if we can’t tell what’s coming.

Well that’s a bummer! Something positive to take from it: at least the remnants of civilization will have the will to push on after the rest of us die off. Of course, it’d be nice to think we could moderate things just a tad so as not to hit the finish line quite so fast.

That last video I linked too said that we were spending over half of all tax revenues on the Military!?! Is that right? Holy fuck! Can’t we just switch most of that money into space travel? The same Military Industrial Complex can build everything with the same wasteful amount of Government money, so we don’t even need to get rid of corruption to do this. At least there’d be a chance that as a side effect human Lunar and Martian Colonies would make it after Earth becomes a little less comfortable to people. Maybe they could teach us how to live in bubble cities?

Found this awesome video on Digg: Story of Stuff. It’s a 10 or 20 minute video about production, the supply chain, and consumption suitable for children’s education but with the truth instead of abstractions and suspiciously missing value judgements that I fear most educational material features.

I didn’t think I needed to sit through it, but it was really charming and unfortunately the topics covered probably aren’t as obvious to most as they should be. Check it out.

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David Wolman, writing for wired: Hey America, Make With the !@~$ High-Speed Rail Already!

God, I would love to elect a black man or a chick! Believe me man, I want nothing more than the most radical change possible from this dogshit-crap-fest we are currently calling our democracy. What a perfect time for a woman and a black man to be staging serious runs at the White House!

But something is wrong. These inherently radical candidates are watering down their message to the typical, useless, centrist Democratic drivel that has lost the Dems the last two Presidential races: races they were practically handed on a platter.

And John Edwards, the rich white man from the south, is actually the one saying the most revolutionary things.

Shit like this is why no one cares anymore. God, it’s all so obvious and lame.

It’s hard to beat John Gruber’s opening clause here:

I’ve been up to my ears in jackassery lately, ->

but it’s nice to see someone in the media effectively acting like a watchdog these days. It’s not just Gruber, either. Lately there seems to be a lot of independent but popular writers in the Mac media calling “bullshit” when they see it and parsing said bullshit with highly logical retorts. Even MacWorld stood up for decent journalism recently when they were linked to a sensational piece published under their own umbrella corporation: so it’s not just the bloggers.
The sad and scary thing is that this watch-dogging is of the major media, which is itself supposed to be watching over the government and all else that is powerful and potentially dangerous to normal citizens. I can’t decide if the trend of independent people checking up on the large media organizations is a sign of hope that a technology may finally be helping the common man and the cause of equality, or a portent of doom that our major media institutions are not fulfilling their social task at all.

In the meantime, I’ve found a new iChat status message.

Also, go use Apple’s new .Mac Webmail. It’s gorgeous. Turn on Keyboard shortcuts in the preferences.