Put it in your pocket, save it for a rainy day

Anti-Obama madness over at the McLaughlin Group is reaching a fever pitch as the election nears. Last Friday's episode represents a culmination of terror which Obama has been inspiring, for the past two years, among the more paranoid conservatives. Three of the show's most regular members have close ties to Richard Nixon: John McLaughlin, Pat Buchannan, Monica Crowley.

So really it is the go to place to find out what Nixon would think about present day politics. And as bearers of his legacy, they are driven by the fear that someone will out Nixon Nixon. Obama's speech on Race, which nullified the Reverend Wright issue, was as good as Nixon's Checkers Speech, which nullified the slime issue, for a few years anyway.

Robert MacNeil wrote in his memoir that Richard Nixon had a sort of charisma in color television that was lacking in black and white. With the Checkers speech it was a charisma which was conveyed by his voice. The radio helped humanized him, while black and white television, while providing more information, lowered his charisma. Obama has the political gifts of Nixon, and the comfort with each present and emerging technology which presents him to the public with his charisma intact. As Richard Nixon's head in a jar says on Futurama, "Nixon with charisma? My God, I could rule the universe!"

So you can appreciate this mad episode of McLaughlin Group now. OR put it on your pocket, save it for a rainy day sometime after November 4th. I have a feeling it will seem even funnier then.

Rainy Day Laughs with the McLaughlin Group

We are all retards now

I just want to jot down a few things that have been running through my head lately. I have yet to play Will Wright's new game, Spore, but from what I've read my worst fears were realized. Will Wright was the genius behind Sim City 2000. In Sim City 2000 the player was given a dynamic world to interact with; a set of rules to try to learn and understand which were not presented upfront.

In that way it reminded me of Legos. Legos and Sim City 2000 were my two favorite toys growing up. Both had rules which one had to learn by doing. The tricks to building a healthy city or a stable building were not in a book, but in the experience. When I heard about Spore, like many people, I was excited. Video game press releases have a tendency to inspire people to dream. What if this is the game that does everything I ever wanted a game to do? I had just hoped that Spore would be more like Sim City 2000 than the Sims.

From the reviews, even without all the DRM drama, Spore failed this test. Like Legos, Wright's newest project is dumbed down. The choices you make do not participate in a complex set of virtual reality math. Aparrently, the difference between a creature created with two legs or ten is not registered by the computer's calculations. Like with the Harry Potter or Star Wars Legos, with half as many pieces per set as there were when I was growing up, this product presents a dumbed down shiny toy to children it assumes are dumb already.

I learned more from the smart toys I had growing up, than I ever did at school. But as important as I think education is (I never cut funding to my schools in my Sim Cities, even when the police were operating at 20%) I also recongnize that maintaining a healthy economy is equally important. The buisiness math of Sim City was fairly simple and libertarian. Lower taxes, boost business.

But now we have an economy that no one can understand. Secretary Paulson says he needs a trillion dollars to keep the confidence going and save the credit market. Credit comes from the latin word 'credere,' to believe. And right now no one can or should believe these people who have no idea how the toy they built works.

So now it's time for the computers to take over. This article was published in the New York Times today, and it sounds just right to me. It basically says that instead of using laws of thinking to determine what the markets will do we should use computer forcasts; with complex models of little indepent agents jumping up and down and doing what they do in real life. Those outside of the legitmate sciences keep proving we are as much robots as the cockroach; more complex maybe, but not less predictable. So let's start predicting. Let's start writing fate down before it happens. Not for you and me, but for us.

Will Wright should have spent less on animation and more on creating really complex algorithms that were representational, if not of real life, then of a realistic life children could learn from. I'm sick of hearing from people on the news who don't have a fucking clue as to what's going on, besides knowing that something is going on and for some reason believing someone else does get it. I don't get it and I don't think these people do. If they could show me a bunch of SimBrokers jumping around and reacting and give me a forcast as complex as the ones which say we are environmentally fucked, then I would probably believe them.

But I don't think there is anyone left to make a learning toy as smart as Sim City 2000. Like how we can't make it back to the Moon, this knowledge is lost. We are all retards now. Be honest, you just skimmed this didn't you? Not that I can really argue that it's worth your time, but a good book is, how long has it been since you have read a book?

Foolish Men of Science

Scientist have exposed this innocent creature to cosmic radiation. Am I the only one who has read the Fantastic Four? It's great that this little Tardigrada can survive a bombardment of cosmic rays in the vacuum of space, but I'm adding this to the list of things scientist shouldn't have done. It's always safest to assume fantastical horror until proven otherwise.

Historian Gray Click Here!

I don't know if you know this, but the Internet watches back. The successes of Anonymous are not your successes. Facebook users take note, not only is it near impossible to delete your account, but Facebook employees follow your clicking for fun. Even if you are unknown, you are not un-noted. This site uses Google Analytics to become analytically involved with our readership. (The average time on site is 10 minutes for an US reader, while not even a minute for a UK reader. How we can compete with Beat That Quote?)
As of now, we can take comfort, the eyes that stare back at us rarely focus in. You may be filmed as you neck in Central Park, but odds are no one will look at the tape unless a Terror strikes nearby. You may post a wacky comment on your Facebook crush after visiting their profile for the 50th time today, and while Facebook employees could giggle at this, they probably won't. But what about the historians.

I don't really sweat our blog's hits and stats. I post for my friends and family, as a personal record, and for my true love; the historian I sometimes imagine wafting through the gases of my web life. He is the hidden figure in the "generation me" equation --a name by the way which must go and is completely inadequate in describing the natural self-indulgence children born today will posses. But the web denizens of today and tomorrow will continue to dream of being noticed after they are dead, in some sort of 7-up induced fantasy.

But what will remain, and will anyone care? First, what will remain: from my experience, not a lot. This blog will be a collection of broken links and words that were arranged just to make room for the links in the first place. Will that dance with the mildest of restrictions be one day noticed as art? Does it satisfy Alan Moore's criteria of structure? Probably not. But if not as art, then as comforting history? Who knows? I've been online long enough to know that things don't last out here, at least not how you intended. But that doesn't mean no one will care.

To be honest, I'm not ready to say if my Historian of Tomorrow will ever find me. That's a prediction I'm not ready to make. But surely there are smaller things I can try my hand at. The futurists at the Long Now have been doing this for awhile. Kevin Kelly has a daring prediction on Long Bets that I'm not willing to disagree with:
“By 2060 the total population of humans on earth will be less than it is today.”
If you take into account what Stewart Brand says, it's hard to disagree.

But here's a prediction I've had kicking around in a notebook for awhile. But I'll put it into play now,

PREDICTION:
Within five years I will be able to buy a Killer Robot Nixon from the Futurama episode, A Head in the Polls.

WHY:
Eventually anything you want, will be available anyway you want it. As culture continues it's march into the physical world, expect more dolls, replicas, and garments from your favorite obscure tv show/movie/book/comic/blog post.