Well i figured since i am starting school again tomorrow- i can come back into
the social world of the message board.
And from what i can tell from previous comments is that none of you know when exactly is
Eric clarks birthday. Everyone was a couple day early being the fact that it is today- January
9th there is only one thing to say

- Happy Birthday Eric -

Kinda what we thought all along, just more eloquent.

America's War With Itself

I found a pretty cool movie that combines rock and roll with samurai sword action!
Just go here to see what the movie "Six String Samurai" is all about. It seems pretty cool... maybe a bad movie night suggestion?

I finally understand why Jap slasher flicks are so violent and disturbing. It is like me watching Ichi the Killer. I get so mentally scarred that I want to get my sense of normalcy again. So I then go and make a movie that is even more disturbing then the one that I watched. My sense of normalcy is then back to normal. Then someone else sees the movie I made and the process repeats itself. So this explains the large amount of mentally disturbed movies in Japanese cinema. Thank You for your time.

d'you know why "The New York Times Magazine" is da shit? they're year in Ideas Annual, that's why foo!

peep this:

Exoskeleton Strength The sci-fi author Robert Heinlein had the idea first: in his 1959 novel, "Starship Troopers," soldiers stepped into suits of powered armor to make themselves stronger, faster, and generally better prepared to fight off alien hordes. This year, Homayoon Kazerooni, an engineering professor at the University of California at Berkeley, amde the idea a reality by introducing a set of high-tech leg braces called the Berkeley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton, or Bleex. Strap it on, and a load once backbreaking suddenly feels no heavier than a couple of copies of the Sunday paper.

Bleex is a set of modified combat boots, attached to what look like metal braces that snake up the sides of the legs. The prosthetics, which operate with the assistance of a Pentium-5-equivalent processor, are connected to a vest and backpack. About 70 pounds of gear can be crammed into the pack. But once the exoskeleton is turned on, it feels like only a five-pound load; the mechanical legs pick up the rest. Bleex 2, scheduled for June, should be able to carry 150 pounds and amble at a four-miles-an-hour clip.

Noah Shachtman

I'd type out the rest of the article but i gotta go to work now. it's great shit like that and the feature on EYEBALL JEWELRY (yeah, that's right, RIGHT ON THE EYEBALL) that make that Year in Ideas annual da shit.

Actually, the point wasn't "I told you so." (Although, technically, I couldn't have told you so because, well, I didn't know.) Rather, I was trying to highlight that the solution that seems to be globally accepted is to create a multi-billion dollar warning system rather than to abandon the shrimp farms.

Even more interesting is that any argument you can make against the mangrove solution (costs too much, wouldn't have saved everyone, too much work) can be made in exactly the manner against a warning system. But that won't stop us from building an early warning system (though it's nice to know that India has re-evaluated the whole natural solution idea.)

As much of a technophile as I am, I have to say that, more often than not, the non-tech solution is the best one. Not that the people who come up with technical solutions aren't brilliant, but no brilliant scientist or engineer can measure up against millions of years of testing for efficacy and side effects.

yeah End of Suburbia is playing with Bookmobile or something. should be good. i was gonna go see it during Global Visions (actually, the director was at that screening) but i didn't go. i've got an .avi of it and i've been watching it here and there. it's not bad.

This is the multipurpose post:

Eric, have a lovely time at Halo, I have family obligations to stuff myself full of Ukrainian food and listen to incredibly embarassing stories into the wee hours.

Par, it's totally true too. Mexicans talk about it all the time, that the mangroves create this amazing buffer from hurricanes and all the crap they throw at the shore. And it sure is true that lots of the mangroves (that only grow on the coast... as all mangroves do) have been cleared to make way for shrimp farms and settlements. But you never get anywhere by saying stuff like this... unless you really want the title of self-righteous idealist, so I dunno... is there an "I told you so" or is this more of a "just keep your mouth closed" kind of situation? It's just so completely true, albeit who knows how much they would've prevented... they just would've helped a lot.

And, seriously, the End of Suburbia is at the Metro next wednesday? I've been wanting to see that movie forever...

People in Soviet Russia, however, appear to be afflicted with amusing juxtapositions of the aforementioned situation. -- Slashdot comment.

It's interesting to contrast this widely-reported story: