Photographic Artist Chris Jordan turns the statistics of consumerism into palpable images in his new photo series.

Please watch this video. From an artistic standpoint, it's irrelevant and the quality of the video belies what the actual work must provoke in person. The statement that it is making, which is what art is really for, is what is important. The last 60 seconds of the video is the most profound, but the whole thing must be watched in order for that last bit to resonate roundly.

Chris Jordan has been posted to MemeStreams before.

Bill Moyers Journal - Chris Jordan

The Dutch government is banning the sale of all magic mushrooms after a series of high-profile incidents involving tourists who had taken them.

Between the Autobahn, "honor system" public transportation, legal drugs, and legal prostitution, certain aspects of central Europe offer a very relaxing feeling of personal freedom and responsibility. I'm just as unlikely to steal a ride on the Munich U-Bahn as I am to screw a hooker while whacked out on shrooms in Amsterdam, but there is the odd moment in life when you walk out of the wrong subway exit and its nice to know that you can go back in without repaying and without being hunted down by the police. Its nice to be treated like an adult. Its unfortunate to hear that after all these places are just as susceptible to reactionary legislation driven by media sensationalism as we are.

BBC NEWS | Europe | Netherlands bans magic mushrooms

Stewart: When you lower interest rates, it drives money to stocks and lowers the return people get on savings.

Greenspan: Yes, indeed.

The Big Picture | Alan Greenspan on The Daily Show

Though short on details, Clinton's broadband policy as announced in a statement would create tax incentives to encourage build-out to "underserved areas." She also said that she would "support" state and local broadband initiatives

Clinton pointed to an initiative called ConnectKentucky as an example of a successful public private partnership. She said that the partnership had stimulated significant investment and had expanded the coverage rate to more than 90%.

Has someone informed Mrs. Clinton that the people who get excited about things like broadband are the same people who play Grand Theft Auto?

Hillary on Broadband

AN INDIAN entrepreneur has given a new twist to the concept of low-cost airlines. The passengers boarding his Airbus 300 in Delhi do not expect to go anywhere because it never takes off.

All they want is the chance to know what it is like to sit on a plane, listen to announcements and be waited on by stewardesses bustling up and down the aisle.

Book now for the flight to nowhere - Times Online

School: Did you really name your son Robert'); Drop Table Students;--?
Mom: Oh. Yes. Little Bobby Tables we call him
School: Well, we've lost this year's student records. I hope your happy.
Mom: and I hope you've learned to sanitize your database inputs.

HAHAHA! Sweet.

To be fair, you shouldn't sanitize user input, you should validate it.

And you thought O'Hare was a bad name...

I am cross posting my own response to this article. Scroll up from the linked anchor to read the story.

Sharing copyrighted material on Kazza IS actually illegal. Its really unlikely that someone coming from your IP using an account name that is the same as yours is someone other than you. Its possible but its unlikely. The guilty verdict is probably right.

As to the EFF's point, if its necessary as a matter of law to prove that the copyrighted material was actually distributed and was not simply offered for distribution, this will likely get fixed by the legislature. Otherwise it would be the equivalent of saying that its legal to offer drugs for sale as long as no one actually buys them.

The thing that is shocking about this case is the penalty, and the leeway offered to the jury in determining it. The penalty could have been anywhere between $18 thousand dollars, and $3.6 million! Frankly the minimum penalty seems barbaric, but one's life could recover from such a financial blow. It certainly would have "sent a message." The maximum penalty would completely destroy the vast majority of individuals in the U.S. and most small businesses. The given penalty would certainly destroy the finances of most American households.

The bottom line is that absolutely none of these penalties is in any way proportionate to the crime. The RIAA has advocated for these laws and our legislatures have passed them, and now a crime which is far less serious in fact than moving violations in an automobile bares penalties that can ruin futures.

We shouldn't be angry at this jury. We should be angry at the legislators who put them in the position of having to make this decision.

RIAA Juror: 'We Wanted to Send a Message' on Threat Level

There's something interesting happening right now. Startups are undergoing the same transformation that technology does when it becomes cheaper.

It's so cheap to start web startups that orders of magnitudes more will be started. And if the pattern holds true, that should cause dramatic changes.

...

Instead of going to venture capitalists with a business plan and trying to convince them to fund it, you can get a product launched on a few tens of thousands of dollars of seed money from us or your uncle, and approach them with a working company instead of a plan for one. Then instead of having to seem smooth and confident, you can just point them to MemeStreams.

This way of convincing investors is better suited to hackers, who often went into technology precisely because they felt uncomfortable with the amount of fakeness required in other fields.

... if you hear someone saying "we don't need to be in Silicon Valley," that use of the word "need" is a sign they're not even thinking about the question right.

If startups are mobile, the best local talent will go to the real Silicon Valley, and all they'll get at the local one will be the people who didn't have the energy to move.

This is not a nationalistic idea, incidentally. It's cities that compete, not countries. Atlanta is just as hosed as Munich.

There's something about big companies that just sucks the energy out of you.

The Future of Web Startups

Thomas and her attorney, Brian Toder, said Monday they would appeal the $222,000 verdict a Duluth, Minnesota federal jury awarded last week to the RIAA after finding Thomas purloined 24 copyrighted recordings.

Nah man, our legal system is just fine. No problem at all.

EFF to Weigh in on First RIAA Downloading Trial Appeal on Threat Level

My team at O'Reilly Research has been crunching the numbers on the rise of Facebook as application platform, and we've released a new report today, entitled simply The Facebook Application Platform.

The good news has already been widely disseminated: there are nearly 5000 Facebook applications, and the top applications have tens of millions of installs and millions of active users. The bad news, alas, is in our report: 87% of the usage goes to only 84 applications!

Good News, Bad News about Facebook Application Market: Long Tail Rules