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Wednesday, March 31 2004

Online Social Networking - "Small World"

Amusing video commentary about Friendster, etc.:

"When you're filling out your Friendster profile, it says 'Give other people a chance to find out how you're unique. And the second question on that list is 'What's your favorite television program?'"

Thursday, March 18 2004

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said

A 1975 review, by George Turner, of Philip K. Dick's Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said. It's been a long time since I read the novel; I remember it as a good, but erratic, book about an oppressive state, what it is that separates us from each other, and how that separation plays out in different personalities. This review makes me want to re-read for different themes:

"He thereby showed us another aspect of a world where even corruption of the sexually immature -- in the sense of deliberate interference before the process of personal selection can take place after puberty -- is legalised. Moral definition being non-existent, legal and not-legal become terms of political expediency...if it won't harm the dominance-system, by all means permit it; if it will, forbid it. The people? Oh, let the twits do as they please; it's their own fault if they aren't happy when they can do what they like -- so long as it doesn't rock the boat. And the price of freedom? Sure, there's a price. But they wanted it, didn't they? So where's the belly-ache?"

Wednesday, March 17 2004

What to do March 20th in San Francisco

Option 1: help leaflet for the Great American Meat-Out (i.e. be vegetarian for a day).

Option 2: Go to the International Clitoris Day Celebration at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Option 3: Go dancing.

Option 4: Just sleep in.

Monday, March 15 2004

Supermarket Club Cards and Picket Lines

In Bruce Schneier's latest issue of Crypto-Gram, speculation on profiling through your supermarket club card. It's a reader-submitted comment, all the way at the bottom:

"It got me thinking. Safeway and Ralph's... already have club cards. And one thing THEY now know for sure is which of their customers are willing to cross picket lines to buy groceries, and which aren't.
"In other words, the purchase patterns contained in the Safeway and Ralph's club card databases could be EASILY mined for individual customers' sympathies to organized labor.
"Think about that. The next time somebody applies for a job at his neighborhood Safeway or Ralph's, should he expect them to check his 2003-2004 shopping habits for hints that he might be pro- or antiunion? And what's keeping the supermarkets from offering this data to other employers, or even the custodians of the Total Information Awareness program?"

Fun Lil Anime Game...

Here's a nice little time-waster. A Flash-based anime game based on a cartoon I've never watched...

Wednesday, March 10 2004

Abstinence for Pussies

A little old: PETA's ad encouraging cat owners to spay their kitties.

Newer, but still old: PETA (via Triumph the Insult Comic Dog) insults Clay Aiken due to comments he made in a Rolling Stone interview:

Aiken: "I think cats are Satan. There's nothing worse to me than a house cat. When I was about 16, I had a kitten and ran over it."

Pax Christi USA to monitor US Election in Florida

Due to the problems in Jeb Bush's state in 2000, Pax Christi USA will monitor the federal election in Florida:

"Pax Christi USA, the national Catholic peace movement (www.paxchristiusa.org), announced that it will bring international election monitors to Florida to monitor the upcoming Presidential elections in November."

Friday, March 5 2004

Embracing the Idiot Box

I don't have a TV, but like Justin Berton, I'll admit that when I had access to one, my C-SPAN Booknotes watching was often interrupted by forays into trash TV:

"It comes down to Carrie, the unabashed ho, and Deraline, the passive-aggressive ho. In this world, Deraline actually has the upper hand because – and listen up future Elimidate contestants – no dude out there wants his mother to tune in and see her son dragging home the biggest skank in the bar. But the second biggest skank? That's just smart politicking."

Thursday, March 4 2004

Gentile Jokes

From GoodForTheJews.com:

"A Gentile man calls his elderly mother.
He asks, 'Mom, how are you feeling? Do you need anything?'
She says, 'I feel fine, and I don't need anything. Thanks for calling.'"

Love and Money

In the midst of advice on being with an unambitious SO, Cary Tennis, love advice columnist, spits out a few good paragraphs on money, success, and about being OK with not having an excess of either:

"But that's what we lost in the boom, along with all that money. Before the '80s Wall Street greed thing and then the '90s tech boom, before the decimation of manufacturing, when unions were still strong, a guy's fortunes could rise and fall, but it seems to me there was less shame about just getting by. San Francisco in the 1970s had a proud working-class ethos.
"The importance of a working-class ethos is to realize that your fate is not entirely in your hands, that there are powerful people working against your interests. In fact, as recent scandals illustrate, honest workers have been the victims of enormous, unprecedented white-collar crimes."

Indie Music Interviews

Downhill Battle's got interviews with Sage Francis, regarding his "Fuck Clear Channel" tour; and Ian MacKaye of Fugazi and Dischord Records, on making it as a band outside the major label system, the DC music scene, and sharing music online.

Sage is short and sweet; Ian's long and rambling.

About this site

This is the personal web site for Edward (Ed) Piou. Consisting mainly of a blog (operational since 1999) and various photos.

Some online projects I'm working on

Politics

Charity, Non-profits...

A while ago, I decided to put my money where my mind is on a (roughly) monthly basis and give to:

Photos

Public events documented through pictures...