PALIN = BAMPOT

Link0rz

Wayne Coyne's new double-neck

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1873859536/bctid1879686500

Flaming Lips Film + Soundtrack

11th Nov. FUCKING YAAAAASSSSSSSSS!!!!!! "A Fantastical Film Freakout," cannae wait. To celebrate, some old(ish) school Lips.

DAMMIT!

Missed this tonight.....would've been an awesome avant-garde fest. Stupit noises, Lorenzo loves it! Sigh. There is this on Halloween though:

with a self-professed "Halloween supergroup." I'm always amazed, and pleased, at the amount of "experimental" musical events going on in Glasgow. Makes me happy.

I ended up just spending the day cock sailing

Michael Bay's totally legit, not made up, all 100% BAY twitter.

Just shut your eyes and imagine your under a tree, by a river bank, meditating. And sitting with you, full lotus, with a halo of light around his perfect hair, is Master Bay.
He utters tranquil mantras to help you on your journey thro life...

"Here's a tip: its not about yelling harder. Its about yelling smarter..."

Mercury Rev

have had a new album out for the last month, called Snowflake Midnight. I've been listening for the last few weeks. You must obtain. Crank it or headphone it! It is easily the best album released so far this year.....and maybe ever. Every time it finishes I can't put on another album because nothing I can think of can hold up to it. Seriously. Everything's just a big disappointment now. It's also very different from what they used to do. So I only have a meager 9 perfect songs! I want more!

Jailed for computer character murder

Is this the first step towards arresting Halo players as the biggest serial killers in history? You decide.

Autumn Reeser

soon to be from Command and Conquer Red Alert 3...


I had no reason to post these... just felt 'the urge' to post. Must be a seasonal thing.

(hmmmm they seem to be HUGE... but never mind still clickable and lookable and huggable)

why Superman Sucks

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Some parenting advice from Alan Moore

Oh, and....

Watchmen was test sceened last week, and from all reviews put on the web, the ending has been changed.....to something rather pish in my opinion. You can find out here, or just do a google search for many more reports of the same thing. Slightly alternate version here, but much the same consequence. Looks like some people have confused the rumour, since all reviews were removed almost immediately so only a few people actually read them to remember them. However, they are very similar, with exactly the same result. Don't want to spoil it in case any of you chumps dont want it spoiled, but it completely changes the meaning of the narrative, for me anyways. And it is also a stupidly obvious thing to do within the context of the story and one of it's many themes. In a bad way. Very American. Looks like they're removing all subtelty and layering and just smashing it on the head with a sledgehammer. Disappointing. I try not to play a fanboy blinded by love of source material, but I really can't help it in this case. Think I'll be burning down a cinema early next year....unless the ending shown or the reviews are faked by the director Snyder, which is a theory going round. I had heard the ending was completely faithful. But Kevin Smith has been shown the film, and said it was different. He might have been lying or shown a fake one too, thus setting up an awesome conspiracy within a conspiracy. Unlikely, says I. NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Well, I'm not that crushed, I thought it would suck ass any way.

I Kissed a Girl

More Watchmen

From American TV I think. It's got all stuff from the first trailer but some more added in.

Not allowed to embed, so go here.

Bad Sooperhero films? Remember....

THIS??!! I had completely forgotten about it for the last few months....I now have that terrible "Satan lives among us" feeling again now that I remember it. NO! I WAS HAPPIER BEFORE I KNEW!!!

BEHOLD! HASSELHOFF AS NICK FURY AGENT OF SHIELD!!!



And, dear lord, Batman and Robin is a masterpiece after remembering this. James and I subjected ourselves to it back in the day. And now, I subject a portion of it on you.

BEHOLD! MADE FOR TV JLA!!!!

ROFLCOPTER

Speaking of consumables....

Bioshock 2 trailer on the PS3 version of Bioshock 1.


...buy...buy...must buy....

Fuck the Police

From the Wire season 1,
Bunk and McNulty solve an old crime scene almost completely in silence. Almost.


the Wire is proving to be the awesomest of Cop shows. You must download. you must watch.

Easy to ignore till it comes Knocking on your Door

It's with some delight that I see we're hitting the streets to take this shit to Shity City Shity Hall!

And it's with some grim creases in my forehead that i read Lorenzo's New Scientist article where Current Economy = no more world (of course i mean to say xbox) cause it's scary jazz.

