Adaptation

What fascinates me about adaptation is that in embracing one's belief in it, one finds quite possibly their most valuable existential experience, freedom from fear and laziness.

Whereas, in fleeing from one's belief in adaptation, one finds their other most valuable existential experience, freedom of creativity and culture.

"I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was- I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds."
(Jack Kerouac, On The Road)

It seems that perhaps at the very moments we feel most lost, we are finding out the most about ourselves.

And I Thought Canadian Press was Less Restricted than US Press

Adbusters Demands Canwest, the CBC and the CRTC Stop Blocking
Citizen-Produced Advertising

On Monday, February 18, Adbusters lost its court battle against two of Canada's television networks that refused to sell airtime for its commercials. Adbusters claimed the CBC and Canwest Global had violated its right to free speech under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by refusing to sell air time, but the court decided that the Charter does not apply to private corporations.

"It's outrageous that the fast food, oil and automobile industries can buy as much TV time as they want in order to promote their agendas, but citizens are not allowed to talk back," said Adbusters Editor-in-Chief Kalle Lasn in response to the ruling. "Canadian democracy will not work properly until we the people have the same right to buy airtime as corporations do."

The rejected Adbusters ads pointed out that over 50 percent of the calories in a Big Mac come from fat, called for an end to the age of the automobile, and promoted Buy Nothing Day. While Court Justice William Ehrcke ruled that private broadcasters have the right to run whatever ads they like, Adbusters feels the case raises some troubling questions.

Firstly, why are Canwest and the CBC selling as much time as they possibly can to corporations, while fighting expensive legal actions to keep citizen-produced messages off the air? Why does the CBC call itself "Canada's Public Broadcaster" if they won't sell airtime to citizens?

Secondly, why is the CRTC not standing up for public access? When they grant licences to broadcasters, why is the right of Canadian citizens to access their own "public" airwaves not being guaranteed?

Thirdly, why is our freedom of speech being suppressed? Why can corporations buy airtime while citizens cannot? Why doesn't the Canadian Charter apply to the most powerful social communications medium of our age - television?

"This case goes to the very heart of what our democracy is all about," says Lasn. "A healthy society allows its citizens to walk into their local TV stations and buy airtime under the same rules and conditions that corporations do. Adbusters has been given 30 days to challenge the ruling. This legal battle for media democracy will go on."

To talk to Kalle Lasn, or Ryan Dalziel, our lawyer, about the case please contact Lauren Bercovitch (lauren@adbusters.org)

For more information about Adbusters and the global media democracy movement visit www.mediacarta.org and www.adbusters.org

I am curious if such restrictions apply in the States?

I will follow up on that.

The Perfect Guitar Solo?

I don't know who spends their time figuring this kind of stuff out, but it appears that if one dubs David Gilmore's solo on Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" over itself with a 15 second delay, the solo completely syncs up with itself. The end result is a melodious and perfectly rhythmic guitar solo weaving around your mesmerized mind.


Click here for the Audio:

http://www.techdo.com/download/Confortably-numb-guitar-solo-15

Marijuana is less dangerous than Email [to your intelligence]

I wonder what the study would say about beer?

Marijuana is less dangerous than Email

Researchers at the University of London's Institute of Psychiatry recently released a report showing that workers bombarded with phone calls, e-mails and text messages suffer a greater loss in IQ than marijuana users.

Glenn Wilson, a psychiatrist at King's College London University, and his team of researchers monitored the IQ of 80 volunteers while they performed problem-solving tasks, first in a quiet environment and then while being distracted with e-mails and phone calls. The study found that people balancing a steady inflow of messages while attempting to work experienced a 10-point decrease in IQ ” more than double the four-point drop caused by smoking marijuana.

The most damage was done, according to the survey, by the almost complete lack of discipline in handling emails. Dr Wilson and his colleagues found a compulsion to reply to each new message, leading to constant changes of direction which inevitably tired and slowed down the brain.

Wilson's research is no flash in the pan. Computer technology in its modern, interconnected form is dumbing down the population more rapidly than television. A study of 100,000 school children in over 30 countries around the world testified that non-computer using kids performed better in literacy and numeracy schools than PC-using children. Education experts have dubbed it the "problem solving deficit disorder".

Source: http://www.techdo.com/marijuana-is-less-dangerous-than-email/

So I guess this means that those who smoke herb and then check their email are down about 14 IQ points while they're under the influence of both stimuli.

Doesn't this also mean that when a person normally with an IQ of 84 gets high and checks his or her email, that very same person BECOMES mentally handicapped (possesses an IQ of 70) while they remain high and at their computer?

It's a good thing I'm not a smoker - and a damn good thing I don't have an IQ of 84.

How one clumsy ship cut off the web for 75 million people

As technology weaves itself more and more into the fabric of human reality, becoming, connecting, extending, and reflecting us - we must remember how vulnerable such a system is.

As fragile as the creatures who created it?

Are we likely to impede our remarkable technological evolution with human deficiencies as old as the Chimpanzees we've come from?

How one clumsy ship cut off the web for 75 million people

A flotilla of ships may have been dispatched to reinstate the broken submarine cable that has left the Middle East and India struggling to communicate with the rest of the world, but it took just one vessel to inflict the damage that brought down the internet for millions.

According to reports, the internet blackout, which has left 75 million people with only limited access, was caused by a ship that tried to moor off the coast of Egypt in bad weather on Wednesday. Since then phone and internet traffic has been severely reduced across a huge swath of the region, slashed by as much as 70% in countries including India, Egypt and Dubai.

While tens of millions have been directly affected, the impact of the blackout has spread far wider, with economies across Asia and the Middle East struggling to cope. Governments have also become directly involved, with the Egyptian communications ministry imploring surfers to stay offline so business traffic can take priority. "People who download music and films are going to affect businesses who have more important things to do," said ministry spokesman Mohammed Taymur.

But as backroom staff at businesses across the globe scrambled to reroute their traffic or switch on backup satellite systems, experts said the incident highlighted the fragility of a global communications network we take for granted.

"People just don't realise that all these things go through undersea cables - that this is the main way these economies are all linked," said Alan Mauldin, the research director of TeleGeography. "Even when you're using wireless internet, it's only really wireless back to your base station: the rest is done over real, physical connections."

Read the rest here:

http://www.techdo.com/how-one-clumsy-ship-cut-off-the-web-for-75-million-people/