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d_rawk

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Everything posted by d_rawk

  1. With no promises, I can make a feeble attempt to sharpen it for you (while, conveniently, twisting your words to validate my point .. amazing how that works .. where's my heady religion forum?) People think that they are making private decisions in private places because they confuse personal with private. The consideration of the actual 'public' of it all doesn't occur during that moment when you've got a serious itch to scratch or nose to pick. Politics is a minefield of personal decisions. The car is a personal (though not private!) space that belongs to you. You act in ways that you act in private spaces, in those moments that you forget that you being in your car is actually a shared experience between you and everyone on the road around you. I think you could pretty well tie that back to the original post. It doesn't mean that picking your nose is bad per se, or even if that it is seen as bad that you ought not do it anyways, and you could certainly make a defense of it if called on to do so - but it is the illusion of individual action being somehow isolate from shared experience that prompts the behaviour, I'd gather. Or, actually, scratch that. In most cases it is probably 'fuck it, I'll never meet these people anyways' which is probably a much more apt tie to the political climate. I should have lead with that.
  2. I dunno. I *do* know that I didn't mean to use the words 'contemporary' and 'working' side by side like that. My fingers are faster than my brain.
  3. Couldn't find an embed Louis CK goes to the dentist It's a good bit of comedy. Though I am biased in that I am of the impression that Louis CK is the best contemporary working comedian. But one person saying 'fuck you world' and focusing only on what is good for the self tends to lead into (often inadvertently) walking on someone else. And if that person has a 'fuck you world' attitude as well -- well, then really interesting things happen. I agree that the way that politics is practiced, here and otherwise, is largely bullshit. But people will always need to find a way to organize their behaviour around each other. Even when everyone is the Best Person in the World , when there get to be so many of you, you have to start coming to arrangements with each other. Hell, take three people and make them roommates, and even they will have to do that. And that's politics. What would be awful is if they didn't do that. Didn't learn about each other, find common ground, come to mutual consensus, make decisions together on those matters that it affects each of them just as seriously, but often in different ways. Learn and grow. Show compassion and empathy. Reflect on their own behaviour and how that exists vis-a-vis others who's reality may be different, but just as valid. And that's politics. [edit: wow, didn't realize that this thread was so old. It was still on the main page. Shows how long it has been since I've visited the politics forum, I guess!]
  4. World War Z makes for a good audiobook as it is written in an interview style and they got a full cast of voice actors. Only if you like the idea of a full world zombie war, of course.
  5. d_rawk

