Here we are on the surface of this spaceship, travelling through time and space at 1 second per second (roughly) and about 360 km/sec towards Leo.

So what I want to know is, who's in charge? Because I have to say there are some aspects of the cruise that I'm not entirely happy with.
[from: Google+ Posts]

One for the bucket list. Get yourself to a train station in Morocco in early June 2015. Get picked up and taken to a small village in the Rif mountains where you'll be looked after and fed by families in their homes for 3 days. The Master Musicians Of Joujouka then play their special blend of Sufi music each day and late into each night. Places limited to 50 and it's €360 all in.

http://thequietus.com/articles/16457-master-musicians-of-joujouka-festival-2015

There's a slightly cheaper one day version (€100) on 15-Nov-2014 tied in with the Beat Conference (17/19 Nov) in Tangier to celebrate the 100th anniversary of William Burrough's birth. The conference fee is basically B&B in the hotel plus food.

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China's per capita CO2 production (7.2 tonnes pa) is now higher than the EU's (6.8). It's still half the USA's (16.5) per capita figure but it's increased 4 fold since 2001.

The totals are more like China 29%, USA 15%, EU 10% of total pa CO2 production.

So now what happens?

http://rationthefuture.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/world-carbon-emissions-out-of-control.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29239194

Obviously, it's all OK, because Paul Krugman (Nobel prize winning economist and NYT columnist) says "Saving the planet would be cheap; it might even be free." with a bit of carbon tax, carbon credits and other strong measures to limit carbon emissions.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/19/opinion/paul-krugman-could-fighting-global-warming-be-cheap-and-free.html
And anyone who disagrees is just indulging in "climate despair".

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Assuming it's not actually raining, we're planning on going to the Cody Dock, Cody Wilds launch party on Sunday. https://www.facebook.com/events/805976122778470/
with a short detour to Trinity Buoy Wharf to see the Long Player http://longplayer.org/visit/.

For all the peeps in East London, if you've got nothing better to do this Sunday afternoon, you might like it. Especially if you bicycle, you need to get yourself to Twelvetrees Crescent and then walk/cycle down the East side of the Lea and Bow Creek. Bromley-By-Bow is close, or come at it from the other side via Star Lane DLR. https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5237749,-0.0079912,18z/data=!5m1!1e3

Of course, if it's raining all day, then maybe not.

More detail here.
http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/cody-wilds.html

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Reality needs less cowbell, say cows. And I for one, agree.

But it does need a saxophone on the bridge.

http://www.geek.com/geek-cetera/it-turns-out-that-cowbells-make-cows-miserable-1605552/

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[from: Google+ Posts]

Some things to think about re Fermi's paradox. Life should be all over the galaxy, let alone the universe. So, where the heck is everybody?

Well, maybe, on any Earth type planet, If there is insufficient stored carbon available, the species will not be able to develop a technologically advanced society due to insufficient energy for the development of enough complexity. But if there is sufficient stored carbon available, the species will inevitably destroy itself.

It's just thermodynamics, innit. 

http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Fermi.html

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When we marched against the Iraq war, the demands were fairly simple even if they were ignored.

But when we march against "Climate Change" what are we asking for? What do we want to happen next?

http://peoplesclimate.org/global/#map

I suspect marching about climate change is like dancing about architecture. But if it makes us feel better, maybe it's still worth while.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/live/2014/sep/21/peoples-climate-march-live

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[from: Google+ Posts]

New Taboos

From an essay by John Shirley.
http://www.amazon.com/Taboos-Outspoken-Authors-John-Shirley/dp/1604867612

From http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/21/1225129/-Sci-Fi-Fantasy-Club-New-Taboos-by-John-Shirley
What if the phrase "Obscene Profits" were not just a figure of speech?  What if the practice of amassing huge profits while exploiting one's employees, or while contaminating the environment, or while lying to the public, was actually regarded as revolting, and the people who engaged in such practices were shunned as pariahs?

We need some new taboos that we reject utterly. That make us sick. That we will not allow under any circumstances. That are never acceptable. No end ever justifies these means. In the words of Rorschach from Watchmen, "Never compromise. Not even in the face of Armageddon".

