Canada Tar Sands

Holy Fucking God the tar sands suck.

It puts baby seal clubbing to shame.

What sort of amoral blinded-by-profit worshiper-of-oil follower-of-the-"free-Market" retard could ever believe that this is a good idea?

Oh, but it gives us a few more years of oil, so it's all worth it. If we don't have oil, then we'll live as cave men! Oh! I just couldn't do that.

Humans deserve extinction.

Let us hope it is soon and quick.

The Lord of the Rings (2001, 2002, 2003 movies)

As a long-time fan of Tolkien's masterwork, it was difficult for me to let go and enjoy The Lord of the Rings movies by Peter Jackson. But they were very well done. They are not completely to my liking, of course, but it would be impossible to please every fan of this (or any) work in translation. Always something is lost, but always something is gained. It becomes something else, a little, no matter how faithful it attempts to stay to the source material.

'Tis best not to try being completely true. Some things just cannot translate. Which is why I am glad that Jackson (and no other filmmake who has adapted The Lord of the Rings) has ever tried to do Tom Bombadil. It would have been grotesque. There are so many people who are disappointed by this decision, but I feel that if you want to hear about Tom, then you should read it from Tolkien. I would rather see a good movie production than a generic reproduction.

But these movies are very artistic. Their attempt at the Shire is most remarkable, their Gandalf is good (though they never call him Mithrandir... Ok, once.), the dwarves and elfs are decent (I still say the elfs should have been computer generated. Elfs would look odd if you ever saw anyone so blemishless) If you are not familiar with the books, you can easily follow the plot (I think) but you do miss out on details (such as their cloaks from Lothlorien; and when they are used, you would be very confused), which is fine. If you want to know everything about Middle-Earth, read the Silmarillion (and then read Snorri Sturluson, the Icelandic Homer). Tolkien's work is five times as deep as it is long.

Poor Gimli takes a lot of brunt as a joke. But he seems to take it well. Every good story needs a good relief and Gimli does a fine job.

I must admit these movies to be a "Success" even if I am not too much a fan of the dominance the battle scenes exert over the trilogy. And re-watching them I was again reminded of the antiquated way in which Tolkien considered blood-line. Very British. Royalty deserves their royalty because of some Manifest Destiny. It is somewhat 'offset' (a bad solution) by the more valuable and wise philosophy and thought in the story. This movie can move emotions of any kind. The music is stellar.

The End of the Matter by Alan Dean Foster (1997)

The End of the Matter is an alright book. It succeeds in being "Entertaining", but only just. It did derail me from my reading of Light in August. It has one of those "Let's just wrap this up already" endings; things are contrived and explained with dialogic narration rather than actual story telling.

There are some fun characters and I can sometimes see the person who wrote Star Wars in here.

Mostly, my problems with the production have to do with inconsistencies which can only be discussed with horrible scary Spoilers!


Analysis (Haven't done this in a while)


While the story can be said to be entertaining, it is so filled with character holes that it will boggle your mind more than wondering how anyone can "watch" a quasar form when they are traveling past the speed of light.

Answer: you can't.

Flinx is randomly interrupting any other thoughts that might have gone said to worry about the danger he puts people in 'people seem to die around me.'

Really. Well, perhaps that is because you have the galaxy's most feared family of assassins after you. Should you tell anyone?

'Nah. They already don't trust me enough. No need to put them on edge, right?'

Eh, you might be right. Jus' let 'em die without warning instead.

To be fair, the Qwarm (the assassins) aren't all that good at their job. They fail to kill the teenager even when they have a direct shot (somehow killing who he is talking to instead). They are really just the most feared incompetent best assassins in the universe.

The geniuses in this book are hardly geniuses either. It takes them months to figure out some rather simple things that are floating around their faces for most of the book. Even though there are more than one of them. I suppose they did find the remains of an ancient civilization that is legendary throughout the galaxy

If you can forgive this story it's moments of lunacy, it can be an entertaining story. If you want cohesion, it will annoy you to no end.

I'm in the middle. I'll complain about this book, but I did read it all the way through. And even if the end slows the story down a bit, it isn't half so slow as Light in August.

The Influence you Wield

How much influence do you have?

On the world!

Well, I suppose that it is important to establish what that means in the first place since everyone seems to have a different idea of what 'the world' really is. Mine is probably very different from the normal.

