A friend sent me the this youtube, "The Time Machine," which allows you to chose your path through a time travel adventure. I hadn't seen this sort of thing before, and can't quite decide whether the choice points are entertaining or annoying, as a general principle. It's obvious that the authors of this particular video had a fund time creating it.
In 1983, PBS gave this extraordinary unvarnished view of what it means to be trained to be a soldier. The six-part documentary is called "Anybody's Son Will Do," and the documentary focuses on boot camp at Paris Island. Here's one of the opening quotes: "The secret about basic training is that it's not really about teaching people things at all. It's about changing people so that they can do things they wouldn't have dreamed of doing otherwise." In Part III, the instructor asks the trainees to name that special person to whom they are dedicating all of their hard training. The answer: To your enemy, so that he can "die for his country." The commentator adds that it doesn't really matter who the enemy is. Rather, it's the idea of an "outside threat that binds a combat unit together so strongly that its members will make the most extraordinary sacrifices for each other." In part V, the commentator mentions another key point of basic training: They indoctrinate the recruits with the idea that the enemy--whoever he may be--is not fully human, and so it's all right to kill him." Here's an excerpt from an actual training session (also from Part V, starting at the 2:30 mark), discussing the extent which the Marines need to destroy the enemy:
You want to rip out his eyeballs, you want to tear apart his love machine. You want to destroy him, privates! You don't wanna have nothing left of him. You want to send him home in a glad bag to his mommy." [loud laughing from the recruits] . . . Marines are born trained killers, and you've got to prove that every day."Here's part I: It's apparent throughout this documentary that soldier training depends upon hating one's enemy. It is also apparent that many of the members of the military are religious. Somehow, through this mix, the religious command to "Love your enemy" co-exists with the military command to "Hate your enemy."
William Black speaks bluntly about what should be criminal acts of the government and Lehman. He talks about the pathetic staffing of federal regulators, that don't constitute excuses (as some are now claiming), but admissions. These plain and undeniable facts should be on the front page of every newspaper. Our government caved to the pressure of the entities being regulated and crippled its own investigative team. We need to hear a lot more rhetoric of this clarity and tone.
I'd never heard of tilt-shift videos before today. It's a rather dramatic effect--using a special lens and adjusting the frames-per-second, you can make real-world large object look miniature. Here are several eye-popping examples. I kept thinking that I was looking at miniatures until I saw such realistic people enter the frame.
“Whoever knows he is deep, strives for clarity; whoever would like to appear deep to the crowd, strives for obscurity. For the crowd considers anything deep if only it cannot see to the bottom: the crowd is so timid and afraid of going into the water.”
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Gay Science (1882).
“. . . using financial complexity allegedly to deceive and then using so-called independent experts to validate the deception (lawyers, accountants, credit rating agencies, "portfolio selection agents," etc etc ) . . .”"Now we know the truth. The financial meltdown wasn't a mistake – it was a con"
Why are many human systems complex? If we’ve learned anything over the past few years, it’s that there are two reasons—there are two kinds of complexity. Sometimes, complexity is required to get the job done. I think of this as “parsimonious complexity.” For instance, the Mars Rovers are extremely complex robots, but every part of these magnificent robots has a specific function that furthers a clearly and publicly defined mission. There are also instances where complexity is purposely injected into a system. I think of these as instances of “gratuitous complexity.” It’s important to keep in mind that all forms of complexity serve as entry barriers to activities, due to the limited attentional capabilities of humans. Very few of us have the stamina or intellect to thoroughly understand all of the artificial systems people create; many of us don't have the stamina to thoroughly understand even simple systems. When an activity is more complex, it is more difficult to understand and more daunting to those wishing to participate. Activities that are more complex are thus accessible to fewer people. For instance, chess is more complex than checkers, in that the state space of possible moves is larger in chess than in checkers. Checkers is easy to learn and play. But many checkers players don’t graduate to chess due to the increased complexity. Some systems are so incredibly complex that only the chosen few are able to participate.