Saturday, November 1, 2008
Friday, October 31, 2008
North Hollywood Installs “Talking Cameras”
North Hollywood is going the way of Baltimore, Martin County, and Middlesbrough, England. It has installed “talking cameras,” ostensibly to ward off taggers and people who dump trash.
“Los Angeles police are using motion-activated cameras to warn vandals that they’re being watched,” reports WOAI for NBC News. “The motion triggers a recorded voice that states, ‘This is the Los Angeles Police Department. It is illegal to spray graffiti or dump trash here.’ The voice warns vandals that they are being recorded and will be prosecuted. The camera provides a high-resolution image of the tagger and the vehicle. It can capture an image of a license plate from 250 feet.”
Most people will likely not have a problem with these barking cameras if the devices prevent miscreants from vandalizing private and public property. However, once the public accepts this technology government will as a matter of course begin installing thousands of them at taxpayer expense.
Recall the 70 year old woman arrested for not watering her lawn, or the man arrested because his lawn was brown. Police and city governments find all sorts of reasons to fine, arrest, and even imprison people.
In the not too distant future, cameras may do this job. Imagine every neighborhood in a city with talking cameras monitoring citizens. “Citizen at 1200 Main Street, your lawn is too long. Cut it or face criminal penalty.”
Outrageous? Consider Britain, where the plebs are monitored by trash bin police. In a recent case, a woman was fined £265 for taking her trash bin out to the curb 24 hours early. As the Mail Online reported in May, the government is forcing British families “to name somebody to be in charge of their rubbish under a council’s ‘zero tolerance’ approach to bin collections. The named individual faces £100 fines and a criminal record if their household then puts the wrong rubbish in its wheelie bins, puts them out too soon, or puts them in the wrong place.” In addition, the individual will be obliged “to give officials a breakdown of everyone who lives in their home, together with intimate information including details of medical conditions.”
Of course, this has nothing to do with garbage bins. It has to do with the state intruding on the lives of citizens under the flimsiest of excuses.
Same mindset applies to the installation of cameras that bark orders and make threats. Today the cameras ward off taggers, tomorrow they will be put everywhere and used to monitor and control the behavior of citizens.
As Orwell’s Winston Smith knew, the telescreens watched the citizens constantly. “He sat as still as he could on the narrow bench, with his hands crossed on his knee. He had already learned to sit still. If you made unexpected movements they yelled at you from the telescreen,” writes Orwell.Thursday, October 30, 2008
bailout
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.
can you imagine taking 700 billion from taxpayers and not allowing oversight?
Paulson should be locked up in the town square in stocks like the pilgrim days.
32 years
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
purple sun
I am not sure why but if you stare at this piece it grows on you--at least it grows on me..
quote of the day--hunter s thompson
"who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of live and lived, or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?"
Hunter wrote this in high school and it is still one of my favorite quotes of all time...
flower of life print
I made this today. It is Krylon spray paint I sprayed through a handcut stencil of the flower of life geometry. It is on fabriano Pastel paper and painted with opaque white guaoche. This is three in a series of 100. I like the marriage of low fi and hi fi.
mcsorleys watercolor
I made a sketch on pastel paper today using ink and opaque white at mcsorleys..the entire time I had two jabbering girls across from me and the kept standing up and blocking my light and talking in some strange language--totally oblivious that they driving my crazy and up a wall. They were not concerned what I was doing or if the were inconveniencing me...as sartre said--"hell is other people."
man in mcsorleys
Here is a quick sketch I made in Mcsorleys today..it is ink and opaque watercolor on colored Fabriano pastel paper.all these are for sale if anyone wants one.
mcsorleys--man with crossword
after the jabbering girls left a man sat across from me intensely doing a NY Times crossword. He had no idea I was drawing and left none the wiser. This drawing has some good pints and some weak points but it really does look like the guy..very often once the person leaves it doesnt matter because no-one can say if it looks like the subject or not....this was a pretty good likeness.--then again you have no way of knowing if I am lying.
never give up
World's Worst Boxer' to Hang Up His Gloves After 256 Defeats
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Boxing fans will gather in Birmingham, England, on Friday night to witness the final fight of a man who could be remembered as Britain's most spectacular loser.