What I would assume would be 'normal' is to define "the world" something along the lines of 'what people do. the memes and temes and jemes that we have created which do more to govern us than we do to govern them. Government and Business, as the dominant power-structures from the north'

I usually think of the world as also including the entire biosphere, the atmosphere, the lithosphere, et cetera. In this case, you, alone, don't do hardly anything to influence the whole being. The atmosphere a little, the lithosphere a little less, the biosphere a little more, and the homosphere ('peoplesphere')...

Well, that's your choice (somewhat - never take anything as an absolute!)

I vote everyday. Today I listened to people bitch about our representative democracy system. And while I kinda think that it's less and less productive (especially in this computer age - we can calculate to such a degree that we could all vote on every issue and all have an equal voice) but we don't just have a say in whose elected. In fact, I don't think that's the best way to affect our democracy. Since we only have two parties, they can both get away with pretty much whatever they want. How are to to "hold them accountable" (as some of them will even ask us to do - facetiously, really) when there's only one other option that people consider?

"Oh God! Obama screwed up on that whole Guantanamo Bay thing! I don't think I can vote for him next term!

"Oh wait... The Republicans are putting up Bobby Jindall and Joe Mengele... Well, I can't vote for them. Obama it is!" (If your a republican, just switch the names up a bit, the premise is the same.)

I vote every single day: I join a new movement almost every day, I sign about an hour or two worth of petitions a day, I write these blog-posts that no one reads every day, donate what little sums of money I have, and consciously vote with my dollar every time I buy something. Ironically, though they are Fundamentally Incompatible (I'll have more on that someday, but a little right here) capitalism can be a good opportunity for democracy.

Equality is as much of a myth in our society as social mobility, and while a lot of it (a whole lot of it) has to do with how much money you happen to have, it also has a little to do with how much hope you have. Everyone in America votes every time they buy anything from douches to turd sandwiches; some of them realize it, some of them don't. So rich wins. But many people, rich and poor, vote only in presidential elections where you have about 1/90 million say in what is going on. Which is less than your chance of winning everything in Powerball.

It is funny when people say that they only vote in the presidential elections like that excuses them from other elections. The presidential election is the least important. When I vote in my local elections (little Gunnison) I sometimes have as much as 1/500 say in what is happening. I would play Powerball with those odds.

When you lobby, really when you say anything to anybody, you are expressing your power just a little bit more. It is just a little bit, a drop. But if you have ever tried to catch the drip out of a leaking faucet, you can see how quickly those drips'll add up if you keep 'em coming.

I try to vote with every faculty I have: educated purchases, talking to people, lobbying, signing petitions, and writing these pieces (that nobody reads). They all do some damage.

Oh, and actually voting. That does a little too, I guess.

Prolificity

My most prolific month of posting onto this 'blog' my random thoughts correlates to my least prolific on reviews.

I haven't been doing any of those lately... Not really for the last three months. But already, this early into April, I have two more posts than I have ever done before.

A lot of them are somewhat stupid. So they don't really count to my prolific publication of worthy thoughts (will I ever get readers if all I say is pointless, inane, self-reflecting jibber?) but the correlation stands:

I seem to have a certain capacity for writing stuff and I rarely go over it. My capacity is about a page or so a day of unfinished work. That's about 1/15 of what I would need to make writing a regular line of work, no matter what field of writing I was considering.

Sometimes, I think it would have been better to have just let the government shut down.

Right now, there is a rather startling number of people in this country that don't like/don't trust/downright hate our government while somehow loving the country at the same time. It's amusing to say the least.

Perhaps I am an optimist, but I think that if the government shut down we would realize fairly quickly how much we wanted it back. Of course I fear that the wealthy will weather a government shutdown best right now, and that sucks, they might fully take over the country when it comes back, that's a possibility. But it is also a possibility that we, the people, the normal citizens would take it back from the overwhelming control which the aristocrats have over us now.

Maybe not, but if nothing drastic happens, I think we'll just continue down this steady decline until bloody revolution.

And it will be very, very bloody and very, very destructive if The People (Proletariat?) have to try to take some power out of the greedy Aristocracy. Perhaps that part is unavoidable, but I tend to think that the sooner it happens, the less awful it will be because the sooner it happens, the less money-power the Aristocracy will be in control of. During a revolution, what will happen is that people will realize that money isn't really power, it is only as powerful as we let it be. But our mental bookkeeping of this power wont fade overnight, there will always be people who can't let that go, and they will be easy pawns for the Aristocracy to defend with. Even the French nobles had a few loyals who probably extended their life-spans by, oh, two or three days.