And Brido continues my burden by reminding me that modern science is just as ruled by profit as any market or company.

ye all gone and bummed me out! Way i see it, doesn't matter what economy we have or how we govern it, people are greedy motherfuckers and short sighted ones at that. Any rioting is because its affecting our wallets now and as soon as we get our comfort back it'll be back mortgages, credit cards, and sweet, sweet consumables!

Give a large enough proportion of the populace enough comfort and gizmos with enough dough left to hand over for water and gas and bullshit they shouldn't even be paying for and they'll shut up and watch TV. It's depressing that this is a cliché, it means we all know it, even get bored hearing it, but don't do jack shit about it.

Till we break our addiction to stuff, it'll be right back round again.

And I fucking LOVE stuff!

Weren't we supposed to be aiming for that Star Trek future a young impressionable Adam was told about?!?
You lied to me Picard.


(I was really disappointed, i thought i'd found a cover of this by Avril Lavigne of all people, and I was totally gonna get Avril to tell it like it is! damn.)

Lorenzo...

You're just trying to take over the world. I'm on to you...

But aye, i'm in. I'm up for fucking shit up. We should fucking start a riot. A riot.

Brido...

I didn't mean to imply that I think that scientists should rule the world....sorry. Just thought the articles raised some pretty good points. However, the figures and stuff quoted aren't from an experiment but based on current values of consumption, and some relatively simple number crunching gives the inputs and outputs required if we grow economically. So it's actually really simple(for their peers) to check those figures and verify them. Every respected article is "peer-reviewed," which whilst not removing fraud of basic results and data, which as you mentioned does happen more often than you would expect in respected publications, pretty much keeps anyone drawing stupid or erroneous conclusions from whatever data has been collected. Since the data used in the articles I referenced is actually taken from freely available stock values and the like which are used daily to calculate banks income etc, it's highly unlikely it's falsified. The conclusions and figures are then derived, which you or I, if our maths is up to scratch, should be able to look at. Economists use the same basic data every day. And the figures of consumption due to market growth in the near future are very, very scary indeed. However a world run by scientists is also a scary prospect. And I totally agree with everything you said, I've had some 2nd hand experience through my supervisor of the work done in scientific research and the amount of absolute fannies he has to deal with somehow. Everyone has a political agenda, and some stuff that is pulled is actually quite sickening in the world of highly expensive physics that I work in, because the stakes are higher. Some people already predict a violent revolution that'll take place as more and more people become aware of just how much the government and finance system needs to change to sustain everything. I'm game. You?

one more thing...

Heroes is fucking stupid! Perhaps even more stupid than Lost, which is saying something. Fuck the 3rd Series is pissing me off!

Lets not go crazy...

Lets not go and advocate that Scientists should lead the world. Scientific thinking is all well and good, but not all Scientists strictly follow this. They are not free from Bias. Huge pressure for results from their financiers, or for prestige for themselves and their organisations (think tanks, Universities ect) means that Science is by far no means free from fraud.

Remember Hwang Woo Suk? The Korean Scientist who claimed to have cloned a human embryo and successfully extracted stem cells? The journal Science, one of the most esteemed out there, published the two fraudulent papers out into the public domain. Donald Kennedy, Science editor-in-chief at the time, says "Scientific fraud is not new and is not rare, luckily it's not common either." in regards to the incident.

Linda Miller, the US executive editor of Nature, even says "If the fraud is clever enough, it is likely that referees and editors will not notice it," The sourced article is particularly noteworthy as it shows how unpoliced many journals are in regards to fraud. This raises the question of how much fraud goes undiscovered?

Other cases of Fraud include Jan Hendrik Schön, who worked with Carbon Based Semi-Conductors (article also mentioning the fradulent discovery of elements 116 and 118 at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). Also this is Lorenzo's own field of Science, thought to be the most secure in terms of scientific fraud, unlike that whore of a science Biology, where trying to falsify research isn't such an easy task.

While looking for an article on Robert Slutsky, another scientist found to have fabricated data, I sound these two articles. The first is a summary of a paper stating in its conclusion that "Scientists do not, and probably cannot, identify published articles that are fraudulent." I also found this, which seems to be a course named Responsible Conduct of Research, which looks an excellent read. It cites more examples of scientific fraud.