    cast iron

    Inspired by that episode, I've done that several times. He also uses mustard on his grilled cheese - which sounds rather bizarre - but hey, I love cheese and I love mustard, so I gave that a go as well. I like it. I love my cast iron pan like it was my baby. I try to remember to re-season it at the beginning of each year and this thread is a good reminder that it is due.
  6. My brain is getting dumb -- took me a moment to get the RAID reference. It's true what you say - the cost of a gigabyte is damn cheap ... get two and sync them. Gawd, I remember when a 100 megabyte drive was prohibitively expensive. (Says the pot to the kettle .. my backup strategy could best be described as 'lazy')
  7. That sounds crazy to me. So you are volunteering to give up your time, travel expenses, and sweat in the service of others and they want to charge you for the 'privilege'? Maybe I misunderstood. Anyways, you've probably gotten this far already, but a couple of links Latin American NGOs Worldwide NGO directory Any particular reason that you aren't hooking up with Habitat for Humanity this time around? Just looking to do something different?
  8. We didn't prove, which I suppose is why there wasn't an official recall (though I suspect that they made some changes on their end). Two samples were sent out - one internally from the animal hospital, and one to company in question. The animal hospital only ordered tests for molds and such. The sample that was sent to company itself was conveniently 'lost'. Four cats (yes, I have four cats now .. and I don't even like cats very much) were severally ill and had started puking everywhere as soon as we had put them on the food, and one was in the animal hospital for about four days (her bloodwork was all over the place, and her liver was failing). There had been no sign of such troubles before we switched the bag of food. A company rep came out here and covered the bill. We switched them off to another brand of food and all was cool again.
  9. We had a cat with similar issues. It was suggested that it was allergenic dermatitis. I'm not sure if that was actually the case -- I'd witnessed herself chewing on the area enough to be skeptical. In the end, we changed her food to a hypo-allergenic variety (we had to switch a couple of times -- I'm not at liberty to name names, but a certain representative of certain company that has a product beginning with the letter 'M' had to fly to Ottawa and give us a couple of thousand dollars to cover damages .. there was never a recall) She's been fine since -- I still catch her licking at herself to what I would think an unnecessary degree, but she's always been kind of like that. The diet change seemed to fix things. It's possible that it was behavioural (her 'Mom' had been working long hours and wasn't around a lot to give her attention, and I tend to not notice cats enough to give them love), but I don't know.
  10. Loving the Duran Duran cover with the horns.
  11. I like Peaches (I mean the artist, not the fruit), and I like Jesus Christ Superstar. Not entirely sure how the combination would work. It isn't exactly like chocolate falling into your peanut butter. And yah, Gonzales. Won't be in TO for December, but will be looking out for reviews.
  12. Searched for this thread after a stupid ass cat sat on my keyboard again and caused the same problem. Was very disappointed that I hadn't logged the solution and had to hunt it down all over again. For all those who are coming in via Google, it is in 'System Preferences' under 'Universal Access'
  13. Subscription based music packages make sense, provided by the rights-holders, or a proxy for a conglomerate of them. If an individual actually makes the decision to sign up for them. Requiring ISPs to sniff every packet of every single byte of data that you transfer does not, nor does it make sense that Grandma who has an internet account only so that she can email or Skype with Grandson should be charged for your music habit. What about common carrier status? Ie. service without discrimination and with impartiality. I can feel how all of this starts to go down the net neutrality road -- but there are larger implications than even that.
  14. I'm a little late to this party. Yes, this is the private copying levy. The assumption is that if you buy any blank media (cassettes when people still used cassettes, CDs, DVDs) you are going to record copyrighted material on it. So you pay a levy to the recording industry on any of these purchases, and have for a long time. If you have a band and want to record onto CD-rs, you pay the recording industry for the right to do so, even if you have no association with them. If you want to back up your Word documents from your computer, you pay the recording industry for the right to do so. If you want to take a blank CD and throw it into the ocean, you pay the recording industry for the right to do so. It has been this way for a very long time. And they fought hard for it. This is why downloading music in Canada is neither illegal nor (in my estimation) properly unethical. The assumption is that you are copying music without paying for it, so you are charged for it. Given that you were already charged for it before you did it, there are no grounds for prosecuting you for taking something that you already paid for. This is why downloading mp3s in Canada is a very different scenario than downloading mp3s in the US, where there is no such existing levy. Now, they want to have their cake and eat it too. Keep paying us the money, but get nothing for it. I'm ambivalent on which way it goes, but it simply can't be both, and they fought hard to get it the way that it currently is. Now, maybe they regret it. If I have a son who wants to sit around with his friends and record a fake radio show, he - or I - shouldn't have to pay the recording industry to do so because that media might be used to copy an album. If the recording industry wants to collect full value on commercial studio material, they should repent and remove the media levy and go through the appropriate legal channels to do so. They didn't want to do that. They said, in essence: "If you buy blank media, you pay us, because you might be a thief. And by paying us up front, you will not be a thief." That is the route they took, in this country at least. Downloading music in Canada is not a crime. There are all sorts of issues surrounding it (does that money ever make it to the small artists? How do they determine to whom it should go? Does this whole system just reward the big names at the expense of the smaller ones?) but it is not illegal, and the ethics of it are ambiguous at best. FUCK NO. I have no stomach for physical media anymore. I am drowning in books full of CDs, shelves of DVDs, so many books on so many bookshelves that it makes my stomach hurt. NO. I'll always have nostalgia for the record store, but they can go to hell and die already. I simply have no interest in their product anymore - a sheet of plastic that degrades over time, massively overpriced (remember the class action lawsuits of 2004 over CD prices?), is prone to scratches and other damage, and that I have to find room to warehouse. If they extend the levy, I feel quite comfortable with getting the material that I already paid for - whether I ever even wanted it or not. If they don't extend the levy, I won't do so. But they can only have one or the other.
  15. "Twitch: A Love Affair With Tourette's"
  16. Ineffable: How You Got Exactly What You Wanted, Despite Yourself
  17. Happy bday meggo! Hope you had an awesome and scandalous weekend. What she said PS: Good God, we got old.
  18. "I'm sorry, but I drank your beer: a tale of shame and regret."
  19. Send me a copy! I'd read the shit out of that ... While not an autobiography in the strict sense, the one that really got away from me was "Of Joe. Of Japan." When I lived Quebec side, I'd write it in my head while on the bus into Ottawa territory. It was something of a commentary on the role of metaphor and the way that we can create meaning out of just about anything. "Joe"'s life was contrasted with events from imperial Japan and all manner of similarities were drawn out, though Joe himself knew nothing about, nor had any interest in, imperial Japan. I guess it was auto-biographical, in its own way. There was a killer section that began with "It could just as well have been a yellow canary" in which all the Japan metaphors go out the window and a bird takes their place. Just to show how we can create meaning out of absolutely anything. More book titles please, folks.
  20. I like it. My romance novel: "Bad timing - a love story." Always thought it would be a good idea to release a book of book titles.
  21. This is posted on a Thursday night (procrastination from what I should be doing) but is in the spirit of Friday morning/afternoon. What would your biography or auto-biography be titled? After some consideration, I've come to the conclusion that mine would be titled "Complicated: The Brain Sneezed Electricity" Suggestions for other skanks (ie. not your own) bios equally welcome.
  22. Hey, thanks! Love Girl Talk -- 'Feed the Animals' gets regular rotation around these parts.
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