Link Splatter!
Here’s the best of what’s accumulated in my browser over the last few days. It’s been a powerful week for links!
If you’re like me, overt expressions of authority make you ill. Authority itself is pre-committed to an idea that human beings are separate, that one can be hurt without hurting the others, and that it’s somehow efficacious or correct to mistreat people for some imaginary greater good — all ideas that I have deep and abiding problems with. But how do you define "authority"? How do you–we–know it when we see it? What is it that unites the authority of a schoolroom with the authority of a prison camp? …Well, if you like those questions even half as much as I do, you’re going to love this…a fantastic photographer named Richard Ross has published a book called "The Architecture of Authority", a collection of photos of very diverse places, all steeped in man’s authority over hir fellow man. You can look at them all online (yay!). I found it completely fascinating to stare at them and try to see what made them all pictures of authority, what details were important. Plus, they’re incredibly well-composed; the one of two phones and a clock almost took my breath away. Nice work, man!
Next up in the Awesome List today is this Weezer video. Weezer might not be "your style" of music (they’re not mine), but you can’t ignore how awesomely fun and creative these guys are. Plus, every time I think they might be heading for obscurity, they do something else weird and wonderful — and the video for "Pork and Beans" is no exception. If you’ve ever watched anything on YouTube or had any appreciation for weird Internet memes, you’re going to freak out. And yes, that’s Coke and Mentos in those bottles. WIN!
This is just one of my favorite pictures…for no reason…just ‘cuz I’m in a good mood! FYI, it’s supposed to be one of the pictures that proves the existence of dark matter. ooOOOoo. ;)
Also, I don’t know how I feel about steampunk design — I prefer minimalist stuff myself — but I have to admit, it’s really fun to look at, even if one would never actually want to live around it. These steampunk lamps are really impressively well done!
Good Magazine (which is a really good magazine; when I can afford it I’m totally subscribing) has a really cool article this week about houseplants: What kinds to get, and where to put them, to counteract common indoor pollutants. Now that’s good info. Good job, Good Magazine. Heh.
And the ever-awesome BoingBoing (which is also responsible for some of the other Awesome Links today) has its own mind-warpingly good article that I found recently: Things we could have spent the Iraq money on. Hey, I talked myself into quitting smoking by reminding myself what else I could have spent the money on. Maybe enough of these articles will talk certain people into quitting warmongering, or at least quitting their mindless support of it. Do check out this quote from the article, though:
"Either way, the direct costs of the Iraq war exceed the maximum cost estimate for a manned Mars expedition, infrastructure and all, by 20%. If we take $20Bn as the cost per mission and $450Bn as the cost to develop the technology to go there, the direct cost of the Iraq war would be sufficient to develop a gold-plated Mars expeditionary capability and send six crews of astronauts to Mars (and bring them back afterwards).
Going by Stiglitz’s indirect estimates, the picture is even more ludicrous; for $3Tn, assuming a crew of four per expedition, $20Bn per flight, and a basic $450 start-up price, you could send 510 astronauts to Mars. That’s not a Mars exploration program, that’s a battalion! It’s a small colony!"
YIKES.
Next up, this one made my afternoon yesterday: The 6 Most Frequently Quoted Bullshit Statistics. That’s right, things you’ve probably heard half your life, which are complete BS. Sometimes "facts" start spreading, and build up their own steam based on how many people have "heard that before", and wham, before you know it, you have information like this — a list full of things that you probably thought at least some of were true. Funny, plus a real eye-opener!
And lastly for now, let’s not ignore the oilpocalypse for too long…Dvorak Uncensored, a blog that I read but only rarely, not because its articles are bad, but because the commenters tend to be about 66% Frakking Moron, has a good roundup-slash-article regarding a fact that I think can’t be discussed or understood well enough: The fact that high oil prices are NOT an issue of supply and demand, but rather caused entirely by market speculation. (That’s right, the same thing that’s responsible for the mortgage / housing crisis is responsible for oil prices being out of control. Think we’ll ever learn that maybe some things just shouldn’t be securitized and put on the market for the rich to get richer on??) I’m even forgiving the grammatical error in the title of this piece to link to it, mostly because I think it’s more useful to see a piece like this than one that’s "just" from the NY Times, the Post, or any of the other slew of major publications that have covered this issue. (For one thing, their coverage doesn’t seem to be penetrating the public consciousness very well; people still tell me regularly that if there were more oil/refineries/whatever, the price would go down. To which I say nooooo, the price will come crashing down when the bubble bursts, just like it did with real estate. Of course, the oil companies will make sure that consumers never see those lower prices (why would they?), but a stock-market bubble is a stock-market bubble.) Also, in this case, it’s kind of useful to read the 66% Certified Idiot comments, just to get an idea what we’re dealing with here when it comes to making real change in energy policy.
Okay, okay, that’s quite enough now…hope you enjoy some of those and have a lovely, er, Wednesday.
Mmm, Wednesday.