Right well just a restatement of the obvious which is that if you go looking for personal data you probably will be disappointed - as a matter of principle one shy's away from such things. After all we are at war - this is information warfare 401 and as such it is imperative that we all with hold as much information from the data suck machines learn as much about their operations as possible.
Other then that things are rather lovely. The world is going to hell, but what else is new? The following is written in my Buckminster Fuller mode so I apologize for that and don't worry - will get back to normal soon.
I'm going to say something that's a little strange. To do so I'll preface things with a few comments.
To retain their self respect a person must respect others. (Bear with me on
this. I've used this axiom, if you will, as a very effective defense mechanism,
because, believe it or not there are those among us who would take advantage of
real or perceived superiorities to be "that which is less then polite."
Humanity is a hierarchical species and this hierarchy is given form, made
Evident, by a series of social indices which is turn are based upon and the source
of actual social differentiations. One dramatic school, that of the line of
Strindberg and Bergman, which I am comfortable with, but which in turn is based
upon a very rigid set of behavioral rules, would say that the unfortunate means by
which the lower ninety eight percent of the human species regulates itself is
Humiliation.
Of course Germans are a little strange anyway. I have a cousin who was in
real or perceived superiorities to be "that which is less then polite."
Humanity is a hierarchical species and this hierarchy is given form, made
Evident, by a series of social indices which is turn are based upon and the source
of actual social differentiations. One dramatic school, that of the line of
Strindberg and Bergman, which I am comfortable with, but which in turn is based
upon a very rigid set of behavioral rules, would say that the unfortunate means by
which the lower ninety eight percent of the human species regulates itself is
Humiliation.
Of course Germans are a little strange anyway. I have a cousin who was in
a car crash and had a scar across his face ( which is now less noticable) from his
mouth to his ear and my fathers comment was simply "Hmm, looks like a sword
scar."
To explain, for all you non aryans this is something that now is thankfully not done anymore but up to and past the first world war among the German elites, who often attended military schools, dueling was, as in many nations, practiced and to their minds one had not proven their mettle until they had received a sword scar. Considering the current vogue for tattoos we ought not dismiss this out of hand.
I write so much that I'm not always sure of what I've put online and plus a
lot of material is in what Twain would call the fifty year bag - meaning not to be
published until fifty years after my death - for obvious reasons. If one were to find
themselves on a remote island surrounded by devotees of the volcanno goddess
who demanded human sacrifice for every little social faux pas one would learn to
be carefull and living among the human race for me it is no different.
In any case I think I mentioned that the real risk for revolution comes not
from the illiterate proletariat or the agricultural peasantry but rather it comes from the educated and ambitious bourgoisie for the reason that we know well that the notion that the elites are worth two or three million times what the rest of us are worth is preposterous. It's nice pay if you can get it but don't expect your
peers to fall for the bullshit you hand the masses.
mouth to his ear and my fathers comment was simply "Hmm, looks like a sword
scar."
To explain, for all you non aryans this is something that now is thankfully not done anymore but up to and past the first world war among the German elites, who often attended military schools, dueling was, as in many nations, practiced and to their minds one had not proven their mettle until they had received a sword scar. Considering the current vogue for tattoos we ought not dismiss this out of hand.
I write so much that I'm not always sure of what I've put online and plus a
lot of material is in what Twain would call the fifty year bag - meaning not to be
published until fifty years after my death - for obvious reasons. If one were to find
themselves on a remote island surrounded by devotees of the volcanno goddess
who demanded human sacrifice for every little social faux pas one would learn to
be carefull and living among the human race for me it is no different.
In any case I think I mentioned that the real risk for revolution comes not
from the illiterate proletariat or the agricultural peasantry but rather it comes from the educated and ambitious bourgoisie for the reason that we know well that the notion that the elites are worth two or three million times what the rest of us are worth is preposterous. It's nice pay if you can get it but don't expect your
peers to fall for the bullshit you hand the masses.
And realistically while the numbers of the disenfranchised bourgousis vary even should they retorically take up arms the military tends to remain in the
service of they who write the checks. The alternative, which is called either
guerilla tactics of freedom fighters or terrorism, depending on who's side you are
on, is not amenable to me.
So lacking the options of bloodshed we play the other games.
Which brings us around the the current situation here at the Tamlinmediaco.