Here's a short and incomplete list of possible new taboos:-
1) Polluting or toxifying the environment. Particularly by corporate action for profit but also by individual action.
2) Lying or deceiving for profit. Especially to manipulate children for profit.
3) Using political influence for personal gain.
4) Hiding someone else's theft, fraud, dishonesty or pollution to protect one's own part in the system.
5) Discriminating on the basis of race, gender or sexual orientation.
6) Making unreasonably large profits. eg. by taking advantage of a monopoly position to price gouge, or by avoiding tax, or paying absurd top salaries
7) Exploiting workers via uneconomic wages or contracts. eg zero hour contracts or paying minimum wage as opposed to living wage.
8) Exploiting workers via unsafe workplaces and practices for profit
9) Torture under any circumstances
10) Engaging in warfare except in the most dire necessity

These aren't hard. They're just the basic kindergarten rules of behaviour we teach kids.
- Don't poison other children
- Don't lie
- Don't steal
- Don't hurt other kids just to get what you want
- Don't take more than your share of the pudding

So now apply them to adults.

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PM Press (2013), Edition: First Edition, Paperback, 128 pages
[from: Librarything]

I'll just leave this here.

"If there is no centre, we're all on the edge."

From this review.
http://www.residentadvisor.net/review-view.aspx?id=15628

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I was looking for something else and just found this from 2004. Dig those forgotten cultural references! Not entirely sure where it came from so needs citation.

The revolution will be blogged.

You will be able to stay home, brother.
You will be able to plug in, turn on and get your own IP.
You will be able to lose yourself on generic V.i.a.g.r.a and Prozac,
Skip out for a Frapuccino during the free pr0n download,
Because the revolution will be blogged.

The revolution will be blogged.
The revolution will not be brought to you by the NY Times
in 4 parts with commercial popups after a one time registration.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Bush
landing on a carrier and leading a charge by John
Ashcroft, Douglas Rumsfeld and Dick Chaney to eat
the profits stolen on the way to Iraq.
The revolution will be blogged.

The revolution will not be brought to you by
the RIAA and will not star Britney
Spears and Paris Hilton or Eminem and Madonna.
The revolution will not give your iPod a new battery.
The revolution will not lock you in with DRM.
The Atkins diet will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will be blogged, Brother.

There will be a webcam of you and Winona Ryder
pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,
and Marsha Stewart trying to sneak the drug money past the SEC.
You will be able to predict the winner at 8:32
and get reports from 563 districts because,
The revolution will be blogged.

There will be phonecam pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers on TextAmerica.
There will be phonecam pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers on TextAmerica.
There will be pictures of Rush Limbaugh being
run out of ABC on a rail for "Addiction to prescription drugs".
There will be slow motion and 360 degree QTVR of John
Kerry strolling through Watts in a doubleknit leisure suit
that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.

Gap, Starbucks, and Hooters will no longer be so damned relevant,
and women will not care if Aleks finally gets down with
Carrie on Sex in the City because people of colour, or even
no colour at all, will be online looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will be blogged.

There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock
news and no pictures of heavily pierced women
activists or Condoleeza Rice blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Moby,
the Red Hot Chili Peppers, nor sung by Beyonce, Justin
Timberlake, Sheryl Crow, Alicia Keys, or R.E.M.
The revolution will be blogged.

The revolution will not be right back after a message from our leader about weapons of mass destruction, homeland security, or the axis of evil.
You will not have to worry about anthrax in your
post, armed sky marshalls, or biometric ID cards.
The revolution will not give you a transportable TV entertainment center.
The revolution will not help you to be all you want to be.
The revolution will put you in control of the keyboard.

The revolution will be blogged, will be blogged,
will be blogged, will be blogged.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.
[from: Google+ Posts]

Tor Books (2014), Edition: 1ST, Hardcover, 336 pages
[from: Librarything]

Tor Books (2014), Edition: First Edition, Hardcover, 384 pages
[from: Librarything]

It's late 2014 and there are cultural critics still arguing that creativity stopped in 2003, using examples from 2004 and 2006. Arctic Monkeys vs Burial as symptom vs diagnosis? That's * so * last decade!

http://crackmagazine.net/music/mark-fisher-interviewed/

I think we fairly desperately need a Post-Retromania and Post-Hauntology in pop cultural analysis.

ps. He's got a book out. How drole.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ghosts-My-Life-Depression-Hauntology/dp/1780992262/ref=sr_1_1

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[from: Google+ Posts]

A while ago I went looking for cocktails named after places and boroughs in New York. There's really quite a lot of them from the well known Manhatten to the Harlem Mugger. That led to trying to do the same thing for London but that proved much harder. Scanning the whole of the Savoy Cocktail book only turned up the Piccadilly and the Mayfair.

