The linked video is an extended remix of an Apache Longbow helicopter attacking several enemy combatants (they are carrying guns) in some unknown event/location in Iraq. Its more of this remix culture type thing I'm always ranting about..

I had a range of reactions watching this.. There is the whole getting blasted to pieces thing. Regardless of application, it never really sits right to me. However, one thing I am sure of.. This beats the shit out of carpet bombing. I just really dislike war. None the less, that guy feels busted. Lets hear it for precision weapons!

Links to a this, other various music videos, and a Windows Media format can be found at:
http://www.2c-i.org/index.php?command=video

Yeah, this piece of video is like a kick to the teeth.

2c-i | VDS-5 | Mechanized Killing [DiVX]

]] A small group of Westside High School students plastered
]] the school Monday with posters advocating that a white
]] student from South Africa receive the "Distinguished
]] African American Student Award" next year.
]
]WTF is this? It seems that Blacks professing they are "African ]American" is prefectly ok, but for a white guy to profess his ]nationality, it is "inappropriate and insensitive." What kind of ]bullshit double standard is that? If anything he is more ]African-American they any of these people: He was born in African, ]he lives in America. How many of these other students running for ]African-American Student of the year can say that?

more than anything, this exposes the problem with the term "african american". In a literal, semantic sense, this kid was probably the only truly african person in the school, but lets be honest, that's not what they meant. the award was designed to recognise a black student in honor of MLK's efforts for civil rights. it has nothing to do with africa, and this kid, or his family, should've recognized that. This boys campain may have been innocent, but it wasn't very smart. Somehow a stigma got attached to the term "black", which i understand, and am sensitive to, but "african-american" has it's own set of problems, as this case proves.

Anyway, i'm not sure suspensions were necessary, but I certainly don't think would make sense for this kid to win an honor that was really not designed for him, and only made sense because someone didn't completely think out the consequences of a particular P.C. term. People love to smugly exploit semantic inconsistencies and loopholes like this, but it's not gonna work very often. At best, it'll spur debate about how to refine the definitions we use.

You are not African-American, You are White

] THIS YEAR'S intelligence authorization bill provided a
] little-noticed and dangerous expansion of a peculiar and
] unaccountable FBI investigative power. Last-minute
] efforts to modify the provision in conference committee
] failed, unfortunately, so the bureau now has more power
] to compel the production of certain business records in
] national security investigations, with no court oversight
] and in nearly total secrecy. The use of "national
] security letters" is not new, but in light of new
] authorities provided the FBI in the USA Patriot Act,
] Congress should be finding ways to curtail their use, not
] expand it.

Washington Post Editorial: Too Much Power

] This collection of web pages documents Brad's activity on
] the system and the people who's lives he effected, from
] the first day he logged on MemeStreams to the day he
] passed on.

Brad

Very pointless...yet somehow compelling.

virtual bubble wrap

Rattle's comments:

For several months now, work has been underway building the next version of MemeStreams. It has been necessary to recode most of the site from scratch, so its taking awhile. At any given time the trials of life, lack of funding, bad timing, hardware failure, and general bad luck is screwing up the works. However, we _are_ making progress.

Just before the new year, I hit the point in the development process where new capabilities of mining and graphing social network data were becoming available. I decided to go off on a little tangent, embrace the milestone, and do something to show our technology's progress. The result is the Year in Graphs 2003. Over the course of putting this together I've wound up fixing all kinds of problems with our database conversion code and wrote much of what will become the new graphing engine. I even had a really good "eureka" moment in relation to some of our network theory.. Its been time usefully spent.

That being said, this is all very kludgy. I did not spend that much time crossing I's and dotting T's.. The fonts in the nodes are hard to read, some of the graphs look "squished", its missing the "Show Links" feature the current Social Network portion of the sites has, etc.. There is much room for improvement with our graphing. I look forward to additional feedback.. :)

While these graphs may be fun to look at, the data they are built with is what's really exciting.. The same thing that allowed me to make these graphs is what's going to lead to improvements in the capabilities of the Reputation Agent.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy browsing through this review of the past year!

MemeStreams - The Year in Graphs 2003

Producer Andy Raskin tells the tale.

Ramen everywhere today.

Ramen Jiro Noodles: A Test of Greatness

I can't beleive they're actually going through with this. It'll look cool anyway.

27 Live Action Weta Workshop Produced Designs For EVANGELION

Japan is a country filled with ramen fans, ramen connoisseurs, and certifiable ramen maniacs, and now the city of Yokohama has opened an entire museum devoted to the ubiquitous Chinese noodle. More than just an ordinary museum, it's also part historical theme park and part hyper-specialized restaurant mall. And, unlike your usual dusty museum, it stays open till 11pm to accommodate hungry concertgoers returning from the nearby Yokohama Arena.

Fun for everyone who has, at some point, lived off of Ramen.

Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum

They genetically engineered the two-headed fluorescent zebrafish during studies into muscular dystrophy.

Taiwan scientists accidentally develop two-headed fish