Sometimes Life is Sweet

Deer tongue
Originally uploaded by Oranguthingy.

I go on a little walk every day at 3pm, it's one of the perks of where I work right now. I've seen deer now and then, but never this close, and I just happened to have brought my camera. This guy/gal was about ten feet away. Just beautiful.

Pain Ray

Here's something you may have heard of, but now Raytheon has been awarded a contract to make one for field use. I would say it's easily preferable to a gun, because it causes no physical damage. It's a ray (a specific frequency of radio wave) that penetrates only the barest outer layer of your skin, but causes intolerable pain. You can think of it as a microwave gun that doesn't actually burn you, it just feels like it's burning you.

Massive potential for abuse, of course. It would be a shame (and a crime) if it was used to disperse peaceful protests, but it's probably a safe alternative to rubber bullets for when protests turn violent. It will be interesting to see how this changes things both on the battlefield and off. There's always the Spy vs. Spy issue as well; there is very likely a material that you can wear that would render this particular technology useless.

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Kung Fu Monkey: His Kung Fu is Very Strong Indeed

Couple of killer posts on KFM regarding what the US liberals (progressives?) need to do to stop sucking so much. Start by scrolling down to the "Learn to say 'ain't'" post, then go from there.

This guy is plenty entertaining and clever (if not outright smart). Former stand-up comic and currently a writer of some kind. Don't ask me for specifics, I'm barely conscious.

Sometimes I think I pay too much attention to US politics, but then I think of what Pierre had to say:

"Living next to you," Trudeau told an American audience in a speech to the National Press Club in 1969, "is like sleeping with an elephant; no matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt."

Nuff said.

trippy puppy

trippy puppy
Originally uploaded by Oranguthingy.

Snapped this at Conroy Pit, aka Disneyland For Dogs. This guy was a MONSTER. Stripes like a tiger and a growl like something out of ancient legend. He ate my friend in one bite, it was horrible. Picture turned out well, though.

This Government Sucks, Let's Make a New One

I started by examining the potential of wikis to create, either from scratch or through modification of an existing sytem, a system of government. Over the weekend it struck me that wikis (or a system similar to Slashdot) might be a good way to come up with a government that was truly created by the people, voting on the system as it's being created and suggesting changes that are immediately peer-reviewed by everyone. I imagined a clear path would naturally emerge that would please most of the people most of the time. This kind of contradicts my generally held opinion that the problem with democracies can all be traced back to the voters. Please note that I've never, ever, taken a poli-sci course, so if it seems like I'm shockingly ignorant, it's because I am.

So I'm poking around in wiki-land, getting a feel for the place, and I come across Active Listening. It's an approach to conversations that encourages truly devoting yourself to listening to what your partner/opponent/whatever is saying. That may seem silly (of *course* you're listening to what people say), but people choose to listen in very different ways. And so but anyway, this led me to this article on Dialogic Listening, which in my opinion improves on the Active Listening idea. The conversation is seen as a cooperative effort.

Just thought it made for some interesting reading. YMMV. =)



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