craschworks / 2011 / April

Is Ron Paul More Progressive Than Obama?

30-Apr-11

Let’s just assume the worst about Paul: that he’s a corporate libertarian in the Reason magazine/Cato Institute mold that would grant Big Business and the financial industry license to do whatever the hell it wants with little in the way of accountability (I call this scenario the “status quo”). Let’s say he dines on Labradoodle puppies while using their blood to scribble notes in the margins of his dog-eared, gold-encrusted copy of Atlas Shrugged.
So. Fucking. What.

Barack Obama isn’t exactly Eugene Debs, after all. Hell, he’s not even Jimmy Carter. The facts are: he’s pushed for the largest military budget in world history, given trillions of dollars to Wall Street in bailouts and near-zero interest loans from the Federal Reserve, protected oil companies like BP from legal liability for environmental damages they cause – from poisoning the Gulf to climate change – and mandated that all Americans purchase the U.S. health insurance industry’s product. You might argue Paul’s a corporatist, but there’s no denying Obama’s one.

via counterpunch.org

My friend Steffany

21-Apr-11

….officially launched her company Ecobold today. Ecobold sells green, natural, and non-toxic products. For example, I like these hemp pants:

http://www.ecobold.com/products/66-organic-men-pants

If you’re into green living, and you want to buy products that reflect your values, check it out. To celebrate the launch, Ecobold will plant a tree for every person that signs up for their free video recommendation newsletter at http://ecobold.com/get_fresh_finds.

Of course, it makes sense that this would be the case…

20-Apr-11

LA brims with beautiful people. Humminah.

Chris

Most adorable thing ever…

16-Apr-11

via floatingparticles.tumblr.com

A penguin being tickled.

The Festo Robot Seagull

15-Apr-11

via fastcompany.com

People of a certain age will probably remember “Bubo” the mechanical owl from the Clash of the Titans. I certainly wanted one when I was a kid. Now, Festo, the German automation giant, has developed an artificial flying seagull that’s almost as amazing as Bubo.

As described in this Fast Company article:

“The robot isn’t stuffed with helium, instead it relies on ultra-light materials like carbon-fiber and sensitive control electronics to give it a total mass of around 0.4 kilograms (33% less than an iPad 2).

The design secret behind its seemingly effortless flight is the fact its wings don’t simply beat up and down like many other ornithopter designs (the technical term for flying drones like this) but they also twist at “specific angles” much like a real gull’s wing will do–positioning the wing tips at the best angle for generating lift and spilling less waste air. An “active articulated torsional drive” is at the heart of it, aided by clever wing joints, accurate sensors for calculating the wing’s position in real time, and a low-weight motor that eats up just 25 watts. The bird even communicates its flight data back to the remote operator in real time, letting them adjust fine parameters like wing torsion in real time to achieve optimum flight.”

Such robots will likely come to place in increasingly large role in our lives–as toys, as extensions to our sensoriums and as companions.

Radical Face ‘Welcome Home’

15-Apr-11

via youtube.com

Elektra video I Don’t Do Boys

15-Apr-11

via youtube.com

Don’t let ignorant people vote – CNN

15-Apr-11

Should ignorant people be allowed to vote?

A provocative question for sure; however, I’m not bringing it up for shock value, but rather to give us all pause.

If I were to ask you to ingest an unknown medicine from someone who knew nothing about the medical field, you probably wouldn’t do it. And I doubt many of us would feel comfortable as a shareholder in a company that asked people who knew nothing about business to hire its next CEO?

Yet we all know people who gleefully admit they know nothing about politics, don’t have time to find out what the current issues are or even know how the government works, but go out and vote. Want to know why it seems Washington is run by a bunch of idiots? Blame this hiccup in our political system for starters. What’s a solution? Weed out some of the ignorant by making people who want to vote first pass a test modeled on the one given to those who want to become citizens.

In an effort to win over ignorant voters, political campaigns are no longer targeting the movable middle as much as the easily misled. Instead of intelligent debates about important topics such as health care reform and cash-strapped states, we have an exchange of easy to remember catchphrases such as “Obamacare” and “War on Unions” — all in the race to pander to people who can’t explain what Congress does.

Or have a firm grasp of how tax dollars are spent.

In a recent CNN poll, more than a third of the people questioned wanted to see cuts in military spending, which is a good debate to have. The problem is the poll also revealed most Americans think the military takes up 30 percent of the budget when in reality it’s 19 percent. If we don’t know how much money is being spent, how can we intelligently say it’s too much? And what to make of the 20 percent of folks polled who believe public broadcasting represents 10 percent of the budget, when it’s more like a 10th of 1 percent?

via articles.cnn.com

I think voting tests would make a marginal improvement in election outcomes. But how do you develop a constituency for such an improvement? A lot of interest groups rely upon voter ignorance for their livelihood.

7 Ways to Have More by Owning Less | Brain Pickings

12-Apr-11

via brainpickings.org

Similarly to Neighborgoods, SnapGoods allows you to rent, borrow and lend within your community. SnapGoods takes things step further by expanding the notion of “community” not only to your local group — neighborhood, office or apartment building — but to your social graph across the web’s trusted corners. The site features full Facebook and Meetup integration, extending your social circle to the cloud.

Shell-sort with Hungarian (Székely) folk dance

11-Apr-11

via youtube.com

Via Winnie Cassiopeia.

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Is Ron Paul More Progressive Than Obama?

30-Apr-11

My friend Steffany

21-Apr-11

Of course, it makes sense that this would be the case…

20-Apr-11

Most adorable thing ever…

16-Apr-11

The Festo Robot Seagull

15-Apr-11

Radical Face ‘Welcome Home’

15-Apr-11

Elektra video I Don’t Do Boys

15-Apr-11

Don’t let ignorant people vote – CNN

15-Apr-11

7 Ways to Have More by Owning Less | Brain Pickings

12-Apr-11

Shell-sort with Hungarian (Székely) folk dance

11-Apr-11