I was reflecting the the other day and thinking back to an aquantence who
was a TV critic. He started in City College writes sports reviews and then got a job
doing TV with the local Long Island paper in the late 60's. Very amusing guy,
reminded me of Hannah Betts over in the London Times, she had one of the worst
remits a columinist could wind up with. She reviewed cosmetics, but she did it
with a degree of intelligence that took your breath away. In other words the
writing was often more interesting, much more interesting then the subject
written about.
And Marv started out as you would imagine reviewing television programs , but
somewhere in the 80's it became obvious that the programming was not the main thing anymore. Of course, we did not see this at the time as well as we do now.
Television has taken some major hits in recent times, as has the music industry
and I don't feel a great deal of sympathy for either because the people who
wound up in charge basically had no interest other then bean counting.
Kurt Cobain, who was cynical enough to kill himself, referred to the artist in
the terms his employers used - they are "Unit shifters." They don't even bother
giving the product the dignity of a name!
But I am not going to kill myself. I've been in situations where it could have
been done, where in essence, I realized that those around me felt they had reached the limits of what they could extract from me and thus would not be inconvienced by my death. But I am a nice boy. To think of my brains splattered across the desk of the President of Time Warner does not appeal to me. Kurt did
things his way. I do things my way.
The only suggestion as to the matter one cares to make is that Kurt probably
thought his ritual sacrifice would make more of an impression on the system then
it did. But the sytem is not human. It likes to pretend it is human but it is not.
Some call it evil. It is not. It just is. It's the dark side of TVAT TSaM ASI - or "You
are That." To some degree or another it is an extention of our own perceptual
bias's. I say this is terms that outreach the usual psychological definitions of, for
instance, "projection".
Again, to refer to the Sanskit
I am the Slayer
I am the Slain
I am the act of Slaying
Upanishads
In other words we create the corporation in our own images - something that is comprehendible in psychological terms, but what we don't comprehend and we cannot comprehend is we create the corporation that it will destroy us in the manner which we desire.
That's how it is with all the phenomenological creations of man. There can be no understanding without complete understanding and there can be no complete understanding without understanding that which cannot be understood, or dissolution.
In ordinary life this just means that everything has it's cost. You may get what you want and discover it's not so great, but that's the way it goes. the quick version Returning to more mundane matters America is suseptable to Utopian fantasies every decade or so. In the gold rush the guys who made the most were the ones that sold the mules, the pans and provisions to the prospectors. In the internet rush those who sold the quick buck schemes and promises of vast rewards on the stock market made the most.
The classic model of the inventor in the backroom doesn't seem to work too
often. However Mike Bloomberg and Mark Zuckerberg beat the odds - and
they did it by repurposing content. That is the key. Mr Bloomberg, now the
Mayor of New York City is a well liked guy. If James Breslin says a politicain is
alright it's worth bearing in mind. Mark, on the other hand, acording to the
movie is a tad on the ambitious side. They are both multibillionaires and they did
by making a product - not by getting capitol and buying everything in sight.
They both apparently worked hard, but there comes a time in every business
where it becomes physically impossible for one person to do all the work and then
the more critical factor is the abiity to hire and keep quality people. It always
helps to know what you are doing and it's also a good idea to hire those who have
disadvantages socially because among other things you know they are not there
because they play a good round of golf.
As a content guy my concerns are a little different. A rare skill set is being
the head of a film firm, because you not only have to get the pieces together that
will make a good film, but, more importantly you have think like the public. In TV for instance in 2008 I came back from a decade in the UK and discover
the fantasy is mainstream and reality is of only limited interest. There's several
possible explanations for this trend which is also in evidence in cinema. The
most amusing possibility is that we have all entered into higher realms of
cosciousness and are thinking symbolically and metaphorically.
As a reference point it's worth mentioning that during the last depression
reality films and songs as well came to the fore. The twenties were noted for
singing dancing showgirl extravaganzas. The thirties brought us the first gangster
movies and the hardboiled pragmatic American viewpoint that was to reach it's
apex in the post war film noir detective films.
In current entertainment some things are eternal. We still like things that
explode. We still like seeing people take their clothes off, but the defiance of
authority doesn't resonate like it did for so many years. If anything the CIA, the
FBI etc are now once again the good guys who are battling Vampires, Aliens and
mutants of all sorts - all bent on World domination,
When I wear my entertainment mogul hat things in political terms tend to
get very mixed up. I used to ask why there was no portrayals of wicked
corporations - Eg In the cowboy movies there was always the bad man who
wanted to steal the water rights or the railroad rights or what have you. More to the point where are the pot boilers - where the heck is little Nell, made homeless by the wicked banker whos busy raping Nells sister after having killed their father in a corrupt business deal?
