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The Hive Mind’s Catalog of Everything
Wikipedia is quickly becoming the most used, most revered source of information the planet. As vast as it is currently, it could still be only a seedling for a future Encyclopedia Galactica-scale compendium. Here’s a great infographic explaining how wiikipedia works (including the strata and rankings for high-level Wikipedia dorks — err.. moderators)
Apples and oranges.
I’ve always felt the turning point in the 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign was the moment when the sight of then-candidate Barack Obama after wrapping up the Democratic nomination was almost immediately contrasted with now-failed-candidate and angry man John McCain, in front of a sickening green background and performing to an audience which sounded more like a canned laugh track, giving a nasty, pitiful screed about the man who would trounce him in the election only a few months later. One man represented the best of what America would like to imagine itself as–intelligent, broad-minded, appealing to the better angels of our nature–and the other represented the impossibly tired bitterness of a rapidly disappearing part of our society. The choice, and thus result, was never more stark.
A Magical Land of Brain Death
Those of you familiar with the podcast, know my feelings on Disney. More than a land of magic, and reverie, and joy, it is a land of price-gouging, irrational exuberance, and toy-fetishism. Not to put too fine a point on it, Disney Propaganda can explain the specific psychoses of a huge number of American adults (largely women).
Given that, hearing about the inner workings of DisneyCorp, was an irresistible opportunity.
No one could have predicted…
Beyond expressing my sorrow for the lost and injured and all those affected by this tragedy, I have little to say about the horrific events in Arizona yesterday except one thing. Regular Mep readers / listeners will know all of us here put a high value on communication and the power of rhetoric; the two greatest speakers of the twentieth century (arguably) were Martin Luther King and Adolf Hitler, and I don’t think anyone needs a cheat sheet to determine which person pursued the good and which the evil. What yesterday conclusively, definitively proves is that rhetoric is not an unalloyed good. It is a neutral tool, and it has consequences.
A Latter-Day Prophet/Pundit
Been staying up past my bedtime and re-watching Network. If you’re not familiar, the Paddy Chayefsky creation is one of the finest screenplays ever written. It also eerily predicts the rise of pundit-driven entertainment/news. Many commentators have noted that NewsCorp’s Glenn Beck is a rather transparent re-creation of Howard Beale…
Happy Mep Year
I’m not usually one for New Year’s resolutions. But, if I could offer one to you Meppers, by way of suggestion: spend the year tempering your use of facebook. Let’s face it, facebook is 98% nonsense and 2% usefulness. You could take up professional lawn bowling this year and have a much more productive life in the outside world.
Humans are Designed to be Sheep
Another TheraminTrees piece, this one on conformity studies. Particularly of note, was the Weaver study, which established that hearing something multiple times makes it more convincing even if you are hearing it repeated by the same source. Could Fox News and friends have incorporated this bit of social engineering into their broadcasting style any more obviously?
The World is Fake (Mep Report #124)
Greg Gets a Mortgage (and Becomes an Adult), Russ Gets a Bear (and Becomes a Psychic), Storey Gets a Twin (and Becomes a Skeptic), Kobe Bryant and Jimmy Kimmel Destroy Society One Video Game at a Time, The Meppers Get Immersed, and Everything is Awesome In Sloooooowwww-Moooooo.
Listen Now!
When bloggers attack.
Hell yeah, I want my pony!
This article at The People’s View should be required reading for all those interested in discovering what some parts of both the right and left of the blogosphere have to gain in trying to destroy (fortunately unsuccessfully, I think) President Obama–or, more accurately, what they have to gain in upping the ante on false outrage in a public forum. (Here’s a hint: it’s the same thing anti-corporatists are always claiming (often rightly) is the end goal of every politician.) One wonders how much time MLK or Gandhi would have had for this kind of kabuki.