I Want This!

Some Christmas, some day, I’ll get this hand-powered table saw.

William Eggleston at LACMA

Just found out about this: William Eggleston: Democratic Camera—Photographs and Video, 1961–2008

Definitely on my list for December.

A Perfect TSA Interview

If only this interview could have actually happend.

Q&A with TSA Chairman John Pistole

Which brings me to this question: If you hired a security guard to watch your house, and 10 years later your neighbors said, “Hey, several times now dudes have tried to steal your shit, but we came over and stopped them each time after your security guy let them through,” would you continue to employ him? Especially if every time you tried to enter your house, he grabbed your nuts and took naked pictures of your wife?

Great Interview with Tom Nozkowski

THOMAS NOZKOWSKI with John Yau

“One of the nice things about grounding works in the real world is that you don’t need a position—you have a place. Willful eccentricity can be a real problem. It’s not a high art crime, but certainly a misdemeanor—tiring stuff.”

More than I Can Process, at the Moment Anyway

new developments in AI

AI does teach us about intelligence. It teaches us that “intelligence” is a motley assortment of heuristics, kludges, and cheap tricks. The danger with AI is not that machines will become smarter than us, but that we will become as dumb as machines. The absurdly prescient William S. Burroughs was wise to this fifty years ago. “The study of thinking machines teaches us more about the brain than we can learn by introspective methods,” pronounces Dr. Benway, in 1959’s Naked Lunch. “Western man is externalizing himself in the form of gadgets.”

It’s going to take a handful of reads to really wrap my head around it, but the first has proven entirely enthralling.

Temptation

Temptation- Tom Waits

A snowy trip to Buffalo somewhere in the mid 90’s, driving a black, VW Fox. I did a 360° just before the exit to Robin’s place. Hit some ‘black ice’ and regained control like nothing happened. We watched a preschool production of The Wizard of Oz that was most likely the first play I’d ever seen. It was excellent. Waited in her dad’s white S-10 with this tape playing while she got the tickets. The snow was coming down and the passenger-side view of the early to mid-century school building was beautiful.

Shanking Infants

“Still delirious the next morning, I woke up and immediately decided that I needed juice more than anything in the world. I would have shanked an infant for juice.”

Texas – Hyperbole and a Half

Video Fixation

I have to admit, I’m a little fixated on these 2 videos (nsfw):

Die Antwoord – Zef Side

Die Antwoord – Enter The Ninja

Her voice, sexuality and haircut are totally at odds and make for a somewhat scary tension (especially in the second video). His low brow rap name (Ninja), Pink Floyd shorts and homemade tattoos belie the controlled, high production values of the video.

No idea what’s up with the dj. In the first video he’s seems as if he’s slow and has no idea what the hell’s going on. In the second, he’s portrayed by “progeria sufferer Leon Botha, a prominent Cape Town artist” [which wikipedia told me].

Anyway, fixated.

They’re somewhere between performance and spectacle. They’ve manufactured a very seamless persona and created other, totally opposite personas as well, like MaxNormal.tv. This interview shows a bit more of the difference.

I first heard of them via BoingBoing. Give ’em a watch.

Yeeeesssssss!

Elizabeth was just accepted to UCLA! If you know her (she’s my girlfriend) make sure to congratulate her.

David Mamet’s Memo

Sound advice from David Mamet to the writers of The Unit:

I CLOSE WITH THE ONE THOUGHT: LOOK AT THE SCENE AND ASK YOURSELF “IS IT DRAMATIC? IS IT ESSENTIAL? DOES IT ADVANCE THE PLOT?

via DF