Buckley has lost more fights than any other boxer in the world. Throughout his 256 defeats, he has remained magnificently undeterred. While the British Boxing Board of Control (BBBC) remained concerned that he could suffer serious injuries, Buckley persisted, losing fight after fight.
In the past five years he has put together a particularly impressive losing streak, failing to win in 88 successive bouts. He has lost to 42 future world, European, British and Commonwealth champions, including Naseem Hamed, and has fought more bouts than any other boxer in the world. But this one, No 300, will be his last.
"I've had my eye on the 300 mark for a while, and it's a little milestone I want to achieve, but I don't want to fight on," he said. "People keep saying to me that I'll get a call in a few weeks' time offering me a fight and I'll say yes, but I mean it when I say this is it."
There was a time, in the early 1990s, when Buckley did not seem destined for so luminous a career of defeat. He was a talented super-featherweight who won the Midlands area title. Then he discovered a more lucrative calling, as an opponent for boxers with hot prospects. He rarely won but had a good defense and took few punches. Over time, his reflexes slowed and he became easier to hit. Now 39, he has matured into a consistent loser.
Buckley has fought so often that he has turned up with a black eye before a bout. Though the BBBC continues to send him for medical tests, Buckley continues to pass them. Throughout his career, he has kept himself in a constant state of readiness, ready to lose a fight at a moment's notice anywhere in England. Buckley has been known to agree to bouts as late as 8 p.m. on the night of the fight.
orwell diary oct 28th 1938
One egg. Many black beetles squashed in the road. Inside they are brilliant vermillion. Men ploughing with teams of oxen after the rain. Wretched ploughs, with no wheel, which only stir the soil.
orwell diary oct 27th 1938
On Tuesday afternoon (25th) tremendous rain, much as in the tropics except that it was very cold rain. Everything has flooded feet deep, the earth not yet dry. The Oued Tensift is now quite a considerable stream & low ground all round it has turned into marsh. Today near the Oeud Tensift came upon a large pool where there were° a flight of wild ducks swimming about. Managed to scare them onto the wing & after much circling around they came straight overhead. Sixteen in number, & evidently mallards, same as in England, or very similar. Saw another larger flight in the distance afterwards. Almost the first game birds seen here.
Ordinary sparrows fairly common in the garden here. In Marrakech itself one used not to see them.
Large numbers of black beetles, about 1” long, crawling everywhere, evidently brought out by the rain. Have sowed sunflowers, sweet peas & marigolds. The other seeds not up yet, as it has been much cooler (we are having fires every evening.) The ground here is lumpy & unpleasant to work, but at present not many weeds – more when this rain has taken effect, perhaps. Some weeds as in England, eg. bindweed & twitchgrass, but not growing very strongly. Silver poplar or some very similar tree grows here. Tomatoes here are grown in large patches without sticks. Very poor floppy plants & smallish tomatoes, but plenty of them.
Yesterday on milking the brown goat found her milk had gone sour & came out quite thick. This is because she is only being milked once a day & had not been fully milked for two days owing to her restiveness. Squeezed the bad milk onto the ground & tonight her milk was all right again. Another hen bad in the legs this evening. Examined & found enormous black lice. Hope treatment will be effective as before. The stripey goat’s milk increases, but very slightly, still not much over 1/2 pint a day. She is very thin, though she eats well. The present ration of hard food is 2 handfuls of barley & 2 of bran morning & evening, with a mash of boiled maize & bran about once a week.
The doves readily eat maize if it is broken.
Today saw some doves in an aviary which had eggs.
The fountain in front of the house filled up after the rain & mosquito larvae are multiplying rapidly.
One egg (the first) yesterday, none today.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
barter
brooklyn
I am going to paint the waterfalls into the picture so I do not have to paint the lower structure...
Actually the waterfalls will be a cool pictorial element so the fact that I do not have to paint the lower structure is just a bonus.