The sooner revolution happens, the less money they have to fight with.

Also, if it happens quietly, instead of explosively, it may be less drastic...

Or will it simply be less of everything?

The Next Computer for Graphic Professionals

In 2015 or so the computer of choice for graphic professionals, I predict, will be the iPad Pro. Or something like it. It'll have stats like Wacom Cintiq: 2048 levels of sensitivity, 60 degree pen tilting, hyper-accurate, display under your pen, all of that. But under that will be your computer. All in one. And it'll be between $1500 and $3500 by that time and people who are really into graphic design (especially the people who pull in over 100 Gs at it) will buy the thing. They may even offer it in two sizes: approriate and excessive.

Sustainability Statement

In our culture, it is impossible to live sustainably. Which makes everything sound hopeless. But that is just right now; it is not impossible to make our society sustainable, in the future, if we keep the fight up. The more individuals and organizations who are interested in living sustainably, the easier and more possible it will be in the future.

My current sustainability goals, to make my life as good as it can be right now, are rather demanding. I don't buy anything new (yes, that includes even underwear) if I can help it. The major exceptions are when I have to get something for somebody else. The more that I can recycle, the less goes to the landfill, the more complete the cycle of matter is.

I try to throw away as little as possible. I am less successful with this than I am with the above goal. I don't even compost very well right now and one would think that would be easy.I recycle what the Gunnison Recycling center takes, but don't have an impressive collection to take out of the valley when I have the opportunity.

I turn off everything I can, even unplugging them to limit "phantom load". The less power I use, the less CO2 is burned for my own energy.

I never drive. Only rarely carpool. I use buses for long distance travel more than anything else. I rather abhor cars and don't think I will ever have one. No, I will never have one.

I try to buy what I can from good businesses and boycott the ones that are less sustainable and ethical themselves. I try to buy what I can locally and eat as few animal products as I can. Though I am quite the failure at cheese, I am still trying to reduce it.

I always want my mind to be open to new ideas in the future. What can I do to make my own footprint smaller and smaller and smaller. More than that, what can I do to make other's footprints smaller? This is a very tricky question, but one which is important to engage in: no matter how good I am, I am only 17*109 of the world's human population. A very small portion. Whatever outreach things I can think of, I try to do. Currently, I am trying to implement a Bicycle Library in Gunnison and implement recycling in the Nursing Home kitchen where I work. And will be beginning a Sustainability Plan for the Firebrand and then the Nursing Home in the future.

I do what I can to support forward thinking organizations. I sign about 2 hours worth of petitions a week and donate what I can.

If I could go back in time, I would have never taken loans from financial institutions who are arguably the spawn of satan (I really hate you, Nelnet.). They have made them selves more money (out of thin air) and are causing me untold amounts of stress, when usually I suffer almost none.

Chromeos and the Cr-48 (Google's online operating system)

I got a little laptop from Google the other day. I had to buy it off of Craigslist, but I was intrigued.

I am not quite the tech-head that most people with these things are. But I already sort of like it. I like the lack of logos, I like the name, and I like the style. But physically, Cr-48s are built like Fisher-Price toys. That is the primary detraction. It's a Macintosh from Mattel. In the software, I would have also liked access to just one folder for a file system. Just a little local storage. But what can you do. I expect that will be included by the time the OS actually launches.

Overall, I think that it's a little underwhelming. Partially because I wanted to use the battery-efficient computer to watch Netflix and didn't realize that Linux has no compatibly with Silverlight. There were also some compatibility issues with Google Docs... which is rather strange. Both of these I expect to be fully resolved by launch as well. The computer is very open, so I loaded Ubuntu on the thing with instructions I got from here (rather than Google's instructions... I'm not that good at Linux and I didn't have a way to print it or anything for reference. I am not sure how either way works, or if there are problems with one over another but I read from someone on a forum who also used the easy way that his Ubuntu disappeared after he used Chromeos again... So I am hesitant to move back for a little while...)