Now sure, the very idea of scientific method involves independent experiments to replicate findings. Sounds great, but in the case of the LHC, who had another one to try and falsify its findings? When scientific experimentation runs into the millions, and often billions, then it becomes impossible to independently check results. You have to take the data presented at face value, which as we have seen above, can lead to problems. Can you imagine the LHC finding absolutely nothing? While no results would still further human understanding, the outcry would be massive. The pressure these guys must be under to get results must be staggering. However, being wrong is fundamental to science. You publish a theory, and someone improves upon it, or even eventually proves you wrong. It is an important stepping stone, but who wants to be the guy to be improved upon, or even worse, shown to be wrong? With such financial and career pressure, I don't think most want to be that guy or girl.

Shafto, Adam and I had a very interesting chat with UKHotDave regarding this in medical science. He was saying that the vast majority is funding and research is made into slightly improving and modifying current medicines. The reason for this is the patent of medicine is 7 years (I believe he said, perhaps Adam or Shafto can correct me), so if it is modified slightly then they can renew the patent on the medicine. The other reason, as I mentioned above, that looking for the next big miracle cure is expensive, takes many many years of research and usually yields absolutely nothing. It isn't seen as cost effective, lots of money is used up in a big gamble. To me this is the essence of science, but in you results dependent world this isn't satisfactory. Dave went as far as to say that all the big medical breakthroughs have happened. The ideal and the reality is very different.

That's what I am essentially talking about. We have an ideal about the scientific method, and how it can lead us to a new and beautiful future, but in reality it isn't the case. Bear in mind, much of science is speculative, just like economics. Lorenzo, you said here that the LHC exists to find dark matter, that thing that has speculated on that has been made up by scientists to make current theory work. Just think of all the science that is speculative. I don't think speculation is bad, it is just predicting an outcome based on past trends and current knowledge. Wasn't Darwins Theory of Evolution through Natural Selection speculative in his time? We now have much more evidence that supports it.

Economists are no more fallible than Scientists. What we need is a public of critical thinkers to keep all these so called 'experts' in check. We need to take the power back! Who wants to join me?!

Who's responsible? You fucking are.

I've been away 3 weeks....and you idiots actually bailed out the banks?!

Here's some articles about why the economy must be drastically revised. Not written by filthy stupid economists, but by scientists who look at evidence and data and come up with reasonable conclusions.

Required reading

The free articles are labelled as such at the bottom. I've got the printed issue if anyone wants to read the "not-free" articles(hypocrite capiltalist swines!). I can mention interesting not-free parts here:-

1. If an economist tells you that growth is essential to lift the poor from poverty(always their last line of defence), he is a fanny, and by any reasonable assessment is claiming the impossible. In today's financial system, for the poor to gain a tiny bit of wealth, the rich have to get much, much more richer, and increase all consumption to ridiculous levels. Some simple number crunching shows that to get the poorest onto just 3 dollars a day, we need 15 PLANETS WORTH of biocapacity. We need a new model, clearly.

2. Former senior economist of the World Bank Herman Daly explains that growth must be kept in sustainable limits, but all economists assume the Earth is an infinite well of resources. The Commission on Growth and Health earlier this year reported on 13 developing countries, including Brazil, China, Japan, etc, and suggests the entire world should follow their example of growth over the last 25 years. A global economy would be 5 times the size it is today in 25 years at this rate of growth. This is not sustainable by our planet.

3. One particularly awesome article is a report written from the point of view of a reporter 10 years in the future, in an alternate reality where we transform into a "steady-state" economy to save ourselves. It is intensely scary how different everything would be. It's a world run by scientists, who set rules for consumption and emission. Then economists work out how to achieve those limits. There's no income tax, but all resources are taxed at the point of removal from the biosphere. This increases prices encouraging their spare usage. The tax system is easy to enforce, and almost impossible to dodge(coincidentally, governments lose about 250 billion dollars a year in tax from rich cunts storing money in tax-havens). No fancy mobiles, or next generation wii's or xboxes i'm afraid. Things are buit to last, not to be replaced in 6 months - 6 years. Births are monitored and restricted. Everyone works part-time as a co-owner of a business rather than an employee. Incomes are lower, and we have much more time. It's also regressive: the poorer pay a higher proportion of their wage than the rich do to live. This is offset by benefits programmes from the awesome taxes we're collecting. It's interesting stuff, and illustrates a system which is not a socialist state nor the ultra-capitalist regime we have just now. It's still capitalism, but a relaxed kind.

4. The articles don't focus on the argument about whether global warming is caused by us, because at this stage it's a moot point, quite frankly. It's about the fundamental concept that an economic growth is sustained by inputs and outputs that banks refuse or are too scared to accept exist.

