Periodic Dosage Archive 2010-11

Hollywood and Disney's Rape of Culture (commentary)

Started to write something on Facebook, but as usual i hit the char limit. So, here it is:

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extempore thought:

i used to think that great writing or product is key to success. That is of course still the most important thing. But I've found in this year, marketing is critically important, and it really take a large percentage of your resources (say, something like 20% of your resource needs to be spend on such thing) Looking at movies industry, you know how they spend tens of thousand to market each film. Some great films, without marketing, are not known to the general public, and some developed so-called cult following. That's a example. Likewise, companies, have a sizable percentage budgets devoted to marketing. In short summary, in modern society, in general, in order to break beyond close circle fans, a good percentage of your resource must be spend in marketing. Sad in a sense, but that's just how things are.

this applied to my personal level of blog writing is that, i need to constantly devote time to tweet, facebook, etc. Invest time into little widgets like tweet this, facebook me that, which is really a activity i hate. Of course, there are successful blogs or writers who become extremely popular purely by their work thru word of mouth, but in general that's rare exceptions. e.g. if you survey blogs, i think you'll find a large number of quality blogs are without audience, while, lots of garbage (usually run by small companies with lots of fancy ads and animations) has lots readers.

looking at the issue deeper, am sure if you study marketing (say in universities), you'll find a lot things they discuss which we uninitiated wouldn't know. e.g. basics like why marketing, and how, its effectiveness, import, relevance. Looked in a scholarly way. (as opposed to what we might think as all bullshit as most non-academic literature about marketing wants you to believe (such as some pop books. e.g. “10 secrets to marketing”, etc.))

Art of Translation (some thoughts. language, english, literature)

Sleep, Dream, Inception (some thoughts and personal experience)

Humor: Wikileak Rap News.

Alexander McQueen, Haute Couture, How Absurdity Became High Art

Haute Couture, Arabian Nights, Welcome to My Harem 🎶

Wikileak: US Diplomatic Cables Leak

Wikileaks: Julian Assange Raped Women?

Wikileak: US Diplomatic Cables Leak

According one of the Wikileak: US Diplomatic Cables Leak, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has ordered espionage on UN officials.

Here's a Gardian article: US diplomats spied on UN leadership By Robert Booth and Julian Borger, guardian.co.uk. At http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cables-spying-un

A classified directive which appears to blur the line between diplomacy and spying was issued to US diplomats under Hillary Clinton's name in July 2009, demanding forensic technical details about the communications systems used by top UN officials, including passwords and personal encryption keys used in private and commercial networks for official communications.

It called for detailed biometric information “on key UN officials, to include undersecretaries, heads of specialised agencies and their chief advisers, top SYG [secretary general] aides, heads of peace operations and political field missions, including force commanders” as well as intelligence on Ban's “management and decision-making style and his influence on the secretariat”. A parallel intelligence directive sent to diplomats in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi said biometric data included DNA, fingerprints and iris scans.

Washington also wanted credit card numbers, email addresses, phone, fax and pager numbers and even frequent-flyer account numbers for UN figures and “biographic and biometric information on UN Security Council permanent representatives”.

So, the United States, with its justice obsession and all, is now spying on not Iran, China, or some rogue enemy states, but United Nations, a org for world peace that US touts to have helped build. How ironic. And the US want things including passwords, credit card numbers, DNA, iris scan. This is getting serious.

I think UN or something should prosecute Hillary Clinton to the fullest extend of international law.

Thanks a lot to Larry Hester for donation!

Big news: Wikileak: US Diplomatic Cables Leak (politics).

Madman drives a self-built, modified-to-armored bulldozer on a destruction rampage. He's Marvin Heemeyer.
Madman drives a stolen tank thru street. He's Shawn Nelson.

See also: Unabomber Manifesto (Industrial Society and its Future).

Apocalypse Now; Ride of the Valkyries (movie; video; commentary)

Detail: Llorando (Crying) from Mulholland Drive

真善美 (Truth, Virtue, Beauty). Have you tasted them?

Once upon a time, three groups of subjects were asked how much they would pay to save 2000 / 20000 / 200000 migrating birds from drowning in uncovered oil ponds. The groups respectively answered $80, $78, and $88

from:

Thanks a lot to James Christopher for donation!