Ubuntu's running pretty well. I've not had the chance to use Linux on a competent computer and am pretty happy. I run Chrome for the internet, so I'm pretty close to still being a Chromeos user. However, Ubuntu is not set up to use the nifty touchpad that comes with the Cr-48's. Caps-lock doesn't work, most of my f keys don't work, it's not set up for it. Someday, I'll figure those little things out.

In Chromeos, everything works pretty well. Pressing Alt+Ctrl+/ will bring up a shortcut key layout which will help anyone figure out how to use the operating system. Early users complained of how the touchpad functioned, but I didn't have any problems. Instead, I have a lot of those problems in Ubuntu.

Chromeos is "Nifty". If you can handle livin' in th' clouds, it's great and I kinda think it and it's ilk will work well on netbooks. But I also expect the line between netbooks, tablets, laptops, and desktops to be further blurred. Most "netbooks" of the future will probably be "tablets", which means that Android is the Google OS of choice in the future and it is already out.

Rango (2011 movie)

The movie Rango is quite good, despite the fact that it is entirely peopled (with the exceptions of Rango himself) of very standard, cliche, but quintessential characters: the Wild West gunslinger, the fat banker, the old mayor, the Native American Tracker and the South-west shaman, Mexican mariachis, the damsel in distress. Hillbillies (with a blind pa). Clint Eastwood, for a second there. This all may be an intentional metaphor. The main character is an actor, and therefore endowed with the miraculous ability to do anything. He is also a director. Filling the story with obvious celebrity worship only heightened by plastering Johnny Depp's name across the top of every poster.

But in this movie, the Depp worship it is somewhat appropriate. In the beginning, I thought of this movie as something of a filmography for Johnny Depp. It seems to reference a few of his characters from the past. It moves out of that, quickly. It becomes a little more about story and it does story better than most films.

First of all, the movie succeeds in character development. Instead of instantly changing character 60-70% of the way thorough, everyone slowly evolves. Details are important. Attention to detail is handled very well.

Visually as well. The style is unique. The animals aren't caustically cute, they are rugged, ripped and gritty. They are all pretty hideous and the effect is a very pretty movie. The cinematographers prove them selves to be pretty well traveled, including little details such as blooming flowers and sand-slides on dunes. Either that or they come from the desert.

It is a movie that is worth it. It may not be the best computer animated film of all time or anything, but it stands out.

Activism

I just spent an hour answering all the calls for petition signs and calls to congress that come to me in my email.

That's a lot of petitions. It tells me that there are definitely some problems in our world today.

Yesterday, I was talking to someone about that; it seems to come up in my conversations a lot. His response was, "Whatever. As long as I am electricity and access to all the porn I could want, I'm happy."

What a sad state. What's more depressing is how many people have this very same attitude. At my job-site, I recently implemented recycling. It is relatively short-sighted endeavor, there is no official support or institutionalization. Once I am gone there will no longer be recycling there. But at least it is helping right now. Perhaps there will be a measure of buy-in by the time I leave and it will continue.

But probably not. Instead, my coworkers spend their time drawing cartoons of me: See Special Ed, he says: "you can recycle that!". A nice little stick figure to accompany it. As Mahatma Gandhi said, though, "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." So I'm in step two. I thought I'd promote their fun (they are telling the truth after all) and add a few more thought bubbles from the stick-figure face, "You can turn that off" "That is wasteful" "This is a problem" "We should fix this!"

Now it is even more true.

I was once told by a professor of mine that life is made worth living if there is something bigger than yourself that you care about and work for. I already agreed, "Life is not worth living unless there is something you would die for", and I find it sad how many people don't have this. They just lead these sort of empty-shell existences. Their favorite experiences are things that they can't even remember. "Dude! It was the best time of my life. Three weeks there I remember less than three hours!"

Wow. Seems to me that's a sign of a life being wasted. If you would rather be dead. That is a sign of a decadent society.

Signs that you are in a Healthy and Vibrant Culture

To combat the overwhelming pessimism of Signs of a Decaying or Decayed Culture, I have decided to post this list of good signs for your culture. In honesty, it is a reaction to the former list, which is another sign, I think. I wish this to be as culturally universal as possible, but since that is impossible, it is not. Some items are not universal, though many I believe are. The list is in no particular order.

1. Most everyone knows the name of most of their neighbors
2. People are excited to do, and like to do, what they have to do.
3. People sing.
4. People laugh easily.
5. Citizens have some autonomous control over their own lives
6. Freedom isn't important, it is implied. But no one really uses it.
7. 
   

