Author: nogre

the internet in a destroyed economy

Animal of the Month: Fire Ant! [2:53] A flood hits a fire ant colony in the Amazon jungle. An amazing chance to see footage on how the species has adapted to water to protect their queen. Hints of Comeback for Nation’s First Superhighway – NYTimes.com After decades of decline, commercial shipping has returned to the Erie Canal as high fuel prices have made barges an attractive alternative to trucks. PingMag MAKE – Learning From a […]

K*nt F*cker

I was at a bar on Friday.  One of my friends says, “Hey Noah, there’s another philosopher here, come talk.”  So I go and chat. She wrote a MA thesis on Levinas.  But somehow we got to ethics.  I started making fun of virtue ethics, which she believed in.  Something about me saying she had tomatoes being cultivated in her head got her riled up.  Since I had said I was unimpressed with Singer earlier, […]

One way

I took a sculpture class as an undergrad (somehow I fit it in between the 18 philosophy courses, not counting the 3 I sat in on and never missed a day). My professor said that one of his contemporaries had bragged that he had found five ways to represent drapery.  This is no mean task, and my professor said he hadn’t a clue about how to go about representing drapery, let alone know five ways.  […]

hyperlinks are stupid

Animal of the Month: Fighting Bugs! (3:12) [via digg] . Runner-Up: Pseudo-animals – The Village Petstore and Charcoal Grill See videos of not-quite animals! USA (2:55) via cursivebuildings MUST WATCH The National Anthem, 1983. Unbelievably good rendition. YouTube – The Manchurian Candidate (1:26) Modern presidential politics. Dispatches from the Culture Wars: Candidate Comedy “For those who haven’t seen the footage, McCain and Obama  appeared last night at a charity dinner in New York to roast […]

The Deal with ‘Deal or No Deal’

I just saw the hit game show ‘Deal or No Deal‘.  It wasn’t the first time, but this episode had a contestant with folksiness to rival Palin, so I was entertained and kept watching. But is there any gamesmanship to the ‘Deal or No Deal’ gameshow?  The short answer is: No. The show begins with the contestant choosing a briefcase that contains a number that represents a real monetary amount.  The case is chosen from […]

Help GroundReport!

Online advertising budgets have been slashed due to the economic meltdown.  Although this doesn’t affect loonies like myself, there are others who actually make websites for the common good.  One of these sites was started by someone I went to highschool with, Rachel Sterne, and her site, GroundReport, is dedicated to democritizing news by splitting the ad revenue with the individuals who post to the website (and anyone can post- this means you!). I can […]

something about time

There is something about time that I can’t seem to stop thinking about. We measure time by agreeing upon an event and then counting from that point onward.  Today is October 17, 2008 AD.  It is this AD that keeps my attention.  It has been 2008 years, ten months and seventeen days since the birth of Jesus of Nazareth: AD stands for Anno Domini, or year of our lord.  Those not wanting to be explicitly […]

Blog Action Day 08: Poverty

Poverty anywhere is a threat to life everywhere. This is a contribution to Blog Action Day 2008: When someone is living in poverty he or she is struggling to sustain the basic requirements for life.  This means that this person has no opportunity to change his or her life because all of his or her effort is dedicated to satisfying those basic needs. Hence a person living in poverty is cornered; death is the only […]

stupid month of september

animal of the month: Ninja Kitteh! [1:13] This seriously reduced me to giggles for a full minute or two… though the elephant made a strong bid again this month. art & design Vincent van Gogh’s “Bedroom in Arles” Real Life and Digital Recreations Staring Cats Light Sculpture is Fixating 1 Hour Design Challenge: Sick-Ass Car Rendering Winners! Videos of the coolest cars designers could draw in an hour. Unbelievable skills and cars. (I think this […]