Monday, October 27, 2008
on newton and reality
..I have been studying a lot about Isaac Newton theses days...He is often viewed as the scientist who led us out of the dark shadows of magic and into the light of scientific reason. His theories on gravity and laws of motion etc were as profound as any discovery made in the history of mankind. There reason I am writing this is in response to many people I personally know who worship only at the idol of reason and are blind as a garden mole when when it comes to seeing or believing anything outside the visible spectrum...I find it incredibly interesting that so many people I know personally accept only the black or the white and refuse to believe in the "third side of the coin" (I coined this expression). Isaac Newton was a genius beyond genius wrapped in an enigma--He was so far beyond anyone I ever read about including Leonardo, plato, vitruvius, tesla, Hawkings etc etc. Now the point of this entire post is that Newton spent 25 years of his life one hundred percent devoted to studying alchemy...the most esoteric and strange art known to man. The same guy who gave us the principia mathmatica--the single greatest achievement of a human mind--ever. Yet, my skeptical friends know better than this genius who spent 25 years studying the proportions of ancient temples from the bible and cooking metal in crucibles in search of the esoterica and elusive philosophers stone. They are rationalists, they are too smart to fall for anything that is beyond the eye..I am humbler than they, I am not that smart I have learned that my mind is just a small thing, a minor star and my opinions shine very little light on reality. I am smart enough to know that newton was a genius of the ages and for him to look beyond the visible spectrum into the unknown realm esoteric thought is enough for me to believe there is more to to reality than meets the eye. There is much more than this. My friends idea of newton is that he is a fig and comes in a cookie. By the way did I mention he created calculus? I know one thing, Isaac newton never chased fools errands if he was chasing something there was something there, what that is I am not sure...He never found the philosophers stone but he opened doors that are still open today as to the nature of reality and he played Descartes like a cheap violin.
scribble of the day
I am still studying the school of Athens by Raphael...These are just rough sketches as I am interested in layout etc at this point...observation 1: The foreground figure Heraclitus is significantly larger than the figure behind him, it is a forced illusion as the back figure is only a short distance behind him.
frog teeth
They have a ridge of very small cone teeth around the upper edge of the jaw. These are called Maxillary Teeth.
Frogs often also have what are called Vomerine Teeth on the roof of their mouth.
They don't have anything that could be called teeth on their lower jaw, so they usually swallow their food whole. The so-called "teeth" are mainly used to hold the prey and keep it in place till they can get a good grip on it and squash their eyeballs down to swallow their meal.
Toads, however, do NOT have any teeth.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
daily scribble
Here is a quick study of Michaelangelo as Heraclitus in Raphael's School of Athens. I am studying this painting piece by piece.
adirondack photo
Here is a photo I took in the Adirondacks. No photoshop was used, it is a reflection of trees in still water.
Barter Frog
http://www.xinghosting.com/dannyho/barterfrog/index.html
Hi, Alex...
You're right on the money, the crop circles are NOT made by two old guys with sticks....or two (or more) young guys with sticks. In fact, not by anybody with sticks...or boards....or planks. In the real phenomenon the plants are NOT mechanically flattened.
The scientific evidence derived from the examination of crop circle plants (and soils) points to the involvement of (at the very least) various electromagnetic energies, some of which are exhibited by rotating plasma systems. For more info you should check out this research (3 peer-reviewed published papers and a great deal of other material) on the BLT Research Team's web-site.
Nancy Talbott
BLT Research Team Inc.
www.bltresearch.com
Gardega started his dream in August and there are some "rough sketches" on his blog: " I am painting a 4' by 8' replica of Da Vinci's last supper but I will be replacing the disciples with news anchors. Please note this is not meant to be ironic nor is it in any way meant to be anti-christian! I am very interested in religious art and the renaissance in general. To me there has never been art that even comes close to what was painted 500 years ago by my long-dead heroes. Modern/ contemporary feels empty and meaningless compared to the works left behind by Raphael and Da Vinci. I cannot help but think that the over-saturation of media (photography included) has rendered painting impotent and taken away from the magic it once held for people."