Keep ideas coming for this list!

Signs of a Decaying or Decayed Culture

Despite the overwhelming pessimism of such a thing, I have decided to post this list of signs that the society you are living in is rotten, dying, or simply unhealthy. I wish it to be as culturally universal as possible, but since that is impossible, it is not. Some items are not universal, though many I believe are. A companion to this list is Signs that you are in a Healthy and Vibrant Culture. The list is in no particular order. 

1. People are always looking forward to something else "I can't wait until tomorrow..."
2. People are often looking forward to bedtime because they would rather be asleep.
3. People exult the times they cannot even remember as "fun" and even "the best of times"
4. Citizens are afraid of and hate their own peacekeepers. (Damn Police?)
5. Citizens detest their own government (You should always ask what your country can do for you: that is why it is there.)
6. Most everyone finds it easer to point on problems than anything good. (Or: people tend to be pessimistic)

I'll try to keep this going as a running list. I am open to suggestions, too.

I just toured a landfill

I'm a little depressed.

Landfills can be interesting places. To see where all the crap goes from whatever city you liver in. It is always remarkable. The amount of trash we can generate is amazing and disgusting. The callousness with which people throw stuff away is even more so. Obviously, more people need to visit their local trash hole.

Besides that I am completely against even having landfills (especially out of sight and out of mind; if we actually lived with this, you can bet that we would treat it better.) we don't run them very well. One thing I learned while I was there is that trash cannot be sold for some cheap price.

It seems in our best interest to allow it to be. If trash could be repossessed no only would it not be thrown away and thus end its cycle, but it would benefit someone who would otherwise have to buy new, something we should all avoid.

I propose several changes to the system before phasing it out entirely:

1: put them in our backyard instead of out of sight and out of mind. We don't want to live in trash, then we don't generate trash.

2: put in every opportunity to re-purpose anything that does make it to the landfill. The scale of this can grow and grow and grow until "landfills" are actually recycling centers.

3: part of the ability to run such a more complicated landfill can be re-purposing criminals. I am a fan of convict labour. If no one else will do it, make them do it for free. Instead of rotting in jail they can make something out of their life.

4: Sell anything that is still viably useful. It will generate income, value, and cut down on the need for landfills in the first place.

5: outlaw the plastic bag from grocers. They are the fucking plague. They go everywhere. At our landfill in Gunnison, they one guy who works there all the time spends 15-20 hours a week just picking up plastic bags. This burden, now that it has been collected, should be put back on the grocers who make them. Use re-useable bags or none at all. "Containerism" is the future.

6: do not kill the crows that fly around the trash. If we don't want them to become "contaminated" then lets stop generating such a massive-scale trash heap. It is our fault, we should reap the pain.

There's probably a lot more we could do, but this is the end of this little vent.

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010 movie)

The most impressive thing about the Legend of the Guardians: the Owls of Ga'Hoole happens in the first few seconds: they hunt a mouse. Kill it and eat it and they are still the good guys. I liked that very much. When was the last time a hunter was a good guy? One that showed themselves to be a hunter. You never saw Simba eat anything but bugs, the hyenas ate a leg of zebra. Or a predator why hadn't tried to turn over a 'new leaf' and not be predators? I cannot think of one other example, myself.

This set a stage for a unique animated, computer-generated movie. It doesn't quite live up to staying so unique, but it is still quite an entertaining movie. Better than most, but doesn't match How to Train Your Dragon just because of humor. The Owls of Ga'Hoole is not as specifically funny. It has jokes, cleaver ones that fit the circumstance, but that's not what it is about.

Legend of the Guardians is an epic fantasy and it's "A Hoot". It is good enough that I want to read the books now. Of which there are 15... written in 5 years. But more than that, and more important to me, it breaks the need in our movie industry to make pro-war rhetoric. War isn't 'fun' and shouldn't have that much glamor. The soldiers who graduated alive from The Great War knew this and it was called "That Old Lie". We seem to have completely forgotten that by now. Legends of Ga'Hoole isn't very vocally opposed, it shows war as fun and glamorous, but it includes one good speech to the contrary, which I appreciated.

Even if it did evoke nauseating memories of 300's speed-up then slow-down fight scenes.