This week's cocktail is the Piccadilly.
http://savoystomp.com/2009/07/27/piccadilly-cocktail/
50ml Gin (Portobello), 25ml French Vermouth (Noilly Prat), Dash Grenadine (Monin), Dash Absinthe (No Absinthe so I used Bourdin Pastis), Shaken, Martini Glass. The end result is pink so I added one fluorescent Opies maraschino cherry as a garnish. I'm not really convinced, especially as the Pastis overpowered the other flavours. The Grenadine is really just colour. I think there might be a drink in there though where you make a wet martini (say 4:1) add a dash of grenadine for colour, stir so it doesn't dilute so much and then do a absinthe/pastis wash of the glass the way you would making a Sazerac. So there's just the smell of the Anise without so much of the flavour.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-29136699

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly? For a Fistful of Dollars, Los Trios Paranoias ride forth. But independently, on separate trains.

Meanwhile Thatcher-Lite in the form of "Grinner" Brown tries to throw the electorate a bone.

Less than 10 days to go, postal votes are in, and now they're trying to make up Devo-Max on the fly because they hadn't planned contingencies for something they've known about for 2 years.

You couldn't make it up, could you. Are they trying to fail?

Bonus Link: http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/09/the-three-amigos-ride-to-scotland

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So farewell then, iPod Classic.
http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/09/the-ipod-classic-is-dead/

Well that sucks. If Apple won't build and sell the 1TB iPod Classic I want, then maybe now somebody else will? I seem to have been saying this for quite some time. There's a small but genuine market for a high capacity, high quality personal media player. It's just not a mass market.

I could rush out and buy one of the last remaining 240GB Classics on eBay available from people that mod and upgrade the official 160. But unfortunately the firmware doesn't really support the extra space. And the extra space still isn't big enough.

So what alternatives are there for those of us with too much music in our collections? And no, storing it in the cloud and accessing it via streaming on a smartphone is not an option.

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[from: Google+ Posts]

Glenn Greenwald nails it again.
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/08/lesson-americans-refuse-learn-war/
Americans Now Fear ISIS Sleeper Cells Are Living in the U.S., Overwhelmingly Support Military Action

But not with boots on the ground. And not because it will change anything. But to "flex muscles" and "show toughness" and "send a message". And because They're a "clear and present danger" because they threatened to "fly the black flag of ISIS over the White House." As he says: It’s hard to believe the fear-mongering is anything but deliberate. Because it's not just the US media and politicians because this same brand of bullshit was all over the weekend papers in the UK.

He also references a Sept 2003 poll that showed 70% of Americans polled thought Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9-11. "Is it even possible to imagine more potent evidence of systemic media failure than that (or systemic success, depending on what you think the media’s goal is)?" But here we are again, embarking on another war in the state of permanent war. This time for "1 year, 2 years maybe even 3 years but as long as it takes". 

-- Cut here --

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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/07/the_club_of_romes_limits_to_growth_was_right_you_know/
vs
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/02/limits-to-growth-was-right-new-research-shows-were-nearing-collapse

About a new analysis of the Club of Rome's models: http://www.sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/files/mssi/MSSI-ResearchPaper-4_Turner_2014.pdf

You decide. Can you spot the logical fallacies in each viewpoint?

Or is it simply that with exponential growth, if the resource limits don't get you the pollution will? Always assuming there's enough excess energy available to fund the continued exponential growth in the first place. And if there isn't then there are other problems with a global system that borrows from the future on the basis that exponential growth can continue indefinitely.

Bonus link: http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2014/09/depletion-case-of-gold-mining.html

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[from: Google+ Posts]

Space, says the introduction to the guide, is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind bogglingly big it is.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v513/n7516/full/nature13674.html
Laniakea: Our home supercluster
http://www.engadget.com/2014/09/05/milky-way-galaxy-laniakea-supercluster/

But is it self similar at all scales?
[from: Google+ Posts]