I have a very traditional notion of art . You might even say it's maket
oriented. Whatever sells is good. So Hollywood's walking a fine line. They need
bad guys but they can't call businesspeople bad guys. So we have a new race of
super heroes to admire.
Getting back to our story though there have been people who have become
wealthy on the net by creating start ups. There are two factors to work between
when we ask not "How do I do the thing good?", but rather "How do I make
money at it?" It sounds twisted but a large part of what I do is for lack of a better
phrase "high art". Even pop artists like ELvis often wind up being richer after they
are dead then when they live. As far as I am concerned too many composers
make too little money when they live and at this stage of the game if I have to
sacrifice great art to put a roof over my head and feed myself - so be it - because
ultimately the blame has to be laid at the feet of the public.
I joke that the smarter and more capable I become the less anyone is interested in hiring me for anything. As indicated previously my instinct for self preservation remains unsullied. I understand that life tries to humiliate me. I understand that it seems unfair. What else is new?
In terms of production all that matters is the top two or three percent of any field. The rest is worthless and the kicker is the difference between the 98th percentile and the 99th percentile is not that great. It's like a race where the difference between winning and being out of the money is trivial in terms of time.
It's a brutal reality and the reason why in the past people would kill for the slightest advantage. Nowadays we don't kill for political power only for moral truth.
The next factor is that what one has to work with, the raw materials so to speak is not that different from what one's competitors have. I doubt that Micheal Bloomberg had informed sources that made his financial news service better then others. Even if he had that would not have made the critical difference. The main thing is organizing the material that people want to know about or experience and presenting it in a comprehendable way.
With Facebook, if anything the case is even more obvious. What Zuckerberg had or expended was time and energy. That's what coding is about. This is not to be disengenous. A lot of coders get screwed or become "Mircroserfs" in the modern parlance.
I'll give you an example of how the world works. I have a PC which has
very little "mileage" but has been problematic from the beginning. It was given to
me for this reason when no one else, even Best Buy where it was bought could
discern the problem. It froze, it didn't boot, it evidenced weirdness. I worked on it for months. It would work for hours, or even days and then freak out. I checked the Boot Script The BIOS, the Virals, the hard drive and everything you could think of - still no good. I ran a dozen different start up repair
disks, ran the replace ment particion several times, each time having to replace all
the software on the HD.
After awhile I grew tired of thinking I had the thing fixed. I needed a break. So I take the cover off and discover that the enclosure of the CPU is covered with a mat of dust. I wiggle a few wires. I put it back together. It works. The simple answer is no matter what diagnostic I ran I'd never have caught
the problem. Once before, long ago on an Apple 6100 the power unit went and it
also took months to diagnosis - because of the intermittent outages. The unit in other words was overheating - so it was not a software problem nor a hardware problem and hence could not be diagnosed in ordinary methodology.
The great thing about the net and MP3's is not the contemporary stuff -
it's getting to hear all the old stuff that you never heard in the first place and in
many cases realizing that no matter how good the performers were and the songs
were some other factor was in the way. Maybe they didn't have the promotion, or he record was recorded poorly, or what have you. The key thing is you have to cover all the bases to get to home plate.
You can't just ignore things and allow your superiority in other fields to
make up the difference.
IF you do that you can say, with the scientist, "Well, it should work."
But if it doesn't don't be surprised.
alright it's worth bearing in mind. Mark, on the other hand, acording to the
movie is a tad on the ambitious side. They are both multibillionaires and they did
by making a product - not by getting capitol and buying everything in sight.
They both apparently worked hard, but there comes a time in every business
where it becomes physically impossible for one person to do all the work and then
the more critical factor is the abiity to hire and keep quality people. It always
helps to know what you are doing and it's also a good idea to hire those who have
disadvantages socially because among other things you know they are not there
because they play a good round of golf.
As a content guy my concerns are a little different. A rare skill set is being
the head of a film firm, because you not only have to get the pieces together that
will make a good film, but, more importantly you have think like the public. In TV for instance in 2008 I came back from a decade in the UK and discover
the fantasy is mainstream and reality is of only limited interest. There's several
possible explanations for this trend which is also in evidence in cinema. The
most amusing possibility is that we have all entered into higher realms of
cosciousness and are thinking symbolically and metaphorically.