The article that Adam linked to below by an economist was one of the more hilarious rebukes of consumption by an economy I've read, the guy is completely deluded! I quote: " These myths were injected into the mainstream mainly by Keynesian economists or demand-siders who were trying to influence public policy." Hmmmm. Ecological Keynesianism is actually one of the few solutions to the problem of consumption, you fucking moron. And it is sustainable ecologically and economically. Far from hampering the economy, it was what lifted America out of the Depression during wartime thanks to creation of shite-loads of opportunities that weren't available before-hand and rationing of all food and oil.

His "Dependance on foreign oil" myth-busting misses point entirely. In fact, all his "myth-busting" seems to miss the point. Every argument he makes, in fact, the only argument, is that it is due to the control of central banks that everything went down the shitter. This is a complete and utter avoidance of the problem. It goes without saying that if the markets ran free there would be awesome unlimited growth. This has been proven many times mathematically. Awesome unlimited growth, however, is the problem, and it's only by a few smart individuals within the World Bank's efforts that there's still any constraints at all upon the trading system. The markets MUST be controlled and restrained to a much greater degree than they are at the moment to avoid running out of resources.

I haven't blamed the recent economic crisis on various different factors that I've been hearing in the news and on the street. It's speculation and rumour, all of it. The simple fact is, economists' maths failed them miserably after years of "innovation," and we've bailed them out like the capitalist pigs we are. They're all laughing, bet your dick on it. And they'll go on investing money that doesn't exist yet until one of two things happen: our planet collapses or the market dies due to lack of resources. Both will probably happen simultaneously

We are observing the first worldwide civilization dying under it's own weight, gentlemen. Nero fiddled while Rome burned: that is to say, there's not much we can do but point and laugh. I'm off to listen to some Manics: JOIN ME NOW!!!

RIP Levi Stubbs

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull review

No Retreat, No Surrender! EVER!

'JCVD' Theatrical Trailer @ Yahoo! Video

This. looks. awesome.

pishy phone

Text messaging has fucked up on my phone, so don't expect a reply at the moment if you send me one as I am unable. We just have to chuff it out during these hard times.

Cheese it.

Had Enough of Religious Bullshit?

H.E.R.B.

And after our economic discussions the other night I stumbled across this,
some economic myth busting... apparently.

Little Big Planet

I know nothing really about little big planet, but apparently it's a pretty versatile level creator, which does actually look like a lot of fun.

Here's a working calulator some guy made

When it pans up to show the mechanics involved... it's amazing.
Acording to kotaku it has 10 magnetic swtiches, 500 wires, and 430 pistons.

More Batman! Saving you pennies and getting you Lego mini figures!

Game are doing the best Lego Batman Preorder, for 29.99 you get the game AND a lego minifig keychain...! happy times!!!

I totally HotUKDaved this. make me HOT!

And i've totally found a site that tells you how to make your own lego customs, and it appears pretty straight forward. Happy times indeed!

Win Amp went to the man

... like 9 years ago!


Just noticed a wee 'AOL' under the Winamp on my player and those three wee letters knocked me for six.

So just in case you use WA and don't wan to use AOL, here's 10 alts
...ones itunes but that leaves 9 others!
Oh and I hear Sonique got bought by Lycos.

has anyone actually ever watched Batman and Robin?

Cause I watched this video and I don't remember like 85%... thankfully.

10 mins of the worst bit from Batman and Robin
It's like some sort've horrible experiment where they took Adam West's Batman and locked it in a room to seduce Tim Burton's batman and this is the disfigured love child they created. With coloured lighting effects.

If you watch all 10 mins I'll you get a chocolate batarang!

More worth watching is this

not that I think it isn't dodgy, but still interesting.

Xbox LIVE Gold - for Al and Brido

£25.99 for 13 months of Xbox LIVE is really not a bad bargain. Get it here.

My brother and I bought from this guy (Ryan0rz a week ago), and he emails you the code so you're up and running superfast.

Let's get some Team Fortress on the go. Let's get ready for Fable 2, and Gears of War 2. Let's Stay Together.

Orange Box - £11.99

On Play.com, The Orange Box is a cool £11.99.

Well worth it for 2 of my favourite games - Half Life 2 and Portal. On top of that, Episode 1, and 2, and the awesome Team Fortress 2.

I figure if we all get a copy we can get tore into some quality games of TF2!

David Finchers next movie

With Brad Pitt, about a guy aging backwards.