As a reference point it's worth mentioning that during the last depression
reality films and songs as well came to the fore. The twenties were noted for
singing dancing showgirl extravaganzas. The thirties brought us the first gangster
movies and the hardboiled pragmatic American viewpoint that was to reach it's
apex in the post war film noir detective films.
In current entertainment some things are eternal. We still like things that
explode. We still like seeing people take their clothes off, but the defiance of
authority doesn't resonate like it did for so many years. If anything the CIA, the
FBI etc are now once again the good guys who are battling Vampires, Aliens and
mutants of all sorts - all bent on World domination,
When I wear my entertainment mogul hat things in political terms tend to
get very mixed up. I used to ask why there was no portrayals of wicked
corporations - Eg In the cowboy movies there was always the bad man who
wanted to steal the water rights or the railroad rights or what have you. More to the point where are the pot boilers - where the heck is little Nell, made homeless by the wicked banker whos busy raping Nells sister after having killed their father in a corrupt business deal?
I have a very traditional notion of art . You might even say it's maket
oriented. Whatever sells is good. So Hollywood's walking a fine line. They need
bad guys but they can't call businesspeople bad guys. So we have a new race of
super heroes to admire.
Getting back to our story though there have been people who have become
wealthy on the net by creating start ups. There are two factors to work between
when we ask not "How do I do the thing good?", but rather "How do I make
money at it?" It sounds twisted but a large part of what I do is for lack of a better
phrase "high art". Even pop artists like ELvis often wind up being richer after they
are dead then when they live. As far as I am concerned too many composers
make too little money when they live and at this stage of the game if I have to
sacrifice great art to put a roof over my head and feed myself - so be it - because
ultimately the blame has to be laid at the feet of the public.
I joke that the smarter and more capable I become the less anyone is interested in hiring me for anything. As indicated previously my instinct for self preservation remains unsullied. I understand that life tries to humiliate me. I understand that it seems unfair. What else is new?
In terms of production all that matters is the top two or three percent of any field. The rest is worthless and the kicker is the difference between the 98th percentile and the 99th percentile is not that great. It's like a race where the difference between winning and being out of the money is trivial in terms of time.
It's a brutal reality and the reason why in the past people would kill for the slightest advantage. Nowadays we don't kill for political power only for moral truth.
The next factor is that what one has to work with, the raw materials so to speak is not that different from what one's competitors have. I doubt that Micheal Bloomberg had informed sources that made his financial news service better then others. Even if he had that would not have made the critical difference. The main thing is organizing the material that people want to know about or experience and presenting it in a comprehendable way.
With Facebook, if anything the case is even more obvious. What Zuckerberg had or expended was time and energy. That's what coding is about. This is not to be disengenous. A lot of coders get screwed or become "Mircroserfs" in the modern parlance.
I'll give you an example of how the world works. I have a PC which has
very little "mileage" but has been problematic from the beginning. It was given to
me for this reason when no one else, even Best Buy where it was bought could
discern the problem. It froze, it didn't boot, it evidenced weirdness. I worked on it for months. It would work for hours, or even days and then freak out. I checked the Boot Script The BIOS, the Virals, the hard drive and everything you could think of - still no good. I ran a dozen different start up repair
disks, ran the replace ment particion several times, each time having to replace all
the software on the HD.
After awhile I grew tired of thinking I had the thing fixed. I needed a break. So I take the cover off and discover that the enclosure of the CPU is covered with a mat of dust. I wiggle a few wires. I put it back together. It works. The simple answer is no matter what diagnostic I ran I'd never have caught
the problem. Once before, long ago on an Apple 6100 the power unit went and it
also took months to diagnosis - because of the intermittent outages. The unit in other words was overheating - so it was not a software problem nor a hardware problem and hence could not be diagnosed in ordinary methodology.
The great thing about the net and MP3's is not the contemporary stuff -
it's getting to hear all the old stuff that you never heard in the first place and in
many cases realizing that no matter how good the performers were and the songs
were some other factor was in the way. Maybe they didn't have the promotion, or he record was recorded poorly, or what have you. The key thing is you have to cover all the bases to get to home plate.
You can't just ignore things and allow your superiority in other fields to
make up the difference.
IF you do that you can say, with the scientist, "Well, it should work."
But if it doesn't don't be surprised.
-Tamlin
hab a grooby daze hibbies
---ALF
hab a grooby daze hibbies
---ALF
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